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@@ -0,0 +1,4800 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow-Line, 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 Shadow-Line + A Confession + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #451] +[This file last updated December 26, 2010] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW-LINE *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger + + + + + +THE SHADOW-LINE + +A CONFESSION + +By Joseph Conrad + + + +"Worthy of my undying regard" + + + +To Borys And All Others Who, +Like Himself, Have Crossed In Early Youth +The Shadow-Line Of Their Generation With Love + + + + + +PART ONE + + +--_D'autre fois, calme plat, grand miroir De mon desespoir_. +--BAUDELAIRE + + +I + +Only the young have such moments. I don't mean the very young. No. The +very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege +of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful +continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection. + +One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness--and enters an +enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of +the path has its seduction. And it isn't because it is an undiscovered +country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that +way. It is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an +uncommon or personal sensation--a bit of one's own. + +One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, +amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together--the kicks and +the half-pence, as the saying is--the picturesque common lot that holds +so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. Yes. +One goes on. And the time, too, goes on--till one perceives ahead a +shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be +left behind. + +This is the period of life in which such moments of which I have spoken +are likely to come. What moments? Why, the moments of boredom, of +weariness, of dissatisfaction. Rash moments. I mean moments when the +still young are inclined to commit rash actions, such as getting married +suddenly or else throwing up a job for no reason. + +This is not a marriage story. It wasn't so bad as that with me. My +action, rash as it was, had more the character of divorce--almost of +desertion. For no reason on which a sensible person could put a finger I +threw up my job--chucked my berth--left the ship of which the worst that +could be said was that she was a steamship and therefore, perhaps, not +entitled to that blind loyalty which. . . . However, it's no use trying +to put a gloss on what even at the time I myself half suspected to be a +caprice. + +It was in an Eastern port. She was an Eastern ship, inasmuch as then +she belonged to that port. She traded among dark islands on a blue +reef-scarred sea, with the Red Ensign over the taffrail and at her +masthead a house-flag, also red, but with a green border and with a +white crescent in it. For an Arab owned her, and a Syed at that. Hence +the green border on the flag. He was the head of a great House of +Straits Arabs, but as loyal a subject of the complex British Empire as +you could find east of the Suez Canal. World politics did not trouble +him at all, but he had a great occult power amongst his own people. + +It was all one to us who owned the ship. He had to employ white men in +the shipping part of his business, and many of those he so employed had +never set eyes on him from the first to the last day. I myself saw him +but once, quite accidentally on a wharf--an old, dark little man blind +in one eye, in a snowy robe and yellow slippers. He was having his hand +severely kissed by a crowd of Malay pilgrims to whom he had done some +favour, in the way of food and money. His alms-giving, I have heard, was +most extensive, covering almost the whole Archipelago. For isn't it said +that "The charitable man is the friend of Allah"? + +Excellent (and picturesque) Arab owner, about whom one needed not to +trouble one's head, a most excellent Scottish ship--for she was that +from the keep up--excellent sea-boat, easy to keep clean, most handy in +every way, and if it had not been for her internal propulsion, worthy of +any man's love, I cherish to this day a profound respect for her memory. +As to the kind of trade she was engaged in and the character of my +shipmates, I could not have been happier if I had had the life and the +men made to my order by a benevolent Enchanter. + +And suddenly I left all this. I left it in that, to us, inconsequential +manner in which a bird flies away from a comfortable branch. It was +as though all unknowing I had heard a whisper or seen something. +Well--perhaps! One day I was perfectly right and the next everything was +gone--glamour, flavour, interest, contentment--everything. It was one +of these moments, you know. The green sickness of late youth descended +on me and carried me off. Carried me off that ship, I mean. + +We were only four white men on board, with a large crew of Kalashes and +two Malay petty officers. The Captain stared hard as if wondering what +ailed me. But he was a sailor, and he, too, had been young at one time. +Presently a smile came to lurk under his thick iron-gray moustache, and +he observed that, of course, if I felt I must go he couldn't keep me +by main force. And it was arranged that I should be paid off the +next morning. As I was going out of his cabin he added suddenly, in a +peculiar wistful tone, that he hoped I would find what I was so anxious +to go and look for. A soft, cryptic utterance which seemed to reach +deeper than any diamond-hard tool could have done. I do believe he +understood my case. + +But the second engineer attacked me differently. He was a sturdy young +Scot, with a smooth face and light eyes. His honest red countenance +emerged out of the engine-room companion and then the whole robust man, +with shirt sleeves turned up, wiping slowly the massive fore-arms with +a lump of cotton-waste. And his light eyes expressed bitter distaste, as +though our friendship had turned to ashes. He said weightily: "Oh! Aye! +I've been thinking it was about time for you to run away home and get +married to some silly girl." + +It was tacitly understood in the port that John Nieven was a fierce +misogynist; and the absurd character of the sally convinced me that he +meant to be nasty--very nasty--had meant to say the most crushing thing +he could think of. My laugh sounded deprecatory. Nobody but a friend +could be so angry as that. I became a little crestfallen. Our chief +engineer also took a characteristic view of my action, but in a kindlier +spirit. + +He was young, too, but very thin, and with a mist of fluffy brown beard +all round his haggard face. All day long, at sea or in harbour, he could +be seen walking hastily up and down the after-deck, wearing an +intense, spiritually rapt expression, which was caused by a perpetual +consciousness of unpleasant physical sensations in his internal economy. +For he was a confirmed dyspeptic. His view of my case was very simple. +He said it was nothing but deranged liver. Of course! He suggested I +should stay for another trip and meantime dose myself with a certain +patent medicine in which his own belief was absolute. "I'll tell you +what I'll do. I'll buy you two bottles, out of my own pocket. There. I +can't say fairer than that, can I?" + +I believe he would have perpetrated the atrocity (or generosity) at the +merest sign of weakening on my part. By that time, however, I was more +discontented, disgusted, and dogged than ever. The past eighteen months, +so full of new and varied experience, appeared a dreary, prosaic waste +of days. I felt--how shall I express it?--that there was no truth to be +got out of them. + +What truth? I should have been hard put to it to explain. Probably, if +pressed, I would have burst into tears simply. I was young enough for +that. + +Next day the Captain and I transacted our business in the Harbour +Office. It was a lofty, big, cool, white room, where the screened light +of day glowed serenely. Everybody in it--the officials, the public--were +in white. Only the heavy polished desks gleamed darkly in a central +avenue, and some papers lying on them were blue. Enormous punkahs sent +from on high a gentle draught through that immaculate interior and upon +our perspiring heads. + +The official behind the desk we approached grinned amiably and kept it +up till, in answer to his perfunctory question, "Sign off and on again?" +my Captain answered, "No! Signing off for good." And then his grin +vanished in sudden solemnity. He did not look at me again till he +handed me my papers with a sorrowful expression, as if they had been my +passports for Hades. + +While I was putting them away he murmured some question to the Captain, +and I heard the latter answer good-humouredly: + +"No. He leaves us to go home." + +"Oh!" the other exclaimed, nodding mournfully over my sad condition. + +I didn't know him outside the official building, but he leaned forward +the desk to shake hands with me, compassionately, as one would with some +poor devil going out to be hanged; and I am afraid I performed my part +ungraciously, in the hardened manner of an impenitent criminal. + +No homeward-bound mail-boat was due for three or four days. Being now a +man without a ship, and having for a time broken my connection with the +sea--become, in fact, a mere potential passenger--it would have been +more appropriate perhaps if I had gone to stay at an hotel. There it +was, too, within a stone's throw of the Harbour Office, low, but somehow +palatial, displaying its white, pillared pavilions surrounded by trim +grass plots. I would have felt a passenger indeed in there! I gave it a +hostile glance and directed my steps toward the Officers' Sailors' Home. + +I walked in the sunshine, disregarding it, and in the shade of the big +trees on the esplanade without enjoying it. The heat of the tropical +East descended through the leafy boughs, enveloping my thinly-clad body, +clinging to my rebellious discontent, as if to rob it of its freedom. + +The Officers' Home was a large bungalow with a wide verandah and a +curiously suburban-looking little garden of bushes and a few trees +between it and the street. That institution partook somewhat of the +character of a residential club, but with a slightly Governmental +flavour about it, because it was administered by the Harbour Office. Its +manager was officially styled Chief Steward. He was an unhappy, wizened +little man, who if put into a jockey's rig would have looked the part to +perfection. But it was obvious that at some time or other in his life, +in some capacity or other, he had been connected with the sea. Possibly +in the comprehensive capacity of a failure. + +I should have thought his employment a very easy one, but he used to +affirm for some reason or other that his job would be the death of him +some day. It was rather mysterious. Perhaps everything naturally was too +much trouble for him. He certainly seemed to hate having people in the +house. + +On entering it I thought he must be feeling pleased. It was as still as +a tomb. I could see no one in the living rooms; and the verandah, too, +was empty, except for a man at the far end dozing prone in a long chair. +At the noise of my footsteps he opened one horribly fish-like eye. He +was a stranger to me. I retreated from there, and crossing the dining +room--a very bare apartment with a motionless punkah hanging over the +centre table--I knocked at a door labelled in black letters: "Chief +Steward." + +The answer to my knock being a vexed and doleful plaint: "Oh, dear! Oh, +dear! What is it now?" I went in at once. + +It was a strange room to find in the tropics. Twilight and stuffiness +reigned in there. The fellow had hung enormously ample, dusty, cheap +lace curtains over his windows, which were shut. Piles of cardboard +boxes, such as milliners and dressmakers use in Europe, cumbered the +corners; and by some means he had procured for himself the sort of +furniture that might have come out of a respectable parlour in the East +End of London--a horsehair sofa, arm-chairs of the same. I glimpsed +grimy antimacassars scattered over that horrid upholstery, which +was awe-inspiring, insomuch that one could not guess what mysterious +accident, need, or fancy had collected it there. Its owner had taken +off his tunic, and in white trousers and a thin, short-sleeved singlet +prowled behind the chair-backs nursing his meagre elbows. + +An exclamation of dismay escaped him when he heard that I had come for a +stay; but he could not deny that there were plenty of vacant rooms. + +"Very well. Can you give me the one I had before?" + +He emitted a faint moan from behind a pile of cardboard boxes on the +table, which might have contained gloves or handkerchiefs or neckties. I +wonder what the fellow did keep in them? There was a smell of decaying +coral, or Oriental dust of zoological speciments in that den of his. I +could only see the top of his head and his unhappy eyes levelled at me +over the barrier. + +"It's only for a couple of days," I said, intending to cheer him up. + +"Perhaps you would like to pay in advance?" he suggested eagerly. + +"Certainly not!" I burst out directly I could speak. "Never heard of +such a thing! This is the most infernal cheek. . . ." + +He had seized his head in both hands--a gesture of despair which checked +my indignation. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Don't fly out like this. I am asking everybody." + +"I don't believe it," I said bluntly. + +"Well, I am going to. And if you gentlemen all agreed to pay in advance +I could make Hamilton pay up, too. He's always turning up ashore dead +broke, and even when he has some money he won't settle his bills. I +don't know what to do with him. He swears at me and tells me I can't +chuck a white man out into the street here. So if you only would. . . ." + +I was amazed. Incredulous, too. I suspected the fellow of gratuitous +impertinence. I told him with marked emphasis that I would see him and +Hamilton hanged first, and requested him to conduct me to my room with +no more of his nonsense. He produced then a key from somewhere and led +the way out of his lair, giving me a vicious sidelong look in passing. + +"Any one I know staying here?" I asked him before he left my room. + +He had recovered his usual pained impatient tone, and said that Captain +Giles was there, back from a Solo Sea trip. Two other guests were +staying also. He paused. And, of course, Hamilton, he added. + +"Oh, yes! Hamilton," I said, and the miserable creature took himself off +with a final groan. + +His impudence still rankled when I came into the dining room at tiffin +time. He was there on duty overlooking the Chinamen servants. The tiffin +was laid on one end only of the long table, and the punkah was stirring +the hot air lazily--mostly above a barren waste of polished wood. + +We were four around the cloth. The dozing stranger from the chair was +one. Both his eyes were partly opened now, but they did not seem to see +anything. He was supine. The dignified person next him, with short side +whiskers and a carefully scraped chin, was, of course, Hamilton. I have +never seen any one so full of dignity for the station in life Providence +had been pleased to place him in. I had been told that he regarded me as +a rank outsider. He raised not only his eyes, but his eyebrows as well, +at the sound I made pulling back my chair. + +Captain Giles was at the head of the table. I exchanged a few words of +greeting with him and sat down on his left. Stout and pale, with a great +shiny dome of a bald forehead and prominent brown eyes, he might have +been anything but a seaman. You would not have been surprised to learn +that he was an architect. To me (I know how absurd it is) to me he +looked like a churchwarden. He had the appearance of a man from whom you +would expect sound advice, moral sentiments, with perhaps a platitude or +two thrown in on occasion, not from a desire to dazzle, but from honest +conviction. + +Though very well known and appreciated in the shipping world, he had +no regular employment. He did not want it. He had his own peculiar +position. He was an expert. An expert in--how shall I say it?--in +intricate navigation. He was supposed to know more about remote and +imperfectly charted parts of the Archipelago than any man living. His +brain must have been a perfect warehouse of reefs, positions, bearings, +images of headlands, shapes of obscure coasts, aspects of innumerable +islands, desert and otherwise. Any ship, for instance, bound on a trip +to Palawan or somewhere that way would have Captain Giles on board, +either in temporary command or "to assist the master." It was said that +he had a retaining fee from a wealthy firm of Chinese steamship owners, +in view of such services. Besides, he was always ready to relieve any +man who wished to take a spell ashore for a time. No owner was ever +known to object to an arrangement of that sort. For it seemed to be the +established opinion at the port that Captain Giles was as good as +the best, if not a little better. But in Hamilton's view he was an +"outsider." I believe that for Hamilton the generalisation "outsider" +covered the whole lot of us; though I suppose that he made some +distinctions in his mind. + +I didn't try to make conversation with Captain Giles, whom I had not +seen more than twice in my life. But, of course, he knew who I was. +After a while, inclining his big shiny head my way, he addressed me +first in his friendly fashion. He presumed from seeing me there, he +said, that I had come ashore for a couple of days' leave. + +He was a low-voiced man. I spoke a little louder, saying that: No--I had +left the ship for good. + +"A free man for a bit," was his comment. + +"I suppose I may call myself that--since eleven o'clock," I said. + +Hamilton had stopped eating at the sound of our voices. He laid down +his knife and fork gently, got up, and muttering something about "this +infernal heat cutting one's appetite," went out of the room. Almost +immediately we heard him leave the house down the verandah steps. + +On this Captain Giles remarked easily that the fellow had no doubt gone +off to look after my old job. The Chief Steward, who had been leaning +against the wall, brought his face of an unhappy goat nearer to the +table and addressed us dolefully. His object was to unburden himself of +his eternal grievance against Hamilton. The man kept him in hot water +with the Harbour Office as to the state of his accounts. He wished +to goodness he would get my job, though in truth what would it be? +Temporary relief at best. + +I said: "You needn't worry. He won't get my job. My successor is on +board already." + +He was surprised, and I believe his face fell a little at the news. +Captain Giles gave a soft laugh. We got up and went out on the verandah, +leaving the supine stranger to be dealt with by the Chinamen. The last +thing I saw they had put a plate with a slice of pine-apple on it before +him and stood back to watch what would happen. But the experiment seemed +a failure. He sat insensible. + +It was imparted to me in a low voice by Captain Giles that this was +an officer of some Rajah's yacht which had come into our port to be +dry-docked. Must have been "seeing life" last night, he added, wrinkling +his nose in an intimate, confidential way which pleased me vastly. For +Captain Giles had prestige. He was credited with wonderful adventures +and with some mysterious tragedy in his life. And no man had a word to +say against him. He continued: + +"I remember him first coming ashore here some years ago. Seems only the +other day. He was a nice boy. Oh! these nice boys!" + +I could not help laughing aloud. He looked startled, then joined in the +laugh. "No! No! I didn't mean that," he cried. "What I meant is that +some of them do go soft mighty quick out here." + +Jocularly I suggested the beastly heat as the first cause. But Captain +Giles disclosed himself possessed of a deeper philosophy. Things out +East were made easy for white men. That was all right. The difficulty +was to go on keeping white, and some of these nice boys did not know +how. He gave me a searching look, and in a benevolent, heavy-uncle +manner asked point blank: + +"Why did you throw up your berth?" + +I became angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how exasperating +such a question was to a man who didn't know. I said to myself that I +ought to shut up that moralist; and to him aloud I said with challenging +politeness: + +"Why . . . ? Do you disapprove?" + +He was too disconcerted to do more than mutter confusedly: "I! . . . In +a general way. . ." and then gave me up. But he retired in good order, +under the cover of a heavily humorous remark that he, too, was getting +soft, and that this was his time for taking his little siesta--when he +was on shore. "Very bad habit. Very bad habit." + +There was a simplicity in the man which would have disarmed a touchiness +even more youthful than mine. So when next day at tiffin he bent his +head toward me and said that he had met my late Captain last evening, +adding in an undertone: "He's very sorry you left. He had never had a +mate that suited him so well," I answered him earnestly, without any +affectation, that I certainly hadn't been so comfortable in any ship or +with any commander in all my sea-going days. + +"Well--then," he murmured. + +"Haven't you heard, Captain Giles, that I intend to go home?" + +"Yes," he said benevolently. "I have heard that sort of thing so often +before." + +"What of that?" I cried. I thought he was the most dull, unimaginative +man I had ever met. I don't know what more I would have said, but the +much-belated Hamilton came in just then and took his usual seat. So I +dropped into a mumble. + +"Anyhow, you shall see it done this time." + +Hamilton, beautifully shaved, gave Captain Giles a curt nod, but didn't +even condescend to raise his eyebrows at me; and when he spoke it was +only to tell the Chief Steward that the food on his plate wasn't fit +to be set before a gentleman. The individual addressed seemed much too +unhappy to groan. He cast his eyes up to the punkah and that was all. + +Captain Giles and I got up from the table, and the stranger next to +Hamilton followed our example, manoeuvring himself to his feet with +difficulty. He, poor fellow, not because he was hungry but I verily +believe only to recover his self-respect, had tried to put some of that +unworthy food into his mouth. But after dropping his fork twice and +generally making a failure of it, he had sat still with an air of +intense mortification combined with a ghastly glazed stare. Both Giles +and I had avoided looking his way at table. + +On the verandah he stopped short on purpose to address to us anxiously +a long remark which I failed to understand completely. It sounded like +some horrible unknown language. But when Captain Giles, after only an +instant for reflection, assured him with homely friendliness, "Aye, to +be sure. You are right there," he appeared very much gratified indeed, +and went away (pretty straight, too) to seek a distant long chair. + +"What was he trying to say?" I asked with disgust. + +"I don't know. Mustn't be down too much on a fellow. He's feeling pretty +wretched, you may be sure; and to-morrow he'll feel worse yet." + +Judging by the man's appearance it seemed impossible. I wondered +what sort of complicated debauch had reduced him to that unspeakable +condition. Captain Giles' benevolence was spoiled by a curious air of +complacency which I disliked. I said with a little laugh: + +"Well, he will have you to look after him." He made a deprecatory +gesture, sat down, and took up a paper. I did the same. The papers +were old and uninteresting, filled up mostly with dreary stereotyped +descriptions of Queen Victoria's first jubilee celebrations. Probably we +should have quickly fallen into a tropical afternoon doze if it had not +been for Hamilton's voice raised in the dining room. He was finishing +his tiffin there. The big double doors stood wide open permanently, and +he could not have had any idea how near to the doorway our chairs +were placed. He was heard in a loud, supercilious tone answering some +statement ventured by the Chief Steward. + +"I am not going to be rushed into anything. They will be glad enough to +get a gentleman I imagine. There is no hurry." + +A loud whispering from the Steward succeeded and then again Hamilton was +heard with even intenser scorn. + +"What? That young ass who fancies himself for having been chief mate +with Kent so long? . . . Preposterous." + +Giles and I looked at each other. Kent being the name of my late +commander, Captain Giles' whisper, "He's talking of you," seemed to me +sheer waste of breath. The Chief Steward must have stuck to his point, +whatever it was, because Hamilton was heard again more supercilious if +possible, and also very emphatic: + +"Rubbish, my good man! One doesn't _compete_ with a rank outsider like +that. There's plenty of time." + +Then there were pushing of chairs, footsteps in the next room, and +plaintive expostulations from the Steward, who was pursuing Hamilton, +even out of doors through the main entrance. + +"That's a very insulting sort of man," remarked Captain +Giles--superfluously, I thought. "Very insulting. You haven't offended +him in some way, have you?" + +"Never spoke to him in my life," I said grumpily. "Can't imagine what +he means by competing. He has been trying for my job after I left--and +didn't get it. But that isn't exactly competition." + +Captain Giles balanced his big benevolent head thoughtfully. "He didn't +get it," he repeated very slowly. "No, not likely either, with Kent. +Kent is no end sorry you left him. He gives you the name of a good +seaman, too." + +I flung away the paper I was still holding. I sat up, I slapped the +table with my open palm. I wanted to know why he would keep harping on +that, my absolutely private affair. It was exasperating, really. + +Captain Giles silenced me by the perfect equanimity of his gaze. +"Nothing to be annoyed about," he murmured reasonably, with an evident +desire to soothe the childish irritation he had aroused. And he was +really a man of an appearance so inoffensive that I tried to explain +myself as much as I could. I told him that I did not want to hear +any more about what was past and gone. It had been very nice while it +lasted, but now it was done with I preferred not to talk about it or +even think about it. I had made up my mind to go home. + +He listened to the whole tirade in a particular lending-the-ear +attitude, as if trying to detect a false note in it somewhere; then +straightened himself up and appeared to ponder sagaciously over the +matter. + +"Yes. You told me you meant to go home. Anything in view there?" + +Instead of telling him that it was none of his business I said sullenly: + +"Nothing that I know of." + +I had indeed considered that rather blank side of the situation I had +created for myself by leaving suddenly my very satisfactory employment. +And I was not very pleased with it. I had it on the tip of my tongue +to say that common sense had nothing to do with my action, and that +therefore it didn't deserve the interest Captain Giles seemed to be +taking in it. But he was puffing at a short wooden pipe now, and looked +so guileless, dense, and commonplace, that it seemed hardly worth while +to puzzle him either with truth or sarcasm. + +He blew a cloud of smoke, then surprised me by a very abrupt: "Paid your +passage money yet?" + +Overcome by the shameless pertinacity of a man to whom it was rather +difficult to be rude, I replied with exaggerated meekness that I had +not done so yet. I thought there would be plenty of time to do that +to-morrow. + +And I was about to turn away, withdrawing my privacy from his fatuous, +objectless attempts to test what sort of stuff it was made of, when he +laid down his pipe in an extremely significant manner, you know, as if a +critical moment had come, and leaned sideways over the table between us. + +"Oh! You haven't yet!" He dropped his voice mysteriously. "Well, then I +think you ought to know that there's something going on here." + +I had never in my life felt more detached from all earthly goings on. +Freed from the sea for a time, I preserved the sailor's consciousness of +complete independence from all land affairs. How could they concern +me? I gazed at Captain Giles' animation with scorn rather than with +curiosity. + +To his obviously preparatory question whether our Steward had spoken to +me that day I said he hadn't. And what's more he would have had precious +little encouragement if he had tried to. I didn't want the fellow to +speak to me at all. + +Unrebuked by my petulance, Captain Giles, with an air of immense +sagacity, began to tell me a minute tale about a Harbour Office peon. +It was absolutely pointless. A peon was seen walking that morning on the +verandah with a letter in his hand. It was in an official envelope. As +the habit of these fellows is, he had shown it to the first white man +he came across. That man was our friend in the arm-chair. He, as I knew, +was not in a state to interest himself in any sublunary matters. He +could only wave the peon away. The peon then wandered on along the +verandah and came upon Captain Giles, who was there by an extraordinary +chance. . . . + +At this point he stopped with a profound look. The letter, he continued, +was addressed to the Chief Steward. Now what could Captain Ellis, the +Master Attendant, want to write to the Steward for? The fellow went +every morning, anyhow, to the Harbour Office with his report, for orders +or what not. He hadn't been back more than an hour before there was an +office peon chasing him with a note. Now what was that for? + +And he began to speculate. It was not for this--and it could not be for +that. As to that other thing it was unthinkable. + +The fatuousness of all this made me stare. If the man had not been +somehow a sympathetic personality I would have resented it like an +insult. As it was, I felt only sorry for him. Something remarkably +earnest in his gaze prevented me from laughing in his face. Neither did +I yawn at him. I just stared. + +His tone became a shade more mysterious. Directly the fellow (meaning +the Steward) got that note he rushed for his hat and bolted out of the +house. But it wasn't because the note called him to the Harbour Office. +He didn't go there. He was not absent long enough for that. He came +darting back in no time, flung his hat away, and raced about the dining +room moaning and slapping his forehead. All these exciting facts and +manifestations had been observed by Captain Giles. He had, it seems, +been meditating upon them ever since. + +I began to pity him profoundly. And in a tone which I tried to make +as little sarcastic as possible I said that I was glad he had found +something to occupy his morning hours. + +With his disarming simplicity he made me observe, as if it were a matter +of some consequence, how strange it was that he should have spent the +morning indoors at all. He generally was out before tiffin, visiting +various offices, seeing his friends in the harbour, and so on. He had +felt out of sorts somewhat on rising. Nothing much. Just enough to make +him feel lazy. + +All this with a sustained, holding stare which, in conjunction with +the general inanity of the discourse, conveyed the impression of mild, +dreary lunacy. And when he hitched his chair a little and dropped +his voice to the low note of mystery, it flashed upon me that high +professional reputation was not necessarily a guarantee of sound mind. + +It never occurred to me then that I didn't know in what soundness +of mind exactly consisted and what a delicate and, upon the whole, +unimportant matter it was. With some idea of not hurting his feelings I +blinked at him in an interested manner. But when he proceeded to ask me +mysteriously whether I remembered what had passed just now between that +Steward of ours and "that man Hamilton," I only grunted sourly assent +and turned away my head. + +"Aye. But do you remember every word?" he insisted tactfully. + +"I don't know. It's none of my business," I snapped out, consigning, +moreover, the Steward and Hamilton aloud to eternal perdition. + +I meant to be very energetic and final, but Captain Giles continued to +gaze at me thoughtfully. Nothing could stop him. He went on to point out +that my personality was involved in that conversation. When I tried to +preserve the semblance of unconcern he became positively cruel. I heard +what the man had said? Yes? What did I think of it then?--he wanted to +know. + +Captain Giles' appearance excluding the suspicion of mere sly malice, +I came to the conclusion that he was simply the most tactless idiot +on earth. I almost despised myself for the weakness of attempting to +enlighten his common understanding. I started to explain that I did not +think anything whatever. Hamilton was not worth a thought. What such an +offensive loafer . . . "Aye! that he is," interjected Captain Giles +. . . thought or said was below any decent man's contempt, and I did not +propose to take the slightest notice of it. + +This attitude seemed to me so simple and obvious that I was really +astonished at Giles giving no sign of assent. Such perfect stupidity was +almost interesting. + +"What would you like me to do?" I asked, laughing. "I can't start a row +with him because of the opinion he has formed of me. Of course, I've +heard of the contemptuous way he alludes to me. But he doesn't intrude +his contempt on my notice. He has never expressed it in my hearing. +For even just now he didn't know we could hear him. I should only make +myself ridiculous." + +That hopeless Giles went on puffing at his pipe moodily. All at once his +face cleared, and he spoke. + +"You missed my point." + +"Have I? I am very glad to hear it," I said. + +With increasing animation he stated again that I had missed his point. +Entirely. And in a tone of growing self-conscious complacency he told me +that few things escaped his attention, and he was rather used to think +them out, and generally from his experience of life and men arrived at +the right conclusion. + +This bit of self-praise, of course, fitted excellently the laborious +inanity of the whole conversation. The whole thing strengthened in +me that obscure feeling of life being but a waste of days, which, +half-unconsciously, had driven me out of a comfortable berth, away from +men I liked, to flee from the menace of emptiness . . . and to find +inanity at the first turn. Here was a man of recognized character and +achievement disclosed as an absurd and dreary chatterer. And it was +probably like this everywhere--from east to west, from the bottom to the +top of the social scale. + +A great discouragement fell on me. A spiritual drowsiness. Giles' +voice was going on complacently; the very voice of the universal hollow +conceit. And I was no longer angry with it. There was nothing original, +nothing new, startling, informing, to expect from the world; no +opportunities to find out something about oneself, no wisdom to acquire, +no fun to enjoy. Everything was stupid and overrated, even as Captain +Giles was. So be it. + +The name of Hamilton suddenly caught my ear and roused me up. + +"I thought we had done with him," I said, with the greatest possible +distaste. + +"Yes. But considering what we happened to hear just now I think you +ought to do it." + +"Ought to do it?" I sat up bewildered. "Do what?" + +Captain Giles confronted me very much surprised. + +"Why! Do what I have been advising you to try. You go and ask the +Steward what was there in that letter from the Harbour Office. Ask him +straight out." + +I remained speechless for a time. Here was something unexpected +and original enough to be altogether incomprehensible. I murmured, +astounded: + +"But I thought it was Hamilton that you . . ." + +"Exactly. Don't you let him. You do what I tell you. You tackle that +Steward. You'll make him jump, I bet," insisted Captain Giles, waving +his smouldering pipe impressively at me. Then he took three rapid puffs +at it. + +His aspect of triumphant acuteness was indescribable. Yet the man +remained a strangely sympathetic creature. Benevolence radiated from +him ridiculously, mildly, impressively. It was irritating, too. But I +pointed out coldly, as one who deals with the incomprehensible, that I +didn't see any reason to expose myself to a snub from the fellow. He +was a very unsatisfactory steward and a miserable wretch besides, but I +would just as soon think of tweaking his nose. + +"Tweaking his nose," said Captain Giles in a scandalized tone. "Much use +it would be to you." + +That remark was so irrelevant that one could make no answer to it. +But the sense of the absurdity was beginning at last to exercise its +well-known fascination. I felt I must not let the man talk to me any +more. I got up, observing curtly that he was too much for me--that I +couldn't make him out. + +Before I had time to move away he spoke again in a changed tone of +obstinacy and puffing nervously at his pipe. + +"Well--he's a--no account cuss--anyhow. You just--ask him. That's all." + +That new manner impressed me--or rather made me pause. But sanity +asserting its sway at once I left the verandah after giving him a +mirthless smile. In a few strides I found myself in the dining room, now +cleared and empty. But during that short time various thoughts occurred +to me, such as: that Giles had been making fun of me, expecting some +amusement at my expense; that I probably looked silly and gullible; that +I knew very little of life. . . . + +The door facing me across the dining room flew open to my extreme +surprise. It was the door inscribed with the word "Steward" and the +man himself ran out of his stuffy, Philistinish lair in his absurd, +hunted-animal manner, making for the garden door. + +To this day I don't know what made me call after him. "I say! Wait a +minute." Perhaps it was the sidelong glance he gave me; or possibly I +was yet under the influence of Captain Giles' mysterious earnestness. +Well, it was an impulse of some sort; an effect of that force somewhere +within our lives which shapes them this way or that. For if these words +had not escaped from my lips (my will had nothing to do with that) my +existence would, to be sure, have been still a seaman's existence, but +directed on now to me utterly inconceivable lines. + +No. My will had nothing to do with it. Indeed, no sooner had I made that +fateful noise than I became extremely sorry for it. Had the man stopped +and faced me I would have had to retire in disorder. For I had no notion +to carry out Captain Giles' idiotic joke, either at my own expense or at +the expense of the Steward. + +But here the old human instinct of the chase came into play. He +pretended to be deaf, and I, without thinking a second about it, dashed +along my own side of the dining table and cut him off at the very door. + +"Why can't you answer when you are spoken to?" I asked roughly. + +He leaned against the lintel of the door. He looked extremely wretched. +Human nature is, I fear, not very nice right through. There are ugly +spots in it. I found myself growing angry, and that, I believe, only +because my quarry looked so woe-begone. Miserable beggar! + +I went for him without more ado. "I understand there was an official +communication to the Home from the Harbour Office this morning. Is that +so?" + +Instead of telling me to mind my own business, as he might have done, +he began to whine with an undertone of impudence. He couldn't see me +anywhere this morning. He couldn't be expected to run all over the town +after me. + +"Who wants you to?" I cried. And then my eyes became opened to the +inwardness of things and speeches the triviality of which had been so +baffling and tiresome. + +I told him I wanted to know what was in that letter. My sternness of +tone and behaviour was only half assumed. Curiosity can be a very fierce +sentiment--at times. + +He took refuge in a silly, muttering sulkiness. It was nothing to me, he +mumbled. I had told him I was going home. And since I was going home he +didn't see why he should. . . . + +That was the line of his argument, and it was irrelevant enough to be +almost insulting. Insulting to one's intelligence, I mean. + +In that twilight region between youth and maturity, in which I had my +being then, one is peculiarly sensitive to that kind of insult. I am +afraid my behaviour to the Steward became very rough indeed. But it +wasn't in him to face out anything or anybody. Drug habit or solitary +tippling, perhaps. And when I forgot myself so far as to swear at him he +broke down and began to shriek. + +I don't mean to say that he made a great outcry. It was a cynical +shrieking confession, only faint--piteously faint. It wasn't very +coherent either, but sufficiently so to strike me dumb at first. I +turned my eyes from him in righteous indignation, and perceived Captain +Giles in the verandah doorway surveying quietly the scene, his own +handiwork, if I may express it in that way. His smouldering black pipe +was very noticeable in his big, paternal fist. So, too, was the glitter +of his heavy gold watch-chain across the breast of his white tunic. +He exhaled an atmosphere of virtuous sagacity serene enough for any +innocent soul to fly to confidently. I flew to him. + +"You would never believe it," I cried. "It was a notification that a +master is wanted for some ship. There's a command apparently going about +and this fellow puts the thing in his pocket." + +The Steward screamed out in accents of loud despair: "You will be the +death of me!" + +The mighty slap he gave his wretched forehead was very loud, too. But +when I turned to look at him he was no longer there. He had rushed away +somewhere out of sight. This sudden disappearance made me laugh. + +This was the end of the incident--for me. Captain Giles, however, +staring at the place where the Steward had been, began to haul at his +gorgeous gold chain till at last the watch came up from the deep pocket +like solid truth from a well. Solemnly he lowered it down again and only +then said: + +"Just three o'clock. You will be in time--if you don't lose any, that +is." + +"In time for what?" I asked. + +"Good Lord! For the Harbour Office. This must be looked into." + +Strictly speaking, he was right. But I've never had much taste for +investigation, for showing people up and all that no doubt ethically +meritorious kind of work. And my view of the episode was purely ethical. +If any one had to be the death of the Steward I didn't see why it +shouldn't be Captain Giles himself, a man of age and standing, and a +permanent resident. Whereas, I in comparison, felt myself a mere bird +of passage in that port. In fact, it might have been said that I had +already broken off my connection. I muttered that I didn't think--it was +nothing to me. . . . + +"Nothing!" repeated Captain Giles, giving some signs of quiet, +deliberate indignation. "Kent warned me you were a peculiar young +fellow. You will tell me next that a command is nothing to you--and +after all the trouble I've taken, too!" + +"The trouble!" I murmured, uncomprehending. What trouble? All I could +remember was being mystified and bored by his conversation for a solid +hour after tiffin. And he called that taking a lot of trouble. + +He was looking at me with a self-complacency which would have been +odious in any other man. All at once, as if a page of a book had been +turned over disclosing a word which made plain all that had gone before, +I perceived that this matter had also another than an ethical aspect. + +And still I did not move. Captain Giles lost his patience a little. With +an angry puff at his pipe he turned his back on my hesitation. + +But it was not hesitation on my part. I had been, if I may express +myself so, put out of gear mentally. But as soon as I had convinced +myself that this stale, unprofitable world of my discontent contained +such a thing as a command to be seized, I recovered my powers of +locomotion. + +It's a good step from the Officers' Home to the Harbour Office; but with +the magic word "Command" in my head I found myself suddenly on the quay +as if transported there in the twinkling of an eye, before a portal of +dressed white stone above a flight of shallow white steps. + +All this seemed to glide toward me swiftly. The whole great roadstead +to the right was just a mere flicker of blue, and the dim cool hall +swallowed me up out of the heat and glare of which I had not been aware +till the very moment I passed in from it. + +The broad inner staircase insinuated itself under my feet somehow. +Command is a strong magic. The first human beings I perceived distinctly +since I had parted with the indignant back of Captain Giles were the +crew of the harbour steam-launch lounging on the spacious landing about +the curtained archway of the shipping office. + +It was there that my buoyancy abandoned me. The atmosphere of +officialdom would kill anything that breathes the air of human +endeavour, would extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of +paper and ink. I passed heavily under the curtain which the Malay +coxswain of the harbour launch raised for me. There was nobody in the +office except the clerks, writing in two industrious rows. But the head +Shipping-Master hopped down from his elevation and hurried along on the +thick mats to meet me in the broad central passage. + +He had a Scottish name, but his complexion was of a rich olive hue, his +short beard was jet black, and his eyes, also black, had a languishing +expression. He asked confidentially: + +"You want to see Him?" + +All lightness of spirit and body having departed from me at the touch +of officialdom, I looked at the scribe without animation and asked in my +turn wearily: + +"What do you think? Is it any use?" + +"My goodness! He has asked for you twice today." + +This emphatic He was the supreme authority, the Marine Superintendent, +the Harbour-Master--a very great person in the eyes of every single +quill-driver in the room. But that was nothing to the opinion he had of +his own greatness. + +Captain Ellis looked upon himself as a sort of divine (pagan) emanation, +the deputy-Neptune for the circumambient seas. If he did not actually +rule the waves, he pretended to rule the fate of the mortals whose lives +were cast upon the waters. + +This uplifting illusion made him inquisitorial and peremptory. And as +his temperament was choleric there were fellows who were actually afraid +of him. He was redoubtable, not in virtue of his office, but because of +his unwarrantable assumptions. I had never had anything to do with him +before. + +I said: "Oh! He has asked for me twice. Then perhaps I had better go +in." + +"You must! You must!" + +The Shipping-Master led the way with a mincing gait around the whole +system of desks to a tall and important-looking door, which he opened +with a deferential action of the arm. + +He stepped right in (but without letting go of the handle) and, after +gazing reverently down the room for a while, beckoned me in by a silent +jerk of the head. Then he slipped out at once and shut the door after me +most delicately. + +Three lofty windows gave on the harbour. There was nothing in them but +the dark-blue sparkling sea and the paler luminous blue of the sky. My +eye caught in the depths and distances of these blue tones the white +speck of some big ship just arrived and about to anchor in the outer +roadstead. A ship from home--after perhaps ninety days at sea. There is +something touching about a ship coming in from sea and folding her white +wings for a rest. + +The next thing I saw was the top-knot of silver hair surmounting Captain +Ellis' smooth red face, which would have been apoplectic if it hadn't +had such a fresh appearance. + +Our deputy-Neptune had no beard on his chin, and there was no trident +to be seen standing in a corner anywhere, like an umbrella. But his +hand was holding a pen--the official pen, far mightier than the sword in +making or marring the fortune of simple toiling men. He was looking over +his shoulder at my advance. + +When I had come well within range he saluted me by a nerve-shattering: +"Where have you been all this time?" + +As it was no concern of his I did not take the slightest notice of the +shot. I said simply that I had heard there was a master needed for some +vessel, and being a sailing-ship man I thought I would apply. . . . + +He interrupted me. "Why! Hang it! _You_ are the right man for that job--if +there had been twenty others after it. But no fear of that. They are all +afraid to catch hold. That's what's the matter." + +He was very irritated. I said innocently: "Are they, sir. I wonder why?" + +"Why!" he fumed. "Afraid of the sails. Afraid of a white crew. Too much +trouble. Too much work. Too long out here. Easy life and deck-chairs +more their mark. Here I sit with the Consul-General's cable before me, +and the only man fit for the job not to be found anywhere. I began to +think you were funking it, too. . . ." + +"I haven't been long getting to the office," I remarked calmly. + +"You have a good name out here, though," he growled savagely without +looking at me. + +"I am very glad to hear it from you, sir," I said. + +"Yes. But you are not on the spot when you are wanted. You know you +weren't. That steward of yours wouldn't dare to neglect a message from +this office. Where the devil did you hide yourself for the best part of +the day?" + +I only smiled kindly down on him, and he seemed to recollect himself, +and asked me to take a seat. He explained that the master of a British +ship having died in Bangkok the Consul-General had cabled to him a +request for a competent man to be sent out to take command. + +Apparently, in his mind, I was the man from the first, though for the +looks of the thing the notification addressed to the Sailors' Home was +general. An agreement had already been prepared. He gave it to me to +read, and when I handed it back to him with the remark that I accepted +its terms, the deputy-Neptune signed it, stamped it with his own exalted +hand, folded it in four (it was a sheet of blue foolscap) and presented +it to me--a gift of extraordinary potency, for, as I put it in my +pocket, my head swam a little. + +"This is your appointment to the command," he said with a certain +gravity. "An official appointment binding the owners to conditions which +you have accepted. Now--when will you be ready to go?" + +I said I would be ready that very day if necessary. He caught me at my +word with great alacrity. The steamer Melita was leaving for Bangkok +that evening about seven. He would request her captain officially to +give me a passage and wait for me till ten o'clock. + +Then he rose from his office chair, and I got up, too. My head swam, +there was no doubt about it, and I felt a certain heaviness of limbs as +if they had grown bigger since I had sat down on that chair. I made my +bow. + +A subtle change in Captain Ellis' manner became perceptible as though +he had laid aside the trident of deputy-Neptune. In reality, it was only +his official pen that he had dropped on getting up. + + + + +II + +He shook hands with me: "Well, there you are, on your own, appointed +officially under my responsibility." + +He was actually walking with me to the door. What a distance off it +seemed! I moved like a man in bonds. But we reached it at last. I opened +it with the sensation of dealing with mere dream-stuff, and then at the +last moment the fellowship of seamen asserted itself, stronger than +the difference of age and station. It asserted itself in Captain Ellis' +voice. + +"Good-bye--and good luck to you," he said so heartily that I could only +give him a grateful glance. Then I turned and went out, never to see him +again in my life. I had not made three steps into the outer office when +I heard behind my back a gruff, loud, authoritative voice, the voice of +our deputy-Neptune. + +It was addressing the head Shipping-Master who, having let me in, had, +apparently, remained hovering in the middle distance ever since. "Mr. R., +let the harbour launch have steam up to take the captain here on board +the Melita at half-past nine to-night." + +I was amazed at the startled alacrity of R's "Yes, sir." He ran before +me out on the landing. My new dignity sat yet so lightly on me that +I was not aware that it was I, the Captain, the object of this last +graciousness. It seemed as if all of a sudden a pair of wings had grown +on my shoulders. I merely skimmed along the polished floor. + +But R. was impressed. + +"I say!" he exclaimed on the landing, while the Malay crew of the +steam-launch standing by looked stonily at the man for whom they were +going to be kept on duty so late, away from their gambling, from their +girls, or their pure domestic joys. "I say! His own launch. What have +you done to him?" + +His stare was full of respectful curiosity. I was quite confounded. + +"Was it for me? I hadn't the slightest notion," I stammered out. + +He nodded many times. "Yes. And the last person who had it before you +was a Duke. So, there!" + +I think he expected me to faint on the spot. But I was in too much of a +hurry for emotional displays. My feelings were already in such a whirl +that this staggering information did not seem to make the slightest +difference. It merely fell into the seething cauldron of my brain, and +I carried it off with me after a short but effusive passage of +leave-taking with R. + +The favour of the great throws an aureole round the fortunate object of +its selection. That excellent man enquired whether he could do anything +for me. He had known me only by sight, and he was well aware he would +never see me again; I was, in common with the other seamen of the port, +merely a subject for official writing, filling up of forms with all the +artificial superiority of a man of pen and ink to the men who grapple +with realities outside the consecrated walls of official buildings. What +ghosts we must have been to him! Mere symbols to juggle with in books +and heavy registers, without brains and muscles and perplexities; +something hardly useful and decidedly inferior. + +And he--the office hours being over--wanted to know if he could be of +any use to me! + +I ought--properly speaking--I ought to have been moved to tears. But I +did not even think of it. It was merely another miraculous manifestation +of that day of miracles. I parted from him as if he were a mere symbol. +I floated down the staircase. I floated out of the official and imposing +portal. I went on floating along. + +I use that word rather than the word "flew," because I have a distinct +impression that, though uplifted by my aroused youth, my movements were +deliberate enough. To that mixed white, brown, and yellow portion of +mankind, out abroad on their own affairs, I presented the appearance +of a man walking rather sedately. And nothing in the way of abstraction +could have equalled my deep detachment from the forms and colours of +this world. It was, as it were, final. + +And yet, suddenly, I recognized Hamilton. I recognized him without +effort, without a shock, without a start. There he was, strolling toward +the Harbour Office with his stiff, arrogant dignity. His red face made +him noticeable at a distance. It flamed, over there, on the shady side +of the street. + +He had perceived me, too. Something (unconscious exuberance of spirits +perhaps) moved me to wave my hand to him elaborately. This lapse from +good taste happened before I was aware that I was capable of it. + +The impact of my impudence stopped him short, much as a bullet might +have done. I verily believe he staggered, though as far as I could see +he didn't actually fall. I had gone past in a moment and did not turn my +head. I had forgotten his existence. + +The next ten minutes might have been ten seconds or ten centuries for +all my consciousness had to do with it. People might have been falling +dead around me, houses crumbling, guns firing, I wouldn't have known. +I was thinking: "By Jove! I have got it." _It_ being the command. It had +come about in a way utterly unforeseen in my modest day-dreams. + +I perceived that my imagination had been running in conventional +channels and that my hopes had always been drab stuff. I had envisaged a +command as a result of a slow course of promotion in the employ of some +highly respectable firm. The reward of faithful service. Well, faithful +service was all right. One would naturally give that for one's own sake, +for the sake of the ship, for the love of the life of one's choice; not +for the sake of the reward. + +There is something distasteful in the notion of a reward. + +And now here I had my command, absolutely in my pocket, in a way +undeniable indeed, but most unexpected; beyond my imaginings, outside +all reasonable expectations, and even notwithstanding the existence of +some sort of obscure intrigue to keep it away from me. It is true that +the intrigue was feeble, but it helped the feeling of wonder--as if I +had been specially destined for that ship I did not know, by some power +higher than the prosaic agencies of the commercial world. + +A strange sense of exultation began to creep into me. If I had worked +for that command ten years or more there would have been nothing of the +kind. I was a little frightened. + +"Let us be calm," I said to myself. + +Outside the door of the Officers' Home the wretched Steward seemed to be +waiting for me. There was a broad flight of a few steps, and he ran +to and fro on the top of it as if chained there. A distressed cur. He +looked as though his throat were too dry for him to bark. + +I regret to say I stopped before going in. There had been a revolution +in my moral nature. He waited open-mouthed, breathless, while I looked +at him for half a minute. + +"And you thought you could keep me out of it," I said scathingly. + +"You said you were going home," he squeaked miserably. "You said so. You +said so." + +"I wonder what Captain Ellis will have to say to that excuse," I uttered +slowly with a sinister meaning. + +His lower jaw had been trembling all the time and his voice was like the +bleating of a sick goat. "You have given me away? You have done for me?" + +Neither his distress nor yet the sheer absurdity of it was able to +disarm me. It was the first instance of harm being attempted to be done +to me--at any rate, the first I had ever found out. And I was still +young enough, still too much on this side of the shadow line, not to be +surprised and indignant at such things. + +I gazed at him inflexibly. Let the beggar suffer. He slapped his +forehead and I passed in, pursued, into the dining room, by his screech: +"I always said you'd be the death of me." + +This clamour not only overtook me, but went ahead as it were on to the +verandah and brought out Captain Giles. + +He stood before me in the doorway in all the commonplace solidity of +his wisdom. The gold chain glittered on his breast. He clutched a +smouldering pipe. + +I extended my hand to him warmly and he seemed surprised, but did +respond heartily enough in the end, with a faint smile of superior +knowledge which cut my thanks short as if with a knife. I don't think +that more than one word came out. And even for that one, judging by the +temperature of my face, I had blushed as if for a bad action. Assuming a +detached tone, I wondered how on earth he had managed to spot the little +underhand game that had been going on. + +He murmured complacently that there were but few things done in the town +that he could not see the inside of. And as to this house, he had been +using it off and on for nearly ten years. Nothing that went on in it +could escape his great experience. It had been no trouble to him. No +trouble at all. + +Then in his quiet, thick tone he wanted to know if I had complained +formally of the Steward's action. + +I said that I hadn't--though, indeed, it was not for want of +opportunity. Captain Ellis had gone for me bald-headed in a most +ridiculous fashion for being out of the way when wanted. + +"Funny old gentleman," interjected Captain Giles. "What did you say to +that?" + +"I said simply that I came along the very moment I heard of his message. +Nothing more. I didn't want to hurt the Steward. I would scorn to harm +such an object. No. I made no complaint, but I believe he thinks I've +done so. Let him think. He's got a fright he won't forget in a hurry, +for Captain Ellis would kick him out into the middle of Asia. . . ." + +"Wait a moment," said Captain Giles, leaving me suddenly. I sat down +feeling very tired, mostly in my head. Before I could start a train of +thought he stood again before me, murmuring the excuse that he had to go +and put the fellow's mind at ease. + +I looked up with surprise. But in reality I was indifferent. He +explained that he had found the Steward lying face downward on the +horsehair sofa. He was all right now. + +"He would not have died of fright," I said contemptuously. + +"No. But he might have taken an overdose out of one of them little +bottles he keeps in his room," Captain Giles argued seriously. "The +confounded fool has tried to poison himself once--a few years ago." + +"Really," I said without emotion. "He doesn't seem very fit to live, +anyhow." + +"As to that, it may be said of a good many." + +"Don't exaggerate like this!" I protested, laughing irritably. "But I +wonder what this part of the world would do if you were to leave off +looking after it, Captain Giles? Here you have got me a command and +saved the Steward's life in one afternoon. Though why you should have +taken all that interest in either of us is more than I can understand." + +Captain Giles remained silent for a minute. Then gravely: + +"He's not a bad steward really. He can find a good cook, at any rate. +And, what's more, he can keep him when found. I remember the cooks we +had here before his time! . . ." + +I must have made a movement of impatience, because he interrupted +himself with an apology for keeping me yarning there, while no doubt I +needed all my time to get ready. + +What I really needed was to be alone for a bit. I seized this opening +hastily. My bedroom was a quiet refuge in an apparently uninhabited wing +of the building. Having absolutely nothing to do (for I had not unpacked +my things), I sat down on the bed and abandoned myself to the influences +of the hour. To the unexpected influences. . . . + +And first I wondered at my state of mind. Why was I not more surprised? +Why? Here I was, invested with a command in the twinkling of an eye, not +in the common course of human affairs, but more as if by enchantment. I +ought to have been lost in astonishment. But I wasn't. I was very much +like people in fairy tales. Nothing ever astonishes them. When a fully +appointed gala coach is produced out of a pumpkin to take her to a ball, +Cinderella does not exclaim. She gets in quietly and drives away to her +high fortune. + +Captain Ellis (a fierce sort of fairy) had produced a command out of a +drawer almost as unexpectedly as in a fairy tale. But a command is an +abstract idea, and it seemed a sort of "lesser marvel" till it flashed +upon me that it involved the concrete existence of a ship. + +A ship! My ship! She was mine, more absolutely mine for possession +and care than anything in the world; an object of responsibility and +devotion. She was there waiting for me, spell-bound, unable to move, +to live, to get out into the world (till I came), like an enchanted +princess. Her call had come to me as if from the clouds. I had never +suspected her existence. I didn't know how she looked, I had barely +heard her name, and yet we were indissolubly united for a certain +portion of our future, to sink or swim together! + +A sudden passion of anxious impatience rushed through my veins, gave me +such a sense of the intensity of existence as I have never felt before +or since. I discovered how much of a seaman I was, in heart, in mind, +and, as it were, physically--a man exclusively of sea and ships; the sea +the only world that counted, and the ships, the test of manliness, of +temperament, of courage and fidelity--and of love. + +I had an exquisite moment. It was unique also. Jumping up from my seat, +I paced up and down my room for a long time. But when I came downstairs +I behaved with sufficient composure. Only I couldn't eat anything at +dinner. + +Having declared my intention not to drive but to walk down to the quay, +I must render the wretched Steward justice that he bestirred himself +to find me some coolies for the luggage. They departed, carrying all +my worldly possessions (except a little money I had in my pocket) slung +from a long pole. Captain Giles volunteered to walk down with me. + +We followed the sombre, shaded alley across the Esplanade. It was +moderately cool there under the trees. Captain Giles remarked, with a +sudden laugh: "I know who's jolly thankful at having seen the last of +you." + +I guessed that he meant the Steward. The fellow had borne himself to me +in a sulkily frightened manner at the last. I expressed my wonder that +he should have tried to do me a bad turn for no reason at all. + +"Don't you see that what he wanted was to get rid of our friend Hamilton +by dodging him in front of you for that job? That would have removed him +for good. See?" + +"Heavens!" I exclaimed, feeling humiliated somehow. "Can it be possible? +What a fool he must be! That overbearing, impudent loafer! Why! He +couldn't. . . . And yet he's nearly done it, I believe; for the Harbour +Office was bound to send somebody." + +"Aye. A fool like our Steward can be dangerous sometimes," declared +Captain Giles sententiously. "Just because he is a fool," he added, +imparting further instruction in his complacent low tones. "For," he +continued in the manner of a set demonstration, "no sensible person +would risk being kicked out of the only berth between himself and +starvation just to get rid of a simple annoyance--a small worry. +Would he now?" + +"Well, no," I conceded, restraining a desire to laugh at that something +mysteriously earnest in delivering the conclusions of his wisdom as +though it were the product of prohibited operations. "But that fellow +looks as if he were rather crazy. He must be." + +"As to that, I believe everybody in the world is a little mad," he +announced quietly. + +"You make no exceptions?" I inquired, just to hear his manner. + +"Why! Kent says that even of you." + +"Does he?" I retorted, extremely embittered all at once against my +former captain. "There's nothing of that in the written character from +him which I've got in my pocket. Has he given you any instances of my +lunacy?" + +Captain Giles explained in a conciliating tone that it had been only +a friendly remark in reference to my abrupt leaving the ship for no +apparent reason. + +I muttered grumpily: "Oh! leaving his ship," and mended my pace. He +kept up by my side in the deep gloom of the avenue as if it were +his conscientious duty to see me out of the colony as an undesirable +character. He panted a little, which was rather pathetic in a way. But +I was not moved. On the contrary. His discomfort gave me a sort of +malicious pleasure. + +Presently I relented, slowed down, and said: + +"What I really wanted was to get a fresh grip. I felt it was time. Is +that so very mad?" + +He made no answer. We were issuing from the avenue. On the bridge over +the canal a dark, irresolute figure seemed to be awaiting something or +somebody. + +It was a Malay policeman, barefooted, in his blue uniform. The silver +band on his little round cap shone dimly in the light of the street +lamp. He peered in our direction timidly. + +Before we could come up to him he turned about and walked in front of us +in the direction of the jetty. The distance was some hundred yards; and +then I found my coolies squatting on their heels. They had kept the pole +on their shoulders, and all my worldly goods, still tied to the pole, +were resting on the ground between them. As far as the eye could reach +along the quay there was not another soul abroad except the police peon, +who saluted us. + +It seems he had detained the coolies as suspicious characters, and had +forbidden them the jetty. But at a sign from me he took off the embargo +with alacrity. The two patient fellows, rising together with a faint +grunt, trotted off along the planks, and I prepared to take my leave of +Captain Giles, who stood there with an air as though his mission were +drawing to a close. It could not be denied that he had done it all. And +while I hesitated about an appropriate sentence he made himself heard: + +"I expect you'll have your hands pretty full of tangled-up business." + +I asked him what made him think so; and he answered that it was his +general experience of the world. Ship a long time away from her port, +owners inaccessible by cable, and the only man who could explain matters +dead and buried. + +"And you yourself new to the business in a way," he concluded in a sort +of unanswerable tone. + +"Don't insist," I said. "I know it only too well. I only wish you could +impart to me some small portion of your experience before I go. As it +can't be done in ten minutes I had better not begin to ask you. There's +that harbour launch waiting for me, too. But I won't feel really at +peace till I have that ship of mine out in the Indian Ocean." + +He remarked casually that from Bangkok to the Indian Ocean was a pretty +long step. And this murmur, like a dim flash from a dark lantern, showed +me for a moment the broad belt of islands and reefs between that unknown +ship, which was mine, and the freedom of the great waters of the globe. + +But I felt no apprehension. I was familiar enough with the Archipelago +by that time. Extreme patience and extreme care would see me through the +region of broken land, of faint airs, and of dead water to where I would +feel at last my command swing on the great swell and list over to the +great breath of regular winds, that would give her the feeling of a +large, more intense life. The road would be long. All roads are long +that lead toward one's heart's desire. But this road my mind's eye +could see on a chart, professionally, with all its complications and +difficulties, yet simple enough in a way. One is a seaman or one is not. +And I had no doubt of being one. + +The only part I was a stranger to was the Gulf of Siam. And I mentioned +this to Captain Giles. Not that I was concerned very much. It belonged +to the same region the nature of which I knew, into whose very soul +I seemed to have looked during the last months of that existence with +which I had broken now, suddenly, as one parts with some enchanting +company. + +"The gulf . . . Ay! A funny piece of water--that," said Captain Giles. + +Funny, in this connection, was a vague word. The whole thing sounded +like an opinion uttered by a cautious person mindful of actions for +slander. + +I didn't inquire as to the nature of that funniness. There was really no +time. But at the very last he volunteered a warning. + +"Whatever you do keep to the east side of it. The west side is dangerous +at this time of the year. Don't let anything tempt you over. You'll find +nothing but trouble there." + +Though I could hardly imagine what could tempt me to involve my ship +amongst the currents and reefs of the Malay shore, I thanked him for the +advice. + +He gripped my extended arm warmly, and the end of our acquaintance came +suddenly in the words: "Good-night." + +That was all he said: "Good-night." Nothing more. I don't know what I +intended to say, but surprise made me swallow it, whatever it was. I +choked slightly, and then exclaimed with a sort of nervous haste: "Oh! +Good-night, Captain Giles, good-night." + +His movements were always deliberate, but his back had receded some +distance along the deserted quay before I collected myself enough to +follow his example and made a half turn in the direction of the jetty. + +Only my movements were not deliberate. I hurried down to the steps, and +leaped into the launch. Before I had fairly landed in her sternsheets +the slim little craft darted away from the jetty with a sudden swirl of +her propeller and the hard, rapid puffing of the exhaust in her vaguely +gleaming brass funnel amidships. + +The misty churning at her stern was the only sound in the world. The +shore lay plunged in the silence of the deeper slumber. I watched the +town recede still and soundless in the hot night, till the abrupt hail, +"Steam-launch, ahoy!" made me spin round face forward. We were close to +a white ghostly steamer. Lights shone on her decks, in her portholes. +And the same voice shouted from her: + +"Is that our passenger?" + +"It is," I yelled. + +Her crew had been obviously on the jump. I could hear them running +about. The modern spirit of haste was loudly vocal in the orders to +"Heave away on the cable"--to "Lower the sideladder," and in urgent +requests to me to "Come along, sir! We have been delayed three hours for +you. . . . Our time is seven o'clock, you know!" + +I stepped on the deck. I said "No! I don't know." The spirit of modern +hurry was embodied in a thin, long-armed, long-legged man, with a +closely clipped gray beard. His meagre hand was hot and dry. He declared +feverishly: + +"I am hanged if I would have waited another five minutes Harbour-Master +or no Harbour-Master." + +"That's your own business," I said. "I didn't ask you to wait for me." + +"I hope you don't expect any supper," he burst out. "This isn't a +boarding-house afloat. You are the first passenger I ever had in my life +and I hope to goodness you will be the last." + +I made no answer to this hospitable communication; and, indeed, he +didn't wait for any, bolting away on to his bridge to get his ship under +way. + +The three days he had me on board he did not depart from that +half-hostile attitude. His ship having been delayed three hours on +my account he couldn't forgive me for not being a more distinguished +person. He was not exactly outspoken about it, but that feeling of +annoyed wonder was peeping out perpetually in his talk. + +He was absurd. + +He was also a man of much experience, which he liked to trot out; but no +greater contrast with Captain Giles could have been imagined. He would +have amused me if I had wanted to be amused. But I did not want to be +amused. I was like a lover looking forward to a meeting. Human hostility +was nothing to me. I thought of my unknown ship. It was amusement +enough, torment enough, occupation enough. + +He perceived my state, for his wits were sufficiently sharp for that, +and he poked sly fun at my preoccupation in the manner some nasty, +cynical old men assume toward the dreams and illusions of youth. I, on +my side, refrained from questioning him as to the appearance of my ship, +though I knew that being in Bangkok every fortnight or so he must have +known her by sight. I was not going to expose the ship, my ship! to some +slighting reference. + +He was the first really unsympathetic man I had ever come in contact +with. My education was far from being finished, though I didn't know it. +No! I didn't know it. + +All I knew was that he disliked me and had some contempt for my person. +Why? Apparently because his ship had been delayed three hours on my +account. Who was I to have such a thing done for me? Such a thing had +never been done for him. It was a sort of jealous indignation. + +My expectation, mingled with fear, was wrought to its highest pitch. How +slow had been the days of the passage and how soon they were over. +One morning, early, we crossed the bar, and while the sun was +rising splendidly over the flat spaces of the land we steamed up the +innumerable bends, passed under the shadow of the great gilt pagoda, and +reached the outskirts of the town. + +There it was, spread largely on both banks, the Oriental capital which +had as yet suffered no white conqueror; an expanse of brown houses of +bamboo, of mats, of leaves, of a vegetable-matter style of architecture, +sprung out of the brown soil on the banks of the muddy river. It was +amazing to think that in those miles of human habitations there was not +probably half a dozen pounds of nails. Some of those houses of sticks +and grass, like the nests of an aquatic race, clung to the low shores. +Others seemed to grow out of the water; others again floated in long +anchored rows in the very middle of the stream. Here and there in the +distance, above the crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered great +piles of masonry, King's Palace, temples, gorgeous and dilapidated, +crumbling under the vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost +palpable, which seemed to enter one's breast with the breath of one's +nostrils and soak into one's limbs through every pore of one's skin. + +The ridiculous victim of jealousy had for some reason or other to stop +his engines just then. The steamer drifted slowly up with the tide. +Oblivious of my new surroundings I walked the deck, in anxious, deadened +abstraction, a commingling of romantic reverie with a very practical +survey of my qualifications. For the time was approaching for me to +behold my command and to prove my worth in the ultimate test of my +profession. + +Suddenly I heard myself called by that imbecile. He was beckoning me to +come up on his bridge. + +I didn't care very much for that, but as it seemed that he had something +particular to say I went up the ladder. + +He laid his hand on my shoulder and gave me a slight turn, pointing with +his other arm at the same time. + +"There! That's your ship, Captain," he said. + +I felt a thump in my breast--only one, as if my heart had then ceased to +beat. There were ten or more ships moored along the bank, and the one he +meant was partly hidden away from my sight by her next astern. He said: +"We'll drift abreast her in a moment." + +What was his tone? Mocking? Threatening? Or only indifferent? I could +not tell. I suspected some malice in this unexpected manifestation of +interest. + +He left me, and I leaned over the rail of the bridge looking over the +side. I dared not raise my eyes. Yet it had to be done--and, indeed, I +could not have helped myself. I believe I trembled. + +But directly my eyes had rested on my ship all my fear vanished. It went +off swiftly, like a bad dream. Only that a dream leaves no shame behind +it, and that I felt a momentary shame at my unworthy suspicions. + +Yes, there she was. Her hull, her rigging filled my eye with a great +content. That feeling of life-emptiness which had made me so restless for +the last few months lost its bitter plausibility, its evil influence, +dissolved in a flow of joyous emotion. + +At first glance I saw that she was a high-class vessel, a harmonious +creature in the lines of her fine body, in the proportioned tallness of +her spars. Whatever her age and her history, she had preserved the +stamp of her origin. She was one of those craft that, in virtue of their +design and complete finish, will never look old. Amongst her companions +moored to the bank, and all bigger than herself, she looked like a +creature of high breed--an Arab steed in a string of cart-horses. + +A voice behind me said in a nasty equivocal tone: "I hope you are +satisfied with her, Captain." I did not even turn my head. It was the +master of the steamer, and whatever he meant, whatever he thought of +her, I knew that, like some rare women, she was one of those creatures +whose mere existence is enough to awaken an unselfish delight. One feels +that it is good to be in the world in which she has her being. + +That illusion of life and character which charms one in men's finest +handiwork radiated from her. An enormous bulk of teak-wood timber swung +over her hatchway; lifeless matter, looking heavier and bigger than +anything aboard of her. When they started lowering it the surge of the +tackle sent a quiver through her from water-line to the trucks up the +fine nerves of her rigging, as though she had shuddered at the weight. +It seemed cruel to load her so. . . . + +Half an hour later, putting my foot on her deck for the first time, I +received the feeling of deep physical satisfaction. Nothing could equal +the fullness of that moment, the ideal completeness of that emotional +experience which had come to me without the preliminary toil and +disenchantments of an obscure career. + +My rapid glance ran over her, enveloped, appropriated the form +concreting the abstract sentiment of my command. A lot of details +perceptible to a seaman struck my eye, vividly in that instant. For the +rest, I saw her disengaged from the material conditions of her being. +The shore to which she was moored was as if it did not exist. What were +to me all the countries of the globe? In all the parts of the world +washed by navigable waters our relation to each other would be the +same--and more intimate than there are words to express in the language. +Apart from that, every scene and episode would be a mere passing show. +The very gang of yellow coolies busy about the main hatch was less +substantial than the stuff dreams are made of. For who on earth would +dream of Chinamen? . . . + +I went aft, ascended the poop, where, under the awning, gleamed the +brasses of the yacht-like fittings, the polished surfaces of the rails, +the glass of the skylights. Right aft two seamen, busy cleaning the +steering gear, with the reflected ripples of light running playfully +up their bent backs, went on with their work, unaware of me and of +the almost affectionate glance I threw at them in passing toward the +companion-way of the cabin. + +The doors stood wide open, the slide was pushed right back. The +half-turn of the staircase cut off the view of the lobby. A low +humming ascended from below, but it stopped abruptly at the sound of my +descending footsteps. + + + + +III + +The first thing I saw down there was the upper part of a man's body +projecting backward, as it were, from one of the doors at the foot of +the stairs. His eyes looked at me very wide and still. In one hand he +held a dinner plate, in the other a cloth. + +"I am your new Captain," I said quietly. + +In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he had got rid of the plate and +the cloth and jumped to open the cabin door. As soon as I passed into +the saloon he vanished, but only to reappear instantly, buttoning up a +jacket he had put on with the swiftness of a "quick-change" artist. + +"Where's the chief mate?" I asked. + +"In the hold, I think, sir. I saw him go down the after-hatch ten +minutes ago." + +"Tell him I am on board." + +The mahogany table under the skylight shone in the twilight like a dark +pool of water. The sideboard, surmounted by a wide looking-glass in an +ormulu frame, had a marble top. It bore a pair of silver-plated lamps +and some other pieces--obviously a harbour display. The saloon itself was +panelled in two kinds of wood in the excellent simple taste prevailing +when the ship was built. + +I sat down in the armchair at the head of the table--the captain's +chair, with a small tell-tale compass swung above it--a mute reminder of +unremitting vigilance. + +A succession of men had sat in that chair. I became aware of that +thought suddenly, vividly, as though each had left a little of himself +between the four walls of these ornate bulkheads; as if a sort of +composite soul, the soul of command, had whispered suddenly to mine of +long days at sea and of anxious moments. + +"You, too!" it seemed to say, "you, too, shall taste of that peace and +that unrest in a searching intimacy with your own self--obscure as we +were and as supreme in the face of all the winds and all the seas, in an +immensity that receives no impress, preserves no memories, and keeps no +reckoning of lives." + +Deep within the tarnished ormulu frame, in the hot half-light sifted +through the awning, I saw my own face propped between my hands. And I +stared back at myself with the perfect detachment of distance, rather +with curiosity than with any other feeling, except of some sympathy for +this latest representative of what for all intents and purposes was a +dynasty, continuous not in blood indeed, but in its experience, in its +training, in its conception of duty, and in the blessed simplicity of +its traditional point of view on life. + +It struck me that this quietly staring man whom I was watching, both as +if he were myself and somebody else, was not exactly a lonely figure. +He had his place in a line of men whom he did not know, of whom he had +never heard; but who were fashioned by the same influences, whose souls +in relation to their humble life's work had no secrets for him. + +Suddenly I perceived that there was another man in the saloon, standing +a little on one side and looking intently at me. The chief mate. His +long, red moustache determined the character of his physiognomy, which +struck me as pugnacious in (strange to say) a ghastly sort of way. + +How long had he been there looking at me, appraising me in my unguarded +day-dreaming state? I would have been more disconcerted if, having the +clock set in the top of the mirror-frame right in front of me, I had not +noticed that its long hand had hardly moved at all. + +I could not have been in that cabin more than two minutes altogether. +Say three. . . . So he could not have been watching me more than a mere +fraction of a minute, luckily. Still, I regretted the occurrence. + +But I showed nothing of it as I rose leisurely (it had to be leisurely) +and greeted him with perfect friendliness. + +There was something reluctant and at the same time attentive in his +bearing. His name was Burns. We left the cabin and went round the ship +together. His face in the full light of day appeared very pale, meagre, +even haggard. Somehow I had a delicacy as to looking too often at him; +his eyes, on the contrary, remained fairly glued on my face. They were +greenish and had an expectant expression. + +He answered all my questions readily enough, but my ear seemed to catch +a tone of unwillingness. The second officer, with three or four hands, +was busy forward. The mate mentioned his name and I nodded to him in +passing. He was very young. He struck me as rather a cub. + +When we returned below, I sat down on one end of a deep, semi-circular, +or, rather, semi-oval settee, upholstered in red plush. It extended +right across the whole after-end of the cabin. Mr. Burns motioned to sit +down, dropped into one of the swivel-chairs round the table, and kept +his eyes on me as persistently as ever, and with that strange air as if +all this were make-believe and he expected me to get up, burst into a +laugh, slap him on the back, and vanish from the cabin. + +There was an odd stress in the situation which began to make me +uncomfortable. I tried to react against this vague feeling. + +"It's only my inexperience," I thought. + +In the face of that man, several years, I judged, older than myself, I +became aware of what I had left already behind me--my youth. And that +was indeed poor comfort. Youth is a fine thing, a mighty power--as +long as one does not think of it. I felt I was becoming self-conscious. +Almost against my will I assumed a moody gravity. I said: "I see you +have kept her in very good order, Mr. Burns." + +Directly I had uttered these words I asked myself angrily why the deuce +did I want to say that? Mr. Burns in answer had only blinked at me. What +on earth did he mean? + +I fell back on a question which had been in my thoughts for a long +time--the most natural question on the lips of any seaman whatever +joining a ship. I voiced it (confound this self-consciousness) in a +degaged cheerful tone: "I suppose she can travel--what?" + +Now a question like this might have been answered normally, either in +accents of apologetic sorrow or with a visibly suppressed pride, in a +"I don't want to boast, but you shall see," sort of tone. There are +sailors, too, who would have been roughly outspoken: "Lazy brute," or +openly delighted: "She's a flyer." Two ways, if four manners. + +But Mr. Burns found another way, a way of his own which had, at all +events, the merit of saving his breath, if no other. + +Again he did not say anything. He only frowned. And it was an angry +frown. I waited. Nothing more came. + +"What's the matter? . . . Can't you tell after being nearly two years in +the ship?" I addressed him sharply. + +He looked as startled for a moment as though he had discovered my +presence only that very moment. But this passed off almost at once. He +put on an air of indifference. But I suppose he thought it better to say +something. He said that a ship needed, just like a man, the chance to +show the best she could do, and that this ship had never had a chance +since he had been on board of her. Not that he could remember. The last +captain. . . . He paused. + +"Has he been so very unlucky?" I asked with frank incredulity. Mr. Burns +turned his eyes away from me. No, the late captain was not an unlucky +man. One couldn't say that. But he had not seemed to want to make use of +his luck. + +Mr. Burns--man of enigmatic moods--made this statement with an inanimate +face and staring wilfully at the rudder casing. The statement itself was +obscurely suggestive. I asked quietly: + +"Where did he die?" + +"In this saloon. Just where you are sitting now," answered Mr. Burns. + +I repressed a silly impulse to jump up; but upon the whole I was +relieved to hear that he had not died in the bed which was now to be +mine. I pointed out to the chief mate that what I really wanted to know +was where he had buried his late captain. + +Mr. Burns said that it was at the entrance to the gulf. A roomy grave; a +sufficient answer. But the mate, overcoming visibly something within +him--something like a curious reluctance to believe in my advent (as an +irrevocable fact, at any rate), did not stop at that--though, indeed, he +may have wished to do so. + +As a compromise with his feelings, I believe, he addressed himself +persistently to the rudder-casing, so that to me he had the appearance +of a man talking in solitude, a little unconsciously, however. + +His tale was that at seven bells in the forenoon watch he had all hands +mustered on the quarterdeck and told them they had better go down to say +good-bye to the captain. + +Those words, as if grudged to an intruding personage, were enough for +me to evoke vividly that strange ceremony: The bare-footed, bare-headed +seamen crowding shyly into that cabin, a small mob pressed against that +sideboard, uncomfortable rather than moved, shirts open on sunburnt +chests, weather-beaten faces, and all staring at the dying man with the +same grave and expectant expression. + +"Was he conscious?" I asked. + +"He didn't speak, but he moved his eyes to look at them," said the mate. + +After waiting a moment, Mr. Burns motioned the crew to leave the cabin, +but he detained the two eldest men to stay with the captain while he +went on deck with his sextant to "take the sun." It was getting toward +noon and he was anxious to obtain a good observation for latitude. When +he returned below to put his sextant away he found that the two men had +retreated out into the lobby. Through the open door he had a view of the +captain lying easy against the pillows. He had "passed away" while Mr. +Burns was taking this observation. As near noon as possible. He had +hardly changed his position. + +Mr. Burns sighed, glanced at me inquisitively, as much as to say, +"Aren't you going yet?" and then turned his thoughts from his new +captain back to the old, who, being dead, had no authority, was not in +anybody's way, and was much easier to deal with. + +Mr. Burns dealt with him at some length. He was a peculiar man--of +sixty-five about--iron gray, hard-faced, obstinate, and uncommunicative. +He used to keep the ship loafing at sea for inscrutable reasons. Would +come on deck at night sometimes, take some sail off her, God only knows +why or wherefore, then go below, shut himself up in his cabin, and play +on the violin for hours--till daybreak perhaps. In fact, he spent most +of his time day or night playing the violin. That was when the fit took +him. Very loud, too. + +It came to this, that Mr. Burns mustered his courage one day and +remonstrated earnestly with the captain. Neither he nor the second mate +could get a wink of sleep in their watches below for the noise. . . . +And how could they be expected to keep awake while on duty? He pleaded. +The answer of that stern man was that if he and the second mate didn't +like the noise, they were welcome to pack up their traps and walk over +the side. When this alternative was offered the ship happened to be 600 +miles from the nearest land. + +Mr. Burns at this point looked at me with an air of curiosity. I began +to think that my predecessor was a remarkably peculiar old man. + +But I had to hear stranger things yet. It came out that this stern, +grim, wind-tanned, rough, sea-salted, taciturn sailor of sixty-five was +not only an artist, but a lover as well. In Haiphong, when they got +there after a course of most unprofitable peregrinations (during which +the ship was nearly lost twice), he got himself, in Mr. Burns' own +words, "mixed up" with some woman. Mr. Burns had had no personal +knowledge of that affair, but positive evidence of it existed in the +shape of a photograph taken in Haiphong. Mr. Burns found it in one of +the drawers in the captain's room. + +In due course I, too, saw that amazing human document (I even threw it +overboard later). There he sat, with his hands reposing on his knees, +bald, squat, gray, bristly, recalling a wild boar somehow; and by his +side towered an awful mature, white female with rapacious nostrils and a +cheaply ill-omened stare in her enormous eyes. She was disguised in some +semi-oriental, vulgar, fancy costume. She resembled a low-class medium +or one of those women who tell fortunes by cards for half a crown. And +yet she was striking. A professional sorceress from the slums. It was +incomprehensible. There was something awful in the thought that she was +the last reflection of the world of passion for the fierce soul which +seemed to look at one out of the sardonically savage face of that +old seaman. However, I noticed that she was holding some musical +instrument--guitar or mandoline--in her hand. Perhaps that was the secret +of her sortilege. + +For Mr. Burns that photograph explained why the unloaded ship had kept +sweltering at anchor for three weeks in a pestilential hot harbour +without air. They lay there and gasped. The captain, appearing now and +then on short visits, mumbled to Mr. Burns unlikely tales about some +letters he was waiting for. + +Suddenly, after vanishing for a week, he came on board in the middle +of the night and took the ship out to sea with the first break of dawn. +Daylight showed him looking wild and ill. The mere getting clear of the +land took two days, and somehow or other they bumped slightly on a +reef. However, no leak developed, and the captain, growling "no matter," +informed Mr. Burns that he had made up his mind to take the ship to +Hong-Kong and drydock her there. + +At this Mr. Burns was plunged into despair. For indeed, to beat up +to Hong-Kong against a fierce monsoon, with a ship not sufficiently +ballasted and with her supply of water not completed, was an insane +project. + +But the captain growled peremptorily, "Stick her at it," and Mr. Burns, +dismayed and enraged, stuck her at it, and kept her at it, blowing away +sails, straining the spars, exhausting the crew--nearly maddened by the +absolute conviction that the attempt was impossible and was bound to end +in some catastrophe. + +Meantime the captain, shut up in his cabin and wedged in a corner of his +settee against the crazy bounding of the ship, played the violin--or, at +any rate, made continuous noise on it. + +When he appeared on deck he would not speak and not always answer when +spoken to. It was obvious that he was ill in some mysterious manner, and +beginning to break up. + +As the days went by the sounds of the violin became less and less loud, +till at last only a feeble scratching would meet Mr. Burns' ear as +he stood in the saloon listening outside the door of the captain's +state-room. + +One afternoon in perfect desperation he burst into that room and made +such a scene, tearing his hair and shouting such horrid imprecations +that he cowed the contemptuous spirit of the sick man. The water-tanks +were low, they had not gained fifty miles in a fortnight. She would +never reach Hong-Kong. + +It was like fighting desperately toward destruction for the ship and the +men. This was evident without argument. Mr. Burns, losing all restraint, +put his face close to his captain's and fairly yelled: "You, sir, are +going out of the world. But I can't wait till you are dead before I put +the helm up. You must do it yourself. You must do it now!" + +The man on the couch snarled in contempt. "So I am going out of the +world--am I?" + +"Yes, sir--you haven't many days left in it," said Mr. Burns calming +down. "One can see it by your face." + +"My face, eh? . . . Well, put up the helm and be damned to you." + +Burns flew on deck, got the ship before the wind, then came down again +composed, but resolute. + +"I've shaped a course for Pulo Condor, sir," he said. "When we make it, +if you are still with us, you'll tell me into what port you wish me to +take the ship and I'll do it." + +The old man gave him a look of savage spite, and said those atrocious +words in deadly, slow tones. + +"If I had my wish, neither the ship nor any of you would ever reach a +port. And I hope you won't." + +Mr. Burns was profoundly shocked. I believe he was positively frightened +at the time. It seems, however, that he managed to produce such an +effective laugh that it was the old man's turn to be frightened. He +shrank within himself and turned his back on him. + +"And his head was not gone then," Mr. Burns assured me excitedly. "He +meant every word of it." + +"Such was practically the late captain's last speech. No connected +sentence passed his lips afterward. That night he used the last of his +strength to throw his fiddle over the side. No one had actually seen +him in the act, but after his death Mr. Burns couldn't find the thing +anywhere. The empty case was very much in evidence, but the fiddle +was clearly not in the ship. And where else could it have gone to but +overboard?" + +"Threw his violin overboard!" I exclaimed. + +"He did," cried Mr. Burns excitedly. "And it's my belief he would have +tried to take the ship down with him if it had been in human power. He +never meant her to see home again. He wouldn't write to his owners, he +never wrote to his old wife, either--he wasn't going to. He had made up +his mind to cut adrift from everything. That's what it was. He didn't +care for business, or freights, or for making a passage--or anything. He +meant to have gone wandering about the world till he lost her with all +hands." + +Mr. Burns looked like a man who had escaped great danger. For a little +he would have exclaimed: "If it hadn't been for me!" And the transparent +innocence of his indignant eyes was underlined quaintly by the arrogant +pair of moustaches which he proceeded to twist, and as if extend, +horizontally. + +I might have smiled if I had not been busy with my own sensations, +which were not those of Mr. Burns. I was already the man in command. My +sensations could not be like those of any other man on board. In that +community I stood, like a king in his country, in a class all by myself. +I mean an hereditary king, not a mere elected head of a state. I was +brought there to rule by an agency as remote from the people and as +inscrutable almost to them as the Grace of God. + +And like a member of a dynasty, feeling a semimystical bond with the +dead, I was profoundly shocked by my immediate predecessor. + +That man had been in all essentials but his age just such another man +as myself. Yet the end of his life was a complete act of treason, the +betrayal of a tradition which seemed to me as imperative as any guide +on earth could be. It appeared that even at sea a man could become the +victim of evil spirits. I felt on my face the breath of unknown powers +that shape our destinies. + +Not to let the silence last too long I asked Mr. Burns if he had written +to his captain's wife. He shook his head. He had written to nobody. + +In a moment he became sombre. He never thought of writing. It took him +all his time to watch incessantly the loading of the ship by a rascally +Chinese stevedore. In this Mr. Burns gave me the first glimpse of the +real chief mate's soul which dwelt uneasily in his body. + +He mused, then hastened on with gloomy force. + +"Yes! The captain died as near noon as possible. I looked through his +papers in the afternoon. I read the service over him at sunset and +then I stuck the ship's head north and brought her in here. +I--brought--her--in." + +He struck the table with his fist. + +"She would hardly have come in by herself," I observed. "But why didn't +you make for Singapore instead?" + +His eyes wavered. "The nearest port," he muttered sullenly. + +I had framed the question in perfect innocence, but his answer (the +difference in distance was insignificant) and his manner offered me a +clue to the simple truth. He took the ship to a port where he expected +to be confirmed in his temporary command from lack of a qualified master +to put over his head. Whereas Singapore, he surmised justly, would +be full of qualified men. But his naive reasoning forgot to take into +account the telegraph cable reposing on the bottom of the very Gulf up +which he had turned that ship which he imagined himself to have saved +from destruction. Hence the bitter flavour of our interview. I tasted it +more and more distinctly--and it was less and less to my taste. + +"Look here, Mr. Burns," I began very firmly. "You may as well understand +that I did not run after this command. It was pushed in my way. I've +accepted it. I am here to take the ship home first of all, and you may +be sure that I shall see to it that every one of you on board here does +his duty to that end. This is all I have to say--for the present." + +He was on his feet by this time, but instead of taking his dismissal +he remained with trembling, indignant lips, and looking at me hard as +though, really, after this, there was nothing for me to do in common +decency but to vanish from his outraged sight. Like all very simple +emotional states this was moving. I felt sorry for him--almost +sympathetic, till (seeing that I did not vanish) he spoke in a tone of +forced restraint. + +"If I hadn't a wife and a child at home you may be sure, sir, I would +have asked you to let me go the very minute you came on board." + +I answered him with a matter-of-course calmness as though some remote +third person were in question. + +"And I, Mr. Burns, would not have let you go. You have signed the ship's +articles as chief officer, and till they are terminated at the final +port of discharge I shall expect you to attend to your duty and give me +the benefit of your experience to the best of your ability." + +Stony incredulity lingered in his eyes: but it broke down before my +friendly attitude. With a slight upward toss of his arms (I got to know +that gesture well afterward) he bolted out of the cabin. + +We might have saved ourselves that little passage of harmless sparring. +Before many days had elapsed it was Mr. Burns who was pleading with me +anxiously not to leave him behind; while I could only return him but +doubtful answers. The whole thing took on a somewhat tragic complexion. + +And this horrible problem was only an extraneous episode, a mere +complication in the general problem of how to get that ship--which was +mine with her appurtenances and her men, with her body and her spirit +now slumbering in that pestilential river--how to get her out to sea. + +Mr. Burns, while still acting captain, had hastened to sign a +charter-party which in an ideal world without guile would have been +an excellent document. Directly I ran my eye over it I foresaw trouble +ahead unless the people of the other part were quite exceptionally +fair-minded and open to argument. + +Mr. Burns, to whom I imparted my fears, chose to take great umbrage +at them. He looked at me with that usual incredulous stare, and said +bitterly: + +"I suppose, sir, you want to make out I've acted like a fool?" + +I told him, with my systematic kindliness which always seemed to augment +his surprise, that I did not want to make out anything. I would leave +that to the future. + +And, sure enough, the future brought in a lot of trouble. There were +days when I used to remember Captain Giles with nothing short of +abhorrence. His confounded acuteness had let me in for this job; while +his prophecy that I "would have my hands full" coming true, made it +appear as if done on purpose to play an evil joke on my young innocence. + +Yes. I had my hands full of complications which were most valuable +as "experience." People have a great opinion of the advantages of +experience. But in this connection experience means always something +disagreeable as opposed to the charm and innocence of illusions. + +I must say I was losing mine rapidly. But on these instructive +complications I must not enlarge more than to say that they could all be +resumed in the one word: Delay. + +A mankind which has invented the proverb, "Time is money," will +understand my vexation. The word "Delay" entered the secret chamber of +my brain, resounded there like a tolling bell which maddens the ear, +affected all my senses, took on a black colouring, a bitter taste, a +deadly meaning. + +"I am really sorry to see you worried like this. Indeed, I am. . . ." + +It was the only humane speech I used to hear at that time. And it came +from a doctor, appropriately enough. + +A doctor is humane by definition. But that man was so in reality. His +speech was not professional. I was not ill. But other people were, and +that was the reason of his visiting the ship. + +He was the doctor of our Legation and, of course, of the Consulate, +too. He looked after the ship's health, which generally was poor, and +trembling, as it were, on the verge of a break-up. Yes. The men ailed. +And thus time was not only money, but life as well. + +I had never seen such a steady ship's company. As the doctor remarked to +me: "You seem to have a most respectable lot of seamen." Not only were +they consistently sober, but they did not even want to go ashore. Care +was taken to expose them as little as possible to the sun. They +were employed on light work under the awnings. And the humane doctor +commended me. + +"Your arrangements appear to me to be very judicious, my dear Captain." + +It is difficult to express how much that pronouncement comforted me. +The doctor's round, full face framed in a light-coloured whisker was the +perfection of a dignified amenity. He was the only human being in +the world who seemed to take the slightest interest in me. He would +generally sit in the cabin for half an hour or so at every visit. + +I said to him one day: + +"I suppose the only thing now is to take care of them as you are doing +till I can get the ship to sea?" + +He inclined his head, shutting his eyes under the large spectacles, and +murmured: + +"The sea . . . undoubtedly." + +The first member of the crew fairly knocked over was the steward--the +first man to whom I had spoken on board. He was taken ashore (with +choleric symptoms) and died there at the end of a week. Then, while I +was still under the startling impression of this first home-thrust of +the climate, Mr. Burns gave up and went to bed in a raging fever without +saying a word to anybody. + +I believe he had partly fretted himself into that illness; the climate +did the rest with the swiftness of an invisible monster ambushed in +the air, in the water, in the mud of the river-bank. Mr. Burns was a +predestined victim. + +I discovered him lying on his back, glaring sullenly and radiating heat +on one like a small furnace. He would hardly answer my questions, and +only grumbled. Couldn't a man take an afternoon off duty with a bad +headache--for once? + +That evening, as I sat in the saloon after dinner, I could hear him +muttering continuously in his room. Ransome, who was clearing the table, +said to me: + +"I am afraid, sir, I won't be able to give the mate all the attention +he's likely to need. I will have to be forward in the galley a great +part of my time." + +Ransome was the cook. The mate had pointed him out to me the first day, +standing on the deck, his arms crossed on his broad chest, gazing on the +river. + +Even at a distance his well-proportioned figure, something thoroughly +sailor-like in his poise, made him noticeable. On nearer view the +intelligent, quiet eyes, a well-bred face, the disciplined independence +of his manner made up an attractive personality. When, in addition, Mr. +Burns told me that he was the best seaman in the ship, I expressed my +surprise that in his earliest prime and of such appearance he should +sign on as cook on board a ship. + +"It's his heart," Mr. Burns had said. "There's something wrong with it. +He mustn't exert himself too much or he may drop dead suddenly." + +And he was the only one the climate had not touched--perhaps because, +carrying a deadly enemy in his breast, he had schooled himself into a +systematic control of feelings and movements. When one was in the secret +this was apparent in his manner. After the poor steward died, and as he +could not be replaced by a white man in this Oriental port, Ransome had +volunteered to do the double work. + +"I can do it all right, sir, as long as I go about it quietly," he had +assured me. + +But obviously he couldn't be expected to take up sick-nursing in +addition. Moreover, the doctor peremptorily ordered Mr. Burns ashore. + +With a seaman on each side holding him up under the arms, the mate went +over the gangway more sullen than ever. We built him up with pillows in +the gharry, and he made an effort to say brokenly: + +"Now--you've got--what you wanted--got me out of--the ship." + +"You were never more mistaken in your life, Mr. Burns," I said quietly, +duly smiling at him; and the trap drove off to a sort of sanatorium, a +pavilion of bricks which the doctor had in the grounds of his residence. + +I visited Mr. Burns regularly. After the first few days, when he didn't +know anybody, he received me as if I had come either to gloat over +an enemy or else to curry favour with a deeply wronged person. It was +either one or the other, just as it happened according to his fantastic +sickroom moods. Whichever it was, he managed to convey it to me even +during the period when he appeared almost too weak to talk. I treated +him to my invariable kindliness. + +Then one day, suddenly, a surge of downright panic burst through all +this craziness. + +If I left him behind in this deadly place he would die. He felt it, he +was certain of it. But I wouldn't have the heart to leave him ashore. He +had a wife and child in Sydney. + +He produced his wasted forearms from under the sheet which covered him +and clasped his fleshless claws. He would die! He would die here. . . . + +He absolutely managed to sit up, but only for a moment, and when he fell +back I really thought that he would die there and then. I called to the +Bengali dispenser, and hastened away from the room. + +Next day he upset me thoroughly by renewing his entreaties. I returned +an evasive answer, and left him the picture of ghastly despair. The day +after I went in with reluctance, and he attacked me at once in a +much stronger voice and with an abundance of argument which was quite +startling. He presented his case with a sort of crazy vigour, and asked +me finally how would I like to have a man's death on my conscience? He +wanted me to promise that I would not sail without him. + +I said that I really must consult the doctor first. He cried out at +that. The doctor! Never! That would be a death sentence. + +The effort had exhausted him. He closed his eyes, but went on rambling +in a low voice. I had hated him from the start. The late captain had +hated him, too. Had wished him dead. Had wished all hands dead. . . . + +"What do you want to stand in with that wicked corpse for, sir? He'll +have you, too," he ended, blinking his glazed eyes vacantly. + +"Mr. Burns," I cried, very much discomposed, "what on earth are you +talking about?" + +He seemed to come to himself, though he was too weak to start. + +"I don't know," he said languidly. "But don't ask that doctor, sir. You +and I are sailors. Don't ask him, sir. Some day perhaps you will have a +wife and child yourself." + +And again he pleaded for the promise that I would not leave him behind. +I had the firmness of mind not to give it to him. Afterward this +sternness seemed criminal; for my mind was made up. That prostrated man, +with hardly strength enough to breathe and ravaged by a passion of fear, +was irresistible. And, besides, he had happened to hit on the right +words. He and I were sailors. That was a claim, for I had no other +family. As to the wife and child (some day) argument, it had no force. +It sounded merely bizarre. + +I could imagine no claim that would be stronger and more absorbing +than the claim of that ship, of these men snared in the river by silly +commercial complications, as if in some poisonous trap. + +However, I had nearly fought my way out. Out to sea. The sea--which was +pure, safe, and friendly. Three days more. + +That thought sustained and carried me on my way back to the ship. In the +saloon the doctor's voice greeted me, and his large form followed +his voice, issuing out of the starboard spare cabin where the ship's +medicine chest was kept securely lashed in the bed-place. + +Finding that I was not on board he had gone in there, he said, to +inspect the supply of drugs, bandages, and so on. Everything was +completed and in order. + +I thanked him; I had just been thinking of asking him to do that very +thing, as in a couple of days, as he knew, we were going to sea, where +all our troubles of every sort would be over at last. + +He listened gravely and made no answer. But when I opened to him my mind +as to Mr. Burns he sat down by my side, and, laying his hand on my knee +amicably, begged me to think what it was I was exposing myself to. + +The man was just strong enough to bear being moved and no more. But he +couldn't stand a return of the fever. I had before me a passage of sixty +days perhaps, beginning with intricate navigation and ending probably +with a lot of bad weather. Could I run the risk of having to go through +it single-handed, with no chief officer and with a second quite a youth? +. . . + +He might have added that it was my first command, too. He did probably +think of that fact, for he checked himself. It was very present to my +mind. + +He advised me earnestly to cable to Singapore for a chief officer, even +if I had to delay my sailing for a week. + +"Never," I said. The very thought gave me the shivers. The hands seemed +fairly fit, all of them, and this was the time to get them away. Once at +sea I was not afraid of facing anything. The sea was now the only remedy +for all my troubles. + +The doctor's glasses were directed at me like two lamps searching the +genuineness of my resolution. He opened his lips as if to argue further, +but shut them again without saying anything. I had a vision so vivid of +poor Burns in his exhaustion, helplessness, and anguish, that it moved +me more than the reality I had come away from only an hour before. It +was purged from the drawbacks of his personality, and I could not resist +it. + +"Look here," I said. "Unless you tell me officially that the man +must not be moved I'll make arrangements to have him brought on board +tomorrow, and shall take the ship out of the river next morning, even if +I have to anchor outside the bar for a couple of days to get her ready +for sea." + +"Oh! I'll make all the arrangements myself," said the doctor at once. +"I spoke as I did only as a friend--as a well-wisher, and that sort of +thing." + +He rose in his dignified simplicity and gave me a warm handshake, rather +solemnly, I thought. But he was as good as his word. When Mr. Burns +appeared at the gangway carried on a stretcher, the doctor himself +walked by its side. The programme had been altered in so far that this +transportation had been left to the last moment, on the very morning of +our departure. + +It was barely an hour after sunrise. The doctor waved his big arm to me +from the shore and walked back at once to his trap, which had followed +him empty to the river-side. Mr. Burns, carried across the quarter-deck, +had the appearance of being absolutely lifeless. Ransome went down to +settle him in his cabin. I had to remain on deck to look after the ship, +for the tug had got hold of our towrope already. + +The splash of our shore-fasts falling in the water produced a complete +change of feeling in me. It was like the imperfect relief of awakening +from a nightmare. But when the ship's head swung down the river away +from that town, Oriental and squalid, I missed the expected elation of +that striven-for moment. What there was, undoubtedly, was a relaxation +of tension which translated itself into a sense of weariness after an +inglorious fight. + +About midday we anchored a mile outside the bar. The afternoon was busy +for all hands. Watching the work from the poop, where I remained all the +time, I detected in it some of the languor of the six weeks spent in the +steaming heat of the river. The first breeze would blow that away. Now +the calm was complete. I judged that the second officer--a callow youth +with an unpromising face--was not, to put it mildly, of that invaluable +stuff from which a commander's right hand is made. But I was glad to +catch along the main deck a few smiles on those seamen's faces at which +I had hardly had time to have a good look as yet. Having thrown off the +mortal coil of shore affairs, I felt myself familiar with them and yet a +little strange, like a long-lost wanderer among his kin. + +Ransome flitted continually to and fro between the galley and the cabin. +It was a pleasure to look at him. The man positively had grace. He +alone of all the crew had not had a day's illness in port. But with +the knowledge of that uneasy heart within his breast I could detect the +restraint he put on the natural sailor-like agility of his movements. It +was as though he had something very fragile or very explosive to carry +about his person and was all the time aware of it. + +I had occasion to address him once or twice. He answered me in his +pleasant, quiet voice and with a faint, slightly wistful smile. Mr. +Burns appeared to be resting. He seemed fairly comfortable. + +After sunset I came out on deck again to meet only a still void. The +thin, featureless crust of the coast could not be distinguished. The +darkness had risen around the ship like a mysterious emanation from the +dumb and lonely waters. I leaned on the rail and turned my ear to the +shadows of the night. Not a sound. My command might have been a planet +flying vertiginously on its appointed path in a space of infinite +silence. I clung to the rail as if my sense of balance were leaving me +for good. How absurd. I failed nervously. + +"On deck there!" + +The immediate answer, "Yes, sir," broke the spell. The anchor-watch +man ran up the poop ladder smartly. I told him to report at once the +slightest sign of a breeze coming. + +Going below I looked in on Mr. Burns. In fact, I could not avoid seeing +him, for his door stood open. The man was so wasted that, in this white +cabin, under a white sheet, and with his diminished head sunk in the +white pillow, his red moustaches captured their eyes exclusively, like +something artificial--a pair of moustaches from a shop exhibited there +in the harsh light of the bulkhead-lamp without a shade. + +While I stared with a sort of wonder he asserted himself by opening his +eyes and even moving them in my direction. A minute stir. + +"Dead calm, Mr. Burns," I said resignedly. + +In an unexpectedly distinct voice Mr. Burns began a rambling speech. Its +tone was very strange, not as if affected by his illness, but as if of +a different nature. It sounded unearthly. As to the matter, I seemed +to make out that it was the fault of the "old man"--the late +captain--ambushed down there under the sea with some evil intention. It +was a weird story. + +I listened to the end; then stepping into the cabin I laid my hand on +the mate's forehead. It was cool. He was light-headed only from extreme +weakness. Suddenly he seemed to become aware of me, and in his own +voice--of course, very feeble--he asked regretfully: + +"Is there no chance at all to get under way, sir?" + +"What's the good of letting go our hold of the ground only to drift, Mr. +Burns?" I answered. + +He sighed and I left him to his immobility. His hold on life was +as slender as his hold on sanity. I was oppressed by my lonely +responsibilities. I went into my cabin to seek relief in a few hours' +sleep, but almost before I closed my eyes the man on deck came down +reporting a light breeze. Enough to get under way with, he said. + +And it was no more than just enough. I ordered the windlass manned, the +sails loosed, and the topsails set. But by the time I had cast the ship +I could hardly feel any breath of wind. Nevertheless, I trimmed the +yards and put everything on her. I was not going to give up the attempt. + + + + + +PART TWO + + +IV + +With her anchor at the bow and clothed in canvas to her very trucks, my +command seemed to stand as motionless as a model ship set on the gleams +and shadows of polished marble. It was impossible to distinguish land +from water in the enigmatical tranquillity of the immense forces of the +world. A sudden impatience possessed me. + +"Won't she answer the helm at all?" I said irritably to the man whose +strong brown hands grasping the spokes of the wheel stood out lighted on +the darkness; like a symbol of mankind's claim to the direction of its +own fate. + +He answered me. + +"Yes, sir. She's coming-to slowly." + +"Let her head come up to south." + +"Aye, aye, sir." + +I paced the poop. There was not a sound but that of my footsteps, till +the man spoke again. + +"She is at south now, sir." + +I felt a slight tightness of the chest before I gave out the first +course of my first command to the silent night, heavy with dew and +sparkling with stars. There was a finality in the act committing me to +the endless vigilance of my lonely task. + +"Steady her head at that," I said at last. "The course is south." + +"South, sir," echoed the man. + +I sent below the second mate and his watch and remained in charge, +walking the deck through the chill, somnolent hours that precede the +dawn. + +Slight puffs came and went, and whenever they were strong enough to wake +up the black water the murmur alongside ran through my very heart in +a delicate crescendo of delight and died away swiftly. I was bitterly +tired. The very stars seemed weary of waiting for daybreak. It came at +last with a mother-of-pearl sheen at the zenith, such as I had never +seen before in the tropics, unglowing, almost gray, with a strange +reminder of high latitudes. + +The voice of the look-out man hailed from forward: + +"Land on the port bow, sir." + +"All right." + +Leaning on the rail I never even raised my eyes. + +The motion of the ship was imperceptible. Presently Ransome brought me +the cup of morning coffee. After I had drunk it I looked ahead, and +in the still streak of very bright pale orange light I saw the land +profiled flatly as if cut out of black paper and seeming to float on +the water as light as cork. But the rising sun turned it into mere dark +vapour, a doubtful, massive shadow trembling in the hot glare. + +The watch finished washing decks. I went below and stopped at Mr. Burns' +door (he could not bear to have it shut), but hesitated to speak to him +till he moved his eyes. I gave him the news. + +"Sighted Cape Liant at daylight. About fifteen miles." + +He moved his lips then, but I heard no sound till I put my ear down, and +caught the peevish comment: "This is crawling. . . . No luck." + +"Better luck than standing still, anyhow," I pointed out resignedly, and +left him to whatever thoughts or fancies haunted his awful immobility. + +Later that morning, when relieved by my second officer, I threw myself +on my couch and for some three hours or so I really found oblivion. It +was so perfect that on waking up I wondered where I was. Then came the +immense relief of the thought: on board my ship! At sea! At sea! + +Through the port-holes I beheld an unruffled, sun-smitten horizon. The +horizon of a windless day. But its spaciousness alone was enough to give +me a sense of a fortunate escape, a momentary exultation of freedom. + +I stepped out into the saloon with my heart lighter than it had been for +days. Ransome was at the sideboard preparing to lay the table for the +first sea dinner of the passage. He turned his head, and something in +his eyes checked my modest elation. + +Instinctively I asked: "What is it now?" not expecting in the least the +answer I got. It was given with that sort of contained serenity which +was characteristic of the man. + +"I am afraid we haven't left all sickness behind us, sir." + +"We haven't! What's the matter?" + +He told me then that two of our men had been taken bad with fever in +the night. One of them was burning and the other was shivering, but he +thought that it was pretty much the same thing. I thought so, too. I +felt shocked by the news. "One burning, the other shivering, you say? +No. We haven't left the sickness behind. Do they look very ill?" + +"Middling bad, sir." Ransome's eyes gazed steadily into mine. We +exchanged smiles. Ransome's a little wistful, as usual, mine no doubt +grim enough, to correspond with my secret exasperation. + +I asked: + +"Was there any wind at all this morning?" + +"Can hardly say that, sir. We've moved all the time though. The land +ahead seems a little nearer." + +That was it. A little nearer. Whereas if we had only had a little more +wind, only a very little more, we might, we should, have been abreast +of Liant by this time and increasing our distance from that contaminated +shore. And it was not only the distance. It seemed to me that a stronger +breeze would have blown away the contamination which clung to the ship. +It obviously did cling to the ship. Two men. One burning, one shivering. +I felt a distinct reluctance to go and look at them. What was the good? +Poison is poison. Tropical fever is tropical fever. But that it +should have stretched its claw after us over the sea seemed to me an +extraordinary and unfair license. I could hardly believe that it could +be anything worse than the last desperate pluck of the evil from which +we were escaping into the clean breath of the sea. If only that breath +had been a little stronger. However, there was the quinine against the +fever. I went into the spare cabin where the medicine chest was kept to +prepare two doses. I opened it full of faith as a man opens a miraculous +shrine. The upper part was inhabited by a collection of bottles, all +square-shouldered and as like each other as peas. Under that orderly +array there were two drawers, stuffed as full of things as one could +imagine--paper packages, bandages, cardboard boxes officially labelled. +The lower of the two, in one of its compartments, contained our +provision of quinine. + +There were five bottles, all round and all of a size. One was about +a third full. The other four remained still wrapped up in paper and +sealed. But I did not expect to see an envelope lying on top of them. A +square envelope, belonging, in fact, to the ship's stationery. + +It lay so that I could see it was not closed down, and on picking it +up and turning it over I perceived that it was addressed to myself. It +contained a half-sheet of notepaper, which I unfolded with a queer sense +of dealing with the uncanny, but without any excitement as people meet +and do extraordinary things in a dream. + +"My dear Captain," it began, but I ran to the signature. The writer was +the doctor. The date was that of the day on which, returning from my +visit to Mr. Burns in the hospital, I had found the excellent doctor +waiting for me in the cabin; and when he told me that he had been +putting in time inspecting the medicine chest for me. How bizarre! While +expecting me to come in at any moment he had been amusing himself by +writing me a letter, and then as I came in had hastened to stuff it into +the medicine-chest drawer. A rather incredible proceeding. I turned to +the text in wonder. + +In a large, hurried, but legible hand the good, sympathetic man for some +reason, either of kindness or more likely impelled by the irresistible +desire to express his opinion, with which he didn't want to damp my +hopes before, was warning me not to put my trust in the beneficial +effects of a change from land to sea. "I didn't want to add to your +worries by discouraging your hopes," he wrote. "I am afraid that, +medically speaking, the end of your troubles is not yet." In short, +he expected me to have to fight a probable return of tropical illness. +Fortunately I had a good provision of quinine. I should put my trust in +that, and administer it steadily, when the ship's health would certainly +improve. + +I crumpled up the letter and rammed it into my pocket. Ransome carried +off two big doses to the men forward. As to myself, I did not go on deck +as yet. I went instead to the door of Mr. Burns' room, and gave him that +news, too. + +It was impossible to say the effect it had on him. At first I thought +that he was speechless. His head lay sunk in the pillow. He moved his +lips enough, however, to assure me that he was getting much stronger; a +statement shockingly untrue on the face of it. + +That afternoon I took my watch as a matter of course. A great +over-heated stillness enveloped the ship and seemed to hold her +motionless in a flaming ambience composed in two shades of blue. Faint, +hot puffs eddied nervelessly from her sails. And yet she moved. She must +have. For, as the sun was setting, we had drawn abreast of Cape Liant +and dropped it behind us: an ominous retreating shadow in the last +gleams of twilight. + +In the evening, under the crude glare of his lamp, Mr. Burns seemed to +have come more to the surface of his bedding. It was as if a +depressing hand had been lifted off him. He answered my few words by a +comparatively long, connected speech. He asserted himself strongly. +If he escaped being smothered by this stagnant heat, he said, he was +confident that in a very few days he would be able to come up on deck +and help me. + +While he was speaking I trembled lest this effort of energy should leave +him lifeless before my eyes. But I cannot deny that there was something +comforting in his willingness. I made a suitable reply, but pointed out +to him that the only thing that could really help us was wind--a fair +wind. + +He rolled his head impatiently on the pillow. And it was not comforting +in the least to hear him begin to mutter crazily about the late captain, +that old man buried in latitude 8 d 20', right in our way--ambushed at +the entrance of the Gulf. + +"Are you still thinking of your late captain, Mr. Burns?" I said. "I +imagine the dead feel no animosity against the living. They care nothing +for them." + +"You don't know that one," he breathed out feebly. + +"No. I didn't know him, and he didn't know me. And so he can't have any +grievance against me, anyway." + +"Yes. But there's all the rest of us on board," he insisted. + +I felt the inexpugnable strength of common sense being insidiously +menaced by this gruesome, by this insane, delusion. And I said: + +"You mustn't talk so much. You will tire yourself." + +"And there is the ship herself," he persisted in a whisper. + +"Now, not a word more," I said, stepping in and laying my hand on his +cool forehead. It proved to me that this atrocious absurdity was rooted +in the man himself and not in the disease, which, apparently, had +emptied him of every power, mental and physical, except that one fixed +idea. + +I avoided giving Mr. Burns any opening for conversation for the next few +days. I merely used to throw him a hasty, cheery word when passing his +door. I believe that if he had had the strength he would have called out +after me more than once. But he hadn't the strength. Ransome, however, +observed to me one afternoon that the mate "seemed to be picking up +wonderfully." + +"Did he talk any nonsense to you of late?" I asked casually. + +"No, sir." Ransome was startled by the direct question; but, after a +pause, he added equably: "He told me this morning, sir, that he was +sorry he had to bury our late captain right in the ship's way, as one +may say, out of the Gulf." + +"Isn't this nonsense enough for you?" I asked, looking confidently at +the intelligent, quiet face on which the secret uneasiness in the man's +breast had thrown a transparent veil of care. + +Ransome didn't know. He had not given a thought to the matter. And with +a faint smile he flitted away from me on his never-ending duties, with +his usual guarded activity. + +Two more days passed. We had advanced a little way--a very little +way--into the larger space of the Gulf of Siam. Seizing eagerly upon +the elation of the first command thrown into my lap, by the agency of +Captain Giles, I had yet an uneasy feeling that such luck as this has +got perhaps to be paid for in some way. I had held, professionally, +a review of my chances. I was competent enough for that. At least, I +thought so. I had a general sense of my preparedness which only a man +pursuing a calling he loves can know. That feeling seemed to me the most +natural thing in the world. As natural as breathing. I imagined I could +not have lived without it. + +I don't know what I expected. Perhaps nothing else than that +special intensity of existence which is the quintessence of youthful +aspirations. Whatever I expected I did not expect to be beset by +hurricanes. I knew better than that. In the Gulf of Siam there are no +hurricanes. But neither did I expect to find myself bound hand and foot +to the hopeless extent which was revealed to me as the days went on. + +Not that the evil spell held us always motionless. Mysterious currents +drifted us here and there, with a stealthy power made manifest only by +the changing vistas of the islands fringing the east shore of the Gulf. +And there were winds, too, fitful and deceitful. They raised hopes only +to dash them into the bitterest disappointment, promises of advance +ending in lost ground, expiring in sighs, dying into dumb stillness in +which the currents had it all their own way--their own inimical way. + +The island of Koh-ring, a great, black, upheaved ridge amongst a lot of +tiny islets, lying upon the glassy water like a triton amongst minnows, +seemed to be the centre of the fatal circle. It seemed impossible to get +away from it. Day after day it remained in sight. More than once, in +a favourable breeze, I would take its bearings in the fast-ebbing +twilight, thinking that it was for the last time. Vain hope. A night of +fitful airs would undo the gains of temporary favour, and the rising +sun would throw out the black relief of Koh-ring looking more barren, +inhospitable, and grim than ever. + +"It's like being bewitched, upon my word," I said once to Mr. Burns, +from my usual position in the doorway. + +He was sitting up in his bed-place. He was progressing toward the world +of living men; if he could hardly have been said to have rejoined it +yet. He nodded to me his frail and bony head in a wisely mysterious +assent. + +"Oh, yes, I know what you mean," I said. "But you cannot expect me +to believe that a dead man has the power to put out of joint the +meteorology of this part of the world. Though indeed it seems to have +gone utterly wrong. The land and sea breezes have got broken up into +small pieces. We cannot depend upon them for five minutes together." + +"It won't be very long now before I can come up on deck," muttered Mr. +Burns, "and then we shall see." + +Whether he meant this for a promise to grapple with supernatural evil I +couldn't tell. At any rate, it wasn't the kind of assistance I needed. +On the other hand, I had been living on deck practically night and day +so as to take advantage of every chance to get my ship a little more to +the southward. The mate, I could see, was extremely weak yet, and not +quite rid of his delusion, which to me appeared but a symptom of his +disease. At all events, the hopefulness of an invalid was not to be +discouraged. I said: + +"You will be most welcome there, I am sure, Mr. Burns. If you go on +improving at this rate you'll be presently one of the healthiest men in +the ship." + +This pleased him, but his extreme emaciation converted his +self-satisfied smile into a ghastly exhibition of long teeth under the +red moustache. + +"Aren't the fellows improving, sir?" he asked soberly, with an extremely +sensible expression of anxiety on his face. + +I answered him only with a vague gesture and went away from the door. +The fact was that disease played with us capriciously very much as the +winds did. It would go from one man to another with a lighter or heavier +touch, which always left its mark behind, staggering some, knocking +others over for a time, leaving this one, returning to another, so that +all of them had now an invalidish aspect and a hunted, apprehensive look +in their eyes; while Ransome and I, the only two completely untouched, +went amongst them assiduously distributing quinine. It was a double +fight. The adverse weather held us in front and the disease pressed on +our rear. I must say that the men were very good. The constant toil of +trimming yards they faced willingly. But all spring was out of their +limbs, and as I looked at them from the poop I could not keep from my +mind the dreadful impression that they were moving in poisoned air. + +Down below, in his cabin, Mr. Burns had advanced so far as not only to +be able to sit up, but even to draw up his legs. Clasping them with bony +arms, like an animated skeleton, he emitted deep, impatient sighs. + +"The great thing to do, sir," he would tell me on every occasion, when I +gave him the chance, "the great thing is to get the ship past 8 d 20' of +latitude. Once she's past that we're all right." + +At first I used only to smile at him, though, God knows, I had not much +heart left for smiles. But at last I lost my patience. + +"Oh, yes. The latitude 8 d 20'. That's where you buried your late +captain, isn't it?" Then with severity: "Don't you think, Mr. Burns, +it's about time you dropped all that nonsense?" + +He rolled at me his deep-sunken eyes in a glance of invincible +obstinacy. But for the rest he only muttered, just loud enough for me +to hear, something about "Not surprised . . . find . . . play us some +beastly trick yet. . . ." + +Such passages as this were not exactly wholesome for my resolution. The +stress of adversity was beginning to tell on me. At the same time, I +felt a contempt for that obscure weakness of my soul. I said to myself +disdainfully that it should take much more than that to affect in the +smallest degree my fortitude. + +I didn't know then how soon and from what unexpected direction it would +be attacked. + +It was the very next day. The sun had risen clear of the southern +shoulder of Koh-ring, which still hung, like an evil attendant, on our +port quarter. It was intensely hateful to my sight. During the night +we had been heading all round the compass, trimming the yards again and +again, to what I fear must have been for the most part imaginary puffs +of air. Then just about sunrise we got for an hour an inexplicable, +steady breeze, right in our teeth. There was no sense in it. It fitted +neither with the season of the year nor with the secular experience +of seamen as recorded in books, nor with the aspect of the sky. Only +purposeful malevolence could account for it. It sent us travelling at +a great pace away from our proper course; and if we had been out on +pleasure sailing bent it would have been a delightful breeze, with the +awakened sparkle of the sea, with the sense of motion and a feeling of +unwonted freshness. Then, all at once, as if disdaining to carry farther +the sorry jest, it dropped and died out completely in less than five +minutes. The ship's head swung where it listed; the stilled sea took on +the polish of a steel plate in the calm. + +I went below, not because I meant to take some rest, but simply because +I couldn't bear to look at it just then. The indefatigable Ransome was +busy in the saloon. It had become a regular practice with him to give +me an informal health report in the morning. He turned away from the +sideboard with his usual pleasant, quiet gaze. No shadow rested on his +intelligent forehead. + +"There are a good many of them middling bad this morning, sir," he said +in a calm tone. + +"What? All knocked out?" + +"Only two actually in their bunks, sir, but--" + +"It's the last night that has done for them. We have had to pull and +haul all the blessed time." + +"I heard, sir. I had a mind to come out and help only, you know. . . ." + +"Certainly not. You mustn't. . . . The fellows lie at night about the +decks, too. It isn't good for them." + +Ransome assented. But men couldn't be looked after like children. +Moreover, one could hardly blame them for trying for such coolness and +such air as there was to be found on deck. He himself, of course, knew +better. + +He was, indeed, a reasonable man. Yet it would have been hard to say +that the others were not. The last few days had been for us like the +ordeal of the fiery furnace. One really couldn't quarrel with their +common, imprudent humanity making the best of the moments of relief, +when the night brought in the illusion of coolness and the starlight +twinkled through the heavy, dew-laden air. Moreover, most of them were +so weakened that hardly anything could be done without everybody that +could totter mustering on the braces. No, it was no use remonstrating +with them. But I fully believed that quinine was of very great use +indeed. + +I believed in it. I pinned my faith to it. It would save the men, the +ship, break the spell by its medicinal virtue, make time of no account, +the weather but a passing worry and, like a magic powder working against +mysterious malefices, secure the first passage of my first command +against the evil powers of calms and pestilence. I looked upon it as +more precious than gold, and unlike gold, of which there ever hardly +seems to be enough anywhere, the ship had a sufficient store of it. I +went in to get it with the purpose of weighing out doses. I stretched my +hand with the feeling of a man reaching for an unfailing panacea, took +up a fresh bottle and unrolled the wrapper, noticing as I did so that +the ends, both top and bottom, had come unsealed. . . . + +But why record all the swift steps of the appalling discovery? You have +guessed the truth already. There was the wrapper, the bottle, and the +white powder inside, some sort of powder! But it wasn't quinine. One +look at it was quite enough. I remember that at the very moment of +picking up the bottle, before I even dealt with the wrapper, the weight +of the object I had in my hand gave me an instant premonition. Quinine +is as light as feathers; and my nerves must have been exasperated into +an extraordinary sensibility. I let the bottle smash itself on the +floor. The stuff, whatever it was, felt gritty under the sole of my +shoe. I snatched up the next bottle and then the next. The weight alone +told the tale. One after another they fell, breaking at my feet, not +because I threw them down in my dismay, but slipping through my fingers +as if this disclosure were too much for my strength. + +It is a fact that the very greatness of a mental shock helps one to bear +up against it by producing a sort of temporary insensibility. I came out +of the state-room stunned, as if something heavy had dropped on my head. +From the other side of the saloon, across the table, Ransome, with a +duster in his hand, stared open-mouthed. I don't think that I looked +wild. It is quite possible that I appeared to be in a hurry because +I was instinctively hastening up on deck. An example this of training +become instinct. The difficulties, the dangers, the problems of a ship +at sea must be met on deck. + +To this fact, as it were of nature, I responded instinctively; which +may be taken as a proof that for a moment I must have been robbed of my +reason. + +I was certainly off my balance, a prey to impulse, for at the bottom of +the stairs I turned and flung myself at the doorway of Mr. Burns' cabin. +The wildness of his aspect checked my mental disorder. He was sitting up +in his bunk, his body looking immensely long, his head drooping a little +sideways, with affected complacency. He flourished, in his trembling +hand, on the end of a forearm no thicker than a walking-stick, a shining +pair of scissors which he tried before my very eyes to jab at his +throat. + +I was to a certain extent horrified; but it was rather a secondary sort +of effect, not really strong enough to make me yell at him in some such +manner as: "Stop!" . . . "Heavens!" . . . "What are you doing?" + +In reality he was simply overtaxing his returning strength in a shaky +attempt to clip off the thick growth of his red beard. A large towel was +spread over his lap, and a shower of stiff hairs, like bits of copper +wire, was descending on it at every snip of the scissors. + +He turned to me his face grotesque beyond the fantasies of mad dreams, +one cheek all bushy as if with a swollen flame, the other denuded and +sunken, with the untouched long moustache on that side asserting itself, +lonely and fierce. And while he stared thunderstruck, with the gaping +scissors on his fingers, I shouted my discovery at him fiendishly, in +six words, without comment. + + + + +V + +I heard the clatter of the scissors escaping from his hand, noted the +perilous heave of his whole person over the edge of the bunk after them, +and then, returning to my first purpose, pursued my course on the deck. +The sparkle of the sea filled my eyes. It was gorgeous and barren, +monotonous and without hope under the empty curve of the sky. The sails +hung motionless and slack, the very folds of their sagging surfaces +moved no more than carved granite. The impetuosity of my advent made the +man at the helm start slightly. A block aloft squeaked incomprehensibly, +for what on earth could have made it do so? It was a whistling note like +a bird's. For a long, long time I faced an empty world, steeped in an +infinity of silence, through which the sunshine poured and flowed for +some mysterious purpose. Then I heard Ransome's voice at my elbow. + +"I have put Mr. Burns back to bed, sir." + +"You have." + +"Well, sir, he got out, all of a sudden, but when he let go the edge of +his bunk he fell down. He isn't light-headed, though, it seems to me." + +"No," I said dully, without looking at Ransome. He waited for a moment, +then cautiously, as if not to give offence: "I don't think we need lose +much of that stuff, sir," he said, "I can sweep it up, every bit of +it almost, and then we could sift the glass out. I will go about it at +once. It will not make the breakfast late, not ten minutes." + +"Oh, yes," I said bitterly. "Let the breakfast wait, sweep up every bit +of it, and then throw the damned lot overboard!" + +The profound silence returned, and when I looked over my shoulder, +Ransome--the intelligent, serene Ransome--had vanished from my side. +The intense loneliness of the sea acted like poison on my brain. When I +turned my eyes to the ship, I had a morbid vision of her as a floating +grave. Who hasn't heard of ships found floating, haphazard, with their +crews all dead? I looked at the seaman at the helm, I had an impulse to +speak to him, and, indeed, his face took on an expectant cast as if he +had guessed my intention. But in the end I went below, thinking I +would be alone with the greatness of my trouble for a little while. +But through his open door Mr. Burns saw me come down, and addressed me +grumpily: "Well, sir?" + +I went in. "It isn't well at all," I said. + +Mr. Burns, reestablished in his bed-place, was concealing his hirsute +cheek in the palm of his hand. + +"That confounded fellow has taken away the scissors from me," were the +next words he said. + +The tension I was suffering from was so great that it was perhaps just +as well that Mr. Burns had started on his grievance. He seemed very sore +about it and grumbled, "Does he think I am mad, or what?" + +"I don't think so, Mr. Burns," I said. I looked upon him at that moment +as a model of self-possession. I even conceived on that account a sort of +admiration for that man, who had (apart from the intense materiality of +what was left of his beard) come as near to being a disembodied spirit +as any man can do and live. I noticed the preternatural sharpness of the +ridge of his nose, the deep cavities of his temples, and I envied him. +He was so reduced that he would probably die very soon. Enviable man! +So near extinction--while I had to bear within me a tumult of suffering +vitality, doubt, confusion, self-reproach, and an indefinite reluctance +to meet the horrid logic of the situation. I could not help muttering: +"I feel as if I were going mad myself." + +Mr. Burns glared spectrally, but otherwise was wonderfully composed. + +"I always thought he would play us some deadly trick," he said, with a +peculiar emphasis on the _he_. + +It gave me a mental shock, but I had neither the mind, nor the heart, +nor the spirit to argue with him. My form of sickness was indifference. +The creeping paralysis of a hopeless outlook. So I only gazed at him. +Mr. Burns broke into further speech. + +"Eh! What! No! You won't believe it? Well, how do you account for this? +How do you think it could have happened?" + +"Happened?" I repeated dully. "Why, yes, how in the name of the infernal +powers did this thing happen?" + +Indeed, on thinking it out, it seemed incomprehensible that it should +just be like this: the bottles emptied, refilled, rewrapped, and +replaced. A sort of plot, a sinister attempt to deceive, a thing +resembling sly vengeance, but for what? Or else a fiendish joke. But Mr. +Burns was in possession of a theory. It was simple, and he uttered it +solemnly in a hollow voice. + +"I suppose they have given him about fifteen pounds in Haiphong for that +little lot." + +"Mr. Burns!" I cried. + +He nodded grotesquely over his raised legs, like two broomsticks in the +pyjamas, with enormous bare feet at the end. + +"Why not? The stuff is pretty expensive in this part of the world, and +they were very short of it in Tonkin. And what did he care? You have +not known him. I have, and I have defied him. He feared neither God, nor +devil, nor man, nor wind, nor sea, nor his own conscience. And I believe +he hated everybody and everything. But I think he was afraid to die. I +believe I am the only man who ever stood up to him. I faced him in that +cabin where you live now, when he was sick, and I cowed him then. He +thought I was going to twist his neck for him. If he had had his way we +would have been beating up against the Nord-East monsoon, as long as he +lived and afterward, too, for ages and ages. Acting the Flying Dutchman +in the China Sea! Ha! Ha!" + +"But why should he replace the bottles like this?" . . . I began. + +"Why shouldn't he? Why should he want to throw the bottles away? They +fit the drawer. They belong to the medicine chest." + +"And they were wrapped up," I cried. + +"Well, the wrappers were there. Did it from habit, I suppose, and as +to refilling, there is always a lot of stuff they send in paper parcels +that burst after a time. And then, who can tell? I suppose you didn't +taste it, sir? But, of course, you are sure. . . ." + +"No," I said. "I didn't taste it. It is all overboard now." + +Behind me, a soft, cultivated voice said: "I have tasted it. It seemed a +mixture of all sorts, sweetish, saltish, very horrible." + +Ransome, stepping out of the pantry, had been listening for some time, +as it was very excusable in him to do. + +"A dirty trick," said Mr. Burns. "I always said he would." + +The magnitude of my indignation was unbounded. And the kind, sympathetic +doctor, too. The only sympathetic man I ever knew . . . instead of +writing that warning letter, the very refinement of sympathy, why didn't +the man make a proper inspection? But, as a matter of fact, it was +hardly fair to blame the doctor. The fittings were in order and the +medicine chest is an officially arranged affair. There was nothing +really to arouse the slightest suspicion. The person I could never +forgive was myself. Nothing should ever be taken for granted. The seed +of everlasting remorse was sown in my breast. + +"I feel it's all my fault," I exclaimed, "mine and nobody else's. That's +how I feel. I shall never forgive myself." + +"That's very foolish, sir," said Mr. Burns fiercely. + +And after this effort he fell back exhausted on his bed. He closed his +eyes, he panted; this affair, this abominable surprise had shaken him +up, too. As I turned away I perceived Ransome looking at me blankly. He +appreciated what it meant, but managed to produce his pleasant, wistful +smile. Then he stepped back into his pantry, and I rushed up on deck +again to see whether there was any wind, any breath under the sky, any +stir of the air, any sign of hope. The deadly stillness met me again. +Nothing was changed except that there was a different man at the wheel. +He looked ill. His whole figure drooped, and he seemed rather to cling +to the spokes than hold them with a controlling grip. I said to him: + +"You are not fit to be here." + +"I can manage, sir," he said feebly. + +As a matter of fact, there was nothing for him to do. The ship had no +steerage way. She lay with her head to the westward, the everlasting +Koh-ring visible over the stern, with a few small islets, black spots +in the great blaze, swimming before my troubled eyes. And but for those +bits of land there was no speck on the sky, no speck on the water, +no shape of vapour, no wisp of smoke, no sail, no boat, no stir of +humanity, no sign of life, nothing! + +The first question was, what to do? What could one do? The first thing +to do obviously was to tell the men. I did it that very day. I wasn't +going to let the knowledge simply get about. I would face them. They +were assembled on the quarterdeck for the purpose. Just before I stepped +out to speak to them I discovered that life could hold terrible moments. +No confessed criminal had ever been so oppressed by his sense of +guilt. This is why, perhaps, my face was set hard and my voice curt and +unemotional while I made my declaration that I could do nothing more +for the sick in the way of drugs. As to such care as could be given them +they knew they had had it. + +I would have held them justified in tearing me limb from limb. The +silence which followed upon my words was almost harder to bear than the +angriest uproar. I was crushed by the infinite depth of its reproach. +But, as a matter of fact, I was mistaken. In a voice which I had +great difficulty in keeping firm, I went on: "I suppose, men, you have +understood what I said, and you know what it means." + +A voice or two were heard: "Yes, sir. . . . We understand." + +They had kept silent simply because they thought that they were not +called to say anything; and when I told them that I intended to run into +Singapore and that the best chance for the ship and the men was in the +efforts all of us, sick and well, must make to get her along out of +this, I received the encouragement of a low assenting murmur and of +a louder voice exclaiming: "Surely there is a way out of this blamed +hole." + +***** + +Here is an extract from the notes I wrote at the time. + +"We have lost Koh-ring at last. For many days now I don't think I have +been two hours below altogether. I remain on deck, of course, night and +day, and the nights and the days wheel over us in succession, whether +long or short, who can say? All sense of time is lost in the monotony of +expectation, of hope, and of desire--which is only one: Get the ship to +the southward! Get the ship to the southward! The effect is curiously +mechanical; the sun climbs and descends, the night swings over our +heads as if somebody below the horizon were turning a crank. It is +the prettiest, the most aimless! . . . and all through that miserable +performance I go on, tramping, tramping the deck. How many miles have +I walked on the poop of that ship! A stubborn pilgrimage of sheer +restlessness, diversified by short excursions below to look upon Mr. +Burns. I don't know whether it is an illusion, but he seems to become +more substantial from day to day. He doesn't say much, for, indeed, the +situation doesn't lend itself to idle remarks. I notice this even with +the men as I watch them moving or sitting about the decks. They don't +talk to each other. It strikes me that if there exists an invisible +ear catching the whispers of the earth, it will find this ship the most +silent spot on it. . . . + +"No, Mr. Burns has not much to say to me. He sits in his bunk with +his beard gone, his moustaches flaming, and with an air of silent +determination on his chalky physiognomy. Ransome tells me he devours all +the food that is given him to the last scrap, but that, apparently, he +sleeps very little. Even at night, when I go below to fill my pipe, +I notice that, though dozing flat on his back, he still looks very +determined. From the side glance he gives me when awake it seems as +though he were annoyed at being interrupted in some arduous mental +operation; and as I emerge on deck the ordered arrangement of the stars +meets my eye, unclouded, infinitely wearisome. There they are: stars, +sun, sea, light, darkness, space, great waters; the formidable Work of +the Seven Days, into which mankind seems to have blundered unbidden. +Or else decoyed. Even as I have been decoyed into this awful, this +death-haunted command. . . ." + +***** + +The only spot of light in the ship at night was that of the +compass-lamps, lighting up the faces of the succeeding helmsmen; for the +rest we were lost in the darkness, I walking the poop and the men lying +about the decks. They were all so reduced by sickness that no watches +could be kept. Those who were able to walk remained all the time on +duty, lying about in the shadows of the main deck, till my voice raised +for an order would bring them to their enfeebled feet, a tottering +little group, moving patiently about the ship, with hardly a murmur, a +whisper amongst them all. And every time I had to raise my voice it was +with a pang of remorse and pity. + +Then about four o'clock in the morning a light would gleam forward in +the galley. The unfailing Ransome with the uneasy heart, immune, +serene, and active, was getting ready for the early coffee for the men. +Presently he would bring me a cup up on the poop, and it was then that I +allowed myself to drop into my deck chair for a couple of hours of real +sleep. No doubt I must have been snatching short dozes when leaning +against the rail for a moment in sheer exhaustion; but, honestly, I was +not aware of them, except in the painful form of convulsive starts that +seemed to come on me even while I walked. From about five, however, +until after seven I would sleep openly under the fading stars. + +I would say to the helmsman: "Call me at need," and drop into that chair +and close my eyes, feeling that there was no more sleep for me on earth. +And then I would know nothing till, some time between seven and eight, +I would feel a touch on my shoulder and look up at Ransome's face, with +its faint, wistful smile and friendly, gray eyes, as though he were +tenderly amused at my slumbers. Occasionally the second mate would come +up and relieve me at early coffee time. But it didn't really matter. +Generally it was a dead calm, or else faint airs so changing and +fugitive that it really wasn't worth while to touch a brace for them. +If the air steadied at all the seaman at the helm could be trusted for +a warning shout: "Ship's all aback, sir!" which like a trumpet-call would +make me spring a foot above the deck. Those were the words which it +seemed to me would have made me spring up from eternal sleep. But this +was not often. I have never met since such breathless sunrises. And if +the second mate happened to be there (he had generally one day in three +free of fever) I would find him sitting on the skylight half senseless, +as it were, and with an idiotic gaze fastened on some object near by--a +rope, a cleat, a belaying pin, a ringbolt. + +That young man was rather troublesome. He remained cubbish in his +sufferings. He seemed to have become completely imbecile; and when the +return of fever drove him to his cabin below, the next thing would be +that we would miss him from there. The first time it happened Ransome +and I were very much alarmed. We started a quiet search and ultimately +Ransome discovered him curled up in the sail-locker, which opened +into the lobby by a sliding door. When remonstrated with, he muttered +sulkily, "It's cool in there." That wasn't true. It was only dark there. + +The fundamental defects of his face were not improved by its uniform +livid hue. The disease disclosed its low type in a startling way. It was +not so with many of the men. The wastage of ill-health seemed to idealise +the general character of the features, bringing out the unsuspected +nobility of some, the strength of others, and in one case revealing an +essentially comic aspect. He was a short, gingery, active man with +a nose and chin of the Punch type, and whom his shipmates called +"Frenchy." I don't know why. He may have been a Frenchman, but I have +never heard him utter a single word in French. + +To see him coming aft to the wheel comforted one. The blue dungaree +trousers turned up the calf, one leg a little higher than the other, the +clean check shirt, the white canvas cap, evidently made by himself, made +up a whole of peculiar smartness, and the persistent jauntiness of his +gait, even, poor fellow, when he couldn't help tottering, told of his +invincible spirit. There was also a man called Gambril. He was the only +grizzled person in the ship. His face was of an austere type. But if +I remember all their faces, wasting tragically before my eyes, most of +their names have vanished from my memory. + +The words that passed between us were few and puerile in regard of the +situation. I had to force myself to look them in the face. I expected to +meet reproachful glances. There were none. The expression of suffering +in their eyes was indeed hard enough to bear. But that they couldn't +help. For the rest, I ask myself whether it was the temper of their +souls or the sympathy of their imagination that made them so wonderful, +so worthy of my undying regard. + +For myself, neither my soul was highly tempered, nor my imagination +properly under control. There were moments when I felt, not only that I +would go mad, but that I had gone mad already; so that I dared not open +my lips for fear of betraying myself by some insane shriek. Luckily I +had only orders to give, and an order has a steadying influence upon him +who has to give it. Moreover, the seaman, the officer of the watch, in +me was sufficiently sane. I was like a mad carpenter making a box. Were +he ever so convinced that he was King of Jerusalem, the box he would +make would be a sane box. What I feared was a shrill note escaping me +involuntarily and upsetting my balance. Luckily, again, there was no +necessity to raise one's voice. The brooding stillness of the world +seemed sensitive to the slightest sound, like a whispering gallery. The +conversational tone would almost carry a word from one end of the ship +to the other. The terrible thing was that the only voice that I ever +heard was my own. At night especially it reverberated very lonely +amongst the planes of the unstirring sails. + +Mr. Burns, still keeping to his bed with that air of secret +determination, was moved to grumble at many things. Our interviews +were short five-minute affairs, but fairly frequent. I was everlastingly +diving down below to get a light, though I did not consume much tobacco +at that time. The pipe was always going out; for in truth my mind was +not composed enough to enable me to get a decent smoke. Likewise, +for most of the time during the twenty-four hours I could have struck +matches on deck and held them aloft till the flame burnt my fingers. But +I always used to run below. It was a change. It was the only break in +the incessant strain; and, of course, Mr. Burns through the open door +could see me come in and go out every time. + +With his knees gathered up under his chin and staring with his greenish +eyes over them, he was a weird figure, and with my knowledge of the +crazy notion in his head, not a very attractive one for me. Still, I had +to speak to him now and then, and one day he complained that the ship +was very silent. For hours and hours, he said, he was lying there, not +hearing a sound, till he did not know what to do with himself. + +"When Ransome happens to be forward in his galley everything's so still +that one might think everybody in the ship was dead," he grumbled. "The +only voice I do hear sometimes is yours, sir, and that isn't enough to +cheer me up. What's the matter with the men? Isn't there one left that +can sing out at the ropes?" + +"Not one, Mr. Burns," I said. "There is no breath to spare on board this +ship for that. Are you aware that there are times when I can't muster +more than three hands to do anything?" + +He asked swiftly but fearfully: + +"Nobody dead yet, sir?" + +"No." + +"It wouldn't do," Mr. Burns declared forcibly. "Mustn't let him. If he +gets hold of one he will get them all." + +I cried out angrily at this. I believe I even swore at the disturbing +effect of these words. They attacked all the self-possession that was +left to me. In my endless vigil in the face of the enemy I had been +haunted by gruesome images enough. I had had visions of a ship drifting +in calms and swinging in light airs, with all her crew dying slowly +about her decks. Such things had been known to happen. + +Mr. Burns met my outburst by a mysterious silence. + +"Look here," I said. "You don't believe yourself what you say. You +can't. It's impossible. It isn't the sort of thing I have a right to +expect from you. My position's bad enough without being worried with +your silly fancies." + +He remained unmoved. On account of the way in which the light fell on +his head I could not be sure whether he had smiled faintly or not. I +changed my tone. + +"Listen," I said. "It's getting so desperate that I had thought for a +moment, since we can't make our way south, whether I wouldn't try to +steer west and make an attempt to reach the mailboat track. We could +always get some quinine from her, at least. What do you think?" + +He cried out: "No, no, no. Don't do that, sir. You mustn't for a moment +give up facing that old ruffian. If you do he will get the upper hand of +us." + +I left him. He was impossible. It was like a case of possession. His +protest, however, was essentially quite sound. As a matter of fact, my +notion of heading out west on the chance of sighting a problematical +steamer could not bear calm examination. On the side where we were we +had enough wind, at least from time to time, to struggle on toward the +south. Enough, at least, to keep hope alive. But suppose that I had used +those capricious gusts of wind to sail away to the westward, into some +region where there was not a breath of air for days on end, what then? +Perhaps my appalling vision of a ship floating with a dead crew +would become a reality for the discovery weeks afterward by some +horror-stricken mariners. + +That afternoon Ransome brought me up a cup of tea, and while waiting +there, tray in hand, he remarked in the exactly right tone of sympathy: + +"You are holding out well, sir." + +"Yes," I said. "You and I seem to have been forgotten." + +"Forgotten, sir?" + +"Yes, by the fever-devil who has got on board this ship," I said. + +Ransome gave me one of his attractive, intelligent, quick glances and +went away with the tray. It occurred to me that I had been talking +somewhat in Mr. Burns' manner. It annoyed me. Yet often in darker +moments I forgot myself into an attitude toward our troubles more fit +for a contest against a living enemy. + +Yes. The fever-devil had not laid his hand yet either on Ransome or on +me. But he might at any time. It was one of those thoughts one had +to fight down, keep at arm's length at any cost. It was unbearable to +contemplate the possibility of Ransome, the housekeeper of the ship, +being laid low. And what would happen to my command if I got knocked +over, with Mr. Burns too weak to stand without holding on to his +bed-place and the second mate reduced to a state of permanent +imbecility? It was impossible to imagine, or rather, it was only too +easy to imagine. + +I was alone on the poop. The ship having no steerage way, I had sent the +helmsman away to sit down or lie down somewhere in the shade. The men's +strength was so reduced that all unnecessary calls on it had to be +avoided. It was the austere Gambril with the grizzly beard. He went away +readily enough, but he was so weakened by repeated bouts of fever, +poor fellow, that in order to get down the poop ladder he had to turn +sideways and hang on with both hands to the brass rail. It was just +simply heart-breaking to watch. Yet he was neither very much worse nor +much better than most of the half-dozen miserable victims I could muster +up on deck. + +It was a terribly lifeless afternoon. For several days in succession low +clouds had appeared in the distance, white masses with dark convolutions +resting on the water, motionless, almost solid, and yet all the time +changing their aspects subtly. Toward evening they vanished as a rule. +But this day they awaited the setting sun, which glowed and smouldered +sulkily amongst them before it sank down. The punctual and wearisome +stars reappeared over our mastheads, but the air remained stagnant and +oppressive. + +The unfailing Ransome lighted the binnaclelamps and glided, all shadowy, +up to me. + +"Will you go down and try to eat something, sir?" he suggested. + +His low voice startled me. I had been standing looking out over the +rail, saying nothing, feeling nothing, not even the weariness of my +limbs, overcome by the evil spell. + +"Ransome," I asked abruptly, "how long have I been on deck? I am losing +the notion of time." + +"Twelve days, sir," he said, "and it's just a fortnight since we left +the anchorage." + +His equable voice sounded mournful somehow. He waited a bit, then added: +"It's the first time that it looks as if we were to have some rain." + +I noticed then the broad shadow on the horizon, extinguishing the low +stars completely, while those overhead, when I looked up, seemed to +shine down on us through a veil of smoke. + +How it got there, how it had crept up so high, I couldn't say. It had an +ominous appearance. The air did not stir. At a renewed invitation from +Ransome I did go down into the cabin to--in his own words--"try and eat +something." I don't know that the trial was very successful. I suppose +at that period I did exist on food in the usual way; but the memory is +now that in those days life was sustained on invincible anguish, as a +sort of infernal stimulant exciting and consuming at the same time. + +It's the only period of my life in which I attempted to keep a diary. +No, not the only one. Years later, in conditions of moral isolation, I +did put down on paper the thoughts and events of a score of days. But +this was the first time. I don't remember how it came about or how the +pocketbook and the pencil came into my hands. It's inconceivable that I +should have looked for them on purpose. I suppose they saved me from the +crazy trick of talking to myself. + +Strangely enough, in both cases I took to that sort of thing in +circumstances in which I did not expect, in colloquial phrase, "to come +out of it." Neither could I expect the record to outlast me. This shows +that it was purely a personal need for intimate relief and not a call of +egotism. + +Here I must give another sample of it, a few detached lines, now +looking very ghostly to my own eyes, out of the part scribbled that very +evening: + +***** + +"There is something going on in the sky like a decomposition; like a +corruption of the air, which remains as still as ever. After all, mere +clouds, which may or may not hold wind or rain. Strange that it should +trouble me so. I feel as if all my sins had found me out. But I suppose +the trouble is that the ship is still lying motionless, not under +command; and that I have nothing to do to keep my imagination from +running wild amongst the disastrous images of the worst that may befall +us. What's going to happen? Probably nothing. Or anything. It may be a +furious squall coming, butt end foremost. And on deck there are five +men with the vitality and the strength of, say, two. We may have all our +sails blown away. Every stitch of canvas has been on her since we broke +ground at the mouth of the Mei-nam, fifteen days ago . . . or fifteen +centuries. It seems to me that all my life before that momentous day is +infinitely remote, a fading memory of light-hearted youth, something on +the other side of a shadow. Yes, sails may very well be blown away. +And that would be like a death sentence on the men. We haven't strength +enough on board to bend another suit; incredible thought, but it is +true. Or we may even get dismasted. Ships have been dismasted in squalls +simply because they weren't handled quick enough, and we have no +power to whirl the yards around. It's like being bound hand and foot +preparatory to having one's throat cut. And what appals me most of all +is that I shrink from going on deck to face it. It's due to the ship, +it's due to the men who are there on deck--some of them, ready to put +out the last remnant of their strength at a word from me. And I am +shrinking from it. From the mere vision. My first command. Now I +understand that strange sense of insecurity in my past. I always +suspected that I might be no good. And here is proof positive. I am +shirking it. I am no good." + +***** + +At that moment, or, perhaps, the moment after, I became aware of Ransome +standing in the cabin. Something in his expression startled me. It had a +meaning which I could not make out. I exclaimed: "Somebody's dead." + +It was his turn then to look startled. + +"Dead? Not that I know of, sir. I have been in the forecastle only ten +minutes ago and there was no dead man there then." + +"You did give me a scare," I said. + +His voice was extremely pleasant to listen to. He explained that he had +come down below to close Mr. Burns' port in case it should come on to +rain. "He did not know that I was in the cabin," he added. + +"How does it look outside?" I asked him. + +"Very black, indeed, sir. There is something in it for certain." + +"In what quarter?" + +"All round, sir." + +I repeated idly: "All round. For certain," with my elbows on the table. + +Ransome lingered in the cabin as if he had something to do there, but +hesitated about doing it. I said suddenly: + +"You think I ought to be on deck?" + +He answered at once but without any particular emphasis or accent: "I +do, sir." + +I got to my feet briskly, and he made way for me to go out. As I passed +through the lobby I heard Mr. Burns' voice saying: + +"Shut the door of my room, will you, steward?" And Ransome's rather +surprised: "Certainly, sir." + +I thought that all my feelings had been dulled into complete +indifference. But I found it as trying as ever to be on deck. The +impenetrable blackness beset the ship so close that it seemed that +by thrusting one's hand over the side one could touch some unearthly +substance. There was in it an effect of inconceivable terror and of +inexpressible mystery. The few stars overhead shed a dim light upon +the ship alone, with no gleams of any kind upon the water, in detached +shafts piercing an atmosphere which had turned to soot. It was something +I had never seen before, giving no hint of the direction from which any +change would come, the closing in of a menace from all sides. + +There was still no man at the helm. The immobility of all things was +perfect. If the air had turned black, the sea, for all I knew, might +have turned solid. It was no good looking in any direction, watching +for any sign, speculating upon the nearness of the moment. When the time +came the blackness would overwhelm silently the bit of starlight falling +upon the ship, and the end of all things would come without a sigh, +stir, or murmur of any kind, and all our hearts would cease to beat like +run-down clocks. + +It was impossible to shake off that sense of finality. The quietness +that came over me was like a foretaste of annihilation. It gave me a +sort of comfort, as though my soul had become suddenly reconciled to an +eternity of blind stillness. + +The seaman's instinct alone survived whole in my moral dissolution. I +descended the ladder to the quarter-deck. The starlight seemed to die +out before reaching that spot, but when I asked quietly: "Are you there, +men?" my eyes made out shadow forms starting up around me, very few, +very indistinct; and a voice spoke: "All here, sir." Another amended +anxiously: + +"All that are any good for anything, sir." + +Both voices were very quiet and unringing; without any special character +of readiness or discouragement. Very matter-of-fact voices. + +"We must try to haul this mainsail close up," I said. + +The shadows swayed away from me without a word. Those men were the +ghosts of themselves, and their weight on a rope could be no more than +the weight of a bunch of ghosts. Indeed, if ever a sail was hauled up +by sheer spiritual strength it must have been that sail, for, properly +speaking, there was not muscle enough for the task in the whole ship let +alone the miserable lot of us on deck. Of course, I took the lead in the +work myself. They wandered feebly after me from rope to rope, stumbling +and panting. They toiled like Titans. We were half-an-hour at it at +least, and all the time the black universe made no sound. When the last +leech-line was made fast, my eyes, accustomed to the darkness, made +out the shapes of exhausted men drooping over the rails, collapsed on +hatches. One hung over the after-capstan, sobbing for breath, and I +stood amongst them like a tower of strength, impervious to disease and +feeling only the sickness of my soul. I waited for some time fighting +against the weight of my sins, against my sense of unworthiness, and +then I said: + +"Now, men, we'll go aft and square the mainyard. That's about all we can +do for the ship; and for the rest she must take her chance." + + + + +VI + +As we all went up it occurred to me that there ought to be a man at the +helm. I raised my voice not much above a whisper, and, noiselessly, an +uncomplaining spirit in a fever-wasted body appeared in the light aft, +the head with hollow eyes illuminated against the blackness which had +swallowed up our world--and the universe. The bared forearm extended +over the upper spokes seemed to shine with a light of its own. + +I murmured to that luminous appearance: + +"Keep the helm right amidships." + +It answered in a tone of patient suffering: + +"Right amidships, sir." + +Then I descended to the quarter-deck. It was impossible to tell +whence the blow would come. To look round the ship was to look into a +bottomless, black pit. The eye lost itself in inconceivable depths. + +I wanted to ascertain whether the ropes had been picked up off the +deck. One could only do that by feeling with one's feet. In my cautious +progress I came against a man in whom I recognized Ransome. He possessed +an unimpaired physical solidity which was manifest to me at the contact. +He was leaning against the quarter-deck capstan and kept silent. It was +like a revelation. He was the collapsed figure sobbing for breath I had +noticed before we went on the poop. + +"You have been helping with the mainsail!" I exclaimed in a low tone. + +"Yes, sir," sounded his quiet voice. + +"Man! What were you thinking of? You mustn't do that sort of thing." + +After a pause he assented: "I suppose I mustn't." Then after another +short silence he added: "I am all right now," quickly, between the +tell-tale gasps. + +I could neither hear nor see anybody else; but when I spoke up, +answering sad murmurs filled the quarter-deck, and its shadows seemed to +shift here and there. I ordered all the halyards laid down on deck clear +for running. + +"I'll see to that, sir," volunteered Ransome in his natural, pleasant +tone, which comforted one and aroused one's compassion, too, somehow. + +That man ought to have been in his bed, resting, and my plain duty was +to send him there. But perhaps he would not have obeyed me; I had not +the strength of mind to try. All I said was: + +"Go about it quietly, Ransome." + +Returning on the poop I approached Gambril. His face, set with hollow +shadows in the light, looked awful, finally silenced. I asked him how he +felt, but hardly expected an answer. Therefore, I was astonished at his +comparative loquacity. + +"Them shakes leaves me as weak as a kitten, sir," he said, preserving +finely that air of unconsciousness as to anything but his business a +helmsman should never lose. "And before I can pick up my strength that +there hot fit comes along and knocks me over again." + +He sighed. There was no reproach in his tone, but the bare words were +enough to give me a horrible pang of self-reproach. It held me dumb for +a time. When the tormenting sensation had passed off I asked: + +"Do you feel strong enough to prevent the rudder taking charge if she +gets sternway on her? It wouldn't do to get something smashed about the +steering-gear now. We've enough difficulties to cope with as it is." + +He answered with just a shade of weariness that he was strong enough to +hang on. He could promise me that she shouldn't take the wheel out of +his hands. More he couldn't say. + +At that moment Ransome appeared quite close to me, stepping out of the +darkness into visibility suddenly, as if just created with his composed +face and pleasant voice. + +Every rope on deck, he said, was laid down clear for running, as far as +one could make certain by feeling. It was impossible to see anything. +Frenchy had stationed himself forward. He said he had a jump or two left +in him yet. + +Here a faint smile altered for an instant the clear, firm design +of Ransome's lips. With his serious clear, gray eyes, his serene +temperament--he was a priceless man altogether. Soul as firm as the +muscles of his body. + +He was the only man on board (except me, but I had to preserve my +liberty of movement) who had a sufficiency of muscular strength to trust +to. For a moment I thought I had better ask him to take the wheel. But +the dreadful knowledge of the enemy he had to carry about him made me +hesitate. In my ignorance of physiology it occurred to me that he might +die suddenly, from excitement, at a critical moment. + +While this gruesome fear restrained the ready words on the tip of my +tongue, Ransome stepped back two paces and vanished from my sight. + +At once an uneasiness possessed me, as if some support had been +withdrawn. I moved forward, too, outside the circle of light, into +the darkness that stood in front of me like a wall. In one stride I +penetrated it. Such must have been the darkness before creation. It had +closed behind me. I knew I was invisible to the man at the helm. Neither +could I see anything. He was alone, I was alone, every man was alone +where he stood. And every form was gone too, spar, sail, fittings, +rails; everything was blotted out in the dreadful smoothness of that +absolute night. + +A flash of lightning would have been a relief--I mean physically. I +would have prayed for it if it hadn't been for my shrinking apprehension +of the thunder. In the tension of silence I was suffering from it seemed +to me that the first crash must turn me into dust. + +And thunder was, most likely, what would happen next. Stiff all over and +hardly breathing, I waited with a horribly strained expectation. Nothing +happened. It was maddening, but a dull, growing ache in the lower part +of my face made me aware that I had been grinding my teeth madly enough, +for God knows how long. + +It's extraordinary I should not have heard myself doing it; but I +hadn't. By an effort which absorbed all my faculties I managed to keep +my jaw still. It required much attention, and while thus engaged I +became bothered by curious, irregular sounds of faint tapping on the +deck. They could be heard single, in pairs, in groups. While I wondered +at this mysterious devilry, I received a slight blow under the left +eye and felt an enormous tear run down my cheek. Raindrops. Enormous. +Forerunners of something. Tap. Tap. Tap. . . . + +I turned about, and, addressing Gambrel earnestly, entreated him to +"hang on to the wheel." But I could hardly speak from emotion. The +fatal moment had come. I held my breath. The tapping had stopped +as unexpectedly as it had begun, and there was a renewed moment of +intolerable suspense; something like an additional turn of the racking +screw. I don't suppose I would have ever screamed, but I remember my +conviction that there was nothing else for it but to scream. + +Suddenly--how am I to convey it? Well, suddenly the darkness turned into +water. This is the only suitable figure. A heavy shower, a downpour, +comes along, making a noise. You hear its approach on the sea, in the +air, too, I verily believe. But this was different. With no preliminary +whisper or rustle, without a splash, and even without the ghost +of impact, I became instantaneously soaked to the skin. Not a very +difficult matter, since I was wearing only my sleeping suit. My hair +got full of water in an instant, water streamed on my skin, it filled +my nose, my ears, my eyes. In a fraction of a second I swallowed quite a +lot of it. + +As to Gambril, he was fairly choked. He coughed pitifully, the broken +cough of a sick man; and I beheld him as one sees a fish in an aquarium +by the light of an electric bulb, an elusive, phosphorescent shape. Only +he did not glide away. But something else happened. Both binnaclelamps +went out. I suppose the water forced itself into them, though I wouldn't +have thought that possible, for they fitted into the cowl perfectly. + +The last gleam of light in the universe had gone, pursued by a low +exclamation of dismay from Gambril. I groped for him and seized his arm. +How startlingly wasted it was. + +"Never mind," I said. "You don't want the light. All you need to do +is to keep the wind, when it comes, at the back of your head. You +understand?" + +"Aye, aye, sir. . . . But I should like to have a light," he added +nervously. + +All that time the ship lay as steady as a rock. The noise of the water +pouring off the sails and spars, flowing over the break of the poop, had +stopped short. The poop scuppers gurgled and sobbed for a little +while longer, and then perfect silence, joined to perfect immobility, +proclaimed the yet unbroken spell of our helplessness, poised on the +edge of some violent issue, lurking in the dark. + +I started forward restlessly. I did not need my sight to pace the poop +of my ill-starred first command with perfect assurance. Every square +foot of her decks was impressed indelibly on my brain, to the very +grain and knots of the planks. Yet, all of a sudden, I fell clean over +something, landing full length on my hands and face. + +It was something big and alive. Not a dog--more like a sheep, rather. But +there were no animals in the ship. How could an animal. . . . It was an +added and fantastic horror which I could not resist. The hair of my +head stirred even as I picked myself up, awfully scared; not as a man +is scared while his judgment, his reason still try to resist, but +completely, boundlessly, and, as it were, innocently scared--like a +little child. + +I could see It--that Thing! The darkness, of which so much had just +turned into water, had thinned down a little. There It was! But I did +not hit upon the notion of Mr. Burns issuing out of the companion on all +fours till he attempted to stand up, and even then the idea of a bear +crossed my mind first. + +He growled like one when I seized him round the body. He had buttoned +himself up into an enormous winter overcoat of some woolly material, the +weight of which was too much for his reduced state. I could hardly feel +the incredibly thin lath of his body, lost within the thick stuff, but +his growl had depth and substance: Confounded dump ship with a craven, +tiptoeing crowd. Why couldn't they stamp and go with a brace? Wasn't +there one Godforsaken lubber in the lot fit to raise a yell on a rope? + +"Skulking's no good, sir," he attacked me directly. "You can't slink +past the old murderous ruffian. It isn't the way. You must go for him +boldly--as I did. Boldness is what you want. Show him that you don't +care for any of his damned tricks. Kick up a jolly old row." + +"Good God, Mr. Burns," I said angrily. "What on earth are you up to? +What do you mean by coming up on deck in this state?" + +"Just that! Boldness. The only way to scare the old bullying rascal." + +I pushed him, still growling, against the rail. "Hold on to it," I said +roughly. I did not know what to do with him. I left him in a hurry, to +go to Gambril, who had called faintly that he believed there was some +wind aloft. Indeed, my own ears had caught a feeble flutter of wet +canvas, high up overhead, the jingle of a slack chain sheet. . . . + +These were eerie, disturbing, alarming sounds in the dead stillness +of the air around me. All the instances I had heard of topmasts being +whipped out of a ship while there was not wind enough on her deck to +blow out a match rushed into my memory. + +"I can't see the upper sails, sir," declared Gambril shakily. + +"Don't move the helm. You'll be all right," I said confidently. + +The poor man's nerves were gone. Mine were not in much better case. +It was the moment of breaking strain and was relieved by the abrupt +sensation of the ship moving forward as if of herself under my feet. +I heard plainly the soughing of the wind aloft, the low cracks of +the upper spars taking the strain, long before I could feel the least +draught on my face turned aft, anxious and sightless like the face of a +blind man. + +Suddenly a louder-sounding note filled our ears, the darkness started +streaming against our bodies, chilling them exceedingly. Both of us, +Gambril and I, shivered violently in our clinging, soaked garments of +thin cotton. I said to him: + +"You are all right now, my man. All you've got to do is to keep the wind +at the back of your head. Surely you are up to that. A child could steer +this ship in smooth water." + +He muttered: "Aye! A healthy child." And I felt ashamed of having been +passed over by the fever which had been preying on every man's strength +but mine, in order that my remorse might be the more bitter, the feeling +of unworthiness more poignant, and the sense of responsibility heavier +to bear. + +The ship had gathered great way on her almost at once on the calm water. +I felt her slipping through it with no other noise but a mysterious +rustle alongside. Otherwise, she had no motion at all, neither lift nor +roll. It was a disheartening steadiness which had lasted for eighteen +days now; for never, never had we had wind enough in that time to raise +the slightest run of the sea. The breeze freshened suddenly. I thought +it was high time to get Mr. Burns off the deck. He worried me. I looked +upon him as a lunatic who would be very likely to start roaming over the +ship and break a limb or fall overboard. + +I was truly glad to find he had remained holding on where I had left +him, sensibly enough. He was, however, muttering to himself ominously. + +This was discouraging. I remarked in a matter-of-fact tone: + +"We have never had so much wind as this since we left the roads." + +"There's some heart in it, too," he growled judiciously. It was a remark +of a perfectly sane seaman. But he added immediately: "It was about time +I should come on deck. I've been nursing my strength for this--just for +this. Do you see it, sir?" + +I said I did, and proceeded to hint that it would be advisable for him +to go below now and take a rest. + +His answer was an indignant "Go below! Not if I know it, sir." + +Very cheerful! He was a horrible nuisance. And all at once he started to +argue. I could feel his crazy excitement in the dark. + +"You don't know how to go about it, sir. How could you? All this +whispering and tiptoeing is no good. You can't hope to slink past a +cunning, wide-awake, evil brute like he was. You never heard him talk. +Enough to make your hair stand on end. No! No! He wasn't mad. He was +no more mad than I am. He was just downright wicked. Wicked so as to +frighten most people. I will tell you what he was. He was nothing +less than a thief and a murderer at heart. And do you think he's any +different now because he's dead? Not he! His carcass lies a hundred +fathom under, but he's just the same . . . in latitude 8 d 20' north." + +He snorted defiantly. I noted with weary resignation that the breeze had +got lighter while he raved. He was at it again. + +"I ought to have thrown the beggar out of the ship over the rail like a +dog. It was only on account of the men. . . . Fancy having to read the +Burial Service over a brute like that! . . . 'Our departed brother' . . . +I could have laughed. That was what he couldn't bear. I suppose I am +the only man that ever stood up to laugh at him. When he got sick it +used to scare that . . . brother. . . . Brother. . . . Departed. . . . +Sooner call a shark brother." + +The breeze had let go so suddenly that the way of the ship brought the +wet sails heavily against the mast. The spell of deadly stillness had +caught us up again. There seemed to be no escape. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Mr. Burns in a startled voice. "Calm again!" + +I addressed him as though he had been sane. + +"This is the sort of thing we've been having for seventeen days, Mr. +Burns," I said with intense bitterness. "A puff, then a calm, and in a +moment, you'll see, she'll be swinging on her heel with her head away +from her course to the devil somewhere." + +He caught at the word. "The old dodging Devil," he screamed piercingly +and burst into such a loud laugh as I had never heard before. It was a +provoking, mocking peal, with a hair-raising, screeching over-note of +defiance. I stepped back, utterly confounded. + +Instantly there was a stir on the quarter-deck; murmurs of dismay. A +distressed voice cried out in the dark below us: "Who's that gone crazy, +now?" + +Perhaps they thought it was their captain? Rush is not the word that +could be applied to the utmost speed the poor fellows were up to; but +in an amazing short time every man in the ship able to walk upright had +found his way on to that poop. + +I shouted to them: "It's the mate. Lay hold of him a couple of +you. . . ." + +I expected this performance to end in a ghastly sort of fight. But +Mr. Burns cut his derisive screeching dead short and turned upon them +fiercely, yelling: + +"Aha! Dog-gone ye! You've found your tongues--have ye? I thought +you were dumb. Well, then--laugh! Laugh--I tell you. Now then--all +together. One, two, three--laugh!" + +A moment of silence ensued, of silence so profound that you could have +heard a pin drop on the deck. Then Ransome's unperturbed voice uttered +pleasantly the words: + +"I think he has fainted, sir--" The little motionless knot of men +stirred, with low murmurs of relief. "I've got him under the arms. Get +hold of his legs, some one." + +Yes. It was a relief. He was silenced for a time--for a time. I could +not have stood another peal of that insane screeching. I was sure of it; +and just then Gambril, the austere Gambril, treated us to another vocal +performance. He began to sing out for relief. His voice wailed pitifully +in the darkness: "Come aft somebody! I can't stand this. Here she'll be +off again directly and I can't. . . ." + +I dashed aft myself meeting on my way a hard gust of wind whose approach +Gambril's ear had detected from afar and which filled the sails on the +main in a series of muffled reports mingled with the low plaint of +the spars. I was just in time to seize the wheel while Frenchy who had +followed me caught up the collapsing Gambril. He hauled him out of the +way, admonished him to lie still where he was, and then stepped up to +relieve me, asking calmly: + +"How am I to steer her, sir?" + +"Dead before it for the present. I'll get you a light in a moment." + +But going forward I met Ransome bringing up the spare binnacle lamp. +That man noticed everything, attended to everything, shed comfort around +him as he moved. As he passed me he remarked in a soothing tone that +the stars were coming out. They were. The breeze was sweeping clear the +sooty sky, breaking through the indolent silence of the sea. + +The barrier of awful stillness which had encompassed us for so many days +as though we had been accursed, was broken. I felt that. I let myself +fall on to the skylight seat. A faint white ridge of foam, thin, very +thin, broke alongside. The first for ages--for ages. I could have +cheered, if it hadn't been for the sense of guilt which clung to all my +thoughts secretly. Ransome stood before me. + +"What about the mate," I asked anxiously. "Still unconscious?" + +"Well, sir--it's funny," Ransome was evidently puzzled. "He hasn't +spoken a word, and his eyes are shut. But it looks to me more like sound +sleep than anything else." + +I accepted this view as the least troublesome of any, or at any rate, +least disturbing. Dead faint or deep slumber, Mr. Burns had to be left +to himself for the present. Ransome remarked suddenly: + +"I believe you want a coat, sir." + +"I believe I do," I sighed out. + +But I did not move. What I felt I wanted were new limbs. My arms and +legs seemed utterly useless, fairly worn out. They didn't even ache. But +I stood up all the same to put on the coat when Ransome brought it up. +And when he suggested that he had better now "take Gambril forward," I +said: + +"All right. I'll help you to get him down on the main deck." + +I found that I was quite able to help, too. We raised Gambril up between +us. He tried to help himself along like a man but all the time he was +inquiring piteously: + +"You won't let me go when we come to the ladder? You won't let me go +when we come to the ladder?" + + +The breeze kept on freshening and blew true, true to a hair. At daylight +by careful manipulation of the helm we got the foreyards to run square +by themselves (the water keeping smooth) and then went about hauling +the ropes tight. Of the four men I had with me at night, I could see now +only two. I didn't inquire as to the others. They had given in. For a +time only I hoped. + +Our various tasks forward occupied us for hours, the two men with me +moved so slow and had to rest so often. One of them remarked that "every +blamed thing in the ship felt about a hundred times heavier than its +proper weight." This was the only complaint uttered. I don't know what +we should have done without Ransome. He worked with us, silent, too, +with a little smile frozen on his lips. From time to time I murmured to +him: "Go steady"--"Take it easy, Ransome"--and received a quick glance +in reply. + +When we had done all we could do to make things safe, he disappeared +into his galley. Some time afterward, going forward for a look round, I +caught sight of him through the open door. He sat upright on the locker +in front of the stove, with his head leaning back against the bulkhead. +His eyes were closed; his capable hands held open the front of his +thin cotton shirt baring tragically his powerful chest, which heaved in +painful and laboured gasps. He didn't hear me. + +I retreated quietly and went straight on to the poop to relieve Frenchy, +who by that time was beginning to look very sick. He gave me the course +with great formality and tried to go off with a jaunty step, but reeled +widely twice before getting out of my sight. + +And then I remained all alone aft, steering my ship, which ran before +the wind with a buoyant lift now and then, and even rolling a little. +Presently Ransome appeared before me with a tray. The sight of food made +me ravenous all at once. He took the wheel while I sat down of the after +grating to eat my breakfast. + +"This breeze seems to have done for our crowd," he murmured. "It just +laid them low--all hands." + +"Yes," I said. "I suppose you and I are the only two fit men in the +ship." + +"Frenchy says there's still a jump left in him. I don't know. It can't +be much," continued Ransome with his wistful smile. "Good little man +that. But suppose, sir, that this wind flies round when we are close to +the land--what are we going to do with her?" + +"If the wind shifts round heavily after we close in with the land she +will either run ashore or get dismasted or both. We won't be able to do +anything with her. She's running away with us now. All we can do is to +steer her. She's a ship without a crew." + +"Yes. All laid low," repeated Ransome quietly. "I do give them a look-in +forward every now and then, but it's precious little I can do for them." + +"I, and the ship, and every one on board of her, are very much indebted +to you, Ransome," I said warmly. + +He made as though he had not heard me, and steered in silence till I was +ready to relieve him. He surrendered the wheel, picked up the tray, and +for a parting shot informed me that Mr. Burns was awake and seemed to +have a mind to come up on deck. + +"I don't know how to prevent him, sir. I can't very well stop down below +all the time." + +It was clear that he couldn't. And sure enough Mr. Burns came on deck +dragging himself painfully aft in his enormous overcoat. I beheld him +with a natural dread. To have him around and raving about the wiles of +a dead man while I had to steer a wildly rushing ship full of dying men +was a rather dreadful prospect. + +But his first remarks were quite sensible in meaning and tone. +Apparently he had no recollection of the night scene. And if he had he +didn't betray himself once. Neither did he talk very much. He sat on +the skylight looking desperately ill at first, but that strong breeze, +before which the last remnant of my crew had wilted down, seemed to blow +a fresh stock of vigour into his frame with every gust. One could almost +see the process. + +By way of sanity test I alluded on purpose to the late captain. I was +delighted to find that Mr. Burns did not display undue interest in the +subject. He ran over the old tale of that savage ruffian's iniquities +with a certain vindictive gusto and then concluded unexpectedly: + +"I do believe, sir, that his brain began to go a year or more before he +died." + +A wonderful recovery. I could hardly spare it as much admiration as it +deserved, for I had to give all my mind to the steering. + +In comparison with the hopeless languour of the preceding days this was +dizzy speed. Two ridges of foam streamed from the ship's bows; the wind +sang in a strenuous note which under other circumstances would have +expressed to me all the joy of life. Whenever the hauled-up mainsail +started trying to slat and bang itself to pieces in its gear, Mr. Burns +would look at me apprehensively. + +"What would you have me to do, Mr. Burns? We can neither furl it nor set +it. I only wish the old thing would thrash itself to pieces and be done +with it. That beastly racket confuses me." + +Mr. Burns wrung his hands, and cried out suddenly: + +"How will you get the ship into harbour, sir, without men to handle +her?" + +And I couldn't tell him. + +Well--it did get done about forty hours afterward. By the exorcising +virtue of Mr. Burns' awful laugh, the malicious spectre had been laid, +the evil spell broken, the curse removed. We were now in the hands of a +kind and energetic Providence. It was rushing us on. . . . + +I shall never forget the last night, dark, windy, and starry. I steered. +Mr. Burns, after having obtained from me a solemn promise to give him +a kick if anything happened, went frankly to sleep on the deck close +to the binnacle. Convalescents need sleep. Ransome, his back propped +against the mizzen-mast and a blanket over his legs, remained perfectly +still, but I don't suppose he closed his eyes for a moment. That +embodiment of jauntiness, Frenchy, still under the delusion that there +was a "jump" left in him, had insisted on joining us; but mindful of +discipline, had laid himself down as far on the forepart of the poop as +he could get, alongside the bucket-rack. + +And I steered, too tired for anxiety, too tired for connected thought. +I had moments of grim exultation and then my heart would sink awfully at +the thought of that forecastle at the other end of the dark deck, full +of fever-stricken men--some of them dying. By my fault. But never mind. +Remorse must wait. I had to steer. + +In the small hours the breeze weakened, then failed altogether. About +five it returned, gentle enough, enabling us to head for the roadstead. +Daybreak found Mr. Burns sitting wedged up with coils of rope on the +stern-grating, and from the depths of his overcoat steering the ship +with very white bony hands; while Ransome and I rushed along the decks +letting go all the sheets and halliards by the run. We dashed next up on +to the forecastle head. The perspiration of labour and sheer nervousness +simply poured off our heads as we toiled to get the anchors cock-billed. +I dared not look at Ransome as we worked side by side. We exchanged curt +words; I could hear him panting close to me and I avoided turning my +eyes his way for fear of seeing him fall down and expire in the act of +putting forth his strength--for what? Indeed for some distinct ideal. + +The consummate seaman in him was aroused. He needed no directions. He +knew what to do. Every effort, every movement was an act of consistent +heroism. It was not for me to look at a man thus inspired. + +At last all was ready and I heard him say: + +"Hadn't I better go down and open the compressors now, sir?" + +"Yes. Do," I said. + +And even then I did not glance his way. After a time his voice came up +from the main deck. + +"When you like, sir. All clear on the windlass here." + +I made a sign to Mr. Burns to put the helm down and let both anchors go +one after another, leaving the ship to take as much cable as she wanted. +She took the best part of them both before she brought up. The loose +sails coming aback ceased their maddening racket above my head. A +perfect stillness reigned in the ship. And while I stood forward feeling +a little giddy in that sudden peace, I caught faintly a moan or two and +the incoherent mutterings of the sick in the forecastle. + +As we had a signal for medical assistance flying on the mizzen it is a +fact that before the ship was fairly at rest three steam launches from +various men-of-war were alongside; and at least five naval surgeons had +clambered on board. They stood in a knot gazing up and down the empty +main deck, then looked aloft--where not a man could be seen, either. + +I went toward them--a solitary figure, in a blue and gray striped +sleeping suit and a pipe-clayed cork helmet on its head. Their disgust +was extreme. They had expected surgical cases. Each one had brought +his carving tools with him. But they soon got over their little +disappointment. In less than five minutes one of the steam launches was +rushing shoreward to order a big boat and some hospital people for the +removal of the crew. The big steam pinnace went off to her ship to bring +over a few bluejackets to furl my sails for me. + +One of the surgeons had remained on board. He came out of the forecastle +looking impenetrable, and noticed my inquiring gaze. + +"There's nobody dead in there, if that's what you want to know," he said +deliberately. Then added in a tone of wonder: "The whole crew!" + +"And very bad?" + +"And very bad," he repeated. His eyes were roaming all over the ship. +"Heavens! What's that?" + +"That," I said, glancing aft, "is Mr. Burns, my chief officer." + +Mr. Burns with his moribund head nodding on the stalk of his lean neck +was a sight for any one to exclaim at. The surgeon asked: + +"Is he going to the hospital, too?" + +"Oh, no," I said jocosely. "Mr. Burns can't go on shore till the +mainmast goes. I am very proud of him. He's my only convalescent." + +"You look--" began the doctor staring at me. But I interrupted him +angrily: + +"I am not ill." + +"No. . . . You look queer." + +"Well, you see, I have been seventeen days on deck." + +"Seventeen! . . . But you must have slept." + +"I suppose I must have. I don't know. But I'm certain that I didn't +sleep for the last forty hours." + +"Phew! . . . You will be going ashore presently I suppose?" + +"As soon as ever I can. There's no end of business waiting for me +there." + +The surgeon released my hand, which he had taken while we talked, pulled +out his pocket-book, wrote in it rapidly, tore out the page and offered +it to me. + +"I strongly advise you to get this prescription made up for yourself +ashore. Unless I am much mistaken you will need it this evening." + +"What is it, then?" I asked with suspicion. + +"Sleeping draught," answered the surgeon curtly; and moving with an air +of interest toward Mr. Burns he engaged him in conversation. + +As I went below to dress to go ashore, Ransome followed me. He begged my +pardon; he wished, too, to be sent ashore and paid off. + +I looked at him in surprise. He was waiting for my answer with an air of +anxiety. + +"You don't mean to leave the ship!" I cried out. + +"I do really, sir. I want to go and be quiet somewhere. Anywhere. The +hospital will do." + +"But, Ransome," I said. "I hate the idea of parting with you." + +"I must go," he broke in. "I have a right!" . . . He gasped and a look +of almost savage determination passed over his face. For an instant he +was another being. And I saw under the worth and the comeliness of +the man the humble reality of things. Life was a boon to him--this +precarious hard life, and he was thoroughly alarmed about himself. + +"Of course I shall pay you off if you wish it," I hastened to say. "Only +I must ask you to remain on board till this afternoon. I can't leave Mr. +Burns absolutely by himself in the ship for hours." + +He softened at once and assured me with a smile and in his natural +pleasant voice that he understood that very well. + +When I returned on deck everything was ready for the removal of the +men. It was the last ordeal of that episode which had been maturing and +tempering my character--though I did not know it. + +It was awful. They passed under my eyes one after another--each of them +an embodied reproach of the bitterest kind, till I felt a sort of revolt +wake up in me. Poor Frenchy had gone suddenly under. He was carried +past me insensible, his comic face horribly flushed and as if swollen, +breathing stertorously. He looked more like Mr. Punch than ever; a +disgracefully intoxicated Mr. Punch. + +The austere Gambril, on the contrary, had improved temporarily. +He insisted on walking on his own feet to the rail--of course with +assistance on each side of him. But he gave way to a sudden panic at the +moment of being swung over the side and began to wail pitifully: + +"Don't let them drop me, sir. Don't let them drop me, sir!" While I kept +on shouting to him in most soothing accents: "All right, Gambril. They +won't! They won't!" + +It was no doubt very ridiculous. The bluejackets on our deck were +grinning quietly, while even Ransome himself (much to the fore in +lending a hand) had to enlarge his wistful smile for a fleeting moment. + +I left for the shore in the steam pinnace, and on looking back beheld +Mr. Burns actually standing up by the taffrail, still in his enormous +woolly overcoat. The bright sunlight brought out his weirdness +amazingly. He looked like a frightful and elaborate scarecrow set up on +the poop of a death-stricken ship, set up to keep the seabirds from the +corpses. + +Our story had got about already in town and everybody on shore was most +kind. The Marine Office let me off the port dues, and as there happened +to be a shipwrecked crew staying in the Home I had no difficulty in +obtaining as many men as I wanted. But when I inquired if I could +see Captain Ellis for a moment I was told in accents of pity for my +ignorance that our deputy-Neptune had retired and gone home on a +pension about three weeks after I left the port. So I suppose that my +appointment was the last act, outside the daily routine, of his official +life. + +It is strange how on coming ashore I was struck by the springy step, +the lively eyes, the strong vitality of every one I met. It impressed me +enormously. And amongst those I met there was Captain Giles, of course. +It would have been very extraordinary if I had not met him. A prolonged +stroll in the business part of the town was the regular employment of +all his mornings when he was ashore. + +I caught the glitter of the gold watch-chain across his chest ever so +far away. He radiated benevolence. + +"What is it I hear?" he queried with a "kind uncle" smile, after shaking +hands. "Twenty-one days from Bangkok?" + +"Is this all you've heard?" I said. "You must come to tiffin with me. I +want you to know exactly what you have let me in for." + +He hesitated for almost a minute. + +"Well--I will," he said condescendingly at last. + +We turned into the hotel. I found to my surprise that I could eat quite +a lot. Then over the cleared table-cloth I unfolded to Captain Giles +the history of these twenty days in all its professional and emotional +aspects, while he smoked patiently the big cigar I had given him. + +Then he observed sagely: + +"You must feel jolly well tired by this time." + +"No," I said. "Not tired. But I'll tell you, Captain Giles, how I feel. +I feel old. And I must be. All of you on shore look to me just a lot of +skittish youngsters that have never known a care in the world." + +He didn't smile. He looked insufferably exemplary. He declared: + +"That will pass. But you do look older--it's a fact." + +"Aha!" I said. + +"No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in +life, good or bad." + +"Live at half-speed," I murmured perversely. "Not everybody can do +that." + +"You'll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that +rate," he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. "And there's +another thing: a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, +to his conscience and all that sort of thing. Why--what else would you +have to fight against." + +I kept silent. I don't know what he saw in my face but he asked +abruptly: + +"Why--you aren't faint-hearted?" + +"God only knows, Captain Giles," was my sincere answer. + +"That's all right," he said calmly. "You will learn soon how not to be +faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything--and that's what so +many of them youngsters don't understand." + +"Well, I am no longer a youngster." + +"No," he conceded. "Are you leaving soon?" + +"I am going on board directly," I said. "I shall pick up one of my +anchors and heave in to half-cable on the other directly my new crew +comes on board and I shall be off at daylight to-morrow!" + +"You will," grunted Captain Giles approvingly, "that's the way. You'll +do." + +"What did you think? That I would want to take a week ashore for a +rest?" I said, irritated by his tone. "There's no rest for me till she's +out in the Indian Ocean and not much of it even then." + +He puffed at his cigar moodily, as if transformed. + +"Yes. That's what it amounts to," he said in a musing tone. It was as +if a ponderous curtain had rolled up disclosing an unexpected Captain +Giles. But it was only for a moment, just the time to let him add, +"Precious little rest in life for anybody. Better not think of it." + +We rose, left the hotel, and parted from each other in the street with +a warm handshake, just as he began to interest me for the first time in +our intercourse. + +The first thing I saw when I got back to the ship was Ransome on the +quarter-deck sitting quietly on his neatly lashed sea-chest. + +I beckoned him to follow me into the saloon where I sat down to write a +letter of recommendation for him to a man I knew on shore. + +When finished I pushed it across the table. "It may be of some good to +you when you leave the hospital." + +He took it, put it in his pocket. His eyes were looking away from +me--nowhere. His face was anxiously set. + +"How are you feeling now?" I asked. + +"I don't feel bad now, sir," he answered stiffly. "But I am afraid of +its coming on. . . ." The wistful smile came back on his lips for a +moment. "I--I am in a blue funk about my heart, sir." + +I approached him with extended hand. His eyes not looking at me had a +strained expression. He was like a man listening for a warning call. + +"Won't you shake hands, Ransome?" I said gently. + +He exclaimed, flushed up dusky red, gave my hand a hard wrench--and +next moment, left alone in the cabin, I listened to him going up the +companion stairs cautiously, step by step, in mortal fear of starting +into sudden anger our common enemy it was his hard fate to carry +consciously within his faithful breast. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow Line, by Joseph Conrad + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW LINE *** + +***** This file should be named 451.txt or 451.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/451/ + +Produced by Judith Boss and 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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