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towards Almayer’s house.
    “Hem!  Queer, certainly.  What have you been telling her?  I was attending to the father most of the time.”
    “I assure you I have been perfectly civil,” protested the other warmly.
    “All right.  Don’t get excited.  She objects to civility, then, from what I understand.  I thought you might have been tender.  You know we are on service.”
    “Well, of course.  Never forget that.  Coldly civil.  That’s all.”
    They both laughed a little, and not feeling sleepy began to pace the verandah side by side.  The moon rose stealthily above the trees, and suddenly changed the river into a stream of scintillating silver.  The forest came out of the black void and stood sombre and pensive over the sparkling water.  The breeze died away into a breathless calm.
    Seamanlike, the two officers tramped measuredly up and down without exchanging a word.  The loose planks rattled rhythmically under their steps with obstrusive dry sound in the perfect silence of the night.  As they were wheeling round again the younger man stood attentive.
    “Did you hear that?” he asked.
    “No!” said the other.  “Hear what?”
    “I thought I heard a cry.  Ever so faint.  Seemed a woman’s voice.  In that other house.  Ah!  Again!  Hear it?”
    “No,” said the lieutenant, after listening awhile.  “You young fellows always hear women’s voices.  If you are going to dream you had better get into your hammock.  Good-night.”
    The moon mounted higher, and the warm shadows grew smaller and crept away as if hiding before the cold and cruel light.
     

CHAPTER X.
     
    “It has set at last,” said Nina to her mother pointing towards the hills behind which the sun had sunk.  “Listen, mother, I am going now to Bulangi’s creek, and if I should never return — ”
    She interrupted herself, and something like doubt dimmed for a moment the fire of suppressed exaltation that had glowed in her eyes and had illuminated the serene impassiveness of her features with a ray of eager life during all that long day of excitement — the day of joy and anxiety, of hope and terror, of vague grief and indistinct delight.  While the sun shone with that dazzling light in which her love was born and grew till it possessed her whole being, she was kept firm in her unwavering resolve by the mysterious whisperings of desire which filled her heart with impatient longing for the darkness that would mean the end of danger and strife, the beginning of happiness, the fulfilling of love, the completeness of life.  It had set at last!  The short tropical twilight went out before she could draw the long breath of relief; and now the sudden darkness seemed to be full of menacing voices calling upon her to rush headlong into the unknown; to be true to her own impulses, to give herself up to the passion she had evoked and shared.  He was waiting!  In the solitude of the secluded clearing, in the vast silence of the forest he was waiting alone, a fugitive in fear of his life.  Indifferent to his danger he was waiting for her.  It was for her only that he had come; and now as the time approached when he should have his reward, she asked herself with dismay what meant that chilling doubt of her own will and of her own desire?  With an effort she shook off the fear of the passing weakness.  He should have his reward.  Her woman’s love and her woman’s honour overcame the faltering distrust of that unknown future waiting for her in the darkness of the river.
    “No, you will not return,” muttered Mrs. Almayer, prophetically.
    “Without you he will not go, and if he remains here — ”  She waved her hand towards the lights of “Almayer’s Folly,” and the unfinished sentence died out in a threatening murmur.
    The two women had met behind the house, and now were walking slowly together towards the creek where all the canoes were moored.  Arrived at the fringe of bushes they stopped by a common impulse, and Mrs. Almayer, laying her hand on her daughter’s arm, tried in vain to look close into the girl’s averted face.  When she attempted to speak her first words were lost in a stifled sob that sounded strangely coming from that woman who, of all human passions, seemed to know only those of anger and hate.
    “You are going away to be a great Ranee,” she said at last, in a voice that was steady enough now, “and if you be wise you shall have much power that will endure many days, and