"
The little canoe swung into the stream, and as it sprung forward in
response to the vigorous dig of the paddles they could hear an angry
shout.
"He is not by the fire. Spread out, men, and search for him!"
Blue lights blazed out in different parts of the clearing, and the shrill
voice of a woman cried in accents of rage and pain--
"Too late! O senseless white men! He has escaped!"
CHAPTER XII.
"That is the place," said Dain, indicating with the blade of his paddle a
small islet about a mile ahead of the canoe--"that is the place where
Babalatchi promised that a boat from the prau would come for me when the
sun is overhead. We will wait for that boat there."
Almayer, who was steering, nodded without speaking, and by a slight sweep
of his paddle laid the head of the canoe in the required direction.
They were just leaving the southern outlet of the Pantai, which lay
behind them in a straight and long vista of water shining between two
walls of thick verdure that ran downwards and towards each other, till at
last they joined and sank together in the far-away distance. The sun,
rising above the calm waters of the Straits, marked its own path by a
streak of light that glided upon the sea and darted up the wide reach of
the river, a hurried messenger of light and life to the gloomy forests of
the coast; and in this radiance of the sun's pathway floated the black
canoe heading for the islet which lay bathed in sunshine, the yellow
sands of its encircling beach shining like an inlaid golden disc on the
polished steel of the unwrinkled sea.
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