as in his hammock now, already half asleep.

"Take the lamp, Nina," he muttered, drowsily. "This place is full of
mosquitoes. Go to sleep, daughter."

But Nina put the lamp out and turned back again towards the balustrade of
the verandah, standing with her arm round the wooden support and looking
eagerly towards the Pantai reach. And motionless there in the oppressive
calm of the tropical night she could see at each flash of lightning the
forest lining both banks up the river, bending before the furious blast
of the coming tempest, the upper reach of the river whipped into white
foam by the wind, and the black clouds torn into fantastic shapes
trailing low over the swaying trees. Round her all was as yet stillness
and peace, but she could hear afar off the roar of the wind, the hiss of
heavy rain, the wash of the waves on the tormented river. It came nearer
and nearer, with loud thunder-claps and long flashes of vivid lightning,
followed by short periods of appalling blackness. When the storm reached
the low point dividing the river, the house shook in the wind, and the
rain pattered loudly on the palm-leaf roof, the thunder spoke in one
prolonged roll, and the incessant lightning disclosed a turmoil of
leaping waters, driving logs, and the big trees bending before a brutal
and merciless force.

Undisturbed by the nightly event of the rainy monsoon, the father slept
quietly, oblivious alike of his hopes, his misfortunes, his friends, and
his enemies; and the daughter stood motionless, at each flash of
lightning eagerly scanning the broad river with a steady and anxious
gaze.

CHAPTER II.

When, in compliance with Lingard's abrupt demand, Almayer consented to
wed the Malay girl, no one knew that on the day when the interesting
young convert had lost all her natural relations and found a white
father, she had been fighting desperately like the rest of them on board
the prau, and was only prevented from leaping overboard, like the few
other survivors, by a severe wound in the leg. There, on the fore-deck
of the prau, old Lingard found her under a heap of dead and dying
pirates, and had her carried on the poop of the _Flash_ before the Malay
craft was set on fire and sent adrift. She was conscious, and in the
great peace and stillness of the tropical evening succeeding the turmoil
of the battle, she watched all she held dear on earth after her own
savage manner, drift away into the gloom in a great roar