Complete Works

it just inside the muddy point of land at the junction of the two branches of the Pantai so as to be out of the way of drifting logs that would no doubt strand on the point during the freshet.  Mahmat walked through the wet grass saying bourrouh, and cursing softly to himself the hard necessities of active life that drove him from his warm couch into the cold of the morning.  A glance showed him that his house was still there, and he congratulated himself on his foresight in hauling it out of harm’s way, for the increasing light showed him a confused wrack of drift-logs, half-stranded on the muddy flat, interlocked into a shapeless raft by their branches, tossing to and fro and grinding together in the eddy caused by the meeting currents of the two branches of the river.  Mahmat walked down to the water’s edge to examine the rattan moorings of his house just as the sun cleared the trees of the forest on the opposite shore.  As he bent over the fastenings he glanced again carelessly at the unquiet jumble of logs and saw there something that caused him to drop his hatchet and stand up, shading his eyes with his hand from the rays of the rising sun.  It was something red, and the logs rolled over it, at times closing round it, sometimes hiding it.  It looked to him at first like a strip of red cloth.  The next moment Mahmat had made it out and raised a great shout.
    “Ah ya!  There!” yelled Mahmat.  “There’s a man amongst the logs.”  He put the palms of his hand to his lips and shouted, enunciating distinctly, his face turned towards the settlement: “There’s a body of a man in the river!  Come and see!  A dead — stranger!”
    The women of the nearest house were already outside kindling the fires and husking the morning rice.  They took up the cry shrilly, and it travelled so from house to house, dying away in the distance.  The men rushed out excited but silent, and ran towards the muddy point where the unconscious logs tossed and ground and bumped and rolled over the dead stranger with the stupid persistency of inanimate things.  The women followed, neglecting their domestic duties and disregarding the possibilities of domestic discontent, while groups of children brought up the rear, warbling joyously, in the delight of unexpected excitement.
    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