To her resolute nature, however,
after all these years, the savage and uncompromising sincerity of purpose
shown by her Malay kinsmen seemed at last preferable to the sleek
hypocrisy, to the polite disguises, to the virtuous pretences of such
white people as she had had the misfortune to come in contact with. After
all it was her life; it was going to be her life, and so thinking she
fell more and more under the influence of her mother. Seeking, in her
ignorance, a better side to that life, she listened with avidity to the
old woman's tales of the departed glories of the Rajahs, from whose race
she had sprung, and she became gradually more indifferent, more
contemptuous of the white side of her descent represented by a feeble and
traditionless father.
Almayer's difficulties were by no means diminished by the girl's presence
in Sambir. The stir caused by her arrival had died out, it is true, and
Lakamba had not renewed his visits; but about a year after the departure
of the man-of-war boats the nephew of Abdulla, Syed Reshid, returned from
his pilgrimage to Mecca, rejoicing in a green jacket and the proud title
of Hadji. There was a great letting off of rockets on board the steamer
which brought him in, and a great beating of drums all night in Abdulla's
compound, while the feast of welcome was prolonged far into the small
hours of the morning.
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