the low point dividing the river, the house shook in the wind, and the
rain pattered loudly on the palm-leaf roof, the thunder spoke in one
prolonged roll, and the incessant lightning disclosed a turmoil of
leaping waters, driving logs, and the big trees bending before a brutal
and merciless force.

Undisturbed by the nightly event of the rainy monsoon, the father slept
quietly, oblivious alike of his hopes, his misfortunes, his friends, and
his enemies; and the daughter stood motionless, at each flash of
lightning eagerly scanning the broad river with a steady and anxious
gaze.




CHAPTER II.


When, in compliance with Lingard's abrupt demand, Almayer consented to
wed the Malay girl, no one knew that on the day when the interesting
young convert had lost all her natural relations and found a white
father, she had been fighting desperately like the rest of them on board
the prau, and was only prevented from leaping overboard, like the few
other survivors, by a severe wound in the leg. There, on the fore-deck
of the prau, old Lingard found her under a heap of dead and dying
pirates, and had her carried on the poop of the _Flash_ before the Malay
craft was set on fire and sent adrift. She was conscious, and in the
great peace and stillness of the tropical evening succeeding the turmoil
of the battle, she watched all she held dear on earth after her own
savage manner, drift away into the gloom in a great roar of flame and