mped me here like a load of
rubbish; dumped me here and left me with nothing to do--nothing good to
remember--and damn little to hope for. You left me here at the mercy of
that fool, Almayer, who suspected me of something. Of what? Devil only
knows. But he suspected and hated me from the first; I suppose because
you befriended me. Oh! I could read him like a book. He isn't very
deep, your Sambir partner, Captain Lingard, but he knows how to be
disagreeable. Months passed. I thought I would die of sheer weariness,
of my thoughts, of my regrets And then . . ."

He made a quick step nearer to Lingard, and as if moved by the same
thought, by the same instinct, by the impulse of his will, Aissa also
stepped nearer to them. They stood in a close group, and the two men
could feel the calm air between their faces stirred by the light breath
of the anxious woman who enveloped them both in the uncomprehending, in
the despairing and wondering glances of her wild and mournful eyes.

CHAPTER FIVE

Willems turned a little from her and spoke lower.

"Look at that," he said, with an almost imperceptible movement of his
head towards the woman to whom he was presenting his shoulder. "Look at
that! Don't believe her! What has she been saying to you? What? I have
been asleep. Had to sleep at last. I've been waiting for you three days
and nights. I had to sleep some time. Hadn't I? I told her to remain
awake and watch for you, and call me at once. She did watch. You can't
believe her. You can't believe any woman. Who can tell what's inside
their heads? No one. You can know nothing. The only thing you can know
is that it isn't anything like what comes through their lips. They live
by the side of you. They seem to hate you, or they seem to love you;
they caress or torment you; they throw you over or stick to you closer
than your skin for some inscrutable and awful reason of their own--which
you can never know! Look at her--and look at me. At me!--her infernal
work. What has she been saying?"

His voice had sunk to a whisper. Lingard listened with great attention,
holding his chin in his hand, which grasped a great handful of his white
beard. His elbow was in the palm of his other hand, and his eyes were
still fixed on the ground. He murmured, without looking up--

"She begged me for your life--if you want to know--as if the thing were
worth giving or taking!"

"And for three days she begged me to take yours," said Willems quickly