“Look here,” said Lingard, looking down—“I want a good canoe with four men to-day.”
“Do you want it now?” asked Almayer.
“No! Catch this rope. Oh, you clumsy devil! . . . No, Kaspar,” went on Lingard, after the bow-man had got hold of the end of the brace he had thrown down into the canoe—“No, Kaspar. The sun is too much for me. And it would be better to keep my affairs quiet, too. Send the canoe—four good paddlers, mind, and your canvas chair for me to sit in. Send it about sunset. D’ye hear?”
“All right, father,” said Almayer, cheerfully—“I will send Ali for a steersman, and the best men I’ve got. Anything else?”
“No, my lad. Only don’t let them be late.”
“I suppose it’s no use asking you where you are going,” said Almayer, tentatively. “Because if it is to see Abdulla, I . . .”
“I am not going to see Abdulla. Not to-day. Now be off with you.”
He watched the canoe dart away shorewards, waved his hand in response to Almayer’s nod, and walked to the taffrail smoothing out Abdulla’s letter, which he had pulled out of his pocket. He read it over carefully, crumpled it up slowly, smiling the while and closing his fingers firmly over the crackling paper as though he had hold there of Abdulla’s throat. Halfway to his pocket he changed his mind, and flinging the ball overboard looked at it thoughtfully as it spun round in the eddies for a moment, before the current bore it away down-stream, towards the sea.