"how are you?" to Vinck, or greeting Hudig, the Master, with a boisterous
"Hallo, old pirate! Alive yet?" as a preliminary to transacting business
behind the little green door. Often of an evening, in the silence of the
then deserted warehouse, Almayer putting away his papers before driving
home with Mr. Vinck, in whose household he lived, would pause listening
to the noise of a hot discussion in the private office, would hear the
deep and monotonous growl of the Master, and the roared-out interruptions
of Lingard--two mastiffs fighting over a marrowy bone. But to Almayer's
ears it sounded like a quarrel of Titans--a battle of the gods.

After a year or so Lingard, having been brought often in contact with
Almayer in the course of business, took a sudden and, to the onlookers, a
rather inexplicable fancy to the young man. He sang his praises, late at
night, over a convivial glass to his cronies in the Sunda Hotel, and one
fine morning electrified Vinck by declaring that he must have "that young
fellow for a supercargo. Kind of captain's clerk. Do all my
quill-driving for me." Hudig consented. Almayer, with youth's natural
craving for change, was nothing loth, and packing his few belongings,
started in the _Flash_ on one of those long cruises when the old seaman
was wont to visit almost every island in the archipelago. Months slipped
by, and Lingard's friendship seemed to increase. Often pacing the deck
with Almayer, when the faint night breeze, heavy with aromatic
exhalations of the islands, shoved the brig gently along under the
peaceful and sparkling sky, did the old seaman open his heart to his
entranced listener. He spoke of his past life, of escaped dangers, of
big profits in his trade, of new combinations that were in the future to
bring profits bigger still. Often he had mentioned his daughter, the
girl found in the pirate prau, speaking of her with a strange assumption
of fatherly tenderness. "She must be a big girl now," he used to say.
"It's nigh unto four years since I have seen her! Damme, Almayer, if I