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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1817-0.txt b/1817-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4c44a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/1817-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1109 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s A Question of Latitude, by Richard Harding Davis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Question of Latitude + +Author: Richard Harding Davis + +Release Date: May 12, 2006 [EBook #1817] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A QUESTION OF LATITUDE *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson + + + + + +A QUESTION OF LATITUDE + + +By Richard Harding Davis + + + +Of the school of earnest young writers at whom the word muckraker had +been thrown in opprobrium, and by whom it had been caught up as a title +of honor, Everett was among the younger and less conspicuous. But, if +in his skirmishes with graft and corruption he had failed to correct the +evils he attacked, from the contests he himself had always emerged with +credit. His sincerity and his methods were above suspicion. No one +had caught him in misstatement, or exaggeration. Even those whom he +attacked, admitted he fought fair. For these reasons, the editors of +magazines, with the fear of libel before their eyes, regarded him as a +“safe” man, the public, feeling that the evils he exposed were due +to its own indifference, with uncomfortable approval, and those he +attacked, with impotent anger. Their anger was impotent because, in the +case of Everett, the weapons used by their class in “striking back” + were denied them. They could not say that for money he sold sensations, +because it was known that a proud and wealthy parent supplied him +with all the money he wanted. Nor in his private life could they find +anything to offset his attacks upon the misconduct of others. Men had +been sent to spy upon him, and women to lay traps. But the men reported +that his evenings were spent at his club, and, from the women, those who +sent them learned only that Everett “treats a lady just as though she IS +a lady.” + +Accordingly, when, with much trumpeting, he departed to investigate +conditions in the Congo, there were some who rejoiced. + +The standard of life to which Everett was accustomed was high. In his +home in Boston it had been set for him by a father and mother who, +though critics rather than workers in the world, had taught him to +despise what was mean and ungenerous, to write the truth and abhor a +compromise. At Harvard he had interested himself in municipal reform, +and when later he moved to New York, he transferred his interest to +the problems of that city. His attack upon Tammany Hall did not utterly +destroy that organization, but at once brought him to the notice of +the editors. By them he was invited to tilt his lance at evils in +other parts of the United States, at “systems,” trusts, convict camps, +municipal misrule. His work had met with a measure of success that +seemed to justify Lowell’s Weekly in sending him further afield, and +he now was on his way to tell the truth about the Congo. Personally, +Everett was a healthy, clean-minded enthusiast. He possessed all of the +advantages of youth, and all of its intolerance. He was supposed to be +engaged to Florence Carey, but he was not. There was, however, between +them an “understanding,” which understanding, as Everett understood it, +meant that until she was ready to say, “I am ready,” he was to think of +her, dream of her, write love-letters to her, and keep himself only for +her. He loved her very dearly, and, having no choice, was content to +wait. His content was fortunate, as Miss Carey seemed inclined to keep +him waiting indefinitely. + +Except in Europe, Everett had never travelled outside the limits of +his own country. But the new land toward which he was advancing held no +terrors. As he understood it, the Congo was at the mercy of a corrupt +“ring.” In every part of the United States he had found a city in the +clutch of a corrupt ring. The conditions would be the same, the methods +he would use to get at the truth would be the same, the result for +reform would be the same. + +The English steamer on which he sailed for Southampton was one leased +by the Independent State of the Congo, and, with a few exceptions, her +passengers were subjects of King Leopold. On board, the language was +French, at table the men sat according to the rank they held in the +administration of the jungle, and each in his buttonhole wore the tiny +silver star that showed that for three years, to fill the storehouses +of the King of the Belgians, he had gathered rubber and ivory. In the +smoking-room Everett soon discovered that passengers not in the service +of that king, the English and German officers and traders, held aloof +from the Belgians. Their attitude toward them seemed to be one partly of +contempt, partly of pity. + +“Are your English protectorates on the coast, then, so much better +administered?” Everett asked. + +The English Coaster, who for ten years in Nigeria had escaped fever and +sudden death, laughed evasively. + +“I have never been in the Congo,” he said. “Only know what they tell +one. But you’ll see for yourself. That is,” he added, “you’ll see what +they want you to see.” + +They were leaning on the rail, with their eyes turned toward the +coast of Liberia, a gloomy green line against which the waves cast +up fountains of foam as high as the cocoanut palms. As a subject of +discussion, the coaster seemed anxious to avoid the Congo. + +“It was there,” he said, pointing, “the Three Castles struck on the +rocks. She was a total loss. So were her passengers,” he added. “They +ate them.” + +Everett gazed suspiciously at the unmoved face of the veteran. + +“WHO ate them?” he asked guardedly. “Sharks?” + +“The natives that live back of that shore-line in the lagoons.” + +Everett laughed with the assurance of one for whom a trap had been laid +and who had cleverly avoided it. + +“Cannibals,” he mocked. “Cannibals went out of date with pirates. But +perhaps,” he added apologetically, “this happened some years ago?” + +“Happened last month,” said the trader. + +“But Liberia is a perfectly good republic,” protested Everett. “The +blacks there may not be as far advanced as in your colonies, but they’re +not cannibals.” + +“Monrovia is a very small part of Liberia,” said the trader dryly. “And +none of these protectorates, or crown colonies, on this coast pretends +to control much of the Hinterland. There is Sierra Leone, for instance, +about the oldest of them. Last year the governor celebrated the +hundredth anniversary of the year the British abolished slavery. They +had parades and tea-fights, and all the blacks were in the street in +straw hats with cricket ribbons, thanking God they were not as other men +are, not slaves like their grandfathers. Well, just at the height of the +jubilation, the tribes within twenty miles of the town sent in to say +that they, also, were holding a palaver, and it was to mark the fact +that they NEVER had been slaves and never would be, and, if the governor +doubted it, to send out his fighting men and they’d prove it. It cast +quite a gloom over the celebration.” + +“Do you mean that only twenty miles from the coast--” began Everett. + +“TEN miles,” said the Coaster, “wait till you see Calabar. That’s our +Exhibit A. The cleanest, best administered. Everything there is model: +hospitals, barracks, golf links. Last year, ten miles from Calabar, Dr. +Stewart rode his bicycle into a native village. The king tortured him +six days, cut him up, and sent pieces of him to fifty villages with the +message: ‘You eat each other. WE eat white chop.’ That was ten miles +from our model barracks.” + +For some moments the muckraker considered the statement thoughtfully. + +“You mean,” he inquired, “that the atrocities are not all on the side of +the white men?” + +“Atrocities?” exclaimed the trader. “I wasn’t talking of atrocities. Are +you looking for them?” + +“I’m not running away from them,” laughed Everett. “Lowell’s Weekly is +sending me to the Congo to find out the truth, and to try to help put an +end to them.” + +In his turn the trader considered the statement carefully. + +“Among the natives,” he explained, painstakingly picking each word, +“what you call ‘atrocities’ are customs of warfare, forms of punishment. +When they go to war they EXPECT to be tortured; they KNOW, if they’re +killed, they’ll be eaten. The white man comes here and finds these +customs have existed for centuries. He adopts them, because--” + +“One moment!” interrupted Everett warmly. “That does not excuse HIM. +The point is, that with him they have NOT existed. To him they should be +against his conscience, indecent, horrible! He has a greater knowledge, +a much higher intelligence; he should lift the native, not sink to him.” + +The Coaster took his pipe from his mouth, and twice opened his lips to +speak. Finally, he blew the smoke into the air, and shook his head. + +“What’s the use!” he exclaimed. + +“Try,” laughed Everett. “Maybe I’m not as unintelligent as I talk.” + +“You must get this right,” protested the Coaster. “It doesn’t matter +a damn what a man BRINGS here, what his training WAS, what HE IS. The +thing is too strong for him.” + +“What thing?” + +“That!” said the Coaster. He threw out his arm at the brooding +mountains, the dark lagoons, the glaring coast-line against which the +waves shot into the air with the shock and roar of twelve-inch guns. + +“The first white man came to Sierra Leone five hundred years before +Christ,” said the Coaster. “And, in twenty-two hundred years, he’s got +just twenty miles inland. The native didn’t need forts, or a navy, to +stop him. He had three allies: those waves, the fever, and the sun. +Especially the sun. The black man goes bare-headed, and the sun lets him +pass. The white man covers his head with an inch of cork, and the sun +strikes through it and kills him. When Jameson came down the river from +Yambuya, the natives fired on his boat. He waved his helmet at them for +three minutes, to show them there was a white man in the canoe. Three +minutes was all the sun wanted. Jameson died in two days. Where you are +going, the sun does worse things to a man than kill him: it drives him +mad. It keeps the fear of death in his heart; and THAT takes away his +nerve and his sense of proportion. He flies into murderous fits, over +silly, imaginary slights; he grows morbid, suspicious, he becomes a +coward, and because he is a coward with authority, he becomes a bully. + +“He is alone, we will suppose, at a station three hundred miles from +any other white man. One morning his house-boy spills a cup of coffee on +him, and in a rage he half kills the boy. He broods over that, until he +discovers, or his crazy mind makes him think he has discovered, that +in revenge the boy is plotting to poison him. So he punishes him again. +Only this time he punishes him as the black man has taught him to +punish, in the only way the black man seems to understand; that is, he +tortures him. From that moment the fall of that man is rapid. The heat, +the loneliness, the fever, the fear of the black faces, keep him on +edge, rob him of sleep, rob him of his physical strength, of his moral +strength. He loses shame, loses reason; becomes cruel, weak, degenerate. +He invents new, bestial tortures; commits new, unspeakable ‘atrocities,’ +until, one day, the natives turn and kill him, or he sticks his gun in +his mouth and blows the top of his head off.” + +The Coaster smiled tolerantly at the wide-eyed eager young man at his +side. + +“And you,” he mocked, “think you can reform that man, and that hell +above ground called the Congo, with an article in Lowell’s Weekly?” + +Undismayed, Everett grinned cheerfully. + +“That’s what I’m here for!” he said. + +By the time Everett reached the mouth of the Congo, he had learned that +in everything he must depend upon himself; that he would be accepted +only as the kind of man that, at the moment, he showed himself to be. +This attitude of independence was not chosen, but forced on him by the +men with whom he came in contact. Associations and traditions, that in +every part of the United States had served as letters of introduction, +and enabled strangers to identify and label him, were to the white men +on the steamer and at the ports of call without meaning or value. That +he was an Everett of Boston conveyed little to those who had not heard +even of Boston. That he was the correspondent of Lowell’s Weekly meant +less to those who did not know that Lowell’s Weekly existed. And when, +in confusion, he proffered his letter of credit, the very fact that it +called for a thousand pounds was, in the eyes of a “Palm Oil Ruffian,” + sufficient evidence that it had been forged or stolen. He soon saw that +solely as a white man was he accepted and made welcome. That he was +respectable, few believed, and no one cared. To be taken at his face +value, to be refused at the start the benefit of the doubt, was a novel +sensation; and yet not unpleasant. It was a relief not to be accepted +only as Everett the Muckraker, as a professional reformer, as one holier +than others. It afforded his soul the same relaxation that his body +received when, in his shirt-sleeves in the sweltering smoking-room, he +drank beer with a chef de poste who had been thrice tried for murder. + +Not only to every one was he a stranger, but to him everything was +strange; so strange as to appear unreal. This did not prevent him from +at once recognizing those things that were not strange, such as corrupt +officials, incompetence, mismanagement. He did not need the missionaries +to point out to him that the Independent State of the Congo was not +a colony administered for the benefit of many, but a vast rubber +plantation worked by slaves to fill the pockets of one man. It was not +in his work that Everett found himself confused. It was in his attitude +of mind toward almost every other question. + +At first, when he could not make everything fit his rule of thumb, he +excused the country tolerantly as a “topsy-turvy” land. He wished to +move and act quickly; to make others move quickly. He did not understand +that men who had sentenced themselves to exile for the official term +of three years, or for life, measured time only by the date of their +release. When he learned that even a cablegram could not reach his home +in less than eighteen days, that the missionaries to whom he brought +letters were a three months’ journey from the coast and from each other, +his impatience was chastened to wonder, and, later, to awe. + +His education began at Matadi, where he waited until the river steamer +was ready to start for Leopoldville. Of the two places he was assured +Matadi was the better, for the reason that if you still were in favor +with the steward of the ship that brought you south, he might sell you a +piece of ice. + +Matadi was a great rock, blazing with heat. Its narrow, perpendicular +paths seemed to run with burning lava. Its top, the main square of the +settlement, was of baked clay, beaten hard by thousands of naked feet. +Crossing it by day was an adventure. The air that swept it was the +breath of a blast-furnace. + +Everett found a room over the shop of a Portuguese trader. It was caked +with dirt, and smelled of unnamed diseases and chloride of lime. In it +was a canvas cot, a roll of evil-looking bedding, a wash-basin filled +with the stumps of cigarettes. In a corner was a tin chop-box, which +Everett asked to have removed. It belonged, the landlord told him, to +the man who, two nights before, had occupied the cot and who had died +in it. Everett was anxious to learn of what he had died. Apparently +surprised at the question, the Portuguese shrugged his shoulders. + +“Who knows?” he exclaimed. The next morning the English trader across +the street assured Everett there was no occasion for alarm. “He didn’t +die of any disease,” he explained. “Somebody got at him from the +balcony, while he was in his cot, and knifed him.” + +The English trader was a young man, a cockney, named Upsher. At home he +had been a steward on the Channel steamers. Everett made him his most +intimate friend. He had a black wife, who spent most of her day in a +four-post bed, hung with lace curtains and blue ribbon, in which she +resembled a baby hippopotamus wallowing in a bank of white sand. + +At first the black woman was a shock to Everett, but after Upsher +dismissed her indifferently as a “good old sort,” and spent one evening +blubbering over a photograph of his wife and “kiddie” at home, Everett +accepted her. His excuse for this was that men who knew they might die +on the morrow must not be judged by what they do to-day. The excuse did +not ring sound, but he dismissed the doubt by deciding that in such heat +it was not possible to take serious questions seriously. In the fact +that, to those about him, the thought of death was ever present, he +found further excuse for much else that puzzled and shocked him. At +home, death had been a contingency so remote that he had put it aside as +something he need not consider until he was a grandfather. At Matadi, +at every moment of the day, in each trifling act, he found death must be +faced, conciliated, conquered. At home he might ask himself, “If I eat +this will it give me indigestion?” At Matadi he asked, “If I drink this +will I die?” + +Upsher told him of a feud then existing between the chief of police and +an Italian doctor in the State service. Interested in the outcome only +as a sporting proposition, Upsher declared the odds were unfair, because +the Belgian was using his black police to act as his body-guard while +for protection the Italian could depend only upon his sword-cane. Each +night, with the other white exiles of Matadi, the two adversaries met +in the Cafe Franco-Belge. There, with puzzled interest, Everett watched +them sitting at separate tables, surrounded by mutual friends, excitedly +playing dominoes. Outside the cafe, Matadi lay smothered and sweltering +in a black, living darkness, and, save for the rush of the river, in +a silence that continued unbroken across a jungle as wide as Europe. +Inside the dominoes clicked, the glasses rang on the iron tables, the +oil lamps glared upon the pallid, sweating faces of clerks, upon the +tanned, sweating skins of officers; and the Italian doctor and the +Belgian lieutenant, each with murder in his heart, laughed, shrugged, +gesticulated, waiting for the moment to strike. + +“But why doesn’t some one DO something?” demanded Everett. “Arrest them, +or reason with them. Everybody knows about it. It seems a pity not to DO +something.” + +Upsher nodded his head. Dimly he recognized a language with which he +once had been familiar. “I know what you mean,” he agreed. “Bind ‘em +over to keep the peace. And a good job, too! But who?” he demanded +vaguely. “That’s what I say! Who?” From the confusion into which +Everett’s appeal to forgotten memories had thrown it, his mind suddenly +emerged. “But what’s the use!” he demanded. “Don’t you see,” he +explained triumphantly, “if those two crazy men were fit to listen to +SENSE, they’d have sense enough not to kill each other!” + +Each succeeding evening Everett watched the two potential murderers with +lessening interest. He even made a bet with Upsher, of a bottle of fruit +salt, that the chief of police would be the one to die. + +A few nights later a man, groaning beneath his balcony, disturbed his +slumbers. He cursed the man, and turned his pillow to find the cooler +side. But all through the night the groans, though fainter, broke into +his dreams. At intervals some traditions of past conduct tugged at +Everett’s sleeve, and bade him rise and play the good Samaritan. +But, indignantly, he repulsed them. Were there not many others within +hearing? Were there not the police? Was it HIS place to bind the wounds +of drunken stokers? The groans were probably a trick, to entice him, +unarmed, into the night. And so, just before the dawn, when the mists +rose, and the groans ceased, Everett, still arguing, sank with a +contented sigh into forgetfulness. + +When he woke, there was beneath his window much monkey-like chattering, +and he looked down into the white face and glazed eyes of the +Italian doctor, lying in the gutter and staring up at him. Below his +shoulder-blades a pool of blood shone evilly in the blatant sunlight. + +Across the street, on his balcony, Upsher, in pajamas and mosquito +boots, was shivering with fever and stifling a yawn. “You lose!” he +called. + +Later in the day, Everett analyzed his conduct of the night previous. +“At home,” he told Upsher, “I would have been telephoning for an +ambulance, or been out in the street giving the man the ‘first-aid’ +drill. But living as we do here, so close to death, we see things more +clearly. Death loses its importance. It’s a bromide,” he added. “But +travel certainly broadens one. Every day I have been in the Congo, I +have been assimilating new ideas.” Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. +An older man could have told Everett that he was assimilating just as +much of the Congo as the rabbit assimilates of the boa-constrictor, that +first smothers it with saliva and then swallows it. + +Everett started up the Congo in a small steamer open on all sides to the +sun and rain, and with a paddle-wheel astern that kicked her forward at +the rate of four miles an hour. Once every day, the boat tied up to a +tree and took on wood to feed her furnace, and Everett talked to the +white man in charge of the wood post, or, if, as it generally happened, +the white man was on his back with fever, dosed him with quinine. On +board, except for her captain, and a Finn who acted as engineer, Everett +was the only other white man. The black crew and “wood-boys” he soon +disliked intensely. At first, when Nansen, the Danish captain, and the +Finn struck them, because they were in the way, or because they were +not, Everett winced, and made a note of it. But later he decided the +blacks were insolent, sullen, ungrateful; that a blow did them no harm. + +According to the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the war, in +his own country, had owned slaves, those of the “Southland” were +always content, always happy. When not singing close harmony in the +cotton-fields, they danced upon the levee, they twanged the old banjo. +But these slaves of the Upper Congo were not happy. They did not dance. +They did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, gloomy, despairing, +lighted with a sudden sombre fire, and searched the eyes of the white +man. They seemed to beg of him the answer to a terrible question. It was +always the same question. It had been asked of Pharaoh. They asked it of +Leopold. For hours, squatting on the iron deck-plates, humped on their +naked haunches, crowding close together, they muttered apparently +interminable criticisms of Everett. Their eyes never left him. He +resented this unceasing scrutiny. It got upon his nerves. He was sure +they were evolving some scheme to rob him of his tinned sausages, or, +possibly, to kill him. It was then he began to dislike them. In reality, +they were discussing the watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it +was a powerful juju, to ward off evil spirits. They were afraid of it. + +One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was +measuring a bras of cloth. As he had been taught, he held the cloth in +his teeth and stretched it to the ends of his finger-tips. The wood-boy +thought the white man was giving him short measure. White men always HAD +given him short measure, and, at a glance, he could not recognize that +this one was an Everett of Boston. + +So he opened Everett’s fingers. + +All the blood in Everett’s body leaped to his head. That he, a white +man, an Everett, who had come so far to set these people free, should be +accused by one of them of petty theft! + +He caught up a log of fire wood and laid open the scalp of the black +boy, from the eye to the crown of his head. The boy dropped, and +Everett, seeing the blood creeping through his kinky wool, turned ill +with nausea. Drunkenly, through a red cloud of mist, he heard himself +shouting, “The BLACK nigger! The BLACK NIGGER! He touched me! I TELL +you, he touched me!” Captain Nansen led Everett to his cot and gave him +fizzy salts, but it was not until sundown that the trembling and nausea +ceased. + +Then, partly in shame, partly as a bribe, he sought out the injured boy +and gave him the entire roll of cloth. It had cost Everett ten francs. +To the wood-boy it meant a year’s wages. The boy hugged it in his arms, +as he might a baby, and crooned over it. From under the blood-stained +bandage, humbly, without resentment, he lifted his tired eyes to those +of the white man. Still, dumbly, they begged the answer to the same +question. + +During the five months Everett spent up the river he stopped at many +missions, stations, one-man wood posts. He talked to Jesuit fathers, +to inspecteurs, to collectors for the State of rubber, taxes, elephant +tusks, in time, even in Bangalese, to chiefs of the native villages. +According to the point of view, he was told tales of oppression, of +avarice, of hideous crimes, of cruelties committed in the name of trade +that were abnormal, unthinkable. The note never was of hope, never of +cheer, never inspiring. There was always the grievance, the spirit of +unrest, of rebellion that ranged from dislike to a primitive, hot hate. +Of his own land and life he heard nothing, not even when his face was +again turned toward the east. Nor did he think of it. As now he saw +them, the rules and principles and standards of his former existence +were petty and credulous. But he assured himself he had not abandoned +those standards. He had only temporarily laid them aside, as he had left +behind him in London his frock-coat and silk hat. Not because he would +not use them again, but because in the Congo they were ridiculous. + +For weeks, with a missionary as a guide, he walked through forests into +which the sun never penetrated, or, on the river, moved between banks +where no white man had placed his foot; where, at night, the elephants +came trooping to the water, and, seeing the lights of the boat, fled +crashing through the jungle; where the great hippos, puffing and +blowing, rose so close to his elbow that he could have tossed his +cigarette and hit them. The vastness of the Congo, toward which he +had so jauntily set forth, now weighed upon his soul. The immeasurable +distances; the slumbering disregard of time; the brooding, interminable +silences; the efforts to conquer the land that were so futile, so +puny, and so cruel, at first appalled and, later, left him unnerved, +rebellious, childishly defiant. + +What health was there, he demanded hotly, in holding in a dripping +jungle to morals, to etiquette, to fashions of conduct? Was he, the +white man, intelligent, trained, disciplined in mind and body, to be +judged by naked cannibals, by chattering monkeys, by mammoth primeval +beasts? His code of conduct was his own. He was a law unto himself. + +He came down the river on one of the larger steamers of the State, and, +on this voyage, with many fellow-passengers. He was now on his way home, +but in the fact he felt no elation. Each day the fever ran tingling +through his veins, and left him listless, frightened, or choleric. One +night at dinner, in one of these moods of irritation, he took offence +at the act of a lieutenant who, in lack of vegetables, drank from +the vinegar bottle. Everett protested that such table manners were +unbecoming an officer, even an officer of the Congo; and on the +lieutenant resenting his criticism, Everett drew his revolver. The +others at the table took it from him, and locked him in his cabin. +In the morning, when he tried to recall what had occurred, he could +remember only that, for some excellent reason, he had hated some one +with a hatred that could be served only with death. He knew it could not +have been drink, as each day the State allowed him but one half-bottle +of claret. That but for the interference of strangers he might have shot +a man, did not interest him. In the outcome of what he regarded +merely as an incident, he saw cause neither for congratulation or +self-reproach. For his conduct he laid the blame upon the sun, and +doubled his dose of fruit salts. + +Everett was again at Matadi, waiting for the Nigeria to take on cargo +before returning to Liverpool. During the few days that must intervene +before she sailed, he lived on board. Although now actually bound north, +the thought afforded him no satisfaction. His spirits were depressed, +his mind gloomy; a feeling of rebellion, of outlawry, filled him with +unrest. + +While the ship lay at the wharf, Hardy, her English captain, Cuthbert, +the purser, and Everett ate on deck under the awning, assailed by +electric fans. Each was clad in nothing more intricate than pajamas. + +“To-night,” announced Hardy, with a sigh, “we got to dress ship. Mr. +Ducret and his wife are coming on board. We carry his trade goods, and I +got to stand him a dinner and champagne. You boys,” he commanded, “must +wear ‘whites,’ and talk French.” + +“I’ll dine on shore,” growled Everett. + +“Better meet them,” advised Cuthbert. The purser was a pink-cheeked, +clear-eyed young man, who spoke the many languages of the coast glibly, +and his own in the soft, detached voice of a well-bred Englishman. He +was in training to enter the consular service. Something in his poise, +in the assured manner in which he handled his white stewards and the +black Kroo boys, seemed to Everett a constant reproach, and he resented +him. + +“They’re a picturesque couple,” explained Cuthbert. “Ducret was +originally a wrestler. Used to challenge all comers from the front of +a booth. He served his time in the army in Senegal, and when he was +mustered out moved to the French Congo and began to trade, in a small +way, in ivory. Now he’s the biggest merchant, physically and every other +way, from Stanley Pool to Lake Chad. He has a house at Brazzaville built +of mahogany, and a grand piano, and his own ice-plant. His wife was a +supper-girl at Maxim’s. He brought her down here and married her. Every +rainy season they go back to Paris and run race-horses, and they say the +best table in every all-night restaurant is reserved for him. In Paris +they call her the Ivory Queen. She’s killed seventeen elephants with her +own rifle.” + +In the Upper Congo, Everett had seen four white women. They were pallid, +washed-out, bloodless; even the youngest looked past middle-age. For +him women of any other type had ceased to exist. He had come to think of +every white woman as past middle-age, with a face wrinkled by the sun, +with hair bleached white by the sun, with eyes from which, through +gazing at the sun, all light and lustre had departed. He thought of them +as always wearing boots to protect their ankles from mosquitoes, and +army helmets. + +When he came on deck for dinner, he saw a woman who looked as though she +was posing for a photograph by Reutlinger. She appeared to have stepped +to the deck directly from her electric victoria, and the Rue de la Paix. +She was tall, lithe, gracefully erect, with eyes of great loveliness, +and her hair brilliantly black, drawn, a la Merode, across a broad, fair +forehead. She wore a gown and long coat of white lace, as delicate as +a bridal veil, and a hat with a flapping brim from which, in a curtain, +hung more lace. When she was pleased, she lifted her head and the +curtain rose, unmasking her lovely eyes. Around the white, bare throat +was a string of pearls. They had cost the lives of many elephants. + +Cuthbert, only a month from home, saw Madame Ducret just as she was--a +Parisienne, elegant, smart, soigne. He knew that on any night at Madrid +or d’Armenonville he might look upon twenty women of the same +charming type. They might lack that something this girl from Maxim’s +possessed--the spirit that had caused her to follow her husband into the +depths of darkness. But outwardly, for show purposes, they were even as +she. + +But to Everett she was no messenger from another world. She was unique. +To his famished eyes, starved senses, and fever-driven brain, she was +her entire sex personified. She was the one woman for whom he had always +sought, alluring, soothing, maddening; if need be, to be fought for; the +one thing to be desired. Opposite, across the table, her husband, the +ex-wrestler, chasseur d’Afrique, elephant poacher, bulked large as an +ox. Men felt as well as saw his bigness. Captain Hardy deferred to +him on matters of trade. The purser deferred to him on questions of +administration. He answered them in his big way, with big thoughts, in +big figures. He was fifty years ahead of his time. He beheld the Congo +open to the world; in the forests where he had hunted elephants he +foresaw great “factories,” mining camps, railroads, feeding gold and +copper ore to the trunk line, from the Cape to Cairo. His ideas were the +ideas of an empire-builder. But, while the others listened, fascinated, +hypnotized, Everett saw only the woman, her eyes fixed on her husband, +her fingers turning and twisting her diamond rings. Every now and again +she raised her eyes to Everett almost reproachfully, as though to say, +“Why do you not listen to him? It is much better for you than to look at +me.” + +When they had gone, all through the sultry night, until the sun drove +him to his cabin, like a caged animal Everett paced and repaced the +deck. The woman possessed his mind and he could not drive her out. He +did not wish to drive her out. What the consequences might be he did not +care. So long as he might see her again, he jeered at the consequences. +Of one thing he was positive. He could not now leave the Congo. He would +follow her to Brazzaville. If he were discreet, Ducret might invite +him to make himself their guest. Once established in her home, she MUST +listen to him. No man ever before had felt for any woman the need he +felt for her. It was too big for him to conquer. It would be too big for +her to resist. + +In the morning a note from Ducret invited Everett and Cuthbert to join +him in an all-day excursion to the water-fall beyond Matadi. Everett +answered the note in person. The thought of seeing the woman calmed +and steadied him like a dose of morphine. So much more violent than the +fever in his veins was the fever in his brain that, when again he was +with her, he laughed happily, and was grandly at peace. So different was +he from the man they had met the night before, that the Frenchman and +his wife glanced at each other in surprise and approval. They found +him witty, eager, a most charming companion; and when he announced his +intention of visiting Brazzaville, they insisted he should make their +home his own. + +His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Ducret, was +evident to the others, but her husband accepted it. It was her due. And, +on the Congo, to grudge to another man the sight of a pretty woman was +as cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine that might save his +reason. But before the day passed, Madame Ducret was aware that the +American could not be lightly dismissed as an admirer. The fact +neither flattered nor offended. For her it was no novel or disturbing +experience. Other men, whipped on by loneliness, by fever, by primitive +savage instincts, had told her what she meant to them. She did not +hold them responsible. Some, worth curing, she had nursed through the +illness. Others, who refused to be cured, she had turned over, with a +shrug, to her husband. This one was more difficult. Of men of Everett’s +traditions and education she had known but few; but she recognized the +type. This young man was no failure in life, no derelict, no outcast +flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the jungle. He was what, in her +Maxim days, she had laughed at as an aristocrat. He knew her Paris as +she did not know it: its history, its art. Even her language he spoke +more correctly than her husband or herself. She knew that at his home +there must be many women infinitely more attractive, more suited to him, +than herself: women of birth, of position; young girls and great ladies +of the other world. And she knew, also, that, in his present state, at +a nod from her he would cast these behind him and carry her into the +wilderness. More quickly than she anticipated, Everett proved she did +not overrate the forces that compelled him. + +The excursion to the rapids was followed by a second dinner on board +the Nigeria. But now, as on the previous night, Everett fell into sullen +silence. He ate nothing, drank continually, and with his eyes devoured +the woman. When coffee had been served, he left the others at table, +and with Madame Ducret slowly paced the deck. As they passed out of the +reach of the lights, he drew her to the rail, and stood in front of her. + +“I am not quite mad,” he said, “but you have got to come with me.” + +To Everett all he added to this sounded sane and final. He told her that +this was one of those miracles when the one woman and the one man who +were predestined to meet had met. He told her he had wished to marry +a girl at home, but that he now saw that the desire was the fancy of +a school-boy. He told her he was rich, and offered her the choice of +returning to the Paris she loved, or of going deeper into the jungle. +There he would set up for her a principality, a state within the State. +He would defend her against all comers. He would make her the Queen of +the Congo. + +“I have waited for you thousands of years!” he told her. His voice was +hoarse, shaken, and thick. “I love you as men loved women in the Stone +Age--fiercely, entirely. I will not be denied. Down here we are cave +people; if you fight me, I will club you and drag you to my cave. If +others fight for you, I will KILL them. I love you,” he panted, “with +all my soul, my mind, my body, I love you! I will not let you go!” + +Madame Ducret did not say she was insulted, because she did not feel +insulted. She did not call to her husband for help, because she did not +need his help, and because she knew that the ex-wrestler could break +Everett across his knee. She did not even withdraw her hands, although +Everett drove the diamonds deep into her fingers. + +“You frighten me!” she pleaded. She was not in the least frightened. She +only was sorry that this one must be discarded among the incurables. + +In apparent agitation, she whispered, “To-morrow! To-morrow I will give +you your answer.” + +Everett did not trust her, did not release her. He regarded her +jealously, with quick suspicion. To warn her that he knew she could not +escape from Matadi, or from him, he said, “The train to Leopoldville +does not leave for two days!” + +“I know!” whispered Madame Ducret soothingly. “I will give you your +answer to-morrow at ten.” She emphasized the hour, because she knew +at sunrise a special train would carry her husband and herself to +Leopoldville, and that there one of her husband’s steamers would bear +them across the Pool to French Congo. + +“To-morrow, then!” whispered Everett, grudgingly. “But I must kiss you +now!” + +Only an instant did Madame Ducret hesitate. Then she turned her cheek. +“Yes,” she assented. “You must kiss me now.” + +Everett did not rejoin the others. He led her back into the circle of +light, and locked himself in his cabin. + +At ten the next morning, when Ducret and his wife were well advanced +toward Stanley Pool, Cuthbert handed Everett a note. Having been told +what it contained, he did not move away, but, with his back turned, +leaned upon the rail. + +Everett, his eyes on fire with triumph, his fingers trembling, tore open +the envelope. + +Madame Ducret wrote that her husband and herself felt that Mr. Everett +was suffering more severely from the climate than he knew. With regret +they cancelled their invitation to visit them, and urged him, for his +health’s sake, to continue as he had planned, to northern latitudes. +They hoped to meet in Paris. They extended assurances of their +distinguished consideration. + +Slowly, savagely, as though wreaking his suffering on some human thing, +Everett tore the note into minute fragments. Moving unsteadily to the +ship’s side, he flung them into the river, and then hung limply upon the +rail. + +Above him, from a sky of brass, the sun stabbed at his eyeballs. Below +him, the rush of the Congo, churning in muddy whirlpools, echoed against +the hills of naked rock that met the naked sky. + +To Everett, the roar of the great river, and the echoes from the land he +had set out to reform, carried the sound of gigantic, hideous laughter. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s A Question of Latitude, by Richard Harding Davis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A QUESTION OF LATITUDE *** + +***** This file should be named 1817-0.txt or 1817-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/1817/ + +Produced by Don Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/1817-0.zip b/1817-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..65c3991 --- /dev/null +++ b/1817-0.zip diff --git a/1817-h.zip b/1817-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c28f225 --- /dev/null +++ b/1817-h.zip diff --git a/1817-h/1817-h.htm b/1817-h/1817-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07ba822 --- /dev/null +++ b/1817-h/1817-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1248 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + A Question of Latitude, by Richard Harding Davis + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's A Question of Latitude, by Richard Harding Davis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Question of Latitude + +Author: Richard Harding Davis + +Release Date: May 12, 2006 [EBook #1817] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A QUESTION OF LATITUDE *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + A QUESTION OF LATITUDE + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Richard Harding Davis + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + Of the school of earnest young writers at whom the word muckraker had been + thrown in opprobrium, and by whom it had been caught up as a title of + honor, Everett was among the younger and less conspicuous. But, if in his + skirmishes with graft and corruption he had failed to correct the evils he + attacked, from the contests he himself had always emerged with credit. His + sincerity and his methods were above suspicion. No one had caught him in + misstatement, or exaggeration. Even those whom he attacked, admitted he + fought fair. For these reasons, the editors of magazines, with the fear of + libel before their eyes, regarded him as a “safe” man, the public, feeling + that the evils he exposed were due to its own indifference, with + uncomfortable approval, and those he attacked, with impotent anger. Their + anger was impotent because, in the case of Everett, the weapons used by + their class in “striking back” were denied them. They could not say that + for money he sold sensations, because it was known that a proud and + wealthy parent supplied him with all the money he wanted. Nor in his + private life could they find anything to offset his attacks upon the + misconduct of others. Men had been sent to spy upon him, and women to lay + traps. But the men reported that his evenings were spent at his club, and, + from the women, those who sent them learned only that Everett “treats a + lady just as though she IS a lady.” + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, when, with much trumpeting, he departed to investigate + conditions in the Congo, there were some who rejoiced. + </p> + <p> + The standard of life to which Everett was accustomed was high. In his home + in Boston it had been set for him by a father and mother who, though + critics rather than workers in the world, had taught him to despise what + was mean and ungenerous, to write the truth and abhor a compromise. At + Harvard he had interested himself in municipal reform, and when later he + moved to New York, he transferred his interest to the problems of that + city. His attack upon Tammany Hall did not utterly destroy that + organization, but at once brought him to the notice of the editors. By + them he was invited to tilt his lance at evils in other parts of the + United States, at “systems,” trusts, convict camps, municipal misrule. His + work had met with a measure of success that seemed to justify Lowell’s + Weekly in sending him further afield, and he now was on his way to tell + the truth about the Congo. Personally, Everett was a healthy, clean-minded + enthusiast. He possessed all of the advantages of youth, and all of its + intolerance. He was supposed to be engaged to Florence Carey, but he was + not. There was, however, between them an “understanding,” which + understanding, as Everett understood it, meant that until she was ready to + say, “I am ready,” he was to think of her, dream of her, write + love-letters to her, and keep himself only for her. He loved her very + dearly, and, having no choice, was content to wait. His content was + fortunate, as Miss Carey seemed inclined to keep him waiting indefinitely. + </p> + <p> + Except in Europe, Everett had never travelled outside the limits of his + own country. But the new land toward which he was advancing held no + terrors. As he understood it, the Congo was at the mercy of a corrupt + “ring.” In every part of the United States he had found a city in the + clutch of a corrupt ring. The conditions would be the same, the methods he + would use to get at the truth would be the same, the result for reform + would be the same. + </p> + <p> + The English steamer on which he sailed for Southampton was one leased by + the Independent State of the Congo, and, with a few exceptions, her + passengers were subjects of King Leopold. On board, the language was + French, at table the men sat according to the rank they held in the + administration of the jungle, and each in his buttonhole wore the tiny + silver star that showed that for three years, to fill the storehouses of + the King of the Belgians, he had gathered rubber and ivory. In the + smoking-room Everett soon discovered that passengers not in the service of + that king, the English and German officers and traders, held aloof from + the Belgians. Their attitude toward them seemed to be one partly of + contempt, partly of pity. + </p> + <p> + “Are your English protectorates on the coast, then, so much better + administered?” Everett asked. + </p> + <p> + The English Coaster, who for ten years in Nigeria had escaped fever and + sudden death, laughed evasively. + </p> + <p> + “I have never been in the Congo,” he said. “Only know what they tell one. + But you’ll see for yourself. That is,” he added, “you’ll see what they + want you to see.” + </p> + <p> + They were leaning on the rail, with their eyes turned toward the coast of + Liberia, a gloomy green line against which the waves cast up fountains of + foam as high as the cocoanut palms. As a subject of discussion, the + coaster seemed anxious to avoid the Congo. + </p> + <p> + “It was there,” he said, pointing, “the Three Castles struck on the rocks. + She was a total loss. So were her passengers,” he added. “They ate them.” + </p> + <p> + Everett gazed suspiciously at the unmoved face of the veteran. + </p> + <p> + “WHO ate them?” he asked guardedly. “Sharks?” + </p> + <p> + “The natives that live back of that shore-line in the lagoons.” + </p> + <p> + Everett laughed with the assurance of one for whom a trap had been laid + and who had cleverly avoided it. + </p> + <p> + “Cannibals,” he mocked. “Cannibals went out of date with pirates. But + perhaps,” he added apologetically, “this happened some years ago?” + </p> + <p> + “Happened last month,” said the trader. + </p> + <p> + “But Liberia is a perfectly good republic,” protested Everett. “The blacks + there may not be as far advanced as in your colonies, but they’re not + cannibals.” + </p> + <p> + “Monrovia is a very small part of Liberia,” said the trader dryly. “And + none of these protectorates, or crown colonies, on this coast pretends to + control much of the Hinterland. There is Sierra Leone, for instance, about + the oldest of them. Last year the governor celebrated the hundredth + anniversary of the year the British abolished slavery. They had parades + and tea-fights, and all the blacks were in the street in straw hats with + cricket ribbons, thanking God they were not as other men are, not slaves + like their grandfathers. Well, just at the height of the jubilation, the + tribes within twenty miles of the town sent in to say that they, also, + were holding a palaver, and it was to mark the fact that they NEVER had + been slaves and never would be, and, if the governor doubted it, to send + out his fighting men and they’d prove it. It cast quite a gloom over the + celebration.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean that only twenty miles from the coast—” began Everett. + </p> + <p> + “TEN miles,” said the Coaster, “wait till you see Calabar. That’s our + Exhibit A. The cleanest, best administered. Everything there is model: + hospitals, barracks, golf links. Last year, ten miles from Calabar, Dr. + Stewart rode his bicycle into a native village. The king tortured him six + days, cut him up, and sent pieces of him to fifty villages with the + message: ‘You eat each other. WE eat white chop.’ That was ten miles from + our model barracks.” + </p> + <p> + For some moments the muckraker considered the statement thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” he inquired, “that the atrocities are not all on the side of + the white men?” + </p> + <p> + “Atrocities?” exclaimed the trader. “I wasn’t talking of atrocities. Are + you looking for them?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not running away from them,” laughed Everett. “Lowell’s Weekly is + sending me to the Congo to find out the truth, and to try to help put an + end to them.” + </p> + <p> + In his turn the trader considered the statement carefully. + </p> + <p> + “Among the natives,” he explained, painstakingly picking each word, “what + you call ‘atrocities’ are customs of warfare, forms of punishment. When + they go to war they EXPECT to be tortured; they KNOW, if they’re killed, + they’ll be eaten. The white man comes here and finds these customs have + existed for centuries. He adopts them, because—” + </p> + <p> + “One moment!” interrupted Everett warmly. “That does not excuse HIM. The + point is, that with him they have NOT existed. To him they should be + against his conscience, indecent, horrible! He has a greater knowledge, a + much higher intelligence; he should lift the native, not sink to him.” + </p> + <p> + The Coaster took his pipe from his mouth, and twice opened his lips to + speak. Finally, he blew the smoke into the air, and shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the use!” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Try,” laughed Everett. “Maybe I’m not as unintelligent as I talk.” + </p> + <p> + “You must get this right,” protested the Coaster. “It doesn’t matter a + damn what a man BRINGS here, what his training WAS, what HE IS. The thing + is too strong for him.” + </p> + <p> + “What thing?” + </p> + <p> + “That!” said the Coaster. He threw out his arm at the brooding mountains, + the dark lagoons, the glaring coast-line against which the waves shot into + the air with the shock and roar of twelve-inch guns. + </p> + <p> + “The first white man came to Sierra Leone five hundred years before + Christ,” said the Coaster. “And, in twenty-two hundred years, he’s got + just twenty miles inland. The native didn’t need forts, or a navy, to stop + him. He had three allies: those waves, the fever, and the sun. Especially + the sun. The black man goes bare-headed, and the sun lets him pass. The + white man covers his head with an inch of cork, and the sun strikes + through it and kills him. When Jameson came down the river from Yambuya, + the natives fired on his boat. He waved his helmet at them for three + minutes, to show them there was a white man in the canoe. Three minutes + was all the sun wanted. Jameson died in two days. Where you are going, the + sun does worse things to a man than kill him: it drives him mad. It keeps + the fear of death in his heart; and THAT takes away his nerve and his + sense of proportion. He flies into murderous fits, over silly, imaginary + slights; he grows morbid, suspicious, he becomes a coward, and because he + is a coward with authority, he becomes a bully. + </p> + <p> + “He is alone, we will suppose, at a station three hundred miles from any + other white man. One morning his house-boy spills a cup of coffee on him, + and in a rage he half kills the boy. He broods over that, until he + discovers, or his crazy mind makes him think he has discovered, that in + revenge the boy is plotting to poison him. So he punishes him again. Only + this time he punishes him as the black man has taught him to punish, in + the only way the black man seems to understand; that is, he tortures him. + From that moment the fall of that man is rapid. The heat, the loneliness, + the fever, the fear of the black faces, keep him on edge, rob him of + sleep, rob him of his physical strength, of his moral strength. He loses + shame, loses reason; becomes cruel, weak, degenerate. He invents new, + bestial tortures; commits new, unspeakable ‘atrocities,’ until, one day, + the natives turn and kill him, or he sticks his gun in his mouth and blows + the top of his head off.” + </p> + <p> + The Coaster smiled tolerantly at the wide-eyed eager young man at his + side. + </p> + <p> + “And you,” he mocked, “think you can reform that man, and that hell above + ground called the Congo, with an article in Lowell’s Weekly?” + </p> + <p> + Undismayed, Everett grinned cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + “That’s what I’m here for!” he said. + </p> + <p> + By the time Everett reached the mouth of the Congo, he had learned that in + everything he must depend upon himself; that he would be accepted only as + the kind of man that, at the moment, he showed himself to be. This + attitude of independence was not chosen, but forced on him by the men with + whom he came in contact. Associations and traditions, that in every part + of the United States had served as letters of introduction, and enabled + strangers to identify and label him, were to the white men on the steamer + and at the ports of call without meaning or value. That he was an Everett + of Boston conveyed little to those who had not heard even of Boston. That + he was the correspondent of Lowell’s Weekly meant less to those who did + not know that Lowell’s Weekly existed. And when, in confusion, he + proffered his letter of credit, the very fact that it called for a + thousand pounds was, in the eyes of a “Palm Oil Ruffian,” sufficient + evidence that it had been forged or stolen. He soon saw that solely as a + white man was he accepted and made welcome. That he was respectable, few + believed, and no one cared. To be taken at his face value, to be refused + at the start the benefit of the doubt, was a novel sensation; and yet not + unpleasant. It was a relief not to be accepted only as Everett the + Muckraker, as a professional reformer, as one holier than others. It + afforded his soul the same relaxation that his body received when, in his + shirt-sleeves in the sweltering smoking-room, he drank beer with a chef de + poste who had been thrice tried for murder. + </p> + <p> + Not only to every one was he a stranger, but to him everything was + strange; so strange as to appear unreal. This did not prevent him from at + once recognizing those things that were not strange, such as corrupt + officials, incompetence, mismanagement. He did not need the missionaries + to point out to him that the Independent State of the Congo was not a + colony administered for the benefit of many, but a vast rubber plantation + worked by slaves to fill the pockets of one man. It was not in his work + that Everett found himself confused. It was in his attitude of mind toward + almost every other question. + </p> + <p> + At first, when he could not make everything fit his rule of thumb, he + excused the country tolerantly as a “topsy-turvy” land. He wished to move + and act quickly; to make others move quickly. He did not understand that + men who had sentenced themselves to exile for the official term of three + years, or for life, measured time only by the date of their release. When + he learned that even a cablegram could not reach his home in less than + eighteen days, that the missionaries to whom he brought letters were a + three months’ journey from the coast and from each other, his impatience + was chastened to wonder, and, later, to awe. + </p> + <p> + His education began at Matadi, where he waited until the river steamer was + ready to start for Leopoldville. Of the two places he was assured Matadi + was the better, for the reason that if you still were in favor with the + steward of the ship that brought you south, he might sell you a piece of + ice. + </p> + <p> + Matadi was a great rock, blazing with heat. Its narrow, perpendicular + paths seemed to run with burning lava. Its top, the main square of the + settlement, was of baked clay, beaten hard by thousands of naked feet. + Crossing it by day was an adventure. The air that swept it was the breath + of a blast-furnace. + </p> + <p> + Everett found a room over the shop of a Portuguese trader. It was caked + with dirt, and smelled of unnamed diseases and chloride of lime. In it was + a canvas cot, a roll of evil-looking bedding, a wash-basin filled with the + stumps of cigarettes. In a corner was a tin chop-box, which Everett asked + to have removed. It belonged, the landlord told him, to the man who, two + nights before, had occupied the cot and who had died in it. Everett was + anxious to learn of what he had died. Apparently surprised at the + question, the Portuguese shrugged his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Who knows?” he exclaimed. The next morning the English trader across the + street assured Everett there was no occasion for alarm. “He didn’t die of + any disease,” he explained. “Somebody got at him from the balcony, while + he was in his cot, and knifed him.” + </p> + <p> + The English trader was a young man, a cockney, named Upsher. At home he + had been a steward on the Channel steamers. Everett made him his most + intimate friend. He had a black wife, who spent most of her day in a + four-post bed, hung with lace curtains and blue ribbon, in which she + resembled a baby hippopotamus wallowing in a bank of white sand. + </p> + <p> + At first the black woman was a shock to Everett, but after Upsher + dismissed her indifferently as a “good old sort,” and spent one evening + blubbering over a photograph of his wife and “kiddie” at home, Everett + accepted her. His excuse for this was that men who knew they might die on + the morrow must not be judged by what they do to-day. The excuse did not + ring sound, but he dismissed the doubt by deciding that in such heat it + was not possible to take serious questions seriously. In the fact that, to + those about him, the thought of death was ever present, he found further + excuse for much else that puzzled and shocked him. At home, death had been + a contingency so remote that he had put it aside as something he need not + consider until he was a grandfather. At Matadi, at every moment of the + day, in each trifling act, he found death must be faced, conciliated, + conquered. At home he might ask himself, “If I eat this will it give me + indigestion?” At Matadi he asked, “If I drink this will I die?” + </p> + <p> + Upsher told him of a feud then existing between the chief of police and an + Italian doctor in the State service. Interested in the outcome only as a + sporting proposition, Upsher declared the odds were unfair, because the + Belgian was using his black police to act as his body-guard while for + protection the Italian could depend only upon his sword-cane. Each night, + with the other white exiles of Matadi, the two adversaries met in the Cafe + Franco-Belge. There, with puzzled interest, Everett watched them sitting + at separate tables, surrounded by mutual friends, excitedly playing + dominoes. Outside the cafe, Matadi lay smothered and sweltering in a + black, living darkness, and, save for the rush of the river, in a silence + that continued unbroken across a jungle as wide as Europe. Inside the + dominoes clicked, the glasses rang on the iron tables, the oil lamps + glared upon the pallid, sweating faces of clerks, upon the tanned, + sweating skins of officers; and the Italian doctor and the Belgian + lieutenant, each with murder in his heart, laughed, shrugged, + gesticulated, waiting for the moment to strike. + </p> + <p> + “But why doesn’t some one DO something?” demanded Everett. “Arrest them, + or reason with them. Everybody knows about it. It seems a pity not to DO + something.” + </p> + <p> + Upsher nodded his head. Dimly he recognized a language with which he once + had been familiar. “I know what you mean,” he agreed. “Bind ‘em over to + keep the peace. And a good job, too! But who?” he demanded vaguely. + “That’s what I say! Who?” From the confusion into which Everett’s appeal + to forgotten memories had thrown it, his mind suddenly emerged. “But + what’s the use!” he demanded. “Don’t you see,” he explained triumphantly, + “if those two crazy men were fit to listen to SENSE, they’d have sense + enough not to kill each other!” + </p> + <p> + Each succeeding evening Everett watched the two potential murderers with + lessening interest. He even made a bet with Upsher, of a bottle of fruit + salt, that the chief of police would be the one to die. + </p> + <p> + A few nights later a man, groaning beneath his balcony, disturbed his + slumbers. He cursed the man, and turned his pillow to find the cooler + side. But all through the night the groans, though fainter, broke into his + dreams. At intervals some traditions of past conduct tugged at Everett’s + sleeve, and bade him rise and play the good Samaritan. But, indignantly, + he repulsed them. Were there not many others within hearing? Were there + not the police? Was it HIS place to bind the wounds of drunken stokers? + The groans were probably a trick, to entice him, unarmed, into the night. + And so, just before the dawn, when the mists rose, and the groans ceased, + Everett, still arguing, sank with a contented sigh into forgetfulness. + </p> + <p> + When he woke, there was beneath his window much monkey-like chattering, + and he looked down into the white face and glazed eyes of the Italian + doctor, lying in the gutter and staring up at him. Below his + shoulder-blades a pool of blood shone evilly in the blatant sunlight. + </p> + <p> + Across the street, on his balcony, Upsher, in pajamas and mosquito boots, + was shivering with fever and stifling a yawn. “You lose!” he called. + </p> + <p> + Later in the day, Everett analyzed his conduct of the night previous. “At + home,” he told Upsher, “I would have been telephoning for an ambulance, or + been out in the street giving the man the ‘first-aid’ drill. But living as + we do here, so close to death, we see things more clearly. Death loses its + importance. It’s a bromide,” he added. “But travel certainly broadens one. + Every day I have been in the Congo, I have been assimilating new ideas.” + Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. An older man could have told Everett + that he was assimilating just as much of the Congo as the rabbit + assimilates of the boa-constrictor, that first smothers it with saliva and + then swallows it. + </p> + <p> + Everett started up the Congo in a small steamer open on all sides to the + sun and rain, and with a paddle-wheel astern that kicked her forward at + the rate of four miles an hour. Once every day, the boat tied up to a tree + and took on wood to feed her furnace, and Everett talked to the white man + in charge of the wood post, or, if, as it generally happened, the white + man was on his back with fever, dosed him with quinine. On board, except + for her captain, and a Finn who acted as engineer, Everett was the only + other white man. The black crew and “wood-boys” he soon disliked + intensely. At first, when Nansen, the Danish captain, and the Finn struck + them, because they were in the way, or because they were not, Everett + winced, and made a note of it. But later he decided the blacks were + insolent, sullen, ungrateful; that a blow did them no harm. + </p> + <p> + According to the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the war, in + his own country, had owned slaves, those of the “Southland” were always + content, always happy. When not singing close harmony in the + cotton-fields, they danced upon the levee, they twanged the old banjo. But + these slaves of the Upper Congo were not happy. They did not dance. They + did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, gloomy, despairing, lighted with + a sudden sombre fire, and searched the eyes of the white man. They seemed + to beg of him the answer to a terrible question. It was always the same + question. It had been asked of Pharaoh. They asked it of Leopold. For + hours, squatting on the iron deck-plates, humped on their naked haunches, + crowding close together, they muttered apparently interminable criticisms + of Everett. Their eyes never left him. He resented this unceasing + scrutiny. It got upon his nerves. He was sure they were evolving some + scheme to rob him of his tinned sausages, or, possibly, to kill him. It + was then he began to dislike them. In reality, they were discussing the + watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it was a powerful juju, to ward + off evil spirits. They were afraid of it. + </p> + <p> + One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was + measuring a bras of cloth. As he had been taught, he held the cloth in his + teeth and stretched it to the ends of his finger-tips. The wood-boy + thought the white man was giving him short measure. White men always HAD + given him short measure, and, at a glance, he could not recognize that + this one was an Everett of Boston. + </p> + <p> + So he opened Everett’s fingers. + </p> + <p> + All the blood in Everett’s body leaped to his head. That he, a white man, + an Everett, who had come so far to set these people free, should be + accused by one of them of petty theft! + </p> + <p> + He caught up a log of fire wood and laid open the scalp of the black boy, + from the eye to the crown of his head. The boy dropped, and Everett, + seeing the blood creeping through his kinky wool, turned ill with nausea. + Drunkenly, through a red cloud of mist, he heard himself shouting, “The + BLACK nigger! The BLACK NIGGER! He touched me! I TELL you, he touched me!” + Captain Nansen led Everett to his cot and gave him fizzy salts, but it was + not until sundown that the trembling and nausea ceased. + </p> + <p> + Then, partly in shame, partly as a bribe, he sought out the injured boy + and gave him the entire roll of cloth. It had cost Everett ten francs. To + the wood-boy it meant a year’s wages. The boy hugged it in his arms, as he + might a baby, and crooned over it. From under the blood-stained bandage, + humbly, without resentment, he lifted his tired eyes to those of the white + man. Still, dumbly, they begged the answer to the same question. + </p> + <p> + During the five months Everett spent up the river he stopped at many + missions, stations, one-man wood posts. He talked to Jesuit fathers, to + inspecteurs, to collectors for the State of rubber, taxes, elephant tusks, + in time, even in Bangalese, to chiefs of the native villages. According to + the point of view, he was told tales of oppression, of avarice, of hideous + crimes, of cruelties committed in the name of trade that were abnormal, + unthinkable. The note never was of hope, never of cheer, never inspiring. + There was always the grievance, the spirit of unrest, of rebellion that + ranged from dislike to a primitive, hot hate. Of his own land and life he + heard nothing, not even when his face was again turned toward the east. + Nor did he think of it. As now he saw them, the rules and principles and + standards of his former existence were petty and credulous. But he assured + himself he had not abandoned those standards. He had only temporarily laid + them aside, as he had left behind him in London his frock-coat and silk + hat. Not because he would not use them again, but because in the Congo + they were ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + For weeks, with a missionary as a guide, he walked through forests into + which the sun never penetrated, or, on the river, moved between banks + where no white man had placed his foot; where, at night, the elephants + came trooping to the water, and, seeing the lights of the boat, fled + crashing through the jungle; where the great hippos, puffing and blowing, + rose so close to his elbow that he could have tossed his cigarette and hit + them. The vastness of the Congo, toward which he had so jauntily set + forth, now weighed upon his soul. The immeasurable distances; the + slumbering disregard of time; the brooding, interminable silences; the + efforts to conquer the land that were so futile, so puny, and so cruel, at + first appalled and, later, left him unnerved, rebellious, childishly + defiant. + </p> + <p> + What health was there, he demanded hotly, in holding in a dripping jungle + to morals, to etiquette, to fashions of conduct? Was he, the white man, + intelligent, trained, disciplined in mind and body, to be judged by naked + cannibals, by chattering monkeys, by mammoth primeval beasts? His code of + conduct was his own. He was a law unto himself. + </p> + <p> + He came down the river on one of the larger steamers of the State, and, on + this voyage, with many fellow-passengers. He was now on his way home, but + in the fact he felt no elation. Each day the fever ran tingling through + his veins, and left him listless, frightened, or choleric. One night at + dinner, in one of these moods of irritation, he took offence at the act of + a lieutenant who, in lack of vegetables, drank from the vinegar bottle. + Everett protested that such table manners were unbecoming an officer, even + an officer of the Congo; and on the lieutenant resenting his criticism, + Everett drew his revolver. The others at the table took it from him, and + locked him in his cabin. In the morning, when he tried to recall what had + occurred, he could remember only that, for some excellent reason, he had + hated some one with a hatred that could be served only with death. He knew + it could not have been drink, as each day the State allowed him but one + half-bottle of claret. That but for the interference of strangers he might + have shot a man, did not interest him. In the outcome of what he regarded + merely as an incident, he saw cause neither for congratulation or + self-reproach. For his conduct he laid the blame upon the sun, and doubled + his dose of fruit salts. + </p> + <p> + Everett was again at Matadi, waiting for the Nigeria to take on cargo + before returning to Liverpool. During the few days that must intervene + before she sailed, he lived on board. Although now actually bound north, + the thought afforded him no satisfaction. His spirits were depressed, his + mind gloomy; a feeling of rebellion, of outlawry, filled him with unrest. + </p> + <p> + While the ship lay at the wharf, Hardy, her English captain, Cuthbert, the + purser, and Everett ate on deck under the awning, assailed by electric + fans. Each was clad in nothing more intricate than pajamas. + </p> + <p> + “To-night,” announced Hardy, with a sigh, “we got to dress ship. Mr. + Ducret and his wife are coming on board. We carry his trade goods, and I + got to stand him a dinner and champagne. You boys,” he commanded, “must + wear ‘whites,’ and talk French.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll dine on shore,” growled Everett. + </p> + <p> + “Better meet them,” advised Cuthbert. The purser was a pink-cheeked, + clear-eyed young man, who spoke the many languages of the coast glibly, + and his own in the soft, detached voice of a well-bred Englishman. He was + in training to enter the consular service. Something in his poise, in the + assured manner in which he handled his white stewards and the black Kroo + boys, seemed to Everett a constant reproach, and he resented him. + </p> + <p> + “They’re a picturesque couple,” explained Cuthbert. “Ducret was originally + a wrestler. Used to challenge all comers from the front of a booth. He + served his time in the army in Senegal, and when he was mustered out moved + to the French Congo and began to trade, in a small way, in ivory. Now he’s + the biggest merchant, physically and every other way, from Stanley Pool to + Lake Chad. He has a house at Brazzaville built of mahogany, and a grand + piano, and his own ice-plant. His wife was a supper-girl at Maxim’s. He + brought her down here and married her. Every rainy season they go back to + Paris and run race-horses, and they say the best table in every all-night + restaurant is reserved for him. In Paris they call her the Ivory Queen. + She’s killed seventeen elephants with her own rifle.” + </p> + <p> + In the Upper Congo, Everett had seen four white women. They were pallid, + washed-out, bloodless; even the youngest looked past middle-age. For him + women of any other type had ceased to exist. He had come to think of every + white woman as past middle-age, with a face wrinkled by the sun, with hair + bleached white by the sun, with eyes from which, through gazing at the + sun, all light and lustre had departed. He thought of them as always + wearing boots to protect their ankles from mosquitoes, and army helmets. + </p> + <p> + When he came on deck for dinner, he saw a woman who looked as though she + was posing for a photograph by Reutlinger. She appeared to have stepped to + the deck directly from her electric victoria, and the Rue de la Paix. She + was tall, lithe, gracefully erect, with eyes of great loveliness, and her + hair brilliantly black, drawn, a la Merode, across a broad, fair forehead. + She wore a gown and long coat of white lace, as delicate as a bridal veil, + and a hat with a flapping brim from which, in a curtain, hung more lace. + When she was pleased, she lifted her head and the curtain rose, unmasking + her lovely eyes. Around the white, bare throat was a string of pearls. + They had cost the lives of many elephants. + </p> + <p> + Cuthbert, only a month from home, saw Madame Ducret just as she was—a + Parisienne, elegant, smart, soigne. He knew that on any night at Madrid or + d’Armenonville he might look upon twenty women of the same charming type. + They might lack that something this girl from Maxim’s possessed—the + spirit that had caused her to follow her husband into the depths of + darkness. But outwardly, for show purposes, they were even as she. + </p> + <p> + But to Everett she was no messenger from another world. She was unique. To + his famished eyes, starved senses, and fever-driven brain, she was her + entire sex personified. She was the one woman for whom he had always + sought, alluring, soothing, maddening; if need be, to be fought for; the + one thing to be desired. Opposite, across the table, her husband, the + ex-wrestler, chasseur d’Afrique, elephant poacher, bulked large as an ox. + Men felt as well as saw his bigness. Captain Hardy deferred to him on + matters of trade. The purser deferred to him on questions of + administration. He answered them in his big way, with big thoughts, in big + figures. He was fifty years ahead of his time. He beheld the Congo open to + the world; in the forests where he had hunted elephants he foresaw great + “factories,” mining camps, railroads, feeding gold and copper ore to the + trunk line, from the Cape to Cairo. His ideas were the ideas of an + empire-builder. But, while the others listened, fascinated, hypnotized, + Everett saw only the woman, her eyes fixed on her husband, her fingers + turning and twisting her diamond rings. Every now and again she raised her + eyes to Everett almost reproachfully, as though to say, “Why do you not + listen to him? It is much better for you than to look at me.” + </p> + <p> + When they had gone, all through the sultry night, until the sun drove him + to his cabin, like a caged animal Everett paced and repaced the deck. The + woman possessed his mind and he could not drive her out. He did not wish + to drive her out. What the consequences might be he did not care. So long + as he might see her again, he jeered at the consequences. Of one thing he + was positive. He could not now leave the Congo. He would follow her to + Brazzaville. If he were discreet, Ducret might invite him to make himself + their guest. Once established in her home, she MUST listen to him. No man + ever before had felt for any woman the need he felt for her. It was too + big for him to conquer. It would be too big for her to resist. + </p> + <p> + In the morning a note from Ducret invited Everett and Cuthbert to join him + in an all-day excursion to the water-fall beyond Matadi. Everett answered + the note in person. The thought of seeing the woman calmed and steadied + him like a dose of morphine. So much more violent than the fever in his + veins was the fever in his brain that, when again he was with her, he + laughed happily, and was grandly at peace. So different was he from the + man they had met the night before, that the Frenchman and his wife glanced + at each other in surprise and approval. They found him witty, eager, a + most charming companion; and when he announced his intention of visiting + Brazzaville, they insisted he should make their home his own. + </p> + <p> + His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Ducret, was + evident to the others, but her husband accepted it. It was her due. And, + on the Congo, to grudge to another man the sight of a pretty woman was as + cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine that might save his reason. + But before the day passed, Madame Ducret was aware that the American could + not be lightly dismissed as an admirer. The fact neither flattered nor + offended. For her it was no novel or disturbing experience. Other men, + whipped on by loneliness, by fever, by primitive savage instincts, had + told her what she meant to them. She did not hold them responsible. Some, + worth curing, she had nursed through the illness. Others, who refused to + be cured, she had turned over, with a shrug, to her husband. This one was + more difficult. Of men of Everett’s traditions and education she had known + but few; but she recognized the type. This young man was no failure in + life, no derelict, no outcast flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the + jungle. He was what, in her Maxim days, she had laughed at as an + aristocrat. He knew her Paris as she did not know it: its history, its + art. Even her language he spoke more correctly than her husband or + herself. She knew that at his home there must be many women infinitely + more attractive, more suited to him, than herself: women of birth, of + position; young girls and great ladies of the other world. And she knew, + also, that, in his present state, at a nod from her he would cast these + behind him and carry her into the wilderness. More quickly than she + anticipated, Everett proved she did not overrate the forces that compelled + him. + </p> + <p> + The excursion to the rapids was followed by a second dinner on board the + Nigeria. But now, as on the previous night, Everett fell into sullen + silence. He ate nothing, drank continually, and with his eyes devoured the + woman. When coffee had been served, he left the others at table, and with + Madame Ducret slowly paced the deck. As they passed out of the reach of + the lights, he drew her to the rail, and stood in front of her. + </p> + <p> + “I am not quite mad,” he said, “but you have got to come with me.” + </p> + <p> + To Everett all he added to this sounded sane and final. He told her that + this was one of those miracles when the one woman and the one man who were + predestined to meet had met. He told her he had wished to marry a girl at + home, but that he now saw that the desire was the fancy of a school-boy. + He told her he was rich, and offered her the choice of returning to the + Paris she loved, or of going deeper into the jungle. There he would set up + for her a principality, a state within the State. He would defend her + against all comers. He would make her the Queen of the Congo. + </p> + <p> + “I have waited for you thousands of years!” he told her. His voice was + hoarse, shaken, and thick. “I love you as men loved women in the Stone Age—fiercely, + entirely. I will not be denied. Down here we are cave people; if you fight + me, I will club you and drag you to my cave. If others fight for you, I + will KILL them. I love you,” he panted, “with all my soul, my mind, my + body, I love you! I will not let you go!” + </p> + <p> + Madame Ducret did not say she was insulted, because she did not feel + insulted. She did not call to her husband for help, because she did not + need his help, and because she knew that the ex-wrestler could break + Everett across his knee. She did not even withdraw her hands, although + Everett drove the diamonds deep into her fingers. + </p> + <p> + “You frighten me!” she pleaded. She was not in the least frightened. She + only was sorry that this one must be discarded among the incurables. + </p> + <p> + In apparent agitation, she whispered, “To-morrow! To-morrow I will give + you your answer.” + </p> + <p> + Everett did not trust her, did not release her. He regarded her jealously, + with quick suspicion. To warn her that he knew she could not escape from + Matadi, or from him, he said, “The train to Leopoldville does not leave + for two days!” + </p> + <p> + “I know!” whispered Madame Ducret soothingly. “I will give you your answer + to-morrow at ten.” She emphasized the hour, because she knew at sunrise a + special train would carry her husband and herself to Leopoldville, and + that there one of her husband’s steamers would bear them across the Pool + to French Congo. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow, then!” whispered Everett, grudgingly. “But I must kiss you + now!” + </p> + <p> + Only an instant did Madame Ducret hesitate. Then she turned her cheek. + “Yes,” she assented. “You must kiss me now.” + </p> + <p> + Everett did not rejoin the others. He led her back into the circle of + light, and locked himself in his cabin. + </p> + <p> + At ten the next morning, when Ducret and his wife were well advanced + toward Stanley Pool, Cuthbert handed Everett a note. Having been told what + it contained, he did not move away, but, with his back turned, leaned upon + the rail. + </p> + <p> + Everett, his eyes on fire with triumph, his fingers trembling, tore open + the envelope. + </p> + <p> + Madame Ducret wrote that her husband and herself felt that Mr. Everett was + suffering more severely from the climate than he knew. With regret they + cancelled their invitation to visit them, and urged him, for his health’s + sake, to continue as he had planned, to northern latitudes. They hoped to + meet in Paris. They extended assurances of their distinguished + consideration. + </p> + <p> + Slowly, savagely, as though wreaking his suffering on some human thing, + Everett tore the note into minute fragments. Moving unsteadily to the + ship’s side, he flung them into the river, and then hung limply upon the + rail. + </p> + <p> + Above him, from a sky of brass, the sun stabbed at his eyeballs. Below + him, the rush of the Congo, churning in muddy whirlpools, echoed against + the hills of naked rock that met the naked sky. + </p> + <p> + To Everett, the roar of the great river, and the echoes from the land he + had set out to reform, carried the sound of gigantic, hideous laughter. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s A Question of Latitude, by Richard Harding Davis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A QUESTION OF LATITUDE *** + +***** This file should be named 1817-h.htm or 1817-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/1817/ + +Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Question of Latitude + +Author: Richard Harding Davis + +Release Date: May 12, 2006 [EBook #1817] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A QUESTION OF LATITUDE *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson + + + + + +A QUESTION OF LATITUDE + + +By Richard Harding Davis + + + +Of the school of earnest young writers at whom the word muckraker had +been thrown in opprobrium, and by whom it had been caught up as a title +of honor, Everett was among the younger and less conspicuous. But, if +in his skirmishes with graft and corruption he had failed to correct the +evils he attacked, from the contests he himself had always emerged with +credit. His sincerity and his methods were above suspicion. No one +had caught him in misstatement, or exaggeration. Even those whom he +attacked, admitted he fought fair. For these reasons, the editors of +magazines, with the fear of libel before their eyes, regarded him as a +"safe" man, the public, feeling that the evils he exposed were due +to its own indifference, with uncomfortable approval, and those he +attacked, with impotent anger. Their anger was impotent because, in the +case of Everett, the weapons used by their class in "striking back" +were denied them. They could not say that for money he sold sensations, +because it was known that a proud and wealthy parent supplied him +with all the money he wanted. Nor in his private life could they find +anything to offset his attacks upon the misconduct of others. Men had +been sent to spy upon him, and women to lay traps. But the men reported +that his evenings were spent at his club, and, from the women, those who +sent them learned only that Everett "treats a lady just as though she IS +a lady." + +Accordingly, when, with much trumpeting, he departed to investigate +conditions in the Congo, there were some who rejoiced. + +The standard of life to which Everett was accustomed was high. In his +home in Boston it had been set for him by a father and mother who, +though critics rather than workers in the world, had taught him to +despise what was mean and ungenerous, to write the truth and abhor a +compromise. At Harvard he had interested himself in municipal reform, +and when later he moved to New York, he transferred his interest to +the problems of that city. His attack upon Tammany Hall did not utterly +destroy that organization, but at once brought him to the notice of +the editors. By them he was invited to tilt his lance at evils in +other parts of the United States, at "systems," trusts, convict camps, +municipal misrule. His work had met with a measure of success that +seemed to justify Lowell's Weekly in sending him further afield, and +he now was on his way to tell the truth about the Congo. Personally, +Everett was a healthy, clean-minded enthusiast. He possessed all of the +advantages of youth, and all of its intolerance. He was supposed to be +engaged to Florence Carey, but he was not. There was, however, between +them an "understanding," which understanding, as Everett understood it, +meant that until she was ready to say, "I am ready," he was to think of +her, dream of her, write love-letters to her, and keep himself only for +her. He loved her very dearly, and, having no choice, was content to +wait. His content was fortunate, as Miss Carey seemed inclined to keep +him waiting indefinitely. + +Except in Europe, Everett had never travelled outside the limits of +his own country. But the new land toward which he was advancing held no +terrors. As he understood it, the Congo was at the mercy of a corrupt +"ring." In every part of the United States he had found a city in the +clutch of a corrupt ring. The conditions would be the same, the methods +he would use to get at the truth would be the same, the result for +reform would be the same. + +The English steamer on which he sailed for Southampton was one leased +by the Independent State of the Congo, and, with a few exceptions, her +passengers were subjects of King Leopold. On board, the language was +French, at table the men sat according to the rank they held in the +administration of the jungle, and each in his buttonhole wore the tiny +silver star that showed that for three years, to fill the storehouses +of the King of the Belgians, he had gathered rubber and ivory. In the +smoking-room Everett soon discovered that passengers not in the service +of that king, the English and German officers and traders, held aloof +from the Belgians. Their attitude toward them seemed to be one partly of +contempt, partly of pity. + +"Are your English protectorates on the coast, then, so much better +administered?" Everett asked. + +The English Coaster, who for ten years in Nigeria had escaped fever and +sudden death, laughed evasively. + +"I have never been in the Congo," he said. "Only know what they tell +one. But you'll see for yourself. That is," he added, "you'll see what +they want you to see." + +They were leaning on the rail, with their eyes turned toward the +coast of Liberia, a gloomy green line against which the waves cast +up fountains of foam as high as the cocoanut palms. As a subject of +discussion, the coaster seemed anxious to avoid the Congo. + +"It was there," he said, pointing, "the Three Castles struck on the +rocks. She was a total loss. So were her passengers," he added. "They +ate them." + +Everett gazed suspiciously at the unmoved face of the veteran. + +"WHO ate them?" he asked guardedly. "Sharks?" + +"The natives that live back of that shore-line in the lagoons." + +Everett laughed with the assurance of one for whom a trap had been laid +and who had cleverly avoided it. + +"Cannibals," he mocked. "Cannibals went out of date with pirates. But +perhaps," he added apologetically, "this happened some years ago?" + +"Happened last month," said the trader. + +"But Liberia is a perfectly good republic," protested Everett. "The +blacks there may not be as far advanced as in your colonies, but they're +not cannibals." + +"Monrovia is a very small part of Liberia," said the trader dryly. "And +none of these protectorates, or crown colonies, on this coast pretends +to control much of the Hinterland. There is Sierra Leone, for instance, +about the oldest of them. Last year the governor celebrated the +hundredth anniversary of the year the British abolished slavery. They +had parades and tea-fights, and all the blacks were in the street in +straw hats with cricket ribbons, thanking God they were not as other men +are, not slaves like their grandfathers. Well, just at the height of the +jubilation, the tribes within twenty miles of the town sent in to say +that they, also, were holding a palaver, and it was to mark the fact +that they NEVER had been slaves and never would be, and, if the governor +doubted it, to send out his fighting men and they'd prove it. It cast +quite a gloom over the celebration." + +"Do you mean that only twenty miles from the coast--" began Everett. + +"TEN miles," said the Coaster, "wait till you see Calabar. That's our +Exhibit A. The cleanest, best administered. Everything there is model: +hospitals, barracks, golf links. Last year, ten miles from Calabar, Dr. +Stewart rode his bicycle into a native village. The king tortured him +six days, cut him up, and sent pieces of him to fifty villages with the +message: 'You eat each other. WE eat white chop.' That was ten miles +from our model barracks." + +For some moments the muckraker considered the statement thoughtfully. + +"You mean," he inquired, "that the atrocities are not all on the side of +the white men?" + +"Atrocities?" exclaimed the trader. "I wasn't talking of atrocities. Are +you looking for them?" + +"I'm not running away from them," laughed Everett. "Lowell's Weekly is +sending me to the Congo to find out the truth, and to try to help put an +end to them." + +In his turn the trader considered the statement carefully. + +"Among the natives," he explained, painstakingly picking each word, +"what you call 'atrocities' are customs of warfare, forms of punishment. +When they go to war they EXPECT to be tortured; they KNOW, if they're +killed, they'll be eaten. The white man comes here and finds these +customs have existed for centuries. He adopts them, because--" + +"One moment!" interrupted Everett warmly. "That does not excuse HIM. +The point is, that with him they have NOT existed. To him they should be +against his conscience, indecent, horrible! He has a greater knowledge, +a much higher intelligence; he should lift the native, not sink to him." + +The Coaster took his pipe from his mouth, and twice opened his lips to +speak. Finally, he blew the smoke into the air, and shook his head. + +"What's the use!" he exclaimed. + +"Try," laughed Everett. "Maybe I'm not as unintelligent as I talk." + +"You must get this right," protested the Coaster. "It doesn't matter +a damn what a man BRINGS here, what his training WAS, what HE IS. The +thing is too strong for him." + +"What thing?" + +"That!" said the Coaster. He threw out his arm at the brooding +mountains, the dark lagoons, the glaring coast-line against which the +waves shot into the air with the shock and roar of twelve-inch guns. + +"The first white man came to Sierra Leone five hundred years before +Christ," said the Coaster. "And, in twenty-two hundred years, he's got +just twenty miles inland. The native didn't need forts, or a navy, to +stop him. He had three allies: those waves, the fever, and the sun. +Especially the sun. The black man goes bare-headed, and the sun lets him +pass. The white man covers his head with an inch of cork, and the sun +strikes through it and kills him. When Jameson came down the river from +Yambuya, the natives fired on his boat. He waved his helmet at them for +three minutes, to show them there was a white man in the canoe. Three +minutes was all the sun wanted. Jameson died in two days. Where you are +going, the sun does worse things to a man than kill him: it drives him +mad. It keeps the fear of death in his heart; and THAT takes away his +nerve and his sense of proportion. He flies into murderous fits, over +silly, imaginary slights; he grows morbid, suspicious, he becomes a +coward, and because he is a coward with authority, he becomes a bully. + +"He is alone, we will suppose, at a station three hundred miles from +any other white man. One morning his house-boy spills a cup of coffee on +him, and in a rage he half kills the boy. He broods over that, until he +discovers, or his crazy mind makes him think he has discovered, that +in revenge the boy is plotting to poison him. So he punishes him again. +Only this time he punishes him as the black man has taught him to +punish, in the only way the black man seems to understand; that is, he +tortures him. From that moment the fall of that man is rapid. The heat, +the loneliness, the fever, the fear of the black faces, keep him on +edge, rob him of sleep, rob him of his physical strength, of his moral +strength. He loses shame, loses reason; becomes cruel, weak, degenerate. +He invents new, bestial tortures; commits new, unspeakable 'atrocities,' +until, one day, the natives turn and kill him, or he sticks his gun in +his mouth and blows the top of his head off." + +The Coaster smiled tolerantly at the wide-eyed eager young man at his +side. + +"And you," he mocked, "think you can reform that man, and that hell +above ground called the Congo, with an article in Lowell's Weekly?" + +Undismayed, Everett grinned cheerfully. + +"That's what I'm here for!" he said. + +By the time Everett reached the mouth of the Congo, he had learned that +in everything he must depend upon himself; that he would be accepted +only as the kind of man that, at the moment, he showed himself to be. +This attitude of independence was not chosen, but forced on him by the +men with whom he came in contact. Associations and traditions, that in +every part of the United States had served as letters of introduction, +and enabled strangers to identify and label him, were to the white men +on the steamer and at the ports of call without meaning or value. That +he was an Everett of Boston conveyed little to those who had not heard +even of Boston. That he was the correspondent of Lowell's Weekly meant +less to those who did not know that Lowell's Weekly existed. And when, +in confusion, he proffered his letter of credit, the very fact that it +called for a thousand pounds was, in the eyes of a "Palm Oil Ruffian," +sufficient evidence that it had been forged or stolen. He soon saw that +solely as a white man was he accepted and made welcome. That he was +respectable, few believed, and no one cared. To be taken at his face +value, to be refused at the start the benefit of the doubt, was a novel +sensation; and yet not unpleasant. It was a relief not to be accepted +only as Everett the Muckraker, as a professional reformer, as one holier +than others. It afforded his soul the same relaxation that his body +received when, in his shirt-sleeves in the sweltering smoking-room, he +drank beer with a chef de poste who had been thrice tried for murder. + +Not only to every one was he a stranger, but to him everything was +strange; so strange as to appear unreal. This did not prevent him from +at once recognizing those things that were not strange, such as corrupt +officials, incompetence, mismanagement. He did not need the missionaries +to point out to him that the Independent State of the Congo was not +a colony administered for the benefit of many, but a vast rubber +plantation worked by slaves to fill the pockets of one man. It was not +in his work that Everett found himself confused. It was in his attitude +of mind toward almost every other question. + +At first, when he could not make everything fit his rule of thumb, he +excused the country tolerantly as a "topsy-turvy" land. He wished to +move and act quickly; to make others move quickly. He did not understand +that men who had sentenced themselves to exile for the official term +of three years, or for life, measured time only by the date of their +release. When he learned that even a cablegram could not reach his home +in less than eighteen days, that the missionaries to whom he brought +letters were a three months' journey from the coast and from each other, +his impatience was chastened to wonder, and, later, to awe. + +His education began at Matadi, where he waited until the river steamer +was ready to start for Leopoldville. Of the two places he was assured +Matadi was the better, for the reason that if you still were in favor +with the steward of the ship that brought you south, he might sell you a +piece of ice. + +Matadi was a great rock, blazing with heat. Its narrow, perpendicular +paths seemed to run with burning lava. Its top, the main square of the +settlement, was of baked clay, beaten hard by thousands of naked feet. +Crossing it by day was an adventure. The air that swept it was the +breath of a blast-furnace. + +Everett found a room over the shop of a Portuguese trader. It was caked +with dirt, and smelled of unnamed diseases and chloride of lime. In it +was a canvas cot, a roll of evil-looking bedding, a wash-basin filled +with the stumps of cigarettes. In a corner was a tin chop-box, which +Everett asked to have removed. It belonged, the landlord told him, to +the man who, two nights before, had occupied the cot and who had died +in it. Everett was anxious to learn of what he had died. Apparently +surprised at the question, the Portuguese shrugged his shoulders. + +"Who knows?" he exclaimed. The next morning the English trader across +the street assured Everett there was no occasion for alarm. "He didn't +die of any disease," he explained. "Somebody got at him from the +balcony, while he was in his cot, and knifed him." + +The English trader was a young man, a cockney, named Upsher. At home he +had been a steward on the Channel steamers. Everett made him his most +intimate friend. He had a black wife, who spent most of her day in a +four-post bed, hung with lace curtains and blue ribbon, in which she +resembled a baby hippopotamus wallowing in a bank of white sand. + +At first the black woman was a shock to Everett, but after Upsher +dismissed her indifferently as a "good old sort," and spent one evening +blubbering over a photograph of his wife and "kiddie" at home, Everett +accepted her. His excuse for this was that men who knew they might die +on the morrow must not be judged by what they do to-day. The excuse did +not ring sound, but he dismissed the doubt by deciding that in such heat +it was not possible to take serious questions seriously. In the fact +that, to those about him, the thought of death was ever present, he +found further excuse for much else that puzzled and shocked him. At +home, death had been a contingency so remote that he had put it aside as +something he need not consider until he was a grandfather. At Matadi, +at every moment of the day, in each trifling act, he found death must be +faced, conciliated, conquered. At home he might ask himself, "If I eat +this will it give me indigestion?" At Matadi he asked, "If I drink this +will I die?" + +Upsher told him of a feud then existing between the chief of police and +an Italian doctor in the State service. Interested in the outcome only +as a sporting proposition, Upsher declared the odds were unfair, because +the Belgian was using his black police to act as his body-guard while +for protection the Italian could depend only upon his sword-cane. Each +night, with the other white exiles of Matadi, the two adversaries met +in the Cafe Franco-Belge. There, with puzzled interest, Everett watched +them sitting at separate tables, surrounded by mutual friends, excitedly +playing dominoes. Outside the cafe, Matadi lay smothered and sweltering +in a black, living darkness, and, save for the rush of the river, in +a silence that continued unbroken across a jungle as wide as Europe. +Inside the dominoes clicked, the glasses rang on the iron tables, the +oil lamps glared upon the pallid, sweating faces of clerks, upon the +tanned, sweating skins of officers; and the Italian doctor and the +Belgian lieutenant, each with murder in his heart, laughed, shrugged, +gesticulated, waiting for the moment to strike. + +"But why doesn't some one DO something?" demanded Everett. "Arrest them, +or reason with them. Everybody knows about it. It seems a pity not to DO +something." + +Upsher nodded his head. Dimly he recognized a language with which he +once had been familiar. "I know what you mean," he agreed. "Bind 'em +over to keep the peace. And a good job, too! But who?" he demanded +vaguely. "That's what I say! Who?" From the confusion into which +Everett's appeal to forgotten memories had thrown it, his mind suddenly +emerged. "But what's the use!" he demanded. "Don't you see," he +explained triumphantly, "if those two crazy men were fit to listen to +SENSE, they'd have sense enough not to kill each other!" + +Each succeeding evening Everett watched the two potential murderers with +lessening interest. He even made a bet with Upsher, of a bottle of fruit +salt, that the chief of police would be the one to die. + +A few nights later a man, groaning beneath his balcony, disturbed his +slumbers. He cursed the man, and turned his pillow to find the cooler +side. But all through the night the groans, though fainter, broke into +his dreams. At intervals some traditions of past conduct tugged at +Everett's sleeve, and bade him rise and play the good Samaritan. +But, indignantly, he repulsed them. Were there not many others within +hearing? Were there not the police? Was it HIS place to bind the wounds +of drunken stokers? The groans were probably a trick, to entice him, +unarmed, into the night. And so, just before the dawn, when the mists +rose, and the groans ceased, Everett, still arguing, sank with a +contented sigh into forgetfulness. + +When he woke, there was beneath his window much monkey-like chattering, +and he looked down into the white face and glazed eyes of the +Italian doctor, lying in the gutter and staring up at him. Below his +shoulder-blades a pool of blood shone evilly in the blatant sunlight. + +Across the street, on his balcony, Upsher, in pajamas and mosquito +boots, was shivering with fever and stifling a yawn. "You lose!" he +called. + +Later in the day, Everett analyzed his conduct of the night previous. +"At home," he told Upsher, "I would have been telephoning for an +ambulance, or been out in the street giving the man the 'first-aid' +drill. But living as we do here, so close to death, we see things more +clearly. Death loses its importance. It's a bromide," he added. "But +travel certainly broadens one. Every day I have been in the Congo, I +have been assimilating new ideas." Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. +An older man could have told Everett that he was assimilating just as +much of the Congo as the rabbit assimilates of the boa-constrictor, that +first smothers it with saliva and then swallows it. + +Everett started up the Congo in a small steamer open on all sides to the +sun and rain, and with a paddle-wheel astern that kicked her forward at +the rate of four miles an hour. Once every day, the boat tied up to a +tree and took on wood to feed her furnace, and Everett talked to the +white man in charge of the wood post, or, if, as it generally happened, +the white man was on his back with fever, dosed him with quinine. On +board, except for her captain, and a Finn who acted as engineer, Everett +was the only other white man. The black crew and "wood-boys" he soon +disliked intensely. At first, when Nansen, the Danish captain, and the +Finn struck them, because they were in the way, or because they were +not, Everett winced, and made a note of it. But later he decided the +blacks were insolent, sullen, ungrateful; that a blow did them no harm. + +According to the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the war, in +his own country, had owned slaves, those of the "Southland" were +always content, always happy. When not singing close harmony in the +cotton-fields, they danced upon the levee, they twanged the old banjo. +But these slaves of the Upper Congo were not happy. They did not dance. +They did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, gloomy, despairing, +lighted with a sudden sombre fire, and searched the eyes of the white +man. They seemed to beg of him the answer to a terrible question. It was +always the same question. It had been asked of Pharaoh. They asked it of +Leopold. For hours, squatting on the iron deck-plates, humped on their +naked haunches, crowding close together, they muttered apparently +interminable criticisms of Everett. Their eyes never left him. He +resented this unceasing scrutiny. It got upon his nerves. He was sure +they were evolving some scheme to rob him of his tinned sausages, or, +possibly, to kill him. It was then he began to dislike them. In reality, +they were discussing the watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it +was a powerful juju, to ward off evil spirits. They were afraid of it. + +One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was +measuring a bras of cloth. As he had been taught, he held the cloth in +his teeth and stretched it to the ends of his finger-tips. The wood-boy +thought the white man was giving him short measure. White men always HAD +given him short measure, and, at a glance, he could not recognize that +this one was an Everett of Boston. + +So he opened Everett's fingers. + +All the blood in Everett's body leaped to his head. That he, a white +man, an Everett, who had come so far to set these people free, should be +accused by one of them of petty theft! + +He caught up a log of fire wood and laid open the scalp of the black +boy, from the eye to the crown of his head. The boy dropped, and +Everett, seeing the blood creeping through his kinky wool, turned ill +with nausea. Drunkenly, through a red cloud of mist, he heard himself +shouting, "The BLACK nigger! The BLACK NIGGER! He touched me! I TELL +you, he touched me!" Captain Nansen led Everett to his cot and gave him +fizzy salts, but it was not until sundown that the trembling and nausea +ceased. + +Then, partly in shame, partly as a bribe, he sought out the injured boy +and gave him the entire roll of cloth. It had cost Everett ten francs. +To the wood-boy it meant a year's wages. The boy hugged it in his arms, +as he might a baby, and crooned over it. From under the blood-stained +bandage, humbly, without resentment, he lifted his tired eyes to those +of the white man. Still, dumbly, they begged the answer to the same +question. + +During the five months Everett spent up the river he stopped at many +missions, stations, one-man wood posts. He talked to Jesuit fathers, +to inspecteurs, to collectors for the State of rubber, taxes, elephant +tusks, in time, even in Bangalese, to chiefs of the native villages. +According to the point of view, he was told tales of oppression, of +avarice, of hideous crimes, of cruelties committed in the name of trade +that were abnormal, unthinkable. The note never was of hope, never of +cheer, never inspiring. There was always the grievance, the spirit of +unrest, of rebellion that ranged from dislike to a primitive, hot hate. +Of his own land and life he heard nothing, not even when his face was +again turned toward the east. Nor did he think of it. As now he saw +them, the rules and principles and standards of his former existence +were petty and credulous. But he assured himself he had not abandoned +those standards. He had only temporarily laid them aside, as he had left +behind him in London his frock-coat and silk hat. Not because he would +not use them again, but because in the Congo they were ridiculous. + +For weeks, with a missionary as a guide, he walked through forests into +which the sun never penetrated, or, on the river, moved between banks +where no white man had placed his foot; where, at night, the elephants +came trooping to the water, and, seeing the lights of the boat, fled +crashing through the jungle; where the great hippos, puffing and +blowing, rose so close to his elbow that he could have tossed his +cigarette and hit them. The vastness of the Congo, toward which he +had so jauntily set forth, now weighed upon his soul. The immeasurable +distances; the slumbering disregard of time; the brooding, interminable +silences; the efforts to conquer the land that were so futile, so +puny, and so cruel, at first appalled and, later, left him unnerved, +rebellious, childishly defiant. + +What health was there, he demanded hotly, in holding in a dripping +jungle to morals, to etiquette, to fashions of conduct? Was he, the +white man, intelligent, trained, disciplined in mind and body, to be +judged by naked cannibals, by chattering monkeys, by mammoth primeval +beasts? His code of conduct was his own. He was a law unto himself. + +He came down the river on one of the larger steamers of the State, and, +on this voyage, with many fellow-passengers. He was now on his way home, +but in the fact he felt no elation. Each day the fever ran tingling +through his veins, and left him listless, frightened, or choleric. One +night at dinner, in one of these moods of irritation, he took offence +at the act of a lieutenant who, in lack of vegetables, drank from +the vinegar bottle. Everett protested that such table manners were +unbecoming an officer, even an officer of the Congo; and on the +lieutenant resenting his criticism, Everett drew his revolver. The +others at the table took it from him, and locked him in his cabin. +In the morning, when he tried to recall what had occurred, he could +remember only that, for some excellent reason, he had hated some one +with a hatred that could be served only with death. He knew it could not +have been drink, as each day the State allowed him but one half-bottle +of claret. That but for the interference of strangers he might have shot +a man, did not interest him. In the outcome of what he regarded +merely as an incident, he saw cause neither for congratulation or +self-reproach. For his conduct he laid the blame upon the sun, and +doubled his dose of fruit salts. + +Everett was again at Matadi, waiting for the Nigeria to take on cargo +before returning to Liverpool. During the few days that must intervene +before she sailed, he lived on board. Although now actually bound north, +the thought afforded him no satisfaction. His spirits were depressed, +his mind gloomy; a feeling of rebellion, of outlawry, filled him with +unrest. + +While the ship lay at the wharf, Hardy, her English captain, Cuthbert, +the purser, and Everett ate on deck under the awning, assailed by +electric fans. Each was clad in nothing more intricate than pajamas. + +"To-night," announced Hardy, with a sigh, "we got to dress ship. Mr. +Ducret and his wife are coming on board. We carry his trade goods, and I +got to stand him a dinner and champagne. You boys," he commanded, "must +wear 'whites,' and talk French." + +"I'll dine on shore," growled Everett. + +"Better meet them," advised Cuthbert. The purser was a pink-cheeked, +clear-eyed young man, who spoke the many languages of the coast glibly, +and his own in the soft, detached voice of a well-bred Englishman. He +was in training to enter the consular service. Something in his poise, +in the assured manner in which he handled his white stewards and the +black Kroo boys, seemed to Everett a constant reproach, and he resented +him. + +"They're a picturesque couple," explained Cuthbert. "Ducret was +originally a wrestler. Used to challenge all comers from the front of +a booth. He served his time in the army in Senegal, and when he was +mustered out moved to the French Congo and began to trade, in a small +way, in ivory. Now he's the biggest merchant, physically and every other +way, from Stanley Pool to Lake Chad. He has a house at Brazzaville built +of mahogany, and a grand piano, and his own ice-plant. His wife was a +supper-girl at Maxim's. He brought her down here and married her. Every +rainy season they go back to Paris and run race-horses, and they say the +best table in every all-night restaurant is reserved for him. In Paris +they call her the Ivory Queen. She's killed seventeen elephants with her +own rifle." + +In the Upper Congo, Everett had seen four white women. They were pallid, +washed-out, bloodless; even the youngest looked past middle-age. For +him women of any other type had ceased to exist. He had come to think of +every white woman as past middle-age, with a face wrinkled by the sun, +with hair bleached white by the sun, with eyes from which, through +gazing at the sun, all light and lustre had departed. He thought of them +as always wearing boots to protect their ankles from mosquitoes, and +army helmets. + +When he came on deck for dinner, he saw a woman who looked as though she +was posing for a photograph by Reutlinger. She appeared to have stepped +to the deck directly from her electric victoria, and the Rue de la Paix. +She was tall, lithe, gracefully erect, with eyes of great loveliness, +and her hair brilliantly black, drawn, a la Merode, across a broad, fair +forehead. She wore a gown and long coat of white lace, as delicate as +a bridal veil, and a hat with a flapping brim from which, in a curtain, +hung more lace. When she was pleased, she lifted her head and the +curtain rose, unmasking her lovely eyes. Around the white, bare throat +was a string of pearls. They had cost the lives of many elephants. + +Cuthbert, only a month from home, saw Madame Ducret just as she was--a +Parisienne, elegant, smart, soigne. He knew that on any night at Madrid +or d'Armenonville he might look upon twenty women of the same +charming type. They might lack that something this girl from Maxim's +possessed--the spirit that had caused her to follow her husband into the +depths of darkness. But outwardly, for show purposes, they were even as +she. + +But to Everett she was no messenger from another world. She was unique. +To his famished eyes, starved senses, and fever-driven brain, she was +her entire sex personified. She was the one woman for whom he had always +sought, alluring, soothing, maddening; if need be, to be fought for; the +one thing to be desired. Opposite, across the table, her husband, the +ex-wrestler, chasseur d'Afrique, elephant poacher, bulked large as an +ox. Men felt as well as saw his bigness. Captain Hardy deferred to +him on matters of trade. The purser deferred to him on questions of +administration. He answered them in his big way, with big thoughts, in +big figures. He was fifty years ahead of his time. He beheld the Congo +open to the world; in the forests where he had hunted elephants he +foresaw great "factories," mining camps, railroads, feeding gold and +copper ore to the trunk line, from the Cape to Cairo. His ideas were the +ideas of an empire-builder. But, while the others listened, fascinated, +hypnotized, Everett saw only the woman, her eyes fixed on her husband, +her fingers turning and twisting her diamond rings. Every now and again +she raised her eyes to Everett almost reproachfully, as though to say, +"Why do you not listen to him? It is much better for you than to look at +me." + +When they had gone, all through the sultry night, until the sun drove +him to his cabin, like a caged animal Everett paced and repaced the +deck. The woman possessed his mind and he could not drive her out. He +did not wish to drive her out. What the consequences might be he did not +care. So long as he might see her again, he jeered at the consequences. +Of one thing he was positive. He could not now leave the Congo. He would +follow her to Brazzaville. If he were discreet, Ducret might invite +him to make himself their guest. Once established in her home, she MUST +listen to him. No man ever before had felt for any woman the need he +felt for her. It was too big for him to conquer. It would be too big for +her to resist. + +In the morning a note from Ducret invited Everett and Cuthbert to join +him in an all-day excursion to the water-fall beyond Matadi. Everett +answered the note in person. The thought of seeing the woman calmed +and steadied him like a dose of morphine. So much more violent than the +fever in his veins was the fever in his brain that, when again he was +with her, he laughed happily, and was grandly at peace. So different was +he from the man they had met the night before, that the Frenchman and +his wife glanced at each other in surprise and approval. They found +him witty, eager, a most charming companion; and when he announced his +intention of visiting Brazzaville, they insisted he should make their +home his own. + +His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Ducret, was +evident to the others, but her husband accepted it. It was her due. And, +on the Congo, to grudge to another man the sight of a pretty woman was +as cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine that might save his +reason. But before the day passed, Madame Ducret was aware that the +American could not be lightly dismissed as an admirer. The fact +neither flattered nor offended. For her it was no novel or disturbing +experience. Other men, whipped on by loneliness, by fever, by primitive +savage instincts, had told her what she meant to them. She did not +hold them responsible. Some, worth curing, she had nursed through the +illness. Others, who refused to be cured, she had turned over, with a +shrug, to her husband. This one was more difficult. Of men of Everett's +traditions and education she had known but few; but she recognized the +type. This young man was no failure in life, no derelict, no outcast +flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the jungle. He was what, in her +Maxim days, she had laughed at as an aristocrat. He knew her Paris as +she did not know it: its history, its art. Even her language he spoke +more correctly than her husband or herself. She knew that at his home +there must be many women infinitely more attractive, more suited to him, +than herself: women of birth, of position; young girls and great ladies +of the other world. And she knew, also, that, in his present state, at +a nod from her he would cast these behind him and carry her into the +wilderness. More quickly than she anticipated, Everett proved she did +not overrate the forces that compelled him. + +The excursion to the rapids was followed by a second dinner on board +the Nigeria. But now, as on the previous night, Everett fell into sullen +silence. He ate nothing, drank continually, and with his eyes devoured +the woman. When coffee had been served, he left the others at table, +and with Madame Ducret slowly paced the deck. As they passed out of the +reach of the lights, he drew her to the rail, and stood in front of her. + +"I am not quite mad," he said, "but you have got to come with me." + +To Everett all he added to this sounded sane and final. He told her that +this was one of those miracles when the one woman and the one man who +were predestined to meet had met. He told her he had wished to marry +a girl at home, but that he now saw that the desire was the fancy of +a school-boy. He told her he was rich, and offered her the choice of +returning to the Paris she loved, or of going deeper into the jungle. +There he would set up for her a principality, a state within the State. +He would defend her against all comers. He would make her the Queen of +the Congo. + +"I have waited for you thousands of years!" he told her. His voice was +hoarse, shaken, and thick. "I love you as men loved women in the Stone +Age--fiercely, entirely. I will not be denied. Down here we are cave +people; if you fight me, I will club you and drag you to my cave. If +others fight for you, I will KILL them. I love you," he panted, "with +all my soul, my mind, my body, I love you! I will not let you go!" + +Madame Ducret did not say she was insulted, because she did not feel +insulted. She did not call to her husband for help, because she did not +need his help, and because she knew that the ex-wrestler could break +Everett across his knee. She did not even withdraw her hands, although +Everett drove the diamonds deep into her fingers. + +"You frighten me!" she pleaded. She was not in the least frightened. She +only was sorry that this one must be discarded among the incurables. + +In apparent agitation, she whispered, "To-morrow! To-morrow I will give +you your answer." + +Everett did not trust her, did not release her. He regarded her +jealously, with quick suspicion. To warn her that he knew she could not +escape from Matadi, or from him, he said, "The train to Leopoldville +does not leave for two days!" + +"I know!" whispered Madame Ducret soothingly. "I will give you your +answer to-morrow at ten." She emphasized the hour, because she knew +at sunrise a special train would carry her husband and herself to +Leopoldville, and that there one of her husband's steamers would bear +them across the Pool to French Congo. + +"To-morrow, then!" whispered Everett, grudgingly. "But I must kiss you +now!" + +Only an instant did Madame Ducret hesitate. Then she turned her cheek. +"Yes," she assented. "You must kiss me now." + +Everett did not rejoin the others. He led her back into the circle of +light, and locked himself in his cabin. + +At ten the next morning, when Ducret and his wife were well advanced +toward Stanley Pool, Cuthbert handed Everett a note. Having been told +what it contained, he did not move away, but, with his back turned, +leaned upon the rail. + +Everett, his eyes on fire with triumph, his fingers trembling, tore open +the envelope. + +Madame Ducret wrote that her husband and herself felt that Mr. Everett +was suffering more severely from the climate than he knew. With regret +they cancelled their invitation to visit them, and urged him, for his +health's sake, to continue as he had planned, to northern latitudes. +They hoped to meet in Paris. They extended assurances of their +distinguished consideration. + +Slowly, savagely, as though wreaking his suffering on some human thing, +Everett tore the note into minute fragments. Moving unsteadily to the +ship's side, he flung them into the river, and then hung limply upon the +rail. + +Above him, from a sky of brass, the sun stabbed at his eyeballs. Below +him, the rush of the Congo, churning in muddy whirlpools, echoed against +the hills of naked rock that met the naked sky. + +To Everett, the roar of the great river, and the echoes from the land he +had set out to reform, carried the sound of gigantic, hideous laughter. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Question of Latitude, by Richard Harding Davis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A QUESTION OF LATITUDE *** + +***** This file should be named 1817.txt or 1817.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/1817/ + +Produced by Don Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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But, if in his skirmishes with graft and corruption +he had failed to correct the evils he attacked, from the contests +he himself had always emerged with credit. His sincerity and his +methods were above suspicion. No one had caught him in +misstatement, or exaggeration. Even those whom he attacked, +admitted he fought fair. For these reasons, the editors of +magazines, with the fear of libel before their eyes, regarded him +as a "safe" man, the public, feeling that the evils he exposed were +due to its own indifference, with uncomfortable approval, and those +he attacked, with impotent anger. Their anger was impotent +because, in the case of Everett, the weapons used by their class in +"striking back" were denied them. They could not say that for +money he sold sensations, because it was known that a proud and +wealthy parent supplied him with all the money he wanted. Nor in +his private life could they find anything to offset his attacks +upon the misconduct of others. Men had been sent to spy upon him, +and women to lay traps. But the men reported that his evenings +were spent at his club, and, from the women, those who sent them +learned only that Everett "treats a lady just as though she IS a +lady." + +Accordingly, when, with much trumpeting, he departed to investigate +conditions in the Congo, there were some who rejoiced. + +The standard of life to which Everett was accustomed was high. In +his home in Boston it had been set for him by a father and mother +who, though critics rather than workers in the world, had taught +him to despise what was mean and ungenerous, to write the truth and +abhor a compromise. At Harvard he had interested himself in +municipal reform, and when later he moved to New York, he +transferred his interest to the problems of that city. His attack +upon Tammany Hall did not utterly destroy that organization, but at +once brought him to the notice of the editors. By them he was +invited to tilt his lance at evils in other parts of the United +States, at "systems," trusts, convict camps, municipal misrule. +His work had met with a measure of success that seemed to justify +Lowell's Weekly in sending him further afield, and he now was on +his way to tell the truth about the Congo. Personally, Everett was +a healthy, clean-minded enthusiast. He possessed all of the +advantages of youth, and all of its intolerance. He was supposed +to be engaged to Florence Carey, but he was not. There was, +however, between them an "understanding," which understanding, as +Everett understood it, meant that until she was ready to say, "I am +ready," he was to think of her, dream of her, write love-letters to +her, and keep himself only for her. He loved her very dearly, and, +having no choice, was content to wait. His content was fortunate, +as Miss Carey seemed inclined to keep him waiting indefinitely. + +Except in Europe, Everett had never travelled outside the limits of +his own country. But the new land toward which he was advancing +held no terrors. As he understood it, the Congo was at the mercy +of a corrupt "ring." In every part of the United States he had +found a city in the clutch of a corrupt ring. The conditions would +be the same, the methods he would use to get at the truth would be +the same, the result for reform would be the same. + +The English steamer on which he sailed for Southampton was one +leased by the Independent State of the Congo, and, with a few +exceptions, her passengers were subjects of King Leopold. On +board, the language was French, at table the men sat according to +the rank they held in the administration of the jungle, and each in +his buttonhole wore the tiny silver star that showed that for three +years, to fill the storehouses of the King of the Belgians, he had +gathered rubber and ivory. In the smoking-room Everett soon +discovered that passengers not in the service of that king, the +English and German officers and traders, held aloof from the +Belgians. Their attitude toward them seemed to be one partly of +contempt, partly of pity. + +"Are your English protectorates on the coast, then, so much better +administered?" Everett asked. + +The English Coaster, who for ten years in Nigeria had escaped fever +and sudden death, laughed evasively. + +"I have never been in the Congo," he said. "Only know what they +tell one. But you'll see for yourself. That is," he added, +"you'll see what they want you to see." + +They were leaning on the rail, with their eyes turned toward the +coast of Liberia, a gloomy green line against which the waves cast +up fountains of foam as high as the cocoanut palms. As a subject +of discussion, the coaster seemed anxious to avoid the Congo. + +"It was there," he said, pointing, "the Three Castles struck on the +rocks. She was a total loss. So were her passengers," he added. +"They ate them." + +Everett gazed suspiciously at the unmoved face of the veteran. + +"WHO ate them?" he asked guardedly. "Sharks?" + +"The natives that live back of that shore-line in the lagoons." + +Everett laughed with the assurance of one for whom a trap had been +laid and who had cleverly avoided it. + +"Cannibals," he mocked. "Cannibals went out of date with pirates. +But perhaps," he added apologetically, "this happened some years +ago?" + +"Happened last month," said the trader. + +"But Liberia is a perfectly good republic," protested Everett. +"The blacks there may not be as far advanced as in your colonies, +but they're not cannibals." + +"Monrovia is a very small part of Liberia," said the trader dryly. +"And none of these protectorates, or crown colonies, on this coast +pretends to control much of the Hinterland. There is Sierra Leone, +for instance, about the oldest of them. Last year the governor +celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the year the British +abolished slavery. They had parades and tea-fights, and all the +blacks were in the street in straw hats with cricket ribbons, +thanking God they were not as other men are, not slaves like their +grandfathers. Well, just at the height of the jubilation, the +tribes within twenty miles of the town sent in to say that they, +also, were holding a palaver, and it was to mark the fact that they +NEVER had been slaves and never would be, and, if the governor +doubted it, to send out his fighting men and they'd prove it. It +cast quite a gloom over the celebration." + +"Do you mean that only twenty miles from the coast--" began +Everett. + +"TEN miles," said the Coaster. "wait till you see Calabar. That's +our Exhibit A. The cleanest, best administered. Everything there +is model: hospitals, barracks, golf links. Last year, ten miles +from Calabar, Dr. Stewart rode his bicycle into a native village. +The king tortured him six days, cut him up, and sent pieces of him +to fifty villages with the message: 'You eat each other. WE eat +white chop.' That was ten miles from our model barracks." + +For some moments the muckraker considered the statement +thoughtfully. + +"You mean," he inquired, "that the atrocities are not all on the +side of the white men?" + +"Atrocities?" exclaimed the trader. "I wasn't talking of +atrocities. Are you looking for them?" + +"I'm not running away from them," laughed Everett. "Lowell's +Weekly is sending me to the Congo to find out the truth, and to try +to help put an end to them." + +In his turn the trader considered the statement carefully. + +"Among the natives," he explained, painstakingly picking each word, +"what you call 'atrocities' are customs of warfare, forms of +punishment. When they go to war they EXPECT to be tortured; they +KNOW, if they're killed, they'll be eaten. The white man comes +here and finds these customs have existed for centuries. He adopts +them, because--" + +"One moment!" interrupted Everett warmly. "That does not excuse +HIM. The point is, that with him they have NOT existed. To him +they should be against his conscience, indecent, horrible! He has +a greater knowledge, a much higher intelligence; he should lift the +native, not sink to him." + +The Coaster took his pipe from his mouth, and twice opened his lips +to speak. Finally, he blew the smoke into the air, and shook his +head. + +"What's the use!" he exclaimed. + +"Try," laughed Everett. "Maybe I'm not as unintelligent as I +talk." + +"You must get this right," protested the Coaster. "It doesn't +matter a damn what a man BRINGS here, what his training WAS, what +HE IS. The thing is too strong for him." + +"What thing?" + +"That!" said the Coaster. He threw out his arm at the brooding +mountains, the dark lagoons, the glaring coast-line against which +the waves shot into the air with the shock and roar of twelve-inch +guns. + +"The first white man came to Sierra Leone five hundred years before +Christ," said the Coaster. "And, in twenty-two hundred years, he's +got just twenty miles inland. The native didn't need forts, or a +navy, to stop him. He had three allies: those waves, the fever, +and the sun. Especially the sun. The black man goes bare-headed, +and the sun lets him pass. The white man covers his head with an +inch of cork, and the sun strikes through it and kills him. When +Jameson came down the river from Yambuya, the natives fired on his +boat. He waved his helmet at them for three minutes, to show them +there was a white man in the canoe. Three minutes was all the sun +wanted. Jameson died in two days. Where you are going, the sun +does worse things to a man than kill him: it drives him mad. It +keeps the fear of death in his heart; and THAT takes away his nerve +and his sense of proportion. He flies into murderous fits, over +silly, imaginary slights; he grows morbid, suspicious, he becomes a +coward, and because he is a coward with authority, he becomes a +bully. + +"He is alone, we will suppose, at a station three hundred miles +from any other white man. One morning his house-boy spills a cup +of coffee on him, and in a rage he half kills the boy. He broods +over that, until he discovers, or his crazy mind makes him think he +has discovered, that in revenge the boy is plotting to poison him. +So he punishes him again. Only this time he punishes him as the +black man has taught him to punish, in the only way the black man +seems to understand; that is, he tortures him. From that moment +the fall of that man is rapid. The heat, the loneliness, the +fever, the fear of the black faces, keep him on edge, rob him of +sleep, rob him of his physical strength, of his moral strength. He +loses shame, loses reason; becomes cruel, weak, degenerate. He +invents new, bestial tortures; commits new, unspeakable +'atrocities,' until, one day, the natives turn and kill him, or he +sticks his gun in his mouth and blows the top of his head off." + +The Coaster smiled tolerantly at the wide-eyed eager young man at +his side. + +"And you," he mocked, "think you can reform that man, and that hell +above ground called the Congo, with an article in Lowell's Weekly?" + +Undismayed, Everett grinned cheerfully. + +"That's what I'm here for!" he said. + +By the time Everett reached the mouth of the Congo, he had learned +that in everything he must depend upon himself; that he would be +accepted only as the kind of man that, at the moment, he showed +himself to be. This attitude of independence was not chosen, but +forced on him by the men with whom he came in contact. +Associations and traditions, that in every part of the United +States had served as letters of introduction, and enabled strangers +to identify and label him, were to the white men on the steamer and +at the ports of call without meaning or value. That he was an +Everett of Boston conveyed little to those who had not heard even +of Boston. That he was the correspondent of Lowell's Weekly meant +less to those who did not know that Lowell's Weekly existed. And +when, in confusion, he proffered his letter of credit, the very +fact that it called for a thousand pounds was, in the eyes of a +"Palm Oil Ruffian," sufficient evidence that it had been forged or +stolen. He soon saw that solely as a white man was he accepted and +made welcome. That he was respectable, few believed, and no one +cared. To be taken at his face value, to be refused at the start +the benefit of the doubt, was a novel sensation; and yet not +unpleasant. It was a relief not to be accepted only as Everett the +Muckraker, as a professional reformer, as one holier than others. +It afforded his soul the same relaxation that his body received +when, in his shirt-sleeves in the sweltering smoking-room, he drank +beer with a chef de poste who had been thrice tried for murder. + +Not only to every one was he a stranger, but to him everything was +strange; so strange as to appear unreal. This did not prevent him +from at once recognizing those things that were not strange, such +as corrupt officials, incompetence, mismanagement. He did not need +the missionaries to point out to him that the Independent State of +the Congo was not a colony administered for the benefit of many, +but a vast rubber plantation worked by slaves to fill the pockets +of one man. It was not in his work that Everett found himself +confused. It was in his attitude of mind toward almost every other +question. + +At first, when he could not make everything fit his rule of thumb, +he excused the country tolerantly as a "topsy-turvy" land. He +wished to move and act quickly; to make others move quickly. He +did not understand that men who had sentenced themselves to exile +for the official term of three years, or for life, measured time +only by the date of their release. When he learned that even a +cablegram could not reach his home in less than eighteen days, that +the missionaries to whom he brought letters were a three months' +journey from the coast and from each other, his impatience was +chastened to wonder, and, later, to awe. + +His education began at Matadi, where he waited until the river +steamer was ready to start for Leopoldville. Of the two places he +was assured Matadi was the better, for the reason that if you still +were in favor with the steward of the ship that brought you south, +he might sell you a piece of ice. + +Matadi was a great rock, blazing with heat. Its narrow, +perpendicular paths seemed to run with burning lava. Its top, the +main square of the settlement, was of baked clay, beaten hard by +thousands of naked feet. Crossing it by day was an adventure. The +air that swept it was the breath of a blast-furnace. + +Everett found a room over the shop of a Portuguese trader. It was +caked with dirt, and smelled of unnamed diseases and chloride of +lime. In it was a canvas cot, a roll of evil-looking bedding, a +wash-basin filled with the stumps of cigarettes. In a corner was a +tin chop-box, which Everett asked to have removed. It belonged, +the landlord told him, to the man who, two nights before, had +occupied the cot and who had died in it. Everett was anxious to +learn of what he had died. Apparently surprised at the question, +the Portuguese shrugged his shoulders. + +"Who knows?" he exclaimed. The next morning the English trader +across the street assured Everett there was no occasion for alarm. +"He didn't die of any disease," he explained. "Somebody got at him +from the balcony, while he was in his cot, and knifed him." + +The English trader was a young man, a cockney, named Upsher. At +home he had been a steward on the Channel steamers. Everett made +him his most intimate friend. He had a black wife, who spent most +of her day in a four-post bed, hung with lace curtains and blue +ribbon, in which she resembled a baby hippopotamus wallowing in a +bank of white sand. + +At first the black woman was a shock to Everett, but after Upsher +dismissed her indifferently as a "good old sort," and spent one +evening blubbering over a photograph of his wife and "kiddie" at +home, Everett accepted her. His excuse for this was that men who +knew they might die on the morrow must not be judged by what they +do to-day. The excuse did not ring sound, but he dismissed the +doubt by deciding that in such heat it was not possible to take +serious questions seriously. In the fact that, to those about him, +the thought of death was ever present, he found further excuse for +much else that puzzled and shocked him. At home, death had been a +contingency so remote that he had put it aside as something he need +not consider until he was a grandfather. At Matadi, at every +moment of the day, in each trifling act, he found death must be +faced, conciliated, conquered. At home he might ask himself, "If I +eat this will it give me indigestion?" At Matadi he asked, "If I +drink this will I die?" + +Upsher told him of a feud then existing between the chief of police +and an Italian doctor in the State service. Interested in the +outcome only as a sporting proposition, Upsher declared the odds +were unfair, because the Belgian was using his black police to act +as his body-guard while for protection the Italian could depend +only upon his sword-cane. Each night, with the other white exiles +of Matadi, the two adversaries met in the Cafe Franco-Belge. +There, with puzzled interest, Everett watched them sitting at +separate tables, surrounded by mutual friends, excitedly playing +dominoes. Outside the cafe, Matadi lay smothered and sweltering in +a black, living darkness, and, save for the rush of the river, in a +silence that continued unbroken across a jungle as wide as Europe. +Inside the dominoes clicked, the glasses rang on the iron tables, +the oil lamps glared upon the pallid, sweating faces of clerks, +upon the tanned, sweating skins of officers; and the Italian doctor +and the Belgian lieutenant, each with murder in his heart, laughed, +shrugged, gesticulated, waiting for the moment to strike. + +"But why doesn't some one DO something?" demanded Everett. "Arrest +them, or reason with them. Everybody knows about it. It seems a +pity not to DO something." + +Upsher nodded his head. Dimly he recognized a language with which +he once had been familiar. "I know what you mean," he agreed. +"Bind 'em over to keep the peace. And a good job, too! But who?" +he demanded vaguely. "That's what I say! Who?" From the +confusion into which Everett's appeal to forgotten memories had +thrown it, his mind suddenly emerged. "But what's the use!" he +demanded. "Don't you see," he explained triumphantly, "if those +two crazy men were fit to listen to SENSE, they'd have sense enough +not to kill each other!" + +Each succeeding evening Everett watched the two potential murderers +with lessening interest. He even made a bet with Upsher, of a +bottle of fruit salt, that the chief of police would be the one to +die. + +A few nights later a man, groaning beneath his balcony, disturbed +his slumbers. He cursed the man, and turned his pillow to find the +cooler side. But all through the night the groans, though fainter, +broke into his dreams. At intervals some traditions of past +conduct tugged at Everett's sleeve, and bade him rise and play the +good Samaritan. But, indignantly, he repulsed them. Were there +not many others within hearing? Were there not the police? Was it +HIS place to bind the wounds of drunken stokers? The groans were +probably a trick, to entice him, unarmed, into the night. And so, +just before the dawn, when the mists rose, and the groans ceased, +Everett, still arguing, sank with a contented sigh into +forgetfulness. + +When he woke, there was beneath his window much monkey-like +chattering, and he looked down into the white face and glazed eyes +of the Italian doctor, lying in the gutter and staring up at him. +Below his shoulder-blades a pool of blood shone evilly in the +blatant sunlight. + +Across the street, on his balcony, Upsher, in pajamas and mosquito +boots, was shivering with fever and stifling a yawn. "You lose!" +he called. + +Later in the day, Everett analyzed his conduct of the night +previous. "At home," he told Upsher, "I would have been +telephoning for an ambulance, or been out in the street giving the +man the 'first-aid' drill. But living as we do here, so close to +death, we see things more clearly. Death loses its importance. +It's a bromide," he added. "But travel certainly broadens one. +Every day I have been in the Congo, I have been assimilating new +ideas." Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. An older man could +have told Everett that he was assimilating just as much of the +Congo as the rabbit assimilates of the boa-constrictor, that first +smothers it with saliva and then swallows it. + +Everett started up the Congo in a small steamer open on all sides +to the sun and rain, and with a paddle-wheel astern that kicked her +forward at the rate of four miles an hour. Once every day, the +boat tied up to a tree and took on wood to feed her furnace, and +Everett talked to the white man in charge of the wood post, or, if, +as it generally happened, the white man was on his back with fever, +dosed him with quinine. On board, except for her captain, and a +Finn who acted as engineer, Everett was the only other white man. +The black crew and "wood-boys" he soon disliked intensely. At +first, when Nansen, the Danish captain, and the Finn struck them, +because they were in the way, or because they were not, Everett +winced, and made a note of it. But later he decided the blacks +were insolent, sullen, ungrateful; that a blow did them no harm. + +According to the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the +war, in his own country, had owned slaves, those of the "Southland" +were always content, always happy. When not singing close harmony +in the cotton-fields, they danced upon the levee, they twanged the +old banjo. But these slaves of the Upper Congo were not happy. +They did not dance. They did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, +gloomy, despairing, lighted with a sudden sombre fire, and searched +the eyes of the white man. They seemed to beg of him the answer to +a terrible question. It was always the same question. It had been +asked of Pharaoh. They asked it of Leopold. For hours, squatting +on the iron deck-plates, humped on their naked haunches, crowding +close together, they muttered apparently interminable criticisms of +Everett. Their eyes never left him. He resented this unceasing +scrutiny. It got upon his nerves. He was sure they were evolving +some scheme to rob him of his tinned sausages, or, possibly, to +kill him. It was then he began to dislike them. In reality, they +were discussing the watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it +was a powerful juju, to ward off evil spirits. They were afraid of +it. + +One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was +measuring a bras of cloth. As he had been taught, he held the +cloth in his teeth and stretched it to the ends of his finger-tips. +The wood-boy thought the white man was giving him short measure. +White men always HAD given him short measure, and, at a glance, he +could not recognize that this one was an Everett of Boston. + +So he opened Everett's fingers. + +All the blood in Everett's body leaped to his head. That he, a +white man, an Everett, who had come so far to set these people +free, should be accused by one of them of petty theft! + +He caught up a log of fire wood and laid open the scalp of the +black boy, from the eye to the crown of his head. The boy dropped, +and Everett, seeing the blood creeping through his kinky wool, +turned ill with nausea. Drunkenly, through a red cloud of mist, he +heard himself shouting, "The BLACK nigger! The BLACK NIGGER! He +touched me! I TELL you, he touched me!" Captain Nansen led +Everett to his cot and gave him fizzy salts, but it was not until +sundown that the trembling and nausea ceased. + +Then, partly in shame, partly as a bribe, he sought out the injured +boy and gave him the entire roll of cloth. It had cost Everett ten +francs. To the wood-boy it meant a year's wages. The boy hugged +it in his arms, as he might a baby, and crooned over it. From +under the blood-stained bandage, humbly, without resentment, he +lifted his tired eyes to those of the white man. Still, dumbly, +they begged the answer to the same question. + +During the five months Everett spent up the river he stopped at +many missions, stations, one-man wood posts. He talked to Jesuit +fathers, to inspecteurs, to collectors for the State of rubber, +taxes, elephant tusks, in time, even in Bangalese, to chiefs of the +native villages. According to the point of view, he was told tales +of oppression, of avarice, of hideous crimes, of cruelties +committed in the name of trade that were abnormal, unthinkable. +The note never was of hope, never of cheer, never inspiring. There +was always the grievance, the spirit of unrest, of rebellion that +ranged from dislike to a primitive, hot hate. Of his own land and +life he heard nothing, not even when his face was again turned +toward the east. Nor did he think of it. As now he saw them, the +rules and principles and standards of his former existence were +petty and credulous. But he assured himself he had not abandoned +those standards. He had only temporarily laid them aside, as he +had left behind him in London his frock-coat and silk hat. Not +because he would not use them again, but because in the Congo they +were ridiculous. + +For weeks, with a missionary as a guide, he walked through forests +into which the sun never penetrated, or, on the river, moved +between banks where no white man had placed his foot; where, at +night, the elephants came trooping to the water, and, seeing the +lights of the boat, fled crashing through the jungle; where the +great hippos, puffing and blowing, rose so close to his elbow that +he could have tossed his cigarette and hit them. The vastness of +the Congo, toward which he had so jauntily set forth, now weighed +upon his soul. The immeasurable distances; the slumbering +disregard of time; the brooding, interminable silences; the efforts +to conquer the land that were so futile, so puny, and so cruel, at +first appalled and, later, left him unnerved, rebellious, +childishly defiant. + +What health was there, he demanded hotly, in holding in a dripping +jungle to morals, to etiquette, to fashions of conduct? Was he, +the white man, intelligent, trained, disciplined in mind and body, +to be judged by naked cannibals, by chattering monkeys, by mammoth +primeval beasts? His code of conduct was his own. He was a law +unto himself. + +He came down the river on one of the larger steamers of the State, +and, on this voyage, with many fellow-passengers. He was now on +his way home, but in the fact he felt no elation. Each day the +fever ran tingling through his veins, and left him listless, +frightened, or choleric. One night at dinner, in one of these +moods of irritation, he took offence at the act of a lieutenant +who, in lack of vegetables, drank from the vinegar bottle. Everett +protested that such table manners were unbecoming an officer, even +an officer of the Congo; and on the lieutenant resenting his +criticism, Everett drew his revolver. The others at the table took +it from him, and locked him in his cabin. In the morning, when he +tried to recall what had occurred, he could remember only that, for +some excellent reason, he had hated some one with a hatred that +could be served only with death. He knew it could not have been +drink, as each day the State allowed him but one half-bottle of +claret. That but for the interference of strangers he might have +shot a man, did not interest him. In the outcome of what he +regarded merely as an incident, he saw cause neither for +congratulation or self-reproach. For his conduct he laid the blame +upon the sun, and doubled his dose of fruit salts. + +Everett was again at Matadi, waiting for the Nigeria to take on +cargo before returning to Liverpool. During the few days that must +intervene before she sailed, he lived on board. Although now +actually bound north, the thought afforded him no satisfaction. +His spirits were depressed, his mind gloomy; a feeling of +rebellion, of outlawry, filled him with unrest. + +While the ship lay at the wharf, Hardy, her English captain, +Cuthbert, the purser, and Everett ate on deck under the awning, +assailed by electric fans. Each was clad in nothing more intricate +than pajamas. + +"To-night," announced Hardy, with a sigh, "we got to dress ship. +Mr. Ducret and his wife are coming on board. We carry his trade +goods, and I got to stand him a dinner and champagne. You boys," +he commanded, "must wear 'whites,' and talk French." + +"I'll dine on shore," growled Everett. + +"Better meet them," advised Cuthbert. The purser was a pink- +cheeked, clear-eyed young man, who spoke the many languages of the +coast glibly, and his own in the soft, detached voice of a well- +bred Englishman. He was in training to enter the consular service. +Something in his poise, in the assured manner in which he handled +his white stewards and the black Kroo boys, seemed to Everett a +constant reproach, and he resented him. + +"They're a picturesque couple," explained Cuthbert. "Ducret was +originally a wrestler. Used to challenge all comers from the front +of a booth. He served his time in the army in Senegal, and when he +was mustered out moved to the French Congo and began to trade, in a +small way, in ivory. Now he's the biggest merchant, physically and +every other way, from Stanley Pool to Lake Chad. He has a house at +Brazzaville built of mahogany, and a grand piano, and his own ice- +plant. His wife was a supper-girl at Maxim's. He brought her down +here and married her. Every rainy season they go back to Paris and +run race-horses, and they say the best table in every all-night +restaurant is reserved for him. In Paris they call her the Ivory +Queen. She's killed seventeen elephants with her own rifle." + +In the Upper Congo, Everett had seen four white women. They were +pallid, washed-out, bloodless; even the youngest looked past +middle-age. For him women of any other type had ceased to exist. +He had come to think of every white woman as past middle-age, with +a face wrinkled by the sun, with hair bleached white by the sun, +with eyes from which, through gazing at the sun, all light and +lustre had departed. He thought of them as always wearing boots to +protect their ankles from mosquitoes, and army helmets. + +When he came on deck for dinner, he saw a woman who looked as +though she was posing for a photograph by Reutlinger. She appeared +to have stepped to the deck directly from her electric victoria, +and the Rue de la Paix. She was tall, lithe, gracefully erect, +with eyes of great loveliness, and her hair brilliantly black, +drawn, a la Merode, across a broad, fair forehead. She wore a gown +and long coat of white lace, as delicate as a bridal veil, and a +hat with a flapping brim from which, in a curtain, hung more lace. +When she was pleased, she lifted her head and the curtain rose, +unmasking her lovely eyes. Around the white, bare throat was a +string of pearls. They had cost the lives of many elephants. + +Cuthbert, only a month from home, saw Madame Ducret just as she +was--a Parisienne, elegant, smart, soigne. He knew that on any +night at Madrid or d'Armenonville he might look upon twenty women +of the same charming type. They might lack that something this +girl from Maxim's possessed--the spirit that had caused her to +follow her husband into the depths of darkness. But outwardly, for +show purposes, they were even as she. + +But to Everett she was no messenger from another world. She was +unique. To his famished eyes, starved senses, and fever-driven +brain, she was her entire sex personified. She was the one woman +for whom he had always sought, alluring, soothing, maddening; if +need be, to be fought for; the one thing to be desired. Opposite, +across the table, her husband, the ex-wrestler, chasseur d'Afrique, +elephant poacher, bulked large as an ox. Men felt as well as saw +his bigness. Captain Hardy deferred to him on matters of trade. +The purser deferred to him on questions of administration. He +answered them in his big way, with big thoughts, in big figures. +He was fifty years ahead of his time. He beheld the Congo open to +the world; in the forests where he had hunted elephants he foresaw +great "factories," mining camps, railroads, feeding gold and copper +ore to the trunk line, from the Cape to Cairo. His ideas were the +ideas of an empire-builder. But, while the others listened, +fascinated, hypnotized, Everett saw only the woman, her eyes fixed +on her husband, her fingers turning and twisting her diamond rings. +Every now and again she raised her eyes to Everett almost +reproachfully, as though to say, "Why do you not listen to him? It +is much better for you than to look at me." + +When they had gone, all through the sultry night, until the sun +drove him to his cabin, like a caged animal Everett paced and +repaced the deck. The woman possessed his mind and he could not +drive her out. He did not wish to drive her out. What the +consequences might be he did not care. So long as he might see her +again, he jeered at the consequences. Of one thing he was +positive. He could not now leave the Congo. He would follow her +to Brazzaville. If he were discreet, Ducret might invite him to +make himself their guest. Once established in her home, she MUST +listen to him. No man ever before had felt for any woman the need +he felt for her. It was too big for him to conquer. It would be +too big for her to resist. + +In the morning a note from Ducret invited Everett and Cuthbert to +join him in an all-day excursion to the water-fall beyond Matadi. +Everett answered the note in person. The thought of seeing the +woman calmed and steadied him like a dose of morphine. So much +more violent than the fever in his veins was the fever in his brain +that, when again he was with her, he laughed happily, and was +grandly at peace. So different was he from the man they had met +the night before, that the Frenchman and his wife glanced at each +other in surprise and approval. They found him witty, eager, a +most charming companion; and when he announced his intention of +visiting Brazzaville, they insisted he should make their home his +own. + +His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Ducret, +was evident to the others, but her husband accepted it. It was her +due. And, on the Congo, to grudge to another man the sight of a +pretty woman was as cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine +that might save his reason. But before the day passed, Madame +Ducret was aware that the American could not be lightly dismissed +as an admirer. The fact neither flattered nor offended. For her +it was no novel or disturbing experience. Other men, whipped on by +loneliness, by fever, by primitive savage instincts, had told her +what she meant to them. She did not hold them responsible. Some, +worth curing, she had nursed through the illness. Others, who +refused to be cured, she had turned over, with a shrug, to her +husband. This one was more difficult. Of men of Everett's +traditions and education she had known but few; but she recognized +the type. This young man was no failure in life, no derelict, no +outcast flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the jungle. He +was what, in her Maxim days, she had laughed at as an aristocrat. +He knew her Paris as she did not know it: its history, its art. +Even her language he spoke more correctly than her husband or +herself. She knew that at his home there must be many women +infinitely more attractive, more suited to him, than herself: women +of birth, of position; young girls and great ladies of the other +world. And she knew, also, that, in his present state, at a nod +from her he would cast these behind him and carry her into the +wilderness. More quickly than she anticipated, Everett proved she +did not overrate the forces that compelled him. + +The excursion to the rapids was followed by a second dinner on +board the Nigeria. But now, as on the previous night, Everett fell +into sullen silence. He ate nothing, drank continually, and with +his eyes devoured the woman. When coffee had been served, he left +the others at table, and with Madame Ducret slowly paced the deck. +As they passed out of the reach of the lights, he drew her to the +rail, and stood in front of her. + +"I am not quite mad," he said, "but you have got to come with me." + +To Everett all he added to this sounded sane and final. He told +her that this was one of those miracles when the one woman and the +one man who were predestined to meet had met. He told her he had +wished to marry a girl at home, but that he now saw that the desire +was the fancy of a school-boy. He told her he was rich, and +offered her the choice of returning to the Paris she loved, or of +going deeper into the jungle. There he would set up for her a +principality, a state within the State. He would defend her +against all comers. He would make her the Queen of the Congo. + +"I have waited for you thousands of years!" he told her. His voice +was hoarse, shaken, and thick. "I love you as men loved women in +the Stone Age--fiercely, entirely. I will not be denied. Down +here we are cave people; if you fight me, I will club you and drag +you to my cave. If others fight for you, I will KILL them. I love +you," he panted, "with all my soul, my mind, my body, I love you! +I will not let you go!" + +Madame Ducret did not say she was insulted, because she did not +feel insulted. She did not call to her husband for help, because +she did not need his help, and because she knew that the ex- +wrestler could break Everett across his knee. She did not even +withdraw her hands, although Everett drove the diamonds deep into +her fingers. + +"You frighten me!" she pleaded. She was not in the least +frightened. She only was sorry that this one must be discarded +among the incurables. + +In apparent agitation, she whispered, "To-morrow! To-morrow I will +give you your answer." + +Everett did not trust her, did not release her. He regarded her +jealously, with quick suspicion. To warn her that he knew she +could not escape from Matadi, or from him, he said, "The train to +Leopoldville does not leave for two days!" + +"I know!" whispered Madame Ducret soothingly. "I will give you +your answer to-morrow at ten." She emphasized the hour, because +she knew at sunrise a special train would carry her husband and +herself to Leopoldville, and that there one of her husband's +steamers would bear them across the Pool to French Congo. + +"To-morrow, then!" whispered Everett, grudgingly. "But I must kiss +you now!" + +Only an instant did Madame Ducret hesitate. Then she turned her +cheek. "Yes," she assented. "You must kiss me now." + +Everett did not rejoin the others. He led her back into the circle +of light, and locked himself in his cabin. + +At ten the next morning, when Ducret and his wife were well +advanced toward Stanley Pool, Cuthbert handed Everett a note. +Having been told what it contained, he did not move away, but, with +his back turned, leaned upon the rail. + +Everett, his eyes on fire with triumph, his fingers trembling, tore +open the envelope. + +Madame Ducret wrote that her husband and herself felt that Mr. +Everett was suffering more severely from the climate than he knew. +With regret they cancelled their invitation to visit them, and +urged him, for his health's sake, to continue as he had planned, to +northern latitudes. They hoped to meet in Paris. They extended +assurances of their distinguished consideration. + +Slowly, savagely, as though wreaking his suffering on some human +thing, Everett tore the note into minute fragments. Moving +unsteadily to the ship's side, he flung them into the river, and +then hung limply upon the rail. + +Above him, from a sky of brass, the sun stabbed at his eyeballs. +Below him, the rush of the Congo, churning in muddy whirlpools, +echoed against the hills of naked rock that met the naked sky. + +To Everett, the roar of the great river, and the echoes from the +land he had set out to reform, carried the sound of gigantic, +hideous laughter. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Question of Latitude, by Davis + diff --git a/old/qlttd10.zip b/old/qlttd10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4797765 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/qlttd10.zip |