Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) Read Free

putting a stain of glowing red half-way across the river where the drifting logs were hurrying towards the sea through the impenetrable gloom.  He had a hazy recollection of having been called some time during the evening by his wife.  To his dinner probably.  But a man busy contemplating the wreckage of his past in the dawn of new hopes cannot be hungry whenever his rice is ready.  Time he went home, though; it was getting late.
    He stepped cautiously on the loose planks towards the ladder.  A lizard, disturbed by the noise, emitted a plaintive note and scurried through the long grass growing on the bank.  Almayer descended the ladder carefully, now thoroughly recalled to the realities of life by the care necessary to prevent a fall on the uneven ground where the stones, decaying planks, and half-sawn beams were piled up in inextricable confusion.  As he turned towards the house where he lived — ”my old house” he called it — his ear detected the splash of paddles away in the darkness of the river.  He stood still in the path, attentive and surprised at anybody being on the river at this late hour during such a heavy freshet.  Now he could hear the paddles distinctly, and even a rapidly exchanged word in low tones, the heavy breathing of men fighting with the current, and hugging the bank on which he stood.  Quite close, too, but it was too dark to distinguish anything under the overhanging bushes.
    “Arabs, no doubt,” muttered Almayer to himself, peering into the solid blackness.  “What are they up to now?  Some of Abdulla’s business; curse him!”
    The boat was very close now.
    “Oh, ya!  Man!” hailed Almayer.
    The sound of voices ceased, but the paddles worked as furiously as before.  Then the bush in front of Almayer shook, and the sharp sound of the paddles falling into the canoe rang in the quiet night.  They were holding on to the bush now; but Almayer could hardly make out an indistinct dark shape of a man’s head and shoulders above the bank.
    “You Abdulla?” said Almayer, doubtfully.
    A grave voice answered —
    “Tuan Almayer is speaking to a friend.  There is no Arab here.”
    Almayer’s heart gave a great leap.
    “Dain!” he exclaimed.  “At last! at last!  I have been waiting for you every day and every night.  I had nearly given you up.”
    “Nothing could have stopped me from coming back here,” said the other, almost violently.  “Not even death,” he whispered to himself.
    “This is a friend’s talk, and is very good,” said Almayer, heartily.  “But you are too far here.  Drop down to the jetty and let your men cook their rice in my campong while we talk in the house.”
    There was no answer to that invitation.
    “What is it?” asked Almayer, uneasily.  “There is nothing wrong with the brig, I hope?”
    “The brig is where no Orang Blanda can lay his hands on her,” said Dain, with a gloomy tone in his voice, which Almayer, in his elation, failed to notice.
    “Right,” he said.  “But where are all your men?  There are only two with you.”
    “Listen, Tuan Almayer,” said Dain.  “To-morrow’s sun shall see me in your house, and then we will talk.  Now I must go to the Rajah.”
    “To the Rajah!  Why?  What do you want with Lakamba?”
    “Tuan, to-morrow we talk like friends.  I must see Lakamba to-night.”
    “Dain, you are not going to abandon me now, when all is ready?” asked Almayer, in a pleading voice.
    “Have I not returned?  But I must see Lakamba first for your good and mine.”
    The shadowy head disappeared abruptly.  The bush, released from the grasp of the bowman, sprung back with a swish, scattering a shower of muddy water over Almayer, as he bent forward, trying to see.
    In a little while the canoe shot into the streak of light that streamed on the river from the big fire on the opposite shore, disclosing the outline of two men bending to their work, and a third figure in the stern flourishing the steering