ociates and his acquaintances
accepted him, his opinions, his actions like things preordained and
unchangeable; looked upon his many-sided manifestations with passive
wonder not unmixed with that admiration which is only the rightful due
of a successful man. But nobody had ever seen him in the mood he was in
now. Nobody had seen Lingard doubtful and giving way to doubt, unable to
make up his mind and unwilling to act; Lingard timid and hesitating one
minute, angry yet inactive the next; Lingard puzzled in a word, because
confronted with a situation that discomposed him by its unprovoked
malevolence, by its ghastly injustice, that to his rough but
unsophisticated palate tasted distinctly of sulphurous fumes from the
deepest hell.

The smooth darkness filling the shutter-hole grew paler and became
blotchy with ill-defined shapes, as if a new universe was being evolved
out of sombre chaos. Then outlines came out, defining forms without any
details, indicating here a tree, there a bush; a black belt of forest
far off; the straight lines of a house, the ridge of a high roof near
by. Inside the hut, Babalatchi, who lately had been only a persuasive
voice, became a human shape leaning its chin imprudently on the muzzle
of a gun and rolling an uneasy eye over the reappearing world. The day
came rapidly, dismal and oppressed by the fog of the river and by the
heavy vapours of the sky--a day without colour and without sunshine:
incomplete, disappointing, and sad.

Babalatchi twitched gently Lingard's sleeve, and when the old seaman
had lifted up his head interrogatively, he stretched out an arm and a
pointing forefinger towards Willems' house, now plainly visible to the
right and beyond the big tree of the courtyard.

"Look, Tuan!" he said. "He lives there. That is the door--his door.
Through it he will appear soon, with his hair in disorder and his mouth
full of curses. That is so. He is a white man, and never satisfied. It
is in my mind he is angry even in his sleep. A dangerous man. As Tuan
may observe," he went on, obsequiously, "his door faces this opening,
where you condescend to sit, which is concealed from all eyes. Faces
it--straight--and not far. Observe, Tuan, not at all far."

"Yes, yes; I can see. I shall see him when he wakes."

"No doubt, Tuan. When he wakes. . . . If you remain here he can not see
you. I shall withdraw quickly and prepare my canoe myself. I am only a
poor man, and must go to Sambir to greet L