smiled broadly, a smile that made two
vertical folds on his shaven cheeks. And I smiled, too, but I was not
exactly amused. In that man, whose name apparently could not be uttered
anywhere in the Malay Archipelago without a smile, there was nothing
amusing whatever. That morning he breakfasted with us silently, looking
mostly into his cup. I informed him that my men came upon his pony
capering in the fog on the very brink of the eight-foot-deep well in
which he kept his store of guttah. The cover was off, with no one near
by, and the whole of my crew just missed going heels over head into
that beastly hole. Jurumudi Itam, our best quartermaster, deft at fine
needlework, he who mended the ship's flags and sewed buttons on our
coats, was disabled by a kick on the shoulder.

Both remorse and gratitude seemed foreign to Almayer's character.

He mumbled:

"Do you mean that pirate fellow?"

"What pirate fellow? The man has been in the ship eleven years," I said,
indignantly.

"It's his looks," Almayer muttered, for all apology.

The sun had eaten up the fog. From where we sat under the after-awning
we could see in the distance the pony tied up, in front of Almayer's
house, to a post of the veranda. We were silent for a long time. All at
once Almayer, alluding evidently to the subject of his conversation in
the captain's cabin, exclaimed anxiously across the table:

"I really don't know what I can do now!"

Captain C---- only raised his eyebrows at him, and got up from his
chair. We dispersed to our duties, but Almayer, half dressed as he was
in his cretonne pajamas and the thin cotton singlet, remained on board,
lingering near the gangway, as though he could not make up his mind
whether to go home or stay with us for good.

Our Chinamen boys gave him side glances as they went to and fro; and
Ah Sing, our chief steward, the handsomest and most sympathetic of
Chinamen, catching my eye, nodded knowingly at his burly back. In the
course of the morning I approached him for a moment.

"Well, Mr. Almayer," I addressed him, easily, "you haven't started on
your letters yet."

We had brought him his mail, and he had held the bundle in his hand ever
since we got up from breakfast. He glanced at it when I spoke, and for
a moment it looked as if he were on the point of opening his fingers and
letting the whole lot fall overboard. I believe he was tempted to do so.
I shall never forget that man afraid of his letters.

"Have