Nina bent down over Mrs. Almayer's slight form and
scanned attentively, under the stars that had rushed out on the black sky
and now hung breathless over that strange parting, her mother's
shrivelled features, and looked close into the sunken eyes that could see
into her own dark future by the light of a long and a painful experience.
Again she felt herself fascinated, as of old, by her mother's exalted
mood and by the oracular certainty of expression which, together with her
fits of violence, had contributed not a little to the reputation for
witchcraft she enjoyed in the settlement.
* * * * *
"I was a slave, and you shall be a queen," went on Mrs. Almayer, looking
straight before her; "but remember men's strength and their weakness.
Tremble before his anger, so that he may see your fear in the light of
day; but in your heart you may laugh, for after sunset he is your slave."
"A slave! He! The master of life! You do not know him, mother."
Mrs. Almayer condescended to laugh contemptuously.
"You speak like a fool of a white woman," she exclaimed. "What do you
know of men's anger and of men's love? Have you watched the sleep of men
weary of dealing death? Have you felt about you the strong arm that
could drive a kriss deep into a beating heart? Yah! you are a white
woman, and ought to pray to a woman-god!"
"Why do you say this? I have listened to your words so long that I have
forgotten my old life.
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