She closed his lips with a sudden kiss, and answered in a steady voice—
“But to the men that have no fear, O master of my life, the sea is ever true.”
Over their heads a film of dark, thread-like clouds, looking like immense cobwebs drifting under the stars, darkened the sky with the presage of the coming thunderstorm. From the invisible hills the first distant rumble of thunder came in a prolonged roll which, after tossing about from hill to hill, lost itself in the forests of the Pantai. Dain and Nina stood up, and the former looked at the sky uneasily.
“It is time for Babalatchi to be here,” he said. “The night is more than half gone. Our road is long, and a bullet travels quicker than the best canoe.”
“He will be here before the moon is hidden behind the clouds,” said Nina. “I heard a splash in the water,” she added. “Did you hear it too?”
“Alligator,” answered Dain shortly, with a careless glance towards the creek. “The darker the night,” he continued, “the shorter will be our road, for then we could keep in the current of the main stream, but if it is light—even no more than now—we must follow the small channels of sleeping water, with nothing to help our paddles.”
“Dain,” interposed Nina, earnestly, “it was no alligator. I heard the bushes rustling near the landing-place.”
“Yes,” said Dain, after listening awhile. “It cannot be Babalatchi, who would come in a big war canoe, and openly. Those that are coming, whoever they are, do not wish to make much noise. But you have heard, and now I can see,” he went on quickly. “It is but one man. Stand behind me, Nina. If he is a friend he is welcome; if he is an enemy you shall see him die.”
He laid his hand on his kriss, and awaited the approach of his unexpected visitor. The fire was burning very low, and small clouds—precursors of the storm—crossed the face of the moon in rapid succession, and their flying shadows darkened the clearing. He could not make out who the man might be, but he felt uneasy at the steady advance of the tall figure walking on the path with a heavy tread, and hailed it with a command to stop. The man stopped at some little distance, and Dain expected him to speak, but all he could hear was his deep breathing. Through a break in the flying clouds a sudden and fleeting brightness descended upon the clearing. Before the darkness closed in again, Dain saw a hand holding some glittering object extended towards him, heard Nina’s cry of “Father!” and in an instant the girl was between him and Almayer’s revolver. Nina’s loud cry woke up the echoes of the sleeping woods, and the three stood still as if waiting for the return of silence before they would give expression to their various feelings. At the appearance of Nina, Almayer’s arm fell by his side, and he made a step forward. Dain pushed the girl gently aside.
“Am I a wild beast that you should try to kill me suddenly and in the dark, Tuan Almayer?” said Dain, breaking the strained silence. “Throw some brushwood on the fire,” he went on, speaking to Nina, “while I watch my white friend, lest harm should come to you or to me, O delight of my heart!”
Almayer ground his teeth and raised his arm again. With a quick bound Dain was at his side: there was a short scuffle, during which one chamber of the revolver went off harmlessly, then the weapon, wrenched out of Almayer’s hand, whirled through the air and fell in the bushes. The two men stood close together, breathing hard. The replenished fire threw out an unsteady circle of light and shone on the terrified face of Nina, who looked at them with outstretched hands.
“Dain!” she cried out warningly, “Dain!”
He waved his hand towards her in a reassuring gesture, and, turning to Almayer, said with great courtesy—
“Now we may talk, Tuan. It is easy to send out death, but can your wisdom recall the life? She might have been harmed,” he continued, indicating Nina. “Your hand shook much; for myself I was not afraid.”
“Nina!” exclaimed Almayer, “come to me at once. What is this sudden madness? What bewitched you? Come to your father, and together we shall try to forget this horrible nightmare!”
He opened his arms with the certitude of clasping her to his breast in another second. She did not move. As it dawned upon him that she did not mean to obey he felt a deadly cold creep into his heart, and, pressing the palms of his hands to his temples, he looked down on the ground in mute despair. Dain took Nina by the arm and led her towards her father.
“Speak to him in the language of his people,” he said. “He is grieving—as who would not grieve at losing thee, my pearl! Speak to him the last words he shall hear spoken by that voice, which must be very sweet to him, but is all my life to me.”
He released her, and, stepping back a few paces out of the circle of light, stood in the darkness looking at them with calm interest. The reflection of a distant flash of lightning lit up the clouds over their heads, and was followed after a short interval by the faint rumble of thunder, which mingled with Almayer’s voice as he began to speak.
“Do you know what you are doing? Do you know what is waiting for you if you follow that man? Have you no pity for yourself? Do you know that you shall be at first his plaything and then a scorned slave, a drudge, and a servant of some new fancy of that man?”
She raised her hand to stop him, and turning her head slightly, asked—
“You hear this Dain! Is it true?”
“By all the gods!” came the impassioned answer from the darkness—“by heaven and earth, by my head and thine I swear: this is a white man’s lie. I have delivered my soul into your hands for ever; I breathe with your breath, I see with your eyes, I think with your mind, and I take you into my heart for ever.”
“You thief!” shouted the exasperated Almayer.
A deep silence succeeded this outburst, then the voice of Dain was heard again.
“Nay, Tuan,” he said in a gentle tone, “that is not true also. The girl came of her own will. I have done no more but to show her my love like a man; she heard the cry of my heart, and she came, and the dowry I have given to the woman you call your wife.”
Almayer groaned in his extremity of rage and shame. Nina laid her hand lightly on his shoulder, and the contact, light as the touch of a falling leaf, seemed to calm him. He spoke quickly, and in English this time.
“Tell me,” he said—“tell me, what have they done to you, your mother and that man? What made you give yourself up to that savage? For he is a savage. Between him and you there is a barrier that nothing can remove. I can see in your eyes the look of those who commit suicide when they are mad. You are mad. Don’t smile. It breaks my heart. If I were to see you drowning before my eyes, and I without the power to help you, I could not suffer a greater torment. Have you forgotten the teaching of so many years?”
“No,” she interrupted, “I remember it well. I remember how it ended also. Scorn for scorn, contempt for contempt, hate for hate. I am not of your race. Between your people and me there is also a barrier that nothing can remove. You ask why I want to go, and I ask you why I should stay.”
He staggered as if struck in the face, but with a quick, unhesitating grasp she caught him by the arm and steadied him.
“Why you should stay!” he repeated slowly, in a dazed manner, and stopped short, astounded at the completeness