第31章

He smiled rather sourly.He was dyspeptic,and suffered from gnawing hunger in the morning.The second smiled broadly,a smile that made two vertical folds on his shaven cheeks.And I smiled,too,but I was not exactly amused.In that man,whose name apparently could not be uttered anywhere in the Malay Archipelago without a smile,there was nothing amusing whatever.

That morning he breakfasted with us silently,looking mostly into his cup.I informed him that my men came upon his pony capering in the fog on the very brink of the eight-foot-deep well in which he kept his store of guttah.The cover was off,with no one near by,and the whole of my crew just missed going heels over head into that beastly hole.Jurumudi Itam,our best quartermaster,deft at fine needlework,he who mended the ship's flags and sewed buttons on our coats,was disabled by a kick on the shoulder.

Both remorse and gratitude seemed foreign to Almayer's character.

He mumbled:

"Do you mean that pirate fellow?"

"What pirate fellow?The man has been in the ship eleven years,"

I said,indignantly.

"It's his looks,"Almayer muttered,for all apology.

The sun had eaten up the fog.From where we sat under the after-awning we could see in the distance the pony tied up,in front of Almayer's house,to a post of the veranda.We were silent for a long time.All at once Almayer,alluding evidently to the subject of his conversation in the captain's cabin,exclaimed anxiously across the table:

"I really don't know what I can do now!"

Captain C----only raised his eyebrows at him,and got up from his chair.We dispersed to our duties,but Almayer,half dressed as he was in his cretonne pajamas and the thin cotton singlet,remained on board,lingering near the gangway,as though he could not make up his mind whether to go home or stay with us for good.

Our Chinamen boys gave him side glances as they went to and fro;and Ah Sing,our chief steward,the handsomest and most sympathetic of Chinamen,catching my eye,nodded knowingly at his burly back.In the course of the morning I approached him for a moment.

"Well,Mr.Almayer,"I addressed him,easily,"you haven't started on your letters yet."

We had brought him his mail,and he had held the bundle in his hand ever since we got up from breakfast.He glanced at it when I spoke,and for a moment it looked as if he were on the point of opening his fingers and letting the whole lot fall overboard.I believe he was tempted to do so.I shall never forget that man afraid of his letters.

"Have you been long out from Europe?"he asked me.

"Not very.Not quite eight months,"I told him."I left a ship in Samarang with a hurt back,and have been in the hospital in Singapore some weeks."

He sighed.

"Trade is very bad here."

"Indeed!"

"Hopeless!.See these geese?"

With the hand holding the letters he pointed out to me what resembled a patch of snow creeping and swaying across the distant part of his compound.It disappeared behind some bushes.

"The only geese on the East Coast,"Almayer informed me,in a perfunctory mutter without a spark of faith,hope,or pride.

Thereupon,with the same absence of any sort of sustaining spirit,he declared his intention to select a fat bird and send him on board for us not later than next day.

I had heard of these largesses before.He conferred a goose as if it were a sort of court decoration given only to the tried friends of the house.I had expected more pomp in the ceremony.

The gift had surely its special quality,multiple and rare.From the only flock on the East Coast!He did not make half enough of it.That man did not understand his opportunities.However,I thanked him at some length.

"You see,"he interrupted,abruptly,in a very peculiar tone,"the worst of this country is that one is not able to realize .it's impossible to realize."His voice sank into a languid mutter."And when one has very large interests very important interests ."he finished,faintly ."up the river."

We looked at each other.He astonished me by giving a start and making a very queer grimace.

"Well,I must be off,"he burst out,hurriedly."So long!"

At the moment of stepping over the gang way he checked himself,though,to give me a mumbled invitation to dine at his house that evening with my captain,an invitation which I accepted.I don't think it could have been possible for me to refuse.