arted up violently, then
fell back in his chair and looked at the table.

"There!" he said, moodily, "you don't know your own strength. This table
is completely ruined. The only table I had been able to save from
my wife. By and by I will have to eat squatting on the floor like a
native."

Lingard laughed heartily. "Well then, don't nag at me like a woman at a
drunken husband!" He became very serious after awhile, and added, "If
it hadn't been for the loss of the Flash I would have been here three
months ago, and all would have been well. No use crying over that. Don't
you be uneasy, Kaspar. We will have everything ship-shape here in a very
short time."

"What? You don't mean to expel Abdulla out of here by force! I tell you,
you can't."

"Not I!" exclaimed Lingard. "That's all over, I am afraid. Great pity.
They will suffer for it. He will squeeze them. Great pity. Damn it! I
feel so sorry for them if I had the Flash here I would try force. Eh!
Why not? However, the poor Flash is gone, and there is an end of it.
Poor old hooker. Hey, Almayer? You made a voyage or two with me. Wasn't
she a sweet craft? Could make her do anything but talk. She was better
than a wife to me. Never scolded. Hey? . . . And to think that it should
come to this. That I should leave her poor old bones sticking on a reef
as though I had been a damned fool of a southern-going man who must have
half a mile of water under his keel to be safe! Well! well! It's only
those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose. But it's hard.
Hard."

He nodded sadly, with his eyes on the ground. Almayer looked at him with
growing indignation.

"Upon my word, you are heartless," he burst out; "perfectly
heartless--and selfish. It does not seem to strike you--in all
that--that in losing your ship--by your recklessness, I am sure--you
ruin me--us, and my little Nina. What's going to become of me and of
her? That's what I want to know. You brought me here, made me your
partner, and now, when everything is gone to the devil--through your
fault, mind you--you talk about your ship . . . ship! You can get
another. But here. This trade. That's gone now, thanks to Willems. . . .
Your dear Willems!"

"Never you mind about Willems. I will look after him," said Lingard,
severely. "And as to the trade . . . I will make your fortune yet, my
boy. Never fear. Have you got any cargo for the schooner that brought me
here?"

"The shed is full of rattans," answered A