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Updated: May 8, 2025
He had been living with Malays so long and so close that the extreme deliberation and deviousness of their mental proceedings had ceased to irritate him much. To-night, perhaps, he was less prone to impatience than ever. He was disposed, if not to listen to Babalatchi, then to let him talk.
Lingard said nothing. His shoulders moved imperceptibly. He laid his gun across his knees and stared at the flint lock absently. "Yes," went on Babalatchi, falling again into a mournful mood, "yes, he died in darkness. I sat by his side and held his hand, but he could not see the face of him who watched the faint breath on his lips.
Babalatchi had taken the broken anklet off the man's leg, and now held it in his hand as he moved by the side of the bearers, while Mahmat lingered behind timidly, in the hopes of the promised reward. "Lay him there," said Babalatchi to Almayer's men, pointing to a pile of drying planks in front of the verandah. "Lay him there.
The captain's cabin opened on deck, and Babalatchi sat astride on the high step, while Ford smoked his pipe on the settee inside. The steamer was leaving next morning, and the old statesman came as usual for a last chat. "We had news from Bali last moon," remarked Babalatchi. "A grandson is born to the old Rajah, and there is great rejoicing." Ford sat up interested.
Many years ago I have faced you, arms in hand. Do you not remember? It was in Carimata far from here." "I cannot remember every vagabond that came in my way," protested Lingard, seriously. "Hai! Hai!" continued Babalatchi, unmoved and dreamy. "Many years ago.
Inside the hut, Babalatchi, who lately had been only a persuasive voice, became a human shape leaning its chin imprudently on the muzzle of a gun and rolling an uneasy eye over the reappearing world. The day came rapidly, dismal and oppressed by the fog of the river and by the heavy vapours of the sky a day without colour and without sunshine: incomplete, disappointing, and sad.
"Have I done well, Mem Putih?" he asked, humbly addressing Nina. "You have," answered Nina. "The ring you may keep yourself." Babalatchi touched his lips and forehead, and scrambled to his feet. He looked at Nina, as if expecting her to say something more, but Nina turned towards the house and went up the steps, motioning him away with her hand. Babalatchi picked up his staff and prepared to go.
"Tse! tse! tse!" clicked Babalatchi, trying to appear shocked, but with a joyous twinkle of his solitary eye. "There will be great trouble between those white men. I will go round now and see. You tell your daughter that there is a sudden and a long journey before her, with much glory and splendour at the end. And tell her that Dain must go, or he must die, and that he will not go alone."
Only the little belated clouds, which hurried past overhead to catch up the main body flashing silently in the distance, sent down short showers that pattered softly with a soothing hiss over the palm-leaf roof. Lakamba roused himself from his apathy with an appearance of having grasped the situation at last. "Babalatchi," he called briskly, giving him a slight kick. "Ada Tuan! I am listening."
Babalatchi squatted humbly at his protector's feet, with nothing but a thin mat between himself and the hard ground. Then there was a pause. Abdulla glanced round in an expectant manner, and after a while Babalatchi, who had been sitting very still in a pensive attitude, seemed to rouse himself with an effort, and began to speak in gentle and persuasive tones.
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