He thought himself very fearless, but as a matter of fact he was only drunk; drunk with the poison of passionate memories.
He stretched his hands over the fire, looked round and called out-- "Aissa!" She must have been near, for she appeared at once within the light of the fire.

The upper part of her body was wrapped up in the thick folds of a head covering which was pulled down over her brow, and one end of it thrown across from shoulder to shoulder hid the lower part of her face.

Only her eyes were visible--sombre and gleaming like a starry night.
Willems, looking at this strange, muffled figure, felt exasperated, amazed and helpless.

The ex-confidential clerk of the rich Hudig would hug to his breast settled conceptions of respectable conduct.

He sought refuge within his ideas of propriety from the dismal mangroves, from the darkness of the forests and of the heathen souls of the savages that were his masters.