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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad
+
+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: The Secret Sharer
+
+Author: Joseph Conrad
+
+Release Date: February 1995 [EBook #220]
+Posting Date: June 18, 2009
+[This file last updated: December 27, 2010]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET SHARER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET SHARER
+
+By Joseph Conrad
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a
+mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in
+its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if
+abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other
+end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as
+the eye could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting
+ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set
+in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie
+below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone
+smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible
+ripple. And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug
+which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line
+of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect
+and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor half brown, half blue under
+the enormous dome of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to
+the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of
+the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river
+Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward
+journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass,
+the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on
+which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous
+sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few scattered pieces
+of silver marked the windings of the great river; and on the nearest of
+them, just within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became
+lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though the impassive
+earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor. My eye
+followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the
+plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, but always fainter
+and farther away, till I lost it at last behind the miter-shaped hill
+of the great pagoda. And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at
+the head of the Gulf of Siam.
+
+She floated at the starting point of a long journey, very still in an
+immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the eastward by
+the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not
+a sound in her--and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe
+on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this
+breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be
+measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed
+task of both our existences to be carried out, far from all human eyes,
+with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges.
+
+There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one's
+sight, because it was only just before the sun left us that my roaming
+eyes made out beyond the highest ridges of the principal islet of the
+group something which did away with the solemnity of perfect solitude.
+The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with tropical suddenness a
+swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet,
+my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a
+trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of celestial bodies staring
+down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good.
+And there were also disturbing sounds by this time--voices, footsteps
+forward; the steward flitted along the main-deck, a busily ministering
+spirit; a hand bell tinkled urgently under the poop deck....
+
+I found my two officers waiting for me near the supper table, in the
+lighted cuddy. We sat down at once, and as I helped the chief mate, I
+said:
+
+"Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside the islands? I saw
+her mastheads above the ridge as the sun went down."
+
+He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a terrible growth of
+whisker, and emitted his usual ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You
+don't say so!"
+
+My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young man, grave beyond his
+years, I thought; but as our eyes happened to meet I detected a slight
+quiver on his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part to
+encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be said, too, that I knew
+very little of my officers. In consequence of certain events of no
+particular significance, except to myself, I had been appointed to the
+command only a fortnight before. Neither did I know much of the hands
+forward. All these people had been together for eighteen months or so,
+and my position was that of the only stranger on board. I mention this
+because it has some bearing on what is to follow. But what I felt most
+was my being a stranger to the ship; and if all the truth must be
+told, I was somewhat of a stranger to myself. The youngest man on board
+(barring the second mate), and untried as yet by a position of the
+fullest responsibility, I was willing to take the adequacy of the others
+for granted. They had simply to be equal to their tasks; but I wondered
+how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own
+personality every man sets up for himself secretly.
+
+Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration
+on the part of his round eyes and frightful whiskers, was trying to
+evolve a theory of the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take all
+things into earnest consideration. He was of a painstaking turn of mind.
+As he used to say, he "liked to account to himself" for practically
+everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had
+found in his cabin a week before. The why and the wherefore of that
+scorpion--how it got on board and came to select his room rather than
+the pantry (which was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be
+partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown itself in the inkwell
+of his writing desk--had exercised him infinitely. The ship within the
+islands was much more easily accounted for; and just as we were about
+to rise from table he made his pronouncement. She was, he doubted not, a
+ship from home lately arrived. Probably she drew too much water to cross
+the bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore she went into that
+natural harbor to wait for a few days in preference to remaining in an
+open roadstead.
+
+"That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly, in his slightly hoarse
+voice. "She draws over twenty feet. She's the Liverpool ship Sephora
+with a cargo of coal. Hundred and twenty-three days from Cardiff."
+
+We looked at him in surprise.
+
+"The tugboat skipper told me when he came on board for your letters,
+sir," explained the young man. "He expects to take her up the river the
+day after tomorrow."
+
+After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his information he slipped
+out of the cabin. The mate observed regretfully that he "could not
+account for that young fellow's whims." What prevented him telling us
+all about it at once, he wanted to know.
+
+I detained him as he was making a move. For the last two days the crew
+had had plenty of hard work, and the night before they had very little
+sleep. I felt painfully that I--a stranger--was doing something unusual
+when I directed him to let all hands turn in without setting an
+anchor watch. I proposed to keep on deck myself till one o'clock or
+thereabouts. I would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour.
+
+"He will turn out the cook and the steward at four," I concluded, "and
+then give you a call. Of course at the slightest sign of any sort of
+wind we'll have the hands up and make a start at once."
+
+He concealed his astonishment. "Very well, sir." Outside the cuddy he
+put his head in the second mate's door to inform him of my unheard-of
+caprice to take a five hours' anchor watch on myself. I heard the other
+raise his voice incredulously--"What? The Captain himself?" Then a few
+more murmurs, a door closed, then another. A few moments later I went on
+deck.
+
+My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had prompted that
+unconventional arrangement, as if I had expected in those solitary hours
+of the night to get on terms with the ship of which I knew nothing,
+manned by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast alongside a wharf,
+littered like any ship in port with a tangle of unrelated things,
+invaded by unrelated shore people, I had hardly seen her yet properly.
+Now, as she lay cleared for sea, the stretch of her main-deck seemed to
+me very fine under the stars. Very fine, very roomy for her size,
+and very inviting. I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind
+picturing to myself the coming passage through the Malay Archipelago,
+down the Indian Ocean, and up the Atlantic. All its phases were familiar
+enough to me, every characteristic, all the alternatives which were
+likely to face me on the high seas--everything!... except the novel
+responsibility of command. But I took heart from the reasonable thought
+that the ship was like other ships, the men like other men, and that
+the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises expressly for my
+discomfiture.
+
+Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought myself of a cigar and
+went below to get it. All was still down there. Everybody at the
+after end of the ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on
+the quarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping suit on that warm
+breathless night, barefooted, a glowing cigar in my teeth, and, going
+forward, I was met by the profound silence of the fore end of the ship.
+Only as I passed the door of the forecastle, I heard a deep, quiet,
+trustful sigh of some sleeper inside. And suddenly I rejoiced in the
+great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in
+my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting
+problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute
+straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.
+
+The riding light in the forerigging burned with a clear, untroubled, as
+if symbolic, flame, confident and bright in the mysterious shades of
+the night. Passing on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I
+observed that the rope side ladder, put over, no doubt, for the master
+of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters, had not been hauled
+in as it should have been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in
+some small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I reflected that
+I had myself peremptorily dismissed my officers from duty, and by my
+own act had prevented the anchor watch being formally set and things
+properly attended to. I asked myself whether it was wise ever to
+interfere with the established routine of duties even from the kindest
+of motives. My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only
+knew how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct,
+and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new
+captain. I was vexed with myself.
+
+Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were mechanically, I
+proceeded to get the ladder in myself. Now a side ladder of that sort
+is a light affair and comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should
+have brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon my body in a
+totally unexpected jerk. What the devil!... I was so astounded by
+the immovableness of that ladder that I remained stock-still, trying to
+account for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine. In the end, of
+course, I put my head over the rail.
+
+The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling
+glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and
+pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a
+faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly
+from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the
+elusive, silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I
+saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid
+back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. One
+hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete
+but for the head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my gaping
+mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute
+stillness of all things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his
+face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's side. But even then
+I could only barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired
+head. However, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensation
+which had gripped me about the chest to pass off. The moment of vain
+exclamations was past, too. I only climbed on the spare spar and leaned
+over the rail as far as I could, to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery
+floating alongside.
+
+As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea lightning
+played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared in it ghastly,
+silvery, fishlike. He remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion
+to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable that he should
+not attempt to come on board, and strangely troubling to suspect that
+perhaps he did not want to. And my first words were prompted by just
+that troubled incertitude.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked in my ordinary tone, speaking down to the
+face upturned exactly under mine.
+
+"Cramp," it answered, no louder. Then slightly anxious, "I say, no need
+to call anyone."
+
+"I was not going to," I said.
+
+"Are you alone on deck?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the
+ladder to swim away beyond my ken--mysterious as he came. But, for the
+moment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the
+sea (it was certainly the nearest land to the ship) wanted only to know
+the time. I told him. And he, down there, tentatively:
+
+"I suppose your captain's turned in?"
+
+"I am sure he isn't," I said.
+
+He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard something like the low,
+bitter murmur of doubt. "What's the good?" His next words came out with
+a hesitating effort.
+
+"Look here, my man. Could you call him out quietly?"
+
+I thought the time had come to declare myself.
+
+"I am the captain."
+
+I heard a "By Jove!" whispered at the level of the water. The
+phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all about his limbs,
+his other hand seized the ladder.
+
+"My name's Leggatt."
+
+The voice was calm and resolute. A good voice. The self-possession of
+that man had somehow induced a corresponding state in myself. It was
+very quietly that I remarked:
+
+"You must be a good swimmer."
+
+"Yes. I've been in the water practically since nine o'clock. The
+question for me now is whether I am to let go this ladder and go on
+swimming till I sink from exhaustion, or--to come on board here."
+
+I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech, but a real
+alternative in the view of a strong soul. I should have gathered from
+this that he was young; indeed, it is only the young who are ever
+confronted by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure intuition
+on my part. A mysterious communication was established already between
+us two--in the face of that silent, darkened tropical sea. I was
+young, too; young enough to make no comment. The man in the water began
+suddenly to climb up the ladder, and I hastened away from the rail to
+fetch some clothes.
+
+Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in the lobby at the
+foot of the stairs. A faint snore came through the closed door of the
+chief mate's room. The second mate's door was on the hook, but the
+darkness in there was absolutely soundless. He, too, was young and could
+sleep like a stone. Remained the steward, but he was not likely to
+wake up before he was called. I got a sleeping suit out of my room and,
+coming back on deck, saw the naked man from the sea sitting on the main
+hatch, glimmering white in the darkness, his elbows on his knees and
+his head in his hands. In a moment he had concealed his damp body in a
+sleeping suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one I was wearing
+and followed me like my double on the poop. Together we moved right aft,
+barefooted, silent.
+
+"What is it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out
+of the binnacle, and raising it to his face.
+
+"An ugly business."
+
+He had rather regular features; a good mouth; light eyes under somewhat
+heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, square forehead; no growth on his
+cheeks; a small, brown mustache, and a well-shaped, round chin. His
+expression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting light of
+the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude
+might wear. My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A well-knit
+young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught his lower lip with the
+edge of white, even teeth.
+
+"Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. The warm, heavy
+tropical night closed upon his head again.
+
+"There's a ship over there," he murmured.
+
+"Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of us?"
+
+"Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her--" He paused and
+corrected himself. "I should say I _was_."
+
+"Aha! Something wrong?"
+
+"Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man."
+
+"What do you mean? Just now?"
+
+"No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine south. When I say a man--"
+
+"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.
+
+The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the
+ghostly gray of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had
+been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and immense
+mirror.
+
+"A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy," murmured my
+double, distinctly.
+
+"You're a Conway boy?"
+
+"I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly... "Perhaps you too--"
+
+It was so; but being a couple of years older I had left before he
+joined. After a quick interchange of dates a silence fell; and I thought
+suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the "Bless my
+soul--you don't say so" type of intellect. My double gave me an inkling
+of his thoughts by saying: "My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see
+me before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself I can't see the
+necessity. There are fellows that an angel from heaven--And I am not
+that. He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time
+with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business
+to live at all. He wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do
+theirs. But what's the good of talking! You know well enough the sort of
+ill-conditioned snarling cur--"
+
+He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as
+our clothes. And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a
+character where there are no means of legal repression. And I knew well
+enough also that my double there was no homicidal ruffian. I did not
+think of asking him for details, and he told me the story roughly in
+brusque, disconnected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all going on
+as though I were myself inside that other sleeping suit.
+
+"It happened while we were setting a reefed foresail, at dusk. Reefed
+foresail! You understand the sort of weather. The only sail we had left
+to keep the ship running; so you may guess what it had been like for
+days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me some of his cursed insolence
+at the sheet. I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather that
+seemed to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you--and a deep ship. I
+believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk. It was no time for
+gentlemanly reproof, so I turned round and felled him like an ox. He up
+and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for the ship. All hands
+saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by the throat, and
+went on shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling, 'Look out!
+look out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head. They
+say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the
+ship--just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head and of the
+poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam. It was a miracle that
+they found us, jammed together behind the forebitts. It's clear that I
+meant business, because I was holding him by the throat still when they
+picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for them.
+It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming
+'Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy. And the ship
+running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute her last in
+a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it. I understand that
+the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. The man had been
+deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have this sprung on him
+at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I
+wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting the carcass of their
+precious shipmate out of my fingers. They had rather a job to separate
+us, I've been told. A sufficiently fierce story to make an old judge and
+a respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard when I came to
+myself was the maddening howling of that endless gale, and on that the
+voice of the old man. He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face
+out of his sou'wester.
+
+"'Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act no longer as chief
+mate of this ship.'"
+
+His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous. He rested a hand
+on the end of the skylight to steady himself with, and all that time did
+not stir a limb, so far as I could see. "Nice little tale for a quiet
+tea party," he concluded in the same tone.
+
+One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did
+I stir a limb, so far as I knew. We stood less than a foot from each
+other. It occurred to me that if old "Bless my soul--you don't say so"
+were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us, he would
+think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come upon a scene of
+weird witchcraft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation
+by the wheel with his own gray ghost. I became very much concerned to
+prevent anything of the sort. I heard the other's soothing undertone.
+
+"My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said. Evidently he had forgotten
+he had told me this important fact before. Truly a nice little tale.
+
+"You had better slip down into my stateroom now," I said, moving off
+stealthily. My double followed my movements; our bare feet made no
+sound; I let him in, closed the door with care, and, after giving a call
+to the second mate, returned on deck for my relief.
+
+"Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when he approached.
+
+"No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice, with
+just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn.
+
+"Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have got your orders."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face
+forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I
+went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully.
+The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase with
+flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant--the
+last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least.
+Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each
+side of the rudder casing. Everything was as before in the ship--except
+that two of her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously in use, one
+motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very still in the captain's
+stateroom.
+
+It must be explained here that my cabin had the form of the capital
+letter L, the door being within the angle and opening into the short
+part of the letter. A couch was to the left, the bed place to the right;
+my writing desk and the chronometers' table faced the door. But anyone
+opening it, unless he stepped right inside, had no view of what I call
+the long (or vertical) part of the letter. It contained some lockers
+surmounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two,
+caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There was at the
+bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom, which could be
+entered also directly from the saloon. But that way was never used.
+
+The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular
+shape. Entering my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung
+on gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he
+stepped out quietly from behind the coats hung in the recessed part.
+
+"I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he
+whispered.
+
+I, too, spoke under my breath.
+
+"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting
+permission."
+
+He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though he had
+been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently, kept under
+arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing sickly
+in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit like me, really; yet,
+as we stood leaning over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our
+dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to
+open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a
+double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.
+
+"But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang on to our side
+ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used, after he had
+told me something more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the
+bad weather was over.
+
+"When we sighted Java Head I had had time to think all those matters out
+several times over. I had six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only
+an hour or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck."
+
+He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring
+through the open port. And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this
+thinking out--a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of
+which I should have been perfectly incapable.
+
+"I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land," he
+continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing near as we were to
+each other, shoulder touching shoulder almost. "So I asked to speak to
+the old man. He always seemed very sick when he came to see me--as if he
+could not look me in the face. You know, that foresail saved the ship.
+She was too deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was I
+that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I had him in my
+cabin--he stood by the door looking at me as if I had the halter round
+my neck already--I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked
+at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits. There would
+be the Java coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I wanted
+nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming my second year in the
+Conway."
+
+"I can believe it," I breathed out.
+
+"God only knows why they locked me in every night. To see some of
+their faces you'd have thought they were afraid I'd go about at night
+strangling people. Am I a murdering brute? Do I look it? By Jove! If I
+had been he wouldn't have trusted himself like that into my room. You'll
+say I might have chucked him aside and bolted out, there and then--it
+was dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason I wouldn't think of
+trying to smash the door. There would have been a rush to stop me at the
+noise, and I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage. Somebody
+else might have got killed--for I would not have broken out only to
+get chucked back, and I did not want any more of that work. He refused,
+looking more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and also of
+that old second mate of his who had been sailing with him for years--a
+gray-headed old humbug; and his steward, too, had been with him devil
+knows how long--seventeen years or more--a dogmatic sort of loafer who
+hated me like poison, just because I was the chief mate. No chief mate
+ever made more than one voyage in the Sephora, you know. Those two old
+chaps ran the ship. Devil only knows what the skipper wasn't afraid of
+(all his nerve went to pieces altogether in that hellish spell of bad
+weather we had)--of what the law would do to him--of his wife, perhaps.
+Oh, yes! she's on board. Though I don't think she would have meddled.
+She would have been only too glad to have me out of the ship in any way.
+The 'brand of Cain' business, don't you see. That's all right. I was
+ready enough to go off wandering on the face of the earth--and that was
+price enough to pay for an Abel of that sort. Anyhow, he wouldn't listen
+to me. 'This thing must take its course. I represent the law here.' He
+was shaking like a leaf. 'So you won't?' 'No!' 'Then I hope you will
+be able to sleep on that,' I said, and turned my back on him. 'I wonder
+that you can,' cries he, and locks the door.
+
+"Well after that, I couldn't. Not very well. That was three weeks ago.
+We have had a slow passage through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata
+for ten days. When we anchored here they thought, I suppose, it was
+all right. The nearest land (and that's five miles) is the ship's
+destination; the consul would soon set about catching me; and there
+would have been no object in holding to these islets there. I don't
+suppose there's a drop of water on them. I don't know how it was, but
+tonight that steward, after bringing me my supper, went out to let me
+eat it, and left the door unlocked. And I ate it--all there was, too.
+After I had finished I strolled out on the quarter-deck. I don't know
+that I meant to do anything. A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, I
+believe. Then a sudden temptation came over me. I kicked off my slippers
+and was in the water before I had made up my mind fairly. Somebody heard
+the splash and they raised an awful hullabaloo. 'He's gone! Lower the
+boats! He's committed suicide! No, he's swimming.' Certainly I was
+swimming. It's not so easy for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by
+drowning. I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the ship's
+side. I heard them pulling about in the dark, hailing, and so on, but
+after a bit they gave up. Everything quieted down and the anchorage
+became still as death. I sat down on a stone and began to think. I felt
+certain they would start searching for me at daylight. There was no
+place to hide on those stony things--and if there had been, what would
+have been the good? But now I was clear of that ship, I was not going
+back. So after a while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a
+bundle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the
+outer side of that islet. That was suicide enough for me. Let them think
+what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till
+I sank--but that's not the same thing. I struck out for another of these
+little islands, and it was from that one that I first saw your riding
+light. Something to swim for. I went on easily, and on the way I came
+upon a flat rock a foot or two above water. In the daytime, I dare say,
+you might make it out with a glass from your poop. I scrambled up on it
+and rested myself for a bit. Then I made another start. That last spell
+must have been over a mile."
+
+His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time he stared
+straight out through the porthole, in which there was not even a star
+to be seen. I had not interrupted him. There was something that made
+comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in himself; a sort of
+feeling, a quality, which I can't find a name for. And when he ceased,
+all I found was a futile whisper: "So you swam for our light?"
+
+"Yes--straight for it. It was something to swim for. I couldn't see any
+stars low down because the coast was in the way, and I couldn't see the
+land, either. The water was like glass. One might have been swimming in
+a confounded thousand-feet deep cistern with no place for scrambling out
+anywhere; but what I didn't like was the notion of swimming round and
+round like a crazed bullock before I gave out; and as I didn't mean to
+go back... No. Do you see me being hauled back, stark naked, off one
+of these little islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a
+wild beast? Somebody would have got killed for certain, and I did not
+want any of that. So I went on. Then your ladder--"
+
+"Why didn't you hail the ship?" I asked, a little louder.
+
+He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps came right over our heads
+and stopped. The second mate had crossed from the other side of the poop
+and might have been hanging over the rail for all we knew.
+
+"He couldn't hear us talking--could he?" My double breathed into my very
+ear, anxiously.
+
+His anxiety was in answer, a sufficient answer, to the question I had
+put to him. An answer containing all the difficulty of that situation. I
+closed the porthole quietly, to make sure. A louder word might have been
+overheard.
+
+"Who's that?" he whispered then.
+
+"My second mate. But I don't know much more of the fellow than you do."
+
+And I told him a little about myself. I had been appointed to take
+charge while I least expected anything of the sort, not quite a
+fortnight ago. I didn't know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had
+the time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And as to the
+crew, all they knew was that I was appointed to take the ship home.
+For the rest, I was almost as much of a stranger on board as himself,
+I said. And at the moment I felt it most acutely. I felt that it would
+take very little to make me a suspect person in the eyes of the ship's
+company.
+
+He had turned about meantime; and we, the two strangers in the ship,
+faced each other in identical attitudes.
+
+"Your ladder--" he murmured, after a silence. "Who'd have thought of
+finding a ladder hanging over at night in a ship anchored out here! I
+felt just then a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been
+leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out of condition. I
+wasn't capable of swimming round as far as your rudder chains. And, lo
+and behold! there was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I said
+to myself, 'What's the good?' When I saw a man's head looking over I
+thought I would swim away presently and leave him shouting--in whatever
+language it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I--I liked it. And then
+you speaking to me so quietly--as if you had expected me--made me hold
+on a little longer. It had been a confounded lonely time--I don't mean
+while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to somebody that didn't
+belong to the Sephora. As to asking for the captain, that was a mere
+impulse. It could have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me
+and the other people pretty certain to be round here in the morning. I
+don't know--I wanted to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went
+on. I don't know what I would have said.... 'Fine night, isn't it?'
+or something of the sort."
+
+"Do you think they will be round here presently?" I asked with some
+incredulity.
+
+"Quite likely," he said, faintly.
+
+"He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His head rolled on his
+shoulders.
+
+"H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that bed," I whispered. "Want
+help? There."
+
+It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers underneath. This
+amazing swimmer really needed the lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He
+tumbled in, rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his eyes.
+And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must have looked exactly as I
+used to look in that bed. I gazed upon my other self for a while before
+drawing across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran on a
+brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning them together for greater
+safety, but I sat down on the couch, and once there I felt unwilling
+to rise and hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was extremely
+tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the strain of stealthiness, by
+the effort of whispering and the general secrecy of this excitement. It
+was three o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine, but I
+was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. I sat there, fagged
+out, looking at the curtains, trying to clear my mind of the confused
+sensation of being in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an
+exasperating knocking in my head. It was a relief to discover suddenly
+that it was not in my head at all, but on the outside of the door.
+Before I could collect myself the words "Come in" were out of my mouth,
+and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my morning coffee. I
+had slept, after all, and I was so frightened that I shouted, "This way!
+I am here, steward," as though he had been miles away. He put down the
+tray on the table next the couch and only then said, very quietly, "I
+can see you are here, sir." I felt him give me a keen look, but I dared
+not meet his eyes just then. He must have wondered why I had drawn the
+curtains of my bed before going to sleep on the couch. He went out,
+hooking the door open as usual.
+
+I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew I would have been told
+at once if there had been any wind. Calm, I thought, and I was doubly
+vexed. Indeed, I felt dual more than ever. The steward reappeared
+suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up from the couch so quickly that he
+gave a start.
+
+"What do you want here?"
+
+"Close your port, sir--they are washing decks."
+
+"It is closed," I said, reddening.
+
+"Very well, sir." But he did not move from the doorway and returned my
+stare in an extraordinary, equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes
+wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually gentle,
+almost coaxingly:
+
+"May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?"
+
+"Of course!" I turned my back on him while he popped in and out. Then
+I unhooked and closed the door and even pushed the bolt. This sort of
+thing could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an oven, too. I
+took a peep at my double, and discovered that he had not moved, his arm
+was still over his eyes; but his chest heaved; his hair was wet; his
+chin glistened with perspiration. I reached over him and opened the
+port.
+
+"I must show myself on deck," I reflected.
+
+Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, with no one to say
+nay to me within the whole circle of the horizon; but to lock my cabin
+door and take the key away I did not dare. Directly I put my head out
+of the companion I saw the group of my two officers, the second mate
+barefooted, the chief mate in long India-rubber boots, near the break of
+the poop, and the steward halfway down the poop ladder talking to them
+eagerly. He happened to catch sight of me and dived, the second ran down
+on the main-deck shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came
+to meet me, touching his cap.
+
+There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did not like. I don't
+know whether the steward had told them that I was "queer" only, or
+downright drunk, but I know the man meant to have a good look at me. I
+watched him coming with a smile which, as he got into point-blank range,
+took effect and froze his very whiskers. I did not give him time to open
+his lips.
+
+"Square the yards by lifts and braces before the hands go to breakfast."
+
+It was the first particular order I had given on board that ship; and I
+stayed on deck to see it executed, too. I had felt the need of asserting
+myself without loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken down a
+peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized the opportunity of having
+a good look at the face of every foremast man as they filed past me
+to go to the after braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, I
+presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad
+to escape from the cabin as soon as decency permitted; and all the
+time the dual working of my mind distracted me almost to the point of
+insanity. I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent
+on my actions as my own personality, sleeping in that bed, behind that
+door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was very much
+like being mad, only it was worse because one was aware of it.
+
+I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at last he opened his
+eyes it was in the full possession of his senses, with an inquiring
+look.
+
+"All's well so far," I whispered. "Now you must vanish into the
+bathroom."
+
+He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and then I rang for the steward,
+and facing him boldly, directed him to tidy up my stateroom while I
+was having my bath--"and be quick about it." As my tone admitted of
+no excuses, he said, "Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch his dustpan and
+brushes. I took a bath and did most of my dressing, splashing, and
+whistling softly for the steward's edification, while the secret sharer
+of my life stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his face
+looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids lowered under the stern,
+dark line of his eyebrows drawn together by a slight frown.
+
+When I left him there to go back to my room the steward was finishing
+dusting. I sent for the mate and engaged him in some insignificant
+conversation. It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character
+of his whiskers; but my object was to give him an opportunity for a
+good look at my cabin. And then I could at last shut, with a clear
+conscience, the door of my stateroom and get my double back into the
+recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had to sit still on a
+small folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there.
+We listened to the steward going into the bathroom out of the saloon,
+filling the water bottles there, scrubbing the bath, setting things
+to rights, whisk, bang, clatter--out again into the saloon--turn the
+key--click. Such was my scheme for keeping my second self invisible.
+Nothing better could be contrived under the circumstances. And there
+we sat; I at my writing desk ready to appear busy with some papers, he
+behind me out of sight of the door. It would not have been prudent to
+talk in daytime; and I could not have stood the excitement of that queer
+sense of whispering to myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder,
+I saw him far back there, sitting rigidly on the low stool, his
+bare feet close together, his arms folded, his head hanging on his
+breast--and perfectly still. Anybody would have taken him for me.
+
+I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had to glance over my
+shoulder. I was looking at him when a voice outside the door said:
+
+"Beg pardon, sir."
+
+"Well!..." I kept my eyes on him, and so when the voice outside the
+door announced, "There's a ship's boat coming our way, sir," I saw him
+give a start--the first movement he had made for hours. But he did not
+raise his bowed head.
+
+"All right. Get the ladder over."
+
+I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him? But what? His immobility
+seemed to have been never disturbed. What could I tell him he did not
+know already?... Finally I went on deck.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker all round his face,
+and the sort of complexion that goes with hair of that color; also the
+particular, rather smeary shade of blue in the eyes. He was not exactly
+a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature but middling--one
+leg slightly more bandy than the other. He shook hands, looking vaguely
+around. A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. I
+behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him. Perhaps he was
+shy. He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave
+his name (it was something like Archbold--but at this distance of years
+I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few other particulars of
+that sort, in the manner of a criminal making a reluctant and
+doleful confession. He had had terrible weather on the passage
+out--terrible--terrible--wife aboard, too.
+
+By this time we were seated in the cabin and the steward brought in a
+tray with a bottle and glasses. "Thanks! No." Never took liquor. Would
+have some water, though. He drank two tumblerfuls. Terrible thirsty
+work. Ever since daylight had been exploring the islands round his ship.
+
+"What was that for--fun?" I asked, with an appearance of polite
+interest.
+
+"No!" He sighed. "Painful duty."
+
+As he persisted in his mumbling and I wanted my double to hear every
+word, I hit upon the notion of informing him that I regretted to say I
+was hard of hearing.
+
+"Such a young man, too!" he nodded, keeping his smeary blue,
+unintelligent eyes fastened upon me. "What was the cause of it--some
+disease?" he inquired, without the least sympathy and as if he thought
+that, if so, I'd got no more than I deserved.
+
+"Yes; disease," I admitted in a cheerful tone which seemed to shock him.
+But my point was gained, because he had to raise his voice to give me
+his tale. It is not worth while to record his version. It was just over
+two months since all this had happened, and he had thought so much
+about it that he seemed completely muddled as to its bearings, but still
+immensely impressed.
+
+"What would you think of such a thing happening on board your own
+ship? I've had the Sephora for these fifteen years. I am a well-known
+shipmaster."
+
+He was densely distressed--and perhaps I should have sympathized with
+him if I had been able to detach my mental vision from the unsuspected
+sharer of my cabin as though he were my second self. There he was on the
+other side of the bulkhead, four or five feet from us, no more, as we
+sat in the saloon. I looked politely at Captain Archbold (if that was
+his name), but it was the other I saw, in a gray sleeping suit, seated
+on a low stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded, and every
+word said between us falling into the ears of his dark head bowed on his
+chest.
+
+"I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven-and-thirty years, and
+I've never heard of such a thing happening in an English ship. And that
+it should be my ship. Wife on board, too."
+
+I was hardly listening to him.
+
+"Don't you think," I said, "that the heavy sea which, you told me, came
+aboard just then might have killed the man? I have seen the sheer weight
+of a sea kill a man very neatly, by simply breaking his neck."
+
+"Good God!" he uttered, impressively, fixing his smeary blue eyes on
+me. "The sea! No man killed by the sea ever looked like that." He seemed
+positively scandalized at my suggestion. And as I gazed at him certainly
+not prepared for anything original on his part, he advanced his head
+close to mine and thrust his tongue out at me so suddenly that I
+couldn't help starting back.
+
+After scoring over my calmness in this graphic way he nodded wisely. If
+I had seen the sight, he assured me, I would never forget it as long as
+I lived. The weather was too bad to give the corpse a proper sea burial.
+So next day at dawn they took it up on the poop, covering its face with
+a bit of bunting; he read a short prayer, and then, just as it was, in
+its oilskins and long boots, they launched it amongst those mountainous
+seas that seemed ready every moment to swallow up the ship herself and
+the terrified lives on board of her.
+
+"That reefed foresail saved you," I threw in.
+
+"Under God--it did," he exclaimed fervently. "It was by a special mercy,
+I firmly believe, that it stood some of those hurricane squalls."
+
+"It was the setting of that sail which--" I began.
+
+"God's own hand in it," he interrupted me. "Nothing less could have
+done it. I don't mind telling you that I hardly dared give the order.
+It seemed impossible that we could touch anything without losing it, and
+then our last hope would have been gone."
+
+The terror of that gale was on him yet. I let him go on for a bit, then
+said, casually--as if returning to a minor subject:
+
+"You were very anxious to give up your mate to the shore people, I
+believe?"
+
+He was. To the law. His obscure tenacity on that point had in it
+something incomprehensible and a little awful; something, as it were,
+mystical, quite apart from his anxiety that he should not be suspected
+of "countenancing any doings of that sort." Seven-and-thirty virtuous
+years at sea, of which over twenty of immaculate command, and the last
+fifteen in the Sephora, seemed to have laid him under some pitiless
+obligation.
+
+"And you know," he went on, groping shame-facedly amongst his feelings,
+"I did not engage that young fellow. His people had some interest with
+my owners. I was in a way forced to take him on. He looked very smart,
+very gentlemanly, and all that. But do you know--I never liked him,
+somehow. I am a plain man. You see, he wasn't exactly the sort for the
+chief mate of a ship like the Sephora."
+
+I had become so connected in thoughts and impressions with the secret
+sharer of my cabin that I felt as if I, personally, were being given to
+understand that I, too, was not the sort that would have done for the
+chief mate of a ship like the Sephora. I had no doubt of it in my mind.
+
+"Not at all the style of man. You understand," he insisted,
+superfluously, looking hard at me.
+
+I smiled urbanely. He seemed at a loss for a while.
+
+"I suppose I must report a suicide."
+
+"Beg pardon?"
+
+"Suicide! That's what I'll have to write to my owners directly I get
+in."
+
+"Unless you manage to recover him before tomorrow," I assented,
+dispassionately.... "I mean, alive."
+
+He mumbled something which I really did not catch, and I turned my ear
+to him in a puzzled manner. He fairly bawled:
+
+"The land--I say, the mainland is at least seven miles off my
+anchorage."
+
+"About that."
+
+My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of any sort of
+pronounced interest, began to arouse his distrust. But except for the
+felicitous pretense of deafness I had not tried to pretend anything. I
+had felt utterly incapable of playing the part of ignorance properly,
+and therefore was afraid to try. It is also certain that he had brought
+some ready-made suspicions with him, and that he viewed my politeness
+as a strange and unnatural phenomenon. And yet how else could I have
+received him? Not heartily! That was impossible for psychological
+reasons, which I need not state here. My only object was to keep off his
+inquiries. Surlily? Yes, but surliness might have provoked a point-blank
+question. From its novelty to him and from its nature, punctilious
+courtesy was the manner best calculated to restrain the man. But there
+was the danger of his breaking through my defense bluntly. I could
+not, I think, have met him by a direct lie, also for psychological (not
+moral) reasons. If he had only known how afraid I was of his putting
+my feeling of identity with the other to the test! But, strangely
+enough--(I thought of it only afterwards)--I believe that he was not
+a little disconcerted by the reverse side of that weird situation, by
+something in me that reminded him of the man he was seeking--suggested a
+mysterious similitude to the young fellow he had distrusted and disliked
+from the first.
+
+However that might have been, the silence was not very prolonged. He
+took another oblique step.
+
+"I reckon I had no more than a two-mile pull to your ship. Not a bit
+more."
+
+"And quite enough, too, in this awful heat," I said.
+
+Another pause full of mistrust followed. Necessity, they say, is mother
+of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions. And
+I was afraid he would ask me point-blank for news of my other self.
+
+"Nice little saloon, isn't it?" I remarked, as if noticing for the first
+time the way his eyes roamed from one closed door to the other. "And
+very well fitted out, too. Here, for instance," I continued, reaching
+over the back of my seat negligently and flinging the door open, "is my
+bathroom."
+
+He made an eager movement, but hardly gave it a glance. I got up, shut
+the door of the bathroom, and invited him to have a look round, as if I
+were very proud of my accommodation. He had to rise and be shown round,
+but he went through the business without any raptures whatever.
+
+"And now we'll have a look at my stateroom," I declared, in a voice as
+loud as I dared to make it, crossing the cabin to the starboard side
+with purposely heavy steps.
+
+He followed me in and gazed around. My intelligent double had vanished.
+I played my part.
+
+"Very convenient--isn't it?"
+
+"Very nice. Very comf..." He didn't finish and went out brusquely as
+if to escape from some unrighteous wiles of mine. But it was not to be.
+I had been too frightened not to feel vengeful; I felt I had him on the
+run, and I meant to keep him on the run. My polite insistence must have
+had something menacing in it, because he gave in suddenly. And I did
+not let him off a single item; mate's room, pantry, storerooms, the very
+sail locker which was also under the poop--he had to look into them
+all. When at last I showed him out on the quarter-deck he drew a long,
+spiritless sigh, and mumbled dismally that he must really be going back
+to his ship now. I desired my mate, who had joined us, to see to the
+captain's boat.
+
+The man of whiskers gave a blast on the whistle which he used to wear
+hanging round his neck, and yelled, "Sephora's away!" My double down
+there in my cabin must have heard, and certainly could not feel more
+relieved than I. Four fellows came running out from somewhere forward
+and went over the side, while my own men, appearing on deck too, lined
+the rail. I escorted my visitor to the gangway ceremoniously, and nearly
+overdid it. He was a tenacious beast. On the very ladder he lingered,
+and in that unique, guiltily conscientious manner of sticking to the
+point:
+
+"I say... you... you don't think that--"
+
+I covered his voice loudly:
+
+"Certainly not.... I am delighted. Good-by."
+
+I had an idea of what he meant to say, and just saved myself by the
+privilege of defective hearing. He was too shaken generally to insist,
+but my mate, close witness of that parting, looked mystified and his
+face took on a thoughtful cast. As I did not want to appear as if
+I wished to avoid all communication with my officers, he had the
+opportunity to address me.
+
+"Seems a very nice man. His boat's crew told our chaps a very
+extraordinary story, if what I am told by the steward is true. I suppose
+you had it from the captain, sir?"
+
+"Yes. I had a story from the captain."
+
+"A very horrible affair--isn't it, sir?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Beats all these tales we hear about murders in Yankee ships."
+
+"I don't think it beats them. I don't think it resembles them in the
+least."
+
+"Bless my soul--you don't say so! But of course I've no acquaintance
+whatever with American ships, not I, so I couldn't go against your
+knowledge. It's horrible enough for me.... But the queerest part is
+that those fellows seemed to have some idea the man was hidden aboard
+here. They had really. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
+
+"Preposterous--isn't it?"
+
+We were walking to and fro athwart the quarter-deck. No one of the crew
+forward could be seen (the day was Sunday), and the mate pursued:
+
+"There was some little dispute about it. Our chaps took offense. 'As
+if we would harbor a thing like that,' they said. 'Wouldn't you like to
+look for him in our coal-hole?' Quite a tiff. But they made it up in the
+end. I suppose he did drown himself. Don't you, sir?"
+
+"I don't suppose anything."
+
+"You have no doubt in the matter, sir?"
+
+"None whatever."
+
+I left him suddenly. I felt I was producing a bad impression, but with
+my double down there it was most trying to be on deck. And it was almost
+as trying to be below. Altogether a nerve-trying situation. But on the
+whole I felt less torn in two when I was with him. There was no one in
+the whole ship whom I dared take into my confidence. Since the hands had
+got to know his story, it would have been impossible to pass him off for
+anyone else, and an accidental discovery was to be dreaded now more than
+ever....
+
+The steward being engaged in laying the table for dinner, we could talk
+only with our eyes when I first went down. Later in the afternoon we
+had a cautious try at whispering. The Sunday quietness of the ship was
+against us; the stillness of air and water around her was against us;
+the elements, the men were against us--everything was against us in our
+secret partnership; time itself--for this could not go on forever. The
+very trust in Providence was, I suppose, denied to his guilt. Shall I
+confess that this thought cast me down very much? And as to the chapter
+of accidents which counts for so much in the book of success, I could
+only hope that it was closed. For what favorable accident could be
+expected?
+
+"Did you hear everything?" were my first words as soon as we took up our
+position side by side, leaning over my bed place.
+
+He had. And the proof of it was his earnest whisper, "The man told you
+he hardly dared to give the order."
+
+I understood the reference to be to that saving foresail.
+
+"Yes. He was afraid of it being lost in the setting."
+
+"I assure you he never gave the order. He may think he did, but he never
+gave it. He stood there with me on the break of the poop after the
+main topsail blew away, and whimpered about our last hope--positively
+whimpered about it and nothing else--and the night coming on! To hear
+one's skipper go on like that in such weather was enough to drive any
+fellow out of his mind. It worked me up into a sort of desperation. I
+just took it into my own hands and went away from him, boiling, and--But
+what's the use telling you? _You_ know!... Do you think that if I
+had not been pretty fierce with them I should have got the men to do
+anything? Not I! The bo's'n perhaps? Perhaps! It wasn't a heavy sea--it
+was a sea gone mad! I suppose the end of the world will be something
+like that; and a man may have the heart to see it coming once and be
+done with it--but to have to face it day after day--I don't blame
+anybody. I was precious little better than the rest. Only--I was an
+officer of that old coal wagon, anyhow--"
+
+"I quite understand," I conveyed that sincere assurance into his ear.
+He was out of breath with whispering; I could hear him pant slightly.
+It was all very simple. The same strung-up force which had given
+twenty-four men a chance, at least, for their lives, had, in a sort of
+recoil, crushed an unworthy mutinous existence.
+
+But I had no leisure to weigh the merits of the matter--footsteps in
+the saloon, a heavy knock. "There's enough wind to get under way with,
+sir." Here was the call of a new claim upon my thoughts and even upon my
+feelings.
+
+"Turn the hands up," I cried through the door. "I'll be on deck
+directly."
+
+I was going out to make the acquaintance of my ship. Before I left
+the cabin our eyes met--the eyes of the only two strangers on board. I
+pointed to the recessed part where the little campstool awaited him and
+laid my finger on my lips. He made a gesture--somewhat vague--a little
+mysterious, accompanied by a faint smile, as if of regret.
+
+This is not the place to enlarge upon the sensations of a man who feels
+for the first time a ship move under his feet to his own independent
+word. In my case they were not unalloyed. I was not wholly alone with my
+command; for there was that stranger in my cabin. Or rather, I was
+not completely and wholly with her. Part of me was absent. That mental
+feeling of being in two places at once affected me physically as if the
+mood of secrecy had penetrated my very soul. Before an hour had elapsed
+since the ship had begun to move, having occasion to ask the mate (he
+stood by my side) to take a compass bearing of the pagoda, I caught
+myself reaching up to his ear in whispers. I say I caught myself, but
+enough had escaped to startle the man. I can't describe it otherwise
+than by saying that he shied. A grave, preoccupied manner, as though he
+were in possession of some perplexing intelligence, did not leave him
+henceforth. A little later I moved away from the rail to look at the
+compass with such a stealthy gait that the helmsman noticed it--and
+I could not help noticing the unusual roundness of his eyes. These
+are trifling instances, though it's to no commander's advantage to be
+suspected of ludicrous eccentricities. But I was also more seriously
+affected. There are to a seaman certain words, gestures, that should in
+given conditions come as naturally, as instinctively as the winking of
+a menaced eye. A certain order should spring on to his lips without
+thinking; a certain sign should get itself made, so to speak, without
+reflection. But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me. I had to
+make an effort of will to recall myself back (from the cabin) to the
+conditions of the moment. I felt that I was appearing an irresolute
+commander to those people who were watching me more or less critically.
+
+And, besides, there were the scares. On the second day out, for
+instance, coming off the deck in the afternoon (I had straw slippers
+on my bare feet) I stopped at the open pantry door and spoke to the
+steward. He was doing something there with his back to me. At the sound
+of my voice he nearly jumped out of his skin, as the saying is, and
+incidentally broke a cup.
+
+"What on earth's the matter with you?" I asked, astonished.
+
+He was extremely confused. "Beg your pardon, sir. I made sure you were
+in your cabin."
+
+"You see I wasn't."
+
+"No, sir. I could have sworn I had heard you moving in there not a
+moment ago. It's most extraordinary... very sorry, sir."
+
+I passed on with an inward shudder. I was so identified with my secret
+double that I did not even mention the fact in those scanty, fearful
+whispers we exchanged. I suppose he had made some slight noise of some
+kind or other. It would have been miraculous if he hadn't at one time
+or another. And yet, haggard as he appeared, he looked always perfectly
+self-controlled, more than calm--almost invulnerable. On my suggestion
+he remained almost entirely in the bathroom, which, upon the whole,
+was the safest place. There could be really no shadow of an excuse for
+anyone ever wanting to go in there, once the steward had done with it.
+It was a very tiny place. Sometimes he reclined on the floor, his legs
+bent, his head sustained on one elbow. At others I would find him on the
+campstool, sitting in his gray sleeping suit and with his cropped dark
+hair like a patient, unmoved convict. At night I would smuggle him into
+my bed place, and we would whisper together, with the regular footfalls
+of the officer of the watch passing and repassing over our heads. It
+was an infinitely miserable time. It was lucky that some tins of fine
+preserves were stowed in a locker in my stateroom; hard bread I could
+always get hold of; and so he lived on stewed chicken, _Pate de Foie
+Gras_, asparagus, cooked oysters, sardines--on all sorts of abominable
+sham delicacies out of tins. My early-morning coffee he always drank;
+and it was all I dared do for him in that respect.
+
+Every day there was the horrible maneuvering to go through so that my
+room and then the bathroom should be done in the usual way. I came to
+hate the sight of the steward, to abhor the voice of that harmless man.
+I felt that it was he who would bring on the disaster of discovery. It
+hung like a sword over our heads.
+
+The fourth day out, I think (we were then working down the east side of
+the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, in light winds and smooth water)--the
+fourth day, I say, of this miserable juggling with the unavoidable,
+as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose slightest movement I
+dreaded, after putting down the dishes ran up on deck busily. This could
+not be dangerous. Presently he came down again; and then it appeared
+that he had remembered a coat of mine which I had thrown over a rail to
+dry after having been wetted in a shower which had passed over the ship
+in the afternoon. Sitting stolidly at the head of the table I became
+terrified at the sight of the garment on his arm. Of course he made for
+my door. There was no time to lose.
+
+"Steward," I thundered. My nerves were so shaken that I could not govern
+my voice and conceal my agitation. This was the sort of thing that made
+my terrifically whiskered mate tap his forehead with his forefinger.
+I had detected him using that gesture while talking on deck with a
+confidential air to the carpenter. It was too far to hear a word, but
+I had no doubt that this pantomime could only refer to the strange new
+captain.
+
+"Yes, sir," the pale-faced steward turned resignedly to me. It was this
+maddening course of being shouted at, checked without rhyme or reason,
+arbitrarily chased out of my cabin, suddenly called into it, sent flying
+out of his pantry on incomprehensible errands, that accounted for the
+growing wretchedness of his expression.
+
+"Where are you going with that coat?"
+
+"To your room, sir."
+
+"Is there another shower coming?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, sir. Shall I go up again and see, sir?"
+
+"No! never mind."
+
+My object was attained, as of course my other self in there would have
+heard everything that passed. During this interlude my two officers
+never raised their eyes off their respective plates; but the lip of that
+confounded cub, the second mate, quivered visibly.
+
+I expected the steward to hook my coat on and come out at once. He was
+very slow about it; but I dominated my nervousness sufficiently not
+to shout after him. Suddenly I became aware (it could be heard plainly
+enough) that the fellow for some reason or other was opening the door of
+the bathroom. It was the end. The place was literally not big enough to
+swing a cat in. My voice died in my throat and I went stony all over. I
+expected to hear a yell of surprise and terror, and made a movement, but
+had not the strength to get on my legs. Everything remained still. Had
+my second self taken the poor wretch by the throat? I don't know what I
+could have done next moment if I had not seen the steward come out of my
+room, close the door, and then stand quietly by the sideboard.
+
+"Saved," I thought. "But, no! Lost! Gone! He was gone!"
+
+I laid my knife and fork down and leaned back in my chair. My head swam.
+After a while, when sufficiently recovered to speak in a steady voice, I
+instructed my mate to put the ship round at eight o'clock himself.
+
+"I won't come on deck," I went on. "I think I'll turn in, and unless the
+wind shifts I don't want to be disturbed before midnight. I feel a bit
+seedy."
+
+"You did look middling bad a little while ago," the chief mate remarked
+without showing any great concern.
+
+They both went out, and I stared at the steward clearing the table.
+There was nothing to be read on that wretched man's face. But why did he
+avoid my eyes, I asked myself. Then I thought I should like to hear the
+sound of his voice.
+
+"Steward!"
+
+"Sir!" Startled as usual.
+
+"Where did you hang up that coat?"
+
+"In the bathroom, sir." The usual anxious tone. "It's not quite dry yet,
+sir."
+
+For some time longer I sat in the cuddy. Had my double vanished as
+he had come? But of his coming there was an explanation, whereas his
+disappearance would be inexplicable.... I went slowly into my dark
+room, shut the door, lighted the lamp, and for a time dared not turn
+round. When at last I did I saw him standing bolt-upright in the
+narrow recessed part. It would not be true to say I had a shock, but an
+irresistible doubt of his bodily existence flitted through my mind. Can
+it be, I asked myself, that he is not visible to other eyes than mine?
+It was like being haunted. Motionless, with a grave face, he raised his
+hands slightly at me in a gesture which meant clearly, "Heavens! what
+a narrow escape!" Narrow indeed. I think I had come creeping quietly as
+near insanity as any man who has not actually gone over the border. That
+gesture restrained me, so to speak.
+
+The mate with the terrific whiskers was now putting the ship on the
+other tack. In the moment of profound silence which follows upon the
+hands going to their stations I heard on the poop his raised voice:
+"Hard alee!" and the distant shout of the order repeated on the
+main-deck. The sails, in that light breeze, made but a faint fluttering
+noise. It ceased. The ship was coming round slowly: I held my breath
+in the renewed stillness of expectation; one wouldn't have thought
+that there was a single living soul on her decks. A sudden brisk shout,
+"Mainsail haul!" broke the spell, and in the noisy cries and rush
+overhead of the men running away with the main brace we two, down in my
+cabin, came together in our usual position by the bed place.
+
+He did not wait for my question. "I heard him fumbling here and just
+managed to squat myself down in the bath," he whispered to me. "The
+fellow only opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat up. All
+the same--"
+
+"I never thought of that," I whispered back, even more appalled than
+before at the closeness of the shave, and marveling at that something
+unyielding in his character which was carrying him through so finely.
+There was no agitation in his whisper. Whoever was being driven
+distracted, it was not he. He was sane. And the proof of his sanity was
+continued when he took up the whispering again.
+
+"It would never do for me to come to life again."
+
+It was something that a ghost might have said. But what he was alluding
+to was his old captain's reluctant admission of the theory of suicide.
+It would obviously serve his turn--if I had understood at all the view
+which seemed to govern the unalterable purpose of his action.
+
+"You must maroon me as soon as ever you can get amongst these islands
+off the Cambodge shore," he went on.
+
+"Maroon you! We are not living in a boy's adventure tale," I protested.
+His scornful whispering took me up.
+
+"We aren't indeed! There's nothing of a boy's tale in this. But there's
+nothing else for it. I want no more. You don't suppose I am afraid of
+what can be done to me? Prison or gallows or whatever they may please.
+But you don't see me coming back to explain such things to an old fellow
+in a wig and twelve respectable tradesmen, do you? What can they know
+whether I am guilty or not--or of _what_ I am guilty, either? That's my
+affair. What does the Bible say? 'Driven off the face of the earth.'
+Very well, I am off the face of the earth now. As I came at night so I
+shall go."
+
+"Impossible!" I murmured. "You can't."
+
+"Can't?... Not naked like a soul on the Day of Judgment. I shall
+freeze on to this sleeping suit. The Last Day is not yet--and... you
+have understood thoroughly. Didn't you?"
+
+I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly that I
+understood--and my hesitation in letting that man swim away from my
+ship's side had been a mere sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice.
+
+"It can't be done now till next night," I breathed out. "The ship is on
+the off-shore tack and the wind may fail us."
+
+"As long as I know that you understand," he whispered. "But of course
+you do. It's a great satisfaction to have got somebody to understand.
+You seem to have been there on purpose." And in the same whisper, as if
+we two whenever we talked had to say things to each other which were not
+fit for the world to hear, he added, "It's very wonderful."
+
+We remained side by side talking in our secret way--but sometimes
+silent or just exchanging a whispered word or two at long intervals. And
+as usual he stared through the port. A breath of wind came now and again
+into our faces. The ship might have been moored in dock, so gently and
+on an even keel she slipped through the water, that did not murmur even
+at our passage, shadowy and silent like a phantom sea.
+
+At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great surprise put the
+ship round on the other tack. His terrible whiskers flitted round me
+in silent criticism. I certainly should not have done it if it had
+been only a question of getting out of that sleepy gulf as quickly as
+possible. I believe he told the second mate, who relieved him, that it
+was a great want of judgment. The other only yawned. That intolerable
+cub shuffled about so sleepily and lolled against the rails in such a
+slack, improper fashion that I came down on him sharply.
+
+"Aren't you properly awake yet?"
+
+"Yes, sir! I am awake."
+
+"Well, then, be good enough to hold yourself as if you were. And keep
+a lookout. If there's any current we'll be closing with some islands
+before daylight."
+
+The east side of the gulf is fringed with islands, some solitary, others
+in groups. On the blue background of the high coast they seem to float
+on silvery patches of calm water, arid and gray, or dark green and
+rounded like clumps of evergreen bushes, with the larger ones, a mile
+or two long, showing the outlines of ridges, ribs of gray rock under the
+dark mantle of matted leafage. Unknown to trade, to travel, almost to
+geography, the manner of life they harbor is an unsolved secret. There
+must be villages--settlements of fishermen at least--on the largest
+of them, and some communication with the world is probably kept up by
+native craft. But all that forenoon, as we headed for them, fanned along
+by the faintest of breezes, I saw no sign of man or canoe in the field
+of the telescope I kept on pointing at the scattered group.
+
+At noon I gave no orders for a change of course, and the mate's whiskers
+became much concerned and seemed to be offering themselves unduly to my
+notice. At last I said:
+
+"I am going to stand right in. Quite in--as far as I can take her."
+
+The stare of extreme surprise imparted an air of ferocity also to his
+eyes, and he looked truly terrific for a moment.
+
+"We're not doing well in the middle of the gulf," I continued, casually.
+"I am going to look for the land breezes tonight."
+
+"Bless my soul! Do you mean, sir, in the dark amongst the lot of all
+them islands and reefs and shoals?"
+
+"Well--if there are any regular land breezes at all on this coast one
+must get close inshore to find them, mustn't one?"
+
+"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed again under his breath. All that afternoon
+he wore a dreamy, contemplative appearance which in him was a mark of
+perplexity. After dinner I went into my stateroom as if I meant to take
+some rest. There we two bent our dark heads over a half-unrolled chart
+lying on my bed.
+
+"There," I said. "It's got to be Koh-ring. I've been looking at it
+ever since sunrise. It has got two hills and a low point. It must be
+inhabited. And on the coast opposite there is what looks like the mouth
+of a biggish river--with some towns, no doubt, not far up. It's the best
+chance for you that I can see."
+
+"Anything. Koh-ring let it be."
+
+He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying chances and
+distances from a lofty height--and following with his eyes his own
+figure wandering on the blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing off
+that piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted regions. And it
+was as if the ship had two captains to plan her course for her. I had
+been so worried and restless running up and down that I had not had the
+patience to dress that day. I had remained in my sleeping suit, with
+straw slippers and a soft floppy hat. The closeness of the heat in
+the gulf had been most oppressive, and the crew were used to seeing me
+wandering in that airy attire.
+
+"She will clear the south point as she heads now," I whispered into his
+ear. "Goodness only knows when, though, but certainly after dark. I'll
+edge her in to half a mile, as far as I may be able to judge in the
+dark--"
+
+"Be careful," he murmured, warningly--and I realized suddenly that
+all my future, the only future for which I was fit, would perhaps go
+irretrievably to pieces in any mishap to my first command.
+
+I could not stop a moment longer in the room. I motioned him to get out
+of sight and made my way on the poop. That unplayful cub had the watch.
+I walked up and down for a while thinking things out, then beckoned him
+over.
+
+"Send a couple of hands to open the two quarter-deck ports," I said,
+mildly.
+
+He actually had the impudence, or else so forgot himself in his wonder
+at such an incomprehensible order, as to repeat:
+
+"Open the quarter-deck ports! What for, sir?"
+
+"The only reason you need concern yourself about is because I tell you
+to do so. Have them open wide and fastened properly."
+
+He reddened and went off, but I believe made some jeering remark to
+the carpenter as to the sensible practice of ventilating a ship's
+quarter-deck. I know he popped into the mate's cabin to impart the fact
+to him because the whiskers came on deck, as it were by chance, and
+stole glances at me from below--for signs of lunacy or drunkenness, I
+suppose.
+
+A little before supper, feeling more restless than ever, I rejoined,
+for a moment, my second self. And to find him sitting so quietly was
+surprising, like something against nature, inhuman.
+
+I developed my plan in a hurried whisper.
+
+"I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her round. I will
+presently find means to smuggle you out of here into the sail locker,
+which communicates with the lobby. But there is an opening, a sort
+of square for hauling the sails out, which gives straight on the
+quarter-deck and which is never closed in fine weather, so as to give
+air to the sails. When the ship's way is deadened in stays and all the
+hands are aft at the main braces you will have a clear road to slip out
+and get overboard through the open quarter-deck port. I've had them both
+fastened up. Use a rope's end to lower yourself into the water so as
+to avoid a splash--you know. It could be heard and cause some beastly
+complication."
+
+He kept silent for a while, then whispered, "I understand."
+
+"I won't be there to see you go," I began with an effort. "The rest
+... I only hope I have understood, too."
+
+"You have. From first to last"--and for the first time there seemed to
+be a faltering, something strained in his whisper. He caught hold of my
+arm, but the ringing of the supper bell made me start. He didn't though;
+he only released his grip.
+
+After supper I didn't come below again till well past eight o'clock. The
+faint, steady breeze was loaded with dew; and the wet, darkened sails
+held all there was of propelling power in it. The night, clear and
+starry, sparkled darkly, and the opaque, lightless patches shifting
+slowly against the low stars were the drifting islets. On the port bow
+there was a big one more distant and shadowily imposing by the great
+space of sky it eclipsed.
+
+On opening the door I had a back view of my very own self looking at a
+chart. He had come out of the recess and was standing near the table.
+
+"Quite dark enough," I whispered.
+
+He stepped back and leaned against my bed with a level, quiet glance.
+I sat on the couch. We had nothing to say to each other. Over our heads
+the officer of the watch moved here and there. Then I heard him move
+quickly. I knew what that meant. He was making for the companion; and
+presently his voice was outside my door.
+
+"We are drawing in pretty fast, sir. Land looks rather close."
+
+"Very well," I answered. "I am coming on deck directly."
+
+I waited till he was gone out of the cuddy, then rose. My double moved
+too. The time had come to exchange our last whispers, for neither of us
+was ever to hear each other's natural voice.
+
+"Look here!" I opened a drawer and took out three sovereigns. "Take this
+anyhow. I've got six and I'd give you the lot, only I must keep a little
+money to buy some fruit and vegetables for the crew from native boats as
+we go through Sunda Straits."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Take it," I urged him, whispering desperately. "No one can tell what--"
+
+He smiled and slapped meaningly the only pocket of the sleeping jacket.
+It was not safe, certainly. But I produced a large old silk handkerchief
+of mine, and tying the three pieces of gold in a corner, pressed it on
+him. He was touched, I supposed, because he took it at last and tied it
+quickly round his waist under the jacket, on his bare skin.
+
+Our eyes met; several seconds elapsed, till, our glances still mingled,
+I extended my hand and turned the lamp out. Then I passed through the
+cuddy, leaving the door of my room wide open.... "Steward!"
+
+He was still lingering in the pantry in the greatness of his zeal,
+giving a rub-up to a plated cruet stand the last thing before going to
+bed. Being careful not to wake up the mate, whose room was opposite, I
+spoke in an undertone.
+
+He looked round anxiously. "Sir!"
+
+"Can you get me a little hot water from the galley?"
+
+"I am afraid, sir, the galley fire's been out for some time now."
+
+"Go and see."
+
+He flew up the stairs.
+
+"Now," I whispered, loudly, into the saloon--too loudly, perhaps, but I
+was afraid I couldn't make a sound. He was by my side in an instant--the
+double captain slipped past the stairs--through a tiny dark passage
+... a sliding door. We were in the sail locker, scrambling on our knees
+over the sails. A sudden thought struck me. I saw myself wandering
+barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark poll. I snatched
+off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly in the dark to ram it on my other
+self. He dodged and fended off silently. I wonder what he thought had
+come to me before he understood and suddenly desisted. Our hands met
+gropingly, lingered united in a steady, motionless clasp for a second.
+... No word was breathed by either of us when they separated.
+
+I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the steward returned.
+
+"Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light the spirit lamp?"
+
+"Never mind."
+
+I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of conscience to shave
+the land as close as possible--for now he must go overboard whenever the
+ship was put in stays. Must! There could be no going back for him. After
+a moment I walked over to leeward and my heart flew into my mouth at the
+nearness of the land on the bow. Under any other circumstances I would
+not have held on a minute longer. The second mate had followed me
+anxiously.
+
+I looked on till I felt I could command my voice.
+
+"She will weather," I said then in a quiet tone.
+
+"Are you going to try that, sir?" he stammered out incredulously.
+
+I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard by
+the helmsman.
+
+"Keep her good full."
+
+"Good full, sir."
+
+The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent. The
+strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser was
+too much for me. I had shut my eyes--because the ship must go closer.
+She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we standing still?
+
+When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump. The
+black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship
+like a towering fragment of everlasting night. On that enormous mass of
+blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not a sound to be heard. It
+was gliding irresistibly towards us and yet seemed already within reach
+of the hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist,
+gazing in awed silence.
+
+"Are you going on, sir?" inquired an unsteady voice at my elbow.
+
+I ignored it. I had to go on.
+
+"Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't do now," I said
+warningly.
+
+"I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman answered me, in strange,
+quavering tones.
+
+Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't say in the shadow of the
+land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were,
+gone too close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.
+
+"Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who stood at my elbow as
+still as death. "And turn all hands up."
+
+My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the
+land. Several voices cried out together: "We are all on deck, sir."
+
+Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding closer, towering
+higher, without a light, without a sound. Such a hush had fallen on
+the ship that she might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly
+under the very gate of Erebus.
+
+"My God! Where are we?"
+
+It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was thunderstruck, and as it
+were deprived of the moral support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands
+and absolutely cried out, "Lost!"
+
+"Be quiet," I said, sternly.
+
+He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture of his despair. "What
+are we doing here?"
+
+"Looking for the land wind."
+
+He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me recklessly.
+
+"She will never get out. You have done it, sir. I knew it'd end in
+something like this. She will never weather, and you are too close now
+to stay. She'll drift ashore before she's round. Oh my God!"
+
+I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his poor devoted head,
+and shook it violently.
+
+"She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear himself away.
+
+"Is she?... Keep good full there!"
+
+"Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a frightened, thin, childlike
+voice.
+
+I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking it. "Ready about,
+do you hear? You go forward"--shake--"and stop there"--shake--"and hold
+your noise"--shake--"and see these head-sheets properly
+overhauled"--shake, shake--shake.
+
+And all the time I dared not look towards the land lest my heart should
+fail me. I released my grip at last and he ran forward as if fleeing for
+dear life.
+
+I wondered what my double there in the sail locker thought of this
+commotion. He was able to hear everything--and perhaps he was able to
+understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close--no less. My
+first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed ominously under the towering shadow
+of Koh-ring as if I had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I watched
+the land intently. In that smooth water and light wind it was impossible
+to feel the ship coming-to. No! I could not feel her. And my second self
+was making now ready to ship out and lower himself overboard. Perhaps he
+was gone already...?
+
+The great black mass brooding over our very mastheads began to pivot
+away from the ship's side silently. And now I forgot the secret stranger
+ready to depart, and remembered only that I was a total stranger to the
+ship. I did not know her. Would she do it? How was she to be handled?
+
+I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She was perhaps stopped, and
+her very fate hung in the balance, with the black mass of Koh-ring like
+the gate of the everlasting night towering over her taffrail. What would
+she do now? Had she way on her yet? I stepped to the side swiftly, and
+on the shadowy water I could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent
+flash revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping surface. It was
+impossible to tell--and I had not learned yet the feel of my ship. Was
+she moving? What I needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper,
+which I could throw overboard and watch. I had nothing on me. To run
+down for it I didn't dare. There was no time. All at once my strained,
+yearning stare distinguished a white object floating within a yard of
+the ship's side. White on the black water. A phosphorescent flash passed
+under it. What was that thing?... I recognized my own floppy hat. It
+must have fallen off his head... and he didn't bother. Now I had what
+I wanted--the saving mark for my eyes. But I hardly thought of my other
+self, now gone from the ship, to be hidden forever from all friendly
+faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, with no brand of
+the curse on his sane forehead to stay a slaying hand... too proud to
+explain.
+
+And I watched the hat--the expression of my sudden pity for his mere
+flesh. It had been meant to save his homeless head from the dangers of
+the sun. And now--behold--it was saving the ship, by serving me for a
+mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness. Ha! It was drifting
+forward, warning me just in time that the ship had gathered sternaway.
+
+"Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the seaman standing still
+like a statue.
+
+The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped round
+to the other side and spun round the wheel.
+
+I walked to the break of the poop. On the over-shadowed deck all hands
+stood by the forebraces waiting for my order. The stars ahead seemed to
+be gliding from right to left. And all was so still in the world that
+I heard the quiet remark, "She's round," passed in a tone of intense
+relief between two seamen.
+
+"Let go and haul."
+
+The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst cheery cries. And
+now the frightful whiskers made themselves heard giving various orders.
+Already the ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. Nothing!
+no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on
+the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of
+a seaman with his first command.
+
+Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge
+of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of
+Erebus--yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white
+hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer of my cabin and
+of my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself
+into the water to take his punishment: a free man, a proud swimmer
+striking out for a new destiny.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad
+
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