towards them.
He stopped some distance off and hesitated.

"What news?" asked Dain.

"We have had orders secretly and in the night to take off from this islet
a man and a woman. I see the woman. Which of you is the man?"

"Come, delight of my eyes," said Dain to Nina. "Now we go, and your
voice shall be for my ears only. You have spoken your last words to the
Tuan Putih, your father. Come."

She hesitated for a while, looking at Almayer, who kept his eyes steadily
on the sea, then she touched his forehead in a lingering kiss, and a
tear--one of her tears--fell on his cheek and ran down his immovable
face.

"Goodbye," she whispered, and remained irresolute till he pushed her
suddenly into Dain's arms.

"If you have any pity for me," murmured Almayer, as if repeating some
sentence learned by heart, "take that woman away."

He stood very straight, his shoulders thrown back, his head held high,
and looked at them as they went down the beach to the canoe, walking
enlaced in each other's arms. He looked at the line of their footsteps
marked in the sand. He followed their figures moving in the crude blaze
of the vertical sun, in that light violent and vibrating, like a
triumphal flourish of brazen trumpets. He looked at the man's brown
shoulders, at the red sarong round his waist; at the tall, slender,
dazzling white figure he supported. He looked at the white dress, at the
falling masses of the long black hair. He looked at them embarking, and
at the canoe growing smaller in the distance, with rage, despair, and
regret in his heart, and on his face a peace as that of a carved image of
oblivion. Inwardly he felt himself torn to pieces, but Ali--who now
aroused--stood close to his master, saw on his features the blank
expression of those who live in that hopeless calm which sightless eyes
only can give.

The canoe disappeared, and Almayer stood motionless with his eyes fixed
on its wake. Ali from under the shade of his hand examined the coast
curiously. As the sun declined, the sea-breeze sprang up from the
northward and shivered with its breath the glassy surface of the water.

"Dapat!" exclaimed Ali, joyously. "Got him, master! Got prau! Not
there! Look more Tanah Mirrah side. Aha! That way! Master, see? Now
plain. See?"

Almayer followed Ali's forefinger with his eyes for a long time in vain.
At last he sighted a triangular patch of yellow light on the red
background of the cliffs of Tanjo