“What pirate fellow? The man has been in the ship eleven years,” I said indignantly.
“It's his looks,” Almayer muttered for all apology.
The sun had eaten up the fog. From where we sat under the after awning we could see in the distance the pony tied up in front of Almayer's house, to a post of the verandah. We were silent for a long time. All at once Almayer, alluding evidently to the subject of his conversation in the captain's cabin, exclaimed anxiously across the table:
“I really don't know what I can do now!”
Captain C— only raised his eyebrows at him, and got up from his chair. We dispersed to our duties, but Almayer, half dressed as he was in his cretonne pyjamas and the thin cotton singlet, remained on board, lingering near the gangway as though he could not make up his mind whether to go home or stay with us for good. Our Chinamen boys gave him side glances as they went to and fro; and Ah Sing, our young chief steward, the handsomest and most sympathetic of Chinamen, catching my eye, nodded knowingly at his burly back. In the course of the morning I approached him for a moment.
“Well, Mr. Almayer,” I addressed him easily, “you haven't started on your letters yet.”
We had brought him his mail and he had held the bundle in his hand ever since we got up from breakfast. He glanced at it when I spoke and, for a moment, it looked as if he were on the point of opening his fingers and letting the whole lot fall overboard. I believe he was tempted to do so. I shall never forget that man afraid of his letters.
“Have you been long out from Europe?” he asked me.
“Not very. Not quite eight months,” I told him. “I left a ship in Samarang with a hurt back and have been in the hospital in Singapore some weeks.”
He sighed.