midday
Strength and resolution , body and mind alike were helpless , and tried to hide before the rush of the fire from heaven . Only the frail butterflies , the fearless children of the sun , the capricious tyrants of the flowers , fluttered audaciously in the open , and their minute shadows hovered in swarms over the drooping blossoms , ran lightly on the withering grass , or glided on the dry and cracked earth . No voice was heard in this hot noontide but the faint murmur of the river that hurried on in swirls and eddies , its sparkling wavelets chasing each other in their joyous course to the sheltering depths , to the cool refuge of the sea . Almayer had dismissed his workmen for the midday rest , and , his little daughter on his shoulder , ran quickly across the courtyard , making for the shade of the verandah of his house . He laid the sleepy child on the seat of the big rocking-chair , on a pillow which he took out of his own hammock , and stood for a while looking down at her with tender and pensive eyes . The child , tired and hot , moved uneasily , sighed , and looked up at him with the veiled look of sleepy fatigue . He picked up from the floor a broken palm-leaf fan , and began fanning gently the flushed little face .