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diff --git a/old/20060109-493.txt b/old/20060109-493.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d37a9df..0000000 --- a/old/20060109-493.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3243 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Falk, 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: Falk - -Author: Joseph Conrad - -Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #493] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger - - - - - -FALK - -A REMINISCENCE - - -By Joseph Conrad - - - -Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in -a small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and less -than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our coasting -men give the grandiose name of "German Ocean." And through the wide -windows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower -Hope Reach. But the dinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the -eyes. - -That flavour of salt-water which for so many of us had been the very -water of life permeated our talk. He who hath known the bitterness of -the Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But one or two -of us, pampered by the life of the land, complained of hunger. It was -impossible to swallow any of that stuff. And indeed there was a strange -mustiness in everything. The wooden dining-room stuck out over the mud -of the shore like a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed -rotten; a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically to and fro before -an antediluvian and worm-eaten sideboard; the chipped plates might have -been disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and -the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to -one's mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first -rudiments of cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh -at a fire of sticks in the company of other good fellows; then, gorged -and happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to tell his artless tales -of experience--the tales of hunger and hunt--and of women, perhaps! - -But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the waiter. So, -comparatively empty, but upon the whole fairly happy, we sat back and -told our artless tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The -sea never changes, and its works for all the talk of men are wrapped in -mystery. But we agreed that the times were changed. And we talked of old -ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings; and of a man who -brought his ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River Platte -under a jury rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of -heroism--or at least of what the newspapers would have called heroism -at sea--a manifestation of virtues quite different from the heroism of -primitive times. And now and then falling silent all together we gazed -at the sights of the river. - -A P. & O. boat passed bound down. "One gets jolly good dinners on board -these ships," remarked one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read -out the name on her bows: Arcadia. "What a beautiful model of a ship!" -murmured some of us. She was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the -flag they hauled down aboard while we were looking showed her to be a -Norwegian. She made an awful lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown -away, a high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and towed by a -paddle-tug, appeared in front of the windows. All her hands were forward -busy setting up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood, quite alone -with the man at the wheel, paced the length of the poop back and forth, -with the grey wool of some knitting work in her hands. - -"German I should think," muttered one. "The skipper has his wife on -board," remarked another; and the light of the crimson sunset all -ablaze behind the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light upon the -barque's spars, faded away from the Hope Reach. - -Then one of us, who had not spoken before, a man of over fifty, that had -commanded ships for a quarter of a century, looking after the barque now -gliding far away, all black on the lustre of the river, said: - -This reminds me of an absurd episode in my life, now many years ago, -when I got first the command of an iron barque, loading then in a -certain Eastern seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern kingdom, -lying up a river as might be London lies up this old Thames of ours. -No more need be said of the place; for this sort of thing might have -happened anywhere where there are ships, skippers, tugboats, and orphan -nieces of indescribable splendour. And the absurdity of the episode -concerns only me, my enemy Falk, and my friend Hermann. - -There seemed to be something like peculiar emphasis on the words "My -friend Hermann," which caused one of us (for we had just been speaking -of heroism at sea) to say idly and nonchalantly: - -"And was this Hermann a hero?" - -Not at all, said our grizzled friend. No hero at all. He was a -Schiff-fuhrer: Ship-conductor. That's how they call a Master Mariner -in Germany. I prefer our way. The alliteration is good, and there is -something in the nomenclature that gives to us as a body the sense -of corporate existence: Apprentice, Mate, Master, in the ancient and -honourable craft of the sea. As to my friend Hermann, he might have -been a consummate master of the honourable craft, but he was called -officially Schiff-fuhrer, and had the simple, heavy appearance of a -well-to-do farmer, combined with the good-natured shrewdness of a small -shopkeeper. With his shaven chin, round limbs, and heavy eyelids he did -not look like a toiler, and even less like an adventurer of the sea. -Still, he toiled upon the seas, in his own way, much as a shopkeeper -works behind his counter. And his ship was the means by which he -maintained his growing family. - -She was a heavy, strong, blunt-bowed affair, awakening the ideas of -primitive solidity, like the wooden plough of our forefathers. And there -were, about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely nature. The -extraordinary timber projections which I have seen in no other vessel -made her square stern resemble the tail end of a miller's waggon. But -the four stern ports of her cabin, glazed with six little greenish panes -each, and framed in wooden sashes painted brown, might have been the -windows of a cottage in the country. The tiny white curtains and the -greenery of flower pots behind the glass completed the resemblance. On -one or two occasions when passing under stern I had detected from my -boat a round arm in the act of tilting a watering pot, and the bowed -sleek head of a maiden whom I shall always call Hermann's niece, because -as a matter of fact I've never heard her name, for all my intimacy with -the family. - -This, however, sprang up later on. Meantime in common with the rest -of the shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to -Hermann's notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in -wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and -pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or -a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a -fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the -poop entirely. The afternoon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby -activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions -of drowned, mutilated and flattened humanity. Trunks without heads waved -at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantastically with -collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments that, taking -the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, became for -a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible -bodies. On these days you could make out that ship at a great distance -by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft her mizzen mast. - -She had her berth just ahead of me, and her name was Diana,--Diana not -of Ephesus but of Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a foot -long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat like the lettering of a -shop-sign) under the cottage windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name -struck one as an impertinence towards the memory of the most charming -of goddesses; for, apart from the fact that the old craft was physically -incapable of engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of four -children belonging to her. They peeped over the rail at passing boats -and occasionally dropped various objects into them. Thus, sometime -before I knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat a horrid -rag-doll belonging to Hermann's eldest daughter. However, these -youngsters were upon the whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round -eyes, round little knobby noses, and they resembled their father a good -deal. - -This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old ship, and seemed to know -nothing of the wicked sea, as there are on shore households that know -nothing of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she suggested were -unexceptionable and mainly of a domestic order. She was a home. All -these dear children had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck. In -such thoughts there is something pretty, even touching. Their teeth, I -should judge, they had cut on the ends of her running gear. I have -many times observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) engaged in gnawing the -whipping of the fore-royal brace. Nicholas' favourite place of residence -was under the main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose he would -crawl off there, and the first seaman who came along would bring him, -carefully held aloft in tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy -there must have been a standing order to that effect. In the course of -these transportations the baby, who was the only peppery person in the -ship, tried to smite these stalwart young German sailors on the face. - -Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife, wore on board baggy blue -dresses with white dots. When, as happened once or twice I caught her at -an elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white collars, baby's socks, -and Hermann's summer neckties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and -raising her wet hands greet me from afar with many friendly nods. Her -sleeves would be rolled up to the elbows, and the gold hoop of her -wedding ring glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was pleasant, she -had a serene brow, smooth bands of very fair hair, and a good-humoured -expression of the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talkative. When -this simple matron smiled, youthful dimples broke out on her fresh broad -cheeks. Hermann's niece on the other hand, an orphan and very silent, I -never saw attempt a smile. This, however, was not gloom on her part but -the restraint of youthful gravity. - -They had carried her about with them for the last three years, to help -with the children and be company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann mentioned -once to me. It had been very necessary while they were all little, he -had added in a vexed manner. It was her arm and her sleek head that -I had glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows of the cabin, -hovering over the pots of fuchsias and mignonette; but the first time I -beheld her full length I surrendered to her proportions. They fix her -in my mind, as great beauty, great intelligence, quickness of wit -or kindness of heart might have made some her other woman equally -memorable. - -With her it was form and size. It was her physical personality that had -this imposing charm. She might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to -an exceptional degree. I don't know, and this is not to the point. All -I know is that she was built on a magnificent scale. Built is the only -word. She was constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal -lavishness. It staggered you to see this reckless expenditure of -material upon a chit of a girl. She was youthful and also perfectly -mature, as though she had been some fortunate immortal. She was heavy -too, perhaps, but that's nothing. It only added to that notion of -permanence. She was barely nineteen. But such shoulders! Such round -arms! Such a shadowing forth of mighty limbs when with three long -strides she pounced across the deck upon the overturned Nicholas--it's -perfectly indescribable! She seemed a good, quiet girl, vigilant as -to Lena's needs, Gustav's tumbles, the state of Carl's dear little -nose--conscientious, hardworking, and all that. But what magnificent -hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. It had the sheen -of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress -hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist. -The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it reminded one of a -club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She had a -good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that she appeared to -look at the world with the empty white candour of a statue. You could -not call her good-looking. It was something much more impressive. -The simplicity of her apparel, the opulence of her form, her imposing -stature, and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that seemed to -emanate from her like a perfume exhaled by a flower, made her beautiful -with a beauty of a rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching up -to the clothes-line with both arms raised high above her head, caused -you to fall a musing in a strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs. -Hermann's baggy cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary frills at neck -and bottom, but this girl's print frocks hadn't even a wrinkle; nothing -but a few straight folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these, -when she stood still, had a severe and statuesque quality. She was -inclined naturally to be still whether sitting or standing. However, I -don't mean to say she was statuesque. She was too generously alive; but -she could have stood for an allegoric statue of the Earth. I don't mean -the worn-out earth of our possession, but a young Earth, a virginal -planet undisturbed by the vision of a future teeming with the monstrous -forms of life and death, clamorous with the cruel battles of hunger and -thought. - -The worthy Hermann himself was not very entertaining, though his English -was fairly comprehensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one speech -at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone (and in Platt-Deutsch I -suppose) I could not understand. As to their niece, however satisfactory -to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with a hopeful view as to -the prospects of mankind) she was a modest and silent presence, mostly -engaged in sewing, only now and then, as I observed, falling over that -work into a state of maidenly meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her, -sewing also, with her feet propped on a wooden footstool. On the other -side of the deck Hermann and I would get a couple of chairs out of the -cabin and settle down to a smoking match, accompanied at long intervals -by the pacific exchange of a few words. I came nearly every evening. -Hermann I would find in his shirt sleeves. As soon as he returned from -the shore on board his ship he commenced operations by taking off his -coat; then he put on his head an embroidered round cap with a tassel, -and changed his boots for a pair of cloth slippers. Afterwards he smoked -at the cabin-door, looking at his children with an air of civic virtue, -till they got caught one after another and put to bed in various -staterooms. Lastly, we would drink some beer in the cabin, which -was furnished with a wooden table on cross legs, and with black -straight-backed chairs--more like a farm kitchen than a ship's cuddy. -The sea and all nautical affairs seemed very far removed from the -hospitality of this exemplary family. - -And I liked this because I had a rather worrying time on board my own -ship. I had been appointed ex-officio by the British Consul to take -charge of her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for the -guidance of his successor some suspiciously unreceipted bills, a few -dry-dock estimates hinting at bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for -three years' extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up together in a -dusty old violin-case lined with ruby velvet. I found besides a large -account-book, which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my infinite -consternation to be filled with verses--page after page of rhymed -doggerel of a jovial and improper character, written in the neatest -minute hand I ever did see. In the same fiddle-case a photograph of my -predecessor, taken lately in Saigon, represented in front of a garden -view, and in company of a female in strange draperies, an elderly, -squat, rugged man of stern aspect in a clumsy suit of black broadcloth, -and with the hair brushed forward above the temples in a manner -reminding one of a boar's tusks. Of a fiddle, however, the only trace -on board was the case, its empty husk as it were; but of the two last -freights the ship had indubitably earned of late, there were not even -the husks left. It was impossible to say where all that money had gone -to. It wasn't on board. It had not been remitted home; for a letter -from the owners, preserved in a desk evidently by the merest accident, -complained mildly enough that they had not been favoured by a scratch -of the pen for the last eighteen months. There were next to no stores on -board, not an inch of spare rope or a yard of canvas. The ship had been -run bare, and I foresaw no end of difficulties before I could get her -ready for sea. - -As I was young then--not thirty yet--I took myself and my troubles very -seriously. The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the captain's -funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming. But the fact is the -fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, -if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on board. As to -the second mate, all I can say his name was Tottersen, or something like -that. His practice was to wear on his head, in that tropical climate, a -mangy fur cap. He was, without exception, the stupidest man I had ever -seen on board ship. And he looked it too. He looked so confoundedly -stupid that it was a matter of surprise for me when he answered to his -name. - -I drew no great comfort from their company, to say the least of it; -while the prospect of making a long sea passage with those two fellows -was depressing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not be of a -gay complexion. The crew was sickly, the cargo was coming very slow; I -foresaw I would have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted -whether they would advance me enough money for the ship's expenses. -Their attitude towards me was unfriendly. Altogether I was not getting -on. I would discover at odd times (generally about midnight) that I -was totally inexperienced, greatly ignorant of business, and hopelessly -unfit for any sort of command; and when the steward had to be taken to -the hospital ill with choleraic symptoms I felt bereaved of the only -decent person at the after end of the ship. He was fully expected to -recover, but in the meantime had to be replaced by some sort of servant. -And on the recommendation of a certain Schomberg, the proprietor of the -smaller of the two hotels in the place, I engaged a Chinaman. Schomberg, -a brawny, hairy Alsatian, and an awful gossip, assured me that it was -all right. "First-class boy that. Came in the suite of his Excellency -Tseng the Commissioner--you know. His Excellency Tseng lodged with me -here for three weeks." - -He mouthed the Chinese Excellency at me with great unction, though -the specimen of the "suite" did not seem very promising. At the time, -however, I did not know what an untrustworthy humbug Schomberg was. The -"boy" might have been forty or a hundred and forty for all you could -tell--one of those Chinamen of the death's-head type of face and -completely inscrutable. Before the end of the third day he had revealed -himself as a confirmed opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief, -and a first-class sprinter. When he departed at the top of his speed -with thirty-two golden sovereigns of my own hard-earned savings it was -the last straw. I had reserved that money in case my difficulties came -to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor and naked as a fakir. I -clung to my ship, for all the bother she caused me, but what I could not -bear were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where the atmosphere, -made smelly by a leaky lamp, was agitated by the snoring of the mate. -That fellow shut himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at eight, and -made gross and revolting noises like a water-logged trump. It was odious -not to be able to worry oneself in comfort on board one's own ship. -Everything in this world, I reflected, even the command of a nice little -barque, may be made a delusion and a snare for the unwary spirit of -pride in man. - -From such reflections I was glad to make any escape on board that Bremen -Diana. There apparently no whisper of the world's iniquities had ever -penetrated. And yet she lived upon the wide sea: and the sea tragic -and comic, the sea with its horrors and its peculiar scandals, the sea -peopled by men and ruled by iron necessity is indubitably a part of the -world. But that patriarchal old tub, like some saintly retreat, echoed -nothing of it. She was world proof. Her venerable innocence apparently -had put a restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And yet I have -known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An -elemental force is ruthlessly frank. It may, of course, have been -Hermann's skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the allied -oceans had refrained from smashing these high bulwarks, unshipping -the lumpy rudder, frightening the children, and generally opening this -family's eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reticence. The -ruthless disclosure was in the end left for a man to make; a man strong -and elemental enough and driven to unveil some secrets of the sea by the -power of a simple and elemental desire. - -This, however, occurred much later, and meantime I took sanctuary in -that serene old ship early every evening. The only person on board that -seemed to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due course I perceived -that the health of the rag-doll was more than delicate. This object led -a sort of "in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed against the -starboard mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy -and care by all the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and -moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby--Nicholas--looked on with a -cold, ruffianly leer, as if he had belonged to another tribe altogether. -Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of them were in deadly -earnest. It was wonderful the way these children would work up their -compassion for that bedraggled thing I wouldn't have touched with a pair -of tongs. I suppose they were exercising and developing their racial -sentimentalism by the means of that dummy. I was only surprised that -Mrs. Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that bundle of rags to that -extent, it was so disreputably and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann -would raise her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to look on with -amused sympathy, and did not seen to see it, somehow, that this -object of affection was a disgrace to the ship's purity. Purity, not -cleanliness, is the word. It was pushed so far that I seemed to detect -in this too a sentimental excess, as if dirt had been removed in -very love. It is impossible to give you an idea of such a meticulous -neatness. It was as if every morning that ship had been arduously -explored with--with toothbrushes. Her very bowsprit three times a week -had its toilette made with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. -Arrayed--I _must_ say arrayed--arrayed artlessly in dazzling white paint -as to wood and dark green as to ironwork the simple-minded distribution -of these colours evoked the images of simple-minded peace, of arcadian -felicity; and the childish comedy of disease and sorrow struck me -sometimes as an abominably real blot upon that ideal state. - -I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought a little mild excitement -into it. Our intimacy arose from the pursuit of that thief. It was in -the evening, and Hermann, who, contrary to his habits, had stayed on -shore late that day, was extricating himself backwards out of a little -gharry on the river bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed. -Realising the situation as though he had eyes in his shoulder-blades, he -joined us with a leap and took the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like -a rapid shadow on the dust of an extremely oriental road. I followed. A -long way in the rear my mate whooped like a savage. A young moon threw -a bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste ground: the -architectural mass of a Buddhist temple far away projected itself -in dead black on the sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my -disappointment I had to admire Hermann's presence of mind. The velocity -that stodgy man developed in the interests of a complete stranger earned -my warm gratitude--there was something truly cordial in his exertions. - -He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and would hardly listen to -my thanks. He said it was "nothings," and invited me on the spot to -come on board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him. We poked -sceptically for a while amongst the bushes, peered without conviction -into a ditch or two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glimmered -feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged back, drooping under the -thin sickle of the moon, and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! -Zwei und dreissig Pfund!" He was impressed by the figure of my loss. For -a long time we had ceased to hear the mate's whoops and yells. - -Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troubles," and as we went on -remarked that he would never have known anything of mine hadn't he by an -extraordinary chance been detained on shore by Captain Falk. He didn't -like to stay late ashore--he added with a sigh. The something doleful in -his tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of course. - -On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann's fine eyes expressed much interest and -commiseration. We had found the two women sewing face to face under the -open skylight in the strong glare of the lamp. Hermann walked in first, -starting in the very doorway to pull off his coat, and encouraging -me with loud, hospitable ejaculations: "Come in! This way! Come in, -captain!" At once, coat in hand, he began to tell his wife all about -it. Mrs. Hermann put the palms of her plump hands together; I smiled -and bowed with a heavy heart: the niece got up from her sewing to -bring Hermann's slippers and his embroidered calotte, which he assumed -pontifically, talking (about me) all the time. Billows of white stuff -lay between the chairs on the cabin floor; I caught the words "Zwei und -dreissig Pfund" repeated several times, and presently came the beer, -which seemed delicious to my throat, parched with running and the -emotions of the chase. - -I didn't get away till well past midnight, long after the women had -retired. Hermann had been trading in the East for three years or more, -carrying freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship was well known in -all the ports from Vladivostok to Singapore. She was his own property. -The profits had been moderate, but the trade answered well enough while -the children were small yet. In another year or so he hoped he would -be able to sell the old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He -intended to return home, to Bremen, by mail boat, second class, with -Mrs. Hermann and the children. He told me all this stolidly, with slow -puffs at his pipe. I was sorry when knocking the ashes out he began -to rub his eyes. I would have sat with him till morning. What had I to -hurry on board my own ship for? To face the broken rifled drawer in my -state-room. Ugh! The very thought made me feel unwell. - -I became their daily guest, as you know. I think that Mrs. Hermann from -the first looked upon me as a romantic person. I did not, of course, -tear my hair _coram populo_ over my loss, and she took it for lordly -indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did tell them some of my -adventures--such as they were--and they marvelled greatly at the extent -of my experience. Hermann would translate what he thought the most -striking passages. Getting up on his legs, and as if delivering a -lecture on a phenomenon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the two -women, who would let their sewing sink slowly on their laps. Meantime -I sat before a glass of Hermann's beer, trying to look modest. Mrs. -Hermann would glance at me quickly, emit slight "Ach's!" The girl never -made a sound. Never. But she too would sometimes raise her pale eyes -to look at me in her unseeing gentle way. Her glance was by no means -stupid; it beamed out soft and diffuse as the moon beams upon a -landscape--quite differently from the scrutinising inspection of the -stars. You were drowned in it, and imagined yourself to appear blurred. -And yet this same glance when turned upon Christian Falk must have been -as efficient as the searchlight of a battle-ship. - -Falk was the other assiduous visitor on board, but from his behaviour -he might have been coming to see the quarter-deck capstan. He certainly -used to stare at it a good deal when keeping us company outside the -cabin door, with one muscular arm thrown over the back of the chair, and -his big shapely legs, in very tight white trousers, extended far out and -ending in a pair of black shoes as roomy as punts. On arrival he would -shake Hermann's hand with a mutter, bow to the women, and take up his -careless and misanthropic attitude by our side. He departed abruptly, -with a jump, going through the performance of grunts, handshakes, bow, -as if in a panic. Sometimes, with a sort of discreet and convulsive -effort, he approached the women and exchanged a few low words with them, -half a dozen at most. On these occasions Hermann's usual stare became -positively glassy and Mrs. Hermann's kind countenance would colour up. -The girl herself never turned a hair. - -Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I can't tell now. At all events -he was a Scandinavian of some sort, and a bloated monopolist to boot. -It is possible he was unacquainted with the word, but he had a clear -perception of the thing itself. His tariff of charges for towing ships -in and out was the most brutally inconsiderate document of the sort I -had ever seen. He was the commander and owner of the only tug-boat on -the river, a very trim white craft of 150 tons or more, as elegantly -neat as a yacht, with a round wheel-house rising like a glazed turret -high above her sharp bows, and with one slender varnished pole mast -forward. I daresay there are yet a few shipmasters afloat who remember -Falk and his tug very well. He extracted his pound and a half of -flesh from each of us merchant-skippers with an inflexible sort of -indifference which made him detested and even feared. Schomberg used to -remark: "I won't talk about the fellow. I don't think he has six drinks -from year's end to year's end in my place. But my advice is, gentlemen, -don't you have anything to do with him, if you can help it." - -This advice, apart from unavoidable business relations, was easy to -follow because Falk intruded upon no one. It seems absurd to compare a -tugboat skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me somehow of an engraving -in a little book I had as a boy, which represented centaurs at a stream, -and there was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow and arrows -in hand, with regular severe features and an immense curled wavy beard, -flowing down his breast. Falk's face reminded me of that centaur. -Besides, he was a composite creature. Not a man-horse, it is true, but -a man-boat. He lived on board his tug, which was always dashing up and -down the river from early morn till dewy eve. - -In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick out far away down -the reach his beard borne high up on the white structure, foaming up -stream to anchor for the night. There was the white-clad man's body, and -the rich brown patch of the hair, and nothing below the waist but the -'thwart-ship white lines of the bridge-screens, that lead the eye to the -sharp white lines of the bows cleaving the muddy water of the river. - -Separated from his boat to me at least he seemed incomplete. The tug -herself without his head and torso on the bridge looked mutilated as it -were. But he left her very seldom. All the time I remained in harbour -I saw him only twice on shore. On the first occasion it was at my -charterers, where he came in misanthropically to get paid for towing out -a French barque the day before. The second time I could hardly believe -my eyes, for I beheld him reclining under his beard in a cane-bottomed -chair in the billiard-room of Schomberg's hotel. - -It was very funny to see Schomberg ignoring him pointedly. The -artificiality of it contrasted strongly with Falk's natural unconcern. -The big Alsatian talked loudly with his other customers, going from one -little table to the other, and passing Falk's place of repose with his -eyes fixed straight ahead. Falk sat there with an untouched glass at his -elbow. He must have known by sight and name every white man in the room, -but he never addressed a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence by -a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawling there in the chair, -he would, now and again, draw the palms of both his hands down his face, -giving at the same time a slight, almost imperceptible, shudder. - -It was a habit he had, and of course I was perfectly familiar with it, -since you could not remain an hour in his company without being made to -wonder at such a movement breaking some long period of stillness. It was -a passionate and inexplicable gesture. He used to make it at all sorts -of times; as likely as not after he had been listening to little Lena's -chatter about the suffering doll, for instance. The Hermann children -always besieged him about his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he -shrank from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a great affection -for the whole family. For Hermann himself especially. He sought his -company. In this case, for instance, he must have been waiting for him, -because as soon as he appeared Falk rose hastily, and they went out -together. Then Schomberg expounded in my hearing to three or four people -his theory that Falk was after Captain Hermann's niece, and asserted -confidently that nothing would come of it. It was the same last year -when Captain Hermann was loading here, he said. - -Naturally, I did not believe Schomberg, but I own that for a time I -observed closely what went on. All I discovered was some impatience on -Hermann's part. At the sight of Falk, stepping over the gangway, the -excellent man would begin to mumble and chew between his teeth something -that sounded like German swear-words. However, as I've said, I'm not -familiar with the language, and Hermann's soft, round-eyed countenance -remained unchanged. Staring stolidly ahead he greeted him with, "Wie -gehts," or in English, "How are you?" with a throaty enunciation. The -girl would look up for an instant and move her lips slightly: Mrs. -Hermann let her hands rest on her lap to talk volubly to him for a -minute or so in her pleasant voice before she went on with her sewing -again. Falk would throw himself into a chair, stretch his big legs, as -like as not draw his hands down his face passionately. As to myself, he -was not pointedly impertinent: it was rather as though he could not be -bothered with such trifles as my existence; and the truth is that being -a monopolist he was under no necessity to be amiable. He was sure to get -his own extortionate terms out of me for towage whether he frowned -or smiled. As a matter of fact, he did neither: but before many days -elapsed he managed to astonish me not a little and to set Schomberg's -tongue clacking more than ever. - -It came about in this way. There was a shallow bar at the mouth of the -river which ought to have been kept down, but the authorities of the -State were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist Pagoda just -then, and I suppose had no money to spare for dredging operations. I -don't know how it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sandbank -was a great nuisance to the shipping. One of its consequences was that -vessels of a certain draught of water, like Hermann's or mine, could not -complete their loading in the river. After taking in as much as possible -of their cargo, they had to go outside to fill up. The whole procedure -was an unmitigated bore. When you thought you had as much on board as -your ship could carry safely over the bar, you went and gave notice to -your agents. They, in their turn, notified Falk that so-and-so was ready -to go out. Then Falk (ostensibly when it fitted in with his other work, -but, if the truth were known, simply when his arbitrary spirit moved -him), after ascertaining carefully in the office that there was enough -money to meet his bill, would come along unsympathetically, glaring -at you with his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you out -dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the decks, with unfeeling -haste, as if to execution. And he would force you too to take the end of -his own wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course an extra -charge. To your shouted remonstrances against that extortion this -towering trunk with one hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its -bearded head above the splash, the racket, and the clouds of smoke -in which the tug, backing and filling in the smother of churning -paddle-wheels behaved like a ferocious and impatient creature. He had -her manned by the cheekiest gang of lascars I ever did see, whom he -allowed to bawl at you insolently, and, once fast, he plucked you out -of your berth as if he did not care what he smashed. Eighteen miles down -the river you had to go behind him, and then three more along the -coast to where a group of uninhabited rocky islets enclosed a sheltered -anchorage. There you would have to lie at single anchor with your naked -spars showing to seaward over these barren fragments of land scattered -upon a very intensely blue sea. There was nothing to look at besides but -a bare coast, the muddy edge of the brown plain with the sinuosities -of the river you had left, traced in dull green, and the Great Pagoda -uprising lonely and massive with shining curves and pinnacles like the -gorgeous and stony efflorescence of tropical rocks. You had nothing to -do but to wait fretfully for the balance of your cargo, which was sent -out of the river with the greatest irregularity. And it was open to -you to console yourself with the thought that, after all, this stage -of bother meant that your departure from these shores was indeed -approaching at last. - -We both had to go through that stage, Hermann and I, and there was a -sort of tacit emulation between the ships as to which should be ready -first. We kept on neck and neck almost to the finish, when I won -the race by going personally to give notice in the forenoon; whereas -Hermann, who was very slow in making up his mind to go ashore, did not -get to the agents' office till late in the day. They told him there that -my ship was first on turn for next morning, and I believe he told them -he was in no hurry. It suited him better to go the day after. - -That evening, on board the Diana, he sat with his plump knees well -apart, staring and puffing at the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. -Presently he spoke with some impatience to his niece about putting the -children to bed. Mrs. Hermann, who was talking to Falk, stopped short -and looked at her husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and -drove the children before her into the cabin. In a little while Mrs. -Hermann had to leave us to quell what, from the sounds inside, must have -been a dangerous mutiny. At this Hermann grumbled to himself. For half -an hour longer Falk left alone with us fidgeted on his chair, sighed -lightly, then at last, after drawing his hands down his face, got up, -and as if renouncing the hope of making himself understood (he hadn't -opened his mouth once) he said in English: "Well. . . . Good night, -Captain Hermann." He stopped for a moment before my chair and looked -down fixedly; I may even say he glared: and he went so far as to make a -deep noise in his throat. There was in all this something so marked -that for the first time in our limited intercourse of nods and grunts he -excited in me something like interest. But next moment he disappointed -me--for he strode away hastily without a nod even. - -His manner was usually odd it is true, and I certainly did not pay much -attention to it; but that sort of obscure intention, which seemed to -lurk in his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had never before -come so near the surface. He had distinctly aroused my expectations. I -would have been unable to say what it was I expected, but at all events -I did not expect the absurd developments he sprung upon me no later than -the break of the very next day. - -I remember only that there was, on that evening, enough point in his -behaviour to make me, after he had fled, wonder audibly what he might -mean. To this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and settling -himself viciously away from me in his chair, said: "That fellow don't -know himself what he means." - -There might have been some insight in such a remark. I said nothing, -and, still averted, he added: "When I was here last year he was just the -same." An eruption of tobacco smoke enveloped his head as if his temper -had exploded like gunpowder. - -I had half a mind to ask him point blank whether he, at least, didn't -know why Falk, a notoriously unsociable man, had taken to visiting his -ship with such assiduity. After all, I reflected suddenly, it was a -most remarkable thing. I wonder now what Hermann would have said. As it -turned out he didn't let me ask. Forgetting all about Falk apparently, -he started a monologue on his plans for the future: the selling of the -ship, the going home; and falling into a reflective and calculating -mood he mumbled between regular jets of smoke about the expense. The -necessity of disbursing passage money for all his tribe seemed to -disturb him in a manner that was the more striking because otherwise -he gave no signs of a miserly disposition. And yet he fussed over the -prospect of that voyage home in a mail boat like a sedentary grocer -who has made up his mind to see the world. He was racially thrifty I -suppose, and for him there must have been a great novelty in finding -himself obliged to pay for travelling--for sea travelling which was the -normal state of life for the family--from the very cradle for most of -them. I could see he grudged prospectively every single shilling which -must be spent so absurdly. It was rather funny. He would become doleful -over it, and then again, with a fretful sigh, he would suppose there -was nothing for it now but to take three second-class tickets--and there -were the four children to pay for besides. A lot of money that to spend -at once. A big lot of money. - -I sat with him listening (not for the first time) to these -heart-searchings till I grew thoroughly sleepy, and then I left him and -turned in on board my ship. At daylight I was awakened by a yelping of -shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion in the water, and the -short, bullying blasts of a steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come -for me. - -I began to dress. It was remarkable that the answering noise on board my -ship together with the patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But -I heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to express surprise and -annoyance. Then the voice of my mate reached me howling expostulations -to somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, apparently indignant; -a chorus of something that sounded like abuse replied. Now and then the -steam-whistle screeched. - -Altogether that unnecessary uproar was distracting, but down there in my -cabin I took it calmly. In another moment, I thought, I should be going -down that wretched river, and in another week at the most I should be -totally quit of the odious place and all the odious people in it. - -Greatly cheered by the idea, I seized the hair-brushes and looking at -myself in the glass began to use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the -noise outside, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown open)--I -heard a deep calm voice, not on board my ship, however, hailing -resolutely in English, but with a strong foreign twang, "Go ahead!" - -There may be tides in the affairs of men which taken at the flood . . . -and so on. Personally I am still on the look out for that important -turn. I am, however, afraid that most of us are fated to flounder for -ever in the dead water of a pool whose shores are arid indeed. But -I know that there are often in men's affairs unexpectedly--even -irrationally--illuminating moments when an otherwise insignificant -sound, perhaps only some perfectly commonplace gesture, suffices -to reveal to us all the unreason, all the fatuous unreason, of our -complacency. "Go ahead" are not particularly striking words even when -pronounced with a foreign accent; yet they petrified me in the very -act of smiling at myself in the glass. And then, refusing to believe my -ears, but already boiling with indignation, I ran out of the cabin and -up on deck. - -It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I had no eyes for -anything but the Diana. It was she, then, was being taken away. She was -already out of her berth and shooting athwart the river. "The way this -loonatic plucked that ship out is a caution," said the awed voice of my -mate close to my ear. "Hey! Hallo! Falk! Hermann! What's this infernal -trick?" I yelled in a fury. - -Nobody heard me. Falk certainly could not hear me. His tug was turning -at full speed away under the other bank. The wire hawser between her and -the Diana, stretched as taut as a harp-string, vibrated alarmingly. - -The high black craft careened over to the awful strain. A loud crack -came out of her, followed by the tearing and splintering of wood. -"There!" said the awed voice in my ear. "He's carried away their towing -chock." And then, with enthusiasm, "Oh! Look! Look! sir, Look! at them -Dutchmen skipping out of the way on the forecastle. I hope to goodness -he'll break a few of their shins before he's done with 'em." - -I yelled my vain protests. The rays of the rising sun coursing level -along the plain warmed my back, but I was hot enough with rage. I -could not have believed that a simple towing operation could suggest so -plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk was simply running off with -the Diana. - -The white tug careered out into the middle of the river. The red floats -of her paddle-wheels revolving with mad rapidity tore up the whole reach -into foam. The Diana in mid-stream waltzed round with as much grace -as an old barn, and flew after her ravisher. Through the ragged fog of -smoke driving headlong upon the water I had a glimpse of Falk's square -motionless shoulders under a white hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his -red face, his yellow staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keeping -a lookout ahead, he was deliberately turning his back on the river to -glare at his tow. The tall heavy craft, never so used before in her -life, seemed to have lost her senses; she took a wild sheer against her -helm, and for a moment came straight at us, menacing and clumsy, like -a runaway mountain. She piled up a streaming, hissing, boiling wave -half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let out one great howl,--and then we -held our breaths. It was a near thing. But Falk had her! He had her in -his clutch. I fancied I could hear the steel hawser ping as it surged -across the Diana's forecastle, with the hands on board of her bolting -away from it in all directions. It was a near thing. Hermann, with his -hair rumpled, in a snuffy flannel shirt and a pair of mustard-coloured -trousers, had rushed to help with the wheel. I saw his terrified round -face; I saw his very teeth uncovered by a sort of ghastly fixed grin; -and in a great leaping tumult of water between the two ships the Diana -whisked past so close that I could have flung a hair-brush at his head, -for, it seems, I had kept them in my hands all the time. Meanwhile -Mrs. Hermann sat placidly on the skylight, with a woollen shawl on -her shoulders. The excellent woman in response to my indignant -gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief, nodding and smiling in the -kindest way imaginable. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping about -the poop in great glee, displaying their gaudy braces; and Lena in a -short scarlet petticoat, with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed -the rag-doll with devotion. The whole family passed before my sight as -if dragged across a scene of unparalleled violence. The last I saw was -Hermann's niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing apart from -the others. Magnificent in her close-fitting print frock she displayed -something so commanding in the manifest perfection of her figure that -the sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The flood of light brought -out the opulence of her form and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying -way. She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only -the hem of her skirt stirred in the draught; the sun rays broke on her -sleek tawny hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whacking her -on the shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike -manner. And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view -retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes were up, and one of the -white calico curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above -the agitated water of the wake. - -To be thus tricked out of one's turn was an unheard of occurrence. In -my agent's office, where I went to complain at once, they protested with -apologies they couldn't understand how the mistake arose: but Schomberg -when I dropped in later to get some tiffin, though surprised to see me, -was perfectly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at the end -of a long narrow table, facing his wife--a scraggy little woman, with -long ringlets and a blue tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked -frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a waggling punkah fanned -twenty cane-bottomed chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three -Chinamen in white jackets loafed with napkins in their hands around that -desolation. Schomberg's pet table d'hote was not much of a success that -day. He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to overflow with -bitterness. - -He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops to be brought back for -me, and turning in his chair: "Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it! -Don't you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn't a man to make -mistakes unless on purpose." His firm conviction was that Falk had been -trying all along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann. "On the -cheap--mind you! It doesn't cost him a cent to put that insult upon you, -and Captain Hermann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time's money! Eh? -You are very friendly with Captain Hermann I believe, but a man is bound -to be pleased at any little advantage he may get. Captain Hermann is a -good business man, and there's no such thing as a friend in business. Is -there?" He leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances as usual. -"But Falk is, and always was, a miserable fellow. I would despise him." - -I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular respect for Falk. - -"I would despise him," he insisted, with an appearance of anxiety which -would have amused me if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent. To a -young man fairly conscientious and as well-meaning as only the young -man can be, the current ill-usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty. -Youth that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, and in -itself, will always doubt whether it have not perchance deserved its -fate. Sombre of mind and without appetite, I struggled with the -chop while Mrs. Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid grin and -Schomberg's talk gathered way like a slide of rubbish. - -"Let me tell you. It's all about that girl. I don't know what Captain -Hermann expects, but if he asked me I could tell him something about -Falk. He's a miserable fellow. That man is a perfect slave. That's what -I call him. A slave. Last year I started this table d'hote, and sent -cards out--you know. You think he had one meal in the house? Give the -thing a trial? Not once. He has got hold now of a Madras cook--a blamed -fraud that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan. He was not fit to -cook for white men. No, not for the white men's dogs either; but, see, -any damned native that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for Mr. -Falk. Rice and a little fish he buys for a few cents from the fishing -boats outside is what he lives on. You would hardly credit it--eh? A -white man, too. . . ." - -He wiped his lips, using the napkin with indignation, and looking at me. -It flashed through my mind in the midst of my depression that if all the -meat in the town was like these table d'hote chops, Falk wasn't so far -wrong. I was on the point of saying this, but Schomberg's stare was -intimidating. "He's a vegetarian, perhaps," I murmured instead. - -"He's a miser. A miserable miser," affirmed the hotel-keeper with great -force. "The meat here is not so good as at home--of course. And dear -too. But look at me. I only charge a dollar for the tiffin, and one -dollar and fifty cents for the dinner. Show me anything cheaper. Why am -I doing it? There's little profit in this game. Falk wouldn't look -at it. I do it for the sake of a lot of young white fellows here that -hadn't a place where they could get a decent meal and eat it decently in -good company. There's first-rate company always at my table." - -The convinced way he surveyed the empty chairs made me feel as if I had -intruded upon a tiffin of ghostly Presences. - -"A white man should eat like a white man, dash it all," he burst out -impetuously. "Ought to eat meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for -my patrons all the year round. Don't I? I am not catering for a dam' lot -of coolies: Have another chop captain. . . . No? You, boy--take away!" - -He threw himself back and waited grimly for the curry. The half-closed -jalousies darkened the room pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: -a swarm of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs. Schomberg's -smile seemed to express the quintessence of all the imbecility that had -ever spoken, had ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo -meat within these bare walls. Schomberg did not open his lips till he -was ready to thrust therein a spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his -eyes ridiculously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only then broke -out afresh. - -"It is the most degrading thing. They take the dish up to the wheelhouse -for him with a cover on it, and he shuts both the doors before he begins -to eat. Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engineer. He can't -do without an engineer--don't you see--and as no respectable man can be -expected to put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen dollars -a month extra mess money. I assure you it is so! You just ask Mr. -Ferdinand da Costa. That's the engineer he has now. You may have seen -him about my place, a delicate dark young man, with very fine eyes and a -little moustache. He arrived here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you -and me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been after him. He -rushes here for a meal every chance he can get, for just please tell me -what satisfaction is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all -alone in his cabin--like a wild beast? That's what Falk expects his -engineers to put up with for fifteen dollars extra. And the rows on -board every time a little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You -wouldn't believe! The other day da Costa got the cook to fry a steak for -him--a turtle steak it was too, not beef at all--and the fat caught -or something. Young da Costa himself was telling me of it here in this -room. 'Mr. Schomberg'--says he-'if I had let a cylinder cover blow off -through the skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn't have been -more savage. He frightened the cook so that he won't put anything on the -fire for me now.' Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to put -yourself in his place, captain: a sensitive, gentlemanly young fellow. -Is he expected to eat his food raw? But that's your Falk all over. Ask -any one you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he has to give -keep on rankling--in there." - -And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat half stunned by his -irrelevant babble. Suddenly he gripped my forearm in an impressive and -cautious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of confidence. - -"It's nothing but enviousness," he said in a lowered tone, which had a -stimulating effect upon my wearied hearing. "I don't suppose there -is one person in this town that he isn't envious of. I tell you he's -dangerous. Even I myself am not safe from him. I know for certain he -tried to poison . . . ." - -"Oh, come now," I cried, revolted. - -"But I know for certain. The people themselves came and told me of it. -He went about saying everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the -cholera. He had been talking against me ever since I opened this hotel. -And he poisoned Captain Hermann's mind too. Last time the Diana was -loading here Captain Hermann used to come in every day for a drink or a -cigar. This time he hasn't been here twice in a week. How do you account -for that?" - -He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me some sort of mumble. - -"He makes ten times the money I do. I've another hotel to fight against, -and there is no other tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He -wouldn't be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that's just his nature. -He can't bear to think I am making a living. I only hope it makes him -properly wretched. He's like that in everything. He would like to keep a -decent table well enough. But no--for the sake of a few cents. Can't do -it. It's too much for him. That's what I call being a slave to it. But -he's mean enough to kick up a row when his nose gets tickled a bit. See -that? That just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can't account for -it any other way. Can you? I have been studying him these three years." - -He was anxious I should assent to his theory. And indeed on thinking it -over it would have been plausible enough if there hadn't been always the -essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schomberg's chatter. However, -I was not disposed to investigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged -just then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being -too much crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let along bothering my -head about Falk's ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study -no clue to his conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me -totally unrestrained by morality or even by the commonest sort of -decency. How insignificant and contemptible I must appear, for the -fellow to dare treat me like this--I reflected suddenly, writhing in -silent agony. And I consigned Falk and all his peculiarities to the -devil with so much mental fervour as to forget Schomberg's existence, -till he grabbed my arm urgently. "Well, you may think and think till -every hair of your head falls off, captain; but you can't explain it in -any other way." - -For the sake of peace and quietness I admitted hurriedly that I -couldn't: persuaded that now he would leave off. But the only result was -to make his moist face shine with the pride of cunning. He removed his -hand for a moment to scare a black mass of flies off the sugar-basin and -caught hold of my arm again. - -"To be sure. And in the same way everybody is aware he would like to get -married. Only he can't. Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years -ago a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home to keep house for -her brother, Fred, who had an engineering shop for small repairs by -the water side. Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bungalow after -dinner, and sitting for hours in the verandah saying nothing. The poor -girl couldn't tell for the life of her what to do with such a man, so -she would keep on playing the piano and singing to him evening after -evening till she was ready to drop. And it wasn't as if she had been -a strong young woman either. She was thirty, and the climate had been -playing the deuce with her. Then--don't you know--Fred had to sit up with -them for propriety, and during whole weeks on end never got a single -chance to get to bed before midnight. That was not pleasant for a tired -man--was it? And besides Fred had worries then because his shop didn't -pay and he was dropping money fast. He just longed to get away from here -and try his luck somewhere else, but for the sake of his sister he hung -on and on till he ran himself into debt over his ears--I can tell you. -I, myself, could show a handful of his chits for meals and drinks in -my drawer. I could never find out tho' where he found all the money at -last. Can't be but he must have got something out of that brother of -his, a coal merchant in Port Said. Anyhow he paid everybody before he -left, but the girl nearly broke her heart. Disappointment, of course, -and at her age, don't you know. . . . Mrs. Schomberg here was very -friendly with her, and she could tell you. Awful despair. Fainting -fits. It was a scandal. A notorious scandal. To that extent that old Mr. -Siegers--not your present charterer, but Mr. Siegers the father, the old -gentleman who retired from business on a fortune and got buried at sea -going home, _he_ had to interview Falk in his private office. He was a man -who could speak like a Dutch Uncle, and, besides, Messrs. Siegers had -been helping Falk with a good bit of money from the start. In fact you -may say they made him as far as that goes. It so happened that just at -the time he turned up here, their firm was chartering a lot of sailing -ships every year, and it suited their business that there should be good -towing facilities on the river. See? . . . Well--there's always an -ear at the keyhole--isn't there? In fact," he lowered his tone -confidentially, "in this case a good friend of mine; a man you can see -here any evening; only they conversed rather low. Anyhow my friend's -certain that Falk was trying to make all sorts of excuses, and old -Mr. Siegers was coughing a lot. And yet Falk wanted all the time to be -married too. Why! It's notorious the man has been longing for years to -make a home for himself. Only he can't face the expense. When it comes -to putting his hand in his pocket--it chokes him off. That's the truth -and no other. I've always said so, and everybody agrees with me by this -time. What do you think of that--eh?" - -He appealed confidently to my indignation, but having a mind to annoy -him I remarked, "that it seemed to me very pitiful--if true." - -He bounced in his chair as if I had run a pin into him. I don't know -what he might have said, only at that moment we heard through the half -open door of the billiard-room the footsteps of two men entering from -the verandah, a murmur of two voices; at the sharp tapping of a coin on -a table Mrs. Schomberg half rose irresolutely. "Sit still," he hissed at -her, and then, in an hospitable, jovial tone, contrasting amazingly with -the angry glance that had made his wife sink in her chair, he cried very -loud: "Tiffin still going on in here, gentlemen." - -There was no answer, but the voices dropped suddenly. The head Chinaman -went out. We heard the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the -shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs. Schomberg, after wondering in -a low mutter who the devil could be there at this time of the day, got -up napkin in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously. He retreated -rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering behind his hand informed me that -it was Falk, Falk himself who was in there, and, what's more, he had -Captain Hermann with him. - -The return of the tug from the outer Roads was unexpected but possible, -for Falk had taken away the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two -o'clock. Schomberg wished me to observe that neither of these men would -spend a dollar on a tiffin, which they must have wanted. But by the time -I was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone. I heard the last of -his big boots on the planks of the verandah. Hermann was sitting quite -alone in the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard tables -shrouded in striped covers, mopping his face diligently. He wore -his best go-ashore clothes, a stiff collar, black coat, large white -waistcoat, grey trousers. A white cotton sunshade with a cane handle -reposed between his legs, his side whiskers were neatly brushed, his -chin had been freshly shaved; and he only distantly resembled the -dishevelled and terrified man in a snuffy night shirt and ignoble old -trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on to the wheel of the Diana. - -He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed me at once in some -confusion, but with genuine eagerness. He was anxious to make it clear -he had nothing to do with what he called the "tam pizness" of the -morning. It was most inconvenient. He had reckoned upon another day up -in town to settle his bills and sign certain papers. There were also -some few stores to come, and sundry pieces of "my ironwork," as he -called it quaintly, landed for repairs, had been left behind. Now he -would have to hire a native boat to take all this out to the ship. It -would cost five or six dollars perhaps. He had had no warning from -Falk. Nothing. . . . He hit the table with his dumpy fist. . . . Der -verfluchte Kerl came in the morning like a "tam' ropper," making a great -noise, and took him away. His mate was not prepared, his ship was moored -fast--he protested it was shameful to come upon a man in that way. -Shameful! Yet such was the power Falk had on the river that when I -suggested in a chilling tone that he might have simply refused to have -his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled at the idea. I never realised -so well before that this is an age of steam. The exclusive possession -of a marine boiler had given Falk the whip-hand of us all. Hermann, -recovering, put it to me appealingly that I knew very well how unsafe it -was to contradict that fellow. At this I only smiled distantly. - -"Der Kerl!" he cried. He was sorry he had not refused. He was indeed. -The damage! The damage! What for all that damage! There was no occasion -for damage. Did I know how much damage he had done? It gave me a certain -satisfaction to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a ship crack -fore and aft as she went by. "You passed close enough to me," I added -significantly. - -He threw both his hands up to heaven at the recollection. One of them -grasped by the middle the white parasol, and he resembled curiously -a caricature of a shop-keeping citizen in one of his own German comic -papers. "Ach! That was dangerous," he cried. I was amused. But directly -he added with an appearance of simplicity, "The side of your iron ship -would have been crushed in like--like this matchbox." - -"Would it?" I growled, much less amused now; but by the time I had -decided that this remark was not meant for a dig at me he had -worked himself into a high state of resentfulness against Falk. The -inconvenience, the damage, the expense! Gottferdam! Devil take the -fellow. Behind the bar Schomberg with a cigar in his teeth, pretended -to be writing with a pencil on a large sheet of paper; and as Hermann's -excitement increased it made me comfortingly aware of my own calmness -and superiority. But it occurred to me while I listened to his -revilings, that after all the good man had come up in the tug. There -perhaps--since he must come to town--he had no option. But evidently he -had had a drink with Falk, either accepted or offered. How was that? So -I checked him by saying loftily that I hoped he would make Falk pay for -every penny of the damage. - -"That's it! That's it! Go for him," called out Schomberg from the bar, -flinging his pencil down and rubbing his hands. - -We ignored his noise. But Hermann's excitement suddenly went off -the boil as when you remove a saucepan from the fire. I urged on his -consideration that he had done now with Falk and Falk's confounded tug. -He, Hermann, would not, perhaps, turn up again in this part of the world -for years to come, since he was going to sell the Diana at the end -of this very trip ("Go home passenger in a mail boat," he murmured -mechanically). He was therefore safe from Falk's malice. All he had to -do was to race off to his consignees and stop payment of the towage bill -before Falk had the time to get in and lift the money. - -Nothing could have been less in the spirit of my advice than the -thoughtful way in which he set about to make his parasol stay propped -against the edge of the table. - -While I watched his concentrated efforts with astonishment he threw at -me one or two perplexed, half-shy glances. Then he sat down. "That's all -very well," he said reflectively. - -It cannot be doubted that the man had been thrown off his balance by -being hauled out of the harbour against his wish. His stolidity had been -profoundly stirred, else he would never have made up his mind to ask me -unexpectedly whether I had not remarked that Falk had been casting eyes -upon his niece. "No more than myself," I answered with literal truth. -The girl was of the sort one necessarily casts eyes at in a sense. She -made no noise, but she filled most satisfactorily a good bit of space. - -"But you, captain, are not the same kind of man," observed Hermann. - -I was not, I am happy to say, in a position to deny this. "What about -the lady?" I could not help asking. At this he gazed for a time into -my face, earnestly, and made as if to change the subject. I heard him -beginning to mutter something unexpected, about his children growing -old enough to require schooling. He would have to leave them ashore with -their grandmother when he took up that new command he expected to get in -Germany. - -This constant harping on his domestic arrangements was funny. I suppose -it must have been like the prospect of a complete alteration in his -life. An epoch. He was going, too, to part with the Diana! He had served -in her for years. He had inherited her. From an uncle, if I remember -rightly. And the future loomed big before him, occupying his thought -exclusively with all its aspects as on the eve of a venturesome -enterprise. He sat there frowning and biting his lip, and suddenly he -began to fume and fret. - -I discovered to my momentary amusement that he seemed to imagine I -could, should or ought, have caused Falk in some way to pronounce -himself. Such a hope was incomprehensible, but funny. Then the contact -with all this foolishness irritated me. I said crossly that I had seen -no symptoms, but if there were any--since he, Hermann, was so sure--then -it was still worse. What pleasure Falk found in humbugging people in -just that way I couldn't say. It was, however, my solemn duty to warn -him. It had lately, I said, come to my knowledge that there was a man -(not a very long time ago either) who had been taken in just like this. - -All this passed in undertones, and at this point Schomberg, exasperated -at our secrecy, went out of the room slamming the door with a crash -that positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what I had said, -huffed my Hermann, He supposed, with a contemptuous toss of his head -towards the door which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of -that man's silly tales. It looked, indeed, as though his mind had been -thoroughly poisoned against Schomberg. "His tales were--they were," he -repeated, seeking for the word--"trash." They were trash, he reiterated, -and moreover I was young yet . . . - -This horrid aspersion (I regret I am no longer exposed to that sort of -insult) made me huffy too. I felt ready in my own mind to back up every -assertion of Schomberg's and on any subject. In a moment, devil only -knows why, Hermann and I were looking at each other most inimically. -He caught up his hat without more ado and I gave myself the pleasure of -calling after him: - -"Take my advice and make Falk pay for breaking up your ship. You aren't -likely to get anything else out of him." - -When I got on board my ship later on, the old mate, who was very full of -the events of the morning, remarked: - -"I saw the tug coming back from the outer Roads just before two P.M." -(He never by any chance used the words morning or afternoon. Always P.M. -or A.M., log-book style.) "Smart work that. Man's always in a state of -hurry. He's a regular chucker-out, ain't he, sir? There's a few pubs I -know of in the East-end of London that would be all the better for -one of his sort around the bar." He chuckled at his joke. "A regular -chucker-out. Now he has fired out that Dutchman head over heels, I -suppose our turn's coming to-morrow morning." - -We were all on deck at break of day (even the sick--poor devils--had -crawled out) ready to cast off in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing -came. Falk did not come. At last, when I began to think that probably -something had gone wrong in his engine-room, we perceived the tug going -by, full pelt, down the river, as if we hadn't existed. For a moment I -entertained the wild notion that he was going to turn round in the next -reach. Afterwards I watched his smoke appear above the plain, now here, -now there, according to the windings of the river. It disappeared. Then -without a word I went down to breakfast. I just simply went down to -breakfast. - -Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after imbibing--by means -of suction out of a saucer--his second cup of tea, exclaimed: "Where the -devil is the man gone to?" - -"Courting!" I shouted, with such a fiendish laugh that the old chap -didn't venture to open his lips any more. - -I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with excessive rage. -Evidently they knew all about it already, and they treated me to a -show of consternation. The manager, a soft-footed, immensely obese man, -breathing short, got up to meet me, while all round the room the young -clerks, bending over the papers on their desks, cast upward glances in -my direction. The fat man, without waiting for my complaint, wheezing -heavily and in a tone as if he himself were incredulous, conveyed to -me the news that Falk--Captain Falk--had declined--had absolutely -declined--to tow my ship--to have anything to do with my ship--this day -or any other day. Never! - -I did my best to preserve a cool appearance, but, all the same, I must -have shown how much taken aback I was. We were talking in the middle -of the room. Suddenly behind my back some ass blew his nose with great -force, and at the same time another quill-driver jumped up and went out -on the landing hastily. It occurred to me I was cutting a foolish figure -there. I demanded angrily to see the principal in his private room. - -The skin of Mr. Siegers' head showed dead white between the iron grey -streaks of hair lying plastered cross-wise from ear to ear over the top -of his skull in the manner of a bandage. His narrow sunken face was of -an uniform and permanent terra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. -He was sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten. But from -that debile body there issued a bullying voice, tremendously loud, harsh -and resonant, as if produced by some powerful mechanical contrivance -in the nature of a fog-horn. I do not know what he did with it in -the private life of his home, but in the larger sphere of business it -presented the advantage of overcoming arguments without the slightest -mental effort, by the mere volume of sound. We had had several -passages of arms. It took me all I knew to guard the interests of my -owners--whom, nota bene, I had never seen--while Siegers (who had -made their acquaintance some years before, during a business tour in -Australia) pretended to the knowledge of their innermost minds, and, in -the character of "our very good friends," threw them perpetually at my -head. - -He looked at me with a jaundiced eye (there was no love lost between -us), and declared at once that it was strange, very strange. His -pronunciation of English was so extravagant that I can't even attempt to -reproduce it. For instance, he said "Fferie strantch." Combined with -the bellowing intonation it made the language of one's childhood sound -weirdly startling, and even if considered purely as a kind of unmeaning -noise it filled you with astonishment at first. "They had," he -continued, "been acquainted with Captain Falk for very many years, and -never had any reason. . . ." - -"That's why I come to you, of course," I interrupted. "I've the right -to know the meaning of this infernal nonsense." In the half light of the -room, which was greenish, because of the tree-tops screening the -window, I saw him writhe his meagre shoulders. It came into my head, as -disconnected ideas will come at all sorts of times into one's head, that -this, most likely, was the very room where, if the tale were true, Falk -had been lectured by Mr. Siegers, the father. Mr. Siegers' (the son's) -overwhelming voice, in brassy blasts, as though he had been trying to -articulate his words through a trombone, was expressing his great regret -at a conduct characterised by a very marked want of discretion. . . As I -lived I was being lectured too! His deafening gibberish was difficult to -follow, but it was _my_ conduct--mine!--that . . . Damn! I wasn't going to -stand this. - -"What on earth are you driving at?" I asked in a passion. I put my hat -on my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for -the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and -marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of -coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the -other expenses consequent upon the delays arising from my frivolity. - -Once outside in the sunshine my head swam. It was no longer a question -of mere delay. I perceived myself involved in hopeless and humiliating -absurdities that were leading me to something very like a disaster. "Let -us be calm," I muttered to myself, and ran into the shade of a -leprous wall. From that short side-street I could see the broad main -thoroughfare ruinous and gay, running away, away between stretches of -decaying masonry, bamboo fences, ranges of arcades of brick and plaster, -hovels of lath and mud, lofty temple gates of carved timber, huts of -rotten mats--an immensely wide thoroughfare, loosely packed as far as -the eye could reach with a barefooted and brown multitude paddling ankle -deep in the dust. For a moment I felt myself about to go out of my mind -with worry and desperation. - -Some allowance must be made for the feelings of a young man new to -responsibility. I thought of my crew. Half of them were ill, and I -really began to think that some of them would end by dying on board if -I couldn't get them out to sea soon. Obviously I should have to take my -ship down the river, either working under canvas or dredging with the -anchor down; operations which, in common with many modern sailors, -I only knew theoretically. And I almost shrank from undertaking them -shorthanded and without local knowledge of the river bed, which is so -necessary for the confident handling of the ship. There were no pilots, -no beacons, no buoys of any sort; but there was a very devil of a -current for anybody to see, no end of shoal places, and at least two -obviously awkward turns of the channel between me and the sea. But how -dangerous these turns were I would not tell. I didn't even know what -my ship was capable of! I had never handled her in my life. A -misunderstanding between a man and his ship in a difficult river with no -room to make it up, is bound to end in trouble for the man. On the other -hand, it must be owned I had not much reason to count upon a general run -of good luck. And suppose I had the misfortune to pile her up high and -dry on some beastly shoal? That would have been the final undoing of -that voyage. It was plain that if Falk refused to tow me out he would -also refuse to pull me off. This meant--what? A day lost at the -very best; but more likely a whole fortnight of frizzling on some -pestilential mud-flat, of desperate work, of discharging cargo; more than -likely it meant borrowing money at an exorbitant rate of interest--from -the Siegers' gang too at that. They were a power in the port. And that -elderly seaman of mine, Gambril, had looked pretty ghastly when I -went forward to dose him with quinine that morning. _He_ would certainly -die--not to speak of two or three others that seemed nearly as bad, -and of the rest of them just ready to catch any tropical disease going. -Horror, ruin and everlasting remorse. And no help. None. I had fallen -amongst a lot of unfriendly lunatics! - -At any rate, if I must take my ship down myself it was my duty to -procure if possible some local knowledge. But that was not easy. The -only person I could think of for that service was a certain Johnson, -formerly captain of a country ship, but now spliced to a country wife -and gone utterly to the bad. I had only heard of him in the vaguest way, -as living concealed in the thick of two hundred thousand natives, and -only emerging into the light of day for the purpose of hunting up some -brandy. I had a notion that if I could lay my hands on him I would sober -him on board my ship and use him for a pilot. Better than nothing. Once -a sailor always a sailor--and he had known the river for years. But in -our Consulate (where I arrived dripping after a sharp walk) they could -tell me nothing. The excellent young men on the staff, though willing to -help me, belonged to a sphere of the white colony for which that sort of -Johnson does not exist. Their suggestion was that I should hunt the -man up myself with the help of the Consulate's constable--an -ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of Hussars. - -This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted in sitting behind a -little table in an outer room of Consular offices, when ordered to -assist me in my search for Johnson displayed lots of energy and a -marvellous amount of local knowledge of a sort. But he did not conceal -an immense and sceptical contempt for the whole business. We explored -together on that afternoon an infinity of infamous grog shops, gambling -dens, opium dens. We walked up narrow lanes where our gharry--a tiny -box of a thing on wheels, attached to a jibbing Burmah pony--could by -no means have passed. The constable seemed to be on terms of scornful -intimacy with Maltese, with Eurasians, with Chinamen, with Klings, and -with the sweepers attached to a temple, with whom he talked at the gate. -We interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall closing a blind -alley an immensely corpulent Italian, who, the ex-sergeant-major -remarked to me perfunctorily, had "killed another man last year." -Thereupon he addressed him as "Antonio" and "Old Buck," though that -bloated carcase, apparently more than half filling the sort of cell -wherein it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye. Familiar and never -unbending, the sergeant chucked--absolutely chucked--under the chin -a horribly wrinkled and shrivelled old hag propped on a stick, who had -volunteered some sort of information: and with the same stolid face he -kept up an animated conversation with the groups of swathed brown women, -who sat smoking cheroots on the door-steps of a long range of clay -hovels. We got out of the gharry and clambered into dwellings airy like -packing crates, or descended into places sinister like cellars. We got -in, we drove on, we got out again for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of -looking behind a heap of rubble. The sun declined; my companion was curt -and sardonic in his answers, but it appears we were just missing Johnson -all along. At last our conveyance stopped once more with a jerk, and the -driver jumping down opened the door. - -A black mudhole blocked the lane. A mound of garbage crowned with the -dead body of a dog arrested us not. An empty Australian beef tin bounded -cheerily before the toe of my boot. Suddenly we clambered through a gap -in a prickly fence. . . . - -It was a very clean native compound: and the big native woman, with bare -brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar -that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. "Your -man's at home," said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete -and marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson--at -home--stood with his back to a native house built on posts and with its -walls made of mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of the right -he dealt another dollar into space. The woman captured this one on the -wing, and there and then plumped down on the ground to look at us with -greater comfort. - -My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven, muddy on elbows and -back; where the seams of his serge coat yawned you could see his white -nakedness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his neck. He looked -at us with a grave, swaying surprise. "Where do you come from?" he -asked. My heart sank. How could I have been stupid enough to waste -energy and time for this? - -But having already gone so far I approached a little nearer and declared -the purpose of my visit. He would have to come at once with me, sleep on -board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the ebb, he would give -me his assistance in getting my ship down to the sea, without steam. A -six-hundred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I proposed to give -him eighteen dollars for his local knowledge; and all the time I was -speaking he kept on considering attentively the various aspects of the -banana, holding first one side up to his eye, then the other. - -"You've forgotten to apologise," he said at last with extreme precision. -"Not being a gentleman yourself, you don't know apparently when you -intrude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to understand that when I -am in funds I don't work, and now . . ." - -I would have pronounced him perfectly sober hadn't he paused in great -concern to try and brush a hole off the knee of his trousers. - -"I have money--and friends. Every gentleman has. Perhaps you would like -to know my friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow some money. Try to -remember. F-A-L-K, Falk." Abruptly his tone changed. "A noble heart," he -said muzzily. - -"Has Falk been giving you some money?" I asked, appalled by the detailed -finish of the dark plot. - -"Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent," he corrected suavely. -"Met me taking the air last evening, and being as usual anxious to -oblige--Hadn't you better go to the devil out of my compound?" - -And upon this, without other warning, he let fly with the banana which -missed my head, and took the constable just under the left eye. He -rushed at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury. They fell. . . . -But why dwell on the wretchedness, the breathlessness, the degradation, -the senselessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation -and--and--the perspiration, of these moments? I dragged the ex-hussar -off. He was like a wild beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed -at losing his free afternoon on my account. The garden of his bungalow -required his personal attention, and at the slight blow of the banana -the brute in him had broken loose. We left Johnson on his back, still -black in the face, but beginning to kick feebly. Meantime, the big woman -had remained sitting on the ground, apparently paralysed with extreme -terror. - -For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling box, side by side, in -profound silence. The ex-sergeant was busy staunching the blood of a -long scratch on his cheek. "I hope you're satisfied," he said suddenly. -"That's what comes of all that tomfool business. If you hadn't -quarrelled with that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all this -wouldn't have happened." - -"You heard _that_ story?" I said. - -"Of course I heard. And I shouldn't wonder if the Consul-General himself -doesn't come to hear of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with -that thing on my cheek--I want to know. Its _you_ who ought to have got -this!" - -After that, till the gharry stopped and he jumped out without -leave-taking, he swore to himself steadily, horribly; muttering great, -purposeful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can do is like -the prattle of a child. For my part I had just the strength to crawl -into Schomberg's coffee-room, where I wrote at a little table a note to -the mate instructing him to get everything ready for dropping down the -river next day. I couldn't face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of -skipper and no mistake--poor thing! What a horrid mess! I took my head -between my hands. At times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce -me to despair. What had I done? If I had done something to bring about -the situation I should at least have learned not to do it again. But I -felt guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was empty yet; -only Schomberg prowled round me goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed -respectful curiosity. No doubt he had set the story going himself; but -he was a good-hearted chap, and I am really persuaded he participated in -all my troubles. He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the heavy -match-stand, set a chair straight, pushed a spittoon slightly with -his foot--as you show small attentions to a friend under a great -sorrow--sighed, and at last, unable to hold his tongue: - -"Well! I warned you, captain. That's what comes of running your head -against Mr. Falk. Man'll stick at nothing." - -I sat without stirring, and after surveying me with a sort of -commiseration in his eyes he burst out in a hoarse whisper: "But for -a fine lump of a girl, she's a fine lump of a girl." He made a loud -smacking noise with his thick lips. "The finest lump of a girl that I -ever . . ." he was going on with great unction, but for some reason or -other broke off. I fancied myself throwing something at his head. "I -don't blame you, captain. Hang me if I do," he said with a patronising -air. - -"Thank you," I said resignedly. It was no use fighting against this -false fate. I don't know even if I was sure myself where the truth of -the matter began. The conviction that it would end disastrously had been -driven into me by all the successive shocks my sense of security had -received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in -themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg's baseless gossip had the -power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk -could put my ship ashore. - -I have already explained how fatal this last would have been. For my -further action, my youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for the -health of my crew must be my excuse. The action itself, when it came, -was purely impulsive. It was set in movement quite undiplomatically and -simply by Falk's appearance in the doorway. - -The room was full by then and buzzing with voices. I had been looked -at with curiosity by every one, but how am I to describe the sensation -produced by the appearance of Falk himself blocking the doorway? The -tension of expectation could be measured by the profundity of the -silence that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls. As to -Schomberg, he looked extremely frightened; he hated mortally any sort -of row (fracas he called it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad -for business, he affirmed; but, in truth, this specimen of portly, -middle-aged manhood was of a timid disposition. I don't know what, -considering my presence in the place, they all hoped would come of it. A -sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may have supposed Falk had come in -only to annihilate me completely. As a matter of fact, Falk had come in -because Hermann had asked him to inquire after the precious white cotton -parasol which, in the worry and excitement of the previous day, he had -forgotten at the table where we had held our little discussion. - -It was this that gave me my opportunity. I don't think I would have gone -to seek Falk out. No. I don't think so. There are limits. But there was -an opportunity and I seized it--I have already tried to explain why. Now -I will merely state that, in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into -the sea air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skipper would be -justified in going to any length, short of absolute crime. He should -put his pride in his pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his -innocence as if it were a sin; he may take advantage of misconceptions, -of desires and of weaknesses; he ought to conceal his horror and other -emotions, and, if the fate of a human being, and that human being -a magnificent young girl, is strangely involved--why, he should -contemplate that fate (whatever it might seem to be) without turning a -hair. And all these things I have done; the explaining, the listening, -the pretending--even to the discretion--and nobody, not even Hermann's -niece, I believe, need throw stones at me now. Schomberg at all events -needn't, since from first to last, I am happy to say, there was not the -slightest "fracas." - -Overcoming a nervous contraction of the windpipe, I had managed to -exclaim "Captain Falk!" His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but -afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He simply waited. Then, when -I had said, "I must have a talk with you," and had pointed to a chair -at my table, he moved up to me, though he didn't sit down. Schomberg, -however, with a long tumbler in his hand, was making towards us -prudently, and I discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk. He -had for Schomberg a repulsion resembling that sort of physical fear -some people experience at the sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so -essentially and silently concentrated upon himself (though he could talk -well enough, as I was to find out presently) the other's irrepressible -loquacity, embracing every human being within range of the tongue, might -have appeared unnatural, disgusting, and monstrous. He suddenly gave -signs of restiveness--positively like a horse about to rear, and, -muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, "No. I can't stand that -fellow," seemed ready to bolt. This weakness of his gave me the -advantage at the very start. "Verandah," I suggested, as if rendering -him a service, and walked him out by the arm. We stumbled over a few -chairs; we had the feeling of open space before us, and felt the fresh -breath of the river--fresh, but tainted. The Chinese theatres across the -water made, in the sparsely twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town -presents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a distant and -howling uproar. I felt him become suddenly tractable again like an -animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him is -removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there how tractable he was, without -my conviction of his inflexibility--tenacity, rather, perhaps--being in -the least weakened. His very arm abandoning itself to my grasp was as -hard as marble--like a limb of iron. But I heard a tumultuous scuffling -of boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside were crowding to the -windows, climbing over each other's backs behind the blinds, billiard -cues and all. Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound of -falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devastation, Schomberg reeled -out after us in a state of funk which had prevented his parting with his -brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an aspen leaf. The piece of -ice in the long tumbler he held in his hand tinkled with an effect -of chattering teeth. "I beg you, gentlemen," he expostulated thickly. -"Come! Really, now, I must insist . . ." - -How proud I am of my presence of mind! "Hallo," I said instantly in a -loud and naive tone, "somebody's breaking your windows, Schomberg. Would -you please tell one of your boys to bring out here a pack of cards and a -couple of lights? And two long drinks. Will you?" - -To receive an order soothed him at once. It was business. "Certainly," -he said in an immensely relieved tone. The night was rainy, with -wandering gusts of wind, and while we waited for the candles Falk said, -as if to justify his panic, "I don't interfere in anybody's business. -I don't give any occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But this -fellow is always making out something wrong, and can never rest till he -gets somebody to believe him." - -This was the first of my knowledge of Falk. This desire of -respectability, of being like everybody else, was the only recognition -he vouchsafed to the organisation of mankind. For the rest he might have -been the member of a herd, not of a society. Self-preservation was his -only concern. Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Selfishness -presupposes consciousness, choice, the presence of other men; but his -instinct acted as though he were the last of mankind nursing that law -like the only spark of a sacred fire. I don't mean to say that living -naked in a cavern would have satisfied him. Obviously he was -the creature of the conditions to which he was born. No doubt -self-preservation meant also the preservation of these conditions. But -essentially it meant something much more simple, natural, and powerful. -How shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the five senses -of his body--let us say--taking it in its narrowest as well as in its -widest meaning. I think you will admit before long the justice of this -judgment. However, as we stood there together in the dark verandah I had -judged nothing as yet--and I had no desire to judge--which is an idle -practice anyhow. The light was long in coming. - -"Of course," I said in a tone of mutual understanding, "it isn't exactly -a game of cards I want with you." - -I saw him draw his hands down his face--the vague stir of the passionate -and meaningless gesture; but he waited in silent patience. It was -only when the lights had been brought out that he opened his lips. I -understood his mumble to mean that "he didn't know any game." - -"Like this Schomberg and all the other fools will have to keep off," -I said tearing open the pack. "Have you heard that we are universally -supposed to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who--of course. I am -really ashamed to ask, but is it possible that you do me the honour to -think me dangerous?" - -As I said these words I felt how absurd it was and also I felt -flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in -his usual dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but -not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with -Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I -saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural -forces are not quarrelsome. You can't quarrel with the wind that -inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street -full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder, -falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law -by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but -of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide -interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed -without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and -more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless -voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half -an hour. - -It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never -dreamed of marrying Hermann's niece. Could any necessity have been more -extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard -hit that he couldn't imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of -indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could -not help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was -conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and -playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the -more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights -so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively -flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth -of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features, -the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely -uncovered at the temples. The fact is I had never before seen him -without his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had -taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in -the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking -silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin, -furrowed, worn; I discovered that through the bush of his hair, as -you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense -undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an anchorite's -bony head fitted with a Capuchin's beard and adjusted to a herculean -body. I don't mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He -was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt. -And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely strong, just -as the girl (since I must think of them together) was magnificently -attractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, expressed in -shape, in size, in attitude--that is by a straight appeal to the senses. -His mind meantime, preoccupied with respectability, quailed before -Schomberg's tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my protestations; -and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon think of -marrying my mother's (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as Hermann's -niece. Sooner, I protested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did -not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the proposition, and in -his sceptical immobility he seemed to nurse the argument that at all -events the cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, just -before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the evidence of my manner -whenever I called on board the Diana. I had never attempted to approach -the girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way. -Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of--let us say--courting, -seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the -vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argument inspired him with -distrust. Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as -to say, "That's all very fine, but you can't throw dust in _my_ eyes." - -At last I was exasperated into saying, "Why don't you put the matter at -rest by talking to Hermann?" and I added sneeringly: "You don't expect -me perhaps to speak for you?" - -To this he said, very loud for him, "Would you?" - -And for the first time he lifted his head to look at me with wonder -and incredulity. He lifted his head so sharply that there could be -no mistake. I had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of my -opportunity, and could hardly believe in it. - -"Why. Speak to . . . Well, of course," I proceeded very slowly, watching -him with great attention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. "Not, -perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can't speak German, you know. But -. . ." - -He interrupted me with the earnest assurance that Hermann had the -highest opinion of me; and at once I felt the need for the greatest -possible diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just enough to draw -him on. Falk sat up, but except for a very noticeable enlargement of the -pupils, till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow yellow -rings, his face, I should judge, was incapable of expressing excitement. -"Oh, yes! Hermann did have the greatest . . ." - -"Take up your cards. Here's Schomberg peeping at us through the blind!" -I said. - -We went through the motions of what might have been a game of e'carte'. -Presently the intolerable scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform the -people in the billiard-room that we two were gambling on the verandah -like mad. - -We were not gambling, but it was a game; a game in which I felt I held -the winning cards. The stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the -voyage--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy -matured rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived -that the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and -astute Teuton had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of -a rival. I was young enough to be shocked at so much duplicity. "Did he -tell you that in so many words?" I asked with indignation. - -Hermann had not. He had given hints only; and of course it had not taken -very much to alarm Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had taken -steps to remove the family from under my influence. He was perfectly -straightforward about it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your -head. There was no duplicity in that man; and when I congratulated -him on the perfection of his arrangements--even to the bribing of the -wretched Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement of protest. Never -bribed. He knew the man wouldn't work as long as he had a few cents in -his pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-"_naturally_") he -let him have a dollar or two. He was himself a sailor, he said, and -anticipated the view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take. -On the other hand, he was sure that I should have to come to grief. He -hadn't been knocking about for the last seven years up and down that -river for nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me--but he asserted -confidently I would have had my ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two -miles below the Great Pagoda. . . . - -And with all that he had no ill-will. That was evident. This was a -crisis in which his only object had been to gain time--I fancy. And -presently he mentioned that he had written for some jewellery, real good -jewellery--had written to Hong-Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or -two. - -"Well, then," I said cheerily, "everything is all right. All you've got -to do is to present it to the lady together with your heart, and live -happy ever after." - -Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as far as the girl was -concerned, but his eyelids drooped. There was still something in the -way. For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As to me, on the -contrary, it seemed as though he could not praise me enough. Mrs. -Hermann too. He didn't know why they disliked him so. It made everything -most difficult. - -I listened impassive, feeling more and more diplomatic. His speech was -not transparently clear. He was one of those men who seem to live, feel, -suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being fascinated by the -girl and possessed by the desire of home life with her--it was as clear -as daylight. So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting it to -the hazard of declaration. Besides, there was something else. And with -Hermann being so set against him . . . - -"I see," I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat fast with the -excitement of my diplomacy. "I don't mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to -show you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I can for you in -that way." - -A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands down his face, and it -emerged, bony, unchanged of expression, as if all the tissues had -been ossified. All the passion was in those big brown hands. He was -satisfied. Then there was that other matter. If there were anybody on -earth it was I who could persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I -had a knowledge of the world and lots of experience. Hermann admitted -this himself. And then I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sailor -would be able to understand certain things best. . . . - -He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all their life in a rural -hamlet, and I alone had been capable, with my practice in life, of -a large and indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was what my -diplomacy was leading me to. I began suddenly to dislike it. - -"I say, Falk," I asked quite brusquely, "you haven't already a wife put -away somewhere?" - -The pain and disgust of his denial were very striking. Couldn't I -understand that he was as respectable as any white man hereabouts; -earning his living honestly. He was suffering from my suspicion, and the -low undertone of his voice made his protestations sound very pathetic. -For a moment he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, I seemed -to develop a conscience, as if in very truth it were in my power to -decide the success of this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard -enough we come to believe anything--anything to our advantage. And I had -been pretending very hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down -the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I couldn't help alluding -to the Vanlo affair. "You acted rather badly there. Didn't you?" was -what I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our conduct is always -at the mercy of obscure and unforeseen impulses. - -His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glancing at the window with -a sort of scared fury. We heard behind the blinds the continuous -and sudden clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, and -Schomberg's deep manly laugh. - -"That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper then would never, never let -it rest!" Falk exclaimed. "Well, yes! It had happened two years ago." -When it came to the point he owned he couldn't make up his mind to trust -Fred Vanlo--no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust him, -but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough money to pay all his debts -before he left. I was greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could -not be such a miser after all. So much the better for the girl. For a -time he sat silent; then he picked up a card, and while looking at it he -said: - -"You need not think of anything bad. It was an accident. I've been -unfortunate once." - -"Then in heaven's name say nothing about it." - -As soon as these words were out of my mouth I fancied I had said -something immoral. He shook his head negatively. It had to be told. -He considered it proper that the relations of the lady should know. No -doubt--I thought to myself--had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by -the climate he would have found it possible to entrust Fred Vanlo with -this confidence. And then the figure of Hermann's niece appeared before -my mind's eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich youth, her -lavish strength. With that powerful and immaculate vitality, her girlish -form must have shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor Miss -Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to the strumming of a piano. - -"And that Hermann hates me, I know it!" he cried in his undertone, with -a sudden recrudescence of anxiety. "I must tell them. It is proper that -they should know. You would say so yourself." - -He then murmured an utterly mysterious allusion to the necessity for -peculiar domestic arrangements. Though my curiosity was excited I did -not want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a -piece of information that would make my assumed role of match-maker -odious--however unreal it was. I was aware that he could have the girl -for the asking; and keeping down a desire to laugh in his face, I -expressed a confident belief in my ability to argue away Hermann's -dislike for him. "I am sure I can make it all right," I said. He looked -very pleased. - -And when we rose not a word had been said about towage! Not a word! The -game was won and the honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton umbrella! -We shook hands, and I was holding myself with difficulty from breaking -into a step dance of joy when he came back, striding all the length of -the verandah, and said doubtfully: - -"I say, captain, I have your word? You--you--won't turn round?" - -Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his tone of doubt there was -something desperate and menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to -the situation. - -"My dear Falk," I said, beginning to lie with a glibness and effrontery -that amazed me even at the time--"confidence for confidence." (He had -made no confidences.) "I will tell you that I am already engaged to an -extremely charming girl at home, and so you understand. . . ." - -He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing grip. - -"Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult to live alone . . ." - -"On rice and fish," I interrupted smartly, giggling with the sheer -nervousness of a danger escaped. - -He dropped my hand as if it had become suddenly red hot. A moment of -profound silence ensued, as though something extraordinary had happened. - -"I promise you to obtain Hermann's consent," I faltered out at last, and -it seemed to me that he could not help seeing through that humbugging -promise. "If there's anything else to get over I shall endeavour -to stand by you," I conceded further, feeling somehow defeated and -over-borne; "but you must do your best yourself." - -"I have been unfortunate once," he muttered unemotionally, and turning -his back on me he went away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his -feet had been shod with iron. - -Next morning, however, he was lively enough as man-boat, a combination -of splashing and shouting; of the insolent commotion below with the -steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece above. He turned us -out most unnecessarily at an ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven -in the morning before he brought me up a cable's length from Hermann's -ship. And he did it very badly too, in a hurry, and nearly contriving to -miss altogether the patch of good holding ground, because, forsooth, -he had caught sight of Hermann's niece on the poop. And so did I; and -probably as soon as he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek -glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape of the girlish print -frock she filled so perfectly, so satisfactorily, with the seduction of -unfaltering curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress. And Diana the -ship sat, high-walled and as solid as an institution, on the smooth -level of the water, the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon the -seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support of domestic virtues like -any grocer's shop on shore. At once Falk steamed away; for there was -some work for him to do. He would return in the evening. - -He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, without a hail. The beat -of the paddle-wheels reverberating amongst the stony islets, as if from -the ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage confusedly with -the clapping sounds of a mighty and leisurely applause. Abreast of -Hermann's ship he stopped the engines; and a profound silence reigned -over the rocks, the shore and the sea, for the time it took him to raise -his hat aloft before the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched -up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn't stir a limb, -standing by the rail shapely and erect, with one of her hands grasping a -rope at the height of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly -past her the lingering and profound homage of the man. There was for me -an enormous significance in the scene, the sense of having witnessed -a solemn declaration. The die was cast. After such a manifestation he -couldn't back out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me -now. With a rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and -a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated -clapping, the tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay -on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes -and scorpions lurked under the stones; there was not a single blade -of grass in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning himself on a -boulder by the shore. When I looked again at Hermann's ship the girl -had disappeared. I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the -immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued the flatness of the -sea to the naked line of the horizon. - -This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of -Falk's misfortune. My diplomacy had brought me there, and now I had only -to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambassador. My diplomacy -was a success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a -feeble sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana. -During the afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the -faithful nurse of Hermann's progeny, or yawned towards the distant -temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven -priests cherish the thoughts of that Annihilation which is the worthy -reward of us all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. Well, that -was not so bad as life goes. And what the devil could be the nature -of that misfortune? I remembered that I had known a man before who had -declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a victim to misfortune; but -this misfortune, whose effects appeared permanent (he looked desperately -hard up) when considered dispassionately, seemed indistinguishable from -a breach of trust. Could it be something of that nature? Apart, however, -from the utter improbability that he would offer to talk of it even to -his future uncle-in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk's physique -unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the person of Hermann's -niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her -adorer's big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity -that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing -was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature -of the spine. And I perceived that the sun was about to set. - -The smoke of Falk's tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the -river. It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and -the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping -my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I -conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour. -I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that -came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is -inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me -eagerly if I knew whether Falk had found his white parasol. - -"He's going to bring it to you himself directly," I said with great -solemnity. "Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he -begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece. . . ." - -"Ach So!" he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity -change into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I -hurried on. - -"He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at -once--before you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul." - -Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that -furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, -he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his cupidity, his -stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say "yes" or "no" to the -simplest question)--against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in -port (because he saw they were at his mercy)--and against his manner -of walking, which to his (Hermann's) mind showed a conceit positively -unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course, -and there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the -last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been -a cause of offence. "Had the cheek" to drag him (Hermann) into that -coffee-room; as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven -dollars and fifty cents of damage in the cost of wood alone--not -counting two days' work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand -in the girl's way. He was going home to Germany. There were plenty of -poor girls walking about in Germany. - -"He's very much in love," was all I found to say. - -"Yes," he cried. "And it is time too after making himself and me talked -about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on -board every evening unsettling the girl's mind, and saying nothing. What -sort of conduct is that?" - -The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not, -in his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. -He (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and -the tug, no doubt, was mortgaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm -of Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn't stand in the girl's way. Her -head was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite -unable even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for -the children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give -Gustav a thrashing. - -For that, too, Falk was made responsible apparently. And looking at my -Hermann's heavy, puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not exert -himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, would thrash very -hard, and being fat would resent the necessity. How Falk had managed -to turn the girl's head was more difficult to understand. I supposed -Hermann would know. And then hadn't there been Miss Vanlo? It could not -be his silvery tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he had no -more of what is called "manner" than an animal--which, however, on the -other hand, is never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore it must -have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting a virility of nature -as exaggerated as his beard, and resembling a sort of constant -ruthlessness. It was seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He -meant no offence, but his intercourse was characterised by that sort of -frank disregard of susceptibilities a man of seven foot six, living in a -world of dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the least wishing to -be unkind. But amongst men of his own stature, or nearly, this frank -use of his advantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills for -instance, caused much impotent gnashing of teeth. When attentively -considered it seemed appalling at times. He was a strange beast. But -maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was well worth taming, and -I suppose every woman at the bottom of her heart considers herself as a -tamer of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with precipitation to carry -the news to his wife. I had barely the time, as he made for the cabin -door, to grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I begged him to -wait till Falk in person had spoken with him. There remained some small -matter to talk over, as I understood. - -He sat down again at once, full of suspicion. - -"What matter?" he said surlily. "I have had enough of his nonsense. -There's no matter at all, as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in -the world. She came to us in one thin dress when my brother died, and I -have a growing family." - -"It can't be anything of that kind," I opined. "He's desperately -enamoured of your niece. I don't know why he did not say so before. Upon -my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to lose, perhaps, the -felicity of sitting near her on your quarter deck." - -I intimated my conviction that his love was so great as to be in a sense -cowardly. The effects of a great passion are unaccountable. It has -been known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked at me as if I had -foolishly raved; and the twilight was dying out rapidly. - -"You don't believe in passion, do you, Hermann?" I said cheerily. "The -passion of fear will make a cornered rat courageous. Falk's in a corner. -He will take her off your hands in one thin frock just as she came to -you. And after ten years' service it isn't a bad bargain," I added. - -Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of civic virtue. The sudden -night came upon him while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing in -contact with his thick lips, and taking away again after a jet of smoke, -the curved mouthpiece fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came -upon him and buried in haste his whiskers, his globular eyes, his puffy -pale face, his fat knees and the vast flat slippers on his fatherly -feet. Only his short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves remained -very visible, propped up like the flippers of a seal reposing on the -strand. - -"Falk wouldn't settle anything about repairs. Told me to find out first -how much wood I should require and he would see," he remarked; and after -he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over the water the beat of -the tug's floats. There is, on a calm night, nothing more suggestive of -fierce and headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the paddle-wheels -of a boat threshing her way through a quiet sea; and the approach of -Falk towards his fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and passionate -desire. The engines must have been driven to the very utmost of their -revolutions. We heard them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white -hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow -and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It -ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque -splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running -through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Roadstead. - -"He will soon be here," I murmured, and after that we waited for him -without a word. Meantime, raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a -lofty sky above the Diana's mastheads. The multitude of stars gathered -into clusters, in rows, in lines, in masses, in groups, shone all -together, unanimously--and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves -in the midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a superior kind and of -an inextinguishable nature. But long striding footsteps were heard -hastening along the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a deeper -darkness. We rose from our chairs quickly, and Falk, appearing before -us, all in white, stood still. - -Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been covered with confusion. His -arrival was fiery, but his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without -features, made him loom up like a man of snow. - -"The captain here has been telling me . . ." Hermann began in a homely -and amicable voice; and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, -negligent undertone had no inflexions, but the strength of a powerful -emotion made him ramble in his speech. He had always desired a home. -It was difficult to live alone, though he was not answerable. He was -domestic; there had been difficulties; but since he had seen Hermann's -niece he found that it had become at last impossible to live by himself. -"I mean--impossible," he repeated with no sort of emphasis and only with -the slightest of pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the force -of a new idea. - -"I have not said anything to her yet," Hermann observed quietly. And -Falk dismissed this by a "That's all right. Certainly. Very proper." -There was a necessity for perfect frankness--in marrying, especially. -Hermann seemed attentive, but he seized the first opportunity to ask us -into the cabin. "And by-the-by, Falk," he said innocently, as we passed -in, "the timber came to no less than forty-seven dollars and fifty -cents." - -Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the passage. "Some other time," -he said; and Hermann nudged me angrily--I don't know why. The girl alone -in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from the table. Falk stopped -short in the doorway. Without a word, without a sign, without the -slightest inclination of his bony head, by the silent intensity of his -look alone, he seemed to lay his herculean frame at her feet. Her hands -sank slowly on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her soft, -beaming glance enfold him from head to foot like a slow and pale caress. -He was very hot when he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with her -sewing; her neck was very white under the light of the lamp; but Falk, -hiding his face in the palms of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew -them down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes astonished me by -their tense and irrational expression--as though he had just swallowed -a heavy gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was binding us to -secrecy. Not that he cared, but he did not like to be spoken about; and -I looked at the girl's marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal hair, -plaited tight into that one astonishing and maidenly tress. Whenever she -moved her well-shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her back. -The thin cotton sleeve fitted the irreproachable roundness of her -arm like a skin; and her very dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to -palpitate like a living tissue with the strength of vitality animating -her body. How good her complexion was, the outline of her soft cheek and -the small convoluted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she kept -the little finger apart from the others; it seemed a waste of power -to see her sewing--eternally sewing--with that industrious and precise -movement of her arm, going on eternally upon all the oceans, under all -the skies, in innumerable harbours. And suddenly I heard Falk's voice -declare that he could not marry a woman unless she knew of something -in his life that had happened ten years ago. It was an accident. An -unfortunate accident. It would affect the domestic arrangements of their -home, but, once told, it need not be alluded to again for the rest of -their lives. "I should want my wife to feel for me," he said. "It -has made me unhappy." And how could he keep the knowledge of it to -himself--he asked us--perhaps through years and years of companionship? -What sort of companionship would that be? He had thought it over. A wife -must know. Then why not at once? He counted on Hermann's kindness -for presenting the affair in the best possible light. And Hermann's -countenance, mystified before, became very sour. He stole an inquisitive -glance at me. I shook my head blankly. Some people thought, Falk went -on, that such an experience changed a man for the rest of his life. He -couldn't say. It was hard, awful, and not to be forgotten, but he did -not think himself a worse man than before. Only he talked in his sleep -now, he believed. . . . At last I began to think he had accidentally -killed some one; perhaps a friend--his own father maybe; when he went on -to say that probably we were aware he never touched meat. Throughout he -spoke English, of course of my account. - -He swayed forward heavily. - -The girl, with her hands raised before her pale eyes, was threading her -needle. He glanced at her, and his mighty trunk overshadowed the table, -bringing nearer to us the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of -his neck, and that incongruous, anchorite head, burnt in the desert, -hollowed and lean as if by excesses of vigils and fasting. His beard -flowed imposingly downwards, out of sight, between the two brown hands -gripping the edge of the table, and his persistent glance made sombre by -the wide dilations of the pupils, fascinated. - -"Imagine to yourselves," he said in his ordinary voice, "that I have -eaten man." - -I could only ejaculate a faint "Ah!" of complete enlightenment. But -Hermann, dazed by the excessive shock, actually murmured, "Himmel! What -for?" - -"It was my terrible misfortune to do so," said Falk in a measured -undertone. The girl, unconscious, sewed on. Mrs. Hermann was absent -in one of the state-rooms, sitting up with Lena, who was feverish; but -Hermann suddenly put both his hands up with a jerk. The embroidered -calotte fell, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he had rumpled his hair -all ends up in a most extravagant manner. In this state he strove to -speak; with every effort his eyes seemed to start further out of their -sockets; his head looked like a mop. He choked, gasped, swallowed, and -managed to shriek out the one word, "Beast!" - -From that moment till Falk went out of the cabin the girl, with her -hands folded on the work lying in her lap, never took her eyes off him. -His own, in the blindness of his heart, darted all over the cabin, only -seeking to avoid the sight of Hermann's raving. It was ridiculous, and -was made almost terrible by the stillness of every other person present. -It was contemptible, and was made appalling by the man's over-mastering -horror of this awful sincerity, coming to him suddenly, with the -confession of such a fact. He walked with great strides; he gasped. He -wanted to know from Falk how dared he to come and tell him this? Did he -think himself a proper person to be sitting in this cabin where his wife -and children lived? Tell his niece! Expected him to tell his niece! -His own brother's daughter! Shameless! Did I ever hear tell of such -impudence?--he appealed to me. "This man here ought to have gone and -hidden himself out of sight instead of . . ." - -"But it's a great misfortune for me. But it's a great misfortune for -me," Falk would ejaculate from time to time. - -However, Hermann kept on running frequently against the corners of the -table. At last he lost a slipper, and crossing his arms on his breast, -walked up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in order to ask -him whether he did think there was anywhere on earth a woman abandoned -enough to mate with such a monster. "Did he? Did he? Did he?" I tried -to restrain him. He tore himself out of my hands; he found his slipper, -and, endeavouring to put it on, stormed standing on one leg--and Falk, -with a face unmoved and averted eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in -one vast palm. - -"Was it right then for me to die myself?" he asked thoughtfully. I laid -my hand on his shoulder. - -"Go away," I whispered imperiously, without any clear reason for this -advice, except that I wished to put an end to Hermann's odious noise. -"Go away." - -He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann before he made a move. -I left the cabin too to see him out of the ship. But he hung about the -quarter-deck. - -"It is my misfortune," he said in a steady voice. - -"You were stupid to blurt it out in such a manner. After all, we don't -hear such confidences every day." - -"What does the man mean?" he mused in deep undertones. "Somebody had to -die--but why me?" - -He remained still for a time in the dark--silent; almost invisible. All -at once he pinned my elbows to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in his -grip, and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated. - -"It's worse than hunger. Captain, do you know what that means? And I -could kill then--or be killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull -ten years ago. And I've got to live now. Without her. Do you understand? -Perhaps many years. But how? What can be done? If I had allowed myself -to look at her once I would have carried her off before that man in my -hands--like this." - -I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly dropped--and I -staggered backwards, feeling bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was -still; he was gone. I heard Hermann's voice declaiming in the cabin, and -I went in. - -I could not at first make out a single word, but Mrs. Hermann, who, -attracted by the noise, had come in some time before, with an expression -of surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on her face, was -giving now all the signs of profound, helpless agitation. Her husband -shot a string of guttural words at her, and instantly putting out one -hand to the bulkhead as if to save herself from falling, she clutched -the loose bosom of her dress with the other. He harangued the two women -extraordinarily, with much of his shirt hanging out of his waist-belt, -stamping his foot, turning from one to the other, sometimes throwing -both his arms together, straight up above his rumpled hair, and keeping -them in that position while he uttered a passage of loud denunciation; -at others folding them tight across his breast--and then he hissed with -indignation, elevating his shoulders and protruding his head. The girl -was crying. - -She had not changed her attitude. From her steady eyes that, following -Falk in his retreat, had remained fixed wistfully on the cabin door, the -tears fell rapid, thick, on her hands, on the work in her lap, warm -and gentle like a shower in spring. She wept without grimacing, without -noise--very touching, very quiet, with something more of pity than of -pain in her face, as one weeps in compassion rather than in grief--and -Hermann, before her, declaimed. I caught several times the word -"Mensch," man; and also "Fressen," which last I looked up afterwards -in my dictionary. It means "Devour." Hermann seemed to be requesting an -answer of some sort from her; his whole body swayed. She remained mute -and perfectly still; at last his agitation gained her; she put the palms -of her hands together, her full lips parted, no sound came. His voice -scolded shrilly, his arms went like a windmill--suddenly he shook a -thick fist at her. She burst out into loud sobs. He seemed stupefied. - -Mrs. Hermann rushed forward babbling rapidly. The two women fell on each -other's necks, and, with an arm round her niece's waist, she led her -away. Her own eyes were simply streaming, her face was flooded. She -shook her head back at me negatively, I wonder why to this day. The -girl's head dropped heavily on her shoulder. They disappeared. - -Then Hermann sat down and stared at the cabin floor. - -"We don't know all the circumstances," I ventured to break the silence. -He retorted tartly that he didn't want to know of any. According to his -ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime--and certainly not such -a crime. This was the opinion generally received. The duty of a human -being was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an animal; base, low, -vile, despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him -since last year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must -have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, -uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless of another's -self-respect and peace of mind, would own to having devoured human -flesh. "Why tell?" he cried. "Who was asking him?" It showed Falk's -brutality because after all he had selfishly caused him (Hermann) much -pain. He would have preferred not to know that such an unclean creature -had been in the habit of caressing his children. He hoped I would say -nothing of all this ashore, though. He wouldn't like it to get about -that he had been intimate with an eater of men--a common cannibal. As -to the scene he had made (which I judged quite unnecessary) he was not -going to inconvenience and restrain himself for a fellow that went about -courting and upsetting girls' heads, while he knew all the time that -no decent housewifely girl could think of marrying him. At least he -(Hermann) could not conceive how any girl could. Fancy Lena! . . . No, -it was impossible. The thoughts that would come into their heads every -time they sat down to a meal. Horrible! Horrible! - -"You are too squeamish, Hermann," I said. - -He seemed to think it was eminently proper to be squeamish if the word -meant disgust at Falk's conduct; and turning up his eyes sentimentally -he drew my attention to the horrible fate of the victims--the -victims of that Falk. I said that I knew nothing about them. He -seemed surprised. Could not anybody imagine without knowing? He--for -instance--felt he would like to avenge them. But what if--said I--there -had not been any? They might have died as it were, naturally--of -starvation. He shuddered. But to be eaten--after death! To be devoured! -He gave another deep shudder, and asked suddenly, "Do you think it is -true?" - -His indignation and his personality together would have been enough to -spoil the reality of the most authentic thing. When I looked at him I -doubted the story--but the remembrance of Falk's words, looks, gestures, -invested it not only with an air of reality but with the absolute truth -of primitive passion. - -"It is true just as much as you are able to make it; and exactly in the -way you like to make it. For my part, when I hear you clamouring about -it, I don't believe it is true at all." - -And I left him pondering. The men in my boat lying at the foot of -Diana's side ladder told me that the captain of the tug had gone away in -his gig some time ago. - -I let my fellows pull an easy stroke; because of the heavy dew the clear -sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was -a sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was -mingled with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg's gastronomic -tittle-tattle was responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never -see Falk again. But the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that -the captain of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat away and was -now waiting for me in the cuddy. - -He was lying full length on the stern settee, his face buried in the -cushions. I had expected to see it discomposed, contorted, despairing. -It was nothing of the kind; it was just as I had seen it twenty times, -steady and glaring from the bridge of the tug. It was immovably set and -hungry, dominated like the whole man by the singleness of one instinct. - -He wanted to live. He had always wanted to live. So we all do--but in -us the instinct serves a complex conception, and in him this instinct -existed alone. There is in such simple development a gigantic force, -and like the pathos of a child's naive and uncontrolled desire. He wanted -that girl, and the utmost that can be said for him was that he wanted -that particular girl alone. I think I saw then the obscure beginning, -the seed germinating in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot -of that tree bearing now for a mature mankind the flower and the fruit, -the infinite gradation in shades and in flavour of our discriminating -love. He was a child. He was as frank as a child too. He was hungry for -the girl, terribly hungry, as he had been terribly hungry for food. - -Don't be shocked if I declare that in my belief it was the same -need, the same pain, the same torture. We are in his case allowed to -contemplate the foundation of all the emotions--that one joy which is -to live, and the one sadness at the root of the innumerable torments. -It was made plain by the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It was -gnawing, it was fire; it was there, like this! And after pointing below -his breastbone, he made a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I -assure you that, seen as I saw it with my bodily eyes, it was anything -but laughable. And again, as he was presently to tell me (alluding to an -early incident of the disastrous voyage when some damaged meat had been -flung overboard), he said that a time soon came when his heart ached -(that was the expression he used), and he was ready to tear his hair out -at the thought of all that rotten beef thrown away. - -I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical struggles, seeing the -working of the rack and hearing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it -all patiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy he had called -upon me to stand by him--and this, it seems, I had diplomatically -promised. - -His agitation was impressive and alarming in the little cabin, like the -floundering of a great whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He -stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried to tear the cushion -with his teeth; and again hugging it fiercely to his face he let himself -fall on the couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock of his -despair; and I contemplated with wonder the lofty forehead, the noble -touch of time on the uncovered temples, the unchanged hungry character -of the face--so strangely ascetic and so incapable of portraying -emotion. - -What should he do? He had lived by being near her. He had sat--in the -evening--I knew?-all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent--so. Her -head--like this--and her arms. Ah! Had I seen? Like this. - -He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck whose nape was red, -and with his hands stitched the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and -comprehensible. - -And now he couldn't have her? No! That was too much. After thinking too -that . . . What had he done? What was my advice? Take her by force? No? -Mustn't he? Who was there then to kill him? For the first time I saw -one of his features move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip. . . . -"Not Hermann, perhaps." He lost himself in thought as though he had -fallen out of the world. - -I may note that the idea of suicide apparently did not enter his head -for a single moment. It occurred to me to ask: - -"Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took place?" - -"Down south," he said vaguely with a start. - -"You are not down south now," I said. "Violence won't do. They would -take her away from you in no time. And what was the name of the ship?" - -"Borgmester Dahl," he said. "It was no shipwreck." - -He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that trance, and waking up -calmed. - -"Not a shipwreck? What was it?" - -"Break down," he answered, looking more like himself every moment. By -this only I learned that it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they -had been starving in boats or on a raft--or perhaps on a barren rock. - -"She did not sink then?" I asked in surprise. He nodded. "We sighted the -southern ice," he pronounced dreamily. - -"And you alone survived?" - -He sat down. "Yes. It was a terrible misfortune for me. Everything went -wrong. All the men went wrong. I survived." - -Remembering the things one reads of it was difficult to realise the true -meaning of his answers. I ought to have seen at once--but I did not; so -difficult is it for our minds, remembering so much, instructed so much, -informed of so much, to get in touch with the real actuality at our -elbow. And with my head full of preconceived notions as to how a case of -"cannibalism and suffering at sea" should be managed I said--"You were -then so lucky in the drawing of lots?" - -"Drawing of lots?" he said. "What lots? Do you think I would have -allowed my life to go for the drawing of lots?" - -Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter what other life went. - -"It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful," he said. "Many heads went -wrong, but the best men would live." - -"The toughest, you mean," I said. He considered the word. Perhaps it was -strange to him, though his English was so good. - -"Yes," he asserted at last. "The best. It was everybody for himself at -last and the ship open to all." - -Thus from question to question I got the whole story. I fancy it was the -only way I could that night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he was -himself again; the first sign of it was the return of that incongruous -trick he had of drawing both his hands down his face--and it had its -meaning now, with that slight shudder of the frame and the passionate -anguish of these hands uncovering a hungry immovable face, the wide -pupils of the intent, silent, fascinating eyes. - -It was an iron steamer of a most respectable origin. The burgomaster -of Falk's native town had built her. She was the first steamer ever -launched there. The burgomaster's daughter had christened her. Country -people drove in carts from miles around to see her. He told me all this. -He got the berth as what we should call a chief mate. He seemed to think -it had been a feather in his cap; and, in his own corner of the world, -this lover of life was of good parentage. - -The burgomaster had advanced ideas in the ship-owning line. At that time -not every one would have known enough to think of despatching a cargo -steamer to the Pacific. But he loaded her with pitch-pine deals and sent -her off to hunt for her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I -fancy. It doesn't matter, because in latitude 44 d south and somewhere -halfway between Good Hope and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the -propeller dropped off. - -They were steaming then with a fresh gale on the quarter and all their -canvas set, to help the engines. But by itself the sail power was not -enough to keep way on her. When the propeller went the ship broached-to -at once, and the masts got whipped overboard. - -The disadvantage of being dismasted consisted in this, that they had -nothing to hoist flags on to make themselves visible at a distance. In -the course of the first few days several ships failed to sight them; and -the gale was drifting them out of the usual track. The voyage had been, -from the first, neither very successful nor very harmonious. There had -been quarrels on board. The captain was a clever, melancholic man, who -had no unusual grip on his crew. The ship had been amply provisioned for -the passage, but, somehow or other, several barrels of meat were found -spoiled on opening, and had been thrown overboard soon after leaving -home, as a sanitary measure. Afterwards the crew of the Borgmester Dahl -thought of that rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness and -despair. - -She drove south. To begin with, there had been an appearance of -organisation, but soon the bonds of discipline became relaxed. A sombre -idleness succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the horizon. The -gales increased: she lay in the trough, the seas made a clean breach -over her. On one frightful night, when they expected their hulk to turn -over with them every moment, a heavy sea broke on board, deluged the -store-rooms and spoiled the best part of the remaining provisions. It -seems the hatch had not been properly secured. This instance of neglect -is characteristic of utter discouragement. Falk tried to inspire some -energy into his captain, but failed. From that time he retired more into -himself, always trying to do his utmost in the situation. It grew worse. -Gale succeeded gale, with black mountains of water hurling themselves on -the Borgmester Dahl. Some of the men never left their bunks; many became -quarrelsome. The chief engineer, an old man, refused to speak at all to -anybody. Others shut themselves up in their berths to cry. On calm days -the inert steamer rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or showed, -in sunshine, the squalor of sea waifs, the dried white salt, the rust, -the jagged broken places. Then the gales came again. They kept body and -soul together on short rations. Once, an English ship, scudding in a -storm, tried to stand by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The -seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked -at them, and they made desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks. -Suddenly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she -had to bear up under bare poles, and disappeared. - -Other ships had spoken them before, but at first they had refused to be -taken off, expecting the assistance of some steamer. There were very few -steamers in those latitudes then; and when they desired to leave this -dead and drifting carcase, no ship came in sight. They had drifted south -out of men's knowledge. They failed to attract the attention of a lonely -whaler, and very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea -and closed the southern horizon like a wall. One morning they were -alarmed by finding themselves floating amongst detached pieces of ice. -But the fear of sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes; -the shocks of the floes knocking against the ship's side could not -rouse them from their apathy: and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again -unharmed into open water. They hardly noticed the change. - -The funnel had gone overboard in one of the heavy rolls; two of their -three boats had disappeared, washed away in bad weather, and the davits -swung to and fro, unsecured, with chafed rope's ends waggling to the -roll. Nothing was done on board, and Falk told me how he had often -listened to the water washing about the dark engine-room where the -engines, stilled for ever, were decaying slowly into a mass of rust, as -the stilled heart decays within the lifeless body. At first, after the -loss of the motive power, the tiller had been thoroughly secured by -lashings. But in course of time these had rotted, chafed, rusted, -parting one by one: and the rudder, freed, banged heavily to and fro -night and day, sending dull shocks through the whole frame of the -vessel. This was dangerous. Nobody cared enough to lift a little finger. -He told me that even now sometimes waking up at night, he fancied he -could hear the dull vibrating thuds. The pintles carried away, and it -dropped off at last. - -The final catastrophe came with the sending off of their one remaining -boat. It was Falk who had managed to preserve her intact, and now it -was agreed that some of the hands should sail away into the track of the -shipping to procure assistance. She was provisioned with all the food -they could spare for the six who were to go. They waited for a fine day. -It was long in coming. At last one morning they lowered her into the -water. - -Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble broke out. Two men who -had no business there had jumped into the boat under the pretence of -unhooking the tackles, while some sort of squabble arose on the deck -amongst these weak, tottering spectres of a ship's company. The -captain, who had been for days living secluded and unapproachable in the -chart-room, came to the rail. He ordered the two men to come up on board -and menaced them with his revolver. They pretended to obey, but suddenly -cutting the boat's painter, gave a shove against the ship's side and -made ready to hoist the sail. - -"Shoot, sir! Shoot them down!" cried Falk-"and I will jump overboard to -regain the boat." But the captain, after taking aim with an irresolute -arm, turned suddenly away. - -A howl of rage arose. Falk dashed into his cabin for his own pistol. -When he returned it was too late. Two more men had leaped into the -water, but the fellows in the boat beat them off with the oars, hoisted -the boat's lug and sailed away. They were never heard of again. - -Consternation and despair possessed the remaining ship's company, -till the apathy of utter hopelessness re-asserted its sway. That day a -fireman committed suicide, running up on deck with his throat cut from -ear to ear, to the horror of all hands. He was thrown overboard. The -captain had locked himself in the chart-room, and Falk, knocking vainly -for admittance, heard him reciting over and over again the names of his -wife and children, not as if calling upon them or commending them to -God, but in a mechanical voice like an exercise of memory. Next day the -doors of the chart-room were swinging open to the roll of the ship, and -the captain had disappeared. He must during the night have jumped into -the sea. Falk locked both the doors and kept the keys. - -The organised life of the ship had come to an end. The solidarity of -the men had gone. They became indifferent to each other. It was Falk -who took in hand the distribution of such food as remained. They boiled -their boots for soup to eke out the rations, which only made their -hunger more intolerable. Sometimes whispers of hate were heard passing -between the languid skeletons that drifted endlessly to and fro, north -and south, east and west, upon that carcase of a ship. - -And in this lies the grotesque horror of this sombre story. The last -extremity of sailors, overtaking a small boat or a frail craft, seems -easier to bear, because of the direct danger of the seas. The confined -space, the close contact, the imminent menace of the waves, seem to draw -men together, in spite of madness, suffering and despair. But there -was a ship--safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds, bedding, knives, -forks, comfortable cabins, glass and china, and a complete cook's -galley, pervaded, ruled and possessed by the pitiless spectre of -starvation. The lamp oil had been drunk, the wicks cut up for food, the -candles eaten. At night she floated dark in all her recesses, and full -of fears. One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter of pine wood. -Suddenly he threw the piece of wood away, tottered to the rail, and fell -over. Falk, too late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship's side -desperately before he went down. Next day another man did the same -thing, after uttering horrible imprecations. But this one somehow -managed to get hold of the broken rudder chains and hung on there, -silently. Falk set about trying to save him, and all the time the man, -holding with both hands, looked at him anxiously with his sunken eyes. -Then, just as Falk was ready to put his hand on him, the man let go his -hold and sank like a stone. Falk reflected on these sights. His heart -revolted against the horror of death, and he said to himself that he -would struggle for every precious minute of his life. - -One afternoon--as the survivors lay about on the after deck--the -carpenter, a tall man with a black beard, spoke of the last sacrifice. -There was nothing eatable left on board. Nobody said a word to this; but -that company separated quickly, these listless feeble spectres slunk -off one by one to hide in fear of each other. Falk and the carpenter -remained on deck together. Falk liked the big carpenter. He had been the -best man of the lot, helpful and ready as long as there was anything to -do, the longest hopeful, and had preserved to the last some vigour and -decision of mind. - -They did not speak to each other. Henceforth no voices were to be heard -conversing sadly on board that ship. After a time the carpenter tottered -away forward; but later on, Falk going to drink at the fresh-water pump, -had the inspiration to turn his head. The carpenter had stolen upon him -from behind, and, summoning all his strength, was aiming with a crowbar -a blow at the back of his skull. - -Dodging just in time, Falk made his escape and ran into his cabin. While -he was loading his revolver there, he heard the sound of heavy blows -struck upon the bridge. The locks of the chartroom doors were slight, -they flew open, and the carpenter, possessing himself of the captain's -revolver, fired a shot of defiance. - -Falk was about to go on deck and have it out at once, when he remarked -that one of the ports of his cabin commanded the approaches to the -freshwater pump. Instead of going out he remained in and secured the -door. "The best man shall survive," he said to himself--and the other, -he reasoned, must at some time or other come there to drink. These -starving men would drink often to cheat the pangs of their hunger. But -the carpenter too must have noticed the position of the port. They were -the two best men in the ship, and the game was with them. All the rest -of the day Falk saw no one and heard no sound. At night he strained his -eyes. It was dark--he heard a rustling noise once, but he was certain -that no one could have come near the pump. It was to the left of his -deck port, and he could not have failed to see a man, for the night was -clear and starry. He saw nothing; towards morning another faint noise -made him suspicious. Deliberately and quietly he unlocked his door. He -had not slept, and had not given way to the horror of the situation. He -wanted to live. - -But during the night the carpenter, without at all trying to approach -the pump, had managed to creep quietly along the starboard bulwark, and, -unseen, had crouched down right under Falk's deck port. When daylight -came he rose up suddenly, looked in, and putting his arm through the -round brass framed opening, fired at Falk within a foot. He missed--and -Falk, instead of attempting to seize the arm holding the weapon, opened -his door unexpectedly, and with the muzzle of his long revolver nearly -touching the other's side, shot him dead. - -The best man had survived. Both of them had at the beginning just -strength enough to stand on their feet, and both had displayed pitiless -resolution, endurance, cunning and courage--all the qualities of classic -heroism. At once Falk threw overboard the captain's revolver. He was a -born monopolist. Then after the report of the two shots, followed by a -profound silence, there crept out into the cold, cruel dawn of Antarctic -regions, from various hiding-places, over the deck of that dismantled -corpse of a ship floating on a grey sea ruled by iron necessity and with -a heart of ice--there crept into view one by one, cautious, slow, eager, -glaring, and unclean, a band of hungry and livid skeletons. Falk faced -them, the possessor of the only fire-arm on board, and the second best -man--the carpenter--was lying dead between him and them. - -"He was eaten, of course," I said. - -He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, drawing his hands over his -face, and said, "I had never any quarrel with that man. But there were -our lives between him and me." - -Why continue the story of that ship, that story before which, with its -fresh-water pump like a spring of death, its man with the weapon, the -sea ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by terror and -hope, its mute and unhearing heaven?-the fable of the Flying Dutchman -with its convention of crime and its sentimental retribution fades like -a graceful wreath, like a wisp of white mist. What is there to say that -every one of us cannot guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going -through the ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the matches. Those -starving wretches had plenty of matches! He had no mind to have the ship -set on fire under his feet, either from hate or from despair. He lived -in the open, camping on the bridge, commanding all the after deck -and the only approach to the pump. He lived! Some of the others lived -too--concealed, anxious, coming out one by one from their hiding-places -at the seductive sound of a shot. And he was not selfish. They shared, -but only three of them all were alive when a whaler, returning from her -cruising ground, nearly ran over the water-logged hull of the Borgmester -Dahl, which, it seems, in the end had in some way sprung a leak in both -her holds, but being loaded with deals could not sink. - -"They all died," Falk said. "These three too, afterwards. But I would -not die. All died, all! under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to -throw away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain? I was alone there, quite -alone, just like the others. Each man was alone. Was I to give up my -revolver? Who to? Or was I to throw it into the sea? What would -have been the good? Only the best man would survive. It was a great, -terrible, and cruel misfortune." - -He had survived! I saw him before me as though preserved for a witness -to the mighty truth of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads -of perspiration stood on his forehead. And suddenly it struck the table -with a heavy blow, as he fell forward throwing his hands out. - -"And this is worse," he cried. "This is a worse pain! This is more -terrible." - -He made my heart thump with the profound conviction of his cries. And -after he had left me alone I called up before my mental eye the image -of the girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently, and as if -irresistibly. I thought of her tawny hair. I thought how, if unplaited, -it would have covered her all round as low as the hips, like the hair of -a siren. And she had bewitched him. Fancy a man who would guard his -own life with the inflexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being -brought to lament that once a crowbar had missed his skull! The sirens -sing and lure to death, but this one had been weeping silently as if -for the pity of his life. She was the tender and voiceless siren of this -appalling navigator. He evidently wanted to live his whole conception -of life. Nothing else would do. And she too was a servant of that -life that, in the midst of death, cries aloud to our senses. She was -eminently fitted to interpret for him its feminine side. And in her own -way, and with her own profusion of sensuous charms, she also seemed -to illustrate the eternal truth of an unerring principle. I don't know -though what sort of principle Hermann illustrated when he turned up -early on board my ship with a most perplexed air. It struck me, however, -that he too would do his best to survive. He seemed greatly calmed on -the subject of Falk, but still very full of it. - -"What is it you said I was last night? You know," he asked after some -preliminary talk. "Too--too--I don't know. A very funny word." - -"Squeamish?" I suggested. - -"Yes. What does it mean?" - -"That you exaggerate things--to yourself. Without inquiry, and so on." - -He seemed to turn it over in his mind. We went on talking. This Falk was -the plague of his life. Upsetting everybody like this! Mrs. Hermann was -unwell rather this morning. His niece was crying still. There was nobody -to look after the children. He struck his umbrella on the deck. She -would be like that for months. Fancy carrying all the way home, second -class, a perfectly useless girl who is crying all the time. It was -bad for Lena too, he observed; but on what grounds I could not guess. -Perhaps of the bad example. That child was already sorrowing and crying -enough over the rag doll. Nicholas was really the least sentimental -person of the family. - -"Why does she weep?" I asked. - -"From pity," cried Hermann. - -It was impossible to make out women. Mrs. Hermann was the only one he -pretended to understand. She was very, very upset and doubtful. - -"Doubtful about what?" I asked. - -He averted his eyes and did not answer this. It was impossible to make -them out. For instance, his niece was weeping for Falk. Now he (Hermann) -would like to wring his neck--but then . . . He supposed he had too -tender a heart. "Frankly," he asked at last, "what do you think of what -we heard last night, captain?" - -"In all these tales," I observed, "there is always a good deal of -exaggeration." - -And not letting him recover from his surprise I assured him that I knew -all the details. He begged me not to repeat them. His heart was too -tender. They made him feel unwell. Then, looking at his feet and -speaking very slowly, he supposed that he need not see much of them -after they were married. For, indeed, he could not bear the sight of -Falk. On the other hand it was ridiculous to take home a girl with her -head turned. A girl that weeps all the time and is of no help to her -aunt. - -"Now you will be able to do with one cabin only on your passage home," I -said. - -"Yes, I had thought of that," he said brightly, almost. "Yes! Himself, -his wife, four children--one cabin might do. Whereas if his niece went -. . ." - -"And what does Mrs. Hermann say to it?" I inquired. - -Mrs. Hermann did not know whether a man of that sort could make a girl -happy--she had been greatly deceived in Captain Falk. She had been very -upset last night. - -Those good people did not seem to be able to retain an impression for a -whole twelve hours. I assured him on my own personal knowledge that -Falk possessed in himself all the qualities to make his niece's future -prosperous. He said he was glad to hear this, and that he would tell his -wife. Then the object of the visit came out. He wished me to help him to -resume relations with Falk. His niece, he said, had expressed the hope I -would do so in my kindness. He was evidently anxious that I should, -for though he seemed to have forgotten nine-tenths of his last night's -opinions and the whole of his indignation, yet he evidently feared to -be sent to the right-about. "You told me he was very much in love," he -concluded slyly, and leered in a sort of bucolic way. - -As soon as he had left my ship I called Falk on board by signal--the -tug still lying at the anchorage. He took the news with calm gravity, -as though he had all along expected the stars to fight for him in their -courses. - -I saw them once more together, and only once--on the quarter-deck of the -Diana. Hermann sat smoking with a shirt-sleeved elbow hooked over the -back of his chair. Mrs. Hermann was sewing alone. As Falk stepped over -the gangway, Hermann's niece, with a slight swish of the skirt and a -swift friendly nod to me, glided past my chair. - -They met in sunshine abreast of the mainmast. He held her hands and -looked down at them, and she looked up at him with her candid and -unseeing glance. It seemed to me they had come together as if attracted, -drawn and guided to each other by a mysterious influence. They were a -complete couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life, generous of -form, olympian and simple, she was indeed the siren to fascinate that -dark navigator, this ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I -seemed to feel the masculine strength with which he grasped those hands -she had extended to him with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale, -nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran towards her big friend; and -then in the drowsy silence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann's voice -rang out so changed that it made me spin round in my chair to see what -was the matter. - -"Lena, come here!" she screamed. And this good-natured matron gave me a -wavering glance, dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran -back, surprised to her knee. But the two, standing before each other in -sunlight with clasped hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and no -one. Three feet away from them in the shade a seaman sat on a spar, very -busy splicing a strop, and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if -utterly unaware of their existence. - -When I returned in command of another ship, some five years afterwards, -Mr. and Mrs. Falk had left the place. I should not wonder if Schomberg's -tongue had succeeded at last in scaring Falk away for good; and, -indubitably, there was a tale still going about the town of a certain -Falk, owner of a tug, who had won his wife at cards from the captain of -an English ship. - - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Falk, by Joseph Conrad - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - -***** This file should be named 493.txt or 493.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/9/493/ - -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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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* - - - - - -FALK - -BY JOSEPH CONRAD - - - - - -FALK - -A REMINISCENCE - -Several of us, all more or less connected with the -sea, were dining in a small river-hostelry not more -than thirty miles from London, and less than twenty -from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which -our coasting men give the grandiose name of "Ger- -man Ocean." And through the wide windows we -had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down -the Lower Hope Reach. But the dinner was exe- -crable, and all the feast was for the eyes. - -That flavour of salt-water which for so many of -us had been the very water of life permeated our -talk. He who hath known the bitterness of the -Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But -one or two of us, pampered by the life of the land, -complained of hunger. It was impossible to swal- -low any of that stuff. And indeed there was a -strange mustiness in everything. The wooden din- -ing-room stuck out over the mud of the shore like -a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed -rotten; a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically -to and fro before an antediluvian and worm-eaten -sideboard; the chipped plates might have been dis- -interred from some kitchen midden near an inhab- -ited lake; and the chops recalled times more ancient -still. They brought forcibly to one's mind the -night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the -first rudiments of cookery from his dim conscious- -ness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks in the -company of other good fellows; then, gorged and -happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to -tell his artless tales of experience--the tales of hun- -ger and hunt--and of women, perhaps! - -But luckily the wine happened to be as old as -the waiter. So, comparatively empty, but upon the -whole fairly happy, we sat back and told our artless -tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The -sea never changes, and its works for all the talk of -men are wrapped in mystery. But we agreed that -the times were changed. And we talked of old -ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismast- -ings; and of a man who brought his ship safe to -Liverpool all the way from the River Platte under -a jury rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short ra- -tions and of heroism--or at least of what the news- -papers would have called heroism at sea--a mani- -festation of virtues quite different from the heroism -of primitive times. And now and then falling silent -all together we gazed at the sights of the river. - -A P. & O. boat passed bound down. "One gets -jolly good dinners on board these ships," remarked -one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read out -the name on her bows: Arcadia. "What a beauti- -ful model of a ship!" murmured some of us. She -was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the flag -they hauled down aboard while we were looking -showed her to be a Norwegian. She made an awful -lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown away, a -high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and -towed by a paddle-tug, appeared in front of the -windows. All her hands were forward busy setting -up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood, -quite alone with the man at the wheel, paced the -length of the poop back and forth, with the grey -wool of some knitting work in her hands. - -"German I should think," muttered one. "The -skipper has his wife on board," remarked another; -and the light of the crimson sunset all ablaze behind -the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light -upon the barque's spars, faded away from the Hope -Reach. - -Then one of us, who had not spoken before, a -man of over fifty, that had commanded ships for a -quarter of a century, looking after the barque now -gliding far away, all black on the lustre of the river, -said: - -This reminds me of an absurd episode in my life, -now many years ago, when I got first the command -of an iron barque, loading then in a certain Eastern -seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern king- -dom, lying up a river as might be London lies up -this old Thames of ours. No more need be said of -the place; for this sort of thing might have hap- -pened anywhere where there are ships, skippers, -tugboats, and orphan nieces of indescribable splen- -dour. And the absurdity of the episode concerns -only me, my enemy Falk, and my friend Hermann. - -There seemed to be something like peculiar em- -phasis on the words "My friend Hermann," which -caused one of us (for we had just been speaking of -heroism at sea) to say idly and nonchalantly: - -"And was this Hermann a hero?" - -Not at all, said our grizzled friend. No hero at -all. He was a Schiff-fuhrer: Ship-conductor. -That's how they call a Master Mariner in Germany. -I prefer our way. The alliteration is good, and -there is something in the nomenclature that gives -to us as a body the sense of corporate existence: -Apprentice, Mate, Master, in the ancient and hon- -ourable craft of the sea. As to my friend Hermann, -he might have been a consummate master of the -honourable craft, but he was called officially Schiff- -fuhrer, and had the simple, heavy appearance of a -well-to-do farmer, combined with the good-natured -shrewdness of a small shopkeeper. With his shaven -chin, round limbs, and heavy eyelids he did not look -like a toiler, and even less like an adventurer of the -sea. Still, he toiled upon the seas, in his own way, -much as a shopkeeper works behind his counter. -And his ship was the means by which he maintained -his growing family. - -She was a heavy, strong, blunt-bowed affair, -awakening the ideas of primitive solidity, like the -wooden plough of our forefathers. And there were, -about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely -nature. The extraordinary timber projections -which I have seen in no other vessel made her square -stern resemble the tail end of a miller's waggon. -But the four stern ports of her cabin, glazed with -six little greenish panes each, and framed in wooden -sashes painted brown, might have been the windows -of a cottage in the country. The tiny white cur- -tains and the greenery of flower pots behind the -glass completed the resemblance. On one or two -occasions when passing under stern I had de- -tected from my boat a round arm in the act of tilt- -ing a watering pot, and the bowed sleek head of a -maiden whom I shall always call Hermann's niece, -because as a matter of fact I've never heard her -name, for all my intimacy with the family. - -This, however, sprang up later on. Meantime in -common with the rest of the shipping in that East- -ern port, I was left in no doubt as to Hermann's no- -tions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed -in wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On -most days little frocks and pinafores could be seen -drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny -row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but -once a fortnight the family washing was exhibited -in force. It covered the poop entirely. The after- -noon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby activ- -ity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague -suggestions of drowned, mutilated and flattened hu- -manity. Trunks without heads waved at you arms -without hands; legs without feet kicked fantasti- -cally with collapsible flourishes; and there were long -white garments that, taking the wind fairly -through their neck openings edged with lace, be- -came for a moment violently distended as by the -passage of obese and invisible bodies. On these days -you could make out that ship at a great distance -by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft -her mizzen mast. - -She had her berth just ahead of me, and her -name was Diana,--Diana not of Ephesus but of -Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a -foot long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat -like the lettering of a shop-sign) under the cottage -windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name struck -one as an impertinence towards the memory of the -most charming of goddesses; for, apart from the -fact that the old craft was physically incapable of -engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of -four children belonging to her. They peeped over -the rail at passing boats and occasionally dropped -various objects into them. Thus, sometime before -I knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat -a horrid rag-doll belonging to Hermann's eldest -daughter. However, these youngsters were upon -the whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round -eyes, round little knobby noses, and they resembled -their father a good deal. - -This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old -ship, and seemed to know nothing of the wicked sea, -as there are on shore households that know nothing -of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she sug- -gested were unexceptionable and mainly of a do- -mestic order. She was a home. All these dear chil- -dren had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck. -In such thoughts there is something pretty, even -touching. Their teeth, I should judge, they had -cut on the ends of her running gear. I have many -times observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) en- -gaged in gnawing the whipping of the fore-royal -brace. Nicholas' favourite place of residence was -under the main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose -he would crawl off there, and the first seaman who -came along would bring him, carefully held aloft -in tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy -there must have been a standing order to that effect. -In the course of these transportations the baby, -who was the only peppery person in the ship, tried -to smite these stalwart young German sailors on the -face. - -Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife, -wore on board baggy blue dresses with white dots. -When, as happened once or twice I caught her at an -elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white col- -lars, baby's socks, and Hermann's summer neck- -ties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and rais- -ing her wet hands greet me from afar with many -friendly nods. Her sleeves would be rolled up to -the elbows, and the gold hoop of her wedding ring -glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was -pleasant, she had a serene brow, smooth bands of -very fair hair, and a good-humoured expression of -the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talka- -tive. When this simple matron smiled, youthful -dimples broke out on her fresh broad cheeks. Her- -mann's niece on the other hand, an orphan and very -silent, I never saw attempt a smile. This, however, -was not gloom on her part but the restraint of -youthful gravity. - -They had carried her about with them for the -last three years, to help with the children and be -company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann men- -tioned once to me. It had been very necessary while -they were all little, he had added in a vexed manner. -It was her arm and her sleek head that I had -glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows -of the cabin, hovering over the pots of fuchsias and -mignonette; but the first time I beheld her full -length I surrendered to her proportions. They fix -her in my mind, as great beauty, great intelligence, -quickness of wit or kindness of heart might have -made some her other woman equally memorable. - -With her it was form and size. It was her physi- -cal personality that had this imposing charm. She -might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to an -exceptional degree. I don't know, and this is not to -the point. All I know is that she was built on a -magnificent scale. Built is the only word. She was -constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal -lavishness. It staggered you to see this reckless ex- -penditure of material upon a chit of a girl. She -was youthful and also perfectly mature, as though -she had been some fortunate immortal. She was -heavy too, perhaps, but that's nothing. It only -added to that notion of permanence. She was bare- -ly nineteen. But such shoulders! Such round -arms! Such a shadowing forth of mighty limbs -when with three long strides she pounced across the -deck upon the overturned Nicholas--it's perfectly -indescribable! She seemed a good, quiet girl, vigi- -lant as to Lena's needs, Gustav's tumbles, the state -of Carl's dear little nose--conscientious, hardwork- -ing, and all that. But what magnificent hair she -had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. -It had the sheen of precious metals. She wore it -plaited tightly into one single tress hanging girl- -ishly down her back and its end reached down to -her waist. The massiveness of it surprised you. -On my word it reminded one of a club. Her face -was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She -had a good complexion, and her blue eyes were so -pale that she appeared to look at the world with -the empty white candour of a statue. You could -not call her good-looking. It was something much -more impressive. The simplicity of her apparel, -the opulence of her form, her imposing stature, -and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that -seemed to emanate from her like a perfume exhaled -by a flower, made her beautiful with a beauty of a -rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching -up to the clothes-line with both arms raised high -above her head, caused you to fall a musing in a -strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs. Hermann's -baggy cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary -frills at neck and bottom, but this girl's print frocks -hadn't even a wrinkle; nothing but a few straight -folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these, when -she stood still, had a severe and statuesque quality. -She was inclined naturally to be still whether sit- -ting or standing. However, I don't mean to say -she was statuesque. She was too generously alive; -but she could have stood for an allegoric statue of -the Earth. I don't mean the worn-out earth of our -possession, but a young Earth, a virginal planet -undisturbed by the vision of a future teeming with -the monstrous forms of life and death, clamorous -with the cruel battles of hunger and thought. - -The worthy Hermann himself was not very en- -tertaining, though his English was fairly compre- -hensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one -speech at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone -(and in Platt-Deutsch I suppose) I could not un- -derstand. As to their niece, however satisfactory -to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with -a hopeful view as to the prospects of mankind) -she was a modest and silent presence, mostly en- -gaged in sewing, only now and then, as I observed, -falling over that work into a state of maidenly -meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her, sewing also, -with her feet propped on a wooden footstool. On -the other side of the deck Hermann and I would -get a couple of chairs out of the cabin and settle -down to a smoking match, accompanied at long in- -tervals by the pacific exchange of a few words. I -came nearly every evening. Hermann I would find -in his shirt sleeves. As soon as he returned from -the shore on board his ship he commenced operations -by taking off his coat; then he put on his head an -embroidered round cap with a tassel, and changed -his boots for a pair of cloth slippers. Afterwards -he smoked at the cabin-door, looking at his children -with an air of civic virtue, till they got caught one -after another and put to bed in various staterooms. -Lastly, we would drink some beer in the cabin, which -was furnished with a wooden table on cross legs, and -with black straight-backed chairs--more like a farm -kitchen than a ship's cuddy. The sea and all nauti- -cal affairs seemed very far removed from the hos- -pitality of this exemplary family. - -And I liked this because I had a rather worrying -time on board my own ship. I had been appointed -ex-officio by the British Consul to take charge of -her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for -the guidance of his successor some suspiciously un- -receipted bills, a few dry-dock estimates hinting at -bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for three years' -extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up to- -gether in a dusty old violin-case lined with ruby -velvet. I found besides a large account-book, -which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my -infinite consternation to be filled with verses--page -after page of rhymed doggerel of a jovial and im- -proper character, written in the neatest minute hand -I ever did see. In the same fiddle-case a photograph -of my predecessor, taken lately in Saigon, repre- -sented in front of a garden view, and in company -of a female in strange draperies, an elderly, squat, -rugged man of stern aspect in a clumsy suit of black -broadcloth, and with the hair brushed forward above -the temples in a manner reminding one of a boar's -tusks. Of a fiddle, however, the only trace on board -was the case, its empty husk as it were; but of the -two last freights the ship had indubitably earned -of late, there were not even the husks left. It was -impossible to say where all that money had gone to. -It wasn't on board. It had not been remitted home; -for a letter from the owners, preserved in a desk -evidently by the merest accident, complained mildly -enough that they had not been favoured by a -scratch of the pen for the last eighteen months. -There were next to no stores on board, not an inch -of spare rope or a yard of canvas. The ship had -been run bare, and I foresaw no end of difficulties -before I could get her ready for sea. - -As I was young then--not thirty yet--I took -myself and my troubles very seriously. The old -mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the cap- -tain's funeral, was not particularly pleased at my -coming. But the fact is the fellow was not legally -qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, -if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man -on board. As to the second mate, all I can say his -name was Tottersen, or something like that. His -practice was to wear on his head, in that tropical -climate, a mangy fur cap. He was, without excep- -tion, the stupidest man I had ever seen on board -ship. And he looked it too. He looked so con- -foundedly stupid that it was a matter of surprise -for me when he answered to his name. - -I drew no great comfort from their company, to -say the least of it; while the prospect of making a -long sea passage with those two fellows was depress- -ing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not -be of a gay complexion. The crew was sickly, the -cargo was coming very slow; I foresaw I would -have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted -whether they would advance me enough money for -the ship's expenses. Their attitude towards me was -unfriendly. Altogether I was not getting on. I -would discover at odd times (generally about mid- -night) that I was totally inexperienced, greatly ig- -norant of business, and hopelessly unfit for any -sort of command; and when the steward had to be -taken to the hospital ill with choleraic symptoms I -felt bereaved of the only decent person at the after -end of the ship. He was fully expected to recover, -but in the meantime had to be replaced by some sort -of servant. And on the recommendation of a cer- -tain Schomberg, the proprietor of the smaller of -the two hotels in the place, I engaged a Chinaman. -Schomberg, a brawny, hairy Alsatian, and an awful -gossip, assured me that it was all right. "First- -class boy that. Came in the suite of his Excellency -Tseng the Commissioner--you know. His Excel- -lency Tseng lodged with me here for three weeks." - -He mouthed the Chinese Excellency at me with -great unction, though the specimen of the "suite" -did not seem very promising. At the time, however, -I did not know what an untrustworthy humbug -Schomberg was. The "boy" might have been forty -or a hundred and forty for all you could tell-- -one of those Chinamen of the death's-head type of -face and completely inscrutable. Before the end of -the third day he had revealed himself as a confirmed -opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief, -and a first-class sprinter. When he departed at the -top of his speed with thirty-two golden sovereigns -of my own hard-earned savings it was the last straw. -I had reserved that money in case my difficulties -came to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor -and naked as a fakir. I clung to my ship, for all -the bother she caused me, but what I could not bear -were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where -the atmosphere, made smelly by a leaky lamp, was -agitated by the snoring of the mate. That fellow -shut himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at -eight, and made gross and revolting noises like a -water-logged trump. It was odious not to be able -to worry oneself in comfort on board one's own -ship. Everything in this world, I reflected, even -the command of a nice little barque, may be made -a delusion and a snare for the unwary spirit of -pride in man. - -From such reflections I was glad to make any es- -cape on board that Bremen Diana. There appar- -ently no whisper of the world's iniquities had ever -penetrated. And yet she lived upon the wide sea: -and the sea tragic and comic, the sea with its horrors -and its peculiar scandals, the sea peopled by men -and ruled by iron necessity is indubitably a part of -the world. But that patriarchal old tub, like some -saintly retreat, echoed nothing of it. She was world -proof. Her venerable innocence apparently had -put a restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And -yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its -respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly -frank. It may, of course, have been Hermann's -skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the al- -lied oceans had refrained from smashing these high -bulwarks, unshipping the lumpy rudder, frighten- -ing the children, and generally opening this fam- -ily's eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reti- -cence. The ruthless disclosure was in the end left -for a man to make; a man strong and elemental -enough and driven to unveil some secrets of the sea -by the power of a simple and elemental desire. - -This, however, occurred much later, and mean- -time I took sanctuary in that serene old ship early -every evening. The only person on board that -seemed to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due -course I perceived that the health of the rag-doll -was more than delicate. This object led a sort of -"in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed -against the starboard mooring-bitts, tended and -nursed with the greatest sympathy and care by all -the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces -and moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby ---Nicholas--looked on with a cold, ruffianly leer, -as if he had belonged to another tribe altogether. -Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of -them were in deadly earnest. It was wonderful the -way these children would work up their compassion -for that bedraggled thing I wouldn't have touched -with a pair of tongs. I suppose they were exercis- -ing and developing their racial sentimentalism by -the means of that dummy. I was only surprised -that Mrs. Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that -bundle of rags to that extent, it was so disreputably -and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann would -raise her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to -look on with amused sympathy, and did not seen to -see it, somehow, that this object of affection was a -disgrace to the ship's purity. Purity, not cleanli- -ness, is the word. It was pushed so far that I seemed -to detect in this too a sentimental excess, as if dirt -had been removed in very love. It is impossible to -give you an idea of such a meticulous neatness. It -was as if every morning that ship had been ardu- -ously explored with--with toothbrushes. Her very -bowsprit three times a week had its toilette made -with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. Ar- -rayed--I MUST say arrayed--arrayed artlessly in -dazzling white paint as to wood and dark green as -to ironwork the simple-minded distribution of these -colours evoked the images of simple-minded peace, -of arcadian felicity; and the childish comedy of -disease and sorrow struck me sometimes as an abom- -inably real blot upon that ideal state. - -I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought -a little mild excitement into it. Our intimacy arose -from the pursuit of that thief. It was in the even- -ing, and Hermann, who, contrary to his habits, had -stayed on shore late that day, was extricating him- -self backwards out of a little gharry on the river -bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed. -Realising the situation as though he had eyes in his -shoulder-blades, he joined us with a leap and took -the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like a rapid -shadow on the dust of an extremely oriental road. -I followed. A long way in the rear my mate -whooped like a savage. A young moon threw a -bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste -ground: the architectural mass of a Buddhist tem- -ple far away projected itself in dead black on the -sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my disap- -pointment I had to admire Hermann's presence of -mind. The velocity that stodgy man developed in -the interests of a complete stranger earned my -warm gratitude--there was something truly cordial -in his exertions. - -He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and -would hardly listen to my thanks. He said it was -"nothings," and invited me on the spot to come on -board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him. -We poked sceptically for a while amongst the -bushes, peered without conviction into a ditch or -two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glim- -mered feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged -back, drooping under the thin sickle of the moon, -and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! Zwei -und dreissig Pfund!" He was impressed by the -figure of my loss. For a long time we had ceased to -hear the mate's whoops and yells. - -Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troub- -les," and as we went on remarked that he would -never have known anything of mine hadn't he by an -extraordinary chance been detained on shore by -Captain Falk. He didn't like to stay late ashore-- -he added with a sigh. The something doleful in his -tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of -course. - -On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann's fine eyes -expressed much interest and commiseration. We -had found the two women sewing face to face under -the open skylight in the strong glare of the lamp. -Hermann walked in first, starting in the very door- -way to pull off his coat, and encouraging me with -loud, hospitable ejaculations: "Come in! This -way! Come in, captain!" At once, coat in hand, -he began to tell his wife all about it. Mrs. Hermann -put the palms of her plump hands together; I -smiled and bowed with a heavy heart: the niece got -up from her sewing to bring Hermann's slippers -and his embroidered calotte, which he assumed pon- -tifically, talking (about me) all the time. Billows -of white stuff lay between the chairs on the cabin -floor; I caught the words "Zwei und dreissig -Pfund" repeated several times, and presently came -the beer, which seemed delicious to my throat, -parched with running and the emotions of the chase. - -I didn't get away till well past midnight, long -after the women had retired. Hermann had been -trading in the East for three years or more, carry- -ing freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship -was well known in all the ports from Vladivostok to -Singapore. She was his own property. The profits -had been moderate, but the trade answered well -enough while the children were small yet. In an- -other year or so he hoped he would be able to sell the -old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He -intended to return home, to Bremen, by mail boat, -second class, with Mrs. Hermann and the children. -He told me all this stolidly, with slow puffs at his -pipe. I was sorry when knocking the ashes out he -began to rub his eyes. I would have sat with him -till morning. What had I to hurry on board my -own ship for? To face the broken rifled drawer in -my state-room. Ugh! The very thought made me -feel unwell. - -I became their daily guest, as you know. I think -that Mrs. Hermann from the first looked upon me -as a romantic person. I did not, of course, tear my -hair coram populo over my loss, and she took it for -lordly indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did -tell them some of my adventures--such as they were ---and they marvelled greatly at the extent of my -experience. Hermann would translate what he -thought the most striking passages. Getting up on -his legs, and as if delivering a lecture on a phenom- -enon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the -two women, who would let their sewing sink slowly -on their laps. Meantime I sat before a glass of -Hermann's beer, trying to look modest. Mrs. Her- -mann would glance at me quickly, emit slight -"Ach's!" The girl never made a sound. Never. -But she too would sometimes raise her pale eyes to -look at me in her unseeing gentle way. Her glance -was by no means stupid; it beamed out soft and dif- -fuse as the moon beams upon a landscape--quite -differently from the scrutinising inspection of the -stars. You were drowned in it, and imagined your- -self to appear blurred. And yet this same glance -when turned upon Christian Falk must have been -as efficient as the searchlight of a battle-ship. - -Falk was the other assiduous visitor on board, -but from his behaviour he might have been coming -to see the quarter-deck capstan. He certainly used -to stare at it a good deal when keeping us company -outside the cabin door, with one muscular arm -thrown over the back of the chair, and his big -shapely legs, in very tight white trousers, extended -far out and ending in a pair of black shoes as -roomy as punts. On arrival he would shake Her- -mann's hand with a mutter, bow to the women, and -take up his careless and misanthropic attitude by -our side. He departed abruptly, with a jump, go- -ing through the performance of grunts, hand- -shakes, bow, as if in a panic. Sometimes, with a -sort of discreet and convulsive effort, he approached -the women and exchanged a few low words with -them, half a dozen at most. On these occasions Her- -mann's usual stare became positively glassy and -Mrs. Hermann's kind countenance would colour up. -The girl herself never turned a hair. - -Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I -can't tell now. At all events he was a Scandinavian -of some sort, and a bloated monopolist to boot. It -is possible he was unacquainted with the word, but -he had a clear perception of the thing itself. His -tariff of charges for towing ships in and out was -the most brutally inconsiderate document of the sort -I had ever seen. He was the commander and owner -of the only tug-boat on the river, a very trim white -craft of 150 tons or more, as elegantly neat as a -yacht, with a round wheel-house rising like a glazed -turret high above her sharp bows, and with one slen- -der varnished pole mast forward. I daresay there -are yet a few shipmasters afloat who remember Falk -and his tug very well. He extracted his pound and -a half of flesh from each of us merchant-skippers -with an inflexible sort of indifference which made -him detested and even feared. Schomberg used to -remark: "I won't talk about the fellow. I don't -think he has six drinks from year's end to year's end -in my place. But my advice is, gentlemen, don't -you have anything to do with him, if you can help -it." - -This advice, apart from unavoidable business re- -lations, was easy to follow because Falk intruded -upon no one. It seems absurd to compare a tug- -boat skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me some- -how of an engraving in a little book I had as a boy, -which represented centaurs at a stream, and there -was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow -and arrows in hand, with regular severe features -and an immense curled wavy beard, flowing down -his breast. Falk's face reminded me of that cen- -taur. Besides, he was a composite creature. Not -a man-horse, it is true, but a man-boat. He lived -on board his tug, which was always dashing up and -down the river from early morn till dewy eve. - -In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick -out far away down the reach his beard borne high -up on the white structure, foaming up stream to -anchor for the night. There was the white-clad -man's body, and the rich brown patch of the hair, -and nothing below the waist but the 'thwart-ship -white lines of the bridge-screens, that lead the eye -to the sharp white lines of the bows cleaving the -muddy water of the river. - -Separated from his boat to me at least he seemed -incomplete. The tug herself without his head and -torso on the bridge looked mutilated as it were. -But he left her very seldom. All the time I re- -mained in harbour I saw him only twice on shore. -On the first occasion it was at my charterers, where -he came in misanthropically to get paid for towing -out a French barque the day before. The second -time I could hardly believe my eyes, for I beheld -him reclining under his beard in a cane-bottomed -chair in the billiard-room of Schomberg's hotel. - -It was very funny to see Schomberg ignoring -him pointedly. The artificiality of it contrasted -strongly with Falk's natural unconcern. The big -Alsatian talked loudly with his other customers, go- -ing from one little table to the other, and passing -Falk's place of repose with his eyes fixed straight -ahead. Falk sat there with an untouched glass at -his elbow. He must have known by sight and name -every white man in the room, but he never addressed -a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence -by a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawl- -ing there in the chair, he would, now and again, -draw the palms of both his hands down his face, -giving at the same time a slight, almost impercepti- -ble, shudder. - -It was a habit he had, and of course I was per- -fectly familiar with it, since you could not remain -an hour in his company without being made to won- -der at such a movement breaking some long period -of stillness. it was a passionate and inexplicable -gesture. He used to make it at all sorts of times; -as likely as not after he had been listening to little -Lena's chatter about the suffering doll, for instance. -The Hermann children always besieged him about -his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he shrank -from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a -great affection for the whole family. For Hermann -himself especially. He sought his company. In -this case, for instance, he must have been waiting -for him, because as soon as he appeared Falk rose -hastily, and they went out together. Then Schom- -berg expounded in my hearing to three or four -people his theory that Falk was after Captain Her- -mann's niece, and asserted confidently that nothing -would come of it. It was the same last year when -Captain Hermann was loading here, he said. - -Naturally, I did not believe Schomberg, but I -own that for a time I observed closely what went -on. All I discovered was some impatience on Her- -mann's part. At the sight of Falk, stepping over -the gangway, the excellent man would begin to -mumble and chew between his teeth something that -sounded like German swear-words. However, as -I've said, I'm not familiar with the language, and -Hermann's soft, round-eyed countenance remained -unchanged. Staring stolidly ahead he greeted -him with, "Wie gehts," or in English, "How are -you?" with a throaty enunciation. The girl would -look up for an instant and move her lips slightly: -Mrs. Hermann let her hands rest on her lap to talk -volubly to him for a minute or so in her pleasant -voice before she went on with her sewing again. -Falk would throw himself into a chair, stretch his -big legs, as like as not draw his hands down his face -passionately. As to myself, he was not pointedly -impertinent: it was rather as though he could not -be bothered with such trifles as my existence; and -the truth is that being a monopolist he was under -no necessity to be amiable. He was sure to get his -own extortionate terms out of me for towage -whether he frowned or smiled. As a matter of fact, -he did neither: but before many days elapsed he -managed to astonish me not a little and to set -Schomberg's tongue clacking more than ever. - -It came about in this way. There was a shallow -bar at the mouth of the river which ought to have -been kept down, but the authorities of the State -were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist -Pagoda just then, and I suppose had no money to -spare for dredging operations. I don't know how -it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sand- -bank was a great nuisance to the shipping. One of -its consequences was that vessels of a certain -draught of water, like Hermann's or mine, could not -complete their loading in the river. After taking -in as much as possible of their cargo, they had to -go outside to fill up. The whole procedure was an -unmitigated bore. When you thought you had as -much on board as your ship could carry safely over -the bar, you went and gave notice to your agents. -They, in their turn, notified Falk that so-and-so -was ready to go out. Then Falk (ostensibly when it -fitted in with his other work, but, if the truth were -known, simply when his arbitrary spirit moved -him), after ascertaining carefully in the office that -there was enough money to meet his bill, would -come along unsympathetically, glaring at you with -his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you -out dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the -decks, with unfeeling haste, as if to execution. And -he would force you too to take the end of his own -wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course -an extra charge. To your shouted remonstrances -against that extortion this towering trunk with one -hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its -bearded head above the splash, the racket, and the -clouds of smoke in which the tug, backing and fill- -ing in the smother of churning paddle-wheels be- -haved like a ferocious and impatient creature. He -had her manned by the cheekiest gang of lascars I -ever did see, whom he allowed to bawl at you inso- -lently, and, once fast, he plucked you out of your -berth as if he did not care what he smashed. Eigh- -teen miles down the river you had to go behind him, -and then three more along the coast to where a -group of uninhabited rocky islets enclosed a shel- -tered anchorage. There you would have to lie at -single anchor with your naked spars showing to -seaward over these barren fragments of land scat- -tered upon a very intensely blue sea. There was -nothing to look at besides but a bare coast, the mud- -dy edge of the brown plain with the sinuosities of -the river you had left, traced in dull green, and the -Great Pagoda uprising lonely and massive with -shining curves and pinnacles like the gorgeous and -stony efflorescence of tropical rocks. You had -nothing to do but to wait fretfully for the balance -of your cargo, which was sent out of the river with -the greatest irregularity. And it was open to you -to console yourself with the thought that, after all, -this stage of bother meant that your departure from -these shores was indeed approaching at last. - -We both had to go through that stage, Hermann -and I, and there was a sort of tacit emulation be- -tween the ships as to which should be ready first. -We kept on neck and neck almost to the finish, when -I won the race by going personally to give notice in -the forenoon; whereas Hermann, who was very slow -in making up his mind to go ashore, did not get to -the agents' office till late in the day. They told him -there that my ship was first on turn for next morn- -ing, and I believe he told them he was in no hurry. -It suited him better to go the day after. - -That evening, on board the Diana, he sat with -his plump knees well apart, staring and puffing at -the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. Presently he -spoke with some impatience to his niece about put- -ting the children to bed. Mrs. Hermann, who was -talking to Falk, stopped short and looked at her -husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and -drove the children before her into the cabin. In a -little while Mrs. Hermann had to leave us to quell -what, from the sounds inside, must have been a dan- -gerous mutiny. At this Hermann grumbled to him- -self. For half an hour longer Falk left alone with -us fidgeted on his chair, sighed lightly, then at last, -after drawing his hands down his face, got up, and -as if renouncing the hope of making himself under- -stood (he hadn't opened his mouth once) he said in -English: "Well. . . . Good night, Captain Her- -mann." He stopped for a moment before my chair -and looked down fixedly; I may even say he glared: -and he went so far as to make a deep noise in his -throat. There was in all this something so marked -that for the first time in our limited intercourse of -nods and grunts he excited in me something like -interest. But next moment he disappointed me-- -for he strode away hastily without a nod even. - -His manner was usually odd it is true, and I cer- -tainly did not pay much attention to it; but that -sort of obscure intention, which seemed to lurk in -his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had -never before come so near the surface. He had dis- -tinctly aroused my expectations. I would have been -unable to say what it was I expected, but at all -events I did not expect the absurd developments he -sprung upon me no later than the break of the very -next day. - -I remember only that there was, on that evening, -enough point in his behaviour to make me, after he -had fled, wonder audibly what he might mean. To -this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and -settling himself viciously away from me in his chair, -said: "That fellow don't know himself what he -means." - -There might have been some insight in such a -remark. I said nothing, and, still averted, he -added: "When I was here last year he was just -the same." An eruption of tobacco smoke envel- -oped his head as if his temper had exploded like -gunpowder. - -I had half a mind to ask him point blank whether -he, at least, didn't know why Falk, a notoriously -unsociable man, had taken to visiting his ship with -such assiduity. After all, I reflected suddenly, it -was a most remarkable thing. I wonder now what -Hermann would have said. As it turned out he -didn't let me ask. Forgetting all about Falk ap- -parently, he started a monologue on his plans for -the future: the selling of the ship, the going home; -and falling into a reflective and calculating mood -he mumbled between regular jets of smoke about -the expense. The necessity of disbursing passage -money for all his tribe seemed to disturb him in a -manner that was the more striking because other- -wise he gave no signs of a miserly disposition. And -yet he fussed over the prospect of that voyage home -in a mail boat like a sedentary grocer who has made -up his mind to see the world. He was racially thrifty -I suppose, and for him there must have been a great -novelty in finding himself obliged to pay for travel- -ling--for sea travelling which was the normal state -of life for the family--from the very cradle for -most of them. I could see he grudged prospectively -every single shilling which must be spent so absurd- -ly. It was rather funny. He would become doleful -over it, and then again, with a fretful sigh, he would -suppose there was nothing for it now but to take -three second-class tickets--and there were the four -children to pay for besides. A lot of money that -to spend at once. A big lot of money. - -I sat with him listening (not for the first time) -to these heart-searchings till I grew thoroughly -sleepy, and then I left him and turned in on board -my ship. At daylight I was awakened by a yelping -of shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion -in the water, and the short, bullying blasts of a -steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come for me. - -I began to dress. It was remarkable that the -answering noise on board my ship together with the -patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But -I heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to -express surprise and annoyance. Then the voice of -my mate reached me howling expostulations to -somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, ap- -parently indignant; a chorus of something that -sounded like abuse replied. Now and then the -steam-whistle screeched. - -Altogether that unnecessary uproar was distract- -ing, but down there in my cabin I took it calmly. -In another moment, I thought, I should be going -down that wretched river, and in another week at -the most I should be totally quit of the odious place -and all the odious people in it. - -Greatly cheered by the idea, I seized the hair- -brushes and looking at myself in the glass began to -use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the noise out- -side, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown -open)--I heard a deep calm voice, not on board my -ship, however, hailing resolutely in English, but -with a strong foreign twang, "Go ahead!" - -There may be tides in the affairs of men which -taken at the flood . . . and so on. Personally I -am still on the look out for that important turn. -I am, however, afraid that most of us are fated to -flounder for ever in the dead water of a pool whose -shores are arid indeed. But I know that there are -often in men's affairs unexpectedly--even irration- -ally--illuminating moments when an otherwise in- -significant sound, perhaps only some perfectly com- -monplace gesture, suffices to reveal to us all the -unreason, all the fatuous unreason, of our compla- -cency. "Go ahead" are not particularly striking -words even when pronounced with a foreign accent; -yet they petrified me in the very act of smiling at -myself in the glass. And then, refusing to believe -my ears, but already boiling with indignation, I -ran out of the cabin and up on deck. - -It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I -had no eyes for anything but the Diana. It was she, -then, was being taken away. She was already out -of her berth and shooting athwart the river. "The -way this loonatic plucked that ship out is a cau- -tion," said the awed voice of my mate close to my -ear. "Hey! Hallo! Falk! Hermann! What's this -infernal trick?" I yelled in a fury. - -Nobody heard me. Falk certainly could not hear -me. His tug was turning at full speed away under -the other bank. The wire hawser between her and -the Diana, stretched as taut as a harpstring, -vibrated alarmingly. - -The high black craft careened over to the awful -strain. A loud crack came out of her, followed by -the tearing and splintering of wood. "There!" -said the awed voice in my ear. "He's carried away -their towing chock." And then, with enthusiasm, -"Oh! Look! Look! sir, Look! at them Dutchmen -skipping out of the way on the forecastle. I hope -to goodness he'll break a few of their shins before -he's done with 'em." - -I yelled my vain protests. The rays of the rising -sun coursing level along the plain warmed my back, -but I was hot enough with rage. I could not have -believed that a simple towing operation could sug- -gest so plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk -was simply running off with the Diana. - -The white tug careered out into the middle of the -river. The red floats of her paddle-wheels revolv- -ing with mad rapidity tore up the whole reach into -foam. The Diana in mid-stream waltzed round -with as much grace as an old barn, and flew after -her ravisher. Through the ragged fog of smoke -driving headlong upon the water I had a glimpse -of Falk's square motionless shoulders under a white -hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his red face, his yel- -low staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keep- -ing a lookout ahead, he was deliberately turning his -back on the river to glare at his tow. The tall -heavy craft, never so used before in her life, seemed -to have lost her senses; she took a wild sheer against -her helm, and for a moment came straight at us, -menacing and clumsy, like a runaway mountain. -She piled up a streaming, hissing, boiling wave -half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let out one -great howl,--and then we held our breaths. It was -a near thing. But Falk had her! He had her in -his clutch. I fancied I could hear the steel hawser -ping as it surged across the Diana's forecastle, with -the hands on board of her bolting away from it in -all directions. It was a near thing. Hermann, with -his hair rumpled, in a snuffy flannel shirt and a pair -of mustard-coloured trousers, had rushed to help -with the wheel. I saw his terrified round face; I -saw his very teeth uncovered by a sort of ghastly -fixed grin; and in a great leaping tumult of water -between the two ships the Diana whisked past so -close that I could have flung a hair-brush at his -head, for, it seems, I had kept them in my hands -all the time. Meanwhile Mrs. Hermann sat placidly -on the skylight, with a woollen shawl on her shoul- -ders. The excellent woman in response to my in- -dignant gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief, -nodding and smiling in the kindest way imagina- -ble. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping -about the poop in great glee, displaying their -gaudy braces; and Lena in a short scarlet petticoat, -with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed the -rag-doll with devotion. The whole family passed -before my sight as if dragged across a scene of un- -paralleled violence. The last I saw was Hermann's -niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing -apart from the others. Magnificent in her close- -fitting print frock she displayed something so com- -manding in the manifest perfection of her figure -that the sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The -flood of light brought out the opulence of her form -and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying way. -She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in -meditation; only the hem of her skirt stirred in the -draught; the sun rays broke on her sleek tawny -hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whack- -ing her on the shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm -rise and fall in a workmanlike manner. And then -the four cottage windows of the Diana came into -view retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes -were up, and one of the white calico curtains was -fluttered straight out like a streamer above the agi- -tated water of the wake. - -To be thus tricked out of one's turn was an un- -heard of occurrence. In my agent's office, where I -went to complain at once, they protested with apol- -ogies they couldn't understand how the mistake -arose: but Schomberg when I dropped in later to get -some tiffin, though surprised to see me, was perfect- -ly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at -the end of a long narrow table, facing his wife--a -scraggy little woman, with long ringlets and a blue -tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked -frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a -waggling punkah fanned twenty cane-bottomed -chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three China- -men in white jackets loafed with napkins in their -hands around that desolation. Schomberg's pet -table d'hote was not much of a success that day. -He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to -overflow with bitterness. - -He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops -to be brought back for me, and turning in his chair: -"Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it! Don't -you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn't a -man to make mistakes unless on purpose." His -firm conviction was that Falk had been trying all -along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann. -"On the cheap--mind you! It doesn't cost him a -cent to put that insult upon you, and Captain Her- -mann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time's -money! Eh? You are very friendly with Captain -Hermann I believe, but a man is bound to be pleased -at any little advantage he may get. Captain Her- -mann is a good business man, and there's no such -thing as a friend in business. Is there?" He -leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances -as usual. "But Falk is, and always was, a misera- -ble fellow. I would despise him." - -I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular -respect for Falk. - -"I would despise him," he insisted, with an ap- -pearance of anxiety which would have amused me -if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent. To -a young man fairly conscientious and as well-mean- -ing as only the young man can be, the current ill- -usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty. Youth -that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, -and in itself, will always doubt whether it have not -perchance deserved its fate. Sombre of mind and -without appetite, I struggled with the chop while -Mrs. Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid -grin and Schomberg's talk gathered way like a slide -of rubbish. - -"Let me tell you. It's all about that girl. I -don't know what Captain Hermann expects, but if -he asked me I could tell him something about Falk. -He's a miserable fellow. That man is a perfect -slave. That's what I call him. A slave. Last -year I started this table d'hote, and sent cards out ---you know. You think he had one meal in the -house? Give the thing a trial? Not once. He has -got hold now of a Madras cook--a blamed fraud -that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan. -He was not fit to cook for white men. No, not for -the white men's dogs either; but, see, any damned -native that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for -Mr. Falk. Rice and a little fish he buys for a few -cents from the fishing boats outside is what he lives -on. You would hardly credit it--eh? A white -man, too. . . ." - -He wiped his lips, using the napkin with indig- -nation, and looking at me. It flashed through my -mind in the midst of my depression that if all the -meat in the town was like these table d'hote chops, -Falk wasn't so far wrong. I was on the point of -saying this, but Schomberg's stare was intimidat- -ing. "He's a vegetarian, perhaps," I murmured -instead. - -"He's a miser. A miserable miser," affirmed the -hotel-keeper with great force. "The meat here is -not so good as at home--of course. And dear too. -But look at me. I only charge a dollar for the tif- -fin, and one dollar and fifty cents for the dinner. -Show me anything cheaper. Why am I doing it? -There's little profit in this game. Falk wouldn't -look at it. I do it for the sake of a lot of young -white fellows here that hadn't a place where they -could get a decent meal and eat it decently in good -company. There's first-rate company always at -my table." - -The convinced way he surveyed the empty chairs -made me feel as if I had intruded upon a tiffin of -ghostly Presences. - -"A white man should eat like a white man, dash -it all," he burst out impetuously. "Ought to eat -meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for my -patrons all the year round. Don't I? I am not ca- -tering for a dam' lot of coolies: Have another chop -captain. . . . No? You, boy--take away!" - -He threw himself back and waited grimly for the -curry. The half-closed jalousies darkened the room -pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: a swarm -of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs. -Schomberg's smile seemed to express the quintes- -sence of all the imbecility that had ever spoken, had -ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo -meat within these bare walls. Schomberg did not -open his lips till he was ready to thrust therein a -spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his eyes ridicu- -lously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only -then broke out afresh. - -"It is the most degrading thing. They take the -dish up to the wheelhouse for him with a cover on it, -and he shuts both the doors before he begins to eat. -Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engi- -neer. He can't do without an engineer--don't you -see--and as no respectable man can be expected to -put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen dol- -lars a month extra mess money. I assure you it is -so! You just ask Mr. Ferdinand da Costa. That's -the engineer he has now. You may have seen him -about my place, a delicate dark young man, with -very fine eyes and a little moustache. He arrived -here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you and -me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been -after him. He rushes here for a meal every chance -he can get, for just please tell me what satisfaction -is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all -alone in his cabin--like a wild beast? That's what -Falk expects his engineers to put up with for fifteen -dollars extra. And the rows on board every time a -little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You -wouldn't believe! The other day da Costa got the -cook to fry a steak for him--a turtle steak it was -too, not beef at all--and the fat caught or some- -thing. Young da Costa himself was telling me of -it here in this room. 'Mr. Schomberg'--says he-- -'if I had let a cylinder cover blow off through the -skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn't -have been more savage. He frightened the cook so -that he won't put anything on the fire for me now.' -Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to -put yourself in his place, captain: a sensitive, gen- -tlemanly young fellow. Is he expected to eat his -food raw? But that's your Falk all over. Ask any -one you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he -has to give keep on rankling--in there." - -And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat -half stunned by his irrelevant babble. Suddenly -he gripped my forearm in an impressive and cau- -tious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of -confidence. - -"It's nothing but enviousness," he said in a low- -ered tone, which had a stimulating effect upon my -wearied hearing. "I don't suppose there is one -person in this town that he isn't envious of. I tell -you he's dangerous. Even I myself am not safe -from him. I know for certain he tried to poi- -son . . . ." - -"Oh, come now," I cried, revolted. - -"But I know for certain. The people themselves -came and told me of it. He went about saying -everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the -cholera. He had been talking against me ever since -I opened this hotel. And he poisoned Captain Her- -mann's mind too. Last time the Diana was loading -here Captain Hermann used to come in every day -for a drink or a cigar. This time he hasn't been -here twice in a week. How do you account for -that?" - -He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me -some sort of mumble. - -"He makes ten times the money I do. I've -another hotel to fight against, and there is no other -tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He -wouldn't be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that's -just his nature. He can't bear to think I am mak- -ing a living. I only hope it makes him properly -wretched. He's like that in everything. He -would like to keep a decent table well enough. -But no--for the sake of a few cents. Can't do it. -It's too much for him. That's what I call being a -slave to it. But he's mean enough to kick up a row -when his nose gets tickled a bit. See that? That -just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can't -account for it any other way. Can you? I have -been studying him these three years." - -He was anxious I should assent to his theory. -And indeed on thinking it over it would have been -plausible enough if there hadn't been always the -essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schom- -berg's chatter. However, I was not disposed to in- -vestigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged -just then in eating despondently a piece of stale -Dutch cheese, being too much crushed to care what -I swallowed myself, let along bothering my head -about Falk's ideas of gastronomy. I could expect -from their study no clue to his conduct in matters -of business, which seemed to me totally unrestrained -by morality or even by the commonest sort of de- -cency. How insignificant and contemptible I must -appear, for the fellow to dare treat me like this--I -reflected suddenly, writhing in silent agony. And -I consigned Falk and all his peculiarities to the devil -with so much mental fervour as to forget Schom- -berg's existence, till he grabbed my arm urgently. -"Well, you may think and think till every hair of -your head falls off, captain; but you can't explain -it in any other way." - -For the sake of peace and quietness I admitted -hurriedly that I couldn't: persuaded that now he -would leave off. But the only result was to make -his moist face shine with the pride of cunning. He -removed his hand for a moment to scare a black -mass of flies off the sugar-basin and caught hold of -my arm again. - -"To be sure. And in the same way everybody is -aware he would like to get married. Only he can't. -Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years ago -a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home -to keep house for her brother, Fred, who had an en- -gineering shop for small repairs by the water side. -Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bunga- -low after dinner, and sitting for hours in the veran- -dah saying nothing. The poor girl couldn't tell -for the life of her what to do with such a man, so she -would keep on playing the piano and singing to -him evening after evening till she was ready to -drop. And it wasn't as if she had been a strong -young woman either. She was thirty, and the cli- -mate had been playing the deuce with her. Then-- -don't you know--Fred had to sit up with them for -propriety, and during whole weeks on end never got -a single chance to get to bed before midnight. -That was not pleasant for a tired man--was it? -And besides Fred had worries then because his shop -didn't pay and he was dropping money fast. He -just longed to get away from here and try his luck -somewhere else, but for the sake of his sister he -hung on and on till he ran himself into debt over his -ears--I can tell you. I, myself, could show a hand- -ful of his chits for meals and drinks in my drawer. -I could never find out tho' where he found all the -money at last. Can't be but he must have got some- -thing out of that brother of his, a coal merchant in -Port Said. Anyhow he paid everybody before he -left, but the girl nearly broke her heart. Disap- -pointment, of course, and at her age, don't you -know. . . . Mrs. Schomberg here was very friendly -with her, and she could tell you. Awful despair. -Fainting fits. It was a scandal. A notorious scan- -dal. To that extent that old Mr. Siegers--not -your present charterer, but Mr. Siegers the father, -the old gentleman who retired from business on a -fortune and got buried at sea going home, HE had -to interview Falk in his private office. He was a -man who could speak like a Dutch Uncle, and, be- -sides, Messrs. Siegers had been helping Falk with -a good bit of money from the start. In fact you -may say they made him as far as that goes. -It so happened that just at the time he turned up -here, their firm was chartering a lot of sailing ships -every year, and it suited their business that there -should be good towing facilities on the river. See? -. . . Well--there's always an ear at the keyhole-- -isn't there? In fact," he lowered his tone confiden- -tially, "in this case a good friend of mine; a man -you can see here any evening; only they conversed -rather low. Anyhow my friend's certain that Falk -was trying to make all sorts of excuses, and old Mr. -Siegers was coughing a lot. And yet Falk wanted -all the time to be married too. Why! It's notorious -the man has been longing for years to make a home -for himself. Only he can't face the expense. -When it comes to putting his hand in his pocket-- -it chokes him off. That's the truth and no other. -I've always said so, and everybody agrees with me -by this time. What do you think of that--eh?" - -He appealed confidently to my indignation, but -having a mind to annoy him I remarked, "that it -seemed to me very pitiful--if true." - -He bounced in his chair as if I had run a pin into -him. I don't know what he might have said, only -at that moment we heard through the half open -door of the billiard-room the footsteps of two men -entering from the verandah, a murmur of two -voices; at the sharp tapping of a coin on a table -Mrs. Schomberg half rose irresolutely. "Sit still," -he hissed at her, and then, in an hospitable, jovial -tone, contrasting amazingly with the angry glance -that had made his wife sink in her chair, he cried -very loud: "Tiffin still going on in here, gentle- -men." - -There was no answer, but the voices dropped sud- -denly. The head Chinaman went out. We heard -the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the -shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs. Schom- -berg, after wondering in a low mutter who the devil -could be there at this time of the day, got up napkin -in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously. -He retreated rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering be- -hind his hand informed me that it was Falk, Falk -himself who was in there, and, what's more, he had -Captain Hermann with him. - -The return of the tug from the outer Roads was -unexpected but possible, for Falk had taken away -the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two -o'clock. Schomberg wished me to observe that -neither of these men would spend a dollar on a tiffin, -which they must have wanted. But by the time I -was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone. -I heard the last of his big boots on the planks of -the verandah. Hermann was sitting quite alone in -the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard -tables shrouded in striped covers, mopping his face -diligently. He wore his best go-ashore clothes, a -stiff collar, black coat, large white waistcoat, grey -trousers. A white cotton sunshade with a cane han- -dle reposed between his legs, his side whiskers were -neatly brushed, his chin had been freshly shaved; -and he only distantly resembled the dishevelled and -terrified man in a snuffy night shirt and ignoble old -trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on to -the wheel of the Diana. - -He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed -me at once in some confusion, but with genuine ea- -gerness. He was anxious to make it clear he had -nothing to do with what he called the "tam piz- -ness" of the morning. It was most inconvenient. -He had reckoned upon another day up in town to -settle his bills and sign certain papers. There were -also some few stores to come, and sundry pieces of -"my ironwork," as he called it quaintly, landed for -repairs, had been left behind. Now he would have -to hire a native boat to take all this out to the ship. -It would cost five or six dollars perhaps. He had -had no warning from Falk. Nothing. . . . He -hit the table with his dumpy fist. . . . Der ver- -fluchte Kerl came in the morning like a "tam' -ropper," making a great noise, and took him away. -His mate was not prepared, his ship was moored -fast--he protested it was shameful to come upon -a man in that way. Shameful! Yet such was the -power Falk had on the river that when I suggested -in a chilling tone that he might have simply refused -to have his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled -at the idea. I never realised so well before that this -is an age of steam. The exclusive possession of a -marine boiler had given Falk the whiphand of us -all. Hermann, recovering, put it to me appealingly -that I knew very well how unsafe it was to contra- -dict that fellow. At this I only smiled distantly. - -"Der Kerl!" he cried. He was sorry he had not -refused. He was indeed. The damage! The dam- -age! What for all that damage! There was no -occasion for damage. Did I know how much dam- -age he had done? It gave me a certain satisfaction -to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a -ship crack fore and aft as she went by. "You -passed close enough to me," I added significantly. - -He threw both his hands up to heaven at the rec- -ollection. One of them grasped by the middle the -white parasol, and he resembled curiously a carica- -ture of a shopkeeping citizen in one of his own Ger- -man comic papers. "Ach! That was dangerous," -he cried. I was amused. But directly he added -with an appearance of simplicity, "The side of -your iron ship would have been crushed in like-- -like this matchbox." - -"Would it?" I growled, much less amused now; -but by the time I had decided that this remark was -not meant for a dig at me he had worked himself -into a high state of resentfulness against Falk. -The inconvenience, the damage, the expense! Gott- -ferdam! Devil take the fellow. Behind the bar -Schomberg with a cigar in his teeth, pretended to -be writing with a pencil on a large sheet of paper; -and as Hermann's excitement increased it made me -comfortingly aware of my own calmness and supe- -riority. But it occurred to me while I listened to -his revilings, that after all the good man had come -up in the tug. There perhaps--since he must come -to town--he had no option. But evidently he had -had a drink with Falk, either accepted or offered. -How was that? So I checked him by saying loftily -that I hoped he would make Falk pay for every -penny of the damage. - -"That's it! That's it! Go for him," called out -Schomberg from the bar, flinging his pencil down -and rubbing his hands. - -We ignored his noise. But Hermann's excite- -ment suddenly went off the boil as when you remove -a saucepan from the fire. I urged on his considera- -tion that he had done now with Falk and Falk's con- -founded tug. He, Hermann, would not, perhaps, -turn up again in this part of the world for years to -come, since he was going to sell the Diana at the end -of this very trip ("Go home passenger in a mail -boat," he murmured mechanically). He was there- -fore safe from Falk's malice. All he had to do was -to race off to his consignees and stop payment of -the towage bill before Falk had the time to get in -and lift the money. - -Nothing could have been less in the spirit of my -advice than the thoughtful way in which he set -about to make his parasol stay propped against the -edge of the table. - -While I watched his concentrated efforts with as- -tonishment he threw at me one or two perplexed, -half-shy glances. Then he sat down. "That's all -very well," he said reflectively. - -It cannot be doubted that the man had been -thrown off his balance by being hauled out of the -harbour against his wish. His stolidity had been -profoundly stirred, else he would never have made -up his mind to ask me unexpectedly whether I had -not remarked that Falk had been casting eyes upon -his niece. "No more than myself," I answered with -literal truth. The girl was of the sort one necessa- -rily casts eyes at in a sense. She made no noise, -but she filled most satisfactorily a good bit of space. - -"But you, captain, are not the same kind of -man," observed Hermann. - -I was not, I am happy to say, in a position to -deny this. "What about the lady?" I could not -help asking. At this he gazed for a time into my -face, earnestly, and made as if to change the sub- -ject. I heard him beginning to mutter something -unexpected, about his children growing old enough -to require schooling. He would have to leave them -ashore with their grandmother when he took up that -new command he expected to get in Germany. - -This constant harping on his domestic arrange- -ments was funny. I suppose it must have been like -the prospect of a complete alteration in his life. An -epoch. He was going, too, to part with the Diana! -He had served in her for years. He had inherited -her. From an uncle, if I remember rightly. And -the future loomed big before him, occupying his -thought exclusively with all its aspects as on the -eve of a venturesome enterprise. He sat there -frowning and biting his lip, and suddenly he began -to fume and fret. - -I discovered to my momentary amusement that -he seemed to imagine I could, should or ought, -have caused Falk in some way to pronounce him- -self. Such a hope was incomprehensible, but funny. -Then the contact with all this foolishness irritated -me. I said crossly that I had seen no symptoms, -but if there were any--since he, Hermann, was so -sure--then it was still worse. What pleasure Falk -found in humbugging people in just that way I -couldn't say. It was, however, my solemn duty to -warn him. It had lately, I said, come to my knowl- -edge that there was a man (not a very long time -ago either) who had been taken in just like this. - -All this passed in undertones, and at this point -Schomberg, exasperated at our secrecy, went out -of the room slamming the door with a crash that -positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what -I had said, huffed my Hermann, He supposed, with -a contemptuous toss of his head towards the door -which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of -that man's silly tales. It looked, indeed, as though -his mind had been thoroughly poisoned against -Schomberg. "His tales were--they were," he re- -peated, seeking for the word--"trash." They -were trash, he reiterated, and moreover I was young -yet . . . - -This horrid aspersion (I regret I am no longer -exposed to that sort of insult) made me huffy too. -I felt ready in my own mind to back up every asser- -tion of Schomberg's and on any subject. In a mo- -ment, devil only knows why, Hermann and I were -looking at each other most inimically. He caught -up his hat without more ado and I gave myself the -pleasure of calling after him: - -"Take my advice and make Falk pay for break- -ing up your ship. You aren't likely to get any- -thing else out of him." - -When I got on board my ship later on, the old -mate, who was very full of the events of the morn- -ing, remarked: - -"I saw the tug coming back from the outer Roads -just before two P.M." (He never by any chance used -the words morning or afternoon. Always P.M. or -A.M., log-book style.) "Smart work that. Man's -always in a state of hurry. He's a regular -chucker-out, ain't he, sir? There's a few pubs I -know of in the East-end of London that would be -all the better for one of his sort around the bar." -He chuckled at his joke. "A regular chucker-out. -Now he has fired out that Dutchman head over heels, -I suppose our turn's coming to-morrow morning." - -We were all on deck at break of day (even the -sick--poor devils--had crawled out) ready to cast -off in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing came. -Falk did not come. At last, when I began to think -that probably something had gone wrong in his -engine-room, we perceived the tug going by, full -pelt, down the river, as if we hadn't existed. For a -moment I entertained the wild notion that he was -going to turn round in the next reach. Afterwards -I watched his smoke appear above the plain, now -here, now there, according to the windings of the -river. It disappeared. Then without a word I -went down to breakfast. I just simply went down -to breakfast. - -Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after -imbibing--by means of suction out of a saucer-- -his second cup of tea, exclaimed: "Where the devil -is the man gone to?" - -"Courting!" I shouted, with such a fiendish -laugh that the old chap didn't venture to open his -lips any more. - -I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with -excessive rage. Evidently they knew all about it -already, and they treated me to a show of conster- -nation. The manager, a soft-footed, immensely -obese man, breathing short, got up to meet me, -while all round the room the young clerks, bend- -ing over the papers on their desks, cast upward -glances in my direction. The fat man, without -waiting for my complaint, wheezing heavily and -in a tone as if he himself were incredulous, con- -veyed to me the news that Falk--Captain Falk-- -had declined--had absolutely declined--to tow my -ship--to have anything to do with my ship--this -day or any other day. Never! - -I did my best to preserve a cool appearance, but, -all the same, I must have shown how much taken -aback I was. We were talking in the middle of the -room. Suddenly behind my back some ass blew -his nose with great force, and at the same time an- -other quill-driver jumped up and went out on the -landing hastily. It occurred to me I was cutting -a foolish figure there. I demanded angrily to see -the principal in his private room. - -The skin of Mr. Siegers' head showed dead white -between the iron grey streaks of hair lying plas- -tered cross-wise from ear to ear over the top of his -skull in the manner of a bandage. His narrow -sunken face was of an uniform and permanent ter- -ra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. He was -sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten. -But from that debile body there issued a bullying -voice, tremendously loud, harsh and resonant, as -if produced by some powerful mechanical contriv- -ance in the nature of a fog-horn. I do not know -what he did with it in the private life of his home, -but in the larger sphere of business it presented the -advantage of overcoming arguments without the -slightest mental effort, by the mere volume of -sound. We had had several passages of arms. It -took me all I knew to guard the interests of my -owners--whom, nota bene, I had never seen--while -Siegers (who had made their acquaintance some -years before, during a business tour in Australia) -pretended to the knowledge of their innermost -minds, and, in the character of "our very good -friends," threw them perpetually at my head. - -He looked at me with a jaundiced eye (there was -no love lost between us), and declared at once that -it was strange, very strange. His pronunciation -of English was so extravagant that I can't even -attempt to reproduce it. For instance, he said -"Fferie strantch." Combined with the bellowing -intonation it made the language of one's childhood -sound weirdly startling, and even if considered -purely as a kind of unmeaning noise it filled you -with astonishment at first. "They had," he con- -tinued, "been acquainted with Captain Falk for -very many years, and never had any reason. . . ." - -"That's why I come to you, of course," I inter- -rupted. "I've the right to know the meaning of -this infernal nonsense." In the half light of the -room, which was greenish, because of the tree-tops -screening the window, I saw him writhe his meagre -shoulders. It came into my head, as disconnected -ideas will come at all sorts of times into one's head, -that this, most likely, was the very room where, if -the tale were true, Falk had been lectured by Mr. -Siegers, the father. Mr. Siegers' (the son's) over- -whelming voice, in brassy blasts, as though he had -been trying to articulate his words through a trom- -bone, was expressing his great regret at a conduct -characterised by a very marked want of discre- -tion. . . As I lived I was being lectured too! His -deafening gibberish was difficult to follow, but it -was MY conduct--mine!--that . . . Damn! I -wasn't going to stand this. - -"What on earth are you driving at?" I asked -in a passion. I put my hat on my head (he never -offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for -the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I -turned my back on him and marched out. His vo- -cal arrangements blared after me a few threats of -coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the -lighters, and all the other expenses consequent -upon the delays arising from my frivolity. - -Once outside in the sunshine my head swam. It -was no longer a question of mere delay. I per- -ceived myself involved in hopeless and humiliating -absurdities that were leading me to something very -like a disaster. "Let us be calm," I muttered to -myself, and ran into the shade of a leprous wall. -From that short side-street I could see the broad -main thoroughfare ruinous and gay, running -away, away between stretches of decaying mason- -ry, bamboo fences, ranges of arcades of brick and -plaster, hovels of lath and mud, lofty temple gates -of carved timber, huts of rotten mats--an im- -mensely wide thoroughfare, loosely packed as far -as the eye could reach with a barefooted and brown -multitude paddling ankle deep in the dust. For a -moment I felt myself about to go out of my mind -with worry and desperation. - -Some allowance must be made for the feelings -of a young man new to responsibility. I thought -of my crew. Half of them were ill, and I really -began to think that some of them would end by dy- -ing on board if I couldn't get them out to sea soon. -Obviously I should have to take my ship down the -river, either working under canvas or dredging -with the anchor down; operations which, in com- -mon with many modern sailors, I only knew theo- -retically. And I almost shrank from undertaking -them shorthanded and without local knowledge -of the river bed, which is so necessary for the con- -fident handling of the ship. There were no pilots, -no beacons, no buoys of any sort; but there was a -very devil of a current for anybody to see, no end -of shoal places, and at least two obviously awkward -turns of the channel between me and the sea. But -how dangerous these turns were I would not tell. I -didn't even know what my ship was capable of! -I had never handled her in my life. A misunder- -standing between a man and his ship in a difficult -river with no room to make it up, is bound to end in -trouble for the man. On the other hand, it must -be owned I had not much reason to count upon a -general run of good luck. And suppose I had the -misfortune to pile her up high and dry on some -beastly shoal? That would have been the final un- -doing of that voyage. It was plain that if Falk -refused to tow me out he would also refuse to pull -me off. This meant--what? A day lost at the -very best; but more likely a whole fortnight of -frizzling on some pestilential mudflat, of desperate -work, of discharging cargo; more than likely it -meant borrowing money at an exorbitant rate of -interest--from the Siegers' gang too at that. They -were a power in the port. And that elderly seaman -of mine, Gambril, had looked pretty ghastly when -I went forward to dose him with quinine that morn- -ing. HE would certainly die--not to speak of two -or three others that seemed nearly as bad, and of -the rest of them just ready to catch any tropical -disease going. Horror, ruin and everlasting re- -morse. And no help. None. I had fallen amongst -a lot of unfriendly lunatics! - -At any rate, if I must take my ship down myself -it was my duty to procure if possible some local -knowledge. But that was not easy. The only per- -son I could think of for that service was a certain -Johnson, formerly captain of a country ship, but -now spliced to a country wife and gone utterly to -the bad. I had only heard of him in the vaguest -way, as living concealed in the thick of two hundred -thousand natives, and only emerging into the light -of day for the purpose of hunting up some brandy. -I had a notion that if I could lay my hands on him -I would sober him on board my ship and use him -for a pilot. Better than nothing. Once a sailor -always a sailor--and he had known the river for -years. But in our Consulate (where I arrived drip- -ping after a sharp walk) they could tell me noth- -ing. The excellent young men on the staff, though -willing to help me, belonged to a sphere of the -white colony for which that sort of Johnson does -not exist. Their suggestion was that I should hunt -the man up myself with the help of the Consulate's -constable--an ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of -Hussars. - -This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted -in sitting behind a little table in an outer room -of Consular offices, when ordered to assist me in -my search for Johnson displayed lots of energy -and a marvellous amount of local knowledge of a -sort. But he did not conceal an immense and scep- -tical contempt for the whole business. We explored -together on that afternoon an infinity of infamous -grog shops, gambling dens, opium dens. We -walked up narrow lanes where our gharry--a tiny -box of a thing on wheels, attached to a jibbing Bur- -mah pony--could by no means have passed. The -constable seemed to be on terms of scornful inti- -macy with Maltese, with Eurasians, with China- -men, with Klings, and with the sweepers attached -to a temple, with whom he talked at the gate. We -interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall -closing a blind alley an immensely corpulent Ital- -ian, who, the ex-sergeant-major remarked to me -perfunctorily, had "killed another man last year." -Thereupon he addressed him as "Antonio" and -"Old Buck," though that bloated carcase, appar- -ently more than half filling the sort of cell where- -in it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye. Fa- -miliar and never unbending, the sergeant chucked ---absolutely chucked--under the chin a horribly -wrinkled and shrivelled old hag propped on a stick, -who had volunteered some sort of information: and -with the same stolid face he kept up an animated -conversation with the groups of swathed brown -women, who sat smoking cheroots on the door-steps -of a long range of clay hovels. We got out of the -gharry and clambered into dwellings airy like -packing crates, or descended into places sinister -like cellars. We got in, we drove on, we got out -again for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of looking -behind a heap of rubble. The sun declined; my -companion was curt and sardonic in his answers, -but it appears we were just missing Johnson all -along. At last our conveyance stopped once more -with a jerk, and the driver jumping down opened -the door. - -A black mudhole blocked the lane. A mound of -garbage crowned with the dead body of a dog ar- -rested us not. An empty Australian beef tin -bounded cheerily before the toe of my boot. Sud- -denly we clambered through a gap in a prickly -fence. . . . - -It was a very clean native compound: and the -big native woman, with bare brown legs as thick -as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar -that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. -Johnson herself. "Your man's at home," said the -ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete and -marked indifference to anything that might follow. -Johnson--at home--stood with his back to a native -house built on posts and with its walls made of -mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of -the right he dealt another dollar into space. The -woman captured this one on the wing, and there -and then plumped down on the ground to look at -us with greater comfort. - -My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven, -muddy on elbows and back; where the seams of his -serge coat yawned you could see his white naked- -ness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his -neck. He looked at us with a grave, swaying sur- -prise. "Where do you come from?" he asked. -My heart sank. How could I have been stupid -enough to waste energy and time for this? - -But having already gone so far I approached a -little nearer and declared the purpose of my visit. -He would have to come at once with me, sleep on -board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the -ebb, he would give me his assistance in getting my -ship down to the sea, without steam. A six-hun- -dred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I pro- -posed to give him eighteen dollars for his local -knowledge; and all the time I was speaking he -kept on considering attentively the various aspects -of the banana, holding first one side up to his eye, -then the other. - -"You've forgotten to apologise," he said at last -with extreme precision. "Not being a gentleman -yourself, you don't know apparently when you in- -trude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to -understand that when I am in funds I don't work, -and now . . ." - -I would have pronounced him perfectly sober -hadn't he paused in great concern to try and brush -a hole off the knee of his trousers. - -"I have money--and friends. Every gentle- -man has. Perhaps you would like to know my -friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow -some money. Try to remember. F-A-L-K, Falk." -Abruptly his tone changed. "A noble heart," he -said muzzily. - -"Has Falk been giving you some money?" I -asked, appalled by the detailed finish of the dark -plot. - -"Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent," -he corrected suavely. "Met me taking the air -last evening, and being as usual anxious to oblige --- Hadn't you better go to the devil out of my -compound?" - -And upon this, without other warning, he let -fly with the banana which missed my head, and took -the constable just under the left eye. He rushed -at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury. -They fell. . . . But why dwell on the wretched- -ness, the breathlessness, the degradation, the sense- -lessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation -and--and--the perspiration, of these moments? I -dragged the ex-hussar off. He was like a wild -beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed at -losing his free afternoon on my account. The gar- -den of his bungalow required his personal atten- -tion, and at the slight blow of the banana the brute -in him had broken loose. We left Johnson on his -back, still black in the face, but beginning to kick -feebly. Meantime, the big woman had remained -sitting on the ground, apparently paralysed with -extreme terror. - -For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling -box, side by side, in profound silence. The ex-ser- -geant was busy staunching the blood of a long -scratch on his cheek. "I hope you're satisfied," he -said suddenly. "That's what comes of all that -tomfool business. If you hadn't quarrelled with -that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all -this wouldn't have happened." - -"You heard THAT story?" I said. - -"Of course I heard. And I shouldn't wonder if -the Consul-General himself doesn't come to hear -of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with -that thing on my cheek--I want to know. Its -YOU who ought to have got this!" - -After that, till the gharry stopped and he -jumped out without leave-taking, he swore to him- -self steadily, horribly; muttering great, purpose- -ful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can -do is like the prattle of a child. For my part I had -just the strength to crawl into Schomberg's coffee- -room, where I wrote at a little table a note to the -mate instructing him to get everything ready for -dropping down the river next day. I couldn't -face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of skip- -per and no mistake--poor thing! What a horrid -mess! I took my head between my hands. At -times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce -me to despair. What had I done? If I had done -something to bring about the situation I should at -least have learned not to do it again. But I felt -guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was -empty yet; only Schomberg prowled round me -goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed respectful cu- -riosity. No doubt he had set the story going him- -self; but he was a good-hearted chap, and I am -really persuaded he participated in all my troubles. -He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the -heavy matchstand, set a chair straight, pushed a -spittoon slightly with his foot--as you show small -attentions to a friend under a great sorrow-- -sighed, and at last, unable to hold his tongue: - -"Well! I warned you, captain. That's what -comes of running your head against Mr. Falk. -Man'll stick at nothing." - -I sat without stirring, and after surveying me -with a sort of commiseration in his eyes he burst -out in a hoarse whisper: "But for a fine lump of -a girl, she's a fine lump of a girl." He made a loud -smacking noise with his thick lips. "The finest -lump of a girl that I ever . . ." he was going on -with great unction, but for some reason or other -broke off. I fancied myself throwing something -at his head. "I don't blame you, captain. Hang -me if I do," he said with a patronising air. - -"Thank you," I said resignedly. It was no use -fighting against this false fate. I don't know even -if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter -began. The conviction that it would end disas- -trously had been driven into me by all the succes- -sive shocks my sense of security had received. I -began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to -agents in themselves powerless. It was as if -Schomberg's baseless gossip had the power to bring -about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of -Falk could put my ship ashore. - -I have already explained how fatal this last -would have been. For my further action, my -youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for -the health of my crew must be my excuse. The ac- -tion itself, when it came, was purely impulsive. It -was set in movement quite undiplomatically and -simply by Falk's appearance in the doorway. - -The room was full by then and buzzing with -voices. I had been looked at with curiosity by -every one, but how am I to describe the sensation -produced by the appearance of Falk himself block- -ing the doorway? The tension of expectation -could be measured by the profundity of the silence -that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls. -As to Schomberg, he looked extremely frightened; -he hated mortally any sort of row (fracas he called -it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad for busi- -ness, he affirmed; but, in truth, this specimen of -portly, middle-aged manhood was of a timid dis- -position. I don't know what, considering my pres- -ence in the place, they all hoped would come of it. -A sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may have -supposed Falk had come in only to annihilate me -completely. As a matter of fact, Falk had come in -because Hermann had asked him to inquire after the -precious white cotton parasol which, in the worry -and excitement of the previous day, he had forgot- -ten at the table where we had held our little discus- -sion. - -It was this that gave me my opportunity. I -don't think I would have gone to seek Falk out. -No. I don't think so. There are limits. But there -was an opportunity and I seized it--I have already -tried to explain why. Now I will merely state that, -in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into the sea -air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skip- -per would be justified in going to any length, short -of absolute crime. He should put his pride in his -pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his in- -nocence as if it were a sin; he may take advantage -of misconceptions, of desires and of weaknesses; he -ought to conceal his horror and other emotions, -and, if the fate of a human being, and that human -being a magnificent young girl, is strangely in- -volved--why, he should contemplate that fate -(whatever it might seem to be) without turning a -hair. And all these things I have done; the ex- -plaining, the listening, the pretending--even to -the discretion--and nobody, not even Hermann's -niece, I believe, need throw stones at me now. -Schomberg at all events needn't, since from first to -last, I am happy to say, there was not the slightest -"fracas." - -Overcoming a nervous contraction of the wind- -pipe, I had managed to exclaim "Captain Falk!" -His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but -afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He sim- -ply waited. Then, when I had said, "I must have -a talk with you," and had pointed to a chair at my -table, he moved up to me, though he didn't sit -down. Schomberg, however, with a long tumbler -in his hand, was making towards us prudently, and -I discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk. -He had for Schomberg a repulsion resembling that -sort of physical fear some people experience at the -sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so essentially -and silently concentrated upon himself (though he -could talk well enough, as I was to find out -presently) the other's irrepressible loquacity, em- -bracing every human being within range of the -tongue, might have appeared unnatural, disgust- -ing, and monstrous. He suddenly gave signs of -restiveness--positively like a horse about to rear, -and, muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, "No. -I can't stand that fellow," seemed ready to bolt. -This weakness of his gave me the advantage at the -very start. "Verandah," I suggested, as if ren- -dering him a service, and walked him out by the -arm. We stumbled over a few chairs; we had the -feeling of open space before us, and felt the fresh -breath of the river--fresh, but tainted. The Chi- -nese theatres across the water made, in the sparsely -twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town pre- -sents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a -distant and howling uproar. I felt him become -suddenly tractable again like an animal, like a -good-tempered horse when the object that scares -him is removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there -how tractable he was, without my conviction of his -inflexibility--tenacity, rather, perhaps--being in -the least weakened. His very arm abandoning it- -self to my grasp was as hard as marble--like a limb -of iron. But I heard a tumultuous scuffling of -boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside -were crowding to the windows, climbing over each -other's backs behind the blinds, billiard cues and all. -Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound -of falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devasta- -tion, Schomberg reeled out after us in a state of -funk which had prevented his parting with his -brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an -aspen leaf. The piece of ice in the long tumbler -he held in his hand tinkled with an effect of chat- -tering teeth. "I beg you, gentlemen," he expost- -ulated thickly. "Come! Really, now, I must in- -sist . . ." - -How proud I am of my presence of mind! -"Hallo," I said instantly in a loud and naive tone, -"somebody's breaking your windows, Schomberg. -Would you please tell one of your boys to bring -out here a pack of cards and a couple of lights? -And two long drinks. Will you?" - -To receive an order soothed him at once. It was -business. "Certainly," he said in an immensely -relieved tone. The night was rainy, with wander- -ing gusts of wind, and while we waited for the can- -dles Falk said, as if to justify his panic, "I don't -interfere in anybody's business. I don't give any -occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But -this fellow is always making out something wrong, -and can never rest till he gets somebody to believe -him." - -This was the first of my knowledge of Falk. -This desire of respectability, of being like every- -body else, was the only recognition he vouchsafed -to the organisation of mankind. For the rest he -might have been the member of a herd, not of a so- -ciety. Self-preservation was his only concern. -Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Sel- -fishness presupposes consciousness, choice, the pres- -ence of other men; but his instinct acted as though -he were the last of mankind nursing that law like -the only spark of a sacred fire. I don't mean to -say that living naked in a cavern would have satis- -fied him. Obviously he was the creature of the -conditions to which he was born. No doubt self- -preservation meant also the preservation of these -conditions. But essentially it meant something -much more simple, natural, and powerful. How -shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the -five senses of his body--let us say--taking it in its -narrowest as well as in its widest meaning. I think -you will admit before long the justice of this judg- -ment. However, as we stood there together in the -dark verandah I had judged nothing as yet--and -I had no desire to judge--which is an idle practice -anyhow. The light was long in coming. - -"Of course," I said in a tone of mutual under- -standing, "it isn't exactly a game of cards I want -with you." - -I saw him draw his hands down his face--the -vague stir of the passionate and meaningless ges- -ture; but he waited in silent patience. It was only -when the lights had been brought out that he -opened his lips. I understood his mumble to mean -that "he didn't know any game." - -"Like this Schomberg and all the other fools -will have to keep off," I said tearing open the pack. -"Have you heard that we are universally supposed -to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who-- -of course. I am really ashamed to ask, but is it -possible that you do me the honour to think me dan- -gerous?" - -As I said these words I felt how absurd it was -and also I felt flattered--for, really, what else -could it be? His answer, spoken in his usual dis- -passionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, -but not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He -thought me dangerous with Hermann, more than -with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I saw -at once how inappropriate the word was. We had -no quarrel. Natural forces are not quarrelsome. -You can't quarrel with the wind that inconveniences -and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a -street full of people. He had no quarrel with me. -Neither would a boulder, falling on my head, have -had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law -by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a -detached stone, but of self-preservation. Of course -this is giving it a rather wide interpretation. -Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have -existed without being married. Yet he told me that -he had found it more and more difficult to live -alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless -voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived -at the end of half an hour. - -It took me just about that time to convince him -that I had never dreamed of marrying Hermann's -niece. Could any necessity have been more extrava- -gant? And the difficulty was the greater because -he was so hard hit that he couldn't imagine any- -body being able to remain in a state of indifference. -Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, -could not help coveting so much bodily magnifi- -cence. This profound belief was conveyed by the -manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and -playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to -him at random. And the more I saw into him the -more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights -so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, -seemed to successively flicker crimson at me and to -go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth of the -high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the -features, the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, -denuded at the top, largely uncovered at the tem- -ples. The fact is I had never before seen him with- -out his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made -him hot, he had taken it off and laid it gently on -the floor. Something peculiar in the shape and -setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking -silent intensity which characterised his glance. -But the face was thin, furrowed, worn; I discov- -ered that through the bush of his hair, as you may -detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a -dense undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were -sunken. It was an anchorite's bony head fitted with -a Capuchin's beard and adjusted to a herculean -body. I don't mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, -was not an athlete. He was a strong man, suscep- -tible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt. -And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He -was extremely strong, just as the girl (since I -must think of them together) was magnificently at- -tractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, -expressed in shape, in size, in attitude--that is by -a straight appeal to the senses. His mind mean- -time, preoccupied with respectability, quailed be- -fore Schomberg's tongue and seemed absolutely -impervious to my protestations; and I went so far -as to protest that I would just as soon think of -marrying my mother's (dear old lady!) faithful -female cook as Hermann's niece. Sooner, I pro- -tested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did -not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the -proposition, and in his sceptical immobility he -seemed to nurse the argument that at all events the -cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, -just before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the -evidence of my manner whenever I called on board -the Diana. I had never attempted to approach the -girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any -marked way. Nothing could be clearer. But, as -his own idea of--let us say--courting, seemed to -consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the -vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argu- -ment inspired him with distrust. Staring down his -extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as to -say, "That's all very fine, but you can't throw dust -in MY eyes." - -At last I was exasperated into saying, "Why -don't you put the matter at rest by talking to Her- -mann?" and I added sneeringly: "You don't ex- -pect me perhaps to speak for you?" - -To this he said, very loud for him, "Would -you?" - -And for the first time he lifted his head to look -at me with wonder and incredulity. He lifted his -head so sharply that there could be no mistake. I -had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of -my opportunity, and could hardly believe in it. - -"Why. Speak to . . . Well, of course," I -proceeded very slowly, watching him with great at- -tention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. "Not, -perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can't speak -German, you know. But . . ." - -He interrupted me with the earnest assurance -that Hermann had the highest opinion of me; and -at once I felt the need for the greatest possible -diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just -enough to draw him on. Falk sat up, but except -for a very noticeable enlargement of the pupils, -till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow -yellow rings, his face, I should judge, was incapa- -ble of expressing excitement. "Oh, yes! Hermann -did have the greatest . . ." - -"Take up your cards. Here's Schomberg peep- -ing at us through the blind!" I said. - -We went through the motions of what might -have been a game of e'carte'. Presently the intoler- -able scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform -the people in the billiard-room that we two were -gambling on the verandah like mad. - -We were not gambling, but it was a game; a -game in which I felt I held the winning cards. The -stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the voy- -age--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing -to lose. Our intimacy matured rapidly, and before -many words had been exchanged I perceived that -the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. -That simple and astute Teuton had been, it seems, -holding me up to Falk in the light of a rival. I -was young enough to be shocked at so much duplic- -ity. "Did he tell you that in so many words?" I -asked with indignation. - -Hermann had not. He had given hints only; -and of course it had not taken very much to alarm -Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had -taken steps to remove the family from under my in- -fluence. He was perfectly straightforward about -it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your -head. There was no duplicity in that man; and -when I congratulated him on the perfection of his -arrangements--even to the bribing of the wretched -Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement -of protest. Never bribed. He knew the man -wouldn't work as long as he had a few cents in his -pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-- -"NATURALLY") he let him have a dollar or two. He -was himself a sailor, he said, and anticipated the -view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take. -On the other hand, he was sure that I should have -to come to grief. He hadn't been knocking about -for the last seven years up and down that river for -nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me-- -but he asserted confidently I would have had my -ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two miles -below the Great Pagoda. . . . - -And with all that he had no ill-will. That was -evident. This was a crisis in which his only object -had been to gain time--I fancy. And presently -he mentioned that he had written for some jewel- -lery, real good jewellery--had written to Hong- -Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or two. - -"Well, then," I said cheerily, "everything is all -right. All you've got to do is to present it to the -lady together with your heart, and live happy ever -after." - -Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as -far as the girl was concerned, but his eyelids -drooped. There was still something in the way. -For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As -to me, on the contrary, it seemed as though he could -not praise me enough. Mrs. Hermann too. He -didn't know why they disliked him so. It made -everything most difficult. - -I listened impassive, feeling more and more dip- -lomatic. His speech was not transparently clear. -He was one of those men who seem to live, feel, -suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being -fascinated by the girl and possessed by the desire -of home life with her--it was as clear as daylight. -So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting -it to the hazard of declaration. Besides, there -was something else. And with Hermann being so -set against him . . . - -"I see," I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat -fast with the excitement of my diplomacy. "I -don't mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to show -you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I -can for you in that way." - -A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands -down his face, and it emerged, bony, unchanged of -expression, as if all the tissues had been ossified. -All the passion was in those big brown hands. He -was satisfied. Then there was that other matter. -If there were anybody on earth it was I who could -persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I -had a knowledge of the world and lots of expe- -rience. Hermann admitted this himself. And then -I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sail- -or would be able to understand certain things -best. . . . - -He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all -their life in a rural hamlet, and I alone had been -capable, with my practice in life, of a large and -indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was -what my diplomacy was leading me to. I began -suddenly to dislike it. - -"I say, Falk," I asked quite brusquely, "you -haven't already a wife put away somewhere?" - -The pain and disgust of his denial were very -striking. Couldn't I understand that he was as -respectable as any white man hereabouts; earning -his living honestly. He was suffering from my sus- -picion, and the low undertone of his voice made his -protestations sound very pathetic. For a moment -he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, -I seemed to develop a conscience, as if in very -truth it were in my power to decide the success of -this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard -enough we come to believe anything--anything to -our advantage. And I had been pretending very -hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down -the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I -couldn't help alluding to the Vanlo affair. "You -acted rather badly there. Didn't you?" was what -I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our -conduct is always at the mercy of obscure and un- -foreseen impulses. - -His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glan- -cing at the window with a sort of scared fury. We -heard behind the blinds the continuous and sudden -clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, -and Schomberg's deep manly laugh. - -"That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper -then would never, never let it rest!" Falk ex- -claimed. "Well, yes! It had happened two years -ago." When it came to the point he owned he -couldn't make up his mind to trust Fred Vanlo-- -no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust -him, but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough -money to pay all his debts before he left. I was -greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could -not be such a miser after all. So much the better -for the girl. For a time he sat silent; then he -picked up a card, and while looking at it he -said: - -"You need not think of anything bad. It was -an accident. I've been unfortunate once." - -"Then in heaven's name say nothing about it." - -As soon as these words were out of my mouth I -fancied I had said something immoral. He shook -his head negatively. It had to be told. He con- -sidered it proper that the relations of the lady -should know. No doubt--I thought to myself-- -had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by the -climate he would have found it possible to entrust -Fred Vanlo with this confidence. And then the fig- -ure of Hermann's niece appeared before my mind's -eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich -youth, her lavish strength. With that powerful -and immaculate vitality, her girlish form must have -shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor -Miss Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to -the strumming of a piano. - -"And that Hermann hates me, I know it!" he -cried in his undertone, with a sudden recrudescence -of anxiety. "I must tell them. It is proper that -they should know. You would say so yourself." - -He then murmured an utterly mysterious allu- -sion to the necessity for peculiar domestic arrange- -ments. Though my curiosity was excited I did not -want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he -might give me a piece of information that would -make my assumed role of match-maker odious-- -however unreal it was. I was aware that he could -have the girl for the asking; and keeping down a -desire to laugh in his face, I expressed a confident -belief in my ability to argue away Hermann's dis- -like for him. "I am sure I can make it all right," -I said. He looked very pleased. - -And when we rose not a word had been said about -towage! Not a word! The game was won and the -honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton um- -brella! We shook hands, and I was holding myself -with difficulty from breaking into a step dance of -joy when he came back, striding all the length of -the verandah, and said doubtfully: - -"I say, captain, I have your word? You--you ---won't turn round?" - -Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his -tone of doubt there was something desperate and -menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to -the situation. - -"My dear Falk," I said, beginning to lie with -a glibness and effrontery that amazed me even at -the time--"confidence for confidence." (He had -made no confidences.) "I will tell you that I am -already engaged to an extremely charming girl at -home, and so you understand. . . ." - -He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing -grip. - -"Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult -to live alone . . ." - -"On rice and fish," I interrupted smartly, gig- -gling with the sheer nervousness of a danger es- -caped. - -He dropped my hand as if it had become sud- -denly red hot. A moment of profound silence en- -sued, as though something extraordinary had hap- -pened. - -"I promise you to obtain Hermann's consent," -I faltered out at last, and it seemed to me that he -could not help seeing through that humbug- -ging promise. "If there's anything else to get -over I shall endeavour to stand by you," I conceded -further, feeling somehow defeated and overborne; -"but you must do your best yourself." - -"I have been unfortunate once," he muttered -unemotionally, and turning his back on me he went -away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his feet -had been shod with iron. - -Next morning, however, he was lively enough as -man-boat, a combination of splashing and shout- -ing; of the insolent commotion below with the -steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece -above. He turned us out most unnecessarily at an -ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven in the morn- -ing before he brought me up a cable's length from -Hermann's ship. And he did it very badly too, in -a hurry, and nearly contriving to miss altogether -the patch of good holding ground, because, for- -sooth, he had caught sight of Hermann's niece on -the poop. And so did I; and probably as soon as -he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek -glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape -of the girlish print frock she filled so perfectly, so -satisfactorily, with the seduction of unfaltering -curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress. -And Diana the ship sat, high-walled and as solid -as an institution, on the smooth level of the water, -the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon -the seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support -of domestic virtues like any grocer's shop on shore. -At once Falk steamed away; for there was some -work for him to do. He would return in the even- -ing. - -He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, -without a hail. The beat of the paddle-wheels re- -verberating amongst the stony islets, as if from the -ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage -confusedly with the clapping sounds of a mighty -and leisurely applause. Abreast of Hermann's -ship he stopped the engines; and a profound si- -lence reigned over the rocks, the shore and the sea, -for the time it took him to raise his hat aloft before -the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched -up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn't -stir a limb, standing by the rail shapely and erect, -with one of her hands grasping a rope at the height -of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly -past her the lingering and profound homage of the -man. There was for me an enormous significance -in the scene, the sense of having witnessed a solemn -declaration. The die was cast. After such a man- -ifestation he couldn't back out. And I reflected -that it was nothing whatever to me now. With a -rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the -funnel, and a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking -a burst of weird and precipitated clapping, the tug -shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets -lay on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin -on a plain; the centipedes and scorpions lurked un- -der the stones; there was not a single blade of grass -in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning him- -self on a boulder by the shore. When I looked -again at Hermann's ship the girl had disappeared. -I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the -immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued -the flatness of the sea to the naked line of the hori- -zon. - -This is the setting now inseparably connected -with my knowledge of Falk's misfortune. My di- -plomacy had brought me there, and now I had only -to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambas- -sador. My diplomacy was a success; my ship was -safe; old Gambril would probably live; a feeble -sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently -from the Diana. During the afternoon I looked -at times at the old homely ship, the faithful nurse -of Hermann's progeny, or yawned towards the dis- -tant temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the -plain, where shaven priests cherish the thoughts of -that Annihilation which is the worthy reward of us -all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. -Well, that was not so bad as life goes. And what -the devil could be the nature of that misfortune? -I remembered that I had known a man before who -had declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a -victim to misfortune; but this misfortune, whose -effects appeared permanent (he looked desper- -ately hard up) when considered dispassionately, -seemed indistinguishable from a breach of trust. -Could it be something of that nature? Apart, -however, from the utter improbability that he -would offer to talk of it even to his future uncle- -in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk's physique -unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the -person of Hermann's niece exhaled the profound -physical charm of feminine form, so her ador- -er's big frame embodied to my senses the hard, -straight masculinity that would conceivably kill -but would not condescend to cheat. The thing -was obvious. I might just as well have suspected -the girl of a curvature of the spine. And I per- -ceived that the sun was about to set. - -The smoke of Falk's tug hove in sight, far -away at the mouth of the river. It was time for -me to assume the character of an ambassador, and -the negotiation would not be difficult except in the -matter of keeping my countenance. It was all too -extravagantly nonsensical, and I conceived that it -would be best to compose for myself a grave de- -meanour. I practised this in my boat as I went -along, but the bashfulness that came secretly upon -me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana -is inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged -greetings Hermann asked me eagerly if I knew -whether Falk had found his white parasol. - -"He's going to bring it to you himself directly," -I said with great solemnity. "Meantime I am -charged with an important message for which he -begs your favourable consideration. He is in love -with your niece. . . ." - -"Ach So!" he hissed with an animosity that -made my assumed gravity change into the most -genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I -hurried on. - -"He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask -her to marry him at once--before you leave here, -that is. He would speak to the Consul." - -Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five -minutes passed in that furious meditation, and -then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, he -burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his -cupidity, his stupidity (a fellow that can hardly -be got to say "yes" or "no" to the simplest ques- -tion)--against his outrageous treatment of the -shipping in port (because he saw they were at his -mercy)--and against his manner of walking, -which to his (Hermann's) mind showed a conceit -positively unbearable. The damage to the old -Diana was not forgotten, of course, and there was -nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even -to the last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that -did not seem to have been a cause of offence. -"Had the cheek" to drag him (Hermann) into -that coffee-room; as though a drink from him could -make up for forty-seven dollars and fifty cents of -damage in the cost of wood alone--not counting -two days' work for the carpenter. Of course he -would not stand in the girl's way. He was going -home to Germany. There were plenty of poor -girls walking about in Germany. - -"He's very much in love," was all I found to -say. - -"Yes," he cried. "And it is time too after mak- -ing himself and me talked about ashore the last -voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on -board every evening unsettling the girl's mind, and -saying nothing. What sort of conduct is that?" - -The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always -talking about did not, in his opinion, justify such -behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. He -(Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven -thousand cents, and the tug, no doubt, was mort- -gaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm of -Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn't stand in -the girl's way. Her head was so turned that she -had become no good to them of late. Quite unable -even to put the children to bed without her aunt. -It was bad for the children; they got unruly; and -yesterday he actually had to give Gustav a thrash- -ing. - -For that, too, Falk was made responsible ap- -parently. And looking at my Hermann's heavy, -puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not ex- -ert himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, -would thrash very hard, and being fat would resent -the necessity. How Falk had managed to turn the -girl's head was more difficult to understand. I sup- -posed Hermann would know. And then hadn't -there been Miss Vanlo? It could not be his silvery -tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he -had no more of what is called "manner" than an -animal--which, however, on the other hand, is -never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore -it must have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting -a virility of nature as exaggerated as his beard, and -resembling a sort of constant ruthlessness. It was -seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He -meant no offence, but his intercourse was charac- -terised by that sort of frank disregard of suscepti- -bilities a man of seven foot six, living in a world of -dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the -least wishing to be unkind. But amongst men of -his own stature, or nearly, this frank use of his ad- -vantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills -for instance, caused much impotent gnashing of -teeth. When attentively considered it seemed ap- -palling at times. He was a strange beast. But -maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was -well worth taming, and I suppose every woman at -the bottom of her heart considers herself as a tamer -of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with pre- -cipitation to carry the news to his wife. I had -barely the time, as he made for the cabin door, to -grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I -begged him to wait till Falk in person had spoken -with him. There remained some small matter to -talk over, as I understood. - -He sat down again at once, full of suspicion. - -"What matter?" he said surlily. "I have had -enough of his nonsense. There's no matter at all, -as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in the -world. She came to us in one thin dress when my -brother died, and I have a growing family." - -"It can't be anything of that kind," I opined. -"He's desperately enamoured of your niece. I -don't know why he did not say so before. Upon -my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to -lose, perhaps, the felicity of sitting near her on -your quarter deck." - -I intimated my conviction that his love was so -great as to be in a sense cowardly. The effects of -a great passion are unaccountable. It has been -known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked -at me as if I had foolishly raved; and the twilight -was dying out rapidly. - -"You don't believe in passion, do you, Her- -mann?" I said cheerily. "The passion of fear will -make a cornered rat courageous. Falk's in a cor- -ner. He will take her off your hands in one thin -frock just as she came to you. And after ten years' -service it isn't a bad bargain," I added. - -Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of -civic virtue. The sudden night came upon him -while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing -in contact with his thick lips, and taking away -again after a jet of smoke, the curved mouthpiece -fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came -upon him and buried in haste his whiskers, his glob- -ular eyes, his puffy pale face, his fat knees and the -vast flat slippers on his fatherly feet. Only his -short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves re- -mained very visible, propped up like the flippers of -a seal reposing on the strand. - -"Falk wouldn't settle anything about repairs. -Told me to find out first how much wood I should -require and he would see," he remarked; and after -he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over -the water the beat of the tug's floats. There is, on -a calm night, nothing more suggestive of fierce and -headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the -paddle-wheels of a boat threshing her way through -a quiet sea; and the approach of Falk towards his -fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and pas- -sionate desire. The engines must have been driven -to the very utmost of their revolutions. We heard -them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white -hull of the tug appeared moving against the black -islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical clapping as of -thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all -at once, just before Falk brought her up. A sin- -gle brusque splash was followed by the long drawn -rumbling of iron links running through the hawse -pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Road- -stead. - -"He will soon be here," I murmured, and after -that we waited for him without a word. Meantime, -raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a lofty sky -above the Diana's mastheads. The multitude of -stars gathered into clusters, in rows, in lines, in -masses, in groups, shone all together, unanimously ---and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves -in the midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a su- -perior kind and of an inextinguishable nature. But -long striding footsteps were heard hastening along -the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a -deeper darkness. We rose from our chairs quickly, -and Falk, appearing before us, all in white, stood -still. - -Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been -covered with confusion. His arrival was fiery, but -his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without fea- -tures, made him loom up like a man of snow. - -"The captain here has been telling me . . ." -Hermann began in a homely and amicable voice; -and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, neg- -ligent undertone had no inflexions, but the strength -of a powerful emotion made him ramble in his -speech. He had always desired a home. It was -difficult to live alone, though he was not answera- -ble. He was domestic; there had been difficulties; -but since he had seen Hermann's niece he found -that it had become at last impossible to live by him- -self. "I mean--impossible," he repeated with no -sort of emphasis and only with the slightest of -pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the -force of a new idea. - -"I have not said anything to her yet," Hermann -observed quietly. And Falk dismissed this by a -"That's all right. Certainly. Very proper." -There was a necessity for perfect frankness--in -marrying, especially. Hermann seemed attentive, -but he seized the first opportunity to ask us into the -cabin. "And by-the-by, Falk," he said innocent- -ly, as we passed in, "the timber came to no less -than forty-seven dollars and fifty cents." - -Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the pas- -sage. "Some other time," he said; and Hermann -nudged me angrily--I don't know why. The girl -alone in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from -the table. Falk stopped short in the doorway. -Without a word, without a sign, without the slight- -est inclination of his bony head, by the silent in- -tensity of his look alone, he seemed to lay his her- -culean frame at her feet. Her hands sank slowly -on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her -soft, beaming glance enfold him from head to foot -like a slow and pale caress. He was very hot when -he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with -her sewing; her neck was very white under the light -of the lamp; but Falk, hiding his face in the palms -of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew them -down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes as- -tonished me by their tense and irrational expres- -sion--as though he had just swallowed a heavy -gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was -binding us to secrecy. Not that he cared, but he -did not like to be spoken about; and I looked at the -girl's marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal -hair, plaited tight into that one astonishing and -maidenly tress. Whenever she moved her well- -shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her -back. The thin cotton sleeve fitted the irreproach- -able roundness of her arm like a skin; and her very -dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to palpitate -like a living tissue with the strength of vitality ani- -mating her body. How good her complexion was, -the outline of her soft cheek and the small convo- -luted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she -kept the little finger apart from the others; it -seemed a waste of power to see her sewing--eter- -nally sewing--with that industrious and precise -movement of her arm, going on eternally upon all -the oceans, under all the skies, in innumerable har- -bours. And suddenly I heard Falk's voice declare -that he could not marry a woman unless she knew -of something in his life that had happened ten -years ago. It was an accident. An unfortunate ac- -cident. It would affect the domestic arrangements -of their home, but, once told, it need not be alluded -to again for the rest of their lives. "I should want -my wife to feel for me," he said. "It has made me -unhappy." And how could he keep the knowledge -of it to himself--he asked us--perhaps through -years and years of companionship? What sort of -companionship would that be? He had thought it -over. A wife must know. Then why not at once? -He counted on Hermann's kindness for presenting -the affair in the best possible light. And Her- -mann's countenance, mystified before, became very -sour. He stole an inquisitive glance at me. I -shook my head blankly. Some people thought, -Falk went on, that such an experience changed a -man for the rest of his life. He couldn't say. It -was hard, awful, and not to be forgotten, but he -did not think himself a worse man than before. -Only he talked in his sleep now, he believed. . . . -At last I began to think he had accidentally killed -some one; perhaps a friend--his own father may- -be; when he went on to say that probably we were -aware he never touched meat. Throughout he -spoke English, of course of my account. - -He swayed forward heavily. - -The girl, with her hands raised before her pale -eyes, was threading her needle. He glanced at her, -and his mighty trunk overshadowed the table, -bringing nearer to us the breadth of his shoulders, -the thickness of his neck, and that incongruous, an- -chorite head, burnt in the desert, hollowed and lean -as if by excesses of vigils and fasting. His beard -flowed imposingly downwards, out of sight, be- -tween the two brown hands gripping the edge of -the table, and his persistent glance made sombre by -the wide dilations of the pupils, fascinated. - -"Imagine to yourselves," he said in his ordinary -voice, "that I have eaten man." - -I could only ejaculate a faint "Ah!" of com- -plete enlightenment. But Hermann, dazed by the -excessive shock, actually murmured, "Himmel! -What for?" - -"It was my terrible misfortune to do so," said -Falk in a measured undertone. The girl, uncon- -scious, sewed on. Mrs. Hermann was absent in -one of the state-rooms, sitting up with Lena, who -was feverish; but Hermann suddenly put both his -hands up with a jerk. The embroidered calotte -fell, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he had rum- -pled his hair all ends up in a most extravagant -manner. In this state he strove to speak; with -every effort his eyes seemed to start further out of -their sockets; his head looked like a mop. He -choked, gasped, swallowed, and managed to shriek -out the one word, "Beast!" - -From that moment till Falk went out of the cab- -in the girl, with her hands folded on the work lying -in her lap, never took her eyes off him. His own, -in the blindness of his heart, darted all over the -cabin, only seeking to avoid the sight of Hermann's -raving. It was ridiculous, and was made almost -terrible by the stillness of every other person pres- -ent. It was contemptible, and was made appalling -by the man's overmastering horror of this awful -sincerity, coming to him suddenly, with the confes- -sion of such a fact. He walked with great strides; -he gasped. He wanted to know from Falk how -dared he to come and tell him this? Did he think -himself a proper person to be sitting in this cabin -where his wife and children lived? Tell his niece! -Expected him to tell his niece! His own brother's -daughter! Shameless! Did I ever hear tell of such -impudence?--he appealed to me. "This man here -ought to have gone and hidden himself out of sight -instead of . . ." - -"But it's a great misfortune for me. But it's a -great misfortune for me," Falk would ejaculate -from time to time. - -However, Hermann kept on running frequently -against the corners of the table. At last he lost a -slipper, and crossing his arms on his breast, walked -up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in or- -der to ask him whether he did think there was any- -where on earth a woman abandoned enough to mate -with such a monster. "Did he? Did he? Did -he?" I tried to restrain him. He tore himself out -of my hands; he found his slipper, and, endeavour- -ing to put it on, stormed standing on one leg-- -and Falk, with a face unmoved and averted -eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in one vast -palm. - -"Was it right then for me to die myself?" he -asked thoughtfully. I laid my hand on his shoul- -der. - -"Go away," I whispered imperiously, without -any clear reason for this advice, except that I -wished to put an end to Hermann's odious noise. -"Go away." - -He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann -before he made a move. I left the cabin too to see -him out of the ship. But he hung about the quar- -ter-deck. - -"It is my misfortune," he said in a steady -voice. - -"You were stupid to blurt it out in such a man- -ner. After all, we don't hear such confidences -every day." - -"What does the man mean?" he mused in deep -undertones. "Somebody had to die--but why -me?" - -He remained still for a time in the dark--silent; -almost invisible. All at once he pinned my elbows -to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in his grip, -and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated. - -"It's worse than hunger. Captain, do you know -what that means? And I could kill then--or be -killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull -ten years ago. And I've got to live now. Without -her. Do you understand? Perhaps many years. -But how? What can be done? If I had allowed -myself to look at her once I would have carried her -off before that man in my hands--like this." - -I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly -dropped--and I staggered backwards, feeling -bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was -still; he was gone. I heard Hermann's voice de- -claiming in the cabin, and I went in. - -I could not at first make out a single word, but -Mrs. Hermann, who, attracted by the noise, had -come in some time before, with an expression of -surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on -her face, was giving now all the signs of profound, -helpless agitation. Her husband shot a string of -guttural words at her, and instantly putting out -one hand to the bulkhead as if to save herself from -falling, she clutched the loose bosom of her dress -with the other. He harangued the two women ex- -traordinarily, with much of his shirt hanging out of -his waistbelt, stamping his foot, turning from one -to the other, sometimes throwing both his arms to- -gether, straight up above his rumpled hair, and -keeping them in that position while he uttered a -passage of loud denunciation; at others folding -them tight across his breast--and then he hissed -with indignation, elevating his shoulders and pro- -truding his head. The girl was crying. - -She had not changed her attitude. From her -steady eyes that, following Falk in his retreat, had -remained fixed wistfully on the cabin door, the -tears fell rapid, thick, on her hands, on the work in -her lap, warm and gentle like a shower in spring. -She wept without grimacing, without noise--very -touching, very quiet, with something more of pity -than of pain in her face, as one weeps in compassion -rather than in grief--and Hermann, before her, -declaimed. I caught several times the word -"Mensch," man; and also "Fressen," which last I -looked up afterwards in my dictionary. It means -"Devour." Hermann seemed to be requesting an -answer of some sort from her; his whole body -swayed. She remained mute and perfectly still; -at last his agitation gained her; she put the palms -of her hands together, her full lips parted, no -sound came. His voice scolded shrilly, his arms -went like a windmill--suddenly he shook a thick -fist at her. She burst out into loud sobs. He -seemed stupefied. - -Mrs. Hermann rushed forward babbling rap- -dly. The two women fell on each other's necks, -and, with an arm round her niece's waist, she led her -away. Her own eyes were simply streaming, her -face was flooded. She shook her head back at me -negatively, I wonder why to this day. The girl's -head dropped heavily on her shoulder. They dis- -appeared. - -Then Hermann sat down and stared at the cabin -floor. - -"We don't know all the circumstances," I ven- -tured to break the silence. He retorted tartly that -he didn't want to know of any. According to his -ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime--and -certainly not such a crime. This was the opinion -generally received. The duty of a human being -was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an ani- -mal; base, low, vile, despicable, shameless, and de- -ceitful. He had been deceiving him since last year. -He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must -have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, -without necessity, uselessly, for no earthly reason, -and regardless of another's self-respect and peace -of mind, would own to having devoured human -flesh. "Why tell?" he cried. "Who was asking -him?" It showed Falk's brutality because after -all he had selfishly caused him (Hermann) much -pain. He would have preferred not to know that -such an unclean creature had been in the habit of -caressing his children. He hoped I would say noth- -ing of all this ashore, though. He wouldn't like it -to get about that he had been intimate with an -eater of men--a common cannibal. As to the scene -he had made (which I judged quite unnecessary) -he was not going to inconvenience and restrain -himself for a fellow that went about courting and -upsetting girls' heads, while he knew all the time -that no decent housewifely girl could think of mar- -rying him. At least he (Hermann) could not con- -ceive how any girl could. Fancy Lena! . . . No, -it was impossible. The thoughts that would come -into their heads every time they sat down to a meal. -Horrible! Horrible! - -"You are too squeamish, Hermann," I said. - -He seemed to think it was eminently proper to be -squeamish if the word meant disgust at Falk's con- -duct; and turning up his eyes sentimentally he -drew my attention to the horrible fate of the victims ---the victims of that Falk. I said that I knew -nothing about them. He seemed surprised. Could -not anybody imagine without knowing? He--for -instance--felt he would like to avenge them. But -what if--said I--there had not been any? They -might have died as it were, naturally--of starva- -tion. He shuddered. But to be eaten--after -death! To be devoured! He gave another deep -shudder, and asked suddenly, "Do you think it -is true?" - -His indignation and his personality together -would have been enough to spoil the reality of the -most authentic thing. When I looked at him I -doubted the story--but the remembrance of Falk's -words, looks, gestures, invested it not only with -an air of reality but with the absolute truth of -primitive passion. - -"It is true just as much as you are able to make -it; and exactly in the way you like to make it. For -my part, when I hear you clamouring about it, I -don't believe it is true at all." - -And I left him pondering. The men in my boat -lying at the foot of Diana's side ladder told me that -the captain of the tug had gone away in his gig -some time ago. - -I let my fellows pull an easy stroke; because of -the heavy dew the clear sparkle of the stars seemed -to fall on me cold and wetting. There was a sense -of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, -and it was mingled with clear and grotesque -images. Schomberg's gastronomic tittle-tattle -was responsible for these; and I half hoped I -should never see Falk again. But the first thing -my anchor-watchman told me was that the captain -of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat -away and was now waiting for me in the cuddy. - -He was lying full length on the stern settee, his -face buried in the cushions. I had expected to see -it discomposed, contorted, despairing. It was -nothing of the kind; it was just as I had seen it -twenty times, steady and glaring from the bridge -of the tug. It was immovably set and hungry, -dominated like the whole man by the singleness of -one instinct. - -He wanted to live. He had always wanted to -live. So we all do--but in us the instinct serves a -complex conception, and in him this instinct existed -alone. There is in such simple development a gi- -gantic force, and like the pathos of a child's naive -nd uncontrolled desire. He wanted that girl, and -the utmost that can be said for him was that he -wanted that particular girl alone. I think I saw -then the obscure beginning, the seed germinating -in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot -of that tree bearing now for a mature mankind the -flower and the fruit, the infinite gradation in -shades and in flavour of our discriminating love. -He was a child. He was as frank as a child too. -He was hungry for the girl, terribly hungry, as -he had been terribly hungry for food. - -Don't be shocked if I declare that in my belief -it was the same need, the same pain, the same tor- -ture. We are in his case allowed to contemplate -the foundation of all the emotions--that one joy -which is to live, and the one sadness at the root of -the innumerable torments. It was made plain by -the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It -was gnawing, it was fire; it was there, like this! -And after pointing below his breastbone, he made -a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I as- -sure you that, seen as I saw it with my bodily eyes, -it was anything but laughable. And again, as he -was presently to tell me (alluding to an early inci- -dent of the disastrous voyage when some damaged -meat had been flung overboard), he said that a -time soon came when his heart ached (that was the -expression he used), and he was ready to tear his -hair out at the thought of all that rotten beef -thrown away. - -I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical -struggles, seeing the working of the rack and hear- -ing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it all pa- -tiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy -he had called upon me to stand by him--and this, -it seems, I had diplomatically promised. - -His agitation was impressive and alarming in -the little cabin, like the floundering of a great -whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He -stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried -to tear the cushion with his teeth; and again hug- -ging it fiercely to his face he let himself fall on the -couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock -of his despair; and I contemplated with wonder the -lofty forehead, the noble touch of time on the un- -covered temples, the unchanged hungry character -of the face--so strangely ascetic and so incapable -of portraying emotion. - -What should he do? He had lived by being -near her. He had sat--in the evening--I knew?-- -all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent--so. -Her head--like this--and her arms. Ah! Had I -seen? Like this. - -He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck -whose nape was red, and with his hands stitched -the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and compre- -hensible. - -And now he couldn't have her? No! That was -too much. After thinking too that . . . What -had he done? What was my advice? Take her by -force? No? Mustn't he? Who was there then -to kill him? For the first time I saw one of his fea- -tures move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip. -. . . "Not Hermann, perhaps." He lost himself -in thought as though he had fallen out of the -world. - -I may note that the idea of suicide apparently -did not enter his head for a single moment. It oc- -curred to me to ask: - -"Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took -place?" - -"Down south," he said vaguely with a start. - -"You are not down south now," I said. "Vio- -lence won't do. They would take her away from -you in no time. And what was the name of the -ship?" - -"Borgmester Dahl," he said. "It was no ship- -wreck." - -He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that -trance, and waking up calmed. - -"Not a shipwreck? What was it?" - -"Break down," he answered, looking more like -himself every moment. By this only I learned that -it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they -had been starving in boats or on a raft--or per- -haps on a barren rock. - -"She did not sink then?" I asked in surprise. -He nodded. "We sighted the southern ice," he -pronounced dreamily. - -"And you alone survived?" - -He sat down. "Yes. It was a terrible misfor- -tune for me. Everything went wrong. All the -men went wrong. I survived." - -Remembering the things one reads of it was diffi- -cult to realise the true meaning of his answers. I -ought to have seen at once--but I did not; so diffi- -cult is it for our minds, remembering so much, in- -structed so much, informed of so much, to get in -touch with the real actuality at our elbow. And -with my head full of preconceived notions as to -how a case of "cannibalism and suffering at sea" -should be managed I said--"You were then so -lucky in the drawing of lots?" - -"Drawing of lots?" he said. "What lots? Do -you think I would have allowed my life to go for -the drawing of lots?" - -Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter -what other life went. - -"It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful," -he said. "Many heads went wrong, but the best -men would live." - -"The toughest, you mean," I said. He consid- -ered the word. Perhaps it was strange to him, -though his English was so good. - -"Yes," he asserted at last. "The best. It was -everybody for himself at last and the ship open to -all." - -Thus from question to question I got the whole -story. I fancy it was the only way I could that -night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he -was himself again; the first sign of it was the re- -turn of that incongruous trick he had of drawing -both his hands down his face--and it had its mean- -ing now, with that slight shudder of the frame and -the passionate anguish of these hands uncovering -a hungry immovable face, the wide pupils of the -intent, silent, fascinating eyes. - -It was an iron steamer of a most respectable ori- -gin. The burgomaster of Falk's native town had -built her. She was the first steamer ever launched -there. The burgomaster's daughter had christened -her. Country people drove in carts from miles -around to see her. He told me all this. He got the -berth as what we should call a chief mate. He -seemed to think it had been a feather in his cap; -and, in his own corner of the world, this lover of -life was of good parentage. - -The burgomaster had advanced ideas in the -ship-owning line. At that time not every one -would have known enough to think of despatching -a cargo steamer to the Pacific. But he loaded her -with pitch-pine deals and sent her off to hunt for -her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I -fancy. It doesn't matter, because in latitude 44 d -south and somewhere halfway between Good Hope -and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the pro- -peller dropped off. - -They were steaming then with a fresh gale on -the quarter and all their canvas set, to help the en- -gines. But by itself the sail power was not enough -to keep way on her. When the propeller went the -ship broached-to at once, and the masts got -whipped overboard. - -The disadvantage of being dismasted consisted -in this, that they had nothing to hoist flags on to -make themselves visible at a distance. In the -course of the first few days several ships failed to -sight them; and the gale was drifting them out of -the usual track. The voyage had been, from the -first, neither very successful nor very harmonious. -There had been quarrels on board. The captain -was a clever, melancholic man, who had no unusual -grip on his crew. The ship had been amply pro- -visioned for the passage, but, somehow or other, -several barrels of meat were found spoiled on open- -ing, and had been thrown overboard soon after -leaving home, as a sanitary measure. Afterwards -the crew of the Borgmester Dahl thought of that -rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness -and despair. - -She drove south. To begin with, there had been -an appearance of organisation, but soon the bonds -of discipline became relaxed. A sombre idleness -succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the hori- -zon. The gales increased: she lay in the trough, -the seas made a clean breach over her. On one -frightful night, when they expected their hulk to -turn over with them every moment, a heavy sea -broke on board, deluged the store-rooms and spoiled -the best part of the remaining provisions. It seems -the hatch had not been properly secured. This in- -stance of neglect is characteristic of utter discour- -agement. Falk tried to inspire some energy into -his captain, but failed. From that time he retired -more into himself, always trying to do his utmost -in the situation. It grew worse. Gale succeeded -gale, with black mountains of water hurling them- -selves on the Borgmester Dahl. Some of the men -never left their bunks; many became quarrelsome. -The chief engineer, an old man, refused to speak -at all to anybody. Others shut themselves up in -their berths to cry. On calm days the inert steamer -rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or -showed, in sunshine, the squalor of sea waifs, the -dried white salt, the rust, the jagged broken -places. Then the gales came again. They kept -body and soul together on short rations. Once, an -English ship, scudding in a storm, tried to stand -by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The -seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging -to her rigging looked at them, and they made des- -perate signs over their shattered bulwarks. Sud- -denly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a ter- -rific squall; she had to bear up under bare poles, -and disappeared. - -Other ships had spoken them before, but at first -they had refused to be taken off, expecting the as- -sistance of some steamer. There were very few -steamers in those latitudes then; and when they -desired to leave this dead and drifting carcase, no -ship came in sight. They had drifted south out of -men's knowledge. They failed to attract the atten- -tion of a lonely whaler, and very soon the edge of -the polar ice-cap rose from the sea and closed the -southern horizon like a wall. One morning they -were alarmed by finding themselves floating -amongst detached pieces of ice. But the fear of -sinking passed away like their vigour, like their -hopes; the shocks of the floes knocking against the -ship's side could not rouse them from their apathy: -and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again un- -harmed into open water. They hardly noticed -the change. - -The funnel had gone overboard in one of the -heavy rolls; two of their three boats had disap- -peared, washed away in bad weather, and the davits -swung to and fro, unsecured, with chafed rope's -ends waggling to the roll. Nothing was done on -board, and Falk told me how he had often listened -to the water washing about the dark engine-room -where the engines, stilled for ever, were decaying -slowly into a mass of rust, as the stilled heart de- -cays within the lifeless body. At first, after the -loss of the motive power, the tiller had been thor- -oughly secured by lashings. But in course of time -these had rotted, chafed, rusted, parting one by -one: and the rudder, freed, banged heavily to and -fro night and day, sending dull shocks through the -whole frame of the vessel. This was dangerous. -Nobody cared enough to lift a little finger. He -told me that even now sometimes waking up at -night, he fancied he could hear the dull vibrating -thuds. The pintles carried away, and it dropped -off at last. - -The final catastrophe came with the sending off -of their one remaining boat. It was Falk who had -managed to preserve her intact, and now it was -agreed that some of the hands should sail away into -the track of the shipping to procure assistance. -She was provisioned with all the food they could -spare for the six who were to go. They waited for -a fine day. It was long in coming. At last one -morning they lowered her into the water. - -Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble -broke out. Two men who had no business there -had jumped into the boat under the pretence of -unhooking the tackles, while some sort of squabble -arose on the deck amongst these weak, tottering -spectres of a ship's company. The captain, who -had been for days living secluded and unapproach- -able in the chart-room, came to the rail. He or- -dered the two men to come up on board and men- -aced them with his revolver. They pretended to -obey, but suddenly cutting the boat's painter, gave -a shove against the ship's side and made ready to -hoist the sail. - -"Shoot, sir! Shoot them down!" cried Falk-- -"and I will jump overboard to regain the boat." -But the captain, after taking aim with an irreso- -lute arm, turned suddenly away. - -A howl of rage arose. Falk dashed into his cabin -for his own pistol. When he returned it was too -late. Two more men had leaped into the water, but -the fellows in the boat beat them off with the oars, -hoisted the boat's lug and sailed away. They were -never heard of again. - -Consternation and despair possessed the remain- -ing ship's company, till the apathy of utter hope- -lessness re-asserted its sway. That day a fireman -committed suicide, running up on deck with his -throat cut from ear to ear, to the horror of all -hands. He was thrown overboard. The captain -had locked himself in the chart-room, and Falk, -knocking vainly for admittance, heard him recit- -ing over and over again the names of his wife and -children, not as if calling upon them or commend- -ing them to God, but in a mechanical voice like an -exercise of memory. Next day the doors of the -chart-room were swinging open to the roll of the -ship, and the captain had disappeared. He must -during the night have jumped into the sea. Falk -locked both the doors and kept the keys. - -The organised life of the ship had come to an -end. The solidarity of the men had gone. They -became indifferent to each other. It was Falk who -took in hand the distribution of such food as re- -mained. They boiled their boots for soup to eke -out the rations, which only made their hunger more -intolerable. Sometimes whispers of hate were -heard passing between the languid skeletons that -drifted endlessly to and fro, north and south, east -and west, upon that carcase of a ship. - -And in this lies the grotesque horror of this som- -bre story. The last extremity of sailors, overtaking -a small boat or a frail craft, seems easier to bear, -because of the direct danger of the seas. The con- -fined space, the close contact, the imminent menace -of the waves, seem to draw men together, in spite -of madness, suffering and despair. But there was -a ship--safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds, -bedding, knives, forks, comfortable cabins, glass -and china, and a complete cook's galley, pervaded, -ruled and possessed by the pitiless spectre of star- -vation. The lamp oil had been drunk, the wicks -cut up for food, the candles eaten. At night she -floated dark in all her recesses, and full of fears. -One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter -of pine wood. Suddenly he threw the piece of wood -away, tottered to the rail, and fell over. Falk, too -late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship's -side desperately before he went down. Next day -another man did the same thing, after uttering hor- -rible imprecations. But this one somehow man- -aged to get hold of the broken rudder chains and -hung on there, silently. Falk set about trying to -save him, and all the time the man, holding with -both hands, looked at him anxiously with his sunken -eyes. Then, just as Falk was ready to put his hand -on him, the man let go his hold and sank like a -stone. Falk reflected on these sights. His heart -revolted against the horror of death, and he said -to himself that he would struggle for every pre- -cious minute of his life. - -One afternoon--as the survivors lay about on -the after deck--the carpenter, a tall man with a -black beard, spoke of the last sacrifice. There was -nothing eatable left on board. Nobody said a -word to this; but that company separated quickly, -these listless feeble spectres slunk off one by one -to hide in fear of each other. Falk and the car- -penter remained on deck together. Falk liked -the big carpenter. He had been the best man of -the lot, helpful and ready as long as there was -anything to do, the longest hopeful, and had -preserved to the last some vigour and decision of -mind. - -They did not speak to each other. Henceforth -no voices were to be heard conversing sadly on -board that ship. After a time the carpenter tot- -tered away forward; but later on, Falk going to -drink at the fresh-water pump, had the inspiration -to turn his head. The carpenter had stolen upon -him from behind, and, summoning all his strength, -was aiming with a crowbar a blow at the back of -his skull. - -Dodging just in time, Falk made his escape and -ran into his cabin. While he was loading his re- -volver there, he heard the sound of heavy blows -struck upon the bridge. The locks of the chart- -room doors were slight, they flew open, and the car- -penter, possessing himself of the captain's revolver, -fired a shot of defiance. - -Falk was about to go on deck and have it out -at once, when he remarked that one of the ports of -his cabin commanded the approaches to the fresh- -water pump. Instead of going out he remained in -and secured the door. "The best man shall sur- -vive," he said to himself--and the other, he rea- -soned, must at some time or other come there to -drink. These starving men would drink often to -cheat the pangs of their hunger. But the carpen- -ter too must have noticed the position of the port. -They were the two best men in the ship, and the -game was with them. All the rest of the day Falk -saw no one and heard no sound. At night he -strained his eyes. It was dark--he heard a rustling -noise once, but he was certain that no one could -have come near the pump. It was to the left of his -deck port, and he could not have failed to see a -man, for the night was clear and starry. He saw -nothing; towards morning another faint noise -made him suspicious. Deliberately and quietly he -unlocked his door. He had not slept, and had not -given way to the horror of the situation. He -wanted to live. - -But during the night the carpenter, without at -all trying to approach the pump, had managed to -creep quietly along the starboard bulwark, and, -unseen, had crouched down right under Falk's deck -port. When daylight came he rose up suddenly, -looked in, and putting his arm through the round -brass framed opening, fired at Falk within a foot. -He missed--and Falk, instead of attempting to -seize the arm holding the weapon, opened his door -unexpectedly, and with the muzzle of his long re- -volver nearly touching the other's side, shot him -dead. - -The best man had survived. Both of them had -at the beginning just strength enough to stand on -their feet, and both had displayed pitiless resolu- -tion, endurance, cunning and courage--all the -qualities of classic heroism. At once Falk threw -overboard the captain's revolver. He was a born -monopolist. Then after the report of the two -shots, followed by a profound silence, there crept -out into the cold, cruel dawn of Antarctic regions, -from various hiding-places, over the deck of that -dismantled corpse of a ship floating on a grey sea -ruled by iron necessity and with a heart of ice-- -there crept into view one by one, cautious, slow, ea- -ger, glaring, and unclean, a band of hungry and -livid skeletons. Falk faced them, the possessor of -the only fire-arm on board, and the second best man ---the carpenter--was lying dead between him and -them. - -"He was eaten, of course," I said. - -He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, draw- -ing his hands over his face, and said, "I had never -any quarrel with that man. But there were our -lives between him and me." - -Why continue the story of that ship, that story -before which, with its fresh-water pump like a -spring of death, its man with the weapon, the sea -ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by -terror and hope, its mute and unhearing heaven?-- -the fable of the Flying Dutchman with its conven- -tion of crime and its sentimental retribution fades -like a graceful wreath, like a wisp of white mist. -What is there to say that every one of us cannot -guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going -through the ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the -matches. Those starving wretches had plenty of -matches! He had no mind to have the ship set on -fire under his feet, either from hate or from despair. -He lived in the open, camping on the bridge, com- -manding all the after deck and the only approach -to the pump. He lived! Some of the others lived -too--concealed, anxious, coming out one by one -from their hiding-places at the seductive sound of -a shot. And he was not selfish. They shared, but -only three of them all were alive when a whaler, re- -turning from her cruising ground, nearly ran over -the water-logged hull of the Borgmester Dahl, -which, it seems, in the end had in some way sprung -a leak in both her holds, but being loaded with deals -could not sink. - -"They all died," Falk said. "These three too, -afterwards. But I would not die. All died, all! -under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to -throw away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain? -I was alone there, quite alone, just like the others. -Each man was alone. Was I to give up my re- -volver? Who to? Or was I to throw it into the -sea? What would have been the good? Only the -best man would survive. It was a great, terrible, -and cruel misfortune." - -He had survived! I saw him before me as -though preserved for a witness to the mighty truth -of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads -of perspiration stood on his forehead. And sud- -denly it struck the table with a heavy blow, as he -fell forward throwing his hands out. - -"And this is worse," he cried. "This is a worse -pain! This is more terrible." - -He made my heart thump with the profound con- -viction of his cries. And after he had left me -alone I called up before my mental eye the image -of the girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently, -and as if irresistibly. I thought of her tawny -hair. I thought how, if unplaited, it would have -covered her all round as low as the hips, like the -hair of a siren. And she had bewitched him. Fancy -a man who would guard his own life with the in- -flexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being -brought to lament that once a crowbar had missed -his skull! The sirens sing and lure to death, but -this one had been weeping silently as if for the pity -of his life. She was the tender and voiceless siren -of this appalling navigator. He evidently wanted -to live his whole conception of life. Nothing else -would do. And she too was a servant of that life -that, in the midst of death, cries aloud to our senses. -She was eminently fitted to interpret for him its -feminine side. And in her own way, and with her -own profusion of sensuous charms, she also seemed -to illustrate the eternal truth of an unerring prin- -ciple. I don't know though what sort of principle -Hermann illustrated when he turned up early on -board my ship with a most perplexed air. It -struck me, however, that he too would do his best -to survive. He seemed greatly calmed on the sub- -ject of Falk, but still very full of it. - -"What is it you said I was last night? You -know," he asked after some preliminary talk. -"Too--too--I don't know. A very funny word." - -"Squeamish?" I suggested. - -"Yes. What does it mean?" - -"That you exaggerate things--to yourself. -Without inquiry, and so on." - -He seemed to turn it over in his mind. We went -on talking. This Falk was the plague of his life. -Upsetting everybody like this! Mrs. Hermann -was unwell rather this morning. His niece was -crying still. There was nobody to look after the -children. He struck his umbrella on the deck. She -would be like that for months. Fancy carrying all -the way home, second class, a perfectly useless girl -who is crying all the time. It was bad for Lena -too, he observed; but on what grounds I could not -guess. Perhaps of the bad example. That child -was already sorrowing and crying enough over the -rag doll. Nicholas was really the least sentimental -person of the family. - -"Why does she weep?" I asked. - -"From pity," cried Hermann. - -It was impossible to make out women. Mrs. Her- -mann was the only one he pretended to understand. -She was very, very upset and doubtful. - -"Doubtful about what?" I asked. - -He averted his eyes and did not answer this. It -was impossible to make them out. For instance, -his niece was weeping for Falk. Now he (Her- -mann) would like to wring his neck--but then . . . -He supposed he had too tender a heart. "Frank- -ly," he asked at last, "what do you think of what -we heard last night, captain?" - -"In all these tales," I observed, "there is always -a good deal of exaggeration." - -And not letting him recover from his surprise I -assured him that I knew all the details. He begged -me not to repeat them. His heart was too tender. -They made him feel unwell. Then, looking at his -feet and speaking very slowly, he supposed that he -need not see much of them after they were married. -For, indeed, he could not bear the sight of Falk. -On the other hand it was ridiculous to take home a -girl with her head turned. A girl that weeps all -the time and is of no help to her aunt. - -"Now you will be able to do with one cabin only -on your passage home," I said. - -"Yes, I had thought of that," he said brightly, -almost. "Yes! Himself, his wife, four children ---one cabin might do. Whereas if his niece -went . . ." - -"And what does Mrs. Hermann say to it?" I -inquired. - -Mrs. Hermann did not know whether a man of -that sort could make a girl happy--she had been -greatly deceived in Captain Falk. She had been -very upset last night. - -Those good people did not seem to be able to re- -tain an impression for a whole twelve hours. I -assured him on my own personal knowledge that -Falk possessed in himself all the qualities to make -his niece's future prosperous. He said he was glad -to hear this, and that he would tell his wife. Then -the object of the visit came out. He wished me to -help him to resume relations with Falk. His niece, -he said, had expressed the hope I would do so in my -kindness. He was evidently anxious that I should, -for though he seemed to have forgotten nine-tenths -of his last night's opinions and the whole of his in- -dignation, yet he evidently feared to be sent to the -right-about. "You told me he was very much in -love," he concluded slyly, and leered in a sort of bu- -colic way. - -"As soon as he had left my ship I called Falk on -board by signal--the tug still lying at the anchor- -age. He took the news with calm gravity, as -though he had all along expected the stars to fight -for him in their courses. - -I saw them once more together, and only once-- -on the quarter-deck of the Diana. Hermann sat -smoking with a shirt-sleeved elbow hooked over the -back of his chair. Mrs. Hermann was sewing -alone. As Falk stepped over the gangway, Her- -mann's niece, with a slight swish of the skirt and a -swift friendly nod to me, glided past my chair. - -They met in sunshine abreast of the mainmast. -He held her hands and looked down at them, and -she looked up at him with her candid and unseeing -glance. It seemed to me they had come together -as if attracted, drawn and guided to each other by -a mysterious influence. They were a complete -couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life, -generous of form, olympian and simple, she was in- -deed the siren to fascinate that dark navigator, this -ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I -seemed to feel the masculine strength with which -he grasped those hands she had extended to him -with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale, -nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran to- -wards her big friend; and then in the drowsy si- -lence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann's voice -rang out so changed that it made me spin round in -my chair to see what was the matter. - -"Lena, come here!" she screamed. And this -good-natured matron gave me a wavering glance, -dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran -back, surprised to her knee. But the two, stand- -ing before each other in sunlight with clasped -hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and -no one. Three feet away from them in the shade -a seaman sat on a spar, very busy splicing a strop, -and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if utterly -unaware of their existence. - -When I returned in command of another ship, -some five years afterwards, Mr. and Mrs. Falk -had left the place. I should not wonder if Schom- -berg's tongue had succeeded at last in scaring Falk -away for good; and, indubitably, there was a tale -still going about the town of a certain Falk, owner -of a tug, who had won his wife at cards from the -captain of an English ship. - - - - -THE END - - - - -End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Falk, by Joseph Conrad - diff --git a/old/falk10.zip b/old/falk10.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a02dc10..0000000 --- a/old/falk10.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old-2025-03-13/493-0.txt b/old/old-2025-03-13/493-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a8db98d..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-03-13/493-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3250 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Falk, 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: Falk - -Author: Joseph Conrad - -Release Date: April 1996 [EBook #493] -Posting Date: June 18, 2009 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger - - - - - - - - - -FALK - -A REMINISCENCE - - -By Joseph Conrad - - - -Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in -a small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and less -than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our coasting -men give the grandiose name of “German Ocean.” And through the wide -windows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower -Hope Reach. But the dinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the -eyes. - -That flavour of salt-water which for so many of us had been the very -water of life permeated our talk. He who hath known the bitterness of -the Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But one or two -of us, pampered by the life of the land, complained of hunger. It was -impossible to swallow any of that stuff. And indeed there was a strange -mustiness in everything. The wooden dining-room stuck out over the mud -of the shore like a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed -rotten; a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically to and fro before -an antediluvian and worm-eaten sideboard; the chipped plates might have -been disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and -the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to -one’s mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first -rudiments of cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh -at a fire of sticks in the company of other good fellows; then, gorged -and happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to tell his artless tales -of experience--the tales of hunger and hunt--and of women, perhaps! - -But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the waiter. So, -comparatively empty, but upon the whole fairly happy, we sat back and -told our artless tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The -sea never changes, and its works for all the talk of men are wrapped in -mystery. But we agreed that the times were changed. And we talked of old -ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings; and of a man who -brought his ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River Platte -under a jury rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of -heroism--or at least of what the newspapers would have called heroism -at sea--a manifestation of virtues quite different from the heroism of -primitive times. And now and then falling silent all together we gazed -at the sights of the river. - -A P. & O. boat passed bound down. “One gets jolly good dinners on board -these ships,” remarked one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read -out the name on her bows: Arcadia. “What a beautiful model of a ship!” - murmured some of us. She was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the -flag they hauled down aboard while we were looking showed her to be a -Norwegian. She made an awful lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown -away, a high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and towed by a -paddle-tug, appeared in front of the windows. All her hands were forward -busy setting up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood, quite alone -with the man at the wheel, paced the length of the poop back and forth, -with the grey wool of some knitting work in her hands. - -“German I should think,” muttered one. “The skipper has his wife on -board,” remarked another; and the light of the crimson sunset all -ablaze behind the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light upon the -barque’s spars, faded away from the Hope Reach. - -Then one of us, who had not spoken before, a man of over fifty, that had -commanded ships for a quarter of a century, looking after the barque now -gliding far away, all black on the lustre of the river, said: - -This reminds me of an absurd episode in my life, now many years ago, -when I got first the command of an iron barque, loading then in a -certain Eastern seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern kingdom, -lying up a river as might be London lies up this old Thames of ours. -No more need be said of the place; for this sort of thing might have -happened anywhere where there are ships, skippers, tugboats, and orphan -nieces of indescribable splendour. And the absurdity of the episode -concerns only me, my enemy Falk, and my friend Hermann. - -There seemed to be something like peculiar emphasis on the words “My -friend Hermann,” which caused one of us (for we had just been speaking -of heroism at sea) to say idly and nonchalantly: - -“And was this Hermann a hero?” - -Not at all, said our grizzled friend. No hero at all. He was a -Schiff-fuhrer: Ship-conductor. That’s how they call a Master Mariner -in Germany. I prefer our way. The alliteration is good, and there is -something in the nomenclature that gives to us as a body the sense -of corporate existence: Apprentice, Mate, Master, in the ancient and -honourable craft of the sea. As to my friend Hermann, he might have -been a consummate master of the honourable craft, but he was called -officially Schiff-fuhrer, and had the simple, heavy appearance of a -well-to-do farmer, combined with the good-natured shrewdness of a small -shopkeeper. With his shaven chin, round limbs, and heavy eyelids he did -not look like a toiler, and even less like an adventurer of the sea. -Still, he toiled upon the seas, in his own way, much as a shopkeeper -works behind his counter. And his ship was the means by which he -maintained his growing family. - -She was a heavy, strong, blunt-bowed affair, awakening the ideas of -primitive solidity, like the wooden plough of our forefathers. And there -were, about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely nature. The -extraordinary timber projections which I have seen in no other vessel -made her square stern resemble the tail end of a miller’s waggon. But -the four stern ports of her cabin, glazed with six little greenish panes -each, and framed in wooden sashes painted brown, might have been the -windows of a cottage in the country. The tiny white curtains and the -greenery of flower pots behind the glass completed the resemblance. On -one or two occasions when passing under stern I had detected from my -boat a round arm in the act of tilting a watering pot, and the bowed -sleek head of a maiden whom I shall always call Hermann’s niece, because -as a matter of fact I’ve never heard her name, for all my intimacy with -the family. - -This, however, sprang up later on. Meantime in common with the rest -of the shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to -Hermann’s notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in -wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and -pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or -a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a -fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the -poop entirely. The afternoon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby -activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions -of drowned, mutilated and flattened humanity. Trunks without heads waved -at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantastically with -collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments that, taking -the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, became for -a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible -bodies. On these days you could make out that ship at a great distance -by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft her mizzen mast. - -She had her berth just ahead of me, and her name was Diana,--Diana not -of Ephesus but of Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a foot -long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat like the lettering of a -shop-sign) under the cottage windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name -struck one as an impertinence towards the memory of the most charming -of goddesses; for, apart from the fact that the old craft was physically -incapable of engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of four -children belonging to her. They peeped over the rail at passing boats -and occasionally dropped various objects into them. Thus, sometime -before I knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat a horrid -rag-doll belonging to Hermann’s eldest daughter. However, these -youngsters were upon the whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round -eyes, round little knobby noses, and they resembled their father a good -deal. - -This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old ship, and seemed to know -nothing of the wicked sea, as there are on shore households that know -nothing of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she suggested were -unexceptionable and mainly of a domestic order. She was a home. All -these dear children had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck. In -such thoughts there is something pretty, even touching. Their teeth, I -should judge, they had cut on the ends of her running gear. I have -many times observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) engaged in gnawing the -whipping of the fore-royal brace. Nicholas’ favourite place of residence -was under the main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose he would -crawl off there, and the first seaman who came along would bring him, -carefully held aloft in tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy -there must have been a standing order to that effect. In the course of -these transportations the baby, who was the only peppery person in the -ship, tried to smite these stalwart young German sailors on the face. - -Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife, wore on board baggy blue -dresses with white dots. When, as happened once or twice I caught her at -an elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white collars, baby’s socks, -and Hermann’s summer neckties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and -raising her wet hands greet me from afar with many friendly nods. Her -sleeves would be rolled up to the elbows, and the gold hoop of her -wedding ring glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was pleasant, she -had a serene brow, smooth bands of very fair hair, and a good-humoured -expression of the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talkative. When -this simple matron smiled, youthful dimples broke out on her fresh broad -cheeks. Hermann’s niece on the other hand, an orphan and very silent, I -never saw attempt a smile. This, however, was not gloom on her part but -the restraint of youthful gravity. - -They had carried her about with them for the last three years, to help -with the children and be company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann mentioned -once to me. It had been very necessary while they were all little, he -had added in a vexed manner. It was her arm and her sleek head that -I had glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows of the cabin, -hovering over the pots of fuchsias and mignonette; but the first time I -beheld her full length I surrendered to her proportions. They fix her -in my mind, as great beauty, great intelligence, quickness of wit -or kindness of heart might have made some her other woman equally -memorable. - -With her it was form and size. It was her physical personality that had -this imposing charm. She might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to -an exceptional degree. I don’t know, and this is not to the point. All -I know is that she was built on a magnificent scale. Built is the only -word. She was constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal -lavishness. It staggered you to see this reckless expenditure of -material upon a chit of a girl. She was youthful and also perfectly -mature, as though she had been some fortunate immortal. She was heavy -too, perhaps, but that’s nothing. It only added to that notion of -permanence. She was barely nineteen. But such shoulders! Such round -arms! Such a shadowing forth of mighty limbs when with three long -strides she pounced across the deck upon the overturned Nicholas--it’s -perfectly indescribable! She seemed a good, quiet girl, vigilant as -to Lena’s needs, Gustav’s tumbles, the state of Carl’s dear little -nose--conscientious, hardworking, and all that. But what magnificent -hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. It had the sheen -of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress -hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist. -The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it reminded one of a -club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She had a -good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that she appeared to -look at the world with the empty white candour of a statue. You could -not call her good-looking. It was something much more impressive. -The simplicity of her apparel, the opulence of her form, her imposing -stature, and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that seemed to -emanate from her like a perfume exhaled by a flower, made her beautiful -with a beauty of a rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching up -to the clothes-line with both arms raised high above her head, caused -you to fall a musing in a strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs. -Hermann’s baggy cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary frills at neck -and bottom, but this girl’s print frocks hadn’t even a wrinkle; nothing -but a few straight folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these, -when she stood still, had a severe and statuesque quality. She was -inclined naturally to be still whether sitting or standing. However, I -don’t mean to say she was statuesque. She was too generously alive; but -she could have stood for an allegoric statue of the Earth. I don’t mean -the worn-out earth of our possession, but a young Earth, a virginal -planet undisturbed by the vision of a future teeming with the monstrous -forms of life and death, clamorous with the cruel battles of hunger and -thought. - -The worthy Hermann himself was not very entertaining, though his English -was fairly comprehensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one speech -at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone (and in Platt-Deutsch I -suppose) I could not understand. As to their niece, however satisfactory -to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with a hopeful view as to -the prospects of mankind) she was a modest and silent presence, mostly -engaged in sewing, only now and then, as I observed, falling over that -work into a state of maidenly meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her, -sewing also, with her feet propped on a wooden footstool. On the other -side of the deck Hermann and I would get a couple of chairs out of the -cabin and settle down to a smoking match, accompanied at long intervals -by the pacific exchange of a few words. I came nearly every evening. -Hermann I would find in his shirt sleeves. As soon as he returned from -the shore on board his ship he commenced operations by taking off his -coat; then he put on his head an embroidered round cap with a tassel, -and changed his boots for a pair of cloth slippers. Afterwards he smoked -at the cabin-door, looking at his children with an air of civic virtue, -till they got caught one after another and put to bed in various -staterooms. Lastly, we would drink some beer in the cabin, which -was furnished with a wooden table on cross legs, and with black -straight-backed chairs--more like a farm kitchen than a ship’s cuddy. -The sea and all nautical affairs seemed very far removed from the -hospitality of this exemplary family. - -And I liked this because I had a rather worrying time on board my own -ship. I had been appointed ex-officio by the British Consul to take -charge of her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for the -guidance of his successor some suspiciously unreceipted bills, a few -dry-dock estimates hinting at bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for -three years’ extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up together in a -dusty old violin-case lined with ruby velvet. I found besides a large -account-book, which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my infinite -consternation to be filled with verses--page after page of rhymed -doggerel of a jovial and improper character, written in the neatest -minute hand I ever did see. In the same fiddle-case a photograph of my -predecessor, taken lately in Saigon, represented in front of a garden -view, and in company of a female in strange draperies, an elderly, -squat, rugged man of stern aspect in a clumsy suit of black broadcloth, -and with the hair brushed forward above the temples in a manner -reminding one of a boar’s tusks. Of a fiddle, however, the only trace -on board was the case, its empty husk as it were; but of the two last -freights the ship had indubitably earned of late, there were not even -the husks left. It was impossible to say where all that money had gone -to. It wasn’t on board. It had not been remitted home; for a letter -from the owners, preserved in a desk evidently by the merest accident, -complained mildly enough that they had not been favoured by a scratch -of the pen for the last eighteen months. There were next to no stores on -board, not an inch of spare rope or a yard of canvas. The ship had been -run bare, and I foresaw no end of difficulties before I could get her -ready for sea. - -As I was young then--not thirty yet--I took myself and my troubles very -seriously. The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the captain’s -funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming. But the fact is the -fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, -if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on board. As to -the second mate, all I can say his name was Tottersen, or something like -that. His practice was to wear on his head, in that tropical climate, a -mangy fur cap. He was, without exception, the stupidest man I had ever -seen on board ship. And he looked it too. He looked so confoundedly -stupid that it was a matter of surprise for me when he answered to his -name. - -I drew no great comfort from their company, to say the least of it; -while the prospect of making a long sea passage with those two fellows -was depressing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not be of a -gay complexion. The crew was sickly, the cargo was coming very slow; I -foresaw I would have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted -whether they would advance me enough money for the ship’s expenses. -Their attitude towards me was unfriendly. Altogether I was not getting -on. I would discover at odd times (generally about midnight) that I -was totally inexperienced, greatly ignorant of business, and hopelessly -unfit for any sort of command; and when the steward had to be taken to -the hospital ill with choleraic symptoms I felt bereaved of the only -decent person at the after end of the ship. He was fully expected to -recover, but in the meantime had to be replaced by some sort of servant. -And on the recommendation of a certain Schomberg, the proprietor of the -smaller of the two hotels in the place, I engaged a Chinaman. Schomberg, -a brawny, hairy Alsatian, and an awful gossip, assured me that it was -all right. “First-class boy that. Came in the suite of his Excellency -Tseng the Commissioner--you know. His Excellency Tseng lodged with me -here for three weeks.” - -He mouthed the Chinese Excellency at me with great unction, though -the specimen of the “suite” did not seem very promising. At the time, -however, I did not know what an untrustworthy humbug Schomberg was. The -“boy” might have been forty or a hundred and forty for all you could -tell--one of those Chinamen of the death’s-head type of face and -completely inscrutable. Before the end of the third day he had revealed -himself as a confirmed opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief, -and a first-class sprinter. When he departed at the top of his speed -with thirty-two golden sovereigns of my own hard-earned savings it was -the last straw. I had reserved that money in case my difficulties came -to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor and naked as a fakir. I -clung to my ship, for all the bother she caused me, but what I could not -bear were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where the atmosphere, -made smelly by a leaky lamp, was agitated by the snoring of the mate. -That fellow shut himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at eight, and -made gross and revolting noises like a water-logged trump. It was odious -not to be able to worry oneself in comfort on board one’s own ship. -Everything in this world, I reflected, even the command of a nice little -barque, may be made a delusion and a snare for the unwary spirit of -pride in man. - -From such reflections I was glad to make any escape on board that Bremen -Diana. There apparently no whisper of the world’s iniquities had ever -penetrated. And yet she lived upon the wide sea: and the sea tragic -and comic, the sea with its horrors and its peculiar scandals, the sea -peopled by men and ruled by iron necessity is indubitably a part of the -world. But that patriarchal old tub, like some saintly retreat, echoed -nothing of it. She was world proof. Her venerable innocence apparently -had put a restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And yet I have -known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An -elemental force is ruthlessly frank. It may, of course, have been -Hermann’s skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the allied -oceans had refrained from smashing these high bulwarks, unshipping -the lumpy rudder, frightening the children, and generally opening this -family’s eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reticence. The -ruthless disclosure was in the end left for a man to make; a man strong -and elemental enough and driven to unveil some secrets of the sea by the -power of a simple and elemental desire. - -This, however, occurred much later, and meantime I took sanctuary in -that serene old ship early every evening. The only person on board that -seemed to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due course I perceived -that the health of the rag-doll was more than delicate. This object led -a sort of “in extremis” existence in a wooden box placed against the -starboard mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy -and care by all the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and -moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby--Nicholas--looked on with a -cold, ruffianly leer, as if he had belonged to another tribe altogether. -Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of them were in deadly -earnest. It was wonderful the way these children would work up their -compassion for that bedraggled thing I wouldn’t have touched with a pair -of tongs. I suppose they were exercising and developing their racial -sentimentalism by the means of that dummy. I was only surprised that -Mrs. Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that bundle of rags to that -extent, it was so disreputably and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann -would raise her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to look on with -amused sympathy, and did not seen to see it, somehow, that this -object of affection was a disgrace to the ship’s purity. Purity, not -cleanliness, is the word. It was pushed so far that I seemed to detect -in this too a sentimental excess, as if dirt had been removed in -very love. It is impossible to give you an idea of such a meticulous -neatness. It was as if every morning that ship had been arduously -explored with--with toothbrushes. Her very bowsprit three times a week -had its toilette made with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. -Arrayed--I _must_ say arrayed--arrayed artlessly in dazzling white paint -as to wood and dark green as to ironwork the simple-minded distribution -of these colours evoked the images of simple-minded peace, of arcadian -felicity; and the childish comedy of disease and sorrow struck me -sometimes as an abominably real blot upon that ideal state. - -I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought a little mild excitement -into it. Our intimacy arose from the pursuit of that thief. It was in -the evening, and Hermann, who, contrary to his habits, had stayed on -shore late that day, was extricating himself backwards out of a little -gharry on the river bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed. -Realising the situation as though he had eyes in his shoulder-blades, he -joined us with a leap and took the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like -a rapid shadow on the dust of an extremely oriental road. I followed. A -long way in the rear my mate whooped like a savage. A young moon threw -a bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste ground: the -architectural mass of a Buddhist temple far away projected itself -in dead black on the sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my -disappointment I had to admire Hermann’s presence of mind. The velocity -that stodgy man developed in the interests of a complete stranger earned -my warm gratitude--there was something truly cordial in his exertions. - -He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and would hardly listen to -my thanks. He said it was “nothings,” and invited me on the spot to -come on board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him. We poked -sceptically for a while amongst the bushes, peered without conviction -into a ditch or two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glimmered -feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged back, drooping under the -thin sickle of the moon, and I heard him mutter to himself, “Himmel! -Zwei und dreissig Pfund!” He was impressed by the figure of my loss. For -a long time we had ceased to hear the mate’s whoops and yells. - -Then he said to me, “Everybody has his troubles,” and as we went on -remarked that he would never have known anything of mine hadn’t he by an -extraordinary chance been detained on shore by Captain Falk. He didn’t -like to stay late ashore--he added with a sigh. The something doleful in -his tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of course. - -On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann’s fine eyes expressed much interest and -commiseration. We had found the two women sewing face to face under the -open skylight in the strong glare of the lamp. Hermann walked in first, -starting in the very doorway to pull off his coat, and encouraging -me with loud, hospitable ejaculations: “Come in! This way! Come in, -captain!” At once, coat in hand, he began to tell his wife all about -it. Mrs. Hermann put the palms of her plump hands together; I smiled -and bowed with a heavy heart: the niece got up from her sewing to -bring Hermann’s slippers and his embroidered calotte, which he assumed -pontifically, talking (about me) all the time. Billows of white stuff -lay between the chairs on the cabin floor; I caught the words “Zwei und -dreissig Pfund” repeated several times, and presently came the beer, -which seemed delicious to my throat, parched with running and the -emotions of the chase. - -I didn’t get away till well past midnight, long after the women had -retired. Hermann had been trading in the East for three years or more, -carrying freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship was well known in -all the ports from Vladivostok to Singapore. She was his own property. -The profits had been moderate, but the trade answered well enough while -the children were small yet. In another year or so he hoped he would -be able to sell the old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He -intended to return home, to Bremen, by mail boat, second class, with -Mrs. Hermann and the children. He told me all this stolidly, with slow -puffs at his pipe. I was sorry when knocking the ashes out he began -to rub his eyes. I would have sat with him till morning. What had I to -hurry on board my own ship for? To face the broken rifled drawer in my -state-room. Ugh! The very thought made me feel unwell. - -I became their daily guest, as you know. I think that Mrs. Hermann from -the first looked upon me as a romantic person. I did not, of course, -tear my hair _coram populo_ over my loss, and she took it for lordly -indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did tell them some of my -adventures--such as they were--and they marvelled greatly at the extent -of my experience. Hermann would translate what he thought the most -striking passages. Getting up on his legs, and as if delivering a -lecture on a phenomenon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the two -women, who would let their sewing sink slowly on their laps. Meantime -I sat before a glass of Hermann’s beer, trying to look modest. Mrs. -Hermann would glance at me quickly, emit slight “Ach’s!” The girl never -made a sound. Never. But she too would sometimes raise her pale eyes -to look at me in her unseeing gentle way. Her glance was by no means -stupid; it beamed out soft and diffuse as the moon beams upon a -landscape--quite differently from the scrutinising inspection of the -stars. You were drowned in it, and imagined yourself to appear blurred. -And yet this same glance when turned upon Christian Falk must have been -as efficient as the searchlight of a battle-ship. - -Falk was the other assiduous visitor on board, but from his behaviour -he might have been coming to see the quarter-deck capstan. He certainly -used to stare at it a good deal when keeping us company outside the -cabin door, with one muscular arm thrown over the back of the chair, and -his big shapely legs, in very tight white trousers, extended far out and -ending in a pair of black shoes as roomy as punts. On arrival he would -shake Hermann’s hand with a mutter, bow to the women, and take up his -careless and misanthropic attitude by our side. He departed abruptly, -with a jump, going through the performance of grunts, handshakes, bow, -as if in a panic. Sometimes, with a sort of discreet and convulsive -effort, he approached the women and exchanged a few low words with them, -half a dozen at most. On these occasions Hermann’s usual stare became -positively glassy and Mrs. Hermann’s kind countenance would colour up. -The girl herself never turned a hair. - -Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I can’t tell now. At all events -he was a Scandinavian of some sort, and a bloated monopolist to boot. -It is possible he was unacquainted with the word, but he had a clear -perception of the thing itself. His tariff of charges for towing ships -in and out was the most brutally inconsiderate document of the sort I -had ever seen. He was the commander and owner of the only tug-boat on -the river, a very trim white craft of 150 tons or more, as elegantly -neat as a yacht, with a round wheel-house rising like a glazed turret -high above her sharp bows, and with one slender varnished pole mast -forward. I daresay there are yet a few shipmasters afloat who remember -Falk and his tug very well. He extracted his pound and a half of -flesh from each of us merchant-skippers with an inflexible sort of -indifference which made him detested and even feared. Schomberg used to -remark: “I won’t talk about the fellow. I don’t think he has six drinks -from year’s end to year’s end in my place. But my advice is, gentlemen, -don’t you have anything to do with him, if you can help it.” - -This advice, apart from unavoidable business relations, was easy to -follow because Falk intruded upon no one. It seems absurd to compare a -tugboat skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me somehow of an engraving -in a little book I had as a boy, which represented centaurs at a stream, -and there was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow and arrows -in hand, with regular severe features and an immense curled wavy beard, -flowing down his breast. Falk’s face reminded me of that centaur. -Besides, he was a composite creature. Not a man-horse, it is true, but -a man-boat. He lived on board his tug, which was always dashing up and -down the river from early morn till dewy eve. - -In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick out far away down -the reach his beard borne high up on the white structure, foaming up -stream to anchor for the night. There was the white-clad man’s body, and -the rich brown patch of the hair, and nothing below the waist but the -‘thwart-ship white lines of the bridge-screens, that lead the eye to the -sharp white lines of the bows cleaving the muddy water of the river. - -Separated from his boat to me at least he seemed incomplete. The tug -herself without his head and torso on the bridge looked mutilated as it -were. But he left her very seldom. All the time I remained in harbour -I saw him only twice on shore. On the first occasion it was at my -charterers, where he came in misanthropically to get paid for towing out -a French barque the day before. The second time I could hardly believe -my eyes, for I beheld him reclining under his beard in a cane-bottomed -chair in the billiard-room of Schomberg’s hotel. - -It was very funny to see Schomberg ignoring him pointedly. The -artificiality of it contrasted strongly with Falk’s natural unconcern. -The big Alsatian talked loudly with his other customers, going from one -little table to the other, and passing Falk’s place of repose with his -eyes fixed straight ahead. Falk sat there with an untouched glass at his -elbow. He must have known by sight and name every white man in the room, -but he never addressed a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence by -a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawling there in the chair, -he would, now and again, draw the palms of both his hands down his face, -giving at the same time a slight, almost imperceptible, shudder. - -It was a habit he had, and of course I was perfectly familiar with it, -since you could not remain an hour in his company without being made to -wonder at such a movement breaking some long period of stillness. It was -a passionate and inexplicable gesture. He used to make it at all sorts -of times; as likely as not after he had been listening to little Lena’s -chatter about the suffering doll, for instance. The Hermann children -always besieged him about his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he -shrank from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a great affection -for the whole family. For Hermann himself especially. He sought his -company. In this case, for instance, he must have been waiting for him, -because as soon as he appeared Falk rose hastily, and they went out -together. Then Schomberg expounded in my hearing to three or four people -his theory that Falk was after Captain Hermann’s niece, and asserted -confidently that nothing would come of it. It was the same last year -when Captain Hermann was loading here, he said. - -Naturally, I did not believe Schomberg, but I own that for a time I -observed closely what went on. All I discovered was some impatience on -Hermann’s part. At the sight of Falk, stepping over the gangway, the -excellent man would begin to mumble and chew between his teeth something -that sounded like German swear-words. However, as I’ve said, I’m not -familiar with the language, and Hermann’s soft, round-eyed countenance -remained unchanged. Staring stolidly ahead he greeted him with, “Wie -gehts,” or in English, “How are you?” with a throaty enunciation. The -girl would look up for an instant and move her lips slightly: Mrs. -Hermann let her hands rest on her lap to talk volubly to him for a -minute or so in her pleasant voice before she went on with her sewing -again. Falk would throw himself into a chair, stretch his big legs, as -like as not draw his hands down his face passionately. As to myself, he -was not pointedly impertinent: it was rather as though he could not be -bothered with such trifles as my existence; and the truth is that being -a monopolist he was under no necessity to be amiable. He was sure to get -his own extortionate terms out of me for towage whether he frowned -or smiled. As a matter of fact, he did neither: but before many days -elapsed he managed to astonish me not a little and to set Schomberg’s -tongue clacking more than ever. - -It came about in this way. There was a shallow bar at the mouth of the -river which ought to have been kept down, but the authorities of the -State were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist Pagoda just -then, and I suppose had no money to spare for dredging operations. I -don’t know how it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sandbank -was a great nuisance to the shipping. One of its consequences was that -vessels of a certain draught of water, like Hermann’s or mine, could not -complete their loading in the river. After taking in as much as possible -of their cargo, they had to go outside to fill up. The whole procedure -was an unmitigated bore. When you thought you had as much on board as -your ship could carry safely over the bar, you went and gave notice to -your agents. They, in their turn, notified Falk that so-and-so was ready -to go out. Then Falk (ostensibly when it fitted in with his other work, -but, if the truth were known, simply when his arbitrary spirit moved -him), after ascertaining carefully in the office that there was enough -money to meet his bill, would come along unsympathetically, glaring -at you with his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you out -dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the decks, with unfeeling -haste, as if to execution. And he would force you too to take the end of -his own wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course an extra -charge. To your shouted remonstrances against that extortion this -towering trunk with one hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its -bearded head above the splash, the racket, and the clouds of smoke -in which the tug, backing and filling in the smother of churning -paddle-wheels behaved like a ferocious and impatient creature. He had -her manned by the cheekiest gang of lascars I ever did see, whom he -allowed to bawl at you insolently, and, once fast, he plucked you out -of your berth as if he did not care what he smashed. Eighteen miles down -the river you had to go behind him, and then three more along the -coast to where a group of uninhabited rocky islets enclosed a sheltered -anchorage. There you would have to lie at single anchor with your naked -spars showing to seaward over these barren fragments of land scattered -upon a very intensely blue sea. There was nothing to look at besides but -a bare coast, the muddy edge of the brown plain with the sinuosities -of the river you had left, traced in dull green, and the Great Pagoda -uprising lonely and massive with shining curves and pinnacles like the -gorgeous and stony efflorescence of tropical rocks. You had nothing to -do but to wait fretfully for the balance of your cargo, which was sent -out of the river with the greatest irregularity. And it was open to -you to console yourself with the thought that, after all, this stage -of bother meant that your departure from these shores was indeed -approaching at last. - -We both had to go through that stage, Hermann and I, and there was a -sort of tacit emulation between the ships as to which should be ready -first. We kept on neck and neck almost to the finish, when I won -the race by going personally to give notice in the forenoon; whereas -Hermann, who was very slow in making up his mind to go ashore, did not -get to the agents’ office till late in the day. They told him there that -my ship was first on turn for next morning, and I believe he told them -he was in no hurry. It suited him better to go the day after. - -That evening, on board the Diana, he sat with his plump knees well -apart, staring and puffing at the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. -Presently he spoke with some impatience to his niece about putting the -children to bed. Mrs. Hermann, who was talking to Falk, stopped short -and looked at her husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and -drove the children before her into the cabin. In a little while Mrs. -Hermann had to leave us to quell what, from the sounds inside, must have -been a dangerous mutiny. At this Hermann grumbled to himself. For half -an hour longer Falk left alone with us fidgeted on his chair, sighed -lightly, then at last, after drawing his hands down his face, got up, -and as if renouncing the hope of making himself understood (he hadn’t -opened his mouth once) he said in English: “Well.... Good night, -Captain Hermann.” He stopped for a moment before my chair and looked -down fixedly; I may even say he glared: and he went so far as to make a -deep noise in his throat. There was in all this something so marked -that for the first time in our limited intercourse of nods and grunts he -excited in me something like interest. But next moment he disappointed -me--for he strode away hastily without a nod even. - -His manner was usually odd it is true, and I certainly did not pay much -attention to it; but that sort of obscure intention, which seemed to -lurk in his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had never before -come so near the surface. He had distinctly aroused my expectations. I -would have been unable to say what it was I expected, but at all events -I did not expect the absurd developments he sprung upon me no later than -the break of the very next day. - -I remember only that there was, on that evening, enough point in his -behaviour to make me, after he had fled, wonder audibly what he might -mean. To this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and settling -himself viciously away from me in his chair, said: “That fellow don’t -know himself what he means.” - -There might have been some insight in such a remark. I said nothing, -and, still averted, he added: “When I was here last year he was just the -same.” An eruption of tobacco smoke enveloped his head as if his temper -had exploded like gunpowder. - -I had half a mind to ask him point blank whether he, at least, didn’t -know why Falk, a notoriously unsociable man, had taken to visiting his -ship with such assiduity. After all, I reflected suddenly, it was a -most remarkable thing. I wonder now what Hermann would have said. As it -turned out he didn’t let me ask. Forgetting all about Falk apparently, -he started a monologue on his plans for the future: the selling of the -ship, the going home; and falling into a reflective and calculating -mood he mumbled between regular jets of smoke about the expense. The -necessity of disbursing passage money for all his tribe seemed to -disturb him in a manner that was the more striking because otherwise -he gave no signs of a miserly disposition. And yet he fussed over the -prospect of that voyage home in a mail boat like a sedentary grocer -who has made up his mind to see the world. He was racially thrifty I -suppose, and for him there must have been a great novelty in finding -himself obliged to pay for travelling--for sea travelling which was the -normal state of life for the family--from the very cradle for most of -them. I could see he grudged prospectively every single shilling which -must be spent so absurdly. It was rather funny. He would become doleful -over it, and then again, with a fretful sigh, he would suppose there -was nothing for it now but to take three second-class tickets--and there -were the four children to pay for besides. A lot of money that to spend -at once. A big lot of money. - -I sat with him listening (not for the first time) to these -heart-searchings till I grew thoroughly sleepy, and then I left him and -turned in on board my ship. At daylight I was awakened by a yelping of -shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion in the water, and the -short, bullying blasts of a steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come -for me. - -I began to dress. It was remarkable that the answering noise on board my -ship together with the patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But -I heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to express surprise and -annoyance. Then the voice of my mate reached me howling expostulations -to somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, apparently indignant; -a chorus of something that sounded like abuse replied. Now and then the -steam-whistle screeched. - -Altogether that unnecessary uproar was distracting, but down there in my -cabin I took it calmly. In another moment, I thought, I should be going -down that wretched river, and in another week at the most I should be -totally quit of the odious place and all the odious people in it. - -Greatly cheered by the idea, I seized the hair-brushes and looking at -myself in the glass began to use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the -noise outside, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown open)--I -heard a deep calm voice, not on board my ship, however, hailing -resolutely in English, but with a strong foreign twang, “Go ahead!” - -There may be tides in the affairs of men which taken at the flood... -and so on. Personally I am still on the look out for that important -turn. I am, however, afraid that most of us are fated to flounder for -ever in the dead water of a pool whose shores are arid indeed. But -I know that there are often in men’s affairs unexpectedly--even -irrationally--illuminating moments when an otherwise insignificant -sound, perhaps only some perfectly commonplace gesture, suffices -to reveal to us all the unreason, all the fatuous unreason, of our -complacency. “Go ahead” are not particularly striking words even when -pronounced with a foreign accent; yet they petrified me in the very -act of smiling at myself in the glass. And then, refusing to believe my -ears, but already boiling with indignation, I ran out of the cabin and -up on deck. - -It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I had no eyes for -anything but the Diana. It was she, then, was being taken away. She was -already out of her berth and shooting athwart the river. “The way this -loonatic plucked that ship out is a caution,” said the awed voice of my -mate close to my ear. “Hey! Hallo! Falk! Hermann! What’s this infernal -trick?” I yelled in a fury. - -Nobody heard me. Falk certainly could not hear me. His tug was turning -at full speed away under the other bank. The wire hawser between her and -the Diana, stretched as taut as a harp-string, vibrated alarmingly. - -The high black craft careened over to the awful strain. A loud crack -came out of her, followed by the tearing and splintering of wood. -“There!” said the awed voice in my ear. “He’s carried away their towing -chock.” And then, with enthusiasm, “Oh! Look! Look! sir, Look! at them -Dutchmen skipping out of the way on the forecastle. I hope to goodness -he’ll break a few of their shins before he’s done with ‘em.” - -I yelled my vain protests. The rays of the rising sun coursing level -along the plain warmed my back, but I was hot enough with rage. I -could not have believed that a simple towing operation could suggest so -plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk was simply running off with -the Diana. - -The white tug careered out into the middle of the river. The red floats -of her paddle-wheels revolving with mad rapidity tore up the whole reach -into foam. The Diana in mid-stream waltzed round with as much grace -as an old barn, and flew after her ravisher. Through the ragged fog of -smoke driving headlong upon the water I had a glimpse of Falk’s square -motionless shoulders under a white hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his -red face, his yellow staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keeping -a lookout ahead, he was deliberately turning his back on the river to -glare at his tow. The tall heavy craft, never so used before in her -life, seemed to have lost her senses; she took a wild sheer against her -helm, and for a moment came straight at us, menacing and clumsy, like -a runaway mountain. She piled up a streaming, hissing, boiling wave -half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let out one great howl,--and then we -held our breaths. It was a near thing. But Falk had her! He had her in -his clutch. I fancied I could hear the steel hawser ping as it surged -across the Diana’s forecastle, with the hands on board of her bolting -away from it in all directions. It was a near thing. Hermann, with his -hair rumpled, in a snuffy flannel shirt and a pair of mustard-coloured -trousers, had rushed to help with the wheel. I saw his terrified round -face; I saw his very teeth uncovered by a sort of ghastly fixed grin; -and in a great leaping tumult of water between the two ships the Diana -whisked past so close that I could have flung a hair-brush at his head, -for, it seems, I had kept them in my hands all the time. Meanwhile -Mrs. Hermann sat placidly on the skylight, with a woollen shawl on -her shoulders. The excellent woman in response to my indignant -gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief, nodding and smiling in the -kindest way imaginable. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping about -the poop in great glee, displaying their gaudy braces; and Lena in a -short scarlet petticoat, with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed -the rag-doll with devotion. The whole family passed before my sight as -if dragged across a scene of unparalleled violence. The last I saw was -Hermann’s niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing apart from -the others. Magnificent in her close-fitting print frock she displayed -something so commanding in the manifest perfection of her figure that -the sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The flood of light brought -out the opulence of her form and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying -way. She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only -the hem of her skirt stirred in the draught; the sun rays broke on her -sleek tawny hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whacking her -on the shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike -manner. And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view -retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes were up, and one of the -white calico curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above -the agitated water of the wake. - -To be thus tricked out of one’s turn was an unheard of occurrence. In -my agent’s office, where I went to complain at once, they protested with -apologies they couldn’t understand how the mistake arose: but Schomberg -when I dropped in later to get some tiffin, though surprised to see me, -was perfectly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at the end -of a long narrow table, facing his wife--a scraggy little woman, with -long ringlets and a blue tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked -frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a waggling punkah fanned -twenty cane-bottomed chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three -Chinamen in white jackets loafed with napkins in their hands around that -desolation. Schomberg’s pet table d’hote was not much of a success that -day. He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to overflow with -bitterness. - -He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops to be brought back for -me, and turning in his chair: “Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it! -Don’t you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn’t a man to make -mistakes unless on purpose.” His firm conviction was that Falk had been -trying all along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann. “On the -cheap--mind you! It doesn’t cost him a cent to put that insult upon you, -and Captain Hermann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time’s money! Eh? -You are very friendly with Captain Hermann I believe, but a man is bound -to be pleased at any little advantage he may get. Captain Hermann is a -good business man, and there’s no such thing as a friend in business. Is -there?” He leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances as usual. -“But Falk is, and always was, a miserable fellow. I would despise him.” - -I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular respect for Falk. - -“I would despise him,” he insisted, with an appearance of anxiety which -would have amused me if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent. To a -young man fairly conscientious and as well-meaning as only the young -man can be, the current ill-usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty. -Youth that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, and in -itself, will always doubt whether it have not perchance deserved its -fate. Sombre of mind and without appetite, I struggled with the -chop while Mrs. Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid grin and -Schomberg’s talk gathered way like a slide of rubbish. - -“Let me tell you. It’s all about that girl. I don’t know what Captain -Hermann expects, but if he asked me I could tell him something about -Falk. He’s a miserable fellow. That man is a perfect slave. That’s what -I call him. A slave. Last year I started this table d’hote, and sent -cards out--you know. You think he had one meal in the house? Give the -thing a trial? Not once. He has got hold now of a Madras cook--a blamed -fraud that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan. He was not fit to -cook for white men. No, not for the white men’s dogs either; but, see, -any damned native that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for Mr. -Falk. Rice and a little fish he buys for a few cents from the fishing -boats outside is what he lives on. You would hardly credit it--eh? A -white man, too....” - -He wiped his lips, using the napkin with indignation, and looking at me. -It flashed through my mind in the midst of my depression that if all the -meat in the town was like these table d’hote chops, Falk wasn’t so far -wrong. I was on the point of saying this, but Schomberg’s stare was -intimidating. “He’s a vegetarian, perhaps,” I murmured instead. - -“He’s a miser. A miserable miser,” affirmed the hotel-keeper with great -force. “The meat here is not so good as at home--of course. And dear -too. But look at me. I only charge a dollar for the tiffin, and one -dollar and fifty cents for the dinner. Show me anything cheaper. Why am -I doing it? There’s little profit in this game. Falk wouldn’t look -at it. I do it for the sake of a lot of young white fellows here that -hadn’t a place where they could get a decent meal and eat it decently in -good company. There’s first-rate company always at my table.” - -The convinced way he surveyed the empty chairs made me feel as if I had -intruded upon a tiffin of ghostly Presences. - -“A white man should eat like a white man, dash it all,” he burst out -impetuously. “Ought to eat meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for -my patrons all the year round. Don’t I? I am not catering for a dam’ lot -of coolies: Have another chop captain.... No? You, boy--take away!” - -He threw himself back and waited grimly for the curry. The half-closed -jalousies darkened the room pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: -a swarm of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs. Schomberg’s -smile seemed to express the quintessence of all the imbecility that had -ever spoken, had ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo -meat within these bare walls. Schomberg did not open his lips till he -was ready to thrust therein a spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his -eyes ridiculously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only then broke -out afresh. - -“It is the most degrading thing. They take the dish up to the wheelhouse -for him with a cover on it, and he shuts both the doors before he begins -to eat. Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engineer. He can’t -do without an engineer--don’t you see--and as no respectable man can be -expected to put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen dollars -a month extra mess money. I assure you it is so! You just ask Mr. -Ferdinand da Costa. That’s the engineer he has now. You may have seen -him about my place, a delicate dark young man, with very fine eyes and a -little moustache. He arrived here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you -and me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been after him. He -rushes here for a meal every chance he can get, for just please tell me -what satisfaction is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all -alone in his cabin--like a wild beast? That’s what Falk expects his -engineers to put up with for fifteen dollars extra. And the rows on -board every time a little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You -wouldn’t believe! The other day da Costa got the cook to fry a steak for -him--a turtle steak it was too, not beef at all--and the fat caught -or something. Young da Costa himself was telling me of it here in this -room. ‘Mr. Schomberg’--says he-’if I had let a cylinder cover blow off -through the skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn’t have been -more savage. He frightened the cook so that he won’t put anything on the -fire for me now.’ Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to put -yourself in his place, captain: a sensitive, gentlemanly young fellow. -Is he expected to eat his food raw? But that’s your Falk all over. Ask -any one you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he has to give -keep on rankling--in there.” - -And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat half stunned by his -irrelevant babble. Suddenly he gripped my forearm in an impressive and -cautious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of confidence. - -“It’s nothing but enviousness,” he said in a lowered tone, which had a -stimulating effect upon my wearied hearing. “I don’t suppose there -is one person in this town that he isn’t envious of. I tell you he’s -dangerous. Even I myself am not safe from him. I know for certain he -tried to poison....” - -“Oh, come now,” I cried, revolted. - -“But I know for certain. The people themselves came and told me of it. -He went about saying everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the -cholera. He had been talking against me ever since I opened this hotel. -And he poisoned Captain Hermann’s mind too. Last time the Diana was -loading here Captain Hermann used to come in every day for a drink or a -cigar. This time he hasn’t been here twice in a week. How do you account -for that?” - -He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me some sort of mumble. - -“He makes ten times the money I do. I’ve another hotel to fight against, -and there is no other tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He -wouldn’t be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that’s just his nature. -He can’t bear to think I am making a living. I only hope it makes him -properly wretched. He’s like that in everything. He would like to keep a -decent table well enough. But no--for the sake of a few cents. Can’t do -it. It’s too much for him. That’s what I call being a slave to it. But -he’s mean enough to kick up a row when his nose gets tickled a bit. See -that? That just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can’t account for -it any other way. Can you? I have been studying him these three years.” - -He was anxious I should assent to his theory. And indeed on thinking it -over it would have been plausible enough if there hadn’t been always the -essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schomberg’s chatter. However, -I was not disposed to investigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged -just then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being -too much crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let along bothering my -head about Falk’s ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study -no clue to his conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me -totally unrestrained by morality or even by the commonest sort of -decency. How insignificant and contemptible I must appear, for the -fellow to dare treat me like this--I reflected suddenly, writhing in -silent agony. And I consigned Falk and all his peculiarities to the -devil with so much mental fervour as to forget Schomberg’s existence, -till he grabbed my arm urgently. “Well, you may think and think till -every hair of your head falls off, captain; but you can’t explain it in -any other way.” - -For the sake of peace and quietness I admitted hurriedly that I -couldn’t: persuaded that now he would leave off. But the only result was -to make his moist face shine with the pride of cunning. He removed his -hand for a moment to scare a black mass of flies off the sugar-basin and -caught hold of my arm again. - -“To be sure. And in the same way everybody is aware he would like to get -married. Only he can’t. Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years -ago a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home to keep house for -her brother, Fred, who had an engineering shop for small repairs by -the water side. Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bungalow after -dinner, and sitting for hours in the verandah saying nothing. The poor -girl couldn’t tell for the life of her what to do with such a man, so -she would keep on playing the piano and singing to him evening after -evening till she was ready to drop. And it wasn’t as if she had been -a strong young woman either. She was thirty, and the climate had been -playing the deuce with her. Then--don’t you know--Fred had to sit up with -them for propriety, and during whole weeks on end never got a single -chance to get to bed before midnight. That was not pleasant for a tired -man--was it? And besides Fred had worries then because his shop didn’t -pay and he was dropping money fast. He just longed to get away from here -and try his luck somewhere else, but for the sake of his sister he hung -on and on till he ran himself into debt over his ears--I can tell you. -I, myself, could show a handful of his chits for meals and drinks in -my drawer. I could never find out tho’ where he found all the money at -last. Can’t be but he must have got something out of that brother of -his, a coal merchant in Port Said. Anyhow he paid everybody before he -left, but the girl nearly broke her heart. Disappointment, of course, -and at her age, don’t you know.... Mrs. Schomberg here was very -friendly with her, and she could tell you. Awful despair. Fainting -fits. It was a scandal. A notorious scandal. To that extent that old Mr. -Siegers--not your present charterer, but Mr. Siegers the father, the old -gentleman who retired from business on a fortune and got buried at sea -going home, _he_ had to interview Falk in his private office. He was a man -who could speak like a Dutch Uncle, and, besides, Messrs. Siegers had -been helping Falk with a good bit of money from the start. In fact you -may say they made him as far as that goes. It so happened that just at -the time he turned up here, their firm was chartering a lot of sailing -ships every year, and it suited their business that there should be good -towing facilities on the river. See?... Well--there’s always an -ear at the keyhole--isn’t there? In fact,” he lowered his tone -confidentially, “in this case a good friend of mine; a man you can see -here any evening; only they conversed rather low. Anyhow my friend’s -certain that Falk was trying to make all sorts of excuses, and old -Mr. Siegers was coughing a lot. And yet Falk wanted all the time to be -married too. Why! It’s notorious the man has been longing for years to -make a home for himself. Only he can’t face the expense. When it comes -to putting his hand in his pocket--it chokes him off. That’s the truth -and no other. I’ve always said so, and everybody agrees with me by this -time. What do you think of that--eh?” - -He appealed confidently to my indignation, but having a mind to annoy -him I remarked, “that it seemed to me very pitiful--if true.” - -He bounced in his chair as if I had run a pin into him. I don’t know -what he might have said, only at that moment we heard through the half -open door of the billiard-room the footsteps of two men entering from -the verandah, a murmur of two voices; at the sharp tapping of a coin on -a table Mrs. Schomberg half rose irresolutely. “Sit still,” he hissed at -her, and then, in an hospitable, jovial tone, contrasting amazingly with -the angry glance that had made his wife sink in her chair, he cried very -loud: “Tiffin still going on in here, gentlemen.” - -There was no answer, but the voices dropped suddenly. The head Chinaman -went out. We heard the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the -shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs. Schomberg, after wondering in -a low mutter who the devil could be there at this time of the day, got -up napkin in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously. He retreated -rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering behind his hand informed me that -it was Falk, Falk himself who was in there, and, what’s more, he had -Captain Hermann with him. - -The return of the tug from the outer Roads was unexpected but possible, -for Falk had taken away the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two -o’clock. Schomberg wished me to observe that neither of these men would -spend a dollar on a tiffin, which they must have wanted. But by the time -I was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone. I heard the last of -his big boots on the planks of the verandah. Hermann was sitting quite -alone in the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard tables -shrouded in striped covers, mopping his face diligently. He wore -his best go-ashore clothes, a stiff collar, black coat, large white -waistcoat, grey trousers. A white cotton sunshade with a cane handle -reposed between his legs, his side whiskers were neatly brushed, his -chin had been freshly shaved; and he only distantly resembled the -dishevelled and terrified man in a snuffy night shirt and ignoble old -trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on to the wheel of the Diana. - -He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed me at once in some -confusion, but with genuine eagerness. He was anxious to make it clear -he had nothing to do with what he called the “tam pizness” of the -morning. It was most inconvenient. He had reckoned upon another day up -in town to settle his bills and sign certain papers. There were also -some few stores to come, and sundry pieces of “my ironwork,” as he -called it quaintly, landed for repairs, had been left behind. Now he -would have to hire a native boat to take all this out to the ship. It -would cost five or six dollars perhaps. He had had no warning from -Falk. Nothing.... He hit the table with his dumpy fist.... Der -verfluchte Kerl came in the morning like a “tam’ ropper,” making a great -noise, and took him away. His mate was not prepared, his ship was moored -fast--he protested it was shameful to come upon a man in that way. -Shameful! Yet such was the power Falk had on the river that when I -suggested in a chilling tone that he might have simply refused to have -his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled at the idea. I never realised -so well before that this is an age of steam. The exclusive possession -of a marine boiler had given Falk the whip-hand of us all. Hermann, -recovering, put it to me appealingly that I knew very well how unsafe it -was to contradict that fellow. At this I only smiled distantly. - -“Der Kerl!” he cried. He was sorry he had not refused. He was indeed. -The damage! The damage! What for all that damage! There was no occasion -for damage. Did I know how much damage he had done? It gave me a certain -satisfaction to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a ship crack -fore and aft as she went by. “You passed close enough to me,” I added -significantly. - -He threw both his hands up to heaven at the recollection. One of them -grasped by the middle the white parasol, and he resembled curiously -a caricature of a shop-keeping citizen in one of his own German comic -papers. “Ach! That was dangerous,” he cried. I was amused. But directly -he added with an appearance of simplicity, “The side of your iron ship -would have been crushed in like--like this matchbox.” - -“Would it?” I growled, much less amused now; but by the time I had -decided that this remark was not meant for a dig at me he had -worked himself into a high state of resentfulness against Falk. The -inconvenience, the damage, the expense! Gottferdam! Devil take the -fellow. Behind the bar Schomberg with a cigar in his teeth, pretended -to be writing with a pencil on a large sheet of paper; and as Hermann’s -excitement increased it made me comfortingly aware of my own calmness -and superiority. But it occurred to me while I listened to his -revilings, that after all the good man had come up in the tug. There -perhaps--since he must come to town--he had no option. But evidently he -had had a drink with Falk, either accepted or offered. How was that? So -I checked him by saying loftily that I hoped he would make Falk pay for -every penny of the damage. - -“That’s it! That’s it! Go for him,” called out Schomberg from the bar, -flinging his pencil down and rubbing his hands. - -We ignored his noise. But Hermann’s excitement suddenly went off -the boil as when you remove a saucepan from the fire. I urged on his -consideration that he had done now with Falk and Falk’s confounded tug. -He, Hermann, would not, perhaps, turn up again in this part of the world -for years to come, since he was going to sell the Diana at the end -of this very trip (“Go home passenger in a mail boat,” he murmured -mechanically). He was therefore safe from Falk’s malice. All he had to -do was to race off to his consignees and stop payment of the towage bill -before Falk had the time to get in and lift the money. - -Nothing could have been less in the spirit of my advice than the -thoughtful way in which he set about to make his parasol stay propped -against the edge of the table. - -While I watched his concentrated efforts with astonishment he threw at -me one or two perplexed, half-shy glances. Then he sat down. “That’s all -very well,” he said reflectively. - -It cannot be doubted that the man had been thrown off his balance by -being hauled out of the harbour against his wish. His stolidity had been -profoundly stirred, else he would never have made up his mind to ask me -unexpectedly whether I had not remarked that Falk had been casting eyes -upon his niece. “No more than myself,” I answered with literal truth. -The girl was of the sort one necessarily casts eyes at in a sense. She -made no noise, but she filled most satisfactorily a good bit of space. - -“But you, captain, are not the same kind of man,” observed Hermann. - -I was not, I am happy to say, in a position to deny this. “What about -the lady?” I could not help asking. At this he gazed for a time into -my face, earnestly, and made as if to change the subject. I heard him -beginning to mutter something unexpected, about his children growing -old enough to require schooling. He would have to leave them ashore with -their grandmother when he took up that new command he expected to get in -Germany. - -This constant harping on his domestic arrangements was funny. I suppose -it must have been like the prospect of a complete alteration in his -life. An epoch. He was going, too, to part with the Diana! He had served -in her for years. He had inherited her. From an uncle, if I remember -rightly. And the future loomed big before him, occupying his thought -exclusively with all its aspects as on the eve of a venturesome -enterprise. He sat there frowning and biting his lip, and suddenly he -began to fume and fret. - -I discovered to my momentary amusement that he seemed to imagine I -could, should or ought, have caused Falk in some way to pronounce -himself. Such a hope was incomprehensible, but funny. Then the contact -with all this foolishness irritated me. I said crossly that I had seen -no symptoms, but if there were any--since he, Hermann, was so sure--then -it was still worse. What pleasure Falk found in humbugging people in -just that way I couldn’t say. It was, however, my solemn duty to warn -him. It had lately, I said, come to my knowledge that there was a man -(not a very long time ago either) who had been taken in just like this. - -All this passed in undertones, and at this point Schomberg, exasperated -at our secrecy, went out of the room slamming the door with a crash -that positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what I had said, -huffed my Hermann, He supposed, with a contemptuous toss of his head -towards the door which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of -that man’s silly tales. It looked, indeed, as though his mind had been -thoroughly poisoned against Schomberg. “His tales were--they were,” he -repeated, seeking for the word--“trash.” They were trash, he reiterated, -and moreover I was young yet... - -This horrid aspersion (I regret I am no longer exposed to that sort of -insult) made me huffy too. I felt ready in my own mind to back up every -assertion of Schomberg’s and on any subject. In a moment, devil only -knows why, Hermann and I were looking at each other most inimically. -He caught up his hat without more ado and I gave myself the pleasure of -calling after him: - -“Take my advice and make Falk pay for breaking up your ship. You aren’t -likely to get anything else out of him.” - -When I got on board my ship later on, the old mate, who was very full of -the events of the morning, remarked: - -“I saw the tug coming back from the outer Roads just before two P.M.” - (He never by any chance used the words morning or afternoon. Always P.M. -or A.M., log-book style.) “Smart work that. Man’s always in a state of -hurry. He’s a regular chucker-out, ain’t he, sir? There’s a few pubs I -know of in the East-end of London that would be all the better for -one of his sort around the bar.” He chuckled at his joke. “A regular -chucker-out. Now he has fired out that Dutchman head over heels, I -suppose our turn’s coming to-morrow morning.” - -We were all on deck at break of day (even the sick--poor devils--had -crawled out) ready to cast off in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing -came. Falk did not come. At last, when I began to think that probably -something had gone wrong in his engine-room, we perceived the tug going -by, full pelt, down the river, as if we hadn’t existed. For a moment I -entertained the wild notion that he was going to turn round in the next -reach. Afterwards I watched his smoke appear above the plain, now here, -now there, according to the windings of the river. It disappeared. Then -without a word I went down to breakfast. I just simply went down to -breakfast. - -Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after imbibing--by means -of suction out of a saucer--his second cup of tea, exclaimed: “Where the -devil is the man gone to?” - -“Courting!” I shouted, with such a fiendish laugh that the old chap -didn’t venture to open his lips any more. - -I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with excessive rage. -Evidently they knew all about it already, and they treated me to a -show of consternation. The manager, a soft-footed, immensely obese man, -breathing short, got up to meet me, while all round the room the young -clerks, bending over the papers on their desks, cast upward glances in -my direction. The fat man, without waiting for my complaint, wheezing -heavily and in a tone as if he himself were incredulous, conveyed to -me the news that Falk--Captain Falk--had declined--had absolutely -declined--to tow my ship--to have anything to do with my ship--this day -or any other day. Never! - -I did my best to preserve a cool appearance, but, all the same, I must -have shown how much taken aback I was. We were talking in the middle -of the room. Suddenly behind my back some ass blew his nose with great -force, and at the same time another quill-driver jumped up and went out -on the landing hastily. It occurred to me I was cutting a foolish figure -there. I demanded angrily to see the principal in his private room. - -The skin of Mr. Siegers’ head showed dead white between the iron grey -streaks of hair lying plastered cross-wise from ear to ear over the top -of his skull in the manner of a bandage. His narrow sunken face was of -an uniform and permanent terra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. -He was sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten. But from -that debile body there issued a bullying voice, tremendously loud, harsh -and resonant, as if produced by some powerful mechanical contrivance -in the nature of a fog-horn. I do not know what he did with it in -the private life of his home, but in the larger sphere of business it -presented the advantage of overcoming arguments without the slightest -mental effort, by the mere volume of sound. We had had several -passages of arms. It took me all I knew to guard the interests of my -owners--whom, nota bene, I had never seen--while Siegers (who had -made their acquaintance some years before, during a business tour in -Australia) pretended to the knowledge of their innermost minds, and, in -the character of “our very good friends,” threw them perpetually at my -head. - -He looked at me with a jaundiced eye (there was no love lost between -us), and declared at once that it was strange, very strange. His -pronunciation of English was so extravagant that I can’t even attempt to -reproduce it. For instance, he said “Fferie strantch.” Combined with -the bellowing intonation it made the language of one’s childhood sound -weirdly startling, and even if considered purely as a kind of unmeaning -noise it filled you with astonishment at first. “They had,” he -continued, “been acquainted with Captain Falk for very many years, and -never had any reason....” - -“That’s why I come to you, of course,” I interrupted. “I’ve the right -to know the meaning of this infernal nonsense.” In the half light of the -room, which was greenish, because of the tree-tops screening the -window, I saw him writhe his meagre shoulders. It came into my head, as -disconnected ideas will come at all sorts of times into one’s head, that -this, most likely, was the very room where, if the tale were true, Falk -had been lectured by Mr. Siegers, the father. Mr. Siegers’ (the son’s) -overwhelming voice, in brassy blasts, as though he had been trying to -articulate his words through a trombone, was expressing his great regret -at a conduct characterised by a very marked want of discretion... As I -lived I was being lectured too! His deafening gibberish was difficult to -follow, but it was _my_ conduct--mine!--that... Damn! I wasn’t going to -stand this. - -“What on earth are you driving at?” I asked in a passion. I put my hat -on my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for -the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and -marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of -coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the -other expenses consequent upon the delays arising from my frivolity. - -Once outside in the sunshine my head swam. It was no longer a question -of mere delay. I perceived myself involved in hopeless and humiliating -absurdities that were leading me to something very like a disaster. “Let -us be calm,” I muttered to myself, and ran into the shade of a -leprous wall. From that short side-street I could see the broad main -thoroughfare ruinous and gay, running away, away between stretches of -decaying masonry, bamboo fences, ranges of arcades of brick and plaster, -hovels of lath and mud, lofty temple gates of carved timber, huts of -rotten mats--an immensely wide thoroughfare, loosely packed as far as -the eye could reach with a barefooted and brown multitude paddling ankle -deep in the dust. For a moment I felt myself about to go out of my mind -with worry and desperation. - -Some allowance must be made for the feelings of a young man new to -responsibility. I thought of my crew. Half of them were ill, and I -really began to think that some of them would end by dying on board if -I couldn’t get them out to sea soon. Obviously I should have to take my -ship down the river, either working under canvas or dredging with the -anchor down; operations which, in common with many modern sailors, -I only knew theoretically. And I almost shrank from undertaking them -shorthanded and without local knowledge of the river bed, which is so -necessary for the confident handling of the ship. There were no pilots, -no beacons, no buoys of any sort; but there was a very devil of a -current for anybody to see, no end of shoal places, and at least two -obviously awkward turns of the channel between me and the sea. But how -dangerous these turns were I would not tell. I didn’t even know what -my ship was capable of! I had never handled her in my life. A -misunderstanding between a man and his ship in a difficult river with no -room to make it up, is bound to end in trouble for the man. On the other -hand, it must be owned I had not much reason to count upon a general run -of good luck. And suppose I had the misfortune to pile her up high and -dry on some beastly shoal? That would have been the final undoing of -that voyage. It was plain that if Falk refused to tow me out he would -also refuse to pull me off. This meant--what? A day lost at the -very best; but more likely a whole fortnight of frizzling on some -pestilential mud-flat, of desperate work, of discharging cargo; more than -likely it meant borrowing money at an exorbitant rate of interest--from -the Siegers’ gang too at that. They were a power in the port. And that -elderly seaman of mine, Gambril, had looked pretty ghastly when I -went forward to dose him with quinine that morning. _He_ would certainly -die--not to speak of two or three others that seemed nearly as bad, -and of the rest of them just ready to catch any tropical disease going. -Horror, ruin and everlasting remorse. And no help. None. I had fallen -amongst a lot of unfriendly lunatics! - -At any rate, if I must take my ship down myself it was my duty to -procure if possible some local knowledge. But that was not easy. The -only person I could think of for that service was a certain Johnson, -formerly captain of a country ship, but now spliced to a country wife -and gone utterly to the bad. I had only heard of him in the vaguest way, -as living concealed in the thick of two hundred thousand natives, and -only emerging into the light of day for the purpose of hunting up some -brandy. I had a notion that if I could lay my hands on him I would sober -him on board my ship and use him for a pilot. Better than nothing. Once -a sailor always a sailor--and he had known the river for years. But in -our Consulate (where I arrived dripping after a sharp walk) they could -tell me nothing. The excellent young men on the staff, though willing to -help me, belonged to a sphere of the white colony for which that sort of -Johnson does not exist. Their suggestion was that I should hunt the -man up myself with the help of the Consulate’s constable--an -ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of Hussars. - -This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted in sitting behind a -little table in an outer room of Consular offices, when ordered to -assist me in my search for Johnson displayed lots of energy and a -marvellous amount of local knowledge of a sort. But he did not conceal -an immense and sceptical contempt for the whole business. We explored -together on that afternoon an infinity of infamous grog shops, gambling -dens, opium dens. We walked up narrow lanes where our gharry--a tiny -box of a thing on wheels, attached to a jibbing Burmah pony--could by -no means have passed. The constable seemed to be on terms of scornful -intimacy with Maltese, with Eurasians, with Chinamen, with Klings, and -with the sweepers attached to a temple, with whom he talked at the gate. -We interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall closing a blind -alley an immensely corpulent Italian, who, the ex-sergeant-major -remarked to me perfunctorily, had “killed another man last year.” - Thereupon he addressed him as “Antonio” and “Old Buck,” though that -bloated carcase, apparently more than half filling the sort of cell -wherein it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye. Familiar and never -unbending, the sergeant chucked--absolutely chucked--under the chin -a horribly wrinkled and shrivelled old hag propped on a stick, who had -volunteered some sort of information: and with the same stolid face he -kept up an animated conversation with the groups of swathed brown women, -who sat smoking cheroots on the door-steps of a long range of clay -hovels. We got out of the gharry and clambered into dwellings airy like -packing crates, or descended into places sinister like cellars. We got -in, we drove on, we got out again for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of -looking behind a heap of rubble. The sun declined; my companion was curt -and sardonic in his answers, but it appears we were just missing Johnson -all along. At last our conveyance stopped once more with a jerk, and the -driver jumping down opened the door. - -A black mudhole blocked the lane. A mound of garbage crowned with the -dead body of a dog arrested us not. An empty Australian beef tin bounded -cheerily before the toe of my boot. Suddenly we clambered through a gap -in a prickly fence.... - -It was a very clean native compound: and the big native woman, with bare -brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar -that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. “Your -man’s at home,” said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete -and marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson--at -home--stood with his back to a native house built on posts and with its -walls made of mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of the right -he dealt another dollar into space. The woman captured this one on the -wing, and there and then plumped down on the ground to look at us with -greater comfort. - -My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven, muddy on elbows and -back; where the seams of his serge coat yawned you could see his white -nakedness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his neck. He looked -at us with a grave, swaying surprise. “Where do you come from?” he -asked. My heart sank. How could I have been stupid enough to waste -energy and time for this? - -But having already gone so far I approached a little nearer and declared -the purpose of my visit. He would have to come at once with me, sleep on -board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the ebb, he would give -me his assistance in getting my ship down to the sea, without steam. A -six-hundred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I proposed to give -him eighteen dollars for his local knowledge; and all the time I was -speaking he kept on considering attentively the various aspects of the -banana, holding first one side up to his eye, then the other. - -“You’ve forgotten to apologise,” he said at last with extreme precision. -“Not being a gentleman yourself, you don’t know apparently when you -intrude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to understand that when I -am in funds I don’t work, and now...” - -I would have pronounced him perfectly sober hadn’t he paused in great -concern to try and brush a hole off the knee of his trousers. - -“I have money--and friends. Every gentleman has. Perhaps you would like -to know my friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow some money. Try to -remember. F-A-L-K, Falk.” Abruptly his tone changed. “A noble heart,” he -said muzzily. - -“Has Falk been giving you some money?” I asked, appalled by the detailed -finish of the dark plot. - -“Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent,” he corrected suavely. -“Met me taking the air last evening, and being as usual anxious to -oblige--Hadn’t you better go to the devil out of my compound?” - -And upon this, without other warning, he let fly with the banana which -missed my head, and took the constable just under the left eye. He -rushed at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury. They fell.... -But why dwell on the wretchedness, the breathlessness, the degradation, -the senselessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation -and--and--the perspiration, of these moments? I dragged the ex-hussar -off. He was like a wild beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed -at losing his free afternoon on my account. The garden of his bungalow -required his personal attention, and at the slight blow of the banana -the brute in him had broken loose. We left Johnson on his back, still -black in the face, but beginning to kick feebly. Meantime, the big woman -had remained sitting on the ground, apparently paralysed with extreme -terror. - -For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling box, side by side, in -profound silence. The ex-sergeant was busy staunching the blood of a -long scratch on his cheek. “I hope you’re satisfied,” he said suddenly. -“That’s what comes of all that tomfool business. If you hadn’t -quarrelled with that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all this -wouldn’t have happened.” - -“You heard _that_ story?” I said. - -“Of course I heard. And I shouldn’t wonder if the Consul-General himself -doesn’t come to hear of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with -that thing on my cheek--I want to know. Its _you_ who ought to have got -this!” - -After that, till the gharry stopped and he jumped out without -leave-taking, he swore to himself steadily, horribly; muttering great, -purposeful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can do is like -the prattle of a child. For my part I had just the strength to crawl -into Schomberg’s coffee-room, where I wrote at a little table a note to -the mate instructing him to get everything ready for dropping down the -river next day. I couldn’t face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of -skipper and no mistake--poor thing! What a horrid mess! I took my head -between my hands. At times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce -me to despair. What had I done? If I had done something to bring about -the situation I should at least have learned not to do it again. But I -felt guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was empty yet; -only Schomberg prowled round me goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed -respectful curiosity. No doubt he had set the story going himself; but -he was a good-hearted chap, and I am really persuaded he participated in -all my troubles. He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the heavy -match-stand, set a chair straight, pushed a spittoon slightly with -his foot--as you show small attentions to a friend under a great -sorrow--sighed, and at last, unable to hold his tongue: - -“Well! I warned you, captain. That’s what comes of running your head -against Mr. Falk. Man’ll stick at nothing.” - -I sat without stirring, and after surveying me with a sort of -commiseration in his eyes he burst out in a hoarse whisper: “But for -a fine lump of a girl, she’s a fine lump of a girl.” He made a loud -smacking noise with his thick lips. “The finest lump of a girl that I -ever...” he was going on with great unction, but for some reason or -other broke off. I fancied myself throwing something at his head. “I -don’t blame you, captain. Hang me if I do,” he said with a patronising -air. - -“Thank you,” I said resignedly. It was no use fighting against this -false fate. I don’t know even if I was sure myself where the truth of -the matter began. The conviction that it would end disastrously had been -driven into me by all the successive shocks my sense of security had -received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in -themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg’s baseless gossip had the -power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk -could put my ship ashore. - -I have already explained how fatal this last would have been. For my -further action, my youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for the -health of my crew must be my excuse. The action itself, when it came, -was purely impulsive. It was set in movement quite undiplomatically and -simply by Falk’s appearance in the doorway. - -The room was full by then and buzzing with voices. I had been looked -at with curiosity by every one, but how am I to describe the sensation -produced by the appearance of Falk himself blocking the doorway? The -tension of expectation could be measured by the profundity of the -silence that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls. As to -Schomberg, he looked extremely frightened; he hated mortally any sort -of row (fracas he called it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad -for business, he affirmed; but, in truth, this specimen of portly, -middle-aged manhood was of a timid disposition. I don’t know what, -considering my presence in the place, they all hoped would come of it. A -sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may have supposed Falk had come in -only to annihilate me completely. As a matter of fact, Falk had come in -because Hermann had asked him to inquire after the precious white cotton -parasol which, in the worry and excitement of the previous day, he had -forgotten at the table where we had held our little discussion. - -It was this that gave me my opportunity. I don’t think I would have gone -to seek Falk out. No. I don’t think so. There are limits. But there was -an opportunity and I seized it--I have already tried to explain why. Now -I will merely state that, in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into -the sea air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skipper would be -justified in going to any length, short of absolute crime. He should -put his pride in his pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his -innocence as if it were a sin; he may take advantage of misconceptions, -of desires and of weaknesses; he ought to conceal his horror and other -emotions, and, if the fate of a human being, and that human being -a magnificent young girl, is strangely involved--why, he should -contemplate that fate (whatever it might seem to be) without turning a -hair. And all these things I have done; the explaining, the listening, -the pretending--even to the discretion--and nobody, not even Hermann’s -niece, I believe, need throw stones at me now. Schomberg at all events -needn’t, since from first to last, I am happy to say, there was not the -slightest “fracas.” - -Overcoming a nervous contraction of the windpipe, I had managed to -exclaim “Captain Falk!” His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but -afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He simply waited. Then, when -I had said, “I must have a talk with you,” and had pointed to a chair -at my table, he moved up to me, though he didn’t sit down. Schomberg, -however, with a long tumbler in his hand, was making towards us -prudently, and I discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk. He -had for Schomberg a repulsion resembling that sort of physical fear -some people experience at the sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so -essentially and silently concentrated upon himself (though he could talk -well enough, as I was to find out presently) the other’s irrepressible -loquacity, embracing every human being within range of the tongue, might -have appeared unnatural, disgusting, and monstrous. He suddenly gave -signs of restiveness--positively like a horse about to rear, and, -muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, “No. I can’t stand that -fellow,” seemed ready to bolt. This weakness of his gave me the -advantage at the very start. “Verandah,” I suggested, as if rendering -him a service, and walked him out by the arm. We stumbled over a few -chairs; we had the feeling of open space before us, and felt the fresh -breath of the river--fresh, but tainted. The Chinese theatres across the -water made, in the sparsely twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town -presents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a distant and -howling uproar. I felt him become suddenly tractable again like an -animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him is -removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there how tractable he was, without -my conviction of his inflexibility--tenacity, rather, perhaps--being in -the least weakened. His very arm abandoning itself to my grasp was as -hard as marble--like a limb of iron. But I heard a tumultuous scuffling -of boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside were crowding to the -windows, climbing over each other’s backs behind the blinds, billiard -cues and all. Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound of -falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devastation, Schomberg reeled -out after us in a state of funk which had prevented his parting with his -brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an aspen leaf. The piece of -ice in the long tumbler he held in his hand tinkled with an effect -of chattering teeth. “I beg you, gentlemen,” he expostulated thickly. -“Come! Really, now, I must insist...” - -How proud I am of my presence of mind! “Hallo,” I said instantly in a -loud and naive tone, “somebody’s breaking your windows, Schomberg. Would -you please tell one of your boys to bring out here a pack of cards and a -couple of lights? And two long drinks. Will you?” - -To receive an order soothed him at once. It was business. “Certainly,” - he said in an immensely relieved tone. The night was rainy, with -wandering gusts of wind, and while we waited for the candles Falk said, -as if to justify his panic, “I don’t interfere in anybody’s business. -I don’t give any occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But this -fellow is always making out something wrong, and can never rest till he -gets somebody to believe him.” - -This was the first of my knowledge of Falk. This desire of -respectability, of being like everybody else, was the only recognition -he vouchsafed to the organisation of mankind. For the rest he might have -been the member of a herd, not of a society. Self-preservation was his -only concern. Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Selfishness -presupposes consciousness, choice, the presence of other men; but his -instinct acted as though he were the last of mankind nursing that law -like the only spark of a sacred fire. I don’t mean to say that living -naked in a cavern would have satisfied him. Obviously he was -the creature of the conditions to which he was born. No doubt -self-preservation meant also the preservation of these conditions. But -essentially it meant something much more simple, natural, and powerful. -How shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the five senses -of his body--let us say--taking it in its narrowest as well as in its -widest meaning. I think you will admit before long the justice of this -judgment. However, as we stood there together in the dark verandah I had -judged nothing as yet--and I had no desire to judge--which is an idle -practice anyhow. The light was long in coming. - -“Of course,” I said in a tone of mutual understanding, “it isn’t exactly -a game of cards I want with you.” - -I saw him draw his hands down his face--the vague stir of the passionate -and meaningless gesture; but he waited in silent patience. It was -only when the lights had been brought out that he opened his lips. I -understood his mumble to mean that “he didn’t know any game.” - -“Like this Schomberg and all the other fools will have to keep off,” - I said tearing open the pack. “Have you heard that we are universally -supposed to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who--of course. I am -really ashamed to ask, but is it possible that you do me the honour to -think me dangerous?” - -As I said these words I felt how absurd it was and also I felt -flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in -his usual dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but -not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with -Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I -saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural -forces are not quarrelsome. You can’t quarrel with the wind that -inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street -full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder, -falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law -by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but -of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide -interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed -without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and -more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless -voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half -an hour. - -It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never -dreamed of marrying Hermann’s niece. Could any necessity have been more -extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard -hit that he couldn’t imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of -indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could -not help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was -conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and -playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the -more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights -so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively -flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth -of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features, -the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely -uncovered at the temples. The fact is I had never before seen him -without his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had -taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in -the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking -silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin, -furrowed, worn; I discovered that through the bush of his hair, as -you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense -undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an anchorite’s -bony head fitted with a Capuchin’s beard and adjusted to a herculean -body. I don’t mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He -was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt. -And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely strong, just -as the girl (since I must think of them together) was magnificently -attractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, expressed in -shape, in size, in attitude--that is by a straight appeal to the senses. -His mind meantime, preoccupied with respectability, quailed before -Schomberg’s tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my protestations; -and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon think of -marrying my mother’s (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as Hermann’s -niece. Sooner, I protested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did -not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the proposition, and in -his sceptical immobility he seemed to nurse the argument that at all -events the cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, just -before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the evidence of my manner -whenever I called on board the Diana. I had never attempted to approach -the girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way. -Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of--let us say--courting, -seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the -vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argument inspired him with -distrust. Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as -to say, “That’s all very fine, but you can’t throw dust in _my_ eyes.” - -At last I was exasperated into saying, “Why don’t you put the matter at -rest by talking to Hermann?” and I added sneeringly: “You don’t expect -me perhaps to speak for you?” - -To this he said, very loud for him, “Would you?” - -And for the first time he lifted his head to look at me with wonder -and incredulity. He lifted his head so sharply that there could be -no mistake. I had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of my -opportunity, and could hardly believe in it. - -“Why. Speak to... Well, of course,” I proceeded very slowly, watching -him with great attention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. “Not, -perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can’t speak German, you know. -But...” - -He interrupted me with the earnest assurance that Hermann had the -highest opinion of me; and at once I felt the need for the greatest -possible diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just enough to draw -him on. Falk sat up, but except for a very noticeable enlargement of the -pupils, till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow yellow -rings, his face, I should judge, was incapable of expressing excitement. -“Oh, yes! Hermann did have the greatest...” - -“Take up your cards. Here’s Schomberg peeping at us through the blind!” - I said. - -We went through the motions of what might have been a game of e’carte’. -Presently the intolerable scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform the -people in the billiard-room that we two were gambling on the verandah -like mad. - -We were not gambling, but it was a game; a game in which I felt I held -the winning cards. The stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the -voyage--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy -matured rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived -that the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and -astute Teuton had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of -a rival. I was young enough to be shocked at so much duplicity. “Did he -tell you that in so many words?” I asked with indignation. - -Hermann had not. He had given hints only; and of course it had not taken -very much to alarm Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had taken -steps to remove the family from under my influence. He was perfectly -straightforward about it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your -head. There was no duplicity in that man; and when I congratulated -him on the perfection of his arrangements--even to the bribing of the -wretched Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement of protest. Never -bribed. He knew the man wouldn’t work as long as he had a few cents in -his pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-”_naturally_”) he -let him have a dollar or two. He was himself a sailor, he said, and -anticipated the view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take. -On the other hand, he was sure that I should have to come to grief. He -hadn’t been knocking about for the last seven years up and down that -river for nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me--but he asserted -confidently I would have had my ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two -miles below the Great Pagoda.... - -And with all that he had no ill-will. That was evident. This was a -crisis in which his only object had been to gain time--I fancy. And -presently he mentioned that he had written for some jewellery, real good -jewellery--had written to Hong-Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or -two. - -“Well, then,” I said cheerily, “everything is all right. All you’ve got -to do is to present it to the lady together with your heart, and live -happy ever after.” - -Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as far as the girl was -concerned, but his eyelids drooped. There was still something in the -way. For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As to me, on the -contrary, it seemed as though he could not praise me enough. Mrs. -Hermann too. He didn’t know why they disliked him so. It made everything -most difficult. - -I listened impassive, feeling more and more diplomatic. His speech was -not transparently clear. He was one of those men who seem to live, feel, -suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being fascinated by the -girl and possessed by the desire of home life with her--it was as clear -as daylight. So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting it to -the hazard of declaration. Besides, there was something else. And with -Hermann being so set against him... - -“I see,” I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat fast with the -excitement of my diplomacy. “I don’t mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to -show you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I can for you in -that way.” - -A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands down his face, and it -emerged, bony, unchanged of expression, as if all the tissues had -been ossified. All the passion was in those big brown hands. He was -satisfied. Then there was that other matter. If there were anybody on -earth it was I who could persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I -had a knowledge of the world and lots of experience. Hermann admitted -this himself. And then I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sailor -would be able to understand certain things best.... - -He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all their life in a rural -hamlet, and I alone had been capable, with my practice in life, of -a large and indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was what my -diplomacy was leading me to. I began suddenly to dislike it. - -“I say, Falk,” I asked quite brusquely, “you haven’t already a wife put -away somewhere?” - -The pain and disgust of his denial were very striking. Couldn’t I -understand that he was as respectable as any white man hereabouts; -earning his living honestly. He was suffering from my suspicion, and the -low undertone of his voice made his protestations sound very pathetic. -For a moment he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, I seemed -to develop a conscience, as if in very truth it were in my power to -decide the success of this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard -enough we come to believe anything--anything to our advantage. And I had -been pretending very hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down -the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I couldn’t help alluding -to the Vanlo affair. “You acted rather badly there. Didn’t you?” was -what I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our conduct is always -at the mercy of obscure and unforeseen impulses. - -His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glancing at the window with -a sort of scared fury. We heard behind the blinds the continuous -and sudden clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, and -Schomberg’s deep manly laugh. - -“That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper then would never, never let -it rest!” Falk exclaimed. “Well, yes! It had happened two years ago.” - When it came to the point he owned he couldn’t make up his mind to trust -Fred Vanlo--no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust him, -but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough money to pay all his debts -before he left. I was greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could -not be such a miser after all. So much the better for the girl. For a -time he sat silent; then he picked up a card, and while looking at it he -said: - -“You need not think of anything bad. It was an accident. I’ve been -unfortunate once.” - -“Then in heaven’s name say nothing about it.” - -As soon as these words were out of my mouth I fancied I had said -something immoral. He shook his head negatively. It had to be told. -He considered it proper that the relations of the lady should know. No -doubt--I thought to myself--had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by -the climate he would have found it possible to entrust Fred Vanlo with -this confidence. And then the figure of Hermann’s niece appeared before -my mind’s eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich youth, her -lavish strength. With that powerful and immaculate vitality, her girlish -form must have shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor Miss -Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to the strumming of a piano. - -“And that Hermann hates me, I know it!” he cried in his undertone, with -a sudden recrudescence of anxiety. “I must tell them. It is proper that -they should know. You would say so yourself.” - -He then murmured an utterly mysterious allusion to the necessity for -peculiar domestic arrangements. Though my curiosity was excited I did -not want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a -piece of information that would make my assumed role of match-maker -odious--however unreal it was. I was aware that he could have the girl -for the asking; and keeping down a desire to laugh in his face, I -expressed a confident belief in my ability to argue away Hermann’s -dislike for him. “I am sure I can make it all right,” I said. He looked -very pleased. - -And when we rose not a word had been said about towage! Not a word! The -game was won and the honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton umbrella! -We shook hands, and I was holding myself with difficulty from breaking -into a step dance of joy when he came back, striding all the length of -the verandah, and said doubtfully: - -“I say, captain, I have your word? You--you--won’t turn round?” - -Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his tone of doubt there was -something desperate and menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to -the situation. - -“My dear Falk,” I said, beginning to lie with a glibness and effrontery -that amazed me even at the time--“confidence for confidence.” (He had -made no confidences.) “I will tell you that I am already engaged to an -extremely charming girl at home, and so you understand....” - -He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing grip. - -“Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult to live alone...” - -“On rice and fish,” I interrupted smartly, giggling with the sheer -nervousness of a danger escaped. - -He dropped my hand as if it had become suddenly red hot. A moment of -profound silence ensued, as though something extraordinary had happened. - -“I promise you to obtain Hermann’s consent,” I faltered out at last, and -it seemed to me that he could not help seeing through that humbugging -promise. “If there’s anything else to get over I shall endeavour -to stand by you,” I conceded further, feeling somehow defeated and -over-borne; “but you must do your best yourself.” - -“I have been unfortunate once,” he muttered unemotionally, and turning -his back on me he went away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his -feet had been shod with iron. - -Next morning, however, he was lively enough as man-boat, a combination -of splashing and shouting; of the insolent commotion below with the -steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece above. He turned us -out most unnecessarily at an ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven -in the morning before he brought me up a cable’s length from Hermann’s -ship. And he did it very badly too, in a hurry, and nearly contriving to -miss altogether the patch of good holding ground, because, forsooth, -he had caught sight of Hermann’s niece on the poop. And so did I; and -probably as soon as he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek -glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape of the girlish print -frock she filled so perfectly, so satisfactorily, with the seduction of -unfaltering curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress. And Diana the -ship sat, high-walled and as solid as an institution, on the smooth -level of the water, the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon the -seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support of domestic virtues like -any grocer’s shop on shore. At once Falk steamed away; for there was -some work for him to do. He would return in the evening. - -He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, without a hail. The beat -of the paddle-wheels reverberating amongst the stony islets, as if from -the ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage confusedly with -the clapping sounds of a mighty and leisurely applause. Abreast of -Hermann’s ship he stopped the engines; and a profound silence reigned -over the rocks, the shore and the sea, for the time it took him to raise -his hat aloft before the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched -up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn’t stir a limb, -standing by the rail shapely and erect, with one of her hands grasping a -rope at the height of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly -past her the lingering and profound homage of the man. There was for me -an enormous significance in the scene, the sense of having witnessed -a solemn declaration. The die was cast. After such a manifestation he -couldn’t back out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me -now. With a rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and -a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated -clapping, the tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay -on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes -and scorpions lurked under the stones; there was not a single blade -of grass in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning himself on a -boulder by the shore. When I looked again at Hermann’s ship the girl -had disappeared. I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the -immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued the flatness of the -sea to the naked line of the horizon. - -This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of -Falk’s misfortune. My diplomacy had brought me there, and now I had only -to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambassador. My diplomacy -was a success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a -feeble sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana. -During the afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the -faithful nurse of Hermann’s progeny, or yawned towards the distant -temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven -priests cherish the thoughts of that Annihilation which is the worthy -reward of us all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. Well, that -was not so bad as life goes. And what the devil could be the nature -of that misfortune? I remembered that I had known a man before who had -declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a victim to misfortune; but -this misfortune, whose effects appeared permanent (he looked desperately -hard up) when considered dispassionately, seemed indistinguishable from -a breach of trust. Could it be something of that nature? Apart, however, -from the utter improbability that he would offer to talk of it even to -his future uncle-in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk’s physique -unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the person of Hermann’s -niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her -adorer’s big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity -that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing -was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature -of the spine. And I perceived that the sun was about to set. - -The smoke of Falk’s tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the -river. It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and -the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping -my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I -conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour. -I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that -came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is -inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me -eagerly if I knew whether Falk had found his white parasol. - -“He’s going to bring it to you himself directly,” I said with great -solemnity. “Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he -begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece....” - -“Ach So!” he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity -change into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I -hurried on. - -“He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at -once--before you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul.” - -Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that -furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, -he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his cupidity, his -stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say “yes” or “no” to the -simplest question)--against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in -port (because he saw they were at his mercy)--and against his manner -of walking, which to his (Hermann’s) mind showed a conceit positively -unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course, -and there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the -last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been -a cause of offence. “Had the cheek” to drag him (Hermann) into that -coffee-room; as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven -dollars and fifty cents of damage in the cost of wood alone--not -counting two days’ work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand -in the girl’s way. He was going home to Germany. There were plenty of -poor girls walking about in Germany. - -“He’s very much in love,” was all I found to say. - -“Yes,” he cried. “And it is time too after making himself and me talked -about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on -board every evening unsettling the girl’s mind, and saying nothing. What -sort of conduct is that?” - -The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not, -in his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. -He (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and -the tug, no doubt, was mortgaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm -of Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn’t stand in the girl’s way. Her -head was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite -unable even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for -the children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give -Gustav a thrashing. - -For that, too, Falk was made responsible apparently. And looking at my -Hermann’s heavy, puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not exert -himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, would thrash very -hard, and being fat would resent the necessity. How Falk had managed -to turn the girl’s head was more difficult to understand. I supposed -Hermann would know. And then hadn’t there been Miss Vanlo? It could not -be his silvery tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he had no -more of what is called “manner” than an animal--which, however, on the -other hand, is never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore it must -have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting a virility of nature -as exaggerated as his beard, and resembling a sort of constant -ruthlessness. It was seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He -meant no offence, but his intercourse was characterised by that sort of -frank disregard of susceptibilities a man of seven foot six, living in a -world of dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the least wishing to -be unkind. But amongst men of his own stature, or nearly, this frank -use of his advantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills for -instance, caused much impotent gnashing of teeth. When attentively -considered it seemed appalling at times. He was a strange beast. But -maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was well worth taming, and -I suppose every woman at the bottom of her heart considers herself as a -tamer of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with precipitation to carry -the news to his wife. I had barely the time, as he made for the cabin -door, to grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I begged him to -wait till Falk in person had spoken with him. There remained some small -matter to talk over, as I understood. - -He sat down again at once, full of suspicion. - -“What matter?” he said surlily. “I have had enough of his nonsense. -There’s no matter at all, as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in -the world. She came to us in one thin dress when my brother died, and I -have a growing family.” - -“It can’t be anything of that kind,” I opined. “He’s desperately -enamoured of your niece. I don’t know why he did not say so before. Upon -my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to lose, perhaps, the -felicity of sitting near her on your quarter deck.” - -I intimated my conviction that his love was so great as to be in a sense -cowardly. The effects of a great passion are unaccountable. It has -been known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked at me as if I had -foolishly raved; and the twilight was dying out rapidly. - -“You don’t believe in passion, do you, Hermann?” I said cheerily. “The -passion of fear will make a cornered rat courageous. Falk’s in a corner. -He will take her off your hands in one thin frock just as she came to -you. And after ten years’ service it isn’t a bad bargain,” I added. - -Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of civic virtue. The sudden -night came upon him while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing in -contact with his thick lips, and taking away again after a jet of smoke, -the curved mouthpiece fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came -upon him and buried in haste his whiskers, his globular eyes, his puffy -pale face, his fat knees and the vast flat slippers on his fatherly -feet. Only his short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves remained -very visible, propped up like the flippers of a seal reposing on the -strand. - -“Falk wouldn’t settle anything about repairs. Told me to find out first -how much wood I should require and he would see,” he remarked; and after -he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over the water the beat of -the tug’s floats. There is, on a calm night, nothing more suggestive of -fierce and headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the paddle-wheels -of a boat threshing her way through a quiet sea; and the approach of -Falk towards his fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and passionate -desire. The engines must have been driven to the very utmost of their -revolutions. We heard them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white -hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow -and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It -ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque -splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running -through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Roadstead. - -“He will soon be here,” I murmured, and after that we waited for him -without a word. Meantime, raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a -lofty sky above the Diana’s mastheads. The multitude of stars gathered -into clusters, in rows, in lines, in masses, in groups, shone all -together, unanimously--and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves -in the midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a superior kind and of -an inextinguishable nature. But long striding footsteps were heard -hastening along the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a deeper -darkness. We rose from our chairs quickly, and Falk, appearing before -us, all in white, stood still. - -Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been covered with confusion. His -arrival was fiery, but his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without -features, made him loom up like a man of snow. - -“The captain here has been telling me...” Hermann began in a homely -and amicable voice; and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, -negligent undertone had no inflexions, but the strength of a powerful -emotion made him ramble in his speech. He had always desired a home. -It was difficult to live alone, though he was not answerable. He was -domestic; there had been difficulties; but since he had seen Hermann’s -niece he found that it had become at last impossible to live by himself. -“I mean--impossible,” he repeated with no sort of emphasis and only with -the slightest of pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the force -of a new idea. - -“I have not said anything to her yet,” Hermann observed quietly. And -Falk dismissed this by a “That’s all right. Certainly. Very proper.” - There was a necessity for perfect frankness--in marrying, especially. -Hermann seemed attentive, but he seized the first opportunity to ask us -into the cabin. “And by-the-by, Falk,” he said innocently, as we passed -in, “the timber came to no less than forty-seven dollars and fifty -cents.” - -Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the passage. “Some other time,” - he said; and Hermann nudged me angrily--I don’t know why. The girl alone -in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from the table. Falk stopped -short in the doorway. Without a word, without a sign, without the -slightest inclination of his bony head, by the silent intensity of his -look alone, he seemed to lay his herculean frame at her feet. Her hands -sank slowly on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her soft, -beaming glance enfold him from head to foot like a slow and pale caress. -He was very hot when he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with her -sewing; her neck was very white under the light of the lamp; but Falk, -hiding his face in the palms of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew -them down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes astonished me by -their tense and irrational expression--as though he had just swallowed -a heavy gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was binding us to -secrecy. Not that he cared, but he did not like to be spoken about; and -I looked at the girl’s marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal hair, -plaited tight into that one astonishing and maidenly tress. Whenever she -moved her well-shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her back. -The thin cotton sleeve fitted the irreproachable roundness of her -arm like a skin; and her very dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to -palpitate like a living tissue with the strength of vitality animating -her body. How good her complexion was, the outline of her soft cheek and -the small convoluted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she kept -the little finger apart from the others; it seemed a waste of power -to see her sewing--eternally sewing--with that industrious and precise -movement of her arm, going on eternally upon all the oceans, under all -the skies, in innumerable harbours. And suddenly I heard Falk’s voice -declare that he could not marry a woman unless she knew of something -in his life that had happened ten years ago. It was an accident. An -unfortunate accident. It would affect the domestic arrangements of their -home, but, once told, it need not be alluded to again for the rest of -their lives. “I should want my wife to feel for me,” he said. “It -has made me unhappy.” And how could he keep the knowledge of it to -himself--he asked us--perhaps through years and years of companionship? -What sort of companionship would that be? He had thought it over. A wife -must know. Then why not at once? He counted on Hermann’s kindness -for presenting the affair in the best possible light. And Hermann’s -countenance, mystified before, became very sour. He stole an inquisitive -glance at me. I shook my head blankly. Some people thought, Falk went -on, that such an experience changed a man for the rest of his life. He -couldn’t say. It was hard, awful, and not to be forgotten, but he did -not think himself a worse man than before. Only he talked in his sleep -now, he believed.... At last I began to think he had accidentally -killed some one; perhaps a friend--his own father maybe; when he went on -to say that probably we were aware he never touched meat. Throughout he -spoke English, of course of my account. - -He swayed forward heavily. - -The girl, with her hands raised before her pale eyes, was threading her -needle. He glanced at her, and his mighty trunk overshadowed the table, -bringing nearer to us the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of -his neck, and that incongruous, anchorite head, burnt in the desert, -hollowed and lean as if by excesses of vigils and fasting. His beard -flowed imposingly downwards, out of sight, between the two brown hands -gripping the edge of the table, and his persistent glance made sombre by -the wide dilations of the pupils, fascinated. - -“Imagine to yourselves,” he said in his ordinary voice, “that I have -eaten man.” - -I could only ejaculate a faint “Ah!” of complete enlightenment. But -Hermann, dazed by the excessive shock, actually murmured, “Himmel! What -for?” - -“It was my terrible misfortune to do so,” said Falk in a measured -undertone. The girl, unconscious, sewed on. Mrs. Hermann was absent -in one of the state-rooms, sitting up with Lena, who was feverish; but -Hermann suddenly put both his hands up with a jerk. The embroidered -calotte fell, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he had rumpled his hair -all ends up in a most extravagant manner. In this state he strove to -speak; with every effort his eyes seemed to start further out of their -sockets; his head looked like a mop. He choked, gasped, swallowed, and -managed to shriek out the one word, “Beast!” - -From that moment till Falk went out of the cabin the girl, with her -hands folded on the work lying in her lap, never took her eyes off him. -His own, in the blindness of his heart, darted all over the cabin, only -seeking to avoid the sight of Hermann’s raving. It was ridiculous, and -was made almost terrible by the stillness of every other person present. -It was contemptible, and was made appalling by the man’s over-mastering -horror of this awful sincerity, coming to him suddenly, with the -confession of such a fact. He walked with great strides; he gasped. He -wanted to know from Falk how dared he to come and tell him this? Did he -think himself a proper person to be sitting in this cabin where his wife -and children lived? Tell his niece! Expected him to tell his niece! -His own brother’s daughter! Shameless! Did I ever hear tell of such -impudence?--he appealed to me. “This man here ought to have gone and -hidden himself out of sight instead of...” - -“But it’s a great misfortune for me. But it’s a great misfortune for -me,” Falk would ejaculate from time to time. - -However, Hermann kept on running frequently against the corners of the -table. At last he lost a slipper, and crossing his arms on his breast, -walked up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in order to ask -him whether he did think there was anywhere on earth a woman abandoned -enough to mate with such a monster. “Did he? Did he? Did he?” I tried -to restrain him. He tore himself out of my hands; he found his slipper, -and, endeavouring to put it on, stormed standing on one leg--and Falk, -with a face unmoved and averted eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in -one vast palm. - -“Was it right then for me to die myself?” he asked thoughtfully. I laid -my hand on his shoulder. - -“Go away,” I whispered imperiously, without any clear reason for this -advice, except that I wished to put an end to Hermann’s odious noise. -“Go away.” - -He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann before he made a move. -I left the cabin too to see him out of the ship. But he hung about the -quarter-deck. - -“It is my misfortune,” he said in a steady voice. - -“You were stupid to blurt it out in such a manner. After all, we don’t -hear such confidences every day.” - -“What does the man mean?” he mused in deep undertones. “Somebody had to -die--but why me?” - -He remained still for a time in the dark--silent; almost invisible. All -at once he pinned my elbows to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in his -grip, and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated. - -“It’s worse than hunger. Captain, do you know what that means? And I -could kill then--or be killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull -ten years ago. And I’ve got to live now. Without her. Do you understand? -Perhaps many years. But how? What can be done? If I had allowed myself -to look at her once I would have carried her off before that man in my -hands--like this.” - -I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly dropped--and I -staggered backwards, feeling bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was -still; he was gone. I heard Hermann’s voice declaiming in the cabin, and -I went in. - -I could not at first make out a single word, but Mrs. Hermann, who, -attracted by the noise, had come in some time before, with an expression -of surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on her face, was -giving now all the signs of profound, helpless agitation. Her husband -shot a string of guttural words at her, and instantly putting out one -hand to the bulkhead as if to save herself from falling, she clutched -the loose bosom of her dress with the other. He harangued the two women -extraordinarily, with much of his shirt hanging out of his waist-belt, -stamping his foot, turning from one to the other, sometimes throwing -both his arms together, straight up above his rumpled hair, and keeping -them in that position while he uttered a passage of loud denunciation; -at others folding them tight across his breast--and then he hissed with -indignation, elevating his shoulders and protruding his head. The girl -was crying. - -She had not changed her attitude. From her steady eyes that, following -Falk in his retreat, had remained fixed wistfully on the cabin door, the -tears fell rapid, thick, on her hands, on the work in her lap, warm -and gentle like a shower in spring. She wept without grimacing, without -noise--very touching, very quiet, with something more of pity than of -pain in her face, as one weeps in compassion rather than in grief--and -Hermann, before her, declaimed. I caught several times the word -“Mensch,” man; and also “Fressen,” which last I looked up afterwards -in my dictionary. It means “Devour.” Hermann seemed to be requesting an -answer of some sort from her; his whole body swayed. She remained mute -and perfectly still; at last his agitation gained her; she put the palms -of her hands together, her full lips parted, no sound came. His voice -scolded shrilly, his arms went like a windmill--suddenly he shook a -thick fist at her. She burst out into loud sobs. He seemed stupefied. - -Mrs. Hermann rushed forward babbling rapidly. The two women fell on each -other’s necks, and, with an arm round her niece’s waist, she led her -away. Her own eyes were simply streaming, her face was flooded. She -shook her head back at me negatively, I wonder why to this day. The -girl’s head dropped heavily on her shoulder. They disappeared. - -Then Hermann sat down and stared at the cabin floor. - -“We don’t know all the circumstances,” I ventured to break the silence. -He retorted tartly that he didn’t want to know of any. According to his -ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime--and certainly not such -a crime. This was the opinion generally received. The duty of a human -being was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an animal; base, low, -vile, despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him -since last year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must -have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, -uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless of another’s -self-respect and peace of mind, would own to having devoured human -flesh. “Why tell?” he cried. “Who was asking him?” It showed Falk’s -brutality because after all he had selfishly caused him (Hermann) much -pain. He would have preferred not to know that such an unclean creature -had been in the habit of caressing his children. He hoped I would say -nothing of all this ashore, though. He wouldn’t like it to get about -that he had been intimate with an eater of men--a common cannibal. As -to the scene he had made (which I judged quite unnecessary) he was not -going to inconvenience and restrain himself for a fellow that went about -courting and upsetting girls’ heads, while he knew all the time that -no decent housewifely girl could think of marrying him. At least he -(Hermann) could not conceive how any girl could. Fancy Lena!... No, -it was impossible. The thoughts that would come into their heads every -time they sat down to a meal. Horrible! Horrible! - -“You are too squeamish, Hermann,” I said. - -He seemed to think it was eminently proper to be squeamish if the word -meant disgust at Falk’s conduct; and turning up his eyes sentimentally -he drew my attention to the horrible fate of the victims--the -victims of that Falk. I said that I knew nothing about them. He -seemed surprised. Could not anybody imagine without knowing? He--for -instance--felt he would like to avenge them. But what if--said I--there -had not been any? They might have died as it were, naturally--of -starvation. He shuddered. But to be eaten--after death! To be devoured! -He gave another deep shudder, and asked suddenly, “Do you think it is -true?” - -His indignation and his personality together would have been enough to -spoil the reality of the most authentic thing. When I looked at him I -doubted the story--but the remembrance of Falk’s words, looks, gestures, -invested it not only with an air of reality but with the absolute truth -of primitive passion. - -“It is true just as much as you are able to make it; and exactly in the -way you like to make it. For my part, when I hear you clamouring about -it, I don’t believe it is true at all.” - -And I left him pondering. The men in my boat lying at the foot of -Diana’s side ladder told me that the captain of the tug had gone away in -his gig some time ago. - -I let my fellows pull an easy stroke; because of the heavy dew the clear -sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was -a sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was -mingled with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg’s gastronomic -tittle-tattle was responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never -see Falk again. But the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that -the captain of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat away and was -now waiting for me in the cuddy. - -He was lying full length on the stern settee, his face buried in the -cushions. I had expected to see it discomposed, contorted, despairing. -It was nothing of the kind; it was just as I had seen it twenty times, -steady and glaring from the bridge of the tug. It was immovably set and -hungry, dominated like the whole man by the singleness of one instinct. - -He wanted to live. He had always wanted to live. So we all do--but in -us the instinct serves a complex conception, and in him this instinct -existed alone. There is in such simple development a gigantic force, -and like the pathos of a child’s naive and uncontrolled desire. He wanted -that girl, and the utmost that can be said for him was that he wanted -that particular girl alone. I think I saw then the obscure beginning, -the seed germinating in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot -of that tree bearing now for a mature mankind the flower and the fruit, -the infinite gradation in shades and in flavour of our discriminating -love. He was a child. He was as frank as a child too. He was hungry for -the girl, terribly hungry, as he had been terribly hungry for food. - -Don’t be shocked if I declare that in my belief it was the same -need, the same pain, the same torture. We are in his case allowed to -contemplate the foundation of all the emotions--that one joy which is -to live, and the one sadness at the root of the innumerable torments. -It was made plain by the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It was -gnawing, it was fire; it was there, like this! And after pointing below -his breastbone, he made a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I -assure you that, seen as I saw it with my bodily eyes, it was anything -but laughable. And again, as he was presently to tell me (alluding to an -early incident of the disastrous voyage when some damaged meat had been -flung overboard), he said that a time soon came when his heart ached -(that was the expression he used), and he was ready to tear his hair out -at the thought of all that rotten beef thrown away. - -I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical struggles, seeing the -working of the rack and hearing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it -all patiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy he had called -upon me to stand by him--and this, it seems, I had diplomatically -promised. - -His agitation was impressive and alarming in the little cabin, like the -floundering of a great whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He -stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried to tear the cushion -with his teeth; and again hugging it fiercely to his face he let himself -fall on the couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock of his -despair; and I contemplated with wonder the lofty forehead, the noble -touch of time on the uncovered temples, the unchanged hungry character -of the face--so strangely ascetic and so incapable of portraying -emotion. - -What should he do? He had lived by being near her. He had sat--in the -evening--I knew?-all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent--so. Her -head--like this--and her arms. Ah! Had I seen? Like this. - -He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck whose nape was red, -and with his hands stitched the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and -comprehensible. - -And now he couldn’t have her? No! That was too much. After thinking too -that... What had he done? What was my advice? Take her by force? No? -Mustn’t he? Who was there then to kill him? For the first time I saw -one of his features move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip.... -“Not Hermann, perhaps.” He lost himself in thought as though he had -fallen out of the world. - -I may note that the idea of suicide apparently did not enter his head -for a single moment. It occurred to me to ask: - -“Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took place?” - -“Down south,” he said vaguely with a start. - -“You are not down south now,” I said. “Violence won’t do. They would -take her away from you in no time. And what was the name of the ship?” - -“Borgmester Dahl,” he said. “It was no shipwreck.” - -He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that trance, and waking up -calmed. - -“Not a shipwreck? What was it?” - -“Break down,” he answered, looking more like himself every moment. By -this only I learned that it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they -had been starving in boats or on a raft--or perhaps on a barren rock. - -“She did not sink then?” I asked in surprise. He nodded. “We sighted the -southern ice,” he pronounced dreamily. - -“And you alone survived?” - -He sat down. “Yes. It was a terrible misfortune for me. Everything went -wrong. All the men went wrong. I survived.” - -Remembering the things one reads of it was difficult to realise the true -meaning of his answers. I ought to have seen at once--but I did not; so -difficult is it for our minds, remembering so much, instructed so much, -informed of so much, to get in touch with the real actuality at our -elbow. And with my head full of preconceived notions as to how a case of -“cannibalism and suffering at sea” should be managed I said--“You were -then so lucky in the drawing of lots?” - -“Drawing of lots?” he said. “What lots? Do you think I would have -allowed my life to go for the drawing of lots?” - -Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter what other life went. - -“It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful,” he said. “Many heads went -wrong, but the best men would live.” - -“The toughest, you mean,” I said. He considered the word. Perhaps it was -strange to him, though his English was so good. - -“Yes,” he asserted at last. “The best. It was everybody for himself at -last and the ship open to all.” - -Thus from question to question I got the whole story. I fancy it was the -only way I could that night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he was -himself again; the first sign of it was the return of that incongruous -trick he had of drawing both his hands down his face--and it had its -meaning now, with that slight shudder of the frame and the passionate -anguish of these hands uncovering a hungry immovable face, the wide -pupils of the intent, silent, fascinating eyes. - -It was an iron steamer of a most respectable origin. The burgomaster -of Falk’s native town had built her. She was the first steamer ever -launched there. The burgomaster’s daughter had christened her. Country -people drove in carts from miles around to see her. He told me all this. -He got the berth as what we should call a chief mate. He seemed to think -it had been a feather in his cap; and, in his own corner of the world, -this lover of life was of good parentage. - -The burgomaster had advanced ideas in the ship-owning line. At that time -not every one would have known enough to think of despatching a cargo -steamer to the Pacific. But he loaded her with pitch-pine deals and sent -her off to hunt for her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I -fancy. It doesn’t matter, because in latitude 44 d south and somewhere -halfway between Good Hope and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the -propeller dropped off. - -They were steaming then with a fresh gale on the quarter and all their -canvas set, to help the engines. But by itself the sail power was not -enough to keep way on her. When the propeller went the ship broached-to -at once, and the masts got whipped overboard. - -The disadvantage of being dismasted consisted in this, that they had -nothing to hoist flags on to make themselves visible at a distance. In -the course of the first few days several ships failed to sight them; and -the gale was drifting them out of the usual track. The voyage had been, -from the first, neither very successful nor very harmonious. There had -been quarrels on board. The captain was a clever, melancholic man, who -had no unusual grip on his crew. The ship had been amply provisioned for -the passage, but, somehow or other, several barrels of meat were found -spoiled on opening, and had been thrown overboard soon after leaving -home, as a sanitary measure. Afterwards the crew of the Borgmester Dahl -thought of that rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness and -despair. - -She drove south. To begin with, there had been an appearance of -organisation, but soon the bonds of discipline became relaxed. A sombre -idleness succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the horizon. The -gales increased: she lay in the trough, the seas made a clean breach -over her. On one frightful night, when they expected their hulk to turn -over with them every moment, a heavy sea broke on board, deluged the -store-rooms and spoiled the best part of the remaining provisions. It -seems the hatch had not been properly secured. This instance of neglect -is characteristic of utter discouragement. Falk tried to inspire some -energy into his captain, but failed. From that time he retired more into -himself, always trying to do his utmost in the situation. It grew worse. -Gale succeeded gale, with black mountains of water hurling themselves on -the Borgmester Dahl. Some of the men never left their bunks; many became -quarrelsome. The chief engineer, an old man, refused to speak at all to -anybody. Others shut themselves up in their berths to cry. On calm days -the inert steamer rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or showed, -in sunshine, the squalor of sea waifs, the dried white salt, the rust, -the jagged broken places. Then the gales came again. They kept body and -soul together on short rations. Once, an English ship, scudding in a -storm, tried to stand by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The -seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked -at them, and they made desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks. -Suddenly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she -had to bear up under bare poles, and disappeared. - -Other ships had spoken them before, but at first they had refused to be -taken off, expecting the assistance of some steamer. There were very few -steamers in those latitudes then; and when they desired to leave this -dead and drifting carcase, no ship came in sight. They had drifted south -out of men’s knowledge. They failed to attract the attention of a lonely -whaler, and very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea -and closed the southern horizon like a wall. One morning they were -alarmed by finding themselves floating amongst detached pieces of ice. -But the fear of sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes; -the shocks of the floes knocking against the ship’s side could not -rouse them from their apathy: and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again -unharmed into open water. They hardly noticed the change. - -The funnel had gone overboard in one of the heavy rolls; two of their -three boats had disappeared, washed away in bad weather, and the davits -swung to and fro, unsecured, with chafed rope’s ends waggling to the -roll. Nothing was done on board, and Falk told me how he had often -listened to the water washing about the dark engine-room where the -engines, stilled for ever, were decaying slowly into a mass of rust, as -the stilled heart decays within the lifeless body. At first, after the -loss of the motive power, the tiller had been thoroughly secured by -lashings. But in course of time these had rotted, chafed, rusted, -parting one by one: and the rudder, freed, banged heavily to and fro -night and day, sending dull shocks through the whole frame of the -vessel. This was dangerous. Nobody cared enough to lift a little finger. -He told me that even now sometimes waking up at night, he fancied he -could hear the dull vibrating thuds. The pintles carried away, and it -dropped off at last. - -The final catastrophe came with the sending off of their one remaining -boat. It was Falk who had managed to preserve her intact, and now it -was agreed that some of the hands should sail away into the track of the -shipping to procure assistance. She was provisioned with all the food -they could spare for the six who were to go. They waited for a fine day. -It was long in coming. At last one morning they lowered her into the -water. - -Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble broke out. Two men who -had no business there had jumped into the boat under the pretence of -unhooking the tackles, while some sort of squabble arose on the deck -amongst these weak, tottering spectres of a ship’s company. The -captain, who had been for days living secluded and unapproachable in the -chart-room, came to the rail. He ordered the two men to come up on board -and menaced them with his revolver. They pretended to obey, but suddenly -cutting the boat’s painter, gave a shove against the ship’s side and -made ready to hoist the sail. - -“Shoot, sir! Shoot them down!” cried Falk-“and I will jump overboard to -regain the boat.” But the captain, after taking aim with an irresolute -arm, turned suddenly away. - -A howl of rage arose. Falk dashed into his cabin for his own pistol. -When he returned it was too late. Two more men had leaped into the -water, but the fellows in the boat beat them off with the oars, hoisted -the boat’s lug and sailed away. They were never heard of again. - -Consternation and despair possessed the remaining ship’s company, -till the apathy of utter hopelessness re-asserted its sway. That day a -fireman committed suicide, running up on deck with his throat cut from -ear to ear, to the horror of all hands. He was thrown overboard. The -captain had locked himself in the chart-room, and Falk, knocking vainly -for admittance, heard him reciting over and over again the names of his -wife and children, not as if calling upon them or commending them to -God, but in a mechanical voice like an exercise of memory. Next day the -doors of the chart-room were swinging open to the roll of the ship, and -the captain had disappeared. He must during the night have jumped into -the sea. Falk locked both the doors and kept the keys. - -The organised life of the ship had come to an end. The solidarity of -the men had gone. They became indifferent to each other. It was Falk -who took in hand the distribution of such food as remained. They boiled -their boots for soup to eke out the rations, which only made their -hunger more intolerable. Sometimes whispers of hate were heard passing -between the languid skeletons that drifted endlessly to and fro, north -and south, east and west, upon that carcase of a ship. - -And in this lies the grotesque horror of this sombre story. The last -extremity of sailors, overtaking a small boat or a frail craft, seems -easier to bear, because of the direct danger of the seas. The confined -space, the close contact, the imminent menace of the waves, seem to draw -men together, in spite of madness, suffering and despair. But there -was a ship--safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds, bedding, knives, -forks, comfortable cabins, glass and china, and a complete cook’s -galley, pervaded, ruled and possessed by the pitiless spectre of -starvation. The lamp oil had been drunk, the wicks cut up for food, the -candles eaten. At night she floated dark in all her recesses, and full -of fears. One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter of pine wood. -Suddenly he threw the piece of wood away, tottered to the rail, and fell -over. Falk, too late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship’s side -desperately before he went down. Next day another man did the same -thing, after uttering horrible imprecations. But this one somehow -managed to get hold of the broken rudder chains and hung on there, -silently. Falk set about trying to save him, and all the time the man, -holding with both hands, looked at him anxiously with his sunken eyes. -Then, just as Falk was ready to put his hand on him, the man let go his -hold and sank like a stone. Falk reflected on these sights. His heart -revolted against the horror of death, and he said to himself that he -would struggle for every precious minute of his life. - -One afternoon--as the survivors lay about on the after deck--the -carpenter, a tall man with a black beard, spoke of the last sacrifice. -There was nothing eatable left on board. Nobody said a word to this; but -that company separated quickly, these listless feeble spectres slunk -off one by one to hide in fear of each other. Falk and the carpenter -remained on deck together. Falk liked the big carpenter. He had been the -best man of the lot, helpful and ready as long as there was anything to -do, the longest hopeful, and had preserved to the last some vigour and -decision of mind. - -They did not speak to each other. Henceforth no voices were to be heard -conversing sadly on board that ship. After a time the carpenter tottered -away forward; but later on, Falk going to drink at the fresh-water pump, -had the inspiration to turn his head. The carpenter had stolen upon him -from behind, and, summoning all his strength, was aiming with a crowbar -a blow at the back of his skull. - -Dodging just in time, Falk made his escape and ran into his cabin. While -he was loading his revolver there, he heard the sound of heavy blows -struck upon the bridge. The locks of the chartroom doors were slight, -they flew open, and the carpenter, possessing himself of the captain’s -revolver, fired a shot of defiance. - -Falk was about to go on deck and have it out at once, when he remarked -that one of the ports of his cabin commanded the approaches to the -freshwater pump. Instead of going out he remained in and secured the -door. “The best man shall survive,” he said to himself--and the other, -he reasoned, must at some time or other come there to drink. These -starving men would drink often to cheat the pangs of their hunger. But -the carpenter too must have noticed the position of the port. They were -the two best men in the ship, and the game was with them. All the rest -of the day Falk saw no one and heard no sound. At night he strained his -eyes. It was dark--he heard a rustling noise once, but he was certain -that no one could have come near the pump. It was to the left of his -deck port, and he could not have failed to see a man, for the night was -clear and starry. He saw nothing; towards morning another faint noise -made him suspicious. Deliberately and quietly he unlocked his door. He -had not slept, and had not given way to the horror of the situation. He -wanted to live. - -But during the night the carpenter, without at all trying to approach -the pump, had managed to creep quietly along the starboard bulwark, and, -unseen, had crouched down right under Falk’s deck port. When daylight -came he rose up suddenly, looked in, and putting his arm through the -round brass framed opening, fired at Falk within a foot. He missed--and -Falk, instead of attempting to seize the arm holding the weapon, opened -his door unexpectedly, and with the muzzle of his long revolver nearly -touching the other’s side, shot him dead. - -The best man had survived. Both of them had at the beginning just -strength enough to stand on their feet, and both had displayed pitiless -resolution, endurance, cunning and courage--all the qualities of classic -heroism. At once Falk threw overboard the captain’s revolver. He was a -born monopolist. Then after the report of the two shots, followed by a -profound silence, there crept out into the cold, cruel dawn of Antarctic -regions, from various hiding-places, over the deck of that dismantled -corpse of a ship floating on a grey sea ruled by iron necessity and with -a heart of ice--there crept into view one by one, cautious, slow, eager, -glaring, and unclean, a band of hungry and livid skeletons. Falk faced -them, the possessor of the only fire-arm on board, and the second best -man--the carpenter--was lying dead between him and them. - -“He was eaten, of course,” I said. - -He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, drawing his hands over his -face, and said, “I had never any quarrel with that man. But there were -our lives between him and me.” - -Why continue the story of that ship, that story before which, with its -fresh-water pump like a spring of death, its man with the weapon, the -sea ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by terror and -hope, its mute and unhearing heaven?-the fable of the Flying Dutchman -with its convention of crime and its sentimental retribution fades like -a graceful wreath, like a wisp of white mist. What is there to say that -every one of us cannot guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going -through the ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the matches. Those -starving wretches had plenty of matches! He had no mind to have the ship -set on fire under his feet, either from hate or from despair. He lived -in the open, camping on the bridge, commanding all the after deck -and the only approach to the pump. He lived! Some of the others lived -too--concealed, anxious, coming out one by one from their hiding-places -at the seductive sound of a shot. And he was not selfish. They shared, -but only three of them all were alive when a whaler, returning from her -cruising ground, nearly ran over the water-logged hull of the Borgmester -Dahl, which, it seems, in the end had in some way sprung a leak in both -her holds, but being loaded with deals could not sink. - -“They all died,” Falk said. “These three too, afterwards. But I would -not die. All died, all! under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to -throw away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain? I was alone there, quite -alone, just like the others. Each man was alone. Was I to give up my -revolver? Who to? Or was I to throw it into the sea? What would -have been the good? Only the best man would survive. It was a great, -terrible, and cruel misfortune.” - -He had survived! I saw him before me as though preserved for a witness -to the mighty truth of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads -of perspiration stood on his forehead. And suddenly it struck the table -with a heavy blow, as he fell forward throwing his hands out. - -“And this is worse,” he cried. “This is a worse pain! This is more -terrible.” - -He made my heart thump with the profound conviction of his cries. And -after he had left me alone I called up before my mental eye the image -of the girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently, and as if -irresistibly. I thought of her tawny hair. I thought how, if unplaited, -it would have covered her all round as low as the hips, like the hair of -a siren. And she had bewitched him. Fancy a man who would guard his -own life with the inflexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being -brought to lament that once a crowbar had missed his skull! The sirens -sing and lure to death, but this one had been weeping silently as if -for the pity of his life. She was the tender and voiceless siren of this -appalling navigator. He evidently wanted to live his whole conception -of life. Nothing else would do. And she too was a servant of that -life that, in the midst of death, cries aloud to our senses. She was -eminently fitted to interpret for him its feminine side. And in her own -way, and with her own profusion of sensuous charms, she also seemed -to illustrate the eternal truth of an unerring principle. I don’t know -though what sort of principle Hermann illustrated when he turned up -early on board my ship with a most perplexed air. It struck me, however, -that he too would do his best to survive. He seemed greatly calmed on -the subject of Falk, but still very full of it. - -“What is it you said I was last night? You know,” he asked after some -preliminary talk. “Too--too--I don’t know. A very funny word.” - -“Squeamish?” I suggested. - -“Yes. What does it mean?” - -“That you exaggerate things--to yourself. Without inquiry, and so on.” - -He seemed to turn it over in his mind. We went on talking. This Falk was -the plague of his life. Upsetting everybody like this! Mrs. Hermann was -unwell rather this morning. His niece was crying still. There was nobody -to look after the children. He struck his umbrella on the deck. She -would be like that for months. Fancy carrying all the way home, second -class, a perfectly useless girl who is crying all the time. It was -bad for Lena too, he observed; but on what grounds I could not guess. -Perhaps of the bad example. That child was already sorrowing and crying -enough over the rag doll. Nicholas was really the least sentimental -person of the family. - -“Why does she weep?” I asked. - -“From pity,” cried Hermann. - -It was impossible to make out women. Mrs. Hermann was the only one he -pretended to understand. She was very, very upset and doubtful. - -“Doubtful about what?” I asked. - -He averted his eyes and did not answer this. It was impossible to make -them out. For instance, his niece was weeping for Falk. Now he (Hermann) -would like to wring his neck--but then... He supposed he had too -tender a heart. “Frankly,” he asked at last, “what do you think of what -we heard last night, captain?” - -“In all these tales,” I observed, “there is always a good deal of -exaggeration.” - -And not letting him recover from his surprise I assured him that I knew -all the details. He begged me not to repeat them. His heart was too -tender. They made him feel unwell. Then, looking at his feet and -speaking very slowly, he supposed that he need not see much of them -after they were married. For, indeed, he could not bear the sight of -Falk. On the other hand it was ridiculous to take home a girl with her -head turned. A girl that weeps all the time and is of no help to her -aunt. - -“Now you will be able to do with one cabin only on your passage home,” I -said. - -“Yes, I had thought of that,” he said brightly, almost. “Yes! Himself, -his wife, four children--one cabin might do. Whereas if his niece -went...” - -“And what does Mrs. Hermann say to it?” I inquired. - -Mrs. Hermann did not know whether a man of that sort could make a girl -happy--she had been greatly deceived in Captain Falk. She had been very -upset last night. - -Those good people did not seem to be able to retain an impression for a -whole twelve hours. I assured him on my own personal knowledge that -Falk possessed in himself all the qualities to make his niece’s future -prosperous. He said he was glad to hear this, and that he would tell his -wife. Then the object of the visit came out. He wished me to help him to -resume relations with Falk. His niece, he said, had expressed the hope I -would do so in my kindness. He was evidently anxious that I should, -for though he seemed to have forgotten nine-tenths of his last night’s -opinions and the whole of his indignation, yet he evidently feared to -be sent to the right-about. “You told me he was very much in love,” he -concluded slyly, and leered in a sort of bucolic way. - -As soon as he had left my ship I called Falk on board by signal--the -tug still lying at the anchorage. He took the news with calm gravity, -as though he had all along expected the stars to fight for him in their -courses. - -I saw them once more together, and only once--on the quarter-deck of the -Diana. Hermann sat smoking with a shirt-sleeved elbow hooked over the -back of his chair. Mrs. Hermann was sewing alone. As Falk stepped over -the gangway, Hermann’s niece, with a slight swish of the skirt and a -swift friendly nod to me, glided past my chair. - -They met in sunshine abreast of the mainmast. He held her hands and -looked down at them, and she looked up at him with her candid and -unseeing glance. It seemed to me they had come together as if attracted, -drawn and guided to each other by a mysterious influence. They were a -complete couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life, generous of -form, olympian and simple, she was indeed the siren to fascinate that -dark navigator, this ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I -seemed to feel the masculine strength with which he grasped those hands -she had extended to him with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale, -nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran towards her big friend; and -then in the drowsy silence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann’s voice -rang out so changed that it made me spin round in my chair to see what -was the matter. - -“Lena, come here!” she screamed. And this good-natured matron gave me a -wavering glance, dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran -back, surprised to her knee. But the two, standing before each other in -sunlight with clasped hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and no -one. Three feet away from them in the shade a seaman sat on a spar, very -busy splicing a strop, and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if -utterly unaware of their existence. - -When I returned in command of another ship, some five years afterwards, -Mr. and Mrs. Falk had left the place. I should not wonder if Schomberg’s -tongue had succeeded at last in scaring Falk away for good; and, -indubitably, there was a tale still going about the town of a certain -Falk, owner of a tug, who had won his wife at cards from the captain of -an English ship. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Falk, by Joseph Conrad - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - -***** This file should be named 493-0.txt or 493-9.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/9/493/ - -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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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: Falk - -Author: Joseph Conrad - -Release Date: June 18, 2009 [EBook #493] -Last Updated: September 9, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <h1> - FALK - </h1> - <h2> - A REMINISCENCE - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <h2> - By Joseph Conrad - </h2> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <p> - Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in a - small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and less than - twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our coasting men - give the grandiose name of “German Ocean.” And through the wide windows we - had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower Hope Reach. - But the dinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the eyes. - </p> - <p> - That flavour of salt-water which for so many of us had been the very water - of life permeated our talk. He who hath known the bitterness of the Ocean - shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But one or two of us, pampered - by the life of the land, complained of hunger. It was impossible to - swallow any of that stuff. And indeed there was a strange mustiness in - everything. The wooden dining-room stuck out over the mud of the shore - like a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed rotten; a - decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically to and fro before an - antediluvian and worm-eaten sideboard; the chipped plates might have been - disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and the chops - recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to one’s mind the - night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first rudiments of - cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of - sticks in the company of other good fellows; then, gorged and happy, sat - him back among the gnawed bones to tell his artless tales of experience—the - tales of hunger and hunt—and of women, perhaps! - </p> - <p> - But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the waiter. So, - comparatively empty, but upon the whole fairly happy, we sat back and told - our artless tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The sea never - changes, and its works for all the talk of men are wrapped in mystery. But - we agreed that the times were changed. And we talked of old ships, of - sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings; and of a man who brought his - ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River Platte under a jury - rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of heroism—or at - least of what the newspapers would have called heroism at sea—a - manifestation of virtues quite different from the heroism of primitive - times. And now and then falling silent all together we gazed at the sights - of the river. - </p> - <p> - A P. & O. boat passed bound down. “One gets jolly good dinners on - board these ships,” remarked one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read - out the name on her bows: Arcadia. “What a beautiful model of a ship!” - murmured some of us. She was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the - flag they hauled down aboard while we were looking showed her to be a - Norwegian. She made an awful lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown - away, a high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and towed by a - paddle-tug, appeared in front of the windows. All her hands were forward - busy setting up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood, quite alone - with the man at the wheel, paced the length of the poop back and forth, - with the grey wool of some knitting work in her hands. - </p> - <p> - “German I should think,” muttered one. “The skipper has his wife on - board,” remarked another; and the light of the crimson sunset all ablaze - behind the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light upon the barque’s - spars, faded away from the Hope Reach. - </p> - <p> - Then one of us, who had not spoken before, a man of over fifty, that had - commanded ships for a quarter of a century, looking after the barque now - gliding far away, all black on the lustre of the river, said: - </p> - <p> - This reminds me of an absurd episode in my life, now many years ago, when - I got first the command of an iron barque, loading then in a certain - Eastern seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern kingdom, lying up a - river as might be London lies up this old Thames of ours. No more need be - said of the place; for this sort of thing might have happened anywhere - where there are ships, skippers, tugboats, and orphan nieces of - indescribable splendour. And the absurdity of the episode concerns only - me, my enemy Falk, and my friend Hermann. - </p> - <p> - There seemed to be something like peculiar emphasis on the words “My - friend Hermann,” which caused one of us (for we had just been speaking of - heroism at sea) to say idly and nonchalantly: - </p> - <p> - “And was this Hermann a hero?” - </p> - <p> - Not at all, said our grizzled friend. No hero at all. He was a - Schiff-fuhrer: Ship-conductor. That’s how they call a Master Mariner in - Germany. I prefer our way. The alliteration is good, and there is - something in the nomenclature that gives to us as a body the sense of - corporate existence: Apprentice, Mate, Master, in the ancient and - honourable craft of the sea. As to my friend Hermann, he might have been a - consummate master of the honourable craft, but he was called officially - Schiff-fuhrer, and had the simple, heavy appearance of a well-to-do - farmer, combined with the good-natured shrewdness of a small shopkeeper. - With his shaven chin, round limbs, and heavy eyelids he did not look like - a toiler, and even less like an adventurer of the sea. Still, he toiled - upon the seas, in his own way, much as a shopkeeper works behind his - counter. And his ship was the means by which he maintained his growing - family. - </p> - <p> - She was a heavy, strong, blunt-bowed affair, awakening the ideas of - primitive solidity, like the wooden plough of our forefathers. And there - were, about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely nature. The - extraordinary timber projections which I have seen in no other vessel made - her square stern resemble the tail end of a miller’s waggon. But the four - stern ports of her cabin, glazed with six little greenish panes each, and - framed in wooden sashes painted brown, might have been the windows of a - cottage in the country. The tiny white curtains and the greenery of flower - pots behind the glass completed the resemblance. On one or two occasions - when passing under stern I had detected from my boat a round arm in the - act of tilting a watering pot, and the bowed sleek head of a maiden whom I - shall always call Hermann’s niece, because as a matter of fact I’ve never - heard her name, for all my intimacy with the family. - </p> - <p> - This, however, sprang up later on. Meantime in common with the rest of the - shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to Hermann’s - notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in wearing good stout - flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and pinafores could be - seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny row of socks - fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a fortnight the family washing - was exhibited in force. It covered the poop entirely. The afternoon breeze - would incite to a weird and flabby activity all that crowded mass of - clothing, with its vague suggestions of drowned, mutilated and flattened - humanity. Trunks without heads waved at you arms without hands; legs - without feet kicked fantastically with collapsible flourishes; and there - were long white garments that, taking the wind fairly through their neck - openings edged with lace, became for a moment violently distended as by - the passage of obese and invisible bodies. On these days you could make - out that ship at a great distance by the multi-coloured grotesque riot - going on abaft her mizzen mast. - </p> - <p> - She had her berth just ahead of me, and her name was Diana,—Diana - not of Ephesus but of Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a foot - long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat like the lettering of a - shop-sign) under the cottage windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name - struck one as an impertinence towards the memory of the most charming of - goddesses; for, apart from the fact that the old craft was physically - incapable of engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of four - children belonging to her. They peeped over the rail at passing boats and - occasionally dropped various objects into them. Thus, sometime before I - knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat a horrid rag-doll belonging - to Hermann’s eldest daughter. However, these youngsters were upon the - whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round eyes, round little knobby - noses, and they resembled their father a good deal. - </p> - <p> - This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old ship, and seemed to know - nothing of the wicked sea, as there are on shore households that know - nothing of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she suggested were - unexceptionable and mainly of a domestic order. She was a home. All these - dear children had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck. In such - thoughts there is something pretty, even touching. Their teeth, I should - judge, they had cut on the ends of her running gear. I have many times - observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) engaged in gnawing the whipping of - the fore-royal brace. Nicholas’ favourite place of residence was under the - main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose he would crawl off there, and - the first seaman who came along would bring him, carefully held aloft in - tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy there must have been a - standing order to that effect. In the course of these transportations the - baby, who was the only peppery person in the ship, tried to smite these - stalwart young German sailors on the face. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife, wore on board baggy blue - dresses with white dots. When, as happened once or twice I caught her at - an elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white collars, baby’s socks, - and Hermann’s summer neckties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and - raising her wet hands greet me from afar with many friendly nods. Her - sleeves would be rolled up to the elbows, and the gold hoop of her wedding - ring glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was pleasant, she had a - serene brow, smooth bands of very fair hair, and a good-humoured - expression of the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talkative. When - this simple matron smiled, youthful dimples broke out on her fresh broad - cheeks. Hermann’s niece on the other hand, an orphan and very silent, I - never saw attempt a smile. This, however, was not gloom on her part but - the restraint of youthful gravity. - </p> - <p> - They had carried her about with them for the last three years, to help - with the children and be company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann mentioned - once to me. It had been very necessary while they were all little, he had - added in a vexed manner. It was her arm and her sleek head that I had - glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows of the cabin, hovering - over the pots of fuchsias and mignonette; but the first time I beheld her - full length I surrendered to her proportions. They fix her in my mind, as - great beauty, great intelligence, quickness of wit or kindness of heart - might have made some her other woman equally memorable. - </p> - <p> - With her it was form and size. It was her physical personality that had - this imposing charm. She might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to - an exceptional degree. I don’t know, and this is not to the point. All I - know is that she was built on a magnificent scale. Built is the only word. - She was constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal lavishness. - It staggered you to see this reckless expenditure of material upon a chit - of a girl. She was youthful and also perfectly mature, as though she had - been some fortunate immortal. She was heavy too, perhaps, but that’s - nothing. It only added to that notion of permanence. She was barely - nineteen. But such shoulders! Such round arms! Such a shadowing forth of - mighty limbs when with three long strides she pounced across the deck upon - the overturned Nicholas—it’s perfectly indescribable! She seemed a - good, quiet girl, vigilant as to Lena’s needs, Gustav’s tumbles, the state - of Carl’s dear little nose—conscientious, hardworking, and all that. - But what magnificent hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny - colour. It had the sheen of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly - into one single tress hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached - down to her waist. The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it - reminded one of a club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled - expression. She had a good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that - she appeared to look at the world with the empty white candour of a - statue. You could not call her good-looking. It was something much more - impressive. The simplicity of her apparel, the opulence of her form, her - imposing stature, and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that seemed - to emanate from her like a perfume exhaled by a flower, made her beautiful - with a beauty of a rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching up to - the clothes-line with both arms raised high above her head, caused you to - fall a musing in a strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs. Hermann’s baggy - cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary frills at neck and bottom, but - this girl’s print frocks hadn’t even a wrinkle; nothing but a few straight - folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these, when she stood still, - had a severe and statuesque quality. She was inclined naturally to be - still whether sitting or standing. However, I don’t mean to say she was - statuesque. She was too generously alive; but she could have stood for an - allegoric statue of the Earth. I don’t mean the worn-out earth of our - possession, but a young Earth, a virginal planet undisturbed by the vision - of a future teeming with the monstrous forms of life and death, clamorous - with the cruel battles of hunger and thought. - </p> - <p> - The worthy Hermann himself was not very entertaining, though his English - was fairly comprehensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one speech at - least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone (and in Platt-Deutsch I - suppose) I could not understand. As to their niece, however satisfactory - to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with a hopeful view as to the - prospects of mankind) she was a modest and silent presence, mostly engaged - in sewing, only now and then, as I observed, falling over that work into a - state of maidenly meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her, sewing also, with - her feet propped on a wooden footstool. On the other side of the deck - Hermann and I would get a couple of chairs out of the cabin and settle - down to a smoking match, accompanied at long intervals by the pacific - exchange of a few words. I came nearly every evening. Hermann I would find - in his shirt sleeves. As soon as he returned from the shore on board his - ship he commenced operations by taking off his coat; then he put on his - head an embroidered round cap with a tassel, and changed his boots for a - pair of cloth slippers. Afterwards he smoked at the cabin-door, looking at - his children with an air of civic virtue, till they got caught one after - another and put to bed in various staterooms. Lastly, we would drink some - beer in the cabin, which was furnished with a wooden table on cross legs, - and with black straight-backed chairs—more like a farm kitchen than - a ship’s cuddy. The sea and all nautical affairs seemed very far removed - from the hospitality of this exemplary family. - </p> - <p> - And I liked this because I had a rather worrying time on board my own - ship. I had been appointed ex-officio by the British Consul to take charge - of her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for the guidance of his - successor some suspiciously unreceipted bills, a few dry-dock estimates - hinting at bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for three years’ - extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up together in a dusty old - violin-case lined with ruby velvet. I found besides a large account-book, - which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my infinite consternation to - be filled with verses—page after page of rhymed doggerel of a jovial - and improper character, written in the neatest minute hand I ever did see. - In the same fiddle-case a photograph of my predecessor, taken lately in - Saigon, represented in front of a garden view, and in company of a female - in strange draperies, an elderly, squat, rugged man of stern aspect in a - clumsy suit of black broadcloth, and with the hair brushed forward above - the temples in a manner reminding one of a boar’s tusks. Of a fiddle, - however, the only trace on board was the case, its empty husk as it were; - but of the two last freights the ship had indubitably earned of late, - there were not even the husks left. It was impossible to say where all - that money had gone to. It wasn’t on board. It had not been remitted home; - for a letter from the owners, preserved in a desk evidently by the merest - accident, complained mildly enough that they had not been favoured by a - scratch of the pen for the last eighteen months. There were next to no - stores on board, not an inch of spare rope or a yard of canvas. The ship - had been run bare, and I foresaw no end of difficulties before I could get - her ready for sea. - </p> - <p> - As I was young then—not thirty yet—I took myself and my - troubles very seriously. The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at - the captain’s funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming. But the - fact is the fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul - was bound, if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on - board. As to the second mate, all I can say his name was Tottersen, or - something like that. His practice was to wear on his head, in that - tropical climate, a mangy fur cap. He was, without exception, the - stupidest man I had ever seen on board ship. And he looked it too. He - looked so confoundedly stupid that it was a matter of surprise for me when - he answered to his name. - </p> - <p> - I drew no great comfort from their company, to say the least of it; while - the prospect of making a long sea passage with those two fellows was - depressing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not be of a gay - complexion. The crew was sickly, the cargo was coming very slow; I foresaw - I would have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted whether they - would advance me enough money for the ship’s expenses. Their attitude - towards me was unfriendly. Altogether I was not getting on. I would - discover at odd times (generally about midnight) that I was totally - inexperienced, greatly ignorant of business, and hopelessly unfit for any - sort of command; and when the steward had to be taken to the hospital ill - with choleraic symptoms I felt bereaved of the only decent person at the - after end of the ship. He was fully expected to recover, but in the - meantime had to be replaced by some sort of servant. And on the - recommendation of a certain Schomberg, the proprietor of the smaller of - the two hotels in the place, I engaged a Chinaman. Schomberg, a brawny, - hairy Alsatian, and an awful gossip, assured me that it was all right. - “First-class boy that. Came in the suite of his Excellency Tseng the - Commissioner—you know. His Excellency Tseng lodged with me here for - three weeks.” - </p> - <p> - He mouthed the Chinese Excellency at me with great unction, though the - specimen of the “suite” did not seem very promising. At the time, however, - I did not know what an untrustworthy humbug Schomberg was. The “boy” might - have been forty or a hundred and forty for all you could tell—one of - those Chinamen of the death’s-head type of face and completely - inscrutable. Before the end of the third day he had revealed himself as a - confirmed opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief, and a - first-class sprinter. When he departed at the top of his speed with - thirty-two golden sovereigns of my own hard-earned savings it was the last - straw. I had reserved that money in case my difficulties came to the - worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor and naked as a fakir. I clung to my - ship, for all the bother she caused me, but what I could not bear were the - long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where the atmosphere, made smelly by a - leaky lamp, was agitated by the snoring of the mate. That fellow shut - himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at eight, and made gross and - revolting noises like a water-logged trump. It was odious not to be able - to worry oneself in comfort on board one’s own ship. Everything in this - world, I reflected, even the command of a nice little barque, may be made - a delusion and a snare for the unwary spirit of pride in man. - </p> - <p> - From such reflections I was glad to make any escape on board that Bremen - Diana. There apparently no whisper of the world’s iniquities had ever - penetrated. And yet she lived upon the wide sea: and the sea tragic and - comic, the sea with its horrors and its peculiar scandals, the sea peopled - by men and ruled by iron necessity is indubitably a part of the world. But - that patriarchal old tub, like some saintly retreat, echoed nothing of it. - She was world proof. Her venerable innocence apparently had put a - restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And yet I have known the sea - too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is - ruthlessly frank. It may, of course, have been Hermann’s skilful - seamanship, but to me it looked as if the allied oceans had refrained from - smashing these high bulwarks, unshipping the lumpy rudder, frightening the - children, and generally opening this family’s eyes out of sheer reticence. - It looked like reticence. The ruthless disclosure was in the end left for - a man to make; a man strong and elemental enough and driven to unveil some - secrets of the sea by the power of a simple and elemental desire. - </p> - <p> - This, however, occurred much later, and meantime I took sanctuary in that - serene old ship early every evening. The only person on board that seemed - to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due course I perceived that the - health of the rag-doll was more than delicate. This object led a sort of - “in extremis” existence in a wooden box placed against the starboard - mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy and care by - all the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and moving with - hushed footsteps. Only the baby—Nicholas—looked on with a - cold, ruffianly leer, as if he had belonged to another tribe altogether. - Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of them were in deadly - earnest. It was wonderful the way these children would work up their - compassion for that bedraggled thing I wouldn’t have touched with a pair - of tongs. I suppose they were exercising and developing their racial - sentimentalism by the means of that dummy. I was only surprised that Mrs. - Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that bundle of rags to that extent, it - was so disreputably and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann would raise - her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to look on with amused sympathy, - and did not seen to see it, somehow, that this object of affection was a - disgrace to the ship’s purity. Purity, not cleanliness, is the word. It - was pushed so far that I seemed to detect in this too a sentimental - excess, as if dirt had been removed in very love. It is impossible to give - you an idea of such a meticulous neatness. It was as if every morning that - ship had been arduously explored with—with toothbrushes. Her very - bowsprit three times a week had its toilette made with a cake of soap and - a piece of soft flannel. Arrayed—I <i>must</i> say arrayed—arrayed - artlessly in dazzling white paint as to wood and dark green as to ironwork - the simple-minded distribution of these colours evoked the images of - simple-minded peace, of arcadian felicity; and the childish comedy of - disease and sorrow struck me sometimes as an abominably real blot upon - that ideal state. - </p> - <p> - I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought a little mild excitement - into it. Our intimacy arose from the pursuit of that thief. It was in the - evening, and Hermann, who, contrary to his habits, had stayed on shore - late that day, was extricating himself backwards out of a little gharry on - the river bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed. Realising the - situation as though he had eyes in his shoulder-blades, he joined us with - a leap and took the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like a rapid shadow on - the dust of an extremely oriental road. I followed. A long way in the rear - my mate whooped like a savage. A young moon threw a bashful light on a - plain like a monstrous waste ground: the architectural mass of a Buddhist - temple far away projected itself in dead black on the sky. We lost the - thief of course; but in my disappointment I had to admire Hermann’s - presence of mind. The velocity that stodgy man developed in the interests - of a complete stranger earned my warm gratitude—there was something - truly cordial in his exertions. - </p> - <p> - He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and would hardly listen to my - thanks. He said it was “nothings,” and invited me on the spot to come on - board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him. We poked sceptically - for a while amongst the bushes, peered without conviction into a ditch or - two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glimmered feebly amongst the - reeds. Slowly we trudged back, drooping under the thin sickle of the moon, - and I heard him mutter to himself, “Himmel! Zwei und dreissig Pfund!” He - was impressed by the figure of my loss. For a long time we had ceased to - hear the mate’s whoops and yells. - </p> - <p> - Then he said to me, “Everybody has his troubles,” and as we went on - remarked that he would never have known anything of mine hadn’t he by an - extraordinary chance been detained on shore by Captain Falk. He didn’t - like to stay late ashore—he added with a sigh. The something doleful - in his tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of course. - </p> - <p> - On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann’s fine eyes expressed much interest and - commiseration. We had found the two women sewing face to face under the - open skylight in the strong glare of the lamp. Hermann walked in first, - starting in the very doorway to pull off his coat, and encouraging me with - loud, hospitable ejaculations: “Come in! This way! Come in, captain!” At - once, coat in hand, he began to tell his wife all about it. Mrs. Hermann - put the palms of her plump hands together; I smiled and bowed with a heavy - heart: the niece got up from her sewing to bring Hermann’s slippers and - his embroidered calotte, which he assumed pontifically, talking (about me) - all the time. Billows of white stuff lay between the chairs on the cabin - floor; I caught the words “Zwei und dreissig Pfund” repeated several - times, and presently came the beer, which seemed delicious to my throat, - parched with running and the emotions of the chase. - </p> - <p> - I didn’t get away till well past midnight, long after the women had - retired. Hermann had been trading in the East for three years or more, - carrying freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship was well known in - all the ports from Vladivostok to Singapore. She was his own property. The - profits had been moderate, but the trade answered well enough while the - children were small yet. In another year or so he hoped he would be able - to sell the old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He intended to - return home, to Bremen, by mail boat, second class, with Mrs. Hermann and - the children. He told me all this stolidly, with slow puffs at his pipe. I - was sorry when knocking the ashes out he began to rub his eyes. I would - have sat with him till morning. What had I to hurry on board my own ship - for? To face the broken rifled drawer in my state-room. Ugh! The very - thought made me feel unwell. - </p> - <p> - I became their daily guest, as you know. I think that Mrs. Hermann from - the first looked upon me as a romantic person. I did not, of course, tear - my hair <i>coram populo</i> over my loss, and she took it for lordly - indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did tell them some of my adventures—such - as they were—and they marvelled greatly at the extent of my - experience. Hermann would translate what he thought the most striking - passages. Getting up on his legs, and as if delivering a lecture on a - phenomenon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the two women, who - would let their sewing sink slowly on their laps. Meantime I sat before a - glass of Hermann’s beer, trying to look modest. Mrs. Hermann would glance - at me quickly, emit slight “Ach’s!” The girl never made a sound. Never. - But she too would sometimes raise her pale eyes to look at me in her - unseeing gentle way. Her glance was by no means stupid; it beamed out soft - and diffuse as the moon beams upon a landscape—quite differently - from the scrutinising inspection of the stars. You were drowned in it, and - imagined yourself to appear blurred. And yet this same glance when turned - upon Christian Falk must have been as efficient as the searchlight of a - battle-ship. - </p> - <p> - Falk was the other assiduous visitor on board, but from his behaviour he - might have been coming to see the quarter-deck capstan. He certainly used - to stare at it a good deal when keeping us company outside the cabin door, - with one muscular arm thrown over the back of the chair, and his big - shapely legs, in very tight white trousers, extended far out and ending in - a pair of black shoes as roomy as punts. On arrival he would shake - Hermann’s hand with a mutter, bow to the women, and take up his careless - and misanthropic attitude by our side. He departed abruptly, with a jump, - going through the performance of grunts, handshakes, bow, as if in a - panic. Sometimes, with a sort of discreet and convulsive effort, he - approached the women and exchanged a few low words with them, half a dozen - at most. On these occasions Hermann’s usual stare became positively glassy - and Mrs. Hermann’s kind countenance would colour up. The girl herself - never turned a hair. - </p> - <p> - Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I can’t tell now. At all events he - was a Scandinavian of some sort, and a bloated monopolist to boot. It is - possible he was unacquainted with the word, but he had a clear perception - of the thing itself. His tariff of charges for towing ships in and out was - the most brutally inconsiderate document of the sort I had ever seen. He - was the commander and owner of the only tug-boat on the river, a very trim - white craft of 150 tons or more, as elegantly neat as a yacht, with a - round wheel-house rising like a glazed turret high above her sharp bows, - and with one slender varnished pole mast forward. I daresay there are yet - a few shipmasters afloat who remember Falk and his tug very well. He - extracted his pound and a half of flesh from each of us merchant-skippers - with an inflexible sort of indifference which made him detested and even - feared. Schomberg used to remark: “I won’t talk about the fellow. I don’t - think he has six drinks from year’s end to year’s end in my place. But my - advice is, gentlemen, don’t you have anything to do with him, if you can - help it.” - </p> - <p> - This advice, apart from unavoidable business relations, was easy to follow - because Falk intruded upon no one. It seems absurd to compare a tugboat - skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me somehow of an engraving in a - little book I had as a boy, which represented centaurs at a stream, and - there was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow and arrows in - hand, with regular severe features and an immense curled wavy beard, - flowing down his breast. Falk’s face reminded me of that centaur. Besides, - he was a composite creature. Not a man-horse, it is true, but a man-boat. - He lived on board his tug, which was always dashing up and down the river - from early morn till dewy eve. - </p> - <p> - In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick out far away down the - reach his beard borne high up on the white structure, foaming up stream to - anchor for the night. There was the white-clad man’s body, and the rich - brown patch of the hair, and nothing below the waist but the ‘thwart-ship - white lines of the bridge-screens, that lead the eye to the sharp white - lines of the bows cleaving the muddy water of the river. - </p> - <p> - Separated from his boat to me at least he seemed incomplete. The tug - herself without his head and torso on the bridge looked mutilated as it - were. But he left her very seldom. All the time I remained in harbour I - saw him only twice on shore. On the first occasion it was at my - charterers, where he came in misanthropically to get paid for towing out a - French barque the day before. The second time I could hardly believe my - eyes, for I beheld him reclining under his beard in a cane-bottomed chair - in the billiard-room of Schomberg’s hotel. - </p> - <p> - It was very funny to see Schomberg ignoring him pointedly. The - artificiality of it contrasted strongly with Falk’s natural unconcern. The - big Alsatian talked loudly with his other customers, going from one little - table to the other, and passing Falk’s place of repose with his eyes fixed - straight ahead. Falk sat there with an untouched glass at his elbow. He - must have known by sight and name every white man in the room, but he - never addressed a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence by a drop - of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawling there in the chair, he would, - now and again, draw the palms of both his hands down his face, giving at - the same time a slight, almost imperceptible, shudder. - </p> - <p> - It was a habit he had, and of course I was perfectly familiar with it, - since you could not remain an hour in his company without being made to - wonder at such a movement breaking some long period of stillness. It was a - passionate and inexplicable gesture. He used to make it at all sorts of - times; as likely as not after he had been listening to little Lena’s - chatter about the suffering doll, for instance. The Hermann children - always besieged him about his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he - shrank from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a great affection - for the whole family. For Hermann himself especially. He sought his - company. In this case, for instance, he must have been waiting for him, - because as soon as he appeared Falk rose hastily, and they went out - together. Then Schomberg expounded in my hearing to three or four people - his theory that Falk was after Captain Hermann’s niece, and asserted - confidently that nothing would come of it. It was the same last year when - Captain Hermann was loading here, he said. - </p> - <p> - Naturally, I did not believe Schomberg, but I own that for a time I - observed closely what went on. All I discovered was some impatience on - Hermann’s part. At the sight of Falk, stepping over the gangway, the - excellent man would begin to mumble and chew between his teeth something - that sounded like German swear-words. However, as I’ve said, I’m not - familiar with the language, and Hermann’s soft, round-eyed countenance - remained unchanged. Staring stolidly ahead he greeted him with, “Wie - gehts,” or in English, “How are you?” with a throaty enunciation. The girl - would look up for an instant and move her lips slightly: Mrs. Hermann let - her hands rest on her lap to talk volubly to him for a minute or so in her - pleasant voice before she went on with her sewing again. Falk would throw - himself into a chair, stretch his big legs, as like as not draw his hands - down his face passionately. As to myself, he was not pointedly - impertinent: it was rather as though he could not be bothered with such - trifles as my existence; and the truth is that being a monopolist he was - under no necessity to be amiable. He was sure to get his own extortionate - terms out of me for towage whether he frowned or smiled. As a matter of - fact, he did neither: but before many days elapsed he managed to astonish - me not a little and to set Schomberg’s tongue clacking more than ever. - </p> - <p> - It came about in this way. There was a shallow bar at the mouth of the - river which ought to have been kept down, but the authorities of the State - were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist Pagoda just then, and - I suppose had no money to spare for dredging operations. I don’t know how - it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sandbank was a great - nuisance to the shipping. One of its consequences was that vessels of a - certain draught of water, like Hermann’s or mine, could not complete their - loading in the river. After taking in as much as possible of their cargo, - they had to go outside to fill up. The whole procedure was an unmitigated - bore. When you thought you had as much on board as your ship could carry - safely over the bar, you went and gave notice to your agents. They, in - their turn, notified Falk that so-and-so was ready to go out. Then Falk - (ostensibly when it fitted in with his other work, but, if the truth were - known, simply when his arbitrary spirit moved him), after ascertaining - carefully in the office that there was enough money to meet his bill, - would come along unsympathetically, glaring at you with his yellow eyes - from the bridge, and would drag you out dishevelled as to rigging, - lumbered as to the decks, with unfeeling haste, as if to execution. And he - would force you too to take the end of his own wire hawser, for the use of - which there was of course an extra charge. To your shouted remonstrances - against that extortion this towering trunk with one hand on the - engine-room telegraph only shook its bearded head above the splash, the - racket, and the clouds of smoke in which the tug, backing and filling in - the smother of churning paddle-wheels behaved like a ferocious and - impatient creature. He had her manned by the cheekiest gang of lascars I - ever did see, whom he allowed to bawl at you insolently, and, once fast, - he plucked you out of your berth as if he did not care what he smashed. - Eighteen miles down the river you had to go behind him, and then three - more along the coast to where a group of uninhabited rocky islets enclosed - a sheltered anchorage. There you would have to lie at single anchor with - your naked spars showing to seaward over these barren fragments of land - scattered upon a very intensely blue sea. There was nothing to look at - besides but a bare coast, the muddy edge of the brown plain with the - sinuosities of the river you had left, traced in dull green, and the Great - Pagoda uprising lonely and massive with shining curves and pinnacles like - the gorgeous and stony efflorescence of tropical rocks. You had nothing to - do but to wait fretfully for the balance of your cargo, which was sent out - of the river with the greatest irregularity. And it was open to you to - console yourself with the thought that, after all, this stage of bother - meant that your departure from these shores was indeed approaching at - last. - </p> - <p> - We both had to go through that stage, Hermann and I, and there was a sort - of tacit emulation between the ships as to which should be ready first. We - kept on neck and neck almost to the finish, when I won the race by going - personally to give notice in the forenoon; whereas Hermann, who was very - slow in making up his mind to go ashore, did not get to the agents’ office - till late in the day. They told him there that my ship was first on turn - for next morning, and I believe he told them he was in no hurry. It suited - him better to go the day after. - </p> - <p> - That evening, on board the Diana, he sat with his plump knees well apart, - staring and puffing at the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. Presently he - spoke with some impatience to his niece about putting the children to bed. - Mrs. Hermann, who was talking to Falk, stopped short and looked at her - husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and drove the children - before her into the cabin. In a little while Mrs. Hermann had to leave us - to quell what, from the sounds inside, must have been a dangerous mutiny. - At this Hermann grumbled to himself. For half an hour longer Falk left - alone with us fidgeted on his chair, sighed lightly, then at last, after - drawing his hands down his face, got up, and as if renouncing the hope of - making himself understood (he hadn’t opened his mouth once) he said in - English: “Well.... Good night, Captain Hermann.” He stopped for a moment - before my chair and looked down fixedly; I may even say he glared: and he - went so far as to make a deep noise in his throat. There was in all this - something so marked that for the first time in our limited intercourse of - nods and grunts he excited in me something like interest. But next moment - he disappointed me—for he strode away hastily without a nod even. - </p> - <p> - His manner was usually odd it is true, and I certainly did not pay much - attention to it; but that sort of obscure intention, which seemed to lurk - in his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had never before come - so near the surface. He had distinctly aroused my expectations. I would - have been unable to say what it was I expected, but at all events I did - not expect the absurd developments he sprung upon me no later than the - break of the very next day. - </p> - <p> - I remember only that there was, on that evening, enough point in his - behaviour to make me, after he had fled, wonder audibly what he might - mean. To this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and settling himself - viciously away from me in his chair, said: “That fellow don’t know himself - what he means.” - </p> - <p> - There might have been some insight in such a remark. I said nothing, and, - still averted, he added: “When I was here last year he was just the same.” - An eruption of tobacco smoke enveloped his head as if his temper had - exploded like gunpowder. - </p> - <p> - I had half a mind to ask him point blank whether he, at least, didn’t know - why Falk, a notoriously unsociable man, had taken to visiting his ship - with such assiduity. After all, I reflected suddenly, it was a most - remarkable thing. I wonder now what Hermann would have said. As it turned - out he didn’t let me ask. Forgetting all about Falk apparently, he started - a monologue on his plans for the future: the selling of the ship, the - going home; and falling into a reflective and calculating mood he mumbled - between regular jets of smoke about the expense. The necessity of - disbursing passage money for all his tribe seemed to disturb him in a - manner that was the more striking because otherwise he gave no signs of a - miserly disposition. And yet he fussed over the prospect of that voyage - home in a mail boat like a sedentary grocer who has made up his mind to - see the world. He was racially thrifty I suppose, and for him there must - have been a great novelty in finding himself obliged to pay for travelling—for - sea travelling which was the normal state of life for the family—from - the very cradle for most of them. I could see he grudged prospectively - every single shilling which must be spent so absurdly. It was rather - funny. He would become doleful over it, and then again, with a fretful - sigh, he would suppose there was nothing for it now but to take three - second-class tickets—and there were the four children to pay for - besides. A lot of money that to spend at once. A big lot of money. - </p> - <p> - I sat with him listening (not for the first time) to these - heart-searchings till I grew thoroughly sleepy, and then I left him and - turned in on board my ship. At daylight I was awakened by a yelping of - shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion in the water, and the - short, bullying blasts of a steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come for - me. - </p> - <p> - I began to dress. It was remarkable that the answering noise on board my - ship together with the patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But I - heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to express surprise and - annoyance. Then the voice of my mate reached me howling expostulations to - somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, apparently indignant; a - chorus of something that sounded like abuse replied. Now and then the - steam-whistle screeched. - </p> - <p> - Altogether that unnecessary uproar was distracting, but down there in my - cabin I took it calmly. In another moment, I thought, I should be going - down that wretched river, and in another week at the most I should be - totally quit of the odious place and all the odious people in it. - </p> - <p> - Greatly cheered by the idea, I seized the hair-brushes and looking at - myself in the glass began to use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the noise - outside, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown open)—I - heard a deep calm voice, not on board my ship, however, hailing resolutely - in English, but with a strong foreign twang, “Go ahead!” - </p> - <p> - There may be tides in the affairs of men which taken at the flood... and - so on. Personally I am still on the look out for that important turn. I - am, however, afraid that most of us are fated to flounder for ever in the - dead water of a pool whose shores are arid indeed. But I know that there - are often in men’s affairs unexpectedly—even irrationally—illuminating - moments when an otherwise insignificant sound, perhaps only some perfectly - commonplace gesture, suffices to reveal to us all the unreason, all the - fatuous unreason, of our complacency. “Go ahead” are not particularly - striking words even when pronounced with a foreign accent; yet they - petrified me in the very act of smiling at myself in the glass. And then, - refusing to believe my ears, but already boiling with indignation, I ran - out of the cabin and up on deck. - </p> - <p> - It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I had no eyes for anything - but the Diana. It was she, then, was being taken away. She was already out - of her berth and shooting athwart the river. “The way this loonatic - plucked that ship out is a caution,” said the awed voice of my mate close - to my ear. “Hey! Hallo! Falk! Hermann! What’s this infernal trick?” I - yelled in a fury. - </p> - <p> - Nobody heard me. Falk certainly could not hear me. His tug was turning at - full speed away under the other bank. The wire hawser between her and the - Diana, stretched as taut as a harp-string, vibrated alarmingly. - </p> - <p> - The high black craft careened over to the awful strain. A loud crack came - out of her, followed by the tearing and splintering of wood. “There!” said - the awed voice in my ear. “He’s carried away their towing chock.” And - then, with enthusiasm, “Oh! Look! Look! sir, Look! at them Dutchmen - skipping out of the way on the forecastle. I hope to goodness he’ll break - a few of their shins before he’s done with ‘em.” - </p> - <p> - I yelled my vain protests. The rays of the rising sun coursing level along - the plain warmed my back, but I was hot enough with rage. I could not have - believed that a simple towing operation could suggest so plainly the idea - of abduction, of rape. Falk was simply running off with the Diana. - </p> - <p> - The white tug careered out into the middle of the river. The red floats of - her paddle-wheels revolving with mad rapidity tore up the whole reach into - foam. The Diana in mid-stream waltzed round with as much grace as an old - barn, and flew after her ravisher. Through the ragged fog of smoke driving - headlong upon the water I had a glimpse of Falk’s square motionless - shoulders under a white hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his red face, his - yellow staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keeping a lookout ahead, - he was deliberately turning his back on the river to glare at his tow. The - tall heavy craft, never so used before in her life, seemed to have lost - her senses; she took a wild sheer against her helm, and for a moment came - straight at us, menacing and clumsy, like a runaway mountain. She piled up - a streaming, hissing, boiling wave half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let - out one great howl,—and then we held our breaths. It was a near - thing. But Falk had her! He had her in his clutch. I fancied I could hear - the steel hawser ping as it surged across the Diana’s forecastle, with the - hands on board of her bolting away from it in all directions. It was a - near thing. Hermann, with his hair rumpled, in a snuffy flannel shirt and - a pair of mustard-coloured trousers, had rushed to help with the wheel. I - saw his terrified round face; I saw his very teeth uncovered by a sort of - ghastly fixed grin; and in a great leaping tumult of water between the two - ships the Diana whisked past so close that I could have flung a hair-brush - at his head, for, it seems, I had kept them in my hands all the time. - Meanwhile Mrs. Hermann sat placidly on the skylight, with a woollen shawl - on her shoulders. The excellent woman in response to my indignant - gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief, nodding and smiling in the - kindest way imaginable. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping about - the poop in great glee, displaying their gaudy braces; and Lena in a short - scarlet petticoat, with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed the - rag-doll with devotion. The whole family passed before my sight as if - dragged across a scene of unparalleled violence. The last I saw was - Hermann’s niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing apart from the - others. Magnificent in her close-fitting print frock she displayed - something so commanding in the manifest perfection of her figure that the - sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The flood of light brought out the - opulence of her form and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying way. She - went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only the hem of - her skirt stirred in the draught; the sun rays broke on her sleek tawny - hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whacking her on the - shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike manner. - And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view retreating - swiftly down the river. The sashes were up, and one of the white calico - curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above the agitated - water of the wake. - </p> - <p> - To be thus tricked out of one’s turn was an unheard of occurrence. In my - agent’s office, where I went to complain at once, they protested with - apologies they couldn’t understand how the mistake arose: but Schomberg - when I dropped in later to get some tiffin, though surprised to see me, - was perfectly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at the end of - a long narrow table, facing his wife—a scraggy little woman, with - long ringlets and a blue tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked - frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a waggling punkah fanned - twenty cane-bottomed chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three Chinamen - in white jackets loafed with napkins in their hands around that - desolation. Schomberg’s pet table d’hote was not much of a success that - day. He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to overflow with - bitterness. - </p> - <p> - He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops to be brought back for - me, and turning in his chair: “Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it! - Don’t you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn’t a man to make - mistakes unless on purpose.” His firm conviction was that Falk had been - trying all along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann. “On the cheap—mind - you! It doesn’t cost him a cent to put that insult upon you, and Captain - Hermann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time’s money! Eh? You are very - friendly with Captain Hermann I believe, but a man is bound to be pleased - at any little advantage he may get. Captain Hermann is a good business - man, and there’s no such thing as a friend in business. Is there?” He - leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances as usual. “But Falk is, - and always was, a miserable fellow. I would despise him.” - </p> - <p> - I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular respect for Falk. - </p> - <p> - “I would despise him,” he insisted, with an appearance of anxiety which - would have amused me if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent. To a - young man fairly conscientious and as well-meaning as only the young man - can be, the current ill-usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty. Youth - that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, and in itself, - will always doubt whether it have not perchance deserved its fate. Sombre - of mind and without appetite, I struggled with the chop while Mrs. - Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid grin and Schomberg’s talk - gathered way like a slide of rubbish. - </p> - <p> - “Let me tell you. It’s all about that girl. I don’t know what Captain - Hermann expects, but if he asked me I could tell him something about Falk. - He’s a miserable fellow. That man is a perfect slave. That’s what I call - him. A slave. Last year I started this table d’hote, and sent cards out—you - know. You think he had one meal in the house? Give the thing a trial? Not - once. He has got hold now of a Madras cook—a blamed fraud that I - hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan. He was not fit to cook for white - men. No, not for the white men’s dogs either; but, see, any damned native - that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for Mr. Falk. Rice and a little - fish he buys for a few cents from the fishing boats outside is what he - lives on. You would hardly credit it—eh? A white man, too....” - </p> - <p> - He wiped his lips, using the napkin with indignation, and looking at me. - It flashed through my mind in the midst of my depression that if all the - meat in the town was like these table d’hote chops, Falk wasn’t so far - wrong. I was on the point of saying this, but Schomberg’s stare was - intimidating. “He’s a vegetarian, perhaps,” I murmured instead. - </p> - <p> - “He’s a miser. A miserable miser,” affirmed the hotel-keeper with great - force. “The meat here is not so good as at home—of course. And dear - too. But look at me. I only charge a dollar for the tiffin, and one dollar - and fifty cents for the dinner. Show me anything cheaper. Why am I doing - it? There’s little profit in this game. Falk wouldn’t look at it. I do it - for the sake of a lot of young white fellows here that hadn’t a place - where they could get a decent meal and eat it decently in good company. - There’s first-rate company always at my table.” - </p> - <p> - The convinced way he surveyed the empty chairs made me feel as if I had - intruded upon a tiffin of ghostly Presences. - </p> - <p> - “A white man should eat like a white man, dash it all,” he burst out - impetuously. “Ought to eat meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for - my patrons all the year round. Don’t I? I am not catering for a dam’ lot - of coolies: Have another chop captain.... No? You, boy—take away!” - </p> - <p> - He threw himself back and waited grimly for the curry. The half-closed - jalousies darkened the room pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: a - swarm of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs. Schomberg’s - smile seemed to express the quintessence of all the imbecility that had - ever spoken, had ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo meat - within these bare walls. Schomberg did not open his lips till he was ready - to thrust therein a spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his eyes - ridiculously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only then broke out - afresh. - </p> - <p> - “It is the most degrading thing. They take the dish up to the wheelhouse - for him with a cover on it, and he shuts both the doors before he begins - to eat. Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engineer. He can’t do - without an engineer—don’t you see—and as no respectable man - can be expected to put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen - dollars a month extra mess money. I assure you it is so! You just ask Mr. - Ferdinand da Costa. That’s the engineer he has now. You may have seen him - about my place, a delicate dark young man, with very fine eyes and a - little moustache. He arrived here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you - and me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been after him. He - rushes here for a meal every chance he can get, for just please tell me - what satisfaction is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all - alone in his cabin—like a wild beast? That’s what Falk expects his - engineers to put up with for fifteen dollars extra. And the rows on board - every time a little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You wouldn’t - believe! The other day da Costa got the cook to fry a steak for him—a - turtle steak it was too, not beef at all—and the fat caught or - something. Young da Costa himself was telling me of it here in this room. - ‘Mr. Schomberg’—says he-’if I had let a cylinder cover blow off - through the skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn’t have been more - savage. He frightened the cook so that he won’t put anything on the fire - for me now.’ Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to put yourself - in his place, captain: a sensitive, gentlemanly young fellow. Is he - expected to eat his food raw? But that’s your Falk all over. Ask any one - you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he has to give keep on - rankling—in there.” - </p> - <p> - And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat half stunned by his - irrelevant babble. Suddenly he gripped my forearm in an impressive and - cautious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of confidence. - </p> - <p> - “It’s nothing but enviousness,” he said in a lowered tone, which had a - stimulating effect upon my wearied hearing. “I don’t suppose there is one - person in this town that he isn’t envious of. I tell you he’s dangerous. - Even I myself am not safe from him. I know for certain he tried to - poison....” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come now,” I cried, revolted. - </p> - <p> - “But I know for certain. The people themselves came and told me of it. He - went about saying everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the - cholera. He had been talking against me ever since I opened this hotel. - And he poisoned Captain Hermann’s mind too. Last time the Diana was - loading here Captain Hermann used to come in every day for a drink or a - cigar. This time he hasn’t been here twice in a week. How do you account - for that?” - </p> - <p> - He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me some sort of mumble. - </p> - <p> - “He makes ten times the money I do. I’ve another hotel to fight against, - and there is no other tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He - wouldn’t be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that’s just his nature. - He can’t bear to think I am making a living. I only hope it makes him - properly wretched. He’s like that in everything. He would like to keep a - decent table well enough. But no—for the sake of a few cents. Can’t - do it. It’s too much for him. That’s what I call being a slave to it. But - he’s mean enough to kick up a row when his nose gets tickled a bit. See - that? That just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can’t account for it - any other way. Can you? I have been studying him these three years.” - </p> - <p> - He was anxious I should assent to his theory. And indeed on thinking it - over it would have been plausible enough if there hadn’t been always the - essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schomberg’s chatter. However, I - was not disposed to investigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged just - then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being too much - crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let along bothering my head about - Falk’s ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study no clue to his - conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me totally unrestrained by - morality or even by the commonest sort of decency. How insignificant and - contemptible I must appear, for the fellow to dare treat me like this—I - reflected suddenly, writhing in silent agony. And I consigned Falk and all - his peculiarities to the devil with so much mental fervour as to forget - Schomberg’s existence, till he grabbed my arm urgently. “Well, you may - think and think till every hair of your head falls off, captain; but you - can’t explain it in any other way.” - </p> - <p> - For the sake of peace and quietness I admitted hurriedly that I couldn’t: - persuaded that now he would leave off. But the only result was to make his - moist face shine with the pride of cunning. He removed his hand for a - moment to scare a black mass of flies off the sugar-basin and caught hold - of my arm again. - </p> - <p> - “To be sure. And in the same way everybody is aware he would like to get - married. Only he can’t. Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years ago - a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home to keep house for her - brother, Fred, who had an engineering shop for small repairs by the water - side. Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bungalow after dinner, and - sitting for hours in the verandah saying nothing. The poor girl couldn’t - tell for the life of her what to do with such a man, so she would keep on - playing the piano and singing to him evening after evening till she was - ready to drop. And it wasn’t as if she had been a strong young woman - either. She was thirty, and the climate had been playing the deuce with - her. Then—don’t you know—Fred had to sit up with them for - propriety, and during whole weeks on end never got a single chance to get - to bed before midnight. That was not pleasant for a tired man—was - it? And besides Fred had worries then because his shop didn’t pay and he - was dropping money fast. He just longed to get away from here and try his - luck somewhere else, but for the sake of his sister he hung on and on till - he ran himself into debt over his ears—I can tell you. I, myself, - could show a handful of his chits for meals and drinks in my drawer. I - could never find out tho’ where he found all the money at last. Can’t be - but he must have got something out of that brother of his, a coal merchant - in Port Said. Anyhow he paid everybody before he left, but the girl nearly - broke her heart. Disappointment, of course, and at her age, don’t you - know.... Mrs. Schomberg here was very friendly with her, and she could - tell you. Awful despair. Fainting fits. It was a scandal. A notorious - scandal. To that extent that old Mr. Siegers—not your present - charterer, but Mr. Siegers the father, the old gentleman who retired from - business on a fortune and got buried at sea going home, <i>he</i> had to - interview Falk in his private office. He was a man who could speak like a - Dutch Uncle, and, besides, Messrs. Siegers had been helping Falk with a - good bit of money from the start. In fact you may say they made him as far - as that goes. It so happened that just at the time he turned up here, - their firm was chartering a lot of sailing ships every year, and it suited - their business that there should be good towing facilities on the river. - See?... Well—there’s always an ear at the keyhole—isn’t there? - In fact,” he lowered his tone confidentially, “in this case a good friend - of mine; a man you can see here any evening; only they conversed rather - low. Anyhow my friend’s certain that Falk was trying to make all sorts of - excuses, and old Mr. Siegers was coughing a lot. And yet Falk wanted all - the time to be married too. Why! It’s notorious the man has been longing - for years to make a home for himself. Only he can’t face the expense. When - it comes to putting his hand in his pocket—it chokes him off. That’s - the truth and no other. I’ve always said so, and everybody agrees with me - by this time. What do you think of that—eh?” - </p> - <p> - He appealed confidently to my indignation, but having a mind to annoy him - I remarked, “that it seemed to me very pitiful—if true.” - </p> - <p> - He bounced in his chair as if I had run a pin into him. I don’t know what - he might have said, only at that moment we heard through the half open - door of the billiard-room the footsteps of two men entering from the - verandah, a murmur of two voices; at the sharp tapping of a coin on a - table Mrs. Schomberg half rose irresolutely. “Sit still,” he hissed at - her, and then, in an hospitable, jovial tone, contrasting amazingly with - the angry glance that had made his wife sink in her chair, he cried very - loud: “Tiffin still going on in here, gentlemen.” - </p> - <p> - There was no answer, but the voices dropped suddenly. The head Chinaman - went out. We heard the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the - shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs. Schomberg, after wondering in a - low mutter who the devil could be there at this time of the day, got up - napkin in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously. He retreated - rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering behind his hand informed me that it was - Falk, Falk himself who was in there, and, what’s more, he had Captain - Hermann with him. - </p> - <p> - The return of the tug from the outer Roads was unexpected but possible, - for Falk had taken away the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two - o’clock. Schomberg wished me to observe that neither of these men would - spend a dollar on a tiffin, which they must have wanted. But by the time I - was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone. I heard the last of his - big boots on the planks of the verandah. Hermann was sitting quite alone - in the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard tables shrouded - in striped covers, mopping his face diligently. He wore his best go-ashore - clothes, a stiff collar, black coat, large white waistcoat, grey trousers. - A white cotton sunshade with a cane handle reposed between his legs, his - side whiskers were neatly brushed, his chin had been freshly shaved; and - he only distantly resembled the dishevelled and terrified man in a snuffy - night shirt and ignoble old trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on - to the wheel of the Diana. - </p> - <p> - He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed me at once in some - confusion, but with genuine eagerness. He was anxious to make it clear he - had nothing to do with what he called the “tam pizness” of the morning. It - was most inconvenient. He had reckoned upon another day up in town to - settle his bills and sign certain papers. There were also some few stores - to come, and sundry pieces of “my ironwork,” as he called it quaintly, - landed for repairs, had been left behind. Now he would have to hire a - native boat to take all this out to the ship. It would cost five or six - dollars perhaps. He had had no warning from Falk. Nothing.... He hit the - table with his dumpy fist.... Der verfluchte Kerl came in the morning like - a “tam’ ropper,” making a great noise, and took him away. His mate was not - prepared, his ship was moored fast—he protested it was shameful to - come upon a man in that way. Shameful! Yet such was the power Falk had on - the river that when I suggested in a chilling tone that he might have - simply refused to have his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled at the - idea. I never realised so well before that this is an age of steam. The - exclusive possession of a marine boiler had given Falk the whip-hand of us - all. Hermann, recovering, put it to me appealingly that I knew very well - how unsafe it was to contradict that fellow. At this I only smiled - distantly. - </p> - <p> - “Der Kerl!” he cried. He was sorry he had not refused. He was indeed. The - damage! The damage! What for all that damage! There was no occasion for - damage. Did I know how much damage he had done? It gave me a certain - satisfaction to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a ship crack - fore and aft as she went by. “You passed close enough to me,” I added - significantly. - </p> - <p> - He threw both his hands up to heaven at the recollection. One of them - grasped by the middle the white parasol, and he resembled curiously a - caricature of a shop-keeping citizen in one of his own German comic - papers. “Ach! That was dangerous,” he cried. I was amused. But directly he - added with an appearance of simplicity, “The side of your iron ship would - have been crushed in like—like this matchbox.” - </p> - <p> - “Would it?” I growled, much less amused now; but by the time I had decided - that this remark was not meant for a dig at me he had worked himself into - a high state of resentfulness against Falk. The inconvenience, the damage, - the expense! Gottferdam! Devil take the fellow. Behind the bar Schomberg - with a cigar in his teeth, pretended to be writing with a pencil on a - large sheet of paper; and as Hermann’s excitement increased it made me - comfortingly aware of my own calmness and superiority. But it occurred to - me while I listened to his revilings, that after all the good man had come - up in the tug. There perhaps—since he must come to town—he had - no option. But evidently he had had a drink with Falk, either accepted or - offered. How was that? So I checked him by saying loftily that I hoped he - would make Falk pay for every penny of the damage. - </p> - <p> - “That’s it! That’s it! Go for him,” called out Schomberg from the bar, - flinging his pencil down and rubbing his hands. - </p> - <p> - We ignored his noise. But Hermann’s excitement suddenly went off the boil - as when you remove a saucepan from the fire. I urged on his consideration - that he had done now with Falk and Falk’s confounded tug. He, Hermann, - would not, perhaps, turn up again in this part of the world for years to - come, since he was going to sell the Diana at the end of this very trip - (“Go home passenger in a mail boat,” he murmured mechanically). He was - therefore safe from Falk’s malice. All he had to do was to race off to his - consignees and stop payment of the towage bill before Falk had the time to - get in and lift the money. - </p> - <p> - Nothing could have been less in the spirit of my advice than the - thoughtful way in which he set about to make his parasol stay propped - against the edge of the table. - </p> - <p> - While I watched his concentrated efforts with astonishment he threw at me - one or two perplexed, half-shy glances. Then he sat down. “That’s all very - well,” he said reflectively. - </p> - <p> - It cannot be doubted that the man had been thrown off his balance by being - hauled out of the harbour against his wish. His stolidity had been - profoundly stirred, else he would never have made up his mind to ask me - unexpectedly whether I had not remarked that Falk had been casting eyes - upon his niece. “No more than myself,” I answered with literal truth. The - girl was of the sort one necessarily casts eyes at in a sense. She made no - noise, but she filled most satisfactorily a good bit of space. - </p> - <p> - “But you, captain, are not the same kind of man,” observed Hermann. - </p> - <p> - I was not, I am happy to say, in a position to deny this. “What about the - lady?” I could not help asking. At this he gazed for a time into my face, - earnestly, and made as if to change the subject. I heard him beginning to - mutter something unexpected, about his children growing old enough to - require schooling. He would have to leave them ashore with their - grandmother when he took up that new command he expected to get in - Germany. - </p> - <p> - This constant harping on his domestic arrangements was funny. I suppose it - must have been like the prospect of a complete alteration in his life. An - epoch. He was going, too, to part with the Diana! He had served in her for - years. He had inherited her. From an uncle, if I remember rightly. And the - future loomed big before him, occupying his thought exclusively with all - its aspects as on the eve of a venturesome enterprise. He sat there - frowning and biting his lip, and suddenly he began to fume and fret. - </p> - <p> - I discovered to my momentary amusement that he seemed to imagine I could, - should or ought, have caused Falk in some way to pronounce himself. Such a - hope was incomprehensible, but funny. Then the contact with all this - foolishness irritated me. I said crossly that I had seen no symptoms, but - if there were any—since he, Hermann, was so sure—then it was - still worse. What pleasure Falk found in humbugging people in just that - way I couldn’t say. It was, however, my solemn duty to warn him. It had - lately, I said, come to my knowledge that there was a man (not a very long - time ago either) who had been taken in just like this. - </p> - <p> - All this passed in undertones, and at this point Schomberg, exasperated at - our secrecy, went out of the room slamming the door with a crash that - positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what I had said, huffed - my Hermann, He supposed, with a contemptuous toss of his head towards the - door which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of that man’s silly - tales. It looked, indeed, as though his mind had been thoroughly poisoned - against Schomberg. “His tales were—they were,” he repeated, seeking - for the word—“trash.” They were trash, he reiterated, and moreover I - was young yet... - </p> - <p> - This horrid aspersion (I regret I am no longer exposed to that sort of - insult) made me huffy too. I felt ready in my own mind to back up every - assertion of Schomberg’s and on any subject. In a moment, devil only knows - why, Hermann and I were looking at each other most inimically. He caught - up his hat without more ado and I gave myself the pleasure of calling - after him: - </p> - <p> - “Take my advice and make Falk pay for breaking up your ship. You aren’t - likely to get anything else out of him.” - </p> - <p> - When I got on board my ship later on, the old mate, who was very full of - the events of the morning, remarked: - </p> - <p> - “I saw the tug coming back from the outer Roads just before two P.M.” (He - never by any chance used the words morning or afternoon. Always P.M. or - A.M., log-book style.) “Smart work that. Man’s always in a state of hurry. - He’s a regular chucker-out, ain’t he, sir? There’s a few pubs I know of in - the East-end of London that would be all the better for one of his sort - around the bar.” He chuckled at his joke. “A regular chucker-out. Now he - has fired out that Dutchman head over heels, I suppose our turn’s coming - to-morrow morning.” - </p> - <p> - We were all on deck at break of day (even the sick—poor devils—had - crawled out) ready to cast off in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing came. - Falk did not come. At last, when I began to think that probably something - had gone wrong in his engine-room, we perceived the tug going by, full - pelt, down the river, as if we hadn’t existed. For a moment I entertained - the wild notion that he was going to turn round in the next reach. - Afterwards I watched his smoke appear above the plain, now here, now - there, according to the windings of the river. It disappeared. Then - without a word I went down to breakfast. I just simply went down to - breakfast. - </p> - <p> - Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after imbibing—by means - of suction out of a saucer—his second cup of tea, exclaimed: “Where - the devil is the man gone to?” - </p> - <p> - “Courting!” I shouted, with such a fiendish laugh that the old chap didn’t - venture to open his lips any more. - </p> - <p> - I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with excessive rage. - Evidently they knew all about it already, and they treated me to a show of - consternation. The manager, a soft-footed, immensely obese man, breathing - short, got up to meet me, while all round the room the young clerks, - bending over the papers on their desks, cast upward glances in my - direction. The fat man, without waiting for my complaint, wheezing heavily - and in a tone as if he himself were incredulous, conveyed to me the news - that Falk—Captain Falk—had declined—had absolutely - declined—to tow my ship—to have anything to do with my ship—this - day or any other day. Never! - </p> - <p> - I did my best to preserve a cool appearance, but, all the same, I must - have shown how much taken aback I was. We were talking in the middle of - the room. Suddenly behind my back some ass blew his nose with great force, - and at the same time another quill-driver jumped up and went out on the - landing hastily. It occurred to me I was cutting a foolish figure there. I - demanded angrily to see the principal in his private room. - </p> - <p> - The skin of Mr. Siegers’ head showed dead white between the iron grey - streaks of hair lying plastered cross-wise from ear to ear over the top of - his skull in the manner of a bandage. His narrow sunken face was of an - uniform and permanent terra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. He was - sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten. But from that - debile body there issued a bullying voice, tremendously loud, harsh and - resonant, as if produced by some powerful mechanical contrivance in the - nature of a fog-horn. I do not know what he did with it in the private - life of his home, but in the larger sphere of business it presented the - advantage of overcoming arguments without the slightest mental effort, by - the mere volume of sound. We had had several passages of arms. It took me - all I knew to guard the interests of my owners—whom, nota bene, I - had never seen—while Siegers (who had made their acquaintance some - years before, during a business tour in Australia) pretended to the - knowledge of their innermost minds, and, in the character of “our very - good friends,” threw them perpetually at my head. - </p> - <p> - He looked at me with a jaundiced eye (there was no love lost between us), - and declared at once that it was strange, very strange. His pronunciation - of English was so extravagant that I can’t even attempt to reproduce it. - For instance, he said “Fferie strantch.” Combined with the bellowing - intonation it made the language of one’s childhood sound weirdly - startling, and even if considered purely as a kind of unmeaning noise it - filled you with astonishment at first. “They had,” he continued, “been - acquainted with Captain Falk for very many years, and never had any - reason....” - </p> - <p> - “That’s why I come to you, of course,” I interrupted. “I’ve the right to - know the meaning of this infernal nonsense.” In the half light of the - room, which was greenish, because of the tree-tops screening the window, I - saw him writhe his meagre shoulders. It came into my head, as disconnected - ideas will come at all sorts of times into one’s head, that this, most - likely, was the very room where, if the tale were true, Falk had been - lectured by Mr. Siegers, the father. Mr. Siegers’ (the son’s) overwhelming - voice, in brassy blasts, as though he had been trying to articulate his - words through a trombone, was expressing his great regret at a conduct - characterised by a very marked want of discretion... As I lived I was - being lectured too! His deafening gibberish was difficult to follow, but - it was <i>my</i> conduct—mine!—that... Damn! I wasn’t going to - stand this. - </p> - <p> - “What on earth are you driving at?” I asked in a passion. I put my hat on - my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for the - moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and marched - out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of coming down - on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the other expenses - consequent upon the delays arising from my frivolity. - </p> - <p> - Once outside in the sunshine my head swam. It was no longer a question of - mere delay. I perceived myself involved in hopeless and humiliating - absurdities that were leading me to something very like a disaster. “Let - us be calm,” I muttered to myself, and ran into the shade of a leprous - wall. From that short side-street I could see the broad main thoroughfare - ruinous and gay, running away, away between stretches of decaying masonry, - bamboo fences, ranges of arcades of brick and plaster, hovels of lath and - mud, lofty temple gates of carved timber, huts of rotten mats—an - immensely wide thoroughfare, loosely packed as far as the eye could reach - with a barefooted and brown multitude paddling ankle deep in the dust. For - a moment I felt myself about to go out of my mind with worry and - desperation. - </p> - <p> - Some allowance must be made for the feelings of a young man new to - responsibility. I thought of my crew. Half of them were ill, and I really - began to think that some of them would end by dying on board if I couldn’t - get them out to sea soon. Obviously I should have to take my ship down the - river, either working under canvas or dredging with the anchor down; - operations which, in common with many modern sailors, I only knew - theoretically. And I almost shrank from undertaking them shorthanded and - without local knowledge of the river bed, which is so necessary for the - confident handling of the ship. There were no pilots, no beacons, no buoys - of any sort; but there was a very devil of a current for anybody to see, - no end of shoal places, and at least two obviously awkward turns of the - channel between me and the sea. But how dangerous these turns were I would - not tell. I didn’t even know what my ship was capable of! I had never - handled her in my life. A misunderstanding between a man and his ship in a - difficult river with no room to make it up, is bound to end in trouble for - the man. On the other hand, it must be owned I had not much reason to - count upon a general run of good luck. And suppose I had the misfortune to - pile her up high and dry on some beastly shoal? That would have been the - final undoing of that voyage. It was plain that if Falk refused to tow me - out he would also refuse to pull me off. This meant—what? A day lost - at the very best; but more likely a whole fortnight of frizzling on some - pestilential mud-flat, of desperate work, of discharging cargo; more than - likely it meant borrowing money at an exorbitant rate of interest—from - the Siegers’ gang too at that. They were a power in the port. And that - elderly seaman of mine, Gambril, had looked pretty ghastly when I went - forward to dose him with quinine that morning. <i>He</i> would certainly - die—not to speak of two or three others that seemed nearly as bad, - and of the rest of them just ready to catch any tropical disease going. - Horror, ruin and everlasting remorse. And no help. None. I had fallen - amongst a lot of unfriendly lunatics! - </p> - <p> - At any rate, if I must take my ship down myself it was my duty to procure - if possible some local knowledge. But that was not easy. The only person I - could think of for that service was a certain Johnson, formerly captain of - a country ship, but now spliced to a country wife and gone utterly to the - bad. I had only heard of him in the vaguest way, as living concealed in - the thick of two hundred thousand natives, and only emerging into the - light of day for the purpose of hunting up some brandy. I had a notion - that if I could lay my hands on him I would sober him on board my ship and - use him for a pilot. Better than nothing. Once a sailor always a sailor—and - he had known the river for years. But in our Consulate (where I arrived - dripping after a sharp walk) they could tell me nothing. The excellent - young men on the staff, though willing to help me, belonged to a sphere of - the white colony for which that sort of Johnson does not exist. Their - suggestion was that I should hunt the man up myself with the help of the - Consulate’s constable—an ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of Hussars. - </p> - <p> - This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted in sitting behind a little - table in an outer room of Consular offices, when ordered to assist me in - my search for Johnson displayed lots of energy and a marvellous amount of - local knowledge of a sort. But he did not conceal an immense and sceptical - contempt for the whole business. We explored together on that afternoon an - infinity of infamous grog shops, gambling dens, opium dens. We walked up - narrow lanes where our gharry—a tiny box of a thing on wheels, - attached to a jibbing Burmah pony—could by no means have passed. The - constable seemed to be on terms of scornful intimacy with Maltese, with - Eurasians, with Chinamen, with Klings, and with the sweepers attached to a - temple, with whom he talked at the gate. We interviewed also through a - grating in a mud wall closing a blind alley an immensely corpulent - Italian, who, the ex-sergeant-major remarked to me perfunctorily, had - “killed another man last year.” Thereupon he addressed him as “Antonio” - and “Old Buck,” though that bloated carcase, apparently more than half - filling the sort of cell wherein it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a - stye. Familiar and never unbending, the sergeant chucked—absolutely - chucked—under the chin a horribly wrinkled and shrivelled old hag - propped on a stick, who had volunteered some sort of information: and with - the same stolid face he kept up an animated conversation with the groups - of swathed brown women, who sat smoking cheroots on the door-steps of a - long range of clay hovels. We got out of the gharry and clambered into - dwellings airy like packing crates, or descended into places sinister like - cellars. We got in, we drove on, we got out again for the sole purpose, as - it seemed, of looking behind a heap of rubble. The sun declined; my - companion was curt and sardonic in his answers, but it appears we were - just missing Johnson all along. At last our conveyance stopped once more - with a jerk, and the driver jumping down opened the door. - </p> - <p> - A black mudhole blocked the lane. A mound of garbage crowned with the dead - body of a dog arrested us not. An empty Australian beef tin bounded - cheerily before the toe of my boot. Suddenly we clambered through a gap in - a prickly fence.... - </p> - <p> - It was a very clean native compound: and the big native woman, with bare - brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar - that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. “Your - man’s at home,” said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete and - marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson—at home—stood - with his back to a native house built on posts and with its walls made of - mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of the right he dealt another - dollar into space. The woman captured this one on the wing, and there and - then plumped down on the ground to look at us with greater comfort. - </p> - <p> - My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven, muddy on elbows and back; - where the seams of his serge coat yawned you could see his white - nakedness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his neck. He looked at - us with a grave, swaying surprise. “Where do you come from?” he asked. My - heart sank. How could I have been stupid enough to waste energy and time - for this? - </p> - <p> - But having already gone so far I approached a little nearer and declared - the purpose of my visit. He would have to come at once with me, sleep on - board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the ebb, he would give me - his assistance in getting my ship down to the sea, without steam. A - six-hundred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I proposed to give him - eighteen dollars for his local knowledge; and all the time I was speaking - he kept on considering attentively the various aspects of the banana, - holding first one side up to his eye, then the other. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve forgotten to apologise,” he said at last with extreme precision. - “Not being a gentleman yourself, you don’t know apparently when you - intrude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to understand that when I - am in funds I don’t work, and now...” - </p> - <p> - I would have pronounced him perfectly sober hadn’t he paused in great - concern to try and brush a hole off the knee of his trousers. - </p> - <p> - “I have money—and friends. Every gentleman has. Perhaps you would - like to know my friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow some money. Try - to remember. F-A-L-K, Falk.” Abruptly his tone changed. “A noble heart,” - he said muzzily. - </p> - <p> - “Has Falk been giving you some money?” I asked, appalled by the detailed - finish of the dark plot. - </p> - <p> - “Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent,” he corrected suavely. “Met me - taking the air last evening, and being as usual anxious to oblige—Hadn’t - you better go to the devil out of my compound?” - </p> - <p> - And upon this, without other warning, he let fly with the banana which - missed my head, and took the constable just under the left eye. He rushed - at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury. They fell.... But why - dwell on the wretchedness, the breathlessness, the degradation, the - senselessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation and—and—the - perspiration, of these moments? I dragged the ex-hussar off. He was like a - wild beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed at losing his free - afternoon on my account. The garden of his bungalow required his personal - attention, and at the slight blow of the banana the brute in him had - broken loose. We left Johnson on his back, still black in the face, but - beginning to kick feebly. Meantime, the big woman had remained sitting on - the ground, apparently paralysed with extreme terror. - </p> - <p> - For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling box, side by side, in - profound silence. The ex-sergeant was busy staunching the blood of a long - scratch on his cheek. “I hope you’re satisfied,” he said suddenly. “That’s - what comes of all that tomfool business. If you hadn’t quarrelled with - that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all this wouldn’t have - happened.” - </p> - <p> - “You heard <i>that</i> story?” I said. - </p> - <p> - “Of course I heard. And I shouldn’t wonder if the Consul-General himself - doesn’t come to hear of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with that - thing on my cheek—I want to know. Its <i>you</i> who ought to have - got this!” - </p> - <p> - After that, till the gharry stopped and he jumped out without - leave-taking, he swore to himself steadily, horribly; muttering great, - purposeful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can do is like the - prattle of a child. For my part I had just the strength to crawl into - Schomberg’s coffee-room, where I wrote at a little table a note to the - mate instructing him to get everything ready for dropping down the river - next day. I couldn’t face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of skipper - and no mistake—poor thing! What a horrid mess! I took my head - between my hands. At times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce me - to despair. What had I done? If I had done something to bring about the - situation I should at least have learned not to do it again. But I felt - guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was empty yet; only - Schomberg prowled round me goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed respectful - curiosity. No doubt he had set the story going himself; but he was a - good-hearted chap, and I am really persuaded he participated in all my - troubles. He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the heavy - match-stand, set a chair straight, pushed a spittoon slightly with his - foot—as you show small attentions to a friend under a great sorrow—sighed, - and at last, unable to hold his tongue: - </p> - <p> - “Well! I warned you, captain. That’s what comes of running your head - against Mr. Falk. Man’ll stick at nothing.” - </p> - <p> - I sat without stirring, and after surveying me with a sort of - commiseration in his eyes he burst out in a hoarse whisper: “But for a - fine lump of a girl, she’s a fine lump of a girl.” He made a loud smacking - noise with his thick lips. “The finest lump of a girl that I ever...” he - was going on with great unction, but for some reason or other broke off. I - fancied myself throwing something at his head. “I don’t blame you, - captain. Hang me if I do,” he said with a patronising air. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you,” I said resignedly. It was no use fighting against this false - fate. I don’t know even if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter - began. The conviction that it would end disastrously had been driven into - me by all the successive shocks my sense of security had received. I began - to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in themselves powerless. It - was as if Schomberg’s baseless gossip had the power to bring about the - thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk could put my ship ashore. - </p> - <p> - I have already explained how fatal this last would have been. For my - further action, my youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for the - health of my crew must be my excuse. The action itself, when it came, was - purely impulsive. It was set in movement quite undiplomatically and simply - by Falk’s appearance in the doorway. - </p> - <p> - The room was full by then and buzzing with voices. I had been looked at - with curiosity by every one, but how am I to describe the sensation - produced by the appearance of Falk himself blocking the doorway? The - tension of expectation could be measured by the profundity of the silence - that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls. As to Schomberg, he - looked extremely frightened; he hated mortally any sort of row (fracas he - called it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad for business, he affirmed; - but, in truth, this specimen of portly, middle-aged manhood was of a timid - disposition. I don’t know what, considering my presence in the place, they - all hoped would come of it. A sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may - have supposed Falk had come in only to annihilate me completely. As a - matter of fact, Falk had come in because Hermann had asked him to inquire - after the precious white cotton parasol which, in the worry and excitement - of the previous day, he had forgotten at the table where we had held our - little discussion. - </p> - <p> - It was this that gave me my opportunity. I don’t think I would have gone - to seek Falk out. No. I don’t think so. There are limits. But there was an - opportunity and I seized it—I have already tried to explain why. Now - I will merely state that, in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into the - sea air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skipper would be - justified in going to any length, short of absolute crime. He should put - his pride in his pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his innocence - as if it were a sin; he may take advantage of misconceptions, of desires - and of weaknesses; he ought to conceal his horror and other emotions, and, - if the fate of a human being, and that human being a magnificent young - girl, is strangely involved—why, he should contemplate that fate - (whatever it might seem to be) without turning a hair. And all these - things I have done; the explaining, the listening, the pretending—even - to the discretion—and nobody, not even Hermann’s niece, I believe, - need throw stones at me now. Schomberg at all events needn’t, since from - first to last, I am happy to say, there was not the slightest “fracas.” - </p> - <p> - Overcoming a nervous contraction of the windpipe, I had managed to exclaim - “Captain Falk!” His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but - afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He simply waited. Then, when I - had said, “I must have a talk with you,” and had pointed to a chair at my - table, he moved up to me, though he didn’t sit down. Schomberg, however, - with a long tumbler in his hand, was making towards us prudently, and I - discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk. He had for Schomberg a - repulsion resembling that sort of physical fear some people experience at - the sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so essentially and silently - concentrated upon himself (though he could talk well enough, as I was to - find out presently) the other’s irrepressible loquacity, embracing every - human being within range of the tongue, might have appeared unnatural, - disgusting, and monstrous. He suddenly gave signs of restiveness—positively - like a horse about to rear, and, muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, - “No. I can’t stand that fellow,” seemed ready to bolt. This weakness of - his gave me the advantage at the very start. “Verandah,” I suggested, as - if rendering him a service, and walked him out by the arm. We stumbled - over a few chairs; we had the feeling of open space before us, and felt - the fresh breath of the river—fresh, but tainted. The Chinese - theatres across the water made, in the sparsely twinkling masses of gloom - an Eastern town presents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a - distant and howling uproar. I felt him become suddenly tractable again - like an animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him - is removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there how tractable he was, - without my conviction of his inflexibility—tenacity, rather, perhaps—being - in the least weakened. His very arm abandoning itself to my grasp was as - hard as marble—like a limb of iron. But I heard a tumultuous - scuffling of boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside were - crowding to the windows, climbing over each other’s backs behind the - blinds, billiard cues and all. Somebody broke a window pane, and with the - sound of falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devastation, Schomberg - reeled out after us in a state of funk which had prevented his parting - with his brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an aspen leaf. The - piece of ice in the long tumbler he held in his hand tinkled with an - effect of chattering teeth. “I beg you, gentlemen,” he expostulated - thickly. “Come! Really, now, I must insist...” - </p> - <p> - How proud I am of my presence of mind! “Hallo,” I said instantly in a loud - and naive tone, “somebody’s breaking your windows, Schomberg. Would you - please tell one of your boys to bring out here a pack of cards and a - couple of lights? And two long drinks. Will you?” - </p> - <p> - To receive an order soothed him at once. It was business. “Certainly,” he - said in an immensely relieved tone. The night was rainy, with wandering - gusts of wind, and while we waited for the candles Falk said, as if to - justify his panic, “I don’t interfere in anybody’s business. I don’t give - any occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But this fellow is always - making out something wrong, and can never rest till he gets somebody to - believe him.” - </p> - <p> - This was the first of my knowledge of Falk. This desire of respectability, - of being like everybody else, was the only recognition he vouchsafed to - the organisation of mankind. For the rest he might have been the member of - a herd, not of a society. Self-preservation was his only concern. Not - selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Selfishness presupposes - consciousness, choice, the presence of other men; but his instinct acted - as though he were the last of mankind nursing that law like the only spark - of a sacred fire. I don’t mean to say that living naked in a cavern would - have satisfied him. Obviously he was the creature of the conditions to - which he was born. No doubt self-preservation meant also the preservation - of these conditions. But essentially it meant something much more simple, - natural, and powerful. How shall I express it? It meant the preservation - of the five senses of his body—let us say—taking it in its - narrowest as well as in its widest meaning. I think you will admit before - long the justice of this judgment. However, as we stood there together in - the dark verandah I had judged nothing as yet—and I had no desire to - judge—which is an idle practice anyhow. The light was long in - coming. - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” I said in a tone of mutual understanding, “it isn’t exactly a - game of cards I want with you.” - </p> - <p> - I saw him draw his hands down his face—the vague stir of the - passionate and meaningless gesture; but he waited in silent patience. It - was only when the lights had been brought out that he opened his lips. I - understood his mumble to mean that “he didn’t know any game.” - </p> - <p> - “Like this Schomberg and all the other fools will have to keep off,” I - said tearing open the pack. “Have you heard that we are universally - supposed to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who—of course. I - am really ashamed to ask, but is it possible that you do me the honour to - think me dangerous?” - </p> - <p> - As I said these words I felt how absurd it was and also I felt flattered—for, - really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in his usual - dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but not precisely - as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with Hermann, more - than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I saw at once how - inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural forces are not - quarrelsome. You can’t quarrel with the wind that inconveniences and - humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street full of people. He had - no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder, falling on my head, have had. - He fell upon me in accordance with the law by which he was moved—not - of gravitation, like a detached stone, but of self-preservation. Of course - this is giving it a rather wide interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had - existed and could have existed without being married. Yet he told me that - he had found it more and more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me - this in his low, careless voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we - arrived at the end of half an hour. - </p> - <p> - It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never dreamed - of marrying Hermann’s niece. Could any necessity have been more - extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard hit - that he couldn’t imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of - indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could not - help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was - conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and - playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the - more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights so - that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively - flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth of - the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features, the massive - forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely uncovered at the - temples. The fact is I had never before seen him without his hat; but now, - as if my fervour had made him hot, he had taken it off and laid it gently - on the floor. Something peculiar in the shape and setting of his yellow - eyes gave them the provoking silent intensity which characterised his - glance. But the face was thin, furrowed, worn; I discovered that through - the bush of his hair, as you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk - lost in a dense undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an - anchorite’s bony head fitted with a Capuchin’s beard and adjusted to a - herculean body. I don’t mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an - athlete. He was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid - of dirt. And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely - strong, just as the girl (since I must think of them together) was - magnificently attractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, - expressed in shape, in size, in attitude—that is by a straight - appeal to the senses. His mind meantime, preoccupied with respectability, - quailed before Schomberg’s tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my - protestations; and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon - think of marrying my mother’s (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as - Hermann’s niece. Sooner, I protested, in my desperation, much sooner; but - it did not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the proposition, and - in his sceptical immobility he seemed to nurse the argument that at all - events the cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, just - before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the evidence of my manner - whenever I called on board the Diana. I had never attempted to approach - the girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way. - Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of—let us say—courting, - seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the vicinity - of the beloved object, that line of argument inspired him with distrust. - Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt—as much as to say, - “That’s all very fine, but you can’t throw dust in <i>my</i> eyes.” - </p> - <p> - At last I was exasperated into saying, “Why don’t you put the matter at - rest by talking to Hermann?” and I added sneeringly: “You don’t expect me - perhaps to speak for you?” - </p> - <p> - To this he said, very loud for him, “Would you?” - </p> - <p> - And for the first time he lifted his head to look at me with wonder and - incredulity. He lifted his head so sharply that there could be no mistake. - I had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of my opportunity, and - could hardly believe in it. - </p> - <p> - “Why. Speak to... Well, of course,” I proceeded very slowly, watching him - with great attention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. “Not, perhaps, to - the young lady herself. I can’t speak German, you know. But...” - </p> - <p> - He interrupted me with the earnest assurance that Hermann had the highest - opinion of me; and at once I felt the need for the greatest possible - diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just enough to draw him on. Falk - sat up, but except for a very noticeable enlargement of the pupils, till - the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow yellow rings, his face, - I should judge, was incapable of expressing excitement. “Oh, yes! Hermann - did have the greatest...” - </p> - <p> - “Take up your cards. Here’s Schomberg peeping at us through the blind!” I - said. - </p> - <p> - We went through the motions of what might have been a game of e’carte’. - Presently the intolerable scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform the - people in the billiard-room that we two were gambling on the verandah like - mad. - </p> - <p> - We were not gambling, but it was a game; a game in which I felt I held the - winning cards. The stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the voyage—for - me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy matured - rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived that the - excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and astute Teuton - had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of a rival. I was - young enough to be shocked at so much duplicity. “Did he tell you that in - so many words?” I asked with indignation. - </p> - <p> - Hermann had not. He had given hints only; and of course it had not taken - very much to alarm Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had taken - steps to remove the family from under my influence. He was perfectly - straightforward about it—as straightforward as a tile falling on - your head. There was no duplicity in that man; and when I congratulated - him on the perfection of his arrangements—even to the bribing of the - wretched Johnson against me—he had a genuine movement of protest. - Never bribed. He knew the man wouldn’t work as long as he had a few cents - in his pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-“<i>naturally</i>”) - he let him have a dollar or two. He was himself a sailor, he said, and - anticipated the view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take. On - the other hand, he was sure that I should have to come to grief. He hadn’t - been knocking about for the last seven years up and down that river for - nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me—but he asserted - confidently I would have had my ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two - miles below the Great Pagoda.... - </p> - <p> - And with all that he had no ill-will. That was evident. This was a crisis - in which his only object had been to gain time—I fancy. And - presently he mentioned that he had written for some jewellery, real good - jewellery—had written to Hong-Kong for it. It would arrive in a day - or two. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then,” I said cheerily, “everything is all right. All you’ve got to - do is to present it to the lady together with your heart, and live happy - ever after.” - </p> - <p> - Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as far as the girl was - concerned, but his eyelids drooped. There was still something in the way. - For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As to me, on the contrary, it - seemed as though he could not praise me enough. Mrs. Hermann too. He - didn’t know why they disliked him so. It made everything most difficult. - </p> - <p> - I listened impassive, feeling more and more diplomatic. His speech was not - transparently clear. He was one of those men who seem to live, feel, - suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being fascinated by the - girl and possessed by the desire of home life with her—it was as - clear as daylight. So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting it to - the hazard of declaration. Besides, there was something else. And with - Hermann being so set against him... - </p> - <p> - “I see,” I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat fast with the excitement - of my diplomacy. “I don’t mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to show you how - mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I can for you in that way.” - </p> - <p> - A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands down his face, and it emerged, - bony, unchanged of expression, as if all the tissues had been ossified. - All the passion was in those big brown hands. He was satisfied. Then there - was that other matter. If there were anybody on earth it was I who could - persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I had a knowledge of the world - and lots of experience. Hermann admitted this himself. And then I was a - sailor too. Falk thought that a sailor would be able to understand certain - things best.... - </p> - <p> - He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all their life in a rural - hamlet, and I alone had been capable, with my practice in life, of a large - and indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was what my diplomacy was - leading me to. I began suddenly to dislike it. - </p> - <p> - “I say, Falk,” I asked quite brusquely, “you haven’t already a wife put - away somewhere?” - </p> - <p> - The pain and disgust of his denial were very striking. Couldn’t I - understand that he was as respectable as any white man hereabouts; earning - his living honestly. He was suffering from my suspicion, and the low - undertone of his voice made his protestations sound very pathetic. For a - moment he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, I seemed to - develop a conscience, as if in very truth it were in my power to decide - the success of this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard enough we - come to believe anything—anything to our advantage. And I had been - pretending very hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down the - river. But through conscience or stupidity, I couldn’t help alluding to - the Vanlo affair. “You acted rather badly there. Didn’t you?” was what I - ventured actually to say—for the logic of our conduct is always at - the mercy of obscure and unforeseen impulses. - </p> - <p> - His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glancing at the window with a - sort of scared fury. We heard behind the blinds the continuous and sudden - clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, and Schomberg’s deep - manly laugh. - </p> - <p> - “That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper then would never, never let - it rest!” Falk exclaimed. “Well, yes! It had happened two years ago.” When - it came to the point he owned he couldn’t make up his mind to trust Fred - Vanlo—no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust him, but, - to stop his row, he had lent him enough money to pay all his debts before - he left. I was greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could not be such - a miser after all. So much the better for the girl. For a time he sat - silent; then he picked up a card, and while looking at it he said: - </p> - <p> - “You need not think of anything bad. It was an accident. I’ve been - unfortunate once.” - </p> - <p> - “Then in heaven’s name say nothing about it.” - </p> - <p> - As soon as these words were out of my mouth I fancied I had said something - immoral. He shook his head negatively. It had to be told. He considered it - proper that the relations of the lady should know. No doubt—I - thought to myself—had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by the - climate he would have found it possible to entrust Fred Vanlo with this - confidence. And then the figure of Hermann’s niece appeared before my - mind’s eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich youth, her - lavish strength. With that powerful and immaculate vitality, her girlish - form must have shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor Miss Vanlo - could only sing sentimental songs to the strumming of a piano. - </p> - <p> - “And that Hermann hates me, I know it!” he cried in his undertone, with a - sudden recrudescence of anxiety. “I must tell them. It is proper that they - should know. You would say so yourself.” - </p> - <p> - He then murmured an utterly mysterious allusion to the necessity for - peculiar domestic arrangements. Though my curiosity was excited I did not - want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a piece of - information that would make my assumed role of match-maker odious—however - unreal it was. I was aware that he could have the girl for the asking; and - keeping down a desire to laugh in his face, I expressed a confident belief - in my ability to argue away Hermann’s dislike for him. “I am sure I can - make it all right,” I said. He looked very pleased. - </p> - <p> - And when we rose not a word had been said about towage! Not a word! The - game was won and the honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton umbrella! - We shook hands, and I was holding myself with difficulty from breaking - into a step dance of joy when he came back, striding all the length of the - verandah, and said doubtfully: - </p> - <p> - “I say, captain, I have your word? You—you—won’t turn round?” - </p> - <p> - Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his tone of doubt there was - something desperate and menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to - the situation. - </p> - <p> - “My dear Falk,” I said, beginning to lie with a glibness and effrontery - that amazed me even at the time—“confidence for confidence.” (He had - made no confidences.) “I will tell you that I am already engaged to an - extremely charming girl at home, and so you understand....” - </p> - <p> - He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing grip. - </p> - <p> - “Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult to live alone...” - </p> - <p> - “On rice and fish,” I interrupted smartly, giggling with the sheer - nervousness of a danger escaped. - </p> - <p> - He dropped my hand as if it had become suddenly red hot. A moment of - profound silence ensued, as though something extraordinary had happened. - </p> - <p> - “I promise you to obtain Hermann’s consent,” I faltered out at last, and - it seemed to me that he could not help seeing through that humbugging - promise. “If there’s anything else to get over I shall endeavour to stand - by you,” I conceded further, feeling somehow defeated and over-borne; “but - you must do your best yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “I have been unfortunate once,” he muttered unemotionally, and turning his - back on me he went away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his feet - had been shod with iron. - </p> - <p> - Next morning, however, he was lively enough as man-boat, a combination of - splashing and shouting; of the insolent commotion below with the steady - overbearing glare of the silent head-piece above. He turned us out most - unnecessarily at an ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven in the morning - before he brought me up a cable’s length from Hermann’s ship. And he did - it very badly too, in a hurry, and nearly contriving to miss altogether - the patch of good holding ground, because, forsooth, he had caught sight - of Hermann’s niece on the poop. And so did I; and probably as soon as he - had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek glory of the tawny head, and - the full, grey shape of the girlish print frock she filled so perfectly, - so satisfactorily, with the seduction of unfaltering curves—a very - nymph of Diana the Huntress. And Diana the ship sat, high-walled and as - solid as an institution, on the smooth level of the water, the most - uninspiring and respectable craft upon the seas, useful and ugly, devoted - to the support of domestic virtues like any grocer’s shop on shore. At - once Falk steamed away; for there was some work for him to do. He would - return in the evening. - </p> - <p> - He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, without a hail. The beat of - the paddle-wheels reverberating amongst the stony islets, as if from the - ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage confusedly with the - clapping sounds of a mighty and leisurely applause. Abreast of Hermann’s - ship he stopped the engines; and a profound silence reigned over the - rocks, the shore and the sea, for the time it took him to raise his hat - aloft before the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched up my - binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn’t stir a limb, standing by - the rail shapely and erect, with one of her hands grasping a rope at the - height of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly past her the - lingering and profound homage of the man. There was for me an enormous - significance in the scene, the sense of having witnessed a solemn - declaration. The die was cast. After such a manifestation he couldn’t back - out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me now. With a rush - of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and a mad swirl of - paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated clapping, the - tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay on the sea like - the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes and scorpions - lurked under the stones; there was not a single blade of grass in sight - anywhere, not a single lizard sunning himself on a boulder by the shore. - When I looked again at Hermann’s ship the girl had disappeared. I could - not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the immense sky, and the flatness - of the land continued the flatness of the sea to the naked line of the - horizon. - </p> - <p> - This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of Falk’s - misfortune. My diplomacy had brought me there, and now I had only to wait - the time for taking up the role of an ambassador. My diplomacy was a - success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a feeble sound - of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana. During the - afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the faithful nurse of - Hermann’s progeny, or yawned towards the distant temple of Buddha, like a - lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven priests cherish the thoughts of - that Annihilation which is the worthy reward of us all. Unfortunate! He - had been unfortunate once. Well, that was not so bad as life goes. And - what the devil could be the nature of that misfortune? I remembered that I - had known a man before who had declared himself to have fallen, years ago, - a victim to misfortune; but this misfortune, whose effects appeared - permanent (he looked desperately hard up) when considered dispassionately, - seemed indistinguishable from a breach of trust. Could it be something of - that nature? Apart, however, from the utter improbability that he would - offer to talk of it even to his future uncle-in-law, I had a strange - feeling that Falk’s physique unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As - the person of Hermann’s niece exhaled the profound physical charm of - feminine form, so her adorer’s big frame embodied to my senses the hard, - straight masculinity that would conceivably kill but would not condescend - to cheat. The thing was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the - girl of a curvature of the spine. And I perceived that the sun was about - to set. - </p> - <p> - The smoke of Falk’s tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the river. - It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and the - negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping my - countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I conceived - that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour. I practised - this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that came secretly - upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is inexplicable. As - soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me eagerly if I knew - whether Falk had found his white parasol. - </p> - <p> - “He’s going to bring it to you himself directly,” I said with great - solemnity. “Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he - begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece....” - </p> - <p> - “Ach So!” he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity change - into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I hurried on. - </p> - <p> - “He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at once—before - you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul.” - </p> - <p> - Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that furious - meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, he burst into - a hot diatribe against Falk—against his cupidity, his stupidity (a - fellow that can hardly be got to say “yes” or “no” to the simplest - question)—against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in port - (because he saw they were at his mercy)—and against his manner of - walking, which to his (Hermann’s) mind showed a conceit positively - unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course, and - there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the last - offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been a cause - of offence. “Had the cheek” to drag him (Hermann) into that coffee-room; - as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven dollars and fifty - cents of damage in the cost of wood alone—not counting two days’ - work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand in the girl’s way. He - was going home to Germany. There were plenty of poor girls walking about - in Germany. - </p> - <p> - “He’s very much in love,” was all I found to say. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” he cried. “And it is time too after making himself and me talked - about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on - board every evening unsettling the girl’s mind, and saying nothing. What - sort of conduct is that?” - </p> - <p> - The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not, in - his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. He - (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and the - tug, no doubt, was mortgaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm of - Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn’t stand in the girl’s way. Her head - was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite unable - even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for the - children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give Gustav a - thrashing. - </p> - <p> - For that, too, Falk was made responsible apparently. And looking at my - Hermann’s heavy, puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not exert - himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, would thrash very hard, - and being fat would resent the necessity. How Falk had managed to turn the - girl’s head was more difficult to understand. I supposed Hermann would - know. And then hadn’t there been Miss Vanlo? It could not be his silvery - tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he had no more of what is - called “manner” than an animal—which, however, on the other hand, is - never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore it must have been his - bodily appearance, exhibiting a virility of nature as exaggerated as his - beard, and resembling a sort of constant ruthlessness. It was seen in the - very manner he lolled in the chair. He meant no offence, but his - intercourse was characterised by that sort of frank disregard of - susceptibilities a man of seven foot six, living in a world of dwarfs, - would naturally assume, without in the least wishing to be unkind. But - amongst men of his own stature, or nearly, this frank use of his - advantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills for instance, caused - much impotent gnashing of teeth. When attentively considered it seemed - appalling at times. He was a strange beast. But maybe women liked it. Seen - in that light he was well worth taming, and I suppose every woman at the - bottom of her heart considers herself as a tamer of strange beasts. But - Hermann arose with precipitation to carry the news to his wife. I had - barely the time, as he made for the cabin door, to grab him by the seat of - his inexpressibles. I begged him to wait till Falk in person had spoken - with him. There remained some small matter to talk over, as I understood. - </p> - <p> - He sat down again at once, full of suspicion. - </p> - <p> - “What matter?” he said surlily. “I have had enough of his nonsense. - There’s no matter at all, as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in - the world. She came to us in one thin dress when my brother died, and I - have a growing family.” - </p> - <p> - “It can’t be anything of that kind,” I opined. “He’s desperately enamoured - of your niece. I don’t know why he did not say so before. Upon my word, I - believe it is because he was afraid to lose, perhaps, the felicity of - sitting near her on your quarter deck.” - </p> - <p> - I intimated my conviction that his love was so great as to be in a sense - cowardly. The effects of a great passion are unaccountable. It has been - known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked at me as if I had foolishly - raved; and the twilight was dying out rapidly. - </p> - <p> - “You don’t believe in passion, do you, Hermann?” I said cheerily. “The - passion of fear will make a cornered rat courageous. Falk’s in a corner. - He will take her off your hands in one thin frock just as she came to you. - And after ten years’ service it isn’t a bad bargain,” I added. - </p> - <p> - Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of civic virtue. The sudden - night came upon him while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing in - contact with his thick lips, and taking away again after a jet of smoke, - the curved mouthpiece fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came upon - him and buried in haste his whiskers, his globular eyes, his puffy pale - face, his fat knees and the vast flat slippers on his fatherly feet. Only - his short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves remained very visible, - propped up like the flippers of a seal reposing on the strand. - </p> - <p> - “Falk wouldn’t settle anything about repairs. Told me to find out first - how much wood I should require and he would see,” he remarked; and after - he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over the water the beat of the - tug’s floats. There is, on a calm night, nothing more suggestive of fierce - and headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the paddle-wheels of a - boat threshing her way through a quiet sea; and the approach of Falk - towards his fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and passionate desire. - The engines must have been driven to the very utmost of their revolutions. - We heard them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white hull of the tug - appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical - clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all at - once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque splash was - followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running through the - hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Roadstead. - </p> - <p> - “He will soon be here,” I murmured, and after that we waited for him - without a word. Meantime, raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a lofty - sky above the Diana’s mastheads. The multitude of stars gathered into - clusters, in rows, in lines, in masses, in groups, shone all together, - unanimously—and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves in the - midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a superior kind and of an - inextinguishable nature. But long striding footsteps were heard hastening - along the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a deeper darkness. We - rose from our chairs quickly, and Falk, appearing before us, all in white, - stood still. - </p> - <p> - Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been covered with confusion. His - arrival was fiery, but his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without - features, made him loom up like a man of snow. - </p> - <p> - “The captain here has been telling me...” Hermann began in a homely and - amicable voice; and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, negligent - undertone had no inflexions, but the strength of a powerful emotion made - him ramble in his speech. He had always desired a home. It was difficult - to live alone, though he was not answerable. He was domestic; there had - been difficulties; but since he had seen Hermann’s niece he found that it - had become at last impossible to live by himself. “I mean—impossible,” - he repeated with no sort of emphasis and only with the slightest of - pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the force of a new idea. - </p> - <p> - “I have not said anything to her yet,” Hermann observed quietly. And Falk - dismissed this by a “That’s all right. Certainly. Very proper.” There was - a necessity for perfect frankness—in marrying, especially. Hermann - seemed attentive, but he seized the first opportunity to ask us into the - cabin. “And by-the-by, Falk,” he said innocently, as we passed in, “the - timber came to no less than forty-seven dollars and fifty cents.” - </p> - <p> - Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the passage. “Some other time,” he - said; and Hermann nudged me angrily—I don’t know why. The girl alone - in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from the table. Falk stopped - short in the doorway. Without a word, without a sign, without the - slightest inclination of his bony head, by the silent intensity of his - look alone, he seemed to lay his herculean frame at her feet. Her hands - sank slowly on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her soft, - beaming glance enfold him from head to foot like a slow and pale caress. - He was very hot when he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with her - sewing; her neck was very white under the light of the lamp; but Falk, - hiding his face in the palms of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew them - down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes astonished me by their - tense and irrational expression—as though he had just swallowed a - heavy gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was binding us to secrecy. - Not that he cared, but he did not like to be spoken about; and I looked at - the girl’s marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal hair, plaited tight - into that one astonishing and maidenly tress. Whenever she moved her - well-shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her back. The thin - cotton sleeve fitted the irreproachable roundness of her arm like a skin; - and her very dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to palpitate like a - living tissue with the strength of vitality animating her body. How good - her complexion was, the outline of her soft cheek and the small convoluted - conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she kept the little finger apart - from the others; it seemed a waste of power to see her sewing—eternally - sewing—with that industrious and precise movement of her arm, going - on eternally upon all the oceans, under all the skies, in innumerable - harbours. And suddenly I heard Falk’s voice declare that he could not - marry a woman unless she knew of something in his life that had happened - ten years ago. It was an accident. An unfortunate accident. It would - affect the domestic arrangements of their home, but, once told, it need - not be alluded to again for the rest of their lives. “I should want my - wife to feel for me,” he said. “It has made me unhappy.” And how could he - keep the knowledge of it to himself—he asked us—perhaps - through years and years of companionship? What sort of companionship would - that be? He had thought it over. A wife must know. Then why not at once? - He counted on Hermann’s kindness for presenting the affair in the best - possible light. And Hermann’s countenance, mystified before, became very - sour. He stole an inquisitive glance at me. I shook my head blankly. Some - people thought, Falk went on, that such an experience changed a man for - the rest of his life. He couldn’t say. It was hard, awful, and not to be - forgotten, but he did not think himself a worse man than before. Only he - talked in his sleep now, he believed.... At last I began to think he had - accidentally killed some one; perhaps a friend—his own father maybe; - when he went on to say that probably we were aware he never touched meat. - Throughout he spoke English, of course of my account. - </p> - <p> - He swayed forward heavily. - </p> - <p> - The girl, with her hands raised before her pale eyes, was threading her - needle. He glanced at her, and his mighty trunk overshadowed the table, - bringing nearer to us the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his - neck, and that incongruous, anchorite head, burnt in the desert, hollowed - and lean as if by excesses of vigils and fasting. His beard flowed - imposingly downwards, out of sight, between the two brown hands gripping - the edge of the table, and his persistent glance made sombre by the wide - dilations of the pupils, fascinated. - </p> - <p> - “Imagine to yourselves,” he said in his ordinary voice, “that I have eaten - man.” - </p> - <p> - I could only ejaculate a faint “Ah!” of complete enlightenment. But - Hermann, dazed by the excessive shock, actually murmured, “Himmel! What - for?” - </p> - <p> - “It was my terrible misfortune to do so,” said Falk in a measured - undertone. The girl, unconscious, sewed on. Mrs. Hermann was absent in one - of the state-rooms, sitting up with Lena, who was feverish; but Hermann - suddenly put both his hands up with a jerk. The embroidered calotte fell, - and, in the twinkling of an eye, he had rumpled his hair all ends up in a - most extravagant manner. In this state he strove to speak; with every - effort his eyes seemed to start further out of their sockets; his head - looked like a mop. He choked, gasped, swallowed, and managed to shriek out - the one word, “Beast!” - </p> - <p> - From that moment till Falk went out of the cabin the girl, with her hands - folded on the work lying in her lap, never took her eyes off him. His own, - in the blindness of his heart, darted all over the cabin, only seeking to - avoid the sight of Hermann’s raving. It was ridiculous, and was made - almost terrible by the stillness of every other person present. It was - contemptible, and was made appalling by the man’s over-mastering horror of - this awful sincerity, coming to him suddenly, with the confession of such - a fact. He walked with great strides; he gasped. He wanted to know from - Falk how dared he to come and tell him this? Did he think himself a proper - person to be sitting in this cabin where his wife and children lived? Tell - his niece! Expected him to tell his niece! His own brother’s daughter! - Shameless! Did I ever hear tell of such impudence?—he appealed to - me. “This man here ought to have gone and hidden himself out of sight - instead of...” - </p> - <p> - “But it’s a great misfortune for me. But it’s a great misfortune for me,” - Falk would ejaculate from time to time. - </p> - <p> - However, Hermann kept on running frequently against the corners of the - table. At last he lost a slipper, and crossing his arms on his breast, - walked up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in order to ask him - whether he did think there was anywhere on earth a woman abandoned enough - to mate with such a monster. “Did he? Did he? Did he?” I tried to restrain - him. He tore himself out of my hands; he found his slipper, and, - endeavouring to put it on, stormed standing on one leg—and Falk, - with a face unmoved and averted eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in one - vast palm. - </p> - <p> - “Was it right then for me to die myself?” he asked thoughtfully. I laid my - hand on his shoulder. - </p> - <p> - “Go away,” I whispered imperiously, without any clear reason for this - advice, except that I wished to put an end to Hermann’s odious noise. “Go - away.” - </p> - <p> - He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann before he made a move. I - left the cabin too to see him out of the ship. But he hung about the - quarter-deck. - </p> - <p> - “It is my misfortune,” he said in a steady voice. - </p> - <p> - “You were stupid to blurt it out in such a manner. After all, we don’t - hear such confidences every day.” - </p> - <p> - “What does the man mean?” he mused in deep undertones. “Somebody had to - die—but why me?” - </p> - <p> - He remained still for a time in the dark—silent; almost invisible. - All at once he pinned my elbows to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in - his grip, and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated. - </p> - <p> - “It’s worse than hunger. Captain, do you know what that means? And I could - kill then—or be killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull ten - years ago. And I’ve got to live now. Without her. Do you understand? - Perhaps many years. But how? What can be done? If I had allowed myself to - look at her once I would have carried her off before that man in my hands—like - this.” - </p> - <p> - I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly dropped—and I - staggered backwards, feeling bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was - still; he was gone. I heard Hermann’s voice declaiming in the cabin, and I - went in. - </p> - <p> - I could not at first make out a single word, but Mrs. Hermann, who, - attracted by the noise, had come in some time before, with an expression - of surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on her face, was giving - now all the signs of profound, helpless agitation. Her husband shot a - string of guttural words at her, and instantly putting out one hand to the - bulkhead as if to save herself from falling, she clutched the loose bosom - of her dress with the other. He harangued the two women extraordinarily, - with much of his shirt hanging out of his waist-belt, stamping his foot, - turning from one to the other, sometimes throwing both his arms together, - straight up above his rumpled hair, and keeping them in that position - while he uttered a passage of loud denunciation; at others folding them - tight across his breast—and then he hissed with indignation, - elevating his shoulders and protruding his head. The girl was crying. - </p> - <p> - She had not changed her attitude. From her steady eyes that, following - Falk in his retreat, had remained fixed wistfully on the cabin door, the - tears fell rapid, thick, on her hands, on the work in her lap, warm and - gentle like a shower in spring. She wept without grimacing, without noise—very - touching, very quiet, with something more of pity than of pain in her - face, as one weeps in compassion rather than in grief—and Hermann, - before her, declaimed. I caught several times the word “Mensch,” man; and - also “Fressen,” which last I looked up afterwards in my dictionary. It - means “Devour.” Hermann seemed to be requesting an answer of some sort - from her; his whole body swayed. She remained mute and perfectly still; at - last his agitation gained her; she put the palms of her hands together, - her full lips parted, no sound came. His voice scolded shrilly, his arms - went like a windmill—suddenly he shook a thick fist at her. She - burst out into loud sobs. He seemed stupefied. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Hermann rushed forward babbling rapidly. The two women fell on each - other’s necks, and, with an arm round her niece’s waist, she led her away. - Her own eyes were simply streaming, her face was flooded. She shook her - head back at me negatively, I wonder why to this day. The girl’s head - dropped heavily on her shoulder. They disappeared. - </p> - <p> - Then Hermann sat down and stared at the cabin floor. - </p> - <p> - “We don’t know all the circumstances,” I ventured to break the silence. He - retorted tartly that he didn’t want to know of any. According to his ideas - no circumstances could excuse a crime—and certainly not such a - crime. This was the opinion generally received. The duty of a human being - was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an animal; base, low, vile, - despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him since last - year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must have gone mad - quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, uselessly, for no - earthly reason, and regardless of another’s self-respect and peace of - mind, would own to having devoured human flesh. “Why tell?” he cried. “Who - was asking him?” It showed Falk’s brutality because after all he had - selfishly caused him (Hermann) much pain. He would have preferred not to - know that such an unclean creature had been in the habit of caressing his - children. He hoped I would say nothing of all this ashore, though. He - wouldn’t like it to get about that he had been intimate with an eater of - men—a common cannibal. As to the scene he had made (which I judged - quite unnecessary) he was not going to inconvenience and restrain himself - for a fellow that went about courting and upsetting girls’ heads, while he - knew all the time that no decent housewifely girl could think of marrying - him. At least he (Hermann) could not conceive how any girl could. Fancy - Lena!... No, it was impossible. The thoughts that would come into their - heads every time they sat down to a meal. Horrible! Horrible! - </p> - <p> - “You are too squeamish, Hermann,” I said. - </p> - <p> - He seemed to think it was eminently proper to be squeamish if the word - meant disgust at Falk’s conduct; and turning up his eyes sentimentally he - drew my attention to the horrible fate of the victims—the victims of - that Falk. I said that I knew nothing about them. He seemed surprised. - Could not anybody imagine without knowing? He—for instance—felt - he would like to avenge them. But what if—said I—there had not - been any? They might have died as it were, naturally—of starvation. - He shuddered. But to be eaten—after death! To be devoured! He gave - another deep shudder, and asked suddenly, “Do you think it is true?” - </p> - <p> - His indignation and his personality together would have been enough to - spoil the reality of the most authentic thing. When I looked at him I - doubted the story—but the remembrance of Falk’s words, looks, - gestures, invested it not only with an air of reality but with the - absolute truth of primitive passion. - </p> - <p> - “It is true just as much as you are able to make it; and exactly in the - way you like to make it. For my part, when I hear you clamouring about it, - I don’t believe it is true at all.” - </p> - <p> - And I left him pondering. The men in my boat lying at the foot of Diana’s - side ladder told me that the captain of the tug had gone away in his gig - some time ago. - </p> - <p> - I let my fellows pull an easy stroke; because of the heavy dew the clear - sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was a - sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was mingled - with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg’s gastronomic tittle-tattle was - responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never see Falk again. But - the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that the captain of the tug - was on board. He had sent his boat away and was now waiting for me in the - cuddy. - </p> - <p> - He was lying full length on the stern settee, his face buried in the - cushions. I had expected to see it discomposed, contorted, despairing. It - was nothing of the kind; it was just as I had seen it twenty times, steady - and glaring from the bridge of the tug. It was immovably set and hungry, - dominated like the whole man by the singleness of one instinct. - </p> - <p> - He wanted to live. He had always wanted to live. So we all do—but in - us the instinct serves a complex conception, and in him this instinct - existed alone. There is in such simple development a gigantic force, and - like the pathos of a child’s naive and uncontrolled desire. He wanted that - girl, and the utmost that can be said for him was that he wanted that - particular girl alone. I think I saw then the obscure beginning, the seed - germinating in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot of that - tree bearing now for a mature mankind the flower and the fruit, the - infinite gradation in shades and in flavour of our discriminating love. He - was a child. He was as frank as a child too. He was hungry for the girl, - terribly hungry, as he had been terribly hungry for food. - </p> - <p> - Don’t be shocked if I declare that in my belief it was the same need, the - same pain, the same torture. We are in his case allowed to contemplate the - foundation of all the emotions—that one joy which is to live, and - the one sadness at the root of the innumerable torments. It was made plain - by the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It was gnawing, it was - fire; it was there, like this! And after pointing below his breastbone, he - made a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I assure you that, seen as - I saw it with my bodily eyes, it was anything but laughable. And again, as - he was presently to tell me (alluding to an early incident of the - disastrous voyage when some damaged meat had been flung overboard), he - said that a time soon came when his heart ached (that was the expression - he used), and he was ready to tear his hair out at the thought of all that - rotten beef thrown away. - </p> - <p> - I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical struggles, seeing the - working of the rack and hearing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it all - patiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy he had called upon me - to stand by him—and this, it seems, I had diplomatically promised. - </p> - <p> - His agitation was impressive and alarming in the little cabin, like the - floundering of a great whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He - stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried to tear the cushion - with his teeth; and again hugging it fiercely to his face he let himself - fall on the couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock of his despair; - and I contemplated with wonder the lofty forehead, the noble touch of time - on the uncovered temples, the unchanged hungry character of the face—so - strangely ascetic and so incapable of portraying emotion. - </p> - <p> - What should he do? He had lived by being near her. He had sat—in the - evening—I knew?-all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent—so. - Her head—like this—and her arms. Ah! Had I seen? Like this. - </p> - <p> - He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck whose nape was red, and - with his hands stitched the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and - comprehensible. - </p> - <p> - And now he couldn’t have her? No! That was too much. After thinking too - that... What had he done? What was my advice? Take her by force? No? - Mustn’t he? Who was there then to kill him? For the first time I saw one - of his features move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip.... “Not - Hermann, perhaps.” He lost himself in thought as though he had fallen out - of the world. - </p> - <p> - I may note that the idea of suicide apparently did not enter his head for - a single moment. It occurred to me to ask: - </p> - <p> - “Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took place?” - </p> - <p> - “Down south,” he said vaguely with a start. - </p> - <p> - “You are not down south now,” I said. “Violence won’t do. They would take - her away from you in no time. And what was the name of the ship?” - </p> - <p> - “Borgmester Dahl,” he said. “It was no shipwreck.” - </p> - <p> - He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that trance, and waking up - calmed. - </p> - <p> - “Not a shipwreck? What was it?” - </p> - <p> - “Break down,” he answered, looking more like himself every moment. By this - only I learned that it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they had - been starving in boats or on a raft—or perhaps on a barren rock. - </p> - <p> - “She did not sink then?” I asked in surprise. He nodded. “We sighted the - southern ice,” he pronounced dreamily. - </p> - <p> - “And you alone survived?” - </p> - <p> - He sat down. “Yes. It was a terrible misfortune for me. Everything went - wrong. All the men went wrong. I survived.” - </p> - <p> - Remembering the things one reads of it was difficult to realise the true - meaning of his answers. I ought to have seen at once—but I did not; - so difficult is it for our minds, remembering so much, instructed so much, - informed of so much, to get in touch with the real actuality at our elbow. - And with my head full of preconceived notions as to how a case of - “cannibalism and suffering at sea” should be managed I said—“You - were then so lucky in the drawing of lots?” - </p> - <p> - “Drawing of lots?” he said. “What lots? Do you think I would have allowed - my life to go for the drawing of lots?” - </p> - <p> - Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter what other life went. - </p> - <p> - “It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful,” he said. “Many heads went - wrong, but the best men would live.” - </p> - <p> - “The toughest, you mean,” I said. He considered the word. Perhaps it was - strange to him, though his English was so good. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” he asserted at last. “The best. It was everybody for himself at - last and the ship open to all.” - </p> - <p> - Thus from question to question I got the whole story. I fancy it was the - only way I could that night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he was - himself again; the first sign of it was the return of that incongruous - trick he had of drawing both his hands down his face—and it had its - meaning now, with that slight shudder of the frame and the passionate - anguish of these hands uncovering a hungry immovable face, the wide pupils - of the intent, silent, fascinating eyes. - </p> - <p> - It was an iron steamer of a most respectable origin. The burgomaster of - Falk’s native town had built her. She was the first steamer ever launched - there. The burgomaster’s daughter had christened her. Country people drove - in carts from miles around to see her. He told me all this. He got the - berth as what we should call a chief mate. He seemed to think it had been - a feather in his cap; and, in his own corner of the world, this lover of - life was of good parentage. - </p> - <p> - The burgomaster had advanced ideas in the ship-owning line. At that time - not every one would have known enough to think of despatching a cargo - steamer to the Pacific. But he loaded her with pitch-pine deals and sent - her off to hunt for her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I - fancy. It doesn’t matter, because in latitude 44 d south and somewhere - halfway between Good Hope and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the - propeller dropped off. - </p> - <p> - They were steaming then with a fresh gale on the quarter and all their - canvas set, to help the engines. But by itself the sail power was not - enough to keep way on her. When the propeller went the ship broached-to at - once, and the masts got whipped overboard. - </p> - <p> - The disadvantage of being dismasted consisted in this, that they had - nothing to hoist flags on to make themselves visible at a distance. In the - course of the first few days several ships failed to sight them; and the - gale was drifting them out of the usual track. The voyage had been, from - the first, neither very successful nor very harmonious. There had been - quarrels on board. The captain was a clever, melancholic man, who had no - unusual grip on his crew. The ship had been amply provisioned for the - passage, but, somehow or other, several barrels of meat were found spoiled - on opening, and had been thrown overboard soon after leaving home, as a - sanitary measure. Afterwards the crew of the Borgmester Dahl thought of - that rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness and despair. - </p> - <p> - She drove south. To begin with, there had been an appearance of - organisation, but soon the bonds of discipline became relaxed. A sombre - idleness succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the horizon. The gales - increased: she lay in the trough, the seas made a clean breach over her. - On one frightful night, when they expected their hulk to turn over with - them every moment, a heavy sea broke on board, deluged the store-rooms and - spoiled the best part of the remaining provisions. It seems the hatch had - not been properly secured. This instance of neglect is characteristic of - utter discouragement. Falk tried to inspire some energy into his captain, - but failed. From that time he retired more into himself, always trying to - do his utmost in the situation. It grew worse. Gale succeeded gale, with - black mountains of water hurling themselves on the Borgmester Dahl. Some - of the men never left their bunks; many became quarrelsome. The chief - engineer, an old man, refused to speak at all to anybody. Others shut - themselves up in their berths to cry. On calm days the inert steamer - rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or showed, in sunshine, the - squalor of sea waifs, the dried white salt, the rust, the jagged broken - places. Then the gales came again. They kept body and soul together on - short rations. Once, an English ship, scudding in a storm, tried to stand - by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The seas swept her decks; - the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked at them, and they made - desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks. Suddenly her main-topsail - went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she had to bear up under bare - poles, and disappeared. - </p> - <p> - Other ships had spoken them before, but at first they had refused to be - taken off, expecting the assistance of some steamer. There were very few - steamers in those latitudes then; and when they desired to leave this dead - and drifting carcase, no ship came in sight. They had drifted south out of - men’s knowledge. They failed to attract the attention of a lonely whaler, - and very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea and closed - the southern horizon like a wall. One morning they were alarmed by finding - themselves floating amongst detached pieces of ice. But the fear of - sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes; the shocks of the - floes knocking against the ship’s side could not rouse them from their - apathy: and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again unharmed into open - water. They hardly noticed the change. - </p> - <p> - The funnel had gone overboard in one of the heavy rolls; two of their - three boats had disappeared, washed away in bad weather, and the davits - swung to and fro, unsecured, with chafed rope’s ends waggling to the roll. - Nothing was done on board, and Falk told me how he had often listened to - the water washing about the dark engine-room where the engines, stilled - for ever, were decaying slowly into a mass of rust, as the stilled heart - decays within the lifeless body. At first, after the loss of the motive - power, the tiller had been thoroughly secured by lashings. But in course - of time these had rotted, chafed, rusted, parting one by one: and the - rudder, freed, banged heavily to and fro night and day, sending dull - shocks through the whole frame of the vessel. This was dangerous. Nobody - cared enough to lift a little finger. He told me that even now sometimes - waking up at night, he fancied he could hear the dull vibrating thuds. The - pintles carried away, and it dropped off at last. - </p> - <p> - The final catastrophe came with the sending off of their one remaining - boat. It was Falk who had managed to preserve her intact, and now it was - agreed that some of the hands should sail away into the track of the - shipping to procure assistance. She was provisioned with all the food they - could spare for the six who were to go. They waited for a fine day. It was - long in coming. At last one morning they lowered her into the water. - </p> - <p> - Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble broke out. Two men who had no - business there had jumped into the boat under the pretence of unhooking - the tackles, while some sort of squabble arose on the deck amongst these - weak, tottering spectres of a ship’s company. The captain, who had been - for days living secluded and unapproachable in the chart-room, came to the - rail. He ordered the two men to come up on board and menaced them with his - revolver. They pretended to obey, but suddenly cutting the boat’s painter, - gave a shove against the ship’s side and made ready to hoist the sail. - </p> - <p> - “Shoot, sir! Shoot them down!” cried Falk-“and I will jump overboard to - regain the boat.” But the captain, after taking aim with an irresolute - arm, turned suddenly away. - </p> - <p> - A howl of rage arose. Falk dashed into his cabin for his own pistol. When - he returned it was too late. Two more men had leaped into the water, but - the fellows in the boat beat them off with the oars, hoisted the boat’s - lug and sailed away. They were never heard of again. - </p> - <p> - Consternation and despair possessed the remaining ship’s company, till the - apathy of utter hopelessness re-asserted its sway. That day a fireman - committed suicide, running up on deck with his throat cut from ear to ear, - to the horror of all hands. He was thrown overboard. The captain had - locked himself in the chart-room, and Falk, knocking vainly for - admittance, heard him reciting over and over again the names of his wife - and children, not as if calling upon them or commending them to God, but - in a mechanical voice like an exercise of memory. Next day the doors of - the chart-room were swinging open to the roll of the ship, and the captain - had disappeared. He must during the night have jumped into the sea. Falk - locked both the doors and kept the keys. - </p> - <p> - The organised life of the ship had come to an end. The solidarity of the - men had gone. They became indifferent to each other. It was Falk who took - in hand the distribution of such food as remained. They boiled their boots - for soup to eke out the rations, which only made their hunger more - intolerable. Sometimes whispers of hate were heard passing between the - languid skeletons that drifted endlessly to and fro, north and south, east - and west, upon that carcase of a ship. - </p> - <p> - And in this lies the grotesque horror of this sombre story. The last - extremity of sailors, overtaking a small boat or a frail craft, seems - easier to bear, because of the direct danger of the seas. The confined - space, the close contact, the imminent menace of the waves, seem to draw - men together, in spite of madness, suffering and despair. But there was a - ship—safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds, bedding, knives, - forks, comfortable cabins, glass and china, and a complete cook’s galley, - pervaded, ruled and possessed by the pitiless spectre of starvation. The - lamp oil had been drunk, the wicks cut up for food, the candles eaten. At - night she floated dark in all her recesses, and full of fears. One day - Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter of pine wood. Suddenly he threw - the piece of wood away, tottered to the rail, and fell over. Falk, too - late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship’s side desperately before - he went down. Next day another man did the same thing, after uttering - horrible imprecations. But this one somehow managed to get hold of the - broken rudder chains and hung on there, silently. Falk set about trying to - save him, and all the time the man, holding with both hands, looked at him - anxiously with his sunken eyes. Then, just as Falk was ready to put his - hand on him, the man let go his hold and sank like a stone. Falk reflected - on these sights. His heart revolted against the horror of death, and he - said to himself that he would struggle for every precious minute of his - life. - </p> - <p> - One afternoon—as the survivors lay about on the after deck—the - carpenter, a tall man with a black beard, spoke of the last sacrifice. - There was nothing eatable left on board. Nobody said a word to this; but - that company separated quickly, these listless feeble spectres slunk off - one by one to hide in fear of each other. Falk and the carpenter remained - on deck together. Falk liked the big carpenter. He had been the best man - of the lot, helpful and ready as long as there was anything to do, the - longest hopeful, and had preserved to the last some vigour and decision of - mind. - </p> - <p> - They did not speak to each other. Henceforth no voices were to be heard - conversing sadly on board that ship. After a time the carpenter tottered - away forward; but later on, Falk going to drink at the fresh-water pump, - had the inspiration to turn his head. The carpenter had stolen upon him - from behind, and, summoning all his strength, was aiming with a crowbar a - blow at the back of his skull. - </p> - <p> - Dodging just in time, Falk made his escape and ran into his cabin. While - he was loading his revolver there, he heard the sound of heavy blows - struck upon the bridge. The locks of the chartroom doors were slight, they - flew open, and the carpenter, possessing himself of the captain’s - revolver, fired a shot of defiance. - </p> - <p> - Falk was about to go on deck and have it out at once, when he remarked - that one of the ports of his cabin commanded the approaches to the - freshwater pump. Instead of going out he remained in and secured the door. - “The best man shall survive,” he said to himself—and the other, he - reasoned, must at some time or other come there to drink. These starving - men would drink often to cheat the pangs of their hunger. But the - carpenter too must have noticed the position of the port. They were the - two best men in the ship, and the game was with them. All the rest of the - day Falk saw no one and heard no sound. At night he strained his eyes. It - was dark—he heard a rustling noise once, but he was certain that no - one could have come near the pump. It was to the left of his deck port, - and he could not have failed to see a man, for the night was clear and - starry. He saw nothing; towards morning another faint noise made him - suspicious. Deliberately and quietly he unlocked his door. He had not - slept, and had not given way to the horror of the situation. He wanted to - live. - </p> - <p> - But during the night the carpenter, without at all trying to approach the - pump, had managed to creep quietly along the starboard bulwark, and, - unseen, had crouched down right under Falk’s deck port. When daylight came - he rose up suddenly, looked in, and putting his arm through the round - brass framed opening, fired at Falk within a foot. He missed—and - Falk, instead of attempting to seize the arm holding the weapon, opened - his door unexpectedly, and with the muzzle of his long revolver nearly - touching the other’s side, shot him dead. - </p> - <p> - The best man had survived. Both of them had at the beginning just strength - enough to stand on their feet, and both had displayed pitiless resolution, - endurance, cunning and courage—all the qualities of classic heroism. - At once Falk threw overboard the captain’s revolver. He was a born - monopolist. Then after the report of the two shots, followed by a profound - silence, there crept out into the cold, cruel dawn of Antarctic regions, - from various hiding-places, over the deck of that dismantled corpse of a - ship floating on a grey sea ruled by iron necessity and with a heart of - ice—there crept into view one by one, cautious, slow, eager, - glaring, and unclean, a band of hungry and livid skeletons. Falk faced - them, the possessor of the only fire-arm on board, and the second best man—the - carpenter—was lying dead between him and them. - </p> - <p> - “He was eaten, of course,” I said. - </p> - <p> - He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, drawing his hands over his - face, and said, “I had never any quarrel with that man. But there were our - lives between him and me.” - </p> - <p> - Why continue the story of that ship, that story before which, with its - fresh-water pump like a spring of death, its man with the weapon, the sea - ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by terror and hope, its - mute and unhearing heaven?-the fable of the Flying Dutchman with its - convention of crime and its sentimental retribution fades like a graceful - wreath, like a wisp of white mist. What is there to say that every one of - us cannot guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going through the - ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the matches. Those starving wretches - had plenty of matches! He had no mind to have the ship set on fire under - his feet, either from hate or from despair. He lived in the open, camping - on the bridge, commanding all the after deck and the only approach to the - pump. He lived! Some of the others lived too—concealed, anxious, - coming out one by one from their hiding-places at the seductive sound of a - shot. And he was not selfish. They shared, but only three of them all were - alive when a whaler, returning from her cruising ground, nearly ran over - the water-logged hull of the Borgmester Dahl, which, it seems, in the end - had in some way sprung a leak in both her holds, but being loaded with - deals could not sink. - </p> - <p> - “They all died,” Falk said. “These three too, afterwards. But I would not - die. All died, all! under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to throw - away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain? I was alone there, quite alone, - just like the others. Each man was alone. Was I to give up my revolver? - Who to? Or was I to throw it into the sea? What would have been the good? - Only the best man would survive. It was a great, terrible, and cruel - misfortune.” - </p> - <p> - He had survived! I saw him before me as though preserved for a witness to - the mighty truth of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads of - perspiration stood on his forehead. And suddenly it struck the table with - a heavy blow, as he fell forward throwing his hands out. - </p> - <p> - “And this is worse,” he cried. “This is a worse pain! This is more - terrible.” - </p> - <p> - He made my heart thump with the profound conviction of his cries. And - after he had left me alone I called up before my mental eye the image of - the girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently, and as if irresistibly. - I thought of her tawny hair. I thought how, if unplaited, it would have - covered her all round as low as the hips, like the hair of a siren. And - she had bewitched him. Fancy a man who would guard his own life with the - inflexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being brought to lament - that once a crowbar had missed his skull! The sirens sing and lure to - death, but this one had been weeping silently as if for the pity of his - life. She was the tender and voiceless siren of this appalling navigator. - He evidently wanted to live his whole conception of life. Nothing else - would do. And she too was a servant of that life that, in the midst of - death, cries aloud to our senses. She was eminently fitted to interpret - for him its feminine side. And in her own way, and with her own profusion - of sensuous charms, she also seemed to illustrate the eternal truth of an - unerring principle. I don’t know though what sort of principle Hermann - illustrated when he turned up early on board my ship with a most perplexed - air. It struck me, however, that he too would do his best to survive. He - seemed greatly calmed on the subject of Falk, but still very full of it. - </p> - <p> - “What is it you said I was last night? You know,” he asked after some - preliminary talk. “Too—too—I don’t know. A very funny word.” - </p> - <p> - “Squeamish?” I suggested. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. What does it mean?” - </p> - <p> - “That you exaggerate things—to yourself. Without inquiry, and so - on.” - </p> - <p> - He seemed to turn it over in his mind. We went on talking. This Falk was - the plague of his life. Upsetting everybody like this! Mrs. Hermann was - unwell rather this morning. His niece was crying still. There was nobody - to look after the children. He struck his umbrella on the deck. She would - be like that for months. Fancy carrying all the way home, second class, a - perfectly useless girl who is crying all the time. It was bad for Lena - too, he observed; but on what grounds I could not guess. Perhaps of the - bad example. That child was already sorrowing and crying enough over the - rag doll. Nicholas was really the least sentimental person of the family. - </p> - <p> - “Why does she weep?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “From pity,” cried Hermann. - </p> - <p> - It was impossible to make out women. Mrs. Hermann was the only one he - pretended to understand. She was very, very upset and doubtful. - </p> - <p> - “Doubtful about what?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - He averted his eyes and did not answer this. It was impossible to make - them out. For instance, his niece was weeping for Falk. Now he (Hermann) - would like to wring his neck—but then... He supposed he had too - tender a heart. “Frankly,” he asked at last, “what do you think of what we - heard last night, captain?” - </p> - <p> - “In all these tales,” I observed, “there is always a good deal of - exaggeration.” - </p> - <p> - And not letting him recover from his surprise I assured him that I knew - all the details. He begged me not to repeat them. His heart was too - tender. They made him feel unwell. Then, looking at his feet and speaking - very slowly, he supposed that he need not see much of them after they were - married. For, indeed, he could not bear the sight of Falk. On the other - hand it was ridiculous to take home a girl with her head turned. A girl - that weeps all the time and is of no help to her aunt. - </p> - <p> - “Now you will be able to do with one cabin only on your passage home,” I - said. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I had thought of that,” he said brightly, almost. “Yes! Himself, his - wife, four children—one cabin might do. Whereas if his niece - went...” - </p> - <p> - “And what does Mrs. Hermann say to it?” I inquired. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Hermann did not know whether a man of that sort could make a girl - happy—she had been greatly deceived in Captain Falk. She had been - very upset last night. - </p> - <p> - Those good people did not seem to be able to retain an impression for a - whole twelve hours. I assured him on my own personal knowledge that Falk - possessed in himself all the qualities to make his niece’s future - prosperous. He said he was glad to hear this, and that he would tell his - wife. Then the object of the visit came out. He wished me to help him to - resume relations with Falk. His niece, he said, had expressed the hope I - would do so in my kindness. He was evidently anxious that I should, for - though he seemed to have forgotten nine-tenths of his last night’s - opinions and the whole of his indignation, yet he evidently feared to be - sent to the right-about. “You told me he was very much in love,” he - concluded slyly, and leered in a sort of bucolic way. - </p> - <p> - As soon as he had left my ship I called Falk on board by signal—the - tug still lying at the anchorage. He took the news with calm gravity, as - though he had all along expected the stars to fight for him in their - courses. - </p> - <p> - I saw them once more together, and only once—on the quarter-deck of - the Diana. Hermann sat smoking with a shirt-sleeved elbow hooked over the - back of his chair. Mrs. Hermann was sewing alone. As Falk stepped over the - gangway, Hermann’s niece, with a slight swish of the skirt and a swift - friendly nod to me, glided past my chair. - </p> - <p> - They met in sunshine abreast of the mainmast. He held her hands and looked - down at them, and she looked up at him with her candid and unseeing - glance. It seemed to me they had come together as if attracted, drawn and - guided to each other by a mysterious influence. They were a complete - couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life, generous of form, - olympian and simple, she was indeed the siren to fascinate that dark - navigator, this ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I seemed to - feel the masculine strength with which he grasped those hands she had - extended to him with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale, nursing her - beloved lump of dirty rags, ran towards her big friend; and then in the - drowsy silence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann’s voice rang out so - changed that it made me spin round in my chair to see what was the matter. - </p> - <p> - “Lena, come here!” she screamed. And this good-natured matron gave me a - wavering glance, dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran back, - surprised to her knee. But the two, standing before each other in sunlight - with clasped hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and no one. Three - feet away from them in the shade a seaman sat on a spar, very busy - splicing a strop, and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if utterly - unaware of their existence. - </p> - <p> - When I returned in command of another ship, some five years afterwards, - Mr. and Mrs. Falk had left the place. I should not wonder if Schomberg’s - tongue had succeeded at last in scaring Falk away for good; and, - indubitably, there was a tale still going about the town of a certain - Falk, owner of a tug, who had won his wife at cards from the captain of an - English ship. - </p> - <p> - THE END <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Falk, by Joseph Conrad - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - -***** This file should be named 493-h.htm or 493-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/9/493/ - -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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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: Falk - -Author: Joseph Conrad - -Release Date: April 1996 [EBook #493] -Posting Date: June 18, 2009 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - - - - -Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger - - - - - - - - - -FALK - -A REMINISCENCE - - -By Joseph Conrad - - - -Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in -a small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and less -than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our coasting -men give the grandiose name of "German Ocean." And through the wide -windows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower -Hope Reach. But the dinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the -eyes. - -That flavour of salt-water which for so many of us had been the very -water of life permeated our talk. He who hath known the bitterness of -the Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But one or two -of us, pampered by the life of the land, complained of hunger. It was -impossible to swallow any of that stuff. And indeed there was a strange -mustiness in everything. The wooden dining-room stuck out over the mud -of the shore like a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed -rotten; a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically to and fro before -an antediluvian and worm-eaten sideboard; the chipped plates might have -been disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and -the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to -one's mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first -rudiments of cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh -at a fire of sticks in the company of other good fellows; then, gorged -and happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to tell his artless tales -of experience--the tales of hunger and hunt--and of women, perhaps! - -But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the waiter. So, -comparatively empty, but upon the whole fairly happy, we sat back and -told our artless tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The -sea never changes, and its works for all the talk of men are wrapped in -mystery. But we agreed that the times were changed. And we talked of old -ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings; and of a man who -brought his ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River Platte -under a jury rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of -heroism--or at least of what the newspapers would have called heroism -at sea--a manifestation of virtues quite different from the heroism of -primitive times. And now and then falling silent all together we gazed -at the sights of the river. - -A P. & O. boat passed bound down. "One gets jolly good dinners on board -these ships," remarked one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read -out the name on her bows: Arcadia. "What a beautiful model of a ship!" -murmured some of us. She was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the -flag they hauled down aboard while we were looking showed her to be a -Norwegian. She made an awful lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown -away, a high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and towed by a -paddle-tug, appeared in front of the windows. All her hands were forward -busy setting up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood, quite alone -with the man at the wheel, paced the length of the poop back and forth, -with the grey wool of some knitting work in her hands. - -"German I should think," muttered one. "The skipper has his wife on -board," remarked another; and the light of the crimson sunset all -ablaze behind the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light upon the -barque's spars, faded away from the Hope Reach. - -Then one of us, who had not spoken before, a man of over fifty, that had -commanded ships for a quarter of a century, looking after the barque now -gliding far away, all black on the lustre of the river, said: - -This reminds me of an absurd episode in my life, now many years ago, -when I got first the command of an iron barque, loading then in a -certain Eastern seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern kingdom, -lying up a river as might be London lies up this old Thames of ours. -No more need be said of the place; for this sort of thing might have -happened anywhere where there are ships, skippers, tugboats, and orphan -nieces of indescribable splendour. And the absurdity of the episode -concerns only me, my enemy Falk, and my friend Hermann. - -There seemed to be something like peculiar emphasis on the words "My -friend Hermann," which caused one of us (for we had just been speaking -of heroism at sea) to say idly and nonchalantly: - -"And was this Hermann a hero?" - -Not at all, said our grizzled friend. No hero at all. He was a -Schiff-fuhrer: Ship-conductor. That's how they call a Master Mariner -in Germany. I prefer our way. The alliteration is good, and there is -something in the nomenclature that gives to us as a body the sense -of corporate existence: Apprentice, Mate, Master, in the ancient and -honourable craft of the sea. As to my friend Hermann, he might have -been a consummate master of the honourable craft, but he was called -officially Schiff-fuhrer, and had the simple, heavy appearance of a -well-to-do farmer, combined with the good-natured shrewdness of a small -shopkeeper. With his shaven chin, round limbs, and heavy eyelids he did -not look like a toiler, and even less like an adventurer of the sea. -Still, he toiled upon the seas, in his own way, much as a shopkeeper -works behind his counter. And his ship was the means by which he -maintained his growing family. - -She was a heavy, strong, blunt-bowed affair, awakening the ideas of -primitive solidity, like the wooden plough of our forefathers. And there -were, about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely nature. The -extraordinary timber projections which I have seen in no other vessel -made her square stern resemble the tail end of a miller's waggon. But -the four stern ports of her cabin, glazed with six little greenish panes -each, and framed in wooden sashes painted brown, might have been the -windows of a cottage in the country. The tiny white curtains and the -greenery of flower pots behind the glass completed the resemblance. On -one or two occasions when passing under stern I had detected from my -boat a round arm in the act of tilting a watering pot, and the bowed -sleek head of a maiden whom I shall always call Hermann's niece, because -as a matter of fact I've never heard her name, for all my intimacy with -the family. - -This, however, sprang up later on. Meantime in common with the rest -of the shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to -Hermann's notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in -wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and -pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or -a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a -fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the -poop entirely. The afternoon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby -activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions -of drowned, mutilated and flattened humanity. Trunks without heads waved -at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantastically with -collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments that, taking -the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, became for -a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible -bodies. On these days you could make out that ship at a great distance -by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft her mizzen mast. - -She had her berth just ahead of me, and her name was Diana,--Diana not -of Ephesus but of Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a foot -long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat like the lettering of a -shop-sign) under the cottage windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name -struck one as an impertinence towards the memory of the most charming -of goddesses; for, apart from the fact that the old craft was physically -incapable of engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of four -children belonging to her. They peeped over the rail at passing boats -and occasionally dropped various objects into them. Thus, sometime -before I knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat a horrid -rag-doll belonging to Hermann's eldest daughter. However, these -youngsters were upon the whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round -eyes, round little knobby noses, and they resembled their father a good -deal. - -This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old ship, and seemed to know -nothing of the wicked sea, as there are on shore households that know -nothing of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she suggested were -unexceptionable and mainly of a domestic order. She was a home. All -these dear children had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck. In -such thoughts there is something pretty, even touching. Their teeth, I -should judge, they had cut on the ends of her running gear. I have -many times observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) engaged in gnawing the -whipping of the fore-royal brace. Nicholas' favourite place of residence -was under the main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose he would -crawl off there, and the first seaman who came along would bring him, -carefully held aloft in tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy -there must have been a standing order to that effect. In the course of -these transportations the baby, who was the only peppery person in the -ship, tried to smite these stalwart young German sailors on the face. - -Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife, wore on board baggy blue -dresses with white dots. When, as happened once or twice I caught her at -an elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white collars, baby's socks, -and Hermann's summer neckties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and -raising her wet hands greet me from afar with many friendly nods. Her -sleeves would be rolled up to the elbows, and the gold hoop of her -wedding ring glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was pleasant, she -had a serene brow, smooth bands of very fair hair, and a good-humoured -expression of the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talkative. When -this simple matron smiled, youthful dimples broke out on her fresh broad -cheeks. Hermann's niece on the other hand, an orphan and very silent, I -never saw attempt a smile. This, however, was not gloom on her part but -the restraint of youthful gravity. - -They had carried her about with them for the last three years, to help -with the children and be company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann mentioned -once to me. It had been very necessary while they were all little, he -had added in a vexed manner. It was her arm and her sleek head that -I had glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows of the cabin, -hovering over the pots of fuchsias and mignonette; but the first time I -beheld her full length I surrendered to her proportions. They fix her -in my mind, as great beauty, great intelligence, quickness of wit -or kindness of heart might have made some her other woman equally -memorable. - -With her it was form and size. It was her physical personality that had -this imposing charm. She might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to -an exceptional degree. I don't know, and this is not to the point. All -I know is that she was built on a magnificent scale. Built is the only -word. She was constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal -lavishness. It staggered you to see this reckless expenditure of -material upon a chit of a girl. She was youthful and also perfectly -mature, as though she had been some fortunate immortal. She was heavy -too, perhaps, but that's nothing. It only added to that notion of -permanence. She was barely nineteen. But such shoulders! Such round -arms! Such a shadowing forth of mighty limbs when with three long -strides she pounced across the deck upon the overturned Nicholas--it's -perfectly indescribable! She seemed a good, quiet girl, vigilant as -to Lena's needs, Gustav's tumbles, the state of Carl's dear little -nose--conscientious, hardworking, and all that. But what magnificent -hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. It had the sheen -of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress -hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist. -The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it reminded one of a -club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She had a -good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that she appeared to -look at the world with the empty white candour of a statue. You could -not call her good-looking. It was something much more impressive. -The simplicity of her apparel, the opulence of her form, her imposing -stature, and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that seemed to -emanate from her like a perfume exhaled by a flower, made her beautiful -with a beauty of a rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching up -to the clothes-line with both arms raised high above her head, caused -you to fall a musing in a strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs. -Hermann's baggy cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary frills at neck -and bottom, but this girl's print frocks hadn't even a wrinkle; nothing -but a few straight folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these, -when she stood still, had a severe and statuesque quality. She was -inclined naturally to be still whether sitting or standing. However, I -don't mean to say she was statuesque. She was too generously alive; but -she could have stood for an allegoric statue of the Earth. I don't mean -the worn-out earth of our possession, but a young Earth, a virginal -planet undisturbed by the vision of a future teeming with the monstrous -forms of life and death, clamorous with the cruel battles of hunger and -thought. - -The worthy Hermann himself was not very entertaining, though his English -was fairly comprehensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one speech -at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone (and in Platt-Deutsch I -suppose) I could not understand. As to their niece, however satisfactory -to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with a hopeful view as to -the prospects of mankind) she was a modest and silent presence, mostly -engaged in sewing, only now and then, as I observed, falling over that -work into a state of maidenly meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her, -sewing also, with her feet propped on a wooden footstool. On the other -side of the deck Hermann and I would get a couple of chairs out of the -cabin and settle down to a smoking match, accompanied at long intervals -by the pacific exchange of a few words. I came nearly every evening. -Hermann I would find in his shirt sleeves. As soon as he returned from -the shore on board his ship he commenced operations by taking off his -coat; then he put on his head an embroidered round cap with a tassel, -and changed his boots for a pair of cloth slippers. Afterwards he smoked -at the cabin-door, looking at his children with an air of civic virtue, -till they got caught one after another and put to bed in various -staterooms. Lastly, we would drink some beer in the cabin, which -was furnished with a wooden table on cross legs, and with black -straight-backed chairs--more like a farm kitchen than a ship's cuddy. -The sea and all nautical affairs seemed very far removed from the -hospitality of this exemplary family. - -And I liked this because I had a rather worrying time on board my own -ship. I had been appointed ex-officio by the British Consul to take -charge of her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for the -guidance of his successor some suspiciously unreceipted bills, a few -dry-dock estimates hinting at bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for -three years' extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up together in a -dusty old violin-case lined with ruby velvet. I found besides a large -account-book, which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my infinite -consternation to be filled with verses--page after page of rhymed -doggerel of a jovial and improper character, written in the neatest -minute hand I ever did see. In the same fiddle-case a photograph of my -predecessor, taken lately in Saigon, represented in front of a garden -view, and in company of a female in strange draperies, an elderly, -squat, rugged man of stern aspect in a clumsy suit of black broadcloth, -and with the hair brushed forward above the temples in a manner -reminding one of a boar's tusks. Of a fiddle, however, the only trace -on board was the case, its empty husk as it were; but of the two last -freights the ship had indubitably earned of late, there were not even -the husks left. It was impossible to say where all that money had gone -to. It wasn't on board. It had not been remitted home; for a letter -from the owners, preserved in a desk evidently by the merest accident, -complained mildly enough that they had not been favoured by a scratch -of the pen for the last eighteen months. There were next to no stores on -board, not an inch of spare rope or a yard of canvas. The ship had been -run bare, and I foresaw no end of difficulties before I could get her -ready for sea. - -As I was young then--not thirty yet--I took myself and my troubles very -seriously. The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the captain's -funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming. But the fact is the -fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, -if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on board. As to -the second mate, all I can say his name was Tottersen, or something like -that. His practice was to wear on his head, in that tropical climate, a -mangy fur cap. He was, without exception, the stupidest man I had ever -seen on board ship. And he looked it too. He looked so confoundedly -stupid that it was a matter of surprise for me when he answered to his -name. - -I drew no great comfort from their company, to say the least of it; -while the prospect of making a long sea passage with those two fellows -was depressing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not be of a -gay complexion. The crew was sickly, the cargo was coming very slow; I -foresaw I would have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted -whether they would advance me enough money for the ship's expenses. -Their attitude towards me was unfriendly. Altogether I was not getting -on. I would discover at odd times (generally about midnight) that I -was totally inexperienced, greatly ignorant of business, and hopelessly -unfit for any sort of command; and when the steward had to be taken to -the hospital ill with choleraic symptoms I felt bereaved of the only -decent person at the after end of the ship. He was fully expected to -recover, but in the meantime had to be replaced by some sort of servant. -And on the recommendation of a certain Schomberg, the proprietor of the -smaller of the two hotels in the place, I engaged a Chinaman. Schomberg, -a brawny, hairy Alsatian, and an awful gossip, assured me that it was -all right. "First-class boy that. Came in the suite of his Excellency -Tseng the Commissioner--you know. His Excellency Tseng lodged with me -here for three weeks." - -He mouthed the Chinese Excellency at me with great unction, though -the specimen of the "suite" did not seem very promising. At the time, -however, I did not know what an untrustworthy humbug Schomberg was. The -"boy" might have been forty or a hundred and forty for all you could -tell--one of those Chinamen of the death's-head type of face and -completely inscrutable. Before the end of the third day he had revealed -himself as a confirmed opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief, -and a first-class sprinter. When he departed at the top of his speed -with thirty-two golden sovereigns of my own hard-earned savings it was -the last straw. I had reserved that money in case my difficulties came -to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor and naked as a fakir. I -clung to my ship, for all the bother she caused me, but what I could not -bear were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where the atmosphere, -made smelly by a leaky lamp, was agitated by the snoring of the mate. -That fellow shut himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at eight, and -made gross and revolting noises like a water-logged trump. It was odious -not to be able to worry oneself in comfort on board one's own ship. -Everything in this world, I reflected, even the command of a nice little -barque, may be made a delusion and a snare for the unwary spirit of -pride in man. - -From such reflections I was glad to make any escape on board that Bremen -Diana. There apparently no whisper of the world's iniquities had ever -penetrated. And yet she lived upon the wide sea: and the sea tragic -and comic, the sea with its horrors and its peculiar scandals, the sea -peopled by men and ruled by iron necessity is indubitably a part of the -world. But that patriarchal old tub, like some saintly retreat, echoed -nothing of it. She was world proof. Her venerable innocence apparently -had put a restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And yet I have -known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An -elemental force is ruthlessly frank. It may, of course, have been -Hermann's skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the allied -oceans had refrained from smashing these high bulwarks, unshipping -the lumpy rudder, frightening the children, and generally opening this -family's eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reticence. The -ruthless disclosure was in the end left for a man to make; a man strong -and elemental enough and driven to unveil some secrets of the sea by the -power of a simple and elemental desire. - -This, however, occurred much later, and meantime I took sanctuary in -that serene old ship early every evening. The only person on board that -seemed to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due course I perceived -that the health of the rag-doll was more than delicate. This object led -a sort of "in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed against the -starboard mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy -and care by all the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and -moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby--Nicholas--looked on with a -cold, ruffianly leer, as if he had belonged to another tribe altogether. -Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of them were in deadly -earnest. It was wonderful the way these children would work up their -compassion for that bedraggled thing I wouldn't have touched with a pair -of tongs. I suppose they were exercising and developing their racial -sentimentalism by the means of that dummy. I was only surprised that -Mrs. Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that bundle of rags to that -extent, it was so disreputably and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann -would raise her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to look on with -amused sympathy, and did not seen to see it, somehow, that this -object of affection was a disgrace to the ship's purity. Purity, not -cleanliness, is the word. It was pushed so far that I seemed to detect -in this too a sentimental excess, as if dirt had been removed in -very love. It is impossible to give you an idea of such a meticulous -neatness. It was as if every morning that ship had been arduously -explored with--with toothbrushes. Her very bowsprit three times a week -had its toilette made with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. -Arrayed--I _must_ say arrayed--arrayed artlessly in dazzling white paint -as to wood and dark green as to ironwork the simple-minded distribution -of these colours evoked the images of simple-minded peace, of arcadian -felicity; and the childish comedy of disease and sorrow struck me -sometimes as an abominably real blot upon that ideal state. - -I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought a little mild excitement -into it. Our intimacy arose from the pursuit of that thief. It was in -the evening, and Hermann, who, contrary to his habits, had stayed on -shore late that day, was extricating himself backwards out of a little -gharry on the river bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed. -Realising the situation as though he had eyes in his shoulder-blades, he -joined us with a leap and took the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like -a rapid shadow on the dust of an extremely oriental road. I followed. A -long way in the rear my mate whooped like a savage. A young moon threw -a bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste ground: the -architectural mass of a Buddhist temple far away projected itself -in dead black on the sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my -disappointment I had to admire Hermann's presence of mind. The velocity -that stodgy man developed in the interests of a complete stranger earned -my warm gratitude--there was something truly cordial in his exertions. - -He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and would hardly listen to -my thanks. He said it was "nothings," and invited me on the spot to -come on board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him. We poked -sceptically for a while amongst the bushes, peered without conviction -into a ditch or two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glimmered -feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged back, drooping under the -thin sickle of the moon, and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! -Zwei und dreissig Pfund!" He was impressed by the figure of my loss. For -a long time we had ceased to hear the mate's whoops and yells. - -Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troubles," and as we went on -remarked that he would never have known anything of mine hadn't he by an -extraordinary chance been detained on shore by Captain Falk. He didn't -like to stay late ashore--he added with a sigh. The something doleful in -his tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of course. - -On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann's fine eyes expressed much interest and -commiseration. We had found the two women sewing face to face under the -open skylight in the strong glare of the lamp. Hermann walked in first, -starting in the very doorway to pull off his coat, and encouraging -me with loud, hospitable ejaculations: "Come in! This way! Come in, -captain!" At once, coat in hand, he began to tell his wife all about -it. Mrs. Hermann put the palms of her plump hands together; I smiled -and bowed with a heavy heart: the niece got up from her sewing to -bring Hermann's slippers and his embroidered calotte, which he assumed -pontifically, talking (about me) all the time. Billows of white stuff -lay between the chairs on the cabin floor; I caught the words "Zwei und -dreissig Pfund" repeated several times, and presently came the beer, -which seemed delicious to my throat, parched with running and the -emotions of the chase. - -I didn't get away till well past midnight, long after the women had -retired. Hermann had been trading in the East for three years or more, -carrying freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship was well known in -all the ports from Vladivostok to Singapore. She was his own property. -The profits had been moderate, but the trade answered well enough while -the children were small yet. In another year or so he hoped he would -be able to sell the old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He -intended to return home, to Bremen, by mail boat, second class, with -Mrs. Hermann and the children. He told me all this stolidly, with slow -puffs at his pipe. I was sorry when knocking the ashes out he began -to rub his eyes. I would have sat with him till morning. What had I to -hurry on board my own ship for? To face the broken rifled drawer in my -state-room. Ugh! The very thought made me feel unwell. - -I became their daily guest, as you know. I think that Mrs. Hermann from -the first looked upon me as a romantic person. I did not, of course, -tear my hair _coram populo_ over my loss, and she took it for lordly -indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did tell them some of my -adventures--such as they were--and they marvelled greatly at the extent -of my experience. Hermann would translate what he thought the most -striking passages. Getting up on his legs, and as if delivering a -lecture on a phenomenon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the two -women, who would let their sewing sink slowly on their laps. Meantime -I sat before a glass of Hermann's beer, trying to look modest. Mrs. -Hermann would glance at me quickly, emit slight "Ach's!" The girl never -made a sound. Never. But she too would sometimes raise her pale eyes -to look at me in her unseeing gentle way. Her glance was by no means -stupid; it beamed out soft and diffuse as the moon beams upon a -landscape--quite differently from the scrutinising inspection of the -stars. You were drowned in it, and imagined yourself to appear blurred. -And yet this same glance when turned upon Christian Falk must have been -as efficient as the searchlight of a battle-ship. - -Falk was the other assiduous visitor on board, but from his behaviour -he might have been coming to see the quarter-deck capstan. He certainly -used to stare at it a good deal when keeping us company outside the -cabin door, with one muscular arm thrown over the back of the chair, and -his big shapely legs, in very tight white trousers, extended far out and -ending in a pair of black shoes as roomy as punts. On arrival he would -shake Hermann's hand with a mutter, bow to the women, and take up his -careless and misanthropic attitude by our side. He departed abruptly, -with a jump, going through the performance of grunts, handshakes, bow, -as if in a panic. Sometimes, with a sort of discreet and convulsive -effort, he approached the women and exchanged a few low words with them, -half a dozen at most. On these occasions Hermann's usual stare became -positively glassy and Mrs. Hermann's kind countenance would colour up. -The girl herself never turned a hair. - -Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I can't tell now. At all events -he was a Scandinavian of some sort, and a bloated monopolist to boot. -It is possible he was unacquainted with the word, but he had a clear -perception of the thing itself. His tariff of charges for towing ships -in and out was the most brutally inconsiderate document of the sort I -had ever seen. He was the commander and owner of the only tug-boat on -the river, a very trim white craft of 150 tons or more, as elegantly -neat as a yacht, with a round wheel-house rising like a glazed turret -high above her sharp bows, and with one slender varnished pole mast -forward. I daresay there are yet a few shipmasters afloat who remember -Falk and his tug very well. He extracted his pound and a half of -flesh from each of us merchant-skippers with an inflexible sort of -indifference which made him detested and even feared. Schomberg used to -remark: "I won't talk about the fellow. I don't think he has six drinks -from year's end to year's end in my place. But my advice is, gentlemen, -don't you have anything to do with him, if you can help it." - -This advice, apart from unavoidable business relations, was easy to -follow because Falk intruded upon no one. It seems absurd to compare a -tugboat skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me somehow of an engraving -in a little book I had as a boy, which represented centaurs at a stream, -and there was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow and arrows -in hand, with regular severe features and an immense curled wavy beard, -flowing down his breast. Falk's face reminded me of that centaur. -Besides, he was a composite creature. Not a man-horse, it is true, but -a man-boat. He lived on board his tug, which was always dashing up and -down the river from early morn till dewy eve. - -In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick out far away down -the reach his beard borne high up on the white structure, foaming up -stream to anchor for the night. There was the white-clad man's body, and -the rich brown patch of the hair, and nothing below the waist but the -'thwart-ship white lines of the bridge-screens, that lead the eye to the -sharp white lines of the bows cleaving the muddy water of the river. - -Separated from his boat to me at least he seemed incomplete. The tug -herself without his head and torso on the bridge looked mutilated as it -were. But he left her very seldom. All the time I remained in harbour -I saw him only twice on shore. On the first occasion it was at my -charterers, where he came in misanthropically to get paid for towing out -a French barque the day before. The second time I could hardly believe -my eyes, for I beheld him reclining under his beard in a cane-bottomed -chair in the billiard-room of Schomberg's hotel. - -It was very funny to see Schomberg ignoring him pointedly. The -artificiality of it contrasted strongly with Falk's natural unconcern. -The big Alsatian talked loudly with his other customers, going from one -little table to the other, and passing Falk's place of repose with his -eyes fixed straight ahead. Falk sat there with an untouched glass at his -elbow. He must have known by sight and name every white man in the room, -but he never addressed a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence by -a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawling there in the chair, -he would, now and again, draw the palms of both his hands down his face, -giving at the same time a slight, almost imperceptible, shudder. - -It was a habit he had, and of course I was perfectly familiar with it, -since you could not remain an hour in his company without being made to -wonder at such a movement breaking some long period of stillness. It was -a passionate and inexplicable gesture. He used to make it at all sorts -of times; as likely as not after he had been listening to little Lena's -chatter about the suffering doll, for instance. The Hermann children -always besieged him about his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he -shrank from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a great affection -for the whole family. For Hermann himself especially. He sought his -company. In this case, for instance, he must have been waiting for him, -because as soon as he appeared Falk rose hastily, and they went out -together. Then Schomberg expounded in my hearing to three or four people -his theory that Falk was after Captain Hermann's niece, and asserted -confidently that nothing would come of it. It was the same last year -when Captain Hermann was loading here, he said. - -Naturally, I did not believe Schomberg, but I own that for a time I -observed closely what went on. All I discovered was some impatience on -Hermann's part. At the sight of Falk, stepping over the gangway, the -excellent man would begin to mumble and chew between his teeth something -that sounded like German swear-words. However, as I've said, I'm not -familiar with the language, and Hermann's soft, round-eyed countenance -remained unchanged. Staring stolidly ahead he greeted him with, "Wie -gehts," or in English, "How are you?" with a throaty enunciation. The -girl would look up for an instant and move her lips slightly: Mrs. -Hermann let her hands rest on her lap to talk volubly to him for a -minute or so in her pleasant voice before she went on with her sewing -again. Falk would throw himself into a chair, stretch his big legs, as -like as not draw his hands down his face passionately. As to myself, he -was not pointedly impertinent: it was rather as though he could not be -bothered with such trifles as my existence; and the truth is that being -a monopolist he was under no necessity to be amiable. He was sure to get -his own extortionate terms out of me for towage whether he frowned -or smiled. As a matter of fact, he did neither: but before many days -elapsed he managed to astonish me not a little and to set Schomberg's -tongue clacking more than ever. - -It came about in this way. There was a shallow bar at the mouth of the -river which ought to have been kept down, but the authorities of the -State were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist Pagoda just -then, and I suppose had no money to spare for dredging operations. I -don't know how it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sandbank -was a great nuisance to the shipping. One of its consequences was that -vessels of a certain draught of water, like Hermann's or mine, could not -complete their loading in the river. After taking in as much as possible -of their cargo, they had to go outside to fill up. The whole procedure -was an unmitigated bore. When you thought you had as much on board as -your ship could carry safely over the bar, you went and gave notice to -your agents. They, in their turn, notified Falk that so-and-so was ready -to go out. Then Falk (ostensibly when it fitted in with his other work, -but, if the truth were known, simply when his arbitrary spirit moved -him), after ascertaining carefully in the office that there was enough -money to meet his bill, would come along unsympathetically, glaring -at you with his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you out -dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the decks, with unfeeling -haste, as if to execution. And he would force you too to take the end of -his own wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course an extra -charge. To your shouted remonstrances against that extortion this -towering trunk with one hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its -bearded head above the splash, the racket, and the clouds of smoke -in which the tug, backing and filling in the smother of churning -paddle-wheels behaved like a ferocious and impatient creature. He had -her manned by the cheekiest gang of lascars I ever did see, whom he -allowed to bawl at you insolently, and, once fast, he plucked you out -of your berth as if he did not care what he smashed. Eighteen miles down -the river you had to go behind him, and then three more along the -coast to where a group of uninhabited rocky islets enclosed a sheltered -anchorage. There you would have to lie at single anchor with your naked -spars showing to seaward over these barren fragments of land scattered -upon a very intensely blue sea. There was nothing to look at besides but -a bare coast, the muddy edge of the brown plain with the sinuosities -of the river you had left, traced in dull green, and the Great Pagoda -uprising lonely and massive with shining curves and pinnacles like the -gorgeous and stony efflorescence of tropical rocks. You had nothing to -do but to wait fretfully for the balance of your cargo, which was sent -out of the river with the greatest irregularity. And it was open to -you to console yourself with the thought that, after all, this stage -of bother meant that your departure from these shores was indeed -approaching at last. - -We both had to go through that stage, Hermann and I, and there was a -sort of tacit emulation between the ships as to which should be ready -first. We kept on neck and neck almost to the finish, when I won -the race by going personally to give notice in the forenoon; whereas -Hermann, who was very slow in making up his mind to go ashore, did not -get to the agents' office till late in the day. They told him there that -my ship was first on turn for next morning, and I believe he told them -he was in no hurry. It suited him better to go the day after. - -That evening, on board the Diana, he sat with his plump knees well -apart, staring and puffing at the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. -Presently he spoke with some impatience to his niece about putting the -children to bed. Mrs. Hermann, who was talking to Falk, stopped short -and looked at her husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and -drove the children before her into the cabin. In a little while Mrs. -Hermann had to leave us to quell what, from the sounds inside, must have -been a dangerous mutiny. At this Hermann grumbled to himself. For half -an hour longer Falk left alone with us fidgeted on his chair, sighed -lightly, then at last, after drawing his hands down his face, got up, -and as if renouncing the hope of making himself understood (he hadn't -opened his mouth once) he said in English: "Well.... Good night, -Captain Hermann." He stopped for a moment before my chair and looked -down fixedly; I may even say he glared: and he went so far as to make a -deep noise in his throat. There was in all this something so marked -that for the first time in our limited intercourse of nods and grunts he -excited in me something like interest. But next moment he disappointed -me--for he strode away hastily without a nod even. - -His manner was usually odd it is true, and I certainly did not pay much -attention to it; but that sort of obscure intention, which seemed to -lurk in his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had never before -come so near the surface. He had distinctly aroused my expectations. I -would have been unable to say what it was I expected, but at all events -I did not expect the absurd developments he sprung upon me no later than -the break of the very next day. - -I remember only that there was, on that evening, enough point in his -behaviour to make me, after he had fled, wonder audibly what he might -mean. To this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and settling -himself viciously away from me in his chair, said: "That fellow don't -know himself what he means." - -There might have been some insight in such a remark. I said nothing, -and, still averted, he added: "When I was here last year he was just the -same." An eruption of tobacco smoke enveloped his head as if his temper -had exploded like gunpowder. - -I had half a mind to ask him point blank whether he, at least, didn't -know why Falk, a notoriously unsociable man, had taken to visiting his -ship with such assiduity. After all, I reflected suddenly, it was a -most remarkable thing. I wonder now what Hermann would have said. As it -turned out he didn't let me ask. Forgetting all about Falk apparently, -he started a monologue on his plans for the future: the selling of the -ship, the going home; and falling into a reflective and calculating -mood he mumbled between regular jets of smoke about the expense. The -necessity of disbursing passage money for all his tribe seemed to -disturb him in a manner that was the more striking because otherwise -he gave no signs of a miserly disposition. And yet he fussed over the -prospect of that voyage home in a mail boat like a sedentary grocer -who has made up his mind to see the world. He was racially thrifty I -suppose, and for him there must have been a great novelty in finding -himself obliged to pay for travelling--for sea travelling which was the -normal state of life for the family--from the very cradle for most of -them. I could see he grudged prospectively every single shilling which -must be spent so absurdly. It was rather funny. He would become doleful -over it, and then again, with a fretful sigh, he would suppose there -was nothing for it now but to take three second-class tickets--and there -were the four children to pay for besides. A lot of money that to spend -at once. A big lot of money. - -I sat with him listening (not for the first time) to these -heart-searchings till I grew thoroughly sleepy, and then I left him and -turned in on board my ship. At daylight I was awakened by a yelping of -shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion in the water, and the -short, bullying blasts of a steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come -for me. - -I began to dress. It was remarkable that the answering noise on board my -ship together with the patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But -I heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to express surprise and -annoyance. Then the voice of my mate reached me howling expostulations -to somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, apparently indignant; -a chorus of something that sounded like abuse replied. Now and then the -steam-whistle screeched. - -Altogether that unnecessary uproar was distracting, but down there in my -cabin I took it calmly. In another moment, I thought, I should be going -down that wretched river, and in another week at the most I should be -totally quit of the odious place and all the odious people in it. - -Greatly cheered by the idea, I seized the hair-brushes and looking at -myself in the glass began to use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the -noise outside, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown open)--I -heard a deep calm voice, not on board my ship, however, hailing -resolutely in English, but with a strong foreign twang, "Go ahead!" - -There may be tides in the affairs of men which taken at the flood... -and so on. Personally I am still on the look out for that important -turn. I am, however, afraid that most of us are fated to flounder for -ever in the dead water of a pool whose shores are arid indeed. But -I know that there are often in men's affairs unexpectedly--even -irrationally--illuminating moments when an otherwise insignificant -sound, perhaps only some perfectly commonplace gesture, suffices -to reveal to us all the unreason, all the fatuous unreason, of our -complacency. "Go ahead" are not particularly striking words even when -pronounced with a foreign accent; yet they petrified me in the very -act of smiling at myself in the glass. And then, refusing to believe my -ears, but already boiling with indignation, I ran out of the cabin and -up on deck. - -It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I had no eyes for -anything but the Diana. It was she, then, was being taken away. She was -already out of her berth and shooting athwart the river. "The way this -loonatic plucked that ship out is a caution," said the awed voice of my -mate close to my ear. "Hey! Hallo! Falk! Hermann! What's this infernal -trick?" I yelled in a fury. - -Nobody heard me. Falk certainly could not hear me. His tug was turning -at full speed away under the other bank. The wire hawser between her and -the Diana, stretched as taut as a harp-string, vibrated alarmingly. - -The high black craft careened over to the awful strain. A loud crack -came out of her, followed by the tearing and splintering of wood. -"There!" said the awed voice in my ear. "He's carried away their towing -chock." And then, with enthusiasm, "Oh! Look! Look! sir, Look! at them -Dutchmen skipping out of the way on the forecastle. I hope to goodness -he'll break a few of their shins before he's done with 'em." - -I yelled my vain protests. The rays of the rising sun coursing level -along the plain warmed my back, but I was hot enough with rage. I -could not have believed that a simple towing operation could suggest so -plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk was simply running off with -the Diana. - -The white tug careered out into the middle of the river. The red floats -of her paddle-wheels revolving with mad rapidity tore up the whole reach -into foam. The Diana in mid-stream waltzed round with as much grace -as an old barn, and flew after her ravisher. Through the ragged fog of -smoke driving headlong upon the water I had a glimpse of Falk's square -motionless shoulders under a white hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his -red face, his yellow staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keeping -a lookout ahead, he was deliberately turning his back on the river to -glare at his tow. The tall heavy craft, never so used before in her -life, seemed to have lost her senses; she took a wild sheer against her -helm, and for a moment came straight at us, menacing and clumsy, like -a runaway mountain. She piled up a streaming, hissing, boiling wave -half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let out one great howl,--and then we -held our breaths. It was a near thing. But Falk had her! He had her in -his clutch. I fancied I could hear the steel hawser ping as it surged -across the Diana's forecastle, with the hands on board of her bolting -away from it in all directions. It was a near thing. Hermann, with his -hair rumpled, in a snuffy flannel shirt and a pair of mustard-coloured -trousers, had rushed to help with the wheel. I saw his terrified round -face; I saw his very teeth uncovered by a sort of ghastly fixed grin; -and in a great leaping tumult of water between the two ships the Diana -whisked past so close that I could have flung a hair-brush at his head, -for, it seems, I had kept them in my hands all the time. Meanwhile -Mrs. Hermann sat placidly on the skylight, with a woollen shawl on -her shoulders. The excellent woman in response to my indignant -gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief, nodding and smiling in the -kindest way imaginable. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping about -the poop in great glee, displaying their gaudy braces; and Lena in a -short scarlet petticoat, with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed -the rag-doll with devotion. The whole family passed before my sight as -if dragged across a scene of unparalleled violence. The last I saw was -Hermann's niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing apart from -the others. Magnificent in her close-fitting print frock she displayed -something so commanding in the manifest perfection of her figure that -the sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The flood of light brought -out the opulence of her form and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying -way. She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only -the hem of her skirt stirred in the draught; the sun rays broke on her -sleek tawny hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whacking her -on the shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike -manner. And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view -retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes were up, and one of the -white calico curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above -the agitated water of the wake. - -To be thus tricked out of one's turn was an unheard of occurrence. In -my agent's office, where I went to complain at once, they protested with -apologies they couldn't understand how the mistake arose: but Schomberg -when I dropped in later to get some tiffin, though surprised to see me, -was perfectly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at the end -of a long narrow table, facing his wife--a scraggy little woman, with -long ringlets and a blue tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked -frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a waggling punkah fanned -twenty cane-bottomed chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three -Chinamen in white jackets loafed with napkins in their hands around that -desolation. Schomberg's pet table d'hote was not much of a success that -day. He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to overflow with -bitterness. - -He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops to be brought back for -me, and turning in his chair: "Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it! -Don't you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn't a man to make -mistakes unless on purpose." His firm conviction was that Falk had been -trying all along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann. "On the -cheap--mind you! It doesn't cost him a cent to put that insult upon you, -and Captain Hermann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time's money! Eh? -You are very friendly with Captain Hermann I believe, but a man is bound -to be pleased at any little advantage he may get. Captain Hermann is a -good business man, and there's no such thing as a friend in business. Is -there?" He leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances as usual. -"But Falk is, and always was, a miserable fellow. I would despise him." - -I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular respect for Falk. - -"I would despise him," he insisted, with an appearance of anxiety which -would have amused me if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent. To a -young man fairly conscientious and as well-meaning as only the young -man can be, the current ill-usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty. -Youth that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, and in -itself, will always doubt whether it have not perchance deserved its -fate. Sombre of mind and without appetite, I struggled with the -chop while Mrs. Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid grin and -Schomberg's talk gathered way like a slide of rubbish. - -"Let me tell you. It's all about that girl. I don't know what Captain -Hermann expects, but if he asked me I could tell him something about -Falk. He's a miserable fellow. That man is a perfect slave. That's what -I call him. A slave. Last year I started this table d'hote, and sent -cards out--you know. You think he had one meal in the house? Give the -thing a trial? Not once. He has got hold now of a Madras cook--a blamed -fraud that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan. He was not fit to -cook for white men. No, not for the white men's dogs either; but, see, -any damned native that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for Mr. -Falk. Rice and a little fish he buys for a few cents from the fishing -boats outside is what he lives on. You would hardly credit it--eh? A -white man, too...." - -He wiped his lips, using the napkin with indignation, and looking at me. -It flashed through my mind in the midst of my depression that if all the -meat in the town was like these table d'hote chops, Falk wasn't so far -wrong. I was on the point of saying this, but Schomberg's stare was -intimidating. "He's a vegetarian, perhaps," I murmured instead. - -"He's a miser. A miserable miser," affirmed the hotel-keeper with great -force. "The meat here is not so good as at home--of course. And dear -too. But look at me. I only charge a dollar for the tiffin, and one -dollar and fifty cents for the dinner. Show me anything cheaper. Why am -I doing it? There's little profit in this game. Falk wouldn't look -at it. I do it for the sake of a lot of young white fellows here that -hadn't a place where they could get a decent meal and eat it decently in -good company. There's first-rate company always at my table." - -The convinced way he surveyed the empty chairs made me feel as if I had -intruded upon a tiffin of ghostly Presences. - -"A white man should eat like a white man, dash it all," he burst out -impetuously. "Ought to eat meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for -my patrons all the year round. Don't I? I am not catering for a dam' lot -of coolies: Have another chop captain.... No? You, boy--take away!" - -He threw himself back and waited grimly for the curry. The half-closed -jalousies darkened the room pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: -a swarm of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs. Schomberg's -smile seemed to express the quintessence of all the imbecility that had -ever spoken, had ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo -meat within these bare walls. Schomberg did not open his lips till he -was ready to thrust therein a spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his -eyes ridiculously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only then broke -out afresh. - -"It is the most degrading thing. They take the dish up to the wheelhouse -for him with a cover on it, and he shuts both the doors before he begins -to eat. Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engineer. He can't -do without an engineer--don't you see--and as no respectable man can be -expected to put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen dollars -a month extra mess money. I assure you it is so! You just ask Mr. -Ferdinand da Costa. That's the engineer he has now. You may have seen -him about my place, a delicate dark young man, with very fine eyes and a -little moustache. He arrived here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you -and me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been after him. He -rushes here for a meal every chance he can get, for just please tell me -what satisfaction is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all -alone in his cabin--like a wild beast? That's what Falk expects his -engineers to put up with for fifteen dollars extra. And the rows on -board every time a little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You -wouldn't believe! The other day da Costa got the cook to fry a steak for -him--a turtle steak it was too, not beef at all--and the fat caught -or something. Young da Costa himself was telling me of it here in this -room. 'Mr. Schomberg'--says he-'if I had let a cylinder cover blow off -through the skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn't have been -more savage. He frightened the cook so that he won't put anything on the -fire for me now.' Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to put -yourself in his place, captain: a sensitive, gentlemanly young fellow. -Is he expected to eat his food raw? But that's your Falk all over. Ask -any one you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he has to give -keep on rankling--in there." - -And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat half stunned by his -irrelevant babble. Suddenly he gripped my forearm in an impressive and -cautious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of confidence. - -"It's nothing but enviousness," he said in a lowered tone, which had a -stimulating effect upon my wearied hearing. "I don't suppose there -is one person in this town that he isn't envious of. I tell you he's -dangerous. Even I myself am not safe from him. I know for certain he -tried to poison...." - -"Oh, come now," I cried, revolted. - -"But I know for certain. The people themselves came and told me of it. -He went about saying everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the -cholera. He had been talking against me ever since I opened this hotel. -And he poisoned Captain Hermann's mind too. Last time the Diana was -loading here Captain Hermann used to come in every day for a drink or a -cigar. This time he hasn't been here twice in a week. How do you account -for that?" - -He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me some sort of mumble. - -"He makes ten times the money I do. I've another hotel to fight against, -and there is no other tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He -wouldn't be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that's just his nature. -He can't bear to think I am making a living. I only hope it makes him -properly wretched. He's like that in everything. He would like to keep a -decent table well enough. But no--for the sake of a few cents. Can't do -it. It's too much for him. That's what I call being a slave to it. But -he's mean enough to kick up a row when his nose gets tickled a bit. See -that? That just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can't account for -it any other way. Can you? I have been studying him these three years." - -He was anxious I should assent to his theory. And indeed on thinking it -over it would have been plausible enough if there hadn't been always the -essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schomberg's chatter. However, -I was not disposed to investigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged -just then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being -too much crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let along bothering my -head about Falk's ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study -no clue to his conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me -totally unrestrained by morality or even by the commonest sort of -decency. How insignificant and contemptible I must appear, for the -fellow to dare treat me like this--I reflected suddenly, writhing in -silent agony. And I consigned Falk and all his peculiarities to the -devil with so much mental fervour as to forget Schomberg's existence, -till he grabbed my arm urgently. "Well, you may think and think till -every hair of your head falls off, captain; but you can't explain it in -any other way." - -For the sake of peace and quietness I admitted hurriedly that I -couldn't: persuaded that now he would leave off. But the only result was -to make his moist face shine with the pride of cunning. He removed his -hand for a moment to scare a black mass of flies off the sugar-basin and -caught hold of my arm again. - -"To be sure. And in the same way everybody is aware he would like to get -married. Only he can't. Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years -ago a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home to keep house for -her brother, Fred, who had an engineering shop for small repairs by -the water side. Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bungalow after -dinner, and sitting for hours in the verandah saying nothing. The poor -girl couldn't tell for the life of her what to do with such a man, so -she would keep on playing the piano and singing to him evening after -evening till she was ready to drop. And it wasn't as if she had been -a strong young woman either. She was thirty, and the climate had been -playing the deuce with her. Then--don't you know--Fred had to sit up with -them for propriety, and during whole weeks on end never got a single -chance to get to bed before midnight. That was not pleasant for a tired -man--was it? And besides Fred had worries then because his shop didn't -pay and he was dropping money fast. He just longed to get away from here -and try his luck somewhere else, but for the sake of his sister he hung -on and on till he ran himself into debt over his ears--I can tell you. -I, myself, could show a handful of his chits for meals and drinks in -my drawer. I could never find out tho' where he found all the money at -last. Can't be but he must have got something out of that brother of -his, a coal merchant in Port Said. Anyhow he paid everybody before he -left, but the girl nearly broke her heart. Disappointment, of course, -and at her age, don't you know.... Mrs. Schomberg here was very -friendly with her, and she could tell you. Awful despair. Fainting -fits. It was a scandal. A notorious scandal. To that extent that old Mr. -Siegers--not your present charterer, but Mr. Siegers the father, the old -gentleman who retired from business on a fortune and got buried at sea -going home, _he_ had to interview Falk in his private office. He was a man -who could speak like a Dutch Uncle, and, besides, Messrs. Siegers had -been helping Falk with a good bit of money from the start. In fact you -may say they made him as far as that goes. It so happened that just at -the time he turned up here, their firm was chartering a lot of sailing -ships every year, and it suited their business that there should be good -towing facilities on the river. See?... Well--there's always an -ear at the keyhole--isn't there? In fact," he lowered his tone -confidentially, "in this case a good friend of mine; a man you can see -here any evening; only they conversed rather low. Anyhow my friend's -certain that Falk was trying to make all sorts of excuses, and old -Mr. Siegers was coughing a lot. And yet Falk wanted all the time to be -married too. Why! It's notorious the man has been longing for years to -make a home for himself. Only he can't face the expense. When it comes -to putting his hand in his pocket--it chokes him off. That's the truth -and no other. I've always said so, and everybody agrees with me by this -time. What do you think of that--eh?" - -He appealed confidently to my indignation, but having a mind to annoy -him I remarked, "that it seemed to me very pitiful--if true." - -He bounced in his chair as if I had run a pin into him. I don't know -what he might have said, only at that moment we heard through the half -open door of the billiard-room the footsteps of two men entering from -the verandah, a murmur of two voices; at the sharp tapping of a coin on -a table Mrs. Schomberg half rose irresolutely. "Sit still," he hissed at -her, and then, in an hospitable, jovial tone, contrasting amazingly with -the angry glance that had made his wife sink in her chair, he cried very -loud: "Tiffin still going on in here, gentlemen." - -There was no answer, but the voices dropped suddenly. The head Chinaman -went out. We heard the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the -shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs. Schomberg, after wondering in -a low mutter who the devil could be there at this time of the day, got -up napkin in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously. He retreated -rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering behind his hand informed me that -it was Falk, Falk himself who was in there, and, what's more, he had -Captain Hermann with him. - -The return of the tug from the outer Roads was unexpected but possible, -for Falk had taken away the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two -o'clock. Schomberg wished me to observe that neither of these men would -spend a dollar on a tiffin, which they must have wanted. But by the time -I was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone. I heard the last of -his big boots on the planks of the verandah. Hermann was sitting quite -alone in the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard tables -shrouded in striped covers, mopping his face diligently. He wore -his best go-ashore clothes, a stiff collar, black coat, large white -waistcoat, grey trousers. A white cotton sunshade with a cane handle -reposed between his legs, his side whiskers were neatly brushed, his -chin had been freshly shaved; and he only distantly resembled the -dishevelled and terrified man in a snuffy night shirt and ignoble old -trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on to the wheel of the Diana. - -He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed me at once in some -confusion, but with genuine eagerness. He was anxious to make it clear -he had nothing to do with what he called the "tam pizness" of the -morning. It was most inconvenient. He had reckoned upon another day up -in town to settle his bills and sign certain papers. There were also -some few stores to come, and sundry pieces of "my ironwork," as he -called it quaintly, landed for repairs, had been left behind. Now he -would have to hire a native boat to take all this out to the ship. It -would cost five or six dollars perhaps. He had had no warning from -Falk. Nothing.... He hit the table with his dumpy fist.... Der -verfluchte Kerl came in the morning like a "tam' ropper," making a great -noise, and took him away. His mate was not prepared, his ship was moored -fast--he protested it was shameful to come upon a man in that way. -Shameful! Yet such was the power Falk had on the river that when I -suggested in a chilling tone that he might have simply refused to have -his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled at the idea. I never realised -so well before that this is an age of steam. The exclusive possession -of a marine boiler had given Falk the whip-hand of us all. Hermann, -recovering, put it to me appealingly that I knew very well how unsafe it -was to contradict that fellow. At this I only smiled distantly. - -"Der Kerl!" he cried. He was sorry he had not refused. He was indeed. -The damage! The damage! What for all that damage! There was no occasion -for damage. Did I know how much damage he had done? It gave me a certain -satisfaction to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a ship crack -fore and aft as she went by. "You passed close enough to me," I added -significantly. - -He threw both his hands up to heaven at the recollection. One of them -grasped by the middle the white parasol, and he resembled curiously -a caricature of a shop-keeping citizen in one of his own German comic -papers. "Ach! That was dangerous," he cried. I was amused. But directly -he added with an appearance of simplicity, "The side of your iron ship -would have been crushed in like--like this matchbox." - -"Would it?" I growled, much less amused now; but by the time I had -decided that this remark was not meant for a dig at me he had -worked himself into a high state of resentfulness against Falk. The -inconvenience, the damage, the expense! Gottferdam! Devil take the -fellow. Behind the bar Schomberg with a cigar in his teeth, pretended -to be writing with a pencil on a large sheet of paper; and as Hermann's -excitement increased it made me comfortingly aware of my own calmness -and superiority. But it occurred to me while I listened to his -revilings, that after all the good man had come up in the tug. There -perhaps--since he must come to town--he had no option. But evidently he -had had a drink with Falk, either accepted or offered. How was that? So -I checked him by saying loftily that I hoped he would make Falk pay for -every penny of the damage. - -"That's it! That's it! Go for him," called out Schomberg from the bar, -flinging his pencil down and rubbing his hands. - -We ignored his noise. But Hermann's excitement suddenly went off -the boil as when you remove a saucepan from the fire. I urged on his -consideration that he had done now with Falk and Falk's confounded tug. -He, Hermann, would not, perhaps, turn up again in this part of the world -for years to come, since he was going to sell the Diana at the end -of this very trip ("Go home passenger in a mail boat," he murmured -mechanically). He was therefore safe from Falk's malice. All he had to -do was to race off to his consignees and stop payment of the towage bill -before Falk had the time to get in and lift the money. - -Nothing could have been less in the spirit of my advice than the -thoughtful way in which he set about to make his parasol stay propped -against the edge of the table. - -While I watched his concentrated efforts with astonishment he threw at -me one or two perplexed, half-shy glances. Then he sat down. "That's all -very well," he said reflectively. - -It cannot be doubted that the man had been thrown off his balance by -being hauled out of the harbour against his wish. His stolidity had been -profoundly stirred, else he would never have made up his mind to ask me -unexpectedly whether I had not remarked that Falk had been casting eyes -upon his niece. "No more than myself," I answered with literal truth. -The girl was of the sort one necessarily casts eyes at in a sense. She -made no noise, but she filled most satisfactorily a good bit of space. - -"But you, captain, are not the same kind of man," observed Hermann. - -I was not, I am happy to say, in a position to deny this. "What about -the lady?" I could not help asking. At this he gazed for a time into -my face, earnestly, and made as if to change the subject. I heard him -beginning to mutter something unexpected, about his children growing -old enough to require schooling. He would have to leave them ashore with -their grandmother when he took up that new command he expected to get in -Germany. - -This constant harping on his domestic arrangements was funny. I suppose -it must have been like the prospect of a complete alteration in his -life. An epoch. He was going, too, to part with the Diana! He had served -in her for years. He had inherited her. From an uncle, if I remember -rightly. And the future loomed big before him, occupying his thought -exclusively with all its aspects as on the eve of a venturesome -enterprise. He sat there frowning and biting his lip, and suddenly he -began to fume and fret. - -I discovered to my momentary amusement that he seemed to imagine I -could, should or ought, have caused Falk in some way to pronounce -himself. Such a hope was incomprehensible, but funny. Then the contact -with all this foolishness irritated me. I said crossly that I had seen -no symptoms, but if there were any--since he, Hermann, was so sure--then -it was still worse. What pleasure Falk found in humbugging people in -just that way I couldn't say. It was, however, my solemn duty to warn -him. It had lately, I said, come to my knowledge that there was a man -(not a very long time ago either) who had been taken in just like this. - -All this passed in undertones, and at this point Schomberg, exasperated -at our secrecy, went out of the room slamming the door with a crash -that positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what I had said, -huffed my Hermann, He supposed, with a contemptuous toss of his head -towards the door which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of -that man's silly tales. It looked, indeed, as though his mind had been -thoroughly poisoned against Schomberg. "His tales were--they were," he -repeated, seeking for the word--"trash." They were trash, he reiterated, -and moreover I was young yet... - -This horrid aspersion (I regret I am no longer exposed to that sort of -insult) made me huffy too. I felt ready in my own mind to back up every -assertion of Schomberg's and on any subject. In a moment, devil only -knows why, Hermann and I were looking at each other most inimically. -He caught up his hat without more ado and I gave myself the pleasure of -calling after him: - -"Take my advice and make Falk pay for breaking up your ship. You aren't -likely to get anything else out of him." - -When I got on board my ship later on, the old mate, who was very full of -the events of the morning, remarked: - -"I saw the tug coming back from the outer Roads just before two P.M." -(He never by any chance used the words morning or afternoon. Always P.M. -or A.M., log-book style.) "Smart work that. Man's always in a state of -hurry. He's a regular chucker-out, ain't he, sir? There's a few pubs I -know of in the East-end of London that would be all the better for -one of his sort around the bar." He chuckled at his joke. "A regular -chucker-out. Now he has fired out that Dutchman head over heels, I -suppose our turn's coming to-morrow morning." - -We were all on deck at break of day (even the sick--poor devils--had -crawled out) ready to cast off in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing -came. Falk did not come. At last, when I began to think that probably -something had gone wrong in his engine-room, we perceived the tug going -by, full pelt, down the river, as if we hadn't existed. For a moment I -entertained the wild notion that he was going to turn round in the next -reach. Afterwards I watched his smoke appear above the plain, now here, -now there, according to the windings of the river. It disappeared. Then -without a word I went down to breakfast. I just simply went down to -breakfast. - -Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after imbibing--by means -of suction out of a saucer--his second cup of tea, exclaimed: "Where the -devil is the man gone to?" - -"Courting!" I shouted, with such a fiendish laugh that the old chap -didn't venture to open his lips any more. - -I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with excessive rage. -Evidently they knew all about it already, and they treated me to a -show of consternation. The manager, a soft-footed, immensely obese man, -breathing short, got up to meet me, while all round the room the young -clerks, bending over the papers on their desks, cast upward glances in -my direction. The fat man, without waiting for my complaint, wheezing -heavily and in a tone as if he himself were incredulous, conveyed to -me the news that Falk--Captain Falk--had declined--had absolutely -declined--to tow my ship--to have anything to do with my ship--this day -or any other day. Never! - -I did my best to preserve a cool appearance, but, all the same, I must -have shown how much taken aback I was. We were talking in the middle -of the room. Suddenly behind my back some ass blew his nose with great -force, and at the same time another quill-driver jumped up and went out -on the landing hastily. It occurred to me I was cutting a foolish figure -there. I demanded angrily to see the principal in his private room. - -The skin of Mr. Siegers' head showed dead white between the iron grey -streaks of hair lying plastered cross-wise from ear to ear over the top -of his skull in the manner of a bandage. His narrow sunken face was of -an uniform and permanent terra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. -He was sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten. But from -that debile body there issued a bullying voice, tremendously loud, harsh -and resonant, as if produced by some powerful mechanical contrivance -in the nature of a fog-horn. I do not know what he did with it in -the private life of his home, but in the larger sphere of business it -presented the advantage of overcoming arguments without the slightest -mental effort, by the mere volume of sound. We had had several -passages of arms. It took me all I knew to guard the interests of my -owners--whom, nota bene, I had never seen--while Siegers (who had -made their acquaintance some years before, during a business tour in -Australia) pretended to the knowledge of their innermost minds, and, in -the character of "our very good friends," threw them perpetually at my -head. - -He looked at me with a jaundiced eye (there was no love lost between -us), and declared at once that it was strange, very strange. His -pronunciation of English was so extravagant that I can't even attempt to -reproduce it. For instance, he said "Fferie strantch." Combined with -the bellowing intonation it made the language of one's childhood sound -weirdly startling, and even if considered purely as a kind of unmeaning -noise it filled you with astonishment at first. "They had," he -continued, "been acquainted with Captain Falk for very many years, and -never had any reason...." - -"That's why I come to you, of course," I interrupted. "I've the right -to know the meaning of this infernal nonsense." In the half light of the -room, which was greenish, because of the tree-tops screening the -window, I saw him writhe his meagre shoulders. It came into my head, as -disconnected ideas will come at all sorts of times into one's head, that -this, most likely, was the very room where, if the tale were true, Falk -had been lectured by Mr. Siegers, the father. Mr. Siegers' (the son's) -overwhelming voice, in brassy blasts, as though he had been trying to -articulate his words through a trombone, was expressing his great regret -at a conduct characterised by a very marked want of discretion... As I -lived I was being lectured too! His deafening gibberish was difficult to -follow, but it was _my_ conduct--mine!--that... Damn! I wasn't going to -stand this. - -"What on earth are you driving at?" I asked in a passion. I put my hat -on my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for -the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and -marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of -coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the -other expenses consequent upon the delays arising from my frivolity. - -Once outside in the sunshine my head swam. It was no longer a question -of mere delay. I perceived myself involved in hopeless and humiliating -absurdities that were leading me to something very like a disaster. "Let -us be calm," I muttered to myself, and ran into the shade of a -leprous wall. From that short side-street I could see the broad main -thoroughfare ruinous and gay, running away, away between stretches of -decaying masonry, bamboo fences, ranges of arcades of brick and plaster, -hovels of lath and mud, lofty temple gates of carved timber, huts of -rotten mats--an immensely wide thoroughfare, loosely packed as far as -the eye could reach with a barefooted and brown multitude paddling ankle -deep in the dust. For a moment I felt myself about to go out of my mind -with worry and desperation. - -Some allowance must be made for the feelings of a young man new to -responsibility. I thought of my crew. Half of them were ill, and I -really began to think that some of them would end by dying on board if -I couldn't get them out to sea soon. Obviously I should have to take my -ship down the river, either working under canvas or dredging with the -anchor down; operations which, in common with many modern sailors, -I only knew theoretically. And I almost shrank from undertaking them -shorthanded and without local knowledge of the river bed, which is so -necessary for the confident handling of the ship. There were no pilots, -no beacons, no buoys of any sort; but there was a very devil of a -current for anybody to see, no end of shoal places, and at least two -obviously awkward turns of the channel between me and the sea. But how -dangerous these turns were I would not tell. I didn't even know what -my ship was capable of! I had never handled her in my life. A -misunderstanding between a man and his ship in a difficult river with no -room to make it up, is bound to end in trouble for the man. On the other -hand, it must be owned I had not much reason to count upon a general run -of good luck. And suppose I had the misfortune to pile her up high and -dry on some beastly shoal? That would have been the final undoing of -that voyage. It was plain that if Falk refused to tow me out he would -also refuse to pull me off. This meant--what? A day lost at the -very best; but more likely a whole fortnight of frizzling on some -pestilential mud-flat, of desperate work, of discharging cargo; more than -likely it meant borrowing money at an exorbitant rate of interest--from -the Siegers' gang too at that. They were a power in the port. And that -elderly seaman of mine, Gambril, had looked pretty ghastly when I -went forward to dose him with quinine that morning. _He_ would certainly -die--not to speak of two or three others that seemed nearly as bad, -and of the rest of them just ready to catch any tropical disease going. -Horror, ruin and everlasting remorse. And no help. None. I had fallen -amongst a lot of unfriendly lunatics! - -At any rate, if I must take my ship down myself it was my duty to -procure if possible some local knowledge. But that was not easy. The -only person I could think of for that service was a certain Johnson, -formerly captain of a country ship, but now spliced to a country wife -and gone utterly to the bad. I had only heard of him in the vaguest way, -as living concealed in the thick of two hundred thousand natives, and -only emerging into the light of day for the purpose of hunting up some -brandy. I had a notion that if I could lay my hands on him I would sober -him on board my ship and use him for a pilot. Better than nothing. Once -a sailor always a sailor--and he had known the river for years. But in -our Consulate (where I arrived dripping after a sharp walk) they could -tell me nothing. The excellent young men on the staff, though willing to -help me, belonged to a sphere of the white colony for which that sort of -Johnson does not exist. Their suggestion was that I should hunt the -man up myself with the help of the Consulate's constable--an -ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of Hussars. - -This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted in sitting behind a -little table in an outer room of Consular offices, when ordered to -assist me in my search for Johnson displayed lots of energy and a -marvellous amount of local knowledge of a sort. But he did not conceal -an immense and sceptical contempt for the whole business. We explored -together on that afternoon an infinity of infamous grog shops, gambling -dens, opium dens. We walked up narrow lanes where our gharry--a tiny -box of a thing on wheels, attached to a jibbing Burmah pony--could by -no means have passed. The constable seemed to be on terms of scornful -intimacy with Maltese, with Eurasians, with Chinamen, with Klings, and -with the sweepers attached to a temple, with whom he talked at the gate. -We interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall closing a blind -alley an immensely corpulent Italian, who, the ex-sergeant-major -remarked to me perfunctorily, had "killed another man last year." -Thereupon he addressed him as "Antonio" and "Old Buck," though that -bloated carcase, apparently more than half filling the sort of cell -wherein it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye. Familiar and never -unbending, the sergeant chucked--absolutely chucked--under the chin -a horribly wrinkled and shrivelled old hag propped on a stick, who had -volunteered some sort of information: and with the same stolid face he -kept up an animated conversation with the groups of swathed brown women, -who sat smoking cheroots on the door-steps of a long range of clay -hovels. We got out of the gharry and clambered into dwellings airy like -packing crates, or descended into places sinister like cellars. We got -in, we drove on, we got out again for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of -looking behind a heap of rubble. The sun declined; my companion was curt -and sardonic in his answers, but it appears we were just missing Johnson -all along. At last our conveyance stopped once more with a jerk, and the -driver jumping down opened the door. - -A black mudhole blocked the lane. A mound of garbage crowned with the -dead body of a dog arrested us not. An empty Australian beef tin bounded -cheerily before the toe of my boot. Suddenly we clambered through a gap -in a prickly fence.... - -It was a very clean native compound: and the big native woman, with bare -brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar -that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. "Your -man's at home," said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete -and marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson--at -home--stood with his back to a native house built on posts and with its -walls made of mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of the right -he dealt another dollar into space. The woman captured this one on the -wing, and there and then plumped down on the ground to look at us with -greater comfort. - -My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven, muddy on elbows and -back; where the seams of his serge coat yawned you could see his white -nakedness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his neck. He looked -at us with a grave, swaying surprise. "Where do you come from?" he -asked. My heart sank. How could I have been stupid enough to waste -energy and time for this? - -But having already gone so far I approached a little nearer and declared -the purpose of my visit. He would have to come at once with me, sleep on -board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the ebb, he would give -me his assistance in getting my ship down to the sea, without steam. A -six-hundred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I proposed to give -him eighteen dollars for his local knowledge; and all the time I was -speaking he kept on considering attentively the various aspects of the -banana, holding first one side up to his eye, then the other. - -"You've forgotten to apologise," he said at last with extreme precision. -"Not being a gentleman yourself, you don't know apparently when you -intrude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to understand that when I -am in funds I don't work, and now..." - -I would have pronounced him perfectly sober hadn't he paused in great -concern to try and brush a hole off the knee of his trousers. - -"I have money--and friends. Every gentleman has. Perhaps you would like -to know my friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow some money. Try to -remember. F-A-L-K, Falk." Abruptly his tone changed. "A noble heart," he -said muzzily. - -"Has Falk been giving you some money?" I asked, appalled by the detailed -finish of the dark plot. - -"Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent," he corrected suavely. -"Met me taking the air last evening, and being as usual anxious to -oblige--Hadn't you better go to the devil out of my compound?" - -And upon this, without other warning, he let fly with the banana which -missed my head, and took the constable just under the left eye. He -rushed at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury. They fell.... -But why dwell on the wretchedness, the breathlessness, the degradation, -the senselessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation -and--and--the perspiration, of these moments? I dragged the ex-hussar -off. He was like a wild beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed -at losing his free afternoon on my account. The garden of his bungalow -required his personal attention, and at the slight blow of the banana -the brute in him had broken loose. We left Johnson on his back, still -black in the face, but beginning to kick feebly. Meantime, the big woman -had remained sitting on the ground, apparently paralysed with extreme -terror. - -For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling box, side by side, in -profound silence. The ex-sergeant was busy staunching the blood of a -long scratch on his cheek. "I hope you're satisfied," he said suddenly. -"That's what comes of all that tomfool business. If you hadn't -quarrelled with that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all this -wouldn't have happened." - -"You heard _that_ story?" I said. - -"Of course I heard. And I shouldn't wonder if the Consul-General himself -doesn't come to hear of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with -that thing on my cheek--I want to know. Its _you_ who ought to have got -this!" - -After that, till the gharry stopped and he jumped out without -leave-taking, he swore to himself steadily, horribly; muttering great, -purposeful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can do is like -the prattle of a child. For my part I had just the strength to crawl -into Schomberg's coffee-room, where I wrote at a little table a note to -the mate instructing him to get everything ready for dropping down the -river next day. I couldn't face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of -skipper and no mistake--poor thing! What a horrid mess! I took my head -between my hands. At times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce -me to despair. What had I done? If I had done something to bring about -the situation I should at least have learned not to do it again. But I -felt guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was empty yet; -only Schomberg prowled round me goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed -respectful curiosity. No doubt he had set the story going himself; but -he was a good-hearted chap, and I am really persuaded he participated in -all my troubles. He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the heavy -match-stand, set a chair straight, pushed a spittoon slightly with -his foot--as you show small attentions to a friend under a great -sorrow--sighed, and at last, unable to hold his tongue: - -"Well! I warned you, captain. That's what comes of running your head -against Mr. Falk. Man'll stick at nothing." - -I sat without stirring, and after surveying me with a sort of -commiseration in his eyes he burst out in a hoarse whisper: "But for -a fine lump of a girl, she's a fine lump of a girl." He made a loud -smacking noise with his thick lips. "The finest lump of a girl that I -ever..." he was going on with great unction, but for some reason or -other broke off. I fancied myself throwing something at his head. "I -don't blame you, captain. Hang me if I do," he said with a patronising -air. - -"Thank you," I said resignedly. It was no use fighting against this -false fate. I don't know even if I was sure myself where the truth of -the matter began. The conviction that it would end disastrously had been -driven into me by all the successive shocks my sense of security had -received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in -themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg's baseless gossip had the -power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk -could put my ship ashore. - -I have already explained how fatal this last would have been. For my -further action, my youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for the -health of my crew must be my excuse. The action itself, when it came, -was purely impulsive. It was set in movement quite undiplomatically and -simply by Falk's appearance in the doorway. - -The room was full by then and buzzing with voices. I had been looked -at with curiosity by every one, but how am I to describe the sensation -produced by the appearance of Falk himself blocking the doorway? The -tension of expectation could be measured by the profundity of the -silence that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls. As to -Schomberg, he looked extremely frightened; he hated mortally any sort -of row (fracas he called it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad -for business, he affirmed; but, in truth, this specimen of portly, -middle-aged manhood was of a timid disposition. I don't know what, -considering my presence in the place, they all hoped would come of it. A -sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may have supposed Falk had come in -only to annihilate me completely. As a matter of fact, Falk had come in -because Hermann had asked him to inquire after the precious white cotton -parasol which, in the worry and excitement of the previous day, he had -forgotten at the table where we had held our little discussion. - -It was this that gave me my opportunity. I don't think I would have gone -to seek Falk out. No. I don't think so. There are limits. But there was -an opportunity and I seized it--I have already tried to explain why. Now -I will merely state that, in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into -the sea air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skipper would be -justified in going to any length, short of absolute crime. He should -put his pride in his pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his -innocence as if it were a sin; he may take advantage of misconceptions, -of desires and of weaknesses; he ought to conceal his horror and other -emotions, and, if the fate of a human being, and that human being -a magnificent young girl, is strangely involved--why, he should -contemplate that fate (whatever it might seem to be) without turning a -hair. And all these things I have done; the explaining, the listening, -the pretending--even to the discretion--and nobody, not even Hermann's -niece, I believe, need throw stones at me now. Schomberg at all events -needn't, since from first to last, I am happy to say, there was not the -slightest "fracas." - -Overcoming a nervous contraction of the windpipe, I had managed to -exclaim "Captain Falk!" His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but -afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He simply waited. Then, when -I had said, "I must have a talk with you," and had pointed to a chair -at my table, he moved up to me, though he didn't sit down. Schomberg, -however, with a long tumbler in his hand, was making towards us -prudently, and I discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk. He -had for Schomberg a repulsion resembling that sort of physical fear -some people experience at the sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so -essentially and silently concentrated upon himself (though he could talk -well enough, as I was to find out presently) the other's irrepressible -loquacity, embracing every human being within range of the tongue, might -have appeared unnatural, disgusting, and monstrous. He suddenly gave -signs of restiveness--positively like a horse about to rear, and, -muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, "No. I can't stand that -fellow," seemed ready to bolt. This weakness of his gave me the -advantage at the very start. "Verandah," I suggested, as if rendering -him a service, and walked him out by the arm. We stumbled over a few -chairs; we had the feeling of open space before us, and felt the fresh -breath of the river--fresh, but tainted. The Chinese theatres across the -water made, in the sparsely twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town -presents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a distant and -howling uproar. I felt him become suddenly tractable again like an -animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him is -removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there how tractable he was, without -my conviction of his inflexibility--tenacity, rather, perhaps--being in -the least weakened. His very arm abandoning itself to my grasp was as -hard as marble--like a limb of iron. But I heard a tumultuous scuffling -of boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside were crowding to the -windows, climbing over each other's backs behind the blinds, billiard -cues and all. Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound of -falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devastation, Schomberg reeled -out after us in a state of funk which had prevented his parting with his -brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an aspen leaf. The piece of -ice in the long tumbler he held in his hand tinkled with an effect -of chattering teeth. "I beg you, gentlemen," he expostulated thickly. -"Come! Really, now, I must insist..." - -How proud I am of my presence of mind! "Hallo," I said instantly in a -loud and naive tone, "somebody's breaking your windows, Schomberg. Would -you please tell one of your boys to bring out here a pack of cards and a -couple of lights? And two long drinks. Will you?" - -To receive an order soothed him at once. It was business. "Certainly," -he said in an immensely relieved tone. The night was rainy, with -wandering gusts of wind, and while we waited for the candles Falk said, -as if to justify his panic, "I don't interfere in anybody's business. -I don't give any occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But this -fellow is always making out something wrong, and can never rest till he -gets somebody to believe him." - -This was the first of my knowledge of Falk. This desire of -respectability, of being like everybody else, was the only recognition -he vouchsafed to the organisation of mankind. For the rest he might have -been the member of a herd, not of a society. Self-preservation was his -only concern. Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Selfishness -presupposes consciousness, choice, the presence of other men; but his -instinct acted as though he were the last of mankind nursing that law -like the only spark of a sacred fire. I don't mean to say that living -naked in a cavern would have satisfied him. Obviously he was -the creature of the conditions to which he was born. No doubt -self-preservation meant also the preservation of these conditions. But -essentially it meant something much more simple, natural, and powerful. -How shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the five senses -of his body--let us say--taking it in its narrowest as well as in its -widest meaning. I think you will admit before long the justice of this -judgment. However, as we stood there together in the dark verandah I had -judged nothing as yet--and I had no desire to judge--which is an idle -practice anyhow. The light was long in coming. - -"Of course," I said in a tone of mutual understanding, "it isn't exactly -a game of cards I want with you." - -I saw him draw his hands down his face--the vague stir of the passionate -and meaningless gesture; but he waited in silent patience. It was -only when the lights had been brought out that he opened his lips. I -understood his mumble to mean that "he didn't know any game." - -"Like this Schomberg and all the other fools will have to keep off," -I said tearing open the pack. "Have you heard that we are universally -supposed to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who--of course. I am -really ashamed to ask, but is it possible that you do me the honour to -think me dangerous?" - -As I said these words I felt how absurd it was and also I felt -flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in -his usual dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but -not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with -Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I -saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural -forces are not quarrelsome. You can't quarrel with the wind that -inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street -full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder, -falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law -by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but -of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide -interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed -without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and -more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless -voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half -an hour. - -It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never -dreamed of marrying Hermann's niece. Could any necessity have been more -extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard -hit that he couldn't imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of -indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could -not help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was -conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and -playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the -more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights -so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively -flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth -of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features, -the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely -uncovered at the temples. The fact is I had never before seen him -without his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had -taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in -the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking -silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin, -furrowed, worn; I discovered that through the bush of his hair, as -you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense -undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an anchorite's -bony head fitted with a Capuchin's beard and adjusted to a herculean -body. I don't mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He -was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt. -And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely strong, just -as the girl (since I must think of them together) was magnificently -attractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, expressed in -shape, in size, in attitude--that is by a straight appeal to the senses. -His mind meantime, preoccupied with respectability, quailed before -Schomberg's tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my protestations; -and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon think of -marrying my mother's (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as Hermann's -niece. Sooner, I protested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did -not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the proposition, and in -his sceptical immobility he seemed to nurse the argument that at all -events the cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, just -before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the evidence of my manner -whenever I called on board the Diana. I had never attempted to approach -the girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way. -Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of--let us say--courting, -seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the -vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argument inspired him with -distrust. Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as -to say, "That's all very fine, but you can't throw dust in _my_ eyes." - -At last I was exasperated into saying, "Why don't you put the matter at -rest by talking to Hermann?" and I added sneeringly: "You don't expect -me perhaps to speak for you?" - -To this he said, very loud for him, "Would you?" - -And for the first time he lifted his head to look at me with wonder -and incredulity. He lifted his head so sharply that there could be -no mistake. I had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of my -opportunity, and could hardly believe in it. - -"Why. Speak to... Well, of course," I proceeded very slowly, watching -him with great attention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. "Not, -perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can't speak German, you know. -But..." - -He interrupted me with the earnest assurance that Hermann had the -highest opinion of me; and at once I felt the need for the greatest -possible diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just enough to draw -him on. Falk sat up, but except for a very noticeable enlargement of the -pupils, till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow yellow -rings, his face, I should judge, was incapable of expressing excitement. -"Oh, yes! Hermann did have the greatest..." - -"Take up your cards. Here's Schomberg peeping at us through the blind!" -I said. - -We went through the motions of what might have been a game of e'carte'. -Presently the intolerable scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform the -people in the billiard-room that we two were gambling on the verandah -like mad. - -We were not gambling, but it was a game; a game in which I felt I held -the winning cards. The stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the -voyage--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy -matured rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived -that the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and -astute Teuton had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of -a rival. I was young enough to be shocked at so much duplicity. "Did he -tell you that in so many words?" I asked with indignation. - -Hermann had not. He had given hints only; and of course it had not taken -very much to alarm Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had taken -steps to remove the family from under my influence. He was perfectly -straightforward about it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your -head. There was no duplicity in that man; and when I congratulated -him on the perfection of his arrangements--even to the bribing of the -wretched Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement of protest. Never -bribed. He knew the man wouldn't work as long as he had a few cents in -his pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-"_naturally_") he -let him have a dollar or two. He was himself a sailor, he said, and -anticipated the view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take. -On the other hand, he was sure that I should have to come to grief. He -hadn't been knocking about for the last seven years up and down that -river for nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me--but he asserted -confidently I would have had my ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two -miles below the Great Pagoda.... - -And with all that he had no ill-will. That was evident. This was a -crisis in which his only object had been to gain time--I fancy. And -presently he mentioned that he had written for some jewellery, real good -jewellery--had written to Hong-Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or -two. - -"Well, then," I said cheerily, "everything is all right. All you've got -to do is to present it to the lady together with your heart, and live -happy ever after." - -Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as far as the girl was -concerned, but his eyelids drooped. There was still something in the -way. For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As to me, on the -contrary, it seemed as though he could not praise me enough. Mrs. -Hermann too. He didn't know why they disliked him so. It made everything -most difficult. - -I listened impassive, feeling more and more diplomatic. His speech was -not transparently clear. He was one of those men who seem to live, feel, -suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being fascinated by the -girl and possessed by the desire of home life with her--it was as clear -as daylight. So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting it to -the hazard of declaration. Besides, there was something else. And with -Hermann being so set against him... - -"I see," I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat fast with the -excitement of my diplomacy. "I don't mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to -show you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I can for you in -that way." - -A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands down his face, and it -emerged, bony, unchanged of expression, as if all the tissues had -been ossified. All the passion was in those big brown hands. He was -satisfied. Then there was that other matter. If there were anybody on -earth it was I who could persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I -had a knowledge of the world and lots of experience. Hermann admitted -this himself. And then I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sailor -would be able to understand certain things best.... - -He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all their life in a rural -hamlet, and I alone had been capable, with my practice in life, of -a large and indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was what my -diplomacy was leading me to. I began suddenly to dislike it. - -"I say, Falk," I asked quite brusquely, "you haven't already a wife put -away somewhere?" - -The pain and disgust of his denial were very striking. Couldn't I -understand that he was as respectable as any white man hereabouts; -earning his living honestly. He was suffering from my suspicion, and the -low undertone of his voice made his protestations sound very pathetic. -For a moment he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, I seemed -to develop a conscience, as if in very truth it were in my power to -decide the success of this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard -enough we come to believe anything--anything to our advantage. And I had -been pretending very hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down -the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I couldn't help alluding -to the Vanlo affair. "You acted rather badly there. Didn't you?" was -what I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our conduct is always -at the mercy of obscure and unforeseen impulses. - -His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glancing at the window with -a sort of scared fury. We heard behind the blinds the continuous -and sudden clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, and -Schomberg's deep manly laugh. - -"That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper then would never, never let -it rest!" Falk exclaimed. "Well, yes! It had happened two years ago." -When it came to the point he owned he couldn't make up his mind to trust -Fred Vanlo--no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust him, -but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough money to pay all his debts -before he left. I was greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could -not be such a miser after all. So much the better for the girl. For a -time he sat silent; then he picked up a card, and while looking at it he -said: - -"You need not think of anything bad. It was an accident. I've been -unfortunate once." - -"Then in heaven's name say nothing about it." - -As soon as these words were out of my mouth I fancied I had said -something immoral. He shook his head negatively. It had to be told. -He considered it proper that the relations of the lady should know. No -doubt--I thought to myself--had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by -the climate he would have found it possible to entrust Fred Vanlo with -this confidence. And then the figure of Hermann's niece appeared before -my mind's eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich youth, her -lavish strength. With that powerful and immaculate vitality, her girlish -form must have shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor Miss -Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to the strumming of a piano. - -"And that Hermann hates me, I know it!" he cried in his undertone, with -a sudden recrudescence of anxiety. "I must tell them. It is proper that -they should know. You would say so yourself." - -He then murmured an utterly mysterious allusion to the necessity for -peculiar domestic arrangements. Though my curiosity was excited I did -not want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a -piece of information that would make my assumed role of match-maker -odious--however unreal it was. I was aware that he could have the girl -for the asking; and keeping down a desire to laugh in his face, I -expressed a confident belief in my ability to argue away Hermann's -dislike for him. "I am sure I can make it all right," I said. He looked -very pleased. - -And when we rose not a word had been said about towage! Not a word! The -game was won and the honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton umbrella! -We shook hands, and I was holding myself with difficulty from breaking -into a step dance of joy when he came back, striding all the length of -the verandah, and said doubtfully: - -"I say, captain, I have your word? You--you--won't turn round?" - -Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his tone of doubt there was -something desperate and menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to -the situation. - -"My dear Falk," I said, beginning to lie with a glibness and effrontery -that amazed me even at the time--"confidence for confidence." (He had -made no confidences.) "I will tell you that I am already engaged to an -extremely charming girl at home, and so you understand...." - -He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing grip. - -"Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult to live alone..." - -"On rice and fish," I interrupted smartly, giggling with the sheer -nervousness of a danger escaped. - -He dropped my hand as if it had become suddenly red hot. A moment of -profound silence ensued, as though something extraordinary had happened. - -"I promise you to obtain Hermann's consent," I faltered out at last, and -it seemed to me that he could not help seeing through that humbugging -promise. "If there's anything else to get over I shall endeavour -to stand by you," I conceded further, feeling somehow defeated and -over-borne; "but you must do your best yourself." - -"I have been unfortunate once," he muttered unemotionally, and turning -his back on me he went away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his -feet had been shod with iron. - -Next morning, however, he was lively enough as man-boat, a combination -of splashing and shouting; of the insolent commotion below with the -steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece above. He turned us -out most unnecessarily at an ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven -in the morning before he brought me up a cable's length from Hermann's -ship. And he did it very badly too, in a hurry, and nearly contriving to -miss altogether the patch of good holding ground, because, forsooth, -he had caught sight of Hermann's niece on the poop. And so did I; and -probably as soon as he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek -glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape of the girlish print -frock she filled so perfectly, so satisfactorily, with the seduction of -unfaltering curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress. And Diana the -ship sat, high-walled and as solid as an institution, on the smooth -level of the water, the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon the -seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support of domestic virtues like -any grocer's shop on shore. At once Falk steamed away; for there was -some work for him to do. He would return in the evening. - -He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, without a hail. The beat -of the paddle-wheels reverberating amongst the stony islets, as if from -the ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage confusedly with -the clapping sounds of a mighty and leisurely applause. Abreast of -Hermann's ship he stopped the engines; and a profound silence reigned -over the rocks, the shore and the sea, for the time it took him to raise -his hat aloft before the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched -up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn't stir a limb, -standing by the rail shapely and erect, with one of her hands grasping a -rope at the height of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly -past her the lingering and profound homage of the man. There was for me -an enormous significance in the scene, the sense of having witnessed -a solemn declaration. The die was cast. After such a manifestation he -couldn't back out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me -now. With a rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and -a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated -clapping, the tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay -on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes -and scorpions lurked under the stones; there was not a single blade -of grass in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning himself on a -boulder by the shore. When I looked again at Hermann's ship the girl -had disappeared. I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the -immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued the flatness of the -sea to the naked line of the horizon. - -This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of -Falk's misfortune. My diplomacy had brought me there, and now I had only -to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambassador. My diplomacy -was a success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a -feeble sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana. -During the afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the -faithful nurse of Hermann's progeny, or yawned towards the distant -temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven -priests cherish the thoughts of that Annihilation which is the worthy -reward of us all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. Well, that -was not so bad as life goes. And what the devil could be the nature -of that misfortune? I remembered that I had known a man before who had -declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a victim to misfortune; but -this misfortune, whose effects appeared permanent (he looked desperately -hard up) when considered dispassionately, seemed indistinguishable from -a breach of trust. Could it be something of that nature? Apart, however, -from the utter improbability that he would offer to talk of it even to -his future uncle-in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk's physique -unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the person of Hermann's -niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her -adorer's big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity -that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing -was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature -of the spine. And I perceived that the sun was about to set. - -The smoke of Falk's tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the -river. It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and -the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping -my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I -conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour. -I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that -came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is -inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me -eagerly if I knew whether Falk had found his white parasol. - -"He's going to bring it to you himself directly," I said with great -solemnity. "Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he -begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece...." - -"Ach So!" he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity -change into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I -hurried on. - -"He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at -once--before you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul." - -Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that -furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, -he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his cupidity, his -stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say "yes" or "no" to the -simplest question)--against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in -port (because he saw they were at his mercy)--and against his manner -of walking, which to his (Hermann's) mind showed a conceit positively -unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course, -and there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the -last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been -a cause of offence. "Had the cheek" to drag him (Hermann) into that -coffee-room; as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven -dollars and fifty cents of damage in the cost of wood alone--not -counting two days' work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand -in the girl's way. He was going home to Germany. There were plenty of -poor girls walking about in Germany. - -"He's very much in love," was all I found to say. - -"Yes," he cried. "And it is time too after making himself and me talked -about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on -board every evening unsettling the girl's mind, and saying nothing. What -sort of conduct is that?" - -The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not, -in his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. -He (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and -the tug, no doubt, was mortgaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm -of Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn't stand in the girl's way. Her -head was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite -unable even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for -the children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give -Gustav a thrashing. - -For that, too, Falk was made responsible apparently. And looking at my -Hermann's heavy, puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not exert -himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, would thrash very -hard, and being fat would resent the necessity. How Falk had managed -to turn the girl's head was more difficult to understand. I supposed -Hermann would know. And then hadn't there been Miss Vanlo? It could not -be his silvery tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he had no -more of what is called "manner" than an animal--which, however, on the -other hand, is never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore it must -have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting a virility of nature -as exaggerated as his beard, and resembling a sort of constant -ruthlessness. It was seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He -meant no offence, but his intercourse was characterised by that sort of -frank disregard of susceptibilities a man of seven foot six, living in a -world of dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the least wishing to -be unkind. But amongst men of his own stature, or nearly, this frank -use of his advantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills for -instance, caused much impotent gnashing of teeth. When attentively -considered it seemed appalling at times. He was a strange beast. But -maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was well worth taming, and -I suppose every woman at the bottom of her heart considers herself as a -tamer of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with precipitation to carry -the news to his wife. I had barely the time, as he made for the cabin -door, to grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I begged him to -wait till Falk in person had spoken with him. There remained some small -matter to talk over, as I understood. - -He sat down again at once, full of suspicion. - -"What matter?" he said surlily. "I have had enough of his nonsense. -There's no matter at all, as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in -the world. She came to us in one thin dress when my brother died, and I -have a growing family." - -"It can't be anything of that kind," I opined. "He's desperately -enamoured of your niece. I don't know why he did not say so before. Upon -my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to lose, perhaps, the -felicity of sitting near her on your quarter deck." - -I intimated my conviction that his love was so great as to be in a sense -cowardly. The effects of a great passion are unaccountable. It has -been known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked at me as if I had -foolishly raved; and the twilight was dying out rapidly. - -"You don't believe in passion, do you, Hermann?" I said cheerily. "The -passion of fear will make a cornered rat courageous. Falk's in a corner. -He will take her off your hands in one thin frock just as she came to -you. And after ten years' service it isn't a bad bargain," I added. - -Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of civic virtue. The sudden -night came upon him while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing in -contact with his thick lips, and taking away again after a jet of smoke, -the curved mouthpiece fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came -upon him and buried in haste his whiskers, his globular eyes, his puffy -pale face, his fat knees and the vast flat slippers on his fatherly -feet. Only his short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves remained -very visible, propped up like the flippers of a seal reposing on the -strand. - -"Falk wouldn't settle anything about repairs. Told me to find out first -how much wood I should require and he would see," he remarked; and after -he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over the water the beat of -the tug's floats. There is, on a calm night, nothing more suggestive of -fierce and headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the paddle-wheels -of a boat threshing her way through a quiet sea; and the approach of -Falk towards his fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and passionate -desire. The engines must have been driven to the very utmost of their -revolutions. We heard them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white -hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow -and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It -ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque -splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running -through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Roadstead. - -"He will soon be here," I murmured, and after that we waited for him -without a word. Meantime, raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a -lofty sky above the Diana's mastheads. The multitude of stars gathered -into clusters, in rows, in lines, in masses, in groups, shone all -together, unanimously--and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves -in the midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a superior kind and of -an inextinguishable nature. But long striding footsteps were heard -hastening along the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a deeper -darkness. We rose from our chairs quickly, and Falk, appearing before -us, all in white, stood still. - -Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been covered with confusion. His -arrival was fiery, but his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without -features, made him loom up like a man of snow. - -"The captain here has been telling me..." Hermann began in a homely -and amicable voice; and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, -negligent undertone had no inflexions, but the strength of a powerful -emotion made him ramble in his speech. He had always desired a home. -It was difficult to live alone, though he was not answerable. He was -domestic; there had been difficulties; but since he had seen Hermann's -niece he found that it had become at last impossible to live by himself. -"I mean--impossible," he repeated with no sort of emphasis and only with -the slightest of pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the force -of a new idea. - -"I have not said anything to her yet," Hermann observed quietly. And -Falk dismissed this by a "That's all right. Certainly. Very proper." -There was a necessity for perfect frankness--in marrying, especially. -Hermann seemed attentive, but he seized the first opportunity to ask us -into the cabin. "And by-the-by, Falk," he said innocently, as we passed -in, "the timber came to no less than forty-seven dollars and fifty -cents." - -Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the passage. "Some other time," -he said; and Hermann nudged me angrily--I don't know why. The girl alone -in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from the table. Falk stopped -short in the doorway. Without a word, without a sign, without the -slightest inclination of his bony head, by the silent intensity of his -look alone, he seemed to lay his herculean frame at her feet. Her hands -sank slowly on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her soft, -beaming glance enfold him from head to foot like a slow and pale caress. -He was very hot when he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with her -sewing; her neck was very white under the light of the lamp; but Falk, -hiding his face in the palms of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew -them down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes astonished me by -their tense and irrational expression--as though he had just swallowed -a heavy gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was binding us to -secrecy. Not that he cared, but he did not like to be spoken about; and -I looked at the girl's marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal hair, -plaited tight into that one astonishing and maidenly tress. Whenever she -moved her well-shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her back. -The thin cotton sleeve fitted the irreproachable roundness of her -arm like a skin; and her very dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to -palpitate like a living tissue with the strength of vitality animating -her body. How good her complexion was, the outline of her soft cheek and -the small convoluted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she kept -the little finger apart from the others; it seemed a waste of power -to see her sewing--eternally sewing--with that industrious and precise -movement of her arm, going on eternally upon all the oceans, under all -the skies, in innumerable harbours. And suddenly I heard Falk's voice -declare that he could not marry a woman unless she knew of something -in his life that had happened ten years ago. It was an accident. An -unfortunate accident. It would affect the domestic arrangements of their -home, but, once told, it need not be alluded to again for the rest of -their lives. "I should want my wife to feel for me," he said. "It -has made me unhappy." And how could he keep the knowledge of it to -himself--he asked us--perhaps through years and years of companionship? -What sort of companionship would that be? He had thought it over. A wife -must know. Then why not at once? He counted on Hermann's kindness -for presenting the affair in the best possible light. And Hermann's -countenance, mystified before, became very sour. He stole an inquisitive -glance at me. I shook my head blankly. Some people thought, Falk went -on, that such an experience changed a man for the rest of his life. He -couldn't say. It was hard, awful, and not to be forgotten, but he did -not think himself a worse man than before. Only he talked in his sleep -now, he believed.... At last I began to think he had accidentally -killed some one; perhaps a friend--his own father maybe; when he went on -to say that probably we were aware he never touched meat. Throughout he -spoke English, of course of my account. - -He swayed forward heavily. - -The girl, with her hands raised before her pale eyes, was threading her -needle. He glanced at her, and his mighty trunk overshadowed the table, -bringing nearer to us the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of -his neck, and that incongruous, anchorite head, burnt in the desert, -hollowed and lean as if by excesses of vigils and fasting. His beard -flowed imposingly downwards, out of sight, between the two brown hands -gripping the edge of the table, and his persistent glance made sombre by -the wide dilations of the pupils, fascinated. - -"Imagine to yourselves," he said in his ordinary voice, "that I have -eaten man." - -I could only ejaculate a faint "Ah!" of complete enlightenment. But -Hermann, dazed by the excessive shock, actually murmured, "Himmel! What -for?" - -"It was my terrible misfortune to do so," said Falk in a measured -undertone. The girl, unconscious, sewed on. Mrs. Hermann was absent -in one of the state-rooms, sitting up with Lena, who was feverish; but -Hermann suddenly put both his hands up with a jerk. The embroidered -calotte fell, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he had rumpled his hair -all ends up in a most extravagant manner. In this state he strove to -speak; with every effort his eyes seemed to start further out of their -sockets; his head looked like a mop. He choked, gasped, swallowed, and -managed to shriek out the one word, "Beast!" - -From that moment till Falk went out of the cabin the girl, with her -hands folded on the work lying in her lap, never took her eyes off him. -His own, in the blindness of his heart, darted all over the cabin, only -seeking to avoid the sight of Hermann's raving. It was ridiculous, and -was made almost terrible by the stillness of every other person present. -It was contemptible, and was made appalling by the man's over-mastering -horror of this awful sincerity, coming to him suddenly, with the -confession of such a fact. He walked with great strides; he gasped. He -wanted to know from Falk how dared he to come and tell him this? Did he -think himself a proper person to be sitting in this cabin where his wife -and children lived? Tell his niece! Expected him to tell his niece! -His own brother's daughter! Shameless! Did I ever hear tell of such -impudence?--he appealed to me. "This man here ought to have gone and -hidden himself out of sight instead of..." - -"But it's a great misfortune for me. But it's a great misfortune for -me," Falk would ejaculate from time to time. - -However, Hermann kept on running frequently against the corners of the -table. At last he lost a slipper, and crossing his arms on his breast, -walked up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in order to ask -him whether he did think there was anywhere on earth a woman abandoned -enough to mate with such a monster. "Did he? Did he? Did he?" I tried -to restrain him. He tore himself out of my hands; he found his slipper, -and, endeavouring to put it on, stormed standing on one leg--and Falk, -with a face unmoved and averted eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in -one vast palm. - -"Was it right then for me to die myself?" he asked thoughtfully. I laid -my hand on his shoulder. - -"Go away," I whispered imperiously, without any clear reason for this -advice, except that I wished to put an end to Hermann's odious noise. -"Go away." - -He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann before he made a move. -I left the cabin too to see him out of the ship. But he hung about the -quarter-deck. - -"It is my misfortune," he said in a steady voice. - -"You were stupid to blurt it out in such a manner. After all, we don't -hear such confidences every day." - -"What does the man mean?" he mused in deep undertones. "Somebody had to -die--but why me?" - -He remained still for a time in the dark--silent; almost invisible. All -at once he pinned my elbows to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in his -grip, and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated. - -"It's worse than hunger. Captain, do you know what that means? And I -could kill then--or be killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull -ten years ago. And I've got to live now. Without her. Do you understand? -Perhaps many years. But how? What can be done? If I had allowed myself -to look at her once I would have carried her off before that man in my -hands--like this." - -I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly dropped--and I -staggered backwards, feeling bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was -still; he was gone. I heard Hermann's voice declaiming in the cabin, and -I went in. - -I could not at first make out a single word, but Mrs. Hermann, who, -attracted by the noise, had come in some time before, with an expression -of surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on her face, was -giving now all the signs of profound, helpless agitation. Her husband -shot a string of guttural words at her, and instantly putting out one -hand to the bulkhead as if to save herself from falling, she clutched -the loose bosom of her dress with the other. He harangued the two women -extraordinarily, with much of his shirt hanging out of his waist-belt, -stamping his foot, turning from one to the other, sometimes throwing -both his arms together, straight up above his rumpled hair, and keeping -them in that position while he uttered a passage of loud denunciation; -at others folding them tight across his breast--and then he hissed with -indignation, elevating his shoulders and protruding his head. The girl -was crying. - -She had not changed her attitude. From her steady eyes that, following -Falk in his retreat, had remained fixed wistfully on the cabin door, the -tears fell rapid, thick, on her hands, on the work in her lap, warm -and gentle like a shower in spring. She wept without grimacing, without -noise--very touching, very quiet, with something more of pity than of -pain in her face, as one weeps in compassion rather than in grief--and -Hermann, before her, declaimed. I caught several times the word -"Mensch," man; and also "Fressen," which last I looked up afterwards -in my dictionary. It means "Devour." Hermann seemed to be requesting an -answer of some sort from her; his whole body swayed. She remained mute -and perfectly still; at last his agitation gained her; she put the palms -of her hands together, her full lips parted, no sound came. His voice -scolded shrilly, his arms went like a windmill--suddenly he shook a -thick fist at her. She burst out into loud sobs. He seemed stupefied. - -Mrs. Hermann rushed forward babbling rapidly. The two women fell on each -other's necks, and, with an arm round her niece's waist, she led her -away. Her own eyes were simply streaming, her face was flooded. She -shook her head back at me negatively, I wonder why to this day. The -girl's head dropped heavily on her shoulder. They disappeared. - -Then Hermann sat down and stared at the cabin floor. - -"We don't know all the circumstances," I ventured to break the silence. -He retorted tartly that he didn't want to know of any. According to his -ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime--and certainly not such -a crime. This was the opinion generally received. The duty of a human -being was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an animal; base, low, -vile, despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him -since last year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must -have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, -uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless of another's -self-respect and peace of mind, would own to having devoured human -flesh. "Why tell?" he cried. "Who was asking him?" It showed Falk's -brutality because after all he had selfishly caused him (Hermann) much -pain. He would have preferred not to know that such an unclean creature -had been in the habit of caressing his children. He hoped I would say -nothing of all this ashore, though. He wouldn't like it to get about -that he had been intimate with an eater of men--a common cannibal. As -to the scene he had made (which I judged quite unnecessary) he was not -going to inconvenience and restrain himself for a fellow that went about -courting and upsetting girls' heads, while he knew all the time that -no decent housewifely girl could think of marrying him. At least he -(Hermann) could not conceive how any girl could. Fancy Lena!... No, -it was impossible. The thoughts that would come into their heads every -time they sat down to a meal. Horrible! Horrible! - -"You are too squeamish, Hermann," I said. - -He seemed to think it was eminently proper to be squeamish if the word -meant disgust at Falk's conduct; and turning up his eyes sentimentally -he drew my attention to the horrible fate of the victims--the -victims of that Falk. I said that I knew nothing about them. He -seemed surprised. Could not anybody imagine without knowing? He--for -instance--felt he would like to avenge them. But what if--said I--there -had not been any? They might have died as it were, naturally--of -starvation. He shuddered. But to be eaten--after death! To be devoured! -He gave another deep shudder, and asked suddenly, "Do you think it is -true?" - -His indignation and his personality together would have been enough to -spoil the reality of the most authentic thing. When I looked at him I -doubted the story--but the remembrance of Falk's words, looks, gestures, -invested it not only with an air of reality but with the absolute truth -of primitive passion. - -"It is true just as much as you are able to make it; and exactly in the -way you like to make it. For my part, when I hear you clamouring about -it, I don't believe it is true at all." - -And I left him pondering. The men in my boat lying at the foot of -Diana's side ladder told me that the captain of the tug had gone away in -his gig some time ago. - -I let my fellows pull an easy stroke; because of the heavy dew the clear -sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was -a sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was -mingled with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg's gastronomic -tittle-tattle was responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never -see Falk again. But the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that -the captain of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat away and was -now waiting for me in the cuddy. - -He was lying full length on the stern settee, his face buried in the -cushions. I had expected to see it discomposed, contorted, despairing. -It was nothing of the kind; it was just as I had seen it twenty times, -steady and glaring from the bridge of the tug. It was immovably set and -hungry, dominated like the whole man by the singleness of one instinct. - -He wanted to live. He had always wanted to live. So we all do--but in -us the instinct serves a complex conception, and in him this instinct -existed alone. There is in such simple development a gigantic force, -and like the pathos of a child's naive and uncontrolled desire. He wanted -that girl, and the utmost that can be said for him was that he wanted -that particular girl alone. I think I saw then the obscure beginning, -the seed germinating in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot -of that tree bearing now for a mature mankind the flower and the fruit, -the infinite gradation in shades and in flavour of our discriminating -love. He was a child. He was as frank as a child too. He was hungry for -the girl, terribly hungry, as he had been terribly hungry for food. - -Don't be shocked if I declare that in my belief it was the same -need, the same pain, the same torture. We are in his case allowed to -contemplate the foundation of all the emotions--that one joy which is -to live, and the one sadness at the root of the innumerable torments. -It was made plain by the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It was -gnawing, it was fire; it was there, like this! And after pointing below -his breastbone, he made a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I -assure you that, seen as I saw it with my bodily eyes, it was anything -but laughable. And again, as he was presently to tell me (alluding to an -early incident of the disastrous voyage when some damaged meat had been -flung overboard), he said that a time soon came when his heart ached -(that was the expression he used), and he was ready to tear his hair out -at the thought of all that rotten beef thrown away. - -I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical struggles, seeing the -working of the rack and hearing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it -all patiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy he had called -upon me to stand by him--and this, it seems, I had diplomatically -promised. - -His agitation was impressive and alarming in the little cabin, like the -floundering of a great whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He -stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried to tear the cushion -with his teeth; and again hugging it fiercely to his face he let himself -fall on the couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock of his -despair; and I contemplated with wonder the lofty forehead, the noble -touch of time on the uncovered temples, the unchanged hungry character -of the face--so strangely ascetic and so incapable of portraying -emotion. - -What should he do? He had lived by being near her. He had sat--in the -evening--I knew?-all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent--so. Her -head--like this--and her arms. Ah! Had I seen? Like this. - -He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck whose nape was red, -and with his hands stitched the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and -comprehensible. - -And now he couldn't have her? No! That was too much. After thinking too -that... What had he done? What was my advice? Take her by force? No? -Mustn't he? Who was there then to kill him? For the first time I saw -one of his features move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip.... -"Not Hermann, perhaps." He lost himself in thought as though he had -fallen out of the world. - -I may note that the idea of suicide apparently did not enter his head -for a single moment. It occurred to me to ask: - -"Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took place?" - -"Down south," he said vaguely with a start. - -"You are not down south now," I said. "Violence won't do. They would -take her away from you in no time. And what was the name of the ship?" - -"Borgmester Dahl," he said. "It was no shipwreck." - -He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that trance, and waking up -calmed. - -"Not a shipwreck? What was it?" - -"Break down," he answered, looking more like himself every moment. By -this only I learned that it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they -had been starving in boats or on a raft--or perhaps on a barren rock. - -"She did not sink then?" I asked in surprise. He nodded. "We sighted the -southern ice," he pronounced dreamily. - -"And you alone survived?" - -He sat down. "Yes. It was a terrible misfortune for me. Everything went -wrong. All the men went wrong. I survived." - -Remembering the things one reads of it was difficult to realise the true -meaning of his answers. I ought to have seen at once--but I did not; so -difficult is it for our minds, remembering so much, instructed so much, -informed of so much, to get in touch with the real actuality at our -elbow. And with my head full of preconceived notions as to how a case of -"cannibalism and suffering at sea" should be managed I said--"You were -then so lucky in the drawing of lots?" - -"Drawing of lots?" he said. "What lots? Do you think I would have -allowed my life to go for the drawing of lots?" - -Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter what other life went. - -"It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful," he said. "Many heads went -wrong, but the best men would live." - -"The toughest, you mean," I said. He considered the word. Perhaps it was -strange to him, though his English was so good. - -"Yes," he asserted at last. "The best. It was everybody for himself at -last and the ship open to all." - -Thus from question to question I got the whole story. I fancy it was the -only way I could that night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he was -himself again; the first sign of it was the return of that incongruous -trick he had of drawing both his hands down his face--and it had its -meaning now, with that slight shudder of the frame and the passionate -anguish of these hands uncovering a hungry immovable face, the wide -pupils of the intent, silent, fascinating eyes. - -It was an iron steamer of a most respectable origin. The burgomaster -of Falk's native town had built her. She was the first steamer ever -launched there. The burgomaster's daughter had christened her. Country -people drove in carts from miles around to see her. He told me all this. -He got the berth as what we should call a chief mate. He seemed to think -it had been a feather in his cap; and, in his own corner of the world, -this lover of life was of good parentage. - -The burgomaster had advanced ideas in the ship-owning line. At that time -not every one would have known enough to think of despatching a cargo -steamer to the Pacific. But he loaded her with pitch-pine deals and sent -her off to hunt for her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I -fancy. It doesn't matter, because in latitude 44 d south and somewhere -halfway between Good Hope and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the -propeller dropped off. - -They were steaming then with a fresh gale on the quarter and all their -canvas set, to help the engines. But by itself the sail power was not -enough to keep way on her. When the propeller went the ship broached-to -at once, and the masts got whipped overboard. - -The disadvantage of being dismasted consisted in this, that they had -nothing to hoist flags on to make themselves visible at a distance. In -the course of the first few days several ships failed to sight them; and -the gale was drifting them out of the usual track. The voyage had been, -from the first, neither very successful nor very harmonious. There had -been quarrels on board. The captain was a clever, melancholic man, who -had no unusual grip on his crew. The ship had been amply provisioned for -the passage, but, somehow or other, several barrels of meat were found -spoiled on opening, and had been thrown overboard soon after leaving -home, as a sanitary measure. Afterwards the crew of the Borgmester Dahl -thought of that rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness and -despair. - -She drove south. To begin with, there had been an appearance of -organisation, but soon the bonds of discipline became relaxed. A sombre -idleness succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the horizon. The -gales increased: she lay in the trough, the seas made a clean breach -over her. On one frightful night, when they expected their hulk to turn -over with them every moment, a heavy sea broke on board, deluged the -store-rooms and spoiled the best part of the remaining provisions. It -seems the hatch had not been properly secured. This instance of neglect -is characteristic of utter discouragement. Falk tried to inspire some -energy into his captain, but failed. From that time he retired more into -himself, always trying to do his utmost in the situation. It grew worse. -Gale succeeded gale, with black mountains of water hurling themselves on -the Borgmester Dahl. Some of the men never left their bunks; many became -quarrelsome. The chief engineer, an old man, refused to speak at all to -anybody. Others shut themselves up in their berths to cry. On calm days -the inert steamer rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or showed, -in sunshine, the squalor of sea waifs, the dried white salt, the rust, -the jagged broken places. Then the gales came again. They kept body and -soul together on short rations. Once, an English ship, scudding in a -storm, tried to stand by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The -seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked -at them, and they made desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks. -Suddenly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she -had to bear up under bare poles, and disappeared. - -Other ships had spoken them before, but at first they had refused to be -taken off, expecting the assistance of some steamer. There were very few -steamers in those latitudes then; and when they desired to leave this -dead and drifting carcase, no ship came in sight. They had drifted south -out of men's knowledge. They failed to attract the attention of a lonely -whaler, and very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea -and closed the southern horizon like a wall. One morning they were -alarmed by finding themselves floating amongst detached pieces of ice. -But the fear of sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes; -the shocks of the floes knocking against the ship's side could not -rouse them from their apathy: and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again -unharmed into open water. They hardly noticed the change. - -The funnel had gone overboard in one of the heavy rolls; two of their -three boats had disappeared, washed away in bad weather, and the davits -swung to and fro, unsecured, with chafed rope's ends waggling to the -roll. Nothing was done on board, and Falk told me how he had often -listened to the water washing about the dark engine-room where the -engines, stilled for ever, were decaying slowly into a mass of rust, as -the stilled heart decays within the lifeless body. At first, after the -loss of the motive power, the tiller had been thoroughly secured by -lashings. But in course of time these had rotted, chafed, rusted, -parting one by one: and the rudder, freed, banged heavily to and fro -night and day, sending dull shocks through the whole frame of the -vessel. This was dangerous. Nobody cared enough to lift a little finger. -He told me that even now sometimes waking up at night, he fancied he -could hear the dull vibrating thuds. The pintles carried away, and it -dropped off at last. - -The final catastrophe came with the sending off of their one remaining -boat. It was Falk who had managed to preserve her intact, and now it -was agreed that some of the hands should sail away into the track of the -shipping to procure assistance. She was provisioned with all the food -they could spare for the six who were to go. They waited for a fine day. -It was long in coming. At last one morning they lowered her into the -water. - -Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble broke out. Two men who -had no business there had jumped into the boat under the pretence of -unhooking the tackles, while some sort of squabble arose on the deck -amongst these weak, tottering spectres of a ship's company. The -captain, who had been for days living secluded and unapproachable in the -chart-room, came to the rail. He ordered the two men to come up on board -and menaced them with his revolver. They pretended to obey, but suddenly -cutting the boat's painter, gave a shove against the ship's side and -made ready to hoist the sail. - -"Shoot, sir! Shoot them down!" cried Falk-"and I will jump overboard to -regain the boat." But the captain, after taking aim with an irresolute -arm, turned suddenly away. - -A howl of rage arose. Falk dashed into his cabin for his own pistol. -When he returned it was too late. Two more men had leaped into the -water, but the fellows in the boat beat them off with the oars, hoisted -the boat's lug and sailed away. They were never heard of again. - -Consternation and despair possessed the remaining ship's company, -till the apathy of utter hopelessness re-asserted its sway. That day a -fireman committed suicide, running up on deck with his throat cut from -ear to ear, to the horror of all hands. He was thrown overboard. The -captain had locked himself in the chart-room, and Falk, knocking vainly -for admittance, heard him reciting over and over again the names of his -wife and children, not as if calling upon them or commending them to -God, but in a mechanical voice like an exercise of memory. Next day the -doors of the chart-room were swinging open to the roll of the ship, and -the captain had disappeared. He must during the night have jumped into -the sea. Falk locked both the doors and kept the keys. - -The organised life of the ship had come to an end. The solidarity of -the men had gone. They became indifferent to each other. It was Falk -who took in hand the distribution of such food as remained. They boiled -their boots for soup to eke out the rations, which only made their -hunger more intolerable. Sometimes whispers of hate were heard passing -between the languid skeletons that drifted endlessly to and fro, north -and south, east and west, upon that carcase of a ship. - -And in this lies the grotesque horror of this sombre story. The last -extremity of sailors, overtaking a small boat or a frail craft, seems -easier to bear, because of the direct danger of the seas. The confined -space, the close contact, the imminent menace of the waves, seem to draw -men together, in spite of madness, suffering and despair. But there -was a ship--safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds, bedding, knives, -forks, comfortable cabins, glass and china, and a complete cook's -galley, pervaded, ruled and possessed by the pitiless spectre of -starvation. The lamp oil had been drunk, the wicks cut up for food, the -candles eaten. At night she floated dark in all her recesses, and full -of fears. One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter of pine wood. -Suddenly he threw the piece of wood away, tottered to the rail, and fell -over. Falk, too late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship's side -desperately before he went down. Next day another man did the same -thing, after uttering horrible imprecations. But this one somehow -managed to get hold of the broken rudder chains and hung on there, -silently. Falk set about trying to save him, and all the time the man, -holding with both hands, looked at him anxiously with his sunken eyes. -Then, just as Falk was ready to put his hand on him, the man let go his -hold and sank like a stone. Falk reflected on these sights. His heart -revolted against the horror of death, and he said to himself that he -would struggle for every precious minute of his life. - -One afternoon--as the survivors lay about on the after deck--the -carpenter, a tall man with a black beard, spoke of the last sacrifice. -There was nothing eatable left on board. Nobody said a word to this; but -that company separated quickly, these listless feeble spectres slunk -off one by one to hide in fear of each other. Falk and the carpenter -remained on deck together. Falk liked the big carpenter. He had been the -best man of the lot, helpful and ready as long as there was anything to -do, the longest hopeful, and had preserved to the last some vigour and -decision of mind. - -They did not speak to each other. Henceforth no voices were to be heard -conversing sadly on board that ship. After a time the carpenter tottered -away forward; but later on, Falk going to drink at the fresh-water pump, -had the inspiration to turn his head. The carpenter had stolen upon him -from behind, and, summoning all his strength, was aiming with a crowbar -a blow at the back of his skull. - -Dodging just in time, Falk made his escape and ran into his cabin. While -he was loading his revolver there, he heard the sound of heavy blows -struck upon the bridge. The locks of the chartroom doors were slight, -they flew open, and the carpenter, possessing himself of the captain's -revolver, fired a shot of defiance. - -Falk was about to go on deck and have it out at once, when he remarked -that one of the ports of his cabin commanded the approaches to the -freshwater pump. Instead of going out he remained in and secured the -door. "The best man shall survive," he said to himself--and the other, -he reasoned, must at some time or other come there to drink. These -starving men would drink often to cheat the pangs of their hunger. But -the carpenter too must have noticed the position of the port. They were -the two best men in the ship, and the game was with them. All the rest -of the day Falk saw no one and heard no sound. At night he strained his -eyes. It was dark--he heard a rustling noise once, but he was certain -that no one could have come near the pump. It was to the left of his -deck port, and he could not have failed to see a man, for the night was -clear and starry. He saw nothing; towards morning another faint noise -made him suspicious. Deliberately and quietly he unlocked his door. He -had not slept, and had not given way to the horror of the situation. He -wanted to live. - -But during the night the carpenter, without at all trying to approach -the pump, had managed to creep quietly along the starboard bulwark, and, -unseen, had crouched down right under Falk's deck port. When daylight -came he rose up suddenly, looked in, and putting his arm through the -round brass framed opening, fired at Falk within a foot. He missed--and -Falk, instead of attempting to seize the arm holding the weapon, opened -his door unexpectedly, and with the muzzle of his long revolver nearly -touching the other's side, shot him dead. - -The best man had survived. Both of them had at the beginning just -strength enough to stand on their feet, and both had displayed pitiless -resolution, endurance, cunning and courage--all the qualities of classic -heroism. At once Falk threw overboard the captain's revolver. He was a -born monopolist. Then after the report of the two shots, followed by a -profound silence, there crept out into the cold, cruel dawn of Antarctic -regions, from various hiding-places, over the deck of that dismantled -corpse of a ship floating on a grey sea ruled by iron necessity and with -a heart of ice--there crept into view one by one, cautious, slow, eager, -glaring, and unclean, a band of hungry and livid skeletons. Falk faced -them, the possessor of the only fire-arm on board, and the second best -man--the carpenter--was lying dead between him and them. - -"He was eaten, of course," I said. - -He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, drawing his hands over his -face, and said, "I had never any quarrel with that man. But there were -our lives between him and me." - -Why continue the story of that ship, that story before which, with its -fresh-water pump like a spring of death, its man with the weapon, the -sea ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by terror and -hope, its mute and unhearing heaven?-the fable of the Flying Dutchman -with its convention of crime and its sentimental retribution fades like -a graceful wreath, like a wisp of white mist. What is there to say that -every one of us cannot guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going -through the ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the matches. Those -starving wretches had plenty of matches! He had no mind to have the ship -set on fire under his feet, either from hate or from despair. He lived -in the open, camping on the bridge, commanding all the after deck -and the only approach to the pump. He lived! Some of the others lived -too--concealed, anxious, coming out one by one from their hiding-places -at the seductive sound of a shot. And he was not selfish. They shared, -but only three of them all were alive when a whaler, returning from her -cruising ground, nearly ran over the water-logged hull of the Borgmester -Dahl, which, it seems, in the end had in some way sprung a leak in both -her holds, but being loaded with deals could not sink. - -"They all died," Falk said. "These three too, afterwards. But I would -not die. All died, all! under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to -throw away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain? I was alone there, quite -alone, just like the others. Each man was alone. Was I to give up my -revolver? Who to? Or was I to throw it into the sea? What would -have been the good? Only the best man would survive. It was a great, -terrible, and cruel misfortune." - -He had survived! I saw him before me as though preserved for a witness -to the mighty truth of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads -of perspiration stood on his forehead. And suddenly it struck the table -with a heavy blow, as he fell forward throwing his hands out. - -"And this is worse," he cried. "This is a worse pain! This is more -terrible." - -He made my heart thump with the profound conviction of his cries. And -after he had left me alone I called up before my mental eye the image -of the girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently, and as if -irresistibly. I thought of her tawny hair. I thought how, if unplaited, -it would have covered her all round as low as the hips, like the hair of -a siren. And she had bewitched him. Fancy a man who would guard his -own life with the inflexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being -brought to lament that once a crowbar had missed his skull! The sirens -sing and lure to death, but this one had been weeping silently as if -for the pity of his life. She was the tender and voiceless siren of this -appalling navigator. He evidently wanted to live his whole conception -of life. Nothing else would do. And she too was a servant of that -life that, in the midst of death, cries aloud to our senses. She was -eminently fitted to interpret for him its feminine side. And in her own -way, and with her own profusion of sensuous charms, she also seemed -to illustrate the eternal truth of an unerring principle. I don't know -though what sort of principle Hermann illustrated when he turned up -early on board my ship with a most perplexed air. It struck me, however, -that he too would do his best to survive. He seemed greatly calmed on -the subject of Falk, but still very full of it. - -"What is it you said I was last night? You know," he asked after some -preliminary talk. "Too--too--I don't know. A very funny word." - -"Squeamish?" I suggested. - -"Yes. What does it mean?" - -"That you exaggerate things--to yourself. Without inquiry, and so on." - -He seemed to turn it over in his mind. We went on talking. This Falk was -the plague of his life. Upsetting everybody like this! Mrs. Hermann was -unwell rather this morning. His niece was crying still. There was nobody -to look after the children. He struck his umbrella on the deck. She -would be like that for months. Fancy carrying all the way home, second -class, a perfectly useless girl who is crying all the time. It was -bad for Lena too, he observed; but on what grounds I could not guess. -Perhaps of the bad example. That child was already sorrowing and crying -enough over the rag doll. Nicholas was really the least sentimental -person of the family. - -"Why does she weep?" I asked. - -"From pity," cried Hermann. - -It was impossible to make out women. Mrs. Hermann was the only one he -pretended to understand. She was very, very upset and doubtful. - -"Doubtful about what?" I asked. - -He averted his eyes and did not answer this. It was impossible to make -them out. For instance, his niece was weeping for Falk. Now he (Hermann) -would like to wring his neck--but then... He supposed he had too -tender a heart. "Frankly," he asked at last, "what do you think of what -we heard last night, captain?" - -"In all these tales," I observed, "there is always a good deal of -exaggeration." - -And not letting him recover from his surprise I assured him that I knew -all the details. He begged me not to repeat them. His heart was too -tender. They made him feel unwell. Then, looking at his feet and -speaking very slowly, he supposed that he need not see much of them -after they were married. For, indeed, he could not bear the sight of -Falk. On the other hand it was ridiculous to take home a girl with her -head turned. A girl that weeps all the time and is of no help to her -aunt. - -"Now you will be able to do with one cabin only on your passage home," I -said. - -"Yes, I had thought of that," he said brightly, almost. "Yes! Himself, -his wife, four children--one cabin might do. Whereas if his niece -went..." - -"And what does Mrs. Hermann say to it?" I inquired. - -Mrs. Hermann did not know whether a man of that sort could make a girl -happy--she had been greatly deceived in Captain Falk. She had been very -upset last night. - -Those good people did not seem to be able to retain an impression for a -whole twelve hours. I assured him on my own personal knowledge that -Falk possessed in himself all the qualities to make his niece's future -prosperous. He said he was glad to hear this, and that he would tell his -wife. Then the object of the visit came out. He wished me to help him to -resume relations with Falk. His niece, he said, had expressed the hope I -would do so in my kindness. He was evidently anxious that I should, -for though he seemed to have forgotten nine-tenths of his last night's -opinions and the whole of his indignation, yet he evidently feared to -be sent to the right-about. "You told me he was very much in love," he -concluded slyly, and leered in a sort of bucolic way. - -As soon as he had left my ship I called Falk on board by signal--the -tug still lying at the anchorage. He took the news with calm gravity, -as though he had all along expected the stars to fight for him in their -courses. - -I saw them once more together, and only once--on the quarter-deck of the -Diana. Hermann sat smoking with a shirt-sleeved elbow hooked over the -back of his chair. Mrs. Hermann was sewing alone. As Falk stepped over -the gangway, Hermann's niece, with a slight swish of the skirt and a -swift friendly nod to me, glided past my chair. - -They met in sunshine abreast of the mainmast. He held her hands and -looked down at them, and she looked up at him with her candid and -unseeing glance. It seemed to me they had come together as if attracted, -drawn and guided to each other by a mysterious influence. They were a -complete couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life, generous of -form, olympian and simple, she was indeed the siren to fascinate that -dark navigator, this ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I -seemed to feel the masculine strength with which he grasped those hands -she had extended to him with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale, -nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran towards her big friend; and -then in the drowsy silence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann's voice -rang out so changed that it made me spin round in my chair to see what -was the matter. - -"Lena, come here!" she screamed. And this good-natured matron gave me a -wavering glance, dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran -back, surprised to her knee. But the two, standing before each other in -sunlight with clasped hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and no -one. Three feet away from them in the shade a seaman sat on a spar, very -busy splicing a strop, and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if -utterly unaware of their existence. - -When I returned in command of another ship, some five years afterwards, -Mr. and Mrs. Falk had left the place. I should not wonder if Schomberg's -tongue had succeeded at last in scaring Falk away for good; and, -indubitably, there was a tale still going about the town of a certain -Falk, owner of a tug, who had won his wife at cards from the captain of -an English ship. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Falk, by Joseph Conrad - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALK *** - -***** This file should be named 493.txt or 493.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/9/493/ - -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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