“Nina!” cried Almayer, “take your eyes off my face.”
She looked down directly, but continued speaking only a little above a whisper.
“In time,” she went on, “both our voices, that man’s and mine, spoke together in a sweetness that was intelligible to our ears only. You were speaking of gold then, but our ears were filled with the song of our love, and we did not hear you. Then I found that we could see through each other’s eyes: that he saw things that nobody but myself and he could see. We entered a land where no one could follow us, and least of all you. Then I began to live.”
She paused. Almayer sighed deeply. With her eyes still fixed on the ground she began speaking again.
“And I mean to live. I mean to follow him. I have been rejected with scorn by the white people, and now I am a Malay! He took me in his arms, he laid his life at my feet. He is brave; he will be powerful, and I hold his bravery and his strength in my hand, and I shall make him great. His name shall be remembered long after both our bodies are laid in the dust. I love you no less than I did before, but I shall never leave him, for without him I cannot live.”
“If he understood what you have said,” answered Almayer, scornfully, “he must be highly flattered. You want him as a tool for some incomprehensible ambition of yours. Enough, Nina. If you do not go down at once to the creek, where Ali is waiting with my canoe, I shall tell him to return to the settlement and bring the Dutch officers here. You cannot escape from this clearing, for I have cast adrift your canoe. If the Dutch catch this hero of yours they will hang him as sure as I stand here. Now go.”
He made a step towards his daughter and laid hold of her by the shoulder, his other hand pointing down the path to the landing-place.
“Beware!” exclaimed Dain; “this woman belongs to me!”
Nina wrenched herself free and looked straight at Almayer’s angry face.
“No, I will not go,” she said with desperate energy. “If he dies I shall die too!”
“You die!” said Almayer, contemptuously. “Oh, no! You shall live a life of lies and deception till some other vagabond comes along to sing; how did you say that? The song of love to you! Make up your mind quickly.”
He waited for a while, and then added meaningly—
“Shall I call out to Ali?”
“Call out,” she answered in Malay, “you that cannot be true to your own countrymen. Only a few days ago you were selling the powder for their destruction; now you want to give up to them the man that yesterday you called your friend. Oh, Dain,” she said, turning towards the motionless but attentive figure in the darkness, “instead of bringing you life I bring you death, for he will betray unless I leave you for ever!”
Dain came into the circle of light, and, throwing his arm around Nina’s neck, whispered in her ear—“I can kill him where he stands, before a sound can pass his lips. For you it is to say yes or no. Babalatchi cannot be far now.”
He straightened himself up, taking his arm off her shoulder, and confronted Almayer, who looked at them both with an expression of concentrated fury.
“No!” she cried, clinging to Dain in wild alarm. “No! Kill me! Then perhaps he will let you go. You do not know the mind of a white man. He would rather see me dead than standing where I am. Forgive me, your slave, but you must not.” She fell at his feet sobbing violently and repeating, “Kill me! Kill me!”
“I want you alive,” said Almayer, speaking also in Malay, with sombre calmness. “You go, or he hangs. Will you obey?”
Dain shook Nina off, and, making a sudden lunge, struck Almayer full in the chest with the handle of his kriss, keeping the point towards himself.
“Hai, look! It was easy for me to turn the point the other way,” he said in his even voice. “Go, Tuan Putih,” he added with dignity. “I give you your life, my life, and her life. I am the slave of this woman’s desire, and she wills it so.”
There was not a glimmer of light in the sky now, and the tops of the trees were as invisible as their trunks, being lost in the mass of clouds that hung low over the woods, the clearing, and the river.
Every outline had disappeared in the intense blackness that seemed to have destroyed everything but space. Only the fire glimmered like a star forgotten in this annihilation of all visible things, and nothing was heard after Dain ceased speaking but the sobs of Nina, whom he held in his arms, kneeling beside the fire. Almayer stood looking down at them in gloomy thoughtfulness. As he was opening his lips to speak they were startled by a cry of warning by the riverside, followed by the splash of many paddles and the sound of voices.
“Babalatchi!” shouted Dain, lifting up Nina as he got upon his feet quickly.
“Ada! Ada!” came the answer from the panting statesman who ran up the path and stood amongst them. “Run to my canoe,” he said to Dain excitedly, without taking any notice of Almayer. “Run! we must go. That woman has told them all!”
“What woman?” asked Dain, looking at Nina. Just then there was only one woman in the whole world for him.
“The she-dog with white teeth; the seven times accursed slave of Bulangi. She yelled at Abdulla’s gate till she woke up all Sambir. Now the white officers are coming, guided by her and Reshid. If you want to live, do not look at me, but go!”
“How do you know this?” asked Almayer.
“Oh, Tuan! what matters how I know! I have only one eye, but I saw lights in Abdulla’s house and in his campong as we were paddling past. I have ears, and while we lay under the bank I have heard the messengers sent out to the white men’s house.”
“Will you depart without that woman who is my daughter?” said Almayer, addressing Dain, while Babalatchi stamped with impatience, muttering, “Run! Run at once!”
“No,” answered Dain, steadily, “I will not go; to no man will I abandon this woman.”
“Then kill me and escape yourself,” sobbed out Nina.
He clasped her close, looking at her tenderly, and whispered, “We will never part, O Nina!”
“I shall not stay here any longer,” broke in Babalatchi, angrily. “This is great foolishness. No woman is worth a man’s life. I am an old man, and I know.”
He picked up his staff, and, turning to go, looked at Dain as if offering him his last chance of escape. But Dain’s face was hidden amongst Nina’s black tresses, and he did not see this last appealing glance.
Babalatchi vanished in the darkness. Shortly after his disappearance they heard the war canoe leave the landing-place in the swish of the numerous paddles dipped in the water together. Almost at the same time Ali came up from the riverside, two paddles on his shoulder.
“Our canoe is hidden up the creek, Tuan Almayer,” he said, “in the dense bush where the forest comes down to the water. I took it there because I heard from Babalatchi’s paddlers that the white men are coming here.”
“Wait for me there,” said Almayer, “but keep the canoe hidden.”
He remained silent, listening to Ali’s footsteps, then turned to Nina.
“Nina,” he said sadly, “will you have no pity for me?”
There was no answer. She did not even turn her head, which was pressed close to Dain’s breast.
He made a movement as if to leave them and stopped. By the dim glow of the burning-out