For the next half-hour Almayer, who wanted to give Joanna plenty of time, stumbled amongst the lumber¹ in distant parts of his enclosure, sneaked² along the fences; or held his breath, flattened³ against grass walls behind various outhouses: all this to escape Ali’s inconveniently⁴ zealous⁵ search for his master. He heard him talk with the head watchman — sometimes quite close to him in the darkness — then moving off, coming back, wondering, and, as the time passed, growing uneasy.

“He did not fall into the river? — say, thou blind watcher!” Ali was growling⁶ in a bullying⁷ tone, to the other man. “He told me to fetch Mahmat, and when I came back swiftly I found him not in the house. There is that Sirani woman there, so that Mahmat cannot steal anything, but it is in my mind, the night will be half gone before I rest.”

He shouted —

“Master! O master! O mast . . . ”

“What are you making that noise for?” said Almayer, with severity, stepping out close to them.

The two Malays leaped away from each other in their surprise.

“You may go. I don’t want you any more tonight, Ali,” went on Almayer. “Is Mahmat there?”

“Unless the ill-behaved savage⁸ got tired of waiting. Those men know not politeness. They should not be spoken to by white men,” said Ali, resentfully.

Almayer went towards the house, leaving his servants to wonder where he had sprung from so unexpectedly. The watchman hinted obscurely at powers of invisibility possessed¹⁰ by the master, who often at night . . . Ali interrupted him with great scorn. Not every white man has the power. Now, the Rajah Laut could make himself invisible. Also, he could be in two places at once, as everybody knew; except he — the useless watchman — who knew no more about white men than a wild pig! Ya-wa!

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