Tales of Unrest |
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Alvan Hervey amongst arms Arsat asked began boat breath brother Bugis burst cabin canoe Carlier cried dark daugh dead death door earth eyes face faith fear feel fellow felt fire flash forests glance Gobila's hands head hear heard heart Hollis Inchi Jean-Pierre Karain Kayerts knew land leaped lence light lips lived looked Madame Levaille Makola Malay Matara mist moved murmur muttered ness never night Outpost of Progress pain palm wine passed peace prau river round sampan sands sarong schooner seemed shadows shoulder shouted side silence slept slowly smile sorrow sound speak spoke stared station stepped stir stood suddenly sunshine Susan talk thing thought tion tone Treguier Tuan turbed turned tusks tween uncon verandah voice wait walked walls wandering watched whispered wife woman words
Popular passages
Page 327 - ... and feared. The white man came out of the hut in time to see the enormous conflagration of sunset put out by the swift and stealthy shadows that, rising like a black and impalpable vapour above the treetops, spread over the heaven, extinguishing the crimson glow of floating clouds and the red brilliance of departing daylight. In a few moments all the stars came out above the intense blackness of the earth and the great lagoon gleaming suddenly with reflected lights resembled an oval patch of...
Page 323 - A fleecy pink cloud drifted high above, trailing the delicate colouring of its image under the floating leaves and the silvery blossoms of the lotus. A little house, perched on high piles, appeared black in the distance. Near it, two tall nibong palms, that seemed to have come out of the forests in the background, leaned slightly over the ragged roof, with a suggestion of sad tenderness and care in the droop of their leafy and soaring heads. The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, "Arsat is...
Page 326 - He remained silent for a minute, then asked softly — "Tuan, will she die?" "I fear so," said the white man sorrowfully. He had known Arsat years ago, in a far country in times of trouble and danger, when no friendship is to be despised. And since his Malay friend had come unexpectedly to dwell in the hut on the lagoon with a strange woman, he had slept many times there, in his journeys up and down the river. He liked the man who knew how to keep faith in council and how to fight without fear by...
Page 344 - His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He paused, and seemed to listen to them dying away very far — beyond help and beyond recall. Then he said quietly — "Tuan, I loved my brother." A breath of wind made him shiver. High above his head, high above the silent sea of mist the drooping leaves of the palms rattled together with a mournful and expiring sound. The white man stretched his legs. His chin rested on his chest, and he murmured sadly without lifting his head — "We all love...
Page 324 - Nobody came. The white man began to climb the rude ladder giving access to the bamboo platform before the house. The juragan of the boat said sulkily, "We will cook in the sampan, and sleep on the water." "Pass my blankets and the basket," said the white man, curtly. He knelt on the edge of the platform to receive the bundle. Then the boat shoved off, and the white man, standing up, confronted Arsat, who had come out through the low door of his hut. He was a man young, powerful, with broad chest...
Page 322 - Darkness oozed out from between the trees, through the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind the great fantastic and unstirring leaves; the darkness, mysterious and invincible; the darkness scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests. The men poled in the shoaling water. The creek broadened, opening out into a wide sweep of a stagnant lagoon. The forests receded from the marshy bank, leaving a level strip of bright green, reedy grass to frame the reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy pink...
Page 325 - No," said the visitor in a startled tone. "No. Why? Is there sickness in the house ?" "Enter and see," replied Arsat, in the same calm manner, and turning short round, passed again through the small doorway. The white man, dropping his bundles, followed. In the dim light of the dwelling he made out on a couch of bamboos a woman stretched on her back under a broad sheet of red cotton cloth. She lay still as if dead ; but her big eyes, wide open, glittered in the gloom, staring upwards at the slender...
Page 319 - At the end of the straight avenue of forests cut by the intense glitter of the river, the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, poised low over the water that shone smoothly like a band of metal. The forests, sombre and dull, stood motionless and silent on each side of the broad stream. At the foot of big, towering trees, trunkless nipa palms rose from the mud of the bank, in bunches of leaves enormous and heavy, that hung unstirring over the brown swirl of eddies. In the stillness of the air every...
Page 340 - We ran our canoe on the white beach of a little bay close to a long tongue of land that seemed to bar our road; a long wooded cape going far into the sea. My brother knew that place. Beyond the cape a river has its entrance, and through the jungle of that land there is a narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice. Then we lay down to sleep on the soft sand in the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard her cry of alarm. We leaped up. The sun was halfway...
Page 343 - The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood, an indistinct and silent figure above the dying embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a mist drifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images of the stars. And now a great expanse of white...
References to this book
Images of Idiocy: The Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film Martin Halliwell No preview available - 2004 |