Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (12 page)

Almayer called aloud for his wife and daughter, but receiving no response, stood listening intently.  The murmur of the crowd reached him faintly, bringing with it the assurance of some unusual event.  He glanced at the river just as he was going to leave the verandah and checked himself at the sight of a small canoe crossing over from the Rajah’s landing-place.  The solitary occupant (in whom Almayer soon recognised Babalatchi) effected the crossing a little below the house and paddled up to the Lingard jetty in the dead water under the bank.  Babalatchi clambered out slowly and went on fastening his canoe with fastidious care, as if not in a hurry to meet Almayer, whom he saw looking at him from the verandah.  This delay gave Almayer time to notice and greatly wonder at Babalatchi’s official get-up.  The statesman of Sambir was clad in a costume befitting his high rank.  A loudly checkered sarong encircled his waist, and from its many folds peeped out the silver hilt of the kriss that saw the light only on great festivals or during official receptions.  Over the left shoulder and across the otherwise unclad breast of the aged diplomatist glistened a patent leather belt bearing a brass plate with the arms of Netherlands under the inscription, “Sultan of Sambir.”  Babalatchi’s head was covered by a red turban, whose fringed ends falling over the left cheek and shoulder gave to his aged face a ludicrous expression of joyous recklessness.  When the canoe was at last fastened to his satisfaction he straightened himself up, shaking down the folds of his sarong, and moved with long strides towards Almayer’s house, swinging regularly his long ebony staff, whose gold head ornamented with precious stones flashed in the morning sun.  Almayer waved his hand to the right towards the point of land, to him invisible, but in full view from the jetty.

“Oh, Babalatchi! oh!” he called out; “what is the matter there? can you see?”

Babalatchi stopped and gazed intently at the crowd on the river bank, and after a little while the astonished Almayer saw him leave the path, gather up his sarong in one hand, and break into a trot through the grass towards the muddy point.  Almayer, now greatly interested, ran down the steps of the verandah.  The murmur of men’s voices and the shrill cries of women reached him quite distinctly now, and as soon as he turned the corner of his house he could see the crowd on the low promontory swaying and pushing round some object of interest.  He could indistinctly hear Babalatchi’s voice, then the crowd opened before the aged statesman and closed after him with an excited hum, ending in a loud shout.

As Almayer approached the throng a man ran out and rushed past him towards the settlement, unheeding his call to stop and explain the cause of this excitement.  On the very outskirts of the crowd Almayer found himself arrested by an unyielding mass of humanity, regardless of his entreaties for a passage, insensible to his gentle pushes as he tried to work his way through it towards the riverside.

In the midst of his gentle and slow progress he fancied suddenly he had heard his wife’s voice in the thickest of the throng.  He could not mistake very well Mrs. Almayer’s high-pitched tones, yet the words were too indistinct for him to understand their purport.  He paused in his endeavours to make a passage for himself, intending to get some intelligence from those around him, when a long and piercing shriek rent the air, silencing the murmurs of the crowd and the voices of his informants.  For a moment Almayer remained as if turned into stone with astonishment and horror, for he was certain now that he had heard his wife wailing for the dead.  He remembered Nina’s unusual absence, and maddened by his apprehensions as to her safety, he pushed blindly and violently forward, the crowd falling back with cries of surprise and pain before his frantic advance.

On the point of land in a little clear space lay the body of the stranger just hauled out from amongst the logs.  On one side stood Babalatchi, his chin resting on the head of his staff and his one eye gazing steadily at the shapeless mass of broken limbs, torn flesh, and bloodstained rags.  As Almayer burst through the ring of horrified spectators, Mrs. Almayer threw her own head-veil over the upturned face of the drowned man, and, squatting by it, with another mournful howl, sent a shiver through the now silent crowd.  Mahmat, dripping wet, turned to Almayer, eager to tell his tale.

In the first moment of reaction from the anguish of his fear the sunshine seemed to waver before Almayer’s eyes, and he listened to words spoken around him without comprehending their meaning.  When, by a strong effort of will, he regained the possession of his senses, Mahmat was saying —

“That is the way, Tuan.  His sarong was caught in the broken branch, and he hung with his head under water.  When I saw what it was I did not want it here.  I wanted it to get clear and drift away.  Why should we bury a stranger in the midst of our houses for his ghost to frighten our women and children?  Have we not enough ghosts about this place?”

A murmur of approval interrupted him here.  Mahmat looked reproachfully at Babalatchi.

“But the Tuan Babalatchi ordered me to drag the body ashore” — he went on looking round at his audience, but addressing himself only to Almayer — ”and I dragged him by the feet; in through the mud I have dragged him, although my heart longed to see him float down the river to strand perchance on Bulangi’s clearing — may his father’s grave be defiled!”

There was subdued laughter at this, for the enmity of Mahmat and Bulangi was a matter of common notoriety and of undying interest to the inhabitants of Sambir.  In the midst of that mirth Mrs. Almayer wailed suddenly again.

“Allah!  What ails the woman!” exclaimed Mahmat, angrily.  “Here, I have touched this carcass which came from nobody knows where, and have most likely defiled myself before eating rice.  By orders of Tuan Babalatchi I did this thing to please the white man.  Are you pleased, O Tuan Almayer?  And what will be my recompense?  Tuan Babalatchi said a recompense there will be, and from you.  Now consider.  I have been defiled, and if not defiled I may be under the spell.  Look at his anklets!  Who ever heard of a corpse appearing during the night amongst the logs with gold anklets on its legs?  There is witchcraft there.  However,” added Mahmat, after a reflective pause, “I will have the anklet if there is permission, for I have a charm against the ghosts and am not afraid.  God is great!”

A fresh outburst of noisy grief from Mrs. Almayer checked the flow of Mahmat’s eloquence.  Almayer, bewildered, looked in turn at his wife, at Mahmat, at Babalatchi, and at last arrested his fascinated gaze on the body lying on the mud with covered face in a grotesquely unnatural contortion of mangled and broken limbs, one twisted and lacerated arm, with white bones protruding in many places through the torn flesh, stretched out; the hand with outspread fingers nearly touching his foot.

“Do you know who this is?” he asked of Babalatchi, in a low voice.

Babalatchi, staring straight before him, hardly moved his lips, while Mrs. Almayer’s persistent lamentations drowned the whisper of his murmured reply intended only for Almayer’s ear.

“It was fate.  Look at your feet, white man.  I can see a ring on those torn fingers which I know well.”

Saying this, Babalatchi stepped carelessly forward, putting his foot as if accidentally on the hand of the corpse and pressing it into the soft mud.  He swung his staff menacingly towards the crowd, which fell back a little.

“Go away,” he said sternly, “and send your women to their cooking fires, which they ought not to have left to run after a dead stranger.  This is men’s work here.  I take him now in the name of the Rajah.  Let no man remain here but Tuan Almayer’s slaves.  Now go!”

The crowd reluctantly began to disperse.  The women went first, dragging away the children that hung back with all their weight on the maternal hand.  The men strolled slowly after them in ever forming and changing groups that gradually dissolved as they neared the settlement and every man regained his own house with steps quickened by the hungry anticipation of the morning rice.  Only on the slight elevation where the land sloped down towards the muddy point a few men, either friends or enemies of Mahmat, remained gazing curiously for some time longer at the small group standing around the body on the river bank.

“I do not understand what you mean, Babalatchi,” said Almayer.  “What is the ring you are talking about?  Whoever he is, you have trodden the poor fellow’s hand right into the mud.  Uncover his face,” he went on, addressing Mrs. Almayer, who, squatting by the head of the corpse, rocked herself to and fro, shaking from time to time her dishevelled grey locks, and muttering mournfully.

“Hai!” exclaimed Mahmat, who had lingered close by.  “Look, Tuan; the logs came together so,” and here he pressed the palms of his hands together, “and his head must have been between them, and now there is no face for you to look at.  There are his flesh and his bones, the nose, and the lips, and maybe his eyes, but nobody could tell the one from the other.  It was written the day he was born that no man could look at him in death and be able to say, ‘This is my friend’s face.’”

“Silence, Mahmat; enough!” said Babalatchi, “and take thy eyes off his anklet, thou eater of pigs flesh.  Tuan Almayer,” he went on, lowering his voice, “have you seen Dain this morning?”

Almayer opened his eyes wide and looked alarmed.  “No,” he said quickly; “haven’t you seen him?  Is he not with the Rajah?  I am waiting; why does he not come?”

Babalatchi nodded his head sadly.

“He is come, Tuan.  He left last night when the storm was great and the river spoke angrily.  The night was very black, but he had within him a light that showed the way to your house as smooth as a narrow backwater, and the many logs no bigger than wisps of dried grass.  Therefore he went; and now he lies here.”  And Babalatchi nodded his head towards the body.

“How can you tell?” said Almayer, excitedly, pushing his wife aside.  He snatched the cover off and looked at the formless mass of flesh, hair, and drying mud, where the face of the drowned man should have been.  “Nobody can tell,” he added, turning away with a shudder.

Babalatchi was on his knees wiping the mud from the stiffened fingers of the outstretched hand.  He rose to his feet and flashed before Almayer’s eyes a gold ring set with a large green stone.

“You know this well,” he said.  “This never left Dain’s hand.  I had to tear the flesh now to get it off.  Do you believe now?”

Almayer raised his hands to his head and let them fall listlessly by his side in the utter abandonment of despair.  Babalatchi, looking at him curiously, was astonished to see him smile.  A strange fancy had taken possession of Almayer’s brain, distracted by this new misfortune.  It seemed to him that for many years he had been falling into a deep precipice.  Day after day, month after month, year after year, he had been falling, falling, falling; it was a smooth, round, black thing, and the black walls had been rushing upwards with wearisome rapidity.  A great rush, the noise of which he fancied he could hear yet; and now, with an awful shock, he had reached the bottom, and behold! he was alive and whole, and Dain was dead with all his bones broken.  It struck him as funny.  A dead Malay; he had seen many dead Malays without any emotion; and now he felt inclined to weep, but it was over the fate of a white man he knew; a man that fell over a deep precipice and did not die.  He seemed somehow to himself to be standing on one side, a little way off, looking at a certain Almayer who was in great trouble.  Poor, poor fellow!  Why doesn’t he cut his throat?  He wished to encourage him; he was very anxious to see him lying dead over that other corpse.  Why does he not die and end this suffering?  He groaned aloud unconsciously and started with affright at the sound of his own voice.  Was he going mad?  Terrified by the thought he turned away and ran towards his house repeating to himself, I am not going mad; of course not, no, no, no!  He tried to keep a firm hold of the idea.

Not mad, not mad.  He stumbled as he ran blindly up the steps repeating fast and ever faster those words wherein seemed to lie his salvation.  He saw Nina standing there, and wished to say something to her, but could not remember what, in his extreme anxiety not to forget that he was not going mad, which he still kept repeating mentally as he ran round the table, till he stumbled against one of the arm-chairs and dropped into it exhausted.  He sat staring wildly at Nina, still assuring himself mentally of his own sanity and wondering why the girl shrank from him in open-eyed alarm.  What was the matter with her?  This was foolish.  He struck the table violently with his clenched fist and shouted hoarsely, “Give me some gin!  Run!”  Then, while Nina ran off, he remained in the chair, very still and quiet, astonished at the noise he had made.

Nina returned with a tumbler half filled with gin, and found her father staring absently before him.  Almayer felt very tired now, as if he had come from a long journey.  He felt as if he had walked miles and miles that morning and now wanted to rest very much.  He took the tumbler with a shaking hand, and as he drank his teeth chattered against the glass which he drained and set down heavily on the table.  He turned his eyes slowly towards Nina standing beside him, and said steadily —

“Now all is over, Nina.  He is dead, and I may as well burn all my boats.”

He felt very proud of being able to speak so calmly.  Decidedly he was not going mad.  This certitude was very comforting, and he went on talking about the finding of the body, listening to his own voice complacently.  Nina stood quietly, her hand resting lightly on her father’s shoulder, her face unmoved, but every line of her features, the attitude of her whole body expressing the most keen and anxious attention.

“And so Dain is dead,” she said coldly, when her father ceased speaking.

Almayer’s elaborately calm demeanour gave way in a moment to an outburst of violent indignation.

“You stand there as if you were only half alive, and talk to me,” he exclaimed angrily, “as if it was a matter of no importance.  Yes, he is dead!  Do you understand?  Dead!  What do you care?  You never cared; you saw me struggle, and work, and strive, unmoved; and my suffering you could never see.  No, never.  You have no heart, and you have no mind, or you would have understood that it was for you, for your happiness I was working.  I wanted to be rich; I wanted to get away from here.  I wanted to see white men bowing low before the power of your beauty and your wealth.  Old as I am I wished to seek a strange land, a civilisation to which I am a stranger, so as to find a new life in the contemplation of your high fortunes, of your triumphs, of your happiness.  For that I bore patiently the burden of work, of disappointment, of humiliation amongst these savages here, and I had it all nearly in my grasp.”