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the sight of a young face and the sound of a young voice in my house?”  He paused, and then added with a little mournful laugh, “I am like a white man talking too much of what is not men’s talk when they speak to one another.”
    And he went off looking very sad.
    * * * * *
     
    The crowd massed in a semicircle before the steps of “Almayer’s Folly,” swayed silently backwards and forwards, and opened out before the group of white-robed and turbaned men advancing through the grass towards the house.  Abdulla walked first, supported by Reshid and followed by all the Arabs in Sambir.  As they entered the lane made by the respectful throng there was a subdued murmur of voices, where the word “Mati” was the only one distinctly audible.  Abdulla stopped and looked round slowly.
    “Is he dead?” he asked.
    “May you live!” answered the crowd in one shout, and then there succeeded a breathless silence.
    Abdulla made a few paces forward and found himself for the last time face to face with his old enemy.  Whatever he might have been once he was not dangerous now, lying stiff and lifeless in the tender light of the early day.  The only white man on the east coast was dead, and his soul, delivered from the trammels of his earthly folly, stood now in the presence of Infinite Wisdom.  On the upturned face there was that serene look which follows the sudden relief from anguish and pain, and it testified silently before the cloudless heaven that the man lying there under the gaze of indifferent eyes had been permitted to forget before he died.
    Abdulla looked down sadly at this Infidel he had fought so long and had bested so many times.  Such was the reward of the Faithful!  Yet in the Arab’s old heart there was a feeling of regret for that thing gone out of his life.  He was leaving fast behind him friendships, and enmities, successes, and disappointments — all that makes up a life; and before him was only the end.  Prayer would fill up the remainder of the days allotted to the True Believer!  He took in his hand the beads that hung at his waist.
    “I found him here, like this, in the morning,” said Ali, in a low and awed voice.
    Abdulla glanced coldly once more at the serene face.
    “Let us go,” he said, addressing Reshid.
    And as they passed through the crowd that fell back before them, the beads in Abdulla’s hand clicked, while in a solemn whisper he breathed out piously the name of Allah!  The Merciful!  The Compassionate!
     

AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS

     
    This is Conrad’s second novel, published in 1896, and inspired by his experiences as a mate of the steamer the Vigar .
     

The first edition
     

The 1951 film adaptation
     

AUTHOR’S NOTE
     
    “An Outcast of the Islands” is my second novel in the absolute sense of the word; second in conception, second in execution, second as it were in its essence. There was no hesitation, half-formed plan, vague idea, or the vaguest reverie of anything else between it and “Almayer’s Folly.” The only doubt I suffered from, after the publication of “Almayer’s Folly,” was whether I should write another line for print. Those days, now grown so dim, had their poignant moments. Neither in my mind nor in my heart had I then given up the sea. In truth I was clinging to it desperately, all the more desperately because, against my will, I could not help feeling that there was something changed in my relation to it. “Almayer’s Folly,” had been finished and done with. The mood itself was gone. But it had left the memory of an experience that, both in thought and emotion was unconnected with the sea, and I suppose that part of my moral being which is rooted in consistency was badly shaken. I was a victim of contrary stresses which produced a state of immobility. I gave myself up to indolence. Since it was impossible for me to face both ways I had elected to face nothing. The discovery of new values in life is a very chaotic experience; there is a tremendous amount of jostling and confusion and a momentary feeling of darkness. I let my spirit float supine over that chaos.
    A phrase of Edward Garnett’s is, as a matter of fact, responsible for this book. The first of the friends I made for myself by my pen it was but natural that he should be the recipient, at that time, of my confidences. One evening when we had dined together and he had listened to the account of my perplexities (I fear he must have been growing a little