Almayers Folly | Page 5

Lingard so much above the common crowd of sea-going adventurers
who traded with Hudig in the daytime and drank champagne, gambled,
sang noisy songs, and made love to half-caste girls under the broad
verandah of the Sunda Hotel at night. Into that river, whose entrances
himself only knew, Lingard used to take his assorted cargo of
Manchester goods, brass gongs, rifles and gunpowder. His brig Flash,
which he commanded himself, would on those occasions disappear
quietly during the night from the roadstead while his companions were
sleeping off the effects of the midnight carouse, Lingard seeing them
drunk under the table before going on board, himself unaffected by any
amount of liquor. Many tried to follow him and find that land of plenty
for gutta-percha and rattans, pearl shells and birds' nests, wax and
gum-dammar, but the little Flash could outsail every craft in those seas.
A few of them came to grief on hidden sandbanks and coral reefs,
losing their all and barely escaping with life from the cruel grip of this
sunny and smiling sea; others got discouraged; and for many years the
green and peaceful-looking islands guarding the entrances to the
promised land kept their secret with all the merciless serenity of
tropical nature. And so Lingard came and went on his secret or open
expeditions, becoming a hero in Almayer's eyes by the boldness and
enormous profits of his ventures, seeming to Almayer a very great man
indeed as he saw him marching up the warehouse, grunting a "how are
you?" to Vinck, or greeting Hudig, the Master, with a boisterous "Hallo,
old pirate! Alive yet?" as a preliminary to transacting business behind
the little green door. Often of an evening, in the silence of the then
deserted warehouse, Almayer putting away his papers before driving
home with Mr. Vinck, in whose household he lived, would pause

listening to the noise of a hot discussion in the private office, would
hear the deep and monotonous growl of the Master, and the roared-out
interruptions of Lingard--two mastiffs fighting over a marrowy bone.
But to Almayer's ears it sounded like a quarrel of Titans--a battle of the
gods.
After a year or so Lingard, having been brought often in contact with
Almayer in the course of business, took a sudden and, to the onlookers,
a rather inexplicable fancy to the young man. He sang his praises, late
at night, over a convivial glass to his cronies in the Sunda Hotel, and
one fine morning electrified Vinck by declaring that he must have "that
young fellow for a supercargo. Kind of captain's clerk. Do all my
quill-driving for me." Hudig consented. Almayer, with youth's natural
craving for change, was nothing loth, and packing his few belongings,
started in the Flash on one of those long cruises when the old seaman
was wont to visit almost every island in the archipelago. Months
slipped by, and Lingard's friendship seemed to increase. Often pacing
the deck with Almayer, when the faint night breeze, heavy with
aromatic exhalations of the islands, shoved the brig gently along under
the peaceful and sparkling sky, did the old seaman open his heart to his
entranced listener. He spoke of his past life, of escaped dangers, of big
profits in his trade, of new combinations that were in the future to bring
profits bigger still. Often he had mentioned his daughter, the girl found
in the pirate prau, speaking of her with a strange assumption of fatherly
tenderness. "She must be a big girl now," he used to say. "It's nigh unto
four years since I have seen her! Damme, Almayer, if I don't think we
will run into Sourabaya this trip." And after such a declaration he
always dived into his cabin muttering to himself, "Something must be
done--must be done." More than once he would astonish Almayer by
walking up to him rapidly, clearing his throat with a powerful "Hem!"
as if he was going to say something, and then turning abruptly away to
lean over the bulwarks in silence, and watch, motionless, for hours, the
gleam and sparkle of the phosphorescent sea along the ship's side. It
was the night before arriving in Sourabaya when one of those attempts
at confidential communication succeeded. After clearing his throat he
spoke. He spoke to some purpose. He wanted Almayer to marry his
adopted daughter. "And don't you kick because you're white!" he

shouted, suddenly, not giving the surprised young man the time to say a
word. "None of that with me! Nobody will see the colour of your wife's
skin. The dollars are too thick for that, I tell you! And mind you, they
will be thicker yet before I die. There will be millions, Kaspar! Millions
I say! And all for her--and for you, if you do