his heart, and,
pressing the palms of his hands to his temples, he looked down on the
ground in mute despair. Dain took Nina by the arm and led her towards
her father.

"Speak to him in the language of his people," he said. "He is
grieving--as who would not grieve at losing thee, my pearl! Speak to him
the last words he shall hear spoken by that voice, which must be very
sweet to him, but is all my life to me."

He released her, and, stepping back a few paces out of the circle of
light, stood in the darkness looking at them with calm interest. The
reflection of a distant flash of lightning lit up the clouds over their
heads, and was followed after a short interval by the faint rumble of
thunder, which mingled with Almayer's voice as he began to speak.

"Do you know what you are doing? Do you know what is waiting for you if
you follow that man? Have you no pity for yourself? Do you know that
you shall be at first his plaything and then a scorned slave, a drudge,
and a servant of some new fancy of that man?"

She raised her hand to stop him, and turning her head slightly, asked--

"You hear this Dain! Is it true?"

"By all the gods!" came the impassioned answer from the darkness--"by
heaven and earth, by my head and thine I swear: this is a white man's
lie. I have delivered my soul into your hands for ever; I breathe with
your breath, I see with your eyes, I think with your mind, and I take you
into my heart for ever."

"You thief!" shouted the exasperated Almayer.

A deep silence succeeded this outburst, then the voice of Dain was heard
again.

"Nay, Tuan," he said in a gentle tone, "that is not true also. The girl
came of her own will. I have done no more but to show her my love like a
man; she heard the cry of my heart, and she came, and the dowry I have
given to the woman you call your wife."

Almayer groaned in his extremity of rage and shame. Nina laid her hand
lightly on his shoulder, and the contact, light as the touch of a falling
leaf, seemed to calm him. He spoke quickly, and in English this time.

"Tell me," he said--"tell me, what have they done to you, your mother and
that man? What made you give yourself up to that savage? For he is a
savage. Between him and you there is a barrier that nothing can remove.
I can see in your eyes the look of those who commit suicide when they are
mad. You are mad. Don't smile. It breaks my heart. If I were to see
you drowning before my eyes,