eyes a gold ring set with a large green stone.

"You know this well," he said. "This never left Dain's hand. I had to
tear the flesh now to get it off. Do you believe now?"

Almayer raised his hands to his head and let them fall listlessly by his
side in the utter abandonment of despair. Babalatchi, looking at him
curiously, was astonished to see him smile. A strange fancy had taken
possession of Almayer's brain, distracted by this new misfortune. It
seemed to him that for many years he had been falling into a deep
precipice. Day after day, month after month, year after year, he had
been falling, falling, falling; it was a smooth, round, black thing, and
the black walls had been rushing upwards with wearisome rapidity. A
great rush, the noise of which he fancied he could hear yet; and now,
with an awful shock, he had reached the bottom, and behold! he was alive
and whole, and Dain was dead with all his bones broken. It struck him as
funny. A dead Malay; he had seen many dead Malays without any emotion;
and now he felt inclined to weep, but it was over the fate of a white man
he knew; a man that fell over a deep precipice and did not die. He
seemed somehow to himself to be standing on one side, a little way off,
looking at a certain Almayer who was in great trouble. Poor, poor
fellow! Why doesn't he cut his throat? He wished to encourage him; he
was very anxious to see him lying dead over that other corpse. Why does
he not die and end this suffering? He groaned aloud unconsciously and
started with affright at the sound of his own voice. Was he going mad?
Terrified by the thought he turned away and ran towards his house
repeating to himself, I am not going mad; of course not, no, no, no! He
tried to keep a firm hold of the idea.

Not mad, not mad. He stumbled as he ran blindly up the steps repeating