murs, to the sudden gurgles and the short hisses of the swift
current racing along the bank through the hot darkness.

He stood with his face turned to the river, and it seemed to him that he
could breathe easier with the knowledge of the clear vast space before
him; then, after a while he leaned heavily forward on his staff, his
chin fell on his breast, and a deep sigh was his answer to the selfish
discourse of the river that hurried on unceasing and fast, regardless of
joy or sorrow, of suffering and of strife, of failures and triumphs that
lived on its banks. The brown water was there, ready to carry friends or
enemies, to nurse love or hate on its submissive and heartless bosom,
to help or to hinder, to save life or give death; the great and rapid
river: a deliverance, a prison, a refuge or a grave.

Perchance such thoughts as these caused Babalatchi to send another
mournful sigh into the trailing mists of the unconcerned Pantai. The
barbarous politician had forgotten the recent success of his plottings
in the melancholy contemplation of a sorrow that made the night blacker,
the clammy heat more oppressive, the still air more heavy, the dumb
solitude more significant of torment than of peace. He had spent the
night before by the side of the dying Omar, and now, after twenty-four
hours, his memory persisted in returning to that low and sombre reed
hut from which the fierce spirit of the incomparably accomplished pirate
took its flight, to learn too late, in a worse world, the error of
its earthly ways. The mind of the savage statesman, chastened by
bereavement, felt for a moment the weight of his loneliness with
keen perception worthy even of a sensibility exasperated by all the
refinements of tender sentiment that a glorious civilization brings in
its train, among other blessings and virtues, into this excellent world.
For the space of about thirty seconds, a half-naked, betel-chewing
pessimist stood upon the bank of the tropical river, on the edge of the
still and immense forests; a man angry, powerless, empty-handed, with a
cry of bitter discontent ready on his lips; a cry that, had it come out,
would have rung through the virgin solitudes of the woods, as true, as
great, as profound, as any philosophical shriek that ever came from the
depths of an easy-chair to disturb the impure wilderness of chimneys and
roofs.

For half a minute and no more did Babalatchi face the gods in the
sublime privilege of his revolt,