it's no use asking you where you are going," said Almayer,
tentatively. "Because if it is to see Abdulla, I . . ."

"I am not going to see Abdulla. Not to-day. Now be off with you."

He watched the canoe dart away shorewards, waved his hand in response
to Almayer's nod, and walked to the taffrail smoothing out Abdulla's
letter, which he had pulled out of his pocket. He read it over
carefully, crumpled it up slowly, smiling the while and closing his
fingers firmly over the crackling paper as though he had hold there
of Abdulla's throat. Halfway to his pocket he changed his mind, and
flinging the ball overboard looked at it thoughtfully as it spun round
in the eddies for a moment, before the current bore it away down-stream,
towards the sea.

PART IV

CHAPTER ONE

The night was very dark. For the first time in many months the East
Coast slept unseen by the stars under a veil of motionless cloud that,
driven before the first breath of the rainy monsoon, had drifted slowly
from the eastward all the afternoon; pursuing the declining sun with
its masses of black and grey that seemed to chase the light with wicked
intent, and with an ominous and gloomy steadiness, as though conscious
of the message of violence and turmoil they carried. At the sun's
disappearance below the western horizon, the immense cloud, in quickened
motion, grappled with the glow of retreating light, and rolling down
to the clear and jagged outline of the distant mountains, hung arrested
above the steaming forests; hanging low, silent and menacing over the
unstirring tree-tops; withholding the blessing of rain, nursing the
wrath of its thunder; undecided--as if brooding over its own power for
good or for evil.

Babalatchi, coming out of the red and smoky light of his little bamboo
house, glanced upwards, drew in a long breath of the warm and stagnant
air, and stood for a moment with his good eye closed tightly, as if
intimidated by the unwonted and deep silence of Lakamba's courtyard.
When he opened his eye he had recovered his sight so far, that he could
distinguish the various degrees of formless blackness which marked the
places of trees, of abandoned houses, of riverside bushes, on the dark
background of the night.

The careworn sage walked cautiously down the deserted courtyard to the
waterside, and stood on the bank listening to the voice of the invisible
river that flowed at his feet; listening to the soft whispers, to the
deep mur