"Babalatchi," he called briskly, giving him a slight kick.

"Ada Tuan! I am listening."

"If the Orang Blanda come here, Babalatchi, and take Almayer to Batavia
to punish him for smuggling gunpowder, what will he do, you think?"

"I do not know, Tuan."

"You are a fool," commented Lakamba, exultingly. "He will tell them
where the treasure is, so as to find mercy. He will."

Babalatchi looked up at his master and nodded his head with by no means a
joyful surprise. He had not thought of this; there was a new
complication.

"Almayer must die," said Lakamba, decisively, "to make our secret safe.
He must die quietly, Babalatchi. You must do it."

Babalatchi assented, and rose wearily to his feet. "To-morrow?" he
asked.

"Yes; before the Dutch come. He drinks much coffee," answered Lakamba,
with seeming irrelevancy.

Babalatchi stretched himself yawning, but Lakamba, in the flattering
consciousness of a knotty problem solved by his own unaided intellectual
efforts, grew suddenly very wakeful.

"Babalatchi," he said to the exhausted statesman, "fetch the box of music