“When did it happen—exactly?”
“On the sixteenth I heard the first rumours of Abdulla’s ship being in the river; a thing I refused to believe at first. Next day I could not doubt any more. There was a great council held openly in Lakamba’s place where almost everybody in Sambir attended. On the eighteenth the Lord of the Isles was anchored in Sambir reach, abreast of my house. Let’s see. Six weeks to-day, exactly.”
“And all that happened like this? All of a sudden. You never heard anything—no warning. Nothing. Never had an idea that something was up? Come, Almayer!”
“Heard! Yes, I used to hear something every day. Mostly lies. Is there anything else in Sambir?”
“You might not have believed them,” observed Lingard. “In fact you ought not to have believed everything that was told to you, as if you had been a green hand on his first voyage.”
Almayer moved in his chair uneasily.
“That scoundrel came here one day,” he said. “He had been away from the house for a couple of months living with that woman. I only heard about him now and then from Patalolo’s people when they came over. Well one day, about noon, he appeared in this courtyard, as if he had been jerked up from hell-where he belongs.”
Lingard took his cheroot out, and, with his mouth full of white smoke that oozed out through his parted lips, listened, attentive. After a short pause Almayer went on, looking at the floor moodily—
“I must say he looked awful. Had a bad bout of the ague probably. The left shore is very unhealthy. Strange that only the breadth of the river . . .”
He dropped off into deep thoughtfulness as if he had forgotten his grievances in a bitter meditation upon the unsanitary condition of the virgin forests on the left bank. Lingard took this opportunity to expel the smoke in a mighty expiration and threw the stump of his cheroot over his shoulder.