“That one-eyed Babalatchi is gone, with all his women. He took everything. All the pots and boxes. Big. Heavy. Three boxes.”
He grinned as if the thing had been amusing, then added with an appearance of anxious concern, “Rain coming.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” ejaculated Ali with precision, and moved on. He had been quartermaster with Lingard before making up his mind to stay in Sambir as Almayer’s head man. He strutted towards the landing-place thinking proudly that he was not like those other ignorant boatmen, and knew how to answer properly the very greatest of white captains.
“You have misunderstood me from the first, Captain Lingard,” said Willems.
“Have I? It’s all right, as long as there is no mistake about my meaning,” answered Lingard, strolling slowly to the landing-place. Willems followed him, and Aissa followed Willems.
Two hands were extended to help Lingard in embarking. He stepped cautiously and heavily into the long and narrow canoe, and sat in the canvas folding-chair that had been placed in the middle. He leaned back and turned his head to the two figures that stood on the bank a little above him. Aissa’s eyes were fastened on his face in a visible impatience to see him gone. Willems’ look went straight above the canoe, straight at the forest on the other side of the river.
“All right, Ali,” said Lingard, in a low voice.
A slight stir animated the faces, and a faint murmur ran along the line of paddlers. The foremost man pushed with the point of his paddle, canted the fore end out of the dead water into the current; and the canoe fell rapidly off before the rush of brown water, the stern rubbing gently against the low bank.
“We shall meet again, Captain Lingard!” cried Willems, in an unsteady voice.
“Never!” said Lingard, turning half round in his chair to look at Willems. His fierce red eyes glittered remorselessly over the high back of his seat.
“Must cross the river. Water less quick over there,” said Ali.
He pushed in his turn now with all his strength, throwing his body recklessly right out over the stern. Then he recovered himself just in time into the squatting attitude of a monkey perched on a high shelf, and shouted: “Dayong!”
The paddles struck the water together. The canoe darted forward and went on steadily crossing the river with a sideways motion made up of its own speed and the downward drift of the current.