Chapter 10

"It has set at last," said Nina to her mother pointing towards the hills
behind which the sun had sunk. "Listen, mother, I am going now to
Bulangi's creek, and if I should never return--"

She interrupted herself, and something like doubt dimmed for a moment the
fire of suppressed exaltation that had glowed in her eyes and had
illuminated the serene impassiveness of her features with a ray of eager
life during all that long day of excitement--the day of joy and anxiety,
of hope and terror, of vague grief and indistinct delight. While the sun
shone with that dazzling light in which her love was born and grew till
it possessed her whole being, she was kept firm in her unwavering resolve
by the mysterious whisperings of desire which filled her heart with
impatient longing for the darkness that would mean the end of danger and
strife, the beginning of happiness, the fulfilling of love, the
completeness of life. It had set at last! The short tropical twilight
went out before she could draw the long breath of relief; and now the
sudden darkness seemed to be full of menacing voices calling upon her to
rush headlong into the unknown; to be true to her own impulses, to give
herself up to the passion she had evoked and shared. He was waiting! In
the solitude of the secluded clearing, in the vast silence of the forest
he was waiting alone, a fugitive in fear of his life. Indifferent to his
danger he was waiting for her. It was for her only that he had come; and
now as the time approached when he should have his reward, she asked
herself with dismay what meant that chilling doubt of her own will and of
her own desire? With an effort she shook off the fear of the passing
weakness. He should have his reward. Her woman's love and her woman's
honour overcame the faltering distrust of that unknown future waiting for
her in the darkness of the river.

"No, you will not return," muttered Mrs. Almayer, prophetically.

"Without you he will not go, and if he remains here--" She waved her
hand towards the lights of "Almayer's Folly," and the unfinished sentence
died out in a threatening murmur.

The two women had met behind the house, and now were walking slowly
together towards the creek where all the canoes were moored. Arrived at
the fringe of bushes they stopped by a common impulse, and Mrs. Almayer,
laying her hand on her daughter's arm, tried in vain to look close into
the girl's averted face. When she attempted to speak her first words
were lost in a stifled sob that sounded strangely coming from that woman
who, of all human passions, seemed to know only those of anger and hate.

"You are going away to be a great Ranee," she said at last, in a voice