Almayers Folly | Page 4

the
parental bungalow, where the father grumbled all day at the stupidity of
native gardeners, and the mother from the depths of her long easy-chair
bewailed the lost glories of Amsterdam, where she had been brought up,
and of her position as the daughter of a cigar dealer there.
Almayer had left his home with a light heart and a lighter pocket,
speaking English well, and strong in arithmetic; ready to conquer the
world, never doubting that he would.
After those twenty years, standing in the close and stifling heat of a
Bornean evening, he recalled with pleasurable regret the image of
Hudig's lofty and cool warehouses with their long and straight avenues
of gin cases and bales of Manchester goods; the big door swinging
noiselessly; the dim light of the place, so delightful after the glare of
the streets; the little railed-off spaces amongst piles of merchandise
where the Chinese clerks, neat, cool, and sad-eyed, wrote rapidly and in
silence amidst the din of the working gangs rolling casks or shifting
cases to a muttered song, ending with a desperate yell. At the upper end,
facing the great door, there was a larger space railed off, well lighted;
there the noise was subdued by distance, and above it rose the soft and
continuous clink of silver guilders which other discreet Chinamen were
counting and piling up under the supervision of Mr. Vinck, the cashier,
the genius presiding in the place--the right hand of the Master.
In that clear space Almayer worked at his table not far from a little
green painted door, by which always stood a Malay in a red sash and
turban, and whose hand, holding a small string dangling from above,

moved up and down with the regularity of a machine. The string
worked a punkah on the other side of the green door, where the
so-called private office was, and where old Hudig--the Master--sat
enthroned, holding noisy receptions. Sometimes the little door would
fly open disclosing to the outer world, through the bluish haze of
tobacco smoke, a long table loaded with bottles of various shapes and
tall water-pitchers, rattan easy-chairs occupied by noisy men in
sprawling attitudes, while the Master would put his head through and,
holding by the handle, would grunt confidentially to Vinck; perhaps
send an order thundering down the warehouse, or spy a hesitating
stranger and greet him with a friendly roar, "Welgome, Gapitan! ver'
you gome vrom? Bali, eh? Got bonies? I vant bonies! Vant all you got;
ha! ha! ha! Gome in!" Then the stranger was dragged in, in a tempest of
yells, the door was shut, and the usual noises refilled the place; the
song of the workmen, the rumble of barrels, the scratch of rapid pens;
while above all rose the musical chink of broad silver pieces streaming
ceaselessly through the yellow fingers of the attentive Chinamen.
At that time Macassar was teeming with life and commerce. It was the
point in the islands where tended all those bold spirits who, fitting out
schooners on the Australian coast, invaded the Malay Archipelago in
search of money and adventure. Bold, reckless, keen in business, not
disinclined for a brush with the pirates that were to be found on many a
coast as yet, making money fast, they used to have a general
"rendezvous" in the bay for purposes of trade and dissipation. The
Dutch merchants called those men English pedlars; some of them were
undoubtedly gentlemen for whom that kind of life had a charm; most
were seamen; the acknowledged king of them all was Tom Lingard, he
whom the Malays, honest or dishonest, quiet fishermen or desperate
cut-throats, recognised as "the Rajah-Laut"--the King of the Sea.
Almayer had heard of him before he had been three days in Macassar,
had heard the stories of his smart business transactions, his loves, and
also of his desperate fights with the Sulu pirates, together with the
romantic tale of some child-- a girl--found in a piratical prau by the
victorious Lingard, when, after a long contest, he boarded the craft,
driving the crew overboard. This girl, it was generally known, Lingard

had adopted, was having her educated in some convent in Java, and
spoke of her as "my daughter." He had sworn a mighty oath to marry
her to a white man before he went home and to leave her all his money.
"And Captain Lingard has lots of money," would say Mr. Vinck
solemnly, with his head on one side, "lots of money; more than Hudig!"
And after a pause--just to let his hearers recover from their
astonishment at such an incredible assertion-- he would add in an
explanatory whisper, "You know, he has discovered a river."
That was it! He had discovered a river! That was the fact placing old