trees of the forest on the opposite shore. As he bent over the
fastenings he glanced again carelessly at the unquiet jumble of logs and
saw there something that caused him to drop his hatchet and stand up,
shading his eyes with his hand from the rays of the rising sun. It was
something red, and the logs rolled over it, at times closing round it,
sometimes hiding it. It looked to him at first like a strip of red
cloth. The next moment Mahmat had made it out and raised a great shout.

"Ah ya! There!" yelled Mahmat. "There's a man amongst the logs." He
put the palms of his hand to his lips and shouted, enunciating
distinctly, his face turned towards the settlement: "There's a body of a
man in the river! Come and see! A dead--stranger!"

The women of the nearest house were already outside kindling the fires
and husking the morning rice. They took up the cry shrilly, and it
travelled so from house to house, dying away in the distance. The men
rushed out excited but silent, and ran towards the muddy point where the
unconscious logs tossed and ground and bumped and rolled over the dead
stranger with the stupid persistency of inanimate things. The women
followed, neglecting their domestic duties and disregarding the
possibilities of domestic discontent, while groups of children brought up
the rear, warbling joyously, in the delight of unexpected excitement.

Almayer called aloud for his wife and daughter, but receiving no
response, stood listening intently. The murmur of the crowd reached him
faintly, bringing with it the assurance of some unusual event. He
glanced at the river just as he was going to leave the verandah and
checked himself at the sight of a small canoe crossing over from the
Rajah's landing-place. The solitary occupant (in whom Almayer soon
recognised Babalatchi) effected the crossing a little below the house and