"No!" she cried, clinging to Dain in wild alarm. "No! Kill me! Then
perhaps he will let you go. You do not know the mind of a white man. He
would rather see me dead than standing where I am. Forgive me, your
slave, but you must not." She fell at his feet sobbing violently and
repeating, "Kill me! Kill me!"
"I want you alive," said Almayer, speaking also in Malay, with sombre
calmness. "You go, or he hangs. Will you obey?"
Dain shook Nina off, and, making a sudden lunge, struck Almayer full in
the chest with the handle of his kriss, keeping the point towards
himself.
"Hai, look! It was easy for me to turn the point the other way," he said
in his even voice. "Go, Tuan Putih," he added with dignity. "I give you
your life, my life, and her life. I am the slave of this woman's desire,
and she wills it so."
There was not a glimmer of light in the sky now, and the tops of the
trees were as invisible as their trunks, being lost in the mass of clouds
that hung low over the woods, the clearing, and the river.
Every outline had disappeared in the intense blackness that seemed to
have destroyed everything but space. Only the fire glimmered like a star
forgotten in this annihilation of all visible things, and nothing was
heard after Dain ceased speaking but the sobs of Nina, whom he held in
his arms, kneeling beside the fire.
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