"How can you tell?" said Almayer, excitedly, pushing his wife aside. He
snatched the cover off and looked at the formless mass of flesh, hair,
and drying mud, where the face of the drowned man should have been.
"Nobody can tell," he added, turning away with a shudder.
Babalatchi was on his knees wiping the mud from the stiffened fingers of
the outstretched hand. He rose to his feet and flashed before Almayer's
eyes a gold ring set with a large green stone.
"You know this well," he said. "This never left Dain's hand. I had to
tear the flesh now to get it off. Do you believe now?"
Almayer raised his hands to his head and let them fall listlessly by his
side in the utter abandonment of despair. Babalatchi, looking at him
curiously, was astonished to see him smile. A strange fancy had taken
possession of Almayer's brain, distracted by this new misfortune. It
seemed to him that for many years he had been falling into a deep
precipice. Day after day, month after month, year after year, he had
been falling, falling, falling; it was a smooth, round, black thing, and
the black walls had been rushing upwards with wearisome rapidity. A
great rush, the noise of which he fancied he could hear yet; and now,
with an awful shock, he had reached the bottom, and behold! he was alive
and whole, and Dain was dead with all his bones broken.
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