What will you do next! Willems" wife!"
"Wife and child. Small boy, you know. They are on board the schooner."
Almayer looked at Lingard with sudden suspicion, then turning away busied himself in picking up the chair, sat down in it turning his back upon the old seaman, and tried to whistle, but gave it up directly.
Lingard went on--
"Fact is, the fellow got into trouble with Hudig. Worked upon my feelings. I promised to arrange matters. I did. With much trouble. Hudig was angry with her for wishing to join her husband. Unprincipled old fellow. You know she is his daughter. Well, I said I would see her through it all right; help Willems to a fresh start and so on. I spoke to Craig in Palembang. He is getting on in years, and wanted a manager or partner. I promised to guarantee Willems" good behaviour. We settled all that. Craig is an old crony of mine. Been shipmates in the forties.
He"s waiting for him now. A pretty mess! What do you think?"
Almayer shrugged his shoulders.
"That woman broke with Hudig on my a.s.surance that all would be well,"
went on Lingard, with growing dismay. "She did. Proper thing, of course.
Wife, husband . . . together . . . as it should be . . . Smart fellow . . . Impossible scoundrel . . . Jolly old go! Oh! d.a.m.n!"
Almayer laughed spitefully.
"How delighted he will be," he said, softly. "You will make two people happy. Two at least!" He laughed again, while Lingard looked at his shaking shoulders in consternation.
"I am jammed on a lee sh.o.r.e this time, if ever I was," muttered Lingard.
"Send her back quick," suggested Almayer, stifling another laugh.
"What are you sn.i.g.g.e.ring at?" growled Lingard, angrily. "I"ll work it out all clear yet. Meantime you must receive her into this house."
"My house!" cried Almayer, turning round.
"It"s mine too--a little isn"t it?" said Lingard. "Don"t argue,"
he shouted, as Almayer opened his mouth. "Obey orders and hold your tongue!"
"Oh! If you take it in that tone!" mumbled Almayer, sulkily, with a gesture of a.s.sent.
"You are so aggravating too, my boy," said the old seaman, with unexpected placidity. "You must give me time to turn round. I can"t keep her on board all the time. I must tell her something. Say, for instance, that he is gone up the river. Expected back every day. That"s it. D"ye hear? You must put her on that tack and dodge her along easy, while I take the kinks out of the situation. By G.o.d!" he exclaimed, mournfully, after a short pause, "life is foul! Foul like a lee forebrace on a dirty night. And yet. And yet. One must see it clear for running before going below--for good. Now you attend to what I said," he added, sharply, "if you don"t want to quarrel with me, my boy."
"I don"t want to quarrel with you," murmured Almayer with unwilling deference. "Only I wish I could understand you. I know you are my best friend, Captain Lingard; only, upon my word, I can"t make you out sometimes! I wish I could . . ."
Lingard burst into a loud laugh which ended shortly in a deep sigh. He closed his eyes, tilting his head over the back of his armchair; and on his face, baked by the unclouded suns of many hard years, there appeared for a moment a weariness and a look of age which startled Almayer, like an unexpected disclosure of evil.
"I am done up," said Lingard, gently. "Perfectly done up. All night on deck getting that schooner up the river. Then talking with you. Seems to me I could go to sleep on a clothes-line. I should like to eat something though. Just see about that, Kaspar."
Almayer clapped his hands, and receiving no response was going to call, when in the central pa.s.sage of the house, behind the red curtain of the doorway opening upon the verandah, they heard a child"s imperious voice speaking shrilly.
"Take me up at once. I want to be carried into the verandah. I shall be very angry. Take me up."
A man"s voice answered, subdued, in humble remonstrance. The faces of Almayer and Lingard brightened at once. The old seaman called out--
"Bring the child. Lekas!"
"You will see how she has grown," exclaimed Almayer, in a jubilant tone.
Through the curtained doorway Ali appeared with little Nina Almayer in his arms. The child had one arm round his neck, and with the other she hugged a ripe pumelo nearly as big as her own head. Her little pink, sleeveless robe had half slipped off her shoulders, but the long black hair, that framed her olive face, in which the big black eyes looked out in childish solemnity, fell in luxuriant profusion over her shoulders, all round her and over Ali"s arms, like a close-meshed and delicate net of silken threads. Lingard got up to meet Ali, and as soon as she caught sight of the old seaman she dropped the fruit and put out both her hands with a cry of delight. He took her from the Malay, and she laid hold of his moustaches with an affectionate goodwill that brought unaccustomed tears into his little red eyes.
"Not so hard, little one, not so hard," he murmured, pressing with an enormous hand, that covered it entirely, the child"s head to his face.
"Pick up my pumelo, O Rajah of the sea!" she said, speaking in a high-pitched, clear voice with great volubility. "There, under the table. I want it quick! Quick! You have been away fighting with many men. Ali says so. You are a mighty fighter. Ali says so. On the great sea far away, away, away."
She waved her hand, staring with dreamy vacancy, while Lingard looked at her, and squatting down groped under the table after the pumelo.
"Where does she get those notions?" said Lingard, getting up cautiously, to Almayer, who had been giving orders to Ali.
"She is always with the men. Many a time I"ve found her with her fingers in their rice dish, of an evening. She does not care for her mother though--I am glad to say. How pretty she is--and so sharp. My very image!"
Lingard had put the child on the table, and both men stood looking at her with radiant faces.
"A perfect little woman," whispered Lingard. "Yes, my dear boy, we shall make her somebody. You"ll see!"
"Very little chance of that now," remarked Almayer, sadly.
"You do not know!" exclaimed Lingard, taking up the child again, and beginning to walk up and down the verandah. "I have my plans. I have--listen."
And he began to explain to the interested Almayer his plans for the future. He would interview Abdulla and Lakamba. There must be some understanding with those fellows now they had the upper hand. Here he interrupted himself to swear freely, while the child, who had been diligently fumbling about his neck, had found his whistle and blew a loud blast now and then close to his ear--which made him wince and laugh as he put her hands down, scolding her lovingly. Yes--that would be easily settled. He was a man to be reckoned with yet. n.o.body knew that better than Almayer. Very well. Then he must patiently try and keep some little trade together. It would be all right. But the great thing--and here Lingard spoke lower, bringing himself to a sudden standstill before the entranced Almayer--the great thing would be the gold hunt up the river. He--Lingard--would devote himself to it. He had been in the interior before. There were immense deposits of alluvial gold there.
Fabulous. He felt sure. Had seen places. Dangerous work? Of course! But what a reward! He would explore--and find. Not a shadow of doubt. Hang the danger! They would first get as much as they could for themselves.
Keep the thing quiet. Then after a time form a Company. In Batavia or in England. Yes, in England. Much better. Splendid! Why, of course. And that baby would be the richest woman in the world. He--Lingard--would not, perhaps, see it--although he felt good for many years yet--but Almayer would. Here was something to live for yet! Hey?
But the richest woman in the world had been for the last five minutes shouting shrilly--"Rajah Laut! Rajah Laut! Hai! Give ear!" while the old seaman had been speaking louder, unconsciously, to make his deep ba.s.s heard above the impatient clamour. He stopped now and said tenderly--
"What is it, little woman?"
"I am not a little woman. I am a white child. Anak Putih. A white child; and the white men are my brothers. Father says so. And Ali says so too.
Ali knows as much as father. Everything."
Almayer almost danced with paternal delight.
"I taught her. I taught her," he repeated, laughing with tears in his eyes. "Isn"t she sharp?"
"I am the slave of the white child," said Lingard, with playful solemnity. "What is the order?"
"I want a house," she warbled, with great eagerness. "I want a house, and another house on the roof, and another on the roof--high. High!
Like the places where they dwell--my brothers--in the land where the sun sleeps."
"To the westward," explained Almayer, under his breath. "She remembers everything. She wants you to build a house of cards. You did, last time you were here."
Lingard sat down with the child on his knees, and Almayer pulled out violently one drawer after another, looking for the cards, as if the fate of the world depended upon his haste. He produced a dirty double pack which was only used during Lingard"s visit to Sambir, when he would sometimes play--of an evening--with Almayer, a game which he called Chinese bezique. It bored Almayer, but the old seaman delighted in it, considering it a remarkable product of Chinese genius--a race for which he had an unaccountable liking and admiration.
"Now we will get on, my little pearl," he said, putting together with extreme precaution two cards that looked absurdly flimsy between his big fingers. Little Nina watched him with intense seriousness as he went on erecting the ground floor, while he continued to speak to Almayer with his head over his shoulder so as not to endanger the structure with his breath.
"I know what I am talking about. . . . Been in California in forty-nine.
. . . Not that I made much . . . then in Victoria in the early days . . . . I know all about it. Trust me. Moreover a blind man could . . .
Be quiet, little sister, or you will knock this affair down. . . . My hand pretty steady yet! Hey, Kaspar? . . . Now, delight of my heart, we shall put a third house on the top of these two . . . keep very quiet. . . .