er Lingard was in Sambir Almayer's watch was going. He would set
it by the cabin clock, telling himself every time that he must really
keep that watch going for the future. And every time, when Lingard
went away, he would let it run down and would measure his weariness
by sunrises and sunsets in an apathetic indifference to mere hours; to
hours only; to hours that had no importance in Sambir life, in the tired
stagnation of empty days; when nothing mattered to him but the quality
of guttah and the size of rattans; where there were no small hopes to
be watched for; where to him there was nothing interesting, nothing
supportable, nothing desirable to expect; nothing bitter but the
slowness of the passing days; nothing sweet but the hope, the distant
and glorious hope--the hope wearying, aching and precious, of getting
away.

He looked at the watch. Half-past eight. Ali waited stolidly.

"Go to the settlement," said Almayer, "and tell Mahmat Banjer to come
and speak to me to-night."

Ali went off muttering. He did not like his errand. Banjer and his two
brothers were Bajow vagabonds who had appeared lately in Sambir and had
been allowed to take possession of a tumbledown abandoned hut, on three
posts, belonging to Lingard & Co., and standing just outside their
fence. Ali disapproved of the favour shown to those strangers. Any kind
of dwelling was valuable in Sambir at that time, and if master did not
want that old rotten house he might have given it to him, Ali, who was
his servant, instead of bestowing it upon those bad men. Everybody
knew they were bad. It was well known that they had stolen a boat
from Hinopari, who was very aged and feeble and had no sons; and that
afterwards, by the truculent recklessness of their demeanour, they
had frightened the poor old man into holding his tongue about it. Yet
everybody knew of it. It was one of the tolerated scandals of Sambir,
disapproved and accepted, a manifestation of that base acquiescence in
success, of that inexpressed and cowardly toleration of strength, that
exists, infamous and irremediable, at the bottom of all hearts, in all
societies; whenever men congregate; in bigger and more virtuous places
than Sambir, and in Sambir also, where, as in other places, one man
could steal a boat with impunity while another would have no right to
look at a paddle.

Almayer, leaning back in his chair, meditated. The more he thought, the
more he felt convinced that Banjer and his b