y; "you are too weak for that. You
look starved."

"I don't think I have eaten anything for the last two days; perhaps
more--I don't remember. It does not matter. I am full of live embers,"
said Willems, gloomily. "Look!" and he bared an arm covered with fresh
scars. "I have been biting myself to forget in that pain the fire that
hurts me there!" He struck his breast violently with his fist, reeled
under his own blow, fell into a chair that stood near and closed his
eyes slowly.

"Disgusting exhibition," said Almayer, loftily. "What could father ever
see in you? You are as estimable as a heap of garbage."

"You talk like that! You, who sold your soul for a few guilders,"
muttered Willems, wearily, without opening his eyes.

"Not so few," said Almayer, with instinctive readiness, and stopped
confused for a moment. He recovered himself quickly, however, and went
on: "But you--you have thrown yours away for nothing; flung it under
the feet of a damned savage woman who has made you already the thing you
are, and will kill you very soon, one way or another, with her love or
with her hate. You spoke just now about guilders. You meant Lingard's
money, I suppose. Well, whatever I have sold, and for whatever price, I
never meant you--you of all people--to spoil my bargain. I feel pretty
safe though. Even father, even Captain Lingard, would not touch you now
with a pair of tongs; not with a ten-foot pole. . . ."

He spoke excitedly, all in one breath, and, ceasing suddenly, glared at
Willems and breathed hard through his nose in sulky resentment. Willems
looked at him steadily for a moment, then got up.

"Almayer," he said resolutely, "I want to become a trader in this
place."

Almayer shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes. And you shall set me up. I want a house and trade goods--perhaps a
little money. I ask you for it."

"Anything else you want? Perhaps this coat?" and here Almayer unbuttoned
his jacket--"or my house--or my boots?"

"After all it's natural," went on Willems, without paying any attention
to Almayer--"it's natural that she should expect the advantages which
. . . and then I could shut up that old wretch and then . . ."

He paused, his face brightened with the soft light of dreamy enthusiasm,
and he turned his eyes upwards. With his gaunt figure and dilapidated
appearance he looked like some ascetic dweller in a wilderness, finding
the reward of a self-denying life in a vision of dazzling glory. He went
on i