it may, Jim's slumbers were disturbed by a dream of heavens like
brass resounding with a great voice, which called upon him to Awake! Awake! so
loud that, notwithstanding his desperate determination to sleep on, he did wake
up in reality. The glare of a red spluttering conflagration going on in mid-air
fell on his eyes. Coils of black, thick smoke curved round the head of some
apparition, some unearthly being, all in white, with a severe, drawn, anxious
face. After a second or so he recognised the girl. She was holding a dammar
torch at arm's-length aloft, and in a persistent, urgent monotone she was
repeating, Get up! Get up! Get up!
    Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a revolver,
his own revolver, which had been hanging on a nail, but loaded this time. He
gripped it in silence, bewildered, blinking in the light. He wondered what he
could do for her.
    She asked rapidly and very low, Can you face four men with this? He laughed
while narrating this part at the recollection of his polite alacrity. It seems
he made a great display of it, Certainly - of course - certainly - command me.
He was not properly awake, and had a notion of being very civil in these
extraordinary circumstances, of showing his unquestioning, devoted readiness.
She left the room, and he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag
who did the casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be
hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind them,
mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sailcloth, belonging to
Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of Jim's elbow. It was empty.
    The Patusan establishment, like all the posts of Stein's Trading Company,
had originally consisted of four buildings. Two of them were represented by two
heaps of sticks, broken bamboos, rotten thatch, over which the four corner-posts
of hardwood leaned sadly at different angles: the principal storeroom, however,
stood yet, facing the agent's house. It was an oblong hut, built of mud and
clay; it had at one end a wide door of stout planking, which so far had not come
off the hinges, and in one of the side walls there was a square aperture, a sort
of window, with three wooden bars. Before descending the few steps the girl
turned her face over her shoulder and said quickly, You