Lord Jim..............................................................................................................................................................1

Joseph Conrad ..........................................................................................................................................1

When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I had been bolted away with. Some

reviewers maintained that the work starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's con trol. One or two

discovered internal evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse them. They pointed out the limitations of the

narrative form. They argued that no man could have been expected to talk all that time, and other men to

After thinking it over for something like sixteen years, I am not so sure about that. Men have been known,

both in the tropics and in the temperate zone, to sit up half the night 'swapping yarns'. This, however, is but

one yarn, yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief; and in regard to the listeners' endurance,

the postulate must be accepted that the story was interesting. It is the necessary preliminary assumption. If I

hadn't believed that it was interesting I could never have begun to write it. As to the mere physical possibility

we all know that some speeches in Parliament have taken nearer six than three hours in delivery; whereas all

that part of the book which is Marlow's narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than three

hours. Besides though I have kept strictly all such insignificant details out of the tale we may presume

that there must have been refreshments on that night, a glass of mineral water of some sort to help the

But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first thought was of a short story, concerned only with the

pilgrim ship episode; nothing more. And that was a legitimate conception. After writing a few pages,

however, I became for some reason discontented and I laid them aside for a time. I didn't take them out of the

drawer till the late Mr. William Blackwood suggested I should give something again to his magazine.

It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship episode was a good startingpoint for a free and

wandering tale; that it was an event, too, which could conceivably colour the whole 'sentiment of existence' in

a simple and sensitive character. But all these pre liminary moods and stirrings of spirit were rather obscure

at the time, and they do not appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so many years.

The few pages I had laid aside were not without their weight in the choice of subject. But the whole was

rewritten deliberately. When I sat down to it I knew it would be a long book, though I didn't foresee that it

I have been asked at times whether this was not the book of mine I liked best. I am a great foe to favouritism

in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationsbip of an author to his works. As a matter of

principle I will have no favourites; but I don't go so far as to feel grieved and annoyed by the preference some

people give to my Lord Jim. I won't even say that I 'fail to understand . . .' No! But once I had occasion to be

A friend of mine returning from Italy had talked with a lady there who did not like the book. I regretted that,

of course, but what surprised me was the ground of her dlslike. 'You know,' she said, 'it is all so morbid.'

The pronouncement gave me food for an hour's anxious thought. Finally I arrived at the conclusion that,

making due allowances for the subject itself being rather foreign to women's normal sensibili ties, the lady

could not have been an Italian. I wonder whether she was European at all? In any case, no Latin temperament

would have perceived anything morbid in the acute consciousness of lost honour. Such a consciousness may

be wrong, or it may be right, or it may be condemned as artificial; and, perhaps, my Jim is not a type of wide

commonness. But I can safely assure my readers that he is not the product of coldly perverted thinking. He's

not a figure of Northern Mists either. One sunny morning, in the commonplace surroundings of an Eastern

roadstead, I saw his form pass by appealing significant under a cloud perfectly silent. Which is as it

should be. It was for me, with all the sympathy of which I was capable, to seek fit words for his meaning. He

He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight

stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed fromunder stare which made you think of a charging bull.

His voice was deep, loud, and his manner dis played a kind of dogged selfassertion which had nothing

aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else.

He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports

A waterclerk need not pass an examination in anything under the sun, but he must have Ability in the

abstract and demonstrate it practically. His work consists in racing under sail, steam, or oars against other

waterclerks for any ship about to anchor, greeting her captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card the

business card of the shipchandler and on his first visit on shore piloting him firmly but without

ostentation to a vast, cavernlike shop which is full of things that are eaten and drunk on board ship; where

you can get everything to make her seaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chainhooks for her cable to a

book of goldleaf for the carvings of her stern; and where her commander is received like a brother by a

shipchandler he has never seen before. There is a cool parlour, easychairs, bottles, cigars, writing

implements, a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months'

passage out of a seaman's heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the ship remains in harbour,

by the daily visits of the waterclerk. To the captain he is faithful like a friend and attentive like a son, with

the patience of Job, the unselfish devotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon companion. Later on the bill

is sent in. It is a beautiful and humane occupation. Therefore good waterclerks are scarce. When a

waterclerk who possesses Ability in the abstract has also the advantage of having been brought up to the

sea, he is worth to his employer a lot of money and some humouring. Jim had always good wages and as

much humouring as would have bought the fidelity of a fiend. Nevertheless, with black ingratitude he would

throw up the job suddenly and depart. To his employers the reasons he gave were obviously inadequate. They

said 'Confounded fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their criticism on his exquisite sensibility.

To the white men in the waterside business and to the captains of ships he was just Jim nothing more. He

had, of course, another name, but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced. His incognito, which had

as many holes as a sieve, was not meant to hide a personality but a fact. When the fact broke through the

incognito he would leave suddenly the seaport where he happened to be at the time and go to another

generally farther east. He kept to seaports because he was a seaman in exile from the sea, and had Ability in

the abstract, which is good for no other work but that of a waterclerk. He retreated in good order towards the

rising sun, and the fact followed him casually but inevitably. Thus in the course of years he was known

successively in Bombay, in Calcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia and in each of these halting

places was just Jim the waterclerk. Afterwards, when his keen perception of the Intolerable drove him away

for good from seaports and white men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays of the jungle village, where he

had elected to conceal his deplorable faculty, added a word to the monosyllable of his incognito. They called

Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of fine merchantships come from these abodes of

piety and peace. Jim's father possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the

righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring

Providence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock seen

through a ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees around probably remembered

the laying of the first stone. Below, the red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst of

grassplots, flowerbeds, and firtrees, with an orchard at the back, a paved stableyard to the left, and the

sloping glass of greenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family for

generations; but Jim was one of five sons, and when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for

the sea had declared itself, he was sent at once to a 'trainingship for officers of the mercantile marine.'

He learned there a little trigonometry and how to cross topgallant yards. He was generally liked. He had the

third place in navigation and pulled stroke in the first cutter. Having a steady head with an excellent

physique, he was very smart aloft. His station was in the foretop, and often from there he looked down, with

the contempt of a man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two

by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys

rose perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like a volcano. He

could see the big ships departing, the broadbeamed ferries constantly on the move, the little boats floating

far below his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the

On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget himself, and beforehand live in his

mind the sealife of light literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in

a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a line; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking

on uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages on tropical shores,

quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men

He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders. Above could be heard a great scurrying about

and shouting, and when he got through the hatchway he stood still as if confounded.

It was the dusk of a winter's day. The gale had freshened since noon, stopping the traffic on the river, and

now blew with the strength of a hurricane in fitful bursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns firing over

the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim had threatening

glimpses of the tumbling tide, the small craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the motionless buildings in

the driving mist, the broad ferryboats pitching ponderously at anchor, the vast landing stages heaving up

and down and smothered in sprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away. The air was full of flying

water. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a furious earnestness in the screech of the wind, in the brutal

tumult of earth and sky, that seemed directed at him, and made him hold his breath in awe. He stood still. It

He was jostled. 'Man the cutter!' Boys rushed past him. A coaster running in for shelter had crashed through a

schooner at anchor, and one of the ship's instructors had seen the accident. A mob of boys clambered on the

rails, clustered round the davits. 'Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr Symons saw it.' A push made him stagger

against the mizzenmast, and he caught hold of a rope. The old trainingship chained to her moorings

quivered all over, bowing gently head to wind, and with her scanty rigging humming in a deep bass the

breathless song of her youth at sea. 'Lower away!' He saw the boat, manned, drop swiftly below the rail, and

rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go; clear the falls!' He leaned over. The river alongside seethed in

frothy streaks. The cutter could be seen in the falling darkness under the spell of tide and wind, that for a

moment held her bound, and tossing abreast of the ship. A yelling voice in her reached him faintly: 'Keep

stroke, you young whelps, if you want to save anybody! Keep stroke!' And suddenly she lifted high her bow,

and, leaping with raised oars over a wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide.

Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain of the ship laid a restraining hand on

that boy, who seemed on the point of leaping overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of conscious defeat

in his eyes. The captain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck next time. This will teach you to be smart.'

A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of water, and with two exhausted men

washing about on her bottom boards. The tumult and the menace of wind and sea now appeared very

contemptible to Jim, increasing the regret of his awe at their inefficient menace. Now he knew what to think

of it. It seemed to him he cared nothing for the gale. He could affront greater perils. He would do so better

than anybody. Not a particle of fear was left. Nevertheless he brooded apart that evening while the bowman

of the cutter a boy with a face like a girl's and big grey eyes was the hero of the lower deck. Eager

questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat hook in the

water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old Symons let go the

tiller and grabbed my legs the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old chap. l don't mind a bit him

being grumpy with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of telling me to

stick to the boathook. Old Symons is awfully excitable isn't he? No not the little fair chap the

other, the big one with a beard. When we pulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh, my leg!" and turned up

his eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl. Would any of you fellows faint for a jab with a boat

hook? I wouldn't. It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat hook, which he had carried below for

the purpose, and produced a sensation. 'No, silly! It was not his flesh that held him his breeches did. Lots

Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to a heroism as spurious as its own pretence

of terror. He felt angry with the brutal tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and checking unfairly

a generous readiness for narrow escapes. Otherwise he was rather glad he had not gone into the cutter, since a

lower achievement had served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledge more than those who had done the

work. When all men flinched, then he felt sure he alone would know how to deal with the spurious

menace of wind and seas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible. He

could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect of a staggering event was that, unnoticed and

apart from the noisy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense

After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found

them strangely barren of adventure. He made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence

between sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity

of the daily task that gives bread but whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work. This reward

eluded him. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving

than the life at sea. Besides, his prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with a thorough

knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever

having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge

of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his

Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of the earnest ness in the anger of the sea. That truth is not

so often made apparent as people might think. There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales,

and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention that

indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of

accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond

control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue

and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen, known, loved,

enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary the sunshine, the memories, the future; which means

to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his

Jim, disabled by a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottish captain used to say

afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his

back, dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest. He did not care what

the end would be, and in his lucid moments overvalued his indifference. The danger, when not seen, has the

imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the

father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion. Jim saw nothing but the

disorder of his tossed cabin. He lay there battened down in the midst of a small devastation, and felt secretly

glad he had not to go on deck. But now and again an uncontrollable rush of anguish would grip him bodily,

make him gasp and writhe under the blankets, and then the unintelligent brutality of an existence liable to the

agony of such sensations filled him with a despairing desire to escape at any cost. Then fine weather returned,

His lameness, however, persisted, and when the ship arrived at an Eastern port he had to go to the hospital.

There were only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser of a gunboat, who had broken his leg

falling down a hatch way; and a kind of railway contractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by some

mysterious tropical disease, who held the doctor for an ass, and indulged in secret debaucheries of patent

medicine which his Tamil servant used to smuggle in with unwearied devo tion. They told each other the

story of their lives, played cards a little, or, yawning and in pyjamas, lounged through the day in easy chairs

without saying a word. The hospital stood on a hill, and a gentle breeze entering through the windows, always

flung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness of the sky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching

breath of the Eastern waters. There were perfumes in it, suggestions of infinite repose, the gift of endless

dreams. Jim looked every day over the thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of

palms growing on the shore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare to the East, at the roadstead dotted

by garlanded islets, lighted by festal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliant activity resembling a holiday

pageant, with the eternal serenity of the Eastern sky overhead and the smiling peace of the Eastern seas

Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to look for some opportunity to get home.

Nothing offered just then, and, while waiting, he associated naturally with the men of his calling in the port.

These were of two kinds. Some, very few and seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved an

undefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes of dreamers. They appeared to live in a crazy

maze of plans, hopes, dangers, enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their death

was the only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonable certitude of achievement. The

majority were men who, like himself, thrown there by some acci dent, had remained as officers of country

ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder conditions, severer view of duty, and the

hazard of stormy oceans. They were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They loved short

passages, good deckchairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white. They shuddered at the

thought of hard work, and led precari ously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal, always on the

verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs, halfcastes would have served the devil himself had he

made it easy enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how Soandso got charge of a boat on the

coast of China a soft thing; how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing

well in the Siamese navy; and in all they said in their actions, in their looks, in their persons could be

detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the determination to lounge safely through existence.

To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more unsubstantial than so many shadows.

But at length he found a fascination in the sight of those men, in their appearance of doing so well on such a

small allowance of danger and toil. In time, beside the original disdain there grew up slowly another

sentiment; and suddenly, giving up the idea of going home, he took a berth as chief mate of the Patna.

The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a

condemned water tank. She was owned by a Chinaman, chartered by an Arab, and commanded by a sort of

renegade New South Wales German, very anxious to curse publicly his native country, but who, apparently

on the strength of Bismarck's victorious policy, brutalised all those he was not afraid of, and wore a

'bloodandiron' air,' combined with a purple nose and a red moustache. After she had been painted outside

and whitewashed inside, eight hundred pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as she lay with

They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by faith and the hope of paradise, they

streamed in with a continuous tramp and shuffle of bare feet, without a word, a mur mur, or a look back;

and when clear of confining rails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed down

the yawning hatchways, filled the inner recesses of the ship like water filling a cistern, like water flowing

into crevices and crannies, like water rising silently even with the rim. Eight hundred men and women with

faith and hopes, with affections and memories, they had collected there, coming from north and south and

from the outskirts of the East, after treading the jungle paths, descending the rivers, coasting in praus along

the shallows, crossing in small canoes from island to island, passing through suffering, meeting strange

sights, beset by strange fears, upheld by one desire. They came from solitary huts in the wilderness, from

populous cam pongs, from villages by the sea. At the call of an idea they had left their forests, their

clearings, the protection of their rulers, their prosperity, their poverty, the surroundings of their youth and the

graves of their fathers. They came covered with dust, with sweat, with grime, with rags the strong men at

the head of family parties, the lean old men pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with

fearless eyes glancing curiously, shy little girls with tum bled long hair; the timid women muffled up and

clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of soiled headcloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious

An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly aboard, handsome and grave in his

white gown and large turban. A string of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off and

She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the anchoringground of sailingships, swung

through half a circle in the shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The Arab, standing

up aft, recited aloud the prayer of travellers by sea. He invoked the favour of the Most High upon that

journey, implored His blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the steamer pounded

in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern of the pilgrim ship a screwpile lighthouse, planted by

unbelievers on a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in derision of her errand of

She cleared the Strait, crossed the bay, continued on her way through the 'Onedegree' passage. She held on

straight for the Red Sea under a serene sky, under a sky scorching and unclouded, enveloped in a fulgor of

sunshine that killed all thought, oppressed the heart, withered all impulses of strength and energy. And under

the sinister splendour of that sky the sea, blue and profound, remained still, without a stir, without a ripple,

without a wrinkle viscous, stagnant, dead. The Patna, with a slight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous

and smooth, unrolled a black ribbon of smoke across the sky, left behind her on the water a white ribbon of

foam that vanished at once, like the phantom of a track drawn upon a lifeless sea by the phantom of a

Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutions with the progress of the pilgrimage, emerged

with a silent burst of light exactly at the same distance astern of the ship, caught up with her at noon, pouring

the concentrated fire of his rays on the pious purposes of the men, glided past on his descent, and sank

mysteri ously into the sea evening after evening, preserving the same dis tance ahead of her advancing

bows. The five whites on board lived amidships, isolated from the human cargo. The awnings covered the

deck with a white roof from stem to stern, and a faint hum, a low murmur of sad voices, alone revealed the

presence of a crowd of people upon the great blaze of the ocean. Such were the days, still, hot, heavy,

disappearing one by one into the past, as if falling into an abyss for ever open in the wake of the ship; and the

ship, lonely under a wisp of smoke, held on her steadfast way black and smouldering in a luminous

A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with the serenity of their rays, seemed to

shed upon the earth the assurance of everlasting security. The young moon recurved, and shining low in the

west, was like a slender shaving thrown up from a bar of gold, and the Arabian Sea, smooth and cool to the

eye like a sheet of ice, extended its perfect level to the perfect circle of a dark horizon. The propeller turned

without a check, as though its beat had been part of the scheme of a safe universe; and on each side of the

Patna two deep folds of water, permanent and sombre on the unwrinkled shimmer, enclosed within their

straight and diverging ridges a few white swirls of foam bursting in a low hiss, a few wavelets, a few ripples,

a few undulations that, left behind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of the ship,

subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circu lar stillness of water and sky with the black

Jim on the bridge was penetrated by the great certitude of unbounded safety and peace that could be read on

the silent aspect of nature like the certitude of fostering love upon the placid tender ness of a mother's face.

Below the roof of awnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage, trusting the power

of their unbelief and the iron shell of their fireship, the pilgrims of an exacting faith slept on mats, on

blankets, on bare planks, on every deck, in all the dark corners, wrapped in dyed cloths, muffled in soiled

rags, with their heads resting on small bundles, with their faces pressed to bent forearms: the men, the

women, the children; the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty all equal before sleep, death's

A draught of air, fanned from forward by the speed of the ship, passed steadily through the long gloom

between the high bulwarks, swept over the rows of prone bodies; a few dim flames in globe lamps were

hung short here and there under the ridgepoles, and in the blurred circles of light thrown down and

trembling slightly to the unceasing vibration of the ship appeared a chin upturned, two closed eyelids, a dark

hand with silver rings, a meagre limb draped in a torn covering, a head bent back, a naked foot, a throat bared

and stretched as if offering itself to the knife. The welltodo had made for their families shelters with heavy

boxes and dusty mats; the poor reposed side by side with all they had on earth tied up in a rag under their

heads; the lone old men slept, with drawn up legs, upon their prayercarpets, with their hands over their

ears and one elbow on each side of the face; a father, his shoulders up and his knees under his forehead,

dozed dejectedly by a boy who slept on his back with tousled hair and one arm commandingly extended; a

woman covered from head to foot, like a corpse, with a piece of white sheeting, had a naked child in the

hollow of each arm; the Arab's belongings, piled right aft, made a heavy mound of broken outlines, with a

cargolamp swung above, and a great confusion of vague forms behind: gleams of paunchy brass pots, the

footrest of a deckchair, blades of spears, the straight scabbard of an old sword leaning against a heap of

pillows, the spout of a tin coffeepot. The patent log on the taffrail periodically rang a single tinkling stroke

for every mile traversed on an errand of faith. Above the mass of sleepers a faint and patient sigh at times

floated, the exhalation of a troubled dream; and short metallic clangs bursting out suddenly in the depths of

the ship, the harsh scrape of a shovel, the violent slam of a furnacedoor, exploded brutally, as if the men

handling the mysterious things below had their breasts full of fierce anger: while the slim high hull of the

steamer went on evenly ahead, without a sway of her bare masts, cleaving continuously the great calm of the

Jim paced athwart, and his footsteps in the vast silence were loud to his own ears, as if echoed by the

watchful stars: his eyes, roaming about the line of the horizon, seemed to gaze hungrily into the unattainable,

and did not see the shadow of the coming event. The only shadow on the sea was the shadow of the black

smoke pouring heavily from the funnel its immense streamer, whose end was con stantly dissolving in the

air. Two Malays, silent and almost motion less, steered, one on each side of the wheel, whose brass rim

shone fragmentarily in the oval of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with black fingers

alternately letting go and catch ing hold of revolving spokes, appeared in the illumined part; the links of

wheelchains ground heavily in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would glance

around the unattain able horizon, would stretch himself till his joints cracked, with a leisurely twist of the

body, in the very excess of wellbeing; and, as if made audacious by the invincible aspect of the peace, he

felt he cared for nothing that could happen to him to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at

a chart pegged out with four drawingpins on a low threelegged table abaft the steeringgear case. The

sheet of paper portraying the depths of the sea presented a shiny surface under the light of a bull'seye lamp

lashed to a stanchion, a surface as level and smooth as the glimmering surface of the waters. Parallel rulers

with a pair of dividers reposed on it; the ship's position at last noon was marked with a small black cross, and

the straight pencilline drawn firmly as far as Perim figured the course of the ship the path of souls

towards the holy place, the promise of salvation, the reward of eternal life while the pencil with its sharp

end touching the Somali coast lay round and still like a naked ship's spar floating in the pool of a sheltered

dock. 'How steady she goes,' thought Jim with wonder, with something like gratitude for this high peace of

sea and sky. At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the

success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality.

They had a gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they

carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in

itself. There was nothing he could not face. He was so pleased with the idea that he smiled, keeping

perfunctorily his eyes ahead; and when he happened to glance back he saw the white streak of the wake

drawn as straight by the ship's keel upon the sea as the black line drawn by the pencil upon the chart.

The ashbuckets racketed, clanking up and down the stokehold ventilators, and this tinpot clatter warned

him the end of his watch was near. He sighed with content, with regret as well at having to part from that

serenity which fostered the adventurous freedom of his thoughts. He was a little sleepy too, and felt a

pleasurable lan guor running through every limb as though all the blood in his body had turned to warm

milk. His skipper had come up noiselessly, in pyjamas and with his sleepingjacket flung wide open. Red of

face, only half awake, the left eye partly closed, the right staring stupid and glassy, he hung his big head over

the chart and scratched his ribs sleepily. There was something obscene in the sight of his naked flesh. His

bared breast glistened soft and greasy as though he had sweated out his fat in his sleep. He pronounced a

professional remark in a voice harsh and dead, resembling the rasping sound of a woodfile on the edge of a

plank; the fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw. Jim started, and

his answer was full of deference; but the odious and fleshy figure, as though seen for the first time in a

revealing moment, fixed itself in his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurks

in the world we love: in our own hearts we trust for our salvation, in the men that surround us, in the sights

that fill our eyes, in the sounds that fill our ears, and in the air that fills our lungs.

The thin gold shaving of the moon floating slowly downwards had lost itself on the darkened surface of the

waters, and the eternity beyond the sky seemed to come down nearer to the earth, with the augmented glitter

of the stars, with the more profound sombreness in the lustre of the halftransparent dome covering the flat

disc of an opaque sea. The ship moved so smoothly that her onward motion was imperceptible to the senses

of men, as though she had been a crowded planet speeding through the dark spaces of ether behind the swarm

of suns, in the appalling and calm solitudes awaiting the breath of future creations. 'Hot is no name for it

Jim smiled without looking round. The skipper presented an unmoved breadth of back: it was the renegade's

trick to appear pointedly unaware of your existence unless it suited his purpose to turn at you with a

devouring glare before he let loose a torrent of foamy, abusive jargon that came like a gush from a sewer.

Now he emitted only a sulky grunt; the second engineer at the head of the bridgeladder, kneading with

damp palms a dirty sweatrag, unabashed, continued the tale of his complaints. The sailors had a good time

of it up here, and what was the use of them in the world he would be blowed if he could see. The poor devils

of engineers had to get the ship along anyhow, and they could very well do the rest too; by gosh they 'Shut

up!' growled the German stolidly. 'Oh yes! Shut up and when anything goes wrong you fly to us, don't

you?' went on the other. He was more than half cooked, he expected; but anyway, now, he did not mind how

much he sinned, because these last three days he had passed through a fine course of training for the place

where the bad boys go when they die b'gosh, he had besides being made jolly well deaf by the blasted

racket below. The durned, compound, surfacecondensing, rotten scrap heap rattled and banged down there

like an old deckwinch, only more so; and what made him risk his life every night and day that God made

amongst the refuse of a breakingup yard flying round at fiftyseven revolutions, was more than he could

tell. He must have been born reckless, b'gosh. He . . . 'Where did you get drink?' inquired the German, very

savage; but motionless in the light of the binnacle, like a clumsy effigy of a man cut out of a block of fat. Jim

went on smiling at the retreating horizon; his heart was full of generous impulses, and his thought was

contemplating his own superiority. 'Drink!' repeated the engineer with amiable scorn: he was hanging on with

both hands to the rail, a shadowy figure with flexible legs. 'Not from you, captain. You're far too mean,

b'gosh. You would let a good man die sooner than give him a drop of schnapps. That's what you Germans call

economy. Penny wise, pound foolish.' He became sentimental. The chief had given him a fourfinger nip

about ten o'clock 'only one, s'elp me!' good old chief; but as to getting the old fraud out of his bunk

a fiveton crane couldn't do it. Not it. Not tonight anyhow. He was sleeping sweetly like a little child, with a

bottle of prime brandy under his pillow. From the thick throat of the commander of the Patna came a low

rumble, on which the sound of the word Schwein fluttered high and low like a capricious feather in a faint stir

of air. He and the chief engineer had been cronies for a good few years serving the same jovial, crafty, old

Chinaman, with hornrimmed goggles and strings of red silk plaited into the venerable grey hairs of his

pigtail. The quayside opinion in the Patna's homeport was that these two in the way of brazen peculation

'had done together pretty well everything you can think of.' Outwardly they were badly mat ched: one

dulleyed, malevolent, and of soft fleshy curves; the other lean, all hollows, with a head long and bony like

the head of an old horse, with sunken cheeks, with sunken temples, with an indiffer ent glazed glance of

sunken eyes. He had been stranded out East somewhere in Canton, in Shanghai, or perhaps in Yokohama;

he probably did not care to remember himself the exact locality, nor yet the cause of his shipwreck. He had

been, in mercy to his youth, kicked quietly out of his ship twenty years ago or more, and it might have been

so much worse for him that the memory of the episode had in it hardly a trace of misfortune. Then, steam

navigation expanding in these seas and men of his craft being scarce at first, he had 'got on' after a sort. He

was eager to let strangers know in a dismal mumble that he was 'an old stager out here.' When he moved, a

skeleton seemed to sway loose in his clothes; his walk was mere wandering, and he was given to wander thus

around the engineroom skylight, smoking, without relish, doctored tobacco in a brass bowl at the end of a

cherrywood stem four feet long, with the imbecile gravity of a thinker evolving a system of philosophy from

the hazy glimpse of a truth. He was usually anything but free with his private store of liquor; but on that night

he had departed from his principles, so that his second, a weakheaded child of Wapping, what with the

unexpectedness of the treat and the strength of the stuff, had become very happy, cheeky, and talkative. The

fury of the New South Wales German was extreme; he puffed like an exhaustpipe, and Jim, faintly amused

by the scene, was impatient for the time when he could get below: the last ten minutes of the watch were

irritating like a gun that hangs fire; those men did not belong to the world of heroic adventure; they weren't

bad chaps though. Even the skipper himself . . . His gorge rose at the mass of panting flesh from which issued

gurgling mutters, a cloudy trickle of filthy expressions; but he was too pleasurably languid to dislike actively

this or any other thing. The quality of these men did not matter; he rubbed shoulders with them, but they

could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was differ ent.... Would the skipper go for the

engineer? ... The life was easy and he was too sure of himself too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing

his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in a spider's web.

The second engineer was coming by easy transitions to the con sideration of his finances and of his courage.

'Who's drunk? I? No, no, captain! That won't do. You ought to know by this time the chief ain't freehearted

enough to make a sparrow drunk, b'gosh. I've never been the worse for liquor in my life; the stuff ain't made

yet that would make me drunk. I could drink liquid fire against your whisky peg for peg, b'gosh, and keep as

cool as a cucumber. If I thought I was drunk I would jump overboard do away with myself, b'gosh. I

would! Straight! And I won't go off the bridge. Where do you expect me to take the air on a night like this,

eh? On deck amongst that vermin down there? Likely ain't it! And I am not afraid of anything you can do.'

The German lifted two heavy fists to heaven and shook them a little without a word.

'I don't know what fear is,' pursued the engineer, with the enthusiasm of sincere conviction. 'I am not afraid of

doing all the bloomin' work in this rotten hooker, b'gosh! And a jolly good thing for you that there are some

of us about the world that aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be you and this old thing here

with her plates like brown paper brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you you get a power of

pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty

dollars a month and find yourself. I wish to ask you respect fully respectfully, mind who wouldn't

chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . . .'

He let go the rail and made ample gestures as if demonstrating in the air the shape and extent of his valour;

his thin voice darted in prolonged squeaks upon the sea, he tiptoed back and forth for the better emphasis of

utterance, and suddenly pitched down head first as though he had been clubbed from behind. He said

'Damn!' as he tumbled; an instant of silence followed upon his screeching: Jim and the skipper staggered

forward by common accord, and catching themselves up, stood very stiff and still gazing, amazed, at the

What had happened? The wheezy thump of the engines went on. Had the earth been checked in her course?

They could not understand; and suddenly the calm sea, the sky without a cloud, appeared formidably insecure

in their immobility, as if poised on the brow of yawning destruction. The engineer rebounded verti cally full

length and collapsed again into a vague heap. This heap said 'What's that?' in the muffled accents of profound

grief. A faint noise as of thunder, of thunder infinitely remote, less than a sound, hardly more than a

vibration, passed slowly, and the ship quivered in response, as if the thunder had growled deep down in the

water. The eyes of the two Malays at the wheel glittered towards the white men, but their dark hands

remained closed on the spokes. The sharp hull driving on its way seemed to rise a few inches in suc cession

through its whole length, as though it had become pliable, and settled down again rigidly to its work of

cleaving the smooth surface of the sea. Its quivering stopped, and the faint noise of thunder ceased all at once,

as though the ship had steamed across a narrow belt of vibrating water and of humming air.

A month or so afterwards, when Jim, in answer to pointed ques tions, tried to tell honestly the truth of this

experience, he said, speaking of the ship: 'She went over whatever it was as easy as a snake crawling over a

stick.' The illustration was good: the ques tions were aiming at facts, and the official Inquiry was being held

in the police court of an Eastern port. He stood elevated in the witnessbox, with burning cheeks in a cool

lofty room: the big framework of punkahs moved gently to and fro high above his head, and from below

many eyes were looking at him out of dark faces, out of white faces, out of red faces, out of faces attentive,

spellbound, as if all these people sitting in orderly rows upon narrow benches had been enslaved by the

fascination of his voice. It was very loud, it rang startling in his own ears, it was the only sound audible in the

world, for the terribly distinct questions that extorted his answers seemed to shape themselves in anguish and

pain within his breast, came to him poignant and silent like the terrible questioning of one's conscience.

Outside the court the sun blazed within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame

that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean

shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The

light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and

they were fiercely distinct in the halflight of the big courtroom where the audience seemed composed of

staring shadows. They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain

'After you had concluded you had collided with something float ing awash, say a waterlogged wreck, you

were ordered by your captain to go forward and ascertain if there was any damage done. Did you think it

likely from the force of the blow?' asked the assessor sitting to the left. He had a thin horseshoe beard, salient

cheekbones, and with both elbows on the desk clasped his rugged hands before his face, looking at Jim with

thoughtful blue eyes; the other, a heavy, scornful man, thrown back in his seat, his left arm extended full

length, drummed delicately with his fingertips on a blottingpad: in the middle the magistrate upright in the

roomy armchair, his head inclined slightly on the shoulder, had his arms crossed on his breast and a few

'I did not,' said Jim. 'I was told to call no one and to make no noise for fear of creating a panic. I thought the

precaution reasonable. I took one of the lamps that were hung under the awnings and went forward. After

opening the forepeak hatch I heard splashing in there. I lowered then the lamp the whole drift of its lanyard,

and saw that the forepeak was more than half full of water already. I knew then there must be a big hole

'Yes,' said the big assessor, with a dreamy smile at the blotting pad; his fingers played incessantly, touching

'I did not think of danger just then. I might have been a little startled: all this happened in such a quiet way

and so very suddenly. I knew there was no other bulkhead in the ship but the collision bulkhead separating

the forepeak from the forehold. I went back to tell the captain. I came upon the second engineer getting up at

the foot of the bridgeladder: he seemed dazed, and told me he thought his left arm was broken; he had

slipped on the top step when getting down while I was forward. He exclaimed, "My God! That rotten

bulkhead'll give way in a minute, and the damned thing will go down under us like a lump of lead." He

pushed me away with his right arm and ran before me up the ladder, shouting as he climbed. His left arm

hung by his side. I followed up in time to see the captain rush at him and knock him down flat on his back.

He did not strike him again: he stood bending over him and speaking angrily but quite low. I fancy he was

asking him why the devil he didn't go and stop the engines, instead of making a row about it on deck. I heard

him say, "Get up! Run! fly!" He swore also. The engineer slid down the starboard ladder and bolted round the

sky light to the engineroom companion which was on the port side. He moaned as he ran....'

He spoke slowly; he remembered swiftly and with extreme vivid ness; he could have reproduced like an

echo the moaning of the engineer for the better information of these men who wanted facts. After his first

feeling of revolt he had come round to the view that only a meticulous precision of statement would bring out

the true horror behind the appalling face of things. The facts those men were so eager to know had been

visible, tangible, open to the senses, occupying their place in space and time, requiring for their exist ence a

fourteenhundredton steamer and twentyseven minutes by the watch; they made a whole that had features,

shades of expression, a complicated aspect that could be remembered by the eye, and something else besides,

something invisible, a directing spirit of perdition that dwelt within, like a malevolent soul in a detestable

body. He was anxious to make this clear. This had not been a common affair, everything in it had been of the

utmost importance, and fortunately he remembered everything. He wanted to go on talking for truth's sake,

perhaps for his own sake also; and while his utterance was deliberate, his mind positively flew round and

round the serried circle of facts that had surged up all about him to cut him off from the rest of his kind: it

was like a creature that, finding itself imprisoned within an enclosure of high stakes, dashes round and round,

distracted in the night, trying to find a weak spot, a crevice, a place to scale, some opening through which it

may squeeze itself and escape. This awful activity of mind made him hesitate at times in his speech....

'The captain kept on moving here and there on the bridge; he seemed calm enough, only he stumbled several

times; and once as I stood speaking to him he walked right into me as though he had been stoneblind. He

made no definite answer to what I had to tell. He mumbled to himself; all I heard of it were a few words that

sounded like "confounded steam!" and "infernal steam!" some thing about steam. I thought . . .'

He was becoming irrelevant; a question to the point cut short his speech, like a pang of pain, and he felt

extremely discouraged and weary. He was coming to that, he was coming to that and now, checked

brutally, he had to answer by yes or no. He answered truthfully by a curt 'Yes, I did'; and fair of face, big of

frame, with young, gloomy eyes, he held his shoulders upright above the box while his soul writhed within

him. He was made to answer another question so much to the point and so useless, then waited again. His

mouth was tastelessly dry, as though he had been eating dust, then salt and bitter as after a drink of

seawater. He wiped his damp forehead, passed his tongue over parched lips, felt a shiver run down his back.

The big assessor had dropped his eyelids, and drummed on without a sound, careless and mournful; the eyes

of the other above the sunburnt, clasped fingers seemed to glow with kindliness; the magistrate had swayed

forward; his pale face hovered near the flowers, and then dropping sideways over the arm of his chair, he

rested his temple in the palm of his hand. The wind of the punkahs eddied down on the heads, on the

darkfaced natives wound about in voluminous draperies, on the Europeans sitting together very hot and in

drill suits that seemed to fit them as close as their skins, and holding their round pith hats on their knees;

while gliding along the walls the court peons, buttoned tight in long white coats, flitted rapidly to and fro,

running on bare toes, red sashed, red turban on head, as noiseless as ghosts, and on the alert like so many

Jim's eyes, wandering in the intervals of his answers, rested upon a white man who sat apart from the others,

with his face worn and clouded, but with quiet eyes that glanced straight, interested and clear. Jim answered

another question and was tempted to cry out, 'What's the good of this! what's the good!' He tapped with his

foot slightly, bit his lip, and looked away over the heads. He met the eyes of the white man. The glance

directed at him was not the fascinated stare of the others. It was an act of intelligent volition. Jim between

two questions forgot himself so far as to find leisure for a thought. This fellow ran the thought looks at

me as though he could see somebody or something past my shoulder. He had come across that man before

in the street perhaps. He was positive he had never spoken to him. For days, for many days, he had spoken to

no one, but had held silent, incoherent, and endless converse with himself, like a prisoner alone in his cell or

like a wayfarer lost in a wilderness. At present he was answering questions that did not matter though they

had a purpose, but he doubted whether he would ever again speak out as long as he lived. The sound of his

own truthful statements confirmed his deliberate opinion that speech was of no use to him any longer. That

man there seemed to be aware of his hopeless difficulty. Jim looked at him, then turned away resolutely, as

And later on, many times, in distant parts of the world, Marlow showed himself willing to remember Jim, to

Perhaps it would be after dinner, on a verandah draped in motion less foliage and crowned with flowers, in

the deep dusk speckled by fiery cigarends. The elongated bulk of each canechair harboured a silent

listener. Now and then a small red glow would move abruptly, and expanding light up the fingers of a languid

hand, part of a face in profound repose, or flash a crimson gleam into a pair of pensive eyes overshadowed by

a fragment of an unruffled forehead; and with the very first word uttered Marlow's body, extended at rest in

the seat, would become very still, as though his spirit had winged its way back into the lapse of time and were

'Oh yes. I attended the inquiry,' he would say, 'and to this day I haven't left off wondering why I went. I am

willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, if you fellows will concede to me that each of us has a

familiar devil as well. I want you to own up, because I don't like to feel exceptional in any way, and I know I

have him the devil, I mean. I haven't seen him, of course, but I go upon circumstantial evidence. He is

there right enough, and, being malicious, he lets me in for that kind of thing. What kind of thing, you ask?

Why, the inquiry thing, the yellowdog thing you wouldn't think a mangy, native tyke would be allowed

to trip up people in the verandah of a magistrate's court, would you? the kind of thing that by devious,

unexpected, truly diabolical ways causes me to run up against men with soft spots, with hard spots, with

hidden plague spots, by Jove! and loosens their tongues at the sight of me for their infernal confidences; as

though, forsooth, I had no confidences to make to myself, as though God help me! I didn't have

enough confidential information about myself to har row my own soul till the end of my appointed time.

And what I have done to be thus favoured I want to know. I declare I am as full of my own concerns as the

next man, and I have as much memory as the average pilgrim in this valley, so you see I am not particularly

fit to be a receptacle of confessions. Then why? Can't tell unless it be to make time pass away after dinner.

Charley, my dear chap, your dinner was extremely good, and in consequence these men here look upon a

quiet rubber as a tumultuous occupation. They wallow in your good chairs and think to themselves, "Hang

'Talk! So be it. And it's easy enough to talk of Master Jim, after a good spread, two hundred feet above the

sealevel, with a box of decent cigars handy, on a blessed evening of freshness and starlight that would make

the best of us forget we are only on sufferance here and got to pick our way in cross lights, watching every

precious minute and every irremediable step, trusting we shall manage yet to go out decently in the end

but not so sure of it after all and with dashed little help to expect from those we touch elbows with right

and left. Of course there are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an afterdinner hour with a

cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten before the end is told

'My eyes met his for the first time at that inquiry. You must know that everybody connected in any way with

the sea was there, because the affair had been notorious for days, ever since that mysterious cable message

came from Aden to start us all cackling. I say mysteri ous, because it was so in a sense though it contained a

naked fact, about as naked and ugly as a fact can well be. The whole waterside talked of nothing else. First

thing in the morning as I was dressing in my stateroom, I would hear through the bulkhead my Parsee

Dubash jabbering about the Patna with the steward, while he drank a cup of tea, by favour, in the pantry. No

sooner on shore I would meet some acquaintance, and the first remark would be, "Did you ever hear of

anything to beat this?" and according to his kind the man would smile cynically, or look sad, or let out a

swear or two. Complete strangers would accost each other familiarly, just for the sake of easing their minds

on the subject: every confounded loafer in the town came in for a harvest of drinks over this affair: you heard

of it in the harbour office, at every shipbroker's, at your agent's, from whites, from natives, from halfcastes,

from the very boatmen squatting half naked on the stone steps as you went up by Jove! There was some

indignation, not a few jokes, and no end of discussions as to what had become of them, you know. This went

on for a couple of weeks or more, and the opinion that whatever was mysterious in this affair would turn out

to be tragic as well, began to prevail, when one fine morning, as I was standing in the shade by the steps of

the harbour office, I perceived four men walking towards me along the quay. I wondered for a while where

that queer lot had sprung from, and suddenly, I may say, I shouted to myself, "Here they are!"

'There they were, sure enough, three of them as large as life, and one much larger of girth than any living man

has a right to be, just landed with a good breakfast inside of them from an outwardbound Dale Line steamer

that had come in about an hour after sunrise. There could be no mistake; I spotted the jolly skipper of the

Patna at the first glance: the fattest man in the whole blessed tropical belt clear round that good old earth of

ours. Moreover, nine months or so before, I had come across him in Samarang. His steamer was loading in

the Roads, and he was abusing the tyrannical institutions of the German empire, and soaking himself in beer

all day long and day after day in De Jongh's backshop, till De Jongh, who charged a guilder for every bottle

without as much as the quiver of an eyelid, would beckon me aside, and, with his little leathery face all puck

ered up, declare confidentially, "Business is business, but this man, captain, he make me very sick. Tfui!"

'I was looking at him from the shade. He was hurrying on a little in advance, and the sunlight beating on him

brought out his bulk in a startling way. He made me think of a trained baby elephant walking on hindlegs.

He was extravagantly gorgeous too got up in a soiled sleepingsuit, bright green and deep orange vertical

stripes, with a pair of ragged straw slippers on his bare feet, and somebody's castoff pith hat, very dirty and

two sizes too small for him, tied up with a manilla ropeyarn on the top of his big head. You understand a

man like that hasn't the ghost of a chance when it comes to borrowing clothes. Very well. On he came in hot

haste, without a look right or left, passed within three feet of me, and in the innocence of his heart went on

pelting upstairs into the harbour office to make his deposition, or report, or whatever you like to call it.

'It appears he addressed himself in the first instance to the princi pal shippingmaster. Archie Ruthvel had

just come in, and, as his story goes, was about to begin his arduous day by giving a dressing down to his

chief clerk. Some of you might have known him an obliging little Portuguese halfcaste with a miserably

skinny neck, and always on the hop to get something from the shipmasters in the way of eatables a piece

of salt pork, a bag of biscuits, a few potatoes, or what not. One voyage, I recollect, I tipped him a live sheep

out of the remnant of my seastock: not that I wanted him to do anything for me he couldn't, you know

but because his child like belief in the sacred right to perquisites quite touched my heart. It was so strong

as to be almost beautiful. The race the two races rather and the climate . . . However, never mind. I

'Well, Ruthvel says he was giving him a severe lecture on official morality, I suppose when he heard a

kind of subdued commotion at his back, and turning his head he saw, in his own words, some thing round

and enormous, resembling a sixteenhundredweight sugarhogshead wrapped in striped flannelette,

upended in the middle of the large floor space in the office. He declares he was so taken aback that for quite

an appreciable time he did not realise the thing was alive, and sat still wondering for what purpose and by

what means that object had been transported in front of his desk. The archway from the anteroom was

crowded with punkahpul lers, sweepers, police peons, the coxswain and crew of the harbour

steamlaunch, all craning their necks and almost climbing on each other's backs. Quite a riot. By that time

the fellow had managed to tug and jerk his hat clear of his head, and advanced with slight bows at Ruthvel,

who told me the sight was so discomposing that for some time he listened, quite unable to make out what that

appar ition wanted. It spoke in a voice harsh and lugubrious but intrepid, and little by little it dawned upon

Archie that this was a develop ment of the Patna case. He says that as soon as he understood who it was

before him he felt quite unwell Archie is so sympathetic and easily upset but pulled himself together

and shouted "Stop! I can't listen to you. You must go to the Master Attendant. I can't possibly listen to you.

Captain Elliot is the man you want to see. This way, this way." He jumped up, ran round that long counter,

pulled, shoved: the other let him, surprised but obedient at first, and only at the door of the private office

some sort of animal instinct made him hang back and snort like a frightened bullock. "Look here! what's up?

Let go! Look here!" Archie flung open the door without knocking. "The master of the Patna, sir," he shouts.

"Go in, captain." He saw the old man lift his head from some writing so sharp that his nosenippers fell off,

banged the door to, and fled to his desk, where he had some papers waiting for his signature: but he says the

row that burst out in there was so awful that he couldn't collect his senses sufficiently to remember the

spelling of his own name. Archie's the most sensitive shippingmaster in the two hemispheres. He declares

he felt as though he had thrown a man to a hungry lion. No doubt the noise was great. I heard it down below,

and I have every reason to believe it was heard clear across the Esplanade as far as the bandstand. Old father

Elliot had a great stock of words and could shout and didn't mind who he shouted at either. He would

have shouted at the Viceroy himself. As he used to tell me: "I am as high as I can get; my pension is safe. I've

a few pounds laid by, and if they don't like my notions of duty I would just as soon go home as not. I am an

old man, and I have always spoken my mind. All I care for now is to see my girls married before I die." He

was a little crazy on that point. His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him amazingly,

and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their matrimonial prospects the office would read it

in his eye and tremble, because, they said, he was sure to have somebody for breakfast. However, that

morning he did not eat the renegade, but, if I may be allowed to carry on the metaphor, chewed him up very

'Thus in a very few moments I saw his monstrous bulk descend in haste and stand still on the outer steps. He

had stopped close to me for the purpose of profound meditation: his large purple cheeks quivered. He was

biting his thumb, and after a while noticed me with a sidelong vexed look. The other three chaps that had

landed with him made a little group waiting at some distance. There was a sallowfaced, mean little chap

with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a

broomstick, with drooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility. The third

was an upstanding, broadshouldered youth, with his hands in his pockets, turning his back on the other two

who appeared to be talking together earnestly. He stared across the empty Esplanade. A ramshackle gharry,

all dust and venetian blinds, pulled up short opposite the group, and the driver, throwing up his right foot over

his knee, gave himself up to the critical examination of his toes. The young chap, making no movement, not

even stirring his head, just stared into the sun shine. This was my first view of Jim. He looked as

unconcerned and unapproachable as only the young can look. There he stood, cleanlimbed, cleanfaced,

firm on his feet, as promising a boy as the sun ever shone on; and, looking at him, knowing all he knew and a

little more too, I was as angry as though I had detected him trying to get something out of me by false

pretences. He had no business to look so sound. I thought to myself well, if this sort can go wrong like

that . . . and I felt as though I could fling down my hat and dance on it from sheer mortification, as I once saw

the skipper of an Italian barque do because his duffer of a mate got into a mess with his anchors when making

a flying moor in a roadstead full of ships. I asked myself, seeing him there apparently so much at ease is

he silly? is he callous? He seemed ready to start whistling a tune. And note, I did not care a rap about the

behaviour of the other two. Their persons somehow fitted the tale that was public property, and was going to

be the subject of an official inquiry. "That old mad rogue upstairs called me a hound," said the captain of the

Patna. I can't tell whether he recognised me I rather think he did; but at any rate our glances met. He

glared I smiled; hound was the very mildest epithet that had reached me through the open window. "Did

he?" I said from some strange inability to hold my tongue. He nodded, bit his thumb again, swore qnder his

breath: then lifting his head and looking at me with sullen and passionate impudence "Bah! the Pacific is

big, my friendt. You damned Englishmen can do your worst; I know where there's plenty room for a man like

me: I am well aguaindt in Apia, in Honolulu, in . . ." He paused reflectively, while without effort I could

depict to myself the sort of people he was "aguaindt" with in those places. I won't make a secret of it that I

had been "aguaindt" with not a few of that sort myself. There are times when a man must act as though life

were equally sweet in any company. I've known such a time, and, what's more, I shan't now pretend to pull a

long face over my necessity, because a good many of that bad company from want of moral moral

what shall I say? posture, or from some other equally profound cause, were twice as instructive and

twenty times more amusing than the usual respectable thief of commerce you fellows ask to sit at your table

without any real necessity from habit, from cowardice, from goodnature, from a hundred sneaking and

' "You Englishmen are all rogues," went on my patriotic Flensborg or Stettin Australian. I really don't

recollect now what decent little port on the shores of the Baltic was defiled by being the nest of that precious

bird. "What are you to shout? Eh? You tell me? You no better than other people, and that old rogue he make

Gottam fuss with me." His thick carcass trembled on its legs that were like a pair of pillars; it trembled from

head to foot. "That's what you English always make make a tam' fuss for any little thing, because I was

not born in your tam' country. Take away my certificate. Take it. I don't want the certificate. A man like me

don't want your verfluchte certificate. I shpit on it." He spat. "I vill an Amerigan citizen begome," he cried,

fretting and fuming and shuffling his feet as if to free his ankles from some invisible and mysterious grasp

that would not let him get away from that spot. He made himself so warm that the top of his bullet head

positively smoked. Nothing mysterious prevented me from going away: curi osity is the most obvious of

sentiments, and it held me there to see the effect of a full information upon that young fellow who, hands in

pockets, and turning his back upon the sidewalk, gazed across the grassplots of the Esplanade at the yellow

portico of the Malabar Hotel with the air of a man about to go for a walk as soon as his friend is ready. That's

how he looked, and it was odious. I waited to see him overwhelmed, confounded, pierced through and

through, squirming like an impaled beetle and I was half afraid to see it too if you understand what I

mean. Nothing more awful than to watch a man who has been found out, not in a crime but in a more than

criminal weakness. The commonest sort of fortitude prevents us from becoming criminals in a legal sense; it

is from weakness unknown, but perhaps suspected, as in some parts of the world you suspect a deadly snake

in every bush from weakness that may lie hidden, watched or unwatched, prayed against or manfully

scorned, repressed or maybe ignored more than half a lifetime, not one of us is safe. We are snared into doing

things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive

survive the condemnation, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things they look small enough

sometimes too by which some of us are totally and completely undone. I watched the youngster there. I

liked his appearance; I knew his appearance; he came from the right place; he was one of us. He stood there

for all the parentage of his kind, for men and women by no means clever or amusing, but whose very

existence is based upon honest faith, and upon the instinct of courage. I don't mean military courage, or civil

courage, or any special kind of courage. I mean just that inborn ability to look temptations straight in the face

a readiness unintellectual enough, goodness knows, but with out pose a power of resistance, don't

you see, ungracious if you like, but priceless an unthinking and blessed stiffness before the outward and

inward terrors, before the might of nature and the seductive corruption of men backed by a faith

invulnerable to the strength of facts, to the contagion of example, to the solicitation of ideas. Hang ideas!

They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the backdoor of your mind, each taking a little of your substance,

each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live

'This has nothing to do with Jim, directly; only he was outwardly so typical of that good, stupid kind we like

to feel marching right and left of us in life, of the kind that is not disturbed by the vagaries of intelligence and

the perversions of of nerves, let us say. He was the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks,

leave in charge of the deck figuratively and professionally speaking. I say I would, and I ought to know.

Haven't I turned out youngsters enough in my time, for the service of the Red Rag, to the craft of the sea, to

the craft whose whole secret could be expressed in one short sentence, and yet must be driven afresh every

day into young heads till it becomes the component part of every waking thought till it is present in every

dream of their young sleep! The sea has been good to me, but when I remember all these boys that passed

through my hands, some grown up now and some drowned by this time, but all good stuff for the sea, I don't

think I have done badly by it either. Were I to go home tomorrow, I bet that before two days passed over my

head some sunburnt young chief mate would overtake me at some dock gateway or other, and a fresh deep

voice speaking above my hat would ask: "Don't you remember me, sir? Why! little Soandso. Such and

such a ship. It was my first voy age." And I would remember a bewildered little shaver, no higher than the

back of this chair, with a mother and perhaps a big sister on the quay, very quiet but too upset to wave their

handkerchiefs at the ship that glides out gently between the pierheads; or perhaps some decent middleaged

father who had come early with his boy to see him off, and stays all the morning, because he is interested in

the windlass apparently, and stays too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with no time at all to say

goodbye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl, "Hold her with the check line for a moment,

Mister Mate. There's a gentleman wants to get ashore.... Up with you, sir. Nearly got carried off to

Talcahuano, didn't you? Now's your time; easy does it.... All right. Slack away again forward there." The

tugs, smoking like the pit of per dition, get hold and churn the old river into fury; the gentleman ashore is

dusting his knees the benevolent steward has shied his umbrella after him. All very proper. He has offered

his bit of sacri fice to the sea, and now he may go home pretending he thinks nothing of it; and the little

willing victim shall be very seasick before next morning. Byandby, when he has learned all the little

mysteries and the one great secret of the craft, he shall be fit to live or die as the sea may decree; and the man

who had taken a hand in this fool game, in which the sea wins every toss, will be pleased to have his back

slapped by a heavy young hand, and to hear a cheery seapuppy voice: "Do you remember me, sir? The little

'I tell you this is good; it tells you that once in your life at least you had gone the right way to work. I have

been thus slapped, and I have winced, for the slap was heavy, and I have glowed all day long and gone to bed

feeling less lonely in the world by virtue of that hearty thump. Don't I remember the little Soandso's! I tell

you I ought to know the right kind of looks. I would have trusted the deck to that youngster on the strength of

a single glance, and gone to sleep with both eyes and, by Jove! it wouldn't have been safe. There are

depths of horror in that thought. He looked as genuine as a new sovereign, but there was some infernal alloy

in his metal. How much? The least thing the least drop of something rare and accursed; the least drop!

but he made you standing there with his don'tcarehang air he made you wonder whether perchance

'I couldn't believe it. I tell you I wanted to see him squirm for the honour of the craft. The other two

noaccount chaps spotted their captain, and began to move slowly towards us. They chatted together as they

strolled, and I did not care any more than if they had not been visible to the naked eye. They grinned at each

other might have been exchanging jokes, for all I know. I saw that with one of them it was a case of a

broken arm; and as to the long individual with grey moustaches he was the chief engineer, and in various

ways a pretty notorious personality. They were nobodies. They approached. The skipper gazed in an

inanimate way between his feet: he seemed to be swollen to an unnatural size by some awful disease, by the

mysterious action of an unknown poison. He lifted his head, saw the two before him waiting, opened his

mouth with an extraordinary, sneering contortion of his puffed face to speak to them, I suppose and

then a thought seemed to strike him. His thick, purplish lips came together without a sound, he went off in a

resolute waddle to the gharry and began to jerk at the doorhandle with such a blind brutality of impatience

that I expected to see the whole concern overturned on its side, pony and all. The driver, shaken out of his

meditation over the sole of his foot, displayed at once all the signs of intense terror, and held with both hands,

look ing round from his box at this vast carcass forcing its way into his conveyance. The little machine

shook and rocked tumultuously, and the crimson nape of that lowered neck, the size of those strain ing

thighs, the immense heaving of that dingy, striped greenand orange back, the whole burrowing effort of

that gaudy and sordid mass, troubled one's sense of probability with a droll and fearsome effect, like one of

those grotesque and distinct visions that scare and fascinate one in a fever. He disappeared. I half expected

the roof to split in two, the little box on wheels to burst open in the manner of a ripe cottonpod but it

only sank with a click of flattened springs, and suddenly one venetian blind rattled down. His shoulders

reappeared, jammed in the small opening; his head hung out, distended and tossing like a captive balloon,

perspiring, furious, spluttering. He reached for the gharrywallah with vicious flourishes of a fist as dumpy

and red as a lump of raw meat. He roared at him to be off, to go on. Where? Into the Pacific, perhaps. The

driver lashed; the pony snorted, reared once, and darted off at a gallop. Where? To Apia? To Honolulu? He

had 6000 miles of tropical belt to disport himself in, and I did not hear the precise address. A snorting pony

snatched him into "Ewigkeit" in the twinkling of an eye, and I never saw him again; and, what's more, I don't

know of anybody that ever had a glimpse of him after he departed from my knowledge sitting inside a

ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a white smother of dust. He departed, disappeared,

vanished, absconded; and absurdly enough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never

again did I come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisi cal Tamil driver afflicted by a sore

foot. The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a place for a display of his talents in it or not, the fact

remains he had flown into space like a witch on a broom stick. The little chap with his arm in a sling started

to run after the carriage, bleating, "Captain! I say, Captain! I saaay!" but after a few steps stopped

short, hung his head, and walked back slowly. At the sharp rattle of the wheels the young fellow spun round

where he stood. He made no other movement, no gesture, no sign, and remained facing in the new direction

'All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow

speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions. Next moment the halfcaste clerk, sent by Archie to

look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna, came upon the scene. He ran out eager and bareheaded,

looking right and left, and very full of his mission. It was doomed to be a failure as far as the principal person

was concerned, but he approached the others with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself

involved in a violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turned out to be

extremely anxious for a row. He wasn't going to be ordered about "not he, b'gosh." He wouldn't be

terrified with a pack of lies by a cocky halfbred little quilldriver. He was not going to be bullied by "no

object of that sort," if the story were true "ever so"! He bawled his wish, his desire, his determination to go to

bed. "If you weren't a God forsaken Portuguee," I heard him yell, "you would know that the hospital is the

right place for me." He pushed the fist of his sound arm under the other's nose; a crowd began to collect; the

halfcaste, flustered, but doing his best to appear dignified, tried to explain his intentions. I went away

'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day

before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his

arm in splints, and quite lightheaded. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping

white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the

quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port,

it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiardroom and grogshop near

the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in

one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a

supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension

as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he

came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for

him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago as

far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black andwhite eyes

glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the

immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under

lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an

irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the

evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek

safety in flight from a legion of centi pedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the

crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the

streets. The police plucked him off a garbageheap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were

carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been

very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow,

like the head of a warworn soldier with a childlike soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that

lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a

pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something

explanatory of the fam ous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable

details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men

held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't

explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find

something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming

cause, some merci ful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I

hoped for the impossible for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy

doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death

the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble

against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of

calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I

wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose

appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his

weakness made it a thing of mystery and terror like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose

youth in its day had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was,

and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is

the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism

against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few

indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man

would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was

delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and

sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had

grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna?

interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I

saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She

'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to

stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her

sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my

folly. There was no snowywinged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward;

but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads

sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid

shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am

famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go,

but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together like this . " . . . A wolfish howl

searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't

believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes

'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing,"

I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just

so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed,

pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of

pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look

at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke

while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked

facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon

breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling

on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I

shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale

in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident casell in a

disuessed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing

hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to

clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink as big as mastiffs,

with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of

galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my

shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harpstring; and

while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old

soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy

cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry "Ssh! what are they doing

now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose

meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I

answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words

that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them

brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten

minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all

awake millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies.

Wait for me! Help! Heelp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the

distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin

showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly

routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside

gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became

very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to

compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the

courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go tomorrow. These

fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim

ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's

grogshop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told.

Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boileriron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone,

but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual that

thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at

a discount nowadays. Eh! His er visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being

so inter ested in a case of jimjams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive

experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Fourandtwenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a

peep at him. Noblelooking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met medically, of course. Won't

'I had been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I

murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that

'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the

appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was

no incertitude as to facts as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was

impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man

who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully

represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them there was purely psychological the

expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions.

Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it

was beating futilely round the wellknown fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the

tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry

could not be any other thing. Its object was not the funda mental why, but the superficial how, of this affair.

'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience,

the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only

truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul

or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual

police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these

fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailingship skipper with a

reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of

Big Brierly the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man.

'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never

had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky

fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of selfmistrust. At thirtytwo he had one of the best

commands going in the Eastern trade and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was

nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him pointblank he would have confessed that in

his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of

mankind that did not command the sixteenknot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor crea tures. He had

saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters,

and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of

these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I

know meek, friendly men at that couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he

considered himself vastly my superior indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not

have ignored your inferiority in his presence but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did

not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was don't you know? I was a negligible quantity

simply because I was not the fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not

the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silvermounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of

my sea manship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my

rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind for never was

such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough;

but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other

more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his goodnatured and contemptuous pity for the

sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there

were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch

of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the

unassuming palefaced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his selfsatisfac tion presented to me and to

'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his

contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case.

The verdict must have been of unmiti gated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that

leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those

trifles that awaken ideas start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship

finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't

woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after

leaving port on his out ward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly

'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His greyheaded mate, a first rate sailor and a nice old chap with

strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story

with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the

chartroom. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He

heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the

truth, Captain Marlow I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a

man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable

trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but

on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered

himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've

a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next

command more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his

'Come in here, Mr. lones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of

dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his

watch. How ever, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and

wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A. M.

The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year,

Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had

made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirtytwo miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we

' "We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was

fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. lust then eight bells were struck: we

came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way 'Seventyone on

the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were

out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft,

and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirtytwo miles more on this

course and then you are safe. Let's see the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty

by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any dis tance is

there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing.

He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day,

followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his bootheels tap, tap on the afterdeck, then he stopped and

spoke to the dog 'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on get.' Then he calls out to me from the

' "This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing

of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor

brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log

for me; he would you believe it? he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oilfeeder where he left it

near by. The boat swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at halfpast five; byandby he

knocks off and runs up on the bridge 'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing.

I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its

' "As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I

had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffraillog marked eighteen miles

and threequarters, and four iron belaying pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to

help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his

confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I

should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he

would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard

accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written

two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as

to the passage I had been in the trade before he was out of his time and no end of hints as to my

conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father

would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was fiveandtwenty years his senior and had tasted salt

water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners it was left open for me to see he said

that he had always done his duty by them up to that moment and even now he was not betraying their

confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found meaning me, sir,

meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would

give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by

his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on

the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb

as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last

show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by

that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the

Ossa came aboard in Shanghai a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the

middle. 'Aw I am aw your new captain, Mister Mister aw Jones.' He was drowned in

scent fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer.

He mumbled something about my natural disappointment I had better know at once that his chief officer

got the promotion to the Pelion he had nothing to do with it, of course supposed the office knew best

sorry.... Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had

shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner

with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard,

and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up

he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fightingcock. 'You'll find you have a different

person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be

mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister aw Jones; and what's more, you are known

for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottlewash ers stood about listening with

their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up

with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair. ' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would

like to sit in it yourself that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together,

and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes.

Adrift on shore after ten years' service and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles

off depending on my halfpay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain

Brierly abused. He left me his nightglasses here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog

here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful

'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the FireQueen this

Jones had got charge of quite by a funny accident, too from Matherson mad Mather son they

generally called him the same who used to hang out in Haiphong, you know, before the occupation days.

' "Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his

father and did not get a word in reply neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil! nothing! Perhaps they

'The sight of that wateryeyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cotton handkerchief, the sorrowing

yelp of the dog, the squalor of that flyblown cuddy which was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of

inexpressibly mean pathos over Brierly's remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for that belief in

his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legit imate terrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who

can tell what flattering view he had induced himself to take of his own suicide?

' "Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow can you think?" asked Jones, pressing his palms

together. "Why? It beats me! Why?" He slapped his low and wrinkled forehead. "If he had been poor and old

and in debt and never a show or else mad. But he wasn't of the kind that goes mad, not he. You trust

me. What a mate don't know about his skipper isn't worth knowing. Young, healthy, well off, no cares.... I sit

here sometimes think ing, thinking, till my head fairly begins to buzz. There was some reason."

' "You may depend on it, Captain Jones," said I, "it wasn't anything that would have disturbed much either of

us two," I said; and then, as if a light had been flashed into the muddle of his brain, poor old Jones found a

last word of amazing profundity. He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: "Ay, ay! neither you nor I, sir,

'Of course the recollection of my last conversation with Brierly is tinged with the knowledge of his end that

followed so close upon it. I spoke with him for the last time during the progress of the inquiry. It was after the

first adjournment, and he came up with me in the street. He was in a state of irritation, which I noticed with

surprise, his usual behaviour when he condescended to converse being perfectly cool, with a trace of amused

tolerance, as if the existence of his interlocutor had been a rather good joke. "They caught me for that inquiry,

you see," he began, and for a while enlarged complainingly upon the inconveniences of daily attend ance in

court. "And goodness knows how long it will last. Three days, I suppose." I heard him out in silence; in my

then opinion it was a way as good as another of putting on side. "What's the use of it? It is the stupidest

setout you can imagine," he pursued hotly. I remarked that there was no option. He interrupted me with a

sort of pentup violence. "I feel like a fool all the time." I looked up at him. This was going very far for

Brierly when talking of Brierly. He stopped short, and seizing the lapel of my coat, gave it a slight tug.

"Why are we tormenting that young chap?" he asked. This question chimed in so well to the tolling of a

certain thought of mine that, with the image of the absconding renegade in my eye, I answered at once,

"Hanged if I know, unless it be that he lets you." I was astonished to see him fall into line, so to speak, with

that utterance, which ought to have been tolerably cryptic. He said angrily, "Why, yes. Can't he see that

wretched skipper of his has cleared out? What does he expect to happen? Nothing can save him. He's done

for." We walked on in silence a few steps. "Why eat all that dirt?" he exclaimed, with an oriental energy of

expression about the only sort of energy you can find a trace of east of the fiftieth meridian. I wondered

greatly at the direction of his thoughts, but now I strongly suspect it was strictly in character: at bottom poor

Brierly must have been thinking of himself. I pointed out to him that the skipper of the Patna was known to

have feathered his nest pretty well, and could procure almost anywhere the means of getting away. With Jim

it was otherwise: the Government was keeping him in the Sailors' Home for the time being, and probably he

hadn't a penny in his pocket to bless himself with. It costs some money to run away. "Does it? Not always,"

he said, with a bitter laugh, and to some further remark of mine "Well, then, let him creep twenty feet

underground and stay there! By heavens! I would." I don't know why his tone provoked me, and I said,

"There is a kind of courage in facing it out as he does, knowing very well that if he went away nobody would

trouble to run after hmm." "Courage be hanged!" growled Brierly. "That sort of courage is of no use to keep a

man straight, and I don't care a snap for such courage. If you were to say it was a kind of cowardice now

of softness. I tell you what, I will put up two hundred rupees if you put up another hundred and undertake to

make the beggar clear out early tomorrow morning. The fellow's a gentleman if he ain't fit to be touched

he will understand. He must! This infernal publicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded

natives, serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn a man to ashes with

shame. This is abominable. Why, Marlow, don't you think, don't you feel, that this is abomin able; don't you

now come as a seaman? If he went away all this would stop at once." Brierly said these words with a

most unusual animation, and made as if to reach after his pocketbook. I restrained him, and declared coldly

that the cowardice of these four men did not seem to me a matter of such great importance. "And you call

yourself a seaman, I suppose," he pronounced angrily. I said that's what I called myself, and I hoped I was

too. He heard me out, and made a gesture with his big arm that seemed to deprive me of my individuality, to

push me away into the crowd. "The worst of it," he said, "is that all you fellows have no sense of dignity; you

'We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbour office, in sight of the very

spot from which the immense captain of the Patna had vanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a

hurricane. I smiled. Brierly went on: "This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us some anointed

scoun drels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or we become no better than so

many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Do you understand? trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap

for all the pilgrims that ever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved like this to a full

cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of men, and the only thing that holds us together is

just the name for that kind of decency. Such an affair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near

through his whole sealife without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when the call comes . . . Aha! . . . If

'He broke off, and in a changed tone, "I'll give you two hundred rupees now, Marlow, and you just talk to that

chap. Confound him! I wish he had never come out here. Fact is, I rather think some of my people know his.

The old man's a parson, and I remember now I met him once when staying with my cousin in Essex last year.

If I am not mistaken, the old chap seemed rather to fancy his sailor son. Horrible. I can't do it myself but

'Thus, apropos of Jim, I had a glimpse of the real Brierly a few days before he committed his reality and his

sham together to the keeping of the sea. Of course I declined to meddle. The tone of this last "but you" (poor

Brierly couldn't help it), that seemed to imply I was no more noticeable than an insect, caused me to look at

the proposal with indignation, and on account of that provocation, or for some other reason, I became positive

in my mind that the inquiry was a severe punishment to that Jim, and that his facing it practi cally of his

own free will was a redeeming feature in his abominable case. I hadn't been so sure of it before. Brierly

went off in a huff. At the time his state of mind was more of a mystery to me than it is now.

'Next day, coming into court late, I sat by myself. Of course I could not forget the conversation I had with

Brierly, and now I had them both under my eyes. The demeanour of one suggested gloomy impudence and of

the other a contemptuous boredom; yet one atti tude might not have been truer than the other, and I was

aware that one was not true. Brierly was not bored he was exasperated; and if so, then Jim might not have

been impudent. According to my theory he was not. I imagined he was hopeless. Then it was that our glances

met. They met, and the look he gave me was discouraging of any intention I might have had to speak to him.

Upon either hypothesis insolence or despair I felt I could be of no use to him. This was the second day

of the proceedings. Very soon after that exchange of glances the inquiry was adjourned again to the next day.

The white men began to troop out at once. Jim had been told to stand down some time before, and was able to

leave amongst the first. I saw his broad shoulders and his head outlined in the light of the door, and while I

made my way slowly out talking with some one some stranger who had addressed me casually I could

see him from within the courtroom resting both elbows on the balus uade of the verandah and turning his

back on the small stream of people trickling down the few steps. There was a murmur of voices and a shuffle

'The next case was that of assault and battery committed upon a moneylender, I believe; and the defendant

a venerable villager with a straight white beard sat on a mat just outside the door with his sons,

daughters, sonsinlaw, their wives, and, I should think, half the population of his village besides, squatting

or standing around him. A slim dark woman, with part of her back and one black shoulder bared, and with a

thin gold ring in her nose, sud denly began to talk in a highpitched, shrewish tone. The man with me

instinctively looked up at her. We were then just through the door, passing behind Jim's burly back.

'Whether those villagers had brought the yellow dog with them, I don't know. Anyhow, a dog was there,

weaving himself in and out amongst people's legs in that mute stealthy way native dogs have, and my

companion stumbled over him. The dog leaped away without a sound; the man, raising his voice a little, said

with a slow laugh, "Look at that wretched cur," and directly afterwards we became separated by a lot of

people pushing in. I stood back for a moment against the wall while the stranger managed to get down the

steps and disappeared. I saw Jim spin round. He made a step forward and barred my way. We were alone; he

glared at me with an air of stubborn resolution. I became aware I was being held up, so to speak, as if in a

wood. The verandah was empty by then, the noise and movement in court had ceased: a great silence fell

upon the building, in which, somewhere far within, an oriental voice began to whine abjectly. The dog, in the

very act of trying to sneak in at the door, sat down hurriedly to hunt for fleas.

' "Did you speak to me?" asked Jim very low, and bending for ward, not so much towards me but at me, if

you know what I mean. I said "No" at once. Something in the sound of that quiet tone of his warned me to be

on my defence. I watched him. It was very much like a meeting in a wood, only more uncertain in its issue,

since he could possibly want neither my money nor my life nothing that I could simply give up or defend

with a clear conscience. "You say you didn't," he said, very sombre. "But I heard." "Some mis take," I

protested, utterly at a loss, and never taking my eyes off him. To watch his face was like watching a

darkening sky before a clap of thunder, shade upon shade imperceptibly coming on, the doom growing

' "As far as I know, I haven't opened my lips in your hearing," I affirmed with perfect truth. I was getting a

little angry, too, at the absurdity of this encounter. It strikes me now I have never in my life been so near a

beating I mean it literally; a beating with fists. I suppose I had some hazy prescience of that eventuality

being in the air. Not that he was actively threatening me. On the contrary, he was strangely passive don't

you know? but he was lowering, and, though not exceptionally big, he looked generally fit to demol ish a

wall. The most reassuring symptom I noticed was a kind of slow and ponderous hesitation, which I took as a

tribute to the evident sincerity of my manner and of my tone. We faced each other. In the court the assault

case was proceeding. I caught the words: "Well buffalo stick in the greatness of my fear...."

' "What did you mean by staring at me all the morning?" said Jim at last. He looked up and looked down

again. "Did you expect us all to sit with downcast eyes out of regard for your susceptibili ties?" I retorted

sharply. I was not going to submit meekly to any of his nonsense. He raised his eyes again, and this time

continued to look me straight in the face. "No. That's all right," he pro nounced with an air of deliberating

with himself upon the truth of this statement "that's all right. I am going through with that. Only" and

there he spoke a little faster "I won't let any man call me names outside this court. There was a fellow with

you. You spoke to him oh yes I know; 'tis all very fine. You spoke to him, but you meant me to

'I assured him he was under some extraordinary delusion. I had no conception how it came about. "You

thought I would be afraid to resent this," he said, with just a faint tinge of bitterness. I was interested enough

to discern the slightest shades of expression, but I was not in the least enlightened; yet I don't know what in

these words, or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced me suddenly to make all possible

allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part;

he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was

anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and

abominable confidence. The funniest part was, that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order

I was conscious of a certain trepidation as to the possibility nay, likelihood of this encounter ending in

some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be explained, and would make me ridicu lous. I did not

hanker after a three days' celebrity as the man who got a black eye or something of the sort from the mate of

the Patna. He, in all probability, did not care what he did, or at any rate would be fully justified in his own

eyes. It took no magician to see he was amazingly angry about something, for all his quiet and even torpid

demeanour. I don't deny I was extremely desirous to pacify him at all costs, had I only known what to do. But

I didn't know, as you may well imagine. It was a blackness without a single gleam. We confronted each other

in silence. He hung fire for about fifteen seconds, then made a step nearer, and I made ready to ward off a

blow, though I don't think I moved a muscle. "If you were as big as two men and as strong as six," he said

very softly, "I would tell you what I think of you. You . . ." "Stop!" I exclaimed. This checked him for a

second. "Before you tell me what you think of me," I went on quickly, "will you kindly tell me what it is I've

said or done?" During the pause that ensued he surveyed me with indignation, while I made supernatural

efforts of memory, in which I was hindered by the oriental voice within the courtroom expostul ating with

impassioned volubility against a charge of falsehood. Then we spoke almost together. "I will soon show you I

am not," he said, in a tone suggestive of a crisis. "I declare I don't know," I protested earnestly at the same

time. He tried to crush me by the scorn of his glance. "Now that you see I am not afraid you try to crawl out

'He had been scanning my features as though looking for a place where he would plant his fist. "I will allow

no man," . . . he mum bled threateningly. It was, indeed, a hideous mistake; he had given himself away

utterly. I can't give you an idea how shocked I was. I suppose he saw some reflection of my feelings in my

face, because his expression changed just a little. "Good God!" I stammered, "you don't think I . . ." "But I am

sure I've heard," he persisted, raising his voice for the first time since the beginning of this deplor able

scene. Then with a shade of disdain he added, "It wasn't you, then? Very well; I'll find the other." "Don't be a

fool," I cried in exasperation; "it wasn't that at all." "I've heard," he said again with an unshaken and sombre

'There may be those who could have laughed at his pertinacity; I didn't. Oh, I didn't! There had never been a

man so mercilessly shown up by his own natural impulse. A single word had stripped him of his discretion

of that discretion which is more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to the

decorum of our body. "Don't be a fool," I repeated. "But the other man said it, you don't deny that?" he

pronounced distinctly, and looking in my face without flinching. "No, I don't deny," said I, returning his gaze.

At last his eyes followed downwards the direction of my pointing finger. He appeared at first

uncomprehending, then con founded, and at last amazed and scared as though a dog had been a monster and

'He contemplated the wretched animal, that moved no more than an effigy: it sat with ears pricked and its

sharp muzzle pointed into the doorway, and suddenly snapped at a fly like a piece of mechanism.

'I looked at him. The red of his fair sunburnt complexion deep ened suddenly under the down of his cheeks,

invaded his forehead, spread to the roots of his curly hair. His ears became intensely crimson, and even the

clear blue of his eyes was darkened many shades by the rush of blood to his head. His lips pouted a little,

trembling as though he had been on the point of bursting into tears. I perceived he was incapable of

pronouncing a word from the excess of his humiliation. From disappointment too who knows? Perhaps he

looked forward to that hammering he was going to give me for rehabilitation, for appeasement? Who can tell

what relief he expected from this chance of a row? He was naive enough to expect anything; but he had given

himself away for nothing in this case. He had been frank with himself let alone with me in the wild

hope of arriving in that way at some effective refutation, and the stars had been ironically unpropitious. He

made an inarticulate noise in his throat like a man imperfectly stunned by a blow on the head. It was pitiful.

'I didn't catch up again with him till well outside the gate. I had even to trot a bit at the last, but when, out of

breath at his elbow, I taxed him with running away, he said, "Never!" and at once turned at bay. I explained I

never meant to say he was running away from me. "From no man from not a single man on earth," he

affirmed with a stubborn mien. I forbore to point out the one obvi ous exception which would hold good for

the bravest of us; I thought he would find out by himself very soon. He looked at me patiently while I was

thinking of something to say, but I could find nothing on the spur of the moment, and he began to walk on. I

kept up, and, anxious not to lose him, I said hurriedly that I couldn't think of leaving him under a false

impression of my of my I stammered. The stupidity of the phrase appalled me while I was trying to

finish it, but the power of sentences has nothing to do with their sense or the logic of their construction. My

idiotic mumble seemed to please him. He cut it short by saying, with courteous placidity that argued an

immense power of selfcontrol or else a wonderful elasticity of spirits "Altogether my mistake." I mar

velled greatly at this expression: he might have been alluding to some trifling occurrence. Hadn't he

understood its deplorable meaning? "You may well forgive me," he continued, and went on a little moodily,

"All these staring people in court seemed such fools that that it might have been as I supposed."

'This opened suddenly a new view of him to my wonder. I looked at him curiously and met his unabashed

and impenetrable eyes. "I can't put up with this kind of thing," he said, very simply, "and I don't mean to. In

'I don't pretend I understood him. The views he let me have of himself were like those glimpses through the

shifting rents in a thick fog bits of vivid and vanishing detail, giving no connected idea of the general

aspect of a country. They fed one's curiosity without satisfying it; they were no good for purposes of

orientation. Upon the whole he was misleading. That's how I summed him up to myself after he left me late

in the evening. I had been staying at the Malabar House for a few days, and on my pressing invitation he

'An outwardbound mailboat had come in that afternoon, and the big diningroom of the hotel was more

than half full of people with ahundredpoundsroundtheworld tickets in their pockets. There were

married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the midst of their travels; there were

small parties and large parties, and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all thinking,

conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home; and just as intelligently receptive of new

impressions as their trunks upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through this and that

place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish this distinction of their per sons, and preserve the

gummed tickets on their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of their

improv ing enterprise. The darkfaced servants tripped without noise over the vast and polished floor; now

and then a girl's laugh would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind, or, in a sudden hush of crockery, a

few words in an affected drawl from some wit embroid ering for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last

funny story of shipboard scandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniously through

the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips, woodenfaced and bizarre, like two sumptu ous

scarecrows. A little wine opened Jim's heart and loosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too, I noticed.

He seemed to have buried somewhere the opening episode of our acquaintance. It was like a thing of which

there would be no more question in this world. And all the time I had before me these blue, boyish eyes

looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white

line under the roots of cluster ing fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all my sympathies: this

frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked

soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing that might have been the outcome of

manly selfcontrol, of impudence, of callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception.

Who can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person, a football match, last year's

weather. My mind floated in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being

offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him. He darted his arm

across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fLxedly. I was startled. "It must

be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is hell," he burst out in a

'This movement and these words caused two wellgroomed male globetrotters at a neighbouring table to

look up in alarm from their iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee and cigars.

'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of stiffleaved plants separated sets of cosy

wicker chairs; and between the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the sheen from

the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights

of ships winked afar like setting stars, and the hills across the road stead resembled rounded black masses of

' "I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did that's all very well for him. I couldn't, and I wouldn't.

'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair; I wanted to know and to this day I

don't know, I can only guess. He would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some

conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within him at every turn. He began by

saying, in the tone in which a man would admit his inability to jump a twentyfoot wall, that he could never

go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had said, "that the old parson in Essex

'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the tone of his references to "my Dad" was

calculated to give me a notion that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been

worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world. This, though never stated, was

implied with an anxiety that there should be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming,

but added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the story. "He has seen it all in the home

papers by this time," said Jim. "I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes at this till I

heard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't understand." Then I looked up. He was smoking

reflectively, and after a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once a desire that I

should not confound him with his partners in in crime, let us call it. He was not one of them; he was

altogether of another sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him

of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn't know how much of it he

believed himself. I didn't know what he was playing up to if he was playing up to anything at all and I

suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to

escape from the grim shadow of selfknowledge. I made no sound all the time he was wondering what he had

'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these proceedings ordained by law. He would not

know where to turn, he confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Cer tificate gone, career

broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps

get something; but it meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He saw nothing for it but

ship before the mast could get perhaps a quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a

quartermaster.... "Do you think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and going to the stone

balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he was back, towering above my chair with his youthful

face clouded yet by the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not doubt his ability

to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him.

I had not even laughed at him when here he began to mumble "that mistake, you know made a

confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to

laugh at. He sat down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the last drop. "That does

not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted," he declared distinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with

quiet decision. "Do you know what you would have done? Do you? And you don't think yourself" . . . he

'And with this upon my honour! he looked up at me inquisi tively. It was a question it appears a

bondfide question! However, he didn't wait for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes

straight before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the night. "It is all in being ready. I

wasn't; not not then. I don't want to excuse myself; but I would like to explain I would like somebody

'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save

from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of

the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited

power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly enough. On board

that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the

sea, they had been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some story, the others had

been silent, and at first it had been accepted. You don't cross examine poor castaways you had the good luck

to save, if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards, with time to think it over, it

might have struck the officers of the Avon dale that there was "something fishy" in the affair; but of course

they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the captain, the mate, and two engineers of

the steamer Patna sunk at sea, and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about the

nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From the way he narrated that part I was at

liberty to infer he was partly stunned by the discovery he had made the discovery about himself and no

doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its

tremendous magnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure; and

therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced when he got ashore and heard the

unforeseen conclusion of the tale in which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and it

'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder? But no doubt he managed to get a

fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six

or seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little. Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in

addition to his other shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the verandah, buried in

a long chair, and coming out of his place of sepulture only at mealtimes or late at night, when he wandered

on the quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and silent, like a ghost without a home

to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very

sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have been sure to blurt out something I had

made up my mind not to put up with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too too . . . I had no

heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And

yet I swear to you I felt it bulge under my hand. " "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will stand

sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly

several times. You could not conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped

his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last

'He was silent again with a still, faraway look of fierce yearning after that missed distinction, with his

nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you think I was

either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar!

He would give himself away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted into the night all his

inner being carried on, projected headlong into the fanciful realm of recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no

leisure to regret what he had lost, he was so wholly and naturally concerned for what he had failed to obtain.

He was very far away from me who watched him across three feet of space. With every instant he was

penetrating deeper into the impossible world of romantic achievements. He got to the heart of it at last! A

strange look of beatitude overspread his features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burning between

us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart to the very heart. It was an ecstatic smile that

your faces or mine either will never wear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If you had

'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled, suffering face, as

though he had tum bled down from a star. Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He

shuddered profoundly, as if a cold fingertip had touched his heart. Last of all he sighed.

'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradic tory indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you

didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless

dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not

even seen it. Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holding up my lamp

along the angleiron in the lower deck when a flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate,

all of itself." He passed his hand over his forehead. "The thing stirred and jumped off like something alive

while I was looking at it. " "That made you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do you suppose," he said,

"that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty people at my back, all fast asleep in that

fore'tweendeck alone and more of them aft; more on the deck sleeping knowing nothing about it

three times as many as there were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected to see the iron open

out as I stood there and the rush of water going over them as they lay.... What could I do what?"

'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the cavernous place, with the light of the

globelamp falling on a small portion of the bulkhead that had the weight of the ocean on the other side, and

the breathing of unconscious sleepers in his ears. I can see him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust,

overbur dened by the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was the second time he had been

sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me

that his first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people leap out of sleep into terror; but such

an overwhelming sense of his helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound. This is, I

suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise

expression he used in reference to this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deck through the

number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against him acciden tally, and he remembered that

the light touch of the canvas on his face nearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder.

'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the foredeck looking at another sleeping

crowd. The engines having been stopped by that time, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made the

'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in sitting posture, listen sleepily for a

moment, sink down again into the billowy confusion of boxes, steamwinches, venti lators. He was aware

all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of that strange noise. The ship of iron, the men

with white faces, all the sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious multitude was

strange alike, and as trust worthy as it would for ever remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the

'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in his place, that the ship would go

down at any moment; the bulging, rusteaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all at

once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming flood. He stood still looking at these

recumbent bodies, a doomed man aware of his fate, surveying the silent com pany of the dead. They were

dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them perhaps, but there was no time. No

time! No time! It did not seem worth while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he could shout three

words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a sea whitened awfully by the desperate struggles of

human beings, clamorous with the distress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined what would

happen perfectly; he went through it all motionless by the hatchway with the lamp in his hand he went

through it to the very last harrowing detail. I think he went through it again while he was telling me these

' "I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all life out of my

limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many seconds . . ."

Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once

'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only dis tinct thought formed, vanishing, and

reforming in his brain, was: eight hundred people and seven boats; eight hundred people and seven boats.

' "Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly. "Eight hundred people and seven

boats and no time! Just think of it." He leaned towards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his

stare. "Do you think I was afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very fierce and low. He brought down his

open hand with a bang that made the coffeecups dance. "I am ready to swear I was not I was not.... By

God no!" He hitched himself upright and crossed his arms; his chin fell on his breast.

'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high windows. There was a burst of voices, and

several men came out in high goodhumour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of

the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth step ping softly on long legs was being chaffed by a strutting

and rubi cund globetrotter about his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really do you think I've been done to

that extent?" he inquired, very earnest and deliberate. The band moved away, dropping into chairs as they

went; matches flared, illuminating for a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze of

white shirtfronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the ardour of feasting sounded to me absurd

' "Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of my arm," began Jim again.

'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleeping through the night, and only the

reliefs of quartermasters and lookout men being called. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of

the nearest lascar, but he didn't. Something held his arms down along his sides. He was not afraid oh no!

only he just couldn't that's all. He was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tell you what, he was afraid of

the emergency. His confounded imagination had evoked for him all the horrors of panic, the tram pling

rush, the pitiful screams, boats swamped all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever heard

of. He might have been resigned to die, but I suspect he wanted to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort

of peaceful trance. A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose

souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire

of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has

not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person this extreme

weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces

know it well the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the

'How long he stood stockstill by the hatch expecting every moment to feel the ship dip under his feet and the

rush of water take him at the back and toss him like a chip, I cannot say. Not very long two minutes

perhaps. A couple of men he could not make out began to converse drowsily, and also, he could not tell

where, he detected a curious noise of shuffling feet. Above these faint sounds there was that awful stillness

preceding a catastrophe, that trying silence of the moment before the crash; then it came into his head that

perhaps he would have time to rush along and cut all the lanyards of the gripes, so that the boats would float

'The Patna had a long bridge, and all the boats were up there, four on one side and three on the other the

smallest of them on the port side and nearly abreast of the steeringgear. He assured me, with evident anxiety

to be believed, that he had been most careful to keep them ready for instant service. He knew his duty. I dare

say he was a good enough mate as far as that went. "I always believed in being prepared for the worst," he

commented, staring anxiously in my face. I nodded my approval of the sound principle, averting my eyes

'He started unsteadily to run. He had to step over legs, avoid stumbling against the heads. Suddenly some one

caught hold of his coat from below, and a distressed voice spoke under his elbow. The light of the lamp he

carried in his right hand fell upon an upturned dark face whose eyes entreated him together with the voice. He

had picked up enough of the language to understand the word water repeated several times in a tone of

insistence, of prayer, almost of despair. He gave a jerk to get away, and felt an arm embrace his leg.

' "The beggar clung to me like a drowning man," he said impressively. "Water, water! What water did he

mean? What did he know? As calmly as I could I ordered him to let go. He was stopping me, time was

pressing, other men began to stir; I wanted time time to cut the boats adrift. He got hold of my hand now,

and I felt that he would begin to shout. It flashed upon me it was enough to start a panic, and I hauled off with

my free arm and slung the lamp in his face. The glass jingled, the light went out, but the blow made him let

go, and I ran off I wanted to get at the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me from behind.

I turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I had half throttled him before I made out what

he wanted. He wanted some water water to drink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and he had

with him a young boy I had noticed several times. His child was sick and thirsty. He had caught sight of

me as I passed by, and was begging for a little water. That's all. We were under the bridge, in the dark. He

kept on snatching at my wrists; there was no getting rid of him. I dashed into my berth, grabbed my

waterbottle, and thrust it into his hands. He vanished. I didn't find out till then how much I was in want of a

'I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was some thing peculiar in all this. The fingers of the

' "These things happen only once to a man and . . . Ah! well! When I got on the bridge at last the beggars

were getting one of the boats off the chocks. A boat! I was running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on

my shoulder, just missing my head. It didn't stop me, and the chief engineer they had got him out of his

bunk by then raised the boatstretcher again. Somehow I had no mind to be surprised at anything. All this

seemed natural and awful and awful. I dodged that miserable maniac, lifted him off the deck as though

he had been a little child, and he started whispering in my arms: 'Don't! don't! I thought you were one of them

niggers.' I flung him away, he skidded along the bridge and knocked the legs from under the little chap the

second. The skipper, busy about the boat, looked round and came at me head down, growling like a wild

beast. I flinched no more than a stone. I was as solid standing there as this," he tapped lightly with his

knuckles the wall beside his chair. "It was as though I had heard it all, seen it all, gone through it all twenty

times already. I wasn't afraid of them. I drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering

' "That's what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough. 'Aren't you going to do something?' I

' "I don't think I understood then what he meant. The other two had picked themselves up by that time, and

they rushed together to the boat. They tramped, they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship,

each other cursed me. All in mutters. I didn't move, I didn't speak. I watched the slant of the ship. She was

as still as if landed on the blocks in a dry dock only she was like this," He held up his hand, palm under,

the tips of the fingers inclined downwards. "Like this," he repeated. "I could see the line of the horizon before

me, as clear as a bell, above her stemhead; I could see the water far off there black and sparkling, and still

still as apond, deadly still, more still than ever sea was before more still than I could bear to look at.

Have you watched a ship floating head down, checked in sinking by a sheet of old iron too rotten to stand

being shored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up? I thought of that I thought of every mortal thing; but can

you shore up a bulkhead in five minutes or in fifty for that matter? Where was I going to get men that

would go down below? And the timber the timber! Would you have had the courage to swing the maul for

the first blow if you had seen that bulkhead? Don't say you would: you had not seen it; nobody would. Hang

it to do a thing like that you must believe there is a chance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a

chance; and you would not have believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me a cur for standing

there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell nobody can tell. One must have time to turn

round. What would you have me do? Where was the kindness in making crazy with fright all those people I

could not save singlehanded that nothing could save? Look here! As true as I sit on this chair before you

'He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my face, as though in his anguish he

were watchful of the effect. He was not speaking to me, he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with an

invisible personality, an antagonistic and insepar able partner of his existence another possessor of his

soul. These were issues beyond the competency of a court of inquiry: it was a subtle and momentous quarrel

as to the true essence of life, and did not want a judge. He wanted an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the

risk I ran of being circumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite part in a dispute

impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all the phantoms in possession to the reputable that had its

claims and to the disreputable that had its exigencies. I can't explain to you who haven't seen him and who

hear his words only at second hand the mixed nature of my feelings. It seemed to me I was being made to

comprehend the Inconceiv able and I know of nothing to compare with the discomfort of such a

sensation. I was made to look at the convention that lurks in all truth and on the essential sincerity of

falsehood. He appealed to all sides at once to the side turned perpetually to the light of day, and to that

side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon, exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a

fearful ashy light falling at times on the edge. He swayed me. I own to it, I own up. The occasion was

obscure, insignificant what you will: a lost youngster, one in a million but then he was one of us; an

incident as completely devoid of importance as the flooding of an antheap, and yet the mystery of his

attitude got hold of me as though he had been an individual in the forefront of his kind, as if the obscure truth

involved were momentous enough to affect mankind's con ception of itself. .. . '

Marlow paused to put new life into his expiring cheroot, seemed to forget all about the story, and abruptly

'My fault of course. One has no business really to get interested. It's a weakness of mine. His was of another

kind. My weakness consists in not having a discriminating eye for the incidental for the externals no

eye for the hod of the ragpicker or the fine linen of the next man. Next man that's it. I have met so many

men,' he pursued, with momentary sadness 'met them too with a certain certain impact, let us say;

like this fellow, for instance and in each case all I could see was merely the human being. A confounded

democratic quality of vision which may be better than total blind ness, but has been of no advantage to me, I

can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But I never could get up any enthusiasm

about these things. Oh! it's a failing; it's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too indolent for

He paused again to wait for an encouraging remark, perhaps, but nobody spoke; only the host, as if

'Who? I?' said Marlow in a low voice. 'Oh no! But he was; and try as I may for the success of this yarn, I am

missing innumerable shades they were so fine, so difficult to render in colourless words. Because he

complicated matters by being so simple, too the sim plest poor devil! . . . By Jove! he was amazing.

There he sat telling me that just as I saw him before my eyes he wouldn't be afraid to face anything and

believing in it too. I tell you it was fabulously innocent and it was enormous, enormous! I watched him

covertly, just as though I had suspected him of an intention to take a jolly good rise out of me. He was

confident that, on the square, "on the square, mind!" there was nothing he couldn't meet. Ever since he had

been "so high" "quite a little chap," he had been preparing himself for all the difficulties that can beset one

on land and water. He confessed proudly to this kind of foresight. He had been elabor ating dangers and

defences, expecting the worst, rehearsing his best. He must have led a most exalted existence. Can ypu fancy

it? A succession of adventures, so much glory, such a victorious progress! and the deep sense of his sagacity

crowning every day of his inner life. He forgot himself; his eyes shone; and with every word my heart,

searched by the light of his absurdity, was growing heavier in my breast. I had no mind to laugh, and lest I

' "It is always the unexpected that happens," I said in a propitiat ory tone. My obtuseness provoked him into

a contemptuous "Psh aw!" I suppose he meant that the unexpected couldn't touch him; nothing less than the

unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He had been taken unawares and he

whis pered to himself a malediction upon the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men.

Everything had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of highminded resignation which prevented

him lifting as much as his little finger, while these others wko had a very clear perception of the actual

necessity were tum bling against each other and sweating desperately over that boat business. Something

had gone wrong there at the last moment. It appears that in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious

way to get the sliding bolt of the foremost boatchock jammed tight, and forthwith had gone out of the

remnants of their minds over the deadly nature of that accident. It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce

industry of these beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated quietly in the silence of a world asleep,

fighting against time for the freeing of that boat, grovelling on allfours, standing up in despair, tugging,

pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill, ready to weep, and only kept from flying at each

other's throats by the fear of death that stood silent behind them like an inflexible and coldeyed taskmaster.

Oh yes! It must have been a pretty sight. He saw it all, he could talk about it with scorn and bitterness; he had

a minute knowledge of it by means of some sixth sense, I conclude, because he swore to me he had remained

apart without a glance at them and at the boat without one single glance. And I believe him. I should think

he was too busy watching the threatening slant of the ship, the suspended menace discovered in the midst of

the most perfect security fascinated by the sword hanging by a hair over his imaginative head.

'Nothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to himself without hindrance the sudden

swing upwards of the dark skyline, the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise, the

brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the starlight closing over his head for ever like

the vault of a tomb the revolt of his young life the black end. He could! By Jove! who couldn't? And

you must remember he was a finished artist in that peculiar way, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty

of swift and forestalling vision. The sights it showed him had turned him into cold stone from the soles of his

feet to the nape of his neck; but there was a hot dance of thoughts in his head, a dance of lame, blind, mute

thoughts a whirl of awful cripples. Didn't I tell you he confessed himself before me as though I had the

power to bind and to loose? He burrowed deep, deep, in the hope of my absol ution, which would have been

of no good to him. This was one of those cases which no solemn deception can palliate, where no man can

'He stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get from the struggle for the boat, which went

on with the agitation of madness and the stealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had meantime

remained holding to the wheel. Just picture to your selves the actors in that, thank God! unique, episode of

the sea, four beside themselves with fierce and secret exertions, and three looking on in complete immobility,

above the awnings covering the profound ignorance of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with

their dreams, with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink of annihilation. For that they

were so, makes no doubt to me: given the state of the ship, this was the deadliest possible description of

accident that could happen. These beggars by the boat had every reason to go distracted with funk. Frankly,

had I been there, I would not have given as much as a counterfeit farthing for the ship's chance to keep above

water to the end of each successive second. And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to

accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if the Omnipotence whose

mercy they confessed had needed their humble testimony on earth for a while longer, and had looked down to

make a sign, "Thou shalt not!" to the ocean. Their escape would trouble me as a prodigiously inexplicable

event, did I not know how tough old iron can be as tough sometimes as the spirit of some men we meet

now and then, worn to a shadow and breasting the weight of life. Not the least wonder of these twenty

minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of the two helmsmen. They were amongst the native batch of all sorts

brought over from Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under intense bashfulness,

was very young, and with his smooth, yellow, cheery countenance looked even younger than he was. I

remember perfectly Brierly asking him, through the interpreter, what he thought of it at the time, and the

'The other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handker chief, faded with much washing, bound with a

smart twist over a lot of grey wisps, his face shrunk into grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by a mesh

of wrinkles, explained that he had a knowledge of some evil thing befalling the ship, but there had been no

order; he could not remember an order; why should he leave the helm? To some further questions he jerked

back his spare shoul ders, and declared it never came into his mind then that the white men were about to

leave the ship through fear of death. He did not believe it now. There might have been secret reasons. He

wagged his old chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was a man of great experience, and he wanted that

white Tuan to know he turned towards Brierly, who didn't raise his head that he had acquired a

knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great number of years and, suddenly,

with shaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a lot of queersounding names, names of

deadandgone skippers, names of forgotten coun try ships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the

hand of dumb time had been at work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell upon the

court, a silence that remained unbroken for at least a minute, and passed gently into a deep mur mur.

This episode was the sensation of the second day's proceed ings affecting all the audience, affecting

everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily at the end of the first bench, and never looked up at this

extraordinary and damning witness that seemed possessed of some mysterious theory of defence.

'So these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without steer ageway, where death would have found

them if such had been their destiny. The whites did not give them half a glance, had probably forgotten their

existence. Assuredly Jim did not remember it. He remembered he could do nothing; he could do nothing, now

he was alone. There was nothing to do but to sink with the ship. No use making a disturbance about it. Was

there? He waited upstanding, without a sound, stiffened in the idea of some sort of heroic discre tion. The

'He ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned directly to worry at his sleeve, begging and

' "I believe he would have kissed my hands," said Jim savagely, "and, next moment, he starts foaming and

whispering in my face, 'If I had the time I would like to crack your skull for you.' I pushed him away.

Suddenly he caught hold of me round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I hit out without looking. 'Won't you

save your own life you infernal coward?' he sobs. Coward! He called me an infernal coward! Ha! ha! ha!

'He had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never in my life heard anything so bitter as

that noise. It fell like a blight on all the merriment about donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not. Along the

whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped, the pale blotches of faces turned our way with one

accord, and the silence became so profound that the clear tinkle of a tea spoon falling on the tesselated floor

' "You mustn't laugh like this, with all these people about," I remonstrated. "It isn't nice for them, you know."

'He gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a stare that, missing me altogether, seemed to

probe the heart of some awful vision, he muttered carelessly "Oh! they'll think I am drunk . "

'And after that you would have thought from his appearance he would never make a sound again. But no

fear! He could no more stop telling now than he could have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.'

' "I was saying to myself, 'Sink curse you! Sink!' " These were the words with which he began again. He

wanted it over. He was severely left aione, and he formulated in his head this address to the ship in a tone of

imprecation, while at the same time he enjoyed the privilege of witnessing scenes as far as I can judge

of low comedy. They were still at that bolt. The skipper was ordering, "Get under and try to lift"; and the

others naturally shirked. You understand that to be squeezed flat under the keel of a boat wasn't a desirable

position to be caught in if the ship went down suddenly. "Why don't you you the strongest?" whined the

little engineer. "Gottfordam! I am too thick," spluttered the skipper in despair. It was funny enough to

make angels weep. They stood idle for a moment, and suddenly the chief engineer rushed again at Jim.

' "Come and help, man! Are you mad to throw your only chance away? Come and help, man! Man! Look

'And at last Jim looked astern where the other pointed with maniacal insistence. He saw a silent black squall

which had eaten up already onethird of the sky. You know how these squalls come up there about that time

of the year. First you see a darkening of the horizon no more; then a cloud rises opaque like a wall. A

straight edge of vapour lined with sickly whitish gleams flies up from the southwest, swallowing the stars in

whole constellations; its shadow flies over the waters, and confounds sea and sky into one abyss of obscurity.

And all is still. No thunder, no wind, no sound; not a flicker of lightning. Then in the tenebrous immensity a

livid arch appears; a swell or two like undulations of the very darkness run past, and, suddenly, wind and rain

strike together with a pecu liar impetuosity as if they had burst through something solid. Such a cloud had

come up while they weren't looking. They had just noticed it, and were perfectly justified in surmising that if

in abso lute stillness there was some chance for the ship to keep afloat a few minutes longer, the least

disturbance of the sea would make an end of her instantly. Her first nod to the swell that precedes the burst of

such a squall would be also her last, would become a plunge, would, so to speak, be prolonged into a long

dive, down, down to the bottom. Hence these new capers of their fright, these new antics in which they

' "It was black, black," pursued Jim with moody steadiness. "It had sneaked upon us from behind. The

infernal thing! I suppose there had been at the back of my head some hope yet. I don't know. But that was all

over anyhow. It maddened me to see myself caught like this. I was angry, as though I had been trapped. I was

'He remembered so well that, gasping in the chair, he seemed to sweat and choke before my eyes. No doubt it

maddened him; it knocked him over afresh in a manner of speaking but it made him also remember

that important purpose which had sent him rushing on that bridge only to slip clean out of his mind. He had

intended to cut the lifeboats clear of the ship. He whipped out hus knife and went to work slashing as though

he had seen nothing, had heard nothing, had known of no one on board. They thought him hopelessly

wrongheaded and crazy, but dared not protest nois ily against this useless loss of time. When he had done

he returned to the very same spot from which he had started. The chief was there, ready with a clutch at him

' "You silly fool! do you think you'll get the ghost of a show when all that lot of brutes is in the water? Why,

'He wrung his hands, ignored, at Jim's elbow. The skipper kept up a nervous shuffle in one place and

'The little engineer whimpered like a child, but, broken arm and all, he turned out the least craven of the lot as

it seems, and, actually, mustered enough pluck to run an errand to the engineroom. No trifle, it must be

owned in fairness to him. Jim told me he darted desperate looks like a cornered man, gave one low wail, and

dashed off. He was back instantly clambering, hammer in hand, and with out a pause flung himself at the

bolt. The others gave up Jim at once and ran off to assist. He heard the tap, tap of the hammer, the sound of

the released chock falling over. The boat was clear. Only then he turned to look only then. But he kept his

distance he kept his distance. He wanted me to know he had kept his distance; that there was nothing in

common between him and these men who had the hammer. Nothing whatever. It is more than probable he

thought himself cut off from them by a space that could not be traversed, by an obstacle that could not be

overcome, by a chasm without bottom. He was as far as he could get from them the whole breadth of the

'His feet were glued to that remote spot and his eyes to their indistinct group bowed together and swaying

strangely in the com mon torment of fear. A handlamp lashed to a stanchion above a little table rigged up

on the bridge the Patna had no chartroom amidships threw a light on their labouring shoulders, on

their arched and bobbing backs. They pushed at the bow of the boat; they pushed out into the night; they

pushed, and would no more look back at him. They had given him up as if indeed he had been too far, too

hopelessly separated from themselves, to be worth an appealing word, a glance, or a sign. They had no leisure

to look back upon his passive heroism, to feel the sting of his abstention. The boat was heavy; they pushed at

the bow with no breath to spare for an encouraging word: but the turmoil of terror that had scattered their

selfcommand like chaff before the wind, converted their desperate exertions into a bit of fooling, upon my

word, fit for knockabout clowns in a farce. They pushed with their hands, with their heads, they pushed for

dear life with all the weight of their bodies, they pushed with all the might of their souls only no sooner

had they succeeded in canting the stem clear of the davit than they would leave off like one man and start a

wild scramble into her. As a natural consequence the boat would swing in abruptly, driving them back,

helpless and jostling against each other. They would stand nonplussed for a while, exchanging in fierce

whispers all the infamous names they could call to mind, and go at it again. Three times this occurred. He

described it to me with morose thoughtfulness. He hadn't lost a single movement of that comic business. "I

loathed them. I hated them. I had to look at all that," he said without emphasis, turning upon me a sombrely

'He took his head in his hands for a moment, like a man driven to distraction by some unspeakable outrage.

These were things he could not explain to the court and not even to me; but I would have been little fitted

for the reception of his confidences had I not been able at times to understand the pauses between the words.

In this assault upon his fortitude there was the jeering intention of a spiteful and vile vengeance; there was an

element of burlesque in his ordeal a degradation of funny grimaces in the approach of death or dishonour.

'He related facts which I have not forgotten, but at this distance of time I couldn't recall his very words: I only

remember that he managed wonderfully to convey the brooding rancour of his mind into the bare recital of

events. Twice, he told me, he shut his eyes in the certitude that the end was upon him already, and twice he

had to open them again. Each time he noted the darkening of the great stillness. The shadow of the silent

cloud had fallen upon the ship from the zenith, and seemed to have extinguished every sound of her teeming

life. He could no longer hear the voices under the awnings. He told me that each time he closed his eyes a

flash of thought showed him that crowd of bodies, laid out for death, as plain as daylight. When he opened

them, it was to see the dim struggle of four men fighting like mad with a stubborn boat. "They would fall

back before it time after time, stand swearing at each other, and suddenly make another rush in a bunch....

Enough to make you die laughing," he commented with downcast eyes; then raising them for a moment to

my face with a dismal smile, "I ought to have a merry life of it, by God! for I shall see that funny sight a good

many times yet before I die." His eyes fell again. "See and hear.... See and hear," he repeated twice, at long

' "I made up my mind to keep my eyes shut," he said, "and I couldn't. I couldn't, and I don't care who knows

it. Let them go through that kind of thing before they talk. Just let them and do better that's all. The

second time my eyelids flew open and my mouth too. I had felt the ship move. She just dipped her bows

and lifted them gently and slow! everlastingly slow; and ever so little. She hadn't done that much for days.

The cloud had raced ahead, and this first swell seemed to travel upon a sea of lead. There was no life in that

stir. Itmanaged, though, to knock over something in my head. What would you have done? You are sure of

yourself aren't you? What would you do if you felt now this minute the house here move, just move

a little under your chair. Leap! By heavens! you would take one spring from where you sit and land in that

'He flung his arm out at the night beyond the stone balustrade. I held my peace. He looked at me very

steadily, very severe. There could be no mistake: I was being bullied now, and it behoved me to make no sign

lest by a gesture or a word I should be drawn into a fatal admission about myself which would have had some

bearing on the case. I was not disposed to take any risk of that sort. Don't forget I had him before me, and

really he was too much like one of us not to be dangerous. But if you want to know I don't mind telling you

that I did, with a rapid glance, estimate the distance to the mass of denser blackness in the middle of the

grassplot before the verandah. He exaggerated. I would have landed short by several feet and that's the

'The last moment had come, as he thought, and he did not move. His feet remained glued to the planks if his

thoughts were knocking about loose in his head. It was at this moment too that he saw one of the men around

the boat step backwards suddenly, clutch at the air with raised arms, totter and collapse. He didn't exactly fall,

he only slid gently into a sitting posture, all hunched up, and with his shoulders propped against the side of

the engineroom skylight. "That was the donkeyman. A haggard, whitefaced chap with a ragged

' "So they say," he pronounced with sombre indifference. "Of course I never knew. Weak heart. The man had

been complaining of being out of sorts for some time before. Excitement. Overexer tion. Devil only

knows. Ha! ha! ha! It was easy to see he did not want to die either. Droll, isn't it? May I be shot if he hadn't

been fooled into killing himself! Fooled neither more nor less. Fooled into it, by heavens! just as I . . . Ah!

If he had only kept still; if he had only told them to go to the devil when they came to rush him out of his

bunk because the ship was sinking! If he had only stood by with his hands in his pockets and called them

' "Why don't you laugh?" he said. "A joke hatched in hell. Weak heart! . . . I wish sometimes mine had been."

'This irritated me. "Do you?" I exclaimed with deeprooted irony. "Yes! Can'tyou understand?" he cried. "I

don't know what more you could wish for," I said angrily. He gave me an utterly uncomprehending glance.

This shaft had also gone wide of the mark, and he was not the man to bother about stray arrows. Upon my

word, he was too unsuspecting; he was not fair game. I was glad that my missile had been thrown away,

'Of course he could not know at the time the man was dead. The next minute his last on board was

crowded with a tumult of events and sensations which beat about him like the sea upon a rock. I use the

simile advisedly, because from his relation I am forced to believe he had preserved through it all a strange

illusion of passiveness, as though he had not acted but had suffered bimself to be handled by the infernal

powers who had selected him for the victim of their practical joke. The first thing that came to him was the

grinding surge of the heavy davits swinging out at last a jar which seemed to enter his body from the deck

through the soles of his feet, and travel up his spine to the crown of his head. Then, the squall being very near

now, another and a heavier swell lifted the passive hull in a threatening heave that checked his breath, while

his brain and his heart together were pierced as with daggers by panicstricken screams. "Let go! For God's

sake, let go! Let go! She's going." Following upon that the boatfalls ripped through the blocks, and a lot of

men began to talk in startled tones under the awnings. "When these beggars did break out, their yelps were

enough to wake the dead," he said. Next, after the splashing shock of the boat literally dropped in the water,

came the hollow noises of stamping and tumbling in her, mingled with confused shouts: "Unhook! Unhook!

Shove! Unhook! Shove for your life! Here's the squall down on us.... " He heard, high above his head, the

faint muttering of the wind; he heard below his feet a cry of pain. A lost voice alongside started cursing a

swivel hook. The ship began to buzz fore and aft like a disturbed hive, and, as quietly as he was telling me of

all this because just then he was very quiet in attitude, in face, in voice he went on to say without the

'This was the first I heard of his having moved at all. I could not restrain a grunt of surprise. Something had

started him off at last, but of the exact moment, of the cause that tore him out of his immobility, he knew no

more than the uprooted tree knows of the wind that laid it low. All this had come to him: the sounds, the

sights, the legs of the dead man by Jove! The infernal joke was being crammed devilishly down his throat,

but look you he was not going to admit of any sort of swallowing motion in his gullet. It's

extraordinary how he could cast upon you the spirit of his illusion. I listened as if to a tale of black magic at

' "He went over sideways, very gently, and this is the last thing I remember seeing on board," he continued. "I

did not care what he did. It looked as though he were picking himself up: I thought he was picking himself

up, of course: I expected him to bolt past me over the rail and drop into the boat after the others. I could hear

them knocking about down there, and a voice as if crying up a shaft called out 'George!' Then three voices

together raised a yell. They came to me separately: one bleated, another screamed, one howled. Ough!"

'He shivered a little, and I beheld him rise slowly as if a steady hand from above had been pulling him out of

the chair by his hair. Up, slowly to his full height, and when his knees had locked stiff the hand let him

go, and he swayed a little on his feet. There was a suggestion of awful stillness in his face, in his movements,

in his very voice when he said "They shouted" and involuntarily I pricked up my ears for the ghost of that

shout that would be heard directly through the false effect of silence. "There were eight hun dred people in

that ship," he said, impaling me to the back of my seat with an awful blank stare. "Eight hundred living

people, and they were yelling after the one dead man to come down and be saved. 'Jump, George! Jump! Oh,

jump!' I stood by with my hand on the davit. I was very quiet. It had come over pitch dark. You could see

neither sky nor sea. I heard the boat alongside go bump, bump, and not another sound down there for a while,

but the ship under me was full of talking noises. Suddenly the skipper howled 'Mein Gott! The squall! The

squall! Shove off!' With the first hiss of rain, and the first gust of wind, they screamed, 'Jump, George! We'll

catch you! Jump!' The ship began a slow plunge; the rain swept over her like a broken sea; my cap flew off

my head; my breath was driven back into my throat. I heard as if I had been on the top of a tower another

wild screech, 'Geoooorge! Oh, jump!' She was going down, down, head first under me.... "

'He raised his hand deliberately to his face, and made picking motions with his fingers as though he had been

bothered with cob webs, and afterwards he looked into the open palm for quite half a second before he

' "I had jumped . . . " He checked himself, averted his gaze.... "It seems," he added.

'His clear blue eyes turned to me with a piteous stare, and looking at him standing before me, dumfounded

and hurt, I was oppressed by a sad sense of resigned wisdom, mingled with the amused and profound pity of

' "I knew nothing about it till I looked up," he explained hastily. And that's possible too. You had to listen to

him as you would to a small boy in trouble. He didn't know. It had happened somehow. It would never

happen again. He had landed partly on somebody and fallen across a thwart. He felt as though all his ribs on

his left side must be broken; then he rolled over, and saw vaguely the ship he had deserted uprising above

him, with the red sidelight glowing large in the rain like a fire on the brow of a hill seen through a mist.

"She seemed higher than a wall; she loomed like a cliff over the boat . . . I wished I could die," he cried.

"There was no going back. It was as if I had jumped into a well into an everlasting deep hole.... " '

'He locked his fingers together and tore them apart. Nothing could be more true: he had indeed jumped into

an everlasting deep hole. He had tumbled from a height he could never scale again. By that time the boat had

gone driving forward past the bows. It was too dark just then for them to see each other, and, moreover, they

were blinded and half drowned with rain. He told me it was like being swept by a flood through a cavern.

They turned their backs to the squall; the skipper, it seems, got an oar over the stern to keep the boat before it,

and for two or three minutes the end of the world had come through a deluge in a pitchy blackness. The sea

hissed "like twenty thousand kettles." That's his simile, not mine. I fancy there was not much wind after the

first gust; and he himself had admitted at the inquiry that the sea never got up that night to any extent. He

crouched down in the bows and stole a furtive glance back. He saw just one yellow gleam of the masthead

light high up and blurred like a last star ready to dissolve. "It terrified me to see it still there," he said. That's

what he said. What terrified him was the thought that the drowning was not over yet. No doubt he wanted to

be done with that abomination as quickly as possible. Nobody in the boat made a sound. In the dark she

seemed to fly, but of course she could not have had much way. Then the shower swept ahead, and the great,

distracting, hissing noise followed the rain into distance and died out. There was nothing to be heard then but

the slight wash about the boat's sides. Somebody's teeth were chattering violently. A hand touched his back.

A faint voice said, "You there?" Another cried out shakily, "She's gone!" and they all stood up together to

look astern. They saw no lights. All was black. A thin cold drizzle was driving into their faces. The boat

lurched slightly. The teeth chattered faster, stopped, and began again twice before the man could master his

shiver sufficiently to say, "Jujust in titime.... Brrrr." He recognised the voice of the chief engineer

saying surlily, "I saw her go down. I happened to turn my head." The wind had dropped almost completely.

'They watched in the dark with their heads half turned to wind ward as if expecting to hear cries. At first he

was thankful the night had covered up the scene before his eyes, and then to know of it and yet to have seen

and heard nothing appeared somehow the culminating point of an awful misfortune. "Strange, isn't it?" he

'It did not seem so strange to me. He must have had an unconscious conviction that the reality could not be

half as bad, not half as anguishing, appalling, and vengeful as the created terror of his imagination. I believe

that, in this first moment, his heart was wrung with all the suffering, that his soul knew the accumulated

savour of all the fear, all the horror, all the despair of eight hundred human beings pounced upon in the night

by a sudden and violent death, else why should he have said, "It seemed to me that I must jump out of that

accursed boat and swim back to see half a mile more any distance to the very spot . . . "? Why

this impulse? Do you see the significance? Why back to the very spot? Why not drown alongside if he

meant drowning? Why back to the very spot, to see as if his imagination had to be soothed by the

assurance that all was over before death could bring relief? I defy any one of you to offer another

explanation. It was one of those bizarre and exciting glimpses through the fog. It was an extraordinary dis

closure. He let it out as the most natural thing one could say. He fought down that impulse and then he

became conscious of the silence. He mentioned this to me. A silence of the sea, of the sky, merged into one

indefinite immensity still as death around these saved, palpitating lives. "You might have heard a pin drop in

the boat," he said with a queer contraction of his lips, like a man trying to master his sensibilities while

relating some extremely moving fact. A silence! God alone, who had willed him as he was, knows what he

made of it in his heart. "I didn't think any spot on earth could be so still," he said. "You couldn't distinguish

the sea from the sky; there was nothing to see and nothing to hear. Not a glim mer, not a shape, not a sound.

You could have believed that every bit of dry land had gone to the bottom; that every man on earth but I and

these beggars in the boat had got drowned." He leaned over the table with his knuckles propped amongst

coffeecups, liqueur glasses, cigarends. "I seemed to believe it. Everything was gone and all was over .

Marlow sat up abruptly and flung away his cheroot with force. It made a darting red trail like a toy rocket

'Hey, what do you think of it?' he cried with sudden animation. 'Wasn't he true to himself, wasn't he? His

saved life was over for want of ground under his feet, for want of sights for his eyes, for want of voices in his

ears. Annihilation hey! And all the time it was only a clouded sky, a sea that did not break, the air that did

'It lasted for a while, and then they were suddenly and unani mously moved to make a noise over their

escape. "I knew from the first she would go." "Not a minute too soon." "A narrow squeak, b'gosh!" He said

nothing, but the breeze that had dropped came back, a gentle draught freshened steadily, and the sea joined its

murmuring voice to this talkative reaction succeeding the dumb moments of awe. She was gone! She was

gone! Not a doubt of it. Nobody could have helped. They repeated the same words over and over again as

though they couldn't stop themselves. Never doubted she would go. The lights were gone. No mistake. The

lights were gone. Couldn't expect anything else. She had to go.... He noticed that they talked as though they

had left behind them nothing but an empty ship. They concluded she would not have been long when she

once started. It seemed to cause them some sort of satisfaction. They assured each other that she couldn't have

been long about it "Just shot down like a flatiron." The chief engineer declared that the masthead light

at the moment of sinking seemed to drop "like a lighted match you throw down." At this the second laughed

hysterically. "I am ggglad, I am glaaad." His teeth went on "like an electric rattle," said Jim, "and all at

once he began to cry. He wept and blubbered like a child, catching his breath and sobbing 'Oh dear! oh dear!

oh dear!' He would be quiet for a while and start suddenly, 'Oh, my poor arm! oh, my poor aaaarm!' I felt

I could knock him down. Some of them sat in the sternsheets. I could just make out their shapes. Voices

came to me, mumble, mumble, grunt, grunt. All this seemed very hard to bear. I was cold too. And I could do

'His hand groped stealthily, came in contact with a liqueurglass, and was withdrawn suddenly as if it had

touched a redhot coal. I pushed the bottle slightly. "Won't you have some more?" I asked. He looked at me

angrily. "Don't you think I can tell you what there is to tell without screwing myself up?" he asked. The squad

of globetrotters had gone to bed. We were alone but for a vague white form erect in the shadow, that, being

looked at, cringed forward, hesitated, backed away silently. It was getting late, but I did not hurry my guest.

'In the midst of his forlorn state he heard his companions begin to abuse some one. "What kept you from

jumping, you lunatic?" said a scolding voice. The chief engineer left the sternsheets, and could be heard

clambering forward as if with hostile intentions against "the greatest idiot that ever was." The skipper shouted

with rasping effort offensive epithets from where he sat at the oar. He lifted his head at that uproar, and heard

the name "George," while a hand in the dark struck him on the breast. "What have you got to say for yourself,

you fool?" queried somebody, with a sort of virtuous fury. "They were after me," he said. "They were abusing

'He paused to stare, tried to smile, turned his eyes away and went on. "That little second puts his head right

under my nose, 'Why, it's that blasted mate!' 'What!' howls the skipper from the other end of the boat. 'No!'

'The wind had left the boat suddenly. The rain began to fall again, and the soft, uninterrupted, a little

mysterious sound with which the sea receives a shower arose on all sides in the night. "They were too taken

aback to say anything more at first," he narrated steadily, "and what could I have to say to them?" He faltered

for a moment, and made an effort to go on. "They called me horrible names." His voice, sinking to a whisper,

now and then would leap up suddenly, hardened by the passion of scorn, as though he had been talking of

secret abominations. "Never mind what they called me," he said grimly. "I could hear hate in their voices. A

good thing too. They could not forgive me for being in that boat. They hated it. It made them mad.... " He

laughed short.... "But it kept me from Look! I was sitting with my arms crossed, on the gunwale! . . . " He

perched himself smartly on the edge of the table and crossed his arms.... "Like this see? One little tilt

backwards and I would have been gone after the others. One little tilt the least bit the least bit." He

frowned, and tapping his forehead with the tip of his middle finger, "It was there all the time," he said

impressively. "All the time that notion. And the rain cold, thick, cold as melted snow colder on

my thin cotton clothes I'll never be so cold again in my life, I know. And the sky was black too all

black. Not a star, not a light anywhere. Nothing outside that confounded boat and those two yapping before

me like a couple of mean mongrels at a tree'd thief. Yap! yap! 'What you doing here? You're a fine sort! Too

much of a bloomin' gentleman to put your hand to it. Come out of your trance, did you? To sneak in? Did

you?' Yap! yap! 'You ain't fit to live!' Yap! yap! Two of them together trying to outbark each other. The

other would bay from the stern through the rain couldn't see him couldn't make it out some of his

filthy jargon. Yap! yap! Bowowowowow! Yap! yap! It was sweet to hear them; it kept me alive, I tell

you. It saved my life. At it they went, as if trying to drive me overboard with the noise! . . . 'I wonder you had

pluck enough to jump. You ain't wanted here. If I had known who it was, I would have tipped you over

you skunk! What have you done with the other? Where did you get the pluck to jump you coward? What's

to prevent us three from firing you overboard?' . . . They were out of breath; the shower passed away upon the

sea. Then nothing. There was nothing round the boat, not even a sound. Wanted to see me overboard, did

they? Upon my soul! I think they would have had their wish if they had only kept quiet. Fire me overboard!

Would they? 'Try,' I said. 'I would for twopence.' 'Too good for you,' they screeched together. It was so dark

that it was only when one or the other of them moved that I was quite sure of seeing him. By heavens! I only

' "Not bad eh?" he said, as if in some sort astounded. "They pretended to think I had done away with that

donkeyman for some reason or other. Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get

somehow into that boat? into that boat I . . . " The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious

grimace that tore through the mask of his usual expression something violent, shortlived and

illuminating like a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into the secret convolutions of a cloud.

"I did. I was plainly there with them wasn't I? Isn't it awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that

and be responsible? What did I know about their George they were howling after? I remembered I had

seen him curled up on the deck. 'Murdering coward!' the chief kept on calling me. He didn't seem able to

remember any other two words. I didn't care, only his noise began to worry me. 'Shut up,' I said. At that he

collected himself for a confounded screech. 'You killed him! You killed bim!' 'No,' I shouted, 'but I will kill

you directly.' I jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump. I don't know why.

Too dark. Tried to step back I suppose. I stood still facing aft, and the wretched little second began to whine,

'You ain't going to hit a chap with a broken arm and you call yourself a gentleman, too.' I heard a heavy

tramp one two and wheezy grunting. The other beast was coming at me, clattering his oar over the

stern. I saw him moving, big, big as you see a man in a mist, in a dream. 'Come on,' I cried. I would have

tumbled him over like a bale of shakings. He stopped, mut tered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had

heard the wind. I didn't. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his oar. I was sorry. I would have

'He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and cruel flutter. "Steady, steady," I

' "Eh? What? I am not excited," he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with a convulsive jerk of his elbow

knocked over the cognac bottle. I started forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine

had been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to show me a

star tled pair of eyes and a face white about the nostrils. A look of intense annoyance succeeded. "Awfully

sorry. How clumsy of me!" he mumbled, very vexed, while the pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us

suddenly with an atmosphere of a low drinkingbout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. The lights had

been put out in the dininghall; our candle glimmered solitary in the long gallery, and the columns had turned

black from pediment to capital. On the vivid stars the high corner of the Harbour Office stood out distinct

across the Esplanade, as though the sombre pile had glided nearer to see and hear.

' "I dare say I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for anything. These were trifles.... "

' "I was ready," he repeated. "After the ship's lights had gone, anything might have happened in that boat

anything in the world and the world no wiser. I felt this, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough too.

We were like men walled up quick in a roomy grave. No concern with anything on earth. Nobody to pass an

opinion. Nothing mattered." For the third time during this conver sation he laughed harshly, but there was

no one about to suspect him of being only drunk. "No fear, no law, no sounds, no eyes not even our own,

'I was struck by the suggestive truth of his words. There is some thing peculiar in a small boat upon the wide

sea. Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness. When

your ship fails you, your whole world seems to fail you; the world that made you, restrained you, took care of

you. It is as if the souls of men floating on an abyss and in touch with immensity had been set free for any

excess of heroism, absurdity, or abomination. Of course, as with belief, thought, love, hate, con viction, or

even the visual aspect of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there are men, and in this one there

was some thing abject which made the isolation more complete there was a villainy of circumstances

that cut these men off more completely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had never under

gone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasper ated with him for being a halfhearted

shirker: he focussed on them his hatred of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for

the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that

lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It was part of the burlesque meanness

pervading that particular disas ter at sea that they did not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly

effective feint, a sham from beginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain of the Dark Powers whose

real terrors, always on the verge of triumph, are perpetually foiled by the stead fastness of men. I asked,

after waiting for a while, 'Well, what happened?" A futile question. I knew too much already to hope for the

grace of a single uplifting touch, for the favour of hinted mad ness, of shadowed horror. "Nothing," he said.

'And the rising sun found him just as he had jumped up first in the bows of the boat. What a persistence of

readiness! He had been holding the tiller in his hand, too, all the night. They had dropped the rudder

overboard while attempting to ship it, and I suppose the tiller got kicked forward somehow while they were

rushing up and down that boat trying to do all sorts of things at once so as to get clear of the side. It was a

long heavy piece of hard wood, and apparently he had been clutching it for six hours or so. If you don't call

that being ready! Can you imagine him, silent and on his feet half the night, his face to the gusts of rain,

staring at sombre forms watchful of vague movements, straining his ears to catch rare low murmurs in the

sternsheets! Firmness of courage or effort of fear? What do you think? And the endurance is undeniable too.

Six hours more or less on the defensive; six hours of alert immobility while the boat drove slowly or floated

arrested, according to the caprice of the wind; while the sea, calmed, slept at last; while the clouds passed

above his head; while the sky from an immensity lustreless and black, diminished to a sombre and lustrous

vault, scintillated with a greater brilliance, faded to the east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapes blotting

the low stars astern got outlines, relief became shoulders, heads, faces, features, confronted him with

dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn clothes, blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. "They looked as

though they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week," he described graphically; and then he

muttered something about the sunrise being of a kind that foretells a calm day. You know that sailor habit of

referring to the weather in every connection. And on my side his few mumbled words were enough to make

me see the lower limb of the sun clear ing the line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripple running over

all the visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered, giving birth to the globe of light, while the

' "They sat in the stern shoulder to shoulder, with the skipper in the middle, like three dirty owls, and stared at

me," I heard him say with an intention of hate that distilled a corrosive virtue into the commonplace words

like a drop of powerful poison falling into a glass of water; but my thoughts dwelt upon that sunrise. I could

imagine under the pellucid emptiness of the sky these four men imprisoned in the solitude of the sea, the

lonely sun, regardless of the speck of life, ascending the clear curve of the heaven as if to gaze ardently from

a greater height at his own splendour reflected in the still ocean. "They called out to me from aft," said Jim,

"as though we had been chums together. I heard them. They were begging me to be sensible and drop that

'blooming piece of wood.' Why would I carry on so? They hadn't done me any harm had they? There had

' "No harm!" he burst out. "I leave it to you. You can under stand. Can't you? You see it don't you? No

harm! Good God! What more could they have done? Oh yes, I know very well I jumped. Certainly. I

jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man. It was their doing as plainly as if

they had reached up with a boathook and pulled me over. Can't you see it? You must see it. Come. Speak

His uneasy eyes fastened upon mine, questioned, begged, chal lenged, entreated. For the life of me I

couldn't help murmuring, "You've been tried." "More than is fair," he caught up swiftly. "I wasn't given half a

chance with a gang like that. And now they were friendly oh, so damnably friendly! Chums,

shipmates. All in the same boat. Make the best of it. They hadn't meant anything. They didn t care a hang for

George. George had gone back to his berth for something at the last moment and got caught. The man was a

manifest fool. Very sad, of course.... Their eyes looked at me; their lips moved; they wagged their heads at

the other end of the boat three of them; they beckoned to me. Why not? Hadn't I jumped? I said

nothing. There are no words for the sort of things I wanted to say. If I had opened my lips just then I would

have simply howled like an animal. I was asking myself when I would wake up. They urged me aloud to

come aft and hear quietly what the skipper had to say. We were sure to be picked up before the evening

right in the track of all the Canal traffic; there was smoke to the northwest now.

' "It gave me an awful shock to see this faint, faint blur, this low trail of brown mist through which you could

see the boundary of sea and sky. I called out to them that I could hear very well where I was. The skipper

started swearing, as hoarse as a crow. He wasn't going to talk at the top of his voice for my accommodation.

'Are you afraid they will hear you on shore?' I asked. He glared as if he would have liked to claw me to

pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me. He said I wasn't right in my head yet. The other rose

'Jim remained thoughtful. "Well?" I said. "What did I care what story they agreed to make up?" he cried

recklessly. "They could tell what they jolly well liked. It was their business. I knew the story. Nothing they

could make people believe could alter it for me. I let him talk, argue talk, argue. He went on and on and

on. Suddenly I felt my legs give way under me. I was sick, tired tired to death. I let fall the tiller, turned

my back on them, and sat down on the foremost thwart. I had enough. They called to me to know if I

understood wasn't it true, every word of it? It was true, by God! after their fashion. I did not turn my head.

I heard them palavering together. 'The silly ass won't say anything.' 'Oh, he understands well enough.' 'Let

him be; he will be all right.' 'What can he do?' What could I do? Weren't we all in the same boat? I tried to be

deaf. The smoke had disappeared to the northward. It was a dead calm. They had a drink from the

waterbreaker, and I drank too. Afterwards they made a great business of spreading the boatsail over the

gunwales. Would I keep a lookout? They crept under, out of my sight, thank God! I felt weary, weary, done

up, as if I hadn't had one hour's sleep since the day I was born. I couldn't see the water for the glitter of the

sunshine. From time to time one of them would creep out, stand up to take a look all round, and get under

again. I could hear spells of snoring below the sail. Some of them could sleep. One of them at least. I

couldn't! All was light, light, and the boat seemed to be falling through it. Now and then I would feel quite

'He began to walk with measured steps to and fro before my chair, one hand in his trouserspocket, his head

bent thoughtfully, and his right arm at long intervals raised for a gesture that seemed to put out of his way an

' "I suppose you think I was going mad," he began in a changed tone. "And well you may, if you remember I

had lost my cap. The sun crept all the way from east to west over my bare head, but that day I could not come

to any harm, I suppose. The sun could not make me mad.... " His right arm put aside the idea of mad ness....

"Neither could it kill me.... " Again his arm repulsed a shadow.... "That rested with me."

' "Did it?" I said, inexpressibly amazed at this new turn, and I looked at him with the same sort of feeling I

might be fairly con ceived to experience had he, after spinning round on his heel, pre sented an altogether

' "I didn't get brain fever, I did not drop dead either," he went on. "I didn't bother myself at all about the sun

over my head. I was thinking as coolly as any man that ever sat thinking in the shade. That greasy beast of a

skipper poked his big cropped head from under the canvas and screwed his fishy eyes up at me. 'Don

nerwetter! you will die,' he growled, and drew in like a turtle. I had seen him. I had heard him. He didn't

'He tried to sound my thought with an attentive glance dropped on me in passing. "Do you mean to say you

had been deliberating with yourself whether you would die?" I asked in as impenetrable a tone as I could

command. He nodded without stopping. "Yes, it had come to that as I sat there alone," he said. He passed on

a few steps to the imaginary end of his beat, and when he flung round to come back both his hands were

thrust deep into his pockets. He stopped short in front of my chair and looked down. "Don't you believe it?"

he inquired with tense curiosity. I was moved to make a solemn declaration of my readiness to believe

'He heard me out with his head on one side, and I had another glimpse through a rent in the mist in which he

moved and had his being. The dim candle spluttered within the ball of glass, and that was all I had to see him

by; at his back was the dark night with the clear stars, whose distant glitter disposed in retreating planes lured

the eye into the depths of a greater darkness; and yet a mysterious light seemed to show me his boyish head,

as if in that moment the youth within him had, for a second, glowed and expired. "You are an awful good sort

to listen like this," he said. "It does me good. You don't know what it is to me. You don't" . . . words seemed

to fail him. It was a distinct glimpse. He was a youngster of the sort you like to see about you; of the sort you

like to imagine yourself to have been; of the sort whose appearance claims the fellowship of these illusions

you had thought gone out, extinct, cold, and which, as if rekindled at the approach of another flame, give a

flutter deep, deep down somewhere, give a flutter of light . . . of heat! . . . Yes; I had a glimpse of him then . .

. and it was not the last of that kind.... "You don't know what it is for a fellow in my position to be believed

make a clean breast of it to an elder man. It is so difficult so awfully unfair so hard to understand."

'The mists were closing again. I don't know how old I appeared to him and how much wise. Not half as

old as I felt just then; not half as uselessly wise as I knew myself to be. Surely in no other craft as in that of

the sea do the hearts of those already launched to sink or swim go out so much to the youth on the brink,

looking with shining eyes upon that glitter of the vast surface which is only a reflection of his own glances

full of fire. There is such magnificent vagueness in the expectations that had driven each of us to sea, such a

glorious indefiniteness, such a beautiful greed of adventures that are their own and only reward. What we get

well, we won't talk of that; but can one of us restrain a smile? In no other kind of life is the illusion more

wide of reality in no other is the beginning all illusion the disenchantment more swift the

subjugation more complete. Hadn't we all commenced with the same desire, ended with the same knowledge,

carried the memory of the same cherished glamour through the sordid days of imprecation? What wonder that

when some heavy prod gets home the bond is found to be close; that besides the fellowship of the craft there

is felt the strength of a wider feeling the feeling that binds a man to a child. He was there before me,

believing that age and wisdom can find a remedy against the pain of truth, giving me a glimpse of himself as

a young fellow in a scrape that is the very devil of a scrape, the sort of scrape greybeards wag at solemnly

while they hide a smile. And he had been deliberating upon death confound him! He had found that to

meditate about because he thought he had saved his life, while all its glamour had gone with the ship in the

night. What more natural! It was tragic enough and funny enough in all conscience to call aloud for

compassion, and in what was I better than the rest of us to refuse him my pity? And even as I looked at him

' "I was so lost, you know. It was the sort of thing one does not expect to happen to one. It was not like a

' "Ah! You were not sure," I said, and was placated by the sound of a faint sigh that passed between us like

' "Well, I wasn't," he said courageously. "It was something like that wretched story they made up. It was not a

lie but it wasn't truth all the same. It was something.... One knows a downright lie. There was not the

' "How much more did you want?" I asked; but I think I spoke so low that he did not catch what I said. He

had advanced his argument as though life had been a network of paths separated by chasms. His voice

' "Suppose I had not I mean to say, suppose I had stuck to the ship? Well. How much longer? Say a

minute half a minute. Come. In thirty seconds, as it seemed certain then, I would have been overboard;

and do you think I would not have laid hold of the first thing that came in my way oar, lifebuoy, grating

' "I would have meant to be," he retorted. "And that's more than I meant when I" . . . he shivered as if about to

swallow some nauseous drug . . . "jumped," he pronounced with a convulsive effort, whose stress, as if

propagated by the waves of the air, made my body stir a little in the chair. He fixed me with lowering eyes.

"Don't you believe me?" he cried. "I swear! . . . Confound it! You got me here to talk, and . . . You must! . . .

You said you would believe." "Of course I do," I protested, in a matteroffact tone which produced a

calming effect. "Forgive me," he said. "Of course I wouldn't have talked to you about all this if you had not

been a gentleman. I ought to have known . . . I am I am a gentleman too . . ." "Yes, yes," I said hastily.

He was looking me squarely in the face, and withdrew his gaze slowly. "Now you understand why I didn't

after all . . . didn't go out in that way. I wasn't going to be frightened at what I had done. And, anyhow, if I

had stuck to the ship I would have done my best to be saved. Men have been known to float for hours in

the open sea and be picked up not much the worse for it. I might have lasted it out better than many

others. There's nothing the matter with my heart." He withdrew his right fist from his pocket, and the blow he

' "No," I said. He meditated, with his legs slightly apart and his chin sunk. "A hair'sbreadth," he muttered.

' "It is difficult to see a hair at midnight," I put in, a little viciously I fear. Don't you see what I mean by the

solidarity of the craft? I was aggrieved against him, as though he had cheated me me! of a splendid

opportunity to keep up the illusion of my begin nings, as though he had robbed our common life of the last

' "Jumped," he corrected me incisively. "Jumped mind!" he repeated, and I wondered at the evident but

obscure intention. "Well, yes! Perhaps I could not see then. But I had plenty of time and any amount of light

in that boat. And I could think too. Nobody would know, of course, but this did not make it any easier for me.

You've got to believe that too. I did not want all this talk.... No . . . Yes . . . I won't lie . . . I wanted it: it is the

very thing I wanted there. Do you think you or anybody could have made me if I . . . I am I am not

afraid to tell. And I wasn't afraid to think either. I looked it in the face. I wasn't going to run away. At first

at night, if it hadn't been for those fellows I might have . . . No! by heavens! I was not going to give them that

satisfaction. They had done enough. They made up a story, and believed it for all I know. But I knew the

truth, and I would live it down alone, with myself. I wasn't going to give in to such a beastly unfair thing.

What did it prove after all? I was confoundedly cut up. Sick of life to tell you the truth; but what would

have been the good to shirk it in in that way? That was not the way. I believe I believe it would

' "What do you believe?" he asked with violence. A pause ensued, and suddenly I felt myself overcome by a

profound and hopeless fatigue, as though his voice had startled me out of a dream of wandering through

' " . . . Would have ended nothing," he muttered over me obsti nately, after a little while. "No! the proper

thing was to face it out alone for myself wait for another chance find out . . ." '

'All around everything was still as far as the ear could reach. The mist of his feelings shifted between us, as if

disturbed by his struggles, and in the rifts of the immaterial veil he would appear to my staring eyes distinct

of form and pregnant with vague appeal like a symbolic figure in a picture. The chill air of the night seemed

' "I see," I murmured, more to prove to myself that I could break my state of numbness than for any other

' "The Avondale picked us up just before sunset," he remarked moodily. "Steamed right straight for us. We

'After a long interval, he said, "They told their story." And again there was that oppressive silence. "Then

' "What could I say?" he asked, in the same low tone.... "Shock slight. Stopped the ship. Ascertained the

damage. Took measures to get the boats out without creating a panic. As the first boat was lowered ship went

down in a squall. Sank like lead.... What could be more clear" . . . he hung his head . . . "and more awful?"

His lips quivered while he looked straight into my eyes. "I had jumped hadn't I?" he asked, dismayed.

"That's what I had to live down. The story didn't matter." . . . He clasped his hands for an instant, glanced

'He went away from me at this . That is the only way I can describe it. In a moment I saw his back close to

the balustrade. He stood there for some time, as if admiring the purity and the peace of the night. Some

floweringshrub in the garden below spread its powerful scent through the damp air. He returned to me with

' "Perhaps not," I admitted. I began to have a notion he was too much for me. After all, what did I know?

' "Dead or not dead, I could not get clear," he said. "I had to live; hadn't I?"

' "I was glad, of course," he threw out carelessly, with his mind fixed on something else. "The exposure," he

pronounced slowly, and lifted his head. "Do you know what was my first thought when I heard? I was

relieved. I was relieved to learn that those shouts did I tell you I had heard shouts? No? Well, I did. Shouts

for help . . . blown along with the drizzle. Imagination, I suppose. And yet I can hardly ... How stupid.... The

others did not. I asked them afterwards. They all said No. No? And I was hearing them even then! I might

have known but I didn't think I only listened. Very faint screams day after day. Then that little

half caste chap here came up and spoke to me. 'The Patna . . . French gunboat. . . towed successfully to

Aden. . . Investigation. . . Marine Office . . . Sailors' Home . . . arrangements made for your board and

lodging!' I walked along with him, and I enjoyed the silence. So there had been no shouting. Imagination. I

had to believe him. I could hear nothing any more. I wonder how long I could have stood it. It was getting

' "And I had heard nothing! Well so be it. But the lights! The lights did go! We did not see them. They

were not there. If they had been, I would have swam back I would have gone back and shouted alongside

I would have begged them to take me on board.... I would have had my chance.... You doubt me? ... How

do you know how I felt?... What right have you to doubt? . . . I very nearly did it as it was do you

understand?" His voice fell. "There was not a glimmer not a glimmer," he protested mournfully. "Don't

you understand that if there had been, you would not have seen me here? You see me and you doubt."

'I shook my head negatively. This question of the lights being lost sight of when the boat could not have been

more than a quarter of a mile from the ship was a matter for much discussion. Jim stuck to it that there was

nothing to be seen after the first shower had cleared away; and the others had affirmed the same thing to the

officers of the Avondale. Of course people shook their heads and smiled. One old skipper who sat near me in

court tickled my ear with his white beard to murmur, "Of course they would lie." As a matter of fact nobody

lied; not even the chief engineer with his story of the masthead light dropping like a match you throw down.

Not consciously, at least. A man with his liver in such a state might very well have seen a floating spark in

the corner of his eye when stealing a hurried glance over his shoulder. They had seen no light of any sort

though they were well within range, and they could only explain this in one way: the ship had gone down. It

was obvious and comforting. The foreseen fact coming so swiftly had justified their haste. No wonder they

did not cast about for any other expla nation. Yet the true one was very simple, and as soon as Brierly

suggested it the court ceased to bother about the question. If you remember, the ship had been stopped, and

was lying with her head on the course steered through the night, with her stern canted high and her bows

brought low down in the water through the filling of the forecompartment. Being thus out of trim, when the

squall struck her a little on the quarter, she swung head to wind as sharply as though she had been at anchor.

By this change in her position all her lights were in a very few moments shut off from the boat to leeward. It

may very well be that, had they been seen, they would have had the effect of a mute appeal that their

glimmer lost in the darkness of the cloud would have had the mysterious power of the human glance that can

awaken the feelings of remorse and pity. It would have said, "I am here still here" . . . and what more can

the eye of the most forsaken of human beings say? But she turned her back on them as if in disdain of their

fate: she had swung round, burdened, to glare stubbornly at the new danger of the open sea which she so

strangely survived to end her days in a breakingup yard, as if it had been her recorded fate to die obscurely

under the blows of many hammers. What were the various ends their destiny provided for the pilgrims I am

unable to say; but the immediate future brought, at about nine o'clock next morning, a French gun boat

homeward bound from Reunion. The report of her com mander was public property. He had swept a little

out of his course to ascertain what was the matter with that steamer floating danger ously by the head upon a

still and hazy sea. There was an ensign, union down, flying at her main gaff (the serang had the sense to make

a signal of distress at daylight); but the cooks were preparing the food in the cookingboxes forward as usual.

The decks were packed as close as a sheeppen: there were people perched all along the rails, jammed on the

bridge in a solid mass; hundreds of eyes stared, and not a sound was heard when the gunboat ranged abreast,

'The Frenchman hailed, could get no intelligible reply, and after ascertaining through his binoculars that the

crowd on deck did not look plaguestricken, decided to send a boat. Two officers came on board, listened to

the serang, tried to talk with the Arab, couldn't make head or tail of it: but of course the nature of the

emergency was obvious enough. They were also very much struck by discovering a white man, dead and

curled up peacefully on the bridge. "Fort intrigues par ce cadavre," as I was informed a long time after by an

elderly French lieutenant whom I came across one afternoon in Sydney, by the merest chance, in a sort of

cafe, and who remem bered the affair perfectly. Indeed this affair, I may notice in passing, had an

extraordinary power of defying the shortness of memories and the length of time: it seemed to live, with a

sort of uncanny vitality, in the minds of men, on the tips of their tongues. I've had the questionable pleasure

of meeting it often, years afterwards, thousands of miles away, emerging from the remotest possible talk,

coming to the surface of the most distant allusions. Has it not turned up tonight between us? And I am the

only seaman here. I am the only one to whom it is a memory. And yet it has made its way out! But if two

men who, unknown to each other, knew of this affair met accidentally on any spot of this earth, the thing

would pop up between them as sure as fate, before they parted. I had never seen that Frenchman before, and

at the end of an hour we had done with each other for life: he did not seem particularly talkative either; he

was a quiet, massive chap in a creased uniform, sitting drowsily over a tumbler half full of some dark liquid.

His shoulderstraps were a bit tarnished, his cleanshaved cheeks were large and sallow; he looked like a

man who would be given to taking snuff don't you know? I won't say he did; but the habit would have

fitted that kind of man. It all began by his handing me a number of Home News, which I didn't want, across

the marble table. I said "Merci." We exchanged a few apparently innocent remarks, and suddenly, before I

knew how it had come about, we were in the midst of it, and he was telling me how much they had been

"intrigued by that corpse." It turned out he had been one of the boarding officers.

'In the establishment where we sat one could get a variety of foreign drinks which were kept for the visiting

naval officers, and he took a sip of the dark medicallooking stuff, which probably was nothing more nasty

than cassis a l'eau, and glancing with one eye into the tumbler, shook his head slightly. "Impossible de com

prendre vous concevez," he said, with a curious mixture of uncon cern and thoughtfulness. I could very

easily conceive how impossible it had been for them to understand. Nobody in the gunboat knew enough

English to get hold of the story as told by the serang. There was a good deal of noise, too, round the two

officers. "They crowded upon us. There was a circle round that dead man (autour de ce mort)," he described.

"One had to attend to the most pressing. These people were beginning to agitate them selves Parbleu! A

mob like that don't you see?" he interjected with philosophic indulgence. As to the bulkhead, he had

advised his commander that the safest thing was to leave it alone, it was so villainous to look at. They got two

hawsers on board promptly (en toute hale) and took the Patna in tow stern foremost at that which,

under the circumstances, was not so foolish, since the rudder was too much out of the water to be of any great

use for steering, and this manoeuvre eased the strain on the bulkhead, whose state, he expounded with stolid

glibness, demanded the greatest care (exigeait les plus grands menagements). I could not help thinking that

my new acquaintance must have had a voice in most of these arrangements: he looked a reliable officer, no

longer very active, and he was seamanlike too, in a way, though as he sat there, with his thick fingers clasped

lightly on his stomach, he reminded you of one of those snuffy, quiet village priests, into whose ears are

poured the sins, the sufferings, the remorse of peasant generations, on whose faces the placid and simple

expression is like a veil thrown over the mystery of pain and distress. He ought to have had a threadbare

black soutane buttoned smoothly up to his ample chin, instead of a frockcoat with shoulderstraps and brass

buttons. His broad bosom heaved regularly while he went on telling me that it had been the very devil of a

job, as doubdess (sans doute) I could figure to myself in my quality of a seaman (en votre qualite de marin).

At the end of the period he inclined his body slightly towards me, and, pursing his shaved lips, allowed the

air to escape with a gentle hiss. "Luckily," he continued, "the sea was level like this table, and there was no

more wind than there is here." . . . The place struck me as indeed intolerably stuffy, and very hot; my face

burned as though I had been young enough to be embarrassed and blushing. They had directed their course,

he pursued, to the nearest English port "naturellement," where their responsibility ceased, "Dieu merci." ... He

blew out his flat cheeks a little.... "Because, mind you (notez bien), all the time of towing we had two

quartermasters stationed with axes by the hawsers, to cut us clear of our tow in case she . . ." He fluttered

downwards his heavy eyelids, making his meaning as plain as possible.... "What would you! One does what

one can (on fait ce qu'on peut)," and for a moment he managed to invest his ponderous immobility with an air

of resignation. "Two quartermasters thirty hours always there. Two!" he repeated, lifting up his right

hand a little, and exhibiting two fingers. This was absolutely the first gesture I saw him make. It gave me the

opportunity to "note" a starred scar on the back of his hand effect of a gunshot clearly; and, as if my sight

had been made more acute by this discovery, I perceived also the seam of an old wound, begin ning a little

below the temple and going out of sight under the short grey hair at the side of his head the graze of a

spear or the cut of a sabre. He clasped his hands on his stomach again. "I remained on board that that

my memory is going (s'en va). Ah! Pattna. C'est bien ca. Pattna. Merci. It is droll how one forgets. I stayed

' "You did!" I exclaimed. Still gazing at his hands, he pursed his lips a little, but this time made no hissing

sound. "It was judged proper," he said, lifting his eyebrows dispassionately, "that one of the officers should

remain to keep an eye open (pour ouvrir l'oeil)" . . . he sighed idly . . . "and for communicating by signals

with the towing ship do you see? and so on. For the rest, it was my opinion too. We made our boats

ready to drop over and I also on that ship took measures.... Enfin! One has done one's possible. It was a

delicate position. Thirty hours! They prepared me some food. As for the wine go and whistle for it not

a drop." In some extraordinary way, without any marked change in his inert attitude and in the placid

expression of his face, he managed to convey the idea of profound disgust. "I you know when it comes

'I was afraid he would enlarge upon the grievance, for though he didn't stir a limb or twitch a feature, he made

one aware how much he was irritated by the recollection. But he seemed to forget all about it. They delivered

their charge to the "port authorities," as he expressed it. He was struck by the calmness with which it had

been received. "One might have thought they had such a droll find (drole de trouvaille) brought them every

day. You are extraordinary you others," he commented, with his back propped against the wall, and

looking himself as incapable of an emotional display as a sack of meal. There happened to be a manofwar

and an Indian Marine steamer in dhe harbour at the time, and he did not conceal his admiration of the

efficient manner in which the boats of these two ships cleared the Patna of her passengers. Indeed his torpid

demeanour concealed nothing: it had that mysterious, almost mir aculous, power of producing striking

effects by means impossible of detection which is the last word of the highest art. "Twenty five munutes

watch in hand twentyfive, no more." . . . He unclasped and clasped again his fingers without removing

his hands from his stomach, and made it infinitely more effective than if he had thrown up his arms to heaven

in amazement.... "All that lot (tout ce monde) on shore with their little affairs nobody left but a guard

of seamen (marins de l'Etat) and that interesting corpse (cet interessant cadavre). Twentyfive minutes." . . .

With downcast eyes and his head tilted slightly on one side he seemed to roll know ingly on his tongue the

savour of a smart bit of work. He persuaded one without any further demonstration that his approval was

emi nendy worth having, and resuming his hardly interrupted immo bility he went on to inform me that,

being under orders to make the best of their way to Toulon, they left in two hours' time, "so that (de sorte

que) there are many things in this incident of my life (dans cet episode de ma vie) which have remained

'After these words, and without a change of attitude, he, so to speak, submitted himself passively to a state of

silence. I kept him company; and suddenly, but not abruptly, as if the appointed time had arrived for his

moderate and husky voice to come out of his immobility, he pronounced, "Mon Dieu! how the time passes!"

Nothing could have been more commonplace than this remark; but its utterance coincided for me with a

moment of vision. It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant

thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable

majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one

of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much every thing in a

flash before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. I raised my eyes when he spoke, and I saw

him as though I had never seen him before. I saw his chin sunk on his breast, the clumsy folds of his coat, his

clasped hands, his motion less pose, so curiously suggestive of his having been simply left there. Time had

passed indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poor gifts:

the irongrey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulderstraps; one of

those steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations, one of those uncounted lives that are

buried without drums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes. "I am now third lieuten

ant of the Victorieuse" (she was the flagship of the French Pacific squadron at the time), he said, detaching

his shoulders from the wall a couple of inches to introduce himself. I bowed slightly on my side of the table,

and told him I commanded a merchant vessel at present anchored in Rushcutters' Bay. He had "remarked"

her, a pretty little craft. He was very civil about it in his impassive way. I even fancy he went the length of

tilting his head in compliment as he repeated, breathing visibly the while, "Ah, yes. A little craft painted

black very pretty very pretty (tres coquet)." After a time he twisted his body slowly to face the glass

door on our right. "A dull town (triste ville)," he observed, staring into the street. It was a brilliant day; a

southerly buster was raging, and we could see the passersby, men and women, buffeted by the wind on the

sidewalks, the sunlit fronts of the houses across the road blurred by the tall whirls of dust. "I descended on

shore," he said, "to stretch my legs a little, but . . ." He didn't finish, and sank into the depths of his repose.

"Pray tell me," he began, coming up ponderously, "what was there at the bottom of this affair precisely

' "No doubt, no doubt," he agreed half audibly, then, as if after mature consideration, murmured, "Evidently."

I made no diffi culty in communicating to him what had interested me most in this affair. It seemed as

though he had a right to know: hadn't he spent thirty hours on board the Palna had he not taken the

succession, so to speak, had he not done "his possible"? He listened to me, looking more priestlike than

ever, and with what probably on account of his downcast eyes had the appearance of devout concen

tration. Once or twice he elevated his eyebrows (but without raising his eyelids), as one would say "The

devil!" Once he calmly exclaimed, "Ah, bah!" under his breath, and when I had finished he pursed his lips in

'In any one else it might have been an evidence of boredom, a sign of indifference; but he, in his occult way,

managed to make his immobility appear profoundly responsive, and as full of valuable thoughts as an egg is

of meat. What he said at last was nothing more than a "Very interesting," pronounced politely, and not much

above a whisper. Before I got over my disappointment he added, but as if speaking to himself, "That's it. That

is it." His chin seemed to sink lower on his breast, his body to weigh heavier on his seat. I was about to ask

him what he meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person, as a faint ripple may be

seen upon stagnant water even before the wind is felt. "And so that poor young man ran away along with the

'I don't know what made me smile: it is the only genuine smile of mine I can remember in connection with

Jim's affair. But some how this simple statement of the matter sounded funny in French.... "S'est enfui avec

les autres," had said the lieutenant. And suddenly I began to admire the discrimination of the man. He had

made out the point at once: he did get hold of the only thing I cared about. I felt as though I were taking

professional opinion on the case. His imperturbable and mature calmness was that of an expert in possession

of the facts, and to whom one's perplexities are mere child'splay. "Ah! The young, the young," he said

indul gently. "And after all, one does not die of it." "Die of what?" I asked swiftly. "Of being afraid." He

'I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff and could not move independently of

each other, so that he took up his tumbler with an ungainly clutch. "One is always afraid. One may talk, but

..." He put down the glass awkwardly.... "The fear, the fear look you it is always there." . . . He

touched his breast near a brass button, on the very spot where Jim had given a thump to his own when

protesting that there was nothing the matter with his heart. I suppose I made some sign of dissent, because he

insisted, "Yes! yes! One talks, one talks; this is all very fine; but at the end of the reckoning one is no cleverer

than the next man and no more brave. Brave! This is always to be seen. I have rolled my hump (roule ma

bosse)," he said, using the slang expression with imperturbable seriousness, "in all parts of the world; I have

known brave men famous ones! Allez!" . . . He drank carelessly.... "Brave you conceive in the

Service one has got to be the trade demands it (le metier veut ca). Is it not so?" he appealed to me

reasonably. "Eh bien! Each of them I say each of them, if he were an honest man bien entendu

would confess that there is a point there is a point for the best of us there is somewhere a point

when you let go everything (vous lachez tout). And you have got to live with that truth do you see? Given

a certain combination of circumstances, fear is sure to come. Abomin able funk (un trac epouvantable). And

even for those who do not believe this truth there is fear all the same the fear of themselves. Absolutely

so. Trust me. Yes. Yes.... At my age one knows what one is talking about que diable!" . . . He had delivered

himself of all this as immovably as though he had been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point

he heightened the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. "It's evident parbleu!" he

continued; "for, make up your mind as much as you like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un

derangement d'estomac) is enough to . . . Take me, for instance I have made my proofs. Eh bien! I, who

'He drained his glass and returned to his twirling. "No, no; one does not die of it," he pronounced finally, and

when I found he did not mean to proceed with the personal anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the more

so as it was not the sort of story, you know, one could very well press him for. I sat silent, and he too, as if

nothing could please him better. Even his thumbs were still now. Suddenly his lips began to move. "That is

so," he resumed placidly. "Man is born a coward (L'homme est ne poltron). It is a difficulty parbleu! It

would be too easy other vise. But habit habit neces sity do you see? the eye of others voila.

One puts up with it. And then the example of others who are no better than yourself, and yet make good

' "That young man you will observe had none of these induce ments at least at the moment," I

'He raised his eyebrows forgivingly: "I don't say; I don't say. The young man in question might have had the

' "I am glad to see you taking a lenient view," I said. 'His own feeling in the matter was ah! hopeful,

'The shuffle of his feet under the table interrupted me. He drew up his heavy eyelids. Drew up, I say no

other expression can describe the steady deliberation of the act and at last was disclosed completely to me.

I was confronted by two narrow grey circlets, like two tiny steel rings around the profound blackness of the

pupils. The sharp glance, coming from that massive body, gave a notion of extreme efficiency, like a

razoredge on a battleaxe. "Pardon," he said punctiliously. His right hand went up, and he swayed forward.

"Allow me . . . I contended that one may get on knowing very well that one's courage does not come of itself

(ne vient pas tout seul). There's nothing much in that to get upset about. One truth the more ought not to make

life impossible.... But the honour the honour, monsieur! . . . The honour . . . that is real that is! And

what life may be worth when" . . . he got on his feet with a ponderous impetuosity, as a startled ox might

scram ble up from the grass . . . "when the honour is gone ah ca! par exemple I can offer no opinion.

'I had risen too, and, tnrying to throw infinite politeness into our attitudes, we faced each other mutely, like

two china dogs on a mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he had pricked the bubble. The blight of futility that lies

in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. "Very

well," I said, with a disconcerted smile; "but couldn't it reduce itself to not being found out?" He made as if to

retort readily, but when he spoke he had changed his mind. "This, monsieur, is too fine for me much

above me I don't think about it." He bowed heavily over his cap, which he held before him by the peak,

between the thumb and the forefinger of his wounded hand. I bowed too. We bowed together: we scraped our

feet at each other with much ceremony, while a dirty specimen of a waiter looked on critically, as though he

had paid for the performance. "Serviteur," said the Frenchman. Another scrape. "Monsieur" . . . "Monsieur." .

. . The glass door swung behind his burly back. I saw the southerly buster get hold of him and drive him

down wind with his hand to his head, his shoulders braced, and the tails of his coat blown hard against his

'I sat down again alone and discouraged discouraged about Jim's case. If you wonder that after more than

three years it had preserved its actuality, you must know that I had seen him only very lately. I had come

straight from Samarang, where I had loaded a cargo for Sydney: an utterly uninteresting bit of business,

what Charley here would call one of my rational transactions, and in Samarang I had seen something of

Jim. He was then working for De Jongh, on my recommendation. Waterclerk. "My representative afloat," as

De Jongh called him. You can't imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable of being

invested with a spark of glamour unless it be the business of an insurance can vasser. Little Bob Stanton

Charley here knew him well had gone through that experience. The same who got drowned afterwards

trying to save a lady'smaid in the Sephora disaster. A case of colli sion on a hazy morning off the Spanish

coast you may remember. All the passengers had been packed tidily into the boats and shoved clear of the

ship, when Bob sheered alongside again and scrambled back on deck to fetch that girl. How she had been left

behind I can't make out; anyhow, she had gone completely crazy wouldn't leave the ship held to the

rail like grim death. The wrestling match could be seen plainly from the boats; but poor Bob was the

shortest chief mate in the merchant senice, and the woman stood five feet ten in her shoes and was as strong

as a horse, I've been told. So it went on, pull devil, pull baker, the wretched girl screaming all the time, and

Bob letting out a yell now and then to warn his boat to keep well clear of the ship. One of the hands told me,

hiding a smile at the recollection, "It was for all the world, sir, like a naughty youngster fighting with his

mother. " The same old chap said that "At the last we could see that Mr. Stanton had given up hauling at the

gal, and just stood by looking at her, watchful like. We thought afterwards he must've been reckoning that,

maybe, the rush of water would tear her away from the rail byandby and give him a show to save her. We

daren't come alongside for our life; and after a bit the old ship went down all on a sudden with a lurch to star

board plop. The suck in was something awful. We never saw anything alive or dead come up." Poor Bob's

spell of shorelife had been one of the complications of a love affair, I believe. He fondly hoped he had done

with the sea for ever, and made sure he had got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it came to canvassing in the

end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us

laugh till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like a

gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul

was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work." I don't know how Jim's soul

accommodated itself to the new conditions of his life I was kept too busy in getting him something to do

that would keep body and soul together but I am pretty certain his adventurous fancy was suffering all the

pangs of starvation. It had certainly nothing to feed upon in this new calling. It was distressing to see him at

it, though he tackled it with a stubborn serenity for which I must give him full credit. I kept my eye on his

shabby plodding with a sort of notion that it was a punishment for the heroics of his fancy an expiation for

his craving after more glamour than he could carry . He had loved too well to imagine himself a glorious

racehorse, and now he was condemned to toil without honour like a costermonger's donkey. He did it very

well. He shut himself in, put his head down, said never a word. Very well; very well indeed except for

certain fantastic and violent outbreaks, on the deplorable occasions when the irrepressible Patna case cropped

up. Unfortunately that scandal of the Eastern seas would not die out. And this is the reason why I could never

'I sat thinking of him after the French lieutenant had left, not, however, in connection with De Jongh's cool

and gloomy back shop, where we had hurriedly shaken hands not very long ago, but as I had seen him years

before in the last flickers of the candle, alone with me in the long gallen of the Malabar House, with the chill

and the darkness of the night at his back. The respectable sword of his country's law was suspended over his

head. Tomorrow or was it today? (midnight had slipped by long before we parted) the marblefaced

police magistrate, after distributing fines and terms of imprisonment in the assaultandbattery case, would

take up the awful weapon and smite his bowed neck. Our communion in the night was uncommonly like a

last vigil with a condemned man. He was guilty too. He was guilty as I had told myself repeatedly, guilty

and done for; nevertheless, I wished to spare him the mere detail of a formal execution. I don't pretend to

explain the reasons of my desire I don't think I could; but if you haven't got a sort of notion by this time,

then I must have been very obscure in my narrative, or you too sleepy to seize upon the sense of my words. I

don't defend my morality. There was no morality in the impulse which induced me to lay before him Brierly's

plan of evasion I may call it in all its primitive simplicity. There were the rupees absolutely ready

in my pocket and very much at his service. Oh! a loan; a loan of course and if an introduction to a man (in

Rangoon) who could put some work in his way . . . Why! with the greatest pleasure. I had pen, ink, and paper

in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I was impatient to begin the letter day,

month, yeu, 2.30 A.M.... for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of Mr.

James Soandso, in whom, I was even ready to write in that strain about him. If he had not enlisted my

sympathies he had done better for himself he had gone to the very fount and origin of that sentiment he

had reached the secret sensibility of my egoism. I am concealing nothing from you, because were I to do so

my action would appear more unintelligible than any man's action has the right to be, and in the second

place tomorrow you will forget my sincerity along with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction,

to speak grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle intentions of my immorality were

defeated by the moral simplicity of the criminal. No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher

origin, a more lofty aim. I discovered that, say what I would, he was eager to go through the ceremony of

execution, and I didn't say much, for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against me heavily: he

believed where I had already ceased to doubt. There was something fine in the wildness of his unexpressed,

hardly formulated hope. "Clear out! Couldn't think of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "I make you an

offer for which I neither demand nor expect any sort of gratitude," I said; "you shall repay the money when

convenient, and . . ." "Awfully good of you," he muttered without looking up. I watched him narrowly: the

future must have appeared horribly uncertain to him; but he did not falter, as though indeed there had been

nothing wrong with his heart. I felt angry not for the first time that night. "The whole wretched business,"

I said, "is bitter enough, I should think, for a man of your kind . . ." "It is, it is," he whispered twice, with his

eyes fixed on the floor. It was heartrending. He towered above the light, and I could see the down on his

cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth skin of his face. Believe me or not, I say it was

outrageously heart rending. It provoked me to brutality. "Yes," I said; "and allow me to confess that I am

totally unable to imagine what advantage you can expect from this licking of the dregs." "Advantage!" he

mur mured out of his stillness. "I am dashed if I do," I said, enraged. "I've been trying to tell you all there is

in it," he went on slowly, as if meditating something unanswerable. "But after all, it is my trouble." I opened

my mouth to retort, and discovered suddenly that I'd lost all confidence in myself; and it was as if he too had

given me up, for he mumbled like a man thinking half aloud. "Went away ... went into hospitals.... Not one of

them would face it.... They! ..." He moved his hand slightly to imply disdain. "But I've got to get over this

thing, and I mustn't shirk any of it or . . . I won't shirk any of it." He was silent. He gazed as though he had

been haunted. His unconscious face reflected the passing expressions of scorn, of despair, of resoludon

reflected them in turn, as a magic mirror would reflect the gliding passage of unearthly shapes. He lived

surrounded by deceitful ghosts, by aus tere shades. "Oh! nonsense, my dear fellow," I began. He had a

movement of impatience. "You don't seem to understand," he said incisively; then looking at me without a

wink, "I may have jumped, but I don't run away." "I meant no offence," I said; and added stupidly, "Better

men than you have found it expedient to run, at times." He coloured all over, while in my confusion I

halfchoked myself with my own tongue. "Perhaps so," he said at last, "I am not good enough; I can't afford

it. I am bound to fight this thing down I am fighting it now." I got out of my chair and felt stiff all over.

The silence was embarrassing, and to put an end to it I imagined nothing better but to remark, "I had no idea

it was so late," in an airy tone.... "I dare say you have had enough of this," he said brusquely: "and to tell you

'Well! he had refused this unique offer. He had struck aside my helping hand; he was ready to go now, and

beyond the balustrade the night seemed to wait for him very still, as though he had been marked down for its

prey. I heard his voice. "Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a few seconds we hung in the wind. "What

will you do after after . . ." I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely as not," he answered in a gruff

mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, and judged best to take it lightly. "Pray remem ber," I said,

"that I should like very much to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to prevent you. The

damned thing won't make me invisible," he said with intense bitterness, "no such luck." And then at the

moment of taking leave he treated me to a ghastly muddle of dubious stammers and movements, to an awful

display of hesitations. God forgive him me! He had taken it into his fanciful head that I was likely to make

some difficulty as to shaking hands. It was too awful for words. I believe I shouted suddenly at him as you

would bellow to a man you saw about to walk over a cliff; I remember our voices being raised, the

appearance of a miserable grin on his face, a crushing clutch on my hand, a nervous laugh. The candle

spluttered out, and the thing was over at last, with a groan that floated up to me in the dark. He got himself

away somehow. The night swallowed his form. He was a horrible bungler. Horrible. I heard the quick

crunchcrunch of the gravel under his boots. He was running. Absolutely running, with nowhere to go to.

'I slept little, hurried over my breakfast, and after a slight hesita tion gave up my early morning visit to my

ship. It was really very wrong of me, because, though my chief mate was an excellent man all round, he was

the victim of such black imaginings that if he did not get a letter from his wife at the expected time he would

go quite distracted with rage and jealousy, lose all grip on the work, quarrel with all hands, and either weep in

his cabin or develop such a ferocity of temper as all but drove the crew to the verge of mutiny. The thing had

always seemed inexplicable to me: they had been married thirteen years; I had a glimpse of her once, and,

honestly, I couldn't conceive a man abandoned enough to plunge into sin for the sake of such an unattractive

person. I don't know whether I have not done wrong by refraining from putting that view before poor Selvin:

the man made a little hell on earth for himself, and I also suffered indirectly, but some sort of, no doubt, false

delicacy prevented me. The marital relations of seamen would make an interesting subject, and I could tell

you instances.... However, this is not the place, nor the time, and we are concerned with Jim who was

unmarried. If his imaginative conscience or his pride; if all the extravagant ghosts and austere shades that

were the disastrous familiars of his youth would not let him run away from the block, I, who of course can't

be suspected of such familiars, was irresistibly impelled to go and see his head roll off. I wended my way

towards the court. I didn't hope to be very much impressed or edified, or interested or even frightened

though, as long as there is any life before one, a jolly good fright now and then is a salutary discipline. But

neither did I expect to be so awfully depressed. The bitterness of his punishment was in its chill and mean

atmosphere. The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the com munity of mankind,

and from that point of view he was no mean traitor, but his execution was a holeandcorner affair. There

was no high scaffolding, no scarlet cloth (did they have scarlet cloth on Tower Hill? They should have had),

no awestricken multitude to be horrified at his guilt and be moved to tears at his fate no air of sombre

retribution. There was, as I walked along, the clear sun shine, a brilliance too passionate to be consoling, the

streets full of jumbled bits of colour like a damaged kaleidoscope: yellow, green, blue, dazzling white, the

brown nudity of an undraped shoulder, a bullockcart with a red canopy, a company of native infantry in a

drab body with dark heads marching in dusty laced boots, a native policeman in a sombre uniform of scanty

cut and belted in patent leather, who looked up at me with orientally pitiful eyes as though his migrating spirit

were suffering exceedingly from that unfore seen what d'ye call 'em? avatar incarnation. Under

the shade of a lonely tree in the courtyard, the villagers connected with the assault case sat in a picturesque

group, looking like a chromolitho graph of a camp in a book of Eastern travel. One missed the obliga tory

thread of smoke in the foreground and the packanimals grazing. A blank yellow wall rose behind

overtopping the tree, reflecdng the glare. The courtroom was sombre, seemed more vast. High up in the dim

space the punkahs were swaying short to and fro, to and fro. Here and there a draped figure, dwarfed by the

bare walls, remained without stirring amongst the rows of empty benches, as if absorbed in pious meditation.

The plaintiff, who had been beaten, an obese chocolatecoloured man with shaved head, one fat breast

bare and a bright yellow castemark above the bridge of his nose, sat in pompous immobility: only his

eyes glittered, rolling in the gloom, and the nostrils dilated and collapsed violently as he breathed. Brierly

dropped into his seat looking done up, as though he had spent the night in sprinting on a cindertrack. The

pious sailingship skipper appeared excited and made uneasy move ments, as if restraining with difficulty

an impulse to stand up and exhort us earnestly to prayer and repentance. The head of the magistrate,

delicately pale under the neatly arranged hair, resembled the head of a hopeless invalid after he had been

washed and brushed and propped up in bed. He moved aside the vase of flowers a bunch of purple with a

few pink blossoms on long stalks and seizing in both hands a long sheet of bluish paper, ran his eye over

it, propped his forearms on the edge of the desk, and began to read aloud in an even, distinct, and careless

'By Jove! For all my foolishness about scaffolds and heads rolling off I assure you it was infinitely worse

than a beheading. A heavy sense of finality brooded over all this, unrelieved by the hope of rest and safety

following the fall of the axe. These proceedings had all the cold vengefulness of a deathsentence, and the

cruelty of a sentence of exile. This is how I looked at it that morning and even now I seem to see an

undeniable vestige of truth in that exaggerated view of a common occurrence. You may imagine how

strongly I felt this at the time. Perhaps it is for that reason that I could not bring myself to admit the finality.

The thing was always with me, I was always eager to take opinion on it, as though it had not been practi

cally settled: individual opinion international opinion by Jove! That Frenchman's, for instance. His

own country's pronouncement was uttered in the passionless and definite phraseology a machine would use,

if machines could speak. The head of the magistrate was half hidden by the paper, his brow was like

'There were several questions before the court. The first as to whether the ship was in every respect fit and

seaworthy for the voyage. The court found she was not. The next point, I remember, was, whether up to the

time of the accident the ship had been navigated with proper and seamanlike care. They said Yes to that,

goodness knows why, and then they declared that there was no evidence to show the exact cause of the

accident. A floating derelict probably. I myself remember that a Norwegian barque bound out with a cargo of

pitchpine had been given up as missing about that time, and it was just the sort of craft that would capsize in

a squall and float bottom up for months a kind of maritime ghoul on the prowl to kill ships in the dark.

Such wandering corpses are common enough in the North Atlantic, which is haunted by all the terrors of the

sea, fogs, icebergs, dead ships bent upon mischief, and long sinister gales that fasten upon one like a

vampire till all the strength and the spirit and even hope are gone, and one feels like the empty shell of a man.

But there in those seas the incident was rare enough to resemble a special arrangement of a malevolent

provi dence, which, unless it had for its object the killing of a donkeyman and the bringing of worse than

death upon Jim, appeared an utterly aimless piece of devilry. This view occurring to me took off my

attention. For a time I was aware of the magistrate's voice as a sound merely; but in a moment it shaped itself

into distinct words . . . "in utter disregard of their plain duty," it said. The next sentence escaped me

somehow, and then . . . "abandoning in the moment of danger the lives and property confided to their charge"

. . . went on the voice evenly, and stopped. A pair of eyes under the white forehead shot darkly a glance

above the edge of the paper. I looked for Jim hurriedly, as though I had expected him to disappear. He was

very still but he was there. He sat pink and fair and extremely attentive. "Therefore,..." began the voice

emphatically. He stared with parted lips, hanging upon the words of the man behind the desk. These came out

into the stillness wafted on the wind made by the punkahs, and I, watching for their effect upon him, caught

only the fragments of official language.... "The Court... Gustav Soandso . . . master . . . native of Germany

. . . James So andso. . . mate . . . certificates cancelled." A silence fell. The magistrate had dropped the

paper, and, leaning sideways on the arm of his chair, began to talk with Brierly easily. People started to move

out; others were pushing in, and I also made for the door. Outside I stood still, and when Jim passed me on

his way to the gate, I caught at his arm and detained him. The look he gave dis composed me, as though I

had been responsible for his state he looked at me as if I had been the embodied evil of life. "It's all over," I

stammered. "Yes," he said thickly. "And now let no man . . ." He jerked his arm out of my grasp. I watched

his back as he went away. It was a long street, and he remained in sight for some time. He walked rather

slow, and straddling his legs a little, as if he had found it diffficult to keep a straight line. Just before I lost

' "Man overboard," said a deep voice behind me. Turning round, I saw a fellow I knew slightly, a West

Australian; Chester was his name. He, too, had been looking after Jim. He was a man with an immense girth

of chest, a rugged, cleanshaved face of mahogany colour, and two blunt tufts of irongrey, thick, wiry hairs

on his upper lip. He had been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler too, I believe; in his own words anything

and everything a man may be at sea, but a pirate. The Pacific, north and south, was his proper

huntingground; but he had wandered so far afield looking for a cheap steamer to buy. Lately he had

discovered so he said a guano island somewhere, but its approaches were dangerous, and the

anchorage, such as it was, could not be considered safe, to say the least of it. "As good as a goldmine," he

would exclaim. "Right bang in the middle of the Walpole Reefs, and if it's true enough that you can get no

holdingground anywhere in less than forty fathom, then what of that? There are the hurricanes, too. But it's

a firstrate thing. As good as a goldmine better! Yet there's not a fool of them that will see it. I can't get

a skipper or a shipowner to go near the place. So I made up my mind to cart the blessed stuff myself." . . .

This was what he required a steamer for, and I knew he was just then negotiating enthusiastically with a

Parsee firm for an old, brigrigged, seaanachronism of ninety horsepower. We had met and spoken

together several times. He looked knowingly after Jim. "Takes it to heart?" he asked scornfully. "Very much,"

I said. "Then he's no good," he opined. "What's all the todo about? A bit of ass's skin. That never yet made a

man. You must see things exactly as they are if you don't, you may just as well give in at once. You will

never do anything in this world. Look at me. I made it a practice never to take anything to heart." "Yes," I

said, "you see things as they are." "I wish I could see my partner coming along, that's what I wish to see," he

said. "Know my part ner? Old Robinson. Yes; the Robinson. Don't you know? The notorious Robinson. The

man who smuggled more opium and bagged more seals in his time than any loose Johnny now alive. They

say he used to board the sealingschooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thick that the Lord God, He

alone, could tell one man from another. HolyTerror Robinson. That's the man. He is with me in that guano

thing. The best chance he ever came across in his life." He put his lips to my ear. "Cannibal? well, they

used to give him the name years and years ago. You remember the story? A shipwreck on the west side of

Stewart Island; that's right; seven of them got ashore, and it seems they did not get on very well together.

Some men are too cantankerous for anything don't know how to make the best of a bad job don't see

things as they are as they are, my boy! And then what's the consequence? Obvious! Trouble, trouble; as

likely as not a knock on the head; and serve 'em right too. That sort is the most useful when it's dead. The

story goes that a boat of Her Majesty's ship Wolverine found him kneeling on the kelp, naked as the day he

was born, and chanting some psalmtune or other; light snow was falling at the time. He waited till the boat

was an oar's length from the shore, and then up and away. They chased him for an hour up and down the

boulders, till a marihe flung a stone that took him behind the ear providendally and knocked him senseless.

Alone? Of course. But that's like that tale of sealingschooners; the Lord God knows the right and the wrong

of that story. The cutter did not investigate much. They wrapped him in a boatcloak and took him off as

quick as they could, with a dark night coming on, the weather threatening, and the ship firing recall guns

every five minutes. Three weeks after wards he was as well as ever. He didn't allow any fuss that was made

on shore to upset him; he just shut his lips tight, and let people screech. It was bad enough to have lost his

ship, and all he was worth besides, without paying attention to the hard names they called him. That's the man

for me." He lifted his arm for a signal to some one down the street. "He's got a little money, so I had to let

him into my thing. Had to! It would have been sinful to throw away such a find, and I was cleaned out

myself. It cut me to the quick, but I could see the matter just as it was, and if I must share thinks I with

any man, then give me Robinson. I left him at breakfast in the hotel to come to court, because I've an idea....

'An emaciated patriarch in a suit of white drill, a solah topi with a greenlined rim on a head trembling with

age, joined us after crossing the street in a trotting shuffle, and stood propped with both hands on the handle

of an umbrella. A white beard with amber streaks hung lumpily down to his waist. He blinked his creased

eyelids at me in a bewildered way. "How do you do? how do you do?" he piped amiably, and tottered. "A

little deaf," said Chester aside. "Did you drag him over six thousand miles to get a cheap steamer?" I asked. "I

would have taken him twice round the world as soon as look at him," said Chester with immense energy.

"The steamer will be the making of us, my lad. Is it my fault that every skipper and shipowner in the whole of

blessed Australasia turns out a blamed fool? Once I talked for three hours to a man in Auckland. 'Send a ship,'

I said, 'send a ship. I'll give you half of the first cargo for yourself, free gratis for nothing just to make a

good start.' Says he, 'I wouldn't do it if there was no other place on earth to send a ship to.' Perfect ass, of

course. Rocks, currents, no anchor age, sheer cliff to lay to, no insurance company would take the risk,

didn't see how he could get loaded under three years. Ass! I nearly went on my knees to him. 'But look at the

thing as it is,' says I. 'Damn rocks and hurricanes. Look at it as it is. There's guano there Queensland

sugarplanters would fight for fight for on the quay, I tell you.' . . . What can you do with a fool? . . .

'That's one of your little jokes, Chester,' he says.... Joke! I could have wept. Ask Captain Robinson here....

And there was another shipown ing fellow a fat chap in a white waistcoat in Wellington, who seemed to

think I was up to some swindle or other. 'I don't know what sort of fool you're looking for,' he says, 'but I am

busy just now. Good morning.' I longed to take him in my two hands and smash him through the window of

his own office. But I didn't. I was as mild as a curate. 'Think of it,' says I. 'Do think it over. I'll call

tomorrow.' He grunted something about being 'out all day.' On the stairs I felt ready to beat my head against

the wall from vexation. Captain Robinson here can tell you. It was awful to think of all that lovely stuff lying

waste under the sun stuff that would send the sugarcane shooting skyhigh. The making of Queensland!

The making of Queensland! And in Brisbane, where I went to have a last try, they gave me the name of a

lunatic. Idiots! The only sensible man I came across was the cabman who drove me about. A brokendown

swell he was, I fancy. Hey! Captain Robinson? You remember I told you about my cabby in Brisbane

don't you? The chap had a wonderful eye for things. He saw it all in a jiffy. It was a real pleasure to talk with

him. One evening after a devil of a day amongst shipowners I felt so bad that, says I, 'I must get drunk. Come

along; I must get drunk, or I'll go mad. ' 'I am your man,' he says; 'go ahead.' I don't know what I would have

'He poked the ribs of his partner. "He! he! he!" laughed the Ancient, looked aimlessly down the street, then

peered at me doubt fully with sad, dim pupils.... "He! he! he!" ... He leaned heav ier on the umbrella, and

dropped his gaze on the ground. I needn't tell you I had tried to get away several times, but Chester had foiled

every attempt by simply catching hold of my coat. "One minute. I've a notion." "What's your infernal

notion?" I exploded at last. "If you think I am going in with you . . ." "No, no, my boy. Too late, if you

wanted ever so much. We've got a steamer." "You've got the ghost of a steamer," I said. "Good enough for a

start there's no superior nonsense about us. Is there, Captain Robinson?" "No! no! no!" croaked the old

man without lifting his eyes, and the senile tremble of his head became almost fierce with determination. "I

understand you know that young chap," said Chester, with a nod at the street from which Jim had disappeared

long ago. "He's been having grub with you in the Malabar last night so I was told."

'I said that was true, and after remarking that he too liked to live well and in style, only that, for the present,

he had to be saving of every penny "none too many for the business! Isn't that so, Cap tain Robinson?"

he squared his shoulders and stroked his dumpy moustache, while the notorious Robinson, coughing at his

side, clung more than ever to the handle of the umbrella, and seemed ready to subside passively into a heap of

old bones. "You see, the old chap has all the money," whispered Chester confidendally. "I've been cleaned

out trying to engineer the dratted thing. But wait a bit, wait a bit. The good time is coming." . . . He seemed

suddenly astonished at the signs of impatience I gave. "Oh, crakee!" he cried; "I am telling you of the biggest

thing that ever was, and you . . ." "I have an appointment," I pleaded mildly. "What of that?" he asked with

genuine surprise; "let it wait." "That's exactly what I am doing now," I remarked; "hadn't you better tell me

what it is you want?" "Buy twenty hotels like that," he growled to himself; "and every joker boarding in them

too twenty times over." He lifted his head smartly "I want that young chap." "I don't understand," I said.

"He's no good, is he?" said Chester crisply. "I know nothing about it," I protested. "Why, you told me

yourself he was taking it to heart," argued Chester. "Well, in my opinion a chap who . . . Anyhow, he can't be

much good; but then you see I am on the lookout for somebody, and I've just got a thing that will suit him.

I'll give him a job on my island." He nodded significantly. "I'm going to dump forty coolies there if I've to

steal 'em. Somebody must work the stuff. Oh! I mean to act square: wooden shed, corrugatediron roof I

know a man in Hobart who will take my bill at six months for the materials. I do. Honour bright. Then there's

the watersupply. I'll have to fly round and get somebody to trust me for halfadozen secondhand iron

tanks. Catch rainwater, hey? Let him take charge. Make him supreme boss over the coolies. Good idea, isn't

it? What do you say?" "There are whole years when not a drop of rain falls on Walpole," I said, too amazed

to laugh. He bit his lip and seemed bothered. "Oh, well, I wiU fix up something for them or land a supply.

'I said nothing. I had a rapid vision of Jim perched on a shadow less rock, up to his knees in guano, with the

screams of seabirds in his ears, the incandescent ball of the sun above his head; the empty sky and the

empty ocean all aquiver, simmering together in the heat as far as the eye could reach. "I wouldn't advise my

worst enemy . . ." I began. "What's the matter with you?" cried Chester; "I mean to give him a good screw

that is, as soon as the thing is set going, of course. It's as easy as falling off a log. Simply nothing to do; two

sixshooters in his belt . . . Surely he wouldn't be afraid of anyt}ung forty coolies could do with two

sixshooters and he the only armed man too! It's much better than it looks. I want you to help me to talk him

over." "No!" I shouted. Old Robinson lifted his bleared eyes dismally for a moment, Chester looked at me

with infinite contempt. "So you wouldn't advise him?" he uttered slowly. "Certainly not," I answered, as

indignant as though he had requested me to help murder somebody; "moreover, I am sure he wouldn't. He is

badly cut up, but he isn't mad as far as I know." "He is no earthly good for anything," Chester mused aloud.

"He would just have done for me. If you only could see a thing as it is, you would see it's the very thing for

him. And besides . . . Why! it's the most splendid, sure chance . . ." He got angry suddenly. "I must have a

man. There! . . ." He stamped his foot and smiled unpleasantly. "Anyhow, I could guarantee the island

wouldn't sink under him and I believe he is a bit particular on that point." "Good morning," I said curtly.

He looked at me as though I had been an incomprehensible fool.... "Must be moving, Captain Robinson," he

yelled suddenly into the old man's ear. "These Parsee Johnnies are waiting for us to clinch the bargain." He

took his partner under the arm with a firm grip, swung him round, and, unexpectedly, leered at me over his

shoulder. "I was trying to do him a kindness," he asserted, with an air and tone that made my blood boil.

"Thank you for nothing in his name," I rejoined. "Oh! you are devilish smart," he sneered; "but you are

like the rest of them. Too much in the clouds. See what you will do with him." "I don't know that I want to do

anything with him." "Don't you?" he spluttered; his grey moustache bristled with anger, and by his side the

notorious Robinson, propped on the umbrella, stood with his back to me, as patient and still as a wornout

cabhorse. "I haven't found a guano island," I said. "It's my belief you wouldn't know one if you were led

right up to it by the hand," he riposted quickly; "and in this world you've got to see a thing first, before you

can make use of it. Got to see it through and through at that, neither more nor less." "And get others to see it

too," I insinuated, with a glance at the bowed back by his side. Chester snorted at me. "His eyes are right

enough don't you worry. He ain't a puppy." "Oh dear, no!" I said. "Come along, Captain Robinson," he

shouted, with a sort of bullying deference under the rim of the old man's hat; the Holy Terror gave a

submissive little jump. The ghost of a steamer was waiting for them, Fortune on that fair isle! They made a

curious pair of Argonauts. Chester strode on leisurely, well set up, portly, and of conquering mien; the other,

long, wasted, drooping, and hooked to his arm, shuffled his withered shanks with desperate haste.'

'I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an appointment which I could not neglect.

Then, as illluck would have it, in my agent's office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from Madagascar

with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of busi ness. It had something to do with cattle and cartridges and

a Prince Ravonalo something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stu pidity of some admiral

Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the chap couldn't find words strong enough to express

his confidence. He had globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on his forehead, and

wore his long hair brushed back without a parting. He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating

triumphantly, "The minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?" He made my head

ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right; and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made

straight for the waterside. I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native boatmen

quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his elbow. He didn't hear me come up, but spun

round as if the slight contact of my finger had released a catch. "I was looking," he stammered. I don't

remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no difficulty in following me to the hotel.

'He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air, with no sort of manifestation, rather as

though he had been waiting for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so surprised

as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to some seems so big and that others affect to

consider as rather smaller than a mustardseed, he had no place where he could what shall I say?

where he could withdraw. That's it! Withdraw be alone with his loneliness. He walked by my side very

calm, glancing here and there, and once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat and

yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump of anthracite coal. I doubt, however,

whether he saw anything, or even remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not

edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe he would have gone straight before him

in any direction till stopped by a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat down at

once to write letters. This was the only place in the world (unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef but that was

not so handy) where he could have it out with himself without being both ered by the rest of the universe.

The damned thing as he had expressed it had not made him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though

he were. No sooner in my chair I bent over my writingdesk like a medieval scribe, and, but for the

movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I can't say I was fright ened; but I

certainly kept as still as if there had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a

movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not much in the room you know

how these bedrooms are a sort of four poster bedstead under a mosquitonet, two or three chairs, the

table I was writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah, and he stood with his face to

it, having a hard time with all possible privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of

movement and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is no doubt that he had a very

hard time of it, and so had I, even to the point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at

least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was, perhaps, the man to deal effec tively with

such a disaster. That strange idealist had found a practi cal use for it at once unerringly, as it were. It was

enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see the true aspect of things that appeared

mysterious or utterly hopeless to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the arrears of

my corre spondence, and then went on writing to people who had no reason whatever to expect from me a

gossipy letter about nothing at all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot, but

convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave suddenly. He was fighting, he was

fighting mostly for his breath, as it seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight

flame of the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy conscious ness; the immobility of the furniture had to my

furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though,

when the scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence and stillness in the room, I

suffered from that profound disturbance and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing

uproar of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what I mean: that mingled anxiety,

distress, and irritation with a sort of craven feeling creeping in not pleasant to acknowledge, but which

gives a quite special merit to one's endurance. I don't claim any merit for stand ing the stress of Jim's

emotions; I could take refuge in the letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I was

taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first sound that, since we had been shut up

together, had come to my ears in the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my hand

arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sickbed have heard such faint sounds in the stillness of the night

watches, sounds wrung from a racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force that

all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining my ears without know ing what else I

expected to hear. He was really taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous

criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as they were. An empty formality; a

piece of parchment. Well, well. As to an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One

could intelligibly break one's heart over that. A feeble burst of many voices mingled with the tinkle of silver

and glass floated up from the diningroom below; through the open door the outer edge of the light from my

candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely

figure by the shore of a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it to be sure a

speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My compassion for him took the shape of the thought

that I wouldn't have liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself. His back was no

longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this

stillness sank to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy that for a second I

wished heartily that the only course left open for me was to pay for his funeral. Even the law had done with

him. To bury him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much in accordance with

the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of

our mortality; all that makes against our efficiency the memory of our failures, the hints of our undying

fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he did take it too much to heart. And if so then Chester's

offer.... At this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There was nothing but myself

between him and the dark ocean. I had a sense of responsibility. If I spoke, would that motionless and

suffering youth leap into the obscurity clutch at the straw? I found out how difficult it may be sometimes

to make a sound. There is a weird power in a spoken word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself

persistently while I drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the very point of the pen,

the two figures of Chester and his antique partner, very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with

stride and ges tures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy. I would watch them for a while. No!

They were too phantasmal and extravagant to enter into any one's fate. And a word carries far very far

deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. I said nothing; and he, out there with his

back to the light, as if bound and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no sound.'

'The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted, admired, with a legend of strength and prowess

forming round his name as though he had been the stuff of a hero. It's true I assure you; as true as I'm

sitting here talking about him in vain. He, on his side, had that faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his

desire and the shape of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no adventurer. He

captured much honour and an Arcadian happiness (I won't say anything about innocence) in the bush, and it

was as good to him as the honour and the Arcadian happiness of the streets to another man. Felicity, felicity

how shall I say it? is quaffed out of a golden cup in every latitude: the flavour is with you with you

alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please. He was of the sort that would drink deep, as you

may guess from what went before. I found him, if not exactly intoxi cated, then at least flushed with the

elixir at his lips. He had not obtained it at once. There had been, as you know, a period of probation amongst

infernal shipchandlers, during which he had suffered and I had worried about about my trust you

may call it. I don't know that I am completely reassured now, after beholding him in all his brilliance. That

was my last view of him in a strong light, dominating, and yet in complete accord with his surround ings

with the life of the forests and with the life of men. I own that I was impressed, but I must admit to myself

that after all this is not the lasting impression. He was protected by his isolation, alone of his own superior

kind, in close touch with Nature, that keeps faith on such easy terms with her lovers. But I cannot fix before

my eye the image of his safety. I shall always remember him as seen through the open door of my room,

taking, perhaps, too much to heart the mere consequences of his failure. I am pleased, of course, that some

good and even some splendour came out of my endeavours; but at times it seems to me it would have

been better for my peace of mind if I had not stood between him and Chester's confoundedly generous offer. I

wonder what his exuber ant imagination would have made of Walpole islet that most hope lessly

forsaken crumb of dry land on the face of the waters. It is not likely I would ever have heard, for I must tell

you that Chester, after calling at some Australian port to patch up his brigrigged sea anachronism, steamed

out into the Pacific with a crew of twenty two hands all told, and the only news having a possible bearing

upon the mystery of his fate was the news of a hurricane which is supposed to have swept in its course over

the Walpole shoals, a month or so afterwards. Not a vestige of the Argonauts ever turned up; not a sound

came out of the waste. Finis! The Pacific is the most discreet of live, hottempered oceans: the chilly

'And there is a sense of blessed finality in such discretion, which is what we all more or less sincerely are

ready to admit for what else is it that makes the idea of death supportable? End! Finis! the potent word

that exorcises from the house of life the haunting shadow of fate. This is what notwithstanding the

testimony of my eyes and his own earnest assurances I miss when I look back upon Jim's success. While

there's life there is hope, truly; but there is fear too. I don't mean to say that I regret my action, nor will I

pretend that I can't sleep o' nights in consequence; still, the idea obtrudes itself that he made so much of his

disgrace while it is the guilt alone that matters. He was not if I may say so clear to me. He was not

clear. And there is a suspicion he was not clear to himself either. There were his fine sensibilities, his fine

feelings, his fine longings a sort of sublimated, idealised selfishness. He was if you allow me to say so

very fine; very fine and very unfortunate. A little coarser nature would not have borne the strain; it

would have had to come to terms with itself with a sigh, with a grunt, or even with a guffaw; a still

coarser one would have remained invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting.

'But he was too interesting or too unfortunate to be thrown to the dogs, or even to Chester. I felt this while I

sat with my face over the paper and he fought and gasped, struggling for his breath in that terribly stealthy

way, in my room; I felt it when he rushed out on the verandah as if to fling himself over and didn't; I felt it

more and more all the time he remained outside, faintly lighted on the background of night, as if standing on

'An abrupt heavy rumble made me lift my head. The noise seemed to roll away, and suddenly a searching and

violent glare fell on the blind face of the night. The sustained and dazzling flickers seemed to last for an

unconscionable time. The growl of the thunder increased steadily while I looked at him, distinct and black,

planted solidly upon the shores of a sea of light. At the moment of greatest brilliance the darkness leaped

back with a culminating crash, and he vanished before my dazzled eyes as utterly as though he had been

blown to atoms. A blustering sigh passed; furious hands seemed to tear at the shrubs, shake the tops of the

trees below, slam doors, break windowpanes, all along the front of the building. He stepped in, closing the

door behind him, and found me bending over the table: my sudden anxiety as to what he would say was very

great, and akin to a fright. "May I have a cigarette?" he asked. I gave a push to the box without raising my

head. "I want want tobacco," he muttered. I became exuemely buoyant. "Just a moment." I grunted

pleasantly. He took a few steps here and there. "That's over," I heard him say. A single distant clap of thunder

came from the sea like a gun of distress. "The monsoon breaks up early this year," he remarked

conversationally, somewhere behind me. This encouraged me to turn round, which I did as soon as I had

finished addressing the last envelope. He was smoking greedily in the middle of the room, and though he

' "Come I carried it off pretty well," he said, wheeling sud denly. "Something's paid off not much. I

wonder what's to come." His face did not show any emotion, only it appeared a little darkened and swollen,

as though he had been holding his breath. He smiled reluctantly as it were, and went on while I gazed up at

him mutely.... "Thank you, though your room jolly con venient for a chap badly hipped." . . .

The rain pattered and swished in the garden; a waterpipe (it must have had a hole in it) performed just

outside the window a parody of blubbering woe with funny sobs and gurgling lamentations, interrupted by

'A flash of faded lightning darted in through the black framework of the windows and ebbed out without any

noise. I was thinking how I had best approach him (I did not want to be flung off again) when he gave a little

laugh. "No better than a vagabond now" . . . the end of the cigarette smouldered between his fingers . . .

"with out a single single," he pronounced slowly; "and yet . . ." He paused; the rain fell with redoubled

violence. "Some day one's bound to come upon some sort of chance to get it all back again. Must!" he

'I did not even know what it was he wished so much to regain, what it was he had so terribly missed. It might

have been so much that it was impossible to say. A piece of ass's skin, according to Chester.... He looked up

at me inquisitively. "Perhaps. If life's long enough," I muttered through my teeth with unreasonable ani

' "Jove! I feel as if nothing could ever touch me," he said in a tone of sombre conviction. "If this business

couldn't knock me over, then there's no fear of there being not enough time to climb out, and . . ." He

'It struck me that it is from such as he that the great army of waifs and strays is recruited, the army that

marches down, down into all the gutters of the earth. As soon as he left my room, that "bit of shelter," he

would take his place in the ranks, and begin the journey towards the bottomless pit. I at least had no illusions;

but it was I, too, who a moment ago had been so sure of the power of words, and now was afraid to speak, in

the same way one dares not move for fear of losing a slippery hold. It is when we try to grapple with another

man's intimate need that we perceive how incompre hensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share

with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute

condition of existence; the envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the out

stretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsol able, and elusive spirit that no eye can

follow, no hand can grasp. It was the fear of losing him that kept me silent, for it was borne upon me

suddenly and with unaccountable force that should I let him slip away into the darkness I would never forgive

' "Well. Thanks once more. You've been er uncommonly really there's no word to . . .

Uncommonly! I don't know why, I am sure. I am afraid I don't feel as grateful as I would if the whole thing

hadn't been so brutally sprung on me. Because at bottom . . . you, yourself . . ." He stuttered.

' "Well. I've gone with it to the end, and I don't intend to let any man cast it in my teeth without without

' "There's yourself," I said with a smile mirthless enough, God knows but he looked at me menacingly.

"That's my business," he said. An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain and

passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble, as before. He flung away the cigarette.

"Good bye," he said, with the sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long in view of a pressing bit of

work waiting for him; and then for a second or so he made not the slightest movement. The downpour fell

with the heavy uninterrupted rush of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that

called to one's mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted trees, of undermined mountains. No man

could breast the colossal and headlong stream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness in

which we were precariously sheltered as if on an island. The perforated pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and

splashed in odious ridicule of a swimmer fighting for his life. "It is raining," I remonstrated, "and I . . ." "Rain

or shine," he began brusquely, checked himself, and walked to the window. "Perfect deluge," he muttered

'He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the door leading into the corridor before I

leaped up from my chair. "Wait," I cried, "I want you to . . ." "I can't dine with you again tonight," he flung

at me, with one leg out of the room already. "I haven't the slightest intention of asking you," I shouted. At this

he drew back his foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway. I lost no time in entreating him

'He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it; it was falling just then with a devastating

violence which quieted down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his bearing was

that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had

the sole aim of saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close so swiftly upon a

friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked

up at that absorbed smooth face, so grave and youth ful, I had a disturbing sense of being no help but rather

an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable, impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.

' "I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in the usual way," I remember saying with

irritation. "You say you won't touch the money that is due to you." . . . He came as near as his sort can to

making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five days' pay owing him as mate of the Patna.)

"Well, that's too little to matter anyhow; but what will you do to morrow? Where will you turn? You must

live . . ." "That isn't the thing," was the comment that escaped him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on

combating what I assumed to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. "On every conceivable ground," I

con cluded, "you must let me help you." "You can't," he said very simply and gently, and holding fast to

some deep idea which I could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which I despaired of

ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his wellproportioned bulk. "At any rate," I said, "I am

able to help what I can see of you. I don't pretend to do more." He shook his head sceptically without looking

at me. I got very warm. "But I can," I insisted. "I can do even more. I am doing more. I am trusting you . . ."

"The money . . ." he began. "Upon my word you deserve being told to go to the devil," I cried, forcing the

note of indignation. He was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. "It isn't a question of money at

all. You are too superficial," I said (and at the same time I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And

perhaps he is, after all). "Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of whom I've never

asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that one only ventures to use when speaking of an

intimate friend. I make myself unreservedly responsible for you. That's what I am doing. And really if you

'He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water pipe went on shedding tears with an absurd

drip, drip outside the window. It was very quiet in the room, whose shadows huddled together in corners,

away from the still flame of the candle flaring upright in the shape of a dagger; his face after a while seemed

'Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have felt more humiliated. I thought to

myself Serve me right for a sneaking humbug.... His eyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived it

was not a mocking brightness. All at once he sprang into jerky agitation, like one of those flat wooden figures

that are worked by a string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. He became another man

altogether. "And I had never seen," he shouted; then suddenly bit his lip and frowned. "What a bally ass I've

been," he said very slow in an awed tone.... "You are a brick! " he cried next in a muffled voice. He snatched

my hand as though he had just then seen it for the first time, and dropped it at once. "Why! this is what I

you I . . ." he stammered, and then with a return of his old stolid, I may say mulish, manner he began

heavily, "I would be a brute now if I . . ." and then his voice seemed to break. "That's all right," I said. I was

almost alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strange elation. I had pulled the string

accidentally, as it were; I did not fully under stand the working of the toy. "I must go now," he said. "Jove!

You have helped me. Can't sit still. The very thing . . ." He looked at me with puzzled admiration. "The very

'Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from starvation of that peculiar sort that

is almost invariably associated with drink. This was all. I had not a single illusion on that score, but looking

at him, I allowed myself to wonder at the nature of the one he had, within the last three minutes, so evidently

taken into his bosom. I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious business of life, to

get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind, while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing,

might hop and flutter into some hole, to die quietly of inanition there. This is what I had thrust upon him: a

definitely small thing; and behold! by the manner of its reception it loomed in the dim light of the

candle like a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerous shadow. "You don't mind me not saying anything

appropriate," he burst out. "There isn't anything one could say. Last night already you had done me no end of

good. Listening to me you know. I give you my word I've thought more than once the top of my head

would fly off. . ." He darted positively darted here and there, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked

them out again, flung his cap on his head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily brisk. I thought of a dry

leaf imprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a mysterious apprehension, a load of indefinite doubt, weighed me

down in my chair. He stood stockstill, as if struck motionless by a discovery. "You have given me

confidence," he declared soberly. "Oh! for God's sake, my dear fellow don't!" I entreated, as though he

had hurt me. "All right. I'll shut up now and henceforth. Can't prevent me thinking though.... Never mind! . . .

I'll show yet . . ." He went to the door in a hurry, paused with his head down, and came back, stepping

deliberately. "I always thought that if a fellow could begin with a clean slate . . . And now you . . . in a

measure . . . yes . . . clean slate." I waved my hand, and he marched out without looking back; the sound of

his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door the unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad

'But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangely unenlightened. I was no longer young

enough to behold at every turn the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in evil. I

smiled to think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who had the light. And I felt sad. A clean slate, did he

say? As if the initial word of each our destiny were not graven in imperishable characters upon the face of a

'Six months afterwards my friend (he was a cynical, more than middleaged bachelor, with a reputation for

eccentricity, and owned a ricemill) wrote to me, and judging, from the warmth of my recommendation, that

I would like to hear, enlarged a little upon Jim's perfections. These were apparently of a quiet and effective

sort. "Not having been able so far to find more in my heart than a resigned toleration for any individual of my

kind, I have lived till now alone in a house that even in this steaming climate could be considered as too big

for one man. I have had him to live with me for some time past. It seems I haven't made a mistake." It seemed

to me on reading this letter that my friend had found in his heart more than tolerance for Jim that there

were the beginnings of active liking. Of course he stated his grounds in a characteristic way. For one thing,

Jim kept his freshness in the climate. Had he been a girl my friend wrote one could have said he was

bloom ing blooming modestly like a violet, not like some of these blatant tropical flowers. He had

been in the house for six weeks, and had not as yet attempted to slap him on the back, or address him as "old

boy," or try to make him feel a superannuated fossil. He had nothing of the exasperating young man's chatter.

He was goodtempered, had not much to say for himself, was not clever by any means, thank goodness

wrote my friend. It appeared, how ever, that Jim was clever enough to be quietly appreciative of his wit,

while, on the other hand, he amused him by his naiveness. "The dew is yet on him, and since I had the bright

idea of giving him a room in the house and having him at meals I feel less withered myself. The other day he

took it into his head to cross the room with no other purpose but to open a door for me; and I felt more in

touch with mankind than I had been for years. Ridiculous, isn't it? Of course I guess there is something

some awful little scrape which you know all about but if I am sure that it is terribly heinous, I fancy

one could manage to forgive it. For my part, I declare I am unable to imagine him guilty of anything much

worse than robbing an orchard. Is it much worse? Perhaps you ought to have told me; but it is such a long

time since we both turned saints that you may have forgotten we too had sinned in our time? It may be that

some day I shall have to ask you, and then I shall expect to be told. I don't care to question him myself till I

have some idea what it is. Moreover, it's too soon as yet. Let him open the door a few times more for me...."

Thus my friend. I was trebly pleased at Jim's shaping so well, at the tone of the letter, at my own clever

ness. Evidently I had known what I was doing. I had read characters aright, and so on. And what if something

unexpected and wonderful were to come of it? That evening, reposing in a deckchair under the shade of my

own poop awning (it was in HongKong harbour), I laid on Jim's behalf the first stone of a castle in Spain.

'I made a trip to the northward, and when I returned I found another letter from my friend waiting for me. It

was the first envel ope I tore open. "There are no spoons missing, as far as I know," ran the first line; "I

haven't been interested enough to inquire. He is gone, leaving on the breakfasttable a formal little note of

apology, which is either silly or heartless. Probably both and it's all one to me. Allow me to say, lest you

should have some more mysterious young men in reserve, that I have shut up shop, definitely and for ever.

This is the last eccentricity I shall be guilty of. Do not imagine for a moment that I care a hang; but he is very

much regretted at tennisparties, and for my own sake I've told a plausible lie at the club...." I flung the letter

aside and started looking through the batch on my table, till I came upon Jim's handwriting. Would you

believe it? One chance in a hundred! But it is always that hundredth chance! That little second engineer of the

Patna had turned up in a more or less destitute state, and got a temporary job of looking after the machinery

of the mill. "I couldn't stand the familiarity of the little beast," Jim wrote from a seaport seven hundred miles

south of the place where he should have been in clover. "I am now for the time with Egstrom Blake,

shipchandlers, as their well runner, to call the thing by its right name. For reference I gave them your

name, which they know of course, and if you could write a word in my favour it would be a permanent

employment." I was utterly crushed under the ruins of my castle, but of course I wrote as desired. Before the

end of the year my new charter took me that way, and I had an opportunity of seeing him.

'He was still with Egstrom Blake, and we met in what they called "our parlour" opening out of the store. He

had that moment come in from boarding a ship, and confronted me head down, ready for a tussle. "What have

you got to say for yourself?" I began as soon as we had shaken hands. "What I wrote you nothing more,"

he said stubbornly. "Did the fellow blab or what?" I asked. He looked up at me with a troubled smile.

"Ohno! He didn't. He made it a kind of confidential business between us. He was most damnably mysterious

whenever I came over to the mill; he would wink at me in a respectful manner as much as to say 'We

know what we know.' Infernally fawning and familiar and that sort of thing . . ." He threw himself into a

chair and stared down his legs. "One day we happened to be alone and the fellow had the cheek to say, 'Well,

Mr. James' I was called Mr. James there as if I had been the son 'here we are together once more. This

is better than the old ship ain't it?' . . . Wasn't it appalling, eh? I looked at him, and he put on a knowing

air. 'Don't you be uneasy, sir,' he says. 'I know a gentleman when I see one, and I know how a gentleman

feels. I hope, though, you will be keeping me on this job. I had a hard time of it too, along of that rotten old

Patna racket.' Jove! It was awful. I don't know what I should have said or done if I had not just then heard Mr.

Denver calling me in the passage. It was tiffintime, and we walked together across the yard and through the

garden to the bungalow. He began to chaff me in his kindly way . . . I believe he liked me . . ."

' "I know he liked me. That's what made it so hard. Such a splendid man! . . . That morning he slipped his

hand under my arm.... He, too, was familiar with me." He burst into a short laugh, and dropped his chin on

his breast. "Pah! When I remem bered how that mean little beast had been talking to me," he began

suddenly in a vibrating voice, "I couldn't bear to think of myself ... I suppose you know ..." I nodded.... "More

like a father," he cried; his voice sank. "I would have had to tell him. I couldn't let it go on could I?"

"Well?" I murmured, after waiting a while. "I preferred to go," he said slowly; "this thing must be buried."

'We could hear in the shop Blake upbraiding Egstrom in an abusive, strained voice. They had been associated

for many years, and every day from the moment the doors were opened to the last minute before closing,

Blake, a little man with sleek, jetty hair and unhappy, beady eyes, could be heard rowing his partner

incessantly with a sort of scathing and plaintive fury. The sound of that everlast ing scolding was part of the

place like the other fixtures; even stran gers would very soon come to disregard it completely unless it be

perhaps to mutter "Nuisance," or to get up suddenly and shut the door of the "parlour." Egstrom himself, a

rawboned, heavy Scandinavian, with a busy manner and immense blonde whiskers, went on directing his

people, checking parcels, making out bills or writing letters at a standup desk in the shop, and comported

him self in that clatter exactly as though he had been stonedeaf. Now and again he would emit a bothered

perfunctory "Sssh," which neither produced nor was expected to produce the slightest effect. "They are very

decent to me here," said Jim. "Blake's a little cad, but Egstrom's all right." He stood up quickly, and walking

with measured steps to a tripod telescope standing in the window and pointed at the roadstead, he applied his

eye to it. "There's that ship which has been becalmed outside all the morning has got a breeze now and is

coming in," he remarked patiently; "I must go and board." We shook hands in silence, and he turned to go.

"Jim!" I cried. He looked round with his hand on the lock. "You you have thrown away something like a

fortune." He came back to me all the way from the door. "Such a splendid old chap," he said. "How could I?

How could I?" His lips twitched. "Here it does not matter." "Oh! you you " I began, and had to cast

about for a suitable word, but before I became aware that there was no name that would just do, he was gone.

I heard outside Egstrom's deep gentle voice saying cheerily, "That's the Sarah W. Granger, Jimmy. You must

manage to be first aboard"; and directly Blake struck in, screaming after the manner of an outraged cockatoo,

"Tell the captain we've got some of his mail here. That'll fetch him. D'ye hear, Mister What'syourname?"

And there was Jim answering Egstrom with something boyish in his tone. "All right. I'll make a race of it."

'I did not see him again that trip, but on my next (I had a six months' charter) I went up to the store. Ten yards

away from the door Blake's scolding met my ears, and when I came in he gave me a glance of utter

wretchedness; Egstrom, all smiles, advanced, extending a large bony hand. "Glad to see you, captain....

Sssh.... Been thinking you were about due back here. What did you say, sir? ... Sssh.... Oh! him! He has left

us. Come into the parlour." . . . After the slam of the door Blake's strained voice became faint, as the voice of

one scolding desperately in a wilder ness.... "Put us to a great inconvenience, too. Used us badly I must

say . . ." "Where's he gone to? Do you know?" I asked. "No. It's no use asking either," said Egstrom, standing

bewhiskered and obliging before me with his arms hanging down his sides clumsily, and a thin silver

watchchain looped very low on a ruckedup blue serge waistcoat. "A man like that don't go anywhere in

particular." I was too concerned at the news to ask for the explanation of that pronouncement, and he went

on. "He left let's see the very day a steamer with returning pilgrims from the Red Sea put in here with

two blades of her propeller gone. Three weeks ago now." "Wasn't there something said about the Patna

case?" I asked, fearing the worst. He gave a start, and looked at me as if I had been a sorcerer. "Why, yes!

How do you know? Some of them were talking about it here. There was a captain or two, the manager of

Vanlo's engin eering shop at the harbour, two or three others, and myself. Jim was in here too, having a

sandwich and a glass of beer; when we are busy you see, captain there's no time for a proper tiffin. He

was standing by this table eating sandwiches, and the rest of us were round the telescope watching that

steamer come in; and byandby Vanlo's manager began to talk about the chief of the Patna; he had done

some repairs for him once, and from that he went on to tell us what an old ruin she was, and the money that

had been made out of her. He came to mention her last voyage, and then we all struck in. Some said one thing

and some another not'much what you or any other man might say; and there was some laughing.

Captain O'Brien of the Sarah W. Granger, a large, noisy old man with a stick he was sitting listening to us

in this armchair here he let drive suddenly with his stick at the floor, and roars out, 'Skunks!' . . . Made

us all jump. Vanlo's manager winks at us and asks, 'What's the matter, Captain O'Brien?' 'Matter! matter!' the

old man began to shout; 'what are you Injuns laughing at? It's no laughing matter. It's a disgrace to human

natur' that's what it is. I would despise being seen in the same room with one of those men. Yes, sir!' He

seemed to catch my eye like, and I had to speak out of civility. 'Skunks!' says I, 'of course, Captain O'Brien,

and I wouldn't care to have them here myself, so you're quite safe in this room, Captain O'Brien. Have a little

something cool to drink.' 'Dam' your drink, Egstrom,' says he, with a twinkle in his eye; 'when I want a drink

I will shout for it. I am going to quit. It stinks here now.' At this all the others burst out laughing, and out they

go after the old man. And then, sir, that blasted Jim he puts down the sandwich he had in his hand and walks

round the table to me; there was his glass of beer poured out quite full. 'I am off,' he says just like this. 'It

isn't halfpast one yet,' says I; 'you might snatch a smoke first.' I thought he meant it was time for him to go

down to his work. When I understood what he was up to, my arms fell so! Can't get a man like that every

day, you know, sir; a regular devil for sailing a boat; ready to go out miles to sea to meet ships in any sort of

weather. More than once a captain would come in here full of it, and the first thing he would say would be,

'That's a reckless sort of a lunatic you've got for waterclerk, Egstrom. I was feeling my way in at daylight

under short canvas when there comes flying out of the mist right under my forefoot a boat half under water,

sprays going over the masthead, two frightened niggers on the bottom boards, a yelling fiend at the tiller.

Hey! hey! Ship ahoy! ahoy! Captain! Hey! hey! Egstrom Blake's man first to speak to you! Hey! hey!

Egstrom Blake! Hallo! hey! whoop! Kick the niggers out reefs a squall on at the time shoots ahead

whooping and yelling to me to make sail and he would give me a lead in more like a demon than a man.

Never saw a boat handled like that in all my life. Couldn't have been drunk was he? Such a quiet, soft

spoken chap too blush like a girl when he came on board.... ' I tell you, Captain Marlow, nobody had a

chance against us with a strange ship when Jim was out. The other shipchandlers just kept their old

' "Why, sir it seemed as though he wouldn't mind going a hundred miles out to sea in an old shoe to nab a

ship for the firm. If the business had been his own and all to make yet, he couldn't have done more in that

way. And now . . . all at once . . . like this! Thinks I to myself: 'Oho! a rise in the screw that's the trouble

is it?' 'All right,' says I, 'no need of all that fuss with me, Jimmy. Just mention your figure. Anything in

reason.' He looks at me as if he wanted to swallow something that stuck in his throat. 'I can't stop with you.'

'What's that blooming joke?' I asks. He shakes his head, and I could see in his eye he was as good as gone

already, sir. So I turned to him and slanged him till all was blue. 'What is it you're running away from?' I

asks. 'Who has been getting at you? What scared you? You haven't as much sense as a rat; they don't clear out

from a good ship. Where do you expect to get a better berth? you this and you that.' I made him look sick,

I can tell you. 'This business ain't going to sink,' says I. He gave a big jump. 'Goodbye,' he says, nodding at

me like a lord; 'you ain't half a bad chap, Egstrom. I give you my word that if you knew my reasons you

wouldn't care to keep me.' 'That's the biggest lie you ever told in your life,' says I; 'I know my own mind.' He

made me so mad that I had to laugh. 'Can't you really stop long enough to drink this glass of beer here, you

funny beggar, you?' I don't know what came over him; he didn't seem able to find the door; something

comical, I can tell you, captain. I drank the beer myself. 'Well, if you're in such a hurry, here's luck to you in

your own drink,' says I; 'only, you mark my words, if you keep up this game you'll very soon find that the

earth ain't big enough to hold you that's all.' He gave me one black look, and out he rushed with a face fit

'Egstrom snorted bitterly, and combed one auburn whisker with knotty fingers. "Haven't been able to get a

man that was any good since. It's nothing but worry, worry, worry in business. And where might you have

' "He was the mate of the Patna that voyage," I said, feeling that I owed some explanation. For a time

Egstrom remained very still, with his fingers plunged in the hair at the side of his face, and then exploded.

"And who the devil cares about that?" "I dare say no one," I began . . . "And what the devil is he anyhow

for to go on like this?" He stuffed suddenly his left whisker into his mouth and stood amazed. "Jee!" he

'I have told you these two episodes at length to show his manner of dealing with himself under the new

conditions of his life. There were many others of the sort, more than I could count on the fingers of my two

hands. They were all equally tinged by a highminded absurdity of intention which made their futility

profound and touching. To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost

may be an act of prosaic heroism. Men had done it before (though we who have lived know full well that it is

not the haunted soul but the hungry body that makes an outcast), and men who had eaten and meant to eat

every day had applauded the creditable folly. He was indeed unfortunate, for all his recklessness could not

carry him out from under the shadow. There was always a doubt of his courage. The truth seems to be that it

is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact. You can face it or shirk it and I have come across a man or two

who could wink at their familiar shades. Obviously Jim was not of the winking sort; but what I could never

make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him out.

'I strained my mental eyesight only to discover that, as with the complexion of all our actions, the shade of

difference was so delicate that it was impossible to say. It might have been flight and it might have been a

mode of combat. To the common mind he became known as a rolling stone, because this was the funniest

part: he did after a time become perfectly known, and even notorious, within the circle of his wanderings

(which had a diameter of, say, three thousand miles), in the same way as an eccentric character is known to a

whole countryside. For instance, in Bankok, where he found employment with Yucker Brothers, charterers

and teak mer chants, it was almost pathetic to see him go about in sunshine hugging his secret, which was

known to the very upcountry logs on the river. Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel where he boarded, a

hirsute Alsatian of manly bearing and an irrepressible retailer of all the scandalous gossip of the place, would,

with both elbows on the table, impart an adorned version of the story to any guest who cared to imbibe

knowledge along with the more costly liquors. "And, mind you, the nicest fellow you could meet," would be

his generous conclusion; "quite superior." It says a lot for the casual crowd that frequented Schomberg's

establishment that Jim managed to hang out in Bankok for a whole six months. I remarked that people,

perfect strangers, took to him as one takes to a nice child. His manner was reserved, but it was as though his

personal appearance, his hair, his eyes, his smile, made friends for him wherever he went. And, of course, he

was no fool. I heard Siegmund Yucker (native of Switzerland), a gentle creature ravaged by a cruel

dyspepsia, and so frightfully lame that his head swung through a quarter of a circle at every step he took,

declare appreciatively that for one so young he was "of great gabasidy," as though it had been a mere

question of cubic contents. "Why not send him up country?" I suggested anxiously. (Yucker Brothers had

concessions and teak forests in the interior.) "If he has capacity, as you say, he will soon get hold of the work.

And physically he is very fit. His health is always excellent." "Ach! It's a great ting in dis goundry to be vree

vrom tispepshia," sighed poor Yucker enviously, casting a stealthy glance at the pit of his ruined stomach. I

left him drumming pensively on his desk and muttering, "Es ist ein' Idee. Es ist ein' Idee." Unfortunately, that

'I don't know that I blame Jim very much, but it was a truly regrettable incident. It belonged to the lamentable

species of bar room scuffles, and the other party to it was a crosseyed Dane of sorts whose visitingcard

recited, under his misbegotten name: first lieutenant in the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow, of course, was

utterly hopeless at billiards, but did not like to be beaten, I suppose. He had had enough to drink to turn nasty

after the sixth game, and make some scornful remark at Jim's expense. Most of the people there didn't hear

what was said, and those who had heard seemed to have had all precise recollection scared out of them by the

appalling nature of the consequences that immediately ensued. It was very lucky for the Dane that he could

swim, because the room opened on a verandah and the Menam flowed below very wide and black. A

boatload of Chinamen, bound, as likely as not, on some thieving expedition, fished out the officer of the

King of Siam, and Jim turned up at about midnight on board my ship without a hat. "Everybody in the room

seemed to know," he said, gasping yet from the contest, as it were. He was rather sorry, on general prin

ciples, for what had happened, though in this case there had been, he said, "no option." But what dismayed

him was to find the nature of his burden as well known to everybody as though he had gone about all that

time carrying it on his shoulders. Naturally after this he couldn't remain in the place. He was universally

condemned for the brutal violence, so unbecoming a man in his delicate position; some maintained he had

been disgracefully drunk at the time; others criticised his want of tact. Even Schomberg was very much

annoyed. "He is a very nice young man," he said argumentatively to me, "but the lieutenant is a firstrate

fellow too. He dines every night at my table d'hote, you know. And there's a billiardcue broken. I can't allow

that. First thing this morning I went over with my apologies to the lieutenant, and I think I've made it all right

for myself; but only think, captain, if everybody started such games! Why, the man might have been

drowned! And here I can't run out into the next street and buy a new cue. I've got to write to Europe for them.

No, no! A temper like that won't do!" . . . He was extremely sore on the subject.

'This was the worst incident of all in his his retreat. Nobody could deplore it more than myself; for if, as

somebody said hearing him mentioned, "Oh yes! I know. He has knocked about a good deal out here," yet he

had somehow avoided being battered and chipped in the process. This last affair, however, made me seriously

uneasy, because if his exquisite sensibilities were to go the length of involving him in pothouse shindies, he

would lose his name of an inoffensive, if aggravating, fool, and acquire that of a common loafer. For all my

confidence in him I could not help reflecting that in such cases from the name to the thing itself is but a step.

I suppose you will understand that by that time I could not think of washing my hands of him. I took him

away from Bankok in my ship, and we had a longish passage. It was pitiful to see how he shrank within

himself. A seaman, even if a mere passenger, takes an interest in a ship, and looks at the sealife around him

with the critical enjoyment of a painter, for instance, looking at another man's work. In every sense of the

expression he is "on deck"; but my Jim, for the most part, skulked down below as though he had been a

stowaway. He infected me so that I avoided speaking on professional matters, such as would suggest

themselves naturally to two sailors during a passage. For whole days we did not exchange a word; I felt

extremely unwilling to give orders to my officers in his presence. Often, when alone with him on deck or in

'I placed him with De Jongh, as you know, glad enough to dispose of him in any way, yet persuaded that his

position was now growing intolerable. He had lost some of that elasticity which had enabled him to rebound

back into his uncompromising position after every overthrow. One day, coming ashore, I saw him standing

on the quay; the water of the roadstead and the sea in the offing made one smooth ascending plane, and the

outermost ships at anchor seemed to ride motionless in the sky. He was waiting for his boat, which was being

loaded at our feet with packages of small stores for some vessel ready to leave. After exchanging greetings,

we remained sil ent side by side. "Jove!" he said suddenly, "this is killing work."

'He smiled at me; I must say he generally could manage a smile. I made no reply. I knew very well he was

not alluding to his duties; he had an easy time of it with De Jongh. Nevertheless, as soon as he had spoken I

became completely convinced that the work was killing. I did not even look at him. "Would you like," said I,

"to leave this part of the world altogether; try California or the West Coast? I'll see what I can do . . ." He

interrupted me a little scorn fully. "What difference would it make?" . . . I felt at once con vinced that he

was right. It would make no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly that what he

wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something not easy to define something in the nature of

an opportunity. I had given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to earn his bread.

Yet what more could any man do? The position struck me as hopeless, and poor Brierly's saying recurred to

me, "Let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there." Better that, I thought, than this waiting above

ground for the impossible. Yet one could not be sure even of that. There and then, before his boat was three

oars' lengths away from the quay, I had made up my mind to go and consult Stein in the evening.

'This Stein was a wealthy and respected merchant. His "house" (because it was a house, Stein Co., and there

was some sort of partner who, as Stein said, "looked after the Moluccas") had a large interisland business,

with a lot of trading posts established in the most outoftheway places for collecting the produce. His

wealth and his respectability were not exactly the reasons why I was anxious to seek his advice. I desired to

confide my difficulty to him because he was one of the most trustworthy men I had ever known. The gentle

light of a simple, unwearied, as it were, and intelligent good nature illumined his long hairless face. It had

deep downward folds, and was pale as of a man who had always led a sedentary life which was indeed

very far from being the case. His hair was thin, and brushed back from a massive and lofty forehead. One

fancied that at twenty he must have looked very much like what he was now at threescore. It was a student's

face; only the eyebrows nearly all white, thick and bushy, together with the resolute searching glance that

came from under them, were not in accord with his, I may say, learned appearance. He was tall and

loosejointed; his slight stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appear benevolently ready to lend

you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands had rare deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating

kind. I speak of him at length, because under this exterior, and in conjunc tion with an upright and indulgent

nature, this man possessed an intrepidity of spirit and a physical courage that could have been called reckless

had it not been like a natural function of the body say good digestion, for instance completely

unconscious of itself. It is sometimes said of a man that he carries his life in his hand. Such a saying would

have been inadequate if applied to him; during the early part of his existence in the East he had been playing

ball with it. All this was in the past, but I knew the story of his life and the origin of his fortune. He was also

a naturalist of some distinc tion, or perhaps I should say a learned collector. Entomology was his special

study. His collection of Buprestidae and Longicorns beetles all horrible miniature monsters, looking

malevolent in death and immobility, and his cabinet of butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of

cases on lifeless wings, had spread his fame far over the earth. The name of this merchant, adventurer,

sometime adviser of a Malay sultan (to whom he never alluded otherwise than as "my poor Mohammed

Bonso"), had, on account of a few bushels of dead insects, become known to learned persons in Europe, who

could have had no conception, and certainly would not have cared to know anything, of his life or character.

I, who knew, considered him an eminently suitable person to receive my confidences about Jim's difficulties

'Late in the evening I entered his study, after traversing an imposing but empty diningroom very dimly lit.

The house was silent. I was preceded by an elderly grim Javanese servant in a sort of livery of white jacket

and yellow sarong, who, after throwing the door open, exclaimed low, "O master!" and stepping aside,

vanished in a mysterious way as though he had been a ghost only momentarily embodied for that particular

service. Stein turned round with the chair, and in the same movement his spectacles seemed to get pushed up

on his forehead. He welcomed me in his quiet and humorous voice. Only one corner of the vast room, the

corner in which stood his writingdesk, was strongly lighted by a shaded readinglamp, and the rest of the

spacious apartment melted into shapeless gloom like a cavern. Narrow shelves filled with dark boxes of

uniform shape and colour ran round the walls, not from floor to ceiling, but in a sombre belt about four feet

broad cata combs of beetles. Wooden tablets were hung above at irregular intervals. The light reached

one of them, and the word Coleoptera written in gold letters glittered mysteriously upon a vast dimness. The

glass cases containing the collection of butterflies were ranged in three long rows upon slenderlegged little

tables. One of these cases had been removed from its place and stood on the desk, which was bestrewn with

' "So you see me so," he said. His hand hovered over the case where a butterfly in solitary grandeur spread

out dark bronze wings, seven inches or more across, with exquisite white veinings and a gorgeous border of

yellow spots. "Only one specimen like this they have in your London, and then no more. To my small

'He bent forward in the chair and gazed intently, his chin over the front of the case. I stood at his back.

"Marvellous," he whis pered, and seemed to forget my presence. His history was curious. He had been born

in Bavaria, and when a youth of twentytwo had taken an active part in the revolutionary movement of 1848.

Heavily compromised, he managed to make his escape, and at first found a refuge with a poor republican

watchmaker in Trieste. From there he made his way to Tripoli with a stock of cheap watches to hawk about,

not a very great opening truly, but it turned out lucky enough, because it was there he came upon a Dutch

traveller a rather famous man, I believe, but I don't remember his name. It was that naturalist who,

engaging him as a sort of assistant, took him to the East. They travelled in the Archipelago together and

separately, collecting insects and birds, for four years or more. Then the naturalist went home, and Stein,

having no home to go to, remained with an old trader he had come across in his journeys in the interior of

Celebes if Celebes may be said to have an interior. This old Scotsman, the only white man allowed to

reside in the country at the time, was a privileged friend of the chief ruler of Wajo States, who was a woman.

I often heard Stein relate how that chap, who was slightly paralysed on one side, had introduced him to the

native court a short time before another stroke carried him off. He was a heavy man with a patriarchal white

beard, and of imposing stature. He came into the councilhall where all the rajahs, pangerans, and headmen

were assembled, with the queen, a fat wrinkled woman (very free in her speech, Stein said), reclining on a

high couch under a canopy. He dragged his leg, thumping with his stick, and grasped Stein's arm, leading him

right up to the couch. "Look, queen, and you rajahs, this is my son," he pro claimed in a stentorian voice. "I

have traded with your fathers, and when I die he shall trade with you and your sons."

'By means of this simple formality Stein inherited the Scotsman's privileged position and all his

stockintrade, together with a forti fied house on the banks of the only navigable river in the country.

Shortly afterwards the old queen, who was so free in her speech, died, and the country became disturbed by

various pretenders to the throne. Stein joined the party of a younger son, the one of whom thirty years later he

never sppke otherwise but as "my poor Mohammed Bonso." They both became the heroes of innumerable

exploits; they had wonderful adventures, and once stood a siege in the Scotsman's house for a month, with

only a score of followers against a whole army. I believe the natives talk of that war to this day. Meantime, it

seems, Stein never failed to annex on his own account every butterfly or beetle he could lay hands on. After

some eight years of war, negotiations, false truces, sudden outbreaks, reconciliation, treachery, and so on, and

just as peace seemed at last permanently established, his "poor Mohammed Bonso" was assassinated at the

gate of his own royal residence while dismount ing in the highest spirits on his return from a successful

deerhunt. This event rendered Stein's position extremely insecure, but he would have stayed perhaps had it

not been that a short time after wards he lost Mohammed's sister ("my dear wife the princess," he used to

say solemnly), by whom he had had a daughter mother and child both dying within three days of each

other from some infectious fever. He left the country, which this cruel loss had made unbearable to him. Thus

ended the first and adventurous part of his existence. What followed was so different that, but for the reality

of sorrow which remained with him, this strang past must have resembled a dream. He had a little money; he

started life afresh, and in the course of years acquired a considerable fortune. At first he had travelled a good

deal amongst the islands, but age had stolen upon him, and of late he seldom left his spacious house three

miles out of town, with an extensive garden, and surrounded by stables, offices, and bamboo cottages for his

servants and dependants, of whom he had many. He drove in his buggy every morning to town, where he had

an office with white and Chinese clerks. He owned a small fleet of schooners and native craft, and dealt in

island produce on a large scale. For the rest he lived solitary, but not misanthropic, with his books and his

collection, classing and arranging specimens, corresponding with entomologists in Europe, writing up a

descrip tive catalogue of his treasures. Such was the history of the man whom I had come to consult upon

Jim's case without any definite hope. Simply to hear what he would have to say would have been a relief. I

was very anxious, but I respected the intense, almost passionate, absorption with which he looked at a

butterfly, as though on the bronze sheen of these frail wings, in the white tracings, in the gorgeous markings,

he could see other things, an image of something as perishable and defying destruction as these delicate and

' "Marvellious!" he repeated, looking up at me. "Look! The beauty but that is nothing look at the

accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! And so exact! This is Nature the balance of

colossal forces. Every star is so and every blade of grass stands so and the mighty Kosmos il perfect

equilibrium produces this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature the great artist."

' "Never heard an entomologist go on like this," I observed cheerfully. "Masterpiece! And what of man?'

' "Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the glass case. "Perhaps the

artist was a little mad. Eh? What do you think? Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not

wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the place? Why should he run

about here and there making a great noise about himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of

'He smiled, threw himself back in his chair, and stretched his legs. "Sit down," he said. "I captured this rare

specimen myself one very fine morning. And I had a very big emotion. You don't know what it is for a

'I smiled at my ease in a rockingchair. His eyes seemed to look far beyond the wall at which they stared; and

he narrated how, one night, a messenger arrived from his "poor Mohammed," requiring his presence at the

"residenz" as he called it which was distant some nine or ten miles by a bridlepath over a cultivated

plain, with patches of forest here and there. Early in the morning he started from his fortified house, after

embracing his little Emma, and leav ing the "princess," his wife, in command. He described how she came

with him as far as the gate, walking with one hand on the neck of his horse; she had on a white jacket, gold

pins in her hair, and a brown leather belt over her left shoulder with a revolver in it. "She talked as women

will talk," he said, "telling me to be careful, and to try to get back before dark, and what a great wikedness it

was for me to go alone. We were at war, and the country was not safe; my men were putting up bulletproof

shutters to the house and loading their rifles, and she begged me to have no fear for her. She could defend the

house against anybody till I returned. And I laughed with pleasure a little. I liked to see her so brave and

young and strong. I too was young then. At the gate she caught hold of my hand and gave it one squeeze and

fell back. I made my horse stand still outside till I heard the bars of the gate put up behind me. There was a

great enemy of mine, a great noble and a great rascal too roaming with a band in the neighbourhood. I

cantered for four or five miles; there had been rain in the night, but the musts had gone up, up and the face

of the earth was clean; it lay smiling to me, so fresh and innocent like a little chilid. Suddenliy somebody

fires a volley twenty shots at least it seemed to me. I hear bullets sing in my ear, and my hat jumps to the

back of my head. It was a little intrigue, you understand. They got my poor Mohammed to send for me and

then laid that ambush. I see it all in a minute, and I think This wants a little management. My pony snort,

jump, and stand, and I fall slowly forward with my head on his mane. He begins to walk, and with one eye I

could see over his neck a faint cloud of smoke hanging in front of a clump of bamboos to my left. I think

Aha! my friends, why you not wait long enough before you shoot? This is not yet gelungen. Oh no! I get hold

of my revolver with my right hand quiet quiet. After all, there were only seven of these rascals. They

get up from the grass and start running with their sarongs tucked up, waving spears above their heads, and

yel ling to each other to look out and catch the horse, because I was dead. I let them come as close as the

door here, and then bang, bang, bang take aim each time too. One more shot I fire at a man's back, but I

miss. Too far already. And then I sit alone on my horse with the clean earth smiling at me, and there are the

bodies of three men lying on the ground. One was curled up like a dog, another on his back had an arm over

his eyes as if to keep off the sun, and the third man he draws up his leg very slowly and makes it with one

kick straight again. I watch him very carefully from my horse, but there is no more bleibt ganz ruhig

keep still, so. And as I looked at his face for some sign of life I observed something like a faint shadow pass

over his forehead. It was the shadow of this butterfly. Look at the form of the wing. This species fly high with

a strong flight. I raised my eyes and I saw him fluttering away. I think Can it be possible? And then I lost

him. I dismounted and went on very slow, leading my horse and holding my revolver with one hand and my

eyes darting up and down and right and left, everywhere! At last I saw him sitting on a small heap of dirt ten

feet away. At once my heart began to beat quick. I let go my horse, keep my revolver in one hand, and with

the other snatch my soft felt hat off my head. One step. Steady. Another step. Flop! I got him! When I got up

I shook like a leaf with excitement, and when I opened these beautiful wings and made sure what a rare and

so extraordinary perfect specimen I had, my head went round and my legs became so weak with emotion that

I had to sit on the ground. I had greatly desired to possess myself of a specimen of that species when

collecting for the professor. I took long journeys and underwent great privations; I had dreamed of him in my

sleep, and here suddenly I had him in my fingers for myself! In the words of the poet" (he pronounced it

Und nenn' es in gewissem Sinne mein.' " He gave to the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice,

and withdrew his eyes slowly from my face. He began to charge a longstemmed pipe busily and in silence,

then, pausing with his thumb on the orifice of the bowl, looked again at me significantly.

' "Yes, my good friend. On that day I had nothing to desire; I had greatly annoyed my principal enemy; I was

young, strong; I had friendship; I had the love" (he said "lof') "of woman, a child I had, to make my heart

very full and even what I had once dreamed in my sleep had come into my hand too!"

'He struck a match, which flared violently. His thoughtful placid face twitched once.

' "Friend, wife, child," he said slowly, gazing at the small flame "phoo!" The match was blown out. He

sighed and turned again to the glass case. The frail and beautiful wings quivered faintly, as if his breath had

' "The work," he began suddenly, pointing to the scattered slips, and in his usual gentle and cheery tone, "is

making great progress. I have been this rare specimen describing.... Na! And what is your good news?"

' "To tell you the truth, Stein," I said with an effort that sur prised me, "I came here to describe a

' "Nothing so perfect," I answered, feeling suddenly dispirited with all sorts of doubts. "A man!"

' "Ach so!" he murmured, and his smiling countenance, turned to me, became grave. Then after looking at me

'Here you have him as he was; he knew how to be so generously encouraging as to make a scrupulous man

'He heard me out, sitting with crossed legs. Sometimes his head would disappear completely in a great

eruption of smoke, and a sympathetic growl would come out from the cloud. When I finished he uncrossed

his legs, laid down his pipe, leaned forward towards me earnestly with his elbows on the arms of his chair,

'He had diagnosed the case for me, and at first I was quite startled to find how simple it was; and indeed our

conference resembled so much a medical consultation Stein, of learned aspect, sitting in an armchair

before his desk; I, anxious, in another, facing him, but a little to one side that it seemed natural to ask

' "There is only one remedy! One thing alone can us from being ourselves cure!" The finger came down on

the desk with a smart rap. The case which he had made to look so simple before became if possible still

simpler and altogether hopeless. There was a pause. "Yes," said I, "strictly speaking, the question is not

'He approved with his head, a little sadly as it seemed. "Ja! ja! In general, adapting the words of your great

poet: That is the question...." He went on nodding sympathetically.... "How to be! Ach! How to be."

' "We want in so many different ways to be," he began again. "This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of

dirt and sits still on it; but man he will never on his heap of mud keep still. He want to be so, and again he

want to be so...." He moved his hand up, then down.... "He wants to be a saint, and he wants to be a devil

and every time he shuts his eyes he sees himself as a very fine fellow so fine as he can never be.... In a

'He lowered the glass lid, the automatic lock clicked sharply, and taking up the case in both hands he bore it

religiously away to its place, passing out of the bright circle of the lamp into the ring of fainter light into

shapeless dusk at last. It had an odd effect as if these few steps had carried him out of this concrete and

perplexed world. His tall form, as though robbed of its substance, hovered noiselessly over invisible things

with stooping and indefinite move ments; his voice, heard in that remoteness where he could be glimpsed

mysteriously busy with immaterial cares, was no longer incisive, seemed to roll voluminous and grave

' "And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the real trouble the heart pain the

world pain. I tell you, my friend, it is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for the

reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough. .Ja! . . . And all the time you are such a fine

' "Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the

sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns nicht wahr? . .

. No! I tell you! The way is to the destruc tive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands

and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask me how to be?"

'His voice leaped up extraordinarily strong, as though away there in the dusk he had been inspired by some

'With a hasty swishswish of his slippers he loomed up in the ring of faint light, and suddenly appeared in the

bright circle of the lamp. His extended hand aimed at my breast like a pistol; his deep set eyes seemed to

pierce through me, but his twitching lips uttered no word, and the austere exaltation of a certitude seen in the

dusk vanished from his face. The hand that had been pointing at my breast fell, and byandby, coming a

step nearer, he laid it gently on my shoulder. There were things, he said mournfully, that per haps could

never be told, only he had lived so much alone that sometimes he forgot he forgot. The light had

destroyed the assur ance which had inspired him in the distant shadows. He sat down and, with both elbows

on the desk, rubbed his forehead. "And yet it is true it is true. In the destructive element immerse." . . . He

spoke in a subdued tone, without looking at me, one hand on each side of his face. "That was the way. To

follow the dream, and again to follow the dream and so ewig usque ad finem...." The whisper of his

conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertain expanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at

dawn or was it, perchance, at the coming of the night? One had not the courage to decide; but it was a

charming and deceptive light, throwing the impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls over graves. His

life had begun in sacrifice, in enthusiasm for generous ideas; he had travelled very far, on various ways, on

strange paths, and whatever he followed it had been without faltering, and there fore without shame and

without regret. In so far he was right. That was the way, no doubt. Yet for all that, the great plain on which

men wander amongst graves and pitfalls remained very desolate under the impalpable poesy of its

crepuscular light, overshadowed in the centre, circled with a bright edge as if surrounded by an abyss full of

flames. When at last I broke the silence it was to express the opinion that no one could be more romantic than

'He shook his head slowly, and afterwards looked at me with a patient and inquiring glance. It was a shame,

he said. There we were sitting and talking like two boys, instead of putting our heads together to find

something practical a practical remedy for the evil for the great evil he repeated, with a

humorous and indulgent smile. For all that, our talk did not grow more practical. We avoided pronouncing

Jim's name as though we had tried to keep flesh and blood out of our discussion, or he were nothing but an

erring spirit, a suffering and nameless shade. "Na!" said Stein, rising. "Tonight you sleep here, and in the

morning we shall do something practical practical...." He lit a twobranched candlestick and led the way.

We passed through empty dark rooms, escorted by gleams from the lights Stein carried. They glided along

the waxed floors, sweep ing here and there over the polished surface of a table, leaped upon a fragmentary

curve of a piece of furniture, or flashed perpendicul arly in and out of distant mirrors, while the forms of

two men and the flicker of two flames could be seen for a moment stealing silently across the depths of a

crystalline void. He walked slowly a pace in advance with stooping courtesy; there was a profound, as it were

a listening, quietude on his face; the long flaxen locks mixed with white threads were scattered thinly upon

' "He is romantic romantic," he repeated. "And that is very bad very bad.... Very good, too," he added.

' "Gewiss," he said, and stood still holding up the candelabrum, but without looking at me. "Evident! What is

it that by inward pain makes him know himself? What is it that for you and me makes him exist?"

'At that moment it was difficult to believe in Jim's existence starting from a country parsonage, blurred by

crowds of men as by clouds of dust, silenced by the clashing claims of life and death in a material world

but his imperishable reality came to me with a convincing, with an irresistible force! I saw it vividly, as

though in our progress through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and the sudden

revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flames within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had

approached nearer to absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged, in the

silent still waters of mystery. "Perhaps he is," I admitted with a slight laugh, whose unexpectedly loud

reverberation made me lower my voice directly; "but I am sure you are." With his head dropping on his

breast and the light held high he began to walk again. "Well I exist too," he said.

'He preceded me. My eyes followed his movements, but what I did see was not the head of the firm, the

welcome guest at afternoon receptions, the correspondent of learned societies, the entertainer of stray

naturalists; I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had known how to follow with unfaltering

footsteps, that life begun in humble surroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war in

all the exalted elements of romance. At the door of my room he faced me. "Yes," I said, as though carrying

on a discussion, "and amongst other things you dreamed foolishly of a certain butterfly; but when one fine

morning your dream came in your way you did not let the splendid opportunity escape. Did you? Whereas he

. . ." Stein lifted his hand. "And do you know how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams I had

lost that had come in my way?" He shook his head regretfully. "It seems to me that some would have been

very fine if I had made them come true. Do you know how many? Perhaps I myself don't know. "

"Whether his were fine or not," I said, "he knows of one which he certainly did not catch." "Everybody

knows of one or two like that," said Stein; "and that is the trouble the great trouble...."

'He shook hands on the threshold, peered into my room under his raised arm. "Sleep well. And tomorrow we

'Though his own room was beyond mine I saw him return the way he came. He was going back to his

'I don't suppose any of you have ever heard of Patusan?' Marlow resumed, after a silence occupied in the

careful lighting of a cigar. 'It does not matter; there's many a heavenly body in the lot crowd ing upon us of

a night that mankind had never heard of, it being outside the sphere of its activities and of no earthly

importance to anybody but to the astronomers who are paid to talk learnedly about its composition, weight,

path the irregularities of its conduct, the aberrations of its light a sort of scientific scandalmongering.

Thus with Patusan. It was referred to knowingly in the inner government circles in Batavia, especially as to

its irregularities and aberrations, and it was known by name to some few, very few, in the mercantile world.

Nobody, however, had been there, and I suspect no one desired to go there in person just as an

astronomer, I should fancy, would strongly object to being transported into a distant heavenly body, where,

parted from his earthly emoluments, he would be bewildered by the view of an unfamiliar heaven. However,

neither heavenly bodies nor astronomers have anything to do with Patusan. It was Jim who went there. I only

meant you to understand that had Stein arranged to send him into a star of the fifth magnitude the change

could not have been greater. He left his earthly failings behind him and what sort of reputation he had, and

there was a totally new set of conditions for his imaginative faculty to work upon. Entirely new, entirely

'Stein was the man who knew more about Patusan than anybody else. More than was known in the

government circles I suspect. I have no doubt he had been there, either in his butterflyhunting days or later

on, when he tried in his incorrigible way to season with a pinch of romance the fattening dishes of his

commercial kitchen. There were very few places in the Archipelago he had not seen in the original dusk of

their being, before light (and even electric light) had been carried into them for the sake of better morality and

and well the greater profit too. It was at breakfast of the morning following our talk about Jim that

he mentioned the place, after I had quoted poor Brierly's remark: "Let him creep twenty feet underground and

stay there." He looked up at me with interested attention, as though I had been a rare insect. "This could be

done too," he remarked, sipping his coffee. "Bury him in some sort," I explained. "One doesn't like to do it of

course, but it would be the best thing, seeing what he is." "Yes; he is young," Stein mused. "The youngest

human being now in existence," I affirmed. "Schon. There's Patusan," he went on in the same tone.... "And

'Of course I don't know that story; I can only guess that once before Patusan had been used as a grave for

some sin, transgression, or misfortune. It is impossible to suspect Stein. The only woman that had ever

existed for him was the Malay girl he called "My wife the princess," or, more rarely, in moments of

expansion, "the mother of my Emma." Who was the woman he had mentioned in connection with Patusan I

can't say; but from his allusions I understand she had been an educated and very goodlooking Dutch Malay

girl, with a tragic or perhaps only a pitiful history, whose most painful part no doubt was her marriage with a

Malacca Portu guese who had been clerk in some commercial house in the Dutch colonies. I gathered from

Stein that this man was an unsatisfactory person in more ways than one, all being more or less indefinite and

offensive. It was solely for his wife's sake that Stein had appointed him manager of Stein Co.'s trading post in

Patusan; but commer cially the arrangement was not a success, at any rate for the firm, and now the woman

had died, Stein was disposed to try another agent there. The Portuguese, whose name was Cornelius, con

sidered himself a very deserving but illused person, entitled by his abilities to a better position. This man

Jim would have to relieve. "But I don't think he will go away from the place," remarked Stein. "That has

nothing to do with me. It was only for the sake of the woman that I . . . But as I think there is a daughter left, I

'Patusan is a remote district of a nativeruled state, and the chief settlement bears the same name. At a point

on the river about forty miles from the sea, where the first houses come into view, there can be seen rising

above the level of the forests the summits of two steep hills very close together, and separated by what looks

like a deep fissure, the cleavage of some mighty stroke. As a matter of fact, the valley between is nothing but

a narrow ravine; the appearance from the settlement is of one irregularly conical hill split in two, and with the

two halves leaning slightly apart. On the third day after the full, the moon, as seen from the open space in

front of Jim's house (he had a very fine house in the native style when I visited him), rose exactly behind

these hills, its diffused light at first throwing the two masses into intensely black relief, and then the nearly

perfect disc, glowing ruddily, appeared, gliding upwards between the sides of the chasm, till it floated away

above the summits, as if escaping from a yawning grave in gentle triumph. "Wonderful effect," said Jim by

'And this question was put with a note of personal pride that made me smile, as though he had had a hand in

regulating that unique spectacle. He had regulated so many things in Patusan things that would have

'It was inconceivable. That was the distinctive quality of the part into which Stein and I had tumbled him

unwittingly, with no other notion than to get him out of the way; out of his own way, be it understood. That

was our main purpose, though, I own, I might have had another motive which had influenced me a little. I

was about to go home for a time; and it may be I desired, more than I was aware of myself, to dispose of him

to dispose of him, you understand before I left. I was going home, and he had come to me from there,

with his miserable trouble and his shadowy claim, like a man panting under a burden in a mist. I cannot say I

had ever seen him distinctly not even to this day, after I had my last view of him; but it seemed to me that

the less I understood the more I was bound to him in the name of that doubt which is the inseparable part of

our knowledge. I did not know so much more about myself. And then, I repeat, I was going home to that

home distant enough for all its hearthstones to be like one hearthstone, by which the humblest of us has the

right to sit. We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning

beyond the seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us going

home must be like going to render an account. We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends

those whom we obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most free, lonely,

irresponsible and bereft of ties, even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice, even

they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises,

in its fields, in its waters and its trees a mute friend, judge, and inspirer. Say what you like, to get its joy,

to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear conscience. All this may seem to you sheer

sentimentalism; and indeed very few of us have the will or the capacity to look consciously under the surface

of familiar emotions. There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the

opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it

turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp. I think it is the lonely, without a fireside or an affection they may

call their own, those who return not to a dwelling but to the land itself, to meet its disembodied, eternal, and

unchangeable spirit it is those who understand best its severity, its saving power, the grace of its secular

right to our fidelity, to our obedience. Yes! few of us understand, but we all feel it though, and I say all

without excep tion, because those who do not feel do not count. Each blade of grass has its spot on earth

whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together

with his life. I don't know how much Jim understood; but I know he felt, he felt confusedly but powerfully,

the demand of some such truth or some such illusion I don't care how you call it, there is so little

difference, and the difference means so little. The thing is that in virtue of his feeling he mattered. He would

never go home now. Not he. Never. Had he been capable of picturesque manifes tations he would have

shuddered at the thought and made you shudder too. But he was not of that sort, though he was expressive

enough in his way. Before the idea of going home he would grow desperately stiff and immovable, with

lowered chin and pouted lips, and with those candid blue eyes of his glowering darkly under a frown, as if

before something unbearable, as if before something revolting. There was imagination in that hard skull of

his, over which the thick clustering hair fitted like a cap. As to me, I have no imagination (I would be more

certain about him today, if I had), and I do not mean to imply that I figured to myself the spirit of the land

uprising above the white cliffs of Dover, to ask me what I returning with no bones broken, so to speak

had done with my very young brother. I could not make such a mistake. I knew very well he was of those

about whom there is no inquiry; I had seen better men go out, disappear, vanish utterly, without provoking a

sound of curiosity or sorrow. The spirit of the land, as becomes the ruler of great enterprises, is careless of

innumerable lives. Woe to the stragglers! We exist only in so far as we hang together. He had straggled in a

way; he had not hung on; but he was aware of it with an intensity that made him touching, just as a man's

more intense life makes his death more touching than the death of a tree. I hap pened to be handy, and I

happened to be touched. That's all there is to it. I was concerned as to the way he would go out. It would have

hurt me if, for instance, he had taken to drink. The earth is so small that I was afraid of, some day, being

waylaid by a blear eyed, swollenfaced, besmirched loafer, with no soles to his canvas shoes, and with a

flutter of rags about the elbows, who, on the strength of old acquaintance, would ask for a loan of five dollars.

You know the awful jaunty bearing of these scarecrows coming to you from a decent past, the rasping

careless voice, the halfaverted impudent glances those meetings more trying to a man who believes in

the solidarity of our lives than the sight of an impenitent deathbed to a priest. That, to tell you the truth, was

the only danger I could see for him and for me; but I also mistrusted my want of imagination. It might even

come to something worse, in some way it was beyond my powers of fancy to foresee. He wouldn't let me

forget how imaginative he was, and your imaginative people swing farther in any direction, as if given a

longer scope of cable in the uneasy anchorage of life. They do. They take to drink too. It may be I was

belittling him by such a fear. How could I tell? Even Stein could say no more than that he was romantic. I

only knew he was one of us. And what business had he to be romantic? I am telling you so much about my

own instinctive feelings and bemused reflections because there remains so little to be told of him. He existed

for me, and after all it is only through me that he exists for you. I've led him out by the hand; I have paraded

him before you. Were my commonplace fears unjust? I won't say not even now. You may be able to tell

better, since the proverb has it that the onlookers see most of the game. At any rate, they were superfluous.

He did not go out, not at all; on the contrary, he came on wonder fully, came on straight as a die and in

excellent form, which showed that he could stay as well as spurt. I ought to be delighted, for it is a victory in

which I had taken my part; but I am not so pleased as I would have expected to be. I ask myself whether his

rush had really carried him out of that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating

outlines a straggler yearning inconsol ably for his humble place in the ranks. And besides, the last word

is not said probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all

our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words,

whose ring, if they could only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to say

our last word the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt. The heaven and

the earth must not be shaken, I suppose at least, not by us who know so many truths about either. My last

words about lim shall be few. I affirm he had achieved greatness; but the thing would be dwarfed in the

telling, or rather in the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust, but your minds. I could be

eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be

offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions and safe and profitable and dull. Yet you too in your

time must have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as

'The conquest of love, honour, men's confidence the pride of it, the power of it, are fit materials for a

heroic tale; only our minds are struck by the externals of such a success, and to Jim's successes there were no

externals. Thirty miles of forest shut it off from the sight of an indifferent world, and the noise of the white

surf along the coast overpowered the voice of fame. The stream of civilisation, as if divided on a headland a

hundred miles north of Patusan, bran ches east and southeast, leaving its plains and valleys, its old trees

and its old mankind, neglected and isolated, such as an insignificant and crumbling islet between the two

branches of a mighty, devour ing stream. You find the name of the country pretty often in collec tions of

old voyages. The seventeenthcentury traders went there for pepper, because the passion for pepper seemed

to burn like a flame of love in the breast of Dutch and English adventurers about the time of James the First.

Where wouldn't they go for pepper! For a bag of pepper they would cut each other's throats without

hesitation, and would forswear their souls, of which they were so careful otherwise: the bizarre obstinacy of

that desire made them defy death in a thousand shapes the unknown seas, the loathsome and strange

diseases; wounds, captivity, hunger, pestilence, and despair. It made them great! By heavens! it made them

heroic; and it made them pathetic too in their craving for trade with the inflex ible death levying its toll on

young and old. It seems impossible to believe that mere greed could hold men to such a steadfastness of

purpose, to such a blind persistence in endeavour and sacrifice. And indeed those who adventured their

persons and lives risked all they had for a slender reward. They left their bones to lie bleaching on distant

shores, so that wealth might flow to the living at home. To us, their less tried successors, they appear

magnified, not as agents of trade but as instruments of a recorded destiny, pushing out into the unknown in

obedience to an inward voice, to an impulse beating in the blood, to a dream of the future. They were

wonderful; and it must be owned they were ready for the wonderful. They recorded it complacently in their

sufferings, in the aspect of the seas, in the customs of strange nations, in the glory of splendid rulers.

'In Patusan they had found lots of pepper, and had been impressed by the magnificence and the wisdom of the

Sultan; but somehow, after a century of chequered intercourse, the country seems to drop gradually out of the

trade. Perhaps the pepper had given out. Be it as it may, nobody cares for it now; the glory has departed, the

Sultan is an imbecile youth with two thumbs on his left hand and an uncertain and beggarly revenue extorted

'This of course I have from Stein. He gave me their names and a short sketch of the life and character of each.

He was as full of information about native states as an official report, but infinitely more amusing. He had to

know. He traded in so many, and in some districts as in Patusan, for instance his firm was the only one

to have an agency by special permit from the Dutch authorities. The Government trusted his discretion, and it

was understood that he took all the risks. The men he employed understood that too, but he made it worth

their while apparently. He was perfectly frank with me over the breakfasttable in the morning. As far as he

was aware (the last news was thirteen months old, he stated precisely), utter insecurity for life and property

was the normal condition. There were in Patusan antagonistic forces, and one of them was Rajah Allang, the

worst of the Sultan's uncles, the governor of the river, who did the extorting and the stealing, and ground

down to the point of extinction the counuyborn Malays, who, utterly defenceless, had not even the resource

of emigrating "For indeed," as Stein remarked, "where could they go, and how could they get away?" No

doubt they did not even desire to get away. The world (which is circumscribed by lofty impassable

mountains) has been given into the hand of the highborn, and this Rajah they knew: he was of their own

royal house. I had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman later on. He was a dirty, little, usedup old man with

evil eyes and a weak mouth, who swallowed an opium pill every two hours, and in defiance of common

decency wore his hair uncovered and falling in wild stringy locks about his wizened grimy face. When giving

audience he would clamber upon a sort of narrow stage erected in a hall like a ruinous barn with a rotten

bamboo floor, through the cracks of which you could see, twelve or fifteen feet below, the heaps of refuse

and garbage of all kinds lying under the house. That is where and how he received us when, accompanied by

Jim, I paid him a visit of ceremony. There were about forty people in the room, and perhaps three times as

many in the great courtyard below. There was constant movement, com ing and going, pushing and

murmuring, at our backs. A few youths in gay silks glared from the distance; the majority, slaves and hum

ble dependants, were half naked, in ragged sarongs, dirty with ashes and mudstains. I had never seen Jim

look so grave, so self possessed, in an impenetrable, impressive way. In the midst of these darkfaced men,

his stalwart figure in white apparel, the gleaming clusters of his fair hair, seemed to catch all the sunshine that

trickled through the cracks in the closed shutters of that dim hall, with its walls of mats and a roof of thatch.

He appeared like a creature not only of another kind but of another essence. Had they not seen him come up

in a canoe they might have thought he had descended upon them from the clouds. He did, however, come in a

crazy dugout, sitting (very still and with his knees together, for fear of overturning the thing) sitting on a

tin box which I had lent him nursing on his lap a revolver of the Navy pattern presented by me on

parting which, through an interposition of Providence, or through some wrongheaded notion, that was

just like him, or else from sheer instinctive sagacity, he had decided to carry unloaded. That's how he

ascended the Patusan river. Nothing could have been more prosaic and more unsafe, more extravagantly

casual, more lonely. Strange, this fatality that would cast the complexion of a flight upon all his acts, of

'It is precisely the casualness of it that strikes me most. Neither Stein nor I had a clear conception of what

might be on the other side when we, metaphorically speaking, took him up and hove him over the wall with

scant ceremony. At the moment I merely wished to achieve his disappearance; Stein characteristically enough

had a sentimental motive. He had a notion of paying off (in kind, I sup pose) the old debt he had never

forgotten. Indeed he had been all his life especially friendly to anybody from the British Isles. His late

benefactor, it is true, was a Scot even to the length of being called Alexander McNeil and Jim came

from a long way south of the Tweed; but at the distance of six or seven thousand miles Great Britain, though

never diminished, looks foreshortened enough even to its own children to rob such details of their

importance. Stein was excusable, and his hinted intentions were so generous that I begged him most earnestly

to keep them secret for a time. I felt that no consideration of personal advantage should be allowed to

influence Jim; that not even the risk of such influence should be run. We had to deal with another sort of

reality. He wanted a refuge, and a refuge at the cost of danger should be offered him nothing more.

'Upon every other point I was perfectly frank with him, and I even (as I believed at the time) exaggerated the

danger of the undertaking. As a matter of fact I did not do it justice; his first day in Patusan was nearly his

last would have been his last if he had not been so reckless or so hard on himself and had condescended to

load that revolver. I remember, as I unfolded our precious scheme for his retreat, how his stubborn but weary

resignation was gradually replaced by surprise, interest, wonder, and by boyish eagerness. This was a chance

he had been dreaming of. He couldn't think how he merited that I . . . He would be shot if he could see to

what he owed . . .And it was Stein, Stein the merchant, who . . .but of course it was me he had to . . . I cut him

short. He was not articulate, and his gratitude caused me inexplicable pain. I told him that if he owed this

chance to any one especially, it was to an old Scot of whom he had never heard, who had died many years

ago, of whom little was remembered besides a roaring voice and a rough sort of honesty. There was really no

one to receive his thanks. Stein was passing on to a young man the help he had received in his own young

days, and I had done no more than to mention his name. Upon this he coloured, and, twisting a blit of paper

'I admitted that such was the case, and added after a pause that I wished he had been able to follow my

example. "You think I don't?" he asked uneasily, and remarked in a mutter that one had to get some sort of

show first; then brightening up, and in a loud voice he protested he would give me no occasion to regret my

' "Do not misapprehend," I interrupted. "It is not in your power to make me regret anything." There would be

no regrets; but if there were, it would be altogether my own affair: an the other hand, I wished him to

understand clearly that this arrangement, this this experiment, was his own doing; he was responsible

for it and no one else. "Why? Why," he stammered, "this is the very thing that I . . ." I begged him not to be

dense, and he looked more puzzled than ever. He was in a fair way to make life intolerable to himself . . . "Do

you think so?" he asked, disturbed; but in a moment added confidently, "I was going on though. Was I not?"

It was impossible to be angry with him: I could not help a smile, and told him that in the old days people who

went on like this were on the way of becoming hermits in a wilderness. "Hermits be hanged!" he commented

with engaging impulsiveness. Of course he didn't mind a wilderness.... "I was glad of it," I said. That was

where he would be going to. He would find it lively enough, I ventured to promise. "Yes, yes," he said

keenly. He had shown a desire, I continued inflexibly, to go out and shut the door after him.... "Did I?" he

interrupted in a strange acess of gloom that seemed to envelop him from head to foot like the shadow of a

passing cloud. He was wonderfully expressive after all. Wonder fully! "Did I?" he repeated bitterly. "You

can't say I made much noise about it. And I can keep it up too only, confound it! you show me a door." . .

. "Very well. Pass on," I struck in. I could make him a solemn promise that it would be shut behind him with

a vengeance. His fate, whatever it was, would be ignored, because the country, for all its rotten state, was not

judged ripe for inter ference. Once he got in, it would be for the outside world as though he had never

existed. He would have nothing but the soles of his two feet to stand upon, and he would have first to find his

ground at that. "Never existed that's it, by love," he murmured to him self. His eyes, fastened upon my

lips, sparkled. If he had thoroughly understood the conditions, I concluded, he had better jump into the first

gharry he could see and drive on to Stein's house for his final instructions. He flung out of the room before I

'He did not return till next morning. He had been kept to dinner and for the night. There never had been such

a wonderful man as Mr. Stein. He had in his pocket a letter for Cornelius ("the Johnnie who's going to get the

sack," he explained, with a momentary drop in his elation), and he exhibited with glee a silver ring, such as

'This was his introduction to an old chap called Doramin one of the principal men out there a big pot

who had been Mr. Stein's friend in that country where he had all these adventures. Mr. Stein called hiM

"warcomrade." Warcomrade was good. Wasn't it? And didn't Mr. Stein speak English wonderfully well?

Said he had learned it in Celebes of all places! That was awfully funny. Was it not? He did speak with an

accent a twang did I notice? That chap Doramin had given him the ring. They had exchanged presents

when they parted for the last time. Sort of promising eternal friendship. He called it fine did I not? They

What'shisname had been killed. I knew the story, of course. Seemed a beastly shame, didn't it? . . .

'He ran on like this, forgetting his plate, with a knife and fork in hand (he had found me at tiffin), slightly

flushed, and with his eyes darkened many shades, which was with him a sign of excitement. The ring was a

sort of credential ("It's like something you read of in books," he threw in appreciatively) and Doramin

would do his best for him. Mr. Stein had been the means of saving that chap's life on some occasion; purely

by accident, Mr. Stein had said, but he Jim had his own opinion about that. Mr. Stein was just the man

to look out for such accidents. No matter. Accident or purpose, this would serve his turn immensely. Hoped

to goodness the jolly old beggar had not gone off the hooks meantime. Mr. Stein could not tell. There had

been no news for more than a year; they were kicking up no end of an allfired row amongst themselves, and

the river was closed. Jolly awkward, this; but, no fear; he would manage to find a crack to get in.

'He impressed, almost frightened me with his elated rattle. He was voluble like a youngster on the eve of a

long holiday with a prospect of delightful scrapes, and such an attitude of mind in a grown man and in this

connection had in it something phenomenal, a little mad, dangerous, unsafe. I was on the point of entreating

him to take things seriously when he dropped his knife and fork (he had begun eating, or rather swallowing

food, as it were, uncon sciously), and began a search all round his plate. The ring! The ring! Where the devil

. . . Ah! Here it was . . . He closed his big hand on it, and tried all his pockets one after another. Jove!

wouldn't do to lose the thing. He meditated gravely over his fist. Had it? Would hang the bally affair round

his neck! And he pro ceeded to do this immediately, producing a string (which looked like a bit of a cotton

shoelace) for the purpose. There! That would do the trick! It would be the deuce if . . . He seemed to catch

sight of my face for the first time, and it steadied him a little. I probably didn't realise, he said with a naive

gravity, how much importance he attached to that token. It meant a friend; and it is a good thing to have a

friend. He knew something about that. He nodded at me expressively, but before my disclaiming gesture he

leaned his head on his hand and for a while sat silent, playing thoughtfully with the breadcrumbs on the

cloth . . . "Slam the door that was jolly well put," he cried, and jumping up, began to pace the room,

reminding me by the set of the shoulders, the turn of his head, the headlong and uneven stride, of that night

when he had paced thus, confess ing, explaining what you will but, in the last instance, living

living before me, under his own little cloud, with all his un conscious subtlety which could draw consolation

from the very source of sorrow. It was the same mood, the same and different, like a fickle companion that

today guiding you on the true path, with the same eyes, the same step, the same impulse, tomorrow will

lead you hopelessly astray. His tread was assured, his straying, darkened eyes seemed to search the room for

something. One of his footfalls somehow sounded louder than the other the fault of his boots probably

and gave a curious impression of an invisible halt in his gait. One of his hands was rammed deep into his

trousers' pocket, the other waved suddenly above his head. "Slam the door!" he shouted. "I've been waiting

for that. I'll show yet . . . I'll . . . I'm ready for any confounded thing . . . I've been dreaming of it . . . Jove! Get

'He tossed his head fearlessly, and I confess that for the first and last time in our acquaintance I perceived

myself unexpectedly to be thoroughly sick of him. Why these vapourings? He was stumping about the room

flourishing his arm absurdly, and now and then feeling on his breast for the ring under his clothes. Where was

the sense of such exaltation in a man appointed to be a tradingclerk, and in a place where there was no trade

at that? Why hurl defiance at the universe? This was not a proper frame of mind to approach any

undertaking; an improper frame of mind not only for him, I said, but for any man. He stood still over me. Did

I think so? he asked, by no means subdued, and with a smile in which I seemed to detect suddenly something

insolent. But then I am twenty years his senior. Youth is insolent; it is its right its necessity; it has got to

assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence. He went off into a far

corner, and coming back, he, figuratively speaking, turned to rend me. I spoke like that because I even I,

who had been no end kind to him even I remembered remembered against him what what

had happened. And what about others the the world? Where's the wonder he wanted to get out,

meant to get out, meant to stay out by heavens! And I talked about proper frames of mind!

' "It is not I or the world who remember," I shouted. "It is you you, who remember."

'He did not flinch, and went on with heat, "Forget everything, everybody, everybody." . . . His voice fell. . .

' "Yes me too if it would help," I said, also in a low tone. After this we remained silent and languid for

a time as if exhausted. Then he began again, composedly, and told me that Mr. Stein had instructed him to

wait for a month or so, to see whether it was possible for him to remain, before he began building a new

house for himself, so as to avoid "vain expense." He did make use of funny expressions Stein did. "Vain

expense" was good. . . . Remain? Why! of course. He would hang on. Let him only get in that's all; he

would answer for it he would remain. Never get out. It was easy enough to remain.

' "Don't be foolhardy," I said, rendered uneasy by his threaten ing tone. "If you only live long enough you

' "Come back to what?" he asked absently, with his eyes fixed upon the face of a clock on the wall.

'I was silent for a while. "Is it to be never, then?" I said. "Never," he repeated dreamily without looking at me,

'It was true. A brigantine of Stein's was leaving for the westward that afternoon, and he had been instructed to

take his passage in her, only no orders to delay the sailing had been given. I suppose Stein forgot. He made a

rush to get his things while I went aboard my ship, where he promised to call on his way to the outer road

stead. He turned up accordingly in a great hurry and with a small leather valise in his hand. This wouldn't do,

and I offered him an old tin trunk of mine supposed to be watertight, or at least damp tight. He effected the

transfer by the simple process of shooting out the contents of his valise as you would empty a sack of wheat. I

saw three books in the tumble; two small, in dark covers, and a thick greenandgold volume a

halfcrown complete Shakespeare. "You read this?" I asked. "Yes. Best thing to cheer up a fellow," he said

hastily. I was struck by this appreciation, but there was no time for Shakespearian talk. A heavy revolver and

two small boxes of cartridges were lying on the cuddytable. "Pray take this," I said. "It may help you to

remain." No sooner were these words out of my mouth than I perceived what grim meaning they could bear.

"May help you to get in," I corrected myself remorsefully. He however was not troubled by obscure

meanings; he thanked me effusively and bolted out, calling Goodbye over his shoulder. I heard his voice

through the ship's side urging his boatmen to give way, and looking out of the sternport I saw the boat

rounding under the counter. He sat in her leaning forward, exciting his men with voice and gestures; and as

he had kept the revolver in his hand and seemed to be presenting it at their heads, I shall never forget the

scared faces of the four Javanese, and the frantic swing of their stroke which snatched that vision from under

my eyes. Then turn ing away, the first thing I saw were the two boxes of cartridges on the cuddytable. He

'I ordered my gig manned at once; but Jim's rowers, under the impression that their lives hung on a thread

while they had that madman in the boat, made such excellent time that before I had traversed half the distance

between the two vessels I caught sight of him clambering over the rail, and of his box being passed up. All

the brigantine's canvas was loose, her mainsail was set, and the windlass was just beginning to clink as I

stepped upon her deck: her master, a dapper little halfcaste of forty or so, in a blue flannel suit, with lively

eyes, his round face the colour of lemonpeel, and with a thin little black moustache drooping on each side of

his thick, dark lips, came forward smirking. He turned out, notwithstanding his selfsatisfied and cheery

exterior, to be of a careworn tempera ment. In answer to a remark of mine (while Jim had gone below for a

moment) he said, "Oh yes. Patusan." He was going to carry the gentleman to the mouth of the river, but

would "never ascend. " His flowing English seemed to be derived from a dictionary compiled by a lunatic.

Had Mr. Stein desired him to "ascend," he would have "reverentially" (I think he wanted to say

respectfully but devil only knows) "reverentially made objects for the safety of proper ties." If

disregarded, he would have presented "resignation to quit." Twelve months ago he had made his last voyage

there, and though Mr. Cornelius "propitiated many offertories" to Mr. Rajah Allang and the "principal

populations," on conditions which made the trade "a snare and ashes in the mouth," yet his ship had been

fired upon from the woods by "irresponsive parties" all the way down the river; which causing his crew "from

exposure to limb to remain silent in hidings," the brigantine was nearly stranded on a sandbank at the bar,

where she "would have been perishable beyond the act of man." The angry disgust at the recollection, the

pride of his fluency, to which he turned an attentive ear, struggled for the possession of his broad simple face.

He scowled and beamed at me, and watched with satisfaction the undeniable effect of his phraseology. Dark

frowns ran swiftly over the placid sea, and the brigantine, with her foretopsail to the mast and her

mainboom amidships, seemed bewildered amongst the cat'spaws. He told me further, gnashing his teeth,

that the Rajah was a "laughable hyaena" (can't imagine how he got hold of hyaenas); while somebody else

was many times falser than the "weapons of a crocodile." Keeping one eye on the movements of his crew

forward, he let loose his volubility comparing the place to a "cage of beasts made ravenous by long

impenitence." I fancy he meant impunity. He had no intention, he cried, to "exhibit himself to be made

attached pur posefully to robbery." The longdrawn wails, giving the time for the pull of the men catting the

anchor, came to an end, and he lowered his voice. "Plenty too much enough of Patusan," he con cluded,

'I heard afterwards he had been so indiscreet as to get himself tied up by the neck with a rattan halter to a post

planted in the middle of a mudhole before the Rajah's house. He spent the best part of a day and a whole

night in that unwholesome situation, but there is every reason to believe the thing had been meant as a sort of

joke. He brooded for a while over that horrid memory, I suppose, and then addressed in a quarrelsome tone

the man coming aft to the helm. When he turned to me again it was to speak judicially, without passion. He

would take the gentleman to the mouth of the river at Batu Kring (Patusan town "being situated internally,"

he remarked, "thirty miles"). But in his eyes, he continued a tone of bored, weary conviction replacing his

previous voluble delivery the gentleman was already "in the similitude of a corpse." "What? What do you

say?" I asked. He assumed a startlingly ferocious demeanour, and imitated to perfection the act of stabbing

from behind. "Already like the body of one deported," he explained, with the insufferably conceited air of his

kind after what they imagine a display of cleverness. Behind him I perceived Jim smiling silendy at me, and

'Then, while the halfcaste, bursting with importance, shouted his orders, while the yards swung creaking and

the heavy boom came surging over, Jim and I, alone as it were, to leeward of the mainsail, clasped each

other's hands and exchanged the last hurried words. My heart was freed from that dull resentment which had

existed side by side with interest in his fate. The absurd chatter of the halfcaste had given more reality to the

miserable dangers of his path than Stein's careful statements. On that occasion the sort of formality that had

been always present in our intercourse vanished from our speech; I believe I called him "dear boy," and he

tacked on the words "old man" to some halfuttered expression of grati tude, as though his risk set off

against my years had made us more equal in age and in feeling. There was a moment of real and pro found

intimacy, unexpected and shortlived like a glimpse of some everlasting, of some saving truth. He exerted

himself to soothe me as though he had been the more mature of the two. "All right, all right," he said rapidly

and with feeling. "I promise to take care of myself. Yes; I won't take any risks. Not a single blessed risk. Of

course not. I mean to hang out. Don't you worry. Jove! I feel as if nothing could touch me. Why! this is luck

from the word Go. I wouldn't spoil such a magnificent chance!" . . . A magnificent chance! Well, it was

magnificent, but chances are what men make them, and how was I to know? As he had said, even I even I

remembered his his misfortune against him. It was true. And the best thing for him was to go.

'My gig had dropped in the wake of the brigantine, and I saw him aft detached upon the light of the westering

sun, raising his cap high above his head. I heard an indistinct shout, "You shall hear of me." Of

me, or from me, I don't know which. I think it must have been of me. My eyes were too dazzled by the glitter

of the sea below his feet to see him clearly; I am fated never to see him clearly; but I can assure you no man

could have appeared less "in the similitude of a corpse," as that halfcaste croaker had put it. I could see the

little wretch's face, the shape and colour of a ripe pumpkin, poked out somewhere under Jim's elbow. He too

'The coast of Patusan (I saw it nearly two years afterwards) is straight and sombre, and faces a misty ocean.

Red trails are seen like cataracts of rust streaming under the darkgreen foliage of bushes and creepers

clothing the low cliffs. Swampy plains open out at the mouth of rivers, with a view of jagged blue peaks

beyond the vast forests. In the offing a chain of islands, dark, crumbling shapes, stand out in the everlasting

'There is a village of fisherfolk at the mouth of the Batu Kring branch of the estuary. The river, which had

been closed so long, was open then, and Stein's little schooner, in which I had my passage, worked her way

up in three tides without being exposed to a fusil lade from "irresponsive parties." Such a state of affairs

belonged already to ancient history, if I could believe the elderly headman of the fishing village, who came

on board to act as a sort of pilot. He talked to me (the second white man he had ever seen) with confidence,

and most of his talk was about the first white man he had ever seen. He called him Tuan Jim and the tone of

his refer ences was made remarkable by a strange mixture of familiarity and awe. They, in the village, were

under that lord's special protection, which showed that Jim bore no grudge. If he had warned me that I would

hear of him it was perfectly true. I was hearing of him. There was already a story that the tide had turned two

hours before its time to help him on his journey up the river. The talkative old man himself had steered the

canoe and had marvelled at the phenomenon. Moreover, all the glory was in his family. His son and his

soninlaw had paddled; but they were only youths without experience, who did not notice the speed of the

'Jim's coming to that fishing village was a blessing; but to them, as to many of us, the blessing came heralded

by terrors. So many generations had been released since the last white man had visited the river that the very

tradition had been lost. The appearance of the being that descended upon them and demanded inflexibly to be

taken up to Patusan was discomposing; his insistence was alarming; his generosity more than suspicious. It

was an unheardof request. There was no precedent. What would the Rajah say to this? What would he do to

them? The best part of the night was spent in consultation; but the immediate risk from the anger of that

strange man seemed so great that at last a cranky dugout was got ready. The women shrieked with grief as it

'He sat in it, as I've told you, on his tin box, nursing the unloaded revolver on his lap. He sat with precaution

than which there is nothing more fatiguing and thus entered the land he was destined to fill with the

fame of his virtues, from the blue peaks inland to the white ribbon of surf on the coast. At the first bend he

lost sight of the sea with its labouring waves for ever rising, sinking, and vanishing to rise again the very

image of struggling mankind and faced the immovable forests rooted deep in the soil, soaring towards the

sunshine, everlasting in the shadowy might of their tradition, like life itself. And his opportunity sat veiled by

his side like an Eastern bride waiting to be uncovered by the hand of the master. He too was the heir of a

shadowy and mighty tradition! He told me, however, that he had never in his life felt so depressed and tired

as in that canoe. All the movement he dared to allow himself was to reach, as it were by stealth, after the shell

of half a cocoanut floating between his shoes, and bale some of the water out with a carefully restrained

action. He discovered how hard the lid of a blocktin case was to sit upon. He had heroic health; but several

times during that journey he experienced fits of giddiness, and between whiles he speculated hazily as to the

size of the blister the sun was raising on his back. For amusement he tried by looking ahead to decide whether

the muddy object he saw lying on the water's edge was a log of wood or an alligator. Only very soon he had

to give that up. No fun in it. Always alligator. One of them flopped into the river and all but capsized the

canoe. But this excite ment was over directly. Then in a long empty reach he was very grateful to a troop of

monkeys who came right down on the bank and made an insulting hullabaloo on his passage. Such was the

way in which he was approaching greatness as genuine as any man ever achieved. Principally, he longed for

sunset; and meantime his three paddlers were preparing to put into execution their plan of deliver ing him

' "I suppose I must have been stupid with fatigue, or perhaps I did doze off for a time," he said. The first thing

he knew was his canoe coming to the bank. He became instantaneously aware of the forest having been left

behind, of the first houses being visible higher up, of a stockade on his left, and of his boatmen leaping out

together upon a low point of land and taking to their heels. Instinctively he leaped out after them. At first he

thought himself deserted for some inconceivable reason, but he heard excited shouts, a gate swung open, and

a lot of people poured out, making towards him. At the same time a boat full of armed men appeared on the

' "I was too startled to be quite cool don't you know? and if that revolver had been loaded I would have

shot somebody per haps two, three bodies, and that would have been the end of me. But it wasn't...."

"Why not?" I asked. "Well, I couldn't fight the whole population, and I wasn't coming to them as if I were

afraid of my life," he said, with just a faint hint of his stubborn sulkiness in the glance he gave me. I refrained

from pointing out to him that they could not have known the chambers were actually empty. He had to satisfy

himself in his own way.... "Anyhow it wasn't," he repeated goodhumouredly, "and so I just stood still and

asked them what was the matter. That seemed to strike them dumb. I saw some of these thieves going off

with my box. That longlegged old scoundrel Kassim (I'll show him to you tomorrow) ran out fussing to me

about the Rajah wanting to see me. I said, 'All right.' I too wanted to see the Rajah, and I simply walked in

through the gate and and here I am." He laughed, and then with unexpected emphasis, "And do you

know what's the best in it?" he asked. "I'll tell you. It's the knowledge that had I been wiped out it is this place

'He spoke thus to me before his house on that evening I've men tioned after we had watched the moon

float away above the chasm between the hills like an ascending spirit out of a grave; its sheen descended,

cold and pale, like the ghost of dead sunlight. There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all

the dispas sionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceiv able mystery. It is to our

sunshine, which say what you like is all we have to live by, what the echo is to the sound: misleading

and confusing whether the note be mocking or sad. It robs all forms of matter which, after all, is our

domain of their substance, and gives a sinister reality to shadows alone. And the shadows were very real

around us, but Jim by my side looked very stalwart, as though nothing not even the occult power of

moonlight could rob him of his reality in my eyes. Perhaps, indeed, nothing could touch him since he had

survived the assault of the dark powers. All was silent, all was still; even on the river the moonbeams slept as

on a pool. It was the moment of high water, a moment of immobility that accentuated the utter isolation of

this lost corner of the earth. The houses crowding along the wide shining sweep without ripple or glitter,

stepping into the water in a line of jostling, vague, grey, silvery forms mingled with black masses of shadow,

were like a spectral herd of shapeless creatures pressing forward to drink in a spectral and lifeless stream.

Here and there a red gleam twinkled within the bamboo walls, warm, like a living spark, significant of human

'He confessed to me that he often watched these tiny warm gleams go out one by one, that he loved to see

people go to sleep under his eyes, confident in the security of tomorrow. "Peaceful here, eh?" he asked. He

was not eloquent, but there was a deep meaning in the words that followed. "Look at these houses; there's not

one where I am not trusted. Jove! I told you I would hang on. Ask any man, woman, or child . . ." He paused.

'I observed quickly that he had found that out in the end. I had been sure of it, I added. He shook his head.

"Were you?" He pressed my arm lightly above the elbow. "Well, then you were right."

'There was elation and pride, there was awe almost, in that low exclamation. "Jove!" he cried, "only think

what it is to me." Again he pressed my arm. "And you asked me whether I thought of leaving. Good God! I!

want to leave! Especially now after what you told me of Mr. Stein's . . . Leave! Why! That's what I was afraid

of. It would have been it would have been harder than dying. No on my word. Don't laugh. I must feel

every day, every time I open my eyes that I am trusted that nobody has a right don't you know?

'I had told him (indeed it was the main object of my visit) that it was Stein's intention to present him at once

with the house and the stock of trading goods, on certain easy conditions which would make the transaction

perfectly regular and valid. He began to snort and plunge at first. "Confound your delicacy!" I shouted. "It

isn't Stein at all. It's giving you what you had made for yourself. And in any case keep your remarks for

McNeil when you meet him in the other world. I hope it won't happen soon...." He had to give in to my

arguments, because all his conquests, the trust, the fame, the friendships, the love all these things that

made him master had made him a captive too. He looked with an owner's eye at the peace of the evening, at

the river, at the houses, at the everlasting life of the forests, at the life of the old mankind, at the secrets of the

land, at the pride of his own heart; but it was they that possessed him and made him their own to the

'It was something to be proud of. I too was proud for him, if not so certain of the fabulous value of the

bargain. It was wonderful. It was not so much of his fearlessness that I thought. It is strange how little

account I took of it: as if it had been something too conventional to be at the root of the matter. No. I was

more struck by the other gifts he had displayed. He had proved his grasp of the unfamiliar situation, his

intellectual alertness in that field of thought. There was his readiness too! Amazing. And all this had come to

him in a manner like keen scent to a wellbred hound. He was not eloquent, but there was a dignity in this

constitutional reticence, there was a high seriousness in his stammerings. He had still his old trick of stubborn

blushing. Now and then, though, a word, a sentence, would escape him that showed how deeply, how

solemnly, he felt about that work which had given him the certitude of rehabilitation. That is why he seemed

to love the land and the people with a sort of fierce egoism, with a contemptuous tender ness.'

' "This is where I was prisoner for three days," he murmured to me (it was on the occasion of our visit to the

Rajah), while we were making our way slowly through a kind of awestruck riot of dependants across Tunku

Allang's courtyard. "Filthy place, isn't it? And I couldn't get anything to eat either, unless I made a row about

it, and then it was only a small plate of rice and a fried fish not much bigger than a stickleback confound

them! Jove! I've been hungry prowling inside this stinking enclosure with some of these vagabonds shoving

their mugs right under my nose. I had given up that famous revolver of yours at the first demand. Glad to get

rid of the bally thing. Looked like a fool walking about with an empty shootingiron in my hand." At that

moment we came into the presence, and he became unflinchingly grave and complimen tary with his late

captor. Oh! magnificent! I want to laugh when I think of it. But I was impressed too. The old disreputable

Tunku Allang could not help showing his fear (he was no hero, for all the tales of his hot youth he was fond

of telling); and at the same time there was a wistful confidence in his manner towards his late pris oner.

Note! Even where he would be most hated he was still trusted. Jim as far as I could follow the

conversation was improving the occasion by the delivery of a lecture. Some poor villagers had been

waylaid and robbed while on their way to Doramin's house with a few pieces of gum or beeswax which they

wished to exchange for rice. "It was Doramin who was a thief," burst out the Rajah. A shaking fury seemed to

enter that old frail body. He writhed weirdly on his mat, gesticulating with his hands and feet, tossing the

tangled strings of his mop an impotent incarnation of rage. There were staring eyes and dropping jaws all

around us. Jim began to speak. Resolutely, coolly, and for some time he enlarged upon the text that no man

should be prevented from getting his food and his children's food honestly. The other sat like a tailor at his

board, one palm on each knee, his head low, and fixing Jim through the grey hair that fell over his very eyes.

When Jim had done there was a great still ness. Nobody seemed to breathe even; no one made a sound till

the old Rajah sighed faintly, and looking up, with a toss of his head, said quickly, "You hear, my people! No

more of these little games." This decree was received in profound silence. A rather heavy man, evidently in a

position of confidence, with intelligent eyes, a bony, broad, very dark face, and a cheerily of ficious manner

(I learned later on he was the executioner), presented to us two cups of coffee on a brass tray, which he took

from the hands of an inferior attendant. "You needn't drink," muttered Jim very rapidly. I didn't perceive the

meaning at first, and only looked at him. He took a good sip and sat composedly, holding the saucer in his

left hand. In a moment I felt excessively annoyed. "Why the devil," I whispered, smiling at him amiably, "do

you expose me to such a stupid risk?" I drank, of course, there was nothing for it, while he gave no sign, and

almost immediately afterwards we took our leave. While we were going down the courtyard to our boat,

escorted by the intelligent and cheery executioner, Jim said he was very sorry. It was the barest chance, of

course. Personally he thought nothing of poison. The remotest chance. He was he assured me con

sidered to be infinitely more useful than dangerous, and so . . . "But the Rajah is afraid of you abominably.

Anybody can see that," I argued with, I own, a certain peevishness, and all the time watch ing anxiously for

the first twist of some sort of ghastly colic. I was awfully disgusted. "If I am to do any good here and preserve

my position," he said, taking his seat by my side in the boat, "I must stand the risk: I take it once every

month, at least. Many people trust me to do that for them. Afraid of me! That's just it. Most likely he is

afraid of me because I am not afraid of his coffee." Then showing me a place on the north front of the

stockade where the pointed tops of several stakes were broken, "This is where I leaped over on my third day

in Patusan. They haven't put new stakes there yet. Good leap, eh?" A moment later we passed the mouth of a

muddy creek. "This is my second leap. I had a bit of a run and took this one flying, but fell short. Thought I

would leave my skin there. Lost my shoes struggling. And all the time I was thinking to myself how beastly it

would be to get a jab with a bally long spear while sticking in the mud like this. I remember how sick I felt

wriggling in that slime. I mean really sick as if I had bitten some thing rotten."

'That's how it was and the opportunity ran by his side, leaped over the gap, floundered in the mud . . . still

veiled. The unexpect edness of his coming was the only thing, you understand, that saved him from being at

once dispatched with krisses and flung into the river. They had him, but it was like getting hold of an

apparition, a wraith, a portent. What did it mean? What to do with it? Was it too late to conciliate him? Hadn't

he better be killed without more delay? But what would happen then? Wretched old Allang went nearly mad

with apprehension and through the difficulty of making up his mind. Several times the council was broken

up, and the advisers made a break helterskelter for the door and out on to the verandah. One it is said

even jumped down to the ground fifteen feet, I should judge and broke his leg. The royai governor of

Patusan had bizarre mannerisms, and one of them was to intro duce boastful rhapsodies into every arduous

discussion, when, get ting gradually excited, he would end by flying off his perch with a kriss in his hand.

But, barring such interruptions, the deliberations upon Jim's fate went on night and day.

'Meanwhile he wandered about the courtyard, shunned by some, glared at by others, but watched by all, and

practically at the mercy of the first casuai ragamuffin with a chopper, in there. He took possession of a small

tumbledown shed to sleep in; the effluvia of filth and rotten matter incommoded him greatly: it seems he

had not lost his appetite though, because he told me he had been hungry all the blessed time. Now and

again "some fussy ass" deputed from the councilroom would come out running to him, and in honeyed tones

would administer amazing interrogatories: "Were the Dutch coming to take the country? Would the white

man like to go back down the river? What was the object of coming to such a miserable country? The Rajah

wanted to know whether the white man could repair a watch?" They did actually bring out to him a nickel

clock of New England make, and out of sheer unbearable boredom he busied himseif in trying to get the

alarum to work. It was apparently when thus occupied in his shed that the true perception of his extreme peril

dawned upon him. He dropped the thing he says "like a hot potato," and walked out hastily, without

the slightest idea of what he would, or indeed could, do. He only knew that the position was intolerable. He

strolled aimlessly beyond a sort of ramshackle little granary on posts, and his eyes fell on the broken stakes of

the palisade; and then he says at once, without any mental process as it were, without any stir of

emotion, he set about his escape as if executing a plan matured for a month. He walked off carelessly to give

himself a good run, and when he faced about there was some dignitary, with two spearmen in attendance,

close at his elbow ready with a question. He started off "from under his very nose," went over "like a bird,"

and landed on the other side with a fall that jarred all his bones and seemed to split his head. He picked

himself up instantly. He never thought of anything at the time; all he could remember he said was a

great yell; the first houses of Patusan were before him four hundred yards away; he saw the creek, and as it

were mechanically put on more pace. The earth seemed fairly to fly backwards under his feet. He took off

from the last dry spot, felt himseif flying through the air, felt himself, without any shock, planted upright in

an extremely soft and sticky mudbank. It was only when he tried to move his legs and found he couldn't that,

in his own words, "he came to himself." He began to think of the "bally long spears." As a matter of fact,

considering that the people inside the stockade had to run to the gate, then get down to the landingplace, get

into boats, and pull round a point of land, he had more advance than he imagined. Besides, it being low water,

the creek was without water you couldn't call it dry and practically he was safe for a time from

everything but a very long shot perhaps. The higher firm ground was about six feet in front of him. "I thought

I would have to die there all the same," he said. He reached and grabbed desperately with his hands, and only

succeeded in gathering a horrible cold shiny heap of slime against his breast up to his very chin. It seemed

to him he was burying himself alive, and then he struck out madly, scattering the mud with his fists. It fell on

his head, on his face, over his eyes, into his mouth. He told me that he remembered suddenly the courtyard, as

you remember a place where you had been very happy years ago. He longed so he said to be back

there again, mending the clock. Mending the clock that was the idea. He made efforts, tremendous

sobbing, gasping efforts, efforts that seemed to burst his eyeballs in their sockets and make him blind, and

culminating into one mighty supreme effort in the dark ness to crack the earth asunder, to throw it off his

limbs and he felt himself creeping feebly up the bank. He lay full length on the firm ground and saw the

light, the sky. Then as a sort of happy thought the notion came to him that he would go to sleep. He will have

it that he did actually go to sleep; that he slept perhaps for a minute, perhaps for twenty seconds, or only

for one second, but he recollects distinctly the violent convulsive start of awakening. He remained lying still

for a while, and then he arose muddy from head to foot and stood there, thinking he was alone of his kind for

hundreds of miles, alone, with no help, no sympathy, no pity to expect from any one, like a hunted animal.

The first houses were not more than twenty yards from him; and it was the desperate screaming of a

frightened woman trying to carry off a child that started him again. He pelted straight on in his socks,

beplastered with filth out of all semblance to a human being. He traversed more than half the length of the

settlement. The nimbler women fled right and left, the slower men just dropped whatever they had in their

hands, and remained petrified with dropping jaws. He was a flying terror. He says he noticed the little

children trying to run for life, falling on their little stomachs and kicking. He swerved between two houses up

a slope, clambered in desperation over a barricade of felled trees (there wasn't a week without some fight in

Patusan at that time), burst through a fence into a maizepatch, where a scared boy flung a stick at him,

blundered upon a path, and ran all at once into the arms of several startled men. He just had breath enough to

gasp out, "Doramin! Doramin!" He remembers being halfcarried, halfrushed to the top of the slope, and in

a vast enclosure with palms and fruit trees being run up to a large man sitting massively in a chair in the

midst of the greatest possible commotion and excitement. He fumbled in mud and clothes to produce the ring,

and, finding himseif suddenly on his back, won dered who had knocked him down. They had simply let him

go don't you know? but he couldn't stand. At the foot of the slope random shots were fired, and above

the roofs of the settlement there rose a dull roar of amazement. But he was safe. Doramin's people were

barricading the gate and pouring water down his throat; Dora min's old wife, full of business and

commiseration, was issuing shrill orders to her girls. "The old woman," he said softly, "made a todo over me

as if I had been her own son. They put me into an immense bed her state bed and she ran in and out

wiping her eyes to give me pats on the back. I must have been a pitiful object. I just lay there like a log for I

'He seemed to have a great liking for Doramin's old wife. She on her side had taken a motherly fancy to him.

She had a round, nut brown, soft face, all fine wrinkles, large, bright red lips (she chewed betel

assiduously), and screwed up, winking, benevolent eyes. She was constantly in movement, scolding busily

and ordering unceas ingly a troop of young women with clear brown faces and big grave eyes, her

daughters, her servants, her slavegirls. You know how it is in these households: it's generally impossible to

tell the differ ence. She was very spare, and even her ample outer garment, fast ened in front with jewelled

clasps, had somehow a skimpy effect. Her dark bare feet were thrust into yellow straw slippers of Chinese

make. I have seen her myself flitting about with her extremely thick, long, grey hair falling about her

shoulders. She uttered homely shrewd sayings, was of noble birth, and was eccentric and arbitrary. In the

afternoon she would sit in a very roomy armchair, opposite her husband, gazing steadily through a wide

opening in the wall which gave an extensive view of the settlement and the river.

'She invariably tucked up her feet under her, but old Doramin sat squarely, sat imposingly as a mountain sits

on a plain. He was only of the nakhoda or merchant class, but the respect shown to him and the dignity of his

bearing were very striking. He was the chief of the second power in Patusan. The immigrants from Celebes

(about sixty families that, with dependants and so on, could muster some two hundred men "wearing the

kriss") had elected him years ago for their head. The men of that race are intelligent, enterprising, revengeful,

but with a more frank courage than the other Malays, and restless under oppression. They formed the party

opposed to the Rajah. Of course the quarrels were for trade. This was the primary cause of faction fights, of

the sudden outbreaks that would fill this or that part of the settlement with smoke, flame, the noise of shots

and shrieks. Villages were burnt, men were dragged into the Rajah's stockade to be killed or tortured for the

crime of trading with anybody else but himself. Only a day or two before Jim's arrival several heads of

households in the very fishing village that was afterwards taken under his especial protection had been driven

over the cliffs by a party of the Rajah's spearmen, on suspicion of having been collecting edible birds' nests

for a Celebes trader. Rajah Allang pretended to be the only trader in his country, and the penalty for the

breach of the monopoly was death; but his idea of trading was indistinguishable from the commonest forms

of rob bery. His cruelty and rapacity had no other bounds than his coward ice, and he was afraid of the

organised power of the Celebes men, only till Jim came he was not afraid enough to keep quiet. He

struck at them through his subjects, and thought himself patheti cally in the right. The situation was

complicated by a wandering stranger, an Arab halfbreed, who, I believe, on purely religious grounds, had

incited the tribes in the interior (the bushfolk, as Jim himself called them) to rise, and had established

himself in a forti fied camp on the summit of one of the twin hills. He hung over the town of Patusan like a

hawk over a poultryyard, but he devastated the open country. Whole villages, deserted, rotted on their

black ened posts over the banks of clear streams, dropping piecemeal into the water the grass of their walls,

the leaves of their roofs, with a curious effect of natural decay as if they had been a form of veg etation

stricken by a blight at its very root. The two parties in Patusan were not sure which one this partisan most

desired to plun der. The Rajah intrigued with him feebly. Some of the Bugis set tlers, weary with endless

insecurity, were half inclined to call him in. The younger spirits amongst them, chaffing, advised to "get

Sherif Ali with his wild men and drive the Rajah Allang out of the country." Doramin restrained them with

difficulty. He was growing old, and, though his influence had not diminished, the situation was getting

beyond him. This was the state of affairs when Jim, bolting from the Rajah's stockade, appeared before the

chief of the Bugis, produced the ring, and was received, in a manner of speaking, into the heart of the

'Doramin was one of the most remarkable men of his race I had ever seen. His bulk for a Malay was

immense, but he did not look merely fat; he looked imposing, monumental. This motionless body, clad in

rich stuffs, coloured silks, gold embroideries; this huge head, enfolded in a redandgold headkerchief; the

flat, big, round face, wrinkled, furrowed, with two semicircular heavy folds starting on each side of wide,

fierce nostrils, and enclosing a thick lipped mouth; the throat like a bull; the vast corrugated brow over

hanging the staring proud eyes made a whole that, once seen, can never be forgotten. His impassive

repose (he seldom stirred a limb when once he sat down) was like a display of dignity. He was never known

to raise his voice. It was a hoarse and powerful murmur, slightly veiled as if heard from a distance. When he

walked, two short, sturdy young fellows, naked to the waist, in white sarongs and with black skullcaps on

the backs of their heads, sustained his elbows; they would ease him down and stand behind his chair till he

wanted to rise, when he would turn his head slowly, as if with difficulty, to the right and to the left, and then

they would catch him under his armpits and help him up. For all that, there was nothing of a cripple about

him: on the contrary, all his ponderous movements were like manifestations of a mighty deliberate force. It

was generally believed he consulted his wife as to public affairs; but nobody, as far as I know, had ever heard

them exchange a single word. When they sat in state by the wide opening it was in silence. They could see

below them in the declining light the vast expanse of the forest country, a dark sleeping sea of sombre green

undulating as far as the violet and purple range of mountains; the shining sinuosity of the river like an

immense letter S of beaten silver; the brown ribbon of houses following the sweep of both banks, overtopped

by the twin hills uprising above the nearer treetops. They were wonderfully contrasted: she, light, delicate,

spare, quick, a little witchlike, with a touch of motherly fussiness in her repose; he, facing her, immense and

heavy, like a figure of a man roughly fashioned of stone, with something magnanimous and ruth less in his

'They had him late in life. Perhaps he was not really so young as he looked. Four or fiveandtwenty is not

so young when a man is already father of a family at eighteen. When he entered the large room, lined and

carpeted with fine mats, and with a high ceiling of white sheeting, where the couple sat in state surrounded by

a most deferential retinue, he would make his way straight to Doramin, to kiss his hand which the other

abandoned to him, majestically and then would step across to stand by his mother's chair. I suppose I may

say they idolised him, but I never caught them giving him an overt glance. Those, it is true, were public

functions. The room was generally thronged. The solemn formality of greetings and leave takings, the

profound respect expressed in gestures, on the faces, in the low whispers, is simply indescribable. "It's well

worth see ing," Jim had assured me while we were crossing the river, on our way back. "They are like

people in a book, aren't they?" he said triumphantly. "And Dain Waris their son is the best friend

(barring you) I ever had. What Mr. Stein would call a good 'war comrade.' I was in luck. Jove! I was in luck

when I tumbled amongst them at my last gasp." He meditated with bowed head, then rousing himself he

' "Of course I didn't go to sleep over it, but . . ." He paused again. "It seemed to come to me," he murmured.

'There was no doubt that it had come to him; and it had come through war, too, as is natural, since this power

that came to him was the power to make peace. It is in this sense alone that mught so often is right. You must

not think he had seen his way at once. When he arrived the Bugis community was in a most critical posi

tion. "They were all afraid," he said to me "each man afraid for himself; while I could see as plain as

possible that they must do something at once, if they did not want to go under one after another, what

between the Rajah and that vagabond Sherif." But to see that was nothing. When he got his idea he had to

drive it into reluctant minds, through the bulwarks of fear, of selfishness. He drove it in at last. And that was

nothing. He had to devise the means. He devised them an audacious plan; and his task was only half done.

He had to inspire with his own confidence a lot of people who had hidden and absurd reasons to hang back;

he had to concili ate imbecile jealousies, and argue away all sorts of senseless mis trusts. Without the

weight of Doramin's authority, and his son's fiery enthusiasm, he would have failed. Dain Waris, the dis

tinguished youth, was the first to believe in him; theirs was one of those strange, profound, rare friendships

between brown and white, in which the very difference of race seems to draw two human beings closer by

some mystic element of sympathy. Of Dain Waris, his own people said with pride that he knew how to fight

like a white man. This was true; he had that sort of courage the courage in the open, I may say but he

had also a European mind. You meet them sometimes like that, and are surprised to discover unex pectedly

a familiar turn of thought, an unobscured vision, a tenacity of purpose, a touch of altruism. Of small stature,

but admirably well proportioned, Dain Waris had a proud carriage, a polished, easy bearing, a temperament

like a clear flame. His dusky face, with big black eyes, was in action expressive, and in repose thoughtful. He

was of a silent disposition; a firm glance, an ironic smile, a courteous deliberation of manner seemed to hint

at great reserves of intelligence and power. Such beings open to the Western eye, so often concerned with

mere surfaces, the hidden possibilities of races and lands over which hangs the mystery of unrecorded ages.

He not only trusted Jim, he understood him, I firmly believe. I speak of him because he had captivated me.

His if I may say so his caustic placidity, and, at the same time, his intelligent sympathy with Jim's

aspirations, appealed to me. I seemed to behold the very origin of friendship. If Jim took the lead, the other

had captivated his leader. In fact, Jim the leader was a captive in every sense. The land, the people, the

friendship, the love, were like the jealous guardians of his body. Every day added a link to the fetters of that

strange freedom. I felt convinced of it, as from day to day I learned more of the story.

'The story! Haven't I heard the story? I've heard it on the march, in camp (he made me scour the country after

invisible game); I've listened to a good part of it on one of the twin summits, after climbing the last hundred

feet or so on my hands and knees. Our escort (we had volunteer followers from village to village) had

camped meantime on a bit of level ground halfway up the slope, and in the still breathless evening the smell

of woodsmoke reached our nostrils from below with the penetrating delicacy of some choice scent. Voices

also ascended, wonderful in their distinct and imma terial clearness. Jim sat on the trunk of a felled tree, and

pulling out his pipe began to smoke. A new growth of grass and bushes was springing up; there were traces of

an earthwork under a mass of thorny twigs. "It all started from here," he said, after a long and medltative

silence. On the other hill, two hundred yards across a sombre precipice, I saw a line of high blackened stakes,

'But it had been taken, though. That had been his idea. He had mounted Doramin's old ordnance on the top of

that hill; two rusty iron 7pounders, a lot of small brass cannon currency cannon. But if the brass guns

represent wealth, they can also, when crammed recklessly to the muzzle, send a solid shot to some litde

distance. The thing was to get them up there. He showed me where he had fastened the cables, explained how

he had improvised a rude cap stan out of a hollowed log turning upon a pointed stake, indicated with the

bowl of his pipe the outline of the earthwork. The last hundred feet of the ascent had been the most difficult.

He had made himself responsible for success on his own head. He had induced the war party to work hard all

night. Big fires lighted at intervals blazed all down the slope, "but up here," he explained, "the hoist ing

gang had to fly around in the dark. " From the top he saw men moving on the hillside like ants at work. He

himself on that night had kept on rushing down and climbing up like a squirrel, directing, encouraging,

watching all along the line. Old Doramin had himself carried up the hill in his armchair. They put him down

on the level place upon the slope, and he sat there in the light of one of the big fires "amazing old chap

real old chieftain," said Jim, "with his little fierce eyes a pair of immense flintlock pistols on his knees.

Magnificent things, ebony, silvermounted, with beautiful locks and a calibre like an old blunderbuss. A

present from Stein, it seems in exchange for that ring, you know. Used to belong to good old McNeil. God

only knows how he came by them. There he sat, moving neither hand nor foot, a flame of dry brushwood

behind him, and lots of people rushing about, shouting and pulling round him the most solemn, imposing

old chap you can imagine. He wouldn't have had much chance if Sherif Ali had let his infernal crew loose at

us and stampeded my lot. Eh? Anyhow, he had come up there to die if anything went wrong. No mistake!

Jove! It thrilled me to see him there like a rock. But the Sherif must have thought us mad, and never

troubled to come and see how we got on. Nobody believed it could be done. Why! I think the very chaps who

pulled and shoved and sweated over it did not believe it could be done! Upon my word I don't think they

'He stood erect, the smouldering brierwood in his clutch, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his boyish

eyes. I sat on the stump of a tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of the forests,

sombre under the sunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints of winding rivers, the grey spots of villages, and

here and there a clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous treetops. A brooding

gloom lay over this vast and monotonous landscape; the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured

the sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and polished within the faint haze,

'And there I was with him, high in the sunshine on the top of that historic hill of his. He dominated the forest,

the secular doom, the old mankind. He was like a figure set up on a pedestal, to represent in his persistent

youth the power, and perhaps the virtues, of races that never grow old, that have emerged from the gloom. I

don't know why he should always have appeared to me symbolic. Perhaps this is the real cause of my interest

in his fate. I don't know whether it was exactly fair to him to remember the incident which had given a new

direction to his life, but at that very moment I remembered very distinctly. It was like a shadow in the light.'

'Already the legend had gifted him with supernatural powers. Yes, it was said, there had been many ropes

cunningly disposed, and a strange contrivance that turned by the efforts of many men, and each gun went up

tearing slowly through the bushes, like a wild pig rooting its way in the undergrowth, but . . . and the wisest

shook their heads. There was something occult in all this, no doubt; for what is the strength of ropes and of

men's arms? There is a rebellious soul in things which must be overcome by powerful charms and

incantations. Thus old Sura a very respectable house holder of Patusan with whom I had a quiet chat

one evening. However, Sura was a professional sorcerer also, who attended all the rice sowings and reapings

for miles around for the purpose of subduing the stubborn souls of things. This occupation he seemed to think

a most arduous one, and perhaps the souls of things are more stubborn than the souls of men. As to the simple

folk of outlying villages, they believed and said (as the most natural thing in the world) that Jim had carried

'This would make Jim stamp his foot in vexation and exclaim with an exasperated little laugh, "What can you

do with such silly beggars? They will sit up half the night talking bally rot, and the greater the lie the more

they seem to like it." You could trace the subtle influence of his surroundings in this irritation. lt was part of

his captivity. The earnestness of his denials was amusing, and at last I said, "My dear fellow, you don't

suppose I believe this." He looked at me quite startled. "Well, no! I suppose not," he said, and burst into a

Homeric peal of laughter. "Well, anyhow the guns were there, and went off all together at sunrise. Jove! You

should have seen the splinters fly," he cried. By his side Dain Waris, listening with a quiet smile, dropped his

eyelids and shuffled his feet a little. It appears that the success in mounting the guns had given Jim's people

such a feeling of confidence that he ventured to leave the battery under charge of two elderly Bugis who had

seen some fight ing in their day, and went to join Dain Waris and the storming party who were concealed in

the ravine. In the small hours they began creeping up, and when twothirds of the way up, lay in the wet

grass waiting for the appearance of the sun, which was the agreed signal. He told me with what impatient

anguishing emotion he watched the swift coming of the dawn; how, heated with the work and the climbing,

he felt the cold dew chilling his very bones; how afraid he was he would begin to shiver and shake like a leaf

before the time came for the advance. "It was the slowest halfhour in my life," he declared. Gradually the

silent stockade came out on the sky above him. Men scattered all down the slope were crouching amongst the

dark stones and dripping bushes. Dain Waris was lying flattened by his side. "We looked at each other," Jim

said, resting a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "He smiled ar me as cheery as you please, and I dared not

stir my lips for fear I would break out into a shivering fit. 'Pon my word, it's true! I had been streaming with

perspiration when we took cover so you may imagine . . ." He declared, and I believe him, that he had no

fears as to the result. He was only anxious as to his ability to repress these shivers. He didn't bother about the

result. He was bound to get to the top of that hill and stay there, whatever might happen. There could be no

going back for him. Those people had trusted him implicitly. Him alone! His bare word....

'I remember how, at this point, he paused with his eyes fixed upon me. "As far as he knew, they never had an

occasion to regret it yet," he said. "Never. He hoped to God they never would. Mean time worse luck!

they had got into the habit of taking his word for anything and everything. I could have no idea! Why,

only the other day an old fool he had never seen in his life came from some village miles away to find out if

he should divorce his wife. Fact. Solemn word. That's the sort of thing. . . He wouldn't have believed it.

Would I? Squatted on the verandah chewing betelnut, sighing and spitting all over the place for more than

an hour, and as glum as an undertaker before he came out with that dashed conundrum. That's the kind of

thing that isn't so funny as it looks. What was a fellow to say? Good wife? Yes. Good wife old

though. Started a confounded long story about some brass pots. Been living together for fifteen years

twenty years could not tell. A long, long time. Good wife. Beat her a little not much just a little,

when she was young. Had to for the sake of his honour. Suddenly in her old age she goes and lends three

brass pots to her sister's son's wife, and begins to abuse him every day in a loud voice. His enemies jeered at

him; his face was utterly blackened. Pots totally lost. Awfully cut up about it. Impossible to fathom a story

like that; told him to go home, and promised to come along myself and settle it all. It's all very well to grin,

but it was the dashedest nuisance! A day's journey through the forest, another day lost in coaxing a lot of silly

villagers to get at the rights of the affair. There was the making of a sanguinary shindy in the thing. Every

bally idiot took sides with one family or the other, and one half of the village was ready to go for the other

half with anything that came handy . Honour bright! No joke! . . . Instead of attending to their bally crops.

Got him the infernal pots back of course and pacified all hands. No trouble to settle it. Of course not.

Could settle the deadliest quarrel in the country by crooking his little finger. The trouble was to get at the

truth of anything. Was not sure to this day whether he had been fair to all parties. It worried him. And the

talk! Jove! There didn't seem to be any head or tail to it. Rather storm a twentyfoothigh old stockade any

day. Much! Child's play to that other job. Wouldn't take so long either. Well, yes; a funny set out, upon the

whole the fool looked old enough to be his grandfather. But from another point of view it was no joke.

His word decided everything ever since the smashing of Sherif Ali. An awful responsibility," he repeated.

"No, really joking apart, had it been three lives instead of three rotten brass pots it would have been the

'Thus he illustrated the moral effect of his victory in war. It was in truth immense. It had led him from strife

to peace, and through death into the innermost life of the people; but the gloom of the land spread out under

the sunshine preserved its appearance of inscrutable, of secular repose. The sound of his fresh young voice

it's extraordinary how very few signs of wear he showed floated lightly, and passed away over the

unchanged face of the forests like the sound of the big guns on that cold dewy morning when he had no other

concern on earth but the proper control of the chills in his body. With the first slant of sunrays along these

immovable tree tops the summit of one hill wreathed itself, with heavy reports, in white clouds of smoke,

and the other burst into an amazing noise of yells, warcries, shouts of anger, of surprise, of dismay. Jim and

Dain Waris were the first to lay their hands on the stakes. The popular story has it that Jim with a touch of

one finger had thrown down the gate. He was, of course, anxious to disclaim this achieve ment. The whole

stockade he would insist on explaining to you was a poor affair (Sherif Ali wsted mainly to the

inaccessible posi tion); and, anyway, the thing had been already knocked to pieces and only hung together

by a miracle. He put his shoulder to it like a little fool and went in head over heels. Jove! If it hadn't been for

Dain Waris, a pockmarked tattooed vagabond would have pinned him with his spear to a baulk of timber

like one of Stein's beetles. The third man in, it seems, had been Tamb' Itam, Jim's own ser vant. This was a

Malay from the north, a stranger who had wand ered into Patusan, and had been forcibly detained by Rajah

Allang as paddler of one of the state boats. He had made a bolt of it at the first opportunity, and finding a

precarious refuge (but very little to eat) amongst the Bugis settlers, had attached himself to Jim's per son.

His complexion was very dark, his face flat, his eyes prominent and injected with bile. There was something

excessive, almost fana tical, in his devotion to his "white lord." He was inseparable from Jim like a morose

shadow. On state occasions he would tread on his master's heels, one hand on the haft of his kriss, keeping

the com mon people at a distance by his truculent brooding glances. Jim had made him the headman of his

establishment, and all Patusan respected and courted him as a person of much influence. At the taking of the

stockade he had distinguished himself greatly by the methodical ferocity of his fighting. The storming party

had come on so quick Jim said that notwithstanding the panic of the garrison, there was a "hot five

minutes handtohand inside that stockade, till some bally ass set fire to the shelters of boughs and dry grass,

'The rout, it seems, had been complete. Doramin, waiting immovably in his chair on the hillside, with the

smoke of the guns spreading slowly above his big head, received the news with a deep grunt. When informed

that his son was safe and leading the pursuit, he, without another sound, made a mighty effort to rise; his

atten dants hurried to his help, and, held up reverently, he shuffled with great dignity into a bit of shade,

where he laid himself down to sleep, covered entirely with a piece of white sheeting. In Patusan the

excitement was intense. Jim told me that from the hill, turning his back on the stockade with its embers, black

ashes, and half consumed corpses, he could see time after time the open spaces between the houses on both

sides of the stream fill suddenly with a seething rush of people and get empty in a moment. His ears caught

feebly from below the tremendous din of gongs and drums; the wild shouts of the crowd reached him in

bursts of faint roaring. A lot of streamers made a flutter as of little white, red, yellow birds amongst the

brown ridges of roofs. "You must have enjoyed it," I mur mured, feeling the stir of sympathetic emotion.

' "It was . . . it was immense! Immense!" he cried aloud, flinging his arms open. The sudden movement

startled me as though I had seen him bare the secrets of his breast to the sunshine, to the brood ing forests,

to the steely sea. Below us the town reposed in easy curves upon the banks of a stream whose current seemed

to sleep. "Immense!" he repeated for a third time, speaking in a whisper, for himself alone.

'Immense! No doubt it was immense; the seal of success upon his words, the conquered ground for the soles

of his feet, the blind trust of men, the belief in himself snatched from the fire, the soli tude of his

achievement. All this, as I've warned you, gets dwarfed in the telling. I can't with mere words convey to you

the impression of his total and utter isolation. I know, of course, he was in every sense alone of his kind there,

but the unsuspected qualities of his nature had brought him in such close touch with his surroundings that this

isolation seemed only the effect of his power. His loneliness added to his stature. There was nothing within

sight to compare him with, as though he had been one of those exceptional men who can be only measured by

the greatness of their fame; and his fame, remember, was the greatest thing around for many a day's journey.

You would have to paddle, pole, or track a long weary way through the jungle before you passed beyond the

reach of its voice. Its voice was not the trumpeting of the disreputable goddess we all know not blatant

not brazen. It took its tone from the stillness and gloom of the land without a past, where his word was the

one truth of every passing day. It shared something of the nature of that silence through which it accompanied

you into unexplored depths, heard continuously by your side, penetrating, farreaching tinged with

'The defeated Sherif Ali fled the country without making another stand, and when the miserable hunted

villagers began to crawl out of the jungle back to their rotting houses, it was Jim who, in consul tation with

Dain Waris, appointed the headmen. Thus he became the virtual ruler of the land. As to old Tunku Allang, his

fears at first had known no bounds. It is said that at the intelligence of the successful storming of the hill he

flung himself, face down, on the bamboo floor of his audiencehall, and lay motionless for a whole night and

a whole day, uttering stifled sounds of such an appalling nature that no man dared approach his prostrate form

nearer than a spear's length. Already he could see himself driven ignominiously out of Patusan, wandering,

abandoned, stripped, without opium, without his women, without followers, a fair game for the first comer to

kill. After Sherif Ali his turn would come, and who could resist an attack led by such a devil? And indeed he

owed his life and such authority as he still possessed at the time of my visit to Jim's idea of what was fair

alone. The Bugis had been extremely anxious to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramin cherished

the hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan. During one of our interviews he deliberately allowed me to

get a glimpse of this secret ambition. Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified wari ness of his

approaches. He himself he began by declaring had used his strength in his young days, but now he had

grown old and tired.... With his imposing bulk and haughty little eyes darting sagacious, inquisitive glances,

he reminded one irresistibly of a cunning old elephant; the slow rise and fall of his vast breast went on

powerful and regular, like the heave of a calm sea. He too, as he protested, had an unbounded confidence in

Tuan Jim's wisdom. If he could only obtain a promise! One word would be enough! . . . His breathing

silences, the low rumblings of his voice, recalled the last efforts of a spent thunderstorm.

'I tried to put the subject aside. It was difficult, for there could be no question that Jim had the power; in his

new sphere there did not seem to be anything that was not his to hold or to give. But that, I repeat, was

nothing in comparison with the notion, which occurred to me, while I listened with a show of attention, that

he seemed to have come very near at last to mastering his fate. Doramin was anxious about the future of the

country, and I was struck by the turn he gave to the argument. The land remains where God had put it; but

white men he said they come to us and in a little while they go. They go away. Those they leave

behind do not know when to look for their return. They go to their own land, to their people, and so this white

man too would.... I don't know what induced me to commit myself at this point by a vigorous "No, no." The

whole extent of this indiscretion became apparent when Doramin, turning full upon me his face, whose

expression, fixed in rugged deep folds, remained unalterable, like a huge brown mask, said that this was good

'His little, motherly witch of a wife sat on my other hand, with her head covered and her feet tucked up,

gazing through the great shutterhole. I could only see a straying lock of grey hair, a high cheekbone, the

slight masticating motion of the sharp chin. With out removing her eyes from the vast prospect of forests

stretching as far as the hills, she asked me in a pitying voice why was it that he so young had wandered from

his home, coming so far, through so many dangers? Had he no household there, no kinsmen in his own

'I was completely unprepared for this. I could only mutter and shake my head vaguely. Afterwards I am

perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty. From that moment,

however, the old nakhoda became taciturn. He was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I had given him

food for thought. Strangely enough, on the evening of that very day (which was my last in Patusan) I was

once more confronted with the same question, with the unanswerable why of Jim's fate. And this brings me to

'I suppose you think it is a story that you can imagine for your selves. We have heard so many such stories,

and the majority of us don't believe them to be stories of love at all. For the most part we look upon them as

stories of opportunities: episodes of passion at best, or perhaps only of youth and temptation, doomed to

forgetful ness in the end, even if they pass through the reality of tenderness and regret. This view mostly is

right, and perhaps in this case too.... Yet I don't know. To tell this story is by no means so easy as it should be

were the ordinary standpoint adequate. Apparently it is a story very much like the others: for me,

however, there is visible in its background the melancholy figure of a woman, the shadow of a cruel wisdom

buried in a lonely grave, looking on wistfully, helplessly, with sealed lips. The grave itself, as I came upon it

during an early morning stroll, was a rather shapeless brown mound, with an inlaid neat border of white

lumps of coral at the base, and enclosed within a circular fence made of split saplings, with the bark left on. A

garland of leaves and flowers was woven about the heads of the slender posts and the flowers were fresh.

'Thus, whether the shadow is of my imagination or not, I can at all events point out the significant fact of an

unforgotten grave. When I tell you besides that Jim with his own hands had worked at the rustic fence, you

will perceive directly the difference, the individual side of the story. There is in his espousal of memory and

affection belonging to another human being something character istic of his seriousness. He had a

conscience, and it was a romantic conscience. Through her whole life the wife of the unspeakable Cornelius

had no other companion, confidant, and friend but her daughter. How the poor woman had come to marry the

awful little Malacca Portuguese after the separation from the father of her girl and how that separation

had been brought about, whether by death, which can be sometimes merciful, or by the merciless press ure

of conventions, is a mystery to me. From the little which Stein (who knew so many stories) had let drop in

my hearing, I am con vinced that she was no ordinary woman. Her own father had been a white; a high

official; one of the brilliantly endowed men who are not dull enough to nurse a success, and whose careers so

often end under a cloud. I suppose she too must have lacked the saving dullness and her career ended in

Patusan. Our common fate . . . for where is the man I mean a real sentient man who does not

remember vaguely having been deserted in the fullness of pos session by some one or something more

precious than life? . . . our common fate fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It does not punish

like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to gratify a secret, unappeasable spite. One would think that,

appointed to rule on earth, it seeks to revenge itself upon the beings that come nearest to rising above the

trammels of earthly caution; for it is only women who manage to put at times into their love an element just

palpable enough to give one a fright an extraterres trial touch. I ask myself with wonder how the

world can look to them whether it has the shape and substance we know, the air we breathe! Sometimes I

fancy it must be a region of unreasonable sublimities seething with the excitement of their adventurous souls,

lighted by the glory of all possible risks and renunciations. How ever, I suspect there are very few women in

the world, though of course I am aware of the multitudes of mankind and of the equality of sexes in point

of numbers, that is. But I am sure that the mother was as much of a woman as the daughter seemed to be. I

cannot help picturing to myself these two, at first the young woman and the child, then the old woman and

the young girl, the awful same ness and the swift passage of time, the barrier of forest, the solitude and the

turmoil round these two lonely lives, and every word spoken between them penetrated with sad meaning.

There must have been confidences, not so much of fact, I suppose, as of innermost feel ings regrets

fears warnings, no doubt: warnings that the younger did not fully understand till the elder was dead

and Jim came along. Then I am sure she understood much not everything the fear mostly, it seems. Jim

called her by a word that means precious, in the sense of a precious gem jewel. Pretty, isn't it? But he was

capable of anything. He was equal to his fortune, as he after all must have beeen equal to his

misfortune. Jewel he called her; and he would say this as he might have said "Jane," don't you know with

a marital, homelike, peaceful effect. I heard the name for the first time ten minutes after I had landed in his

courtyard, when, after nearly shaking my arm off, he darted up the steps and began to make a joyous, boyish

disturbance at the door under the heavy eaves. "Jewel! O Jewel! Quick! Here's a friend come," . . . and

suddenly peering at me in the dim verandah, he mumbled earnestly, "You know this no confounded

nonsense about it can't tell you how much I owe to her and so you understand I exactly as if

. . " His hurried, anxious whispers were cut short by the flitting of a white form within the house, a faint

exclamation, and a childlike but energetic little face with delicate features and a profound, attentive glance

peeped out of the inner gloom, like a bird out of the recess of a nest. I was struck by the name, of course; but

it was not till later on that I connected it with an astonishing rumour that had met me on my journey, at a little

place on the coast about 230 miles south of Patusan River. Stein's schooner, in which I had my passage, put

in there, to collect some produce, and, going ashore, I found to my great surprise that the wretched locality

could boast of a thirdclass deputyassistant resident, a big, fat, greasy, blinking fellow of mixed descent,

with turnedout, shiny lips. I found him lying extended on his back in a cane chair, odiously unbuttoned, with

a large green leaf of some sort on the top of his steaming head, and another in his hand which he used lazily

as a fan . . . Going to Patusan? Oh yes. Stein's Trading Company. He knew. Had a permission? No business

of his. It was not so bad there now, he remarked negligently, and, he went on drawling, "There's some sort of

white vagabond has got in there, I hear.... Eh? What you say? Friend of yours? So! . . . Then it was true there

was one of these verdammte What was he up to? Found his way in, the rascal. Eh? I had not been sure.

Patusan they cut throats there no business of ours." He interrupted himself to groan. "Phoo! Almighty!

The heat! The heat! Well, then, there might be some thing in the story too, after all, and . . ." He shut one of

his beastly glassy eyes (the eyelid went on quivering) while he leered at me atrociously with the other. "Look

here," says he mysteriously, "if do you understand? if he has really got hold of something fairly good

none of your bits of green glass understand? I am a Government official you tell the rascal . . .

Eh? What? Friend of yours?" . . . He continued wallowing calmly in the chair . . . "You said so; that's just it;

and I am pleased to give you the hint. I suppose you too would like to get something out of it? Don't interrupt.

You just tell him I've heard the tale, but to my Government I have made no report. Not yet. See? Why make a

report? Eh? Tell him to come to me if they let him get alive out of the country. He had better look out for

himself. Eh? I promise to ask no questions. On the quiet you understand? You too you shall get

something from me. Small commission for the trouble. Don't interrupt. I am a Government official, and make

no report. That's business. Understand? I know some good people that will buy anything worth having, and

can give him more money than the scoundrel ever saw in his life. I know his sort." He fixed me steadfastly

with both his eyes open, while I stood over him utterly amazed, and asking myself whether he was mad or

drunk. He perspired, puffed, moaning feebly, and scratch ing himself with such horrible composure that I

could not bear the sight long enough to find out. Next day, talking casually with the people of the little native

court of the place, I discovered that a story was travelling slowly down the coast about a mysterious white

man in Patusan who had got hold of an extraordinary gem namely, an emerald of an enormous size, and

altogether priceless. The emerald seems to appeal more to the Eastern imagination than any other precious

stone. The white man had obtained it, I was told, partly by the exercise of his wonderful strength and partly

by cunning, from the ruler of a distant country, whence he had fled instantly, arriving in Patusan in utmost

distress, but frightening the people by his extreme ferocity, which nothing seemed able to subdue. Most of

my informants were of the opinion that the stone was probably unlucky, like the famous stone of the

Sultan of Succadana, which in the old times had brought wars and untold calamities upon that country.

Perhaps it was the same stone one couldn't say. Indeed the story of a fabulously large emerald is as old as

the arrival of the first white men in the Archipelago; and the belief in it is so persistent that less than forty

years ago there had been an official Dutch inquiry into the truth of it. Such a jewel it was explained to me

by the old fellow from whom I heard most of this amazing Jimmyth a sort of scribe to the wretched little

Rajah of the place; such a jewel, he said, cocking his poor purblind eyes up at me (he was sitting on the

cabin floor out of respect), is best preserved by being concealed about the person of a woman. Yet it is not

every woman that would do. She must be young he sighed deeply and insensible to the seductions of

love. He shook his head sceptically. But such a woman seemed to be actually in existence. He had been told

of a tall girl, whom the white man treated with great respect and care, and who never went forth from the

house unattended. People said the white man could be seen with her almost any day; they walked side by

side, openly, he holding her arm under his pressed to his side thus in a most extraordinary way.

This might be a lie, he conceded, for it was indeed a strange thing for any one to do: on the other hand, there

'This was the theory of Jim's marital evening walks. I made a third on more than one occasion, unpleasantly

aware every time of Cornelius, who nursed the aggrieved sense of his legal paternity, slinking in the

neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing his

teeth. But do you notice how, three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mailboat lines,

the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisa tion wither and die, to be replaced by pure exercises of

imagination, that have the futility, often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of

art? Romance had singled Jim for its own and that was the true part of the story, which otherwise was all

'It comes to me now that I had, on the whole, seen very little of her. What I remember best is the even, olive

pallor of her com plexion, and the intense blueblack gleams of her hair, flowing abundantly from under a

small crimson cap she wore far back on her shapely head. Her movements were free, assured, and she

blushed a dusky red. While Jim and I were talking, she would come and go with rapid glances at us, leaving

on her passage an impression of grace and charm and a distinct suggestion of watchfulness. Her manner

presented a curious combination of shyness and audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftly by a look

of silent, repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of some abiding danger. At times she would

sit down with us and, with her soft cheek dimpled by the knuckles of her little hand, she would listen to our

talk; her big clear eyes would remain fastened on our lips, as though each pronounced word had a visible

shape. Her mother had taught her to read and write; she had learned a good bit of English from Jim, and she

spoke it most amusingly, with his own clipping, boyish intonation. Her tenderness hovered over him like a

flutter of wings. She lived so completely in his contemplation that she had acquired something of his outward

aspect, something that recalled him in her movements, in the way she stretched her arm, turned her head,

directed her glances. Her vigilant affection had an intensity that made it almost perceptible to the senses; it

seemed actually to exist in the ambient matter of space, to envelop him like a peculiar fragrance, to dwell in

the sunshine like a tremu lous, subdued, and impassioned note. I suppose you think that I too am romantic,

but it is a mistake. I am relating to you the sober impressions of a bit of youth, of a strange uneasy romance

that had come in my way. I observed with interest the work of his well good fortune. He was jealously

loved, but why she should be jeal ous, and of what, I could not tell. The land, the people, the forests were

her accomplices, guarding him with vigilant accord, with an air of seclusion, of mystery, of invincible

possession. There was no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned within the very freedom of his power, and

she, though ready to make a footstool of her head for his feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly as though

he were hard to keep. The very Tamb' Itam, marching on our journeys upon the heels of his white lord, with

his head thrown back, truculent and beweaponed like a janissary, with kriss, chopper, and lance (besides

carrying Jim's gun); even Tamb' Itam allowed himself to put on the airs of uncompromising guardianship,

like a surly devoted jailer ready to lay down his life for his captive. On the evenings when we sat up late, his

silent, indistinct form would pass and repass under the verandah, with noiseless footsteps, or lifting my head I

would unexpectedly make him out standing rigidly erect in the shadow. As a general rule he would vanish

after a time, without a sound; but when we rose he would spring up close to us as if from the ground, ready

for any orders Jim might wish to give. The girl too, I believe, never went to sleep till we had separated for the

night. More than once I saw her and Jim through the window of my room come out together quietly and lean

on the rough balus trade two white forms very close, his arm about her waist, her head on his shoulder.

Their soft murmurs reached me, penetrating, tender, with a calm sad note in the stillness of the night, like a

self communion of one being carried on in two tones. Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquitonet, I

was sure to hear slight creak ings, faint breathing, a throat cleared cautiously and I would know that

Tamb' Itam was still on the prowl. Though he had (by the favour of the white lord) a house in the compound,

had "taken wife," and had lately been blessed with a child, I believe that, during my stay at all events, he slept

on the verandah every night. It was very difficult to make this faithful and grim retainer talk. Even Jim

himself was answered in jerky short sentences, under protest as it were. Talking, he seemed to imply, was no

business of his. The longest speech I heard him volunteer was one morning when, suddenly extending his

hand towards the courtyard, he pointed at Cornelius and said, "Here comes the Nazarene." I don't think he

was addressing me, though I stood at his side; his object seemed rather to awaken the indignant attention of

the universe. Some muttered allusions, which followed, to dogs and the smell of roastmeat, struck me as

singularly felicitous. The courtyard, a large square space, was one torrid blaze of sunshine, and, bathed in

intense light, Cornelius was creeping across in full view with an inexpressible effect of stealthiness, of dark

and secret slinking. He reminded one of everything that is unsavoury. His slow laborious walk resembled the

creeping of a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly. I

sup pose he made straight enough for the place where he wanted to get to, but his progress with one

shoulder carried forward seemed oblique. He was often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if

following a scent; passing before the verandah with upward stealthy glances; disappearing without haste

round the corner of some hut. That he seemed free of the place demonstrated Jim's absurd care lessness or

else his infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played a very dubious part (to say the least of it) in a certain

episode which might have ended fatally for Jim. As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory. But

everything redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune that he, who had been too careful

'You must know he had left Doramin's place very soon after his arrival much too soon, in fact, for his

safety, and of course a long time before the war. In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look

after Stein's business, he said. Hadn't he? To that end, with an utter disregard of his personal safety, he

crossed the river and took up his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had man aged to exist through the

troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must have had Doramin's protection in a meas ure;

and in one way or another he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no

doubt that his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by that abjectness which was like the

stamp of the man. That was his characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are

mark edly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance. It was the element of his nature which

permeated all his acts and passions and emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his

civilities and his indignations were alike abject. I am sure his love would have been the most abject of

sentiments but can one imagine a loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so

that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side. He has his place neither in the

background nor in the foreground of the story; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and

'His position in any case could not have been other than extremely miserable, yet it may very well be that he

found some advantages in it. Jim told me he had been received at first with an abject display of the most

amicable sentiments. "The fellow apparently couldn't contain himself for joy," said Jim with disgust. "He

flew at me every morning to shake both my hands confound him! but I could never tell whether there

would be any breakfast. If I got three meals in two days I considered myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign

a chit for ten dollars every week. Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for nothing. Well

he kept me on nothing as near as possible. Put it down to the unsettled state of the country, and made as if

to tear his hair out, begging my pardon twenty times a day, so that I had at last to entreat him not to worry. It

made me sick. Half the roof of his house had fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wisps of

dry grass sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall. He did his best to make out that

Mr. Stein owed him money on the last three years' trading, but his books were all torn, and some were

missing. He tried to hint it was his late wife's fault. Disgusting scoundrel! At last I had to forbid him to

mention his late wife at all. It made Jewel cry. I couldn't discover what became of all the tradegoods; there

was nothing in the store but rats, having a high old time amongst a litter of brown paper and old sacking. I

was assured on every hand that he had a lot of money buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing out

of him. It was the most miserable existence I led there in that wretched house. I tried to do my duty by Stein,

but I had also other matters to think of. When I escaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and

returned all my things. It was done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a Chinaman

who keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began

to be said openly that the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed before long. Pleasant, wasn't it? And

I couldn't see what there was to prevent him if he really had made up his mind. The worst of it was, I couldn't

help feeling I wasn't doing any good either for Stein or for myself. Oh! it was beastly the whole six weeks

'He told me further that he didn't know what made him hang on but of course we may guess. He

sympathised deeply with the defenceless girl, at the mercy of that "mean, cowardly scoundrel." It appears

Cornelius led her an awful life, stopping only short of actual illusage, for which he had not the pluck, I

suppose. He insisted upon her calling him father "and with respect too with respect," he would scream,

shaking a little yellow fist in her face. "I am a respectable man, and what are you? Tell me what are you?

You think I am going to bring up somebody else's child and not be treated with respect? You ought to be glad

I let you. Come say Yes, father.... No? ... You wait a bit." Thereupon he would begin to abuse the dead

woman, till the girl would run off with her hands to her head. He pursued her, dashing in and out and round

the house and amongst the sheds, would drive her into some corner, where she would fall on her knees

stopping her ears, and then he would stand at a distance and declaim filthy denunciations at her back for half

an hour at a stretch. "Your mother was a devil, a deceitful devil and you too are a devil," he would shriek

in a final outburst, pick up a bit of dry earth or a handful of mud (there was plenty of mud around the house),

and fling it into her hair. Sometimes, though, she would hold out full of scorn, confronting him in silence, her

face sombre and contracted, and only now and then uttering a word or two that would make the other jump

and writhe with the sting. Jim told me these scenes were terrible. It was indeed a strange thing to come upon

in a wilderness. The endless ness of such a subtly cruel situation was appalling if you think of it. The

respectable Cornelius (Inchi 'Nelyus the Malays called him, with a grimace that meant many things) was a

muchdisappointed man. I don't know what he had expected would be done for him in consideration of his

marriage; but evidently the liberty to steal, and embezzle, and appropriate to himself for many years and in

any way that suited him best, the goods of Stein's Trading Company (Stein kept the supply up unfalteringly

as long as he could get his skippers to take it there) did not seem to him a fair equivalent for the sacrifice of

his honourable name. Jim would have enjoyed exceedingly thrashing Cornelius within an inch of his life; on

the other hand, the scenes were of so painful a character, so abominable, that his impulse would be to get out

of earshot, in order to spare the girl's feelings. They left her agitated, speechless, clutching her bosom now

and then with a stony, desperate face, and then Jim would lounge up and say unhappily, "Now come

really what's the use you must try to eat a bit," or give some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius would

keep on slinking through the doorways, across the verandah and back again, as mute as a fish, and with

malevolent, mistrustful, underhand glances. "I can stop his game," Jim said to her once. "Just say the word."

And do you know what she answered? She said Jim told me impressively that if she had not been sure

he was intensely wretched himself, she would have found the courage to kill him with her own hands. "Just

fancy that! The poor devil of a girl, almost a child, being driven to talk like that," he exclaimed in horror. It

seemed impossible to save her not only from that mean rascal but even from herself! It wasn't that he pitied

her so much, he affirmed; it was more than pity; it was as if he had something on his conscience, while that

life went on. To leave the house would have appeared a base desertion. He had understood at last that there

was nothing to expect from a longer stay, neither accounts nor money, nor truth of any sort, but he stayed on,

exasperating Cornelius to the verge, I won't say of insanity, but almost of courage. Meantime he felt all sorts

of dangers gathering obscurely about him. Doramin had sent over twice a trusty servant to tell him seriously

that he could do nothing for his safety unless he would recross the river again and live amongst the Bugis as

at first. People of every condition used to call, often in the dead of night, in order to disclose to him plots for

his assassination. He was to be poisoned. He was to be stabbed in the bathhouse. Arrangements were being

made to have him shot from a boat on the river. Each of these informants professed himself to be his very

good friend. It was enough he told me to spoil a fellow's rest for ever. Something of the kind was

extremely possible nay, prob able but the lying warnings gave him only the sense af deadly scheming

going on all around him, on all sides, in the dark. Nothing more calculated to shake the best of nerve. Finally,

one night, Cornelius himself, with a great apparatus of alarm and secrecy, unfolded in solemn wheedling

tones a little plan wherein for one hundred dollars or even for eighty; let's say eighty he, Cornelius,

would procure a trustworthy man to smuggle Jim out of the river, all safe. There was nothing else for it now

if Jim cared a pin for his life. What's eighty dollars? A trifle. An insignificant sum. While he, Cornelius,

who had to remain behind, was absolutely courting death by this proof of devotion to Mr. Stein's young

friend. The sight of his abject grimacing was Jim told me very hard to bear: he clutched at his hair,

beat his breast, rocked himself to and fro with his hands pressed to his stomach, and actually pretended to

shed tears. "Your blood be on your own head," he squeaked at last, and rushed out. It is a curious question

how far Cornelius was sincere in that performance. Jim confessed to me that he did not sleep a wink after the

fellow had gone. He lay on his back on a thin mat spread over the bamboo flooring, trying idly to make out

the bare rafters, and listening to the rustlings in the torn thatch. A star suddenly twinkled through a hole in the

roof. His brain was in a whirl; but, nevertheless, it was on that very night that he matured his plan for

overcoming Sherif Ali. It had been the thought of all the moments he could spare from the hopeless

investigation into Stein's affairs, but the notion he says came to him then all at once. He could see, as it

were, the guns mounted on the top of the hill. He got very hot and excited lying there; sleep was out of the

question more than ever. He jumped up, and went out barefooted on the verandah. Walking silently, he came

upon the girl, motion less against the wall, as if on the watch. In his then state of mind it did not surprise

him to see her up, nor yet to hear her ask in an anxious whisper where Cornelius could be. He simply said he

did not know. She moaned a little, and peered into the campong. Every thing was very quiet. He was

possessed by his new idea, and so full of it that he could not help telling the girl all about it at once. She

listened, clapped her hands lightly, whispered softly her admir ation, but was evidently on the alert all the

time. It seems he had been used to make a confidant of her all along and that she on her part could and did

give him a lot of useful hints as to Patusan affairs there is no doubt. He assured me more than once that he

had never found himself the worse for her advice. At any rate, he was proceed ing to explain his plan fully

to her there and then, when she pressed his arm once, and vanished from his side. Then Cornelius appeared

from somewhere, and, perceiving Jim, ducked sideways, as though he had been shot at, and afterwards stood

very still in the dusk. At last he came forward prudently, like a suspicious cat. "There were some fishermen

there with fish," he said in a shaky voice. "To sell fish you understand." . . . It must have been then two

'Jim, however, let the statement pass, and did not give it a single thought. Other matters occupied his mind,

and besides he had neither seen nor heard anything. He contented himself by saying, "Oh!" absently, got a

drink of water out of a pitcher standing there, and leaving Cornelius a prey to some inexplicable emotion

that made him embrace with both arms the wormeaten rail of the veran dah as if his legs had failed

went in again and lay down on his mat to think. Byandby he heard stealthy footsteps. They stopped. A

voice whispered tremulously through the wall, "Are you asleep?" "No! What is it?" he answered briskly, and

there was an abrupt movement outside, and then all was still, as if the whisperer had been startled. Extremely

annoyed at this, Jim came out impetu ously, and Cornelius with a faint shriek fled along the verandah as far

as the steps, where he hung on to the broken banister. Very puzzled, Jim called out to him from the distance

to know what the devil he meant. "Have you given your consideration to what I spoke to you about?" asked

Cornelius, pronouncing the words with diffi culty, like a man in the cold fit of a fever. "No!" shouted Jim in

a passion. "I have not, and I don't intend to. I am going to live here, in Patusan." "You shall dddie

hhhere," answered Cornelius, still shaking violently, and in a sort of expiring voice. The whole

performance was so absurd and provoking that Jim didn't know whether he ought to be amused or angry.

"Not till I have seen you tucked away, you bet," he called out, exasperated yet ready to laugh. Half seriously

(being excited with his own thoughts, you know) he went on shouting, "Nothing can touch me! You can do

your damnedest." Somehow the shadowy Cornelius far off there seemed to be the hateful embodiment of all

the annoyances and difficulties he had found in his path. He let himself go his nerves had been

overwrought for days and called him many pretty names, swindler, liar, sorry rascal: in fact, carried

on in an extra ordinary way. He admits he passed all bounds, that he was quite beside himself defied all

Patusan to scare him away declared he would make them all dance to his own tune yet, and so on, in a

menacing, boasting strain. Perfectly bombastic and ridiculous, he said. His ears burned at the bare

recollection. Must have been off his chump in some way.... The girl, who was sitting with us, nodded her

little head at me quickly, frowned faintly, and said, "I heard him," with childlike solemnity. He laughed and

blushed. What stopped him at last, he said, was the silence, the complete deathlike silence, of the indistinct

figure far over there, that seemed to hang collapsed, doubled over the rail in a weird immobility. He came to

his senses, and ceasing suddenly, wondered gready at himself. He watched for a while. Not a stir, not a

sound. "Exactly as if the chap had died while I had been making all that noise," he said. He was so ashamed

of himself that he went indoors in a hurry without another word, and flung himself down again. The row

seemed to have done him good though, because he went to sleep for the rest of the night like a baby. Hadn't

slept like that for weeks. "But I didn't sleep," struck in the girl, one elbow on the table and nursing her cheek.

"I watched." Her big eyes flashed, rolling a little, and then she fixed them on my face intently.'

'You may imagine with what interest I listened. All these details were perceived to have some significance

twentyfour hours later. In the morning Cornelius made no allusion to the events of the night. "I suppose you

will come back to my poor house," he mut tered surlily, slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to go

over to Doramin's campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at him. "You find it good fun, no doubt,"

muttered the other in a sour tone. Jim spent the day with the old nakhoda, preaching the necessity of vigorous

action to the principal men of the Bugis com munity, who had been summoned for a big talk. He

remembered with pleasure how very eloquent and persuasive he had been. "I managed to put some backbone

into them that time, and no mis take," he said. Sherif Ali's last raid had swept the outskirts of the settlement,

and some women belonging to the town had been car ried off to the stockade. Sherif Ali's emissaries had

been seen in the marketplace the day before, strutting about haughtily in white cloaks, and boasting of the

Rajah's friendship for their master. One of them stood forward in the shade of a tree, and, leaning on the long

barrel of a rifle, exhorted the people to prayer and repentance, advising them to kill all the strangers in their

midst, some of whom, he said, were infidels and others even worse children of Satan in the guise of

Moslems. It was reported that several of the Rajah's people amongst the listeners had loudly expressed their

appro bation. The terror amongst the common people was intense. Jim, immensely pleased with his day's

'As he had got the Bugis irretrievably committed to action, and had made himself responsible for success on

his own head, he was so elated that in the lightness of his heart he absolutely tried to be civil with Cornelius.

But Cornelius became wildly jovial in response, and it was almost more than he could stand, he says, to hear

his little squeaks of false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink, and suddenly catch hold of his chin and

crouch low over the table with a distracted stare. The girl did not show herself, and Jim retired early. When

he rose to say goodnight, Cornelius jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out of sight as if to pick

up something he had dropped. His goodnight came huskily from under the table. Jim was amazed to see him

emerge with a dropping jaw, and staring, stupidly frightened eyes. He clutched the edge of the table. "What's

the matter? Are you unwell?" asked Jim. "Yes, yes, yes. A great colic in my stomach," says the other; and it

is Jim's opinion that it was perfectly true. If so, it was, in view of his contemplated action, an abject sign of a

'Be it as 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 midair fell on his

eyes. Coils of black thick smoke curved round the head of some appar ition, 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'slength aloft, and in a persistent, urgent monotone she was repeating, "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

'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 circum stances, 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 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 cornerposts 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 were to be set upon while you slept." Jim tells me he experienced a

sense of deception. It was the old story. He was weary of these attempts upon his life. He had had his fill of

these alarms. He was sick of them. He assured me he was angry with the girl for deceiving him. He had

followed her under the impression that it was she who wanted his help, and now he had half a mind to turn on

his heel and go back in disgust. "Do you know," he commented profoundly, "I rather think I was not quite

myself for whole weeks on end about that time." "Oh yes. You were though," I couldn't help contradicting.

'But she moved on swiftly, and he followed her into the court yard. All its fences had fallen in a long time

ago; the neighbours' buffaloes would pace in the morning across the open space, snorting profoundly, without

haste; the very jungle was invading it already. Jim and the girl stopped in the rank grass. The light in which

they stood made a dense blackness all round, and only above their heads there was an opulent glitter of stars.

He told me it was a beautiful night quite cool, with a little stir of breeze from the river. It seems he noticed

its friendly beauty. Remember this is a love story I am telling you now. A lovely night seemed to breathe on

them a soft caress. The flame of the torch streamed now and then with a flutter ing noise like a flag, and for

a time this was the only sound. "They are in the storeroom waiting," whispered the girl; "they are waiting for

the signal." "Who's to give it?" he asked. She shook the torch, which blazed up after a shower of sparks.

"Only you have been sleeping so restlessly," she continued in a murmur; "I watched your sleep, too." "You!"

he exclaimed, craning his neck to look about him. "You think I watched on this night only!" she said, with a

'He says it was as if he had received a blow on the chest. He gasped. He thought he had been an awful brute

somehow, and he felt remorseful, touched, happy, elated. This, let me remind you again, is a love story; you

can see it by the imbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station

in torchlight, as if they had come there on purpose to have it out for the edification of concealed murderers. If

Sherif Ali's emissaries had been possessed as Jim remarked of a pennyworth of spunk, this was the

time to make a rush. His heart was thumping not with fear but he seemed to hear the grass rustle, and

he stepped smartly out of the light. Something dark, imperfectly seen, flitted rapidly out of sight. He called

out in a strong voice, "Cornelius! O Cornelius!" A profound silence succeeded: his voice did not seem to

have carried twenty feet. Again the girl was by his side. "Fly!" she said. The old woman was coming up; her

broken figure hovered in crippled little jumps on the edge of the light; they heard her mumbling, and a light,

moaning sigh. "Fly!" repeated the girl excitedly. "They are frightened now this light the voices. They

know you are awake now they know you are big, strong, fear less . . ." "If I am all that," he began; but

she interrupted him: "Yes tonight! But what of tomorrow night? Of the next night? Of the night after

of all the many, many nights? Can I be always watching?" A sobbing catch of her breath affected him

'He told me that he had never felt so small, so powerless and as to courage, what was the good of it? he

thought. He was so helpless that even flight seemed of no use; and though she kept on whispering, "Go to

Doramin, go to Doramin," with feverish insistence, he realised that for him there was no refuge from that

loneliness which centupled all his dangers except in her. "I thought," he said to me, "that if I went away

from her it would be the end of everything somehow." Only as they couldn't stop there for ever in the middle

of that courtyard, he made up his mind to go and look into the storehouse. He let her follow him without

thinking of any protest, as if they had been indissolubly united. "I am fear less am I?" he muttered

through his teeth. She restrained his arm. "Wait till you hear my voice," she said, and, torch in hand, ran

lightly round the corner. He remained alone in the darkness, his face to the door: not a sound, not a breath

came from the other side. The old hag let out a dreary groan somewhere behind his back. He heard a

highpitched almost screaming call from the girl. "Now! Push!" He pushed violently; the door swung with a

creak and a clatter, disclosing to his intense astonishment the low dungeonlike interior illuminated by a

lurid, wavering glare. A turmoil of smoke eddied down upon an empty wooden crate in the middle of the

floor, a litter of rags and straw tried to soar, but only stirred feebly in the draught. She had thrust the light

through the bars of the window. He saw her bare round arm extended and rigid, holding up the torch with the

steadiness of an iron bracket. A conical ragged heap of old mats cumbered a distant corner almost to the

'He explained to me that he was bitterly disappointed at this. His fortitude had been tried by so many

warnings, he had been for weeks surrounded by so many hints of danger, that he wanted the relief of some

reality, of something tangible that he could meet. "It would have cleared the air for a couple of hours at least,

if you know what I mean," he said to me. "Jove! I had been living for days with a stone on my chest. " Now

at last he had thought he would get hold of something, and nothing! Not a trace, not a sign of anybody. He

had raised his weapon as the door flew open, but now his arm fell. "Fire! Defend yourself," the girl outside

cried in an agonising voice. She, being in the dark and with her arm thrust in to the shoulder through the

small hole, couldn't see what was going on, and she dared not withdraw the torch now to run round. "There's

nobody here!" yelled Jim contemptuously, but his impulse to burst into a resentful exasperated laugh died

without a sound: he had perceived in the very act of turning away that he was exchanging glances with a pair

of eyes in the heap of mats. He saw a shifting gleam of whites. "Come out!" he cried in a fury, a little

doubtful, and a darkfaced head, a head without a body, shaped itself in the rubbish, a strangely detached

head, that looked at him with a steady scowl. Next moment the whole mound stirred, and with a low grunt a

man emerged swiftly, and bounded towards Jim. Behind him the mats as it were jumped and flew, his right

arm was raised with a crooked elbow, and the dull blade of a kriss protruded from his fist held off, a little

above his head. A cloth wound tight round his loins seemed dazzlingly white on his bronze skin; his naked

'Jim noted all this. He told me he was experiencing a feeling of unutterable relief, of vengeful elation. He held

his shot, he says, deliberately. He held it for the tenth part of a second, for three strides of the man an

unconscionable time. He held it for the pleasure of saying to himself, That's a dead man! He was absolutely

positive and certain. He let him come on because it did not matter. A dead man, anyhow. He noticed the

dilated nostrils, the wide eyes, the intent, eager stillness of the face, and then he fired.

'The explosion in that confined space was stunning. He stepped back a pace. He saw the man jerk his head

up, fling his arms for ward, and drop the kriss. He ascertained afterwards that he had shot him through the

mouth, a little upwards, the bullet coming out high at the back of the skull. With the impetus of his rush the

man drove straight on, his face suddenly gaping disfigured, with his hands open before him gropingly, as

though blinded, and landed with terrific violence on his forehead, just short of Jim's bare toes. Jim says he

didn't lose the smallest detail of all this. He found himself calm, appeased, without rancour, without

uneasiness, as if the death of that man had atoned for everything. The place was getting very full of sooty

smoke from the torch, in which the unswaying flame burned bloodred without a flicker. He walked in

resolutely, striding over the dead body, and covered with his revolver another naked figure outlined vaguely

at the other end. As he was about to pull the trigger, the man threw away with force a short heavy spear, and

squatted submissively on his hams, his back to the wall and his clasped hands between his legs. "You want

your life?" Jim said. The other made no sound. "How many more of you?" asked Jim again. "Two more,

Tuan," said the man very softly, looking with big fascinated eyes into the muzzle of the revolver.

Accordingly, two more crawled from under the mats, holding out ostentatiously their empty hands.'

'Jim took up an advantageous position and shepherded them out in a bunch through the doorway: all that time

the torch had remained vertical in the grip of a little hand, without so much as a tremble. The three men

obeyed him, perfectly mute, moving automatically. He ranged them in a row. "Link arms!" he ordered. They

did so. "The first who withdraws his arm or turns his head is a dead man," he said. "March!" They stepped

out together, rigidly; he followed, and at the side the girl, in a trailing white gown, her black hair falling as

low as her waist, bore the light. Erect and swaying, she seemed to glide without touching the earth; the only

'The riverbank was steep; a great freshness ascended, the light fell on the edge of smooth dark water

frothing without a ripple; right and left the shapes of the houses ran together below the sharp outlines of the

roofs. "Take my greetings to Sherif Ali till I come myself," said Jim. Not one head of the three budged.

"Jump!" he thundered. The three splashes made one splash, a shower flew up, black heads bobbed

convulsively, and disappeared; but a great blowing and spluttering went on, growing faint, for they were

diving industriously, in great fear of a parting shot. Jim turned to the girl, who had been a silent and attentive

observer. His heart seemed suddenly to grow too big for his breast and choke him in the hollow of his throat.

This probably made him speechless for so long, and after returning his gaze she flung the burning torch with

a wide sweep of the arm into the river. The ruddy fiery glare, taking a long flight through the night, sank with

'He did not tell me what it was he said when at last he recovered his voice. I don't suppose he could be very

eloquent. The world was still, the night breathed on them, one of those nights that seem created for the

sheltering of tenderness, and there are moments when our souls, as if freed from their dark envelope, glow

with an exquisite sensibility that makes certain silences more lucid than speeches. As to the girl, he told me,

"She broke down a bit. Excite ment don't you know. Reaction. Deucedly tired she must have been

and all that kind of thing. And and hang it all she was fond of me, don't you see.... I too... didn't

'Then he got up and began to walk about in some agitation. "I I love her dearly. More than I can tell. Of

course one cannot tell. You take a different view of your actions when you come to under stand, when you

are made to understand every day that your exist ence is necessary you see, absolutely necessary to

another person. I am made to feel that. Wonderful! But only try to think what her life has been. It is too

extravagantly awful! Isn't it? And me finding her here like this as you may go out for a stroll and come

suddenly upon somebody drowning in a lonely dark place. Jove! No time to lose. Well, it is a trust too . . . I

'I must tell you the girl had left us to ourselves some time before. He slapped his chest. "Yes! I feel that, but I

believe I am equal to all my luck!" He had the gift of finding a special meaning in every thing that happened

to him. This was the view he took of his love affair; it was idyllic, a little solemn, and also true, since his

belief had all the unshakable seriousness of youth. Some time after, on another occasion, he said to me, "I've

been only two years here, and now, upon my word, I can't conceive being able to live any where else. The

very thought of the world outside is enough to give me a fright; because, don't you see," he continued, with

downcast eyes watching the action of his boot busied in squashing thoroughly a tiny bit of dried mud (we

were strolling on the riverbank) "because I have not forgotten why I came here. Not yet!"

'I refrained from looking at him, but I think I heard a short sigh; we took a turn or two in silence. "Upon my

soul and conscience," he began again, "if such a thing can be forgotten, then I think I have a right to dismiss it

from my mind. Ask any man here" . . . his voice changed. "Is it not strange," he went on in a gentle, almost

yearning tone, "that all these people, all these people who would do anything for me, can never be made to

understand? Never! If you disbelieved me I could not call them up. It seems hard, somehow. I am stupid, am

I not? What more can I want? If you ask them who is brave who is true who is just who is it they

would trust with their lives? they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet they can never know the real, real truth . .

'That's what he said to me on my last day with him. I did not let a murmur escape me: I felt he was going to

say more, and come no nearer to the root of the matter. The sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the earth

into a restless mote of dust, had sunk behind the forest, and the diffused light from an opal sky seemed to cast

upon a world without shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calm and pensive greatness. I don't

know why, listening to him, I should have noted so distinctly the gradual darkening of the river, of the air; the

irresistible slow work of the night settling silently on all the visible forms, effacing the oudines, burying the

' "Jove!" he began abruptly, "there are days when a fellow is too absurd for anything; only I know I can tell

you what I like. I talk about being done with it with the bally thing at the back of my head . . . Forgetting .

. . Hang me if I know! I can think of it quietly. After all, what has it proved? Nothing. I suppose you don't

' "No matter," he said. "I am satisfied . . . nearly. I've got to look only at the face of the first man that comes

along, to regain my confidence. They can't be made to understand what is going on in me. What of that?

' "Aha! You see," he said, crowing, as it were, over me placidly. "Only," he went on, "you just try to tell this

to any of them here. They would think you a fool, a liar, or worse. And so I can stand it. I've done a thing or

' "My dear chap," I cried, "you shall always remain for them an insoluble mystery." Thereupon we were

' "Mystery," he repeated, before looking up. "Well, then let me always remain here."

'After the sun had set, the darkness seemed to drive upon us, borne in every faint puff of the breeze. In the

middle of a hedged path I saw the arrested, gaunt, watchful, and apparently onelegged silhouette of Tamb'

Itam; and across the dusky space my eye detected something white moving to and fro behind the supports of

the roof. As soon as Jim, with Tamb' Itam at his heels, had started upon his evening rounds, I went up to the

house alone, and, unexpectedly, found myself waylaid by the girl, who had been clearly waiting for this

'It is hard to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest from me. Obviously it would be something

very simple the sim plest impossibility in the world; as, for instance, the exact descrip tion of the form

of a cloud. She wanted an assurance, a statement, a promise, an explanation I don't know how to call it:

the thing has no name. It was dark under the projecting roof, and all I could see were the flowing lines of her

gown, the pale small oval of her face, with the white flash of her teeth, and, turned towards me, the big

sombre orbits of her eyes, where there seemed to be a faint stir, such as you may fancy you can detect when

you plunge your gaze to the bottom of an immensely deep well. What is it that moves there? you ask

yourself. Is it a blind monster or only a lost gleam from the universe? It occurred to me don't laugh that

all things being dissimilar, she was more inscrutable in her childish ignorance than the Sphinx propounding

childish riddles to wayfarers. She had been carried off to Patusan before her eyes were open. She had grown

up there; she had seen nothing, she had known nothing, she had no conception of anything. I ask myself

whether she were sure that anything else existed. What notions she may have formed of the outside world is

to me inconceivable: all that she knew of its inhabitants were a betrayed woman and a sinister pantaloon. Her

lover also came to her from there, gifted with irresistible seductions; but what would become of her if he

should return to these inconceiv able regions that seemed always to claim back their own? Her mother had

'She had caught hold of my arm firmly, and as soon as I had stopped she had withdrawn her hand in haste.

She was audacious and shrinking. She feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and

the extreme strangeness a brave person groping in the dark. I belonged to this Unknown that might claim

Jim for its own at any moment. I was, as it were, in the secret of its nature and of its intentions the

confidant of a threatening mystery armed with its power, perhaps! I believe she supposed I could with a

word whisk Jim away out of her very arms; it is my sober conviction she went through agonies of

apprehension during my long talks with Jim; through a real and intolerable anguish that might have

conceivably driven her into plotting my murder, had the fierceness of her soul been equal to the tremendous

situation it had created. This is my impression, and it is all I can give you: the whole thing dawned gradually

upon me, and as it got clearer and clearer I was overwhelmed by a slow incredulous amazement. She made

me believe her, but there is no word that on my lips could render the effect of the headlong and vehement

whisper, of the soft, passionate tones, of the sudden breathless pause and the appealing movement of the

white arms extended swiftly. They fell; the ghostly figure swayed like a slender tree in the wind, the pale oval

of the face drooped; it was impossible to distinguish her features, the darkness of the eyes was unfathomable;

two wide sleeves uprose in the dark like unfolding wings, and she stood silent, holding her head in her hands.'

'I was immensely touched: her youth, her ignorance, her pretty beauty, which had the simple charm and the

delicate vigour of a wild flower, her pathetic pleading, her helplessness, appealed to me with almost the

strength of her own unreasonable and natural fear. She feared the unknown as we all do, and her ignorance

made the unknown infinitely vast. I stood for it, for myself, for you fellows, for all the world that neither

cared for Jim nor needed him in the least. I would have been ready enough to answer for the indifference of

the teeming earth but for the reflection that he too belonged to this mysterious unknown of her fears, and that,

however much I stood for, I did not stand for him. This made me hesitate. A murmur of hopeless pain

unsealed my lips. I began by protesting that I at least had come with no intention to take Jim away.

'Why did I come, then? After a slight movement she was as still as a marble statue in the night. I tried to

explain briefly: friendship, business; if I had any wish in the matter it was rather to see him stay.... "They

always leave us," she murmured. The breath of sad wisdom from the grave which her piety wreathed with

flowers seemed to pass in a faint sigh.... Nothing, I said, could separate Jim from her.

'It is my firm conviction now; it was my conviction at the time; it was the only possible conclusion from the

facts of the case. It was not made more certain by her whispering in a tone in which one speaks to oneself,

'She made a step nearer. "No. Never!" She had asked him only to go away. It was that night on the

riverbank, after he had killed the man after she had flung the torch in the water because he was looking

at her so. There was too much light, and the danger was over then for a little time for a little time. He

said then he would not abandon her to Cornelius. She had insisted. She wanted him to leave her. He said that

he could not that it was impossible. He trembled while he said this. She had felt him tremble.... One does

not require much imagination to see the scene, almost to hear their whispers. She was afraid for him too. I

believe that then she saw in him only a predestined victim of dangers which she under stood better than

himself. Though by nothing but his mere presence he had mastered her heart, had filled all her thoughts, and

had possessed himself of all her affections, she underestimated his chances of success. It is obvious that at

about that time everybody was inclined to underestimate his chances. Strictly speaking he didn't seem to have

any. I know this was Cornelius's view. He confessed that much to me in extenuation of the shady part he had

played in Sherif Ali's plot to do away with the infidel. Even Sherif Ali himself, as it seems certain now, had

nothing but contempt for the white man. Jim was to be murdered mainly on religious grounds, I believe. A

simple act of piety (and so far infinitely meri torious), but otherwise without much importance. In the last

part of this opinion Cornelius concurred. "Honourable sir," he argued abjectly on the only occasion he

managed to have me to himself "honourable sir, how was I to know? Who was he? What could he do to

make people believe him? What did Mr. Stein mean sending a boy like that to talk big to an old servant? I

was ready to save him for eighty dollars. Only eighty dollars. Why didn't the fool go? Was I to get stabbed

myself for the sake of a stranger?" He grovelled in spirit before me, with his body doubled up insinuatingly

and his hands hovering about my knees, as though he were ready to embrace my legs. "What's eighty dollars?

An insignificant sum to give to a defenceless old man ruined for life by a deceased she devil." Here he wept.

But I anticipate. I didn't that night chance upon Cornelius till I had had it out with the girl.

'She was unselfish when she urged Jim to leave her, and even to leave the country. It was his danger that was

foremost in her thoughts even if she wanted to save herself too perhaps uncon sciously: but then look

at the warning she had, look at the lesson that could be drawn from every moment of the recently ended life

in which all her memories were centred. She fell at his feet she told me so there by the river, in the

discreet light of stars which showed nothing except great masses of silent shadows, indefinite open spaces,

and trembling faintly upon the broad stream made it appear as wide as the sea. He had lifted her up. He lifted

her up, and then she would struggle no more. Of course not. Strong arms, a tender voice, a stalwart shoulder

to rest her poor lonely little head upon. The need the infinite need of all this for the aching heart, for

the bewildered mind; the promptings of youth the necessity of the moment. What would you have?

One understands unless one is incapable of understanding anything under the sun. And so she was content

to be lifted up and held. "You know Jove! this is serious no nonsense in it!" as Jim had whispered

hurriedly with a troubled concerned face on the threshold of his house. I don't know so much about nonsense,

but there was nothing lighthearted in their romance: they came together under the shadow of a life's disaster,

like knight and maiden meeting to exchange vows amongst haunted ruins. The starlight was good enough for

that story, a light so faint and remote that it cannot resolve shadows into shapes, and show the other shore of a

stream. I did look upon the stream that night and from the very place; it rolled silent and as black as Styx: the

next day I went away, but I am not likely to forget what it was she wanted to be saved from when she

entreated him to leave her while there was time. She told me what it was, calmed she was now too

passionately interested for mere excitement in a voice as quiet in the obscurity as her white halflost

figure. She told me, "I didn't want to die weeping." I thought I had not heard aright.

' "You did not want to die weeping?" I repeated after her. "Like my mother," she added readily. The outlines

of her white shape did not stir in the least. "My mother had wept bitterly before she died," she explained. An

inconseivable calmness seemed to have risen from the ground around us, imperceptibly, like the still rise of a

flood in the night, obliterating the familiar landmarks of emotions. There came upon me, as though I had felt

myself losing my footing in the midst of waters, a sudden dread, the dread of the unknown depths. She went

on explaining that, during the last moments, being alone with her mother, she had to leave the side of the

couch to go and set her back against the door, in order to keep Cornelius out. He desired to get in, and kept on

drumming with both fists, only desisting now and again to shout huskily, "Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!"

In a far corner upon a few mats the moribund woman, already speechless and unable to lift her arm, rolled her

head over, and with a feeble movement of her hand seemed to command "No! No!" and the obedient

daughter, setting her shoulders with all her strength against the door, was looking on. "The tears fell from her

eyes and then she died," concluded the girl in an imperturbable monotone, which more than anything else,

more than the white statuesque immobility of her person, more than mere words could do, troubled my mind

profoundly with the passive, irremediable horror of the scene. It had the power to drive me out of my

conception of existence, out of that shelter each of us makes for himself to creep under in moments of danger,

as a tortoise withdraws within its shell. For a moment I had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and

dismal aspect of disorder, while, in truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is as sunny as arrangement of

small conveniences as the mind of man can conceive. But still it was only a moment: I went back into my

shell directly. One must don't you know? though I seemed to have lost all my words in the chaos of

dark thoughts I had contemplated for a second or two beyond the pale. These came back, too, very soon, for

words also belong to the sheltering conception of light and order which is our refuge. I had them ready at my

disposal before she whispered softly, "He swore he would never leave me, when we stood there alone! He

swore to me!"... "And it is possible that you you! do not believe him?" I asked, sincerely reproachful,

genuinely shocked. Why couldn't she believe? Wherefore this craving for incertitude, this clinging to fear, as

if incertitude and fear had been the safeguards of her love. It was monstrous. She should have made for

herself a shelter of inexpugnable peace out of that honest affec tion. She had not the knowledge not the

skill perhaps. The night had come on apace; it had grown pitchdark where we were, so that without stirring

she had faded like the intangible form of a wistful and perverse spirit. And suddenly I heard her quiet whisper

again, "Other men had sworn the same thing." It was like a meditative comment on some thoughts full of

sadness, of awe. And she added, still lower if possible, "My father did." She paused the time to draw an

inaudible breath. "Her father too." . . . These were the things she knew! At once I said, "Ah! but he is not like

that." This, it seemed, she did not intend to dispute; but after a time the strange still whisper wandering

dreamily in the air stole into my ears. "Why is he different? Is he better? Is he . . ." "Upon my word of hon

our," I broke in, "I believe he is." We subdued our tones to a mysterious pitch. Amongst the huts of Jim's

workmen (they were mostly liberated slaves from the Sherif's stockade) somebody started a shrill, drawling

song. Across the river a big fire (at Dora min's, I think) made a glowing ball, completely isolated in the

night. "Is he more true?" she murmured. "Yes," I said. "More true than any other man," she repeated in

lingering accents. "Nobody here," I said, "would dream of doubting his word nobody would dare

'I think she made a movement at this. "More brave," she went on in a changed tone. "Fear will never drive

him away from you," I said a little nervously. The song stopped short on a shrill note, and was succeeded by

several voices talking in the distance. Jim's voice too. I was struck by her silence. "What has he been telling

you? He has been telling you something?" I asked. There was no answer. "What is it he told you?" I insisted.

' "Do you think I can tell you? How am I to know? How am I to understand?" she cried at last. There was a

stir. I believe she was wringing her hands. "There is something he can never forget."

' "What is it? What is it?" She put an extraordinary force of appeal into her supplicating tone. "He says he had

been afraid. How can I believe this? Am I a mad woman to believe this? You all remember something! You

all go back to it. What is it? You tell me! What is this thing? Is it alive? is it dead? I hate it. It is cruel. Has

it got a face and a voice this calamity? Will he see it will he hear it? In his sleep perhaps when he

cannot see me and then arise and go. Ah! I shall never forgive him. My mother had forgiven but I,

'It was a wonderful experience. She mistrusted his very slum bers and she seemed to think I could tell

her why! Thus a poor mortal seduced by the charm of an apparition might have tried to wring from another

ghost the tremendous secret of the claim the other world holds over a disembodied soul astray amongst the

pas sions of this earth. The very ground on which I stood seemed to melt under my feet. And it was so

simple too; but if the spirits evoked by our fears and our unrest have ever to vouch for each other's constancy

before the forlorn magicians that we are, then I I alone of us dwellers in the flesh have shuddered in

the hopeless chill of such a task. A sign, a call! How telling in its expression was her ignorance. A few

words! How she came to know them, how she came to pronounce them, I can't imagine. Women find their

inspiration in the stress of moments that for us are merely awful, absurd, or futile. To discover that she had a

voice at all was enough to strike awe into the heart. Had a spurned stone cried out in pain it could not have

appeared a greater and more pitiful miracle. These few sounds wandering in the dark had made their two

benighted lives tragic to my mind. It was impossible to make her understand. I chafed silendy at my

impotence. And Jim, too poor devil! Who would need him? Who would remember him? He had what he

wanted. His very existence probably had been forgotten by this time. They had mastered their fates. They

'Her immobility before me was clearly expectant, and my part was to speak for my brother from the realm of

forgetful shade. I was deeply moved at my responsibility and at her distress. I would have given anything for

the power to soothe her frail soul, torment ing itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating

about the cruel wires of a cage. Nothing easier than to say, Have no fear! Nothing more difficult. How does

one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its

spectral throat? It is an enterprise you rush into while you dream, and are glad to make your escape with wet

hair and every limb shaking. The bullet is not run, the blade not forged, the man not born; even the winged

words of truth drop at your feet like lumps of lead. You require for such a desperate encounter an enchanted

and poisoned shaft dipped in a lie too subtle to be found on earth. An enterprise for a dream, my masters!

'I began my exorcism with a heavy heart, with a sort of sullen anger in it too. Jim's voice, suddenly raised

with a stern intonation, carried across the courtyard, reproving the carelessness of some dumb sinner by the

riverside. Nothing I said, speaking in a distinct murmur there could be nothing, in that unknown

world she fancied so eager to rob her of her happiness, there was nothing, neither living nor dead, there was

no face, no voice, no power, that could tear Jim from her side. I drew breath and she whispered softly, "He

told me so." "He told you the truth," I said. "Nothing," she sighed out, and abruptly turned upon me with a

barely audible intensity of tone: "Why did you come to us from out there? He speaks of you too often. You

make me afraid. Do you do you want him?" A sort of stealthy fierceness had crept into our hurried

mutters. "I shall never come again," I said bitterly. "And I don't want him. No one wants him." "No one," she

repeated in a tone of doubt. "No one," I affirmed, feeling myself swayed by some strange excitement. "You

think him strong, wise, courageous, great why not believe him to be true too? I shall go tomorrow

and that is the end. You shall never be troubled by a voice from there again. This world you don't know is too

big to miss him. You understand? Too big. You've got his heart in your hand. You must feel that. You must

know that." "Yes, I know that," she breathed out, hard and still, as a statue might whisper.

'I felt I had done nothing. And what is it that I had wished to do? I am not sure now. At the time I was

animated by an inexplicable ardour, as if before some great and necessary task the influence of the

moment upon my mental and emotional state. There are in all our lives such moments, such influences,

coming from the out side, as it were, irresistible, incomprehensible as if brought about by the mysterious

conjunctions of the planets. She owned, as I had put it to her, his heart. She had that and everything else if

she could only believe it. What I had to tell her was that in the whole world there was no one who ever would

need his heart, his mind, his hand. It was a common fate, and yet it seemed an awful thing to say of any man.

She listened without a word, and her stillness now was like the protest of an invincible unbelief. What need

she care for the world beyond the forests? I asked. From all the multi tudes that peopled the vastness of that

unknown there would come, I assured her, as long as he lived, neither a call nor a sign for him. Never. I was

carried away. Never! Never! I remember with wonder the sort of dogged fierceness I displayed. I had the

illusion of having got the spectre by the throat at last. Indeed the whole real thing has left behind the detailed

and amazing impression of a dream. Why should she fear? She knew him to be strong, true, wise, brave. He

was all that. Certainly. He was more. He was great invincible and the world did not want him, it had

'I stopped; the silence over Patusan was profound, and the feeble dry sound of a paddle striking the side of a

canoe somewhere in the middle of the river seemed to make it infinite. "Why?" she murmured. I felt that sort

of rage one feels during a hard tussle. The spectre vas trying to slip out of my grasp. "Why?" she repeated

louder; "tell me!" And as I remained confounded, she stamped with her foot like a spoilt child. "Why?

Speak." "You want to know?" I asked in a fury. "Yes!" she cried. "Because he is not good enough," I said

brutally. During the moment's pause I noticed the fire on the other shore blaze up, dilating the circle of its

glow like an amazed stare, and contract suddenly to a red pinpoint. I only knew how close to me she had

been when I felt the clutch of her fingers on my forearm. Without raising her voice, she threw into it an

'The last two words she cried at me in the native dialect. "Hear me out!" I entreated. She caught her breath

tremulously, flung my arm away. "Nobody, nobody is good enough," I began with the greatest earnestness. I

could hear the sobbing labour of her breath frightfully quickened. I hung my head. What was the use? Foot

Marlow swung his legs out, got up quickly, and staggered a little, as though he had been set down after a rush

through space. He leaned his back against the balustrade and faced a disordered array of long cane chairs.

The bodies prone in them seemed startled out of their torpor by his movement. One or two sat up as if

alarmed; here and there a cigar glowed yet; Marlow looked at them all with the eyes of a man returning from

the excessive remoteness of a dream. A throat was cleared; a calm voice encouraged negligently, 'Well.'

'Nothing,' said Marlow with a slight start. 'He had told her that's all. She did not believe him nothing

more. As to myself, I do not know whether it be just, proper, decent for me to rejoice or to be sorry. For my

part, I cannot say what I believed indeed I don't know to this day, and never shall probably. But what did

the poor devil believe himself? Truth shall prevail don't you know. Magna est veritas el . . . Yes, when it

gets a chance. There is a law, no doubt and likewise a law regulates your luck in the throwing of dice. It is

not Justice the servant of men, but accident, hazard, Fortune the ally of patient Time that holds an even

and scrupu lous balance. Both of us had said the very same thing. Did we both speak the truth or one of

'She said we lied. Poor soul! Well let's leave it to Chance, whose ally is Time, that cannot be hurried, and

whose enemy is Death, that will not wait. I had retreated a little cowed, I must own. I had tried a fall with

fear itself and got thrown of course. I had only succeeded in adding to her anguish the hint of some

mysterious collusion, of an inexplicable and incomprehensible conspiracy to keep her for ever in the dark.

And it had come easily, naturally, unavoidably, by his act, by her own act! It was as though I had been shown

the working of the implacable destiny of which we are the victims and the tools. It was appalling to think

of the girl whom I had left standing there motionless; Jim's footsteps had a fateful sound as he tramped by,

without seeing me, in his heavy laced boots. "What? No lights!" he said in a loud, surprised voice. "What are

you doing in the dark you two?" Next moment he caught sight of her, I suppose. "Hallo, girl!" he cried

'This was their usual greeting to each other, and the bit of swagger she would put into her rather high but

sweet voice was very droll, pretty, and childlike. It delighted Jim greatly. This was the last occasion on which

I heard them exchange this familiar hail, and it struck a chill into my heart. There was the high sweet voice,

the pretty effort, the swagger; but it all seemed to die out prematurely, and the playful call sounded like a

moan. It was too confoundedly awful. "What have you done with Marlow?" Jim was asking; and then, "Gone

'I didn't answer. I wasn't going in not yet at any rate. I really couldn't. While he was calling me I was

engaged in making my escape through a little gate leading out upon a stretch of newly cleared ground. No; I

couldn't face them yet. I walked hastily with lowered head along a trodden path. The ground rose gently, the

few big trees had been felled, the undergrowth had been cut down and the grass fired. He had a mind to try a

coffeeplantation there. The big hill, rearing its double summit coalblack in the clear yellow glow of the

rising moon, seemed to cast its shadow upon the ground prepared for that experiment. He was going to try

ever so many experiments; I had admired his energy, his enterprise, and his shrewdness. Nothing on earth

seeemed less real now than his plans, his energy, and his enthusiasm; and raising my eyes, I saw part of the

moon glittering through the bushes at the bottom of the chasm. For a moment it looked as though the smooth

disc, falling from its place in the sky upon the earth, had rolled to the bottom of that precipice: its ascending

movement was like a leisurely rebound; it disengaged itself from the tangle of twigs; the bare contorted limb

of some tree, growing on the slope, made a black crack right across its face. It threw its level rays afar as if

from a cavern, and in this mournful eclipselike light the stumps of felled trees uprose very dark, the heavy

shadows fell at my feet on all sides, my own moving shadow, and across my path the shadow of the solitary

grave perpet ually garlanded with flowers. In the darkened moonlight the inter laced blossoms took on

shapes foreign to one's memory and colours indefinable to the eye, as though they had been special flowers

gathered by no man, grown not in this world, and destined for the use of the dead alone. Their powerful scent

hung in the warm air, making it thick and heavy like the fumes of incense. The lumps of white coral shone

round the dark mound like a chaplet of bleached skulls, and everything around was so quiet that when I stood

'It was a great peace, as if the earth had been one grave, and for a time I stood there thinking mostly of the

living who, buried in remote places out of the knowledge of mankind, still are fated to share in its tragic or

grotesque miseries. In its noble struggles too who knows? The human heart is vast enough to contain all

the world. It is valiant enough to bear the burden, but where is the courage that would cast it off?

'I suppose I must have fallen into a sentimental mood; I only know that I stood there long enough for the

sense of utter solitude to get hold of me so completely that all I had lately seen, all I had heard, and the very

human speech itself, seemed to have passed away out of existence, living only for a while longer in my

memory, as though I had been the last of mankind. It was a strange and melancholy illusion, evolved

halfconsciously like all our illusions, which I suspect only to be visions of remote unattainable truth, seen

dimly. This was, indeed, one of the lost, forgotten, unknown places of the earth; I had looked under its

obscure surface; and I felt that when tomorrow I had left it for ever, it would slip out of existence, to live

only in my memory till I myself passed into ob livion. I have that feeling about me now; perhaps it is that

feeling which has incited me to tell you the story, to try to hand over to you, as it were, its very existence, its

'Cornelius broke upon it. He bolted out, verminlike, from the long grass growing in a depression of the

ground. I believe his house was rotting somewhere near by, though I've never seen it, not having been far

enough in that direction. He ran towards me upon the path; his feet, shod in dirty white shoes, twinkled on the

dark earth; he pulled himself up, and began to whine and cringe under a tall stovepipe hat. His driedup

little carcass was swallowed up, totally lost, in a suit of black broadcloth. That was his costume for holidays

and ceremonies, and it reminded me that this was the fourth Sunday I had spent in Patusan. All the time of

my stay I had been vaguely aware of his desire to confide in me, if he only could get me all to himself. He

hung about with an eager craving look on his sour yellow little face; but his timidity had kept him back as

much as my natural reluctance to have anything to do with such an unsavoury creature. He would have

succeeded, nevertheless, had he not been so ready to slink off as soon as you looked at him. He would slink

off before Jim's severe gaze, before my own, which I tried to make indifferent, even before Tamb' Itam's

surly, superior glance. He was perpetually slinking away; whenever seen he was seen moving off deviously,

his face over his shoulder, with either a mistrustful snarl or a woebegone, piteous, mute aspect; but no

assumed expression could conceal this innate irremediable abject ness of his nature, any more than an

'I don't know whether it was the demoralisation of my utter defeat in my encounter with a spectre of fear less

than an hour ago, but I let him capture me without even a show of resistance. I was doomed to be the

recipient of confidences, and to be confronted with unanswerable questions. It was trying; but the contempt,

the unreasoned contempt, the man's appearance provoked, made it easier to bear. He couldn't possibly matter.

Nothing mattered, since I had made up my mind that Jim, for whom alone I cared, had at last mastered his

fate. He had told me he was satisfied . . . nearly. This is going further than most of us dare. I who have the

right to think myself good enough dare not. Neither does any of you here, I suppose? . . .'

'Quite right,' he began again. 'Let no soul know, since the truth can be wrung out of us only by some cruel,

little, awful catastrophe. But he is one of us, and he could say he was satisfied . . . nearly. Just fancy this!

Nearly satisfied. One could almost envy him his catastrophe. Nearly satisfied. After this nothing could matter.

It did not matter who suspected him, who trusted him, who loved him, who hated him especially as it was

'Yet after all this was a kind of recognition. You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends, and

this enemy of Jim was such as no decent man would be ashamed to own, without, however, making too much

of him. This was the view Jim took, and in which I shared; but Jim disregarded him on general grounds. "My

dear Marlow," he said, "I feel that if I go straight nothing can touch me. Indeed I do. Now you have been long

enough here to have a good look round and, frankly, don't you think I am pretty safe? It all depends upon

me, and, by Jove! I have lots of confidence in myself. The worst thing he could do would be to kill me, I

suppose. I don't think for a moment he would. He couldn't, you know not if I were myself to hand him a

loaded rifle for the purpose, and then turn my back on him. That's the sort of thing he is. And suppose he

would suppose he could? Well what of that? I didn't come here flying for my life did I? I came here

'We were sitting at the time under the roof in the stern of his boat; twenty paddles flashed like one, ten on a

side, striking the water with a single splash, while behind our backs Tamb' Itam dipped silently right and left,

and stared right down the river, attentive to keep the long canoe in the greatest strength of the current. Jim

bowed his head, and our last talk seemed to flicker out for good. He was seeing me off as far as the mouth of

the river. The schooner had left the day before, working down and drifting on the ebb, while I had prolonged

'Jim had been a little angry with me for mentioning Cornelius at all. I had not, in truth, said much. The man

was too insignificant to be dangerous, though he was as full of hate as he could hold. He had called me

"honourable sir" at every second sentence, and had whined at my elbow as he followed me from the grave of

his "late wife" to the gate of Jim's compound. He declared himself the most unhappy of men, a victim,

crushed like a worm; he entreated me to look at him. I wouldn't turn my head to do so; but I could see out of

the corner of my eye his obsequious shadow gliding after mine, while the moon, suspended on our right hand,

seemed to gloat serenely upon the spectacle. He tried to explain as I've told you his share in the events

of the memorable night. It was a matter of expediency. How could he know who was going to get the upper

hand? "I would have saved him, honourable sir! I would have saved him for eighty dollars," he protested in

dulcet tones, keeping a pace behind me. "He has saved himself," I said, "and he has forgiven you." I heard a

sort of tittering, and turned upon him; at once he appeared ready to take to his heels. "What are you laughing

at?" I asked, standing still. "Don't be deceived, honourable sir!" he shrieked, seemingly losing all control over

his feelings. "He save himself! He knows nothing, honourable sir nothing whatever. Who is he? What

does he want here the big thief? What does he want here? He throws dust into everybody's eyes; he throws

dust into your eyes, honourable sir; but he can't throw dust into my eyes. He is a big fool, honourable sir." I

laughed contemptuously, and, turning on my heel, began to walk on again. He ran up to my elbow and

whispered forcibly, "He's no more than a little child here like a little child a little child." Of course I

didn't take the slightest notice, and seeing the time pressed, because we were approaching the bamboo fence

that glittered over the blackened ground of the clearing, he came to the point. He commenced by being

abjectly lachrymose. His great misfortunes had affected his head. He hoped I would kindly forget what

nothing but his troubles made him say. He didn't mean anything by it; only the honourable sir did not know

what it was to be ruined, broken down, trampled upon. After this introduction he approached the matter near

his heart, but in such a rambling, ejaculatory, craven fashion, that for a long time I couldn't make out what he

was driving at. He wanted me to intercede with Jim in his favour. It seemed, too, to be some sort of money

affair. I heard time and again the words, "Moderate provision suitable present." He seemed to be claiming

value for something, and he even went the length of saying with some warmth that life was not worth having

if a man were to be robbed of every thing. I did not breathe a word, of course, but neither did I stop my ears.

The gist of the affair, which became clear to me gradually, was in this, that he rgarded himself as entitled to

some money in exchange for the girl. He had brought her up. Somebody else's child. Great trouble and pains

old man now suitable present. If the honourable sir would say a word.... I stood still to look at him

with curiosity, and fearful lest I should think him extortionate, I suppose, he hastily brought himself to make

a concession. In consideration of a "suitable present" given at once, he would, he declared, be willing to

undertake the charge of the girl, "without any other provision when the time came for the gentleman to go

home." His little yellow face, all crumpled as though it had been squeezed together, expressed the most

anxious, eager avarice. His voice whined coaxingly, "No more trouble natural guardian a sum of

'I stood there and marvelled. That kind of thing, with him, was evidently a vocation. I discovered suddenly in

his cringing attitude a sort of assurance, as though he had been all his life dealing in certi tudes. He must

have thought I was dispassionately considering his proposal, because he became as sweet as honey. "Every

gentleman made a provision when the time came to go home,"he began insinuat ingly. I slammed the little

gate. "In this case, Mr. Cornelius," I said, "the time will never come." He took a few seconds to gather this in.

"What!"he fairly squealed. "Why," I continued from my side of the gate,"haven't you heard him say so

himself? He will nevergo home." "Oh! this is too much," he shouted. He would not address me as "honoured

sir" any more. He was very still for a time, and then with out a trace of humility began very low: "Never go

trample on me till I die ah trample" (he stamped softly with both feet), "trample like this nobody

knows why till I die.. .. " His voice became quite extinct; he was bothered by a little cough; he came up

close to the fence and told me, dropping into a confidential and piteous tone, that he would not be trampled

upon. "Patience patience," he muttered, striking his breast. I had done laughing at him, but unexpectedly

he treated me to a wild cracked burst of it. "Ha! ha! ha! We shall see! We shall see! What! Steal from me!

Steal from me everything! Everything! Everything! " His head drooped on one shoulder, his hands were

hanging before him lightly clasped. One would have thought he had cherished the girl with surpassing love,

that his spirit had been crushed and his heart broken by the most cruel of spoliations. Suddenly he lifted his

head and shot out an infamous word. "Like her mother she is like her deceitful mother. Exactly. In her

face too. In her face. The devil! " He leaned his forehead against the fence, and in that position uttered threats

and horrible blasphem ies in Portuguese in very weak ejaculations, mingled with miserable plaints and

groans, coming out with a heave of the shoulders as though he had been overtaken by a deadly fit of sickness.

It was an inexpressibly grotesque and vile performance, and I hastened away. He tried to shout something

after me. Some disparagement of Jim, I believe not too loud though, we were too near the house . All I

'But next morning, at the first bend of the river shutting off the houses of Patusan, all this dropped out of my

sight bodily, with its colour, its design, and its meaning, like a picture created by fancy on a canvas, upon

which, after long contemplation, you turn your back for the last time. It remains in the memory motionless,

unfaded, with its life arrested, in an unchanging light. There are the ambitions, the fears, the hate, the hopes,

and they remain in my mind just as I had seen them intense and as if for ever suspended in their

expression. I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men

change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whether over mud or over stones . I wasn't going

to dive into it; I would have enough to do to keep my head above the surface. But as to what I was leaving

behind, I cannot imagine any alteration. The immense and magnanimous Doramin and his little motherly

witch of a wife, gazing together upon the land and nursing secretly their dreams of parental ambition; Tunku

Allang, wizened and gready perplexed; Dain Waris, intelligent und brave, with his faith in Jim, with his firm

glance und his ironic friendliness; the girl, absorbed in her frightened, suspicious adoration; Tumb' Itam,

surly and faithful; Cornelius, leaning his forehead against the fence under the moonlight I am certain of

them. They exist as if under un ench anter's wand. But the figure round which all these are grouped that

one lives, and I am not certain of him. No magician's wand can immobilise him under my eyes. He is one of

'Jim, as I've told you, accompanied me on the first stage of my journey back to the world he had renounced,

and the way at times seemed to lead through the very heart of untouched wilderness. The empty reaches

sparkled under the high sun; between the high walls of vegetation the heat drowsed upon the water, and the

boat,impelled vigorously, cut her way through the air that seemed to have settled dense and warm under the

'The shadow of the impending separation had already put an immense space between us, und when we spoke

it was with an effort, as if to force our low voices across a vast und increasing distance. The boat fairly flew;

we sweltered side by side in the stagnant superheated air; the smell of mud, of mush, the primeval smell of

fecund earth, seemed to sting our faces; till suddenly at a bend it was as if a great hand far away had lifted a

heavy curtain, had flung open un immense portal. The light itself seemed to stir, the sky above our heads

wid ened, a faroff murmur reached our ears, a freshness enveloped us, filled our lungs, quickened our

thoughts, our blood, our regrets and, straight ahead, the forests sank down against the darkblue ridge of

'I breathed deeply, I revelled in the vastness of the opened horizon, in the different atmosphere that seemed to

vibrate with the toil of life, with the energy of an impeccable world. This sky and this sea were open to me.

The girl was right there was a sign, a call in them something to which I responded with every fibre of

my being. I let my eyes roam through space, like a man released from bonds who stretches his cramped

limbs, runs, leaps, responds to the inspiring elation of freedom. "This is glorious!" I cried, und then I looked

at the sinner by my side . He sat with his head sunk on his breast and said "Yes," without raising his eyes, as

if afraid to see writ large on the clear sky of the offing the reproach of his romantic conscience.

'I remember the smallest details of that afternoon. We landed on a bit of white beach. It was backed by a low

cliff wooded on the brow, draped in creepers to the very foot. Below us the plain of the sea, of a serene and

intense blue, stretched with a slight upward tilt to the threadlike horizon drawn at the height of our eyes.

Great waves of glitter blew lightly along the pitted dark surface, as swift as feathers chased by the breeze . A

chain of islands sat broken and massive facing the wide estuary, displayed in a sheet of pale glassy water

reflecting faithfully the contour of the shore. High in the colourless sunshine a solitary bird, all black,

hovered, dropping and soaring above the same spot with a slight rocking motion of the wings. A ragged,

sooty bunch of flimsy mat hovels was perched over its own inverted image upon a crooked multitude of high

piles the colour of ebony. A tiny black canoe put off from amongst them with two tiny men, all black, who

toiled exceedingly, striking down at the pale water: and the canoe seemed to slide painfully on a mirror. This

bunch of miserable hovels was the fishing village that boasted of the white lord's especial protection, and the

two men crossing over were the old headman and his soninlaw. They landed and walked up to us on the

white sand, lean, darkbrown as if dried in smoke, with ashy patches on the skin of their naked shoulders and

breasts . Their heads were bound in dirty but carefully folded headkerchiefs, and the old man began at once to

state a complaint, voluble, stretching a lank arm, screwing up at Jim his old bleared eyes confidently . The

Rajah's people would not leave them alone; there had been some trouble about a lot of turtles' eggs his people

had collected on the islets there and leaning at arm's length upon his paddle, he pointed with a brown

skinny hand over the sea. Jim listened for a time without looking up, und at last told him gently to wait. He

would hear him byandby. They withdrew obediently to some little distance, and sat on their heels, with

their paddles lying before them on the sand; the silvery gleams in their eyes followed our movements

patiently; and the immensity of the outspread sea, the stillness of the coast, passing north and south beyond

the limits of my vision, made up one colossal Presence watch ing us four dwarfs isolated on a strip of

' "The trouble is," remarked Jim moodily, "that for generations these beggars of fishermen in that village

there had been considered as the Rajah's personal slaves and the old rip can't get it into his head that . . ."

' "Have I?" he said. "Well, yes. I suppose so. Yes. I have got back my confidence in myself a good name

yet sometimes I wish . . . No! I shall hold what I've got. Can't expect anything more." He flung his arm out

towards the sea. "Not out there anyhow." He stamped his foot upon the sand. "This is my limit, because

'We continued pacing the beach. "Yes, I've changed all that," he went on, with a sidelong glance at the two

patient squatting fisher men; "but only try to think what it would be if I went away. Jove! can't you see it?

Hell loose. No! Tomorrow I shall go and take my chance of drinking that silly old Tunku Allung's coffee,

und I shall make no end of fuss over these rotten turtles' eggs. No. I cun't say enough. Never. I must go

on, go on for ever holding up my end, to feel sure that nothing can touch me. I must stick to their belief in me

to feel safe and to to" . . . He cast about for a word, seemed to look for it on the sea . . . "to keep in touch

with" . . . His voice sank suddenly to a murmur . . . "with those whom, perhaps, I shall never see any more.

'I was profoundly humbled by his words. "For God's sake," I said, "don't set me up, my dear fellow; just look

to yourself." I felt a grati tude, an affection, for that straggler whose eyes had singled me out, keeping my

place in the ranks of an insignificant multitude. How little that was to boast of, after all! I turned my burning

face away; under the low sun, glowing, darkened and crimson, like un ember snatched from the fire, the sea

lay outspread, offering all its immense stillness to the approach of the fiery orb. Twice he was going to speak,

' "I shall be faithful," he said quietly. "I shall be faithful," he repeated, without looking at me, but for the first

time letting his eyes wander upon the waters, whose blueness had changed to a gloomy purple under the fires

of sunset. Ah! he was romantic, romantic. I recalled some words of Stein's.... "In the destructive element

immerse! . . . To follow the dream, and again to follow the dream and so always usque ad finem . .

." He was romantic, but none the less true. Who could tell what forms, what visions, what faces, what

forgiveness he could see in the glow of the west! . . . A small boat, leaving the schooner, moved slowly, with

a regular beat of two oars, towards the sandbank to take me off. "And then there's Jewel," he said, out of the

great silence of earth, sky, and sea, which had mas tered my very thoughts so that his voice made me start.

"There's Jewel. " "Yes," I murmured. "I need not tell you what she is to me," he pursued. "You've seen. In

time she will come to understand . . . " "I hope so," I interrupted. "She trusts me, too," he mused, and then

' "Never unless you come out," I answered, avoiding his glance. He didn't seem to be surprised; he kept

'We shook hands, and I walked to the boat, which waited with her nose on the beach. The schooner, her

mainsail set and jibsheet to windward, curveted on the purple sea; there was a rosy tinge on her sails. "Will

you be going home again soon?" asked Jim, just as I swung my leg over the gunwale. "In a yeu or so if I

live," I said. The forefoot grated on the sand, the boat floated, the wet oars flashed and dipped once, twice.

Jim, at the water's edge, raised his voice. "Tell them . . . " he began. I signed to the men to cease rowing, and

waited in wonder. Tell who? The halfsubmerged sun faced him; I could see its red gleam in his eyes that

looked dumbly at me.... "No nothing," he said, and with a slight wave of his hand motioned the boat

away. I did not look again at the shore till I had clambered on board the schooner.

'By that time the sun had set. The twilight lay over the east, and the coast, turned black, extended infinitely its

sombre wall that seemed the very stronghold of the night; the western horizon was one great blaze of gold

and crimson in which a big detached cloud floated dark and still, casting a slaty shadow on the water beneath,

'The two halfnaked fishermen had arisen as soon as I had gone; they were no doubt pouring the plaint of

their trifling, miserable, oppressed lives into the ears of the white lord, a no doubt he was listening to it,

making it his own, for was it not a part of his luck the luck "from the word Go" the luck to which he

had assured me he was so completely equal? They too, I should think, were in luck, and I was sure their

pertinacity would be equal to it. Their darkskinned bodies vanished on the dark background long before I

had lost sight of their protector. He was white from head to foot, and remained persistently visible with the

stronghold of the night at his back, the sea at his feet, the opportunity by his side still veiled. What do you

say? Was it still veiled? I don't know. For me that white figure in the stillness of coast and sea seemed to

stand at the heart of a vast enigma. The twilight was ebbing fast from the sky above his head, the strip of sand

had sunk already under his feet, he himself appeared no bigger than a child then only a speck, a tiny white

speck, that seemed to catch all the light left in a darkened world .. .. And, suddenly, I lost him. . ..

With these words Marlow had ended his narrative, and his audi ence had broken up forthwith, under his

abstract, pensive gaze. Men drifted off the verandah in pairs or alone without loss of time, without offering a

remark, as if the last image of that incomplete story, its incompleteness itself, and the very tone of the

speaker, had made discussion vain and comment impossible. Each of them seemed to carry away his own

impression, to cary it away with him like a secret; but there was only one man of all these listeners who was

ever to hear the last word of the story. It came to him at home, more than two years later, and it came

contained in a thick packet addressed in Marlow's upright and angular handwriting.

The privileged man opened the packet, looked in, then, laying it down, went to the window. His rooms were

in the highest flat of a lofty building, and his glance could travel afar beyond the clear panes of glass, as

though he were looking out of the lantern of a lighthouse. The slopes of the roofs glistened, the dark broken

ridges succeeded each other without end like sombre, uncrested waves, and from the depths of the town under

his feet ascended a confused and unceasing mutter. The spires of churches, numerous, scattered haphazard,

uprose like beacons on a maze of shoals without a channel; the driving rain mingled with the falling dusk of a

winter's evening; and the booming of a big clock on a tower, striking the hour, rolled past in voluminous,

austere bursts of sound, with a shrill vibrating cry at the core. He drew the heavy curtains.

The light of his shaded readinglamp slept like a sheltered pool, his footfalls made no sound on the carpet,

his wandering days were over. No more horizons as boundless as hope, no more twilights within the forests

as solemn as temples, in the hot quest for the Everundiscov ered Country over the hill, across the stream,

beyond the wave. The hour was striking! No more! No more! but the opened packet under the lamp

brought back the sounds, the visions, the very savour of the past a multitude of fading faces, a tumult of

low voices, dying away upon the shores of distant seas under a passionate and unconsoling sunshine. He

At first he saw three distinct enclosures. A good many pages closely blackened and pinned together; a loose

square sheet of greyish paper with a few words traced in a handwriting he had never seen before, and an

explanatory letter from Marlow. From this last fell another letter, yellowed by time and frayed on the folds.

He picked it up and, laying it aside, turned to Marlow's message, ran swiftly over the open ing lines, and,

checking himself, thereafter read on deliberately, like one approaching with slow feet and alert eyes the

'. . . I don't suppose you've forgotten,' went on the letter. 'You alone have showed an interest in him that

survived the telling of his story, though I remember well you would not admit he had mastered his fate. You

prophesied for him the disaster of weariness and of dis gust with acquired honour, with the selfappointed

task, with the love sprung from pity and youth. You had said you knew so well "that kind of thing," its

illusory satisfaction, its unavoidable deception. You said also I call to mind that "giving your life up to

them" (them meaning all of mankind with skins brown, yellow, or black in colour) "was like selling your soul

to a brute." You contended that "that kind of thing" was only endurable and enduring when based on a firm

con viction in the truth of ideas racially our own, in whose name are estab lished the order, the morality of

an ethical progress. "We want its strength at our backs," you had said. "We want a belief in its necessity and

its justice, to make a worthy and conscious sacrifice of our lives. Without it the sacrifice is only forgetfulness,

the way of offering is no better than the way to perdition." In other words, you maintained that we must fight

in the ranks or our lives don't count. Possibly! You ought to know be it said without malice you who

have rushed into one or two places singlehanded and came out cleverly, without singeing your wings. The

point, however, is that of all mankind Jim had no dealings but with himself, and the question is whether at the

last he had not confessed to a faith mightier than the laws of order and progress.

'I affirm nothing. Perhaps you may pronounce after you've read. There is much truth after all in the

common expression "under a cloud." It is impossible to see him clearly especially as it is through the eyes

of others that we take our last look at him. I have no hesitation in imparting to you all I know of the last

episode that, as he used to say, had "come to him." One wonders whether this was perhaps that supreme

opportunity, that last and satisfying test for which I had always suspected him to be waiting, before he could

frame a message to the impeccable world. You remember that when I was leaving him for the last time he

had asked whether I would be going home soon, and suddenly cried after me, "Tell them . . ." I had waited

curious I'll own, and hopeful too only to hear him shout, "No nothing." That was all then and there

will be nothing more; there will be no message, unless such as each of us can interpret for himself from the

language of facts, that are so often more enigmatic than the craftiest arrangement of words. He made, it is

true, one more attempt to deliver himself; but that too failed, as you may perceive if you look at the sheet of

greyish foolscap enclosed here. He had tried to write; do you notice the commonplace hand? It is headed

"The Fort, Patu sun." I suppose he had carried out his intention of making out of his house a place of

defence. It was an excellent plan: a deep ditch, an earth wall topped by a palisade, and at the angles guns

mounted on platforms to sweep each side of the square. Doramin had agreed to furnish him the guns; and so

each man of his party would know there was a place of safety, upon which every faithful partisan could rally

in case of some sudden danger. All this showed his judicious fore sight, his faith in the future. What he

called "my own people" the liberated captives of the Sherif were to make a distinct quarter of Patusan,

with their huts and little plots of ground under the walls of the stronghold. Within he would be an invincible

host in himself "The Fort, Patusan." No date, as you observe. What is a number and a name to a day of days?

It is also impossible to say whom he had in his mind when he seized the pen: Stein myself the world at

large or was this only the aimless startled cry of a solitary man confronted by his fate? "An awful thing

has happened," he wrote before he flung the pen down for the first time; look at the ink blot resembling the

head of an arrow under these words. After a while he had tried again, scrawling heavily, as if with a hand of

lead, another line. "I must now at once . . ." The pen had spluttered, and that time he gave it up. There's

nothing more; he had seen a broad gulf that neither eye nor voice could span. I can understand this. He was

overwhelmed by the inexplicable; he was overwhelmed by his own personality the gift of that destiny

'I send you also an old letter a very old letter. It was found care fully preserved in his writingcase. It is

from his father, and by the date you can see he must have received it a few days before he joined the Patna.

Thus it must be the last letter he ever had from home. He had treasured it all these years. The good old parson

fancied his sailor son. I've looked in at a sentence here and there. There is nothing in it except just affection.

He tells his "dear James" that the last long letter from him was very "honest and entertaining." He would not

have him "judge men harshly or hastily. " There are four pages of it, easy morality and family news. Tom had

"taken orders." Carrie's hus band had "money losses." The old chap goes on equably trusting Providence

and the established order of the universe, but alive to its small dangers and its small mercies. One can almost

see him, grey haired and serene in the inviolable shelter of his booklined, faded, and comfortable study,

where for forty years he had conscientiously gone over and over again the round of his little thoughts about

faith and virtue, about the conduct of life and the only proper manner of dying; where he had written so many

sermons, where he sits talking to his boy, over there, on the other side of the earth. But what of the distance?

Virtue is one all over the world, and there is only one faith, one conceivable conduct of life, one manner of

dying. He hopes his "dear James" will never forget that "who once gives way to temp tation, in the very

instant hazards his total depravity and everlasting ruin. Therefore resolve fixedly never, through any possible

motives, to do anything which you believe to be wrong." There is also some news of a favourite dog; and a

pony, "which all you boys used to ride," had gone blind from old age and had to be shot. The old chap

invokes Heaven's blessing; the mother and all the girls then at home send their love.... No, there is nothing

much in that yellow frayed letter fluttering out of his cherishing grasp after so many years. It was never

answered, but who can say what converse he may have held with all these placid, colourless forms of men

and women peopling that quiet corner of the world as free of danger or strife as a tomb, and breathing

equably the air of undisturbed rectitude. It seems amazing that he should belong to it, he to whom so many

things "had come. "Nothing ever came to them; they would never be taken unawares, and never be called

upon to grapple with fate. Here they all are, evoked by the mild gossip of the father, all these brothers and

sisters, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, gazing with clear unconscious eyes, while I seem to see him,

returned at last, no longer a mere white speck at the heart of an immense mystery, but of full stature, standing

disre garded amongst their untroubled shapes, with a stern and romantic aspect, but always mute, dark

'The story of the last events you will find in the few pages enclosed here. You must admit that it is romantic

beyond the wildest dreams of his boyhood, and yet there is to my mind a sort of profound and terrifying logic

in it, as if it were our imagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an overwhelming destiny.

The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who toys with the sword shall perish by the sword.

This astounding adventure, of which the most astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable

consequence. Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself while you marvel that such a

thing could happen in the year of grace before last. But it has happened and there is no disputing its logic.

'I put it down here for you as though I had been an eyewitness. My information was fragmentary, but I've

fitted the pieces together, and there is enough of them to make an intelligible picture. I wonder how he would

bave related it himself. He has confided so much in me that at times it seems as though he must come in

presently and tell the story in his own words, in his careless yet feeling voice, with his offhand manner, a

little puzzled, a little bothered, a little hurt, but now and then by a word or a phrase giving one of these

glimpses of his very own self that were never any good for purposes of orien tation. It's difficult to believe

he will never come. I shall never hear his voice again, nor shall I see his smooth tanandpink face with a

white line on the forehead, and the youthful eyes darkened by excitement to a profound, unfathomable blue.'

'It all begins with a remarkable exploit of a man called Brown, who stole with complete success a Spanish

schooner out of a small bay near Zamboanga. Till I discovered the fellow my information was incomplete,

but most unexpectedly I did come upon him a few hours before he gave up his arrogant ghost. Fortunately he

was willing and able to talk between the choking fits of asthma, and his racked body writhed with malicious

exultation at the bare thought of Jim. He exulted thus at the idea that he had "paid out the stuck up beggar

after all." He gloated over his action. I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce crowfooted eyes if I wanted

to know; and so I bore it, reflecting how much certain forms of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense

egoism, inflamed by resistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigour to the body. The story

also reveals unsuspected depths of cunning in the wretched Cornelius, whose abject and intense hate acts like

' "I could see directly I set my eyes on him what sort of a fool he was," gasped the dying Brown. "He a man!

Hell! He was a hollow sham. As if he couldn't have said straight out, 'Hands off my plun der!' blast him!

That would have been like a man! Rot his superior soul! He had me there but he hadn't devil enough in

him to make an end of me. Not he! A thing like that letting me off as if I wasn't worth a kick! ..." Brown

struggled desperately for breath.... "Fraud.... Letting me off.... And so I did make an end of him after all...."

He choked again.... "I expect this thing'll kill me, but I shall die easy now. You . . . you here . . . I don't know

your name I would give you a fivepound note if if I had it for the news or my name's not

'He said all these things in profound gasps, staring at me with his yellow eyes out of a long, ravaged, brown

face; he jerked his left arm; a pepperandsalt matted beard hung almost into his lap; a dirty ragged blanket

covered his legs. I had found him out in Ban kok through that busybody Schomberg, the hotelkeeper, who

had, confidentially, directed me where to look. It appears that a sort of loafing, fuddled vagabond a white

man living amongst the natives with a Siamese woman had considered it a great privilege to give a shelter

to the last days of the famous Gentleman Brown. While he was talking to me in the wretched hovel, and, as it

were, fighting for every minute of his life, the Siamese woman, with big bare legs and a stupid coarse face,

sat in a dark corner chewing betel stolidly. Now and then she would get up for the purpose of shooing a

chicken away from the door. The whole hut shook when she walked. An ugly yellow child, naked and

potbellied like a little heathen god, stood at the foot of the couch, finger in mouth, lost in a profound and

'He talked feverishly; but in the middle of a word, perhaps, an invisible hand would take him by the throat,

and he would look at me dumbly with an expression of doubt and anguish. He seemed to fear that I would get

tired of waiting and go away, leaving him with his tale untold, with his exultation unexpressed. He died dur

'Eight months before this, coming into Samarang, I went as usual to see Stein. On the garden side of the

house a Malay on the veran dah greeted me shyly, and I remembered that I had seen him in Patusan, in Jim's

house, amongst other Bugis men who used to come in the evening to talk interminably over their war remi

niscences and to discuss State affairs. Jim had pointed him out to me once as a respectable petty trader

owning a small seagoing native craft, who had showed himself "one of the best at the taking of the stockade.

" I was not very surprised to see him, since any Patusan trader venturing as far as Samarang would naturally

find his way to Stein's house. I returned his greeting and passed on. At the door of Stein's room I came upon

'I asked him at once what he was doing there; it occurred to me that Jim might have come on a visit. I own I

was pleased and excited at the thought. Tumb' Itam looked as if he did not know what to say. "Is Tuan Jim

inside?" I asked impatiently. "No," he mumbled, hanging his head for a moment, and then with sudden

earnestness, "He would not fight. He would not fight," he repeated twice. As he seemed unable to say

'Stein, tall and stooping, stood alone in the middle of the room between the rows of butterfly cases. "Ach! is it

you, my friend?" he said sadly, peering through his glasses. A drab sackcoat of alpaca hung, unbuttoned,

down to his knees. He had a Panama hat on his head, and there were deep furrows on his pale cheeks. "What's

the matter now?" I asked nervously. "There's Tamb' Itam there...." "Come and see the girl. Come and see the

girl. She is here," he said, with a halfhearted show of activity. I tried to detain him, but with gentle obstinacy

he would take no notice of my eager questions. "She is here, she is here," he repeated, in great perturbation.

"They came here two days ago. An old man like me, a stranger sehen Sie cannot do much.... Come this

way.... Young hearts are unforgiving...." I could see he was in utmost distress.... "The strength of life in them,

the cruel strength of life...." He mum bled, leading me round the house; I followed him, lost in dismal and

angry conjectures. At the door of the drawingroom he barred my way. "He loved her very much," he said

interrogatively, and I only nodded, feeling so bitterly disappointed that I would not trust myself to speak .

"Very frightful," he murmured. "She can' t under stand me. I am only a strange old man. Perhaps you . . .

she knows you. Talk to her. We can't leave it like this. Tell her to forgive him. It was very frightful." "No

doubt," I said, exasperated at being in the dark; "but have you forgiven him?" He looked at me queerly. "You

'You know Stein's big house and the two immense reception rooms, uninhabited and uninhabitable, clean,

full of solitude und of shining things that look as if never beheld by the eye of man? They are cool on the

hottest days, and you enter them as you would a scrubbed cave underground. I passed through one, and in the

other I saw the girl sitting at the end of a big mahogany table, on which she rested her head, the face hidden

in her arms. The waxed floor reflected her dimly as though it had been a sheet of frozen water. The rattan

screens were down, and through the strange greenish gloom made by the foliage of the trees outside a strong

wind blew in gusts, swaying the long draperies of windows and doorways. Her white figure seemed shaped in

snow; the pendent crystals of a great chandelier clicked above her head like glittering icicles. She looked up

and watched my approach. I was chilled as if these vast apartments had been the cold abode of despair.

'She recognised me at once, and as soon as I had stopped, looking down at her: "He has left me," she said

quietly; "you always leave us for your own ends." Her face was set. All the heat of life seemed withdrawn

within some inaccessible spot in her breast. "It would have been easy to die with him," she went on, and

made a slight weary gesture as if giving up the incomprehensible. "He would not! It was like a blindness

and yet it was I who was speaking to him; it was I who stood before his eyes; it was at me that he looked all

the time! Ah! you are hard, treacherous, without truth, without compassion. What makes you so wicked? Or

'I took her hand; it did not respond, and when I dropped it, it hung down to the floor. That indifference, more

awful than tears, cries, and reproaches, seemed to defy time and consolation. You felt that nothing you could

'Stein had said, "You shall hear." I did hear. I heard it all, listening with amazement, with awe, to the tones of

her inflexible weariness. She could not grasp the real sense of what she was telling me, and her resentment

filled me with pity for her for him too. I stood rooted to the spot after she had finished. Leaning on her

arm, she stared with hard eyes, and the wind passed in gusts, the crystals kept on clicking in the greenish

gloom. She went on whispering to herself: "And yet he was looking at me! He could see my face, hear my

voice, hear my grief! When I used to sit at his feet, with my cheek against his knee and his hand on my head,

the curse of cruelty and madness was already within him, waiting for the day. The day came! . . . and before

the sun had set he could not see me any more he was made blind and deaf and without pity, as you all are.

He shall have no tears from me. Never, never. Not one tear. I will not! He went away from me as if I had

been worse than death. He fled as if driven by some accursed thing he had heard or seen in his sleep...."

'Her steady eyes seemed to strain after the shape of a man torn out of her arms by the strength of a dream. She

'I saw her once again, the same afternoon. On leaving her I had gone in search of Stein, whom I could not

find indoors; and I wandered out, pursued by distressful thoughts, into the gardens, those famous gardens of

Stein, in which you can find every plant and tree of tropical lowlands. I followed the course of the canalised

stream, and sat for a long time on a shaded bench near the ornamen tal pond, where some waterfowl with

clipped wings were diving and splashing noisily. The branches of casuarina trees behind me swayed lightly,

'This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations. She had said he had been

driven away from her by a dream, and there was no answer one could make her there seemed to be no

forgiveness for such a transgression. And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a

dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion? And

'When I rose to get back to the house I caught sight of Stein's drab coat through a gap in the foliage, and very

soon at a turn of the path I came upon him walking with the girl. Her little hand rested on his forearm, and

under the broad, flat rim of his Panama hat he bent over her, greyhaired, paternal, with compassionate and

chivalrous deference. I stood aside, but they stopped, facing me. His gaze was bent on the ground at his feet;

the girl, erect and slight on his arm, stared sombrely beyond my shoulder with black, clear, motionless eyes.

"Schrecklich," he murmured. "Terrible! Terrible! What can one do?" He seemed to be appealing to me, but

her youth, the length of the days suspended over her head, appealed to me more; and suddenly, even as I

realised that nothing could be said, I found myself pleading his cause for her sake. "You must forgive him," I

concluded, and my own voice seemed to me muffled, lost in un irresponsive deaf immensity. "We all want to

' "Not like the others," I protested, but she continued evenly, without any feeling

' "He was false." And suddenly Stein broke in. "No! no! no! My poor child! . . ." He patted her hand lying

passively on his sleeve. "No! no! Not false! True! True! True!" He tried to look into her stony face. "You

don't understand. Ach! Why you do not under stand? . . . Terrible," he said to me. "Some day she shall

'I watched them. Her gown trailed on the path, her black hair fell loose. She walked upright and light by the

side of the tall man, whose long shapeless coat hung in perpendicular folds from the stooping shoulders,

whose feet moved slowly. They disappeared beyond that spinney (you may remember) where sixteen

different kinds of bamboo grow together, all distinguishable to the learned eye. For my part, I was fascinated

by the exquisite grace and beauty of that fluted grove, crowned with pointed leaves and feathery heads, the

lightness, the vigour, the charm as distinct as a voice of that unperplexed luxuriating life. I remember staying

to look at it for a long time, as one would linger within reach of a consoling whisper. The sky was pearly

grey. It was one of those overcast days so rare in the tropics, in which memories crowd upon one

'I drove back to town the same afternoon, taking with me Tamb' Itam and the other Malay, in whose seagoing

craft they had escaped in the bewilderment, fear, and gloom of the disaster. The shock of it seemed to have

changed their natures. It had turned her passion into stone, and it made the surly taciturn Tamb' Itam almost

loquacious. His surliness, too, was subdued into puzzled humility, as though he had seen the failure of a

potent charm in a supreme moment. The Bugis trader, a shy hesitating man, was very clear in the little he had

to say. Both were evidently overawed by a sense of deep inexpressible wonder, by the touch of an inscrutable

mystery.' There with Marlow's sigrature the letter proper ended. The privileged reader screwed up his lump,

and solitary above the bil lowy roofs of the town, like a lighthousekeeper above the sea, he turned to the

'It all begins, as I've told you, with the man called Brown,' ran the opening sentence of Marlow's narrative.

'You who have knocked about the Western Pacific must have heard of him. He was the show ruffian on the

Australian coast not that he was often to be seen there, but because he was always trotted out in the stones

of lawless life a visitor from home is treated to; and the mildest of these stories which were told about him

from Cape York to Eden Bay was more than enough to hang a man if told in the right place. They never

failed to let you know, too, that he was supposed to be the son of a baronet. Be it as it may, it is certain he had

deserted from a home ship in the early golddigging days, and in a few years became talked about as the

terror of this or that group of islands in Polynesia. He would kidnap natives, he would strip some lonely white

trader to the very pyjamas he stood in, and after he had robbed the poor devil, he would as likely as not invite

him to fight a duel with shotguns on the beach which would have been fair enough as these things go, if

the other man hadn't been by that time already halfdead with fright. Brown was a latterday buccaneer,

sorry enough, like his more celebrated prototypes; but what dis tinguished him from his contemporary

brother ruffians, like Bully Hayes or the mellifluous Pease, or that perfumed, Dundreary whiskered,

dandified scoundrel known as Dirty Dick, was the arro gant temper of his misdeeds and a vehement scorn

for mankind at large and for his victims in particular. The others were merely vulgar and greedy brutes, but

he seemed moved by some complex intention. He would rob a man as if only to demonstrate his poor opinion

of the creature, and he would bring to the shooting or maiming of some quiet, unoffending stranger a savage

and vengeful earnestness fit to terrify the most reckless of desperadoes. In the days of his greatest glory he

owned an armed barque, manned by a mixed crew of Kanakas and runaway whalers, and boasted, I don't

know with what truth, of being financed on the quiet by a most respectable firm of copra merchants. Later on

he ran off it was reported with the wife of a missionary, a very young girl from Clapham way, who

had married the mild, flatfooted fellow in a moment of enthusiasm, and, suddenly transplanted to

Melanesia, lost her bearings somehow. It was a dark story. She was ill at the time he carried her off, and died

on board his ship. It is said as the most wonderful put of the tale that over her body he gave way to an

outburst of sombre and violent grief. His luck left him, too, very soon after. He lost his ship on some rocks

off Malaita, and disappeared for a time as though he had gone down with her. He is heard of next at

NukaHiva, where he bought an old French schooner out of Government service. What creditable enterprise

he might have had in view when he made that purchase I can't say, but it is evident that what with High

Commissioners, consuls, men ofwar, and international control, the South Seas were getting too hot to hold

gentlemen of his kidney. Clearly he must have shifted the scene of his operations farther west, because a year

later he plays an incredibly audacious, but not a very profitable part, in a serio comic business in Manila

Bay, in which a peculating governor and an absconding treasurer are the principal figures; thereafter he seems

to have hung around the Philippines in his rotten schooner battling with un adverse fortune, till at last,

running his appointed course, he sails into Jim's history, a blind accomplice of the Dark Powers.

'His tale goes that when a Spanish patrol cutter captured him he was simply trying to run a few guns for the

insurgents. If so, then I can't understand what he was doing off the south coast of Min danao. My belief,

however, is that he was blackmailing the native villages along the coast. The principal thing is that the cutter,

throwing a guard on board, made him sail in company towards Zamboanga. On the way, for some reason or

other, both vessels had to call at one of these new Spanish settlements which never came to anything in

the end where there was not only a civil official in charge on shore, but a good stout coasting schooner

lying at anchor in the little bay; and this craft, in every way much better than his own, Brown made up his

'He was down on his luck as he told me himself. The world he had bullied for twenty years with fierce,

aggressive disdain, had yielded him nothing in the way of material advantage except a small bag of silver

dollars, which was concealed in his cabin so that "the devil himself couldn't smell it out." And that was all

absolutely all. He was tired of his life, and not afraid of death. But this man, who would stake his existence

on a whim with a bitter and jeerlng recklessness, stood in mortal fear of imprisonment. He had an

unreasoning coldsweat, nerveshaking, bloodtowaterturning sort of horror at the bare posibility of

being locked up the sort of terror a superstitious man would feel at the thought ob being embraced by a

spectre. Therefore the civil official who came on board to make a preliminary investigation into the capture,

investi gated arduously all day long, and only went ashore after dark, muf fled up in a cloak, and taking

great care not to let Brown's little all clink in its bag. Afterwards, being a man of his word, he contrived (the

very next evening, I believe) to send off the Government cutter on some urgent bit of special service. As her

commander could not spare a prize crew, he contented himself by taking away before he left all the sails of

Brown's schooner to the very last rag, and took good care to tow his two boats on to the beach a couple of

'But in Brown's crew there was a Solomon Islander, kidnapped in his youth and devoted to Brown, who was

the best man of the whole gang. That fellow swam off to the coaster five hundred yards or so with the

end of a warp made up of all the running gear unrove for the purpose. The water was smooth, and the bay

dark, "like the inside of a cow," as Brown described it. The Solomon Islander clambered over the bulwarks

with the end of the rope in his teeth. The crew of the coaster all Tagals were ashore having a

jollification in the native village. The two shikeepers left on board woke up suddenly and saw the devil. It had

glittering eyes and leaped quick as lightning about the deck. They fell on their knees, paralysed with fear,

crossing themselves and mumbling prayers. With a long knife he found in the caboose the Solomon Islander,

without interrupting their orisons, stabbed first one, then the other; with the same knife he st to sawing

patiently at the coir table till suddenly it parted under the blade with a splash. Then in the silence of the bay

he let out a cautious shout, and Brown's gang, who meantime had been peering and straining their hopeful

ears in the darkness, began to pull gently at their end of the warp. In less than five minutes the two schooners

'Brown's crowd trunsferred themselves without losing an instant, taking with them their firearms and a large

supply of ammunition. They were sixteen in all: two runaway bluejackets, a lanky deserter from a Yankee

manofwar, a couple of simple, blond Scandina vians, a mulatto of sorts, one bland Chinaman who cooked

and the rest of the nondescript spawn of the South Seas. None of them cared; Brown bent them to his will,

and Brown, indifferent to gal lows, was running away from the spectre of a Spanish prison. He didn't give

them the time to transship enough provisions; the weather was calm, the air was charged with dew, and

when they cast off the ropes and set sail to a faint offshore draught there was no flutter in the damp canvas;

their old schooner seemed to detach itself gently from the stolen craft and slip away silently, together with the

'They got clear away. Brown related to me in detail their passage down the Straits of Macassar. It is a

harowing and desperate story. They were short of food and water; they boarded several native craft and got a

little from each. With a stolen ship Brown did not dare to put into any port, of course. He had no money to

buy anything, no papers to show, and no lie plausible enough to get him out again. An Arab barque, under the

Dutch flag, surprised one night at anchor off Poulo Laut, yielded a little dirty rice, a bunch of bananas, and a

cask of water; three days of squally, misty weather from the northeast shot the schooner across the Java Sea.

The yellow muddy waves drenched that collection of hungry ruffians. They sighted mailboats moving on

their appointed routes; passed wellfound home ships with rusty iron sides anchored in the shallow sea

waiting for a change of weather or the turn of the tide; an English gunboat, white and trim, with two slim

masts, crossed their bows one day in the distance; and on another occasion a Dutch corvette, black and

heavily sparred, loomed up on their quarter, steaming dead slow in the mist. They slipped through unseen or

disregarded, a wan, sallowfaced band of utter outcasts, enraged with hunger and hunted by fear. Brown's

idea was to make for Madagascar, where he expected, on grounds not altogether illusory, to sell the schooner

in Tamatave, and no questions asked, or perhaps obtain some more or less forged papers for her. Yet before

he could face the long passage across the Indian Ocean food was wanted water too.

'Perhaps he had heard of Patusan or perhaps he just only hap pened to see the name written in small

letters on the chart probably that of a largish village up a river in a native state, perfectly defence less, far

from the beaten tracks of the sea and from the ends of submarine cables. He had done that kind of thing

before in the way of business; and this now was an absolute necessity, a question of life and death or

rather of liberty. Of liberty! He was sure to get provisions bullocks rice sweetpotatoes. The sorry

gang licked their chops. A cargo of produce for the schooner perhaps could be extorted and, who knows?

some real ringing coined money! Some of these chiefs and village headmen can be made to part freely. He

told me he would have roasted their toes rather than be baulked. I believe him. His men believed him too.

'Luck served him as to weather. A few days of calm would have brought unmentionable horrors on board that

schooner, but with the help of land and sea breezes, in less thdan a week after clearing the Sunda Straits, he

'Fourteen of them packed into the schooner's longboat (which was big, having been used for cargowork)

and started up the river, while two remained in charge of the schooner with food enough to keep starvation

off for ten days. The tide and wind helped, and early one afternoon the big white boat under a ragged sail

shouldered its way before the sea breeze into Patusan Reach, manned by fourteen assorted scarecrows glaring

hungrily ahead, and fingering the breechblocks of cheap rifles. Brown calculated upon the terrifying

surprise of his appearance. They sailed in with the last of the flood; the Rajah's stockade gave no sign; the

first houses on both sides of the stream seemed deserted. A few canoes were seen up the reach in full flight.

Brown was astonished at the size of the place. A profound silence reigned. The wind dropped between the

houses; two oars were got out and the boat held on upstream, the idea being to effect a lodgment in the

'It seems, however, that the headman of the fishing village at Batu Kring had managed to send off a timely

warning. When the longboat came abreast of the mosque (which Doramin had built: a structure with gables

and roof finials of carved coral) the open space before it was full of people. A shout went up, and was

followed by a clash of gongs all up the river. From a point above two little brass 6pounders were

discharged, and the roundshot came skip ping down the empty reach, spirting glittering jets of water in the

sunshine. In front of the mosque a shouting lot of men began firing in volleys that whipped athwart the

current of the river; an irregu lar, rolling fusillade was opened on the boat from both banks, and Brown's

'The turn of the tide at high water comes on very quickly in that river, and the boat in midstream, nearly

hidden in smoke, began to drift back stern foremost. Along both shores the smoke thickened also, lying

below the roofs in a level streak as you may see a long cloud cutting the slope of a mountain. A tumult of

warcries, the vibrating clang of gongs, the deep snoring of drums, yells of rage, crashes of volleyfiring,

made an awful din, in which Brown sat confounded but steady at the tiller, working himself into a fury of

hate and rage against those people who dared to defend themselves. Two of his men had been wounded, and

he saw his retreat cut off below the town by some boats that had put off from Tunku Allang's stockade. There

were six of them, full of men. While he was thus beset he perceived the entrance of the narrow creek (the

same which Jim had jumped at low water). It was then brim full. Steering the longboat in, they landed, and,

to make a long story short, they established themselves on a little knoll about 900 yards from the stockade,

which, in fact, they commanded from that position. The slopes of the knoll were bare, but there were a few

trees on the summit. They went to work cutting these down for a breastwork, and were fairly intrenched

before dark; meantime the Rajah's boats remained in the river with curious neutrality. When the sun set the

glue of many brushwood blazes lighted on the riverfront, and between the double line of houses on the land

side threw into black relief the roofs, the groups of slender palms, the heavy clumps of fruit trees. Brown

ordered the grass round his position to be fired; a low ring of thin flames under the slow ascending smoke

wriggled rapidly down the slopes of the knoll; here and there a dry bush caught with a tall, vicious roar. The

conflagration made a clear zone of fire for the rifles of the small party, and expired smouldering on the edge

of the forests and along the muddy bank of the creek. A strip of jungle luxuriating in a damp hollow between

the knoll and the Rajah's stockade stopped it on that side with a great crackling and detonations of bursting

bamboo stems. The sky was sombre, velvety, and swarming with stars. The blackened ground smoked quietly

with low creeping wisps, till a little breeze came on and blew everything away. Brown expected an attack to

be delivered as soon as the tide had flowed enough again to enable the warboats which had cut off his

retreat to enter the creek. At any rate he was sure there would be an attempt to carry off his longboat, which

lay below the hill, a dark high lump on the feeble sheen of a wet mud flat. But no move of any sort was

made by the boats in the river. Over the stockade and the Rajah's buildings Brown saw their lights on the

water. They seemed to be unchored across the stream. Other lights afloat were moving in the reach, crossing

and recrossing from side to side. There were also lights twinkling motionless upon the long walls of houses

up the reach, as far as the bend, and more still beyond, others isolated inland. The loom of the big fires

disclosed buildings, roofs, black piles as far as he could see. It was an immense place. The fourteen desperate

invaders lying flat behind the felled trees raised their chins to look over at the stir of that town that seemed to

extend upriver for miles and swarm with thousands of ungry men. They did not speak to each other. Now

and then they would hear a loud yell, or a single shot rang out, fired very far somewhere. But round their

position everything was still, dark, silent. They seemed to be forgotten, as if the excitement keeping awake all

'All the events of that night have a great importance, since they brought about a situation which remained

unchanged till Jim's return. Jim had been away in the interior for more than a week, and it was Dain Waris

who had directed the first repulse. That brave and intelligent youth ("who knew how to fight after the manner

of white men") wished to settle the business offhand, but his people were too much for him. He had not

Jim's racial prestige and the reputation of invincible, supernatural power. He was not the vis ible, tangible

incarnation of unfailing truth and of unfailing victory. Beloved, trusted, and admired as he was, he was still

one of them, while Jim was one of us. Moreover, the white man, a tower of strength in himself, was

invulnerable, while Dain Waris could be killed. Those unexpressed thoughts guided the opinions of the chief

men of the town, who elected to assemble in Jim's fort for deliber ation upon the emergency, as if expecting

to find wisdom and cour age in the dwelling of the absent white man. The shooting of Brown's rufffians was

so far good, or lucky, that there had been half adozen casualties amongst the defenders. The wounded were

lying on the verandah tended by their womenfolk. The women and chil dren from the lower part of the

town had been sent into the fort at the first alarm. There Jewel was in command, very effficient and

highspirited, obeyed by Jim's "own people," who, quitting in a body their little settlement under the

stockade, had gone in to form the garrison. The refugees crowded round her; and through the whole affair, to

the very disastrous last, she showed an extraordinary martial ardour. It was to her that Dain Waris had gone at

once at the first intelligence of danger, for you must know that Jim was the only one in Patusan who

possessed a store of gunpowder. Stein, with whom he had kept up intimate relations by letters, had obtained

from the Dutch Government a special authorisation to export five hundred kegs of it to Patusan. The

powdermagazine was a small hut of rough logs covered entirely with earth, and in Jim's absence the girl had

the key. In the council, held at eleven o'clock in the evening in Jim's diningroom, she backed up Waris's

advice for immediate and vigorous action. I am told that she stood up by the side of Jim's empty chair at the

head of the long table and made a warlike impassioned speech, which for the moment extorted murmurs of

approbation from the assembled headmen. Old Dora min, who had not showed himself outside his own gate

for more than a year, had been brought across with great difficulty. He was, of course, the chief man there.

The temper of the council was very unforgiving, and the old man's word would have been decisive; but it is

my opinion that, well aware of his son's fiery courage, he dared not pronounce the word. More dilatory

counsels prevailed. A cer tain Haji Saman pointed out at great length that "these tyrannical and ferocious

men had delivered themselves to a certain death in any case. They would stand fast on their hill and starve, or

they would try to regain their boat and be shot from ambushes across the creek, or they would break and fly

into the forest and perish singly there." He argued that by the use of proper stratagems these evilminded

strangers could be destroyed without the risk of a battle, and his words had a great weight, especially with the

Patusan men proper. What unsettled the minds of the townfolk was the failure of the Rajah's boats to act at

the decisive moment. It was the diplomatic Kassim who represented the Rajah at the council. He spoke very

little, listened smilingly, very friendly and impenetrable. During the sitting messengers kept arriving every

few minutes almost, with reports of the invaders' proceedings. Wild and exag gerated rumours were flying:

there was a large ship at the mouth of the river with big guns and many more men some white, others with

black skins and of bloodthirsty appearance. They were coming with many more boats to exterminate every

living thing. A sense of near, incomprehensible danger affected the common people. At one moment there

was a panic in the courtyard amongst the women; shrieking; a rush; children crying Haji Sunan went out

to quiet them. Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly killed a villager bringing

in his womenfolk in a canoe together with the best of his domestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused

more confusion. Meantime the palaver inside Jim's house went on in the presence of the girl. Doramin sat

fiercefaced, heavy, looking at the speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. He didn't speak till the

last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah's boats would be called in because the men were required to

defend his master's stockade. Dain Waris in his father's presence would offer no opinion, though the girl

entreated him in Jim's name to speak out. She offered him Jim's own men in her anxiety to have these

intruders driven out at once. He only shook his head, after a glance or two at Doramin. Finally, when the

council broke up it had been decided that the houses nearest the creek should be strongly occupied to obtain

the commund of the enemy's boat. The boat itself was not to be interfered with openly, so that the robbers on

the hill should be tempted to embark, when a welldirected fire would kill most of them, no doubt. To cut off

the escape of those who might survive, and to prevent more of them coming up, Dain Waris was ordered by

Doramin to take an armed party of Bugis down the river to a certain spot ten miles below Patusan, und there

form a camp on the shore and blockade the stream with the canoes. I don't believe for a moment that Doramin

feared the arrival of fresh forces. My opinion is that his conduct was guided solely by his wish to keep his son

out of harm's way. To prevent a rush being made into the town the construction of a stockade was to be

commenced at daylight at the end of the street on the left bank. The old nakhoda declared his intention to

command there himself. A distribution of powder, bullets, und percussioncaps was made immediately under

the girl's supervision. Several messengers were to be dispatched in different directions after Jim, whose exact

whereabouts were unknown. These men started at dawn, but before that time Kassim had managed to open

'That accomplished diplomatist and confidant of the Rajah, on leaving the fort to go back to his master, took

into his boat Corne lius, whom he found slinking mutely amongst the people in the courtyard. Kassim had a

little plan of his own and wanted him for an interpreter. Thus it came about that towards morning Brown,

reflecting upon the desperate nature of his position, heard from the marshy overgrown hollow an amicable,

quavering, strained voice crying in English for permission to come up, under a promise of personal

safety and on a very important errand. He was over joyed. If he was spoken to he was no longer a hunted

wild beast. These friendly sounds took off at once the awful stress of vigilant watchfulness as of so many

blind men not knowing whence the deathblow might come. He pretended a great reluctance. The voice

declared itself "a white man a poor, ruined, old man who had been living here for years." A mist, wet and

chilly, lay on the slopes of the hill, and after some more shouting from one to the other, Brown called out,

"Come on, then, but alone, mind!" As a matter of fact he told me, writhing with rage at the recollection of

his helplessness it made no difference. They couldn't see more than a few yards before them, and no

ueachery could make their position worse. Byandby Cornelius, in his weekday attire of a ragged dirty

shirt and pants, barefooted, with a brokenrimmed pith hat on his head, was made out vaguely, sidling up to

the defences, hesitating, stopping to listen in a peering posture. "Come along! You are safe," yelled Brown,

while his men stared. All their hopes of life became suddenly centred in that dilapidated, mean newcomer,

who in pro found silence clambered clumsily over a felled treetrunk, and shiv ering, with his sour,

mistrustful face, looked about at the knot of bearded, anxious, sleepless desperadoes.

'Half an hour's confidential talk with Cornelius opened Brown's eyes as to the home affairs of Patusan. He

was on the alert at once. There were possibilities, immense possibilities; but before he would talk over

Cornelius's proposals he demanded that some food should be sent up as a guarantee of good faith. Cornelius

went off, creeping sluggishly down the hill on the side of the Rajah's palace, and after some delay a few of

Tunku Allang's men came up, bringing a scanty supply of rice, chillies, and dried fish. This was

immeasurably bet ter than nothing. Later on Cornelius returned accompanying Kas sim, who stepped out

with an air of perfect goodhumoured trustfulness, in sandals, and muffled up from neck to ankles in

darkblue sheeting. He shook hands with Brown discreetly, and the three drew aside for a conference.

Brown's men, recovering their confidence, were slapping each other on the back, and cast knowing glances at

'Kassim disliked Doramin and his Bugis very much, but he hated the new order of things still more. It had

occurred to him that these whites, together with the Rajah's followers, could attack and defeat the Bugis

before Jim's return. Then, he reasoned, general defection of the townfolk was sure to follow, and the reign of

the white man who protected poor people would be over. Afterwards the new allies could be dealt with. They

would have no friends. The fellow was perfectly able to perceive the difference of character, and had seen

enough of white men to know that these newcomers were outcasts, men without country. Brown preserved a

stern and inscrutable demeanour. When he first heard Cornelius's voice demanding admittance, it brought

merely the hope of a loophole for escape. In less than an hour other thoughts were seething in his head. Urged

by an extreme necessity, he had come there to steal food, a few tons of rubber or gum may be, perhaps a

handful of dollars, and had found himself enmeshed by deadly dangers. Now in consequence of these

overtures from Kassim he began to think of stealing the whole country. Some confounded fellow had

apparently accom plished something of the kind singlehanded at that. Couldn't have done it very well

though. Perhaps they could work together squeeze everything dry and then go out quietly. In the course of

his negotiations with Kassim he became aware that he was supposed to have a big ship with plenty of men

outside. Kassim begged him earnestly to have this big ship with his many guns and men brought up the river

without delay for the Rajah's service. Brown professed himself willing, and on this basis the negotiation was

carried on with mutual distrust. Three times in the course of the morning the courteous and active Kassim

went down to consult the Rajah and came up busily with his long stride. Brown, while bargaining, had a sort

of grim enjoyment in thinking of his wretched schooner, with nothing but a heap of dirt in her hold, that stood

for an armed ship, and a Chinaman and a lame exbeachcomber of Levuka on board, who represented all his

many men. In the afternoon he obtained further doles of food, a promise of some money, and a supply of

mats for his men to make shelters for themselves. They lay down and snored, protected from the burning

sunshine; but Brown, sit ting fully exposed on one of the felled trees, feasted his eyes upon the view of the

town and the river. There was much loot there. Cornelius, who had made himself at home in the camp, talked

at his elbow, pointing out the localities, imparting advice, giving his own version of Jim's character, and

commenting in his own fashion upon the events of the last three years. Brown, who, apparently indifferent

and gazing away, listened with attention to every word, could not make out clearly what sort of man this Jim

could be. "What's his name? Jim! Jim! That's not enough for a man's name." "They call him," said Cornelius

scornfully, "Tuan Jim here. As you may say Lord Jim." "What is he? Where does he come from?" inquired

Brown. "What sort of man is he? Is he an Englishman?" "Yes, yes, he's an Englishman. I am an Englishman

too. From Malacca. He is a fool. All you have to do is to kill him and then you are king here. Everything

belongs to him," explained Cornelius. "It strikes me he may be made to share with somebody before very

long," commented Brown half aloud. "No, no. The proper way is to kill him the first chance you get, and then

you can do what you like," Cornelius would insist earnestly. "I have lived for many years here, and I am

'In such converse and in gloating over the view of Patusan, which he had determined in his mind should

become his prey, Brown whiled away most of the afternoon, his men, meantime, resting. On that day Dain

Waris's fleet of canoes stole one by one under the shore farthest from the creek, and went down to close the

river against his retreat. Of this Brown was not aware, and Kassim, who came up the knoll an hour before

sunset, took good care not to enlighten him. He wanted the white man's ship to come up the river, and this

news, he feared, would be discouraging. He was very pressing with Brown to send the "order," offering at the

same time a trusty messenger, who for greater secrecy (as he explained) would make his way by land to the

mouth of the river and deliver the "order" on board. After some reflection Brown judged it expedient to tear a

page out of his pocketbook, on which he simply wrote, "We are getting on. Big job. Detain the man." The

stolid youth selected by Kassim for that service performed it faithfully, and was rewarded by being suddenly

tipped, head first, into the schooner's empty hold by the exbeachcomber and the Chinaman, who there

upon hastened to put on the hatches. What became of him after wards Brown did not say.'

'Brown's object was to gain time by fooling with Kassim's diplo macy. For doing a real stroke of business he

could not help thinking the white man was the person to work with. He could not imagine such a chap (who

must be confoundedly clever after all to get hold of the natives like that) refusing a help that would do away

with the necessity for slow, cautious, risky cheating, that imposed itself as the only possible line of conduct

for a singlehanded man. He, Brown, would offer him the power. No man could hesitate. Every thing was

in coming to a clear understanding. Of course they would share. The idea of there being a fort all ready to

his hand a real fort, with artillery (he knew this from Cornelius), excited him. Let him only once get in

and . . . He would impose modest conditions. Not too low, though. The man was no fool, it seemed. They

would work like brothers till . . . till the time came for a quarrel and a shot that would settle all accounts.

With grim impatience of plunder he wished himself to be talking with the man now. The land already seemed

to be his to tear to pieces, squeeze, and throw away. Mean time Kassim had to be fooled for the sake of food

first and for a second string. But the principal thing was to get something to eat from day to day. Besides,

he was not averse to begin fighting on that Rajah's account, and teach a lesson to those people who had

'I am sorry that I can't give you this part of the story, which of course I have mainly from Brown, in Brown's

own words. There was in the broken, violent speech of that man, unveiling before me his thoughts with the

very hand of Death upon his throat, an undisguised ruthlessness of purpose, a strange vengeful attitude

towards his own past, and a blind belief in the righteousness of his will against all mankind, something of that

feeling which could induce the leader of a horde of wandering cutthroats to call himself proudly the Scourge

of God. No doubt the natural senseless fero city which is the basis of such a character was exasperated by

failure illluck, and the recent privations, as well as by the desperate posi tion in which he found himself;

but what was most remarkable of all was this, that while he planned treacherous alliances, had already settled

in his own mind the fate of the white man, and intrigued in an overbearing, offhand manner with Kassim, one

could perceive that what he had really desired, almost in spite of himself, was to play havoc with that jungle

town which had defied him, to see it strewn over with corpses and enveloped in flames. Listening to his

pitiless, panting voice, I could imagine how he must have looked at it from the hillock, peopling it with

images of murder and rapine. The part nearest to the creek wore an abandoned aspect, though as a matter of

fact every house concealed a few armed men on the alert. Suddenly beyond the stretch of waste ground,

interspersed with small patches of low dense bush, excavations, heaps of rubbish, with trodden paths

between, a man, solitary and looking very small, strolled out into the deserted opening of the street between

the shutup, dark, lifeless buildings at the end. Perhaps one of the inhabitants, who had fled to the other bank

of the river, coming back for some object of domestic use. Evidently he supposed him self quite safe at that

distance from the hill on the other side of the creek. A light stockade, set up hastily, was just round the turn of

the street, full of his friends. He moved leisurely. Brown saw him, and instantly called to his side the Yankee

deserter, who acted as a sort of second in command. This lanky, loosejointed fellow came forward,

woodenfaced, trailing his rifle lazily. When he understood what was wanted from him a homicidal and

conceited smile uncovered his teeth, making two deep folds down his sallow, leath ery cheeks. He prided

himself on being a dead shot. He dropped on one knee, and taking aim from a steady rest through the

unlopped branches of a felled tree, fired, and at once stood up to look. The man, far away, turned his head to

the report, made another step forward, seemed to hesitate, and abruptly got down on his hands and knees. In

the silence that fell upon the sharp crack of the rifle, the dead shot, keeping his eyes fixed upon the quarry,

guessed that "this there coon's health would never be a source of anxiety to his friends any more." The man's

limbs were seen to move rapidly under his body in an endeavour to run on allfours. In that empty space

arose a multitudinous shout of dismay and surprise. The man sank flat, face down, and moved no more. "That

showed them what we could do," said Brown to me. "Struck the fear of sudden death into them. That was

what we wanted. They were two hundred to one, and this gave them something to think over for the night.

Not one of them had an idea of such a long shot before. That beggar belonging to the Rajah scooted

'As he was telling me this he tried with a shaking hand to wipe the thin foam on his blue lips. "Two hundred

to one. Two hundred to one ..strike terror ..terror, terror, I tell you..." His own eyes were starting out of their

sockets. He fell back, clawing the air with skinny fingers, sat up again, bowed and hairy, glared at me

sideways like some manbeast of folklore, with open mouth in his miserable and awful agony before he got

'Furthermore, to draw the enemy's fire and locate such parties as might have been hiding in the bushes along

the creek, Brown ordered the Solomon Islander to go down to the boat and bring an oar, as you send a spaniel

after a stick into the water. This failed, and the fellow came back without a single shot having been fired at

him from anywhere. "There's nobody," opined some of the men. It is "onnatural," remarked the Yankee.

Kassim had gone, by that time, very much impressed, pleased too, and also uneasy. Pursuing his tortuous

policy, he had dispatched a message to Dain Waris warning him to look out for the white men's ship, which,

he had had information, was about to come up the river. He minimised its strength and exhorted him to

oppose its passage. This doubledeal ing answered his purpose, which was to keep the Bugis forces div

ided and to weaken them by fighting. On the other hand, he had in the course of that day sent word to the

assembled Bugis chiefs in town, assuring them that he was trying to induce the invaders to retire; his

messages to the fort asked earnestly for powder for the Rajah's men. It was a long time since Tunku Allang

had had ammu nition for the score or so of old muskets rusting in their armracks in the audiencehall. The

open intercourse between the hill and the palace unsettled all the minds. It was already time for men to take

sides, it began to be said. There would soon be much bloodshed, and thereafter great trouble for many people.

The social fabric of orderly, peaceful life, when every man was sure of tomorrow, the edifice raised by Jim's

hands, seemed on that evening ready to collapse into a ruin reeking with blood. The poorer folk were already

taking to the bush or flying up the river. A good many of the upper class judged it necessary to go and pay

their court to the Rajah. The Rajah's youths jostled them rudely. Old Tunku Allang, almost out of his mind

with fear and indecision, either kept a sullen silence or abused them violently for daring to come with empty

hands: they departed very much frightened; only old Doramin kept his countrymen together and pursued his

tactics inflexibly. Enthroned in a big chair behind the improvised stockade, he issued his orders in a deep

'Dusk fell, hiding first the body of the dead man, which had been left lying with arms outstretched as if nailed

to the ground, and then the revolving sphere of the night rolled smoothly over Patusan and came to a rest,

showering the glitter of countless worlds upon the earth. Again, in the exposed part of the town big fires

blazed along the only street, revealing from distance to distance upon their glares the falling straight lines of

roofs, the fragments of wattled walls jumbled in confusion, here and there a whole hut elevated in the glow

upon the vertical black stripes of a group of high piles and all this line of dwellings, revealed in patches by

the swaying flames, seemed to flicker tortuously away upriver into the gloom at the heart of the land. A

great silence, in which the looms of successive fires played without noise, extended into the darkness at the

foot of the hill; but the other bank of the river, all dark save for a solitary bonfire at the riverfront before the

fort, sent out into the air an increasing tremor that might have been the stamping of a multitude of feet, the

hum of many voices, or the fall of an immensely distant waterfall. It was then, Brown confessed to me, while,

turning his back on his men, he sat looking at it all, that notwithstanding his disdain, his ruthless faith in

himself, a feeling came over him that at last he had run his head against a stone wall. Had his boat been afloat

at the time, he believed he would have tried to steal away, taking his chances of a long chase down the river

and of starvation at sea. It is very doubtful whether he would have succeeded in getting away. However, he

didn't try this. For another moment he had a passing thought of trying to rush the town, but he perceived very

well that in the end he would find himself in the lighted street, where they would be shot down like dogs from

the houses. They were two hundred to one he thought, while his men, huddling round two heaps of

smouldering embers, munched the last of the bananas and roasted the few yams they owed to Kassim's

'Then one of the whites remembered that some tobacco had been left in the boat, and, encouraged by the

impunity of the Solomon Islander, said he would go to fetch it. At this all the others shook off their

despondency. Brown applied to, said, "Go, and be d d to you," scornfully. He didn't think there was any

danger in going to the creek in the dark. The man threw a leg over the treetrunk and disappeared. A moment

later he was heard clambering into the boat and then clambering out. "I've got it," he cried. A flash and a

report at the very foot of the hill followed. "I am hit," yelled the man. "Look out, look out I am hit," and

instantly all the rifles went off. The hill squirted fire and noise into the night like a little volcano, and when

Brown and the Yankee with curses and cuffs stopped the panicstricken firing, a profound, weary groan

floated up from the creek, succeeded by a plaint whose heartrending sad ness was like some poison turning

the blood cold in the veins. Then a strong voice pronounced several distinct incomprehensible words

somewhere beyond the creek. "Let no one fire," shouted Brown. "What does it mean?" . . . "Do you hear on

the hill? Do you hear? Do you hear?" repeated the voice three times. Cornelius translated, and then prompted

the answer. "Speak," cried Brown, "we hear." Then the voice, declaiming in the sonorous inflated tone of a

herald, and shifting continually on the edge of the vague wasteland, pro claimed that between the men of

the Bugis nation living in Patusan and the white men on the hill and those with them, there would be no faith,

no compassion, no speech, no peace. A bush rustled; a haphazard volley rang out. "Dam' foolishness,"

muttered the Yankee, vexedly grounding the butt. Cornelius translated. The wounded man below the hill,

after crying out twice, "Take me up! take me up!" went on complaining in moans. While he had kept on the

blackened earth of the slope, and afterwards crouching in the boat, he had been safe enough. It seems that in

his joy at finding the tobacco he forgot himself and jumped out on her offside, as it were. The white boat,

lying high and dry, showed him up; the creek was no more than seven yards wide in that place, and there

'He was a Bugis of Tondano only lately come to Patusan, and a relation of the man shot in the afternoon. That

famous long shot had indeed appalled the beholders. The man in utter security had been struck down, in full

view of his friends, dropping with a joke on his lips, and they seemed to see in the act an atrocity which had

stirred a bitter rage. That relation of his, SiLapa by nume, was then with Doramin in the stockade only a few

feet away. You who know these chaps must admit that the fellow showed an unusual pluck by volunteering to

carry the message, alone, in the dark. Creeping across the open ground, he had deviated to the left und found

himself opposite the boat. He was startled when Brown's man shouted. He came to a sitting position with his

gun to his shoulder, and when the other jumped out, exposing himself, he pulled the trigger and lodged three

jagged slugs pointblank into the poor wretch's stomach. Then, lying flat on his face, he gave himself up for

dead, while a thin hail of lead chopped and swished the bushes close on his right hand; afterwards he

delivered his speech shouting, bent double, dodging all the time in cover. With the last word he leaped

sideways, lay close for a while, and after wards got back to the houses unharmed, having achieved on that

'And on the hill the forlorn band let the two little heaps of embers go out under their bowed heads. They sat

dejected on the ground with compressed lips and downcast eyes, listening to their comrade below. He was a

strong man and died hard, with moans now loud, now sinking to a strange confidential note of pain.

Sometimes he shrieked, and again, after a period of silence, he could be heard muttering deliriously a long

' "What's the good?" Brown had said unmoved once, seeing the Yankee, who had been swearing under his

breath, prepare to go down. "That's so," assented the deserter, reluctantly desisting. "There's no

encouragement for wounded men here. Only his noise is calculated to make all the others think too much of

the hereafter, cap'n." "Water!" cried the wounded mun in an extraordinarily clear vigorous voice, and then

went off moaning feebly. "Ay, water. Water will do it," muttered the other to himself, resignedly. "Plenty

'At last the tide flowed, silencing the plaint and the cries of pain, and the dawn was near when Brown, sitting

with his chin in the palm of his hand before Patusan, as one might stare at the unscalable side of a mountain,

heard the brief ringing bark of a brass 6pounder far away in town somewhere. "What's this?" he asked of

Cornelius, who hung about him. Cornelius listened. A muffled roaring shout rolled downriver over the

town; a big drum began to throb, and others responded, pulsating and droning. Tiny scattered lights began to

twinkle in the dark half of the town, while the part lighted by the loom of fires hummed with a deep and

prolonged murmur. "He has come," said Cornelius. "What? Already? Are you sure?" Brown asked. "Yes!

yes! Sure. Listen to the noise." "What are they making that row about?" pursued Brown. "For joy," snorted

Cornelius; "he is a very great man, but all the same, he knows no more than a child, and so they make a great

noise to please him, because they know no better." "Look here," said Brown, "how is one to get at him?" "He

shall come to talk to you," Cornelius declared. "What do you mean? Come down here strolling as it were?"

Cornelius nodded vigorously in the dark. "Yes. He will come straight here and talk to you. He is just like a

fool. You shall see what a fool he is." Brown was incredulous. "You shall see; you shall see," repeated

Cornelius. "He is not afraid not afraid of anything. He will come and order you to leave his people alone.

Everybody must leave his people alone. He is like a little child. He will come to you straight." Alas! he knew

Jim well that "mean little skunk," as Brown called him to me. "Yes, certainly," he pursued with ardour,

"and then, captain, you tell that tall man with a gun to shoot him. Just you kill him, and you will frighten

everybody so much that you can do anything you like with them afterwards get what you like go away

when you like. Ha! ha! ha! Fine . . ." He almost danced with impatience and eagerness; and Brown, looking

over his shoulder at him, could see, shown up by the pitiless dawn, his men drenched with dew, sitting

amongst the cold ashes and the litter of the camp, haggard, cowed, and in rags.'

'To the very last moment, till the full day came upon them with a spring, the fires on the west bank blazed

bright and clear; and then Brown saw in a knot of coloured figures motionless between the advanced houses a

man in European clothes, in a helmet, all white. "That's him; look! look!" Cornelius said excitedly. All

Brown's men had sprung up and crowded at his back with lustreless eyes. The group of vivid colours and

dark faces with the white figure in their midst were observing the knoll. Brown could see naked arms being

raised to shade the eyes and other brown arms pointing. What should he do? He looked around, and the

forests that faced him on all sides walled the cockpit of an unequal contest. He looked once more at his men.

A contempt, a weariness, the desire of life, the wish to try for one more chance for some other grave

struggled in his breast. From the outline the figure pre sented it seemed to him that the white man there,

backed up by all the power of the land, was examining his position through binocu lars. Brown jumped up

on the log, throwing his arms up, the palms outwards. The coloured group closed round the white man, and

fell back twice before he got clear of them, walking slowly alone. Brown remained standing on the log till

Jim, appearing and disap pearing between the patches of thorny scrub, had nearly reached the creek; then

'They met, I should think, not very far from the place, perhaps on the very spot, where Jim took the second

desperate leap of his life the leap that landed him into the life of Patusan, into the trust, the love, the

confidence of the people. They faced each other across the creek, and with steady eyes tried to understand

each other before they opened their lips. Their antagonism must have been expressed in their glances; I know

that Brown hated Jim at first sight. Whatever hopes he might have had vanished at once. This was not the

man he had expected to see. He hated him for this and in a checked flannel shirt with sleeves cut off at the

elbows, grey bearded, with a sunken, sunblackened face he cursed in his heart the other's youth and

assurance, his clear eyes and his untroubled bearing. That fellow had got in a long way before him! He did

not look like a man who would be willing to give anything for assistance. He had all the advantages on his

side possession, security, power; he was on the side of an overwhelming force! He was not hungry and

desperate, and he did not seem in the least afraid. And there was something in the very neatness of Jim's

clothes, from the white helmet to the canvas leggings and the pipe clayed shoes, which in Brown's sombre

irritated eyes seemed to belong to things he had in the very shaping of his life contemned and flouted.

' "Who are you?" asked Jim at last, speaking in his usual voice. "My name's Brown," answered the other

loudly; "Captain Brown. What's yours?" and Jim after a little pause went on quietly, as If he had not heard:

"What made you come here?" "You want to know," said Brown bitterly. "It's easy to tell. Hunger. And what

' "The fellow started at this," said Brown, relating to me the opening of this strange conversation between

those two men, separ ated only by the muddy bed of a creek, but standing on the opposite poles of that

conception of life which includes all mankind "The fellow started at this and got very red in the face. Too

big to be questioned, I suppose. I told him that if he looked upon me as a dead man with whom you may take

liberties, he himself was not a whit better off really. I had a fellow up there who had a bead drawn on him all

the time, and only waited for a sign from me. There was nothing to be shocked at in this. He had come down

of his own free will. 'Let us agree,' said I, 'that we are both dead men, and let us talk on that basis, as equals.

We are all equal before death,' I said. I admitted I was there like a rat in a trap, but we had been driven to it,

and even a trapped rat can give a bite. He caught me up in a moment. 'Not if you don't go near the trap till the

rat is dead.' I told him that sort of game was good enough for these native friends of his, but I would have

thought him too white to serve even a rat so. Yes, I had wanted to talk with him. Not to beg for my life,

though. My fellows were well what they were men like himself, anyhow. All we wanted from him

was to come on in the devil's name and have it out. 'God d n it,' said I, while he stood there as still as a

wooden post, 'you don't want to come out here every day with your glasses to count how many of us are left

on our feet. Come. Either bring your infernal crowd along or let us go out and starve in the open sea, by God!

You have been white once, for all your tall talk of this being your own people and you being one with them.

Are you? And what the devil do you get for it; what is it you've found here that is so d d precious? Hey?

You don't want us to come down here perhaps do you? You are two hundred to one. You don't want us to

come down into the open. Ah! I promise you we shall give you some sport before you've done. You talk

about me making a cowardly set upon unoffending people. What's that to me that they are unoffending, when

I am starving for next to no offence? But I am not a coward. Don't you be one. Bring them along or, by all the

fiends, we shall yet manage to send half your unoffending town to heaven with us in smoke!' "

'He was terrible relating this to me this tortured skeleton of a man drawn up together with his face over

his knees, upon a miserable bed in that wretched hovel, and lifting his head to look at me with malignant

' "That's what I told him I knew what to say," he began again, feebly at first, but working himself up with

incredible speed into a fiery utterance of his scorn. " 'We aren't going into the forest to wander like a string of

living skeletons dropping one after another for ants to go to work upon us before we are fairly dead . Oh no! .

. . ' 'You don't deserve a better fate,' he said. 'And what do you deserve,' I shouted at him, 'you that I find

skulking here with your mouth full of your responsibility, of innocent lives, of your infernal duty? What do

you know more of me than I know of you? I came here for food. D'ye hear? food to fill our bellies. And

what did you come for? What did you ask for when you came here? We don't ask you for anything but to give

us a fight or a clear road to go back whence we came....' 'I would fight with you now,' says he, pulling at his

little moustache. 'And I would let you shoot me, and welcome,' I said. 'This is as good a jumpingoff place

for me as another. I am sick of my infernal luck. But it would be too easy. There are my men in the same boat

and, by God, I am not the sort to jump out of trouble and leave them in a d d lurch,' I said. He stood

thinking for a while and then wanted to know what I had done ('out there' he says, tossing his head

downstream) to be hazed about so. 'Have we met to tell each other the story of our lives?' I asked him.

'Suppose you begin. No? Well, I am sure I don't want to hear. Keep it to yourself. I know it is no better than

mine. I've lived and so did you, though you talk as if you were one of those people that should have wings

so as to go about without touching the dirty earth. Well it is dirty. I haven't got any wings. I am here

because I was afraid once in my life. Want to know what of? Of a prison. That scares me, and you may know

it if it's any good to you. I won't ask you what scared you into this infernal hole, where you seem to have

found pretty pickings. That's your luck and this is mine the privilege to beg for the favour of being shot

'His debilitated body shook with an exultation so vehement, so assured, and so malicious that it seemed to

have driven off the death waiting for him in that hut. The corpse of his mad selflove uprose from rags and

destitution as from the dark horrors of a tomb. It is impossible to say how much he lied to Jim then, how

much he lied to me now and to himself always. Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth

of every passion wants some pretence to make it live. Standing at the gate of the other world in the guise of a

beggar, he had slapped this world's face, he had spat on it, he had thrown upon it an immensity of scorn and

revolt at the bottom of his misdeeds. He had overcome them all men, women, savages, traders, ruffians,

missionaries and Jim "that beefyfaced beggar." I did not begrudge him this triumph in articulo

mortis, this almost posthumous illusion of having trampled all the earth under his feet. While he was boasting

to me, in his sordid and repulsive agony, I couldn't help thinking of the chuckling talk relating to the time of

his greatest splendour when, during a year or more, Gentleman Brown's ship was to be seen, for many days

on end, hovering off an islet befringed with green upon azure, with the dark dot of the missionhouse on a

white beach; while Gentleman Brown, ashore, was casting his spells over a romantic girl for whom Melane

sia had been too much, and giving hopes of a remarkable conversion to her husband. The poor man, some

time or other, had been heard to express the intention of winning "Captain Brown to a better way of life." . . .

"Bag Gentleman Brown for Glory" as a leeryeyed loafer expressed it once "just to let them see up

above what a Western Pacific trading skipper looks like." And this was the man, too, who had run off with a

dying woman, and had shed tears over her body. "Carried on like a big baby," his then mate was never tired

of telling, "and where the fun came in may I be kicked to death by diseased Kanakas if I know. Why, gents!

she was too far gone when he brought her aboard to know him; she just lay there on her back in his bunk

staring at the beam with awful shining eyes and then she died. Dam' bad sort of fever, I guess...." I

remembered all these stories while, wiping his matted lump of a beard with a livid hand, he was telling me

from his noisome couch how he got round, got in, got home, on that confounded, immacu late,

don'tyoutouchme sort of fellow. He admitted that he couldn't be scared, but there was a way, "as broad as

a turnpike, to get in and shake his twopenny soul around and inside out and upside down by God!" '

'I don't dlink he could do more than perhaps look upon that straight path. He seemed to have been puzzled by

what he saw, for he interrupted himself in his narrative more than once to exclaim, "He nearly slipped from

me there. I could not make him out. Who was he?" And after glaring at me wildly he would go on, jubilating

and sneering. To me the conversation of these two across the creek appears now as the deadliest kind of duel

on which Fate looked on with her coldeyed knowledge of the end. No, he didn't turn Jim's soul inside out,

but I am much mistaken if the spirit so utterly out of his reach had not been made to taste to the full the

bitterness of that contest. These were the emissaries with whom the world he had renounced was pursuing

him in his retreat white men from "out there" where he did not think himself good enough to live. This

was all that came to him a menace, a shock, a danger to his work. I suppose it is this sad, halfresentful,

halfresigned feeling, piercing through the few words Jim said now and then, that puzzled Brown so much in

the reading of his character. Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those

they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work; and Brown, as though he

had been really great, had a satanic gift of finding out the best and the weakest spot in his victims. He

admitted to me that Jim wasn't of the sort that can be got over by truckling, and accordingly he took care to

show himself as a man confronting without dismay illluck, censure, and disaster. The smuggling of a few

guns was no great crime, he pointed out. As to coming to Patusan, who had the right to say he hadn't come to

beg? The infernal people here let loose at him from both banks without staying to ask questions. He made the

point brazenly, for, in truth, Dain Waris's energetic action had prevented the greatest calamities; because

Brown told me distinctly that, perceiving the size of the place, he had resolved instandy in his mind that as

soon as he had gained a footing he would set fire right and left, and begin by shooting down everything living

in sight, in order to cow and terrify the population. The disproportion of forces was so great that this was the

only way giving him the slightest chance of attaining his ends he agued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't

tell Jim this. As to the hardships and starvation they had gone through, these had been very real; it was

enough to look at his band. He made, at the sound of a shrill whistle, all his men appear standing in a row on

the logs in full view, so that Jim could see them. For the killing of the man, it had been done well, it had

but was not this war, bloody war in a corner? and the fellow had been killed cleanly, shot through the

chest, not like that poor devil of his lying now in the creek. They had to listen to him dying for six hours, with

his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this was a life for a life.... And all this was said with the weariness,

with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by illluck till he cares not where he runs. When he asked

Jim, with a sort of brusque despairing frankness, whether he himself straight now didn't understand

that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, one didn't care who else went three, thirty, three

hundred people" it was as if a demon had been whispering advice in his ear. "I made him wince," boasted

Brown to me. "He very soon left off coming the righteous over me. He just stood there with nothing to say,

and looking as black as thunder not at me on the ground." He asked Jim whether he had nothing fishy

in his life to remember that he was so damnedly hard upon a man trying to get out of a deadly hole by the

first means that came to hand and so on, and so on. And there ran through the rough talk a vein of subtle

reference to their common blood, an assumption of common experience; a sickening suggestion of common

guilt, of secret knowledge that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts.

'At last Brown threw himself down full length and watched Jim out of the corners of his eyes. Jim on his side

of the creek stood thinking and switching his leg. The houses in view were silent, as if a pestilence had swept

them clean of every breath of life; but many invisible eyes were turned, from within, upon the two men with

the creek between them, a stranded white boat, and the body of the third man half sunk in the mud. On the

river canoes were moving again, for Patusan was recovering its belief in the stability of earthly institutions

since the return of the white lord. The right bank, the platforms of the houses, the rafts moored along the

shores, even the roofs of bathinghuts, were covered with people that, far away out of earshot and almost out

of sight, were straining their eyes towards the knoll beyond the Rajah's stockade. Within the wide irregular

ring of forests, broken in two places by the sheen of the river, there was a silence. "Will you promise to leave

the coast?" Jim asked. Brown lifted and let fall his hand, giving every thing up as it were accepting the

inevitable. "And surrender your arms?" Jim went on. Brown sat up and glared across. "Surrender our arms!

Not till you come to take them out of our stiff hands. You think I am gone crazy with funk? Oh no! That and

the rags I stand in is all I have got in the world, besides a few more breech loaders on board; and I expect to

sell the lot in Madagascar, if I ever get so far begging my way from ship to ship."

'Jim said nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in his hand, he said, as if speaking to

himself, "I don't know whether I have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to give

up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose they say one thing to you, and do the other thing to

me.' He calmed down markedly. "I dare say you have the power, or what's the meaning of all this talk?" he

' "Very well," said Jim, lifting his head suddenly after a long silence. "You shall have a clear road or else a

'Brown got up at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had seen Jim disappear between the first houses. He

never set his eyes on him again. On his way back he met Cornelius slouching down with his head between his

shoulders. He stopped before Brown. "Why didn't you kill him?" he demanded in a sour, discontented voice.

"Because I could do better than that," Brown said with an amused smile. "Never! never!" protested Cornelius

with energy. "Couldn't. I have lived here for many years." Brown looked up at him curiously. There were

many sides to the life of that place in arms against him; things he would never find out. Cornelius slunk past

dejectedly in the direction of the river. He was now leaving his new friends; he accepted the disappointing

course of events with a sulky obstinacy which seemed to draw more together his little yel low old face; and

as he went down he glanced askant here and there, never giving up his fixed idea.

'Henceforth events move fast without a check, flowing from the very hearts of men like a stream from a dark

source, and we see Jim amongst them, mostly through Tamb' Itam's eyes. The girl's eyes had watched him

too, but her life is too much entwined with his: there is her passion, her wonder, her anger, and, above all, her

fear and her unforgiving love. Of the faithful servant, uncomprehending as the rest of them, it is the fidelity

alone that comes into play; a fidelity and a belief in his lord so strong that even amazement is subdued to a

sort of saddened acceptance of a mysterious failure. He has eyes only for one figure, and through all the

mazes of bewil derment he preserves his air of guardianship, of obedience, of care.

'His master came back from his talk with the white men, walking slowly towards the stockade in the street.

Everybody was rejoiced to see him return, for while he was away every man had been afraid not only of him

being killed, but also of what would come after. Jim went into one of the houses, where old Doramin had

retired, and remained alone for a long time with the head of the Bugis settlers. No doubt he discussed the

course to follow with him then, but no man was present at the conversation. Only Tamb' Itam, keeping as

close to the door as he could, heard his master say, "Yes. I shall let all the people know that such is my wish;

but I spoke to you, O Doramin, before all the others, and alone; for you know my heart as well as I know

yours and its greatest desire. And you know well also that I have no thought but for the people's good." Then

his master, lifting the sheeting in the doorway, went out, and he, Tamb' Itam, had a glimpse of old Doramin

within, sitting in the chair with his hands on his knees, and looking between his feet. Afterwards he followed

his master to the fort, where all the principal Bugis and Patusan inhabitants had been summoned for a talk.

Tamb' Itam himself hoped there would be some fighting. "What was it but the taking of another hill?" he

exclaimed regretfully. However, in the town many hoped that the rapacious strangers would be induced, by

the sight of so many brave men making ready to fight, to go away. It would be a good thing if they went

away. Since Jim's arrival had been made known before daylight by the gun fired from the fort and the beating

of the big drum there, the fear that had hung over Patusan had broken and subsided like a wave on a rock,

leaving the seething foam of excitement, curiosity, and endless speculation. Half of the population had been

ousted out of their homes for purposes of defence, and were living in the street on the left side of the river,

crowding round the fort, and in momentary expectation of seeing their abandoned dwellings on the threatened

bank burst into flames. The general anxiety was to see the matter settled quickly. Food, through Jewel's care,

had been served out to the refugees. Nobody knew what their white man would do. Some remarked that it

was worse than in Sherif Ali's war. Then many people did not care; now everybody had something to lose.

The movements of canoes passing to and fro between the two parts of the town were watched with interest. A

couple of Bugis warboats lay anchored in the middle of the stream to protect the river, and a thread of

smoke stood at the bow of each; the men in them were cooking their midday rice when Jim, after his

interviews with Brown and Doramin, crossed the river and entered by the watergate of his fort. The people

inside crowded round him, so that he could hardly make his way to the house. They had not seen him before,

because on his arrival during the night he had only exchanged a few words with the girl, who had come down

to the landingstage for the purpose, and had then gone on at once to join the chiefs und the fighting men on

the other bank. People shouted greetings after him. One old woman raised a laugh by pushing her way to the

front madly and enjoining him in a scolding voice to see to it that her two sons, who were with Doramin, did

not come to harm at the hands of the robbers. Several of the bystanders tried to pull her away, but she

struggled and cried, "Let me go. What is this, O Muslims? This laughter is unseemly. Are they not cruel,

bloodthirsty robbers bent on ki]ling?" "Let her be," said Jim, and as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly,

"Everybody shall be safe." He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud murmurs of satisfaction,

'There's no doubt his mind was made up that Brown should have his way clear back to the sea. His fate,

revolted, was forcing his hand. He had for the first time to affirm his will in the face of outspoken opposition.

"There was much talk, and at first my master was silent," Tamb' Itam said. "Darkness came, and then I lit the

candles on the long table. The chiefs sat on each side, and the lady remained by my master's right hand."

'When he began to speak, the unaccustomed difficulty seemed only to fix his resolve more immovably. The

white men were now waiting for his answer on the hill. Their chief had spoken to him in the language of his

own people, making clear many things difficult to explain in any other speech. They were erring men whom

suffer ing had made blind to right and wrong. It is true that lives had been lost already, but why lose more?

He declared to his hearers, the assembled heads of the people, that their welfare was his welfare, their losses

his losses, their mourning his mourning. He looked round at the grave listening faces and told them to

remember that they had fought and worked side by side. They knew his cour age . . . Here a murmur

interrupted him . . . And that he had never deceived them. For many years they had dwelt together. He loved

the land and the people living in it with a very great love. He was ready to answer with his life for any harm

that should come to them if the white men with beards were allowed to retire. They were evildoers, but their

destiny had been evil too. Had he ever advised them ill? Had his words ever brought suffering to the people?

he asked. He believed that it would be best to let these whites and their followers go with their lives. It would

be a small gift. "I whom you have tried and found always true ask you to let them go." He turned to Doramin.

The old nakhoda made no movement. "Then," said Jim, "call in Dain Waris, your son, my friend, for in this

'Tamb' Itam behind his chair was thunderstruck. The declar ation produced an immense sensation. "Let them

go because this is best in my knowledge, which has never deceived you," Jim insisted. There was a silence. In

the darkness of the courtyard could be heard the subdued whispering, shuffling noise of many people.

Doramin raised his heavy head and said that there was no more reading of hearts than touching the sky with

the hand, but he consented. The others gave their opinion in turn. "It is best," "Let them go," and so on.

'In this simple form of assent to his will lies the whole gist of the situation; their creed, his truth; and the

testimony to that faithful ness which made him in his own eyes the equal of the impeccable men who never

fall out of the ranks. Stein's words, "Romantic! Romantic!" seem to ring over those distances that will

never give him up now to a world indifferent to his failings and his virtues, and to that ardent and clinging

affection that refuses him the dole of tears in the bewilderment of a great grief and of eternal separ ation.

From the moment the sheer truthfulness of his last three years of life carries the day against the ignorance, the

fear, and the anger of men, he appears no longer to me as I saw him last a white speck catching all the dim

light left upon a sombre coast and the darkened seaf but greater and more pitiful in the loneliness of his

soul, that remains even for her who loved him best a cruel and insoluble mystery.

'It is evident that he did not mistrust Brown; there was no reason to doubt the story, whose truth seemed

warranted by the rough frankness, by a sort of virile sincerity in accepting the morality and the consequences

of his acts. But Jim did not know the almost inconceivable egotism of the man which made him, when

resisted and foiled in his will, mad with the indignant and revengeful rage of a thwarted autocrat. But if Jim

did not mistrust Brown, he was evidently anxious that some misunderstanding should not occur, ending

perhaps in collision and bloodshed. It was for this reason that directly the Malay chiefs had gone he asked

Jewel to get him something to eat, as he was going out of the fort to take command in the town. On her

remonstrating against this on the score of his fatigue, he said that something might happen for which he

would never forgive himself. "I am responsible for every life in the land," he said. He was moody at first; she

served him with her own hands, taking the plates and dishes (of the dinnerservice presented him by Stein)

from Tamb' Itam. He brightened up after a while; told her she would be again in command of the fort for

another night. "There's no sleep for us, old girl," he said, "while our people are in danger." Later on he said

jokingly that she was the best man of them all. "If you and Dain Waris had done what you wanted, not one of

these poor devils would be alive today." "Are they very bad?" she asked, leaning over his chair. "Men act

badly sometimes without being much worse than others," he said after some hesita tion.

'Tamb' Itam followed his master to the landingstage outside the fort. The night was clear but without a

moon, and the middle of the river was dark, while the water under each bank reflected the light of many fires

"as on a night of Ramadan," Tamb' Itam said. Warboats drifted silently in the dark lane or, anchored, floated

motionless with a loud ripple. That night there was much paddling in a canoe and walking at his master's

heels for Tamb' Itam: up and down the street they tramped, where the fires were burning, inland on the

outskirts of the town where small parties of men kept guard in the fields. Tuan Jim gave his orders and was

obeyed. Last of all they went to the Rajah's stockade, which a detachment of Jim's people manned on that

night. The old Rajah had fled early in the morning with most of his women to a small house he had near a

jungle village on a tributary stream. Kassim, left behind, had attended the council with his air of diligent

activity to explain away the diplomacy of the day before. He was considerably coldshoul dered, but

managed to preserve his smiling, quiet alertness, and professed himself highly delighted when Jim told him

sternly that he proposed to occupy the stockade on that night with his own men. After the council broke up he

was heard outside accosting this and that deputing chief, and speaking in a loud, gratified tone of the Rajah's

'About ten or so Jim's men marched in. The stockade com manded the mouth of the creek, and Jim meant to

remain there till Brown had passed below. A small fire was lit on the flat, grassy point outside the wall of

stakes, and Tamb' Itam placed a little foldingstool for his master. Jim told him to try and sleep. Tamb' Itam

got a mat and lay down a little way off; but he could not sleep, though he knew he had to go on an important

journey before the night was out. His master walked to and fro before the fire with bowed head and with his

hands behind his back. His face was sad. Whenever his master approached him Tamb' Itam pretended to

sleep, not wishing his master to know he had been watched. At last his master stood still, looking down on

'Tamb' Itam arose directly and made his preparations. His mis sion was to go down the river, preceding

Brown's boat by an hour or more, to tell Dain Waris finally and formally that the whites were to be allowed to

pass out unmolested. Jim would not trust anybody else with that service. Before starting, Tamb' Itam, more as

a matter of form (since his position about Jim made him perfectly known), asked for a token. "Because,

Tuan," he said, "the message is important, and these are thy very words I carry." His master first put his hand

into one pocket, then into another, and finally took off his forefinger Stein's silver ring, which he habitually

wore, and gave it to Tamb' Itam. When Tamb' Itam left on his mission, Brown's camp on the knoll was dark

but for a single small glow shining through the branches of one of the trees the white men had cut down.

'Early in the evening Brown had received from Jim a folded piece of paper on which was written, "You get

the clear road. Start as soon as your boat floats on the morning tide. Let your men be careful. The bushes on

both sides of the creek and the stockade at the mouth are full of wellarmed men. You would have no chance,

but I don't believe you want bloodshed." Brown read it, tore the paper into small pieces, and, turning to

Cornelius, who had brought it, said jeeringly, "Goodbye, my excellent friend." Cornelius had been in the

fort, and had been sneaking around Jim's house during the afternoon. Jim chose him to carry the note because

he could speak English, was known to Brown, and was not likely to be shot by some nervous mistake of one

'Cornelius didn't go away after delivering the paper. Brown was sitting up over a tiny fire; all the others were

lying down. "I could tell you something you would like to know," Cornelius mumbled crossly. Brown paid

no attention. "You did not kill him," went on the other, "and what do you get for it? You might have had

money from the Rajah, besides the loot of all the Bugis houses, and now you get nothing." "You had better

clear out from here," growled Brown, without even looking at him. But Cornelius let himself drop by his side

and began to whisper very fast, touching his elbow from time to time. What he had to say made Brown sit up

at first, with a curse. He had simply informed him of Dain Waris's armed party down the river. At first Brown

saw himself completely sold and betrayed, but a moment's reflection convinced him that there could be no

treachery intended. He said nothing, and after a while Corne lius remarked, in a tone of complete

indifference, that there was another way out of the river which he knew very well. "A good thing to know,

too," said Brown, pricking up his ears; and Corne lius began to talk of what went on in town and repeated

all that had been said in council, gossiping in an even undertone at Brown's ear as you talk amongst sleeping

men you do not wish to wake. "He thinks he has made me harmless, does he?" mumbled Brown very low....

"Yes. He is a fool. A little child. He came here and robbed me," droned on Cornelius, "and he made all the

people believe him. But if something happened that they did not believe him any more, where would he be?

And the Bugis Dain who is waiting for you down the river there, captain, is the very man who chased you up

here when you first came." Brown observed nonchalantly that it would be just as well to avoid him, and with

the same detached, musing air Cornelius declared himself acquainted with a backwater broad enough to take

Brown's boat past Waris's camp. "You will have to be quiet," he said as an afterthought, "for in one place we

pass close behind his camp. Very close. They are camped ashore with their boats hauled up." "Oh, we know

how to be as quiet as mice; never fear," said Brown. Cornelius stipulated that in case he were to pilot Brown

'It was two hours before the dawn when word was passed to the stockade from outlying watchers that the

white robbers were com ing down to their boat. In a very short time every armed man from one end of

Patusan to the other was on the alert, yet the banks of the river remained so silent that but for the fires burning

with sudden blurred flares the town might have been asleep as if in peace time. A heavy mist lay very low

on the water, making a sort of illusive grey light that showed nothing. When Brown's longboat glided out of

the creek into the river, Jim was standing on the low point of land before the Rajah's stockade on the very

spot where for the first time he put his foot on Patusan shore. A shadow loomed up, moving in the greyness,

solitary, very bulky, and yet constantly eluding the eye. A murmur of low talking came out of it. Brown at the

tiller heard Jim speak calmly: "A clear road. You had better trust to the current while the fog lasts; but this

'The thirty or forty men standing with muskets at ready outside the stockade held their breath. The Bugis

owner of the prau, whom I saw on Stein's verandah, and who was amongst them, told me that the boat,

shaving the low point close, seemed for a moment to grow big and hang over it like a mountain. "If you think

it worth your while to wait a day outside," called out Jim, "I'll try to send you down something a bullock,

some yams what I can." The shadow went on moving. "Yes. Do," said a voice, blank and muf fled out of

the fog. Not one of the many attentive listeners under stood what the words meant; and then Brown and his

'Thus Brown, invisible in the mist, goes out of Patusan elbow to elbow with Cornelius in the sternsheets of

the longboat. "Perhaps you shall get a small bullock," said Cornelius. "Oh yes. Bullock. Yam. You'll get it if

he said so. He always speaks the truth. He stole everything I had. I suppose you like a small bullock better

than the loot of many houses." "I would advise you to hold your tongue, or somebody here may fling you

overboard into this damned fog," said Brown. The boat seemed to be standing still; nothing could be seen, not

even the river alongside, only the waterdust flew and trickled, condensed, down their beards and faces. It

was weird, Brown told me. Every individual man of them felt as though he were adrift alone in a boat,

haunted by an almost imperceptible suspicion of sighing, muttering ghosts. "Throw me out, would you? But I

would know where I was," mumbled Cornelius surlily. "I've lived many years here." "Not long enough to see

through a fog like this," Brown said, lolling back with his arm swinging to and fro on the useless tiller. "Yes.

Long enough for that," snarled Cornelius. "That's very useful," commented Brown. "Am I to believe you

could find that backway you spoke of blindfold, like this?" Corne lius grunted. "Are you too tired to row?"

he asked after a silence. "No, by God!" shouted Brown suddenly. "Out with your oars there." There was a

great knocking in the fog, which after a while settled into a regular grind of invisible sweeps against invisible

tholepins. Otherwise nothing was changed, and but for the slight splash of a dipped blade it was like rowing

a balloon car in a cloud, said Brown. Thereafter Cornelius did not open his lips except to ask querulously for

somebody to bale out his canoe, which was towing behind the longboat. Gradually the fog whitened and

became luminous ahead. To the left Brown saw a darkness as though he had been looking at the back of the

deputing night. All at once a big bough covered with leaves appeared above his head, and ends of twigs,

dripping and still, curved slenderly close along side. Cornelius, without a word, took the tiller from his

'I don't think they spoke together again. The boat entered a narrow bychannel, where it was pushed by the

oarblades set into crumbling banks, and there was a gloom as if enormous black wings had been outspread

above the mist that filled its depth to the sum mits of the trees. The branches overhead showered big drops

through the gloomy fog. At a mutter from Cornelius, Brown ordered his men to load. "I'll give you a chance

to get even with them before we're done, you dismal cripples, you," he said to his gang. "Mind you don't

throw it away you hounds." Low growls answered that speech. Cornelius showed much fussy concern for

'Meantime Tamb' Itam had reached the end of his journey. The fog had delayed him a little, but he had

paddled steadily, keeping in touch with the south bank. Byandby daylight came like a glow in a ground

glass globe. The shores made on each side of the river a dark smudge, in which one could detect hints of

columnar forms and shadows of twisted branches high up. The mist was still thick on the water, but a good

watch was being kept, for as Iamb' Itam approached the camp the figures of two men emerged out of the

white vapour, and voices spoke to him boisterously. He answered, and presently a canoe lay alongside, and

he exchanged news with the paddlers. All was well. The trouble was over. Then the men in the canoe let go

their grip on the side of his dugout and incontin ently fell out of sight. He pursued his way till he heard

voices coming to him quietly over the water, and saw, under the now lifting, swirling mist, the glow of many

little fires burning on a sandy stretch, backed by lofty thin timber and bushes. There again a lookout was

kept, for he was challenged. He shouted his name as the two last sweeps of his paddle ran his canoe up on the

strand. It was a big camp. Men crouched in many little knots under a subdued murmur of early morning talk.

Many thin threads of smoke curled slowly on the white mist. Little shelters, elevated above the ground, had

been built for the chiefs. Muskets were stacked in small pyramids, and long spears were stuck singly into the

'Tamb' Itam, assuming an air of importance, demanded to be led to Dain Waris. He found the friend of his

white lord lying on a raised couch made of bamboo, and sheltered by a sort of shed of sticks covered with

mats. Dain Waris was awake, and a bright fire was burning before his sleepingplace, which resembled a

rude shrine. The only son of nakhoda Doramin answered his greeting kindly. Tamb' Itam began by handing

him the ring which vouched for the truth of the messenger's words. Dain Waris, reclining on his elbow, bade

him speak and tell all the news. Beginning with the consecrated formula, "The news is good," Tamb' Itam

delivered Jim's own words. The white men, deputing with the consent of all the chiefs, were to be allowed to

pass down the river. In unswer to a question or two Tamb' Itam then reported the proceedings of the last

council. Dain Waris listened attentively to the end, toying with the ring which ultimately he slipped on the

forefinger of his right hand. After hearing all he had to say he dismissed Tamb' Itam to have food and rest.

Orders for the return in the afternoon were given immediately. Afterwards Dain Waris lay down again, open

eyed, while his personal attendants were preparing his food at the fire, by which Tamb' Itam also sat talking

to the men who lounged up to hear the latest intelligence from the town. The sun was eating up the mist. A

good watch was kept upon the reach of the main stream where the boat of the whites was expected to appear

'It was then that Brown took his revenge upon the world which, after twenty years of contemptuous and

reckless bullying, refused him the tribute of a common robber's success. It was an act of coldblooded

ferocity, and it consoled him on his death bed like a memory of an indomitable defiance. Stealthily he

landed his men on the other side of the island opposite to the Bugis camp, and led them across. After a short

but quite silent scuffle, Cornelius, who had tried to slink away at the moment of landing, resigned himself to

show the way where the undergrowth was most sparse. Brown held both his skinny hands together behind his

back in the grip of one vast fist, and now and then impelled him forward with a fierce push. Cornelius

remained as mute as a fish, abject but faithful to his purpose, whose accomplishment loomed before him

dimly. At the edge of the patch of forest Brown's men spread themselves out in cover and waited. The camp

was plain from end to end before their eyes, and no one looked their way. Nobody even dreamed that the

white men could have any knowledge of the narrow channel at the back of the island. When he judged the

moment come, Brown yelled, "Let them have it," and fourteen shots rang out like one.

'Tamb' Itam told me the surprise was so great that, except for those who fell dead or wounded, not a soul of

them moved for quite an appreciable time after the first discharge. Then a man screamed, and after that

scream a great yell of amazement and fear went up from all the throats. A blind panic drove these men in a

surging swaying mob to and fro along the shore like a herd of cattle afraid of the water. Some few jumped

into the river then, but most of them did so only after the last discharge. Three times Brown's men fired into

'Tamb' Itam says that, as for him, he understood at the first volley what had happened. Though untouched he

fell down and lay as if dead, but with his eyes open. At the sound of the first shots Dain Waris, reclining on

the couch, jumped up and ran out upon the open shore, just in time to receive a bullet in his forehead at the

second discharge. Tamb' Itam saw him fling his arms wide open before he fell. Then, he says, a great fear

'Thus Brown balanced his account with the evil fortune. Notice that even in this awful outbreak there is a

superiority as of a man who carries right the abstract thing within the envelope of his common desires.

It was not a vulgar and treacherous massacre; it was a lesson, a retribution a demonstration of some

obscure and awful attribute of our nature which, I am afraid, is not so very far under the surface as we like to

'Afterwards the whites depart unseen by Tamb' Itam, and seem to vanish from before men's eyes altogether;

and the schooner, too, vanishes after the manner of stolen goods. But a story is told of a white longboat

picked up a month later in the Indian Ocean by a cargo steamer. Two parched, yellow, glassyeyed,

whispering skel etons in her recognised the authority of a third, who declared that his name was Brown. His

schooner, he reported, bound south with a cargo of Java sugar, had sprung a bad leak and sank under his feet.

He and his companions were the survivors of a crew of six. The two died on board the steamer which rescued

them. Brown lived to be seen by me, and I can testify that he had played his part to the last.

'It seems, however, that in going away they had neglected to cast off Cornelius's canoe. Cornelius himself

Brown had let go at the beginning of the shooting, with a kick for a parting benediction. Tamb' Itam, after

arising from amongst the dead, saw the Nazarene running up and down the shore amongst the corpses and the

expir ing fires. He uttered little cries. Suddenly he rushed to the water, and made frantic efforts to get one of

the Bugis boats into the water. "Afterwards, till he had seen me," related Tamb' Itam, "he stood looking at the

heavy canoe and scratching his head." "What became of him?" I asked. Tamb' Itam, staring hard at me, made

an express ive gesture with his right arm. "Twice I struck, Tuan," he said. "When he beheld me approaching

he cast himself violently on the ground and made a great outcry, kicking. He screeched like a fright ened

hen till he felt the point; then he was still, und lay staring at me while his life went out of his eyes."

'This done, Tamb' Itam did not tarry. He understood the import ance of being the first with the awful news

at the fort. There were, of course, many survivors of Dain Waris's party; but in the extremity of panic some

had swum across the river, others had bolted into the bush. The fact is that they did not know really who

struck that blow whether more white robbers were not coming, whether they had not already got hold of

the whole land. They imagined themselves to be the victims of a vast treachery, and utterly doomed to

destruction. It is said that some small parties did not come in till three days afterwards. However, a few tried

to make their way back to Patusan at once, and one of the canoes that were patrolling the river that morning

was in sight of the camp at the very moment of the attack. It is true that at first the men in her leaped

overboard and swam to the opposite bank, but afterwards they returned to their boat and started fearfully

'When Tamb' Itam, paddling madly, came into the townreach, the women, thronging the platforms before

the houses, were look ing out for the return of Dain Waris's little fleet of boats. The town had a festive air;

here and there men, still with spears or guns in their hands, could be seen moving or standing on the shore in

groups. Chinamen's shops had been opened early; but the market place was empty, and a sentry, still posted

at the corner of the fort, made out Tamb' Itam, and shouted to those within. The gate was wide open. Tamb'

Itam jumped ashore and ran in headlong. The first person he met was the girl coming down from the house.

'Tamb' Itam, disordered, panting, with trembling lips and wild eyes, stood for a time before her as if a sudden

spell had been laid on him. Then he broke out very quickly: "They have killed Dain Waris and many more."

She clapped her hands, and her first words were, "Shut the gates." Most of the fortmen had gone back to their

houses, but Tamb' Itam hurried on the few who remained for their turn of duty within. The girl stood in the

middle of the courtyard while the others ran about. "Doramin," she cried despairingly as Tamb' Itam passed

her. Next time he went by he answered her thought rapidly, "Yes. But we have all the powder in Patusan."

She caught him by the arm, and, pointing at the house, "Call him out," she whispered, trembling.

'Tamb' Itam ran up the steps. His master was sleeping. "It is I, Tamb' Itam," he cried at the door, "with tidings

that cannot wait." He saw Jim turn over on the pillow and open his eyes, and he burst out at once. "This,

Tuan, is a day of evil, an accursed day." His master raised himself on his elbow to listen just as Dain

Waris had done. And then Tamb' Itam began his tale, trying to relate the story in order, calling Dain Waris

Panglima, and saying: "The Panglima then called out to the chief of his own boatmen, 'Give Tamb' Itam

something to eat' " when his master put his feet to the ground and looked at him with such a discomposed

' "Speak out," said Jim. "Is he dead?" "May you live long," cried Tamb' Itam. "It was a most cruel treachery.

He ran out at the first shots and fell." . . . His master walked to the window and with his fist struck at the

shutter. The room was made light; and then in a steady voice, but speaking fast, he began to give him orders

to assemble a fleet of boats for immediate pursuit, go to this man, to the other send messengers; and as he

talked he sat down on the bed, stooping to lace his boots hurriedly, and suddenly looked up. "Why do you

stand here?" he asked very redfaced. "Waste no time." Tamb' Itam did not move. "Forgive me, Tuan, but . . .

but," he began to stummer. "What?" cried his master aloud, look ing terrible, leaning forward with his hands

gripping the edge of the bed. "It is not safe for thy servant to go out amongst the people," said Tamb' Itam,

'Then Jim understood. He had retreated from one world, for a small matter of an impulsive jump, and now the

other, the work of his own hands, had fallen in ruins upon his head. It was not safe for his servant to go out

amongst his own people! I believe that in that very moment he had decided to defy the disaster in the only

way it occurred to him such a disaster could be defied; but all I know is that, without a word, he came out of

his room and sat before the long table, at the head of which he was accustomed to regulate the affairs of his

world, proclaiming daily the truth that surely lived in his heart. The dark powers should not rob him twice of

his peace. He sat like a stone figure. Tamb' Itam, deferential, hinted at preparations for defence. The girl he

loved came in and spoke to him, but he made a sign with his hand, and she was awed by the dumb appeal for

silence in it. She went out on the verandah and sat on the threshold, as if to guard him with her body from

'What thoughts passed through his head what memories? Who can tell? Everything was gone, and he who

had been once unfaithful to his trust had lost again all men's confidence. It was then, I believe, he tried to

write to somebody and gave it up. Loneliness was closing on him. People had trusted him with their

lives only for that; and yet they could never, as he had said, never be made to understand him. Those

without did not hear him make a sound. Later, towards the evening, he came to the door and called for Tamb'

Itam. "Well?" he asked. "There is much weeping. Much anger too," said Tamb' Itam. Jim looked up at him.

"You know," he murmured. "Yes, Tuan," said Tamb' Itam. "Thy servant does know, and the gates are closed.

We shall have to fight." "Fight! What for?" he asked. "For our lives." "I have no life," he said. Tamb' Itam

heard a cry from the girl at the door. "Who knows?" said Tamb' Itam. "By audacity and cunning we may even

escape. There is much fear in men's hearts too." He went out, thinking vaguely of boats and of open sea,

'I haven't the heart to set down here such glimpses as she had given me of the hour or more she passed in

there wrestling with him for the possession of her happiness. Whether he had any hope what he expected,

what he imagined it is impossible to say. He was inflexible, and with the growing loneliness of his

obstinacy his spirit seemed to rise above the ruins of his existence. She cried "Fight!" into his ear. She could

not understand. There was nothing to fight for. He was going to prove his power in another way and conquer

the fatal destiny itself. He came out into the courtyard, and behind him, with streaming hair, wild of face,

breathless, she staggered out and leaned on the side of the doorway. "Open the gates," he ordered.

Afterwards, turning to those of his men who were inside, he gave them leave to depart to their homes. "For

how long, Tuan?" asked one of them timidly. "For all life," he said, in a sombre tone.

'A hush had fallen upon the town after the outburst of wailing and lamentation that had swept over the river,

like a gust of wind from the opened abode of sorrow. But rumours flew in whispers, filling the hearts with

consternation and horrible doubts. The rob bers were coming back, bringing many others with them, in a

great ship, and there would be no refuge in the land for any one. A sense of utter insecurity as during an

earthquake pervaded the minds of men, who whispered their suspicions, looking at each other as if in the

'The sun was sinking towards the forests when Dain Waris's body was brought into Doramin's campong. Four

men carried it in, covered decently with a white sheet which the old mother had sent out down to the gate to

meet her son on his return. They laid him at Doramin's feet, and the old man sat still for a long time, one hand

on each knee, looking down. The fronds of palms swayed gently, and the foliage of fruit trees stirred above

his head. Every single man of his people was there, fully armed, when the old nak hoda at last raised his

eyes. He moved them slowly over the crowd, as if seeking for a missing face. Again his chin sank on his

breast. The whispers of many men mingled with the slight rustling of the leaves.

'The Malay who had brought Tamb' Itam and the girl to Sama rang was there too. "Not so angry as many,"

he said to me, but struck with a great awe and wonder at the "suddenness of men's fate, which hangs over

their heads like a cloud charged with thun der." He told me that when Dain Waris's body was uncovered at a

sign of Doramin's, he whom they often called the white lord's friend was disclosed lying unchanged with his

eyelids a little open as if about to wake. Doramin leaned forward a little more, like one looking for something

fallen on the ground. His eyes searched the body from its feet to its head, for the wound maybe. It was in the

forehead and small; and there was no word spoken while one of the bystanders, stooping, took off the silver

ring from the cold stiff hand. In silence he held it up before Doramin. A murmur of dismay and horror ran

through the crowd at the sight of that familiar token. The old nakhoda stared at it, and suddenly let out one

great fierce cry, deep from the chest, a roar of pain und fury, as mighty as the bellow of a wounded bull,

bringing great fear into men's hearts, by the magnitude of his anger and his sorrow that could be plainly

discerned without words. There was a great stillness afterwards for a space, while the body was being borne

aside by four men. They laid it down under a tree, and on the instant, with one long shriek, all the women of

the household began to wail together; they mourned with shrill cries; the sun was setting, and in the intervals

of screamed lamentations the high singsong voices of two old men intoning the Koran chanted alone.

'About this time Jim, leaning on a guncarriage, looked at the river, and turned his back on the house; and the

girl, in the door way, panting as if she had run herself to a standstill, was looking at him across the yard.

Tamb' Itam stood not far from his master, waiting patiendy for what might happen. All at once Jim, who

seemed to be lost in quiet thought, turned to him and said, "Time to finish this."

' "Tuan?" said Tamb' Itam, advancing with alacrity. He did not know what his master meant, but as soon as

Jim made a movement the girl started too and walked down into the open space. It seems that no one else of

the people of the house was in sight. She tottered slightly, and about halfway down called out to Jim, who

had appar ently resumed his peaceful contemplation of the river. He turned round, setting his back against

the gun. "Will you fight?" she cried. "There is nothing to fight for," he said; "nothing is lost." Saying this he

made a step towards her. "Will you fly?" she cried again. "There is no escape," he said, stopping short, and

she stood still also, silent, devouring him with her eyes. "And you shall go?" she said slowly. He bent his

head. "Ah!" she exclaimed, peering at him as it were, "you are mad or false. Do you remember the night I

prayed you to leave me, and you said that you could not? That it was impossible! Impossible! Do you

remember you said you would never leave me? Why? I asked you for no promise. You promised unasked

'Tamb' Itam said that while they were talking she would laugh loud and senselessly like one under the

visitation of God. His master put his hands to his head. He was fully dressed as for every day, but without a

hat. She stopped laughing suddenly. "For the last time," she cried menacindy, "will you defend yourself?"

"Nothing can touch me," he said in a last flicker of superb egoism. Tamb' Itam saw her lean forward where

she stood, open her arms, and run at him swiftly. She flung herself upon his breast and clasped him round the

'She sobbed on his shoulder. The sky over Patusan was blood red, immense, streaming like an open vein. An

enormous sun nestled crimson amongst the treetops, and the forest below had a black and forbidding face.

'Tamb' Itam tells me that on that evening the aspect of the heavens was angry and frightful. I may well

believe it, for I know that on that very day a cyclone passed within sixty miles of the coast, though there was

'Suddenly Tamb' Itam saw Jim catch her arms, trying to unclasp her hands. She hung on them with her head

fallen back; her hair touched the ground. "Come here!" his master called, and Tamb' Itam helped to ease her

down. It was difficult to separate her fingers. Jim, bending over her, looked earnestly upon her face, and all at

once ran to the landingstage. Tamb' Itam followed him, but turning his head, he saw that she had struggled

up to her feet. She ran after them a few steps, then fell down heavily on her knees. "Tuan! Tuan!" called

Tamb' Itam, "look back;" but Jim was already in a canoe, standing up paddle in hand. He did not look back.

Tamb' Itam had just time to scramble in after him when the canoe floated clear. The girl was then on her

knees, with clasped hands, at the watergate. She remained thus for a time in a supplicating attitude before

she sprang up. "You are false!" she screamed out after Jim. "Forgive me," he cried. "Never! Never!" she

'Tamb' Itam took the paddle from Jim's hands, it being unseemly that he should sit while his lord paddled.

When they reached the other shore his master forbade him to come any farther; but Tamb' Itam did follow

'It was beginning to grow dark. Torches twinkled here and there. Those they met seemed awestruck, and

stood aside hastily to let Jim pass. The wailing of women came from above. The courtyard was full of armed

'I do not know what this gathering really meant. Were these preparations for war, or for vengeance, or to

repulse a threatened invasion? Many days elapsed before the people had ceased to look out, quaking, for the

return of the white men with long beards and in rags, whose exact relation to their own white man they could

'Doramin, alone! immense and desolate, sat in his armchair with the pair of flintlock pistols on his knees,

faced by a armed throng. When Jim appeared, at somebody's exclamation, all the heads turned round

together, and then the mass opened right and left, and he walked up a lane of averted glances. Whispers

followed him; murmurs: "He has worked all the evil." "He hath a charm." . . . He heard them perhaps!

'When he came up into the light of torches the wailing of the women ceased suddenly. Doramin did not lift

his head, and Jim stood silent before him for a time. Then he looked to the left, and moved in that direction

with measured steps. Dain Waris's mother crouched at the head of the body, and the grey dishevelled hair

concealed her face. Jim came up slowly, looked at his dead friend, lifting the sheet, than dropped it without a

' "He came! He came!" was running from lip to lip, making a murmur to which he moved. "He hath taken it

upon his own head," a voice said aloud. He heard this and turned to the crowd. "Yes. Upon my head." A few

people recoiled. Jim waited awhile before Doramin, and then said gently, "I am come in sorrow." He waited

'The unwieldy old man, lowering his big forehead like an ox under a yoke, made an effort to rise, clutching at

the flintlock pistols on his knees. From his throat came gurgling, choking, inhuman sounds, and his two

attendants helped him from behind. People remarked that the ring which he had dropped on his lap fell and

rolled against the foot of the white man, and that poor Jim glanced down at the talisman that had opened for

him the door of fame, love, and success within the wall of forests fringed with white foam, within the coast

that under the western sun looks like the very stronghold of the night. Doramin, struggling to keep his feet,

made with his two supporters a swaying, tottering group; his little eyes stared with an expression of mad pain,

of rage, with a ferocious glitter, which the bystanders noticed; and then, while Jim stood stiffened and with

bared head in the light of torches, looking him straight in the face, he clung heavily with his left arm round

the neck of a bowed youth, and lifting deliberately his right, shot his son's friend through the chest.

'The crowd, which had fallen apart behind Jim as soon as Dora min had raised his hand, rushed

tumultuously forward after the shot. They say that the white man sent right and left at all those faces a proud

'And that's the end. He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively

romantic. Not in the wildest days of his boyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an

extraordinary success! For it may very well be that in the short moment of his last proud and unflinching

glance, he had beheld the face of that opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his side.

'But we can see him, an obscure conqueror of fame, tearing him self out of the arms of a jealous love at the

sign, at the call of his exalted egoism. He goes away from a living woman to celebrate his pitiless wedding

with a shadowy ideal of conduct. Is he satisfied quite, now, I wonder? We ought to know. He is one of us

and have I not stood up once, like an evoked ghost, to answer for his eternal constancy? Was I so very

wrong after all? Now he is no more, there are days when the reality of his existence comes to me with an

immense, with an overwhelming force; and yet upon my honour there are moments too when he passes from

my eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions of this earth, ready to surrender himself

'Who knows? He is gone, inscrutable at heart, and the poor girl is leading a sort of soundless, inert life in

Stein's house. Stein has aged greatly of late. He feels it himself, and says often that he is "preparing to leave

all this; preparing to leave . . ." while he waves his hand sadly at his butterflies.'