Now and again the thin blue smoke rushed out thicker and blacker, and
drove in odorous masses over the creek, wrapping her for a moment in a
suffocating veil; then, as the fresh wood caught well alight, the smoke
vanished in the bright sunlight, and only the scent of aromatic wood
drifted afar, to leeward of the crackling fires.
Taminah rested her tray on a stump of a tree, and remained standing with
her eyes turned towards Almayer's house, whose roof and part of a
whitewashed wall were visible over the bushes. The slave-girl finished
her work, and after looking for a while curiously at Taminah, pushed her
way through the dense thicket back to the courtyard. Round Taminah there
was now a complete solitude. She threw herself down on the ground, and
hid her face in her hands. Now when so close she had no courage to see
Nina. At every burst of louder voices from the courtyard she shivered in
the fear of hearing Nina's voice. She came to the resolution of waiting
where she was till dark, and then going straight to Dain's hiding-place.
From where she was she could watch the movements of white men, of Nina,
of all Dain's friends, and of all his enemies. Both were hateful alike
to her, for both would take him away beyond her reach.
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