Chapter 12

"That is the place," said Dain, indicating with the blade of his paddle a
small islet about a mile ahead of the canoe--"that is the place where
Babalatchi promised that a boat from the prau would come for me when the
sun is overhead. We will wait for that boat there."

Almayer, who was steering, nodded without speaking, and by a slight sweep
of his paddle laid the head of the canoe in the required direction.

They were just leaving the southern outlet of the Pantai, which lay
behind them in a straight and long vista of water shining between two
walls of thick verdure that ran downwards and towards each other, till at
last they joined and sank together in the far-away distance. The sun,
rising above the calm waters of the Straits, marked its own path by a
streak of light that glided upon the sea and darted up the wide reach of
the river, a hurried messenger of light and life to the gloomy forests of
the coast; and in this radiance of the sun's pathway floated the black
canoe heading for the islet which lay bathed in sunshine, the yellow
sands of its encircling beach shining like an inlaid golden disc on the
polished steel of the unwrinkled sea. To the north and south of it rose
other islets, joyous in their brilliant colouring of green and yellow,
and on the main coast the sombre line of mangrove bushes ended to the
southward in the reddish cliffs of Tanjong Mirrah, advancing into the
sea, steep and shadowless under the clear, light of the early morning.

The bottom of the canoe grated upon the sand as the little craft ran upon
the beach. Ali leaped on shore and held on while Dain stepped out
carrying Nina in his arms, exhausted by the events and the long
travelling during the night. Almayer was the last to leave the boat, and
together with Ali ran it higher up on the beach. Then Ali, tired out by
the long paddling, laid down in the shade of the canoe, and incontinently
fell asleep. Almayer sat sideways on the gunwale, and with his arms
crossed on his breast, looked to the southward upon the sea.

After carefully laying Nina down in the shade of the bushes growing in
the middle of the islet, Dain threw himself beside her and watched in
silent concern the tears that ran down from under her closed eyelids, and
lost themselves in that fine sand upon which they both were lying face to
face. These tears and this sorrow were for him a profound and
disquieting mystery. Now, when the danger was past, why should she
grieve? He doubted her love no more than he would have doubted the fact
of his own existence, but as he lay looking ardently in her face,
watching her tears, her parted lips, her very breath, he was uneasily
conscious of something in her he could not understand. Doubtless she had