on the floor, wrapped me in my hammock, and he started to stitch me in,
as if I had been a corpse, beginning at the feet. While he worked he
laughed wickedly. I called him all the names I could think of. He
told them to put their dirty paws over my mouth and nose. I was nearly
choked. Whenever I moved they punched me in the ribs. He went on taking
fresh needlefuls as he wanted them, and working steadily. Sewed me up to
my throat. Then he rose, saying, 'That will do; let go.' That woman had
been standing by; they must have been reconciled. She clapped her hands.
I lay on the floor like a bale of goods while he stared at me, and the
woman shrieked with delight. Like a bale of goods! There was a grin on
every face, and the verandah was full of them. I wished myself
dead--'pon my word, Captain Lingard, I did! I do now whenever I think
of it!"

Lingard's face expressed sympathetic indignation. Almayer dropped
his head upon his arms on the table, and spoke in that position in an
indistinct and muffled voice, without looking up.

"Finally, by his directions, they flung me into the big rocking-chair.
I was sewed in so tight that I was stiff like a piece of wood. He was
giving orders in a very loud voice, and that man Babalatchi saw that
they were executed. They obeyed him implicitly. Meantime I lay there in
the chair like a log, and that woman capered before me and made faces;
snapped her fingers before my nose. Women are bad!--ain't they? I never
saw her before, as far as I know. Never done anything to her. Yet she
was perfectly fiendish. Can you understand it? Now and then she would
leave me alone to hang round his neck for awhile, and then she would
return before my chair and begin her exercises again. He looked on,
indulgent. The perspiration ran down my face, got into my eyes--my arms
were sewn in. I was blinded half the time; at times I could see better.
She drags him before my chair. 'I am like white women,' she says, her
arms round his neck. You should have seen the faces of the fellows in
the verandah! They were scandalized and ashamed of themselves to see her
behaviour. Suddenly she asks him, alluding to me: 'When are you going
to kill him?' Imagine how I felt. I must have swooned; I don't remember
exactly. I fancy there was a row; he was angry. When I got my wits again
he was sitting close to me, and she was gone. I understood he sent her
to my wife, who was hiding in the back room and never came out during
this a