Eh ?" Nina had listened to her father with her face unmoved, with her half-closed eyes still gazing into the night now made more intense by a heavy thunder-cloud that had crept down from the hills blotting out the stars, merging sky, forest, and river into one mass of almost palpable blackness.

The faint breeze had died out, but the distant rumble of thunder and pale flashes of lightning gave warning of the approaching storm.

With a sigh the girl turned towards the table.
Almayer was in his hammock now, already half asleep.
"Take the lamp, Nina," he muttered, drowsily.

"This place is full of mosquitoes.

Go to sleep, daughter." But Nina put the lamp out and turned back again towards the balustrade of the verandah, standing with her arm round the wooden support and looking eagerly towards the Pantai reach.