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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/527-0.txt b/527-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ffd979 --- /dev/null +++ b/527-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5704 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of End of the Tether, 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: End of the Tether + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #527] +Last Updated: September 9, 2016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK END OF THE TETHER *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger + + + + + +THE END OF THE TETHER + + +By Joseph Conrad + + + + +I + +For a long time after the course of the steamer _Sofala_ had been +altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance +of a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays +seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea--seemed to shatter themselves +upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor +of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady +brightness. + +Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his Serang, approaching the +roomy cane arm-chair which he filled capably, had informed him in a low +voice that the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and had +remained on his feet, face forward, while the head of his ship swung +through a quarter of a circle. He had not uttered a single word, not +even the word to steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, +little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the +helmsman. And then slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the +arm-chair on the bridge and fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet. + +He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea. He had +been on these coasts for the last three years. From Low Cape to Malantan +the distance was fifty miles, six hours’ steaming for the old ship with +the tide, or seven against. Then you steered straight for the land, and +by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with +their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of +the dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber +strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with +it obliquely, would show several clean shining fractures--the brimful +estuary of a river. Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water +and one part black earth, on and on between the low shores, three parts +black earth and one part brackish water, the Sofala would plow her way +up-stream, as she had done once every month for these seven years or +more, long before he was aware of her existence, long before he had ever +thought of having anything to do with her and her invariable voyages. +The old ship ought to have known the road better than her men, who had +not been kept so long at it without a change; better than the faithful +Serang, whom he had brought over from his last ship to keep the +captain’s watch; better than he himself, who had been her captain for +the last three years only. She could always be depended upon to make her +courses. Her compasses were never out. She was no trouble at all to +take about, as if her great age had given her knowledge, wisdom, and +steadiness. She made her landfalls to a degree of the bearing, and +almost to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, as he sat on +the bridge without looking up, or lay sleepless in his bed, simply by +reckoning the days and the hours he could tell where he was--the precise +spot of the beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous huckster’s +round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and its sights and its +people. Malacca to begin with, in at daylight and out at dusk, to cross +over with a rigid phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East. +Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black sky, perhaps +the lights of a home steamer keeping her unswerving course in the +middle, or maybe the elusive shadow of a native craft with her mat sails +flitting by silently--and the low land on the other side in sight +at daylight. At noon the three palms of the next place of call, up a +sluggish river. The only white man residing there was a retired young +sailor, with whom he had become friendly in the course of many voyages. +Sixty miles farther on there was another place of call, a deep bay with +only a couple of houses on the beach. And so on, in and out, picking +up coastwise cargo here and there, and finishing with a hundred miles’ +steady steaming through the maze of an archipelago of small islands up +to a large native town at the end of the beat. There was a three days’ +rest for the old ship before he started her again in inverse order, +seeing the same shores from another bearing, hearing the same voices +in the same places, back again to the Sofala’s port of registry on +the great highway to the East, where he would take up a berth nearly +opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office till it was time to +start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very +enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry Whalley, otherwise +Dare-devil Harry--Whalley of the Condor, a famous clipper in her day. +No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms, +who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of them his own); who +had made famous passages, had been the pioneer of new routes and new +trades; who had steered across the unsurveyed tracts of the South Seas, +and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty years at sea, and +forty out in the East (“a pretty thorough apprenticeship,” he used +to remark smilingly), had made him honorably known to a generation of +shipowners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear over to +where the East merges into the West upon the coast of the two Americas. +His fame remained writ, not very large but plain enough, on the +Admiralty charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a +Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the +celebrated clipper had hung stranded for three days, her captain and +crew throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with the other, as +it were, keeping off her a flotilla of savage war-canoes. At that time +neither the island nor the reef had any official existence. Later the +officers of her Majesty’s steam vessel Fusilier, dispatched to make a +survey of the route, recognized in the adoption of these two names the +enterprise of the man and the solidity of the ship. Besides, as anyone +who cares may see, the “General Directory,” vol. ii. p. 410, begins the +description of the “Malotu or Whalley Passage” with the words: “This +advantageous route, first discovered in 1850 by Captain Whalley in the +ship Condor,” &c., and ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels +leaving the China ports for the south in the months from December to +April inclusive. + +This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing could rob him +of this kind of fame. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez, like the +breaking of a dam, had let in upon the East a flood of new ships, new +men, new methods of trade. It had changed the face of the Eastern seas +and the very spirit of their life; so that his early experiences meant +nothing whatever to the new generation of seamen. + +In those bygone days he had handled many thousands of pounds of his +employers’ money and of his own; he had attended faithfully, as by law +a shipmaster is expected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners, +charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship or consented to +a shady transaction; and he had lasted well, outlasting in the end the +conditions that had gone to the making of his name. He had buried his +wife (in the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to the man +of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than an ample competence in the +crash of the notorious Travancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose +downfall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he was sixty-five +years old. + + +II + + +His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin he was not ashamed. +He had not been alone to believe in the stability of the Banking +Corporation. Men whose judgment in matters of finance was as expert as +his seamanship had commended the prudence of his investments, and had +themselves lost much money in the great failure. The only difference +between him and them was that he had lost his all. And yet not his all. +There had remained to him from his lost fortune a very pretty little +bark, Fair Maid, which he had bought to occupy his leisure of a retired +sailor--“to play with,” as he expressed it himself. + +He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the year preceding his +daughter’s marriage. But after the young couple had gone to settle in +Melbourne he found out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He +was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yachting to satisfy him. +He wanted the illusion of affairs; and his acquisition of the Fair +Maid preserved the continuity of his life. He introduced her to his +acquaintances in various ports as “my last command.” When he grew too +old to be trusted with a ship, he would lay her up and go ashore to be +buried, leaving directions in his will to have the bark towed out and +scuttled decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His daughter +would not grudge him the satisfaction of knowing that no stranger would +handle his last command after him. With the fortune he was able to leave +her, the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. All this +would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man +had too much vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little +wistfully withal, because he was at home in life, taking a genuine +pleasure in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his +reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter, and in his +satisfaction with the ship--the plaything of his lonely leisure. + +He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his simple ideal of comfort +at sea. A big bookcase (he was a great reader) occupied one side of his +stateroom; the portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting +representing the profile and one long black ringlet of a young woman, +faced his bed-place. Three chronometers ticked him to sleep and greeted +him on waking with the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five +every day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his early cup +of coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through the wide orifice of the +copper ventilators all the splashings, blowings, and splutterings of +his captain’s toilet. These noises would be followed by a sustained +deep murmur of the Lord’s Prayer recited in a loud earnest voice. Five +minutes afterwards the head and shoulders of Captain Whalley emerged +out of the companion-hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the +stairs, looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the trim of the +sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air. Only then he would step +out on the poop, acknowledging the hand raised to the peak of the cap +with a majestic and benign “Good morning to you.” He walked the deck +till eight scrupulously. Sometimes, not above twice a year, he had to +use a thick cudgel-like stick on account of a stiffness in the hip--a +slight touch of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing of +the ills of the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast bell he went +below to feed his canaries, wind up the chronometers, and take the +head of the table. From there he had before his eyes the big carbon +photographs of his daughter, her husband, and two fat-legged babies +--his grandchildren--set in black frames into the maplewood bulkheads +of the cuddy. After breakfast he dusted the glass over these portraits +himself with a cloth, and brushed the oil painting of his wife with a +plumate kept suspended from a small brass hook by the side of the heavy +gold frame. Then with the door of his stateroom shut, he would sit down +on the couch under the portrait to read a chapter out of a thick pocket +Bible--her Bible. But on some days he only sat there for half an hour +with his finger between the leaves and the closed book resting on his +knees. Perhaps he had remembered suddenly how fond of boat-sailing she +used to be. + +She had been a real shipmate and a true woman too. It was like an +article of faith with him that there never had been, and never could be, +a brighter, cheerier home anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under +the poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold, +garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She +had decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers. +It took her a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor of love. +To him it had remained a marvel of painting, the highest achievement of +taste and skill; and as to old Swinburne, his mate, every time he +came down to his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the +progress of the work. You could almost smell these roses, he declared, +sniffing the faint flavor of turpentine which at that time pervaded the +saloon, and (as he confessed afterwards) made him somewhat less hearty +than usual in tackling his food. But there was nothing of the sort to +interfere with his enjoyment of her singing. “Mrs. Whalley is a regular +out-and-out nightingale, sir,” he would pronounce with a judicial air +after listening profoundly over the skylight to the very end of the +piece. In fine weather, in the second dog-watch, the two men could hear +her trills and roulades going on to the accompaniment of the piano in +the cabin. On the very day they got engaged he had written to London +for the instrument; but they had been married for over a year before it +reached them, coming out round the Cape. The big case made part of the +first direct general cargo landed in Hong-kong harbor--an event that to +the men who walked the busy quays of to-day seemed as hazily remote as +the dark ages of history. But Captain Whalley could in a half hour of +solitude live again all his life, with its romance, its idyl, and its +sorrow. He had to close her eyes himself. She went away from under the +ensign like a sailor’s wife, a sailor herself at heart. He had read +the service over her, out of her own prayer-book, without a break in his +voice. When he raised his eyes he could see old Swinburne facing him +with his cap pressed to his breast, and his rugged, weather-beaten, +impassive face streaming with drops of water like a lump of chipped red +granite in a shower. It was all very well for that old sea-dog to cry. +He had to read on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember +much of what happened for the next few days. An elderly sailor of the +crew, deft at needlework, put together a mourning frock for the child +out of one of her black skirts. + +He was not likely to forget; but you cannot dam up life like a sluggish +stream. It will break out and flow over a man’s troubles, it will close +upon a sorrow like the sea upon a dead body, no matter how much love has +gone to the bottom. And the world is not bad. People had been very +kind to him; especially Mrs. Gardner, the wife of the senior partner +in Gardner, Patteson, & Co., the owners of the Condor. It was she who +volunteered to look after the little one, and in due course took her to +England (something of a journey in those days, even by the overland +mail route) with her own girls to finish her education. It was ten years +before he saw her again. + +As a little child she had never been frightened of bad weather; she +would beg to be taken up on deck in the bosom of his oilskin coat to +watch the big seas hurling themselves upon the Condor. The swirl and +crash of the waves seemed to fill her small soul with a breathless +delight. “A good boy spoiled,” he used to say of her in joke. He had +named her Ivy because of the sound of the word, and obscurely fascinated +by a vague association of ideas. She had twined herself tightly round +his heart, and he intended her to cling close to her father as to a +tower of strength; forgetting, while she was little, that in the nature +of things she would probably elect to cling to someone else. But +he loved life well enough for even that event to give him a certain +satisfaction, apart from his more intimate feeling of loss. + +After he had purchased the Fair Maid to occupy his loneliness, he +hastened to accept a rather unprofitable freight to Australia simply for +the opportunity of seeing his daughter in her own home. What made him +dissatisfied there was not to see that she clung now to somebody else, +but that the prop she had selected seemed on closer examination “a +rather poor stick”--even in the matter of health. He disliked his +son-in-law’s studied civility perhaps more than his method of +handling the sum of money he had given Ivy at her marriage. But of his +apprehensions he said nothing. Only on the day of his departure, with +the hall-door open already, holding her hands and looking steadily into +her eyes, he had said, “You know, my dear, all I have is for you and the +chicks. Mind you write to me openly.” She had answered him by an almost +imperceptible movement of her head. She resembled her mother in +the color of her eyes, and in character--and also in this, that she +understood him without many words. + +Sure enough she had to write; and some of these letters made Captain +Whalley lift his white eye-brows. For the rest he considered he was +reaping the true reward of his life by being thus able to produce on +demand whatever was needed. He had not enjoyed himself so much in a +way since his wife had died. Characteristically enough his son-in-law’s +punctuality in failure caused him at a distance to feel a sort of +kindness towards the man. The fellow was so perpetually being jammed on +a lee shore that to charge it all to his reckless navigation would be +manifestly unfair. No, no! He knew well what that meant. It was bad +luck. His own had been simply marvelous, but he had seen in his life too +many good men--seamen and others--go under with the sheer weight of bad +luck not to recognize the fatal signs. For all that, he was cogitating +on the best way of tying up very strictly every penny he had to leave, +when, with a preliminary rumble of rumors (whose first sound reached +him in Shanghai as it happened), the shock of the big failure came; +and, after passing through the phases of stupor, of incredulity, of +indignation, he had to accept the fact that he had nothing to speak of +to leave. + +Upon that, as if he had only waited for this catastrophe, the unlucky +man, away there in Melbourne, gave up his unprofitable game, and sat +down--in an invalid’s bath-chair at that too. “He will never walk +again,” wrote the wife. For the first time in his life Captain Whalley +was a bit staggered. + +The Fair Maid had to go to work in bitter earnest now. It was no longer +a matter of preserving alive the memory of Dare-devil Harry Whalley in +the Eastern Seas, or of keeping an old man in pocket-money and clothes, +with, perhaps, a bill for a few hundred first-class cigars thrown in at +the end of the year. He would have to buckle-to, and keep her going hard +on a scant allowance of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem +and stern. + +This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world. +Of his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but +the things and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of +Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses +by the waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business +quarters of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a +Gardner or a Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Captain +Whalley an arm-chair and a welcome in the private office, with a bit of +business ready to be put in the way of an old friend, for the sake of +bygone services. The husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks +in that room where, long after he had left the employ, he had kept his +right of entrance in the old man’s time. Their ships now had yellow +funnels with black tops, and a time-table of appointed routes like a +confounded service of tramways. The winds of December and June were all +one to them; their captains (excellent young men he doubted not) were, +to be sure, familiar with Whalley Island, because of late years the +Government had established a white fixed light on the north end (with +a red danger sector over the Condor Reef), but most of them would have +been extremely surprised to hear that a flesh-and-blood Whalley still +existed--an old man going about the world trying to pick up a cargo here +and there for his little bark. + +And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men who would have nodded +appreciatively at the mention of his name, and would have thought +themselves bound in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley. +Departed the opportunities which he would have known how to seize; and +gone with them the white-winged flock of clippers that lived in the +boisterous uncertain life of the winds, skimming big fortunes out of +the foam of the sea. In a world that pared down the profits to an +irreducible minimum, in a world that was able to count its disengaged +tonnage twice over every day, and in which lean charters were snapped up +by cable three months in advance, there were no chances of fortune for +an individual wandering haphazard with a little bark--hardly indeed any +room to exist. + +He found it more difficult from year to year. He suffered greatly from +the smallness of remittances he was able to send his daughter. Meantime +he had given up good cigars, and even in the matter of inferior cheroots +limited himself to six a day. He never told her of his difficulties, and +she never enlarged upon her struggle to live. Their confidence in each +other needed no explanations, and their perfect understanding endured +without protestations of gratitude or regret. He would have been shocked +if she had taken it into her head to thank him in so many words, but +he found it perfectly natural that she should tell him she needed two +hundred pounds. + +He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look for a freight in +the Sofala’s port of registry, and her letter met him there. Its tenor +was that it was no use mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening +a boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, were good. Good +enough, at any rate, to make her tell him frankly that with two hundred +pounds she could make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily, +on deck, where it was handed to him by the ship-chandler’s runner, who +had brought his mail at the moment of anchoring. For the second time +in his life he was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door +with the paper trembling between his fingers. Open a boarding-house! Two +hundred pounds for a start! The only resource! And he did not know where +to lay his hands on two hundred pence. + +All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of his anchored ship, as +though he had been about to close with the land in thick weather, and +uncertain of his position after a run of many gray days without a sight +of sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with the guiding lights +of seamen and the steady straight lines of lights on shore; and all +around the Fair Maid the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails +upon the water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a gleam +anywhere till the dawn broke and he found out that his clothing was +soaked through with the heavy dew. + +His ship was awake. He stopped short, stroked his wet beard, and +descended the poop ladder backwards, with tired feet. At the sight +of him the chief officer, lounging about sleepily on the quarterdeck, +remained open-mouthed in the middle of a great early-morning yawn. + +“Good morning to you,” pronounced Captain Whalley solemnly, passing into +the cabin. But he checked himself in the doorway, and without looking +back, “By the bye,” he said, “there should be an empty wooden case put +away in the lazarette. It has not been broken up--has it?” + +The mate shut his mouth, and then asked as if dazed, “What empty case, +sir?” + +“A big flat packing-case belonging to that painting in my room. Let it +be taken up on deck and tell the carpenter to look it over. I may want +to use it before long.” + +The chief officer did not stir a limb till he had heard the door of the +captain’s state-room slam within the cuddy. Then he beckoned aft the +second mate with his forefinger to tell him that there was something “in +the wind.” + +When the bell rang Captain Whalley’s authoritative voice boomed out +through a closed door, “Sit down and don’t wait for me.” And his +impressed officers took their places, exchanging looks and whispers +across the table. What! No breakfast? And after apparently knocking +about all night on deck, too! Clearly, there was something in the wind. +In the skylight above their heads, bowed earnestly over the plates, +three wire cages rocked and rattled to the restless jumping of the +hungry canaries; and they could detect the sounds of their “old +man’s” deliberate movements within his state-room. Captain Whalley was +methodically winding up the chronometers, dusting the portrait of +his late wife, getting a clean white shirt out of the drawers, making +himself ready in his punctilious unhurried manner to go ashore. He could +not have swallowed a single mouthful of food that morning. He had made +up his mind to sell the Fair Maid. + + +III + + +Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and wide for ships +of European build, and he had no difficulty in finding a purchaser, a +speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair +Maid, with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that +Captain Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the +steps of one of the most important post-offices of the East with a slip +of bluish paper in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter +enclosing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne. +Captain Whalley pushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket, took his +stick from under his arm, and walked down the street. + +It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with rudimentary +side-walks and a soft layer of dust cushioning the whole width of +the road. One end touched the slummy street of Chinese shops near the +harbor, the other drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of +miles, through patches of jungle-like vegetation, to the yard gates +of the new Consolidated Docks Company. The crude frontages of the new +Government buildings alternated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, +and the view of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to the +broad vista. It was empty and shunned by natives after business +hours, as though they had expected to see one of the tigers from the +neighborhood of the New Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping canter +down the middle to get a Chinese shopkeeper for supper. Captain Whalley +was not dwarfed by the solitude of the grandly planned street. He +had too fine a presence for that. He was only a lonely figure walking +purposefully, with a great white beard like a pilgrim, and with a thick +stick that resembled a weapon. On one side the new Courts of Justice had +a low and unadorned portico of squat columns half concealed by a few old +trees left in the approach. On the other the pavilion wings of the +new Colonial Treasury came out to the line of the street. But Captain +Whalley, who had now no ship and no home, remembered in passing that +on that very site when he first came out from England there had stood a +fishing village, a few mat huts erected on piles between a muddy tidal +creek and a miry pathway that went writhing into a tangled wilderness +without any docks or waterworks. + +No ship--no home. And his poor Ivy away there had no home either. A +boarding-house is no sort of home though it may get you a living. His +feelings were horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding-house. In his +rank of life he had that truly aristocratic temperament characterized by +a scorn of vulgar gentility and by prejudiced views as to the derogatory +nature of certain occupations. For his own part he had always preferred +sailing merchant ships (which is a straightforward occupation) to buying +and selling merchandise, of which the essence is to get the better of +somebody in a bargain--an undignified trial of wits at best. His father +had been Colonel Whalley (retired) of the H. E. I. Company’s service, +with very slender means besides his pension, but with distinguished +connections. He could remember as a boy how frequently waiters at the +inns, country tradesmen and small people of that sort, used to “My lord” + the old warrior on the strength of his appearance. + +Captain Whalley himself (he would have entered the Navy if his father +had not died before he was fourteen) had something of a grand air which +would have suited an old and glorious admiral; but he became lost like +a straw in the eddy of a brook amongst the swarm of brown and yellow +humanity filling a thoroughfare, that by contrast with the vast and +empty avenue he had left seemed as narrow as a lane and absolutely +riotous with life. The walls of the houses were blue; the shops of the +Chinamen yawned like cavernous lairs; heaps of nondescript merchandise +overflowed the gloom of the long range of arcades, and the fiery +serenity of sunset took the middle of the street from end to end with a +glow like the reflection of a fire. It fell on the bright colors and the +dark faces of the bare-footed crowd, on the pallid yellow backs of the +half-naked jostling coolies, on the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper +with a parted beard and fierce mustaches on sentry before the gate of +the police compound. Looming very big above the heads in a red haze of +dust, the tightly packed car of the cable tramway navigated cautiously +up the human stream, with the incessant blare of its horn, in the manner +of a steamer groping in a fog. + +Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other side, and in the +desert shade between the walls of closed warehouses removed his hat to +cool his brow. A certain disrepute attached to the calling of a +landlady of a boarding-house. These women were said to be rapacious, +unscrupulous, untruthful; and though he contemned no class of his +fellow-creatures--God forbid!--these were suspicions to which it was +unseemly that a Whalley should lay herself open. He had not expostulated +with her, however. He was confident she shared his feelings; he was +sorry for her; he trusted her judgment; he considered it a merciful +dispensation that he could help her once more,--but in his aristocratic +heart of hearts he would have found it more easy to reconcile himself to +the idea of her turning seamstress. Vaguely he remembered reading years +ago a touching piece called the “Song of the Shirt.” It was all very +well making songs about poor women. The granddaughter of Colonel +Whalley, the landlady of a boarding-house! Pooh! He replaced his hat, +dived into two pockets, and stopping a moment to apply a flaring match +to the end of a cheap cheroot, blew an embittered cloud of smoke at a +world that could hold such surprises. + +Of one thing he was certain--that she was the own child of a clever +mother. Now he had got over the wrench of parting with his ship, he +perceived clearly that such a step had been unavoidable. Perhaps he had +been growing aware of it all along with an unconfessed knowledge. But +she, far away there, must have had an intuitive perception of it, with +the pluck to face that truth and the courage to speak out--all the +qualities which had made her mother a woman of such excellent counsel. + +It would have had to come to that in the end! It was fortunate she had +forced his hand. In another year or two it would have been an utterly +barren sale. To keep the ship going he had been involving himself deeper +every year. He was defenseless before the insidious work of adversity, +to whose more open assaults he could present a firm front; like a +cliff that stands unmoved the open battering of the sea, with a lofty +ignorance of the treacherous backwash undermining its base. As it was, +every liability satisfied, her request answered, and owing no man a +penny, there remained to him from the proceeds a sum of five hundred +pounds put away safely. In addition he had upon his person some forty +odd dollars--enough to pay his hotel bill, providing he did not linger +too long in the modest bedroom where he had taken refuge. + +Scantily furnished, and with a waxed floor, it opened into one of +the side-verandas. The straggling building of bricks, as airy as a +bird-cage, resounded with the incessant flapping of rattan screens +worried by the wind between the white-washed square pillars of the +sea-front. The rooms were lofty, a ripple of sunshine flowed over the +ceilings; and the periodical invasions of tourists from some passenger +steamer in the harbor flitted through the wind-swept dusk of the +apartments with the tumult of their unfamiliar voices and impermanent +presences, like relays of migratory shades condemned to speed headlong +round the earth without leaving a trace. The babble of their irruptions +ebbed out as suddenly as it had arisen; the draughty corridors and +the long chairs of the verandas knew their sight-seeing hurry or +their prostrate repose no more; and Captain Whalley, substantial and +dignified, left well-nigh alone in the vast hotel by each light-hearted +skurry, felt more and more like a stranded tourist with no aim in view, +like a forlorn traveler without a home. In the solitude of his room he +smoked thoughtfully, gazing at the two sea-chests which held all that he +could call his own in this world. A thick roll of charts in a sheath +of sailcloth leaned in a corner; the flat packing-case containing the +portrait in oils and the three carbon photographs had been pushed under +the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting at surveys, of +all the routine of the business. What to the other parties was merely +the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically +new view of existence. He knew that after this ship there would be no +other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of his abilities, every +feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been indissolubly connected +with ships. He had served ships; he had owned ships; and even the years +of his actual retirement from the sea had been made bearable by the idea +that he had only to stretch out his hand full of money to get a ship. He +had been at liberty to feel as though he were the owner of all the +ships in the world. The selling of this one was weary work; but when +she passed from him at last, when he signed the last receipt, it was as +though all the ships had gone out of the world together, leaving him on +the shore of inaccessible oceans with seven hundred pounds in his hands. + +Striding firmly, without haste, along the quay, Captain Whalley averted +his glances from the familiar roadstead. Two generations of seamen born +since his first day at sea stood between him and all these ships at the +anchorage. His own was sold, and he had been asking himself, What next? + +From the feeling of loneliness, of inward emptiness,--and of loss +too, as if his very soul had been taken out of him forcibly,--there had +sprung at first a desire to start right off and join his daughter. +“Here are the last pence,” he would say to her; “take them, my dear. And +here’s your old father: you must take him too.” + +His soul recoiled, as if afraid of what lay hidden at the bottom of +this impulse. Give up! Never! When one is thoroughly weary all sorts of +nonsense come into one’s head. A pretty gift it would have been for a +poor woman--this seven hundred pounds with the incumbrance of a hale old +fellow more than likely to last for years and years to come. Was he not +as fit to die in harness as any of the youngsters in charge of these +anchored ships out yonder? He was as solid now as ever he had been. But +as to who would give him work to do, that was another matter. Were he, +with his appearance and antecedents, to go about looking for a junior’s +berth, people, he was afraid, would not take him seriously; or else if +he succeeded in impressing them, he would maybe obtain their pity, which +would be like stripping yourself naked to be kicked. He was not anxious +to give himself away for less than nothing. He had no use for anybody’s +pity. On the other hand, a command--the only thing he could try for with +due regard for common decency--was not likely to be lying in wait +for him at the corner of the next street. Commands don’t go a-begging +nowadays. Ever since he had come ashore to carry out the business of +the sale he had kept his ears open, but had heard no hint of one being +vacant in the port. And even if there had been one, his successful past +itself stood in his way. He had been his own employer too long. The only +credential he could produce was the testimony of his whole life. What +better recommendation could anyone require? But vaguely he felt that +the unique document would be looked upon as an archaic curiosity of the +Eastern waters, a screed traced in obsolete words--in a half-forgotten +language. + + +IV + + +Revolving these thoughts, he strolled on near the railings of the quay, +broad-chested, without a stoop, as though his big shoulders had never +felt the burden of the loads that must be carried between the cradle +and the grave. No single betraying fold or line of care disfigured the +reposeful modeling of his face. It was full and untanned; and the upper +part emerged, massively quiet, out of the downward flow of silvery hair, +with the striking delicacy of its clear complexion and the powerful +width of the forehead. The first cast of his glance fell on you candid +and swift, like a boy’s; but because of the ragged snowy thatch of the +eyebrows the affability of his attention acquired the character of a +dark and searching scrutiny. With age he had put on flesh a little, had +increased his girth like an old tree presenting no symptoms of decay; +and even the opulent, lustrous ripple of white hairs upon his chest +seemed an attribute of unquenchable vitality and vigor. + +Once rather proud of his great bodily strength, and even of his personal +appearance, conscious of his worth, and firm in his rectitude, there had +remained to him, like the heritage of departed prosperity, the tranquil +bearing of a man who had proved himself fit in every sort of way for the +life of his choice. He strode on squarely under the projecting brim of +an ancient Panama hat. It had a low crown, a crease through its whole +diameter, a narrow black ribbon. Imperishable and a little discolored, +this headgear made it easy to pick him out from afar on thronged wharves +and in the busy streets. He had never adopted the comparatively modern +fashion of pipeclayed cork helmets. He disliked the form; and he hoped +he could manage to keep a cool head to the end of his life without all +these contrivances for hygienic ventilation. His hair was cropped close, +his linen always of immaculate whiteness; a suit of thin gray flannel, +worn threadbare but scrupulously brushed, floated about his burly limbs, +adding to his bulk by the looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed +the good-humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a temper +carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick +accompanied his footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones. +It was impossible to connect such a fine presence and this unruffled +aspect with the belittling troubles of poverty; the man’s whole +existence appeared to pass before you, facile and large, in the freedom +of means as ample as the clothing of his body. + +The irrational dread of having to break into his five hundred pounds for +personal expenses in the hotel disturbed the steady poise of his mind. +There was no time to lose. The bill was running up. He nourished the +hope that this five hundred would perhaps be the means, if everything +else failed, of obtaining some work which, keeping his body and soul +together (not a matter of great outlay), would enable him to be of use +to his daughter. To his mind it was her own money which he employed, as +it were, in backing her father and solely for her benefit. Once at work, +he would help her with the greater part of his earnings; he was good for +many years yet, and this boarding-house business, he argued to himself, +whatever the prospects, could not be much of a gold-mine from the first +start. But what work? He was ready to lay hold of anything in an honest +way so that it came quickly to his hand; because the five hundred pounds +must be preserved intact for eventual use. That was the great point. +With the entire five hundred one felt a substance at one’s back; but +it seemed to him that should he let it dwindle to four-fifty or even +four-eighty, all the efficiency would be gone out of the money, as though +there were some magic power in the round figure. But what sort of work? + +Confronted by that haunting question as by an uneasy ghost, for whom he +had no exorcising formula, Captain Whalley stopped short on the apex +of a small bridge spanning steeply the bed of a canalized creek with +granite shores. Moored between the square blocks a seagoing Malay prau +floated half hidden under the arch of masonry, with her spars lowered +down, without a sound of life on board, and covered from stem to stern +with a ridge of palm-leaf mats. He had left behind him the overheated +pavements bordered by the stone frontages that, like the sheer face of +cliffs, followed the sweep of the quays; and an unconfined spaciousness +of orderly and sylvan aspect opened before him its wide plots of rolled +grass, like pieces of green carpet smoothly pegged out, its long ranges +of trees lined up in colossal porticos of dark shafts roofed with a +vault of branches. + +Some of these avenues ended at the sea. It was a terraced shore; and +beyond, upon the level expanse, profound and glistening like the gaze +of a dark-blue eye, an oblique band of stippled purple lengthened itself +indefinitely through the gap between a couple of verdant twin islets. +The masts and spars of a few ships far away, hull down in the outer +roads, sprang straight from the water in a fine maze of rosy lines +penciled on the clear shadow of the eastern board. Captain Whalley gave +them a long glance. The ship, once his own, was anchored out there. It +was staggering to think that it was open to him no longer to take a boat +at the jetty and get himself pulled off to her when the evening came. To +no ship. Perhaps never more. Before the sale was concluded, and till the +purchase-money had been paid, he had spent daily some time on board the +Fair Maid. The money had been paid this very morning, and now, all at +once, there was positively no ship that he could go on board of when he +liked; no ship that would need his presence in order to do her work--to +live. It seemed an incredible state of affairs, something too bizarre +to last. And the sea was full of craft of all sorts. There was that prau +lying so still swathed in her shroud of sewn palm-leaves--she too had +her indispensable man. They lived through each other, this Malay he had +never seen, and this high-sterned thing of no size that seemed to be +resting after a long journey. And of all the ships in sight, near and +far, each was provided with a man, the man without whom the finest ship +is a dead thing, a floating and purposeless log. + +After his one glance at the roadstead he went on, since there was +nothing to turn back for, and the time must be got through somehow. The +avenues of big trees ran straight over the Esplanade, cutting each other +at diverse angles, columnar below and luxuriant above. The interlaced +boughs high up there seemed to slumber; not a leaf stirred overhead: +and the reedy cast-iron lampposts in the middle of the road, gilt like +scepters, diminished in a long perspective, with their globes of white +porcelain atop, resembling a barbarous decoration of ostriches’ eggs +displayed in a row. The flaming sky kindled a tiny crimson spark upon +the glistening surface of each glassy shell. + +With his chin sunk a little, his hands behind his back, and the end of +his stick marking the gravel with a faint wavering line at his heels, +Captain Whalley reflected that if a ship without a man was like a body +without a soul, a sailor without a ship was of not much more account +in this world than an aimless log adrift upon the sea. The log might be +sound enough by itself, tough of fiber, and hard to destroy--but what of +that! And a sudden sense of irremediable idleness weighted his feet like +a great fatigue. + +A succession of open carriages came bowling along the newly opened +sea-road. You could see across the wide grass-plots the discs of +vibration made by the spokes. The bright domes of the parasols swayed +lightly outwards like full-blown blossoms on the rim of a vase; and +the quiet sheet of dark-blue water, crossed by a bar of purple, made a +background for the spinning wheels and the high action of the horses, +whilst the turbaned heads of the Indian servants elevated above the line +of the sea horizon glided rapidly on the paler blue of the sky. In an +open space near the little bridge each turn-out trotted smartly in a +wide curve away from the sunset; then pulling up sharp, entered the main +alley in a long slow-moving file with the great red stillness of the sky +at the back. The trunks of mighty trees stood all touched with red on +the same side, the air seemed aflame under the high foliage, the +very ground under the hoofs of the horses was red. The wheels turned +solemnly; one after another the sunshades drooped, folding their colors +like gorgeous flowers shutting their petals at the end of the day. In +the whole half-mile of human beings no voice uttered a distinct word, +only a faint thudding noise went on mingled with slight jingling sounds, +and the motionless heads and shoulders of men and women sitting in +couples emerged stolidly above the lowered hoods--as if wooden. But one +carriage and pair coming late did not join the line. + +It fled along in a noiseless roll; but on entering the avenue one of the +dark bays snorted, arching his neck and shying against the steel-tipped +pole; a flake of foam fell from the bit upon the point of a satiny +shoulder, and the dusky face of the coachman leaned forward at once over +the hands taking a fresh grip of the reins. It was a long dark-green +landau, having a dignified and buoyant motion between the sharply +curved C-springs, and a sort of strictly official majesty in its supreme +elegance. It seemed more roomy than is usual, its horses seemed slightly +bigger, the appointments a shade more perfect, the servants perched +somewhat higher on the box. The dresses of three women--two young +and pretty, and one, handsome, large, of mature age--seemed to fill +completely the shallow body of the carriage. The fourth face was that +of a man, heavy lidded, distinguished and sallow, with a somber, thick, +iron-gray imperial and mustaches, which somehow had the air of solid +appendages. His Excellency-- + +The rapid motion of that one equipage made all the others appear utterly +inferior, blighted, and reduced to crawl painfully at a snail’s pace. +The landau distanced the whole file in a sort of sustained rush; the +features of the occupant whirling out of sight left behind an impression +of fixed stares and impassive vacancy; and after it had vanished in full +flight as it were, notwithstanding the long line of vehicles hugging the +curb at a walk, the whole lofty vista of the avenue seemed to lie open +and emptied of life in the enlarged impression of an august solitude. + +Captain Whalley had lifted his head to look, and his mind, disturbed in +its meditation, turned with wonder (as men’s minds will do) to matters +of no importance. It struck him that it was to this port, where he had +just sold his last ship, that he had come with the very first he had +ever owned, and with his head full of a plan for opening a new trade +with a distant part of the Archipelago. The then governor had given +him no end of encouragement. No Excellency he--this Mr. Denham--this +governor with his jacket off; a man who tended night and day, so to +speak, the growing prosperity of the settlement with the self-forgetful +devotion of a nurse for a child she loves; a lone bachelor who lived as +in a camp with the few servants and his three dogs in what was called +then the Government Bungalow: a low-roofed structure on the half-cleared +slope of a hill, with a new flagstaff in front and a police orderly on +the veranda. He remembered toiling up that hill under a heavy sun for +his audience; the unfurnished aspect of the cool shaded room; the long +table covered at one end with piles of papers, and with two guns, a +brass telescope, a small bottle of oil with a feather stuck in the neck +at the other--and the flattering attention given to him by the man in +power. It was an undertaking full of risk he had come to expound, but a +twenty minutes’ talk in the Government Bungalow on the hill had made it +go smoothly from the start. And as he was retiring Mr. Denham, already +seated before the papers, called out after him, “Next month the Dido +starts for a cruise that way, and I shall request her captain officially +to give you a look in and see how you get on.” The Dido was one of the +smart frigates on the China station--and five-and-thirty years make a +big slice of time. Five-and-thirty years ago an enterprise like his had +for the colony enough importance to be looked after by a Queen’s ship. +A big slice of time. Individuals were of some account then. Men like +himself; men, too, like poor Evans, for instance, with his red face, +his coal-black whiskers, and his restless eyes, who had set up the first +patent slip for repairing small ships, on the edge of the forest, in +a lonely bay three miles up the coast. Mr. Denham had encouraged that +enterprise too, and yet somehow poor Evans had ended by dying at +home deucedly hard up. His son, they said, was squeezing oil out of +cocoa-nuts for a living on some God-forsaken islet of the Indian Ocean; +but it was from that patent slip in a lonely wooded bay that had sprung +the workshops of the Consolidated Docks Company, with its three +graving basins carved out of solid rock, its wharves, its jetties, +its electric-light plant, its steam-power houses--with its gigantic +sheer-legs, fit to lift the heaviest weight ever carried afloat, and +whose head could be seen like the top of a queer white monument peeping +over bushy points of land and sandy promontories, as you approached the +New Harbor from the west. + +There had been a time when men counted: there were not so many carriages +in the colony then, though Mr. Denham, he fancied, had a buggy. And +Captain Whalley seemed to be swept out of the great avenue by the swirl +of a mental backwash. He remembered muddy shores, a harbor without +quays, the one solitary wooden pier (but that was a public work) jutting +out crookedly, the first coal-sheds erected on Monkey Point, that caught +fire mysteriously and smoldered for days, so that amazed ships came +into a roadstead full of sulphurous smoke, and the sun hung blood-red +at midday. He remembered the things, the faces, and something more +besides--like the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the bottom, like a +subtle sparkle of the air that was not to be found in the atmosphere of +to-day. + +In this evocation, swift and full of detail like a flash of magnesium +light into the niches of a dark memorial hall, Captain Whalley +contemplated things once important, the efforts of small men, the growth +of a great place, but now robbed of all consequence by the greatness +of accomplished facts, by hopes greater still; and they gave him for a +moment such an almost physical grip upon time, such a comprehension of +our unchangeable feelings, that he stopped short, struck the ground with +his stick, and ejaculated mentally, “What the devil am I doing here!” He +seemed lost in a sort of surprise; but he heard his name called out in +wheezy tones once, twice--and turned on his heels slowly. + +He beheld then, waddling towards him autocratically, a man of an +old-fashioned and gouty aspect, with hair as white as his own, but with +shaved, florid cheeks, wearing a necktie--almost a neckcloth--whose +stiff ends projected far beyond his chin; with round legs, round arms, +a round body, a round face--generally producing the effect of his short +figure having been distended by means of an air-pump as much as the +seams of his clothing would stand. This was the Master-Attendant of the +port. A master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor-master; a person, +out in the East, of some consequence in his sphere; a Government +official, a magistrate for the waters of the port, and possessed of vast +but ill-defined disciplinary authority over seamen of all classes. +This particular Master-Attendant was reported to consider it miserably +inadequate, on the ground that it did not include the power of life +and death. This was a jocular exaggeration. Captain Eliott was fairly +satisfied with his position, and nursed no inconsiderable sense of such +power as he had. His conceited and tyrannical disposition did not allow +him to let it dwindle in his hands for want of use. The uproarious, +choleric frankness of his comments on people’s character and conduct +caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended +not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the +mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him +“a meddlesome old ruffian.” But for almost all of them one of Captain +Eliott’s outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as a chance of +annihilation. + + +V + + +As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl-- + +“What’s this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you’re selling the Fair Maid?” + +Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done--money had been +paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of +such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to +stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick +looked well at the end of his time. Didn’t he? + +Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past. + +The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an +alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and +appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only +to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight +before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At +the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge +of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the +appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the +only other serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the prime of +life, was resolved to serve no one but his own auspicious Fortune. Far +away, tending his hot irons, he was glad to hear the other had been +successful. There was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that +would serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And they +were so dissimilar at bottom that as they came slowly to the end of the +avenue before the Cathedral, it had never come into Whalley’s head that +he might have been in that man’s place--provided for to the end of his +days. + +The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst the converging +avenues of enormous trees, as if to put grave thoughts of heaven into +the hours of ease, presented a closed Gothic portal to the light and +glory of the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed like +fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. The two men faced +about. + +“I’ll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley,” growled Captain +Eliott suddenly. + +“Well?” + +“They ought to send a real live lord out here when Sir Frederick’s time +is up. Eh?” + +Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort +should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the other’s point +of view. + +“No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. Good enough for a +lord,” he growled in short sentences. “Look at the changes in our time. +We need a lord here now. They have got a lord in Bombay.” + +He dined once or twice every year at the Government House--a +many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. +And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant’s +steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had “most +obligingly” gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal +yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess +herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. Complexion quite +sunburnt. He should think ruined. Very gracious manners. They were going +on to Japan. . . . + +He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley’s edification, pausing +to blow out his cheeks as if with a pent-up sense of importance, and +repeatedly protruding his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his +nose seemed to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran itself; +it was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except in its Marine +department--in its Marine department he repeated twice, and after +a heavy snort began to relate how the other day her Majesty’s +Consul-General in French Cochin-China had cabled to him--in his official +capacity--asking for a qualified man to be sent over to take charge of a +Glasgow ship whose master had died in Saigon. + +“I sent word of it to the officers’ quarters in the Sailors’ Home,” he +continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated +with the increasing irritation of his voice. “Place’s full of them. +Twice as many men as there are berths going in the local trade. All +hungry for an easy job. Twice as many--and--What d’you think, +Whalley? . . .” + +He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed +ready to burst the pockets of his jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain +Whalley. + +“Hey? You would think they would be falling over each other. Not a bit +of it. Frightened to go home. Nice and warm out here to lie about a +veranda waiting for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What +did they suppose? That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the +Consul-General’s cable before me? Not likely. So I looked up a list of +them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton--the worst loafer of them +all--and just made him go. Threatened to instruct the steward of the +Sailors’ Home to have him turned out neck and crop. He did not think +the berth was good enough--if--you--please. ‘I’ve your little records by +me,’ said I. ‘You came ashore here eighteen months ago, and you haven’t +done six months’ work since. You are in debt for your board now at the +Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in the end. +Eh? So it shall; but if you don’t take this chance, away you go to +England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes +along. You are no better than a pauper. We don’t want any white paupers +here.’ I scared him. But look at the trouble all this gave me.” + +“You would not have had any trouble,” Captain Whalley said almost +involuntarily, “if you had sent for me.” + +Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he +walked. But suddenly he stopped laughing. A vague recollection had +crossed his mind. Hadn’t he heard it said at the time of the Travancore +and Deccan smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely. +“Fellow’s hard up, by heavens!” he thought; and at once he cast a +sidelong upward glance at his companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling +austerely straight before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable +in a penniless man--and he became reassured. Impossible. Could not +have lost everything. That ship had been only a hobby of his. And the +reflection that a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning a +presumably large sum of money was not likely to spring upon him a demand +for a small loan put him entirely at his ease again. There had come a +long pause in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin again, +he growled out soberly, “We old fellows ought to take a rest now.” + +“The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar,” Captain +Whalley said negligently. + +“Come, now. Aren’t you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?” + muttered the other sullenly. + +“Are you?” + +Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung on to his berth so +long in order to get his pension on the highest scale before he went +home. It would be no better than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only +thing between him and the workhouse. And he had a family. Three girls, +as Whalley knew. He gave “Harry, old boy,” to understand that these +three girls were a source of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. +Enough to drive a man distracted. + +“Why? What have they been doing now?” asked Captain Whalley with a sort +of amused absent-mindedness. + +“Doing! Doing nothing. That’s just it. Lawn-tennis and silly novels from +morning to night. . . .” + +If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! And, as ill-luck +would have it, there did not seem to be any decent young fellows left +in the world. When he looked around in the club he saw only a lot of +conceited popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman happy. +Extreme indigence stared him in the face with all that crowd to keep at +home. He had cherished the idea of building himself a little house in +the country--in Surrey--to end his days in, but he was afraid it was out +of the question, . . . and his staring eyes rolled upwards with such +a pathetic anxiety that Captain Whalley charitably nodded down at him, +restraining a sort of sickening desire to laugh. + +“You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls are the very devil for +worry and anxiety.” + +“Ay! But mine is doing well,” Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring +to the end of the avenue. + +The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He +remembered her well. A pretty girl she was. + +Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream. + +“She was pretty.” + +The procession of carriages was breaking up. + +One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the +vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect +of dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide +road. A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a +varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed +no bigger than a child’s toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain +Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained; +and keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the +conversation from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again +to the only other topic in the world--the Marine Office, the men and the +ships of the port. + +He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his +thick voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an +enormous bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or +the weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away. +It was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer. +More queer than any of Ned’s instances. Or was it that overpowering +sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these +stories. Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually +he seemed to detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy +rumble, something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the +Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to the same extent; and it +seemed to him that the voice of his old chum had not changed so very +much--that the man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly +Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business--and always a bit of a +humbug. He remembered how he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read +him like an open book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be +in port together, she would frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott +to dinner. They had not met often since those old days. Not once in five +years, perhaps. He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man he +could not bring himself to take into his confidence at this juncture; +and the other went on with his intimate outpourings, and as remote from +his hearer as though he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away. + +He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately +every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss +him when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some +retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment--a man +that would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting +craft having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but +the trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular +trip. Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to +order a man to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on +the demand of a consul-general, but . . . + +“What’s the matter with the ship?” Captain Whalley interrupted in +measured tones. + +“Nothing’s the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my +office this afternoon tearing his hair.” + +“Is he a white man?” asked Whalley in an interested voice. + +“He calls himself a white man,” answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; +“but if so, it’s just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face +too.” + +“But who is he, then?” + +“He’s the chief engineer of her. See _that_, Harry?” + +“I see,” Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. “The engineer. I see.” + +How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a +tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain +Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with +his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of +him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out +here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable +to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went through every engine-room +afloat belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, “What do you think +happened, Harry?” + +Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum +in his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn’t imagine. The +Master-Attendant’s voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man +actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery. +All these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble. +It seemed to be a perfect mania with them all. + +Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his +money, and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala, +judged too small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade +she was in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had +ordered a new steamer from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man +had never given any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere +fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may produce--not till he +got a ship of his own; but then he went off his balance all at once: +came bouncing into the Marine Office on some transfer business, with his +hat hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in his hand, +and told each one of the clerks separately that “Nobody could put him +out now. It was his turn. There was no one over him on earth, and there +never would be either.” He swaggered and strutted between the desks, +talking at the top of his voice, and trembling like a leaf all the +while, so that the current business of the office was suspended for the +time he was in there, and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed +looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen during the hottest +hours of the day with his face as red as fire rushing along up and down +the quays to look at his ship from different points of view: he seemed +inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to let them know +“that there would be no longer anyone over him; he had bought a ship; +nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room now.” + +Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all +the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did +not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam +coasting trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of +establishing local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once +organized, took the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and +by-and-by a squad of confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez +Canal and swept up all the crumbs. They prowled on the cheap to and fro +along the coast and between the islands, like a lot of sharks in the +water ready to snap up anything you let drop. And then the high old +times were over for good; for years the Sofala had made no more, he +judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott looked upon it as his duty +in every way to assist an English ship to hold her own; and it stood to +reason that if for want of a captain the Sofala began to miss her trips +she would very soon lose her trade. There was the quandary. The man was +too impracticable. “Too much of a beggar on horseback from the first,” + he explained. “Seemed to grow worse as the time went on. In the last +three years he’s run through eleven skippers; he had tried every single +man here, outside of the regular lines. I had warned him before that +this would not do. And now, of course, no one will look at the Sofala. I +had one or two men up at my office and talked to them; but, as they said +to me, what was the good of taking the berth to lead a regular dog’s +life for a month and then get the sack at the end of the first trip? The +fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there has been a plot +hatching for years against him. And now it had come. All the horrid +sailors in the port had conspired to bring him to his knees, because he +was an engineer.” + +Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle. + +“And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips he need never +trouble himself to start again. He won’t find any cargo in his old +trade. There’s too much competition nowadays for people to keep their +stuff lying about for a ship that does not turn up when she’s expected. +It’s a bad lookout for him. He swears he will shut himself on board and +starve to death in his cabin rather than sell her--even if he could find +a buyer. And that’s not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would +give her insured value for her. It isn’t like selling sailing-ships. +Steamers _do_ get out of date, besides getting old.” + +“He must have laid by a good bit of money though,” observed Captain +Whalley quietly. + +The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to an amazing size. + +“Not a stiver, Harry. Not--a--single--sti-ver.” + +He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his beard slowly, looked +down on the ground without a word, he tapped him on the forearm, +tiptoed, and said in a hoarse whisper-- + +“The Manilla lottery has been eating him up.” + +He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were +going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships’ officers (“in my +port,” he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy +had been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after +winning once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try +again to get another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of +tickets for every drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance +of affairs, ever since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had +been more or less short of money. + +This, in Captain Eliott’s opinion, gave an opening for a sensible +sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from +the consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his +captains. He had had some really good men too, who would have been too +glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think +he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and +having a row with the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him +was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the +ship on proper conditions. You don’t discharge a man for no fault, only +because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, +when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On +the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to +throw up his job in a huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He +had said: “‘This won’t do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you +here in the Marine Office. What you must do now is to try whether you +could get a sailor to join you as partner. That seems to be the only +way.’ And that was sound advice, Harry.” + +Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and +his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And +what did the fellow say to that? + +The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had +received the advice in a most impudent manner. “I didn’t come here to +be laughed at,” he had shrieked. “I appeal to you as an Englishman and a +shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your +beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to +go and get a partner!” . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage +on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? +Was he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot +ashore at the “Home” had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. +The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . . “And it’s true +enough, Harry,” rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. “They are much more +likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the +clothes on their backs. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you make too much noise over it +for my taste, Mr. Massy. Good morning.’ He banged the door after him; he +dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!” + +The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; +then recollecting himself as it were, “I’ll end by being late to +dinner--yarning with you here . . . wife doesn’t like it.” + +He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only +then wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been +doing with himself of late. They had had no sight of each other for +years and years till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in +the office. + +What on earth . . . + +Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard. + +“The earth is big,” he said vaguely. + +The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round from his +driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; only from afar, from very +far, a long way from the seashore, across the stretches of grass, +through the long ranges of trees, came faintly the toot--toot--toot of +the cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle of the Public +Library on its three-mile journey to the New Harbor Docks. + +“Doesn’t seem to be so much room on it,” growled the Master-Attendant, +“since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not +so in our time.” + +He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been +taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps he too, on his side, had detected in the +silent pilgrim-like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested +wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belonging to the young +captain of the Condor. Good fellow--Harry Whalley--never very talkative. +You never knew what he was up to--a bit too off-hand with people of +consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fellow’s actions. Fact +was he had a too good opinion of himself. He would have liked to tell +him to get in and drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife +would not like it. + +“And it’s funny to think, Harry,” he went on in a big, subdued drone, +“that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to +remember this part of the world as it used to be . . .” + +He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it +not struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without +a word, seemed to be awaiting something--perhaps expecting . . . He +gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls-- + +“Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known--the ships we’ve sailed--ay! and +the things we’ve done . . .” + +The pony plunged--the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley +raised his arm. + +“Good-by.” + + +VI + +The sun had set. And when, after drilling a deep hole with his stick, he +moved from that spot the night had massed its army of shadows under the +trees. They filled the eastern ends of the avenues as if only waiting +the signal for a general advance upon the open spaces of the world; they +were gathering low between the deep stone-faced banks of the canal. The +Malay prau, half-concealed under the arch of the bridge, had not altered +its position a quarter of an inch. For a long time Captain Whalley +stared down over the parapet, till at last the floating immobility +of that beshrouded thing seemed to grow upon him into something +inexplicable and alarming. The twilight abandoned the zenith; its +reflected gleams left the world below, and the water of the canal seemed +to turn into pitch. Captain Whalley crossed it. + +The turning to the right, which was his way to his hotel, was only +a very few steps farther. He stopped again (all the houses of the +sea-front were shut up, the quayside was deserted, but for one or two +figures of natives walking in the distance) and began to reckon the +amount of his bill. So many days in the hotel at so many dollars a +day. To count the days he used his fingers: plunging one hand into his +pocket, he jingled a few silver coins. All right for three days more; +and then, unless something turned up, he must break into the five +hundred--Ivy’s money--invested in her father. It seemed to him that +the first meal coming out of that reserve would choke him--for certain. +Reason was of no use. It was a matter of feeling. His feelings had never +played him false. + +He did not turn to the right. He walked on, as if there still had been +a ship in the roadstead to which he could get himself pulled off in +the evening. Far away, beyond the houses, on the slope of an indigo +promontory closing the view of the quays, the slim column of a +factory-chimney smoked quietly straight up into the clear air. A +Chinaman, curled down in the stern of one of the half-dozen sampans +floating off the end of the jetty, caught sight of a beckoning hand. +He jumped up, rolled his pigtail round his head swiftly, tucked in two +rapid movements his wide dark trousers high up his yellow thighs, and +by a single, noiseless, finlike stir of the oars, sheered the sampan +alongside the steps with the ease and precision of a swimming fish. + +“Sofala,” articulated Captain Whalley from above; and the Chinaman, +a new emigrant probably, stared upwards with a tense attention as if +waiting to see the queer word fall visibly from the white man’s lips. +“Sofala,” Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him. +He paused. The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were +dark: the horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of +the shore the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the +telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark +spread of uneven roofs, intermingled with palms, of the native town. +Captain Whalley began again. + +“Sofala. Savee So-fa-la, John?” + +This time the Chinaman made out that bizarre sound, and grunted his +assent uncouthly, low down in his bare throat. With the first yellow +twinkle of a star that appeared like the head of a pin stabbed deep into +the smooth, pale, shimmering fabric of the sky, the edge of a keen chill +seemed to cleave through the warm air of the earth. At the moment of +stepping into the sampan to go and try for the command of the Sofala +Captain Whalley shivered a little. + + +When on his return he landed on the quay again Venus, like a choice +jewel set low on the hem of the sky, cast a faint gold trail behind him +upon the roadstead, as level as a floor made of one dark and +polished stone. The lofty vaults of the avenues were black--all +black overhead--and the porcelain globes on the lamp-posts resembled +egg-shaped pearls, gigantic and luminous, displayed in a row whose +farther end seemed to sink in the distance, down to the level of his +knees. He put his hands behind his back. He would now consider calmly +the discretion of it before saying the final word to-morrow. His feet +scrunched the gravel loudly--the discretion of it. It would have been +easier to appraise had there been a workable alternative. The honesty +of it was indubitable: he meant well by the fellow; and periodically +his shadow leaped up intense by his side on the trunks of the trees, +to lengthen itself, oblique and dim, far over the grass--repeating his +stride. + +The discretion of it. Was there a choice? He seemed already to have lost +something of himself; to have given up to a hungry specter something of +his truth and dignity in order to live. But his life was necessary. Let +poverty do its worst in exacting its toll of humiliation. It was certain +that Ned Eliott had rendered him, without knowing it, a service for +which it would have been impossible to ask. He hoped Ned would not think +there had been something underhand in his action. He supposed that now +when he heard of it he would understand--or perhaps he would only think +Whalley an eccentric old fool. What would have been the good of telling +him--any more than of blurting the whole tale to that man Massy? Five +hundred pounds ready to invest. Let him make the best of that. Let him +wonder. You want a captain--I want a ship. That’s enough. B-r-r-r-r. +What a disagreeable impression that empty, dark, echoing steamer had +made upon him. . . . + +A laid-up steamer was a dead thing and no mistake; a sailing-ship +somehow seems always ready to spring into life with the breath of the +incorruptible heaven; but a steamer, thought Captain Whalley, with her +fires out, without the warm whiffs from below meeting you on her decks, +without the hiss of steam, the clangs of iron in her breast--lies there +as cold and still and pulseless as a corpse. + +In the solitude of the avenue, all black above and lighted below, +Captain Whalley, considering the discretion of his course, met, as it +were incidentally, the thought of death. He pushed it aside with dislike +and contempt. He almost laughed at it; and in the unquenchable vitality +of his age only thought with a kind of exultation how little he needed +to keep body and soul together. Not a bad investment for the poor +woman this solid carcass of her father. And for the rest--in case of +anything--the agreement should be clear: the whole five hundred to +be paid back to her integrally within three months. Integrally. Every +penny. He was not to lose any of her money whatever else had to go--a +little dignity--some of his self-respect. He had never before allowed +anybody to remain under any sort of false impression as to himself. +Well, let that go--for her sake. After all, he had never _said_ anything +misleading--and Captain Whalley felt himself corrupt to the marrow of +his bones. He laughed a little with the intimate scorn of his worldly +prudence. Clearly, with a fellow of that sort, and in the peculiar +relation they were to stand to each other, it would not have done to +blurt out everything. He did not like the fellow. He did not like his +spells of fawning loquacity and bursts of resentfulness. In the end--a +poor devil. He would not have liked to stand in his shoes. Men were +not evil, after all. He did not like his sleek hair, his queer way of +standing at right angles, with his nose in the air, and glancing along +his shoulder at you. No. On the whole, men were not bad--they were only +silly or unhappy. + +Captain Whalley had finished considering the discretion of that +step--and there was the whole long night before him. In the full light +his long beard would glisten like a silver breastplate covering his +heart; in the spaces between the lamps his burly figure passed less +distinct, loomed very big, wandering, and mysterious. No; there was +not much real harm in men: and all the time a shadow marched with him, +slanting on his left hand--which in the East is a presage of evil. + +. . . . . . . + +“Can you make out the clump of palms yet, Serang?” asked Captain Whalley +from his chair on the bridge of the Sofala approaching the bar of Batu +Beru. + +“No, Tuan. By-and-by see.” The old Malay, in a blue dungaree suit, +planted on his bony dark feet under the bridge awning, put his hands +behind his back and stared ahead out of the innumerable wrinkles at the +corners of his eyes. + +Captain Whalley sat still, without lifting his head to look for himself. +Three years--thirty-six times. He had made these palms thirty-six times +from the southward. They would come into view at the proper time. Thank +God, the old ship made her courses and distances trip after trip, as +correct as clockwork. At last he murmured again-- + +“In sight yet?” + +“The sun makes a very great glare, Tuan.” + +“Watch well, Serang.” + +“Ya, Tuan.” + +A white man had ascended the ladder from the deck noiselessly, and had +listened quietly to this short colloquy. Then he stepped out on the +bridge and began to walk from end to end, holding up the long cherrywood +stem of a pipe. His black hair lay plastered in long lanky wisps +across the bald summit of his head; he had a furrowed brow, a yellow +complexion, and a thick shapeless nose. A scanty growth of whisker did +not conceal the contour of his jaw. His aspect was of brooding care; +and sucking at a curved black mouthpiece, he presented such a heavy +overhanging profile that even the Serang could not help reflecting +sometimes upon the extreme unloveliness of some white men. + +Captain Whalley seemed to brace himself up in his chair, but gave no +recognition whatever to his presence. The other puffed jets of smoke; +then suddenly-- + +“I could never understand that new mania of yours of having this Malay +here for your shadow, partner.” + +Captain Whalley got up from the chair in all his imposing stature and +walked across to the binnacle, holding such an unswerving course that +the other had to back away hurriedly, and remained as if intimidated, +with the pipe trembling in his hand. “Walk over me now,” he muttered in +a sort of astounded and discomfited whisper. Then slowly and distinctly +he said-- + +“I--am--not--dirt.” And then added defiantly, “As you seem to think.” + +The Serang jerked out-- + +“See the palms now, Tuan.” + +Captain Whalley strode forward to the rail; but his eyes, instead of +going straight to the point, with the assured keen glance of a sailor, +wandered irresolutely in space, as though he, the discoverer of new +routes, had lost his way upon this narrow sea. + +Another white man, the mate, came up on the bridge. He was tall, young, +lean, with a mustache like a trooper, and something malicious in the +eye. He took up a position beside the engineer. Captain Whalley, with +his back to them, inquired-- + +“What’s on the log?” + +“Eighty-five,” answered the mate quickly, and nudged the engineer with +his elbow. + +Captain Whalley’s muscular hands squeezed the iron rail with an +extraordinary force; his eyes glared with an enormous effort; he knitted +his eyebrows, the perspiration fell from under his hat,--and in a +faint voice he murmured, “Steady her, Serang--when she is on the proper +bearing.” + +The silent Malay stepped back, waited a little, and lifted his arm +warningly to the helmsman. The wheel revolved rapidly to meet the swing +of the ship. Again the mate nudged the engineer. But Massy turned upon +him. + +“Mr. Sterne,” he said violently, “let me tell you--as a shipowner--that +you are no better than a confounded fool.” + + +VII + +Sterne went down smirking and apparently not at all disconcerted, but +the engineer Massy remained on the bridge, moving about with uneasy +self-assertion. Everybody on board was his inferior--everyone without +exception. He paid their wages and found them in their food. They ate +more of his bread and pocketed more of his money than they were worth; +and they had no care in the world, while he alone had to meet all the +difficulties of shipowning. When he contemplated his position in all its +menacing entirety, it seemed to him that he had been for years the +prey of a band of parasites: and for years he had scowled at everybody +connected with the Sofala except, perhaps, at the Chinese firemen +who served to get her along. Their use was manifest: they were an +indispensable part of the machinery of which he was the master. + +When he passed along his decks he shouldered those he came across +brutally; but the Malay deck hands had learned to dodge out of his way. +He had to bring himself to tolerate them because of the necessary manual +labor of the ship which must be done. He had to struggle and plan and +scheme to keep the Sofala afloat--and what did he get for it? Not even +enough respect. They could not have given him enough of that if all +their thoughts and all their actions had been directed to that end. The +vanity of possession, the vainglory of power, had passed away by this +time, and there remained only the material embarrassments, the fear +of losing that position which had turned out not worth having, and an +anxiety of thought which no abject subservience of men could repay. + +He walked up and down. The bridge was his own after all. He had paid +for it; and with the stem of the pipe in his hand he would stop short at +times as if to listen with a profound and concentrated attention to the +deadened beat of the engines (his own engines) and the slight grinding +of the steering chains upon the continuous low wash of water alongside. +But for these sounds, the ship might have been lying as still as if +moored to a bank, and as silent as if abandoned by every living soul; +only the coast, the low coast of mud and mangroves with the three palms +in a bunch at the back, grew slowly more distinct in its long straight +line, without a single feature to arrest attention. The native +passengers of the Sofala lay about on mats under the awnings; the smoke +of her funnel seemed the only sign of her life and connected with her +gliding motion in a mysterious manner. + +Captain Whalley on his feet, with a pair of binoculars in his hand and +the little Malay Serang at his elbow, like an old giant attended by a +wizened pigmy, was taking her over the shallow water of the bar. + +This submarine ridge of mud, scoured by the stream out of the soft +bottom of the river and heaped up far out on the hard bottom of the sea, +was difficult to get over. The alluvial coast having no distinguishing +marks, the bearings of the crossing-place had to be taken from the shape +of the mountains inland. The guidance of a form flattened and uneven +at the top like a grinder tooth, and of another smooth, saddle-backed +summit, had to be searched for within the great unclouded glare that +seemed to shift and float like a dry fiery mist, filling the air, +ascending from the water, shrouding the distances, scorching to the eye. +In this veil of light the near edge of the shore alone stood out almost +coal-black with an opaque and motionless solidity. Thirty miles away +the serrated range of the interior stretched across the horizon, its +outlines and shades of blue, faint and tremulous like a background +painted on airy gossamer on the quivering fabric of an impalpable +curtain let down to the plain of alluvial soil; and the openings of the +estuary appeared, shining white, like bits of silver let into the square +pieces snipped clean and sharp out of the body of the land bordered with +mangroves. + +On the forepart of the bridge the giant and the pigmy muttered to each +other frequently in quiet tones. Behind them Massy stood sideways with +an expression of disdain and suspense on his face. His globular eyes +were perfectly motionless, and he seemed to have forgotten the long pipe +he held in his hand. + +On the fore-deck below the bridge, steeply roofed with the white slopes +of the awnings, a young lascar seaman had clambered outside the rail. +He adjusted quickly a broad band of sail canvas under his armpits, +and throwing his chest against it, leaned out far over the water. The +sleeves of his thin cotton shirt, cut off close to the shoulder, +bared his brown arm of full rounded form and with a satiny skin like a +woman’s. He swung it rigidly with the rotary and menacing action of a +slinger: the 14-lb. weight hurtled circling in the air, then suddenly +flew ahead as far as the curve of the bow. The wet thin line swished +like scratched silk running through the dark fingers of the man, and +the plunge of the lead close to the ship’s side made a vanishing silvery +scar upon the golden glitter; then after an interval the voice of the +young Malay uplifted and long-drawn declared the depth of the water in +his own language. + +“Tiga stengah,” he cried after each splash and pause, gathering the line +busily for another cast. “Tiga stengah,” which means three fathom and a +half. For a mile or so from seaward there was a uniform depth of water +right up to the bar. “Half-three. Half-three. Half-three,”--and his +modulated cry, returned leisurely and monotonous, like the repeated +call of a bird, seemed to float away in sunshine and disappear in the +spacious silence of the empty sea and of a lifeless shore lying +open, north and south, east and west, without the stir of a single +cloud-shadow or the whisper of any other voice. + +The owner-engineer of the Sofala remained very still behind the two +seamen of different race, creed, and color; the European with the +time-defying vigor of his old frame, the little Malay, old, too, but +slight and shrunken like a withered brown leaf blown by a chance wind +under the mighty shadow of the other. Very busy looking forward at the +land, they had not a glance to spare; and Massy, glaring at them from +behind, seemed to resent their attention to their duty like a personal +slight upon himself. + +This was unreasonable; but he had lived in his own world of unreasonable +resentments for many years. At last, passing his moist palm over the +rare lanky wisps of coarse hair on the top of his yellow head, he began +to talk slowly. + +“A leadsman, you want! I suppose that’s your correct mail-boat style. +Haven’t you enough judgment to tell where you are by looking at the +land? Why, before I had been a twelvemonth in the trade I was up to that +trick--and I am only an engineer. I can point to you from here where the +bar is, and I could tell you besides that you are as likely as not to +stick her in the mud in about five minutes from now; only you would call +it interfering, I suppose. And there’s that written agreement of ours, +that says I mustn’t interfere.” + +His voice stopped. Captain Whalley, without relaxing the set severity of +his features, moved his lips to ask in a quick mumble-- + +“How near, Serang?” + +“Very near now, Tuan,” the Malay muttered rapidly. + +“Dead slow,” said the Captain aloud in a firm tone. + +The Serang snatched at the handle of the telegraph. A gong clanged down +below. Massy with a scornful snigger walked off and put his head down +the engineroom skylight. + +“You may expect some rare fooling with the engines, Jack,” he bellowed. +The space into which he stared was deep and full of gloom; and the gray +gleams of steel down there seemed cool after the intense glare of the +sea around the ship. The air, however, came up clammy and hot on his +face. A short hoot on which it would have been impossible to put any +sort of interpretation came from the bottom cavernously. This was the +way in which the second engineer answered his chief. + +He was a middle-aged man with an inattentive manner, and apparently +wrapped up in such a taciturn concern for his engines that he seemed +to have lost the use of speech. When addressed directly his only answer +would be a grunt or a hoot, according to the distance. For all the years +he had been in the Sofala he had never been known to exchange as much +as a frank Good-morning with any of his shipmates. He did not seem aware +that men came and went in the world; he did not seem to see them at all. +Indeed he never recognized his ship mates on shore. At table (the four +white men of the Sofala messed together) he sat looking into his plate +dispassionately, but at the end of the meal would jump up and bolt down +below as if a sudden thought had impelled him to rush and see whether +somebody had not stolen the engines while he dined. In port at the end +of the trip he went ashore regularly, but no one knew where he spent +his evenings or in what manner. The local coasting fleet had preserved +a wild and incoherent tale of his infatuation for the wife of a sergeant +in an Irish infantry regiment. The regiment, however, had done its turn +of garrison duty there ages before, and was gone somewhere to the other +side of the earth, out of men’s knowledge. Twice or perhaps three times +in the course of the year he would take too much to drink. On these +occasions he returned on board at an earlier hour than usual; ran +across the deck balancing himself with his spread arms like a tight-rope +walker; and locking the door of his cabin, he would converse and argue +with himself the livelong night in an amazing variety of tones; storm, +sneer, and whine with an inexhaustible persistence. Massy in his berth +next door, raising himself on his elbow, would discover that his second +had remembered the name of every white man that had passed through the +Sofala for years and years back. He remembered the names of men that had +died, that had gone home, that had gone to America: he remembered in his +cups the names of men whose connection with the ship had been so short +that Massy had almost forgotten its circumstances and could barely +recall their faces. The inebriated voice on the other side of the +bulkhead commented upon them all with an extraordinary and ingenious +venom of scandalous inventions. It seems they had all offended him in +some way, and in return he had found them all out. He muttered darkly; +he laughed sardonically; he crushed them one after another; but of his +chief, Massy, he babbled with an envious and naive admiration. Clever +scoundrel! Don’t meet the likes of him every day. Just look at him. Ha! +Great! Ship of his own. Wouldn’t catch _him_ going wrong. No fear--the +beast! And Massy, after listening with a gratified smile to these +artless tributes to his greatness, would begin to shout, thumping at the +bulkhead with both fists-- + +“Shut up, you lunatic! Won’t you let me go to sleep, you fool!” + +But a half smile of pride lingered on his lips; outside the solitary +lascar told off for night duty in harbor, perhaps a youth fresh from +a forest village, would stand motionless in the shadows of the deck +listening to the endless drunken gabble. His heart would be thumping +with breathless awe of white men: the arbitrary and obstinate men who +pursue inflexibly their incomprehensible purposes,--beings with weird +intonations in the voice, moved by unaccountable feelings, actuated by +inscrutable motives. + + + +VIII + +For a while after his second’s answering hoot Massy hung over the +engine-room gloomily. Captain Whalley, who, by the power of five hundred +pounds, had kept his command for three years, might have been suspected +of never having seen that coast before. He seemed unable to put down his +glasses, as though they had been glued under his contracted eyebrows. +This settled frown gave to his face an air of invincible and just +severity; but his raised elbow trembled slightly, and the perspiration +poured from under his hat as if a second sun had suddenly blazed up at +the zenith by the side of the ardent still globe already there, in whose +blinding white heat the earth whirled and shone like a mote of dust. + +From time to time, still holding up his glasses, he raised his other +hand to wipe his streaming face. The drops rolled down his cheeks, fell +like rain upon the white hairs of his beard, and brusquely, as if guided +by an uncontrollable and anxious impulse, his arm reached out to the +stand of the engine-room telegraph. + +The gong clanged down below. The balanced vibration of the dead-slow +speed ceased together with every sound and tremor in the ship, as if the +great stillness that reigned upon the coast had stolen in through +her sides of iron and taken possession of her innermost recesses. The +illusion of perfect immobility seemed to fall upon her from the luminous +blue dome without a stain arching over a flat sea without a stir. The +faint breeze she had made for herself expired, as if all at once the air +had become too thick to budge; even the slight hiss of the water on her +stem died out. The narrow, long hull, carrying its way without a ripple, +seemed to approach the shoal water of the bar by stealth. The plunge of +the lead with the mournful, mechanical cry of the lascar came at longer +and longer intervals; and the men on her bridge seemed to hold their +breath. The Malay at the helm looked fixedly at the compass card, the +Captain and the Serang stared at the coast. + +Massy had left the skylight, and, walking flat-footed, had returned +softly to the very spot on the bridge he had occupied before. A slow, +lingering grin exposed his set of big white teeth: they gleamed evenly +in the shade of the awning like the keyboard of a piano in a dusky room. + +At last, pretending to talk to himself in excessive astonishment, he +said not very loud-- + +“Stop the engines now. What next, I wonder?” + +He waited, stooping from the shoulders, his head bowed, his glance +oblique. Then raising his voice a shade-- + +“If I dared make an absurd remark I would say that you haven’t the +stomach to . . .” + +But a yelling spirit of excitement, like some frantic soul wandering +unsuspected in the vast stillness of the coast, had seized upon the body +of the lascar at the lead. The languid monotony of his sing-song changed +to a swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single whir, the line +whistled, splash followed splash in haste. The water had shoaled, and +the man, instead of the drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the +soundings in feet. + +“Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, fourteen . . .” + +Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses. It descended slowly +as if by its own weight; no other part of his towering body stirred; and +the swift cries with their eager warning note passed him by as though he +had been deaf. + +Massy, very still, and turning an attentive ear, had fastened his eyes +upon the silvery, close-cropped back of the steady old head. The ship +herself seemed to be arrested but for the gradual decrease of depth +under her keel. + +“Thirteen feet . . . Thirteen! Twelve!” cried the leadsman anxiously +below the bridge. And suddenly the barefooted Serang stepped away +noiselessly to steal a glance over the side. + +Narrow of shoulder, in a suit of faded blue cotton, an old gray felt hat +rammed down on his head, with a hollow in the nape of his dark neck, and +with his slender limbs, he appeared from the back no bigger than a boy +of fourteen. There was a childlike impulsiveness in the curiosity with +which he watched the spread of the voluminous, yellowish convolutions +rolling up from below to the surface of the blue water like massive +clouds driving slowly upwards on the unfathomable sky. He was not +startled at the sight in the least. It was not doubt, but the certitude +that the keel of the Sofala must be stirring the mud now, which made him +peep over the side. + +His peering eyes, set aslant in a face of the Chinese type, a little old +face, immovable, as if carved in old brown oak, had informed him long +before that the ship was not headed at the bar properly. Paid off from +the Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after the completion +of the sale, he had hung, in his faded blue suit and floppy gray hat, +about the doors of the Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain +Whalley coming along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put himself +quietly in the way, with his bare feet in the dust and an upward mute +glance. The eyes of his old commander had fallen on him favorably--it +must have been an auspicious day--and in less than half an hour the +white men in the “Ofiss” had written his name on a document as Serang of +the fire-ship Sofala. Since that time he had repeatedly looked at that +estuary, upon that coast, from this bridge and from this side of the +bar. The record of the visual world fell through his eyes upon his +unspeculating mind as on a sensitized plate through the lens of a +camera. His knowledge was absolute and precise; nevertheless, had he +been asked his opinion, and especially if questioned in the downright, +alarming manner of white men, he would have displayed the hesitation of +ignorance. He was certain of his facts--but such a certitude counted for +little against the doubt what answer would be pleasing. Fifty years ago, +in a jungle village, and before he was a day old, his father (who died +without ever seeing a white face) had had his nativity cast by a man of +skill and wisdom in astrology, because in the arrangement of the stars +may be read the last word of human destiny. His destiny had been to +thrive by the favor of various white men on the sea. He had swept the +decks of ships, had tended their helms, had minded their stores, had +risen at last to be a Serang; and his placid mind had remained as +incapable of penetrating the simplest motives of those he served as they +themselves were incapable of detecting through the crust of the earth +the secret nature of its heart, which may be fire or may be stone. But +he had no doubt whatever that the Sofala was out of the proper track for +crossing the bar at Batu Beru. + +It was a slight error. The ship could not have been more than twice her +own length too far to the northward; and a white man at a loss for a +cause (since it was impossible to suspect Captain Whalley of blundering +ignorance, of want of skill, or of neglect) would have been inclined to +doubt the testimony of his senses. It was some such feeling that kept +Massy motionless, with his teeth laid bare by an anxious grin. Not so +the Serang. He was not troubled by any intellectual mistrust of his +senses. If his captain chose to stir the mud it was well. He had known +in his life white men indulge in outbreaks equally strange. He was only +genuinely interested to see what would come of it. At last, apparently +satisfied, he stepped back from the rail. + +He had made no sound: Captain Whalley, however, seemed to have observed +the movements of his Serang. Holding his head rigidly, he asked with a +mere stir of his lips-- + +“Going ahead still, Serang?” + +“Still going a little, Tuan,” answered the Malay. Then added casually, +“She is over.” + +The lead confirmed his words; the depth of water increased at every +cast, and the soul of excitement departed suddenly from the lascar swung +in the canvas belt over the Sofala’s side. Captain Whalley ordered the +lead in, set the engines ahead without haste, and averting his eyes from +the coast directed the Serang to keep a course for the middle of the +entrance. + +Massy brought the palm of his hand with a loud smack against his thigh. + +“You grazed on the bar. Just look astern and see if you didn’t. Look at +the track she left. You can see it plainly. Upon my soul, I thought you +would! What made you do that? What on earth made you do that? I believe +you are trying to scare me.” + +He talked slowly, as it were circumspectly, keeping his prominent black +eyes on his captain. There was also a slight plaintive note in his +rising choler, for, primarily, it was the clear sense of a wrong +suffered undeservedly that made him hate the man who, for a beggarly +five hundred pounds, claimed a sixth part of the profits under the three +years’ agreement. Whenever his resentment got the better of the awe +the person of Captain Whalley inspired he would positively whimper with +fury. + +“You don’t know what to invent to plague my life out of me. I would not +have thought that a man of your sort would condescend . . .” + +He paused, half hopefully, half timidly, whenever Captain Whalley made +the slightest movement in the deck-chair, as though expecting to be +conciliated by a soft speech or else rushed upon and hunted off the +bridge. + +“I am puzzled,” he went on again, with the watchful unsmiling baring of +his big teeth. “I don’t know what to think. I do believe you are trying +to frighten me. You very nearly planted her on the bar for at least +twelve hours, besides getting the engines choked with mud. Ships can’t +afford to lose twelve hours on a trip nowadays--as you ought to know +very well, and do know very well to be sure, only . . .” + +His slow volubility, the sideways cranings of his neck, the black +glances out of the very corners of his eyes, left Captain Whalley +unmoved. He looked at the deck with a severe frown. Massy waited for +some little time, then began to threaten plaintively. + +“You think you’ve got me bound hand and foot in that agreement. You +think you can torment me in any way you please. Ah! But remember it has +another six weeks to run yet. There’s time for me to dismiss you before +the three years are out. You will do yet something that will give me the +chance to dismiss you, and make you wait a twelvemonth for your money +before you can take yourself off and pull out your five hundred, and +leave me without a penny to get the new boilers for her. You gloat over +that idea--don’t you? I do believe you sit here gloating. It’s as if I +had sold my soul for five hundred pounds to be everlastingly damned in +the end. . . .” + +He paused, without apparent exasperation, then continued evenly-- + +“. . . With the boilers worn out and the survey hanging over my head, +Captain Whalley--Captain Whalley, I say, what do you do with your +money? You must have stacks of money somewhere--a man like you must. It +stands to reason. I am not a fool, you know, Captain Whalley--partner.” + +Again he paused, as though he had done for good. He passed his tongue +over his lips, gave a backward glance at the Serang conning the ship +with quiet whispers and slight signs of the hand. The wash of the +propeller sent a swift ripple, crested with dark froth, upon a long flat +spit of black slime. The Sofala had entered the river; the trail she had +stirred up over the bar was a mile astern of her now, out of sight, had +disappeared utterly; and the smooth, empty sea along the coast was left +behind in the glittering desolation of sunshine. On each side of her, +low down, the growth of somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid +banks; and Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt start, as if +his speech had been ground out of him, like the tune of a music-box, by +turning a handle. + +“Though if anybody ever got the best of me, it is you. I don’t mind +saying this. I’ve said it--there! What more can you want? Isn’t that +enough for your pride, Captain Whalley. You got over me from the first. +It’s all of a piece, when I look back at it. You allowed me to insert +that clause about intemperance without saying anything, only looking +very sick when I made a point of it going in black on white. How could +I tell what was wrong about you. There’s generally something wrong +somewhere. And, lo and behold! when you come on board it turns out that +you’ve been in the habit of drinking nothing but water for years and +years.” + +His dogmatic reproachful whine stopped. He brooded profoundly, after +the manner of crafty and unintelligent men. It seemed inconceivable +that Captain Whalley should not laugh at the expression of disgust that +overspread the heavy, yellow countenance. But Captain Whalley never +raised his eyes--sitting in his arm-chair, outraged, dignified, and +motionless. + +“Much good it was to me,” Massy remonstrated monotonously, “to insert a +clause for dismissal for intemperance against a man who drinks nothing +but water. And you looked so upset, too, when I read my draft in +the lawyer’s office that morning, Captain Whalley,--you looked so +crestfallen, that I made sure I had gone home on your weak spot. A +shipowner can’t be too careful as to the sort of skipper he gets. You +must have been laughing at me in your sleeve all the blessed time. . . . +Eh? What are you going to say?” + +Captain Whalley had only shuffled his feet slightly. A dull animosity +became apparent in Massy’s sideways stare. + +“But recollect that there are other grounds of dismissal. There’s +habitual carelessness, amounting to incompetence--there’s gross and +persistent neglect of duty. I am not quite as big a fool as you try to +make me out to be. You have been careless of late--leaving everything +to that Serang. Why! I’ve seen you letting that old fool of a Malay +take bearings for you, as if you were too big to attend to your work +yourself. And what do you call that silly touch-and-go manner in which +you took the ship over the bar just now? You expect me to put up with +that?” + +Leaning on his elbow against the ladder abaft the bridge, Sterne, the +mate, tried to hear, blinking the while from the distance at the second +engineer, who had come up for a moment, and stood in the engine-room +companion. Wiping his hands on a bunch of cotton waste, he looked about +with indifference to the right and left at the river banks slipping +astern of the Sofala steadily. + +Massy turned full at the chair. The character of his whine became again +threatening. + +“Take care. I may yet dismiss you and freeze to your money for a year. I +may . . .” + +But before the silent, rigid immobility of the man whose money had come +in the nick of time to save him from utter ruin, his voice died out in +his throat. + +“Not that I want you to go,” he resumed after a silence, and in an +absurdly insinuating tone. “I want nothing better than to be friends +and renew the agreement, if you will consent to find another couple of +hundred to help with the new boilers, Captain Whalley. I’ve told you +before. She must have new boilers; you know it as well as I do. Have you +thought this over?” + +He waited. The slender stem of the pipe with its bulky lump of a bowl at +the end hung down from his thick lips. It had gone out. Suddenly he took +it from between his teeth and wrung his hands slightly. + +“Don’t you believe me?” He thrust the pipe bowl into the pocket of his +shiny black jacket. + +“It’s like dealing with the devil,” he said. “Why don’t you speak? At +first you were so high and mighty with me I hardly dared to creep about +my own deck. Now I can’t get a word from you. You don’t seem to see me +at all. What does it mean? Upon my soul, you terrify me with this deaf +and dumb trick. What’s going on in that head of yours? What are you +plotting against me there so hard that you can’t say a word? You will +never make me believe that you--you--don’t know where to lay your hands +on a couple of hundred. You have made me curse the day I was born. . . .” + +“Mr. Massy,” said Captain Whalley suddenly, without stirring. + +The engineer started violently. + +“If that is so I can only beg you to forgive me.” + +“Starboard,” muttered the Serang to the helmsman; and the Sofala began +to swing round the bend into the second reach. + +“Ough!” Massy shuddered. “You make my blood run cold. What made you come +here? What made you come aboard that evening all of a sudden, with your +high talk and your money--tempting me? I always wondered what was your +motive? You fastened yourself on me to have easy times and grow fat on +my life blood, I tell you. Was that it? I believe you are the greatest +miser in the world, or else why . . .” + +“No. I am only poor,” interrupted Captain Whalley, stonily. + +“Steady,” murmured the Serang. Massy turned away with his chin on his +shoulder. + +“I don’t believe it,” he said in his dogmatic tone. Captain Whalley +made no movement. “There you sit like a gorged vulture--exactly like a +vulture.” + +He embraced the middle of the reach and both the banks in one blank +unseeing circular glance, and left the bridge slowly. + + +IX + +On turning to descend Massy perceived the head of Sterne the mate +loitering, with his sly confident smile, his red mustaches and blinking +eyes, at the foot of the ladder. + +Sterne had been a junior in one of the larger shipping concerns before +joining the Sofala. He had thrown up his berth, he said, “on general +principles.” The promotion in the employ was very slow, he complained, +and he thought it was time for him to try and get on a bit in the world. +It seemed as though nobody would ever die or leave the firm; they all +stuck fast in their berths till they got mildewed; he was tired of +waiting; and he feared that when a vacancy did occur the best servants +were by no means sure of being treated fairly. Besides, the captain he +had to serve under--Captain Provost--was an unaccountable sort of man, +and, he fancied, had taken a dislike to him for some reason or other. +For doing rather more than his bare duty as likely as not. When he +had done anything wrong he could take a talking to, like a man; but +he expected to be treated like a man too, and not to be addressed +invariably as though he were a dog. He had asked Captain Provost plump +and plain to tell him where he was at fault, and Captain Provost, in a +most scornful way, had told him that he was a perfect officer, and that +if he disliked the way he was being spoken to there was the gangway--he +could take himself off ashore at once. But everybody knew what sort of +man Captain Provost was. It was no use appealing to the office. Captain +Provost had too much influence in the employ. All the same, they had to +give him a good character. He made bold to say there was nothing in the +world against him, and, as he had happened to hear that the mate of the +Sofala had been taken to the hospital that morning with a sunstroke, he +thought there would be no harm in seeing whether he would not do. . . . + +He had come to Captain Whalley freshly shaved, red-faced, thin-flanked, +throwing out his lean chest; and had recited his little tale with an +open and manly assurance. Now and then his eyelids quivered slightly, +his hand would steal up to the end of the flaming mustache; his eyebrows +were straight, furry, of a chestnut color, and the directness of his +frank gaze seemed to tremble on the verge of impudence. Captain Whalley +had engaged him temporarily; then, the other man having been ordered +home by the doctors, he had remained for the next trip, and then the +next. He had now attained permanency, and the performance of his duties +was marked by an air of serious, single-minded application. Directly +he was spoken to, he began to smile attentively, with a great deference +expressed in his whole attitude; but there was in the rapid winking +which went on all the time something quizzical, as though he had +possessed the secret of some universal joke cheating all creation and +impenetrable to other mortals. + +Grave and smiling he watched Massy come down step by step; when the +chief engineer had reached the deck he swung about, and they found +themselves face to face. Matched as to height and utterly dissimilar, +they confronted each other as if there had been something between +them--something else than the bright strip of sunlight that, falling +through the wide lacing of two awnings, cut crosswise the narrow +planking of the deck and separated their feet as it were a stream; +something profound and subtle and incalculable, like an unexpressed +understanding, a secret mistrust, or some sort of fear. + +At last Sterne, blinking his deep-set eyes and sticking forward his +scraped, clean-cut chin, as crimson as the rest of his face, murmured-- + +“You’ve seen? He grazed! You’ve seen?” + +Massy, contemptuous, and without raising his yellow, fleshy countenance, +replied in the same pitch-- + +“Maybe. But if it had been you we would have been stuck fast in the +mud.” + +“Pardon me, Mr. Massy. I beg to deny it. Of course a shipowner may say +what he jolly well pleases on his own deck. That’s all right; but I beg +to . . .” + +“Get out of my way!” + +The other had a slight start, the impulse of suppressed indignation +perhaps, but held his ground. Massy’s downward glance wandered right and +left, as though the deck all round Sterne had been bestrewn with eggs +that must not be broken, and he had looked irritably for places where +he could set his feet in flight. In the end he too did not move, though +there was plenty of room to pass on. + +“I heard you say up there,” went on the mate--“and a very just remark it +was too--that there’s always something wrong. . . .” + +“Eavesdropping is what’s wrong with _you_, Mr. Sterne.” + +“Now, if you would only listen to me for a moment, Mr. Massy, sir, I +could . . .” + +“You are a sneak,” interrupted Massy in a great hurry, and even managed +to get so far as to repeat, “a common sneak,” before the mate had broken +in argumentatively-- + +“Now, sir, what is it you want? You want . . .” + +“I want--I want,” stammered Massy, infuriated and astonished--“I want. +How do you know that I want anything? How dare you? . . . What do you +mean? . . . What are you after--you . . .” + +“Promotion.” Sterne silenced him with a sort of candid bravado. The +engineer’s round soft cheeks quivered still, but he said quietly +enough-- + +“You are only worrying my head off,” and Sterne met him with a confident +little smile. + +“A chap in business I know (well up in the world he is now) used to tell +me that this was the proper way. ‘Always push on to the front,’ he would +say. ‘Keep yourself well before your boss. Interfere whenever you get a +chance. Show him what you know. Worry him into seeing you.’ That was his +advice. Now I know no other boss than you here. You are the owner, and +no one else counts for _that_ much in my eyes. See, Mr. Massy? I want to +get on. I make no secret of it that I am one of the sort that means to +get on. These are the men to make use of, sir. You haven’t arrived at +the top of the tree, sir, without finding that out--I dare say.” + +“Worry your boss in order to get on,” mumbled Massy, as if awestruck by +the irreverent originality of the idea. “I shouldn’t wonder if this was +just what the Blue Anchor people kicked you out of the employ for. Is +that what you call getting on? You shall get on in the same way here if +you aren’t careful--I can promise you.” + +At this Sterne hung his head, thoughtful, perplexed, winking hard at +the deck. All his attempts to enter into confidential relations with +his owner had led of late to nothing better than these dark threats +of dismissal; and a threat of dismissal would check him at once into a +hesitating silence as though he were not sure that the proper time for +defying it had come. On this occasion he seemed to have lost his tongue +for a moment, and Massy, getting in motion, heavily passed him by with +an abortive attempt at shouldering. Sterne defeated it by stepping +aside. He turned then swiftly, opening his mouth very wide as if to +shout something after the engineer, but seemed to think better of it. + +Always--as he was ready to confess--on the lookout for an opening to +get on, it had become an instinct with him to watch the conduct of his +immediate superiors for something “that one could lay hold of.” It was +his belief that no skipper in the world would keep his command for a +day if only the owners could be “made to know.” This romantic and +naive theory had led him into trouble more than once, but he remained +incorrigible; and his character was so instinctively disloyal that +whenever he joined a ship the intention of ousting his commander out +of the berth and taking his place was always present at the back of his +head, as a matter of course. It filled the leisure of his waking hours +with the reveries of careful plans and compromising discoveries--the +dreams of his sleep with images of lucky turns and favorable accidents. +Skippers had been known to sicken and die at sea, than which nothing +could be better to give a smart mate a chance of showing what he’s made +of. They also would tumble overboard sometimes: he had heard of one or +two such cases. Others again . . . But, as it were constitutionally, +he was faithful to the belief that the conduct of no single one of them +would stand the test of careful watching by a man who “knew what’s what” + and who kept his eyes “skinned pretty well” all the time. + +After he had gained a permanent footing on board the Sofala he allowed +his perennial hope to rise high. To begin with, it was a great advantage +to have an old man for captain: the sort of man besides who in the +nature of things was likely to give up the job before long from one +cause or another. Sterne was greatly chagrined, however, to notice that +he did not seem anyway near being past his work yet. Still, these +old men go to pieces all at once sometimes. Then there was the +owner-engineer close at hand to be impressed by his zeal and steadiness. +Sterne never for a moment doubted the obvious nature of his own merits +(he was really an excellent officer); only, nowadays, professional merit +alone does not take a man along fast enough. A chap must have some push +in him, and must keep his wits at work too to help him forward. He made +up his mind to inherit the charge of this steamer if it was to be done +at all; not indeed estimating the command of the Sofala as a very great +catch, but for the reason that, out East especially, to make a start is +everything, and one command leads to another. + +He began by promising himself to behave with great circumspection; +Massy’s somber and fantastic humors intimidated him as being outside +one’s usual sea experience; but he was quite intelligent enough to +realize almost from the first that he was there in the presence of an +exceptional situation. His peculiar prying imagination penetrated it +quickly; the feeling that there was in it an element which eluded his +grasp exasperated his impatience to get on. And so one trip came to an +end, then another, and he had begun his third before he saw an opening +by which he could step in with any sort of effect. It had all been very +queer and very obscure; something had been going on near him, as if +separated by a chasm from the common life and the working routine of +the ship, which was exactly like the life and the routine of any other +coasting steamer of that class. + +Then one day he made his discovery. + +It came to him after all these weeks of watchful observation and puzzled +surmises, suddenly, like the long-sought solution of a riddle that +suggests itself to the mind in a flash. Not with the same authority, +however. Great heavens! Could it be that? And after remaining +thunderstruck for a few seconds he tried to shake it off with +self-contumely, as though it had been the product of an unhealthy bias +towards the Incredible, the Inexplicable, the Unheard-of--the Mad! + +This--the illuminating moment--had occurred the trip before, on the +return passage. They had just left a place of call on the mainland +called Pangu; they were steaming straight out of a bay. To the east a +massive headland closed the view, with the tilted edges of the rocky +strata showing through its ragged clothing of rank bushes and thorny +creepers. The wind had begun to sing in the rigging; the sea along the +coast, green and as if swollen a little above the line of the horizon, +seemed to pour itself over, time after time, with a slow and thundering +fall, into the shadow of the leeward cape; and across the wide opening +the nearest of a group of small islands stood enveloped in the hazy +yellow light of a breezy sunrise; still farther out the hummocky tops +of other islets peeped out motionless above the water of the channels +between, scoured tumultuously by the breeze. + +The usual track of the Sofala both going and returning on every trip led +her for a few miles along this reefinfested region. She followed a broad +lane of water, dropping astern, one after another, these crumbs of the +earth’s crust resembling a squadron of dismasted hulks run in disorder +upon a foul ground of rocks and shoals. Some of these fragments of land +appeared, indeed, no bigger than a stranded ship; others, quite flat, +lay awash like anchored rafts, like ponderous, black rafts of stone; +several, heavily timbered and round at the base, emerged in squat domes +of deep green foliage that shuddered darkly all over to the flying touch +of cloud shadows driven by the sudden gusts of the squally season. The +thunderstorms of the coast broke frequently over that cluster; it turned +then shadowy in its whole extent; it turned more dark, and as if more +still in the play of fire; as if more impenetrably silent in the peals +of thunder; its blurred shapes vanished--dissolving utterly at times +in the thick rain--to reappear clear-cut and black in the stormy light +against the gray sheet of the cloud--scattered on the slaty round table +of the sea. Unscathed by storms, resisting the work of years, unfretted +by the strife of the world, there it lay unchanged as on that day, four +hundred years ago, when first beheld by Western eyes from the deck of a +high-pooped caravel. + +It was one of these secluded spots that may be found on the busy sea, +as on land you come sometimes upon the clustered houses of a hamlet +untouched by men’s restlessness, untouched by their need, by their +thought, and as if forgotten by time itself. The lives of uncounted +generations had passed it by, and the multitudes of seafowl, urging +their way from all the points of the horizon to sleep on the outer rocks +of the group, unrolled the converging evolutions of their flight in +long somber streamers upon the glow of the sky. The palpitating cloud of +their wings soared and stooped over the pinnacles of the rocks, over +the rocks slender like spires, squat like martello towers; over the +pyramidal heaps like fallen ruins, over the lines of bald bowlders +showing like a wall of stones battered to pieces and scorched by +lightning--with the sleepy, clear glimmer of water in every breach. The +noise of their continuous and violent screaming filled the air. + +This great noise would meet the Sofala coming up from Batu Beru; it +would meet her on quiet evenings, a pitiless and savage clamor enfeebled +by distance, the clamor of seabirds settling to rest, and struggling for +a footing at the end of the day. No one noticed it especially on board; +it was the voice of their ship’s unerring landfall, ending the steady +stretch of a hundred miles. She had made good her course, she had run +her distance till the punctual islets began to emerge one by one, the +points of rocks, the hummocks of earth . . . and the cloud of birds +hovered--the restless cloud emitting a strident and cruel uproar, the +sound of the familiar scene, the living part of the broken land beneath, +of the outspread sea, and of the high sky without a flaw. + +But when the Sofala happened to close with the land after sunset she +would find everything very still there under the mantle of the night. +All would be still, dumb, almost invisible--but for the blotting out of +the low constellations occulted in turns behind the vague masses of the +islets whose true outlines eluded the eye amongst the dark spaces of the +heaven: and the ship’s three lights, resembling three stars--the red and +the green with the white above--her three lights, like three companion +stars wandering on the earth, held their unswerving course for the +passage at the southern end of the group. Sometimes there were human +eyes open to watch them come nearer, traveling smoothly in the somber +void; the eyes of a naked fisherman in his canoe floating over a reef. +He thought drowsily: “Ha! The fire-ship that once in every moon goes in +and comes out of Pangu bay.” More he did not know of her. And just as he +had detected the faint rhythm of the propeller beating the calm water +a mile and a half away, the time would come for the Sofala to alter her +course, the lights would swing off him their triple beam--and disappear. + +A few miserable, half-naked families, a sort of outcast tribe of +long-haired, lean, and wild-eyed people, strove for their living in this +lonely wilderness of islets, lying like an abandoned outwork of the land +at the gates of the bay. Within the knots and loops of the rocks the +water rested more transparent than crystal under their crooked and leaky +canoes, scooped out of the trunk of a tree: the forms of the bottom +undulated slightly to the dip of a paddle; and the men seemed to hang +in the air, they seemed to hang inclosed within the fibers of a dark, +sodden log, fishing patiently in a strange, unsteady, pellucid, green +air above the shoals. + +Their bodies stalked brown and emaciated as if dried up in the sunshine; +their lives ran out silently; the homes where they were born, went to +rest, and died--flimsy sheds of rushes and coarse grass eked out with a +few ragged mats--were hidden out of sight from the open sea. No glow +of their household fires ever kindled for a seaman a red spark upon the +blind night of the group: and the calms of the coast, the flaming long +calms of the equator, the unbreathing, concentrated calms like the deep +introspection of a passionate nature, brooded awfully for days and weeks +together over the unchangeable inheritance of their children; till at +last the stones, hot like live embers, scorched the naked sole, till +the water clung warm, and sickly, and as if thickened, about the legs of +lean men with girded loins, wading thigh-deep in the pale blaze of the +shallows. And it would happen now and then that the Sofala, through some +delay in one of the ports of call, would heave in sight making for Pangu +bay as late as noonday. + +Only a blurring cloud at first, the thin mist of her smoke would arise +mysteriously from an empty point on the clear line of sea and sky. The +taciturn fishermen within the reefs would extend their lean arms towards +the offing; and the brown figures stooping on the tiny beaches, the +brown figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search +of turtles’ eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over +the eyes, to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve +off--and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes +followed her till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going +at full speed as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the +very bosom of the earth. + +On such days the luminous sea would give no sign of the dangers lurking +on both sides of her path. Everything remained still, crushed by the +overwhelming power of the light; and the whole group, opaque in the +sunshine,--the rocks resembling pinnacles, the rocks resembling spires, +the rocks resembling ruins; the forms of islets resembling beehives, +resembling mole-hills, the islets recalling the shapes of haystacks, the +contours of ivy-clad towers,--would stand reflected together upside +down in the unwrinkled water, like carved toys of ebony disposed on the +silvered plate-glass of a mirror. + +The first touch of blowing weather would envelop the whole at once in +the spume of the windward breakers, as if in a sudden cloudlike burst +of steam; and the clear water seemed fairly to boil in all the passages. +The provoked sea outlined exactly in a design of angry foam the wide +base of the group; the submerged level of broken waste and refuse left +over from the building of the coast near by, projecting its dangerous +spurs, all awash, far into the channel, and bristling with wicked long +spits often a mile long: with deadly spits made of froth and stones. + +And even nothing more than a brisk breeze--as on that morning, the +voyage before, when the Sofala left Pangu bay early, and Mr. Sterne’s +discovery was to blossom out like a flower of incredible and evil aspect +from the tiny seed of instinctive suspicion,--even such a breeze had +enough strength to tear the placid mask from the face of the sea. To +Sterne, gazing with indifference, it had been like a revelation to +behold for the first time the dangers marked by the hissing livid +patches on the water as distinctly as on the engraved paper of a chart. +It came into his mind that this was the sort of day most favorable for a +stranger attempting the passage: a clear day, just windy enough for the +sea to break on every ledge, buoying, as it were, the channel plainly +to the sight; whereas during a calm you had nothing to depend on but the +compass and the practiced judgment of your eye. And yet the successive +captains of the Sofala had had to take her through at night more than +once. Nowadays you could not afford to throw away six or seven hours +of a steamer’s time. That you couldn’t. But then use is everything, and +with proper care . . . The channel was broad and safe enough; the main +point was to hit upon the entrance correctly in the dark--for if a man +got himself involved in that stretch of broken water over yonder he +would never get out with a whole ship--if he ever got out at all. + +This was Sterne’s last train of thought independent of the great +discovery. He had just seen to the securing of the anchor, and had +remained forward idling away a moment or two. The captain was in charge +on the bridge. With a slight yawn he had turned away from his survey of +the sea and had leaned his shoulders against the fish davit. + +These, properly speaking, were the very last moments of ease he was to +know on board the Sofala. All the instants that came after were to be +pregnant with purpose and intolerable with perplexity. No more idle, +random thoughts; the discovery would put them on the rack, till +sometimes he wished to goodness he had been fool enough not to make +it at all. And yet, if his chance to get on rested on the discovery of +“something wrong,” he could not have hoped for a greater stroke of luck. + + +X + +The knowledge was too disturbing, really. There was “something wrong” + with a vengeance, and the moral certitude of it was at first simply +frightful to contemplate. Sterne had been looking aft in a mood so idle, +that for once he was thinking no harm of anyone. His captain on the +bridge presented himself naturally to his sight. How insignificant, how +casual was the thought that had started the train of discovery--like +an accidental spark that suffices to ignite the charge of a tremendous +mine! + +Caught under by the breeze, the awnings of the foredeck bellied upwards +and collapsed slowly, and above their heavy flapping the gray stuff of +Captain Whalley’s roomy coat fluttered incessantly around his arms and +trunk. He faced the wind in full light, with his great silvery beard +blown forcibly against his chest; the eyebrows overhung heavily the +shadows whence his glance appeared to be staring ahead piercingly. +Sterne could just detect the twin gleam of the whites shifting under the +shaggy arches of the brow. At short range these eyes, for all the man’s +affable manner, seemed to look you through and through. Sterne never +could defend himself from that feeling when he had occasion to speak +with his captain. He did not like it. What a big heavy man he appeared +up there, with that little shrimp of a Serang in close attendance--as +was usual in this extraordinary steamer! Confounded absurd custom that. +He resented it. Surely the old fellow could have looked after his ship +without that loafing native at his elbow. Sterne wriggled his shoulders +with disgust. What was it? Indolence or what? + +That old skipper must have been growing lazy for years. They all grew +lazy out East here (Sterne was very conscious of his own unimpaired +activity); they got slack all over. But he towered very erect on the +bridge; and quite low by his side, as you see a small child looking over +the edge of a table, the battered soft hat and the brown face of the +Serang peeped over the white canvas screen of the rail. + +No doubt the Malay was standing back, nearer to the wheel; but the +great disparity of size in close association amused Sterne like the +observation of a bizarre fact in nature. They were as queer fish out of +the sea as any in it. + +He saw Captain Whalley turn his head quickly to speak to his Serang; +the wind whipped the whole white mass of the beard sideways. He would +be directing the chap to look at the compass for him, or what not. Of +course. Too much trouble to step over and see for himself. Sterne’s +scorn for that bodily indolence which overtakes white men in the East +increased on reflection. Some of them would be utterly lost if they +hadn’t all these natives at their beck and call; they grew perfectly +shameless about it too. He was not of that sort, thank God! It wasn’t +in him to make himself dependent for his work on any shriveled-up little +Malay like that. As if one could ever trust a silly native for anything +in the world! But that fine old man thought differently, it seems. There +they were together, never far apart; a pair of them, recalling to the +mind an old whale attended by a little pilot-fish. + +The fancifulness of the comparison made him smile. A whale with an +inseparable pilot-fish! That’s what the old man looked like; for it +could not be said he looked like a shark, though Mr. Massy had called +him that very name. But Mr. Massy did not mind what he said in his +savage fits. Sterne smiled to himself--and gradually the ideas evoked +by the sound, by the imagined shape of the word pilot-fish; the ideas +of aid, of guidance needed and received, came uppermost in his mind: +the word pilot awakened the idea of trust, of dependence, the idea of +welcome, clear-eyed help brought to the seaman groping for the land +in the dark: groping blindly in fogs: feeling their way in the thick +weather of the gales that, filling the air with a salt mist blown up +from the sea, contract the range of sight on all sides to a shrunken +horizon that seems within reach of the hand. + +A pilot sees better than a stranger, because his local knowledge, like +a sharper vision, completes the shapes of things hurriedly glimpsed; +penetrates the veils of mist spread over the land by the storms of the +sea; defines with certitude the outlines of a coast lying under the pall +of fog, the forms of landmarks half buried in a starless night as in a +shallow grave. He recognizes because he already knows. It is not to +his far-reaching eye but to his more extensive knowledge that the pilot +looks for certitude; for this certitude of the ship’s position on +which may depend a man’s good fame and the peace of his conscience, the +justification of the trust deposited in his hands, with his own life +too, which is seldom wholly his to throw away, and the humble lives of +others rooted in distant affections, perhaps, and made as weighty as +the lives of kings by the burden of the awaiting mystery. The pilot’s +knowledge brings relief and certitude to the commander of a ship; the +Serang, however, in his fanciful suggestion of a pilot-fish attending a +whale, could not in any way be credited with a superior knowledge. Why +should he have it? These two men had come on that run together--the +white and the brown--on the same day: and of course a white man would +learn more in a week than the best native would in a month. He was +made to stick to the skipper as though he were of some use--as the +pilot-fish, they say, is to the whale. But how--it was very marked--how? +A pilot-fish--a pilot--a . . . But if not superior knowledge then . . . + +Sterne’s discovery was made. It was repugnant to his imagination, +shocking to his ideas of honesty, shocking to his conception of mankind. +This enormity affected one’s outlook on what was possible in this world: +it was as if for instance the sun had turned blue, throwing a new and +sinister light on men and nature. Really in the first moment he had felt +sickish, as though he had got a blow below the belt: for a second the +very color of the sea seemed changed--appeared queer to his wandering +eye; and he had a passing, unsteady sensation in all his limbs as though +the earth had started turning the other way. + +A very natural incredulity succeeding this sense of upheaval brought a +measure of relief. He had gasped; it was over. But afterwards during all +that day sudden paroxysms of wonder would come over him in the midst +of his occupations. He would stop and shake his head. The revolt of +his incredulity had passed away almost as quick as the first emotion +of discovery, and for the next twenty-four hours he had no sleep. That +would never do. At meal-times (he took the foot of the table set up +for the white men on the bridge) he could not help losing himself in +a fascinated contemplation of Captain Whalley opposite. He watched the +deliberate upward movements of the arm; the old man put his food to his +lips as though he never expected to find any taste in his daily bread, +as though he did not know anything about it. He fed himself like a +somnambulist. “It’s an awful sight,” thought Sterne; and he watched the +long period of mournful, silent immobility, with a big brown hand +lying loosely closed by the side of the plate, till he noticed the two +engineers to the right and left looking at him in astonishment. He would +close his mouth in a hurry then, and lowering his eyes, wink rapidly at +his plate. It was awful to see the old chap sitting there; it was even +awful to think that with three words he could blow him up sky-high. +All he had to do was to raise his voice and pronounce a single short +sentence, and yet that simple act seemed as impossible to attempt as +moving the sun out of its place in the sky. The old chap could eat in +his terrific mechanical way; but Sterne, from mental excitement, could +not--not that evening, at any rate. + +He had had ample time since to get accustomed to the strain of the +meal-hours. He would never have believed it. But then use is everything; +only the very potency of his success prevented anything resembling +elation. He felt like a man who, in his legitimate search for a loaded +gun to help him on his way through the world, chances to come upon a +torpedo--upon a live torpedo with a shattering charge in its head and +a pressure of many atmospheres in its tail. It is the sort of weapon to +make its possessor careworn and nervous. He had no mind to be blown up +himself; and he could not get rid of the notion that the explosion was +bound to damage him too in some way. + +This vague apprehension had restrained him at first. He was able now to +eat and sleep with that fearful weapon by his side, with the conviction +of its power always in mind. It had not been arrived at by any +reflective process; but once the idea had entered his head, the +conviction had followed overwhelmingly in a multitude of observed little +facts to which before he had given only a languid attention. The abrupt +and faltering intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put on +like an armor; the deliberate, as if guarded, movements; the long +immobilities, as if the man he watched had been afraid to disturb the +very air: every familiar gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, +every sigh overheard, had acquired a special significance, a +confirmatory import. + +Every day that passed over the Sofala appeared to Sterne simply crammed +full with proofs--with incontrovertible proofs. At night, when off duty, +he would steal out of his cabin in pyjamas (for more proofs) and stand +a full hour, perhaps, on his bare feet below the bridge, as absolutely +motionless as the awning stanchion in its deck socket near by. On the +stretches of easy navigation it is not usual for a coasting captain to +remain on deck all the time of his watch. The Serang keeps it for him as +a matter of custom; in open water, on a straight course, he is usually +trusted to look after the ship by himself. But this old man seemed +incapable of remaining quietly down below. No doubt he could not sleep. +And no wonder. This was also a proof. Suddenly in the silence of the +ship panting upon the still, dark sea, Sterne would hear a low voice +above him exclaiming nervously-- + +“Serang!” + +“Tuan!” + +“You are watching the compass well?” + +“Yes, I am watching, Tuan.” + +“The ship is making her course?” + +“She is, Tuan. Very straight.” + +“It is well; and remember, Serang, that the order is that you are to +mind the helmsmen and keep a lookout with care, the same as if I were +not on deck.” + +Then, when the Serang had made his answer, the low tones on the bridge +would cease, and everything round Sterne seemed to become more still +and more profoundly silent. Slightly chilled and with his back aching a +little from long immobility, he would steal away to his room on the +port side of the deck. He had long since parted with the last vestige +of incredulity; of the original emotions, set into a tumult by the +discovery, some trace of the first awe alone remained. Not the awe of +the man himself--he could blow him up sky-high with six words--rather it +was an awestruck indignation at the reckless perversity of avarice (what +else could it be?), at the mad and somber resolution that for the +sake of a few dollars more seemed to set at naught the common rule +of conscience and pretended to struggle against the very decree of +Providence. + +You could not find another man like this one in the whole round +world--thank God. There was something devilishly dauntless in the +character of such a deception which made you pause. + +Other considerations occurring to his prudence had kept him tongue-tied +from day to day. It seemed to him now that it would yet have been easier +to speak out in the first hour of discovery. He almost regretted +not having made a row at once. But then the very monstrosity of the +disclosure . . . Why! He could hardly face it himself, let alone +pointing it out to somebody else. Moreover, with a desperado of that +sort one never knew. The object was not to get him out (that was as well +as done already), but to step into his place. Bizarre as the thought +seemed he might have shown fight. A fellow up to working such a fraud +would have enough cheek for anything; a fellow that, as it were, stood +up against God Almighty Himself. He was a horrid marvel--that’s what he +was: he was perfectly capable of brazening out the affair scandalously +till he got him (Sterne) kicked out of the ship and everlastingly +damaged his prospects in this part of the East. Yet if you want to get +on something must be risked. At times Sterne thought he had been unduly +timid of taking action in the past; and what was worse, it had come to +this, that in the present he did not seem to know what action to take. + +Massy’s savage moroseness was too disconcerting. It was an incalculable +factor of the situation. You could not tell what there was behind that +insulting ferocity. How could one trust such a temper; it did not put +Sterne in bodily fear for himself, but it frightened him exceedingly as +to his prospects. + +Though of course inclined to credit himself with exceptional powers of +observation, he had by now lived too long with his discovery. He had +gone on looking at nothing else, till at last one day it occurred to him +that the thing was so obvious that no one could miss seeing it. There +were four white men in all on board the Sofala. Jack, the second +engineer, was too dull to notice anything that took place out of his +engine-room. Remained Massy--the owner--the interested person--nearly +going mad with worry. Sterne had heard and seen more than enough on +board to know what ailed him; but his exasperation seemed to make him +deaf to cautious overtures. If he had only known it, there was the very +thing he wanted. But how could you bargain with a man of that sort? It +was like going into a tiger’s den with a piece of raw meat in your hand. +He was as likely as not to rend you for your pains. In fact, he was +always threatening to do that very thing; and the urgency of the case, +combined with the impossibility of handling it with safety, made Sterne +in his watches below toss and mutter open-eyed in his bunk, for hours, +as though he had been burning with fever. + +Occurrences like the crossing of the bar just now were extremely +alarming to his prospects. He did not want to be left behind by some +swift catastrophe. Massy being on the bridge, the old man had to brace +himself up and make a show, he supposed. But it was getting very bad +with him, very bad indeed, now. Even Massy had been emboldened to find +fault this time; Sterne, listening at the foot of the ladder, had heard +the other’s whimpering and artless denunciations. Luckily the beast was +very stupid and could not see the why of all this. However, small blame +to him; it took a clever man to hit upon the cause. Nevertheless, it was +high time to do something. The old man’s game could not be kept up for +many days more. + +“I may yet lose my life at this fooling--let alone my chance,” Sterne +mumbled angrily to himself, after the stooping back of the chief +engineer had disappeared round the corner of the skylight. Yes, no +doubt--he thought; but to blurt out his knowledge would not advance his +prospects. On the contrary, it would blast them utterly as likely as +not. He dreaded another failure. He had a vague consciousness of not +being much liked by his fellows in this part of the world; inexplicably +enough, for he had done nothing to them. Envy, he supposed. People were +always down on a clever chap who made no bones about his determination +to get on. To do your duty and count on the gratitude of that brute +Massy would be sheer folly. He was a bad lot. Unmanly! A vicious man! +Bad! Bad! A brute! A brute without a spark of anything human about him; +without so much as simple curiosity even, or else surely he would have +responded in some way to all these hints he had been given. . . . Such +insensibility was almost mysterious. Massy’s state of exasperation +seemed to Sterne to have made him stupid beyond the ordinary silliness +of shipowners. + +Sterne, meditating on the embarrassments of that stupidity, forgot +himself completely. His stony, unwinking stare was fixed on the planks +of the deck. + +The slight quiver agitating the whole fabric of the ship was more +perceptible in the silent river, shaded and still like a forest +path. The Sofala, gliding with an even motion, had passed beyond the +coast-belt of mud and mangroves. The shores rose higher, in firm sloping +banks, and the forest of big trees came down to the brink. Where the +earth had been crumbled by the floods it showed a steep brown cut, +denuding a mass of roots intertwined as if wrestling underground; and in +the air, the interlaced boughs, bound and loaded with creepers, carried +on the struggle for life, mingled their foliage in one solid wall +of leaves, with here and there the shape of an enormous dark pillar +soaring, or a ragged opening, as if torn by the flight of a cannonball, +disclosing the impenetrable gloom within, the secular inviolable shade +of the virgin forest. The thump of the engines reverberated regularly +like the strokes of a metronome beating the measure of the vast silence, +the shadow of the western wall had fallen across the river, and the +smoke pouring backwards from the funnel eddied down behind the ship, +spread a thin dusky veil over the somber water, which, checked by the +flood-tide, seemed to lie stagnant in the whole straight length of the +reaches. + +Sterne’s body, as if rooted on the spot, trembled slightly from top to +toe with the internal vibration of the ship; from under his feet came +sometimes a sudden clang of iron, the noisy burst of a shout below; to +the right the leaves of the tree-tops caught the rays of the low sun, +and seemed to shine with a golden green light of their own shimmering +around the highest boughs which stood out black against a smooth blue +sky that seemed to droop over the bed of the river like the roof of a +tent. The passengers for Batu Beru, kneeling on the planks, were engaged +in rolling their bedding of mats busily; they tied up bundles, they +snapped the locks of wooden chests. A pockmarked peddler of small wares +threw his head back to drain into his throat the last drops out of an +earthenware bottle before putting it away in a roll of blankets. Knots +of traveling traders standing about the deck conversed in low tones; +the followers of a small Rajah from down the coast, broad-faced, simple +young fellows in white drawers and round white cotton caps with their +colored sarongs twisted across their bronze shoulders, squatted on their +hams on the hatch, chewing betel with bright red mouths as if they had +been tasting blood. Their spears, lying piled up together within the +circle of their bare toes, resembled a casual bundle of dry bamboos; a +thin, livid Chinaman, with a bulky package wrapped up in leaves already +thrust under his arm, gazed ahead eagerly; a wandering Kling rubbed his +teeth with a bit of wood, pouring over the side a bright stream of water +out of his lips; the fat Rajah dozed in a shabby deck-chair,--and at the +turn of every bend the two walls of leaves reappeared running parallel +along the banks, with their impenetrable solidity fading at the top to +a vaporous mistiness of countless slender twigs growing free, of young +delicate branches shooting from the topmost limbs of hoary trunks, +of feathery heads of climbers like delicate silver sprays standing up +without a quiver. There was not a sign of a clearing anywhere; not a +trace of human habitation, except when in one place, on the bare end of +a low point under an isolated group of slender tree-ferns, the jagged, +tangled remnants of an old hut on piles appeared with that peculiar +aspect of ruined bamboo walls that look as if smashed with a club. +Farther on, half hidden under the drooping bushes, a canoe containing a +man and a woman, together with a dozen green cocoanuts in a heap, rocked +helplessly after the Sofala had passed, like a navigating contrivance of +venturesome insects, of traveling ants; while two glassy folds of water +streaming away from each bow of the steamer across the whole width of +the river ran with her up stream smoothly, fretting their outer ends +into a brown whispering tumble of froth against the miry foot of each +bank. + +“I must,” thought Sterne, “bring that brute Massy to his bearings. It’s +getting too absurd in the end. Here’s the old man up there buried in his +chair--he may just as well be in his grave for all the use he’ll ever be +in the world--and the Serang’s in charge. Because that’s what he is. +In charge. In the place that’s mine by rights. I must bring that savage +brute to his bearings. I’ll do it at once, too . . .” + +When the mate made an abrupt start, a little brown half-naked boy, with +large black eyes, and the string of a written charm round his neck, +became panic-struck at once. He dropped the banana he had been munching, +and ran to the knee of a grave dark Arab in flowing robes, sitting like +a Biblical figure, incongruously, on a yellow tin trunk corded with a +rope of twisted rattan. The father, unmoved, put out his hand to pat the +little shaven poll protectingly. + + +XI + +Sterne crossed the deck upon the track of the chief engineer. Jack, +the second, retreating backwards down the engine-room ladder, and still +wiping his hands, treated him to an incomprehensible grin of white teeth +out of his grimy hard face; Massy was nowhere to be seen. He must have +gone straight into his berth. Sterne scratched at the door softly, then, +putting his lips to the rose of the ventilator, said-- + +“I must speak to you, Mr. Massy. Just give me a minute or two.” + +“I am busy. Go away from my door.” + +“But pray, Mr. Massy . . .” + +“You go away. D’you hear? Take yourself off altogether--to the other +end of the ship--quite away . . .” The voice inside dropped low. “To the +devil.” + +Sterne paused: then very quietly-- + +“It’s rather pressing. When do you think you will be at liberty, sir?” + +The answer to this was an exasperated “Never”; and at once Sterne, with +a very firm expression of face, turned the handle. + +Mr. Massy’s stateroom--a narrow, one-berth cabin--smelt strongly of +soap, and presented to view a swept, dusted, unadorned neatness, not +so much bare as barren, not so much severe as starved and lacking in +humanity, like the ward of a public hospital, or rather (owing to the +small size) like the clean retreat of a desperately poor but exemplary +person. Not a single photograph frame ornamented the bulkheads; not a +single article of clothing, not as much as a spare cap, hung from the +brass hooks. All the inside was painted in one plain tint of pale blue; +two big sea-chests in sailcloth covers and with iron padlocks fitted +exactly in the space under the bunk. One glance was enough to embrace +all the strip of scrubbed planks within the four unconcealed corners. +The absence of the usual settee was striking; the teak-wood top of the +washing-stand seemed hermetically closed, and so was the lid of the +writing-desk, which protruded from the partition at the foot of the +bed-place, containing a mattress as thin as a pancake under a threadbare +blanket with a faded red stripe, and a folded mosquito-net against +the nights spent in harbor. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere in +sight, no boots on the floor, no litter of any sort, not a speck of +dust anywhere; no traces of pipe-ash even, which, in a heavy smoker, was +morally revolting, like a manifestation of extreme hypocrisy; and the +bottom of the old wooden arm-chair (the only seat there), polished +with much use, shone as if its shabbiness had been waxed. The screen +of leaves on the bank, passing as if unrolled endlessly in the round +opening of the port, sent a wavering network of light and shade into the +place. + +Sterne, holding the door open with one hand, had thrust in his head and +shoulders. At this amazing intrusion Massy, who was doing absolutely +nothing, jumped up speechless. + +“Don’t call names,” murmured Sterne hurriedly. “I won’t be called names. +I think of nothing but your good, Mr. Massy.” + +A pause as of extreme astonishment followed. They both seemed to have +lost their tongues. Then the mate went on with a discreet glibness. + +“You simply couldn’t conceive what’s going on on board your ship. +It wouldn’t enter your head for a moment. You are too good--too--too +upright, Mr. Massy, to suspect anybody of such a . . . It’s enough to +make your hair stand on end.” + +He watched for the effect: Massy seemed dazed, uncomprehending. He only +passed the palm of his hand on the coal-black wisps plastered across +the top of his head. In a tone suddenly changed to confidential audacity +Sterne hastened on. + +“Remember that there’s only six weeks left to run . . .” The other was +looking at him stonily . . . “so anyhow you shall require a captain for +the ship before long.” + +Then only, as if that suggestion had scarified his flesh in the manner +of red-hot iron, Massy gave a start and seemed ready to shriek. He +contained himself by a great effort. + +“Require a captain,” he repeated with scathing slowness. “Who requires +a captain? You dare to tell me that I need any of you humbugging sailors +to run my ship. You and your likes have been fattening on me for years. +It would have hurt me less to throw my money overboard. Pam--pe--red +us--e--less f-f-f-frauds. The old ship knows as much as the best of +you.” He snapped his teeth audibly and growled through them, “The silly +law requires a captain.” + +Sterne had taken heart of grace meantime. + +“And the silly insurance people too, as well,” he said lightly. “But +never mind that. What I want to ask is: Why shouldn’t _I_ do, sir? I +don’t say but you could take a steamer about the world as well as any of +us sailors. I don’t pretend to tell _you_ that it is a very great trick +. . .” He emitted a short, hollow guffaw, familiarly . . . “I didn’t +make the law--but there it is; and I am an active young fellow! I +quite hold with your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy. I +wouldn’t try to give myself airs like that--that--er lazy specimen of an +old man up there.” + +He put a marked emphasis on the last sentence, to lead Massy away from +the track in case . . . but he did not doubt of now holding his success. +The chief engineer seemed nonplused, like a slow man invited to catch +hold of a whirligig of some sort. + +“What you want, sir, is a chap with no nonsense about him, who would be +content to be your sailing-master. Quite right, too. Well, I am fit for +the work as much as that Serang. Because that’s what it amounts to. +Do you know, sir, that a dam’ Malay like a monkey is in charge of your +ship--and no one else. Just listen to his feet pit-patting above us on +the bridge--real officer in charge. He’s taking her up the river while +the great man is wallowing in the chair--perhaps asleep; and if he is, +that would not make it much worse either--take my word for it.” + +He tried to thrust himself farther in. Massy, with lowered forehead, one +hand grasping the back of the arm-chair, did not budge. + +“You think, sir, that the man has got you tight in his agreement . . .” + Massy raised a heavy snarling face at this . . . “Well, sir, one can’t +help hearing of it on board. It’s no secret. And it has been the talk on +shore for years; fellows have been making bets about it. No, sir! +It’s _you_ who have got him at your mercy. You will say that you can’t +dismiss him for indolence. Difficult to prove in court, and so on. Why, +yes. But if you say the word, sir, I can tell you something about his +indolence that will give you the clear right to fire him out on the spot +and put me in charge for the rest of this very trip--yes, sir, before +we leave Batu Beru--and make him pay a dollar a day for his keep till +we get back, if you like. Now, what do you think of that? Come, sir. +Say the word. It’s really well worth your while, and I am quite ready to +take your bare word. A definite statement from you would be as good as a +bond.” + +His eyes began to shine. He insisted. A simple statement,--and he +thought to himself that he would manage somehow to stick in his berth as +long as it suited him. He would make himself indispensable; the ship had +a bad name in her port; it would be easy to scare the fellows off. Massy +would have to keep him. + +“A definite statement from me would be enough,” Massy repeated slowly. + +“Yes, sir. It would.” Sterne stuck out his chin cheerily and blinked at +close quarters with that unconscious impudence which had the power to +enrage Massy beyond anything. + +The engineer spoke very distinctly. + +“Listen well to me, then, Mr. Sterne: I wouldn’t--d’ye hear?--I wouldn’t +promise you the value of two pence for anything _you_ can tell me.” + +He struck Sterne’s arm away with a smart blow, and catching hold of +the handle pulled the door to. The terrific slam darkened the cabin +instantaneously to his eye as if after the flash of an explosion. +At once he dropped into the chair. “Oh, no! You don’t!” he whispered +faintly. + +The ship had in that place to shave the bank so close that the gigantic +wall of leaves came gliding like a shutter against the port; the +darkness of the primeval forest seemed to flow into that bare cabin with +the odor of rotting leaves, of sodden soil--the strong muddy smell of +the living earth steaming uncovered after the passing of a deluge. The +bushes swished loudly alongside; above there was a series of crackling +sounds, with a sharp rain of small broken branches falling on the +bridge; a creeper with a great rustle snapped on the head of a boat +davit, and a long, luxuriant green twig actually whipped in and out of +the open port, leaving behind a few torn leaves that remained suddenly +at rest on Mr. Massy’s blanket. Then, the ship sheering out in the +stream, the light began to return but did not augment beyond a subdued +clearness: for the sun was very low already, and the river, wending its +sinuous course through a multitude of secular trees as if at the +bottom of a precipitous gorge, had been already invaded by a deepening +gloom--the swift precursor of the night. + +“Oh, no, you don’t!” murmured the engineer again. His lips trembled +almost imperceptibly; his hands too, a little: and to calm himself +he opened the writing-desk, spread out a sheet of thin grayish +paper covered with a mass of printed figures and began to scan them +attentively for the twentieth time this trip at least. + +With his elbows propped, his head between his hands, he seemed to lose +himself in the study of an abstruse problem in mathematics. It was the +list of the winning numbers from the last drawing of the great lottery +which had been the one inspiring fact of so many years of his existence. +The conception of a life deprived of that periodical sheet of paper had +slipped away from him entirely, as another man, according to his nature, +would not have been able to conceive a world without fresh air, without +activity, or without affection. A great pile of flimsy sheets had been +growing for years in his desk, while the Sofala, driven by the faithful +Jack, wore out her boilers in tramping up and down the Straits, from +cape to cape, from river to river, from bay to bay; accumulating by that +hard labor of an overworked, starved ship the blackened mass of these +documents. Massy kept them under lock and key like a treasure. There +was in them, as in the experience of life, the fascination of hope, the +excitement of a half-penetrated mystery, the longing of a half-satisfied +desire. + +For days together, on a trip, he would shut himself up in his berth with +them: the thump of the toiling engines pulsated in his ear; and he +would weary his brain poring over the rows of disconnected figures, +bewildering by their senseless sequence, resembling the hazards of +destiny itself. He nourished a conviction that there must be some logic +lurking somewhere in the results of chance. He thought he had seen +its very form. His head swam; his limbs ached; he puffed at his pipe +mechanically; a contemplative stupor would soothe the fretfulness of his +temper, like the passive bodily quietude procured by a drug, while the +intellect remains tensely on the stretch. Nine, nine, aught, four, +two. He made a note. The next winning number of the great prize was +forty-seven thousand and five. These numbers of course would have to +be avoided in the future when writing to Manilla for the tickets. He +mumbled, pencil in hand . . . “and five. Hm . . . hm.” He wetted his +finger: the papers rustled. Ha! But what’s this? Three years ago, in the +September drawing, it was number nine, aught, four, two that took the +first prize. Most remarkable. There was a hint there of a definite rule! +He was afraid of missing some recondite principle in the overwhelming +wealth of his material. What could it be? and for half an hour he would +remain dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching a muscle. +At his back the whole berth would be thick with a heavy body of smoke, +as if a bomb had burst in there, unnoticed, unheard. + +At last he would lock up the desk with the decision of unshaken +confidence, jump and go out. He would walk swiftly back and forth on +that part of the foredeck which was kept clear of the lumber and of the +bodies of the native passengers. They were a great nuisance, but they +were also a source of profit that could not be disdained. He needed +every penny of profit the Sofala could make. Little enough it was, in +all conscience! The incertitude of chance gave him no concern, since +he had somehow arrived at the conviction that, in the course of years, +every number was bound to have his winning turn. It was simply a matter +of time and of taking as many tickets as he could afford for every +drawing. He generally took rather more; all the earnings of the ship +went that way, and also the wages he allowed himself as chief engineer. +It was the wages he paid to others that he begrudged with a reasoned +and at the same time a passionate regret. He scowled at the lascars with +their deck brooms, at the quartermasters rubbing the brass rails with +greasy rags; he was eager to shake his fist and roar abuse in bad Malay +at the poor carpenter--a timid, sickly, opium-fuddled Chinaman, in loose +blue drawers for all costume, who invariably dropped his tools and fled +below, with streaming tail and shaking all over, before the fury of that +“devil.” But it was when he raised up his eyes to the bridge where one +of these sailor frauds was always planted by law in charge of his ship +that he felt almost dizzy with rage. He abominated them all; it was an +old feud, from the time he first went to sea, an unlicked cub with a +great opinion of himself, in the engine-room. The slights that had +been put upon him. The persecutions he had suffered at the hands of +skippers--of absolute nobodies in a steamship after all. And now that +he had risen to be a shipowner they were still a plague to him: he +had absolutely to pay away precious money to the conceited useless +loafers:--As if a fully qualified engineer--who was the owner as +well--were not fit to be trusted with the whole charge of a ship. Well! +he made it pretty warm for them; but it was a poor consolation. He had +come in time to hate the ship too for the repairs she required, for the +coal-bills he had to pay, for the poor beggarly freights she earned. +He would clench his hand as he walked and hit the rail a sudden blow, +viciously, as though she could be made to feel pain. And yet he could +not do without er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth and nail +to keep his head above water till the expected flood of fortune came +sweeping up and landed him safely on the high shore of his ambition. + +It was now to do nothing, nothing whatever, and have plenty of money +to do it on. He had tasted of power, the highest form of it his limited +experience was aware of--the power of shipowning. What a deception! +Vanity of vanities! He wondered at his folly. He had thrown away the +substance for the shadow. Of the gratification of wealth he did not know +enough to excite his imagination with any visions of luxury. How +could he--the child of a drunken boiler-maker--going straight from the +workshop into the engine-room of a north-country collier! But the notion +of the absolute idleness of wealth he could very well conceive. He +reveled in it, to forget his present troubles; he imagined himself +walking about the streets of Hull (he knew their gutters well as a boy) +with his pockets full of sovereigns. He would buy himself a house; his +married sisters, their husbands, his old workshop chums, would render +him infinite homage. There would be nothing to think of. His word would +be law. He had been out of work for a long time before he won his prize, +and he remembered how Carlo Mariani (commonly known as Paunchy Charley), +the Maltese hotel-keeper at the slummy end of Denham Street, had +cringed joyfully before him in the evening, when the news had come. +Poor Charley, though he made his living by ministering to various abject +vices, gave credit for their food to many a piece of white wreckage. He +was naively overjoyed at the idea of his old bills being paid, and +he reckoned confidently on a spell of festivities in the cavernous +grog-shop downstairs. Massy remembered the curious, respectful looks of +the “trashy” white men in the place. His heart had swelled within him. +Massy had left Charley’s infamous den directly he had realized the +possibilities open to him, and with his nose in the air. Afterwards the +memory of these adulations was a great sadness. + +This was the true power of money,--and no trouble with it, nor any +thinking required either. He thought with difficulty and felt vividly; +to his blunt brain the problems offered by any ordered scheme of life +seemed in their cruel toughness to have been put in his way by the +obvious malevolence of men. As a shipowner everyone had conspired to +make him a nobody. How could he have been such a fool as to purchase +that accursed ship. He had been abominably swindled; there was no end +to this swindling; and as the difficulties of his improvident ambition +gathered thicker round him, he really came to hate everybody he had +ever come in contact with. A temper naturally irritable and an amazing +sensitiveness to the claims of his own personality had ended by making +of life for him a sort of inferno--a place where his lost soul had been +given up to the torment of savage brooding. + +But he had never hated anyone so much as that old man who had turned up +one evening to save him from an utter disaster,--from the conspiracy of +the wretched sailors. He seemed to have fallen on board from the sky. +His footsteps echoed on the empty steamer, and the strange deep-toned +voice on deck repeating interrogatively the words, “Mr. Massy, Mr. Massy +there?” had been startling like a wonder. And coming up from the depths +of the cold engine-room, where he had been pottering dismally with a +candle amongst the enormous shadows, thrown on all sides by the skeleton +limbs of machinery, Massy had been struck dumb by astonishment in the +presence of that imposing old man with a beard like a silver plate, +towering in the dusk rendered lurid by the expiring flames of sunset. + +“Want to see me on business? What business? I am doing no business. +Can’t you see that this ship is laid up?” Massy had turned at bay before +the pursuing irony of his disaster. Afterwards he could not believe his +ears. What was that old fellow getting at? Things don’t happen that way. +It was a dream. He would presently wake up and find the man vanished +like a shape of mist. The gravity, the dignity, the firm and courteous +tone of that athletic old stranger impressed Massy. He was almost +afraid. But it was no dream. Five hundred pounds are no dream. At once +he became suspicious. What did it mean? Of course it was an offer to +catch hold of for dear life. But what could there be behind? + +Before they had parted, after appointing a meeting in a solicitor’s +office early on the morrow, Massy was asking himself, What is his +motive? He spent the night in hammering out the clauses of the +agreement--a unique instrument of its sort whose tenor got bruited +abroad somehow and became the talk and wonder of the port. + +Massy’s object had been to secure for himself as many ways as possible +of getting rid of his partner without being called upon at once to pay +back his share. Captain Whalley’s efforts were directed to making the +money secure. Was it not Ivy’s money--a part of her fortune whose only +other asset was the time-defying body of her old father? Sure of his +forbearance in the strength of his love for her, he accepted, with +stately serenity, Massy’s stupidly cunning paragraphs against his +incompetence, his dishonesty, his drunkenness, for the sake of other +stringent stipulations. At the end of three years he was at liberty to +withdraw from the partnership, taking his money with him. Provision was +made for forming a fund to pay him off. But if he left the Sofala before +the term, from whatever cause (barring death), Massy was to have a whole +year for paying. “Illness?” the lawyer had suggested: a young man fresh +from Europe and not overburdened with business, who was rather amused. +Massy began to whine unctuously, “How could he be expected? . . .” + +“Let that go,” Captain Whalley had said with a superb confidence in his +body. “Acts of God,” he added. In the midst of life we are in death, but +he trusted his Maker with a still greater fearlessness--his Maker who +knew his thoughts, his human affections, and his motives. His Creator +knew what use he was making of his health--how much he wanted it . . . +“I trust my first illness will be my last. I’ve never been ill that I +can remember,” he had remarked. “Let it go.” + +But at this early stage he had already awakened Massy’s hostility by +refusing to make it six hundred instead of five. “I cannot do that,” was +all he had said, simply, but with so much decision that Massy desisted +at once from pressing the point, but had thought to himself, “Can’t! Old +curmudgeon. _Won’t_ He must have lots of money, but he would like to get +hold of a soft berth and the sixth part of my profits for nothing if he +only could.” + +And during these years Massy’s dislike grew under the restraint +of something resembling fear. The simplicity of that man appeared +dangerous. Of late he had changed, however, had appeared less formidable +and with a lessened vigor of life, as though he had received a secret +wound. But still he remained incomprehensible in his simplicity, +fearlessness, and rectitude. And when Massy learned that he meant to +leave him at the end of the time, to leave him confronted with the +problem of boilers, his dislike blazed up secretly into hate. + +It had made him so clear-eyed that for a long time now Mr. Sterne could +have told him nothing he did not know. He had much ado in trying to +terrorize that mean sneak into silence; he wanted to deal alone with the +situation; and--incredible as it might have appeared to Mr. Sterne--he +had not yet given up the desire and the hope of inducing that hated +old man to stay. Why! there was nothing else to do, unless he were to +abandon his chances of fortune. But now, suddenly, since the crossing of +the bar at Batu Beru things seemed to be coming rapidly to a point. It +disquieted him so much that the study of the winning numbers failed +to soothe his agitation: and the twilight in the cabin deepened, very +somber. + +He put the list away, muttering once more, “Oh, no, my boy, you don’t. +Not if I know it.” He did not mean the blinking, eavesdropping humbug to +force his action. He took his head again into his hands; his immobility +confined in the darkness of this shut-up little place seemed to make +him a thing apart infinitely removed from the stir and the sounds of the +deck. + +He heard them: the passengers were beginning to jabber excitedly; +somebody dragged a heavy box past his door. He heard Captain Whalley’s +voice above-- + +“Stations, Mr. Sterne.” And the answer from somewhere on deck forward-- + +“Ay, ay, sir.” + +“We shall moor head up stream this time; the ebb has made.” + +“Head up stream, sir.” + +“You will see to it, Mr. Sterne.” + +The answer was covered by the autocratic clang on the engine-room +gong. The propeller went on beating slowly: one, two, three; one, two, +three--with pauses as if hesitating on the turn. The gong clanged time +after time, and the water churned this way and that by the blades was +making a great noisy commotion alongside. Mr. Massy did not move. A +shore-light on the other bank, a quarter of a mile across the river, +drifted, no bigger than a tiny star, passing slowly athwart the circle +of the port. Voices from Mr. Van Wyk’s jetty answered the hails from the +ship; ropes were thrown and missed and thrown again; the swaying flame +of a torch carried in a large sampan coming to fetch away in state the +Rajah from down the coast cast a sudden ruddy glare into his cabin, +over his very person. Mr. Massy did not move. After a few last ponderous +turns the engines stopped, and the prolonged clanging of the gong +signified that the captain had done with them. A great number of boats +and canoes of all sizes boarded the off-side of the Sofala. Then after +a time the tumult of splashing, of cries, of shuffling feet, of packages +dropped with a thump, the noise of the native passengers going +away, subsided slowly. On the shore, a voice, cultivated, slightly +authoritative, spoke very close alongside-- + +“Brought any mail for me this time?” + +“Yes, Mr. Van Wyk.” This was from Sterne, answering over the rail in a +tone of respectful cordiality. “Shall I bring it up to you?” + +But the voice asked again-- + +“Where’s the captain?” + +“Still on the bridge, I believe. He hasn’t left his chair. Shall I . . .” + +The voice interrupted negligently. + +“I will come on board.” + +“Mr. Van Wyk,” Sterne suddenly broke out with an eager effort, “will you +do me the favor . . .” + +The mate walked away quickly towards the gangway. A silence fell. Mr. +Massy in the dark did not move. + +He did not move even when he heard slow shuffling footsteps pass his +cabin lazily. He contented himself to bellow out through the closed +door-- + +“You--Jack!” + +The footsteps came back without haste; the door handle rattled, and the +second engineer appeared in the opening, shadowy in the sheen of the +skylight at his back, with his face apparently as black as the rest of +his figure. + +“We have been very long coming up this time,” Mr. Massy growled, without +changing his attitude. + +“What do you expect with half the boiler tubes plugged up for leaks.” + The second defended himself loquaciously. + +“None of your lip,” said Massy. + +“None of your rotten boilers--I say,” retorted his faithful subordinate +without animation, huskily. “Go down there and carry a head of steam on +them yourself--if you dare. I don’t.” + +“You aren’t worth your salt then,” Massy said. The other made a faint +noise which resembled a laugh but might have been a snarl. + +“Better go slow than stop the ship altogether,” he admonished his +admired superior. Mr. Massy moved at last. He turned in his chair, and +grinding his teeth-- + +“Dam’ you and the ship! I wish she were at the bottom of the sea. Then +you would have to starve.” + +The trusty second engineer closed the door gently. + +Massy listened. Instead of passing on to the bathroom where he should +have gone to clean himself, the second entered his cabin, which was next +door. Mr. Massy jumped up and waited. Suddenly he heard the lock snap in +there. He rushed out and gave a violent kick to the door. + +“I believe you are locking yourself up to get drunk,” he shouted. + +A muffled answer came after a while. + +“My own time.” + +“If you take to boozing on the trip I’ll fire you out,” Massy cried. + +An obstinate silence followed that threat. Massy moved away perplexed. +On the bank two figures appeared, approaching the gangway. He heard a +voice tinged with contempt-- + +“I would rather doubt your word. But I shall certainly speak to him of +this.” + +The other voice, Sterne’s, said with a sort of regretful formality-- + +“Thanks. That’s all I want. I must do my duty.” + +Mr. Massy was surprised. A short, dapper figure leaped lightly on the +deck and nearly bounded into him where he stood beyond the circle of +light from the gangway lamp. When it had passed towards the bridge, +after exchanging a hurried “Good evening,” Massy said surlily to Sterne +who followed with slow steps-- + +“What is it you’re making up to Mr. Van Wyk for, now?” + +“Far from it, Mr. Massy. I am not good enough for Mr. Van Wyk. Neither +are you, sir, in his opinion, I am afraid. Captain Whalley is, it seems. +He’s gone to ask him to dine up at the house this evening.” + +Then he murmured to himself darkly-- + +“I hope he will like it.” + + +XII + +Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex-naval officer who, +for reasons best known to himself, had thrown away the promise of a +brilliant career to become the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that +remote part of the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley. The +appearance of the new skipper had attracted his attention. Nothing more +unlike all the diverse types he had seen succeeding each other on the +bridge of the Sofala could be imagined. + +At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become since: the center of +a prosperous tobacco-growing district, a tropically suburban-looking +little settlement of bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows +of trees, embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance of the gardens, +with a three-mile-long carriage-road for the afternoon drives and a +first-class Resident with a fat, cheery wife to lead the society of +married estate-managers and unmarried young fellows in the service of the +big companies. + +All this prosperity was not yet; and Mr. Van Wyk prospered alone on the +left bank on his deep clearing carved out of the forest, which came down +above and below to the water’s edge. His lonely bungalow faced across +the river the houses of the Sultan: a restless and melancholy old ruler +who had done with love and war, for whom life no longer held any savor +(except of evil forebodings) and time never had any value. He was afraid +of death, and hoped he would die before the white men were ready to take +his country from him. He crossed the river frequently (with never +less than ten boats crammed full of people), in the wistful hope of +extracting some information on the subject from his own white man. There +was a certain chair on the veranda he always took: the dignitaries of +the court squatted on the rugs and skins between the furniture: the +inferior people remained below on the grass plot between the house and +the river in rows three or four deep all along the front. Not seldom the +visit began at daybreak. Mr. Van Wyk tolerated these inroads. He would +nod out of his bedroom window, tooth-brush or razor in hand, or pass +through the throng of courtiers in his bathing robe. He appeared and +disappeared humming a tune, polished his nails with attention, rubbed +his shaved face with _eau-de-Cologne_, drank his early tea, went out to +see his coolies at work: returned, looked through some papers on his +desk, read a page or two in a book or sat before his cottage piano +leaning back on the stool, his arms extended, fingers on the keys, his +body swaying slightly from side to side. When absolutely forced to speak +he gave evasive vaguely soothing answers out of pure compassion: the +same feeling perhaps made him so lavishly hospitable with the aerated +drinks that more than once he left himself without soda-water for a whole +week. That old man had granted him as much land as he cared to have +cleared: it was neither more nor less than a fortune. + +Whether it was fortune or seclusion from his kind that Mr. Van Wyk +sought, he could not have pitched upon a better place. Even the +mail-boats of the subsidized company calling on the veriest clusters of +palm-thatched hovels along the coast steamed past the mouth of Batu Beru +river far away in the offing. The contract was old: perhaps in a few +years’ time, when it had expired, Batu Beru would be included in the +service; meantime all Mr. Van Wyk’s mail was addressed to Malacca, +whence his agent sent it across once a month by the Sofala. It followed +that whenever Massy had run short of money (through taking too many +lottery tickets), or got into a difficulty about a skipper, Mr. Van Wyk +was deprived of his letter and newspapers. In so far he had a personal +interest in the fortunes of the Sofala. Though he considered himself +a hermit (and for no passing whim evidently, since he had stood eight +years of it already), he liked to know what went on in the world. + +Handy on the veranda upon a walnut _etagere_ (it had come last year by the +Sofala)--everything came by the Sofala there lay, piled up under bronze +weights, a pile of the Times’ weekly edition, the large sheets of the +Rotterdam Courant, the Graphic in its world-wide green wrappers, an +illustrated Dutch publication without a cover, the numbers of a German +magazine with covers of the “_Bismarck malade_” color. There were also +parcels of new music--though the piano (it had come years ago by the +Sofala in the damp atmosphere of the forests was generally out of tune.) +It was vexing to be cut off from everything for sixty days at a stretch +sometimes, without any means of knowing what was the matter. And when +the Sofala reappeared Mr. Van Wyk would descend the steps of the veranda +and stroll over the grass plot in front of his house, down to the +waterside, with a frown on his white brow. + +“You’ve been laid up after an accident, I presume.” + +He addressed the bridge, but before anybody could answer Massy was sure +to have already scrambled ashore over the rail and pushed in, squeezing +the palms of his hands together, bowing his sleek head as if gummed all +over the top with black threads and tapes. And he would be so enraged +at the necessity of having to offer such an explanation that his moaning +would be positively pitiful, while all the time he tried to compose his +big lips into a smile. + +“No, Mr. Van Wyk. You would not believe it. I couldn’t get one of those +wretches to take the ship out. Not a single one of the lazy beasts could +be induced, and the law, you know, Mr. Van Wyk . . .” + +He moaned at great length apologetically; the words conspiracy, plot, +envy, came out prominently, whined with greater energy. Mr. Van Wyk, +examining with a faint grimace his polished finger-nails, would say, +“H’m. Very unfortunate,” and turn his back on him. + +Fastidious, clever, slightly skeptical, accustomed to the best society +(he had held a much-envied shore appointment at the Ministry of Marine +for a year preceding his retreat from his profession and from Europe), +he possessed a latent warmth of feeling and a capacity for sympathy +which were concealed by a sort of haughty, arbitrary indifference of +manner arising from his early training; and by a something an enemy +might have called foppish, in his aspect--like a distorted echo of past +elegance. He managed to keep an almost military discipline amongst the +coolies of the estate he had dragged into the light of day out of the +tangle and shadows of the jungle; and the white shirt he put on every +evening with its stiff glossy front and high collar looked as if he had +meant to preserve the decent ceremony of evening-dress, but had wound +a thick crimson sash above his hips as a concession to the wilderness, +once his adversary, now his vanquished companion. + +Moreover, it was a hygienic precaution. Worn wide open in front, a short +jacket of some airy silken stuff floated from his shoulders. His fluffy, +fair hair, thin at the top, curled slightly at the sides; a carefully +arranged mustache, an ungarnished forehead, the gleam of low patent +shoes peeping under the wide bottom of trowsers cut straight from the +same stuff as the gossamer coat, completed a figure recalling, with its +sash, a pirate chief of romance, and at the same time the elegance of +a slightly bald dandy indulging, in seclusion, a taste for unorthodox +costume. + +It was his evening get-up. The proper time for the Sofala to arrive +at Batu Beru was an hour before sunset, and he looked picturesque, and +somehow quite correct too, walking at the water’s edge on the background +of grass slope crowned with a low long bungalow with an immensely steep +roof of palm thatch, and clad to the eaves in flowering creepers. While +the Sofala was being made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees +left near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on board. Her +white men were not of his kind. The old Sultan (though his wistful +invasions were a nuisance) was really much more acceptable to his +fastidious taste. But still they were white; the periodical visits of +the ship made a break in the well-filled sameness of the days without +disturbing his privacy. Moreover, they were necessary from a business +point of view; and through a strain of preciseness in his nature he was +irritated when she failed to appear at the appointed time. + +The cause of the irregularity was too absurd, and Massy, in his opinion, +was a contemptible idiot. The first time the Sofala reappeared under the +new agreement swinging out of the bend below, after he had almost given +up all hope of ever seeing her again, he felt so angry that he did not +go down at once to the landing-place. His servants had come running to +him with the news, and he had dragged a chair close against the front +rail of the veranda, spread his elbows out, rested his chin on his +hands, and went on glaring at her fixedly while she was being made fast +opposite his house. He could make out easily all the white faces on +board. Who on earth was that kind of patriarch they had got there on the +bridge now? + +At last he sprang up and walked down the gravel path. It was a fact +that the very gravel for his paths had been imported by the Sofala. +Exasperated out of his quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone +right or left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined a manner +that the engineer, taken aback, began to stammer unintelligibly. Nothing +could be heard but the words: “Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van Wyk +. . . For the future, Mr. Van Wyk”--and by the suffusion of blood Massy’s +vast bilious face acquired an unnatural orange tint, out of which the +disconcerted coal-black eyes shone in an extraordinary manner. + +“Nonsense. I am tired of this. I wonder you have the impudence to come +alongside my jetty as if I had it made for your convenience alone.” + +Massy tried to protest earnestly. Mr. Van Wyk was very angry. He had +a good mind to ask that German firm--those people in Malacca--what was +their name?--boats with green funnels. They would be only too glad +of the opening to put one of their small steamers on the run. Yes; +Schnitzler, Jacob Schnitzler, would in a moment. Yes. He had decided to +write without delay. + +In his agitation Massy caught up his falling pipe. + +“You don’t mean it, sir!” he shrieked. + +“You shouldn’t mismanage your business in this ridiculous manner.” + +Mr. Van Wyk turned on his heel. The other three whites on the bridge had +not stirred during the scene. Massy walked hastily from side to side, +puffed out his cheeks, suffocated. + +“Stuck up Dutchman!” + +And he moaned out feverishly a long tale of griefs. The efforts he had +made for all these years to please that man. This was the return you +got for it, eh? Pretty. Write to Schnitzler--let in the green-funnel +boats--get an old Hamburg Jew to ruin him. No, really he could laugh. +. . . He laughed sobbingly. . . . Ha! ha! ha! And make him carry the +letter in his own ship presumably. + +He stumbled across a grating and swore. He would not hesitate to fling +the Dutchman’s correspondence overboard--the whole confounded bundle. +He had never, never made any charge for that accommodation. But Captain +Whalley, his new partner, would not let him probably; besides, it would +be only putting off the evil day. For his own part he would make a hole +in the water rather than look on tamely at the green funnels overrunning +his trade. + +He raved aloud. The China boys hung back with the dishes at the foot of +the ladder. He yelled from the bridge down at the deck, “Aren’t we going +to have any chow this evening at all?” then turned violently to Captain +Whalley, who waited, grave and patient, at the head of the table, +smoothing his beard in silence now and then with a forbearing gesture. + +“You don’t seem to care what happens to me. Don’t you see that this +affects your interests as much as mine? It’s no joking matter.” + +He took the foot of the table growling between his teeth. + +“Unless you have a few thousands put away somewhere. I haven’t.” + +Mr. Van Wyk dined in his thoroughly lit-up bungalow, putting a point of +splendor in the night of his clearing above the dark bank of the river. +Afterwards he sat down to his piano, and in a pause he became aware +of slow footsteps passing on the path along the front. A plank or two +creaked under a heavy tread; he swung half round on the music-stool, +listening with his fingertips at rest on the keyboard. His little +terrier barked violently, backing in from the veranda. A deep voice +apologized gravely for “this intrusion.” He walked out quickly. + +At the head of the steps the patriarchal figure, who was the new captain +of the Sofala apparently (he had seen a round dozen of them, but not +one of that sort), towered without advancing. The little dog barked +unceasingly, till a flick of Mr. Van Wyk’s handkerchief made him spring +aside into silence. Captain Whalley, opening the matter, was met by a +punctiliously polite but determined opposition. + +They carried on their discussion standing where they had come face to +face. Mr. Van Wyk observed his visitor with attention. Then at last, as +if forced out of his reserve-- + +“I am surprised that you should intercede for such a confounded fool.” + +This outbreak was almost complimentary, as if its meaning had been, +“That such a man as you should intercede!” Captain Whalley let it pass +by without flinching. One would have thought he had heard nothing. He +simply went on to state that he was personally interested in putting +things straight between them. Personally . . . + +But Mr. Van Wyk, really carried away by his disgust with Massy, became +very incisive-- + +“Indeed--if I am to be frank with you--his whole character does not seem +to me particularly estimable or trustworthy . . .” + +Captain Whalley, always straight, seemed to grow an inch taller and +broader, as if the girth of his chest had suddenly expanded under his +beard. + +“My dear sir, you don’t think I came here to discuss a man with whom I +am--I am--h’m--closely associated.” + +A sort of solemn silence lasted for a moment. He was not used to asking +favors, but the importance he attached to this affair had made him +willing to try. . . . Mr. Van Wyk, favorably impressed, and suddenly +mollified by a desire to laugh, interrupted-- + +“That’s all right if you make it a personal matter; but you can do no +less than sit down and smoke a cigar with me.” + +A slight pause, then Captain Whalley stepped forward heavily. As to the +regularity of the service, for the future he made himself responsible +for it; and his name was Whalley--perhaps to a sailor (he was speaking +to a sailor, was he not?) not altogether unfamiliar. There was a +lighthouse now, on an island. Maybe Mr. Van Wyk himself . . . + +“Oh yes. Oh indeed.” Mr. Van Wyk caught on at once. He indicated a +chair. How very interesting. For his own part he had seen some service +in the last Acheen War, but had never been so far East. Whalley Island? +Of course. Now that was very interesting. What changes his guest must +have seen since. + +“I can look further back even--on a whole half-century.” + +Captain Whalley expanded a bit. The flavor of a good cigar (it was a +weakness) had gone straight to his heart, also the civility of that +young man. There was something in that accidental contact of which he +had been starved in his years of struggle. + +The front wall retreating made a square recess furnished like a room. +A lamp with a milky glass shade, suspended below the slope of the high +roof at the end of a slender brass chain, threw a bright round of light +upon a little table bearing an open book and an ivory paper-knife. And, +in the translucent shadows beyond, other tables could be seen, a number +of easy-chairs of various shapes, with a great profusion of skin rugs +strewn on the teakwood planking all over the veranda. The flowering +creepers scented the air. Their foliage clipped out between the uprights +made as if several frames of thick unstirring leaves reflecting the +lamplight in a green glow. Through the opening at his elbow Captain +Whalley could see the gangway lantern of the Sofala burning dim by the +shore, the shadowy masses of the town beyond the open lustrous darkness +of the river, and, as if hung along the straight edge of the projecting +eaves, a narrow black strip of the night sky full of stars--resplendent. +The famous cigar in hand he had a moment of complacency. + +“A trifle. Somebody must lead the way. I just showed that the thing +could be done; but you men brought up to the use of steam cannot +conceive the vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to the Eastern +trade of the time. Why, that new route reduced the average time of a +southern passage by eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven +days! It’s on record. But the remarkable thing--speaking to a sailor--I +should say was . . .” + +He talked well, without egotism, professionally. The powerful voice, +produced without effort, filled the bungalow even into the empty rooms +with a deep and limpid resonance, seemed to make a stillness outside; +and Mr. Van Wyk was surprised by the serene quality of its tone, like +the perfection of manly gentleness. Nursing one small foot, in a +silk sock and a patent leather shoe, on his knee, he was immensely +entertained. It was as if nobody could talk like this now, and the +overshadowed eyes, the flowing white beard, the big frame, the +serenity, the whole temper of the man, were an amazing survival from the +prehistoric times of the world coming up to him out of the sea. + +Captain Whalley had been also the pioneer of the early trade in the Gulf +of Pe-tchi-li. He even found occasion to mention that he had buried +his “dear wife” there six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive, +could not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to the sort of woman +that would mate with such a man. Did they make an adventurous and +well-matched pair? No. Very possible she had been small, frail, no +doubt very feminine--or most likely commonplace with domestic instincts, +utterly insignificant. But Captain Whalley was no garrulous bore, and +shaking his head as if to dissipate the momentary gloom that had settled +on his handsome old face, he alluded conversationally to Mr. Van Wyk’s +solitude. + +Mr. Van Wyk affirmed that sometimes he had more company than he wanted. +He mentioned smilingly some of the peculiarities of his intercourse with +“My Sultan.” He made his visits in force. Those people damaged his grass +plot in front (it was not easy to obtain some approach to a lawn in +the tropics) and the other day had broken down some rare bushes he had +planted over there. And Captain Whalley remembered immediately that, +in ‘forty-seven, the then Sultan, “this man’s grandfather,” had been +notorious as a great protector of the piratical fleets of praus from +farther East. They had a safe refuge in the river at Batu Beru. He +financed more especially a Balinini chief called Haji Daman. Captain +Whalley, nodding significantly his bushy white eyebrows, had very good +reason to know something of that. The world had progressed since that +time. + +Mr. Van Wyk demurred with unexpected acrimony. Progressed in what? he +wanted to know. + +Why, in knowledge of truth, in decency, in justice, in order--in honesty +too, since men harmed each other mostly from ignorance. It was, Captain +Whalley concluded quaintly, more pleasant to live in. + +Mr. Van Wyk whimsically would not admit that Mr. Massy, for instance, +was more pleasant naturally than the Balinini pirates. + +The river had not gained much by the change. They were in their way +every bit as honest. Massy was less ferocious than Haji Daman no doubt, +but . . . + +“And what about you, my good sir?” Captain Whalley laughed a deep soft +laugh. “_You_ are an improvement, surely.” + +He continued in a vein of pleasantry. A good cigar was better than a +knock on the head--the sort of welcome he would have found on this +river forty or fifty years ago. Then leaning forward slightly, he became +earnestly serious. It seems as if, outside their own sea-gypsy +tribes, these rovers had hated all mankind with an incomprehensible, +bloodthirsty hatred. Meantime their depredations had been stopped, and +what was the consequence? The new generation was orderly, peaceable, +settled in prosperous villages. He could speak from personal knowledge. +And even the few survivors of that time--old men now--had changed so +much, that it would have been unkind to remember against them that they +had ever slit a throat in their lives. He had one especially in his +mind’s eye: a dignified, venerable headman of a certain large coast +village about sixty miles sou’west of Tampasuk. It did one’s heart +good to see him--to hear that man speak. He might have been a ferocious +savage once. What men wanted was to be checked by superior intelligence, +by superior knowledge, by superior force too--yes, by force held in +trust from God and sanctified by its use in accordance with His declared +will. Captain Whalley believed a disposition for good existed in every +man, even if the world were not a very happy place as a whole. In the +wisdom of men he had not so much confidence. The disposition had to be +helped up pretty sharply sometimes, he admitted. They might be silly, +wrongheaded, unhappy; but naturally evil--no. There was at bottom a +complete harmlessness at least . . . + +“Is there?” Mr. Van Wyk snapped acrimoniously. + +Captain Whalley laughed at the interjection, in the good humor of large, +tolerating certitude. He could look back at half a century, he pointed +out. The smoke oozed placidly through the white hairs hiding his kindly +lips. + +“At all events,” he resumed after a pause, “I am glad that they’ve had +no time to do you much harm as yet.” + +This allusion to his comparative youthfulness did not offend Mr. Van +Wyk, who got up and wriggled his shoulders with an enigmatic half-smile. +They walked out together amicably into the starry night towards the +river-side. Their footsteps resounded unequally on the dark path. At the +shore end of the gangway the lantern, hung low to the handrail, threw +a vivid light on the white legs and the big black feet of Mr. Massy +waiting about anxiously. From the waist upwards he remained shadowy, +with a row of buttons gleaming up to the vague outline of his chin. + +“You may thank Captain Whalley for this,” Mr. Van Wyk said curtly to him +before turning away. + +The lamps on the veranda flung three long squares of light between +the uprights far over the grass. A bat flitted before his face like a +circling flake of velvety blackness. Along the jasmine hedge the night +air seemed heavy with the fall of perfumed dew; flowerbeds bordered the +path; the clipped bushes uprose in dark rounded clumps here and there +before the house; the dense foliage of creepers filtered the sheen of +the lamplight within in a soft glow all along the front; and everything +near and far stood still in a great immobility, in a great sweetness. + +Mr. Van Wyk (a few years before he had had occasion to imagine himself +treated more badly than anybody alive had ever been by a woman) felt +for Captain Whalley’s optimistic views the disdain of a man who had once +been credulous himself. His disgust with the world (the woman for a +time had filled it for him completely) had taken the form of activity +in retirement, because, though capable of great depth of feeling, he was +energetic and essentially practical. But there was in that uncommon old +sailor, drifting on the outskirts of his busy solitude, something that +fascinated his skepticism. His very simplicity (amusing enough) was like +a delicate refinement of an upright character. The striking dignity +of manner could be nothing else, in a man reduced to such a humble +position, but the expression of something essentially noble in the +character. With all his trust in mankind he was no fool; the serenity +of his temper at the end of so many years, since it could not obviously +have been appeased by success, wore an air of profound wisdom. Mr. Van +Wyk was amused at it sometimes. Even the very physical traits of the +old captain of the Sofala, his powerful frame, his reposeful mien, his +intelligent, handsome face, the big limbs, the benign courtesy, the +touch of rugged severity in the shaggy eyebrows, made up a seductive +personality. Mr. Van Wyk disliked littleness of every kind, but there +was nothing small about that man, and in the exemplary regularity of +many trips an intimacy had grown up between them, a warm feeling +at bottom under a kindly stateliness of forms agreeable to his +fastidiousness. + +They kept their respective opinions on all worldly matters. His other +convictions Captain Whalley never intruded. The difference of their +ages was like another bond between them. Once, when twitted with the +uncharitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his eye over the +vast proportions of his interlocutor, retorted in friendly banter-- + +“Oh. You’ll come to my way of thinking yet. You’ll have plenty of time. +Don’t call yourself old: you look good for a round hundred.” + +But he could not help his stinging incisiveness, and though moderating +it by an almost affectionate smile, he added-- + +“And by then you will probably consent to die from sheer disgust.” + +Captain Whalley, smiling too, shook his head. “God forbid!” + +He thought that perhaps on the whole he deserved something better than +to die in such sentiments. The time of course would have to come, and he +trusted to his Maker to provide a manner of going out of which he need +not be ashamed. For the rest he hoped he would live to a hundred if need +be: other men had been known; it would be no miracle. He expected no +miracles. + +The pronounced, argumentative tone caused Mr. Van Wyk to raise his head +and look at him steadily. Captain Whalley was gazing fixedly with a rapt +expression, as though he had seen his Creator’s favorable decree written +in mysterious characters on the wall. He kept perfectly motionless for +a few seconds, then got his vast bulk on to his feet so impetuously that +Mr. Van Wyk was startled. + +He struck first a heavy blow on his inflated chest: and, throwing out +horizontally a big arm that remained steady, extended in the air like +the limb of a tree on a windless day-- + +“Not a pain or an ache there. Can you see this shake in the least?” + +His voice was low, in an awing, confident contrast with the headlong +emphasis of his movements. He sat down abruptly. + +“This isn’t to boast of it, you know. I am nothing,” he said in his +effortless strong voice, that seemed to come out as naturally as a river +flows. He picked up the stump of the cigar he had laid aside, and added +peacefully, with a slight nod, “As it happens, my life is necessary; it +isn’t my own, it isn’t--God knows.” + +He did not say much for the rest of the evening, but several times Mr. +Van Wyk detected a faint smile of assurance flitting under the heavy +mustache. + +Later on Captain Whalley would now and then consent to dine “at the +house.” He could even be induced to drink a glass of wine. “Don’t think +I am afraid of it, my good sir,” he explained. “There was a very good +reason why I should give it up.” + +On another occasion, leaning back at ease, he remarked, “You have +treated me most--most humanely, my dear Mr. Van Wyk, from the very +first.” + +“You’ll admit there was some merit,” Mr. Van Wyk hinted slyly. “An +associate of that excellent Massy. . . . Well, well, my dear captain, I +won’t say a word against him.” + +“It would be no use your saying anything against him,” Captain Whalley +affirmed a little moodily. “As I’ve told you before, my life--my work, +is necessary, not for myself alone. I can’t choose” . . . He paused, +turned the glass before him right round. . . . “I have an only child--a +daughter.” + +The ample downward sweep of his arm over the table seemed to suggest +a small girl at a vast distance. “I hope to see her once more before I +die. Meantime it’s enough to know that she has me sound and solid, thank +God. You can’t understand how one feels. Bone of my bone, flesh of my +flesh; the very image of my poor wife. Well, she . . .” + +Again he paused, then pronounced stoically the words, “She has a hard +struggle.” + +And his head fell on his breast, his eyebrows remained knitted, as by +an effort of meditation. But generally his mind seemed steeped in the +serenity of boundless trust in a higher power. Mr. Van Wyk wondered +sometimes how much of it was due to the splendid vitality of the man, +to the bodily vigor which seems to impart something of its force to the +soul. But he had learned to like him very much. + + +XIII + +This was the reason why Mr. Sterne’s confidential communication, +delivered hurriedly on the shore alongside the dark silent ship, +had disturbed his equanimity. It was the most incomprehensible and +unexpected thing that could happen; and the perturbation of his spirit +was so great that, forgetting all about his letters, he ran rapidly up +the bridge ladder. + +The portable table was being put together for dinner to the left of the +wheel by two pig-tailed “boys,” who as usual snarled at each other +over the job, while another, a doleful, burly, very yellow Chinaman, +resembling Mr. Massy, waited apathetically with the cloth over his arm +and a pile of thick dinner-plates against his chest. A common cabin lamp +with its globe missing, brought up from below, had been hooked to the +wooden framework of the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all +round; Captain Whalley filling the depths of the wicker-chair seemed to +sit benumbed in a canvas tent crudely lighted, and used for the storing +of nautical objects; a shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle +on a stout mahogany stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork fender +lying in a corner, dilapidated deck-lockers with loops of thin rope +instead of door-handles. + +He shook off the appearance of numbness to return Mr. Van Wyk’s +unusually brisk greeting, but relapsed directly afterwards. To accept +a pressing invitation to dinner “up at the house” cost him another very +visible physical effort. Mr. Van Wyk, perplexed, folded his arms, and +leaning back against the rail, with his little, black, shiny feet well +out, examined him covertly. + +“I’ve noticed of late that you are not quite yourself, old friend.” + +He put an affectionate gentleness into the last two words. The real +intimacy of their intercourse had never been so vividly expressed +before. + +“Tut, tut, tut!” + +The wicker-chair creaked heavily. + +“Irritable,” commented Mr. Van Wyk to himself; and aloud, “I’ll expect +to see you in half an hour, then,” he said negligently, moving off. + +“In half an hour,” Captain Whalley’s rigid silvery head repeated behind +him as if out of a trance. + +Amidships, below, two voices, close against the engineroom, could be +heard answering each other--one angry and slow, the other alert. + +“I tell you the beast has locked himself in to get drunk.” + +“Can’t help it now, Mr. Massy. After all, a man has a right to shut +himself up in his cabin in his own time.” + +“Not to get drunk.” + +“I heard him swear that the worry with the boilers was enough to drive +any man to drink,” Sterne said maliciously. + +Massy hissed out something about bursting the door in. Mr. Van Wyk, to +avoid them, crossed in the dark to the other side of the deserted deck. +The planking of the little wharf rattled faintly under his hasty feet. + +“Mr. Van Wyk! Mr. Van Wyk!” + +He walked on: somebody was running on the path. “You’ve forgotten to get +your mail.” + +Sterne, holding a bundle of papers in his hand, caught up with him. + +“Oh, thanks.” + +But, as the other continued at his elbow, Mr. Van Wyk stopped short. +The overhanging eaves, descending low upon the lighted front of the +bungalow, threw their black straight-edged shadow into the great body of +the night on that side. Everything was very still. A tinkle of cutlery +and a slight jingle of glasses were heard. Mr. Van Wyk’s servants were +laying the table for two on the veranda. + +“I’m afraid you give me no credit whatever for my good intentions in the +matter I’ve spoken to you about,” said Sterne. + +“I simply don’t understand you.” + +“Captain Whalley is a very audacious man, but he will understand that +his game is up. That’s all that anybody need ever know of it from me. +Believe me, I am very considerate in this, but duty is duty. I don’t +want to make a fuss. All I ask you, as his friend, is to tell him from +me that the game’s up. That will be sufficient.” + +Mr. Van Wyk felt a loathsome dismay at this queer privilege of +friendship. He would not demean himself by asking for the slightest +explanation; to drive the other away with contumely he did not think +prudent--as yet, at any rate. So much assurance staggered him. Who +could tell what there could be in it, he thought? His regard for Captain +Whalley had the tenacity of a disinterested sentiment, and his practical +instinct coming to his aid, he concealed his scorn. + +“I gather, then, that this is something grave.” + +“Very grave,” Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at having produced +an effect at last. He was ready to add some effusive protestations +of regret at the “unavoidable necessity,” but Mr. Van Wyk cut him +short--very civilly, however. + +Once on the veranda Mr. Van Wyk put his hands in his pockets, and, +straddling his legs, stared down at a black panther skin lying on the +floor before a rocking-chair. “It looks as if the fellow had not the +pluck to play his own precious game openly,” he thought. + +This was true enough. In the face of Massy’s last rebuff Sterne dared +not declare his knowledge. His object was simply to get charge of the +steamer and keep it for some time. Massy would never forgive him for +forcing himself on; but if Captain Whalley left the ship of his own +accord, the command would devolve upon him for the rest of the trip; +so he hit upon the brilliant idea of scaring the old man away. A vague +menace, a mere hint, would be enough in such a brazen case; and, with +a strange admixture of compassion, he thought that Batu Beru was a +very good place for throwing up the sponge. The skipper could go ashore +quietly, and stay with that Dutchman of his. Weren’t these two as thick +as thieves together? And on reflection he seemed to see that there was a +way to work the whole thing through that great friend of the old +man’s. This was another brilliant idea. He had an inborn preference for +circuitous methods. In this particular case he desired to remain in the +background as much as possible, to avoid exasperating Massy needlessly. +No fuss! Let it all happen naturally. + +Mr. Van Wyk all through the dinner was conscious of a sense of isolation +that invades sometimes the closeness of human intercourse. Captain +Whalley failed lamentably and obviously in his attempts to eat +something. He seemed overcome by a strange absentmindedness. His hand +would hover irresolutely, as if left without guidance by a preoccupied +mind. Mr. Van Wyk had heard him coming up from a long way off in the +profound stillness of the river-side, and had noticed the irresolute +character of the footfalls. The toe of his boot had struck the bottom +stair as though he had come along mooning with his head in the air +right up to the steps of the veranda. Had the captain of the Sofala been +another sort of man he would have suspected the work of age there. But +one glance at him was enough. Time--after, indeed, marking him for its +own--had given him up to his usefulness, in which his simple faith would +see a proof of Divine mercy. “How could I contrive to warn him?” Mr. Van +Wyk wondered, as if Captain Whalley had been miles and miles away, out +of sight and earshot of all evil. He was sickened by an immense disgust +of Sterne. To even mention his threat to a man like Whalley would be +positively indecent. There was something more vile and insulting in +its hint than in a definite charge of crime--the debasing taint of +blackmailing. “What could anyone bring against him?” he asked himself. +This was a limpid personality. “And for what object?” The Power that man +trusted had thought fit to leave him nothing on earth that envy could +lay hold of, except a bare crust of bread. + +“Won’t you try some of this?” he asked, pushing a dish slightly. +Suddenly it seemed to Mr. Van Wyk that Sterne might possibly be coveting +the command of the Sofala. His cynicism was quite startled by what +looked like a proof that no man may count himself safe from his kind +unless in the very abyss of misery. An intrigue of that sort was hardly +worth troubling about, he judged; but still, with such a fool as Massy +to deal with, Whalley ought to and must be warned. + +At this moment Captain Whalley, bolt upright, the deep cavities of the +eyes overhung by a bushy frown, and one large brown hand resting on each +side of his empty plate, spoke across the tablecloth abruptly--“Mr. Van +Wyk, you’ve always treated me with the most humane consideration.” + +“My dear captain, you make too much of a simple fact that I am not +a savage.” Mr. Van Wyk, utterly revolted by the thought of Sterne’s +obscure attempt, raised his voice incisively, as if the mate had been +hiding somewhere within earshot. “Any consideration I have been able to +show was no more than the rightful due of a character I’ve learned to +regard by this time with an esteem that nothing can shake.” + +A slight ring of glass made him lift his eyes from the slice of +pine-apple he was cutting into small pieces on his plate. In changing +his position Captain Whalley had contrived to upset an empty tumbler. + +Without looking that way, leaning sideways on his elbow, his other +hand shading his brow, he groped shakily for it, then desisted. Van Wyk +stared blankly, as if something momentous had happened all at once. +He did not know why he should feel so startled; but he forgot Sterne +utterly for the moment. + +“Why, what’s the matter?” + +And Captain Whalley, half-averted, in a deadened, agitated voice, +muttered-- + +“Esteem!” + +“And I may add something more,” Mr. Van Wyk, very steady-eyed, +pronounced slowly. + +“Hold! Enough!” Captain Whalley did not change his attitude or raise his +voice. “Say no more! I can make you no return. I am too poor even for +that now. Your esteem is worth having. You are not a man that would +stoop to deceive the poorest sort of devil on earth, or make a ship +unseaworthy every time he takes her to sea.” + +Mr. Van Wyk, leaning forward, his face gone pink all over, with the +starched table-napkin over his knees, was inclined to mistrust his +senses, his power of comprehension, the sanity of his guest. + +“Where? Why? In the name of God!--what’s this? What ship? I don’t +understand who . . .” + +“Then, in the name of God, it is I! A ship’s unseaworthy when her +captain can’t see. I am going blind.” + +Mr. Van Wyk made a slight movement, and sat very still afterwards for +a few seconds; then, with the thought of Sterne’s “The game’s up,” he +ducked under the table to pick up the napkin which had slipped off his +knees. This was the game that was up. And at the same time the muffled +voice of Captain Whalley passed over him-- + +“I’ve deceived them all. Nobody knows.” + +He emerged flushed to the eyes. Captain Whalley, motionless under the +full blaze of the lamp, shaded his face with his hand. + +“And you had that courage?” + +“Call it by what name you like. But you are a humane +man--a--a--gentleman, Mr. Van Wyk. You may have asked me what I had done +with my conscience.” + +He seemed to muse, profoundly silent, very still in his mournful pose. + +“I began to tamper with it in my pride. You begin to see a lot of things +when you are going blind. I could not be frank with an old chum even. +I was not frank with Massy--no, not altogether. I knew he took me for +a wealthy sailor fool, and I let him. I wanted to keep up my +importance--because there was poor Ivy away there--my daughter. What did +I want to trade on his misery for? I did trade on it--for her. And now, +what mercy could I expect from him? He would trade on mine if he knew +it. He would hunt the old fraud out, and stick to the money for a year. +Ivy’s money. And I haven’t kept a penny for myself. How am I going to +live for a year. A year! In a year there will be no sun in the sky for +her father.” + +His deep voice came out, awfully veiled, as though he had been +overwhelmed by the earth of a landslide, and talking to you of the +thoughts that haunt the dead in their graves. A cold shudder ran down +Mr. Van Wyk’s back. + +“And how long is it since you have . . .?” he began. + +“It was a long time before I could bring myself to believe in this--this +visitation.” Captain Whalley spoke with gloomy patience from under his +hand. + +He had not thought he had deserved it. He had begun by deceiving himself +from day to day, from week to week. He had the Serang at hand there--an +old servant. It came on gradually, and when he could no longer deceive +himself . . . + +His voice died out almost. + +“Rather than give her up I set myself to deceive you all.” + +“It’s incredible,” whispered Mr. Van Wyk. Captain Whalley’s appalling +murmur flowed on. + +“Not even the sign of God’s anger could make me forget her. How could I +forsake my child, feeling my vigor all the time--the blood warm within +me? Warm as yours. It seems to me that, like the blinded Samson, I +would find the strength to shake down a temple upon my head. She’s a +struggling woman--my own child that we used to pray over together, my +poor wife and I. Do you remember that day I as well as told you that I +believed God would let me live to a hundred for her sake? What sin is +there in loving your child? Do you see it? I was ready for her sake +to live for ever. I half believed I would. I’ve been praying for death +since. Ha! Presumptuous man--you wanted to live . . .” + +A tremendous, shuddering upheaval of that big frame, shaken by a gasping +sob, set the glasses jingling all over the table, seemed to make the +whole house tremble to the roof-tree. And Mr. Van Wyk, whose feeling of +outraged love had been translated into a form of struggle with nature, +understood very well that, for that man whose whole life had been +conditioned by action, there could exist no other expression for all the +emotions; that, to voluntarily cease venturing, doing, enduring, for his +child’s sake, would have been exactly like plucking his warm love for +her out of his living heart. Something too monstrous, too impossible, +even to conceive. + +Captain Whalley had not changed his attitude, that seemed to express +something of shame, sorrow, and defiance. + +“I have even deceived you. If it had not been for that word ‘esteem.’ +These are not the words for me. I would have lied to you. Haven’t I +lied to you? Weren’t you going to trust your property on board this very +trip?” + +“I have a floating yearly policy,” Mr. Van Wyk said almost unwittingly, +and was amazed at the sudden cropping up of a commercial detail. + +“The ship is unseaworthy, I tell you. The policy would be invalid if it +were known . . .” + +“We shall share the guilt, then.” + +“Nothing could make mine less,” said Captain Whalley. + +He had not dared to consult a doctor; the man would have perhaps asked +who he was, what he was doing; Massy might have heard something. He had +lived on without any help, human or divine. The very prayers stuck in +his throat. What was there to pray for? and death seemed as far as ever. +Once he got into his cabin he dared not come out again; when he sat down +he dared not get up; he dared not raise his eyes to anybody’s face; +he felt reluctant to look upon the sea or up to the sky. The world was +fading before his great fear of giving himself away. The old ship was +his last friend; he was not afraid of her; he knew every inch of her +deck; but at her too he hardly dared to look, for fear of finding he +could see less than the day before. A great incertitude enveloped him. +The horizon was gone; the sky mingled darkly with the sea. Who was this +figure standing over yonder? what was this thing lying down there? And +a frightful doubt of the reality of what he could see made even the +remnant of sight that remained to him an added torment, a pitfall always +open for his miserable pretense. He was afraid to stumble inexcusably +over something--to say a fatal Yes or No to a question. The hand of God +was upon him, but it could not tear him away from his child. And, as if +in a nightmare of humiliation, every featureless man seemed an enemy. + +He let his hand fall heavily on the table. Mr. Van Wyk, arms down, +chin on breast, with a gleam of white teeth pressing on the lower lip, +meditated on Sterne’s “The game’s up.” + +“The Serang of course does not know.” + +“Nobody,” said Captain Whalley, with assurance. + +“Ah yes. Nobody. Very well. Can you keep it up to the end of the trip? +That is the last under the agreement with Massy.” + +Captain Whalley got up and stood erect, very stately, with the great +white beard lying like a silver breastplate over the awful secret of his +heart. Yes; that was the only hope there was for him of ever seeing her +again, of securing the money, the last he could do for her, before he +crept away somewhere--useless, a burden, a reproach to himself. His +voice faltered. + +“Think of it! Never see her any more: the only human being besides +myself now on earth that can remember my wife. She’s just like her +mother. Lucky the poor woman is where there are no tears shed over +those they loved on earth and that remain to pray not to be led into +temptation--because, I suppose, the blessed know the secret of grace in +God’s dealings with His created children.” + +He swayed a little, said with austere dignity-- + +“I don’t. I know only the child He has given me.” + +And he began to walk. Mr. Van Wyk, jumping up, saw the full meaning +of the rigid head, the hesitating feet, the vaguely extended hand. +His heart was beating fast; he moved a chair aside, and instinctively +advanced as if to offer his arm. But Captain Whalley passed him by, +making for the stairs quite straight. + +“He could not see me at all out of his line,” Van Wyk thought, with a +sort of awe. Then going to the head of the stairs, he asked a little +tremulously-- + +“What is it like--like a mist--like . . .” + +Captain Whalley, half-way down, stopped, and turned round undismayed to +answer. + +“It is as if the light were ebbing out of the world. Have you ever +watched the ebbing sea on an open stretch of sands withdrawing farther +and farther away from you? It is like this--only there will be no flood +to follow. Never. It is as if the sun were growing smaller, the stars +going out one by one. There can’t be many left that I can see by this. +But I haven’t had the courage to look of late . . .” He must have been +able to make out Mr. Van Wyk, because he checked him by an authoritative +gesture and a stoical-- + +“I can get about alone yet.” + +It was as if he had taken his line, and would accept no help from men, +after having been cast out, like a presumptuous Titan, from his heaven. +Mr. Van Wyk, arrested, seemed to count the footsteps right out of +earshot. He walked between the tables, tapping smartly with his heels, +took up a paper-knife, dropped it after a vague glance along the blade; +then happening upon the piano, struck a few chords again and again, +vigorously, standing up before the keyboard with an attentive poise +of the head like a piano-tuner; closing it, he pivoted on his heels +brusquely, avoided the little terrier sleeping trustfully on crossed +forepaws, came upon the stairs next, and, as though he had lost his +balance on the top step, ran down headlong out of the house. His +servants, beginning to clear the table, heard him mutter to himself +(evil words no doubt) down there, and then after a pause go away with a +strolling gait in the direction of the wharf. + +The bulwarks of the Sofala lying alongside the bank made a low, black +wall on the undulating contour of the shore. Two masts and a funnel +uprose from behind it with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, +square elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white boats, +the curves of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, all confused and +mingling darkly everywhere; but low down, amidships, a single lighted +port stared out on the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon, +whose yellow beam caught a patch of wet mud, the edge of trodden grass, +two turns of heavy cable wound round the foot of a thick wooden post in +the ground. + +Mr. Van Wyk, peering alongside, heard a muzzy boastful voice apparently +jeering at a person called Prendergast. It mouthed abuse thickly, +choked; then pronounced very distinctly the word “Murphy,” and chuckled. +Glass tinkled tremulously. All these sounds came from the lighted port. +Mr. Van Wyk hesitated, stooped; it was impossible to look through unless +he went down into the mud. + +“Sterne,” he said, half aloud. + +The drunken voice within said gladly-- + +“Sterne--of course. Look at him blink. Look at him! Sterne, Whalley, +Massy. Massy, Whalley, Sterne. But Massy’s the best. You can’t come over +him. He would just love to see you starve.” + +Mr. Van Wyk moved away, made out farther forward a shadowy head stuck +out from under the awnings as if on the watch, and spoke quietly in +Malay, “Is the mate asleep?” + +“No. Here, at your service.” + +In a moment Sterne appeared, walking as noiselessly as a cat on the +wharf. + +“It’s so jolly dark, and I had no idea you would be down to-night.” + +“What’s this horrible raving?” asked Mr. Van Wyk, as if to explain the +cause of a shudder than ran over him audibly. + +“Jack’s broken out on a drunk. That’s our second. It’s his way. He will +be right enough by to-morrow afternoon, only Mr. Massy will keep on +worrying up and down the deck. We had better get away.” + +He muttered suggestively of a talk “up at the house.” He had long +desired to effect an entrance there, but Mr. Van Wyk nonchalantly +demurred: it would not, he feared, be quite prudent, perhaps; and +the opaque black shadow under one of the two big trees left at the +landing-place swallowed them up, impenetrably dense, by the side of the +wide river, that seemed to spin into threads of glitter the light of +a few big stars dropped here and there upon its outspread and flowing +stillness. + +“The situation is grave beyond doubt,” Mr. Van Wyk said. Ghost-like in +their white clothes they could not distinguish each others’ features, +and their feet made no sound on the soft earth. A sort of purring was +heard. Mr. Sterne felt gratified by such a beginning. + +“I thought, Mr. Van Wyk, a gentleman of your sort would see at once how +awkwardly I was situated.” + +“Yes, very. Obviously his health is bad. Perhaps he’s breaking up. I +see, and he himself is well aware--I assume I am speaking to a man of +sense--he is well aware that his legs are giving out.” + +“His legs--ah!” Mr. Sterne was disconcerted, and then turned sulky. +“You may call it his legs if you like; what I want to know is whether he +intends to clear out quietly. That’s a good one, too! His legs! Pooh!” + +“Why, yes. Only look at the way he walks.” Mr. Van Wyk took him up in a +perfectly cool and undoubting tone. “The question, however, is whether +your sense of duty does not carry you too far from your true interest. +After all, I too could do something to serve you. You know who I am.” + +“Everybody along the Straits has heard of you, sir.” + +Mr. Van Wyk presumed that this meant something favorable. Sterne had +a soft laugh at this pleasantry. He should think so! To the opening +statement, that the partnership agreement was to expire at the end of +this very trip, he gave an attentive assent. He was aware. One heard of +nothing else on board all the blessed day long. As to Massy, it was no +secret that he was in a jolly deep hole with these worn-out boilers. He +would have to borrow somewhere a couple of hundred first of all to pay +off the captain; and then he would have to raise money on mortgage upon +the ship for the new boilers--that is, if he could find a lender at all. +At best it meant loss of time, a break in the trade, short earnings +for the year--and there was always the danger of having his connection +filched away from him by the Germans. It was whispered about that he +had already tried two firms. Neither would have anything to do with +him. Ship too old, and the man too well known in the place. . . . +Mr. Sterne’s final rapid winking remained buried in the deep darkness +sibilating with his whispers. + +“Supposing, then, he got the loan,” Mr. Van Wyk resumed in a deliberate +undertone, “on your own showing he’s more than likely to get a +mortgagee’s man thrust upon him as captain. For my part, I know that I +would make that very stipulation myself if I had to find the money. +And as a matter of fact I am thinking of doing so. It would be worth +my while in many ways. Do you see how this would bear on the case under +discussion?” + +“Thank you, sir. I am sure you couldn’t get anybody that would care more +for your interests.” + +“Well, it suits my interest that Captain Whalley should finish his time. +I shall probably take a passage with you down the Straits. If that can +be done, I’ll be on the spot when all these changes take place, and in a +position to look after _your_ interests.” + +“Mr. Van Wyk, I want nothing better. I am sure I am infinitely . . .” + +“I take it, then, that this may be done without any trouble.” + +“Well, sir, what risk there is can’t be helped; but (speaking to you as +my employer now) the thing is more safe than it looks. If anybody had +told me of it I wouldn’t have believed it, but I have been looking on +myself. That old Serang has been trained up to the game. There’s nothing +the matter with his--his--limbs, sir. He’s got used to doing things +himself in a remarkable way. And let me tell you, sir, that Captain +Whalley, poor man, is by no means useless. Fact. Let me explain to you, +sir. He stiffens up that old monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough +what to do. Why, he must have kept captain’s watches in all sorts of +country ships off and on for the last five-and-twenty years. These +natives, sir, as long as they have a white man close at the back, will +go on doing the right thing most surprisingly well--even if left quite +to themselves. Only the white man must be of the sort to put starch into +them, and the captain is just the one for that. Why, sir, he has drilled +him so well that now he needs hardly speak at all. I have seen that +little wrinkled ape made to take the ship out of Pangu Bay on a blowy +morning and on all through the islands; take her out first-rate, sir, +dodging under the old man’s elbow, and in such quiet style that you +could not have told for the life of you which of the two was doing the +work up there. That’s where our poor friend would be still of use to +the ship even if--if--he could no longer lift a foot, sir. Provided the +Serang does not know that there’s anything wrong.” + +“He doesn’t.” + +“Naturally not. Quite beyond his apprehension. They aren’t capable of +finding out anything about us, sir.” + +“You seem to be a shrewd man,” said Mr. Van Wyk in a choked mutter, as +though he were feeling sick. + +“You’ll find me a good enough servant, sir.” + +Mr. Sterne hoped now for a handshake at least, but unexpectedly, with a +“What’s this? Better not to be seen together,” Mr. Van Wyk’s white shape +wavered, and instantly seemed to melt away in the black air under +the roof of boughs. The mate was startled. Yes. There was that faint +thumping clatter. + +He stole out silently from under the shade. The lighted port-hole shone +from afar. His head swam with the intoxication of sudden success. What +a thing it was to have a gentleman to deal with! He crept aboard, and +there was something weird in the shadowy stretch of empty decks, echoing +with shouts and blows proceeding from a darker part amidships. Mr. Massy +was raging before the door of the berth: the drunken voice within flowed +on undisturbed in the violent racket of kicks. + +“Shut up! Put your light out and turn in, you confounded swilling +pig--you! D’you hear me, you beast?” + +The kicking stopped, and in the pause the muzzy oracular voice announced +from within-- + +“Ah! Massy, now--that’s another thing. Massy’s deep.” + +“Who’s that aft there? You, Sterne? He’ll drink himself into a fit of +horrors.” The chief engineer appeared vague and big at the corner of the +engineroom. + +“He will be good enough for duty to-morrow. I would let him be, Mr. +Massy.” + +Sterne slipped away into his berth, and at once had to sit down. His +head swam with exultation. He got into his bunk as if in a dream. A +feeling of profound peace, of pacific joy, came over him. On deck all +was quiet. + +Mr. Massy, with his ear against the door of Jack’s cabin, listened +critically to a deep stertorous breathing within. This was a dead-drunk +sleep. The bout was over: tranquilized on that score, he too went in, +and with slow wriggles got out of his old tweed jacket. It was a garment +with many pockets, which he used to put on at odd times of the day, +being subject to sudden chilly fits, and when he felt warmed he would +take it off and hang it about anywhere all over the ship. It would +be seen swinging on belaying-pins, thrown over the heads of winches, +suspended on people’s very door-handles for that matter. Was he not the +owner? But his favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning stanchion on +the bridge, almost against the binnacle. He had even in the early days +more than one tussle on that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the +bridge to be kept tidy. He had been overawed then. Of late, though, he +had been able to defy his partner with impunity. Captain Whalley never +seemed to notice anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe of that +scowling man not one of the crew would dream of laying a hand on the +thing, no matter where or what it swung from. + +With an unexpectedness which made Mr. Massy jump and drop the coat +at his feet, there came from the next berth the crash and thud of a +headlong, jingling, clattering fall. The faithful Jack must have dropped +to sleep suddenly as he sat at his revels, and now had gone over chair +and all, breaking, as it seemed by the sound, every single glass and +bottle in the place. After the terrific smash all was still for a time +in there, as though he had killed himself outright on the spot. Mr. +Massy held his breath. At last a sleepy uneasy groaning sigh was exhaled +slowly on the other side of the bulkhead. + +“I hope to goodness he’s too drunk to wake up now,” muttered Mr. Massy. + +The sound of a softly knowing laugh nearly drove him to despair. He +swore violently under his breath. The fool would keep him awake all +night now for certain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his +maddening troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect no movements. +Without apparently making the slightest attempt to get up, Jack went on +sniggering to himself where he lay; then began to speak, where he had +left off as it were-- + +“Massy! I love the dirty rascal. He would like to see his poor old Jack +starve--but just you look where he has climbed to.” . . . He hiccoughed +in a superior, leisurely manner. . . . “Ship-owning it with the best. +A lottery ticket you want. Ha! ha! I will give you lottery tickets, my +boy. Let the old ship sink and the old chum starve--that’s right. He +don’t go wrong--Massy don’t. Not he. He’s a genius--that man is. That’s +the way to win your money. Ship and chum must go.” + +“The silly fool has taken it to heart,” muttered Massy to himself. And, +listening with a softened expression of face for any slight sign of +returning drowsiness, he was discouraged profoundly by a burst of +laughter full of joyful irony. + +“Would like to see her at the bottom of the sea! Oh, you clever, clever +devil! Wish her sunk, eh? I should think you would, my boy; the damned +old thing and all your troubles with her. Rake in the insurance money +--turn your back on your old chum--all’s well--gentleman again.” + +A grim stillness had come over Massy’s face. Only his big black eyes +rolled uneasily. The raving fool. And yet it was all true. Yes. Lottery +tickets, too. All true. What? Beginning again? He wished he +wouldn’t. . . . + +But it was even so. The imaginative drunkard on the other side of the +bulkhead shook off the deathlike stillness that after his last words had +fallen on the dark ship moored to a silent shore. + +“Don’t you dare to say anything against George Massy, Esquire. When he’s +tired of waiting he will do away with her. Look out! Down she goes--chum +and all. He’ll know how to . . .” + +The voice hesitated, weary, dreamy, lost, as if dying away in a vast +open space. + +“. . . Find a trick that will work. He’s up to it--never fear . . .” + +He must have been very drunk, for at last the heavy sleep gripped him +with the suddenness of a magic spell, and the last word lengthened +itself into an interminable, noisy, in-drawn snore. And then even the +snoring stopped, and all was still. + +But it seemed as though Mr. Massy had suddenly come to doubt the +efficacy of sleep as against a man’s troubles; or perhaps he had found +the relief he needed in the stillness of a calm contemplation that +may contain the vivid thoughts of wealth, of a stroke of luck, of long +idleness, and may bring before you the imagined form of every desire; +for, turning about and throwing his arms over the edge of his bunk, he +stood there with his feet on his favorite old coat, looking out through +the round port into the night over the river. Sometimes a breath of wind +would enter and touch his face, a cool breath charged with the damp, +fresh feel from a vast body of water. A glimmer here and there was all +he could see of it; and once he might after all suppose he had dozed +off, since there appeared before his vision, unexpectedly and connected +with no dream, a row of flaming and gigantic figures--three naught seven +one two--making up a number such as you may see on a lottery ticket. +And then all at once the port was no longer black: it was pearly gray, +framing a shore crowded with houses, thatched roof beyond thatched +roof, walls of mats and bamboo, gables of carved teak timber. Rows +of dwellings raised on a forest of piles lined the steely band of the +river, brimful and still, with the tide at the turn. This was Batu +Beru--and the day had come. + +Mr. Massy shook himself, put on the tweed coat, and, shivering nervously +as if from some great shock, made a note of the number. A fortunate, +rare hint that. Yes; but to pursue fortune one wanted money--ready cash. + +Then he went out and prepared to descend into the engine-room. Several +small jobs had to be seen to, and Jack was lying dead drunk on the +floor of his cabin, with the door locked at that. His gorge rose at +the thought of work. Ay! But if you wanted to do nothing you had to get +first a good bit of money. A ship won’t save you. He cursed the Sofala. +True, all true. He was tired of waiting for some chance that would rid +him at last of that ship that had turned out a curse on his life. + + +XIV + +The deep, interminable hoot of the steam-whistle had, in its grave, +vibrating note, something intolerable, which sent a slight shudder down +Mr. Van Wyk’s back. It was the early afternoon; the Sofala was leaving +Batu Beru for Pangu, the next place of call. She swung in the stream, +scantily attended by a few canoes, and, gliding on the broad river, +became lost to view from the Van Wyk bungalow. + +Its owner had not gone this time to see her off. Generally he came down +to the wharf, exchanged a few words with the bridge while she cast off, +and waved his hand to Captain Whalley at the last moment. This day he +did not even go as far as the balustrade of the veranda. “He couldn’t +see me if I did,” he said to himself. “I wonder whether he can make out +the house at all.” And this thought somehow made him feel more alone +than he had ever felt for all these years. What was it? six or seven? +Seven. A long time. + +He sat on the veranda with a closed book on his knee, and, as it were, +looked out upon his solitude, as if the fact of Captain Whalley’s +blindness had opened his eyes to his own. There were many sorts of +heartaches and troubles, and there was no place where they could not +find a man out. And he felt ashamed, as though he had for six years +behaved like a peevish boy. + +His thought followed the Sofala on her way. On the spur of the moment he +had acted impulsively, turning to the thing most pressing. And what else +could he have done? Later on he should see. It seemed necessary that +he should come out into the world, for a time at least. He had +money--something could be arranged; he would grudge no time, no trouble, +no loss of his solitude. It weighed on him now--and Captain Whalley +appeared to him as he had sat shading his eyes, as if, being deceived in +the trust of his faith, he were beyond all the good and evil that can be +wrought by the hands of men. + +Mr. Van Wyk’s thoughts followed the Sofala down the river, winding about +through the belt of the coast forest, between the buttressed shafts of +the big trees, through the mangrove strip, and over the bar. The ship +crossed it easily in broad daylight, piloted, as it happened, by Mr. +Sterne, who took the watch from four to six, and then went below to hug +himself with delight at the prospect of being virtually employed by a +rich man--like Mr. Van Wyk. He could not see how any hitch could occur +now. He did not seem able to get over the feeling of being “fixed up at +last.” From six to eight, in the course of duty, the Serang looked alone +after the ship. She had a clear road before her now till about three +in the morning, when she would close with the Pangu group. At eight Mr. +Sterne came out cheerily to take charge again till midnight. At ten he +was still chirruping and humming to himself on the bridge, and about +that time Mr. Van Wyk’s thought abandoned the Sofala. Mr. Van Wyk had +fallen asleep at last. + +Massy, blocking the engine-room companion, jerked himself into his tweed +jacket surlily, while the second waited with a scowl. + +“Oh. You came out? You sot! Well, what have you got to say for +yourself?” + +He had been in charge of the engines till then. A somber fury darkened +his mind: a hot anger against the ship, against the facts of life, +against the men for their cheating, against himself too--because of an +inward tremor of his heart. + +An incomprehensible growl answered him. + +“What? Can’t you open your mouth now? You yelp out your infernal rot +loud enough when you are drunk. What do you mean by abusing people in +that way?--you old useless boozer, you!” + +“Can’t help it. Don’t remember anything about it. You shouldn’t listen.” + +“You dare to tell me! What do you mean by going on a drunk like this!” + +“Don’t ask me. Sick of the dam’ boilers--you would be. Sick of life.” + +“I wish you were dead, then. You’ve made me sick of you. Don’t you +remember the uproar you made last night? You miserable old soaker!” + +“No; I don’t. Don’t want to. Drink is drink.” + +“I wonder what prevents me from kicking you out. What do you want here?” + +“Relieve you. You’ve been long enough down there, George.” + +“Don’t you George me--you tippling old rascal, you! If I were to die +to-morrow you would starve. Remember that. Say Mr. Massy.” + +“Mr. Massy,” repeated the other stolidly. + +Disheveled, with dull blood-shot eyes, a snuffy, grimy shirt, greasy +trowsers, naked feet thrust into ragged slippers, he bolted in head down +directly Massy had made way for him. + +The chief engineer looked around. The deck was empty as far as the +taffrail. All the native passengers had left in Batu Beru this time, and +no others had joined. The dial of the patent log tinkled periodically +in the dark at the end of the ship. It was a dead calm, and, under the +clouded sky, through the still air that seemed to cling warm, with a +seaweed smell, to her slim hull, on a sea of somber gray and unwrinkled, +the ship moved on an even keel, as if floating detached in empty space. +But Mr. Massy slapped his forehead, tottered a little, caught hold of a +belaying-pin at the foot of the mast. + +“I shall go mad,” he muttered, walking across the deck unsteadily. A +shovel was scraping loose coal down below--a fire-door clanged. Sterne +on the bridge began whistling a new tune. + +Captain Whalley, sitting on the couch, awake and fully dressed, heard +the door of his cabin open. He did not move in the least, waiting to +recognize the voice, with an appalling strain of prudence. + +A bulkhead lamp blazed on the white paint, the crimson plush, the +brown varnish of mahogany tops. The white wood packing-case under the +bed-place had remained unopened for three years now, as though Captain +Whalley had felt that, after the Fair Maid was gone, there could be +no abiding-place on earth for his affections. His hands rested on his +knees; his handsome head with big eyebrows presented a rigid profile to +the doorway. The expected voice spoke out at last. + +“Once more, then. What am I to call you?” + +Ha! Massy. Again. The weariness of it crushed his heart--and the pain of +shame was almost more than he could bear without crying out. + +“Well. Is it to be ‘partner’ still?” + +“You don’t know what you ask.” + +“I know what I want . . .” + +Massy stepped in and closed the door. + +“. . . And I am going to have a try for it with you once more.” + +His whine was half persuasive, half menacing. + +“For it’s no manner of use to tell me that you are poor. You don’t spend +anything on yourself, that’s true enough; but there’s another name for +that. You think you are going to have what you want out of me for three +years, and then cast me off without hearing what I think of you. You +think I would have submitted to your airs if I had known you had only a +beggarly five hundred pounds in the world. You ought to have told me.” + +“Perhaps,” said Captain Whalley, bowing his head. “And yet it has saved +you.” . . . Massy laughed scornfully. . . . “I have told you often +enough since.” + +“And I don’t believe you now. When I think how I let you lord it over +my ship! Do you remember how you used to bullyrag me about my coat and +_your_ bridge? It was in his way. _His_ bridge! ‘And I won’t be a party +to this--and I couldn’t think of doing that.’ Honest man! And now it all +comes out. ‘I am poor, and I can’t. I have only this five hundred in the +world.’” + +He contemplated the immobility of Captain Whalley, that seemed to +present an inconquerable obstacle in his path. His face took a mournful +cast. + +“You are a hard man.” + +“Enough,” said Captain Whalley, turning upon him. “You shall get nothing +from me, because I have nothing of mine to give away now.” + +“Tell that to the marines!” + +Mr. Massy, going out, looked back once; then the door closed, and +Captain Whalley, alone, sat as still as before. He had nothing of his +own--even his past of honor, of truth, of just pride, was gone. All his +spotless life had fallen into the abyss. He had said his last good-by +to it. But what belonged to _her_, that he meant to save. Only a little +money. He would take it to her in his own hands--this last gift of a man +that had lasted too long. And an immense and fierce impulse, the very +passion of paternity, flamed up with all the unquenched vigor of his +worthless life in a desire to see her face. + +Just across the deck Massy had gone straight to his cabin, struck a +light, and hunted up the note of the dreamed number whose figures had +flamed up also with the fierceness of another passion. He must contrive +somehow not to miss a drawing. That number meant something. But what +expedient could he contrive to keep himself going? + +“Wretched miser!” he mumbled. + +If Mr. Sterne could at no time have told him anything new about his +partner, he could have told Mr. Sterne that another use could be made of +a man’s affliction than just to kick him out, and thus defer the term of +a difficult payment for a year. To keep the secret of the affliction +and induce him to stay was a better move. If without means, he would be +anxious to remain; and that settled the question of refunding him his +share. He did not know exactly how much Captain Whalley was disabled; +but if it so happened that he put the ship ashore somewhere for good and +all, it was not the owner’s fault--was it? He was not obliged to know +that there was anything wrong. But probably nobody would raise such a +point, and the ship was fully insured. He had had enough self-restraint +to pay up the premiums. But this was not all. He could not believe +Captain Whalley to be so confoundedly destitute as not to have some more +money put away somewhere. If he, Massy, could get hold of it, that would +pay for the boilers, and everything went on as before. And if she +got lost in the end, so much the better. He hated her: he loathed the +troubles that took his mind off the chances of fortune. He wished her +at the bottom of the sea, and the insurance money in his pocket. And +as, baffled, he left Captain Whalley’s cabin, he enveloped in the same +hatred the ship with the worn-out boilers and the man with the dimmed +eyes. + +And our conduct after all is so much a matter of outside suggestion, +that had it not been for his Jack’s drunken gabble he would have there +and then had it out with this miserable man, who would neither help, nor +stay, nor yet lose the ship. The old fraud! He longed to kick him out. +But he restrained himself. Time enough for that--when he liked. There +was a fearful new thought put into his head. Wasn’t he up to it after +all? How that beast Jack had raved! “Find a safe trick to get rid of +her.” Well, Jack was not so far wrong. A very clever trick had occurred +to him. Aye! But what of the risk? + +A feeling of pride--the pride of superiority to common prejudices--crept +into his breast, made his heart beat fast, his mouth turn dry. Not +everybody would dare; but he was Massy, and he was up to it! + +Six bells were struck on deck. Eleven! He drank a glass of water, and +sat down for ten minutes or so to calm himself. Then he got out of his +chest a small bull’s-eye lantern of his own and lit it. + +Almost opposite his berth, across the narrow passage under the bridge, +there was, in the iron deck-structure covering the stokehold fiddle and +the boiler-space, a storeroom with iron sides, iron roof, iron-plated +floor, too, on account of the heat below. All sorts of rubbish was shot +there: it had a mound of scrap-iron in a corner; rows of empty oil-cans; +sacks of cotton-waste, with a heap of charcoal, a deck-forge, fragments +of an old hencoop, winch-covers all in rags, remnants of lamps, and a +brown felt hat, discarded by a man dead now (of a fever on the Brazil +coast), who had been once mate of the Sofala, had remained for years +jammed forcibly behind a length of burst copper pipe, flung at some +time or other out of the engine-room. A complete and imperious blackness +pervaded that Capharnaum of forgotten things. A small shaft of light +from Mr. Massy’s bull’s-eye fell slanting right through it. + +His coat was unbuttoned; he shot the bolt of the door (there was no +other opening), and, squatting before the scrap-heap, began to pack his +pockets with pieces of iron. He packed them carefully, as if the rusty +nuts, the broken bolts, the links of cargo chain, had been so much gold +he had that one chance to carry away. He packed his side-pockets till +they bulged, the breast pocket, the pockets inside. He turned over the +pieces. Some he rejected. A small mist of powdered rust began to rise +about his busy hands. Mr. Massy knew something of the scientific basis +of his clever trick. If you want to deflect the magnetic needle of a +ship’s compass, soft iron is the best; likewise many small pieces in +the pockets of a jacket would have more effect than a few large ones, +because in that way you obtain a greater amount of surface for weight in +your iron, and it’s surface that tells. + +He slipped out swiftly--two strides sufficed--and in his cabin he +perceived that his hands were all red--red with rust. It disconcerted +him, as though he had found them covered with blood: he looked himself +over hastily. Why, his trowsers too! He had been rubbing his rusty palms +on his legs. + +He tore off the waistband button in his haste, brushed his coat, washed +his hands. Then the air of guilt left him, and he sat down to wait. + +He sat bolt upright and weighted with iron in his chair. He had a hard, +lumpy bulk against each hip, felt the scrappy iron in his pockets touch +his ribs at every breath, the downward drag of all these pounds hanging +upon his shoulders. He looked very dull too, sitting idle there, and his +yellow face, with motionless black eyes, had something passive and sad +in its quietness. + +When he heard eight bells struck above his head, he rose and made ready +to go out. His movements seemed aimless, his lower lip had dropped a +little, his eyes roamed about the cabin, and the tremendous tension of +his will had robbed them of every vestige of intelligence. + +With the last stroke of the bell the Serang appeared noiselessly on the +bridge to relieve the mate. Sterne overflowed with good nature, since he +had nothing more to desire. + +“Got your eyes well open yet, Serang? It’s middling dark; I’ll wait till +you get your sight properly.” + +The old Malay murmured, looked up with his worn eyes, sidled away into +the light of the binnacle, and, crossing his hands behind his back, +fixed his eyes on the compass-card. + +“You’ll have to keep a good look-out ahead for land, about half-past +three. It’s fairly clear, though. You have looked in on the captain as +you came along--eh? He knows the time? Well, then, I am off.” + +At the foot of the ladder he stood aside for the captain. He watched him +go up with an even, certain tread, and remained thoughtful for a moment. +“It’s funny,” he said to himself, “but you can never tell whether that +man has seen you or not. He might have heard me breathe this time.” + +He was a wonderful man when all was said and done. They said he had had +a name in his day. Mr. Sterne could well believe it; and he concluded +serenely that Captain Whalley must be able to see people more or less +--as himself just now, for instance--but not being certain of anybody, +had to keep up that unnoticing silence of manner for fear of giving +himself away. Mr. Sterne was a shrewd guesser. + +This necessity of every moment brought home to Captain Whalley’s heart +the humiliation of his falsehood. He had drifted into it from paternal +love, from incredulity, from boundless trust in divine justice meted out +to men’s feelings on this earth. He would give his poor Ivy the benefit +of another month’s work; perhaps the affliction was only temporary. +Surely God would not rob his child of his power to help, and cast him +naked into a night without end. He had caught at every hope; and when +the evidence of his misfortune was stronger than hope, he tried not to +believe the manifest thing. + +In vain. In the steadily darkening universe a sinister clearness fell +upon his ideas. In the illuminating moments of suffering he saw life, +men, all things, the whole earth with all her burden of created nature, +as he had never seen them before. + +Sometimes he was seized with a sudden vertigo and an overwhelming +terror; and then the image of his daughter appeared. Her, too, he had +never seen so clearly before. Was it possible that he should ever be +unable to do anything whatever for her? Nothing. And not see her any +more? Never. + +Why? The punishment was too great for a little presumption, for a little +pride. And at last he came to cling to his deception with a fierce +determination to carry it out to the end, to save her money intact, and +behold her once more with his own eyes. Afterwards--what? The idea of +suicide was revolting to the vigor of his manhood. He had prayed for +death till the prayers had stuck in his throat. All the days of his life +he had prayed for daily bread, and not to be led into temptation, in a +childlike humility of spirit. Did words mean anything? Whence did the +gift of speech come? The violent beating of his heart reverberated in +his head--seemed to shake his brain to pieces. + +He sat down heavily in the deck-chair to keep the pretense of his watch. +The night was dark. All the nights were dark now. + +“Serang,” he said, half aloud. + +“Ada, Tuan. I am here.” + +“There are clouds on the sky?” + +“There are, Tuan.” + +“Let her be steered straight. North.” + +“She is going north, Tuan.” + +The Serang stepped back. Captain Whalley recognized Massy’s footfalls on +the bridge. + +The engineer walked over to port and returned, passing behind the chair +several times. Captain Whalley detected an unusual character as of +prudent care in this prowling. The near presence of that man brought +with it always a recrudescence of moral suffering for Captain Whalley. +It was not remorse. After all, he had done nothing but good to the poor +devil. There was also a sense of danger--the necessity of a greater +care. + +Massy stopped and said-- + +“So you still say you must go?” + +“I must indeed.” + +“And you couldn’t at least leave the money for a term of years?” + +“Impossible.” + +“Can’t trust it with me without your care, eh?” + +Captain Whalley remained silent. Massy sighed deeply over the back of +the chair. + +“It would just do to save me,” he said in a tremulous voice. + +“I’ve saved you once.” + +The chief engineer took off his coat with careful movements, and +proceeded to feel for the brass hook screwed into the wooden stanchion. +For this purpose he placed himself right in front of the binnacle, thus +hiding completely the compass-card from the quartermaster at the wheel. +“Tuan!” the lascar at last murmured softly, meaning to let the white man +know that he could not see to steer. + +Mr. Massy had accomplished his purpose. The coat was hanging from the +nail, within six inches of the binnacle. And directly he had stepped +aside the quartermaster, a middle-aged, pock-marked, Sumatra Malay, +almost as dark as a negro, perceived with amazement that in that short +time, in this smooth water, with no wind at all, the ship had gone +swinging far out of her course. He had never known her get away like +this before. With a slight grunt of astonishment he turned the wheel +hastily to bring her head back north, which was the course. The grinding +of the steering-chains, the chiding murmurs of the Serang, who had come +over to the wheel, made a slight stir, which attracted Captain Whalley’s +anxious attention. He said, “Take better care.” Then everything settled +to the usual quiet on the bridge. Mr. Massy had disappeared. + +But the iron in the pockets of the coat had done its work; and the +Sofala, heading north by the compass, made untrue by this simple device, +was no longer making a safe course for Pangu Bay. + +The hiss of water parted by her stem, the throb of her engines, all the +sounds of her faithful and laborious life, went on uninterrupted in the +great calm of the sea joining on all sides the motionless layer of cloud +over the sky. A gentle stillness as vast as the world seemed to wait +upon her path, enveloping her lovingly in a supreme caress. Mr. Massy +thought there could be no better night for an arranged shipwreck. + +Run up high and dry on one of the reefs east of Pangu--wait for +daylight--hole in the bottom--out boats--Pangu Bay same evening. That’s +about it. As soon as she touched he would hasten on the bridge, get hold +of the coat (nobody would notice in the dark), and shake it upside-down +over the side, or even fling it into the sea. A detail. Who could +guess? Coat been seen hanging there from that hook hundreds of times. +Nevertheless, when he sat down on the lower step of the bridge-ladder +his knees knocked together a little. The waiting part was the worst +of it. At times he would begin to pant quickly, as though he had been +running, and then breathe largely, swelling with the intimate sense of +a mastered fate. Now and then he would hear the shuffle of the Serang’s +bare feet up there: quiet, low voices would exchange a few words, and +lapse almost at once into silence. . . . + +“Tell me directly you see any land, Serang.” + +“Yes, Tuan. Not yet.” + +“No, not yet,” Captain Whalley would agree. + +The ship had been the best friend of his decline. He had sent all the +money he had made by and in the Sofala to his daughter. His thought +lingered on the name. How often he and his wife had talked over the cot +of the child in the big stern-cabin of the Condor; she would grow up, +she would marry, she would love them, they would live near her and look +at her happiness--it would go on without end. Well, his wife was dead, +to the child he had given all he had to give; he wished he could come +near her, see her, see her face once, live in the sound of her +voice, that could make the darkness of the living grave ready for him +supportable. He had been starved of love too long. He imagined her +tenderness. + +The Serang had been peering forward, and now and then glancing at the +chair. He fidgeted restlessly, and suddenly burst out close to Captain +Whalley-- + +“Tuan, do you see anything of the land?” + +The alarmed voice brought Captain Whalley to his feet at once. He! See! +And at the question, the curse of his blindness seemed to fall on him +with a hundredfold force. + +“What’s the time?” he cried. + +“Half-past three, Tuan.” + +“We are close. You _must_ see. Look, I say. Look.” + +Mr. Massy, awakened by the sudden sound of talking from a short doze on +the lowest step, wondered why he was there. Ah! A faintness came over +him. It is one thing to sow the seed of an accident and another to see +the monstrous fruit hanging over your head ready to fall in the sound of +agitated voices. + +“There’s no danger,” he muttered thickly. + +The horror of incertitude had seized upon Captain Whalley, the miserable +mistrust of men, of things--of the very earth. He had steered that very +course thirty-six times by the same compass--if anything was certain +in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness. Then what had +happened? Did the Serang lie? Why lie? Why? Was he going blind too? + +“Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down, I say.” + +“Tuan, there’s no mist. See for yourself.” + +Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs by an effort. +Should he stop the engines at once and give himself away. A gust of +irresolution swayed all sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The +unusual had come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage of +inexpressible anguish he saw her face--the face of a young girl--with +an amazing strength of illusion. No, he must not give himself away after +having gone so far for her sake. “You steered the course? You made it? +Speak the truth.” + +“Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look.” + +Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him made such a dim +spot of light in an infinity of shapeless shadow. By bending his face +right down to the glass he had been able before . . . + +Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his arm to where he +knew there was a stanchion to steady himself against. His hand closed +on something that was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the +weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy’s coat falling, struck the deck +heavily with a dull thump, accompanied by a lot of clicks. + +“What’s this?” + +Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands extended in a +frank gesture of blindness. They trembled, these hands feeling for the +truth. He saw it. Iron near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His +ship. Oh no. Not that. + +“Jump and stop her!” he roared out in a voice not his own. + +He ran himself--hands forward, a blind man, and while the clanging of +the gong echoed still all over the ship, she seemed to butt full tilt +into the side of a mountain. + +It was low water along the north side of the strait. Mr. Massy had not +reckoned on that. Instead of running aground for half her length, the +Sofala butted the sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been +awash at high water. This made the shock absolutely terrific. Everybody +in the ship that was standing was thrown down headlong: the shaken +rigging made a great rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went +out: several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the funnel: there +were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope, splintering sounds, loud +cracks, the masthead lamp flew over the bows, and all the doors about +the deck began to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded, +hit the second time the very same spot like a battering-ram. This +completed the havoc: the funnel, with all the guys gone, fell over with +a hollow sound of thunder, smashing the wheel to bits, crushing the +frame of the awnings, breaking the lockers, filling the bridge with +a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken wood. Captain Whalley picked +himself up and stood knee-deep in wreckage, torn, bleeding, knowing the +nature of the danger he had escaped mostly by the sound, and holding Mr. +Massy’s coat in his arms. + +By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his bunk) had set the +engines astern. They worked for a few turns, then a voice bawled out, +“Get out of the damned engine-room, Jack!”--and they stopped; but the +ship had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a heavy cloud of +steam issuing from the broken deckpipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes +into the night. Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there was +no shouting, as if the very violence of the shock had half-stunned the +shadowy lot of people swaying here and there about her decks. The voice +of the Serang pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs-- + +“Eight fathom.” He had heaved the lead. + +Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch-- + +“Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?” + +Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass-- + +“Amongst the reefs to the eastward.” + +“You know it, sir? Then she will never get out again.” + +“She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne. Even one will save you +all in this calm.” + +The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for the port boats. +Nobody tried to check them. The Malays, after a moment of confusion, +became quiet, and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain Whalley +had not moved. His thoughts were darker than this night in which he had +lost his first ship. + +“He made me lose a ship.” + +Another tall figure standing before him amongst the litter of the smash +on the bridge whispered insanely-- + +“Say nothing of it.” + +Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the chattering of his +teeth. + +“I have the coat.” + +“Throw it down and come along,” urged the chattering voice. +“B-b-b-b-boat!” + +“You will get fifteen years for this.” + +Mr. Massy had lost his voice. His speech was a mere dry rustling in his +throat. + +“Have mercy!” + +“Had you any when you made me lose my ship? Mr. Massy, you shall get +fifteen years for this!” + +“I wanted money! Money! My own money! I will give you some money. Take +half of it. You love money yourself.” + +“There’s a justice . . .” + +Massy made an awful effort, and in a strange, half choked utterance-- + +“You blind devil! It’s you that drove me to it.” + +Captain Whalley, hugging the coat to his breast, made no sound. The +light had ebbed for ever from the world--let everything go. But this man +should not escape scot-free. + +Sterne’s voice commanded-- + +“Lower away!” + +The blocks rattled. + +“Now then,” he cried, “over with you. This way. You, Jack, here. Mr. +Massy! Mr. Massy! Captain! Quick, sir! Let’s get-- + +“I shall go to prison for trying to cheat the insurance, but you’ll get +exposed; you, honest man, who has been cheating me. You are poor. Aren’t +you? You’ve nothing but the five hundred pounds. Well, you have nothing +at all now. The ship’s lost, and the insurance won’t be paid.” + +Captain Whalley did not move. True! Ivy’s money! Gone in this wreck. +Again he had a flash of insight. He was indeed at the end of his tether. + +Urgent voices cried out together alongside. Massy did not seem able +to tear himself away from the bridge. He chattered and hissed +despairingly-- + +“Give it up to me! Give it up!” + +“No,” said Captain Whalley; “I could not give it up. You had better go. +Don’t wait, man, if you want to live. She’s settling down by the head +fast. No; I shall keep it, but I shall stay on board.” + +Massy did not seem to understand; but the love of life, awakened +suddenly, drove him away from the bridge. + +Captain Whalley laid the coat down, and stumbled amongst the heaps of +wreckage to the side. + +“Is Mr. Massy in with you?” he called out into the night. + +Sterne from the boat shouted-- + +“Yes; we’ve got him. Come along, sir. It’s madness to stay longer.” + +Captain Whalley felt along the rail carefully, and, without a word, cast +off the painter. They were expecting him still down there. They were +waiting, till a voice suddenly exclaimed-- + +“We are adrift! Shove off!” + +“Captain Whalley! Leap! . . . pull up a little . . . leap! You can +swim.” + +In that old heart, in that vigorous body, there was, that nothing should +be wanting, a horror of death that apparently could not be overcome +by the horror of blindness. But after all, for Ivy he had carried his +point, walking in his darkness to the very verge of a crime. God had not +listened to his prayers. The light had finished ebbing out of the world; +not a glimmer. It was a dark waste; but it was unseemly that a Whalley +who had gone so far to carry a point should continue to live. He must +pay the price. + +“Leap as far as you can, sir; we will pick you up.” + +They did not hear him answer. But their shouting seemed to remind him of +something. He groped his way back, and sought for Mr. Massy’s coat. He +could swim indeed; people sucked down by the whirlpool of a sinking ship +do come up sometimes to the surface, and it was unseemly that a Whalley, +who had made up his mind to die, should be beguiled by chance into a +struggle. He would put all these pieces of iron into his own pockets. + +They, looking from the boat, saw the Sofala, a black mass upon a black +sea, lying still at an appalling cant. No sound came from her. Then, +with a great bizarre shuffling noise, as if the boilers had broken +through the bulkheads, and with a faint muffled detonation, where the +ship had been there appeared for a moment something standing upright and +narrow, like a rock out of the sea. Then that too disappeared. + + +When the Sofala failed to come back to Batu Beru at the proper time, Mr. +Van Wyk understood at once that he would never see her any more. But he +did not know what had happened till some months afterwards, when, in a +native craft lent him by his Sultan, he had made his way to the Sofala’s +port of registry, where already her existence and the official inquiry +into her loss was beginning to be forgotten. + +It had not been a very remarkable or interesting case, except for the +fact that the captain had gone down with his sinking ship. It was the +only life lost; and Mr. Van Wyk would not have been able to learn any +details had it not been for Sterne, whom he met one day on the quay +near the bridge over the creek, almost on the very spot where Captain +Whalley, to preserve his daughter’s five hundred pounds intact, had +turned to get a sampan which would take him on board the Sofala. + +From afar Mr. Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at him and raise his +hand to his hat. They drew into the shade of a building (it was a bank), +and the mate related how the boat with the crew got into Pangu Bay about +six hours after the accident, and how they had lived for a fortnight in +a state of destitution before they found an opportunity to get away from +that beastly place. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all blame. +The loss of the ship was put down to an unusual set of the current. +Indeed, it could not have been anything else: there was no other way +to account for the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her +position during the middle watch. + +“A piece of bad luck for me, sir.” + +Sterne passed his tongue on his lips, and glanced aside. “I lost the +advantage of being employed by you, sir. I can never be sorry enough. +But here it is: one man’s poison, another man’s meat. This could not +have been handier for Mr. Massy if he had arranged that shipwreck +himself. The most timely total loss I’ve ever heard of.” + +“What became of that Massy?” asked Mr. Van Wyk. + +“He, sir? Ha! ha! He would keep on telling me that he meant to buy +another ship; but as soon as he had the money in his pocket he cleared +out for Manilla by mail-boat early in the morning. I gave him chase +right aboard, and he told me then he was going to make his fortune dead +sure in Manilla. I could go to the devil for all he cared. And yet he as +good as promised to give me the command if I didn’t talk too much.” + +“You never said anything . . .” Mr. Van Wyk began. + +“Not I, sir. Why should I? I mean to get on, but the dead aren’t in my +way,” said Sterne. His eyelids were beating rapidly, then drooped for an +instant. “Besides, sir, it would have been an awkward business. You made +me hold my tongue just a bit too long.” + +“Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley remained on board? Did he +really refuse to leave? Come now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?” + +“Nothing!” Sterne interrupted with energy. “I tell you I yelled for him +to leap overboard. He simply _must_ have cast off the painter of the +boat himself. We all yelled to him--that is, Jack and I. He wouldn’t +even answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last. Then the +boilers fetched away, and down she went. Accident! Not it! The game was +up, sir, I tell you.” + +This was all that Sterne had to say. + +Mr. Van Wyk had been of course made the guest of the club for a +fortnight, and it was there that he met the lawyer in whose office had +been signed the agreement between Massy and Captain Whalley. + +“Extraordinary old man,” he said. “He came into my office from nowhere +in particular as you may say, with his five hundred pounds to place, and +that engineer fellow following him anxiously. And now he is gone out +a little inexplicably, just as he came. I could never understand him +quite. There was no mystery at all about that Massy, eh? I wonder +whether Whalley refused to leave the ship. It would have been foolish. +He was blameless, as the court found.” + +Mr. Van Wyk had known him well, he said, and he could not believe in +suicide. Such an act would not have been in character with what he knew +of the man. + +“It is my opinion, too,” the lawyer agreed. The general theory was that +the captain had remained too long on board trying to save something of +importance. Perhaps the chart which would clear him, or else something +of value in his cabin. The painter of the boat had come adrift of itself +it was supposed. However, strange to say, some little time before that +voyage poor Whalley had called in his office and had left with him a +sealed envelope addressed to his daughter, to be forwarded to her in +case of his death. Still it was nothing very unusual, especially in a +man of his age. Mr. Van Wyk shook his head. Captain Whalley looked good +for a hundred years. + +“Perfectly true,” assented the lawyer. “The old fellow looked as though +he had come into the world full-grown and with that long beard. I could +never, somehow, imagine him either younger or older--don’t you know. +There was a sense of physical power about that man too. And perhaps that +was the secret of that something peculiar in his person which struck +everybody who came in contact with him. He looked indestructible by +any ordinary means that put an end to the rest of us. His deliberate, +stately courtesy of manner was full of significance. It was as though +he were certain of having plenty of time for everything. Yes, there was +something indestructible about him; and the way he talked sometimes you +might have thought he believed it himself. When he called on me last +with that letter he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed +at all. Perhaps a shade more deliberate in his talk and manner. Not +depressed in the least. Had he a presentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still +it seems a miserable end for such a striking figure.” + +“Oh yes! It was a miserable end,” Mr. Van Wyk said, with so much fervor +that the lawyer looked up at him curiously; and afterwards, after +parting with him, he remarked to an acquaintance-- + +“Queer person that Dutch tobacco-planter from Batu Beru. Know anything +of him?” + +“Heaps of money,” answered the bank manager. “I hear he’s going home +by the next mail to form a company to take over his estates. Another +tobacco district thrown open. He’s wise, I think. These good times won’t +last for ever.” + +In the southern hemisphere Captain Whalley’s daughter had no +presentiment of evil when she opened the envelope addressed to her in +the lawyer’s handwriting. She had received it in the afternoon; all the +boarders had gone out, her boys were at school, her husband sat upstairs +in his big arm-chair with a book, thin-faced, wrapped up in rugs to the +waist. The house was still, and the grayness of a cloudy day lay against +the panes of three lofty windows. + +In a shabby dining-room, where a faint cold smell of dishes lingered all +the year round, sitting at the end of a long table surrounded by +many chairs pushed in with their backs close against the edge of the +perpetually laid table-cloth, she read the opening sentence: “Most +profound regret--painful duty--your father is no more--in accordance +with his instructions--fatal casualty--consolation--no blame attached to +his memory. . . .” + +Her face was thin, her temples a little sunk under the smooth bands of +black hair, her lips remained resolutely compressed, while her dark eyes +grew larger, till at last, with a low cry, she stood up, and instantly +stooped to pick up another envelope which had slipped off her knees on +to the floor. + +She tore it open, snatched out the inclosure. . . . + +“My dearest child,” it said, “I am writing this while I am able yet to +write legibly. I am trying hard to save for you all the money that is +left; I have only kept it to serve you better. It is yours. It shall not +be lost: it shall not be touched. There’s five hundred pounds. Of what +I have earned I have kept nothing back till now. For the future, if I +live, I must keep back some--a little--to bring me to you. I must come +to you. I must see you once more. + +“It is hard to believe that you will ever look on these lines. God +seems to have forgotten me. I want to see you--and yet death would be +a greater favor. If you ever read these words, I charge you to begin by +thanking a God merciful at last, for I shall be dead then, and it will +be well. My dear, I am at the end of my tether.” + +The next paragraph began with the words: “My sight is going . . .” + +She read no more that day. The hand holding up the paper to her eyes +fell slowly, and her slender figure in a plain black dress walked +rigidly to the window. Her eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of +thanks went up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too hard, for all +the efforts of his love. It had silenced her emotions. But for the first +time in all these years its sting had departed, the carking care of +poverty, the meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image of +her husband and of her children seemed to glide away from her into the +gray twilight; it was her father’s face alone that she saw, as though he +had come to see her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but +with something more august and tender in his aspect. + +She slipped his folded letter between the two buttons of her plain black +bodice, and leaning her forehead against a window-pane remained there +till dusk, perfectly motionless, giving him all the time she could +spare. Gone! Was it possible? My God, was it possible! The blow had come +softened by the spaces of the earth, by the years of absence. There had +been whole days when she had not thought of him at all--had no time. But +she had loved him, she felt she had loved him, after all. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of End of the Tether, by Joseph Conrad + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK END OF THE TETHER *** + +***** This file should be named 527-0.txt or 527-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/527/ + +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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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/527-0.zip b/527-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2108f5e --- /dev/null +++ b/527-0.zip diff --git a/527-h.zip b/527-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1cb840c --- /dev/null +++ b/527-h.zip diff --git a/527-h/527-h.htm b/527-h/527-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0219610 --- /dev/null +++ b/527-h/527-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6584 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The End of the Tether, by Joseph Conrad + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of End of the Tether, 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: End of the Tether + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #527] +Last Updated: September 9, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK END OF THE TETHER *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE END OF THE TETHER + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Joseph Conrad + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII </a> + </p> + </td> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#linkeight"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XIV </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + For a long time after the course of the steamer <i>Sofala</i> had been + altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance of + a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays seemed to + fall violently upon the calm sea—seemed to shatter themselves upon + an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor of light + that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady brightness. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his Serang, approaching the roomy + cane arm-chair which he filled capably, had informed him in a low voice + that the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and had remained + on his feet, face forward, while the head of his ship swung through a + quarter of a circle. He had not uttered a single word, not even the word + to steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, little Malay, + with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the helmsman. And then + slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the arm-chair on the bridge and + fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet. + </p> + <p> + He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea. He had + been on these coasts for the last three years. From Low Cape to Malantan + the distance was fifty miles, six hours’ steaming for the old ship with + the tide, or seven against. Then you steered straight for the land, and + by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with + their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of the + dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber strip of the + coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with it obliquely, + would show several clean shining fractures—the brimful estuary of a + river. Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water and one part + black earth, on and on between the low shores, three parts black earth and + one part brackish water, the Sofala would plow her way up-stream, as she + had done once every month for these seven years or more, long before he + was aware of her existence, long before he had ever thought of having + anything to do with her and her invariable voyages. The old ship ought to + have known the road better than her men, who had not been kept so long at + it without a change; better than the faithful Serang, whom he had brought + over from his last ship to keep the captain’s watch; better than he + himself, who had been her captain for the last three years only. She could + always be depended upon to make her courses. Her compasses were never out. + She was no trouble at all to take about, as if her great age had given her + knowledge, wisdom, and steadiness. She made her landfalls to a degree of + the bearing, and almost to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, as + he sat on the bridge without looking up, or lay sleepless in his bed, + simply by reckoning the days and the hours he could tell where he was—the + precise spot of the beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous huckster’s + round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and its sights and its + people. Malacca to begin with, in at daylight and out at dusk, to cross + over with a rigid phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East. + Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black sky, perhaps the + lights of a home steamer keeping her unswerving course in the middle, or + maybe the elusive shadow of a native craft with her mat sails flitting by + silently—and the low land on the other side in sight at daylight. At + noon the three palms of the next place of call, up a sluggish river. The + only white man residing there was a retired young sailor, with whom he had + become friendly in the course of many voyages. Sixty miles farther on + there was another place of call, a deep bay with only a couple of houses + on the beach. And so on, in and out, picking up coastwise cargo here and + there, and finishing with a hundred miles’ steady steaming through the + maze of an archipelago of small islands up to a large native town at the + end of the beat. There was a three days’ rest for the old ship before he + started her again in inverse order, seeing the same shores from another + bearing, hearing the same voices in the same places, back again to the + Sofala’s port of registry on the great highway to the East, where he would + take up a berth nearly opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office + till it was time to start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty + days. Not a very enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry + Whalley, otherwise Dare-devil Harry—Whalley of the Condor, a famous + clipper in her day. No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had + served famous firms, who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of + them his own); who had made famous passages, had been the pioneer of new + routes and new trades; who had steered across the unsurveyed tracts of the + South Seas, and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty years at + sea, and forty out in the East (“a pretty thorough apprenticeship,” he + used to remark smilingly), had made him honorably known to a generation of + shipowners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear over to where + the East merges into the West upon the coast of the two Americas. His fame + remained writ, not very large but plain enough, on the Admiralty charts. + Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a Whalley Island and a + Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the celebrated clipper had + hung stranded for three days, her captain and crew throwing her cargo + overboard with one hand and with the other, as it were, keeping off her a + flotilla of savage war-canoes. At that time neither the island nor the + reef had any official existence. Later the officers of her Majesty’s steam + vessel Fusilier, dispatched to make a survey of the route, recognized in + the adoption of these two names the enterprise of the man and the solidity + of the ship. Besides, as anyone who cares may see, the “General + Directory,” vol. ii. p. 410, begins the description of the “Malotu or + Whalley Passage” with the words: “This advantageous route, first + discovered in 1850 by Captain Whalley in the ship Condor,” &c., and + ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels leaving the China ports + for the south in the months from December to April inclusive. + </p> + <p> + This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing could rob him of + this kind of fame. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez, like the breaking + of a dam, had let in upon the East a flood of new ships, new men, new + methods of trade. It had changed the face of the Eastern seas and the very + spirit of their life; so that his early experiences meant nothing whatever + to the new generation of seamen. + </p> + <p> + In those bygone days he had handled many thousands of pounds of his + employers’ money and of his own; he had attended faithfully, as by law a + shipmaster is expected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners, + charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship or consented to a + shady transaction; and he had lasted well, outlasting in the end the + conditions that had gone to the making of his name. He had buried his wife + (in the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to the man of her + unlucky choice, and had lost more than an ample competence in the crash of + the notorious Travancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose downfall + had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he was sixty-five years old. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin he was not ashamed. He + had not been alone to believe in the stability of the Banking Corporation. + Men whose judgment in matters of finance was as expert as his seamanship + had commended the prudence of his investments, and had themselves lost + much money in the great failure. The only difference between him and them + was that he had lost his all. And yet not his all. There had remained to + him from his lost fortune a very pretty little bark, Fair Maid, which he + had bought to occupy his leisure of a retired sailor—“to play with,” + as he expressed it himself. + </p> + <p> + He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the year preceding his + daughter’s marriage. But after the young couple had gone to settle in + Melbourne he found out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He + was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yachting to satisfy him. + He wanted the illusion of affairs; and his acquisition of the Fair Maid + preserved the continuity of his life. He introduced her to his + acquaintances in various ports as “my last command.” When he grew too old + to be trusted with a ship, he would lay her up and go ashore to be buried, + leaving directions in his will to have the bark towed out and scuttled + decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His daughter would not + grudge him the satisfaction of knowing that no stranger would handle his + last command after him. With the fortune he was able to leave her, the + value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. All this would be said + with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man had too much + vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little wistfully withal, + because he was at home in life, taking a genuine pleasure in its feelings + and its possessions; in the dignity of his reputation and his wealth, in + his love for his daughter, and in his satisfaction with the ship—the + plaything of his lonely leisure. + </p> + <p> + He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his simple ideal of comfort + at sea. A big bookcase (he was a great reader) occupied one side of his + stateroom; the portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting + representing the profile and one long black ringlet of a young woman, + faced his bed-place. Three chronometers ticked him to sleep and greeted + him on waking with the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five + every day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his early cup of + coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through the wide orifice of the copper + ventilators all the splashings, blowings, and splutterings of his + captain’s toilet. These noises would be followed by a sustained deep + murmur of the Lord’s Prayer recited in a loud earnest voice. Five minutes + afterwards the head and shoulders of Captain Whalley emerged out of the + companion-hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the stairs, + looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the trim of the sails; + inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air. Only then he would step out on + the poop, acknowledging the hand raised to the peak of the cap with a + majestic and benign “Good morning to you.” He walked the deck till eight + scrupulously. Sometimes, not above twice a year, he had to use a thick + cudgel-like stick on account of a stiffness in the hip—a slight + touch of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing of the ills of + the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast bell he went below to feed his + canaries, wind up the chronometers, and take the head of the table. From + there he had before his eyes the big carbon photographs of his daughter, + her husband, and two fat-legged babies —his grandchildren—set + in black frames into the maplewood bulkheads of the cuddy. After breakfast + he dusted the glass over these portraits himself with a cloth, and brushed + the oil painting of his wife with a plumate kept suspended from a small + brass hook by the side of the heavy gold frame. Then with the door of his + stateroom shut, he would sit down on the couch under the portrait to read + a chapter out of a thick pocket Bible—her Bible. But on some days he + only sat there for half an hour with his finger between the leaves and the + closed book resting on his knees. Perhaps he had remembered suddenly how + fond of boat-sailing she used to be. + </p> + <p> + She had been a real shipmate and a true woman too. It was like an article + of faith with him that there never had been, and never could be, a + brighter, cheerier home anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under the + poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold, + garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She had + decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers. It + took her a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor of love. To + him it had remained a marvel of painting, the highest achievement of taste + and skill; and as to old Swinburne, his mate, every time he came down to + his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the progress of the + work. You could almost smell these roses, he declared, sniffing the faint + flavor of turpentine which at that time pervaded the saloon, and (as he + confessed afterwards) made him somewhat less hearty than usual in tackling + his food. But there was nothing of the sort to interfere with his + enjoyment of her singing. “Mrs. Whalley is a regular out-and-out + nightingale, sir,” he would pronounce with a judicial air after listening + profoundly over the skylight to the very end of the piece. In fine + weather, in the second dog-watch, the two men could hear her trills and + roulades going on to the accompaniment of the piano in the cabin. On the + very day they got engaged he had written to London for the instrument; but + they had been married for over a year before it reached them, coming out + round the Cape. The big case made part of the first direct general cargo + landed in Hong-kong harbor—an event that to the men who walked the + busy quays of to-day seemed as hazily remote as the dark ages of history. + But Captain Whalley could in a half hour of solitude live again all his + life, with its romance, its idyl, and its sorrow. He had to close her eyes + himself. She went away from under the ensign like a sailor’s wife, a + sailor herself at heart. He had read the service over her, out of her own + prayer-book, without a break in his voice. When he raised his eyes he + could see old Swinburne facing him with his cap pressed to his breast, and + his rugged, weather-beaten, impassive face streaming with drops of water + like a lump of chipped red granite in a shower. It was all very well for + that old sea-dog to cry. He had to read on to the end; but after the + splash he did not remember much of what happened for the next few days. An + elderly sailor of the crew, deft at needlework, put together a mourning + frock for the child out of one of her black skirts. + </p> + <p> + He was not likely to forget; but you cannot dam up life like a sluggish + stream. It will break out and flow over a man’s troubles, it will close + upon a sorrow like the sea upon a dead body, no matter how much love has + gone to the bottom. And the world is not bad. People had been very kind to + him; especially Mrs. Gardner, the wife of the senior partner in Gardner, + Patteson, & Co., the owners of the Condor. It was she who volunteered + to look after the little one, and in due course took her to England + (something of a journey in those days, even by the overland mail route) + with her own girls to finish her education. It was ten years before he saw + her again. + </p> + <p> + As a little child she had never been frightened of bad weather; she would + beg to be taken up on deck in the bosom of his oilskin coat to watch the + big seas hurling themselves upon the Condor. The swirl and crash of the + waves seemed to fill her small soul with a breathless delight. “A good boy + spoiled,” he used to say of her in joke. He had named her Ivy because of + the sound of the word, and obscurely fascinated by a vague association of + ideas. She had twined herself tightly round his heart, and he intended her + to cling close to her father as to a tower of strength; forgetting, while + she was little, that in the nature of things she would probably elect to + cling to someone else. But he loved life well enough for even that event + to give him a certain satisfaction, apart from his more intimate feeling + of loss. + </p> + <p> + After he had purchased the Fair Maid to occupy his loneliness, he hastened + to accept a rather unprofitable freight to Australia simply for the + opportunity of seeing his daughter in her own home. What made him + dissatisfied there was not to see that she clung now to somebody else, but + that the prop she had selected seemed on closer examination “a rather poor + stick”—even in the matter of health. He disliked his son-in-law’s + studied civility perhaps more than his method of handling the sum of money + he had given Ivy at her marriage. But of his apprehensions he said + nothing. Only on the day of his departure, with the hall-door open + already, holding her hands and looking steadily into her eyes, he had + said, “You know, my dear, all I have is for you and the chicks. Mind you + write to me openly.” She had answered him by an almost imperceptible + movement of her head. She resembled her mother in the color of her eyes, + and in character—and also in this, that she understood him without + many words. + </p> + <p> + Sure enough she had to write; and some of these letters made Captain + Whalley lift his white eye-brows. For the rest he considered he was + reaping the true reward of his life by being thus able to produce on + demand whatever was needed. He had not enjoyed himself so much in a way + since his wife had died. Characteristically enough his son-in-law’s + punctuality in failure caused him at a distance to feel a sort of kindness + towards the man. The fellow was so perpetually being jammed on a lee shore + that to charge it all to his reckless navigation would be manifestly + unfair. No, no! He knew well what that meant. It was bad luck. His own had + been simply marvelous, but he had seen in his life too many good men—seamen + and others—go under with the sheer weight of bad luck not to + recognize the fatal signs. For all that, he was cogitating on the best way + of tying up very strictly every penny he had to leave, when, with a + preliminary rumble of rumors (whose first sound reached him in Shanghai as + it happened), the shock of the big failure came; and, after passing + through the phases of stupor, of incredulity, of indignation, he had to + accept the fact that he had nothing to speak of to leave. + </p> + <p> + Upon that, as if he had only waited for this catastrophe, the unlucky man, + away there in Melbourne, gave up his unprofitable game, and sat down—in + an invalid’s bath-chair at that too. “He will never walk again,” wrote the + wife. For the first time in his life Captain Whalley was a bit staggered. + </p> + <p> + The Fair Maid had to go to work in bitter earnest now. It was no longer a + matter of preserving alive the memory of Dare-devil Harry Whalley in the + Eastern Seas, or of keeping an old man in pocket-money and clothes, with, + perhaps, a bill for a few hundred first-class cigars thrown in at the end + of the year. He would have to buckle-to, and keep her going hard on a + scant allowance of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem and + stern. + </p> + <p> + This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world. Of + his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but the things + and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of Gardner, + Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses by the + waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business quarters + of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a Gardner or a + Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Captain Whalley an arm-chair + and a welcome in the private office, with a bit of business ready to be + put in the way of an old friend, for the sake of bygone services. The + husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks in that room where, + long after he had left the employ, he had kept his right of entrance in + the old man’s time. Their ships now had yellow funnels with black tops, + and a time-table of appointed routes like a confounded service of + tramways. The winds of December and June were all one to them; their + captains (excellent young men he doubted not) were, to be sure, familiar + with Whalley Island, because of late years the Government had established + a white fixed light on the north end (with a red danger sector over the + Condor Reef), but most of them would have been extremely surprised to hear + that a flesh-and-blood Whalley still existed—an old man going about + the world trying to pick up a cargo here and there for his little bark. + </p> + <p> + And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men who would have nodded + appreciatively at the mention of his name, and would have thought + themselves bound in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley. + Departed the opportunities which he would have known how to seize; and + gone with them the white-winged flock of clippers that lived in the + boisterous uncertain life of the winds, skimming big fortunes out of the + foam of the sea. In a world that pared down the profits to an irreducible + minimum, in a world that was able to count its disengaged tonnage twice + over every day, and in which lean charters were snapped up by cable three + months in advance, there were no chances of fortune for an individual + wandering haphazard with a little bark—hardly indeed any room to + exist. + </p> + <p> + He found it more difficult from year to year. He suffered greatly from the + smallness of remittances he was able to send his daughter. Meantime he had + given up good cigars, and even in the matter of inferior cheroots limited + himself to six a day. He never told her of his difficulties, and she never + enlarged upon her struggle to live. Their confidence in each other needed + no explanations, and their perfect understanding endured without + protestations of gratitude or regret. He would have been shocked if she + had taken it into her head to thank him in so many words, but he found it + perfectly natural that she should tell him she needed two hundred pounds. + </p> + <p> + He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look for a freight in the + Sofala’s port of registry, and her letter met him there. Its tenor was + that it was no use mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening a + boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, were good. Good + enough, at any rate, to make her tell him frankly that with two hundred + pounds she could make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily, on + deck, where it was handed to him by the ship-chandler’s runner, who had + brought his mail at the moment of anchoring. For the second time in his + life he was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door with the + paper trembling between his fingers. Open a boarding-house! Two hundred + pounds for a start! The only resource! And he did not know where to lay + his hands on two hundred pence. + </p> + <p> + All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of his anchored ship, as + though he had been about to close with the land in thick weather, and + uncertain of his position after a run of many gray days without a sight of + sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with the guiding lights of + seamen and the steady straight lines of lights on shore; and all around + the Fair Maid the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails upon the + water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a gleam anywhere till the + dawn broke and he found out that his clothing was soaked through with the + heavy dew. + </p> + <p> + His ship was awake. He stopped short, stroked his wet beard, and descended + the poop ladder backwards, with tired feet. At the sight of him the chief + officer, lounging about sleepily on the quarterdeck, remained open-mouthed + in the middle of a great early-morning yawn. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning to you,” pronounced Captain Whalley solemnly, passing into + the cabin. But he checked himself in the doorway, and without looking + back, “By the bye,” he said, “there should be an empty wooden case put + away in the lazarette. It has not been broken up—has it?” + </p> + <p> + The mate shut his mouth, and then asked as if dazed, “What empty case, + sir?” + </p> + <p> + “A big flat packing-case belonging to that painting in my room. Let it be + taken up on deck and tell the carpenter to look it over. I may want to use + it before long.” + </p> + <p> + The chief officer did not stir a limb till he had heard the door of the + captain’s state-room slam within the cuddy. Then he beckoned aft the + second mate with his forefinger to tell him that there was something “in + the wind.” + </p> + <p> + When the bell rang Captain Whalley’s authoritative voice boomed out + through a closed door, “Sit down and don’t wait for me.” And his impressed + officers took their places, exchanging looks and whispers across the + table. What! No breakfast? And after apparently knocking about all night + on deck, too! Clearly, there was something in the wind. In the skylight + above their heads, bowed earnestly over the plates, three wire cages + rocked and rattled to the restless jumping of the hungry canaries; and + they could detect the sounds of their “old man’s” deliberate movements + within his state-room. Captain Whalley was methodically winding up the + chronometers, dusting the portrait of his late wife, getting a clean white + shirt out of the drawers, making himself ready in his punctilious + unhurried manner to go ashore. He could not have swallowed a single + mouthful of food that morning. He had made up his mind to sell the Fair + Maid. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and wide for ships of + European build, and he had no difficulty in finding a purchaser, a + speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair Maid, + with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that Captain + Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the steps of one + of the most important post-offices of the East with a slip of bluish paper + in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter enclosing a draft + for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne. Captain Whalley pushed + the paper into his waistcoat-pocket, took his stick from under his arm, + and walked down the street. + </p> + <p> + It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with rudimentary + side-walks and a soft layer of dust cushioning the whole width of the + road. One end touched the slummy street of Chinese shops near the harbor, + the other drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of miles, + through patches of jungle-like vegetation, to the yard gates of the new + Consolidated Docks Company. The crude frontages of the new Government + buildings alternated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, and the view + of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to the broad vista. It was + empty and shunned by natives after business hours, as though they had + expected to see one of the tigers from the neighborhood of the New + Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping canter down the middle to get a + Chinese shopkeeper for supper. Captain Whalley was not dwarfed by the + solitude of the grandly planned street. He had too fine a presence for + that. He was only a lonely figure walking purposefully, with a great white + beard like a pilgrim, and with a thick stick that resembled a weapon. On + one side the new Courts of Justice had a low and unadorned portico of + squat columns half concealed by a few old trees left in the approach. On + the other the pavilion wings of the new Colonial Treasury came out to the + line of the street. But Captain Whalley, who had now no ship and no home, + remembered in passing that on that very site when he first came out from + England there had stood a fishing village, a few mat huts erected on piles + between a muddy tidal creek and a miry pathway that went writhing into a + tangled wilderness without any docks or waterworks. + </p> + <p> + No ship—no home. And his poor Ivy away there had no home either. A + boarding-house is no sort of home though it may get you a living. His + feelings were horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding-house. In his + rank of life he had that truly aristocratic temperament characterized by a + scorn of vulgar gentility and by prejudiced views as to the derogatory + nature of certain occupations. For his own part he had always preferred + sailing merchant ships (which is a straightforward occupation) to buying + and selling merchandise, of which the essence is to get the better of + somebody in a bargain—an undignified trial of wits at best. His + father had been Colonel Whalley (retired) of the H. E. I. Company’s + service, with very slender means besides his pension, but with + distinguished connections. He could remember as a boy how frequently + waiters at the inns, country tradesmen and small people of that sort, used + to “My lord” the old warrior on the strength of his appearance. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley himself (he would have entered the Navy if his father had + not died before he was fourteen) had something of a grand air which would + have suited an old and glorious admiral; but he became lost like a straw + in the eddy of a brook amongst the swarm of brown and yellow humanity + filling a thoroughfare, that by contrast with the vast and empty avenue he + had left seemed as narrow as a lane and absolutely riotous with life. The + walls of the houses were blue; the shops of the Chinamen yawned like + cavernous lairs; heaps of nondescript merchandise overflowed the gloom of + the long range of arcades, and the fiery serenity of sunset took the + middle of the street from end to end with a glow like the reflection of a + fire. It fell on the bright colors and the dark faces of the bare-footed + crowd, on the pallid yellow backs of the half-naked jostling coolies, on + the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper with a parted beard and fierce + mustaches on sentry before the gate of the police compound. Looming very + big above the heads in a red haze of dust, the tightly packed car of the + cable tramway navigated cautiously up the human stream, with the incessant + blare of its horn, in the manner of a steamer groping in a fog. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other side, and in the desert + shade between the walls of closed warehouses removed his hat to cool his + brow. A certain disrepute attached to the calling of a landlady of a + boarding-house. These women were said to be rapacious, unscrupulous, + untruthful; and though he contemned no class of his fellow-creatures—God + forbid!—these were suspicions to which it was unseemly that a + Whalley should lay herself open. He had not expostulated with her, + however. He was confident she shared his feelings; he was sorry for her; + he trusted her judgment; he considered it a merciful dispensation that he + could help her once more,—but in his aristocratic heart of hearts he + would have found it more easy to reconcile himself to the idea of her + turning seamstress. Vaguely he remembered reading years ago a touching + piece called the “Song of the Shirt.” It was all very well making songs + about poor women. The granddaughter of Colonel Whalley, the landlady of a + boarding-house! Pooh! He replaced his hat, dived into two pockets, and + stopping a moment to apply a flaring match to the end of a cheap cheroot, + blew an embittered cloud of smoke at a world that could hold such + surprises. + </p> + <p> + Of one thing he was certain—that she was the own child of a clever + mother. Now he had got over the wrench of parting with his ship, he + perceived clearly that such a step had been unavoidable. Perhaps he had + been growing aware of it all along with an unconfessed knowledge. But she, + far away there, must have had an intuitive perception of it, with the + pluck to face that truth and the courage to speak out—all the + qualities which had made her mother a woman of such excellent counsel. + </p> + <p> + It would have had to come to that in the end! It was fortunate she had + forced his hand. In another year or two it would have been an utterly + barren sale. To keep the ship going he had been involving himself deeper + every year. He was defenseless before the insidious work of adversity, to + whose more open assaults he could present a firm front; like a cliff that + stands unmoved the open battering of the sea, with a lofty ignorance of + the treacherous backwash undermining its base. As it was, every liability + satisfied, her request answered, and owing no man a penny, there remained + to him from the proceeds a sum of five hundred pounds put away safely. In + addition he had upon his person some forty odd dollars—enough to pay + his hotel bill, providing he did not linger too long in the modest bedroom + where he had taken refuge. + </p> + <p> + Scantily furnished, and with a waxed floor, it opened into one of the + side-verandas. The straggling building of bricks, as airy as a bird-cage, + resounded with the incessant flapping of rattan screens worried by the + wind between the white-washed square pillars of the sea-front. The rooms + were lofty, a ripple of sunshine flowed over the ceilings; and the + periodical invasions of tourists from some passenger steamer in the harbor + flitted through the wind-swept dusk of the apartments with the tumult of + their unfamiliar voices and impermanent presences, like relays of + migratory shades condemned to speed headlong round the earth without + leaving a trace. The babble of their irruptions ebbed out as suddenly as + it had arisen; the draughty corridors and the long chairs of the verandas + knew their sight-seeing hurry or their prostrate repose no more; and + Captain Whalley, substantial and dignified, left well-nigh alone in the + vast hotel by each light-hearted skurry, felt more and more like a + stranded tourist with no aim in view, like a forlorn traveler without a + home. In the solitude of his room he smoked thoughtfully, gazing at the + two sea-chests which held all that he could call his own in this world. A + thick roll of charts in a sheath of sailcloth leaned in a corner; the flat + packing-case containing the portrait in oils and the three carbon + photographs had been pushed under the bed. He was tired of discussing + terms, of assisting at surveys, of all the routine of the business. What + to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous + event involving a radically new view of existence. He knew that after this + ship there would be no other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of + his abilities, every feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been + indissolubly connected with ships. He had served ships; he had owned + ships; and even the years of his actual retirement from the sea had been + made bearable by the idea that he had only to stretch out his hand full of + money to get a ship. He had been at liberty to feel as though he were the + owner of all the ships in the world. The selling of this one was weary + work; but when she passed from him at last, when he signed the last + receipt, it was as though all the ships had gone out of the world + together, leaving him on the shore of inaccessible oceans with seven + hundred pounds in his hands. + </p> + <p> + Striding firmly, without haste, along the quay, Captain Whalley averted + his glances from the familiar roadstead. Two generations of seamen born + since his first day at sea stood between him and all these ships at the + anchorage. His own was sold, and he had been asking himself, What next? + </p> + <p> + From the feeling of loneliness, of inward emptiness,—and of loss + too, as if his very soul had been taken out of him forcibly,—there + had sprung at first a desire to start right off and join his daughter. + “Here are the last pence,” he would say to her; “take them, my dear. And + here’s your old father: you must take him too.” + </p> + <p> + His soul recoiled, as if afraid of what lay hidden at the bottom of this + impulse. Give up! Never! When one is thoroughly weary all sorts of + nonsense come into one’s head. A pretty gift it would have been for a poor + woman—this seven hundred pounds with the incumbrance of a hale old + fellow more than likely to last for years and years to come. Was he not as + fit to die in harness as any of the youngsters in charge of these anchored + ships out yonder? He was as solid now as ever he had been. But as to who + would give him work to do, that was another matter. Were he, with his + appearance and antecedents, to go about looking for a junior’s berth, + people, he was afraid, would not take him seriously; or else if he + succeeded in impressing them, he would maybe obtain their pity, which + would be like stripping yourself naked to be kicked. He was not anxious to + give himself away for less than nothing. He had no use for anybody’s pity. + On the other hand, a command—the only thing he could try for with + due regard for common decency—was not likely to be lying in wait for + him at the corner of the next street. Commands don’t go a-begging + nowadays. Ever since he had come ashore to carry out the business of the + sale he had kept his ears open, but had heard no hint of one being vacant + in the port. And even if there had been one, his successful past itself + stood in his way. He had been his own employer too long. The only + credential he could produce was the testimony of his whole life. What + better recommendation could anyone require? But vaguely he felt that the + unique document would be looked upon as an archaic curiosity of the + Eastern waters, a screed traced in obsolete words—in a + half-forgotten language. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Revolving these thoughts, he strolled on near the railings of the quay, + broad-chested, without a stoop, as though his big shoulders had never felt + the burden of the loads that must be carried between the cradle and the + grave. No single betraying fold or line of care disfigured the reposeful + modeling of his face. It was full and untanned; and the upper part + emerged, massively quiet, out of the downward flow of silvery hair, with + the striking delicacy of its clear complexion and the powerful width of + the forehead. The first cast of his glance fell on you candid and swift, + like a boy’s; but because of the ragged snowy thatch of the eyebrows the + affability of his attention acquired the character of a dark and searching + scrutiny. With age he had put on flesh a little, had increased his girth + like an old tree presenting no symptoms of decay; and even the opulent, + lustrous ripple of white hairs upon his chest seemed an attribute of + unquenchable vitality and vigor. + </p> + <p> + Once rather proud of his great bodily strength, and even of his personal + appearance, conscious of his worth, and firm in his rectitude, there had + remained to him, like the heritage of departed prosperity, the tranquil + bearing of a man who had proved himself fit in every sort of way for the + life of his choice. He strode on squarely under the projecting brim of an + ancient Panama hat. It had a low crown, a crease through its whole + diameter, a narrow black ribbon. Imperishable and a little discolored, + this headgear made it easy to pick him out from afar on thronged wharves + and in the busy streets. He had never adopted the comparatively modern + fashion of pipeclayed cork helmets. He disliked the form; and he hoped he + could manage to keep a cool head to the end of his life without all these + contrivances for hygienic ventilation. His hair was cropped close, his + linen always of immaculate whiteness; a suit of thin gray flannel, worn + threadbare but scrupulously brushed, floated about his burly limbs, adding + to his bulk by the looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed the + good-humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a temper carelessly + serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick accompanied his + footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones. It was impossible + to connect such a fine presence and this unruffled aspect with the + belittling troubles of poverty; the man’s whole existence appeared to pass + before you, facile and large, in the freedom of means as ample as the + clothing of his body. + </p> + <p> + The irrational dread of having to break into his five hundred pounds for + personal expenses in the hotel disturbed the steady poise of his mind. + There was no time to lose. The bill was running up. He nourished the hope + that this five hundred would perhaps be the means, if everything else + failed, of obtaining some work which, keeping his body and soul together + (not a matter of great outlay), would enable him to be of use to his + daughter. To his mind it was her own money which he employed, as it were, + in backing her father and solely for her benefit. Once at work, he would + help her with the greater part of his earnings; he was good for many years + yet, and this boarding-house business, he argued to himself, whatever the + prospects, could not be much of a gold-mine from the first start. But what + work? He was ready to lay hold of anything in an honest way so that it + came quickly to his hand; because the five hundred pounds must be + preserved intact for eventual use. That was the great point. With the + entire five hundred one felt a substance at one’s back; but it seemed to + him that should he let it dwindle to four-fifty or even four-eighty, all + the efficiency would be gone out of the money, as though there were some + magic power in the round figure. But what sort of work? + </p> + <p> + Confronted by that haunting question as by an uneasy ghost, for whom he + had no exorcising formula, Captain Whalley stopped short on the apex of a + small bridge spanning steeply the bed of a canalized creek with granite + shores. Moored between the square blocks a seagoing Malay prau floated + half hidden under the arch of masonry, with her spars lowered down, + without a sound of life on board, and covered from stem to stern with a + ridge of palm-leaf mats. He had left behind him the overheated pavements + bordered by the stone frontages that, like the sheer face of cliffs, + followed the sweep of the quays; and an unconfined spaciousness of orderly + and sylvan aspect opened before him its wide plots of rolled grass, like + pieces of green carpet smoothly pegged out, its long ranges of trees lined + up in colossal porticos of dark shafts roofed with a vault of branches. + </p> + <p> + Some of these avenues ended at the sea. It was a terraced shore; and + beyond, upon the level expanse, profound and glistening like the gaze of a + dark-blue eye, an oblique band of stippled purple lengthened itself + indefinitely through the gap between a couple of verdant twin islets. The + masts and spars of a few ships far away, hull down in the outer roads, + sprang straight from the water in a fine maze of rosy lines penciled on + the clear shadow of the eastern board. Captain Whalley gave them a long + glance. The ship, once his own, was anchored out there. It was staggering + to think that it was open to him no longer to take a boat at the jetty and + get himself pulled off to her when the evening came. To no ship. Perhaps + never more. Before the sale was concluded, and till the purchase-money had + been paid, he had spent daily some time on board the Fair Maid. The money + had been paid this very morning, and now, all at once, there was + positively no ship that he could go on board of when he liked; no ship + that would need his presence in order to do her work—to live. It + seemed an incredible state of affairs, something too bizarre to last. And + the sea was full of craft of all sorts. There was that prau lying so still + swathed in her shroud of sewn palm-leaves—she too had her + indispensable man. They lived through each other, this Malay he had never + seen, and this high-sterned thing of no size that seemed to be resting + after a long journey. And of all the ships in sight, near and far, each + was provided with a man, the man without whom the finest ship is a dead + thing, a floating and purposeless log. + </p> + <p> + After his one glance at the roadstead he went on, since there was nothing + to turn back for, and the time must be got through somehow. The avenues of + big trees ran straight over the Esplanade, cutting each other at diverse + angles, columnar below and luxuriant above. The interlaced boughs high up + there seemed to slumber; not a leaf stirred overhead: and the reedy + cast-iron lampposts in the middle of the road, gilt like scepters, + diminished in a long perspective, with their globes of white porcelain + atop, resembling a barbarous decoration of ostriches’ eggs displayed in a + row. The flaming sky kindled a tiny crimson spark upon the glistening + surface of each glassy shell. + </p> + <p> + With his chin sunk a little, his hands behind his back, and the end of his + stick marking the gravel with a faint wavering line at his heels, Captain + Whalley reflected that if a ship without a man was like a body without a + soul, a sailor without a ship was of not much more account in this world + than an aimless log adrift upon the sea. The log might be sound enough by + itself, tough of fiber, and hard to destroy—but what of that! And a + sudden sense of irremediable idleness weighted his feet like a great + fatigue. + </p> + <p> + A succession of open carriages came bowling along the newly opened + sea-road. You could see across the wide grass-plots the discs of vibration + made by the spokes. The bright domes of the parasols swayed lightly + outwards like full-blown blossoms on the rim of a vase; and the quiet + sheet of dark-blue water, crossed by a bar of purple, made a background + for the spinning wheels and the high action of the horses, whilst the + turbaned heads of the Indian servants elevated above the line of the sea + horizon glided rapidly on the paler blue of the sky. In an open space near + the little bridge each turn-out trotted smartly in a wide curve away from + the sunset; then pulling up sharp, entered the main alley in a long + slow-moving file with the great red stillness of the sky at the back. The + trunks of mighty trees stood all touched with red on the same side, the + air seemed aflame under the high foliage, the very ground under the hoofs + of the horses was red. The wheels turned solemnly; one after another the + sunshades drooped, folding their colors like gorgeous flowers shutting + their petals at the end of the day. In the whole half-mile of human beings + no voice uttered a distinct word, only a faint thudding noise went on + mingled with slight jingling sounds, and the motionless heads and + shoulders of men and women sitting in couples emerged stolidly above the + lowered hoods—as if wooden. But one carriage and pair coming late + did not join the line. + </p> + <p> + It fled along in a noiseless roll; but on entering the avenue one of the + dark bays snorted, arching his neck and shying against the steel-tipped + pole; a flake of foam fell from the bit upon the point of a satiny + shoulder, and the dusky face of the coachman leaned forward at once over + the hands taking a fresh grip of the reins. It was a long dark-green + landau, having a dignified and buoyant motion between the sharply curved + C-springs, and a sort of strictly official majesty in its supreme + elegance. It seemed more roomy than is usual, its horses seemed slightly + bigger, the appointments a shade more perfect, the servants perched + somewhat higher on the box. The dresses of three women—two young and + pretty, and one, handsome, large, of mature age—seemed to fill + completely the shallow body of the carriage. The fourth face was that of a + man, heavy lidded, distinguished and sallow, with a somber, thick, + iron-gray imperial and mustaches, which somehow had the air of solid + appendages. His Excellency— + </p> + <p> + The rapid motion of that one equipage made all the others appear utterly + inferior, blighted, and reduced to crawl painfully at a snail’s pace. The + landau distanced the whole file in a sort of sustained rush; the features + of the occupant whirling out of sight left behind an impression of fixed + stares and impassive vacancy; and after it had vanished in full flight as + it were, notwithstanding the long line of vehicles hugging the curb at a + walk, the whole lofty vista of the avenue seemed to lie open and emptied + of life in the enlarged impression of an august solitude. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley had lifted his head to look, and his mind, disturbed in + its meditation, turned with wonder (as men’s minds will do) to matters of + no importance. It struck him that it was to this port, where he had just + sold his last ship, that he had come with the very first he had ever + owned, and with his head full of a plan for opening a new trade with a + distant part of the Archipelago. The then governor had given him no end of + encouragement. No Excellency he—this Mr. Denham—this governor + with his jacket off; a man who tended night and day, so to speak, the + growing prosperity of the settlement with the self-forgetful devotion of a + nurse for a child she loves; a lone bachelor who lived as in a camp with + the few servants and his three dogs in what was called then the Government + Bungalow: a low-roofed structure on the half-cleared slope of a hill, with + a new flagstaff in front and a police orderly on the veranda. He + remembered toiling up that hill under a heavy sun for his audience; the + unfurnished aspect of the cool shaded room; the long table covered at one + end with piles of papers, and with two guns, a brass telescope, a small + bottle of oil with a feather stuck in the neck at the other—and the + flattering attention given to him by the man in power. It was an + undertaking full of risk he had come to expound, but a twenty minutes’ + talk in the Government Bungalow on the hill had made it go smoothly from + the start. And as he was retiring Mr. Denham, already seated before the + papers, called out after him, “Next month the Dido starts for a cruise + that way, and I shall request her captain officially to give you a look in + and see how you get on.” The Dido was one of the smart frigates on the + China station—and five-and-thirty years make a big slice of time. + Five-and-thirty years ago an enterprise like his had for the colony enough + importance to be looked after by a Queen’s ship. A big slice of time. + Individuals were of some account then. Men like himself; men, too, like + poor Evans, for instance, with his red face, his coal-black whiskers, and + his restless eyes, who had set up the first patent slip for repairing + small ships, on the edge of the forest, in a lonely bay three miles up the + coast. Mr. Denham had encouraged that enterprise too, and yet somehow poor + Evans had ended by dying at home deucedly hard up. His son, they said, was + squeezing oil out of cocoa-nuts for a living on some God-forsaken islet of + the Indian Ocean; but it was from that patent slip in a lonely wooded bay + that had sprung the workshops of the Consolidated Docks Company, with its + three graving basins carved out of solid rock, its wharves, its jetties, + its electric-light plant, its steam-power houses—with its gigantic + sheer-legs, fit to lift the heaviest weight ever carried afloat, and whose + head could be seen like the top of a queer white monument peeping over + bushy points of land and sandy promontories, as you approached the New + Harbor from the west. + </p> + <p> + There had been a time when men counted: there were not so many carriages + in the colony then, though Mr. Denham, he fancied, had a buggy. And + Captain Whalley seemed to be swept out of the great avenue by the swirl of + a mental backwash. He remembered muddy shores, a harbor without quays, the + one solitary wooden pier (but that was a public work) jutting out + crookedly, the first coal-sheds erected on Monkey Point, that caught fire + mysteriously and smoldered for days, so that amazed ships came into a + roadstead full of sulphurous smoke, and the sun hung blood-red at midday. + He remembered the things, the faces, and something more besides—like + the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the bottom, like a subtle sparkle of + the air that was not to be found in the atmosphere of to-day. + </p> + <p> + In this evocation, swift and full of detail like a flash of magnesium + light into the niches of a dark memorial hall, Captain Whalley + contemplated things once important, the efforts of small men, the growth + of a great place, but now robbed of all consequence by the greatness of + accomplished facts, by hopes greater still; and they gave him for a moment + such an almost physical grip upon time, such a comprehension of our + unchangeable feelings, that he stopped short, struck the ground with his + stick, and ejaculated mentally, “What the devil am I doing here!” He + seemed lost in a sort of surprise; but he heard his name called out in + wheezy tones once, twice—and turned on his heels slowly. + </p> + <p> + He beheld then, waddling towards him autocratically, a man of an + old-fashioned and gouty aspect, with hair as white as his own, but with + shaved, florid cheeks, wearing a necktie—almost a neckcloth—whose + stiff ends projected far beyond his chin; with round legs, round arms, a + round body, a round face—generally producing the effect of his short + figure having been distended by means of an air-pump as much as the seams + of his clothing would stand. This was the Master-Attendant of the port. A + master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor-master; a person, out in the + East, of some consequence in his sphere; a Government official, a + magistrate for the waters of the port, and possessed of vast but + ill-defined disciplinary authority over seamen of all classes. This + particular Master-Attendant was reported to consider it miserably + inadequate, on the ground that it did not include the power of life and + death. This was a jocular exaggeration. Captain Eliott was fairly + satisfied with his position, and nursed no inconsiderable sense of such + power as he had. His conceited and tyrannical disposition did not allow + him to let it dwindle in his hands for want of use. The uproarious, + choleric frankness of his comments on people’s character and conduct + caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended + not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the + mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him + “a meddlesome old ruffian.” But for almost all of them one of Captain + Eliott’s outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as a chance of + annihilation. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl— + </p> + <p> + “What’s this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you’re selling the Fair Maid?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done—money had + been paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of + such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to + stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick + looked well at the end of his time. Didn’t he? + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past. + </p> + <p> + The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an alpaca + jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and + appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only + to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight + before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At + the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge of + the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the + appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the + only other serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the prime of + life, was resolved to serve no one but his own auspicious Fortune. Far + away, tending his hot irons, he was glad to hear the other had been + successful. There was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that would + serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And they were so + dissimilar at bottom that as they came slowly to the end of the avenue + before the Cathedral, it had never come into Whalley’s head that he might + have been in that man’s place—provided for to the end of his days. + </p> + <p> + The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst the converging + avenues of enormous trees, as if to put grave thoughts of heaven into the + hours of ease, presented a closed Gothic portal to the light and glory of + the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed like fiery coal + in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. The two men faced about. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley,” growled Captain + Eliott suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “They ought to send a real live lord out here when Sir Frederick’s time is + up. Eh?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort + should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the other’s point + of view. + </p> + <p> + “No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. Good enough for a + lord,” he growled in short sentences. “Look at the changes in our time. We + need a lord here now. They have got a lord in Bombay.” + </p> + <p> + He dined once or twice every year at the Government House—a + many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. + And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant’s + steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had “most + obligingly” gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal + yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess + herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. Complexion quite + sunburnt. He should think ruined. Very gracious manners. They were going + on to Japan. . . . + </p> + <p> + He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley’s edification, pausing to + blow out his cheeks as if with a pent-up sense of importance, and + repeatedly protruding his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his + nose seemed to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran itself; it + was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except in its Marine department—in + its Marine department he repeated twice, and after a heavy snort began to + relate how the other day her Majesty’s Consul-General in French + Cochin-China had cabled to him—in his official capacity—asking + for a qualified man to be sent over to take charge of a Glasgow ship whose + master had died in Saigon. + </p> + <p> + “I sent word of it to the officers’ quarters in the Sailors’ Home,” he + continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated with + the increasing irritation of his voice. “Place’s full of them. Twice as + many men as there are berths going in the local trade. All hungry for an + easy job. Twice as many—and—What d’you think, Whalley? . . .” + </p> + <p> + He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed + ready to burst the pockets of his jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain + Whalley. + </p> + <p> + “Hey? You would think they would be falling over each other. Not a bit of + it. Frightened to go home. Nice and warm out here to lie about a veranda + waiting for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What did they + suppose? That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the + Consul-General’s cable before me? Not likely. So I looked up a list of + them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton—the worst loafer of + them all—and just made him go. Threatened to instruct the steward of + the Sailors’ Home to have him turned out neck and crop. He did not think + the berth was good enough—if—you—please. ‘I’ve your + little records by me,’ said I. ‘You came ashore here eighteen months ago, + and you haven’t done six months’ work since. You are in debt for your + board now at the Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay + in the end. Eh? So it shall; but if you don’t take this chance, away you + go to England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes + along. You are no better than a pauper. We don’t want any white paupers + here.’ I scared him. But look at the trouble all this gave me.” + </p> + <p> + “You would not have had any trouble,” Captain Whalley said almost + involuntarily, “if you had sent for me.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he walked. + But suddenly he stopped laughing. A vague recollection had crossed his + mind. Hadn’t he heard it said at the time of the Travancore and Deccan + smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely. “Fellow’s hard + up, by heavens!” he thought; and at once he cast a sidelong upward glance + at his companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling austerely straight + before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable in a penniless man—and + he became reassured. Impossible. Could not have lost everything. That ship + had been only a hobby of his. And the reflection that a man who had + confessed to receiving that very morning a presumably large sum of money + was not likely to spring upon him a demand for a small loan put him + entirely at his ease again. There had come a long pause in their talk, + however, and not knowing how to begin again, he growled out soberly, “We + old fellows ought to take a rest now.” + </p> + <p> + “The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar,” Captain + Whalley said negligently. + </p> + <p> + “Come, now. Aren’t you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?” + muttered the other sullenly. + </p> + <p> + “Are you?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung on to his berth so long + in order to get his pension on the highest scale before he went home. It + would be no better than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only thing + between him and the workhouse. And he had a family. Three girls, as + Whalley knew. He gave “Harry, old boy,” to understand that these three + girls were a source of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. Enough to + drive a man distracted. + </p> + <p> + “Why? What have they been doing now?” asked Captain Whalley with a sort of + amused absent-mindedness. + </p> + <p> + “Doing! Doing nothing. That’s just it. Lawn-tennis and silly novels from + morning to night. . . .” + </p> + <p> + If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! And, as ill-luck + would have it, there did not seem to be any decent young fellows left in + the world. When he looked around in the club he saw only a lot of + conceited popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman happy. + Extreme indigence stared him in the face with all that crowd to keep at + home. He had cherished the idea of building himself a little house in the + country—in Surrey—to end his days in, but he was afraid it was + out of the question, . . . and his staring eyes rolled upwards with such a + pathetic anxiety that Captain Whalley charitably nodded down at him, + restraining a sort of sickening desire to laugh. + </p> + <p> + “You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls are the very devil for + worry and anxiety.” + </p> + <p> + “Ay! But mine is doing well,” Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring + to the end of the avenue. + </p> + <p> + The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He remembered + her well. A pretty girl she was. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream. + </p> + <p> + “She was pretty.” + </p> + <p> + The procession of carriages was breaking up. + </p> + <p> + One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the + vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect of + dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide road. + A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a + varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed + no bigger than a child’s toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain + Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained; and + keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the conversation + from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again to the only + other topic in the world—the Marine Office, the men and the ships of + the port. + </p> + <p> + He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his thick + voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an enormous + bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or the + weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away. It + was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer. More + queer than any of Ned’s instances. Or was it that overpowering sense of + idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these stories. + Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually he seemed to + detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy rumble, something of + the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the Ringdove. He wondered + if he too had changed to the same extent; and it seemed to him that the + voice of his old chum had not changed so very much—that the man was + the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly Ned Eliott, friendly, well + up to his business—and always a bit of a humbug. He remembered how + he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read him like an open book. When + the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be in port together, she would + frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott to dinner. They had not met + often since those old days. Not once in five years, perhaps. He regarded + from under his white eyebrows this man he could not bring himself to take + into his confidence at this juncture; and the other went on with his + intimate outpourings, and as remote from his hearer as though he had been + talking on a hill-top a mile away. + </p> + <p> + He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately + every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss him + when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some retired + naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment—a man that + would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting craft + having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but the + trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular trip. + Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to order a man + to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on the demand of a + consul-general, but . . . + </p> + <p> + “What’s the matter with the ship?” Captain Whalley interrupted in measured + tones. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing’s the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my office + this afternoon tearing his hair.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he a white man?” asked Whalley in an interested voice. + </p> + <p> + “He calls himself a white man,” answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; + “but if so, it’s just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face + too.” + </p> + <p> + “But who is he, then?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s the chief engineer of her. See <i>that</i>, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. “The engineer. I see.” + </p> + <p> + How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a tale. + He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain Eliott + remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with his skipper + and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of him at all + costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out here, a + perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable to keep a + berth very long; pretty nigh went through every engine-room afloat + belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, “What do you think happened, + Harry?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum in + his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn’t imagine. The + Master-Attendant’s voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man + actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery. All + these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble. It + seemed to be a perfect mania with them all. + </p> + <p> + Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his money, + and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala, judged too + small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade she was in, could + be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had ordered a new steamer + from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man had never given any + signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere fact of getting hold of + a large sum of money may produce—not till he got a ship of his own; + but then he went off his balance all at once: came bouncing into the + Marine Office on some transfer business, with his hat hanging over his + left eye and switching a little cane in his hand, and told each one of the + clerks separately that “Nobody could put him out now. It was his turn. + There was no one over him on earth, and there never would be either.” He + swaggered and strutted between the desks, talking at the top of his voice, + and trembling like a leaf all the while, so that the current business of + the office was suspended for the time he was in there, and everybody in + the big room stood open-mouthed looking at his antics. Afterwards he could + be seen during the hottest hours of the day with his face as red as fire + rushing along up and down the quays to look at his ship from different + points of view: he seemed inclined to stop every stranger he came across + just to let them know “that there would be no longer anyone over him; he + had bought a ship; nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room + now.” + </p> + <p> + Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all + the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did + not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam coasting + trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of establishing + local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once organized, took + the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and by-and-by a squad of + confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez Canal and swept up all the + crumbs. They prowled on the cheap to and fro along the coast and between + the islands, like a lot of sharks in the water ready to snap up anything + you let drop. And then the high old times were over for good; for years + the Sofala had made no more, he judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott + looked upon it as his duty in every way to assist an English ship to hold + her own; and it stood to reason that if for want of a captain the Sofala + began to miss her trips she would very soon lose her trade. There was the + quandary. The man was too impracticable. “Too much of a beggar on + horseback from the first,” he explained. “Seemed to grow worse as the time + went on. In the last three years he’s run through eleven skippers; he had + tried every single man here, outside of the regular lines. I had warned + him before that this would not do. And now, of course, no one will look at + the Sofala. I had one or two men up at my office and talked to them; but, + as they said to me, what was the good of taking the berth to lead a + regular dog’s life for a month and then get the sack at the end of the + first trip? The fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there has + been a plot hatching for years against him. And now it had come. All the + horrid sailors in the port had conspired to bring him to his knees, + because he was an engineer.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle. + </p> + <p> + “And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips he need never + trouble himself to start again. He won’t find any cargo in his old trade. + There’s too much competition nowadays for people to keep their stuff lying + about for a ship that does not turn up when she’s expected. It’s a bad + lookout for him. He swears he will shut himself on board and starve to + death in his cabin rather than sell her—even if he could find a + buyer. And that’s not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would give + her insured value for her. It isn’t like selling sailing-ships. Steamers + <i>do</i> get out of date, besides getting old.” + </p> + <p> + “He must have laid by a good bit of money though,” observed Captain + Whalley quietly. + </p> + <p> + The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to an amazing size. + </p> + <p> + “Not a stiver, Harry. Not—a—single—sti-ver.” + </p> + <p> + He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his beard slowly, looked down + on the ground without a word, he tapped him on the forearm, tiptoed, and + said in a hoarse whisper— + </p> + <p> + “The Manilla lottery has been eating him up.” + </p> + <p> + He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were + going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships’ officers (“in my + port,” he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy had + been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after winning + once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try again to get + another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of tickets for every + drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance of affairs, ever + since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had been more or less + short of money. + </p> + <p> + This, in Captain Eliott’s opinion, gave an opening for a sensible + sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from the + consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his captains. + He had had some really good men too, who would have been too glad to stay + if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think he was no owner + unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and having a row with + the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him was a master with a + couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the ship on proper + conditions. You don’t discharge a man for no fault, only because of the + fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, when you know that + in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On the other hand, a + fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to throw up his job in a + huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He had said: “‘This won’t do, + Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you here in the Marine Office. What + you must do now is to try whether you could get a sailor to join you as + partner. That seems to be the only way.’ And that was sound advice, + Harry.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and + his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And + what did the fellow say to that? + </p> + <p> + The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had + received the advice in a most impudent manner. “I didn’t come here to be + laughed at,” he had shrieked. “I appeal to you as an Englishman and a + shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your + beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to go + and get a partner!” . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage on + the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? Was + he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot + ashore at the “Home” had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. The + very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . . “And it’s true + enough, Harry,” rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. “They are much more + likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the + clothes on their backs. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you make too much noise over it + for my taste, Mr. Massy. Good morning.’ He banged the door after him; he + dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!” + </p> + <p> + The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; then + recollecting himself as it were, “I’ll end by being late to dinner—yarning + with you here . . . wife doesn’t like it.” + </p> + <p> + He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only then + wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been doing with + himself of late. They had had no sight of each other for years and years + till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in the office. + </p> + <p> + What on earth . . . + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard. + </p> + <p> + “The earth is big,” he said vaguely. + </p> + <p> + The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round from his + driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; only from afar, from very far, + a long way from the seashore, across the stretches of grass, through the + long ranges of trees, came faintly the toot—toot—toot of the + cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle of the Public + Library on its three-mile journey to the New Harbor Docks. + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t seem to be so much room on it,” growled the Master-Attendant, + “since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not + so in our time.” + </p> + <p> + He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been + taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps he too, on his side, had detected in the + silent pilgrim-like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested + wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belonging to the young + captain of the Condor. Good fellow—Harry Whalley—never very + talkative. You never knew what he was up to—a bit too off-hand with + people of consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fellow’s actions. + Fact was he had a too good opinion of himself. He would have liked to tell + him to get in and drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife would + not like it. + </p> + <p> + “And it’s funny to think, Harry,” he went on in a big, subdued drone, + “that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to remember + this part of the world as it used to be . . .” + </p> + <p> + He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it not + struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without a word, + seemed to be awaiting something—perhaps expecting . . . He gathered + the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls— + </p> + <p> + “Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known—the ships we’ve sailed—ay! + and the things we’ve done . . .” + </p> + <p> + The pony plunged—the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley + raised his arm. + </p> + <p> + “Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + The sun had set. And when, after drilling a deep hole with his stick, he + moved from that spot the night had massed its army of shadows under the + trees. They filled the eastern ends of the avenues as if only waiting the + signal for a general advance upon the open spaces of the world; they were + gathering low between the deep stone-faced banks of the canal. The Malay + prau, half-concealed under the arch of the bridge, had not altered its + position a quarter of an inch. For a long time Captain Whalley stared down + over the parapet, till at last the floating immobility of that beshrouded + thing seemed to grow upon him into something inexplicable and alarming. + The twilight abandoned the zenith; its reflected gleams left the world + below, and the water of the canal seemed to turn into pitch. Captain + Whalley crossed it. + </p> + <p> + The turning to the right, which was his way to his hotel, was only a very + few steps farther. He stopped again (all the houses of the sea-front were + shut up, the quayside was deserted, but for one or two figures of natives + walking in the distance) and began to reckon the amount of his bill. So + many days in the hotel at so many dollars a day. To count the days he used + his fingers: plunging one hand into his pocket, he jingled a few silver + coins. All right for three days more; and then, unless something turned + up, he must break into the five hundred—Ivy’s money—invested + in her father. It seemed to him that the first meal coming out of that + reserve would choke him—for certain. Reason was of no use. It was a + matter of feeling. His feelings had never played him false. + </p> + <p> + He did not turn to the right. He walked on, as if there still had been a + ship in the roadstead to which he could get himself pulled off in the + evening. Far away, beyond the houses, on the slope of an indigo promontory + closing the view of the quays, the slim column of a factory-chimney smoked + quietly straight up into the clear air. A Chinaman, curled down in the + stern of one of the half-dozen sampans floating off the end of the jetty, + caught sight of a beckoning hand. He jumped up, rolled his pigtail round + his head swiftly, tucked in two rapid movements his wide dark trousers + high up his yellow thighs, and by a single, noiseless, finlike stir of the + oars, sheered the sampan alongside the steps with the ease and precision + of a swimming fish. + </p> + <p> + “Sofala,” articulated Captain Whalley from above; and the Chinaman, a new + emigrant probably, stared upwards with a tense attention as if waiting to + see the queer word fall visibly from the white man’s lips. “Sofala,” + Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him. He paused. + The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were dark: the + horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of the shore the + white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the telegraph-cable, stood + like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark spread of uneven roofs, + intermingled with palms, of the native town. Captain Whalley began again. + </p> + <p> + “Sofala. Savee So-fa-la, John?” + </p> + <p> + This time the Chinaman made out that bizarre sound, and grunted his assent + uncouthly, low down in his bare throat. With the first yellow twinkle of a + star that appeared like the head of a pin stabbed deep into the smooth, + pale, shimmering fabric of the sky, the edge of a keen chill seemed to + cleave through the warm air of the earth. At the moment of stepping into + the sampan to go and try for the command of the Sofala Captain Whalley + shivered a little. + </p> + <p> + When on his return he landed on the quay again Venus, like a choice jewel + set low on the hem of the sky, cast a faint gold trail behind him upon the + roadstead, as level as a floor made of one dark and polished stone. The + lofty vaults of the avenues were black—all black overhead—and + the porcelain globes on the lamp-posts resembled egg-shaped pearls, + gigantic and luminous, displayed in a row whose farther end seemed to sink + in the distance, down to the level of his knees. He put his hands behind + his back. He would now consider calmly the discretion of it before saying + the final word to-morrow. His feet scrunched the gravel loudly—the + discretion of it. It would have been easier to appraise had there been a + workable alternative. The honesty of it was indubitable: he meant well by + the fellow; and periodically his shadow leaped up intense by his side on + the trunks of the trees, to lengthen itself, oblique and dim, far over the + grass—repeating his stride. + </p> + <p> + The discretion of it. Was there a choice? He seemed already to have lost + something of himself; to have given up to a hungry specter something of + his truth and dignity in order to live. But his life was necessary. Let + poverty do its worst in exacting its toll of humiliation. It was certain + that Ned Eliott had rendered him, without knowing it, a service for which + it would have been impossible to ask. He hoped Ned would not think there + had been something underhand in his action. He supposed that now when he + heard of it he would understand—or perhaps he would only think + Whalley an eccentric old fool. What would have been the good of telling + him—any more than of blurting the whole tale to that man Massy? Five + hundred pounds ready to invest. Let him make the best of that. Let him + wonder. You want a captain—I want a ship. That’s enough. B-r-r-r-r. + What a disagreeable impression that empty, dark, echoing steamer had made + upon him. . . . + </p> + <p> + A laid-up steamer was a dead thing and no mistake; a sailing-ship somehow + seems always ready to spring into life with the breath of the + incorruptible heaven; but a steamer, thought Captain Whalley, with her + fires out, without the warm whiffs from below meeting you on her decks, + without the hiss of steam, the clangs of iron in her breast—lies + there as cold and still and pulseless as a corpse. + </p> + <p> + In the solitude of the avenue, all black above and lighted below, Captain + Whalley, considering the discretion of his course, met, as it were + incidentally, the thought of death. He pushed it aside with dislike and + contempt. He almost laughed at it; and in the unquenchable vitality of his + age only thought with a kind of exultation how little he needed to keep + body and soul together. Not a bad investment for the poor woman this solid + carcass of her father. And for the rest—in case of anything—the + agreement should be clear: the whole five hundred to be paid back to her + integrally within three months. Integrally. Every penny. He was not to + lose any of her money whatever else had to go—a little dignity—some + of his self-respect. He had never before allowed anybody to remain under + any sort of false impression as to himself. Well, let that go—for + her sake. After all, he had never <i>said</i> anything misleading—and + Captain Whalley felt himself corrupt to the marrow of his bones. He + laughed a little with the intimate scorn of his worldly prudence. Clearly, + with a fellow of that sort, and in the peculiar relation they were to + stand to each other, it would not have done to blurt out everything. He + did not like the fellow. He did not like his spells of fawning loquacity + and bursts of resentfulness. In the end—a poor devil. He would not + have liked to stand in his shoes. Men were not evil, after all. He did not + like his sleek hair, his queer way of standing at right angles, with his + nose in the air, and glancing along his shoulder at you. No. On the whole, + men were not bad—they were only silly or unhappy. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley had finished considering the discretion of that step—and + there was the whole long night before him. In the full light his long + beard would glisten like a silver breastplate covering his heart; in the + spaces between the lamps his burly figure passed less distinct, loomed + very big, wandering, and mysterious. No; there was not much real harm in + men: and all the time a shadow marched with him, slanting on his left hand—which + in the East is a presage of evil. + </p> + <p> + . . . . . . . + </p> + <p> + “Can you make out the clump of palms yet, Serang?” asked Captain Whalley + from his chair on the bridge of the Sofala approaching the bar of Batu + Beru. + </p> + <p> + “No, Tuan. By-and-by see.” The old Malay, in a blue dungaree suit, planted + on his bony dark feet under the bridge awning, put his hands behind his + back and stared ahead out of the innumerable wrinkles at the corners of + his eyes. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley sat still, without lifting his head to look for himself. + Three years—thirty-six times. He had made these palms thirty-six + times from the southward. They would come into view at the proper time. + Thank God, the old ship made her courses and distances trip after trip, as + correct as clockwork. At last he murmured again— + </p> + <p> + “In sight yet?” + </p> + <p> + “The sun makes a very great glare, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + “Watch well, Serang.” + </p> + <p> + “Ya, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + A white man had ascended the ladder from the deck noiselessly, and had + listened quietly to this short colloquy. Then he stepped out on the bridge + and began to walk from end to end, holding up the long cherrywood stem of + a pipe. His black hair lay plastered in long lanky wisps across the bald + summit of his head; he had a furrowed brow, a yellow complexion, and a + thick shapeless nose. A scanty growth of whisker did not conceal the + contour of his jaw. His aspect was of brooding care; and sucking at a + curved black mouthpiece, he presented such a heavy overhanging profile + that even the Serang could not help reflecting sometimes upon the extreme + unloveliness of some white men. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley seemed to brace himself up in his chair, but gave no + recognition whatever to his presence. The other puffed jets of smoke; then + suddenly— + </p> + <p> + “I could never understand that new mania of yours of having this Malay + here for your shadow, partner.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley got up from the chair in all his imposing stature and + walked across to the binnacle, holding such an unswerving course that the + other had to back away hurriedly, and remained as if intimidated, with the + pipe trembling in his hand. “Walk over me now,” he muttered in a sort of + astounded and discomfited whisper. Then slowly and distinctly he said— + </p> + <p> + “I—am—not—dirt.” And then added defiantly, “As you seem + to think.” + </p> + <p> + The Serang jerked out— + </p> + <p> + “See the palms now, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley strode forward to the rail; but his eyes, instead of going + straight to the point, with the assured keen glance of a sailor, wandered + irresolutely in space, as though he, the discoverer of new routes, had + lost his way upon this narrow sea. + </p> + <p> + Another white man, the mate, came up on the bridge. He was tall, young, + lean, with a mustache like a trooper, and something malicious in the eye. + He took up a position beside the engineer. Captain Whalley, with his back + to them, inquired— + </p> + <p> + “What’s on the log?” + </p> + <p> + “Eighty-five,” answered the mate quickly, and nudged the engineer with his + elbow. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley’s muscular hands squeezed the iron rail with an + extraordinary force; his eyes glared with an enormous effort; he knitted + his eyebrows, the perspiration fell from under his hat,—and in a + faint voice he murmured, “Steady her, Serang—when she is on the + proper bearing.” + </p> + <p> + The silent Malay stepped back, waited a little, and lifted his arm + warningly to the helmsman. The wheel revolved rapidly to meet the swing of + the ship. Again the mate nudged the engineer. But Massy turned upon him. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Sterne,” he said violently, “let me tell you—as a shipowner—that + you are no better than a confounded fool.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + Sterne went down smirking and apparently not at all disconcerted, but the + engineer Massy remained on the bridge, moving about with uneasy + self-assertion. Everybody on board was his inferior—everyone without + exception. He paid their wages and found them in their food. They ate more + of his bread and pocketed more of his money than they were worth; and they + had no care in the world, while he alone had to meet all the difficulties + of shipowning. When he contemplated his position in all its menacing + entirety, it seemed to him that he had been for years the prey of a band + of parasites: and for years he had scowled at everybody connected with the + Sofala except, perhaps, at the Chinese firemen who served to get her + along. Their use was manifest: they were an indispensable part of the + machinery of which he was the master. + </p> + <p> + When he passed along his decks he shouldered those he came across + brutally; but the Malay deck hands had learned to dodge out of his way. He + had to bring himself to tolerate them because of the necessary manual + labor of the ship which must be done. He had to struggle and plan and + scheme to keep the Sofala afloat—and what did he get for it? Not + even enough respect. They could not have given him enough of that if all + their thoughts and all their actions had been directed to that end. The + vanity of possession, the vainglory of power, had passed away by this + time, and there remained only the material embarrassments, the fear of + losing that position which had turned out not worth having, and an anxiety + of thought which no abject subservience of men could repay. + </p> + <p> + He walked up and down. The bridge was his own after all. He had paid for + it; and with the stem of the pipe in his hand he would stop short at times + as if to listen with a profound and concentrated attention to the deadened + beat of the engines (his own engines) and the slight grinding of the + steering chains upon the continuous low wash of water alongside. But for + these sounds, the ship might have been lying as still as if moored to a + bank, and as silent as if abandoned by every living soul; only the coast, + the low coast of mud and mangroves with the three palms in a bunch at the + back, grew slowly more distinct in its long straight line, without a + single feature to arrest attention. The native passengers of the Sofala + lay about on mats under the awnings; the smoke of her funnel seemed the + only sign of her life and connected with her gliding motion in a + mysterious manner. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley on his feet, with a pair of binoculars in his hand and the + little Malay Serang at his elbow, like an old giant attended by a wizened + pigmy, was taking her over the shallow water of the bar. + </p> + <p> + This submarine ridge of mud, scoured by the stream out of the soft bottom + of the river and heaped up far out on the hard bottom of the sea, was + difficult to get over. The alluvial coast having no distinguishing marks, + the bearings of the crossing-place had to be taken from the shape of the + mountains inland. The guidance of a form flattened and uneven at the top + like a grinder tooth, and of another smooth, saddle-backed summit, had to + be searched for within the great unclouded glare that seemed to shift and + float like a dry fiery mist, filling the air, ascending from the water, + shrouding the distances, scorching to the eye. In this veil of light the + near edge of the shore alone stood out almost coal-black with an opaque + and motionless solidity. Thirty miles away the serrated range of the + interior stretched across the horizon, its outlines and shades of blue, + faint and tremulous like a background painted on airy gossamer on the + quivering fabric of an impalpable curtain let down to the plain of + alluvial soil; and the openings of the estuary appeared, shining white, + like bits of silver let into the square pieces snipped clean and sharp out + of the body of the land bordered with mangroves. + </p> + <p> + On the forepart of the bridge the giant and the pigmy muttered to each + other frequently in quiet tones. Behind them Massy stood sideways with an + expression of disdain and suspense on his face. His globular eyes were + perfectly motionless, and he seemed to have forgotten the long pipe he + held in his hand. + </p> + <p> + On the fore-deck below the bridge, steeply roofed with the white slopes of + the awnings, a young lascar seaman had clambered outside the rail. He + adjusted quickly a broad band of sail canvas under his armpits, and + throwing his chest against it, leaned out far over the water. The sleeves + of his thin cotton shirt, cut off close to the shoulder, bared his brown + arm of full rounded form and with a satiny skin like a woman’s. He swung + it rigidly with the rotary and menacing action of a slinger: the 14-lb. + weight hurtled circling in the air, then suddenly flew ahead as far as the + curve of the bow. The wet thin line swished like scratched silk running + through the dark fingers of the man, and the plunge of the lead close to + the ship’s side made a vanishing silvery scar upon the golden glitter; + then after an interval the voice of the young Malay uplifted and + long-drawn declared the depth of the water in his own language. + </p> + <p> + “Tiga stengah,” he cried after each splash and pause, gathering the line + busily for another cast. “Tiga stengah,” which means three fathom and a + half. For a mile or so from seaward there was a uniform depth of water + right up to the bar. “Half-three. Half-three. Half-three,”—and his + modulated cry, returned leisurely and monotonous, like the repeated call + of a bird, seemed to float away in sunshine and disappear in the spacious + silence of the empty sea and of a lifeless shore lying open, north and + south, east and west, without the stir of a single cloud-shadow or the + whisper of any other voice. + </p> + <p> + The owner-engineer of the Sofala remained very still behind the two seamen + of different race, creed, and color; the European with the time-defying + vigor of his old frame, the little Malay, old, too, but slight and + shrunken like a withered brown leaf blown by a chance wind under the + mighty shadow of the other. Very busy looking forward at the land, they + had not a glance to spare; and Massy, glaring at them from behind, seemed + to resent their attention to their duty like a personal slight upon + himself. + </p> + <p> + This was unreasonable; but he had lived in his own world of unreasonable + resentments for many years. At last, passing his moist palm over the rare + lanky wisps of coarse hair on the top of his yellow head, he began to talk + slowly. + </p> + <p> + “A leadsman, you want! I suppose that’s your correct mail-boat style. + Haven’t you enough judgment to tell where you are by looking at the land? + Why, before I had been a twelvemonth in the trade I was up to that trick—and + I am only an engineer. I can point to you from here where the bar is, and + I could tell you besides that you are as likely as not to stick her in the + mud in about five minutes from now; only you would call it interfering, I + suppose. And there’s that written agreement of ours, that says I mustn’t + interfere.” + </p> + <p> + His voice stopped. Captain Whalley, without relaxing the set severity of + his features, moved his lips to ask in a quick mumble— + </p> + <p> + “How near, Serang?” + </p> + <p> + “Very near now, Tuan,” the Malay muttered rapidly. + </p> + <p> + “Dead slow,” said the Captain aloud in a firm tone. + </p> + <p> + The Serang snatched at the handle of the telegraph. A gong clanged down + below. Massy with a scornful snigger walked off and put his head down the + engineroom skylight. + </p> + <p> + “You may expect some rare fooling with the engines, Jack,” he bellowed. + The space into which he stared was deep and full of gloom; and the gray + gleams of steel down there seemed cool after the intense glare of the sea + around the ship. The air, however, came up clammy and hot on his face. A + short hoot on which it would have been impossible to put any sort of + interpretation came from the bottom cavernously. This was the way in which + the second engineer answered his chief. + </p> + <p> + He was a middle-aged man with an inattentive manner, and apparently + wrapped up in such a taciturn concern for his engines that he seemed to + have lost the use of speech. When addressed directly his only answer would + be a grunt or a hoot, according to the distance. For all the years he had + been in the Sofala he had never been known to exchange as much as a frank + Good-morning with any of his shipmates. He did not seem aware that men + came and went in the world; he did not seem to see them at all. Indeed he + never recognized his ship mates on shore. At table (the four white men of + the Sofala messed together) he sat looking into his plate dispassionately, + but at the end of the meal would jump up and bolt down below as if a + sudden thought had impelled him to rush and see whether somebody had not + stolen the engines while he dined. In port at the end of the trip he went + ashore regularly, but no one knew where he spent his evenings or in what + manner. The local coasting fleet had preserved a wild and incoherent tale + of his infatuation for the wife of a sergeant in an Irish infantry + regiment. The regiment, however, had done its turn of garrison duty there + ages before, and was gone somewhere to the other side of the earth, out of + men’s knowledge. Twice or perhaps three times in the course of the year he + would take too much to drink. On these occasions he returned on board at + an earlier hour than usual; ran across the deck balancing himself with his + spread arms like a tight-rope walker; and locking the door of his cabin, + he would converse and argue with himself the livelong night in an amazing + variety of tones; storm, sneer, and whine with an inexhaustible + persistence. Massy in his berth next door, raising himself on his elbow, + would discover that his second had remembered the name of every white man + that had passed through the Sofala for years and years back. He remembered + the names of men that had died, that had gone home, that had gone to + America: he remembered in his cups the names of men whose connection with + the ship had been so short that Massy had almost forgotten its + circumstances and could barely recall their faces. The inebriated voice on + the other side of the bulkhead commented upon them all with an + extraordinary and ingenious venom of scandalous inventions. It seems they + had all offended him in some way, and in return he had found them all out. + He muttered darkly; he laughed sardonically; he crushed them one after + another; but of his chief, Massy, he babbled with an envious and naive + admiration. Clever scoundrel! Don’t meet the likes of him every day. Just + look at him. Ha! Great! Ship of his own. Wouldn’t catch <i>him</i> going + wrong. No fear—the beast! And Massy, after listening with a + gratified smile to these artless tributes to his greatness, would begin to + shout, thumping at the bulkhead with both fists— + </p> + <p> + “Shut up, you lunatic! Won’t you let me go to sleep, you fool!” + </p> + <p> + But a half smile of pride lingered on his lips; outside the solitary + lascar told off for night duty in harbor, perhaps a youth fresh from a + forest village, would stand motionless in the shadows of the deck + listening to the endless drunken gabble. His heart would be thumping with + breathless awe of white men: the arbitrary and obstinate men who pursue + inflexibly their incomprehensible purposes,—beings with weird + intonations in the voice, moved by unaccountable feelings, actuated by + inscrutable motives. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="linkeight" id="linkeight"></a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + For a while after his second’s answering hoot Massy hung over the + engine-room gloomily. Captain Whalley, who, by the power of five hundred + pounds, had kept his command for three years, might have been suspected of + never having seen that coast before. He seemed unable to put down his + glasses, as though they had been glued under his contracted eyebrows. This + settled frown gave to his face an air of invincible and just severity; but + his raised elbow trembled slightly, and the perspiration poured from under + his hat as if a second sun had suddenly blazed up at the zenith by the + side of the ardent still globe already there, in whose blinding white heat + the earth whirled and shone like a mote of dust. + </p> + <p> + From time to time, still holding up his glasses, he raised his other hand + to wipe his streaming face. The drops rolled down his cheeks, fell like + rain upon the white hairs of his beard, and brusquely, as if guided by an + uncontrollable and anxious impulse, his arm reached out to the stand of + the engine-room telegraph. + </p> + <p> + The gong clanged down below. The balanced vibration of the dead-slow speed + ceased together with every sound and tremor in the ship, as if the great + stillness that reigned upon the coast had stolen in through her sides of + iron and taken possession of her innermost recesses. The illusion of + perfect immobility seemed to fall upon her from the luminous blue dome + without a stain arching over a flat sea without a stir. The faint breeze + she had made for herself expired, as if all at once the air had become too + thick to budge; even the slight hiss of the water on her stem died out. + The narrow, long hull, carrying its way without a ripple, seemed to + approach the shoal water of the bar by stealth. The plunge of the lead + with the mournful, mechanical cry of the lascar came at longer and longer + intervals; and the men on her bridge seemed to hold their breath. The + Malay at the helm looked fixedly at the compass card, the Captain and the + Serang stared at the coast. + </p> + <p> + Massy had left the skylight, and, walking flat-footed, had returned softly + to the very spot on the bridge he had occupied before. A slow, lingering + grin exposed his set of big white teeth: they gleamed evenly in the shade + of the awning like the keyboard of a piano in a dusky room. + </p> + <p> + At last, pretending to talk to himself in excessive astonishment, he said + not very loud— + </p> + <p> + “Stop the engines now. What next, I wonder?” + </p> + <p> + He waited, stooping from the shoulders, his head bowed, his glance + oblique. Then raising his voice a shade— + </p> + <p> + “If I dared make an absurd remark I would say that you haven’t the stomach + to . . .” + </p> + <p> + But a yelling spirit of excitement, like some frantic soul wandering + unsuspected in the vast stillness of the coast, had seized upon the body + of the lascar at the lead. The languid monotony of his sing-song changed + to a swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single whir, the line + whistled, splash followed splash in haste. The water had shoaled, and the + man, instead of the drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the soundings + in feet. + </p> + <p> + “Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, fourteen . . .” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses. It descended slowly + as if by its own weight; no other part of his towering body stirred; and + the swift cries with their eager warning note passed him by as though he + had been deaf. + </p> + <p> + Massy, very still, and turning an attentive ear, had fastened his eyes + upon the silvery, close-cropped back of the steady old head. The ship + herself seemed to be arrested but for the gradual decrease of depth under + her keel. + </p> + <p> + “Thirteen feet . . . Thirteen! Twelve!” cried the leadsman anxiously below + the bridge. And suddenly the barefooted Serang stepped away noiselessly to + steal a glance over the side. + </p> + <p> + Narrow of shoulder, in a suit of faded blue cotton, an old gray felt hat + rammed down on his head, with a hollow in the nape of his dark neck, and + with his slender limbs, he appeared from the back no bigger than a boy of + fourteen. There was a childlike impulsiveness in the curiosity with which + he watched the spread of the voluminous, yellowish convolutions rolling up + from below to the surface of the blue water like massive clouds driving + slowly upwards on the unfathomable sky. He was not startled at the sight + in the least. It was not doubt, but the certitude that the keel of the + Sofala must be stirring the mud now, which made him peep over the side. + </p> + <p> + His peering eyes, set aslant in a face of the Chinese type, a little old + face, immovable, as if carved in old brown oak, had informed him long + before that the ship was not headed at the bar properly. Paid off from the + Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after the completion of the + sale, he had hung, in his faded blue suit and floppy gray hat, about the + doors of the Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain Whalley coming + along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put himself quietly in the way, + with his bare feet in the dust and an upward mute glance. The eyes of his + old commander had fallen on him favorably—it must have been an + auspicious day—and in less than half an hour the white men in the + “Ofiss” had written his name on a document as Serang of the fire-ship + Sofala. Since that time he had repeatedly looked at that estuary, upon + that coast, from this bridge and from this side of the bar. The record of + the visual world fell through his eyes upon his unspeculating mind as on a + sensitized plate through the lens of a camera. His knowledge was absolute + and precise; nevertheless, had he been asked his opinion, and especially + if questioned in the downright, alarming manner of white men, he would + have displayed the hesitation of ignorance. He was certain of his facts—but + such a certitude counted for little against the doubt what answer would be + pleasing. Fifty years ago, in a jungle village, and before he was a day + old, his father (who died without ever seeing a white face) had had his + nativity cast by a man of skill and wisdom in astrology, because in the + arrangement of the stars may be read the last word of human destiny. His + destiny had been to thrive by the favor of various white men on the sea. + He had swept the decks of ships, had tended their helms, had minded their + stores, had risen at last to be a Serang; and his placid mind had remained + as incapable of penetrating the simplest motives of those he served as + they themselves were incapable of detecting through the crust of the earth + the secret nature of its heart, which may be fire or may be stone. But he + had no doubt whatever that the Sofala was out of the proper track for + crossing the bar at Batu Beru. + </p> + <p> + It was a slight error. The ship could not have been more than twice her + own length too far to the northward; and a white man at a loss for a cause + (since it was impossible to suspect Captain Whalley of blundering + ignorance, of want of skill, or of neglect) would have been inclined to + doubt the testimony of his senses. It was some such feeling that kept + Massy motionless, with his teeth laid bare by an anxious grin. Not so the + Serang. He was not troubled by any intellectual mistrust of his senses. If + his captain chose to stir the mud it was well. He had known in his life + white men indulge in outbreaks equally strange. He was only genuinely + interested to see what would come of it. At last, apparently satisfied, he + stepped back from the rail. + </p> + <p> + He had made no sound: Captain Whalley, however, seemed to have observed + the movements of his Serang. Holding his head rigidly, he asked with a + mere stir of his lips— + </p> + <p> + “Going ahead still, Serang?” + </p> + <p> + “Still going a little, Tuan,” answered the Malay. Then added casually, + “She is over.” + </p> + <p> + The lead confirmed his words; the depth of water increased at every cast, + and the soul of excitement departed suddenly from the lascar swung in the + canvas belt over the Sofala’s side. Captain Whalley ordered the lead in, + set the engines ahead without haste, and averting his eyes from the coast + directed the Serang to keep a course for the middle of the entrance. + </p> + <p> + Massy brought the palm of his hand with a loud smack against his thigh. + </p> + <p> + “You grazed on the bar. Just look astern and see if you didn’t. Look at + the track she left. You can see it plainly. Upon my soul, I thought you + would! What made you do that? What on earth made you do that? I believe + you are trying to scare me.” + </p> + <p> + He talked slowly, as it were circumspectly, keeping his prominent black + eyes on his captain. There was also a slight plaintive note in his rising + choler, for, primarily, it was the clear sense of a wrong suffered + undeservedly that made him hate the man who, for a beggarly five hundred + pounds, claimed a sixth part of the profits under the three years’ + agreement. Whenever his resentment got the better of the awe the person of + Captain Whalley inspired he would positively whimper with fury. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t know what to invent to plague my life out of me. I would not + have thought that a man of your sort would condescend . . .” + </p> + <p> + He paused, half hopefully, half timidly, whenever Captain Whalley made the + slightest movement in the deck-chair, as though expecting to be + conciliated by a soft speech or else rushed upon and hunted off the + bridge. + </p> + <p> + “I am puzzled,” he went on again, with the watchful unsmiling baring of + his big teeth. “I don’t know what to think. I do believe you are trying to + frighten me. You very nearly planted her on the bar for at least twelve + hours, besides getting the engines choked with mud. Ships can’t afford to + lose twelve hours on a trip nowadays—as you ought to know very well, + and do know very well to be sure, only . . .” + </p> + <p> + His slow volubility, the sideways cranings of his neck, the black glances + out of the very corners of his eyes, left Captain Whalley unmoved. He + looked at the deck with a severe frown. Massy waited for some little time, + then began to threaten plaintively. + </p> + <p> + “You think you’ve got me bound hand and foot in that agreement. You think + you can torment me in any way you please. Ah! But remember it has another + six weeks to run yet. There’s time for me to dismiss you before the three + years are out. You will do yet something that will give me the chance to + dismiss you, and make you wait a twelvemonth for your money before you can + take yourself off and pull out your five hundred, and leave me without a + penny to get the new boilers for her. You gloat over that idea—don’t + you? I do believe you sit here gloating. It’s as if I had sold my soul for + five hundred pounds to be everlastingly damned in the end. . . .” + </p> + <p> + He paused, without apparent exasperation, then continued evenly— + </p> + <p> + “. . . With the boilers worn out and the survey hanging over my head, + Captain Whalley—Captain Whalley, I say, what do you do with your + money? You must have stacks of money somewhere—a man like you must. + It stands to reason. I am not a fool, you know, Captain Whalley—partner.” + </p> + <p> + Again he paused, as though he had done for good. He passed his tongue over + his lips, gave a backward glance at the Serang conning the ship with quiet + whispers and slight signs of the hand. The wash of the propeller sent a + swift ripple, crested with dark froth, upon a long flat spit of black + slime. The Sofala had entered the river; the trail she had stirred up over + the bar was a mile astern of her now, out of sight, had disappeared + utterly; and the smooth, empty sea along the coast was left behind in the + glittering desolation of sunshine. On each side of her, low down, the + growth of somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid banks; and + Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt start, as if his speech + had been ground out of him, like the tune of a music-box, by turning a + handle. + </p> + <p> + “Though if anybody ever got the best of me, it is you. I don’t mind saying + this. I’ve said it—there! What more can you want? Isn’t that enough + for your pride, Captain Whalley. You got over me from the first. It’s all + of a piece, when I look back at it. You allowed me to insert that clause + about intemperance without saying anything, only looking very sick when I + made a point of it going in black on white. How could I tell what was + wrong about you. There’s generally something wrong somewhere. And, lo and + behold! when you come on board it turns out that you’ve been in the habit + of drinking nothing but water for years and years.” + </p> + <p> + His dogmatic reproachful whine stopped. He brooded profoundly, after the + manner of crafty and unintelligent men. It seemed inconceivable that + Captain Whalley should not laugh at the expression of disgust that + overspread the heavy, yellow countenance. But Captain Whalley never raised + his eyes—sitting in his arm-chair, outraged, dignified, and + motionless. + </p> + <p> + “Much good it was to me,” Massy remonstrated monotonously, “to insert a + clause for dismissal for intemperance against a man who drinks nothing but + water. And you looked so upset, too, when I read my draft in the lawyer’s + office that morning, Captain Whalley,—you looked so crestfallen, + that I made sure I had gone home on your weak spot. A shipowner can’t be + too careful as to the sort of skipper he gets. You must have been laughing + at me in your sleeve all the blessed time. . . . Eh? What are you going to + say?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley had only shuffled his feet slightly. A dull animosity + became apparent in Massy’s sideways stare. + </p> + <p> + “But recollect that there are other grounds of dismissal. There’s habitual + carelessness, amounting to incompetence—there’s gross and persistent + neglect of duty. I am not quite as big a fool as you try to make me out to + be. You have been careless of late—leaving everything to that + Serang. Why! I’ve seen you letting that old fool of a Malay take bearings + for you, as if you were too big to attend to your work yourself. And what + do you call that silly touch-and-go manner in which you took the ship over + the bar just now? You expect me to put up with that?” + </p> + <p> + Leaning on his elbow against the ladder abaft the bridge, Sterne, the + mate, tried to hear, blinking the while from the distance at the second + engineer, who had come up for a moment, and stood in the engine-room + companion. Wiping his hands on a bunch of cotton waste, he looked about + with indifference to the right and left at the river banks slipping astern + of the Sofala steadily. + </p> + <p> + Massy turned full at the chair. The character of his whine became again + threatening. + </p> + <p> + “Take care. I may yet dismiss you and freeze to your money for a year. I + may . . .” + </p> + <p> + But before the silent, rigid immobility of the man whose money had come in + the nick of time to save him from utter ruin, his voice died out in his + throat. + </p> + <p> + “Not that I want you to go,” he resumed after a silence, and in an + absurdly insinuating tone. “I want nothing better than to be friends and + renew the agreement, if you will consent to find another couple of hundred + to help with the new boilers, Captain Whalley. I’ve told you before. She + must have new boilers; you know it as well as I do. Have you thought this + over?” + </p> + <p> + He waited. The slender stem of the pipe with its bulky lump of a bowl at + the end hung down from his thick lips. It had gone out. Suddenly he took + it from between his teeth and wrung his hands slightly. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you believe me?” He thrust the pipe bowl into the pocket of his + shiny black jacket. + </p> + <p> + “It’s like dealing with the devil,” he said. “Why don’t you speak? At + first you were so high and mighty with me I hardly dared to creep about my + own deck. Now I can’t get a word from you. You don’t seem to see me at + all. What does it mean? Upon my soul, you terrify me with this deaf and + dumb trick. What’s going on in that head of yours? What are you plotting + against me there so hard that you can’t say a word? You will never make me + believe that you—you—don’t know where to lay your hands on a + couple of hundred. You have made me curse the day I was born. . . .” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Massy,” said Captain Whalley suddenly, without stirring. + </p> + <p> + The engineer started violently. + </p> + <p> + “If that is so I can only beg you to forgive me.” + </p> + <p> + “Starboard,” muttered the Serang to the helmsman; and the Sofala began to + swing round the bend into the second reach. + </p> + <p> + “Ough!” Massy shuddered. “You make my blood run cold. What made you come + here? What made you come aboard that evening all of a sudden, with your + high talk and your money—tempting me? I always wondered what was + your motive? You fastened yourself on me to have easy times and grow fat + on my life blood, I tell you. Was that it? I believe you are the greatest + miser in the world, or else why . . .” + </p> + <p> + “No. I am only poor,” interrupted Captain Whalley, stonily. + </p> + <p> + “Steady,” murmured the Serang. Massy turned away with his chin on his + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it,” he said in his dogmatic tone. Captain Whalley made + no movement. “There you sit like a gorged vulture—exactly like a + vulture.” + </p> + <p> + He embraced the middle of the reach and both the banks in one blank + unseeing circular glance, and left the bridge slowly. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + On turning to descend Massy perceived the head of Sterne the mate + loitering, with his sly confident smile, his red mustaches and blinking + eyes, at the foot of the ladder. + </p> + <p> + Sterne had been a junior in one of the larger shipping concerns before + joining the Sofala. He had thrown up his berth, he said, “on general + principles.” The promotion in the employ was very slow, he complained, and + he thought it was time for him to try and get on a bit in the world. It + seemed as though nobody would ever die or leave the firm; they all stuck + fast in their berths till they got mildewed; he was tired of waiting; and + he feared that when a vacancy did occur the best servants were by no means + sure of being treated fairly. Besides, the captain he had to serve under—Captain + Provost—was an unaccountable sort of man, and, he fancied, had taken + a dislike to him for some reason or other. For doing rather more than his + bare duty as likely as not. When he had done anything wrong he could take + a talking to, like a man; but he expected to be treated like a man too, + and not to be addressed invariably as though he were a dog. He had asked + Captain Provost plump and plain to tell him where he was at fault, and + Captain Provost, in a most scornful way, had told him that he was a + perfect officer, and that if he disliked the way he was being spoken to + there was the gangway—he could take himself off ashore at once. But + everybody knew what sort of man Captain Provost was. It was no use + appealing to the office. Captain Provost had too much influence in the + employ. All the same, they had to give him a good character. He made bold + to say there was nothing in the world against him, and, as he had happened + to hear that the mate of the Sofala had been taken to the hospital that + morning with a sunstroke, he thought there would be no harm in seeing + whether he would not do. . . . + </p> + <p> + He had come to Captain Whalley freshly shaved, red-faced, thin-flanked, + throwing out his lean chest; and had recited his little tale with an open + and manly assurance. Now and then his eyelids quivered slightly, his hand + would steal up to the end of the flaming mustache; his eyebrows were + straight, furry, of a chestnut color, and the directness of his frank gaze + seemed to tremble on the verge of impudence. Captain Whalley had engaged + him temporarily; then, the other man having been ordered home by the + doctors, he had remained for the next trip, and then the next. He had now + attained permanency, and the performance of his duties was marked by an + air of serious, single-minded application. Directly he was spoken to, he + began to smile attentively, with a great deference expressed in his whole + attitude; but there was in the rapid winking which went on all the time + something quizzical, as though he had possessed the secret of some + universal joke cheating all creation and impenetrable to other mortals. + </p> + <p> + Grave and smiling he watched Massy come down step by step; when the chief + engineer had reached the deck he swung about, and they found themselves + face to face. Matched as to height and utterly dissimilar, they confronted + each other as if there had been something between them—something + else than the bright strip of sunlight that, falling through the wide + lacing of two awnings, cut crosswise the narrow planking of the deck and + separated their feet as it were a stream; something profound and subtle + and incalculable, like an unexpressed understanding, a secret mistrust, or + some sort of fear. + </p> + <p> + At last Sterne, blinking his deep-set eyes and sticking forward his + scraped, clean-cut chin, as crimson as the rest of his face, murmured— + </p> + <p> + “You’ve seen? He grazed! You’ve seen?” + </p> + <p> + Massy, contemptuous, and without raising his yellow, fleshy countenance, + replied in the same pitch— + </p> + <p> + “Maybe. But if it had been you we would have been stuck fast in the mud.” + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me, Mr. Massy. I beg to deny it. Of course a shipowner may say + what he jolly well pleases on his own deck. That’s all right; but I beg to + . . .” + </p> + <p> + “Get out of my way!” + </p> + <p> + The other had a slight start, the impulse of suppressed indignation + perhaps, but held his ground. Massy’s downward glance wandered right and + left, as though the deck all round Sterne had been bestrewn with eggs that + must not be broken, and he had looked irritably for places where he could + set his feet in flight. In the end he too did not move, though there was + plenty of room to pass on. + </p> + <p> + “I heard you say up there,” went on the mate—“and a very just remark + it was too—that there’s always something wrong. . . .” + </p> + <p> + “Eavesdropping is what’s wrong with <i>you</i>, Mr. Sterne.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, if you would only listen to me for a moment, Mr. Massy, sir, I could + . . .” + </p> + <p> + “You are a sneak,” interrupted Massy in a great hurry, and even managed to + get so far as to repeat, “a common sneak,” before the mate had broken in + argumentatively— + </p> + <p> + “Now, sir, what is it you want? You want . . .” + </p> + <p> + “I want—I want,” stammered Massy, infuriated and astonished—“I + want. How do you know that I want anything? How dare you? . . . What do + you mean? . . . What are you after—you . . .” + </p> + <p> + “Promotion.” Sterne silenced him with a sort of candid bravado. The + engineer’s round soft cheeks quivered still, but he said quietly enough— + </p> + <p> + “You are only worrying my head off,” and Sterne met him with a confident + little smile. + </p> + <p> + “A chap in business I know (well up in the world he is now) used to tell + me that this was the proper way. ‘Always push on to the front,’ he would + say. ‘Keep yourself well before your boss. Interfere whenever you get a + chance. Show him what you know. Worry him into seeing you.’ That was his + advice. Now I know no other boss than you here. You are the owner, and no + one else counts for <i>that</i> much in my eyes. See, Mr. Massy? I want to + get on. I make no secret of it that I am one of the sort that means to get + on. These are the men to make use of, sir. You haven’t arrived at the top + of the tree, sir, without finding that out—I dare say.” + </p> + <p> + “Worry your boss in order to get on,” mumbled Massy, as if awestruck by + the irreverent originality of the idea. “I shouldn’t wonder if this was + just what the Blue Anchor people kicked you out of the employ for. Is that + what you call getting on? You shall get on in the same way here if you + aren’t careful—I can promise you.” + </p> + <p> + At this Sterne hung his head, thoughtful, perplexed, winking hard at the + deck. All his attempts to enter into confidential relations with his owner + had led of late to nothing better than these dark threats of dismissal; + and a threat of dismissal would check him at once into a hesitating + silence as though he were not sure that the proper time for defying it had + come. On this occasion he seemed to have lost his tongue for a moment, and + Massy, getting in motion, heavily passed him by with an abortive attempt + at shouldering. Sterne defeated it by stepping aside. He turned then + swiftly, opening his mouth very wide as if to shout something after the + engineer, but seemed to think better of it. + </p> + <p> + Always—as he was ready to confess—on the lookout for an + opening to get on, it had become an instinct with him to watch the conduct + of his immediate superiors for something “that one could lay hold of.” It + was his belief that no skipper in the world would keep his command for a + day if only the owners could be “made to know.” This romantic and naive + theory had led him into trouble more than once, but he remained + incorrigible; and his character was so instinctively disloyal that + whenever he joined a ship the intention of ousting his commander out of + the berth and taking his place was always present at the back of his head, + as a matter of course. It filled the leisure of his waking hours with the + reveries of careful plans and compromising discoveries—the dreams of + his sleep with images of lucky turns and favorable accidents. Skippers had + been known to sicken and die at sea, than which nothing could be better to + give a smart mate a chance of showing what he’s made of. They also would + tumble overboard sometimes: he had heard of one or two such cases. Others + again . . . But, as it were constitutionally, he was faithful to the + belief that the conduct of no single one of them would stand the test of + careful watching by a man who “knew what’s what” and who kept his eyes + “skinned pretty well” all the time. + </p> + <p> + After he had gained a permanent footing on board the Sofala he allowed his + perennial hope to rise high. To begin with, it was a great advantage to + have an old man for captain: the sort of man besides who in the nature of + things was likely to give up the job before long from one cause or + another. Sterne was greatly chagrined, however, to notice that he did not + seem anyway near being past his work yet. Still, these old men go to + pieces all at once sometimes. Then there was the owner-engineer close at + hand to be impressed by his zeal and steadiness. Sterne never for a moment + doubted the obvious nature of his own merits (he was really an excellent + officer); only, nowadays, professional merit alone does not take a man + along fast enough. A chap must have some push in him, and must keep his + wits at work too to help him forward. He made up his mind to inherit the + charge of this steamer if it was to be done at all; not indeed estimating + the command of the Sofala as a very great catch, but for the reason that, + out East especially, to make a start is everything, and one command leads + to another. + </p> + <p> + He began by promising himself to behave with great circumspection; Massy’s + somber and fantastic humors intimidated him as being outside one’s usual + sea experience; but he was quite intelligent enough to realize almost from + the first that he was there in the presence of an exceptional situation. + His peculiar prying imagination penetrated it quickly; the feeling that + there was in it an element which eluded his grasp exasperated his + impatience to get on. And so one trip came to an end, then another, and he + had begun his third before he saw an opening by which he could step in + with any sort of effect. It had all been very queer and very obscure; + something had been going on near him, as if separated by a chasm from the + common life and the working routine of the ship, which was exactly like + the life and the routine of any other coasting steamer of that class. + </p> + <p> + Then one day he made his discovery. + </p> + <p> + It came to him after all these weeks of watchful observation and puzzled + surmises, suddenly, like the long-sought solution of a riddle that + suggests itself to the mind in a flash. Not with the same authority, + however. Great heavens! Could it be that? And after remaining + thunderstruck for a few seconds he tried to shake it off with + self-contumely, as though it had been the product of an unhealthy bias + towards the Incredible, the Inexplicable, the Unheard-of—the Mad! + </p> + <p> + This—the illuminating moment—had occurred the trip before, on + the return passage. They had just left a place of call on the mainland + called Pangu; they were steaming straight out of a bay. To the east a + massive headland closed the view, with the tilted edges of the rocky + strata showing through its ragged clothing of rank bushes and thorny + creepers. The wind had begun to sing in the rigging; the sea along the + coast, green and as if swollen a little above the line of the horizon, + seemed to pour itself over, time after time, with a slow and thundering + fall, into the shadow of the leeward cape; and across the wide opening the + nearest of a group of small islands stood enveloped in the hazy yellow + light of a breezy sunrise; still farther out the hummocky tops of other + islets peeped out motionless above the water of the channels between, + scoured tumultuously by the breeze. + </p> + <p> + The usual track of the Sofala both going and returning on every trip led + her for a few miles along this reefinfested region. She followed a broad + lane of water, dropping astern, one after another, these crumbs of the + earth’s crust resembling a squadron of dismasted hulks run in disorder + upon a foul ground of rocks and shoals. Some of these fragments of land + appeared, indeed, no bigger than a stranded ship; others, quite flat, lay + awash like anchored rafts, like ponderous, black rafts of stone; several, + heavily timbered and round at the base, emerged in squat domes of deep + green foliage that shuddered darkly all over to the flying touch of cloud + shadows driven by the sudden gusts of the squally season. The + thunderstorms of the coast broke frequently over that cluster; it turned + then shadowy in its whole extent; it turned more dark, and as if more + still in the play of fire; as if more impenetrably silent in the peals of + thunder; its blurred shapes vanished—dissolving utterly at times in + the thick rain—to reappear clear-cut and black in the stormy light + against the gray sheet of the cloud—scattered on the slaty round + table of the sea. Unscathed by storms, resisting the work of years, + unfretted by the strife of the world, there it lay unchanged as on that + day, four hundred years ago, when first beheld by Western eyes from the + deck of a high-pooped caravel. + </p> + <p> + It was one of these secluded spots that may be found on the busy sea, as + on land you come sometimes upon the clustered houses of a hamlet untouched + by men’s restlessness, untouched by their need, by their thought, and as + if forgotten by time itself. The lives of uncounted generations had passed + it by, and the multitudes of seafowl, urging their way from all the points + of the horizon to sleep on the outer rocks of the group, unrolled the + converging evolutions of their flight in long somber streamers upon the + glow of the sky. The palpitating cloud of their wings soared and stooped + over the pinnacles of the rocks, over the rocks slender like spires, squat + like martello towers; over the pyramidal heaps like fallen ruins, over the + lines of bald bowlders showing like a wall of stones battered to pieces + and scorched by lightning—with the sleepy, clear glimmer of water in + every breach. The noise of their continuous and violent screaming filled + the air. + </p> + <p> + This great noise would meet the Sofala coming up from Batu Beru; it would + meet her on quiet evenings, a pitiless and savage clamor enfeebled by + distance, the clamor of seabirds settling to rest, and struggling for a + footing at the end of the day. No one noticed it especially on board; it + was the voice of their ship’s unerring landfall, ending the steady stretch + of a hundred miles. She had made good her course, she had run her distance + till the punctual islets began to emerge one by one, the points of rocks, + the hummocks of earth . . . and the cloud of birds hovered—the + restless cloud emitting a strident and cruel uproar, the sound of the + familiar scene, the living part of the broken land beneath, of the + outspread sea, and of the high sky without a flaw. + </p> + <p> + But when the Sofala happened to close with the land after sunset she would + find everything very still there under the mantle of the night. All would + be still, dumb, almost invisible—but for the blotting out of the low + constellations occulted in turns behind the vague masses of the islets + whose true outlines eluded the eye amongst the dark spaces of the heaven: + and the ship’s three lights, resembling three stars—the red and the + green with the white above—her three lights, like three companion + stars wandering on the earth, held their unswerving course for the passage + at the southern end of the group. Sometimes there were human eyes open to + watch them come nearer, traveling smoothly in the somber void; the eyes of + a naked fisherman in his canoe floating over a reef. He thought drowsily: + “Ha! The fire-ship that once in every moon goes in and comes out of Pangu + bay.” More he did not know of her. And just as he had detected the faint + rhythm of the propeller beating the calm water a mile and a half away, the + time would come for the Sofala to alter her course, the lights would swing + off him their triple beam—and disappear. + </p> + <p> + A few miserable, half-naked families, a sort of outcast tribe of + long-haired, lean, and wild-eyed people, strove for their living in this + lonely wilderness of islets, lying like an abandoned outwork of the land + at the gates of the bay. Within the knots and loops of the rocks the water + rested more transparent than crystal under their crooked and leaky canoes, + scooped out of the trunk of a tree: the forms of the bottom undulated + slightly to the dip of a paddle; and the men seemed to hang in the air, + they seemed to hang inclosed within the fibers of a dark, sodden log, + fishing patiently in a strange, unsteady, pellucid, green air above the + shoals. + </p> + <p> + Their bodies stalked brown and emaciated as if dried up in the sunshine; + their lives ran out silently; the homes where they were born, went to + rest, and died—flimsy sheds of rushes and coarse grass eked out with + a few ragged mats—were hidden out of sight from the open sea. No + glow of their household fires ever kindled for a seaman a red spark upon + the blind night of the group: and the calms of the coast, the flaming long + calms of the equator, the unbreathing, concentrated calms like the deep + introspection of a passionate nature, brooded awfully for days and weeks + together over the unchangeable inheritance of their children; till at last + the stones, hot like live embers, scorched the naked sole, till the water + clung warm, and sickly, and as if thickened, about the legs of lean men + with girded loins, wading thigh-deep in the pale blaze of the shallows. + And it would happen now and then that the Sofala, through some delay in + one of the ports of call, would heave in sight making for Pangu bay as + late as noonday. + </p> + <p> + Only a blurring cloud at first, the thin mist of her smoke would arise + mysteriously from an empty point on the clear line of sea and sky. The + taciturn fishermen within the reefs would extend their lean arms towards + the offing; and the brown figures stooping on the tiny beaches, the brown + figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search of + turtles’ eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over the eyes, + to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve off—and + go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes followed her + till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going at full speed + as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the very bosom of the + earth. + </p> + <p> + On such days the luminous sea would give no sign of the dangers lurking on + both sides of her path. Everything remained still, crushed by the + overwhelming power of the light; and the whole group, opaque in the + sunshine,—the rocks resembling pinnacles, the rocks resembling + spires, the rocks resembling ruins; the forms of islets resembling + beehives, resembling mole-hills, the islets recalling the shapes of + haystacks, the contours of ivy-clad towers,—would stand reflected + together upside down in the unwrinkled water, like carved toys of ebony + disposed on the silvered plate-glass of a mirror. + </p> + <p> + The first touch of blowing weather would envelop the whole at once in the + spume of the windward breakers, as if in a sudden cloudlike burst of + steam; and the clear water seemed fairly to boil in all the passages. The + provoked sea outlined exactly in a design of angry foam the wide base of + the group; the submerged level of broken waste and refuse left over from + the building of the coast near by, projecting its dangerous spurs, all + awash, far into the channel, and bristling with wicked long spits often a + mile long: with deadly spits made of froth and stones. + </p> + <p> + And even nothing more than a brisk breeze—as on that morning, the + voyage before, when the Sofala left Pangu bay early, and Mr. Sterne’s + discovery was to blossom out like a flower of incredible and evil aspect + from the tiny seed of instinctive suspicion,—even such a breeze had + enough strength to tear the placid mask from the face of the sea. To + Sterne, gazing with indifference, it had been like a revelation to behold + for the first time the dangers marked by the hissing livid patches on the + water as distinctly as on the engraved paper of a chart. It came into his + mind that this was the sort of day most favorable for a stranger + attempting the passage: a clear day, just windy enough for the sea to + break on every ledge, buoying, as it were, the channel plainly to the + sight; whereas during a calm you had nothing to depend on but the compass + and the practiced judgment of your eye. And yet the successive captains of + the Sofala had had to take her through at night more than once. Nowadays + you could not afford to throw away six or seven hours of a steamer’s time. + That you couldn’t. But then use is everything, and with proper care . . . + The channel was broad and safe enough; the main point was to hit upon the + entrance correctly in the dark—for if a man got himself involved in + that stretch of broken water over yonder he would never get out with a + whole ship—if he ever got out at all. + </p> + <p> + This was Sterne’s last train of thought independent of the great + discovery. He had just seen to the securing of the anchor, and had + remained forward idling away a moment or two. The captain was in charge on + the bridge. With a slight yawn he had turned away from his survey of the + sea and had leaned his shoulders against the fish davit. + </p> + <p> + These, properly speaking, were the very last moments of ease he was to + know on board the Sofala. All the instants that came after were to be + pregnant with purpose and intolerable with perplexity. No more idle, + random thoughts; the discovery would put them on the rack, till sometimes + he wished to goodness he had been fool enough not to make it at all. And + yet, if his chance to get on rested on the discovery of “something wrong,” + he could not have hoped for a greater stroke of luck. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + The knowledge was too disturbing, really. There was “something wrong” with + a vengeance, and the moral certitude of it was at first simply frightful + to contemplate. Sterne had been looking aft in a mood so idle, that for + once he was thinking no harm of anyone. His captain on the bridge + presented himself naturally to his sight. How insignificant, how casual + was the thought that had started the train of discovery—like an + accidental spark that suffices to ignite the charge of a tremendous mine! + </p> + <p> + Caught under by the breeze, the awnings of the foredeck bellied upwards + and collapsed slowly, and above their heavy flapping the gray stuff of + Captain Whalley’s roomy coat fluttered incessantly around his arms and + trunk. He faced the wind in full light, with his great silvery beard blown + forcibly against his chest; the eyebrows overhung heavily the shadows + whence his glance appeared to be staring ahead piercingly. Sterne could + just detect the twin gleam of the whites shifting under the shaggy arches + of the brow. At short range these eyes, for all the man’s affable manner, + seemed to look you through and through. Sterne never could defend himself + from that feeling when he had occasion to speak with his captain. He did + not like it. What a big heavy man he appeared up there, with that little + shrimp of a Serang in close attendance—as was usual in this + extraordinary steamer! Confounded absurd custom that. He resented it. + Surely the old fellow could have looked after his ship without that + loafing native at his elbow. Sterne wriggled his shoulders with disgust. + What was it? Indolence or what? + </p> + <p> + That old skipper must have been growing lazy for years. They all grew lazy + out East here (Sterne was very conscious of his own unimpaired activity); + they got slack all over. But he towered very erect on the bridge; and + quite low by his side, as you see a small child looking over the edge of a + table, the battered soft hat and the brown face of the Serang peeped over + the white canvas screen of the rail. + </p> + <p> + No doubt the Malay was standing back, nearer to the wheel; but the great + disparity of size in close association amused Sterne like the observation + of a bizarre fact in nature. They were as queer fish out of the sea as any + in it. + </p> + <p> + He saw Captain Whalley turn his head quickly to speak to his Serang; the + wind whipped the whole white mass of the beard sideways. He would be + directing the chap to look at the compass for him, or what not. Of course. + Too much trouble to step over and see for himself. Sterne’s scorn for that + bodily indolence which overtakes white men in the East increased on + reflection. Some of them would be utterly lost if they hadn’t all these + natives at their beck and call; they grew perfectly shameless about it + too. He was not of that sort, thank God! It wasn’t in him to make himself + dependent for his work on any shriveled-up little Malay like that. As if + one could ever trust a silly native for anything in the world! But that + fine old man thought differently, it seems. There they were together, + never far apart; a pair of them, recalling to the mind an old whale + attended by a little pilot-fish. + </p> + <p> + The fancifulness of the comparison made him smile. A whale with an + inseparable pilot-fish! That’s what the old man looked like; for it could + not be said he looked like a shark, though Mr. Massy had called him that + very name. But Mr. Massy did not mind what he said in his savage fits. + Sterne smiled to himself—and gradually the ideas evoked by the + sound, by the imagined shape of the word pilot-fish; the ideas of aid, of + guidance needed and received, came uppermost in his mind: the word pilot + awakened the idea of trust, of dependence, the idea of welcome, clear-eyed + help brought to the seaman groping for the land in the dark: groping + blindly in fogs: feeling their way in the thick weather of the gales that, + filling the air with a salt mist blown up from the sea, contract the range + of sight on all sides to a shrunken horizon that seems within reach of the + hand. + </p> + <p> + A pilot sees better than a stranger, because his local knowledge, like a + sharper vision, completes the shapes of things hurriedly glimpsed; + penetrates the veils of mist spread over the land by the storms of the + sea; defines with certitude the outlines of a coast lying under the pall + of fog, the forms of landmarks half buried in a starless night as in a + shallow grave. He recognizes because he already knows. It is not to his + far-reaching eye but to his more extensive knowledge that the pilot looks + for certitude; for this certitude of the ship’s position on which may + depend a man’s good fame and the peace of his conscience, the + justification of the trust deposited in his hands, with his own life too, + which is seldom wholly his to throw away, and the humble lives of others + rooted in distant affections, perhaps, and made as weighty as the lives of + kings by the burden of the awaiting mystery. The pilot’s knowledge brings + relief and certitude to the commander of a ship; the Serang, however, in + his fanciful suggestion of a pilot-fish attending a whale, could not in + any way be credited with a superior knowledge. Why should he have it? + These two men had come on that run together—the white and the brown—on + the same day: and of course a white man would learn more in a week than + the best native would in a month. He was made to stick to the skipper as + though he were of some use—as the pilot-fish, they say, is to the + whale. But how—it was very marked—how? A pilot-fish—a + pilot—a . . . But if not superior knowledge then . . . + </p> + <p> + Sterne’s discovery was made. It was repugnant to his imagination, shocking + to his ideas of honesty, shocking to his conception of mankind. This + enormity affected one’s outlook on what was possible in this world: it was + as if for instance the sun had turned blue, throwing a new and sinister + light on men and nature. Really in the first moment he had felt sickish, + as though he had got a blow below the belt: for a second the very color of + the sea seemed changed—appeared queer to his wandering eye; and he + had a passing, unsteady sensation in all his limbs as though the earth had + started turning the other way. + </p> + <p> + A very natural incredulity succeeding this sense of upheaval brought a + measure of relief. He had gasped; it was over. But afterwards during all + that day sudden paroxysms of wonder would come over him in the midst of + his occupations. He would stop and shake his head. The revolt of his + incredulity had passed away almost as quick as the first emotion of + discovery, and for the next twenty-four hours he had no sleep. That would + never do. At meal-times (he took the foot of the table set up for the + white men on the bridge) he could not help losing himself in a fascinated + contemplation of Captain Whalley opposite. He watched the deliberate + upward movements of the arm; the old man put his food to his lips as + though he never expected to find any taste in his daily bread, as though + he did not know anything about it. He fed himself like a somnambulist. + “It’s an awful sight,” thought Sterne; and he watched the long period of + mournful, silent immobility, with a big brown hand lying loosely closed by + the side of the plate, till he noticed the two engineers to the right and + left looking at him in astonishment. He would close his mouth in a hurry + then, and lowering his eyes, wink rapidly at his plate. It was awful to + see the old chap sitting there; it was even awful to think that with three + words he could blow him up sky-high. All he had to do was to raise his + voice and pronounce a single short sentence, and yet that simple act + seemed as impossible to attempt as moving the sun out of its place in the + sky. The old chap could eat in his terrific mechanical way; but Sterne, + from mental excitement, could not—not that evening, at any rate. + </p> + <p> + He had had ample time since to get accustomed to the strain of the + meal-hours. He would never have believed it. But then use is everything; + only the very potency of his success prevented anything resembling + elation. He felt like a man who, in his legitimate search for a loaded gun + to help him on his way through the world, chances to come upon a torpedo—upon + a live torpedo with a shattering charge in its head and a pressure of many + atmospheres in its tail. It is the sort of weapon to make its possessor + careworn and nervous. He had no mind to be blown up himself; and he could + not get rid of the notion that the explosion was bound to damage him too + in some way. + </p> + <p> + This vague apprehension had restrained him at first. He was able now to + eat and sleep with that fearful weapon by his side, with the conviction of + its power always in mind. It had not been arrived at by any reflective + process; but once the idea had entered his head, the conviction had + followed overwhelmingly in a multitude of observed little facts to which + before he had given only a languid attention. The abrupt and faltering + intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put on like an armor; the + deliberate, as if guarded, movements; the long immobilities, as if the man + he watched had been afraid to disturb the very air: every familiar + gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, every sigh overheard, had + acquired a special significance, a confirmatory import. + </p> + <p> + Every day that passed over the Sofala appeared to Sterne simply crammed + full with proofs—with incontrovertible proofs. At night, when off + duty, he would steal out of his cabin in pyjamas (for more proofs) and + stand a full hour, perhaps, on his bare feet below the bridge, as + absolutely motionless as the awning stanchion in its deck socket near by. + On the stretches of easy navigation it is not usual for a coasting captain + to remain on deck all the time of his watch. The Serang keeps it for him + as a matter of custom; in open water, on a straight course, he is usually + trusted to look after the ship by himself. But this old man seemed + incapable of remaining quietly down below. No doubt he could not sleep. + And no wonder. This was also a proof. Suddenly in the silence of the ship + panting upon the still, dark sea, Sterne would hear a low voice above him + exclaiming nervously— + </p> + <p> + “Serang!” + </p> + <p> + “Tuan!” + </p> + <p> + “You are watching the compass well?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am watching, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + “The ship is making her course?” + </p> + <p> + “She is, Tuan. Very straight.” + </p> + <p> + “It is well; and remember, Serang, that the order is that you are to mind + the helmsmen and keep a lookout with care, the same as if I were not on + deck.” + </p> + <p> + Then, when the Serang had made his answer, the low tones on the bridge + would cease, and everything round Sterne seemed to become more still and + more profoundly silent. Slightly chilled and with his back aching a little + from long immobility, he would steal away to his room on the port side of + the deck. He had long since parted with the last vestige of incredulity; + of the original emotions, set into a tumult by the discovery, some trace + of the first awe alone remained. Not the awe of the man himself—he + could blow him up sky-high with six words—rather it was an awestruck + indignation at the reckless perversity of avarice (what else could it + be?), at the mad and somber resolution that for the sake of a few dollars + more seemed to set at naught the common rule of conscience and pretended + to struggle against the very decree of Providence. + </p> + <p> + You could not find another man like this one in the whole round world—thank + God. There was something devilishly dauntless in the character of such a + deception which made you pause. + </p> + <p> + Other considerations occurring to his prudence had kept him tongue-tied + from day to day. It seemed to him now that it would yet have been easier + to speak out in the first hour of discovery. He almost regretted not + having made a row at once. But then the very monstrosity of the disclosure + . . . Why! He could hardly face it himself, let alone pointing it out to + somebody else. Moreover, with a desperado of that sort one never knew. The + object was not to get him out (that was as well as done already), but to + step into his place. Bizarre as the thought seemed he might have shown + fight. A fellow up to working such a fraud would have enough cheek for + anything; a fellow that, as it were, stood up against God Almighty + Himself. He was a horrid marvel—that’s what he was: he was perfectly + capable of brazening out the affair scandalously till he got him (Sterne) + kicked out of the ship and everlastingly damaged his prospects in this + part of the East. Yet if you want to get on something must be risked. At + times Sterne thought he had been unduly timid of taking action in the + past; and what was worse, it had come to this, that in the present he did + not seem to know what action to take. + </p> + <p> + Massy’s savage moroseness was too disconcerting. It was an incalculable + factor of the situation. You could not tell what there was behind that + insulting ferocity. How could one trust such a temper; it did not put + Sterne in bodily fear for himself, but it frightened him exceedingly as to + his prospects. + </p> + <p> + Though of course inclined to credit himself with exceptional powers of + observation, he had by now lived too long with his discovery. He had gone + on looking at nothing else, till at last one day it occurred to him that + the thing was so obvious that no one could miss seeing it. There were four + white men in all on board the Sofala. Jack, the second engineer, was too + dull to notice anything that took place out of his engine-room. Remained + Massy—the owner—the interested person—nearly going mad + with worry. Sterne had heard and seen more than enough on board to know + what ailed him; but his exasperation seemed to make him deaf to cautious + overtures. If he had only known it, there was the very thing he wanted. + But how could you bargain with a man of that sort? It was like going into + a tiger’s den with a piece of raw meat in your hand. He was as likely as + not to rend you for your pains. In fact, he was always threatening to do + that very thing; and the urgency of the case, combined with the + impossibility of handling it with safety, made Sterne in his watches below + toss and mutter open-eyed in his bunk, for hours, as though he had been + burning with fever. + </p> + <p> + Occurrences like the crossing of the bar just now were extremely alarming + to his prospects. He did not want to be left behind by some swift + catastrophe. Massy being on the bridge, the old man had to brace himself + up and make a show, he supposed. But it was getting very bad with him, + very bad indeed, now. Even Massy had been emboldened to find fault this + time; Sterne, listening at the foot of the ladder, had heard the other’s + whimpering and artless denunciations. Luckily the beast was very stupid + and could not see the why of all this. However, small blame to him; it + took a clever man to hit upon the cause. Nevertheless, it was high time to + do something. The old man’s game could not be kept up for many days more. + </p> + <p> + “I may yet lose my life at this fooling—let alone my chance,” Sterne + mumbled angrily to himself, after the stooping back of the chief engineer + had disappeared round the corner of the skylight. Yes, no doubt—he + thought; but to blurt out his knowledge would not advance his prospects. + On the contrary, it would blast them utterly as likely as not. He dreaded + another failure. He had a vague consciousness of not being much liked by + his fellows in this part of the world; inexplicably enough, for he had + done nothing to them. Envy, he supposed. People were always down on a + clever chap who made no bones about his determination to get on. To do + your duty and count on the gratitude of that brute Massy would be sheer + folly. He was a bad lot. Unmanly! A vicious man! Bad! Bad! A brute! A + brute without a spark of anything human about him; without so much as + simple curiosity even, or else surely he would have responded in some way + to all these hints he had been given. . . . Such insensibility was almost + mysterious. Massy’s state of exasperation seemed to Sterne to have made + him stupid beyond the ordinary silliness of shipowners. + </p> + <p> + Sterne, meditating on the embarrassments of that stupidity, forgot himself + completely. His stony, unwinking stare was fixed on the planks of the + deck. + </p> + <p> + The slight quiver agitating the whole fabric of the ship was more + perceptible in the silent river, shaded and still like a forest path. The + Sofala, gliding with an even motion, had passed beyond the coast-belt of + mud and mangroves. The shores rose higher, in firm sloping banks, and the + forest of big trees came down to the brink. Where the earth had been + crumbled by the floods it showed a steep brown cut, denuding a mass of + roots intertwined as if wrestling underground; and in the air, the + interlaced boughs, bound and loaded with creepers, carried on the struggle + for life, mingled their foliage in one solid wall of leaves, with here and + there the shape of an enormous dark pillar soaring, or a ragged opening, + as if torn by the flight of a cannonball, disclosing the impenetrable + gloom within, the secular inviolable shade of the virgin forest. The thump + of the engines reverberated regularly like the strokes of a metronome + beating the measure of the vast silence, the shadow of the western wall + had fallen across the river, and the smoke pouring backwards from the + funnel eddied down behind the ship, spread a thin dusky veil over the + somber water, which, checked by the flood-tide, seemed to lie stagnant in + the whole straight length of the reaches. + </p> + <p> + Sterne’s body, as if rooted on the spot, trembled slightly from top to toe + with the internal vibration of the ship; from under his feet came + sometimes a sudden clang of iron, the noisy burst of a shout below; to the + right the leaves of the tree-tops caught the rays of the low sun, and + seemed to shine with a golden green light of their own shimmering around + the highest boughs which stood out black against a smooth blue sky that + seemed to droop over the bed of the river like the roof of a tent. The + passengers for Batu Beru, kneeling on the planks, were engaged in rolling + their bedding of mats busily; they tied up bundles, they snapped the locks + of wooden chests. A pockmarked peddler of small wares threw his head back + to drain into his throat the last drops out of an earthenware bottle + before putting it away in a roll of blankets. Knots of traveling traders + standing about the deck conversed in low tones; the followers of a small + Rajah from down the coast, broad-faced, simple young fellows in white + drawers and round white cotton caps with their colored sarongs twisted + across their bronze shoulders, squatted on their hams on the hatch, + chewing betel with bright red mouths as if they had been tasting blood. + Their spears, lying piled up together within the circle of their bare + toes, resembled a casual bundle of dry bamboos; a thin, livid Chinaman, + with a bulky package wrapped up in leaves already thrust under his arm, + gazed ahead eagerly; a wandering Kling rubbed his teeth with a bit of + wood, pouring over the side a bright stream of water out of his lips; the + fat Rajah dozed in a shabby deck-chair,—and at the turn of every + bend the two walls of leaves reappeared running parallel along the banks, + with their impenetrable solidity fading at the top to a vaporous mistiness + of countless slender twigs growing free, of young delicate branches + shooting from the topmost limbs of hoary trunks, of feathery heads of + climbers like delicate silver sprays standing up without a quiver. There + was not a sign of a clearing anywhere; not a trace of human habitation, + except when in one place, on the bare end of a low point under an isolated + group of slender tree-ferns, the jagged, tangled remnants of an old hut on + piles appeared with that peculiar aspect of ruined bamboo walls that look + as if smashed with a club. Farther on, half hidden under the drooping + bushes, a canoe containing a man and a woman, together with a dozen green + cocoanuts in a heap, rocked helplessly after the Sofala had passed, like a + navigating contrivance of venturesome insects, of traveling ants; while + two glassy folds of water streaming away from each bow of the steamer + across the whole width of the river ran with her up stream smoothly, + fretting their outer ends into a brown whispering tumble of froth against + the miry foot of each bank. + </p> + <p> + “I must,” thought Sterne, “bring that brute Massy to his bearings. It’s + getting too absurd in the end. Here’s the old man up there buried in his + chair—he may just as well be in his grave for all the use he’ll ever + be in the world—and the Serang’s in charge. Because that’s what he + is. In charge. In the place that’s mine by rights. I must bring that + savage brute to his bearings. I’ll do it at once, too . . .” + </p> + <p> + When the mate made an abrupt start, a little brown half-naked boy, with + large black eyes, and the string of a written charm round his neck, became + panic-struck at once. He dropped the banana he had been munching, and ran + to the knee of a grave dark Arab in flowing robes, sitting like a Biblical + figure, incongruously, on a yellow tin trunk corded with a rope of twisted + rattan. The father, unmoved, put out his hand to pat the little shaven + poll protectingly. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + Sterne crossed the deck upon the track of the chief engineer. Jack, the + second, retreating backwards down the engine-room ladder, and still wiping + his hands, treated him to an incomprehensible grin of white teeth out of + his grimy hard face; Massy was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone + straight into his berth. Sterne scratched at the door softly, then, + putting his lips to the rose of the ventilator, said— + </p> + <p> + “I must speak to you, Mr. Massy. Just give me a minute or two.” + </p> + <p> + “I am busy. Go away from my door.” + </p> + <p> + “But pray, Mr. Massy . . .” + </p> + <p> + “You go away. D’you hear? Take yourself off altogether—to the other + end of the ship—quite away . . .” The voice inside dropped low. “To + the devil.” + </p> + <p> + Sterne paused: then very quietly— + </p> + <p> + “It’s rather pressing. When do you think you will be at liberty, sir?” + </p> + <p> + The answer to this was an exasperated “Never”; and at once Sterne, with a + very firm expression of face, turned the handle. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy’s stateroom—a narrow, one-berth cabin—smelt strongly + of soap, and presented to view a swept, dusted, unadorned neatness, not so + much bare as barren, not so much severe as starved and lacking in + humanity, like the ward of a public hospital, or rather (owing to the + small size) like the clean retreat of a desperately poor but exemplary + person. Not a single photograph frame ornamented the bulkheads; not a + single article of clothing, not as much as a spare cap, hung from the + brass hooks. All the inside was painted in one plain tint of pale blue; + two big sea-chests in sailcloth covers and with iron padlocks fitted + exactly in the space under the bunk. One glance was enough to embrace all + the strip of scrubbed planks within the four unconcealed corners. The + absence of the usual settee was striking; the teak-wood top of the + washing-stand seemed hermetically closed, and so was the lid of the + writing-desk, which protruded from the partition at the foot of the + bed-place, containing a mattress as thin as a pancake under a threadbare + blanket with a faded red stripe, and a folded mosquito-net against the + nights spent in harbor. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere in sight, + no boots on the floor, no litter of any sort, not a speck of dust + anywhere; no traces of pipe-ash even, which, in a heavy smoker, was + morally revolting, like a manifestation of extreme hypocrisy; and the + bottom of the old wooden arm-chair (the only seat there), polished with + much use, shone as if its shabbiness had been waxed. The screen of leaves + on the bank, passing as if unrolled endlessly in the round opening of the + port, sent a wavering network of light and shade into the place. + </p> + <p> + Sterne, holding the door open with one hand, had thrust in his head and + shoulders. At this amazing intrusion Massy, who was doing absolutely + nothing, jumped up speechless. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t call names,” murmured Sterne hurriedly. “I won’t be called names. I + think of nothing but your good, Mr. Massy.” + </p> + <p> + A pause as of extreme astonishment followed. They both seemed to have lost + their tongues. Then the mate went on with a discreet glibness. + </p> + <p> + “You simply couldn’t conceive what’s going on on board your ship. It + wouldn’t enter your head for a moment. You are too good—too—too + upright, Mr. Massy, to suspect anybody of such a . . . It’s enough to make + your hair stand on end.” + </p> + <p> + He watched for the effect: Massy seemed dazed, uncomprehending. He only + passed the palm of his hand on the coal-black wisps plastered across the + top of his head. In a tone suddenly changed to confidential audacity + Sterne hastened on. + </p> + <p> + “Remember that there’s only six weeks left to run . . .” The other was + looking at him stonily . . . “so anyhow you shall require a captain for + the ship before long.” + </p> + <p> + Then only, as if that suggestion had scarified his flesh in the manner of + red-hot iron, Massy gave a start and seemed ready to shriek. He contained + himself by a great effort. + </p> + <p> + “Require a captain,” he repeated with scathing slowness. “Who requires a + captain? You dare to tell me that I need any of you humbugging sailors to + run my ship. You and your likes have been fattening on me for years. It + would have hurt me less to throw my money overboard. Pam—pe—red + us—e—less f-f-f-frauds. The old ship knows as much as the best + of you.” He snapped his teeth audibly and growled through them, “The silly + law requires a captain.” + </p> + <p> + Sterne had taken heart of grace meantime. + </p> + <p> + “And the silly insurance people too, as well,” he said lightly. “But never + mind that. What I want to ask is: Why shouldn’t <i>I</i> do, sir? I don’t + say but you could take a steamer about the world as well as any of us + sailors. I don’t pretend to tell <i>you</i> that it is a very great trick + . . .” He emitted a short, hollow guffaw, familiarly . . . “I didn’t make + the law—but there it is; and I am an active young fellow! I quite + hold with your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy. I wouldn’t + try to give myself airs like that—that—er lazy specimen of an + old man up there.” + </p> + <p> + He put a marked emphasis on the last sentence, to lead Massy away from the + track in case . . . but he did not doubt of now holding his success. The + chief engineer seemed nonplused, like a slow man invited to catch hold of + a whirligig of some sort. + </p> + <p> + “What you want, sir, is a chap with no nonsense about him, who would be + content to be your sailing-master. Quite right, too. Well, I am fit for + the work as much as that Serang. Because that’s what it amounts to. Do you + know, sir, that a dam’ Malay like a monkey is in charge of your ship—and + no one else. Just listen to his feet pit-patting above us on the bridge—real + officer in charge. He’s taking her up the river while the great man is + wallowing in the chair—perhaps asleep; and if he is, that would not + make it much worse either—take my word for it.” + </p> + <p> + He tried to thrust himself farther in. Massy, with lowered forehead, one + hand grasping the back of the arm-chair, did not budge. + </p> + <p> + “You think, sir, that the man has got you tight in his agreement . . .” + Massy raised a heavy snarling face at this . . . “Well, sir, one can’t + help hearing of it on board. It’s no secret. And it has been the talk on + shore for years; fellows have been making bets about it. No, sir! It’s <i>you</i> + who have got him at your mercy. You will say that you can’t dismiss him + for indolence. Difficult to prove in court, and so on. Why, yes. But if + you say the word, sir, I can tell you something about his indolence that + will give you the clear right to fire him out on the spot and put me in + charge for the rest of this very trip—yes, sir, before we leave Batu + Beru—and make him pay a dollar a day for his keep till we get back, + if you like. Now, what do you think of that? Come, sir. Say the word. It’s + really well worth your while, and I am quite ready to take your bare word. + A definite statement from you would be as good as a bond.” + </p> + <p> + His eyes began to shine. He insisted. A simple statement,—and he + thought to himself that he would manage somehow to stick in his berth as + long as it suited him. He would make himself indispensable; the ship had a + bad name in her port; it would be easy to scare the fellows off. Massy + would have to keep him. + </p> + <p> + “A definite statement from me would be enough,” Massy repeated slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir. It would.” Sterne stuck out his chin cheerily and blinked at + close quarters with that unconscious impudence which had the power to + enrage Massy beyond anything. + </p> + <p> + The engineer spoke very distinctly. + </p> + <p> + “Listen well to me, then, Mr. Sterne: I wouldn’t—d’ye hear?—I + wouldn’t promise you the value of two pence for anything <i>you</i> can + tell me.” + </p> + <p> + He struck Sterne’s arm away with a smart blow, and catching hold of the + handle pulled the door to. The terrific slam darkened the cabin + instantaneously to his eye as if after the flash of an explosion. At once + he dropped into the chair. “Oh, no! You don’t!” he whispered faintly. + </p> + <p> + The ship had in that place to shave the bank so close that the gigantic + wall of leaves came gliding like a shutter against the port; the darkness + of the primeval forest seemed to flow into that bare cabin with the odor + of rotting leaves, of sodden soil—the strong muddy smell of the + living earth steaming uncovered after the passing of a deluge. The bushes + swished loudly alongside; above there was a series of crackling sounds, + with a sharp rain of small broken branches falling on the bridge; a + creeper with a great rustle snapped on the head of a boat davit, and a + long, luxuriant green twig actually whipped in and out of the open port, + leaving behind a few torn leaves that remained suddenly at rest on Mr. + Massy’s blanket. Then, the ship sheering out in the stream, the light + began to return but did not augment beyond a subdued clearness: for the + sun was very low already, and the river, wending its sinuous course + through a multitude of secular trees as if at the bottom of a precipitous + gorge, had been already invaded by a deepening gloom—the swift + precursor of the night. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, you don’t!” murmured the engineer again. His lips trembled almost + imperceptibly; his hands too, a little: and to calm himself he opened the + writing-desk, spread out a sheet of thin grayish paper covered with a mass + of printed figures and began to scan them attentively for the twentieth + time this trip at least. + </p> + <p> + With his elbows propped, his head between his hands, he seemed to lose + himself in the study of an abstruse problem in mathematics. It was the + list of the winning numbers from the last drawing of the great lottery + which had been the one inspiring fact of so many years of his existence. + The conception of a life deprived of that periodical sheet of paper had + slipped away from him entirely, as another man, according to his nature, + would not have been able to conceive a world without fresh air, without + activity, or without affection. A great pile of flimsy sheets had been + growing for years in his desk, while the Sofala, driven by the faithful + Jack, wore out her boilers in tramping up and down the Straits, from cape + to cape, from river to river, from bay to bay; accumulating by that hard + labor of an overworked, starved ship the blackened mass of these + documents. Massy kept them under lock and key like a treasure. There was + in them, as in the experience of life, the fascination of hope, the + excitement of a half-penetrated mystery, the longing of a half-satisfied + desire. + </p> + <p> + For days together, on a trip, he would shut himself up in his berth with + them: the thump of the toiling engines pulsated in his ear; and he would + weary his brain poring over the rows of disconnected figures, bewildering + by their senseless sequence, resembling the hazards of destiny itself. He + nourished a conviction that there must be some logic lurking somewhere in + the results of chance. He thought he had seen its very form. His head + swam; his limbs ached; he puffed at his pipe mechanically; a contemplative + stupor would soothe the fretfulness of his temper, like the passive bodily + quietude procured by a drug, while the intellect remains tensely on the + stretch. Nine, nine, aught, four, two. He made a note. The next winning + number of the great prize was forty-seven thousand and five. These numbers + of course would have to be avoided in the future when writing to Manilla + for the tickets. He mumbled, pencil in hand . . . “and five. Hm . . . hm.” + He wetted his finger: the papers rustled. Ha! But what’s this? Three years + ago, in the September drawing, it was number nine, aught, four, two that + took the first prize. Most remarkable. There was a hint there of a + definite rule! He was afraid of missing some recondite principle in the + overwhelming wealth of his material. What could it be? and for half an + hour he would remain dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching + a muscle. At his back the whole berth would be thick with a heavy body of + smoke, as if a bomb had burst in there, unnoticed, unheard. + </p> + <p> + At last he would lock up the desk with the decision of unshaken + confidence, jump and go out. He would walk swiftly back and forth on that + part of the foredeck which was kept clear of the lumber and of the bodies + of the native passengers. They were a great nuisance, but they were also a + source of profit that could not be disdained. He needed every penny of + profit the Sofala could make. Little enough it was, in all conscience! The + incertitude of chance gave him no concern, since he had somehow arrived at + the conviction that, in the course of years, every number was bound to + have his winning turn. It was simply a matter of time and of taking as + many tickets as he could afford for every drawing. He generally took + rather more; all the earnings of the ship went that way, and also the + wages he allowed himself as chief engineer. It was the wages he paid to + others that he begrudged with a reasoned and at the same time a passionate + regret. He scowled at the lascars with their deck brooms, at the + quartermasters rubbing the brass rails with greasy rags; he was eager to + shake his fist and roar abuse in bad Malay at the poor carpenter—a + timid, sickly, opium-fuddled Chinaman, in loose blue drawers for all + costume, who invariably dropped his tools and fled below, with streaming + tail and shaking all over, before the fury of that “devil.” But it was + when he raised up his eyes to the bridge where one of these sailor frauds + was always planted by law in charge of his ship that he felt almost dizzy + with rage. He abominated them all; it was an old feud, from the time he + first went to sea, an unlicked cub with a great opinion of himself, in the + engine-room. The slights that had been put upon him. The persecutions he + had suffered at the hands of skippers—of absolute nobodies in a + steamship after all. And now that he had risen to be a shipowner they were + still a plague to him: he had absolutely to pay away precious money to the + conceited useless loafers:—As if a fully qualified engineer—who + was the owner as well—were not fit to be trusted with the whole + charge of a ship. Well! he made it pretty warm for them; but it was a poor + consolation. He had come in time to hate the ship too for the repairs she + required, for the coal-bills he had to pay, for the poor beggarly freights + she earned. He would clench his hand as he walked and hit the rail a + sudden blow, viciously, as though she could be made to feel pain. And yet + he could not do without er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth + and nail to keep his head above water till the expected flood of fortune + came sweeping up and landed him safely on the high shore of his ambition. + </p> + <p> + It was now to do nothing, nothing whatever, and have plenty of money to do + it on. He had tasted of power, the highest form of it his limited + experience was aware of—the power of shipowning. What a deception! + Vanity of vanities! He wondered at his folly. He had thrown away the + substance for the shadow. Of the gratification of wealth he did not know + enough to excite his imagination with any visions of luxury. How could he—the + child of a drunken boiler-maker—going straight from the workshop + into the engine-room of a north-country collier! But the notion of the + absolute idleness of wealth he could very well conceive. He reveled in it, + to forget his present troubles; he imagined himself walking about the + streets of Hull (he knew their gutters well as a boy) with his pockets + full of sovereigns. He would buy himself a house; his married sisters, + their husbands, his old workshop chums, would render him infinite homage. + There would be nothing to think of. His word would be law. He had been out + of work for a long time before he won his prize, and he remembered how + Carlo Mariani (commonly known as Paunchy Charley), the Maltese + hotel-keeper at the slummy end of Denham Street, had cringed joyfully + before him in the evening, when the news had come. Poor Charley, though he + made his living by ministering to various abject vices, gave credit for + their food to many a piece of white wreckage. He was naively overjoyed at + the idea of his old bills being paid, and he reckoned confidently on a + spell of festivities in the cavernous grog-shop downstairs. Massy + remembered the curious, respectful looks of the “trashy” white men in the + place. His heart had swelled within him. Massy had left Charley’s infamous + den directly he had realized the possibilities open to him, and with his + nose in the air. Afterwards the memory of these adulations was a great + sadness. + </p> + <p> + This was the true power of money,—and no trouble with it, nor any + thinking required either. He thought with difficulty and felt vividly; to + his blunt brain the problems offered by any ordered scheme of life seemed + in their cruel toughness to have been put in his way by the obvious + malevolence of men. As a shipowner everyone had conspired to make him a + nobody. How could he have been such a fool as to purchase that accursed + ship. He had been abominably swindled; there was no end to this swindling; + and as the difficulties of his improvident ambition gathered thicker round + him, he really came to hate everybody he had ever come in contact with. A + temper naturally irritable and an amazing sensitiveness to the claims of + his own personality had ended by making of life for him a sort of inferno—a + place where his lost soul had been given up to the torment of savage + brooding. + </p> + <p> + But he had never hated anyone so much as that old man who had turned up + one evening to save him from an utter disaster,—from the conspiracy + of the wretched sailors. He seemed to have fallen on board from the sky. + His footsteps echoed on the empty steamer, and the strange deep-toned + voice on deck repeating interrogatively the words, “Mr. Massy, Mr. Massy + there?” had been startling like a wonder. And coming up from the depths of + the cold engine-room, where he had been pottering dismally with a candle + amongst the enormous shadows, thrown on all sides by the skeleton limbs of + machinery, Massy had been struck dumb by astonishment in the presence of + that imposing old man with a beard like a silver plate, towering in the + dusk rendered lurid by the expiring flames of sunset. + </p> + <p> + “Want to see me on business? What business? I am doing no business. Can’t + you see that this ship is laid up?” Massy had turned at bay before the + pursuing irony of his disaster. Afterwards he could not believe his ears. + What was that old fellow getting at? Things don’t happen that way. It was + a dream. He would presently wake up and find the man vanished like a shape + of mist. The gravity, the dignity, the firm and courteous tone of that + athletic old stranger impressed Massy. He was almost afraid. But it was no + dream. Five hundred pounds are no dream. At once he became suspicious. + What did it mean? Of course it was an offer to catch hold of for dear + life. But what could there be behind? + </p> + <p> + Before they had parted, after appointing a meeting in a solicitor’s office + early on the morrow, Massy was asking himself, What is his motive? He + spent the night in hammering out the clauses of the agreement—a + unique instrument of its sort whose tenor got bruited abroad somehow and + became the talk and wonder of the port. + </p> + <p> + Massy’s object had been to secure for himself as many ways as possible of + getting rid of his partner without being called upon at once to pay back + his share. Captain Whalley’s efforts were directed to making the money + secure. Was it not Ivy’s money—a part of her fortune whose only + other asset was the time-defying body of her old father? Sure of his + forbearance in the strength of his love for her, he accepted, with stately + serenity, Massy’s stupidly cunning paragraphs against his incompetence, + his dishonesty, his drunkenness, for the sake of other stringent + stipulations. At the end of three years he was at liberty to withdraw from + the partnership, taking his money with him. Provision was made for forming + a fund to pay him off. But if he left the Sofala before the term, from + whatever cause (barring death), Massy was to have a whole year for paying. + “Illness?” the lawyer had suggested: a young man fresh from Europe and not + overburdened with business, who was rather amused. Massy began to whine + unctuously, “How could he be expected? . . .” + </p> + <p> + “Let that go,” Captain Whalley had said with a superb confidence in his + body. “Acts of God,” he added. In the midst of life we are in death, but + he trusted his Maker with a still greater fearlessness—his Maker who + knew his thoughts, his human affections, and his motives. His Creator knew + what use he was making of his health—how much he wanted it . . . “I + trust my first illness will be my last. I’ve never been ill that I can + remember,” he had remarked. “Let it go.” + </p> + <p> + But at this early stage he had already awakened Massy’s hostility by + refusing to make it six hundred instead of five. “I cannot do that,” was + all he had said, simply, but with so much decision that Massy desisted at + once from pressing the point, but had thought to himself, “Can’t! Old + curmudgeon. <i>Won’t</i> He must have lots of money, but he would like to + get hold of a soft berth and the sixth part of my profits for nothing if + he only could.” + </p> + <p> + And during these years Massy’s dislike grew under the restraint of + something resembling fear. The simplicity of that man appeared dangerous. + Of late he had changed, however, had appeared less formidable and with a + lessened vigor of life, as though he had received a secret wound. But + still he remained incomprehensible in his simplicity, fearlessness, and + rectitude. And when Massy learned that he meant to leave him at the end of + the time, to leave him confronted with the problem of boilers, his dislike + blazed up secretly into hate. + </p> + <p> + It had made him so clear-eyed that for a long time now Mr. Sterne could + have told him nothing he did not know. He had much ado in trying to + terrorize that mean sneak into silence; he wanted to deal alone with the + situation; and—incredible as it might have appeared to Mr. Sterne—he + had not yet given up the desire and the hope of inducing that hated old + man to stay. Why! there was nothing else to do, unless he were to abandon + his chances of fortune. But now, suddenly, since the crossing of the bar + at Batu Beru things seemed to be coming rapidly to a point. It disquieted + him so much that the study of the winning numbers failed to soothe his + agitation: and the twilight in the cabin deepened, very somber. + </p> + <p> + He put the list away, muttering once more, “Oh, no, my boy, you don’t. Not + if I know it.” He did not mean the blinking, eavesdropping humbug to force + his action. He took his head again into his hands; his immobility confined + in the darkness of this shut-up little place seemed to make him a thing + apart infinitely removed from the stir and the sounds of the deck. + </p> + <p> + He heard them: the passengers were beginning to jabber excitedly; somebody + dragged a heavy box past his door. He heard Captain Whalley’s voice above— + </p> + <p> + “Stations, Mr. Sterne.” And the answer from somewhere on deck forward— + </p> + <p> + “Ay, ay, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “We shall moor head up stream this time; the ebb has made.” + </p> + <p> + “Head up stream, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “You will see to it, Mr. Sterne.” + </p> + <p> + The answer was covered by the autocratic clang on the engine-room gong. + The propeller went on beating slowly: one, two, three; one, two, three—with + pauses as if hesitating on the turn. The gong clanged time after time, and + the water churned this way and that by the blades was making a great noisy + commotion alongside. Mr. Massy did not move. A shore-light on the other + bank, a quarter of a mile across the river, drifted, no bigger than a tiny + star, passing slowly athwart the circle of the port. Voices from Mr. Van + Wyk’s jetty answered the hails from the ship; ropes were thrown and missed + and thrown again; the swaying flame of a torch carried in a large sampan + coming to fetch away in state the Rajah from down the coast cast a sudden + ruddy glare into his cabin, over his very person. Mr. Massy did not move. + After a few last ponderous turns the engines stopped, and the prolonged + clanging of the gong signified that the captain had done with them. A + great number of boats and canoes of all sizes boarded the off-side of the + Sofala. Then after a time the tumult of splashing, of cries, of shuffling + feet, of packages dropped with a thump, the noise of the native passengers + going away, subsided slowly. On the shore, a voice, cultivated, slightly + authoritative, spoke very close alongside— + </p> + <p> + “Brought any mail for me this time?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Mr. Van Wyk.” This was from Sterne, answering over the rail in a + tone of respectful cordiality. “Shall I bring it up to you?” + </p> + <p> + But the voice asked again— + </p> + <p> + “Where’s the captain?” + </p> + <p> + “Still on the bridge, I believe. He hasn’t left his chair. Shall I . . .” + </p> + <p> + The voice interrupted negligently. + </p> + <p> + “I will come on board.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Van Wyk,” Sterne suddenly broke out with an eager effort, “will you + do me the favor . . .” + </p> + <p> + The mate walked away quickly towards the gangway. A silence fell. Mr. + Massy in the dark did not move. + </p> + <p> + He did not move even when he heard slow shuffling footsteps pass his cabin + lazily. He contented himself to bellow out through the closed door— + </p> + <p> + “You—Jack!” + </p> + <p> + The footsteps came back without haste; the door handle rattled, and the + second engineer appeared in the opening, shadowy in the sheen of the + skylight at his back, with his face apparently as black as the rest of his + figure. + </p> + <p> + “We have been very long coming up this time,” Mr. Massy growled, without + changing his attitude. + </p> + <p> + “What do you expect with half the boiler tubes plugged up for leaks.” The + second defended himself loquaciously. + </p> + <p> + “None of your lip,” said Massy. + </p> + <p> + “None of your rotten boilers—I say,” retorted his faithful + subordinate without animation, huskily. “Go down there and carry a head of + steam on them yourself—if you dare. I don’t.” + </p> + <p> + “You aren’t worth your salt then,” Massy said. The other made a faint + noise which resembled a laugh but might have been a snarl. + </p> + <p> + “Better go slow than stop the ship altogether,” he admonished his admired + superior. Mr. Massy moved at last. He turned in his chair, and grinding + his teeth— + </p> + <p> + “Dam’ you and the ship! I wish she were at the bottom of the sea. Then you + would have to starve.” + </p> + <p> + The trusty second engineer closed the door gently. + </p> + <p> + Massy listened. Instead of passing on to the bathroom where he should have + gone to clean himself, the second entered his cabin, which was next door. + Mr. Massy jumped up and waited. Suddenly he heard the lock snap in there. + He rushed out and gave a violent kick to the door. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you are locking yourself up to get drunk,” he shouted. + </p> + <p> + A muffled answer came after a while. + </p> + <p> + “My own time.” + </p> + <p> + “If you take to boozing on the trip I’ll fire you out,” Massy cried. + </p> + <p> + An obstinate silence followed that threat. Massy moved away perplexed. On + the bank two figures appeared, approaching the gangway. He heard a voice + tinged with contempt— + </p> + <p> + “I would rather doubt your word. But I shall certainly speak to him of + this.” + </p> + <p> + The other voice, Sterne’s, said with a sort of regretful formality— + </p> + <p> + “Thanks. That’s all I want. I must do my duty.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy was surprised. A short, dapper figure leaped lightly on the deck + and nearly bounded into him where he stood beyond the circle of light from + the gangway lamp. When it had passed towards the bridge, after exchanging + a hurried “Good evening,” Massy said surlily to Sterne who followed with + slow steps— + </p> + <p> + “What is it you’re making up to Mr. Van Wyk for, now?” + </p> + <p> + “Far from it, Mr. Massy. I am not good enough for Mr. Van Wyk. Neither are + you, sir, in his opinion, I am afraid. Captain Whalley is, it seems. He’s + gone to ask him to dine up at the house this evening.” + </p> + <p> + Then he murmured to himself darkly— + </p> + <p> + “I hope he will like it.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex-naval officer who, for + reasons best known to himself, had thrown away the promise of a brilliant + career to become the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that remote part of + the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley. The appearance of the new + skipper had attracted his attention. Nothing more unlike all the diverse + types he had seen succeeding each other on the bridge of the Sofala could + be imagined. + </p> + <p> + At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become since: the center of a + prosperous tobacco-growing district, a tropically suburban-looking little + settlement of bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows of trees, + embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance of the gardens, with a + three-mile-long carriage-road for the afternoon drives and a first-class + Resident with a fat, cheery wife to lead the society of married + estate-managers and unmarried young fellows in the service of the big + companies. + </p> + <p> + All this prosperity was not yet; and Mr. Van Wyk prospered alone on the + left bank on his deep clearing carved out of the forest, which came down + above and below to the water’s edge. His lonely bungalow faced across the + river the houses of the Sultan: a restless and melancholy old ruler who + had done with love and war, for whom life no longer held any savor (except + of evil forebodings) and time never had any value. He was afraid of death, + and hoped he would die before the white men were ready to take his country + from him. He crossed the river frequently (with never less than ten boats + crammed full of people), in the wistful hope of extracting some + information on the subject from his own white man. There was a certain + chair on the veranda he always took: the dignitaries of the court squatted + on the rugs and skins between the furniture: the inferior people remained + below on the grass plot between the house and the river in rows three or + four deep all along the front. Not seldom the visit began at daybreak. Mr. + Van Wyk tolerated these inroads. He would nod out of his bedroom window, + tooth-brush or razor in hand, or pass through the throng of courtiers in + his bathing robe. He appeared and disappeared humming a tune, polished his + nails with attention, rubbed his shaved face with <i>eau-de-Cologne</i>, + drank his early tea, went out to see his coolies at work: returned, looked + through some papers on his desk, read a page or two in a book or sat + before his cottage piano leaning back on the stool, his arms extended, + fingers on the keys, his body swaying slightly from side to side. When + absolutely forced to speak he gave evasive vaguely soothing answers out of + pure compassion: the same feeling perhaps made him so lavishly hospitable + with the aerated drinks that more than once he left himself without + soda-water for a whole week. That old man had granted him as much land as + he cared to have cleared: it was neither more nor less than a fortune. + </p> + <p> + Whether it was fortune or seclusion from his kind that Mr. Van Wyk sought, + he could not have pitched upon a better place. Even the mail-boats of the + subsidized company calling on the veriest clusters of palm-thatched hovels + along the coast steamed past the mouth of Batu Beru river far away in the + offing. The contract was old: perhaps in a few years’ time, when it had + expired, Batu Beru would be included in the service; meantime all Mr. Van + Wyk’s mail was addressed to Malacca, whence his agent sent it across once + a month by the Sofala. It followed that whenever Massy had run short of + money (through taking too many lottery tickets), or got into a difficulty + about a skipper, Mr. Van Wyk was deprived of his letter and newspapers. In + so far he had a personal interest in the fortunes of the Sofala. Though he + considered himself a hermit (and for no passing whim evidently, since he + had stood eight years of it already), he liked to know what went on in the + world. + </p> + <p> + Handy on the veranda upon a walnut <i>etagere</i> (it had come last year + by the Sofala)—everything came by the Sofala there lay, piled up + under bronze weights, a pile of the Times’ weekly edition, the large + sheets of the Rotterdam Courant, the Graphic in its world-wide green + wrappers, an illustrated Dutch publication without a cover, the numbers of + a German magazine with covers of the “<i>Bismarck malade</i>” color. There + were also parcels of new music—though the piano (it had come years + ago by the Sofala in the damp atmosphere of the forests was generally out + of tune.) It was vexing to be cut off from everything for sixty days at a + stretch sometimes, without any means of knowing what was the matter. And + when the Sofala reappeared Mr. Van Wyk would descend the steps of the + veranda and stroll over the grass plot in front of his house, down to the + waterside, with a frown on his white brow. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve been laid up after an accident, I presume.” + </p> + <p> + He addressed the bridge, but before anybody could answer Massy was sure to + have already scrambled ashore over the rail and pushed in, squeezing the + palms of his hands together, bowing his sleek head as if gummed all over + the top with black threads and tapes. And he would be so enraged at the + necessity of having to offer such an explanation that his moaning would be + positively pitiful, while all the time he tried to compose his big lips + into a smile. + </p> + <p> + “No, Mr. Van Wyk. You would not believe it. I couldn’t get one of those + wretches to take the ship out. Not a single one of the lazy beasts could + be induced, and the law, you know, Mr. Van Wyk . . .” + </p> + <p> + He moaned at great length apologetically; the words conspiracy, plot, + envy, came out prominently, whined with greater energy. Mr. Van Wyk, + examining with a faint grimace his polished finger-nails, would say, “H’m. + Very unfortunate,” and turn his back on him. + </p> + <p> + Fastidious, clever, slightly skeptical, accustomed to the best society (he + had held a much-envied shore appointment at the Ministry of Marine for a + year preceding his retreat from his profession and from Europe), he + possessed a latent warmth of feeling and a capacity for sympathy which + were concealed by a sort of haughty, arbitrary indifference of manner + arising from his early training; and by a something an enemy might have + called foppish, in his aspect—like a distorted echo of past + elegance. He managed to keep an almost military discipline amongst the + coolies of the estate he had dragged into the light of day out of the + tangle and shadows of the jungle; and the white shirt he put on every + evening with its stiff glossy front and high collar looked as if he had + meant to preserve the decent ceremony of evening-dress, but had wound a + thick crimson sash above his hips as a concession to the wilderness, once + his adversary, now his vanquished companion. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, it was a hygienic precaution. Worn wide open in front, a short + jacket of some airy silken stuff floated from his shoulders. His fluffy, + fair hair, thin at the top, curled slightly at the sides; a carefully + arranged mustache, an ungarnished forehead, the gleam of low patent shoes + peeping under the wide bottom of trowsers cut straight from the same stuff + as the gossamer coat, completed a figure recalling, with its sash, a + pirate chief of romance, and at the same time the elegance of a slightly + bald dandy indulging, in seclusion, a taste for unorthodox costume. + </p> + <p> + It was his evening get-up. The proper time for the Sofala to arrive at + Batu Beru was an hour before sunset, and he looked picturesque, and + somehow quite correct too, walking at the water’s edge on the background + of grass slope crowned with a low long bungalow with an immensely steep + roof of palm thatch, and clad to the eaves in flowering creepers. While + the Sofala was being made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees + left near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on board. Her white + men were not of his kind. The old Sultan (though his wistful invasions + were a nuisance) was really much more acceptable to his fastidious taste. + But still they were white; the periodical visits of the ship made a break + in the well-filled sameness of the days without disturbing his privacy. + Moreover, they were necessary from a business point of view; and through a + strain of preciseness in his nature he was irritated when she failed to + appear at the appointed time. + </p> + <p> + The cause of the irregularity was too absurd, and Massy, in his opinion, + was a contemptible idiot. The first time the Sofala reappeared under the + new agreement swinging out of the bend below, after he had almost given up + all hope of ever seeing her again, he felt so angry that he did not go + down at once to the landing-place. His servants had come running to him + with the news, and he had dragged a chair close against the front rail of + the veranda, spread his elbows out, rested his chin on his hands, and went + on glaring at her fixedly while she was being made fast opposite his + house. He could make out easily all the white faces on board. Who on earth + was that kind of patriarch they had got there on the bridge now? + </p> + <p> + At last he sprang up and walked down the gravel path. It was a fact that + the very gravel for his paths had been imported by the Sofala. Exasperated + out of his quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone right or + left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined a manner that the + engineer, taken aback, began to stammer unintelligibly. Nothing could be + heard but the words: “Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van Wyk . . . For the + future, Mr. Van Wyk”—and by the suffusion of blood Massy’s vast + bilious face acquired an unnatural orange tint, out of which the + disconcerted coal-black eyes shone in an extraordinary manner. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense. I am tired of this. I wonder you have the impudence to come + alongside my jetty as if I had it made for your convenience alone.” + </p> + <p> + Massy tried to protest earnestly. Mr. Van Wyk was very angry. He had a + good mind to ask that German firm—those people in Malacca—what + was their name?—boats with green funnels. They would be only too + glad of the opening to put one of their small steamers on the run. Yes; + Schnitzler, Jacob Schnitzler, would in a moment. Yes. He had decided to + write without delay. + </p> + <p> + In his agitation Massy caught up his falling pipe. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t mean it, sir!” he shrieked. + </p> + <p> + “You shouldn’t mismanage your business in this ridiculous manner.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk turned on his heel. The other three whites on the bridge had + not stirred during the scene. Massy walked hastily from side to side, + puffed out his cheeks, suffocated. + </p> + <p> + “Stuck up Dutchman!” + </p> + <p> + And he moaned out feverishly a long tale of griefs. The efforts he had + made for all these years to please that man. This was the return you got + for it, eh? Pretty. Write to Schnitzler—let in the green-funnel + boats—get an old Hamburg Jew to ruin him. No, really he could laugh. + . . . He laughed sobbingly. . . . Ha! ha! ha! And make him carry the + letter in his own ship presumably. + </p> + <p> + He stumbled across a grating and swore. He would not hesitate to fling the + Dutchman’s correspondence overboard—the whole confounded bundle. He + had never, never made any charge for that accommodation. But Captain + Whalley, his new partner, would not let him probably; besides, it would be + only putting off the evil day. For his own part he would make a hole in + the water rather than look on tamely at the green funnels overrunning his + trade. + </p> + <p> + He raved aloud. The China boys hung back with the dishes at the foot of + the ladder. He yelled from the bridge down at the deck, “Aren’t we going + to have any chow this evening at all?” then turned violently to Captain + Whalley, who waited, grave and patient, at the head of the table, + smoothing his beard in silence now and then with a forbearing gesture. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t seem to care what happens to me. Don’t you see that this + affects your interests as much as mine? It’s no joking matter.” + </p> + <p> + He took the foot of the table growling between his teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Unless you have a few thousands put away somewhere. I haven’t.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk dined in his thoroughly lit-up bungalow, putting a point of + splendor in the night of his clearing above the dark bank of the river. + Afterwards he sat down to his piano, and in a pause he became aware of + slow footsteps passing on the path along the front. A plank or two creaked + under a heavy tread; he swung half round on the music-stool, listening + with his fingertips at rest on the keyboard. His little terrier barked + violently, backing in from the veranda. A deep voice apologized gravely + for “this intrusion.” He walked out quickly. + </p> + <p> + At the head of the steps the patriarchal figure, who was the new captain + of the Sofala apparently (he had seen a round dozen of them, but not one + of that sort), towered without advancing. The little dog barked + unceasingly, till a flick of Mr. Van Wyk’s handkerchief made him spring + aside into silence. Captain Whalley, opening the matter, was met by a + punctiliously polite but determined opposition. + </p> + <p> + They carried on their discussion standing where they had come face to + face. Mr. Van Wyk observed his visitor with attention. Then at last, as if + forced out of his reserve— + </p> + <p> + “I am surprised that you should intercede for such a confounded fool.” + </p> + <p> + This outbreak was almost complimentary, as if its meaning had been, “That + such a man as you should intercede!” Captain Whalley let it pass by + without flinching. One would have thought he had heard nothing. He simply + went on to state that he was personally interested in putting things + straight between them. Personally . . . + </p> + <p> + But Mr. Van Wyk, really carried away by his disgust with Massy, became + very incisive— + </p> + <p> + “Indeed—if I am to be frank with you—his whole character does + not seem to me particularly estimable or trustworthy . . .” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, always straight, seemed to grow an inch taller and + broader, as if the girth of his chest had suddenly expanded under his + beard. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir, you don’t think I came here to discuss a man with whom I am—I + am—h’m—closely associated.” + </p> + <p> + A sort of solemn silence lasted for a moment. He was not used to asking + favors, but the importance he attached to this affair had made him willing + to try. . . . Mr. Van Wyk, favorably impressed, and suddenly mollified by + a desire to laugh, interrupted— + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right if you make it a personal matter; but you can do no less + than sit down and smoke a cigar with me.” + </p> + <p> + A slight pause, then Captain Whalley stepped forward heavily. As to the + regularity of the service, for the future he made himself responsible for + it; and his name was Whalley—perhaps to a sailor (he was speaking to + a sailor, was he not?) not altogether unfamiliar. There was a lighthouse + now, on an island. Maybe Mr. Van Wyk himself . . . + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes. Oh indeed.” Mr. Van Wyk caught on at once. He indicated a chair. + How very interesting. For his own part he had seen some service in the + last Acheen War, but had never been so far East. Whalley Island? Of + course. Now that was very interesting. What changes his guest must have + seen since. + </p> + <p> + “I can look further back even—on a whole half-century.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley expanded a bit. The flavor of a good cigar (it was a + weakness) had gone straight to his heart, also the civility of that young + man. There was something in that accidental contact of which he had been + starved in his years of struggle. + </p> + <p> + The front wall retreating made a square recess furnished like a room. A + lamp with a milky glass shade, suspended below the slope of the high roof + at the end of a slender brass chain, threw a bright round of light upon a + little table bearing an open book and an ivory paper-knife. And, in the + translucent shadows beyond, other tables could be seen, a number of + easy-chairs of various shapes, with a great profusion of skin rugs strewn + on the teakwood planking all over the veranda. The flowering creepers + scented the air. Their foliage clipped out between the uprights made as if + several frames of thick unstirring leaves reflecting the lamplight in a + green glow. Through the opening at his elbow Captain Whalley could see the + gangway lantern of the Sofala burning dim by the shore, the shadowy masses + of the town beyond the open lustrous darkness of the river, and, as if + hung along the straight edge of the projecting eaves, a narrow black strip + of the night sky full of stars—resplendent. The famous cigar in hand + he had a moment of complacency. + </p> + <p> + “A trifle. Somebody must lead the way. I just showed that the thing could + be done; but you men brought up to the use of steam cannot conceive the + vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to the Eastern trade of the + time. Why, that new route reduced the average time of a southern passage + by eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven days! It’s on record. + But the remarkable thing—speaking to a sailor—I should say was + . . .” + </p> + <p> + He talked well, without egotism, professionally. The powerful voice, + produced without effort, filled the bungalow even into the empty rooms + with a deep and limpid resonance, seemed to make a stillness outside; and + Mr. Van Wyk was surprised by the serene quality of its tone, like the + perfection of manly gentleness. Nursing one small foot, in a silk sock and + a patent leather shoe, on his knee, he was immensely entertained. It was + as if nobody could talk like this now, and the overshadowed eyes, the + flowing white beard, the big frame, the serenity, the whole temper of the + man, were an amazing survival from the prehistoric times of the world + coming up to him out of the sea. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley had been also the pioneer of the early trade in the Gulf + of Pe-tchi-li. He even found occasion to mention that he had buried his + “dear wife” there six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive, could + not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to the sort of woman that + would mate with such a man. Did they make an adventurous and well-matched + pair? No. Very possible she had been small, frail, no doubt very feminine—or + most likely commonplace with domestic instincts, utterly insignificant. + But Captain Whalley was no garrulous bore, and shaking his head as if to + dissipate the momentary gloom that had settled on his handsome old face, + he alluded conversationally to Mr. Van Wyk’s solitude. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk affirmed that sometimes he had more company than he wanted. He + mentioned smilingly some of the peculiarities of his intercourse with “My + Sultan.” He made his visits in force. Those people damaged his grass plot + in front (it was not easy to obtain some approach to a lawn in the + tropics) and the other day had broken down some rare bushes he had planted + over there. And Captain Whalley remembered immediately that, in + ‘forty-seven, the then Sultan, “this man’s grandfather,” had been + notorious as a great protector of the piratical fleets of praus from + farther East. They had a safe refuge in the river at Batu Beru. He + financed more especially a Balinini chief called Haji Daman. Captain + Whalley, nodding significantly his bushy white eyebrows, had very good + reason to know something of that. The world had progressed since that + time. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk demurred with unexpected acrimony. Progressed in what? he + wanted to know. + </p> + <p> + Why, in knowledge of truth, in decency, in justice, in order—in + honesty too, since men harmed each other mostly from ignorance. It was, + Captain Whalley concluded quaintly, more pleasant to live in. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk whimsically would not admit that Mr. Massy, for instance, was + more pleasant naturally than the Balinini pirates. + </p> + <p> + The river had not gained much by the change. They were in their way every + bit as honest. Massy was less ferocious than Haji Daman no doubt, but . . + . + </p> + <p> + “And what about you, my good sir?” Captain Whalley laughed a deep soft + laugh. “<i>You</i> are an improvement, surely.” + </p> + <p> + He continued in a vein of pleasantry. A good cigar was better than a knock + on the head—the sort of welcome he would have found on this river + forty or fifty years ago. Then leaning forward slightly, he became + earnestly serious. It seems as if, outside their own sea-gypsy tribes, + these rovers had hated all mankind with an incomprehensible, bloodthirsty + hatred. Meantime their depredations had been stopped, and what was the + consequence? The new generation was orderly, peaceable, settled in + prosperous villages. He could speak from personal knowledge. And even the + few survivors of that time—old men now—had changed so much, + that it would have been unkind to remember against them that they had ever + slit a throat in their lives. He had one especially in his mind’s eye: a + dignified, venerable headman of a certain large coast village about sixty + miles sou’west of Tampasuk. It did one’s heart good to see him—to + hear that man speak. He might have been a ferocious savage once. What men + wanted was to be checked by superior intelligence, by superior knowledge, + by superior force too—yes, by force held in trust from God and + sanctified by its use in accordance with His declared will. Captain + Whalley believed a disposition for good existed in every man, even if the + world were not a very happy place as a whole. In the wisdom of men he had + not so much confidence. The disposition had to be helped up pretty sharply + sometimes, he admitted. They might be silly, wrongheaded, unhappy; but + naturally evil—no. There was at bottom a complete harmlessness at + least . . . + </p> + <p> + “Is there?” Mr. Van Wyk snapped acrimoniously. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley laughed at the interjection, in the good humor of large, + tolerating certitude. He could look back at half a century, he pointed + out. The smoke oozed placidly through the white hairs hiding his kindly + lips. + </p> + <p> + “At all events,” he resumed after a pause, “I am glad that they’ve had no + time to do you much harm as yet.” + </p> + <p> + This allusion to his comparative youthfulness did not offend Mr. Van Wyk, + who got up and wriggled his shoulders with an enigmatic half-smile. They + walked out together amicably into the starry night towards the river-side. + Their footsteps resounded unequally on the dark path. At the shore end of + the gangway the lantern, hung low to the handrail, threw a vivid light on + the white legs and the big black feet of Mr. Massy waiting about + anxiously. From the waist upwards he remained shadowy, with a row of + buttons gleaming up to the vague outline of his chin. + </p> + <p> + “You may thank Captain Whalley for this,” Mr. Van Wyk said curtly to him + before turning away. + </p> + <p> + The lamps on the veranda flung three long squares of light between the + uprights far over the grass. A bat flitted before his face like a circling + flake of velvety blackness. Along the jasmine hedge the night air seemed + heavy with the fall of perfumed dew; flowerbeds bordered the path; the + clipped bushes uprose in dark rounded clumps here and there before the + house; the dense foliage of creepers filtered the sheen of the lamplight + within in a soft glow all along the front; and everything near and far + stood still in a great immobility, in a great sweetness. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk (a few years before he had had occasion to imagine himself + treated more badly than anybody alive had ever been by a woman) felt for + Captain Whalley’s optimistic views the disdain of a man who had once been + credulous himself. His disgust with the world (the woman for a time had + filled it for him completely) had taken the form of activity in + retirement, because, though capable of great depth of feeling, he was + energetic and essentially practical. But there was in that uncommon old + sailor, drifting on the outskirts of his busy solitude, something that + fascinated his skepticism. His very simplicity (amusing enough) was like a + delicate refinement of an upright character. The striking dignity of + manner could be nothing else, in a man reduced to such a humble position, + but the expression of something essentially noble in the character. With + all his trust in mankind he was no fool; the serenity of his temper at the + end of so many years, since it could not obviously have been appeased by + success, wore an air of profound wisdom. Mr. Van Wyk was amused at it + sometimes. Even the very physical traits of the old captain of the Sofala, + his powerful frame, his reposeful mien, his intelligent, handsome face, + the big limbs, the benign courtesy, the touch of rugged severity in the + shaggy eyebrows, made up a seductive personality. Mr. Van Wyk disliked + littleness of every kind, but there was nothing small about that man, and + in the exemplary regularity of many trips an intimacy had grown up between + them, a warm feeling at bottom under a kindly stateliness of forms + agreeable to his fastidiousness. + </p> + <p> + They kept their respective opinions on all worldly matters. His other + convictions Captain Whalley never intruded. The difference of their ages + was like another bond between them. Once, when twitted with the + uncharitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his eye over the vast + proportions of his interlocutor, retorted in friendly banter— + </p> + <p> + “Oh. You’ll come to my way of thinking yet. You’ll have plenty of time. + Don’t call yourself old: you look good for a round hundred.” + </p> + <p> + But he could not help his stinging incisiveness, and though moderating it + by an almost affectionate smile, he added— + </p> + <p> + “And by then you will probably consent to die from sheer disgust.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, smiling too, shook his head. “God forbid!” + </p> + <p> + He thought that perhaps on the whole he deserved something better than to + die in such sentiments. The time of course would have to come, and he + trusted to his Maker to provide a manner of going out of which he need not + be ashamed. For the rest he hoped he would live to a hundred if need be: + other men had been known; it would be no miracle. He expected no miracles. + </p> + <p> + The pronounced, argumentative tone caused Mr. Van Wyk to raise his head + and look at him steadily. Captain Whalley was gazing fixedly with a rapt + expression, as though he had seen his Creator’s favorable decree written + in mysterious characters on the wall. He kept perfectly motionless for a + few seconds, then got his vast bulk on to his feet so impetuously that Mr. + Van Wyk was startled. + </p> + <p> + He struck first a heavy blow on his inflated chest: and, throwing out + horizontally a big arm that remained steady, extended in the air like the + limb of a tree on a windless day— + </p> + <p> + “Not a pain or an ache there. Can you see this shake in the least?” + </p> + <p> + His voice was low, in an awing, confident contrast with the headlong + emphasis of his movements. He sat down abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “This isn’t to boast of it, you know. I am nothing,” he said in his + effortless strong voice, that seemed to come out as naturally as a river + flows. He picked up the stump of the cigar he had laid aside, and added + peacefully, with a slight nod, “As it happens, my life is necessary; it + isn’t my own, it isn’t—God knows.” + </p> + <p> + He did not say much for the rest of the evening, but several times Mr. Van + Wyk detected a faint smile of assurance flitting under the heavy mustache. + </p> + <p> + Later on Captain Whalley would now and then consent to dine “at the + house.” He could even be induced to drink a glass of wine. “Don’t think I + am afraid of it, my good sir,” he explained. “There was a very good reason + why I should give it up.” + </p> + <p> + On another occasion, leaning back at ease, he remarked, “You have treated + me most—most humanely, my dear Mr. Van Wyk, from the very first.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll admit there was some merit,” Mr. Van Wyk hinted slyly. “An + associate of that excellent Massy. . . . Well, well, my dear captain, I + won’t say a word against him.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be no use your saying anything against him,” Captain Whalley + affirmed a little moodily. “As I’ve told you before, my life—my + work, is necessary, not for myself alone. I can’t choose” . . . He paused, + turned the glass before him right round. . . . “I have an only child—a + daughter.” + </p> + <p> + The ample downward sweep of his arm over the table seemed to suggest a + small girl at a vast distance. “I hope to see her once more before I die. + Meantime it’s enough to know that she has me sound and solid, thank God. + You can’t understand how one feels. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh; + the very image of my poor wife. Well, she . . .” + </p> + <p> + Again he paused, then pronounced stoically the words, “She has a hard + struggle.” + </p> + <p> + And his head fell on his breast, his eyebrows remained knitted, as by an + effort of meditation. But generally his mind seemed steeped in the + serenity of boundless trust in a higher power. Mr. Van Wyk wondered + sometimes how much of it was due to the splendid vitality of the man, to + the bodily vigor which seems to impart something of its force to the soul. + But he had learned to like him very much. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + This was the reason why Mr. Sterne’s confidential communication, delivered + hurriedly on the shore alongside the dark silent ship, had disturbed his + equanimity. It was the most incomprehensible and unexpected thing that + could happen; and the perturbation of his spirit was so great that, + forgetting all about his letters, he ran rapidly up the bridge ladder. + </p> + <p> + The portable table was being put together for dinner to the left of the + wheel by two pig-tailed “boys,” who as usual snarled at each other over + the job, while another, a doleful, burly, very yellow Chinaman, resembling + Mr. Massy, waited apathetically with the cloth over his arm and a pile of + thick dinner-plates against his chest. A common cabin lamp with its globe + missing, brought up from below, had been hooked to the wooden framework of + the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all round; Captain Whalley + filling the depths of the wicker-chair seemed to sit benumbed in a canvas + tent crudely lighted, and used for the storing of nautical objects; a + shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle on a stout mahogany + stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork fender lying in a corner, + dilapidated deck-lockers with loops of thin rope instead of door-handles. + </p> + <p> + He shook off the appearance of numbness to return Mr. Van Wyk’s unusually + brisk greeting, but relapsed directly afterwards. To accept a pressing + invitation to dinner “up at the house” cost him another very visible + physical effort. Mr. Van Wyk, perplexed, folded his arms, and leaning back + against the rail, with his little, black, shiny feet well out, examined + him covertly. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve noticed of late that you are not quite yourself, old friend.” + </p> + <p> + He put an affectionate gentleness into the last two words. The real + intimacy of their intercourse had never been so vividly expressed before. + </p> + <p> + “Tut, tut, tut!” + </p> + <p> + The wicker-chair creaked heavily. + </p> + <p> + “Irritable,” commented Mr. Van Wyk to himself; and aloud, “I’ll expect to + see you in half an hour, then,” he said negligently, moving off. + </p> + <p> + “In half an hour,” Captain Whalley’s rigid silvery head repeated behind + him as if out of a trance. + </p> + <p> + Amidships, below, two voices, close against the engineroom, could be heard + answering each other—one angry and slow, the other alert. + </p> + <p> + “I tell you the beast has locked himself in to get drunk.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t help it now, Mr. Massy. After all, a man has a right to shut + himself up in his cabin in his own time.” + </p> + <p> + “Not to get drunk.” + </p> + <p> + “I heard him swear that the worry with the boilers was enough to drive any + man to drink,” Sterne said maliciously. + </p> + <p> + Massy hissed out something about bursting the door in. Mr. Van Wyk, to + avoid them, crossed in the dark to the other side of the deserted deck. + The planking of the little wharf rattled faintly under his hasty feet. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Van Wyk! Mr. Van Wyk!” + </p> + <p> + He walked on: somebody was running on the path. “You’ve forgotten to get + your mail.” + </p> + <p> + Sterne, holding a bundle of papers in his hand, caught up with him. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, thanks.” + </p> + <p> + But, as the other continued at his elbow, Mr. Van Wyk stopped short. The + overhanging eaves, descending low upon the lighted front of the bungalow, + threw their black straight-edged shadow into the great body of the night + on that side. Everything was very still. A tinkle of cutlery and a slight + jingle of glasses were heard. Mr. Van Wyk’s servants were laying the table + for two on the veranda. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid you give me no credit whatever for my good intentions in the + matter I’ve spoken to you about,” said Sterne. + </p> + <p> + “I simply don’t understand you.” + </p> + <p> + “Captain Whalley is a very audacious man, but he will understand that his + game is up. That’s all that anybody need ever know of it from me. Believe + me, I am very considerate in this, but duty is duty. I don’t want to make + a fuss. All I ask you, as his friend, is to tell him from me that the + game’s up. That will be sufficient.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk felt a loathsome dismay at this queer privilege of friendship. + He would not demean himself by asking for the slightest explanation; to + drive the other away with contumely he did not think prudent—as yet, + at any rate. So much assurance staggered him. Who could tell what there + could be in it, he thought? His regard for Captain Whalley had the + tenacity of a disinterested sentiment, and his practical instinct coming + to his aid, he concealed his scorn. + </p> + <p> + “I gather, then, that this is something grave.” + </p> + <p> + “Very grave,” Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at having produced an + effect at last. He was ready to add some effusive protestations of regret + at the “unavoidable necessity,” but Mr. Van Wyk cut him short—very + civilly, however. + </p> + <p> + Once on the veranda Mr. Van Wyk put his hands in his pockets, and, + straddling his legs, stared down at a black panther skin lying on the + floor before a rocking-chair. “It looks as if the fellow had not the pluck + to play his own precious game openly,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + This was true enough. In the face of Massy’s last rebuff Sterne dared not + declare his knowledge. His object was simply to get charge of the steamer + and keep it for some time. Massy would never forgive him for forcing + himself on; but if Captain Whalley left the ship of his own accord, the + command would devolve upon him for the rest of the trip; so he hit upon + the brilliant idea of scaring the old man away. A vague menace, a mere + hint, would be enough in such a brazen case; and, with a strange admixture + of compassion, he thought that Batu Beru was a very good place for + throwing up the sponge. The skipper could go ashore quietly, and stay with + that Dutchman of his. Weren’t these two as thick as thieves together? And + on reflection he seemed to see that there was a way to work the whole + thing through that great friend of the old man’s. This was another + brilliant idea. He had an inborn preference for circuitous methods. In + this particular case he desired to remain in the background as much as + possible, to avoid exasperating Massy needlessly. No fuss! Let it all + happen naturally. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk all through the dinner was conscious of a sense of isolation + that invades sometimes the closeness of human intercourse. Captain Whalley + failed lamentably and obviously in his attempts to eat something. He + seemed overcome by a strange absentmindedness. His hand would hover + irresolutely, as if left without guidance by a preoccupied mind. Mr. Van + Wyk had heard him coming up from a long way off in the profound stillness + of the river-side, and had noticed the irresolute character of the + footfalls. The toe of his boot had struck the bottom stair as though he + had come along mooning with his head in the air right up to the steps of + the veranda. Had the captain of the Sofala been another sort of man he + would have suspected the work of age there. But one glance at him was + enough. Time—after, indeed, marking him for its own—had given + him up to his usefulness, in which his simple faith would see a proof of + Divine mercy. “How could I contrive to warn him?” Mr. Van Wyk wondered, as + if Captain Whalley had been miles and miles away, out of sight and earshot + of all evil. He was sickened by an immense disgust of Sterne. To even + mention his threat to a man like Whalley would be positively indecent. + There was something more vile and insulting in its hint than in a definite + charge of crime—the debasing taint of blackmailing. “What could + anyone bring against him?” he asked himself. This was a limpid + personality. “And for what object?” The Power that man trusted had thought + fit to leave him nothing on earth that envy could lay hold of, except a + bare crust of bread. + </p> + <p> + “Won’t you try some of this?” he asked, pushing a dish slightly. Suddenly + it seemed to Mr. Van Wyk that Sterne might possibly be coveting the + command of the Sofala. His cynicism was quite startled by what looked like + a proof that no man may count himself safe from his kind unless in the + very abyss of misery. An intrigue of that sort was hardly worth troubling + about, he judged; but still, with such a fool as Massy to deal with, + Whalley ought to and must be warned. + </p> + <p> + At this moment Captain Whalley, bolt upright, the deep cavities of the + eyes overhung by a bushy frown, and one large brown hand resting on each + side of his empty plate, spoke across the tablecloth abruptly—“Mr. + Van Wyk, you’ve always treated me with the most humane consideration.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear captain, you make too much of a simple fact that I am not a + savage.” Mr. Van Wyk, utterly revolted by the thought of Sterne’s obscure + attempt, raised his voice incisively, as if the mate had been hiding + somewhere within earshot. “Any consideration I have been able to show was + no more than the rightful due of a character I’ve learned to regard by + this time with an esteem that nothing can shake.” + </p> + <p> + A slight ring of glass made him lift his eyes from the slice of pine-apple + he was cutting into small pieces on his plate. In changing his position + Captain Whalley had contrived to upset an empty tumbler. + </p> + <p> + Without looking that way, leaning sideways on his elbow, his other hand + shading his brow, he groped shakily for it, then desisted. Van Wyk stared + blankly, as if something momentous had happened all at once. He did not + know why he should feel so startled; but he forgot Sterne utterly for the + moment. + </p> + <p> + “Why, what’s the matter?” + </p> + <p> + And Captain Whalley, half-averted, in a deadened, agitated voice, muttered— + </p> + <p> + “Esteem!” + </p> + <p> + “And I may add something more,” Mr. Van Wyk, very steady-eyed, pronounced + slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Hold! Enough!” Captain Whalley did not change his attitude or raise his + voice. “Say no more! I can make you no return. I am too poor even for that + now. Your esteem is worth having. You are not a man that would stoop to + deceive the poorest sort of devil on earth, or make a ship unseaworthy + every time he takes her to sea.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk, leaning forward, his face gone pink all over, with the + starched table-napkin over his knees, was inclined to mistrust his senses, + his power of comprehension, the sanity of his guest. + </p> + <p> + “Where? Why? In the name of God!—what’s this? What ship? I don’t + understand who . . .” + </p> + <p> + “Then, in the name of God, it is I! A ship’s unseaworthy when her captain + can’t see. I am going blind.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk made a slight movement, and sat very still afterwards for a + few seconds; then, with the thought of Sterne’s “The game’s up,” he ducked + under the table to pick up the napkin which had slipped off his knees. + This was the game that was up. And at the same time the muffled voice of + Captain Whalley passed over him— + </p> + <p> + “I’ve deceived them all. Nobody knows.” + </p> + <p> + He emerged flushed to the eyes. Captain Whalley, motionless under the full + blaze of the lamp, shaded his face with his hand. + </p> + <p> + “And you had that courage?” + </p> + <p> + “Call it by what name you like. But you are a humane man—a—a—gentleman, + Mr. Van Wyk. You may have asked me what I had done with my conscience.” + </p> + <p> + He seemed to muse, profoundly silent, very still in his mournful pose. + </p> + <p> + “I began to tamper with it in my pride. You begin to see a lot of things + when you are going blind. I could not be frank with an old chum even. I + was not frank with Massy—no, not altogether. I knew he took me for a + wealthy sailor fool, and I let him. I wanted to keep up my importance—because + there was poor Ivy away there—my daughter. What did I want to trade + on his misery for? I did trade on it—for her. And now, what mercy + could I expect from him? He would trade on mine if he knew it. He would + hunt the old fraud out, and stick to the money for a year. Ivy’s money. + And I haven’t kept a penny for myself. How am I going to live for a year. + A year! In a year there will be no sun in the sky for her father.” + </p> + <p> + His deep voice came out, awfully veiled, as though he had been overwhelmed + by the earth of a landslide, and talking to you of the thoughts that haunt + the dead in their graves. A cold shudder ran down Mr. Van Wyk’s back. + </p> + <p> + “And how long is it since you have . . .?” he began. + </p> + <p> + “It was a long time before I could bring myself to believe in this—this + visitation.” Captain Whalley spoke with gloomy patience from under his + hand. + </p> + <p> + He had not thought he had deserved it. He had begun by deceiving himself + from day to day, from week to week. He had the Serang at hand there—an + old servant. It came on gradually, and when he could no longer deceive + himself . . . + </p> + <p> + His voice died out almost. + </p> + <p> + “Rather than give her up I set myself to deceive you all.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s incredible,” whispered Mr. Van Wyk. Captain Whalley’s appalling + murmur flowed on. + </p> + <p> + “Not even the sign of God’s anger could make me forget her. How could I + forsake my child, feeling my vigor all the time—the blood warm + within me? Warm as yours. It seems to me that, like the blinded Samson, I + would find the strength to shake down a temple upon my head. She’s a + struggling woman—my own child that we used to pray over together, my + poor wife and I. Do you remember that day I as well as told you that I + believed God would let me live to a hundred for her sake? What sin is + there in loving your child? Do you see it? I was ready for her sake to + live for ever. I half believed I would. I’ve been praying for death since. + Ha! Presumptuous man—you wanted to live . . .” + </p> + <p> + A tremendous, shuddering upheaval of that big frame, shaken by a gasping + sob, set the glasses jingling all over the table, seemed to make the whole + house tremble to the roof-tree. And Mr. Van Wyk, whose feeling of outraged + love had been translated into a form of struggle with nature, understood + very well that, for that man whose whole life had been conditioned by + action, there could exist no other expression for all the emotions; that, + to voluntarily cease venturing, doing, enduring, for his child’s sake, + would have been exactly like plucking his warm love for her out of his + living heart. Something too monstrous, too impossible, even to conceive. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley had not changed his attitude, that seemed to express + something of shame, sorrow, and defiance. + </p> + <p> + “I have even deceived you. If it had not been for that word ‘esteem.’ + These are not the words for me. I would have lied to you. Haven’t I lied + to you? Weren’t you going to trust your property on board this very trip?” + </p> + <p> + “I have a floating yearly policy,” Mr. Van Wyk said almost unwittingly, + and was amazed at the sudden cropping up of a commercial detail. + </p> + <p> + “The ship is unseaworthy, I tell you. The policy would be invalid if it + were known . . .” + </p> + <p> + “We shall share the guilt, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing could make mine less,” said Captain Whalley. + </p> + <p> + He had not dared to consult a doctor; the man would have perhaps asked who + he was, what he was doing; Massy might have heard something. He had lived + on without any help, human or divine. The very prayers stuck in his + throat. What was there to pray for? and death seemed as far as ever. Once + he got into his cabin he dared not come out again; when he sat down he + dared not get up; he dared not raise his eyes to anybody’s face; he felt + reluctant to look upon the sea or up to the sky. The world was fading + before his great fear of giving himself away. The old ship was his last + friend; he was not afraid of her; he knew every inch of her deck; but at + her too he hardly dared to look, for fear of finding he could see less + than the day before. A great incertitude enveloped him. The horizon was + gone; the sky mingled darkly with the sea. Who was this figure standing + over yonder? what was this thing lying down there? And a frightful doubt + of the reality of what he could see made even the remnant of sight that + remained to him an added torment, a pitfall always open for his miserable + pretense. He was afraid to stumble inexcusably over something—to say + a fatal Yes or No to a question. The hand of God was upon him, but it + could not tear him away from his child. And, as if in a nightmare of + humiliation, every featureless man seemed an enemy. + </p> + <p> + He let his hand fall heavily on the table. Mr. Van Wyk, arms down, chin on + breast, with a gleam of white teeth pressing on the lower lip, meditated + on Sterne’s “The game’s up.” + </p> + <p> + “The Serang of course does not know.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody,” said Captain Whalley, with assurance. + </p> + <p> + “Ah yes. Nobody. Very well. Can you keep it up to the end of the trip? + That is the last under the agreement with Massy.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley got up and stood erect, very stately, with the great white + beard lying like a silver breastplate over the awful secret of his heart. + Yes; that was the only hope there was for him of ever seeing her again, of + securing the money, the last he could do for her, before he crept away + somewhere—useless, a burden, a reproach to himself. His voice + faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Think of it! Never see her any more: the only human being besides myself + now on earth that can remember my wife. She’s just like her mother. Lucky + the poor woman is where there are no tears shed over those they loved on + earth and that remain to pray not to be led into temptation—because, + I suppose, the blessed know the secret of grace in God’s dealings with His + created children.” + </p> + <p> + He swayed a little, said with austere dignity— + </p> + <p> + “I don’t. I know only the child He has given me.” + </p> + <p> + And he began to walk. Mr. Van Wyk, jumping up, saw the full meaning of the + rigid head, the hesitating feet, the vaguely extended hand. His heart was + beating fast; he moved a chair aside, and instinctively advanced as if to + offer his arm. But Captain Whalley passed him by, making for the stairs + quite straight. + </p> + <p> + “He could not see me at all out of his line,” Van Wyk thought, with a sort + of awe. Then going to the head of the stairs, he asked a little + tremulously— + </p> + <p> + “What is it like—like a mist—like . . .” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, half-way down, stopped, and turned round undismayed to + answer. + </p> + <p> + “It is as if the light were ebbing out of the world. Have you ever watched + the ebbing sea on an open stretch of sands withdrawing farther and farther + away from you? It is like this—only there will be no flood to + follow. Never. It is as if the sun were growing smaller, the stars going + out one by one. There can’t be many left that I can see by this. But I + haven’t had the courage to look of late . . .” He must have been able to + make out Mr. Van Wyk, because he checked him by an authoritative gesture + and a stoical— + </p> + <p> + “I can get about alone yet.” + </p> + <p> + It was as if he had taken his line, and would accept no help from men, + after having been cast out, like a presumptuous Titan, from his heaven. + Mr. Van Wyk, arrested, seemed to count the footsteps right out of earshot. + He walked between the tables, tapping smartly with his heels, took up a + paper-knife, dropped it after a vague glance along the blade; then + happening upon the piano, struck a few chords again and again, vigorously, + standing up before the keyboard with an attentive poise of the head like a + piano-tuner; closing it, he pivoted on his heels brusquely, avoided the + little terrier sleeping trustfully on crossed forepaws, came upon the + stairs next, and, as though he had lost his balance on the top step, ran + down headlong out of the house. His servants, beginning to clear the + table, heard him mutter to himself (evil words no doubt) down there, and + then after a pause go away with a strolling gait in the direction of the + wharf. + </p> + <p> + The bulwarks of the Sofala lying alongside the bank made a low, black wall + on the undulating contour of the shore. Two masts and a funnel uprose from + behind it with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, square + elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white boats, the curves + of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, all confused and mingling darkly + everywhere; but low down, amidships, a single lighted port stared out on + the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon, whose yellow beam + caught a patch of wet mud, the edge of trodden grass, two turns of heavy + cable wound round the foot of a thick wooden post in the ground. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk, peering alongside, heard a muzzy boastful voice apparently + jeering at a person called Prendergast. It mouthed abuse thickly, choked; + then pronounced very distinctly the word “Murphy,” and chuckled. Glass + tinkled tremulously. All these sounds came from the lighted port. Mr. Van + Wyk hesitated, stooped; it was impossible to look through unless he went + down into the mud. + </p> + <p> + “Sterne,” he said, half aloud. + </p> + <p> + The drunken voice within said gladly— + </p> + <p> + “Sterne—of course. Look at him blink. Look at him! Sterne, Whalley, + Massy. Massy, Whalley, Sterne. But Massy’s the best. You can’t come over + him. He would just love to see you starve.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk moved away, made out farther forward a shadowy head stuck out + from under the awnings as if on the watch, and spoke quietly in Malay, “Is + the mate asleep?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Here, at your service.” + </p> + <p> + In a moment Sterne appeared, walking as noiselessly as a cat on the wharf. + </p> + <p> + “It’s so jolly dark, and I had no idea you would be down to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s this horrible raving?” asked Mr. Van Wyk, as if to explain the + cause of a shudder than ran over him audibly. + </p> + <p> + “Jack’s broken out on a drunk. That’s our second. It’s his way. He will be + right enough by to-morrow afternoon, only Mr. Massy will keep on worrying + up and down the deck. We had better get away.” + </p> + <p> + He muttered suggestively of a talk “up at the house.” He had long desired + to effect an entrance there, but Mr. Van Wyk nonchalantly demurred: it + would not, he feared, be quite prudent, perhaps; and the opaque black + shadow under one of the two big trees left at the landing-place swallowed + them up, impenetrably dense, by the side of the wide river, that seemed to + spin into threads of glitter the light of a few big stars dropped here and + there upon its outspread and flowing stillness. + </p> + <p> + “The situation is grave beyond doubt,” Mr. Van Wyk said. Ghost-like in + their white clothes they could not distinguish each others’ features, and + their feet made no sound on the soft earth. A sort of purring was heard. + Mr. Sterne felt gratified by such a beginning. + </p> + <p> + “I thought, Mr. Van Wyk, a gentleman of your sort would see at once how + awkwardly I was situated.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, very. Obviously his health is bad. Perhaps he’s breaking up. I see, + and he himself is well aware—I assume I am speaking to a man of + sense—he is well aware that his legs are giving out.” + </p> + <p> + “His legs—ah!” Mr. Sterne was disconcerted, and then turned sulky. + “You may call it his legs if you like; what I want to know is whether he + intends to clear out quietly. That’s a good one, too! His legs! Pooh!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes. Only look at the way he walks.” Mr. Van Wyk took him up in a + perfectly cool and undoubting tone. “The question, however, is whether + your sense of duty does not carry you too far from your true interest. + After all, I too could do something to serve you. You know who I am.” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody along the Straits has heard of you, sir.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk presumed that this meant something favorable. Sterne had a + soft laugh at this pleasantry. He should think so! To the opening + statement, that the partnership agreement was to expire at the end of this + very trip, he gave an attentive assent. He was aware. One heard of nothing + else on board all the blessed day long. As to Massy, it was no secret that + he was in a jolly deep hole with these worn-out boilers. He would have to + borrow somewhere a couple of hundred first of all to pay off the captain; + and then he would have to raise money on mortgage upon the ship for the + new boilers—that is, if he could find a lender at all. At best it + meant loss of time, a break in the trade, short earnings for the year—and + there was always the danger of having his connection filched away from him + by the Germans. It was whispered about that he had already tried two + firms. Neither would have anything to do with him. Ship too old, and the + man too well known in the place. . . . Mr. Sterne’s final rapid winking + remained buried in the deep darkness sibilating with his whispers. + </p> + <p> + “Supposing, then, he got the loan,” Mr. Van Wyk resumed in a deliberate + undertone, “on your own showing he’s more than likely to get a mortgagee’s + man thrust upon him as captain. For my part, I know that I would make that + very stipulation myself if I had to find the money. And as a matter of + fact I am thinking of doing so. It would be worth my while in many ways. + Do you see how this would bear on the case under discussion?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, sir. I am sure you couldn’t get anybody that would care more + for your interests.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it suits my interest that Captain Whalley should finish his time. I + shall probably take a passage with you down the Straits. If that can be + done, I’ll be on the spot when all these changes take place, and in a + position to look after <i>your</i> interests.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Van Wyk, I want nothing better. I am sure I am infinitely . . .” + </p> + <p> + “I take it, then, that this may be done without any trouble.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, what risk there is can’t be helped; but (speaking to you as my + employer now) the thing is more safe than it looks. If anybody had told me + of it I wouldn’t have believed it, but I have been looking on myself. That + old Serang has been trained up to the game. There’s nothing the matter + with his—his—limbs, sir. He’s got used to doing things himself + in a remarkable way. And let me tell you, sir, that Captain Whalley, poor + man, is by no means useless. Fact. Let me explain to you, sir. He stiffens + up that old monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough what to do. Why, he + must have kept captain’s watches in all sorts of country ships off and on + for the last five-and-twenty years. These natives, sir, as long as they + have a white man close at the back, will go on doing the right thing most + surprisingly well—even if left quite to themselves. Only the white + man must be of the sort to put starch into them, and the captain is just + the one for that. Why, sir, he has drilled him so well that now he needs + hardly speak at all. I have seen that little wrinkled ape made to take the + ship out of Pangu Bay on a blowy morning and on all through the islands; + take her out first-rate, sir, dodging under the old man’s elbow, and in + such quiet style that you could not have told for the life of you which of + the two was doing the work up there. That’s where our poor friend would be + still of use to the ship even if—if—he could no longer lift a + foot, sir. Provided the Serang does not know that there’s anything wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally not. Quite beyond his apprehension. They aren’t capable of + finding out anything about us, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem to be a shrewd man,” said Mr. Van Wyk in a choked mutter, as + though he were feeling sick. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll find me a good enough servant, sir.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sterne hoped now for a handshake at least, but unexpectedly, with a + “What’s this? Better not to be seen together,” Mr. Van Wyk’s white shape + wavered, and instantly seemed to melt away in the black air under the roof + of boughs. The mate was startled. Yes. There was that faint thumping + clatter. + </p> + <p> + He stole out silently from under the shade. The lighted port-hole shone + from afar. His head swam with the intoxication of sudden success. What a + thing it was to have a gentleman to deal with! He crept aboard, and there + was something weird in the shadowy stretch of empty decks, echoing with + shouts and blows proceeding from a darker part amidships. Mr. Massy was + raging before the door of the berth: the drunken voice within flowed on + undisturbed in the violent racket of kicks. + </p> + <p> + “Shut up! Put your light out and turn in, you confounded swilling pig—you! + D’you hear me, you beast?” + </p> + <p> + The kicking stopped, and in the pause the muzzy oracular voice announced + from within— + </p> + <p> + “Ah! Massy, now—that’s another thing. Massy’s deep.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s that aft there? You, Sterne? He’ll drink himself into a fit of + horrors.” The chief engineer appeared vague and big at the corner of the + engineroom. + </p> + <p> + “He will be good enough for duty to-morrow. I would let him be, Mr. + Massy.” + </p> + <p> + Sterne slipped away into his berth, and at once had to sit down. His head + swam with exultation. He got into his bunk as if in a dream. A feeling of + profound peace, of pacific joy, came over him. On deck all was quiet. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy, with his ear against the door of Jack’s cabin, listened + critically to a deep stertorous breathing within. This was a dead-drunk + sleep. The bout was over: tranquilized on that score, he too went in, and + with slow wriggles got out of his old tweed jacket. It was a garment with + many pockets, which he used to put on at odd times of the day, being + subject to sudden chilly fits, and when he felt warmed he would take it + off and hang it about anywhere all over the ship. It would be seen + swinging on belaying-pins, thrown over the heads of winches, suspended on + people’s very door-handles for that matter. Was he not the owner? But his + favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning stanchion on the bridge, + almost against the binnacle. He had even in the early days more than one + tussle on that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the bridge to be + kept tidy. He had been overawed then. Of late, though, he had been able to + defy his partner with impunity. Captain Whalley never seemed to notice + anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe of that scowling man not one + of the crew would dream of laying a hand on the thing, no matter where or + what it swung from. + </p> + <p> + With an unexpectedness which made Mr. Massy jump and drop the coat at his + feet, there came from the next berth the crash and thud of a headlong, + jingling, clattering fall. The faithful Jack must have dropped to sleep + suddenly as he sat at his revels, and now had gone over chair and all, + breaking, as it seemed by the sound, every single glass and bottle in the + place. After the terrific smash all was still for a time in there, as + though he had killed himself outright on the spot. Mr. Massy held his + breath. At last a sleepy uneasy groaning sigh was exhaled slowly on the + other side of the bulkhead. + </p> + <p> + “I hope to goodness he’s too drunk to wake up now,” muttered Mr. Massy. + </p> + <p> + The sound of a softly knowing laugh nearly drove him to despair. He swore + violently under his breath. The fool would keep him awake all night now + for certain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his maddening + troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect no movements. Without + apparently making the slightest attempt to get up, Jack went on sniggering + to himself where he lay; then began to speak, where he had left off as it + were— + </p> + <p> + “Massy! I love the dirty rascal. He would like to see his poor old Jack + starve—but just you look where he has climbed to.” . . . He + hiccoughed in a superior, leisurely manner. . . . “Ship-owning it with the + best. A lottery ticket you want. Ha! ha! I will give you lottery tickets, + my boy. Let the old ship sink and the old chum starve—that’s right. + He don’t go wrong—Massy don’t. Not he. He’s a genius—that man + is. That’s the way to win your money. Ship and chum must go.” + </p> + <p> + “The silly fool has taken it to heart,” muttered Massy to himself. And, + listening with a softened expression of face for any slight sign of + returning drowsiness, he was discouraged profoundly by a burst of laughter + full of joyful irony. + </p> + <p> + “Would like to see her at the bottom of the sea! Oh, you clever, clever + devil! Wish her sunk, eh? I should think you would, my boy; the damned old + thing and all your troubles with her. Rake in the insurance money —turn + your back on your old chum—all’s well—gentleman again.” + </p> + <p> + A grim stillness had come over Massy’s face. Only his big black eyes + rolled uneasily. The raving fool. And yet it was all true. Yes. Lottery + tickets, too. All true. What? Beginning again? He wished he wouldn’t. . . + . + </p> + <p> + But it was even so. The imaginative drunkard on the other side of the + bulkhead shook off the deathlike stillness that after his last words had + fallen on the dark ship moored to a silent shore. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you dare to say anything against George Massy, Esquire. When he’s + tired of waiting he will do away with her. Look out! Down she goes—chum + and all. He’ll know how to . . .” + </p> + <p> + The voice hesitated, weary, dreamy, lost, as if dying away in a vast open + space. + </p> + <p> + “. . . Find a trick that will work. He’s up to it—never fear . . .” + </p> + <p> + He must have been very drunk, for at last the heavy sleep gripped him with + the suddenness of a magic spell, and the last word lengthened itself into + an interminable, noisy, in-drawn snore. And then even the snoring stopped, + and all was still. + </p> + <p> + But it seemed as though Mr. Massy had suddenly come to doubt the efficacy + of sleep as against a man’s troubles; or perhaps he had found the relief + he needed in the stillness of a calm contemplation that may contain the + vivid thoughts of wealth, of a stroke of luck, of long idleness, and may + bring before you the imagined form of every desire; for, turning about and + throwing his arms over the edge of his bunk, he stood there with his feet + on his favorite old coat, looking out through the round port into the + night over the river. Sometimes a breath of wind would enter and touch his + face, a cool breath charged with the damp, fresh feel from a vast body of + water. A glimmer here and there was all he could see of it; and once he + might after all suppose he had dozed off, since there appeared before his + vision, unexpectedly and connected with no dream, a row of flaming and + gigantic figures—three naught seven one two—making up a number + such as you may see on a lottery ticket. And then all at once the port was + no longer black: it was pearly gray, framing a shore crowded with houses, + thatched roof beyond thatched roof, walls of mats and bamboo, gables of + carved teak timber. Rows of dwellings raised on a forest of piles lined + the steely band of the river, brimful and still, with the tide at the + turn. This was Batu Beru—and the day had come. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy shook himself, put on the tweed coat, and, shivering nervously + as if from some great shock, made a note of the number. A fortunate, rare + hint that. Yes; but to pursue fortune one wanted money—ready cash. + </p> + <p> + Then he went out and prepared to descend into the engine-room. Several + small jobs had to be seen to, and Jack was lying dead drunk on the floor + of his cabin, with the door locked at that. His gorge rose at the thought + of work. Ay! But if you wanted to do nothing you had to get first a good + bit of money. A ship won’t save you. He cursed the Sofala. True, all true. + He was tired of waiting for some chance that would rid him at last of that + ship that had turned out a curse on his life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV + </h2> + <p> + The deep, interminable hoot of the steam-whistle had, in its grave, + vibrating note, something intolerable, which sent a slight shudder down + Mr. Van Wyk’s back. It was the early afternoon; the Sofala was leaving + Batu Beru for Pangu, the next place of call. She swung in the stream, + scantily attended by a few canoes, and, gliding on the broad river, became + lost to view from the Van Wyk bungalow. + </p> + <p> + Its owner had not gone this time to see her off. Generally he came down to + the wharf, exchanged a few words with the bridge while she cast off, and + waved his hand to Captain Whalley at the last moment. This day he did not + even go as far as the balustrade of the veranda. “He couldn’t see me if I + did,” he said to himself. “I wonder whether he can make out the house at + all.” And this thought somehow made him feel more alone than he had ever + felt for all these years. What was it? six or seven? Seven. A long time. + </p> + <p> + He sat on the veranda with a closed book on his knee, and, as it were, + looked out upon his solitude, as if the fact of Captain Whalley’s + blindness had opened his eyes to his own. There were many sorts of + heartaches and troubles, and there was no place where they could not find + a man out. And he felt ashamed, as though he had for six years behaved + like a peevish boy. + </p> + <p> + His thought followed the Sofala on her way. On the spur of the moment he + had acted impulsively, turning to the thing most pressing. And what else + could he have done? Later on he should see. It seemed necessary that he + should come out into the world, for a time at least. He had money—something + could be arranged; he would grudge no time, no trouble, no loss of his + solitude. It weighed on him now—and Captain Whalley appeared to him + as he had sat shading his eyes, as if, being deceived in the trust of his + faith, he were beyond all the good and evil that can be wrought by the + hands of men. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk’s thoughts followed the Sofala down the river, winding about + through the belt of the coast forest, between the buttressed shafts of the + big trees, through the mangrove strip, and over the bar. The ship crossed + it easily in broad daylight, piloted, as it happened, by Mr. Sterne, who + took the watch from four to six, and then went below to hug himself with + delight at the prospect of being virtually employed by a rich man—like + Mr. Van Wyk. He could not see how any hitch could occur now. He did not + seem able to get over the feeling of being “fixed up at last.” From six to + eight, in the course of duty, the Serang looked alone after the ship. She + had a clear road before her now till about three in the morning, when she + would close with the Pangu group. At eight Mr. Sterne came out cheerily to + take charge again till midnight. At ten he was still chirruping and + humming to himself on the bridge, and about that time Mr. Van Wyk’s + thought abandoned the Sofala. Mr. Van Wyk had fallen asleep at last. + </p> + <p> + Massy, blocking the engine-room companion, jerked himself into his tweed + jacket surlily, while the second waited with a scowl. + </p> + <p> + “Oh. You came out? You sot! Well, what have you got to say for yourself?” + </p> + <p> + He had been in charge of the engines till then. A somber fury darkened his + mind: a hot anger against the ship, against the facts of life, against the + men for their cheating, against himself too—because of an inward + tremor of his heart. + </p> + <p> + An incomprehensible growl answered him. + </p> + <p> + “What? Can’t you open your mouth now? You yelp out your infernal rot loud + enough when you are drunk. What do you mean by abusing people in that way?—you + old useless boozer, you!” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t help it. Don’t remember anything about it. You shouldn’t listen.” + </p> + <p> + “You dare to tell me! What do you mean by going on a drunk like this!” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t ask me. Sick of the dam’ boilers—you would be. Sick of life.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you were dead, then. You’ve made me sick of you. Don’t you + remember the uproar you made last night? You miserable old soaker!” + </p> + <p> + “No; I don’t. Don’t want to. Drink is drink.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder what prevents me from kicking you out. What do you want here?” + </p> + <p> + “Relieve you. You’ve been long enough down there, George.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you George me—you tippling old rascal, you! If I were to die + to-morrow you would starve. Remember that. Say Mr. Massy.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Massy,” repeated the other stolidly. + </p> + <p> + Disheveled, with dull blood-shot eyes, a snuffy, grimy shirt, greasy + trowsers, naked feet thrust into ragged slippers, he bolted in head down + directly Massy had made way for him. + </p> + <p> + The chief engineer looked around. The deck was empty as far as the + taffrail. All the native passengers had left in Batu Beru this time, and + no others had joined. The dial of the patent log tinkled periodically in + the dark at the end of the ship. It was a dead calm, and, under the + clouded sky, through the still air that seemed to cling warm, with a + seaweed smell, to her slim hull, on a sea of somber gray and unwrinkled, + the ship moved on an even keel, as if floating detached in empty space. + But Mr. Massy slapped his forehead, tottered a little, caught hold of a + belaying-pin at the foot of the mast. + </p> + <p> + “I shall go mad,” he muttered, walking across the deck unsteadily. A + shovel was scraping loose coal down below—a fire-door clanged. + Sterne on the bridge began whistling a new tune. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, sitting on the couch, awake and fully dressed, heard the + door of his cabin open. He did not move in the least, waiting to recognize + the voice, with an appalling strain of prudence. + </p> + <p> + A bulkhead lamp blazed on the white paint, the crimson plush, the brown + varnish of mahogany tops. The white wood packing-case under the bed-place + had remained unopened for three years now, as though Captain Whalley had + felt that, after the Fair Maid was gone, there could be no abiding-place + on earth for his affections. His hands rested on his knees; his handsome + head with big eyebrows presented a rigid profile to the doorway. The + expected voice spoke out at last. + </p> + <p> + “Once more, then. What am I to call you?” + </p> + <p> + Ha! Massy. Again. The weariness of it crushed his heart—and the pain + of shame was almost more than he could bear without crying out. + </p> + <p> + “Well. Is it to be ‘partner’ still?” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t know what you ask.” + </p> + <p> + “I know what I want . . .” + </p> + <p> + Massy stepped in and closed the door. + </p> + <p> + “. . . And I am going to have a try for it with you once more.” + </p> + <p> + His whine was half persuasive, half menacing. + </p> + <p> + “For it’s no manner of use to tell me that you are poor. You don’t spend + anything on yourself, that’s true enough; but there’s another name for + that. You think you are going to have what you want out of me for three + years, and then cast me off without hearing what I think of you. You think + I would have submitted to your airs if I had known you had only a beggarly + five hundred pounds in the world. You ought to have told me.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” said Captain Whalley, bowing his head. “And yet it has saved + you.” . . . Massy laughed scornfully. . . . “I have told you often enough + since.” + </p> + <p> + “And I don’t believe you now. When I think how I let you lord it over my + ship! Do you remember how you used to bullyrag me about my coat and <i>your</i> + bridge? It was in his way. <i>His</i> bridge! ‘And I won’t be a party to + this—and I couldn’t think of doing that.’ Honest man! And now it all + comes out. ‘I am poor, and I can’t. I have only this five hundred in the + world.’” + </p> + <p> + He contemplated the immobility of Captain Whalley, that seemed to present + an inconquerable obstacle in his path. His face took a mournful cast. + </p> + <p> + “You are a hard man.” + </p> + <p> + “Enough,” said Captain Whalley, turning upon him. “You shall get nothing + from me, because I have nothing of mine to give away now.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell that to the marines!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy, going out, looked back once; then the door closed, and Captain + Whalley, alone, sat as still as before. He had nothing of his own—even + his past of honor, of truth, of just pride, was gone. All his spotless + life had fallen into the abyss. He had said his last good-by to it. But + what belonged to <i>her</i>, that he meant to save. Only a little money. + He would take it to her in his own hands—this last gift of a man + that had lasted too long. And an immense and fierce impulse, the very + passion of paternity, flamed up with all the unquenched vigor of his + worthless life in a desire to see her face. + </p> + <p> + Just across the deck Massy had gone straight to his cabin, struck a light, + and hunted up the note of the dreamed number whose figures had flamed up + also with the fierceness of another passion. He must contrive somehow not + to miss a drawing. That number meant something. But what expedient could + he contrive to keep himself going? + </p> + <p> + “Wretched miser!” he mumbled. + </p> + <p> + If Mr. Sterne could at no time have told him anything new about his + partner, he could have told Mr. Sterne that another use could be made of a + man’s affliction than just to kick him out, and thus defer the term of a + difficult payment for a year. To keep the secret of the affliction and + induce him to stay was a better move. If without means, he would be + anxious to remain; and that settled the question of refunding him his + share. He did not know exactly how much Captain Whalley was disabled; but + if it so happened that he put the ship ashore somewhere for good and all, + it was not the owner’s fault—was it? He was not obliged to know that + there was anything wrong. But probably nobody would raise such a point, + and the ship was fully insured. He had had enough self-restraint to pay up + the premiums. But this was not all. He could not believe Captain Whalley + to be so confoundedly destitute as not to have some more money put away + somewhere. If he, Massy, could get hold of it, that would pay for the + boilers, and everything went on as before. And if she got lost in the end, + so much the better. He hated her: he loathed the troubles that took his + mind off the chances of fortune. He wished her at the bottom of the sea, + and the insurance money in his pocket. And as, baffled, he left Captain + Whalley’s cabin, he enveloped in the same hatred the ship with the + worn-out boilers and the man with the dimmed eyes. + </p> + <p> + And our conduct after all is so much a matter of outside suggestion, that + had it not been for his Jack’s drunken gabble he would have there and then + had it out with this miserable man, who would neither help, nor stay, nor + yet lose the ship. The old fraud! He longed to kick him out. But he + restrained himself. Time enough for that—when he liked. There was a + fearful new thought put into his head. Wasn’t he up to it after all? How + that beast Jack had raved! “Find a safe trick to get rid of her.” Well, + Jack was not so far wrong. A very clever trick had occurred to him. Aye! + But what of the risk? + </p> + <p> + A feeling of pride—the pride of superiority to common prejudices—crept + into his breast, made his heart beat fast, his mouth turn dry. Not + everybody would dare; but he was Massy, and he was up to it! + </p> + <p> + Six bells were struck on deck. Eleven! He drank a glass of water, and sat + down for ten minutes or so to calm himself. Then he got out of his chest a + small bull’s-eye lantern of his own and lit it. + </p> + <p> + Almost opposite his berth, across the narrow passage under the bridge, + there was, in the iron deck-structure covering the stokehold fiddle and + the boiler-space, a storeroom with iron sides, iron roof, iron-plated + floor, too, on account of the heat below. All sorts of rubbish was shot + there: it had a mound of scrap-iron in a corner; rows of empty oil-cans; + sacks of cotton-waste, with a heap of charcoal, a deck-forge, fragments of + an old hencoop, winch-covers all in rags, remnants of lamps, and a brown + felt hat, discarded by a man dead now (of a fever on the Brazil coast), + who had been once mate of the Sofala, had remained for years jammed + forcibly behind a length of burst copper pipe, flung at some time or other + out of the engine-room. A complete and imperious blackness pervaded that + Capharnaum of forgotten things. A small shaft of light from Mr. Massy’s + bull’s-eye fell slanting right through it. + </p> + <p> + His coat was unbuttoned; he shot the bolt of the door (there was no other + opening), and, squatting before the scrap-heap, began to pack his pockets + with pieces of iron. He packed them carefully, as if the rusty nuts, the + broken bolts, the links of cargo chain, had been so much gold he had that + one chance to carry away. He packed his side-pockets till they bulged, the + breast pocket, the pockets inside. He turned over the pieces. Some he + rejected. A small mist of powdered rust began to rise about his busy + hands. Mr. Massy knew something of the scientific basis of his clever + trick. If you want to deflect the magnetic needle of a ship’s compass, + soft iron is the best; likewise many small pieces in the pockets of a + jacket would have more effect than a few large ones, because in that way + you obtain a greater amount of surface for weight in your iron, and it’s + surface that tells. + </p> + <p> + He slipped out swiftly—two strides sufficed—and in his cabin + he perceived that his hands were all red—red with rust. It + disconcerted him, as though he had found them covered with blood: he + looked himself over hastily. Why, his trowsers too! He had been rubbing + his rusty palms on his legs. + </p> + <p> + He tore off the waistband button in his haste, brushed his coat, washed + his hands. Then the air of guilt left him, and he sat down to wait. + </p> + <p> + He sat bolt upright and weighted with iron in his chair. He had a hard, + lumpy bulk against each hip, felt the scrappy iron in his pockets touch + his ribs at every breath, the downward drag of all these pounds hanging + upon his shoulders. He looked very dull too, sitting idle there, and his + yellow face, with motionless black eyes, had something passive and sad in + its quietness. + </p> + <p> + When he heard eight bells struck above his head, he rose and made ready to + go out. His movements seemed aimless, his lower lip had dropped a little, + his eyes roamed about the cabin, and the tremendous tension of his will + had robbed them of every vestige of intelligence. + </p> + <p> + With the last stroke of the bell the Serang appeared noiselessly on the + bridge to relieve the mate. Sterne overflowed with good nature, since he + had nothing more to desire. + </p> + <p> + “Got your eyes well open yet, Serang? It’s middling dark; I’ll wait till + you get your sight properly.” + </p> + <p> + The old Malay murmured, looked up with his worn eyes, sidled away into the + light of the binnacle, and, crossing his hands behind his back, fixed his + eyes on the compass-card. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll have to keep a good look-out ahead for land, about half-past + three. It’s fairly clear, though. You have looked in on the captain as you + came along—eh? He knows the time? Well, then, I am off.” + </p> + <p> + At the foot of the ladder he stood aside for the captain. He watched him + go up with an even, certain tread, and remained thoughtful for a moment. + “It’s funny,” he said to himself, “but you can never tell whether that man + has seen you or not. He might have heard me breathe this time.” + </p> + <p> + He was a wonderful man when all was said and done. They said he had had a + name in his day. Mr. Sterne could well believe it; and he concluded + serenely that Captain Whalley must be able to see people more or less + —as himself just now, for instance—but not being certain of + anybody, had to keep up that unnoticing silence of manner for fear of + giving himself away. Mr. Sterne was a shrewd guesser. + </p> + <p> + This necessity of every moment brought home to Captain Whalley’s heart the + humiliation of his falsehood. He had drifted into it from paternal love, + from incredulity, from boundless trust in divine justice meted out to + men’s feelings on this earth. He would give his poor Ivy the benefit of + another month’s work; perhaps the affliction was only temporary. Surely + God would not rob his child of his power to help, and cast him naked into + a night without end. He had caught at every hope; and when the evidence of + his misfortune was stronger than hope, he tried not to believe the + manifest thing. + </p> + <p> + In vain. In the steadily darkening universe a sinister clearness fell upon + his ideas. In the illuminating moments of suffering he saw life, men, all + things, the whole earth with all her burden of created nature, as he had + never seen them before. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes he was seized with a sudden vertigo and an overwhelming terror; + and then the image of his daughter appeared. Her, too, he had never seen + so clearly before. Was it possible that he should ever be unable to do + anything whatever for her? Nothing. And not see her any more? Never. + </p> + <p> + Why? The punishment was too great for a little presumption, for a little + pride. And at last he came to cling to his deception with a fierce + determination to carry it out to the end, to save her money intact, and + behold her once more with his own eyes. Afterwards—what? The idea of + suicide was revolting to the vigor of his manhood. He had prayed for death + till the prayers had stuck in his throat. All the days of his life he had + prayed for daily bread, and not to be led into temptation, in a childlike + humility of spirit. Did words mean anything? Whence did the gift of speech + come? The violent beating of his heart reverberated in his head—seemed + to shake his brain to pieces. + </p> + <p> + He sat down heavily in the deck-chair to keep the pretense of his watch. + The night was dark. All the nights were dark now. + </p> + <p> + “Serang,” he said, half aloud. + </p> + <p> + “Ada, Tuan. I am here.” + </p> + <p> + “There are clouds on the sky?” + </p> + <p> + “There are, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + “Let her be steered straight. North.” + </p> + <p> + “She is going north, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + The Serang stepped back. Captain Whalley recognized Massy’s footfalls on + the bridge. + </p> + <p> + The engineer walked over to port and returned, passing behind the chair + several times. Captain Whalley detected an unusual character as of prudent + care in this prowling. The near presence of that man brought with it + always a recrudescence of moral suffering for Captain Whalley. It was not + remorse. After all, he had done nothing but good to the poor devil. There + was also a sense of danger—the necessity of a greater care. + </p> + <p> + Massy stopped and said— + </p> + <p> + “So you still say you must go?” + </p> + <p> + “I must indeed.” + </p> + <p> + “And you couldn’t at least leave the money for a term of years?” + </p> + <p> + “Impossible.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t trust it with me without your care, eh?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley remained silent. Massy sighed deeply over the back of the + chair. + </p> + <p> + “It would just do to save me,” he said in a tremulous voice. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve saved you once.” + </p> + <p> + The chief engineer took off his coat with careful movements, and proceeded + to feel for the brass hook screwed into the wooden stanchion. For this + purpose he placed himself right in front of the binnacle, thus hiding + completely the compass-card from the quartermaster at the wheel. “Tuan!” + the lascar at last murmured softly, meaning to let the white man know that + he could not see to steer. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy had accomplished his purpose. The coat was hanging from the + nail, within six inches of the binnacle. And directly he had stepped aside + the quartermaster, a middle-aged, pock-marked, Sumatra Malay, almost as + dark as a negro, perceived with amazement that in that short time, in this + smooth water, with no wind at all, the ship had gone swinging far out of + her course. He had never known her get away like this before. With a + slight grunt of astonishment he turned the wheel hastily to bring her head + back north, which was the course. The grinding of the steering-chains, the + chiding murmurs of the Serang, who had come over to the wheel, made a + slight stir, which attracted Captain Whalley’s anxious attention. He said, + “Take better care.” Then everything settled to the usual quiet on the + bridge. Mr. Massy had disappeared. + </p> + <p> + But the iron in the pockets of the coat had done its work; and the Sofala, + heading north by the compass, made untrue by this simple device, was no + longer making a safe course for Pangu Bay. + </p> + <p> + The hiss of water parted by her stem, the throb of her engines, all the + sounds of her faithful and laborious life, went on uninterrupted in the + great calm of the sea joining on all sides the motionless layer of cloud + over the sky. A gentle stillness as vast as the world seemed to wait upon + her path, enveloping her lovingly in a supreme caress. Mr. Massy thought + there could be no better night for an arranged shipwreck. + </p> + <p> + Run up high and dry on one of the reefs east of Pangu—wait for + daylight—hole in the bottom—out boats—Pangu Bay same + evening. That’s about it. As soon as she touched he would hasten on the + bridge, get hold of the coat (nobody would notice in the dark), and shake + it upside-down over the side, or even fling it into the sea. A detail. Who + could guess? Coat been seen hanging there from that hook hundreds of + times. Nevertheless, when he sat down on the lower step of the + bridge-ladder his knees knocked together a little. The waiting part was + the worst of it. At times he would begin to pant quickly, as though he had + been running, and then breathe largely, swelling with the intimate sense + of a mastered fate. Now and then he would hear the shuffle of the Serang’s + bare feet up there: quiet, low voices would exchange a few words, and + lapse almost at once into silence. . . . + </p> + <p> + “Tell me directly you see any land, Serang.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Tuan. Not yet.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not yet,” Captain Whalley would agree. + </p> + <p> + The ship had been the best friend of his decline. He had sent all the + money he had made by and in the Sofala to his daughter. His thought + lingered on the name. How often he and his wife had talked over the cot of + the child in the big stern-cabin of the Condor; she would grow up, she + would marry, she would love them, they would live near her and look at her + happiness—it would go on without end. Well, his wife was dead, to + the child he had given all he had to give; he wished he could come near + her, see her, see her face once, live in the sound of her voice, that + could make the darkness of the living grave ready for him supportable. He + had been starved of love too long. He imagined her tenderness. + </p> + <p> + The Serang had been peering forward, and now and then glancing at the + chair. He fidgeted restlessly, and suddenly burst out close to Captain + Whalley— + </p> + <p> + “Tuan, do you see anything of the land?” + </p> + <p> + The alarmed voice brought Captain Whalley to his feet at once. He! See! + And at the question, the curse of his blindness seemed to fall on him with + a hundredfold force. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the time?” he cried. + </p> + <p> + “Half-past three, Tuan.” + </p> + <p> + “We are close. You <i>must</i> see. Look, I say. Look.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy, awakened by the sudden sound of talking from a short doze on + the lowest step, wondered why he was there. Ah! A faintness came over him. + It is one thing to sow the seed of an accident and another to see the + monstrous fruit hanging over your head ready to fall in the sound of + agitated voices. + </p> + <p> + “There’s no danger,” he muttered thickly. + </p> + <p> + The horror of incertitude had seized upon Captain Whalley, the miserable + mistrust of men, of things—of the very earth. He had steered that + very course thirty-six times by the same compass—if anything was + certain in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness. Then what + had happened? Did the Serang lie? Why lie? Why? Was he going blind too? + </p> + <p> + “Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down, I say.” + </p> + <p> + “Tuan, there’s no mist. See for yourself.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs by an effort. Should + he stop the engines at once and give himself away. A gust of irresolution + swayed all sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The unusual had come, and + he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage of inexpressible anguish + he saw her face—the face of a young girl—with an amazing + strength of illusion. No, he must not give himself away after having gone + so far for her sake. “You steered the course? You made it? Speak the + truth.” + </p> + <p> + “Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him made such a dim spot + of light in an infinity of shapeless shadow. By bending his face right + down to the glass he had been able before . . . + </p> + <p> + Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his arm to where he + knew there was a stanchion to steady himself against. His hand closed on + something that was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the + weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy’s coat falling, struck the deck + heavily with a dull thump, accompanied by a lot of clicks. + </p> + <p> + “What’s this?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands extended in a frank + gesture of blindness. They trembled, these hands feeling for the truth. He + saw it. Iron near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His ship. Oh no. + Not that. + </p> + <p> + “Jump and stop her!” he roared out in a voice not his own. + </p> + <p> + He ran himself—hands forward, a blind man, and while the clanging of + the gong echoed still all over the ship, she seemed to butt full tilt into + the side of a mountain. + </p> + <p> + It was low water along the north side of the strait. Mr. Massy had not + reckoned on that. Instead of running aground for half her length, the + Sofala butted the sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been awash + at high water. This made the shock absolutely terrific. Everybody in the + ship that was standing was thrown down headlong: the shaken rigging made a + great rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went out: several + chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the funnel: there were crashes, + pings of parted wire-rope, splintering sounds, loud cracks, the masthead + lamp flew over the bows, and all the doors about the deck began to bang + heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded, hit the second time the + very same spot like a battering-ram. This completed the havoc: the funnel, + with all the guys gone, fell over with a hollow sound of thunder, smashing + the wheel to bits, crushing the frame of the awnings, breaking the + lockers, filling the bridge with a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken + wood. Captain Whalley picked himself up and stood knee-deep in wreckage, + torn, bleeding, knowing the nature of the danger he had escaped mostly by + the sound, and holding Mr. Massy’s coat in his arms. + </p> + <p> + By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his bunk) had set the + engines astern. They worked for a few turns, then a voice bawled out, “Get + out of the damned engine-room, Jack!”—and they stopped; but the ship + had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a heavy cloud of steam + issuing from the broken deckpipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes into the + night. Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there was no + shouting, as if the very violence of the shock had half-stunned the + shadowy lot of people swaying here and there about her decks. The voice of + the Serang pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs— + </p> + <p> + “Eight fathom.” He had heaved the lead. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch— + </p> + <p> + “Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass— + </p> + <p> + “Amongst the reefs to the eastward.” + </p> + <p> + “You know it, sir? Then she will never get out again.” + </p> + <p> + “She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne. Even one will save you + all in this calm.” + </p> + <p> + The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for the port boats. Nobody + tried to check them. The Malays, after a moment of confusion, became + quiet, and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain Whalley had not + moved. His thoughts were darker than this night in which he had lost his + first ship. + </p> + <p> + “He made me lose a ship.” + </p> + <p> + Another tall figure standing before him amongst the litter of the smash on + the bridge whispered insanely— + </p> + <p> + “Say nothing of it.” + </p> + <p> + Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the chattering of his teeth. + </p> + <p> + “I have the coat.” + </p> + <p> + “Throw it down and come along,” urged the chattering voice. + “B-b-b-b-boat!” + </p> + <p> + “You will get fifteen years for this.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Massy had lost his voice. His speech was a mere dry rustling in his + throat. + </p> + <p> + “Have mercy!” + </p> + <p> + “Had you any when you made me lose my ship? Mr. Massy, you shall get + fifteen years for this!” + </p> + <p> + “I wanted money! Money! My own money! I will give you some money. Take + half of it. You love money yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a justice . . .” + </p> + <p> + Massy made an awful effort, and in a strange, half choked utterance— + </p> + <p> + “You blind devil! It’s you that drove me to it.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley, hugging the coat to his breast, made no sound. The light + had ebbed for ever from the world—let everything go. But this man + should not escape scot-free. + </p> + <p> + Sterne’s voice commanded— + </p> + <p> + “Lower away!” + </p> + <p> + The blocks rattled. + </p> + <p> + “Now then,” he cried, “over with you. This way. You, Jack, here. Mr. + Massy! Mr. Massy! Captain! Quick, sir! Let’s get— + </p> + <p> + “I shall go to prison for trying to cheat the insurance, but you’ll get + exposed; you, honest man, who has been cheating me. You are poor. Aren’t + you? You’ve nothing but the five hundred pounds. Well, you have nothing at + all now. The ship’s lost, and the insurance won’t be paid.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley did not move. True! Ivy’s money! Gone in this wreck. Again + he had a flash of insight. He was indeed at the end of his tether. + </p> + <p> + Urgent voices cried out together alongside. Massy did not seem able to + tear himself away from the bridge. He chattered and hissed despairingly— + </p> + <p> + “Give it up to me! Give it up!” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Captain Whalley; “I could not give it up. You had better go. + Don’t wait, man, if you want to live. She’s settling down by the head + fast. No; I shall keep it, but I shall stay on board.” + </p> + <p> + Massy did not seem to understand; but the love of life, awakened suddenly, + drove him away from the bridge. + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley laid the coat down, and stumbled amongst the heaps of + wreckage to the side. + </p> + <p> + “Is Mr. Massy in with you?” he called out into the night. + </p> + <p> + Sterne from the boat shouted— + </p> + <p> + “Yes; we’ve got him. Come along, sir. It’s madness to stay longer.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Whalley felt along the rail carefully, and, without a word, cast + off the painter. They were expecting him still down there. They were + waiting, till a voice suddenly exclaimed— + </p> + <p> + “We are adrift! Shove off!” + </p> + <p> + “Captain Whalley! Leap! . . . pull up a little . . . leap! You can swim.” + </p> + <p> + In that old heart, in that vigorous body, there was, that nothing should + be wanting, a horror of death that apparently could not be overcome by the + horror of blindness. But after all, for Ivy he had carried his point, + walking in his darkness to the very verge of a crime. God had not listened + to his prayers. The light had finished ebbing out of the world; not a + glimmer. It was a dark waste; but it was unseemly that a Whalley who had + gone so far to carry a point should continue to live. He must pay the + price. + </p> + <p> + “Leap as far as you can, sir; we will pick you up.” + </p> + <p> + They did not hear him answer. But their shouting seemed to remind him of + something. He groped his way back, and sought for Mr. Massy’s coat. He + could swim indeed; people sucked down by the whirlpool of a sinking ship + do come up sometimes to the surface, and it was unseemly that a Whalley, + who had made up his mind to die, should be beguiled by chance into a + struggle. He would put all these pieces of iron into his own pockets. + </p> + <p> + They, looking from the boat, saw the Sofala, a black mass upon a black + sea, lying still at an appalling cant. No sound came from her. Then, with + a great bizarre shuffling noise, as if the boilers had broken through the + bulkheads, and with a faint muffled detonation, where the ship had been + there appeared for a moment something standing upright and narrow, like a + rock out of the sea. Then that too disappeared. + </p> + <p> + When the Sofala failed to come back to Batu Beru at the proper time, Mr. + Van Wyk understood at once that he would never see her any more. But he + did not know what had happened till some months afterwards, when, in a + native craft lent him by his Sultan, he had made his way to the Sofala’s + port of registry, where already her existence and the official inquiry + into her loss was beginning to be forgotten. + </p> + <p> + It had not been a very remarkable or interesting case, except for the fact + that the captain had gone down with his sinking ship. It was the only life + lost; and Mr. Van Wyk would not have been able to learn any details had it + not been for Sterne, whom he met one day on the quay near the bridge over + the creek, almost on the very spot where Captain Whalley, to preserve his + daughter’s five hundred pounds intact, had turned to get a sampan which + would take him on board the Sofala. + </p> + <p> + From afar Mr. Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at him and raise his hand + to his hat. They drew into the shade of a building (it was a bank), and + the mate related how the boat with the crew got into Pangu Bay about six + hours after the accident, and how they had lived for a fortnight in a + state of destitution before they found an opportunity to get away from + that beastly place. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all blame. + The loss of the ship was put down to an unusual set of the current. + Indeed, it could not have been anything else: there was no other way to + account for the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her position + during the middle watch. + </p> + <p> + “A piece of bad luck for me, sir.” + </p> + <p> + Sterne passed his tongue on his lips, and glanced aside. “I lost the + advantage of being employed by you, sir. I can never be sorry enough. But + here it is: one man’s poison, another man’s meat. This could not have been + handier for Mr. Massy if he had arranged that shipwreck himself. The most + timely total loss I’ve ever heard of.” + </p> + <p> + “What became of that Massy?” asked Mr. Van Wyk. + </p> + <p> + “He, sir? Ha! ha! He would keep on telling me that he meant to buy another + ship; but as soon as he had the money in his pocket he cleared out for + Manilla by mail-boat early in the morning. I gave him chase right aboard, + and he told me then he was going to make his fortune dead sure in Manilla. + I could go to the devil for all he cared. And yet he as good as promised + to give me the command if I didn’t talk too much.” + </p> + <p> + “You never said anything . . .” Mr. Van Wyk began. + </p> + <p> + “Not I, sir. Why should I? I mean to get on, but the dead aren’t in my + way,” said Sterne. His eyelids were beating rapidly, then drooped for an + instant. “Besides, sir, it would have been an awkward business. You made + me hold my tongue just a bit too long.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley remained on board? Did he + really refuse to leave? Come now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing!” Sterne interrupted with energy. “I tell you I yelled for him to + leap overboard. He simply <i>must</i> have cast off the painter of the + boat himself. We all yelled to him—that is, Jack and I. He wouldn’t + even answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last. Then the + boilers fetched away, and down she went. Accident! Not it! The game was + up, sir, I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + This was all that Sterne had to say. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk had been of course made the guest of the club for a fortnight, + and it was there that he met the lawyer in whose office had been signed + the agreement between Massy and Captain Whalley. + </p> + <p> + “Extraordinary old man,” he said. “He came into my office from nowhere in + particular as you may say, with his five hundred pounds to place, and that + engineer fellow following him anxiously. And now he is gone out a little + inexplicably, just as he came. I could never understand him quite. There + was no mystery at all about that Massy, eh? I wonder whether Whalley + refused to leave the ship. It would have been foolish. He was blameless, + as the court found.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Wyk had known him well, he said, and he could not believe in + suicide. Such an act would not have been in character with what he knew of + the man. + </p> + <p> + “It is my opinion, too,” the lawyer agreed. The general theory was that + the captain had remained too long on board trying to save something of + importance. Perhaps the chart which would clear him, or else something of + value in his cabin. The painter of the boat had come adrift of itself it + was supposed. However, strange to say, some little time before that voyage + poor Whalley had called in his office and had left with him a sealed + envelope addressed to his daughter, to be forwarded to her in case of his + death. Still it was nothing very unusual, especially in a man of his age. + Mr. Van Wyk shook his head. Captain Whalley looked good for a hundred + years. + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly true,” assented the lawyer. “The old fellow looked as though he + had come into the world full-grown and with that long beard. I could + never, somehow, imagine him either younger or older—don’t you know. + There was a sense of physical power about that man too. And perhaps that + was the secret of that something peculiar in his person which struck + everybody who came in contact with him. He looked indestructible by any + ordinary means that put an end to the rest of us. His deliberate, stately + courtesy of manner was full of significance. It was as though he were + certain of having plenty of time for everything. Yes, there was something + indestructible about him; and the way he talked sometimes you might have + thought he believed it himself. When he called on me last with that letter + he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed at all. Perhaps a + shade more deliberate in his talk and manner. Not depressed in the least. + Had he a presentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still it seems a miserable end + for such a striking figure.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes! It was a miserable end,” Mr. Van Wyk said, with so much fervor + that the lawyer looked up at him curiously; and afterwards, after parting + with him, he remarked to an acquaintance— + </p> + <p> + “Queer person that Dutch tobacco-planter from Batu Beru. Know anything of + him?” + </p> + <p> + “Heaps of money,” answered the bank manager. “I hear he’s going home by + the next mail to form a company to take over his estates. Another tobacco + district thrown open. He’s wise, I think. These good times won’t last for + ever.” + </p> + <p> + In the southern hemisphere Captain Whalley’s daughter had no presentiment + of evil when she opened the envelope addressed to her in the lawyer’s + handwriting. She had received it in the afternoon; all the boarders had + gone out, her boys were at school, her husband sat upstairs in his big + arm-chair with a book, thin-faced, wrapped up in rugs to the waist. The + house was still, and the grayness of a cloudy day lay against the panes of + three lofty windows. + </p> + <p> + In a shabby dining-room, where a faint cold smell of dishes lingered all + the year round, sitting at the end of a long table surrounded by many + chairs pushed in with their backs close against the edge of the + perpetually laid table-cloth, she read the opening sentence: “Most + profound regret—painful duty—your father is no more—in + accordance with his instructions—fatal casualty—consolation—no + blame attached to his memory. . . .” + </p> + <p> + Her face was thin, her temples a little sunk under the smooth bands of + black hair, her lips remained resolutely compressed, while her dark eyes + grew larger, till at last, with a low cry, she stood up, and instantly + stooped to pick up another envelope which had slipped off her knees on to + the floor. + </p> + <p> + She tore it open, snatched out the inclosure. . . . + </p> + <p> + “My dearest child,” it said, “I am writing this while I am able yet to + write legibly. I am trying hard to save for you all the money that is + left; I have only kept it to serve you better. It is yours. It shall not + be lost: it shall not be touched. There’s five hundred pounds. Of what I + have earned I have kept nothing back till now. For the future, if I live, + I must keep back some—a little—to bring me to you. I must come + to you. I must see you once more. + </p> + <p> + “It is hard to believe that you will ever look on these lines. God seems + to have forgotten me. I want to see you—and yet death would be a + greater favor. If you ever read these words, I charge you to begin by + thanking a God merciful at last, for I shall be dead then, and it will be + well. My dear, I am at the end of my tether.” + </p> + <p> + The next paragraph began with the words: “My sight is going . . .” + </p> + <p> + She read no more that day. The hand holding up the paper to her eyes fell + slowly, and her slender figure in a plain black dress walked rigidly to + the window. Her eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of thanks went + up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too hard, for all the efforts of + his love. It had silenced her emotions. But for the first time in all + these years its sting had departed, the carking care of poverty, the + meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image of her husband and + of her children seemed to glide away from her into the gray twilight; it + was her father’s face alone that she saw, as though he had come to see + her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but with something + more august and tender in his aspect. + </p> + <p> + She slipped his folded letter between the two buttons of her plain black + bodice, and leaning her forehead against a window-pane remained there till + dusk, perfectly motionless, giving him all the time she could spare. Gone! + Was it possible? My God, was it possible! The blow had come softened by + the spaces of the earth, by the years of absence. There had been whole + days when she had not thought of him at all—had no time. But she had + loved him, she felt she had loved him, after all. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of End of the Tether, by Joseph Conrad + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK END OF THE TETHER *** + +***** This file should be named 527-h.htm or 527-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/527/ + +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: End of the Tether + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #527] +[Last updated: April 8, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK END OF THE TETHER *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger + + + + + +THE END OF THE TETHER + + +By Joseph Conrad + + + + +I + +For a long time after the course of the steamer _Sofala_ had been +altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance +of a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays +seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea--seemed to shatter themselves +upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor +of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady +brightness. + +Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his Serang, approaching the +roomy cane arm-chair which he filled capably, had informed him in a low +voice that the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and had +remained on his feet, face forward, while the head of his ship swung +through a quarter of a circle. He had not uttered a single word, not +even the word to steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, +little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the +helmsman. And then slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the +arm-chair on the bridge and fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet. + +He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea. He had +been on these coasts for the last three years. From Low Cape to Malantan +the distance was fifty miles, six hours' steaming for the old ship with +the tide, or seven against. Then you steered straight for the land, and +by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with +their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of +the dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber +strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with +it obliquely, would show several clean shining fractures--the brimful +estuary of a river. Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water +and one part black earth, on and on between the low shores, three parts +black earth and one part brackish water, the Sofala would plow her way +up-stream, as she had done once every month for these seven years or +more, long before he was aware of her existence, long before he had ever +thought of having anything to do with her and her invariable voyages. +The old ship ought to have known the road better than her men, who had +not been kept so long at it without a change; better than the faithful +Serang, whom he had brought over from his last ship to keep the +captain's watch; better than he himself, who had been her captain for +the last three years only. She could always be depended upon to make her +courses. Her compasses were never out. She was no trouble at all to +take about, as if her great age had given her knowledge, wisdom, and +steadiness. She made her landfalls to a degree of the bearing, and +almost to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, as he sat on +the bridge without looking up, or lay sleepless in his bed, simply by +reckoning the days and the hours he could tell where he was--the precise +spot of the beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous huckster's +round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and its sights and its +people. Malacca to begin with, in at daylight and out at dusk, to cross +over with a rigid phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East. +Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black sky, perhaps +the lights of a home steamer keeping her unswerving course in the +middle, or maybe the elusive shadow of a native craft with her mat sails +flitting by silently--and the low land on the other side in sight +at daylight. At noon the three palms of the next place of call, up a +sluggish river. The only white man residing there was a retired young +sailor, with whom he had become friendly in the course of many voyages. +Sixty miles farther on there was another place of call, a deep bay with +only a couple of houses on the beach. And so on, in and out, picking +up coastwise cargo here and there, and finishing with a hundred miles' +steady steaming through the maze of an archipelago of small islands up +to a large native town at the end of the beat. There was a three days' +rest for the old ship before he started her again in inverse order, +seeing the same shores from another bearing, hearing the same voices +in the same places, back again to the Sofala's port of registry on +the great highway to the East, where he would take up a berth nearly +opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office till it was time to +start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very +enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry Whalley, otherwise +Dare-devil Harry--Whalley of the Condor, a famous clipper in her day. +No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms, +who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of them his own); who +had made famous passages, had been the pioneer of new routes and new +trades; who had steered across the unsurveyed tracts of the South Seas, +and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty years at sea, and +forty out in the East ("a pretty thorough apprenticeship," he used +to remark smilingly), had made him honorably known to a generation of +shipowners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear over to +where the East merges into the West upon the coast of the two Americas. +His fame remained writ, not very large but plain enough, on the +Admiralty charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a +Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the +celebrated clipper had hung stranded for three days, her captain and +crew throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with the other, as +it were, keeping off her a flotilla of savage war-canoes. At that time +neither the island nor the reef had any official existence. Later the +officers of her Majesty's steam vessel Fusilier, dispatched to make a +survey of the route, recognized in the adoption of these two names the +enterprise of the man and the solidity of the ship. Besides, as anyone +who cares may see, the "General Directory," vol. ii. p. 410, begins the +description of the "Malotu or Whalley Passage" with the words: "This +advantageous route, first discovered in 1850 by Captain Whalley in the +ship Condor," &c., and ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels +leaving the China ports for the south in the months from December to +April inclusive. + +This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing could rob him +of this kind of fame. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez, like the +breaking of a dam, had let in upon the East a flood of new ships, new +men, new methods of trade. It had changed the face of the Eastern seas +and the very spirit of their life; so that his early experiences meant +nothing whatever to the new generation of seamen. + +In those bygone days he had handled many thousands of pounds of his +employers' money and of his own; he had attended faithfully, as by law +a shipmaster is expected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners, +charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship or consented to +a shady transaction; and he had lasted well, outlasting in the end the +conditions that had gone to the making of his name. He had buried his +wife (in the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to the man +of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than an ample competence in the +crash of the notorious Travancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose +downfall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he was sixty-five +years old. + + +II + + +His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin he was not ashamed. +He had not been alone to believe in the stability of the Banking +Corporation. Men whose judgment in matters of finance was as expert as +his seamanship had commended the prudence of his investments, and had +themselves lost much money in the great failure. The only difference +between him and them was that he had lost his all. And yet not his all. +There had remained to him from his lost fortune a very pretty little +bark, Fair Maid, which he had bought to occupy his leisure of a retired +sailor--"to play with," as he expressed it himself. + +He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the year preceding his +daughter's marriage. But after the young couple had gone to settle in +Melbourne he found out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He +was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yachting to satisfy him. +He wanted the illusion of affairs; and his acquisition of the Fair +Maid preserved the continuity of his life. He introduced her to his +acquaintances in various ports as "my last command." When he grew too +old to be trusted with a ship, he would lay her up and go ashore to be +buried, leaving directions in his will to have the bark towed out and +scuttled decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His daughter +would not grudge him the satisfaction of knowing that no stranger would +handle his last command after him. With the fortune he was able to leave +her, the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. All this +would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man +had too much vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little +wistfully withal, because he was at home in life, taking a genuine +pleasure in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his +reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter, and in his +satisfaction with the ship--the plaything of his lonely leisure. + +He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his simple ideal of comfort +at sea. A big bookcase (he was a great reader) occupied one side of his +stateroom; the portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting +representing the profile and one long black ringlet of a young woman, +faced his bed-place. Three chronometers ticked him to sleep and greeted +him on waking with the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five +every day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his early cup +of coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through the wide orifice of the +copper ventilators all the splashings, blowings, and splutterings of +his captain's toilet. These noises would be followed by a sustained +deep murmur of the Lord's Prayer recited in a loud earnest voice. Five +minutes afterwards the head and shoulders of Captain Whalley emerged +out of the companion-hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the +stairs, looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the trim of the +sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air. Only then he would step +out on the poop, acknowledging the hand raised to the peak of the cap +with a majestic and benign "Good morning to you." He walked the deck +till eight scrupulously. Sometimes, not above twice a year, he had to +use a thick cudgel-like stick on account of a stiffness in the hip--a +slight touch of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing of +the ills of the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast bell he went +below to feed his canaries, wind up the chronometers, and take the +head of the table. From there he had before his eyes the big carbon +photographs of his daughter, her husband, and two fat-legged babies +--his grandchildren--set in black frames into the maplewood bulkheads +of the cuddy. After breakfast he dusted the glass over these portraits +himself with a cloth, and brushed the oil painting of his wife with a +plumate kept suspended from a small brass hook by the side of the heavy +gold frame. Then with the door of his stateroom shut, he would sit down +on the couch under the portrait to read a chapter out of a thick pocket +Bible--her Bible. But on some days he only sat there for half an hour +with his finger between the leaves and the closed book resting on his +knees. Perhaps he had remembered suddenly how fond of boat-sailing she +used to be. + +She had been a real shipmate and a true woman too. It was like an +article of faith with him that there never had been, and never could be, +a brighter, cheerier home anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under +the poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold, +garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She +had decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers. +It took her a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor of love. +To him it had remained a marvel of painting, the highest achievement of +taste and skill; and as to old Swinburne, his mate, every time he +came down to his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the +progress of the work. You could almost smell these roses, he declared, +sniffing the faint flavor of turpentine which at that time pervaded the +saloon, and (as he confessed afterwards) made him somewhat less hearty +than usual in tackling his food. But there was nothing of the sort to +interfere with his enjoyment of her singing. "Mrs. Whalley is a regular +out-and-out nightingale, sir," he would pronounce with a judicial air +after listening profoundly over the skylight to the very end of the +piece. In fine weather, in the second dog-watch, the two men could hear +her trills and roulades going on to the accompaniment of the piano in +the cabin. On the very day they got engaged he had written to London +for the instrument; but they had been married for over a year before it +reached them, coming out round the Cape. The big case made part of the +first direct general cargo landed in Hong-kong harbor--an event that to +the men who walked the busy quays of to-day seemed as hazily remote as +the dark ages of history. But Captain Whalley could in a half hour of +solitude live again all his life, with its romance, its idyl, and its +sorrow. He had to close her eyes himself. She went away from under the +ensign like a sailor's wife, a sailor herself at heart. He had read +the service over her, out of her own prayer-book, without a break in his +voice. When he raised his eyes he could see old Swinburne facing him +with his cap pressed to his breast, and his rugged, weather-beaten, +impassive face streaming with drops of water like a lump of chipped red +granite in a shower. It was all very well for that old sea-dog to cry. +He had to read on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember +much of what happened for the next few days. An elderly sailor of the +crew, deft at needlework, put together a mourning frock for the child +out of one of her black skirts. + +He was not likely to forget; but you cannot dam up life like a sluggish +stream. It will break out and flow over a man's troubles, it will close +upon a sorrow like the sea upon a dead body, no matter how much love has +gone to the bottom. And the world is not bad. People had been very +kind to him; especially Mrs. Gardner, the wife of the senior partner +in Gardner, Patteson, & Co., the owners of the Condor. It was she who +volunteered to look after the little one, and in due course took her to +England (something of a journey in those days, even by the overland +mail route) with her own girls to finish her education. It was ten years +before he saw her again. + +As a little child she had never been frightened of bad weather; she +would beg to be taken up on deck in the bosom of his oilskin coat to +watch the big seas hurling themselves upon the Condor. The swirl and +crash of the waves seemed to fill her small soul with a breathless +delight. "A good boy spoiled," he used to say of her in joke. He had +named her Ivy because of the sound of the word, and obscurely fascinated +by a vague association of ideas. She had twined herself tightly round +his heart, and he intended her to cling close to her father as to a +tower of strength; forgetting, while she was little, that in the nature +of things she would probably elect to cling to someone else. But +he loved life well enough for even that event to give him a certain +satisfaction, apart from his more intimate feeling of loss. + +After he had purchased the Fair Maid to occupy his loneliness, he +hastened to accept a rather unprofitable freight to Australia simply for +the opportunity of seeing his daughter in her own home. What made him +dissatisfied there was not to see that she clung now to somebody else, +but that the prop she had selected seemed on closer examination "a +rather poor stick"--even in the matter of health. He disliked his +son-in-law's studied civility perhaps more than his method of +handling the sum of money he had given Ivy at her marriage. But of his +apprehensions he said nothing. Only on the day of his departure, with +the hall-door open already, holding her hands and looking steadily into +her eyes, he had said, "You know, my dear, all I have is for you and the +chicks. Mind you write to me openly." She had answered him by an almost +imperceptible movement of her head. She resembled her mother in +the color of her eyes, and in character--and also in this, that she +understood him without many words. + +Sure enough she had to write; and some of these letters made Captain +Whalley lift his white eye-brows. For the rest he considered he was +reaping the true reward of his life by being thus able to produce on +demand whatever was needed. He had not enjoyed himself so much in a +way since his wife had died. Characteristically enough his son-in-law's +punctuality in failure caused him at a distance to feel a sort of +kindness towards the man. The fellow was so perpetually being jammed on +a lee shore that to charge it all to his reckless navigation would be +manifestly unfair. No, no! He knew well what that meant. It was bad +luck. His own had been simply marvelous, but he had seen in his life too +many good men--seamen and others--go under with the sheer weight of bad +luck not to recognize the fatal signs. For all that, he was cogitating +on the best way of tying up very strictly every penny he had to leave, +when, with a preliminary rumble of rumors (whose first sound reached +him in Shanghai as it happened), the shock of the big failure came; +and, after passing through the phases of stupor, of incredulity, of +indignation, he had to accept the fact that he had nothing to speak of +to leave. + +Upon that, as if he had only waited for this catastrophe, the unlucky +man, away there in Melbourne, gave up his unprofitable game, and sat +down--in an invalid's bath-chair at that too. "He will never walk +again," wrote the wife. For the first time in his life Captain Whalley +was a bit staggered. + +The Fair Maid had to go to work in bitter earnest now. It was no longer +a matter of preserving alive the memory of Dare-devil Harry Whalley in +the Eastern Seas, or of keeping an old man in pocket-money and clothes, +with, perhaps, a bill for a few hundred first-class cigars thrown in at +the end of the year. He would have to buckle-to, and keep her going hard +on a scant allowance of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem +and stern. + +This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world. +Of his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but +the things and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of +Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses +by the waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business +quarters of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a +Gardner or a Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Captain +Whalley an arm-chair and a welcome in the private office, with a bit of +business ready to be put in the way of an old friend, for the sake of +bygone services. The husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks +in that room where, long after he had left the employ, he had kept his +right of entrance in the old man's time. Their ships now had yellow +funnels with black tops, and a time-table of appointed routes like a +confounded service of tramways. The winds of December and June were all +one to them; their captains (excellent young men he doubted not) were, +to be sure, familiar with Whalley Island, because of late years the +Government had established a white fixed light on the north end (with +a red danger sector over the Condor Reef), but most of them would have +been extremely surprised to hear that a flesh-and-blood Whalley still +existed--an old man going about the world trying to pick up a cargo here +and there for his little bark. + +And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men who would have nodded +appreciatively at the mention of his name, and would have thought +themselves bound in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley. +Departed the opportunities which he would have known how to seize; and +gone with them the white-winged flock of clippers that lived in the +boisterous uncertain life of the winds, skimming big fortunes out of +the foam of the sea. In a world that pared down the profits to an +irreducible minimum, in a world that was able to count its disengaged +tonnage twice over every day, and in which lean charters were snapped up +by cable three months in advance, there were no chances of fortune for +an individual wandering haphazard with a little bark--hardly indeed any +room to exist. + +He found it more difficult from year to year. He suffered greatly from +the smallness of remittances he was able to send his daughter. Meantime +he had given up good cigars, and even in the matter of inferior cheroots +limited himself to six a day. He never told her of his difficulties, and +she never enlarged upon her struggle to live. Their confidence in each +other needed no explanations, and their perfect understanding endured +without protestations of gratitude or regret. He would have been shocked +if she had taken it into her head to thank him in so many words, but +he found it perfectly natural that she should tell him she needed two +hundred pounds. + +He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look for a freight in +the Sofala's port of registry, and her letter met him there. Its tenor +was that it was no use mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening +a boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, were good. Good +enough, at any rate, to make her tell him frankly that with two hundred +pounds she could make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily, +on deck, where it was handed to him by the ship-chandler's runner, who +had brought his mail at the moment of anchoring. For the second time +in his life he was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door +with the paper trembling between his fingers. Open a boarding-house! Two +hundred pounds for a start! The only resource! And he did not know where +to lay his hands on two hundred pence. + +All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of his anchored ship, as +though he had been about to close with the land in thick weather, and +uncertain of his position after a run of many gray days without a sight +of sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with the guiding lights +of seamen and the steady straight lines of lights on shore; and all +around the Fair Maid the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails +upon the water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a gleam +anywhere till the dawn broke and he found out that his clothing was +soaked through with the heavy dew. + +His ship was awake. He stopped short, stroked his wet beard, and +descended the poop ladder backwards, with tired feet. At the sight +of him the chief officer, lounging about sleepily on the quarterdeck, +remained open-mouthed in the middle of a great early-morning yawn. + +"Good morning to you," pronounced Captain Whalley solemnly, passing into +the cabin. But he checked himself in the doorway, and without looking +back, "By the bye," he said, "there should be an empty wooden case put +away in the lazarette. It has not been broken up--has it?" + +The mate shut his mouth, and then asked as if dazed, "What empty case, +sir?" + +"A big flat packing-case belonging to that painting in my room. Let it +be taken up on deck and tell the carpenter to look it over. I may want +to use it before long." + +The chief officer did not stir a limb till he had heard the door of the +captain's state-room slam within the cuddy. Then he beckoned aft the +second mate with his forefinger to tell him that there was something "in +the wind." + +When the bell rang Captain Whalley's authoritative voice boomed out +through a closed door, "Sit down and don't wait for me." And his +impressed officers took their places, exchanging looks and whispers +across the table. What! No breakfast? And after apparently knocking +about all night on deck, too! Clearly, there was something in the wind. +In the skylight above their heads, bowed earnestly over the plates, +three wire cages rocked and rattled to the restless jumping of the +hungry canaries; and they could detect the sounds of their "old +man's" deliberate movements within his state-room. Captain Whalley was +methodically winding up the chronometers, dusting the portrait of +his late wife, getting a clean white shirt out of the drawers, making +himself ready in his punctilious unhurried manner to go ashore. He could +not have swallowed a single mouthful of food that morning. He had made +up his mind to sell the Fair Maid. + + +III + + +Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and wide for ships +of European build, and he had no difficulty in finding a purchaser, a +speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair +Maid, with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that +Captain Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the +steps of one of the most important post-offices of the East with a slip +of bluish paper in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter +enclosing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne. +Captain Whalley pushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket, took his +stick from under his arm, and walked down the street. + +It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with rudimentary +side-walks and a soft layer of dust cushioning the whole width of +the road. One end touched the slummy street of Chinese shops near the +harbor, the other drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of +miles, through patches of jungle-like vegetation, to the yard gates +of the new Consolidated Docks Company. The crude frontages of the new +Government buildings alternated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, +and the view of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to the +broad vista. It was empty and shunned by natives after business +hours, as though they had expected to see one of the tigers from the +neighborhood of the New Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping canter +down the middle to get a Chinese shopkeeper for supper. Captain Whalley +was not dwarfed by the solitude of the grandly planned street. He +had too fine a presence for that. He was only a lonely figure walking +purposefully, with a great white beard like a pilgrim, and with a thick +stick that resembled a weapon. On one side the new Courts of Justice had +a low and unadorned portico of squat columns half concealed by a few old +trees left in the approach. On the other the pavilion wings of the +new Colonial Treasury came out to the line of the street. But Captain +Whalley, who had now no ship and no home, remembered in passing that +on that very site when he first came out from England there had stood a +fishing village, a few mat huts erected on piles between a muddy tidal +creek and a miry pathway that went writhing into a tangled wilderness +without any docks or waterworks. + +No ship--no home. And his poor Ivy away there had no home either. A +boarding-house is no sort of home though it may get you a living. His +feelings were horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding-house. In his +rank of life he had that truly aristocratic temperament characterized by +a scorn of vulgar gentility and by prejudiced views as to the derogatory +nature of certain occupations. For his own part he had always preferred +sailing merchant ships (which is a straightforward occupation) to buying +and selling merchandise, of which the essence is to get the better of +somebody in a bargain--an undignified trial of wits at best. His father +had been Colonel Whalley (retired) of the H. E. I. Company's service, +with very slender means besides his pension, but with distinguished +connections. He could remember as a boy how frequently waiters at the +inns, country tradesmen and small people of that sort, used to "My lord" +the old warrior on the strength of his appearance. + +Captain Whalley himself (he would have entered the Navy if his father +had not died before he was fourteen) had something of a grand air which +would have suited an old and glorious admiral; but he became lost like +a straw in the eddy of a brook amongst the swarm of brown and yellow +humanity filling a thoroughfare, that by contrast with the vast and +empty avenue he had left seemed as narrow as a lane and absolutely +riotous with life. The walls of the houses were blue; the shops of the +Chinamen yawned like cavernous lairs; heaps of nondescript merchandise +overflowed the gloom of the long range of arcades, and the fiery +serenity of sunset took the middle of the street from end to end with a +glow like the reflection of a fire. It fell on the bright colors and the +dark faces of the bare-footed crowd, on the pallid yellow backs of the +half-naked jostling coolies, on the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper +with a parted beard and fierce mustaches on sentry before the gate of +the police compound. Looming very big above the heads in a red haze of +dust, the tightly packed car of the cable tramway navigated cautiously +up the human stream, with the incessant blare of its horn, in the manner +of a steamer groping in a fog. + +Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other side, and in the +desert shade between the walls of closed warehouses removed his hat to +cool his brow. A certain disrepute attached to the calling of a +landlady of a boarding-house. These women were said to be rapacious, +unscrupulous, untruthful; and though he contemned no class of his +fellow-creatures--God forbid!--these were suspicions to which it was +unseemly that a Whalley should lay herself open. He had not expostulated +with her, however. He was confident she shared his feelings; he was +sorry for her; he trusted her judgment; he considered it a merciful +dispensation that he could help her once more,--but in his aristocratic +heart of hearts he would have found it more easy to reconcile himself to +the idea of her turning seamstress. Vaguely he remembered reading years +ago a touching piece called the "Song of the Shirt." It was all very +well making songs about poor women. The granddaughter of Colonel +Whalley, the landlady of a boarding-house! Pooh! He replaced his hat, +dived into two pockets, and stopping a moment to apply a flaring match +to the end of a cheap cheroot, blew an embittered cloud of smoke at a +world that could hold such surprises. + +Of one thing he was certain--that she was the own child of a clever +mother. Now he had got over the wrench of parting with his ship, he +perceived clearly that such a step had been unavoidable. Perhaps he had +been growing aware of it all along with an unconfessed knowledge. But +she, far away there, must have had an intuitive perception of it, with +the pluck to face that truth and the courage to speak out--all the +qualities which had made her mother a woman of such excellent counsel. + +It would have had to come to that in the end! It was fortunate she had +forced his hand. In another year or two it would have been an utterly +barren sale. To keep the ship going he had been involving himself deeper +every year. He was defenseless before the insidious work of adversity, +to whose more open assaults he could present a firm front; like a +cliff that stands unmoved the open battering of the sea, with a lofty +ignorance of the treacherous backwash undermining its base. As it was, +every liability satisfied, her request answered, and owing no man a +penny, there remained to him from the proceeds a sum of five hundred +pounds put away safely. In addition he had upon his person some forty +odd dollars--enough to pay his hotel bill, providing he did not linger +too long in the modest bedroom where he had taken refuge. + +Scantily furnished, and with a waxed floor, it opened into one of +the side-verandas. The straggling building of bricks, as airy as a +bird-cage, resounded with the incessant flapping of rattan screens +worried by the wind between the white-washed square pillars of the +sea-front. The rooms were lofty, a ripple of sunshine flowed over the +ceilings; and the periodical invasions of tourists from some passenger +steamer in the harbor flitted through the wind-swept dusk of the +apartments with the tumult of their unfamiliar voices and impermanent +presences, like relays of migratory shades condemned to speed headlong +round the earth without leaving a trace. The babble of their irruptions +ebbed out as suddenly as it had arisen; the draughty corridors and +the long chairs of the verandas knew their sight-seeing hurry or +their prostrate repose no more; and Captain Whalley, substantial and +dignified, left well-nigh alone in the vast hotel by each light-hearted +skurry, felt more and more like a stranded tourist with no aim in view, +like a forlorn traveler without a home. In the solitude of his room he +smoked thoughtfully, gazing at the two sea-chests which held all that he +could call his own in this world. A thick roll of charts in a sheath +of sailcloth leaned in a corner; the flat packing-case containing the +portrait in oils and the three carbon photographs had been pushed under +the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting at surveys, of +all the routine of the business. What to the other parties was merely +the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically +new view of existence. He knew that after this ship there would be no +other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of his abilities, every +feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been indissolubly connected +with ships. He had served ships; he had owned ships; and even the years +of his actual retirement from the sea had been made bearable by the idea +that he had only to stretch out his hand full of money to get a ship. He +had been at liberty to feel as though he were the owner of all the +ships in the world. The selling of this one was weary work; but when +she passed from him at last, when he signed the last receipt, it was as +though all the ships had gone out of the world together, leaving him on +the shore of inaccessible oceans with seven hundred pounds in his hands. + +Striding firmly, without haste, along the quay, Captain Whalley averted +his glances from the familiar roadstead. Two generations of seamen born +since his first day at sea stood between him and all these ships at the +anchorage. His own was sold, and he had been asking himself, What next? + +From the feeling of loneliness, of inward emptiness,--and of loss +too, as if his very soul had been taken out of him forcibly,--there had +sprung at first a desire to start right off and join his daughter. +"Here are the last pence," he would say to her; "take them, my dear. And +here's your old father: you must take him too." + +His soul recoiled, as if afraid of what lay hidden at the bottom of +this impulse. Give up! Never! When one is thoroughly weary all sorts of +nonsense come into one's head. A pretty gift it would have been for a +poor woman--this seven hundred pounds with the incumbrance of a hale old +fellow more than likely to last for years and years to come. Was he not +as fit to die in harness as any of the youngsters in charge of these +anchored ships out yonder? He was as solid now as ever he had been. But +as to who would give him work to do, that was another matter. Were he, +with his appearance and antecedents, to go about looking for a junior's +berth, people, he was afraid, would not take him seriously; or else if +he succeeded in impressing them, he would maybe obtain their pity, which +would be like stripping yourself naked to be kicked. He was not anxious +to give himself away for less than nothing. He had no use for anybody's +pity. On the other hand, a command--the only thing he could try for with +due regard for common decency--was not likely to be lying in wait +for him at the corner of the next street. Commands don't go a-begging +nowadays. Ever since he had come ashore to carry out the business of +the sale he had kept his ears open, but had heard no hint of one being +vacant in the port. And even if there had been one, his successful past +itself stood in his way. He had been his own employer too long. The only +credential he could produce was the testimony of his whole life. What +better recommendation could anyone require? But vaguely he felt that +the unique document would be looked upon as an archaic curiosity of the +Eastern waters, a screed traced in obsolete words--in a half-forgotten +language. + + +IV + + +Revolving these thoughts, he strolled on near the railings of the quay, +broad-chested, without a stoop, as though his big shoulders had never +felt the burden of the loads that must be carried between the cradle +and the grave. No single betraying fold or line of care disfigured the +reposeful modeling of his face. It was full and untanned; and the upper +part emerged, massively quiet, out of the downward flow of silvery hair, +with the striking delicacy of its clear complexion and the powerful +width of the forehead. The first cast of his glance fell on you candid +and swift, like a boy's; but because of the ragged snowy thatch of the +eyebrows the affability of his attention acquired the character of a +dark and searching scrutiny. With age he had put on flesh a little, had +increased his girth like an old tree presenting no symptoms of decay; +and even the opulent, lustrous ripple of white hairs upon his chest +seemed an attribute of unquenchable vitality and vigor. + +Once rather proud of his great bodily strength, and even of his personal +appearance, conscious of his worth, and firm in his rectitude, there had +remained to him, like the heritage of departed prosperity, the tranquil +bearing of a man who had proved himself fit in every sort of way for the +life of his choice. He strode on squarely under the projecting brim of +an ancient Panama hat. It had a low crown, a crease through its whole +diameter, a narrow black ribbon. Imperishable and a little discolored, +this headgear made it easy to pick him out from afar on thronged wharves +and in the busy streets. He had never adopted the comparatively modern +fashion of pipeclayed cork helmets. He disliked the form; and he hoped +he could manage to keep a cool head to the end of his life without all +these contrivances for hygienic ventilation. His hair was cropped close, +his linen always of immaculate whiteness; a suit of thin gray flannel, +worn threadbare but scrupulously brushed, floated about his burly limbs, +adding to his bulk by the looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed +the good-humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a temper +carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick +accompanied his footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones. +It was impossible to connect such a fine presence and this unruffled +aspect with the belittling troubles of poverty; the man's whole +existence appeared to pass before you, facile and large, in the freedom +of means as ample as the clothing of his body. + +The irrational dread of having to break into his five hundred pounds for +personal expenses in the hotel disturbed the steady poise of his mind. +There was no time to lose. The bill was running up. He nourished the +hope that this five hundred would perhaps be the means, if everything +else failed, of obtaining some work which, keeping his body and soul +together (not a matter of great outlay), would enable him to be of use +to his daughter. To his mind it was her own money which he employed, as +it were, in backing her father and solely for her benefit. Once at work, +he would help her with the greater part of his earnings; he was good for +many years yet, and this boarding-house business, he argued to himself, +whatever the prospects, could not be much of a gold-mine from the first +start. But what work? He was ready to lay hold of anything in an honest +way so that it came quickly to his hand; because the five hundred pounds +must be preserved intact for eventual use. That was the great point. +With the entire five hundred one felt a substance at one's back; but +it seemed to him that should he let it dwindle to four-fifty or even +four-eighty, all the efficiency would be gone out of the money, as though +there were some magic power in the round figure. But what sort of work? + +Confronted by that haunting question as by an uneasy ghost, for whom he +had no exorcising formula, Captain Whalley stopped short on the apex +of a small bridge spanning steeply the bed of a canalized creek with +granite shores. Moored between the square blocks a seagoing Malay prau +floated half hidden under the arch of masonry, with her spars lowered +down, without a sound of life on board, and covered from stem to stern +with a ridge of palm-leaf mats. He had left behind him the overheated +pavements bordered by the stone frontages that, like the sheer face of +cliffs, followed the sweep of the quays; and an unconfined spaciousness +of orderly and sylvan aspect opened before him its wide plots of rolled +grass, like pieces of green carpet smoothly pegged out, its long ranges +of trees lined up in colossal porticos of dark shafts roofed with a +vault of branches. + +Some of these avenues ended at the sea. It was a terraced shore; and +beyond, upon the level expanse, profound and glistening like the gaze +of a dark-blue eye, an oblique band of stippled purple lengthened itself +indefinitely through the gap between a couple of verdant twin islets. +The masts and spars of a few ships far away, hull down in the outer +roads, sprang straight from the water in a fine maze of rosy lines +penciled on the clear shadow of the eastern board. Captain Whalley gave +them a long glance. The ship, once his own, was anchored out there. It +was staggering to think that it was open to him no longer to take a boat +at the jetty and get himself pulled off to her when the evening came. To +no ship. Perhaps never more. Before the sale was concluded, and till the +purchase-money had been paid, he had spent daily some time on board the +Fair Maid. The money had been paid this very morning, and now, all at +once, there was positively no ship that he could go on board of when he +liked; no ship that would need his presence in order to do her work--to +live. It seemed an incredible state of affairs, something too bizarre +to last. And the sea was full of craft of all sorts. There was that prau +lying so still swathed in her shroud of sewn palm-leaves--she too had +her indispensable man. They lived through each other, this Malay he had +never seen, and this high-sterned thing of no size that seemed to be +resting after a long journey. And of all the ships in sight, near and +far, each was provided with a man, the man without whom the finest ship +is a dead thing, a floating and purposeless log. + +After his one glance at the roadstead he went on, since there was +nothing to turn back for, and the time must be got through somehow. The +avenues of big trees ran straight over the Esplanade, cutting each other +at diverse angles, columnar below and luxuriant above. The interlaced +boughs high up there seemed to slumber; not a leaf stirred overhead: +and the reedy cast-iron lampposts in the middle of the road, gilt like +scepters, diminished in a long perspective, with their globes of white +porcelain atop, resembling a barbarous decoration of ostriches' eggs +displayed in a row. The flaming sky kindled a tiny crimson spark upon +the glistening surface of each glassy shell. + +With his chin sunk a little, his hands behind his back, and the end of +his stick marking the gravel with a faint wavering line at his heels, +Captain Whalley reflected that if a ship without a man was like a body +without a soul, a sailor without a ship was of not much more account +in this world than an aimless log adrift upon the sea. The log might be +sound enough by itself, tough of fiber, and hard to destroy--but what of +that! And a sudden sense of irremediable idleness weighted his feet like +a great fatigue. + +A succession of open carriages came bowling along the newly opened +sea-road. You could see across the wide grass-plots the discs of +vibration made by the spokes. The bright domes of the parasols swayed +lightly outwards like full-blown blossoms on the rim of a vase; and +the quiet sheet of dark-blue water, crossed by a bar of purple, made a +background for the spinning wheels and the high action of the horses, +whilst the turbaned heads of the Indian servants elevated above the line +of the sea horizon glided rapidly on the paler blue of the sky. In an +open space near the little bridge each turn-out trotted smartly in a +wide curve away from the sunset; then pulling up sharp, entered the main +alley in a long slow-moving file with the great red stillness of the sky +at the back. The trunks of mighty trees stood all touched with red on +the same side, the air seemed aflame under the high foliage, the +very ground under the hoofs of the horses was red. The wheels turned +solemnly; one after another the sunshades drooped, folding their colors +like gorgeous flowers shutting their petals at the end of the day. In +the whole half-mile of human beings no voice uttered a distinct word, +only a faint thudding noise went on mingled with slight jingling sounds, +and the motionless heads and shoulders of men and women sitting in +couples emerged stolidly above the lowered hoods--as if wooden. But one +carriage and pair coming late did not join the line. + +It fled along in a noiseless roll; but on entering the avenue one of the +dark bays snorted, arching his neck and shying against the steel-tipped +pole; a flake of foam fell from the bit upon the point of a satiny +shoulder, and the dusky face of the coachman leaned forward at once over +the hands taking a fresh grip of the reins. It was a long dark-green +landau, having a dignified and buoyant motion between the sharply +curved C-springs, and a sort of strictly official majesty in its supreme +elegance. It seemed more roomy than is usual, its horses seemed slightly +bigger, the appointments a shade more perfect, the servants perched +somewhat higher on the box. The dresses of three women--two young +and pretty, and one, handsome, large, of mature age--seemed to fill +completely the shallow body of the carriage. The fourth face was that +of a man, heavy lidded, distinguished and sallow, with a somber, thick, +iron-gray imperial and mustaches, which somehow had the air of solid +appendages. His Excellency-- + +The rapid motion of that one equipage made all the others appear utterly +inferior, blighted, and reduced to crawl painfully at a snail's pace. +The landau distanced the whole file in a sort of sustained rush; the +features of the occupant whirling out of sight left behind an impression +of fixed stares and impassive vacancy; and after it had vanished in full +flight as it were, notwithstanding the long line of vehicles hugging the +curb at a walk, the whole lofty vista of the avenue seemed to lie open +and emptied of life in the enlarged impression of an august solitude. + +Captain Whalley had lifted his head to look, and his mind, disturbed in +its meditation, turned with wonder (as men's minds will do) to matters +of no importance. It struck him that it was to this port, where he had +just sold his last ship, that he had come with the very first he had +ever owned, and with his head full of a plan for opening a new trade +with a distant part of the Archipelago. The then governor had given +him no end of encouragement. No Excellency he--this Mr. Denham--this +governor with his jacket off; a man who tended night and day, so to +speak, the growing prosperity of the settlement with the self-forgetful +devotion of a nurse for a child she loves; a lone bachelor who lived as +in a camp with the few servants and his three dogs in what was called +then the Government Bungalow: a low-roofed structure on the half-cleared +slope of a hill, with a new flagstaff in front and a police orderly on +the veranda. He remembered toiling up that hill under a heavy sun for +his audience; the unfurnished aspect of the cool shaded room; the long +table covered at one end with piles of papers, and with two guns, a +brass telescope, a small bottle of oil with a feather stuck in the neck +at the other--and the flattering attention given to him by the man in +power. It was an undertaking full of risk he had come to expound, but a +twenty minutes' talk in the Government Bungalow on the hill had made it +go smoothly from the start. And as he was retiring Mr. Denham, already +seated before the papers, called out after him, "Next month the Dido +starts for a cruise that way, and I shall request her captain officially +to give you a look in and see how you get on." The Dido was one of the +smart frigates on the China station--and five-and-thirty years make a +big slice of time. Five-and-thirty years ago an enterprise like his had +for the colony enough importance to be looked after by a Queen's ship. +A big slice of time. Individuals were of some account then. Men like +himself; men, too, like poor Evans, for instance, with his red face, +his coal-black whiskers, and his restless eyes, who had set up the first +patent slip for repairing small ships, on the edge of the forest, in +a lonely bay three miles up the coast. Mr. Denham had encouraged that +enterprise too, and yet somehow poor Evans had ended by dying at +home deucedly hard up. His son, they said, was squeezing oil out of +cocoa-nuts for a living on some God-forsaken islet of the Indian Ocean; +but it was from that patent slip in a lonely wooded bay that had sprung +the workshops of the Consolidated Docks Company, with its three +graving basins carved out of solid rock, its wharves, its jetties, +its electric-light plant, its steam-power houses--with its gigantic +sheer-legs, fit to lift the heaviest weight ever carried afloat, and +whose head could be seen like the top of a queer white monument peeping +over bushy points of land and sandy promontories, as you approached the +New Harbor from the west. + +There had been a time when men counted: there were not so many carriages +in the colony then, though Mr. Denham, he fancied, had a buggy. And +Captain Whalley seemed to be swept out of the great avenue by the swirl +of a mental backwash. He remembered muddy shores, a harbor without +quays, the one solitary wooden pier (but that was a public work) jutting +out crookedly, the first coal-sheds erected on Monkey Point, that caught +fire mysteriously and smoldered for days, so that amazed ships came +into a roadstead full of sulphurous smoke, and the sun hung blood-red +at midday. He remembered the things, the faces, and something more +besides--like the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the bottom, like a +subtle sparkle of the air that was not to be found in the atmosphere of +to-day. + +In this evocation, swift and full of detail like a flash of magnesium +light into the niches of a dark memorial hall, Captain Whalley +contemplated things once important, the efforts of small men, the growth +of a great place, but now robbed of all consequence by the greatness +of accomplished facts, by hopes greater still; and they gave him for a +moment such an almost physical grip upon time, such a comprehension of +our unchangeable feelings, that he stopped short, struck the ground with +his stick, and ejaculated mentally, "What the devil am I doing here!" He +seemed lost in a sort of surprise; but he heard his name called out in +wheezy tones once, twice--and turned on his heels slowly. + +He beheld then, waddling towards him autocratically, a man of an +old-fashioned and gouty aspect, with hair as white as his own, but with +shaved, florid cheeks, wearing a necktie--almost a neckcloth--whose +stiff ends projected far beyond his chin; with round legs, round arms, +a round body, a round face--generally producing the effect of his short +figure having been distended by means of an air-pump as much as the +seams of his clothing would stand. This was the Master-Attendant of the +port. A master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor-master; a person, +out in the East, of some consequence in his sphere; a Government +official, a magistrate for the waters of the port, and possessed of vast +but ill-defined disciplinary authority over seamen of all classes. +This particular Master-Attendant was reported to consider it miserably +inadequate, on the ground that it did not include the power of life +and death. This was a jocular exaggeration. Captain Eliott was fairly +satisfied with his position, and nursed no inconsiderable sense of such +power as he had. His conceited and tyrannical disposition did not allow +him to let it dwindle in his hands for want of use. The uproarious, +choleric frankness of his comments on people's character and conduct +caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended +not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the +mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him +"a meddlesome old ruffian." But for almost all of them one of Captain +Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as a chance of +annihilation. + + +V + + +As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl-- + +"What's this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you're selling the Fair Maid?" + +Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done--money had been +paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of +such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to +stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick +looked well at the end of his time. Didn't he? + +Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past. + +The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an +alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and +appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only +to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight +before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At +the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge +of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the +appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the +only other serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the prime of +life, was resolved to serve no one but his own auspicious Fortune. Far +away, tending his hot irons, he was glad to hear the other had been +successful. There was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that +would serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And they +were so dissimilar at bottom that as they came slowly to the end of the +avenue before the Cathedral, it had never come into Whalley's head that +he might have been in that man's place--provided for to the end of his +days. + +The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst the converging +avenues of enormous trees, as if to put grave thoughts of heaven into +the hours of ease, presented a closed Gothic portal to the light and +glory of the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed like +fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. The two men faced +about. + +"I'll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley," growled Captain +Eliott suddenly. + +"Well?" + +"They ought to send a real live lord out here when Sir Frederick's time +is up. Eh?" + +Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort +should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the other's point +of view. + +"No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. Good enough for a +lord," he growled in short sentences. "Look at the changes in our time. +We need a lord here now. They have got a lord in Bombay." + +He dined once or twice every year at the Government House--a +many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. +And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant's +steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had "most +obligingly" gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal +yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess +herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. Complexion quite +sunburnt. He should think ruined. Very gracious manners. They were going +on to Japan. . . . + +He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley's edification, pausing +to blow out his cheeks as if with a pent-up sense of importance, and +repeatedly protruding his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his +nose seemed to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran itself; +it was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except in its Marine +department--in its Marine department he repeated twice, and after +a heavy snort began to relate how the other day her Majesty's +Consul-General in French Cochin-China had cabled to him--in his official +capacity--asking for a qualified man to be sent over to take charge of a +Glasgow ship whose master had died in Saigon. + +"I sent word of it to the officers' quarters in the Sailors' Home," he +continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated +with the increasing irritation of his voice. "Place's full of them. +Twice as many men as there are berths going in the local trade. All +hungry for an easy job. Twice as many--and--What d'you think, +Whalley? . . ." + +He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed +ready to burst the pockets of his jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain +Whalley. + +"Hey? You would think they would be falling over each other. Not a bit +of it. Frightened to go home. Nice and warm out here to lie about a +veranda waiting for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What +did they suppose? That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the +Consul-General's cable before me? Not likely. So I looked up a list of +them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton--the worst loafer of them +all--and just made him go. Threatened to instruct the steward of the +Sailors' Home to have him turned out neck and crop. He did not think +the berth was good enough--if--you--please. 'I've your little records by +me,' said I. 'You came ashore here eighteen months ago, and you haven't +done six months' work since. You are in debt for your board now at the +Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in the end. +Eh? So it shall; but if you don't take this chance, away you go to +England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes +along. You are no better than a pauper. We don't want any white paupers +here.' I scared him. But look at the trouble all this gave me." + +"You would not have had any trouble," Captain Whalley said almost +involuntarily, "if you had sent for me." + +Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he +walked. But suddenly he stopped laughing. A vague recollection had +crossed his mind. Hadn't he heard it said at the time of the Travancore +and Deccan smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely. +"Fellow's hard up, by heavens!" he thought; and at once he cast a +sidelong upward glance at his companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling +austerely straight before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable +in a penniless man--and he became reassured. Impossible. Could not +have lost everything. That ship had been only a hobby of his. And the +reflection that a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning a +presumably large sum of money was not likely to spring upon him a demand +for a small loan put him entirely at his ease again. There had come a +long pause in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin again, +he growled out soberly, "We old fellows ought to take a rest now." + +"The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar," Captain +Whalley said negligently. + +"Come, now. Aren't you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?" +muttered the other sullenly. + +"Are you?" + +Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung on to his berth so +long in order to get his pension on the highest scale before he went +home. It would be no better than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only +thing between him and the workhouse. And he had a family. Three girls, +as Whalley knew. He gave "Harry, old boy," to understand that these +three girls were a source of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. +Enough to drive a man distracted. + +"Why? What have they been doing now?" asked Captain Whalley with a sort +of amused absent-mindedness. + +"Doing! Doing nothing. That's just it. Lawn-tennis and silly novels from +morning to night. . . ." + +If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! And, as ill-luck +would have it, there did not seem to be any decent young fellows left +in the world. When he looked around in the club he saw only a lot of +conceited popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman happy. +Extreme indigence stared him in the face with all that crowd to keep at +home. He had cherished the idea of building himself a little house in +the country--in Surrey--to end his days in, but he was afraid it was out +of the question, . . . and his staring eyes rolled upwards with such +a pathetic anxiety that Captain Whalley charitably nodded down at him, +restraining a sort of sickening desire to laugh. + +"You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls are the very devil for +worry and anxiety." + +"Ay! But mine is doing well," Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring +to the end of the avenue. + +The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He +remembered her well. A pretty girl she was. + +Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream. + +"She was pretty." + +The procession of carriages was breaking up. + +One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the +vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect +of dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide +road. A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a +varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed +no bigger than a child's toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain +Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained; +and keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the +conversation from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again +to the only other topic in the world--the Marine Office, the men and the +ships of the port. + +He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his +thick voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an +enormous bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or +the weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away. +It was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer. +More queer than any of Ned's instances. Or was it that overpowering +sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these +stories. Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually +he seemed to detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy +rumble, something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the +Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to the same extent; and it +seemed to him that the voice of his old chum had not changed so very +much--that the man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly +Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business--and always a bit of a +humbug. He remembered how he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read +him like an open book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be +in port together, she would frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott +to dinner. They had not met often since those old days. Not once in five +years, perhaps. He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man he +could not bring himself to take into his confidence at this juncture; +and the other went on with his intimate outpourings, and as remote from +his hearer as though he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away. + +He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately +every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss +him when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some +retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment--a man +that would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting +craft having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but +the trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular +trip. Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to +order a man to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on +the demand of a consul-general, but . . . + +"What's the matter with the ship?" Captain Whalley interrupted in +measured tones. + +"Nothing's the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my +office this afternoon tearing his hair." + +"Is he a white man?" asked Whalley in an interested voice. + +"He calls himself a white man," answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; +"but if so, it's just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face +too." + +"But who is he, then?" + +"He's the chief engineer of her. See _that_, Harry?" + +"I see," Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. "The engineer. I see." + +How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a +tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain +Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with +his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of +him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out +here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable +to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went through every engine-room +afloat belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, "What do you think +happened, Harry?" + +Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum +in his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn't imagine. The +Master-Attendant's voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man +actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery. +All these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble. +It seemed to be a perfect mania with them all. + +Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his +money, and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala, +judged too small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade +she was in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had +ordered a new steamer from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man +had never given any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere +fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may produce--not till he +got a ship of his own; but then he went off his balance all at once: +came bouncing into the Marine Office on some transfer business, with his +hat hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in his hand, +and told each one of the clerks separately that "Nobody could put him +out now. It was his turn. There was no one over him on earth, and there +never would be either." He swaggered and strutted between the desks, +talking at the top of his voice, and trembling like a leaf all the +while, so that the current business of the office was suspended for the +time he was in there, and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed +looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen during the hottest +hours of the day with his face as red as fire rushing along up and down +the quays to look at his ship from different points of view: he seemed +inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to let them know +"that there would be no longer anyone over him; he had bought a ship; +nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room now." + +Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all +the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did +not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam +coasting trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of +establishing local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once +organized, took the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and +by-and-by a squad of confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez +Canal and swept up all the crumbs. They prowled on the cheap to and fro +along the coast and between the islands, like a lot of sharks in the +water ready to snap up anything you let drop. And then the high old +times were over for good; for years the Sofala had made no more, he +judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott looked upon it as his duty +in every way to assist an English ship to hold her own; and it stood to +reason that if for want of a captain the Sofala began to miss her trips +she would very soon lose her trade. There was the quandary. The man was +too impracticable. "Too much of a beggar on horseback from the first," +he explained. "Seemed to grow worse as the time went on. In the last +three years he's run through eleven skippers; he had tried every single +man here, outside of the regular lines. I had warned him before that +this would not do. And now, of course, no one will look at the Sofala. I +had one or two men up at my office and talked to them; but, as they said +to me, what was the good of taking the berth to lead a regular dog's +life for a month and then get the sack at the end of the first trip? The +fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there has been a plot +hatching for years against him. And now it had come. All the horrid +sailors in the port had conspired to bring him to his knees, because he +was an engineer." + +Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle. + +"And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips he need never +trouble himself to start again. He won't find any cargo in his old +trade. There's too much competition nowadays for people to keep their +stuff lying about for a ship that does not turn up when she's expected. +It's a bad lookout for him. He swears he will shut himself on board and +starve to death in his cabin rather than sell her--even if he could find +a buyer. And that's not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would +give her insured value for her. It isn't like selling sailing-ships. +Steamers _do_ get out of date, besides getting old." + +"He must have laid by a good bit of money though," observed Captain +Whalley quietly. + +The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to an amazing size. + +"Not a stiver, Harry. Not--a--single--sti-ver." + +He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his beard slowly, looked +down on the ground without a word, he tapped him on the forearm, +tiptoed, and said in a hoarse whisper-- + +"The Manilla lottery has been eating him up." + +He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were +going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships' officers ("in my +port," he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy +had been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after +winning once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try +again to get another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of +tickets for every drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance +of affairs, ever since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had +been more or less short of money. + +This, in Captain Eliott's opinion, gave an opening for a sensible +sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from +the consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his +captains. He had had some really good men too, who would have been too +glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think +he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and +having a row with the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him +was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the +ship on proper conditions. You don't discharge a man for no fault, only +because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, +when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On +the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to +throw up his job in a huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He +had said: "'This won't do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you +here in the Marine Office. What you must do now is to try whether you +could get a sailor to join you as partner. That seems to be the only +way.' And that was sound advice, Harry." + +Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and +his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And +what did the fellow say to that? + +The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had +received the advice in a most impudent manner. "I didn't come here to +be laughed at," he had shrieked. "I appeal to you as an Englishman and a +shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your +beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to +go and get a partner!" . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage +on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? +Was he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot +ashore at the "Home" had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. +The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . . "And it's true +enough, Harry," rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. "They are much more +likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the +clothes on their backs. 'Well,' said I, 'you make too much noise over it +for my taste, Mr. Massy. Good morning.' He banged the door after him; he +dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!" + +The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; +then recollecting himself as it were, "I'll end by being late to +dinner--yarning with you here . . . wife doesn't like it." + +He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only +then wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been +doing with himself of late. They had had no sight of each other for +years and years till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in +the office. + +What on earth . . . + +Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard. + +"The earth is big," he said vaguely. + +The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round from his +driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; only from afar, from very +far, a long way from the seashore, across the stretches of grass, +through the long ranges of trees, came faintly the toot--toot--toot of +the cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle of the Public +Library on its three-mile journey to the New Harbor Docks. + +"Doesn't seem to be so much room on it," growled the Master-Attendant, +"since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not +so in our time." + +He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been +taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps he too, on his side, had detected in the +silent pilgrim-like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested +wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belonging to the young +captain of the Condor. Good fellow--Harry Whalley--never very talkative. +You never knew what he was up to--a bit too off-hand with people of +consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fellow's actions. Fact +was he had a too good opinion of himself. He would have liked to tell +him to get in and drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife +would not like it. + +"And it's funny to think, Harry," he went on in a big, subdued drone, +"that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to +remember this part of the world as it used to be . . ." + +He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it +not struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without +a word, seemed to be awaiting something--perhaps expecting . . . He +gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls-- + +"Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known--the ships we've sailed--ay! and +the things we've done . . ." + +The pony plunged--the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley +raised his arm. + +"Good-by." + + +VI + +The sun had set. And when, after drilling a deep hole with his stick, he +moved from that spot the night had massed its army of shadows under the +trees. They filled the eastern ends of the avenues as if only waiting +the signal for a general advance upon the open spaces of the world; they +were gathering low between the deep stone-faced banks of the canal. The +Malay prau, half-concealed under the arch of the bridge, had not altered +its position a quarter of an inch. For a long time Captain Whalley +stared down over the parapet, till at last the floating immobility +of that beshrouded thing seemed to grow upon him into something +inexplicable and alarming. The twilight abandoned the zenith; its +reflected gleams left the world below, and the water of the canal seemed +to turn into pitch. Captain Whalley crossed it. + +The turning to the right, which was his way to his hotel, was only +a very few steps farther. He stopped again (all the houses of the +sea-front were shut up, the quayside was deserted, but for one or two +figures of natives walking in the distance) and began to reckon the +amount of his bill. So many days in the hotel at so many dollars a +day. To count the days he used his fingers: plunging one hand into his +pocket, he jingled a few silver coins. All right for three days more; +and then, unless something turned up, he must break into the five +hundred--Ivy's money--invested in her father. It seemed to him that +the first meal coming out of that reserve would choke him--for certain. +Reason was of no use. It was a matter of feeling. His feelings had never +played him false. + +He did not turn to the right. He walked on, as if there still had been +a ship in the roadstead to which he could get himself pulled off in +the evening. Far away, beyond the houses, on the slope of an indigo +promontory closing the view of the quays, the slim column of a +factory-chimney smoked quietly straight up into the clear air. A +Chinaman, curled down in the stern of one of the half-dozen sampans +floating off the end of the jetty, caught sight of a beckoning hand. +He jumped up, rolled his pigtail round his head swiftly, tucked in two +rapid movements his wide dark trousers high up his yellow thighs, and +by a single, noiseless, finlike stir of the oars, sheered the sampan +alongside the steps with the ease and precision of a swimming fish. + +"Sofala," articulated Captain Whalley from above; and the Chinaman, +a new emigrant probably, stared upwards with a tense attention as if +waiting to see the queer word fall visibly from the white man's lips. +"Sofala," Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him. +He paused. The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were +dark: the horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of +the shore the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the +telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark +spread of uneven roofs, intermingled with palms, of the native town. +Captain Whalley began again. + +"Sofala. Savee So-fa-la, John?" + +This time the Chinaman made out that bizarre sound, and grunted his +assent uncouthly, low down in his bare throat. With the first yellow +twinkle of a star that appeared like the head of a pin stabbed deep into +the smooth, pale, shimmering fabric of the sky, the edge of a keen chill +seemed to cleave through the warm air of the earth. At the moment of +stepping into the sampan to go and try for the command of the Sofala +Captain Whalley shivered a little. + + +When on his return he landed on the quay again Venus, like a choice +jewel set low on the hem of the sky, cast a faint gold trail behind him +upon the roadstead, as level as a floor made of one dark and +polished stone. The lofty vaults of the avenues were black--all +black overhead--and the porcelain globes on the lamp-posts resembled +egg-shaped pearls, gigantic and luminous, displayed in a row whose +farther end seemed to sink in the distance, down to the level of his +knees. He put his hands behind his back. He would now consider calmly +the discretion of it before saying the final word to-morrow. His feet +scrunched the gravel loudly--the discretion of it. It would have been +easier to appraise had there been a workable alternative. The honesty +of it was indubitable: he meant well by the fellow; and periodically +his shadow leaped up intense by his side on the trunks of the trees, +to lengthen itself, oblique and dim, far over the grass--repeating his +stride. + +The discretion of it. Was there a choice? He seemed already to have lost +something of himself; to have given up to a hungry specter something of +his truth and dignity in order to live. But his life was necessary. Let +poverty do its worst in exacting its toll of humiliation. It was certain +that Ned Eliott had rendered him, without knowing it, a service for +which it would have been impossible to ask. He hoped Ned would not think +there had been something underhand in his action. He supposed that now +when he heard of it he would understand--or perhaps he would only think +Whalley an eccentric old fool. What would have been the good of telling +him--any more than of blurting the whole tale to that man Massy? Five +hundred pounds ready to invest. Let him make the best of that. Let him +wonder. You want a captain--I want a ship. That's enough. B-r-r-r-r. +What a disagreeable impression that empty, dark, echoing steamer had +made upon him. . . . + +A laid-up steamer was a dead thing and no mistake; a sailing-ship +somehow seems always ready to spring into life with the breath of the +incorruptible heaven; but a steamer, thought Captain Whalley, with her +fires out, without the warm whiffs from below meeting you on her decks, +without the hiss of steam, the clangs of iron in her breast--lies there +as cold and still and pulseless as a corpse. + +In the solitude of the avenue, all black above and lighted below, +Captain Whalley, considering the discretion of his course, met, as it +were incidentally, the thought of death. He pushed it aside with dislike +and contempt. He almost laughed at it; and in the unquenchable vitality +of his age only thought with a kind of exultation how little he needed +to keep body and soul together. Not a bad investment for the poor +woman this solid carcass of her father. And for the rest--in case of +anything--the agreement should be clear: the whole five hundred to +be paid back to her integrally within three months. Integrally. Every +penny. He was not to lose any of her money whatever else had to go--a +little dignity--some of his self-respect. He had never before allowed +anybody to remain under any sort of false impression as to himself. +Well, let that go--for her sake. After all, he had never _said_ anything +misleading--and Captain Whalley felt himself corrupt to the marrow of +his bones. He laughed a little with the intimate scorn of his worldly +prudence. Clearly, with a fellow of that sort, and in the peculiar +relation they were to stand to each other, it would not have done to +blurt out everything. He did not like the fellow. He did not like his +spells of fawning loquacity and bursts of resentfulness. In the end--a +poor devil. He would not have liked to stand in his shoes. Men were +not evil, after all. He did not like his sleek hair, his queer way of +standing at right angles, with his nose in the air, and glancing along +his shoulder at you. No. On the whole, men were not bad--they were only +silly or unhappy. + +Captain Whalley had finished considering the discretion of that +step--and there was the whole long night before him. In the full light +his long beard would glisten like a silver breastplate covering his +heart; in the spaces between the lamps his burly figure passed less +distinct, loomed very big, wandering, and mysterious. No; there was +not much real harm in men: and all the time a shadow marched with him, +slanting on his left hand--which in the East is a presage of evil. + +. . . . . . . + +"Can you make out the clump of palms yet, Serang?" asked Captain Whalley +from his chair on the bridge of the Sofala approaching the bar of Batu +Beru. + +"No, Tuan. By-and-by see." The old Malay, in a blue dungaree suit, +planted on his bony dark feet under the bridge awning, put his hands +behind his back and stared ahead out of the innumerable wrinkles at the +corners of his eyes. + +Captain Whalley sat still, without lifting his head to look for himself. +Three years--thirty-six times. He had made these palms thirty-six times +from the southward. They would come into view at the proper time. Thank +God, the old ship made her courses and distances trip after trip, as +correct as clockwork. At last he murmured again-- + +"In sight yet?" + +"The sun makes a very great glare, Tuan." + +"Watch well, Serang." + +"Ya, Tuan." + +A white man had ascended the ladder from the deck noiselessly, and had +listened quietly to this short colloquy. Then he stepped out on the +bridge and began to walk from end to end, holding up the long cherrywood +stem of a pipe. His black hair lay plastered in long lanky wisps +across the bald summit of his head; he had a furrowed brow, a yellow +complexion, and a thick shapeless nose. A scanty growth of whisker did +not conceal the contour of his jaw. His aspect was of brooding care; +and sucking at a curved black mouthpiece, he presented such a heavy +overhanging profile that even the Serang could not help reflecting +sometimes upon the extreme unloveliness of some white men. + +Captain Whalley seemed to brace himself up in his chair, but gave no +recognition whatever to his presence. The other puffed jets of smoke; +then suddenly-- + +"I could never understand that new mania of yours of having this Malay +here for your shadow, partner." + +Captain Whalley got up from the chair in all his imposing stature and +walked across to the binnacle, holding such an unswerving course that +the other had to back away hurriedly, and remained as if intimidated, +with the pipe trembling in his hand. "Walk over me now," he muttered in +a sort of astounded and discomfited whisper. Then slowly and distinctly +he said-- + +"I--am--not--dirt." And then added defiantly, "As you seem to think." + +The Serang jerked out-- + +"See the palms now, Tuan." + +Captain Whalley strode forward to the rail; but his eyes, instead of +going straight to the point, with the assured keen glance of a sailor, +wandered irresolutely in space, as though he, the discoverer of new +routes, had lost his way upon this narrow sea. + +Another white man, the mate, came up on the bridge. He was tall, young, +lean, with a mustache like a trooper, and something malicious in the +eye. He took up a position beside the engineer. Captain Whalley, with +his back to them, inquired-- + +"What's on the log?" + +"Eighty-five," answered the mate quickly, and nudged the engineer with +his elbow. + +Captain Whalley's muscular hands squeezed the iron rail with an +extraordinary force; his eyes glared with an enormous effort; he knitted +his eyebrows, the perspiration fell from under his hat,--and in a +faint voice he murmured, "Steady her, Serang--when she is on the proper +bearing." + +The silent Malay stepped back, waited a little, and lifted his arm +warningly to the helmsman. The wheel revolved rapidly to meet the swing +of the ship. Again the mate nudged the engineer. But Massy turned upon +him. + +"Mr. Sterne," he said violently, "let me tell you--as a shipowner--that +you are no better than a confounded fool." + + +VII + +Sterne went down smirking and apparently not at all disconcerted, but +the engineer Massy remained on the bridge, moving about with uneasy +self-assertion. Everybody on board was his inferior--everyone without +exception. He paid their wages and found them in their food. They ate +more of his bread and pocketed more of his money than they were worth; +and they had no care in the world, while he alone had to meet all the +difficulties of shipowning. When he contemplated his position in all its +menacing entirety, it seemed to him that he had been for years the +prey of a band of parasites: and for years he had scowled at everybody +connected with the Sofala except, perhaps, at the Chinese firemen +who served to get her along. Their use was manifest: they were an +indispensable part of the machinery of which he was the master. + +When he passed along his decks he shouldered those he came across +brutally; but the Malay deck hands had learned to dodge out of his way. +He had to bring himself to tolerate them because of the necessary manual +labor of the ship which must be done. He had to struggle and plan and +scheme to keep the Sofala afloat--and what did he get for it? Not even +enough respect. They could not have given him enough of that if all +their thoughts and all their actions had been directed to that end. The +vanity of possession, the vainglory of power, had passed away by this +time, and there remained only the material embarrassments, the fear +of losing that position which had turned out not worth having, and an +anxiety of thought which no abject subservience of men could repay. + +He walked up and down. The bridge was his own after all. He had paid +for it; and with the stem of the pipe in his hand he would stop short at +times as if to listen with a profound and concentrated attention to the +deadened beat of the engines (his own engines) and the slight grinding +of the steering chains upon the continuous low wash of water alongside. +But for these sounds, the ship might have been lying as still as if +moored to a bank, and as silent as if abandoned by every living soul; +only the coast, the low coast of mud and mangroves with the three palms +in a bunch at the back, grew slowly more distinct in its long straight +line, without a single feature to arrest attention. The native +passengers of the Sofala lay about on mats under the awnings; the smoke +of her funnel seemed the only sign of her life and connected with her +gliding motion in a mysterious manner. + +Captain Whalley on his feet, with a pair of binoculars in his hand and +the little Malay Serang at his elbow, like an old giant attended by a +wizened pigmy, was taking her over the shallow water of the bar. + +This submarine ridge of mud, scoured by the stream out of the soft +bottom of the river and heaped up far out on the hard bottom of the sea, +was difficult to get over. The alluvial coast having no distinguishing +marks, the bearings of the crossing-place had to be taken from the shape +of the mountains inland. The guidance of a form flattened and uneven +at the top like a grinder tooth, and of another smooth, saddle-backed +summit, had to be searched for within the great unclouded glare that +seemed to shift and float like a dry fiery mist, filling the air, +ascending from the water, shrouding the distances, scorching to the eye. +In this veil of light the near edge of the shore alone stood out almost +coal-black with an opaque and motionless solidity. Thirty miles away +the serrated range of the interior stretched across the horizon, its +outlines and shades of blue, faint and tremulous like a background +painted on airy gossamer on the quivering fabric of an impalpable +curtain let down to the plain of alluvial soil; and the openings of the +estuary appeared, shining white, like bits of silver let into the square +pieces snipped clean and sharp out of the body of the land bordered with +mangroves. + +On the forepart of the bridge the giant and the pigmy muttered to each +other frequently in quiet tones. Behind them Massy stood sideways with +an expression of disdain and suspense on his face. His globular eyes +were perfectly motionless, and he seemed to have forgotten the long pipe +he held in his hand. + +On the fore-deck below the bridge, steeply roofed with the white slopes +of the awnings, a young lascar seaman had clambered outside the rail. +He adjusted quickly a broad band of sail canvas under his armpits, +and throwing his chest against it, leaned out far over the water. The +sleeves of his thin cotton shirt, cut off close to the shoulder, +bared his brown arm of full rounded form and with a satiny skin like a +woman's. He swung it rigidly with the rotary and menacing action of a +slinger: the 14-lb. weight hurtled circling in the air, then suddenly +flew ahead as far as the curve of the bow. The wet thin line swished +like scratched silk running through the dark fingers of the man, and +the plunge of the lead close to the ship's side made a vanishing silvery +scar upon the golden glitter; then after an interval the voice of the +young Malay uplifted and long-drawn declared the depth of the water in +his own language. + +"Tiga stengah," he cried after each splash and pause, gathering the line +busily for another cast. "Tiga stengah," which means three fathom and a +half. For a mile or so from seaward there was a uniform depth of water +right up to the bar. "Half-three. Half-three. Half-three,"--and his +modulated cry, returned leisurely and monotonous, like the repeated +call of a bird, seemed to float away in sunshine and disappear in the +spacious silence of the empty sea and of a lifeless shore lying +open, north and south, east and west, without the stir of a single +cloud-shadow or the whisper of any other voice. + +The owner-engineer of the Sofala remained very still behind the two +seamen of different race, creed, and color; the European with the +time-defying vigor of his old frame, the little Malay, old, too, but +slight and shrunken like a withered brown leaf blown by a chance wind +under the mighty shadow of the other. Very busy looking forward at the +land, they had not a glance to spare; and Massy, glaring at them from +behind, seemed to resent their attention to their duty like a personal +slight upon himself. + +This was unreasonable; but he had lived in his own world of unreasonable +resentments for many years. At last, passing his moist palm over the +rare lanky wisps of coarse hair on the top of his yellow head, he began +to talk slowly. + +"A leadsman, you want! I suppose that's your correct mail-boat style. +Haven't you enough judgment to tell where you are by looking at the +land? Why, before I had been a twelvemonth in the trade I was up to that +trick--and I am only an engineer. I can point to you from here where the +bar is, and I could tell you besides that you are as likely as not to +stick her in the mud in about five minutes from now; only you would call +it interfering, I suppose. And there's that written agreement of ours, +that says I mustn't interfere." + +His voice stopped. Captain Whalley, without relaxing the set severity of +his features, moved his lips to ask in a quick mumble-- + +"How near, Serang?" + +"Very near now, Tuan," the Malay muttered rapidly. + +"Dead slow," said the Captain aloud in a firm tone. + +The Serang snatched at the handle of the telegraph. A gong clanged down +below. Massy with a scornful snigger walked off and put his head down +the engineroom skylight. + +"You may expect some rare fooling with the engines, Jack," he bellowed. +The space into which he stared was deep and full of gloom; and the gray +gleams of steel down there seemed cool after the intense glare of the +sea around the ship. The air, however, came up clammy and hot on his +face. A short hoot on which it would have been impossible to put any +sort of interpretation came from the bottom cavernously. This was the +way in which the second engineer answered his chief. + +He was a middle-aged man with an inattentive manner, and apparently +wrapped up in such a taciturn concern for his engines that he seemed +to have lost the use of speech. When addressed directly his only answer +would be a grunt or a hoot, according to the distance. For all the years +he had been in the Sofala he had never been known to exchange as much +as a frank Good-morning with any of his shipmates. He did not seem aware +that men came and went in the world; he did not seem to see them at all. +Indeed he never recognized his ship mates on shore. At table (the four +white men of the Sofala messed together) he sat looking into his plate +dispassionately, but at the end of the meal would jump up and bolt down +below as if a sudden thought had impelled him to rush and see whether +somebody had not stolen the engines while he dined. In port at the end +of the trip he went ashore regularly, but no one knew where he spent +his evenings or in what manner. The local coasting fleet had preserved +a wild and incoherent tale of his infatuation for the wife of a sergeant +in an Irish infantry regiment. The regiment, however, had done its turn +of garrison duty there ages before, and was gone somewhere to the other +side of the earth, out of men's knowledge. Twice or perhaps three times +in the course of the year he would take too much to drink. On these +occasions he returned on board at an earlier hour than usual; ran +across the deck balancing himself with his spread arms like a tight-rope +walker; and locking the door of his cabin, he would converse and argue +with himself the livelong night in an amazing variety of tones; storm, +sneer, and whine with an inexhaustible persistence. Massy in his berth +next door, raising himself on his elbow, would discover that his second +had remembered the name of every white man that had passed through the +Sofala for years and years back. He remembered the names of men that had +died, that had gone home, that had gone to America: he remembered in his +cups the names of men whose connection with the ship had been so short +that Massy had almost forgotten its circumstances and could barely +recall their faces. The inebriated voice on the other side of the +bulkhead commented upon them all with an extraordinary and ingenious +venom of scandalous inventions. It seems they had all offended him in +some way, and in return he had found them all out. He muttered darkly; +he laughed sardonically; he crushed them one after another; but of his +chief, Massy, he babbled with an envious and naive admiration. Clever +scoundrel! Don't meet the likes of him every day. Just look at him. Ha! +Great! Ship of his own. Wouldn't catch _him_ going wrong. No fear--the +beast! And Massy, after listening with a gratified smile to these +artless tributes to his greatness, would begin to shout, thumping at the +bulkhead with both fists-- + +"Shut up, you lunatic! Won't you let me go to sleep, you fool!" + +But a half smile of pride lingered on his lips; outside the solitary +lascar told off for night duty in harbor, perhaps a youth fresh from +a forest village, would stand motionless in the shadows of the deck +listening to the endless drunken gabble. His heart would be thumping +with breathless awe of white men: the arbitrary and obstinate men who +pursue inflexibly their incomprehensible purposes,--beings with weird +intonations in the voice, moved by unaccountable feelings, actuated by +inscrutable motives. + + + +VIII + +For a while after his second's answering hoot Massy hung over the +engine-room gloomily. Captain Whalley, who, by the power of five hundred +pounds, had kept his command for three years, might have been suspected +of never having seen that coast before. He seemed unable to put down his +glasses, as though they had been glued under his contracted eyebrows. +This settled frown gave to his face an air of invincible and just +severity; but his raised elbow trembled slightly, and the perspiration +poured from under his hat as if a second sun had suddenly blazed up at +the zenith by the side of the ardent still globe already there, in whose +blinding white heat the earth whirled and shone like a mote of dust. + +From time to time, still holding up his glasses, he raised his other +hand to wipe his streaming face. The drops rolled down his cheeks, fell +like rain upon the white hairs of his beard, and brusquely, as if guided +by an uncontrollable and anxious impulse, his arm reached out to the +stand of the engine-room telegraph. + +The gong clanged down below. The balanced vibration of the dead-slow +speed ceased together with every sound and tremor in the ship, as if the +great stillness that reigned upon the coast had stolen in through +her sides of iron and taken possession of her innermost recesses. The +illusion of perfect immobility seemed to fall upon her from the luminous +blue dome without a stain arching over a flat sea without a stir. The +faint breeze she had made for herself expired, as if all at once the air +had become too thick to budge; even the slight hiss of the water on her +stem died out. The narrow, long hull, carrying its way without a ripple, +seemed to approach the shoal water of the bar by stealth. The plunge of +the lead with the mournful, mechanical cry of the lascar came at longer +and longer intervals; and the men on her bridge seemed to hold their +breath. The Malay at the helm looked fixedly at the compass card, the +Captain and the Serang stared at the coast. + +Massy had left the skylight, and, walking flat-footed, had returned +softly to the very spot on the bridge he had occupied before. A slow, +lingering grin exposed his set of big white teeth: they gleamed evenly +in the shade of the awning like the keyboard of a piano in a dusky room. + +At last, pretending to talk to himself in excessive astonishment, he +said not very loud-- + +"Stop the engines now. What next, I wonder?" + +He waited, stooping from the shoulders, his head bowed, his glance +oblique. Then raising his voice a shade-- + +"If I dared make an absurd remark I would say that you haven't the +stomach to . . ." + +But a yelling spirit of excitement, like some frantic soul wandering +unsuspected in the vast stillness of the coast, had seized upon the body +of the lascar at the lead. The languid monotony of his sing-song changed +to a swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single whir, the line +whistled, splash followed splash in haste. The water had shoaled, and +the man, instead of the drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the +soundings in feet. + +"Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, fourteen . . ." + +Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses. It descended slowly +as if by its own weight; no other part of his towering body stirred; and +the swift cries with their eager warning note passed him by as though he +had been deaf. + +Massy, very still, and turning an attentive ear, had fastened his eyes +upon the silvery, close-cropped back of the steady old head. The ship +herself seemed to be arrested but for the gradual decrease of depth +under her keel. + +"Thirteen feet . . . Thirteen! Twelve!" cried the leadsman anxiously +below the bridge. And suddenly the barefooted Serang stepped away +noiselessly to steal a glance over the side. + +Narrow of shoulder, in a suit of faded blue cotton, an old gray felt hat +rammed down on his head, with a hollow in the nape of his dark neck, and +with his slender limbs, he appeared from the back no bigger than a boy +of fourteen. There was a childlike impulsiveness in the curiosity with +which he watched the spread of the voluminous, yellowish convolutions +rolling up from below to the surface of the blue water like massive +clouds driving slowly upwards on the unfathomable sky. He was not +startled at the sight in the least. It was not doubt, but the certitude +that the keel of the Sofala must be stirring the mud now, which made him +peep over the side. + +His peering eyes, set aslant in a face of the Chinese type, a little old +face, immovable, as if carved in old brown oak, had informed him long +before that the ship was not headed at the bar properly. Paid off from +the Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after the completion +of the sale, he had hung, in his faded blue suit and floppy gray hat, +about the doors of the Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain +Whalley coming along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put himself +quietly in the way, with his bare feet in the dust and an upward mute +glance. The eyes of his old commander had fallen on him favorably--it +must have been an auspicious day--and in less than half an hour the +white men in the "Ofiss" had written his name on a document as Serang of +the fire-ship Sofala. Since that time he had repeatedly looked at that +estuary, upon that coast, from this bridge and from this side of the +bar. The record of the visual world fell through his eyes upon his +unspeculating mind as on a sensitized plate through the lens of a +camera. His knowledge was absolute and precise; nevertheless, had he +been asked his opinion, and especially if questioned in the downright, +alarming manner of white men, he would have displayed the hesitation of +ignorance. He was certain of his facts--but such a certitude counted for +little against the doubt what answer would be pleasing. Fifty years ago, +in a jungle village, and before he was a day old, his father (who died +without ever seeing a white face) had had his nativity cast by a man of +skill and wisdom in astrology, because in the arrangement of the stars +may be read the last word of human destiny. His destiny had been to +thrive by the favor of various white men on the sea. He had swept the +decks of ships, had tended their helms, had minded their stores, had +risen at last to be a Serang; and his placid mind had remained as +incapable of penetrating the simplest motives of those he served as they +themselves were incapable of detecting through the crust of the earth +the secret nature of its heart, which may be fire or may be stone. But +he had no doubt whatever that the Sofala was out of the proper track for +crossing the bar at Batu Beru. + +It was a slight error. The ship could not have been more than twice her +own length too far to the northward; and a white man at a loss for a +cause (since it was impossible to suspect Captain Whalley of blundering +ignorance, of want of skill, or of neglect) would have been inclined to +doubt the testimony of his senses. It was some such feeling that kept +Massy motionless, with his teeth laid bare by an anxious grin. Not so +the Serang. He was not troubled by any intellectual mistrust of his +senses. If his captain chose to stir the mud it was well. He had known +in his life white men indulge in outbreaks equally strange. He was only +genuinely interested to see what would come of it. At last, apparently +satisfied, he stepped back from the rail. + +He had made no sound: Captain Whalley, however, seemed to have observed +the movements of his Serang. Holding his head rigidly, he asked with a +mere stir of his lips-- + +"Going ahead still, Serang?" + +"Still going a little, Tuan," answered the Malay. Then added casually, +"She is over." + +The lead confirmed his words; the depth of water increased at every +cast, and the soul of excitement departed suddenly from the lascar swung +in the canvas belt over the Sofala's side. Captain Whalley ordered the +lead in, set the engines ahead without haste, and averting his eyes from +the coast directed the Serang to keep a course for the middle of the +entrance. + +Massy brought the palm of his hand with a loud smack against his thigh. + +"You grazed on the bar. Just look astern and see if you didn't. Look at +the track she left. You can see it plainly. Upon my soul, I thought you +would! What made you do that? What on earth made you do that? I believe +you are trying to scare me." + +He talked slowly, as it were circumspectly, keeping his prominent black +eyes on his captain. There was also a slight plaintive note in his +rising choler, for, primarily, it was the clear sense of a wrong +suffered undeservedly that made him hate the man who, for a beggarly +five hundred pounds, claimed a sixth part of the profits under the three +years' agreement. Whenever his resentment got the better of the awe +the person of Captain Whalley inspired he would positively whimper with +fury. + +"You don't know what to invent to plague my life out of me. I would not +have thought that a man of your sort would condescend . . ." + +He paused, half hopefully, half timidly, whenever Captain Whalley made +the slightest movement in the deck-chair, as though expecting to be +conciliated by a soft speech or else rushed upon and hunted off the +bridge. + +"I am puzzled," he went on again, with the watchful unsmiling baring of +his big teeth. "I don't know what to think. I do believe you are trying +to frighten me. You very nearly planted her on the bar for at least +twelve hours, besides getting the engines choked with mud. Ships can't +afford to lose twelve hours on a trip nowadays--as you ought to know +very well, and do know very well to be sure, only . . ." + +His slow volubility, the sideways cranings of his neck, the black +glances out of the very corners of his eyes, left Captain Whalley +unmoved. He looked at the deck with a severe frown. Massy waited for +some little time, then began to threaten plaintively. + +"You think you've got me bound hand and foot in that agreement. You +think you can torment me in any way you please. Ah! But remember it has +another six weeks to run yet. There's time for me to dismiss you before +the three years are out. You will do yet something that will give me the +chance to dismiss you, and make you wait a twelvemonth for your money +before you can take yourself off and pull out your five hundred, and +leave me without a penny to get the new boilers for her. You gloat over +that idea--don't you? I do believe you sit here gloating. It's as if I +had sold my soul for five hundred pounds to be everlastingly damned in +the end. . . ." + +He paused, without apparent exasperation, then continued evenly-- + +". . . With the boilers worn out and the survey hanging over my head, +Captain Whalley--Captain Whalley, I say, what do you do with your +money? You must have stacks of money somewhere--a man like you must. It +stands to reason. I am not a fool, you know, Captain Whalley--partner." + +Again he paused, as though he had done for good. He passed his tongue +over his lips, gave a backward glance at the Serang conning the ship +with quiet whispers and slight signs of the hand. The wash of the +propeller sent a swift ripple, crested with dark froth, upon a long flat +spit of black slime. The Sofala had entered the river; the trail she had +stirred up over the bar was a mile astern of her now, out of sight, had +disappeared utterly; and the smooth, empty sea along the coast was left +behind in the glittering desolation of sunshine. On each side of her, +low down, the growth of somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid +banks; and Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt start, as if +his speech had been ground out of him, like the tune of a music-box, by +turning a handle. + +"Though if anybody ever got the best of me, it is you. I don't mind +saying this. I've said it--there! What more can you want? Isn't that +enough for your pride, Captain Whalley. You got over me from the first. +It's all of a piece, when I look back at it. You allowed me to insert +that clause about intemperance without saying anything, only looking +very sick when I made a point of it going in black on white. How could +I tell what was wrong about you. There's generally something wrong +somewhere. And, lo and behold! when you come on board it turns out that +you've been in the habit of drinking nothing but water for years and +years." + +His dogmatic reproachful whine stopped. He brooded profoundly, after +the manner of crafty and unintelligent men. It seemed inconceivable +that Captain Whalley should not laugh at the expression of disgust that +overspread the heavy, yellow countenance. But Captain Whalley never +raised his eyes--sitting in his arm-chair, outraged, dignified, and +motionless. + +"Much good it was to me," Massy remonstrated monotonously, "to insert a +clause for dismissal for intemperance against a man who drinks nothing +but water. And you looked so upset, too, when I read my draft in +the lawyer's office that morning, Captain Whalley,--you looked so +crestfallen, that I made sure I had gone home on your weak spot. A +shipowner can't be too careful as to the sort of skipper he gets. You +must have been laughing at me in your sleeve all the blessed time. . . . +Eh? What are you going to say?" + +Captain Whalley had only shuffled his feet slightly. A dull animosity +became apparent in Massy's sideways stare. + +"But recollect that there are other grounds of dismissal. There's +habitual carelessness, amounting to incompetence--there's gross and +persistent neglect of duty. I am not quite as big a fool as you try to +make me out to be. You have been careless of late--leaving everything +to that Serang. Why! I've seen you letting that old fool of a Malay +take bearings for you, as if you were too big to attend to your work +yourself. And what do you call that silly touch-and-go manner in which +you took the ship over the bar just now? You expect me to put up with +that?" + +Leaning on his elbow against the ladder abaft the bridge, Sterne, the +mate, tried to hear, blinking the while from the distance at the second +engineer, who had come up for a moment, and stood in the engine-room +companion. Wiping his hands on a bunch of cotton waste, he looked about +with indifference to the right and left at the river banks slipping +astern of the Sofala steadily. + +Massy turned full at the chair. The character of his whine became again +threatening. + +"Take care. I may yet dismiss you and freeze to your money for a year. I +may . . ." + +But before the silent, rigid immobility of the man whose money had come +in the nick of time to save him from utter ruin, his voice died out in +his throat. + +"Not that I want you to go," he resumed after a silence, and in an +absurdly insinuating tone. "I want nothing better than to be friends +and renew the agreement, if you will consent to find another couple of +hundred to help with the new boilers, Captain Whalley. I've told you +before. She must have new boilers; you know it as well as I do. Have you +thought this over?" + +He waited. The slender stem of the pipe with its bulky lump of a bowl at +the end hung down from his thick lips. It had gone out. Suddenly he took +it from between his teeth and wrung his hands slightly. + +"Don't you believe me?" He thrust the pipe bowl into the pocket of his +shiny black jacket. + +"It's like dealing with the devil," he said. "Why don't you speak? At +first you were so high and mighty with me I hardly dared to creep about +my own deck. Now I can't get a word from you. You don't seem to see me +at all. What does it mean? Upon my soul, you terrify me with this deaf +and dumb trick. What's going on in that head of yours? What are you +plotting against me there so hard that you can't say a word? You will +never make me believe that you--you--don't know where to lay your hands +on a couple of hundred. You have made me curse the day I was born. . . ." + +"Mr. Massy," said Captain Whalley suddenly, without stirring. + +The engineer started violently. + +"If that is so I can only beg you to forgive me." + +"Starboard," muttered the Serang to the helmsman; and the Sofala began +to swing round the bend into the second reach. + +"Ough!" Massy shuddered. "You make my blood run cold. What made you come +here? What made you come aboard that evening all of a sudden, with your +high talk and your money--tempting me? I always wondered what was your +motive? You fastened yourself on me to have easy times and grow fat on +my life blood, I tell you. Was that it? I believe you are the greatest +miser in the world, or else why . . ." + +"No. I am only poor," interrupted Captain Whalley, stonily. + +"Steady," murmured the Serang. Massy turned away with his chin on his +shoulder. + +"I don't believe it," he said in his dogmatic tone. Captain Whalley +made no movement. "There you sit like a gorged vulture--exactly like a +vulture." + +He embraced the middle of the reach and both the banks in one blank +unseeing circular glance, and left the bridge slowly. + + +IX + +On turning to descend Massy perceived the head of Sterne the mate +loitering, with his sly confident smile, his red mustaches and blinking +eyes, at the foot of the ladder. + +Sterne had been a junior in one of the larger shipping concerns before +joining the Sofala. He had thrown up his berth, he said, "on general +principles." The promotion in the employ was very slow, he complained, +and he thought it was time for him to try and get on a bit in the world. +It seemed as though nobody would ever die or leave the firm; they all +stuck fast in their berths till they got mildewed; he was tired of +waiting; and he feared that when a vacancy did occur the best servants +were by no means sure of being treated fairly. Besides, the captain he +had to serve under--Captain Provost--was an unaccountable sort of man, +and, he fancied, had taken a dislike to him for some reason or other. +For doing rather more than his bare duty as likely as not. When he +had done anything wrong he could take a talking to, like a man; but +he expected to be treated like a man too, and not to be addressed +invariably as though he were a dog. He had asked Captain Provost plump +and plain to tell him where he was at fault, and Captain Provost, in a +most scornful way, had told him that he was a perfect officer, and that +if he disliked the way he was being spoken to there was the gangway--he +could take himself off ashore at once. But everybody knew what sort of +man Captain Provost was. It was no use appealing to the office. Captain +Provost had too much influence in the employ. All the same, they had to +give him a good character. He made bold to say there was nothing in the +world against him, and, as he had happened to hear that the mate of the +Sofala had been taken to the hospital that morning with a sunstroke, he +thought there would be no harm in seeing whether he would not do. . . . + +He had come to Captain Whalley freshly shaved, red-faced, thin-flanked, +throwing out his lean chest; and had recited his little tale with an +open and manly assurance. Now and then his eyelids quivered slightly, +his hand would steal up to the end of the flaming mustache; his eyebrows +were straight, furry, of a chestnut color, and the directness of his +frank gaze seemed to tremble on the verge of impudence. Captain Whalley +had engaged him temporarily; then, the other man having been ordered +home by the doctors, he had remained for the next trip, and then the +next. He had now attained permanency, and the performance of his duties +was marked by an air of serious, single-minded application. Directly +he was spoken to, he began to smile attentively, with a great deference +expressed in his whole attitude; but there was in the rapid winking +which went on all the time something quizzical, as though he had +possessed the secret of some universal joke cheating all creation and +impenetrable to other mortals. + +Grave and smiling he watched Massy come down step by step; when the +chief engineer had reached the deck he swung about, and they found +themselves face to face. Matched as to height and utterly dissimilar, +they confronted each other as if there had been something between +them--something else than the bright strip of sunlight that, falling +through the wide lacing of two awnings, cut crosswise the narrow +planking of the deck and separated their feet as it were a stream; +something profound and subtle and incalculable, like an unexpressed +understanding, a secret mistrust, or some sort of fear. + +At last Sterne, blinking his deep-set eyes and sticking forward his +scraped, clean-cut chin, as crimson as the rest of his face, murmured-- + +"You've seen? He grazed! You've seen?" + +Massy, contemptuous, and without raising his yellow, fleshy countenance, +replied in the same pitch-- + +"Maybe. But if it had been you we would have been stuck fast in the +mud." + +"Pardon me, Mr. Massy. I beg to deny it. Of course a shipowner may say +what he jolly well pleases on his own deck. That's all right; but I beg +to . . ." + +"Get out of my way!" + +The other had a slight start, the impulse of suppressed indignation +perhaps, but held his ground. Massy's downward glance wandered right and +left, as though the deck all round Sterne had been bestrewn with eggs +that must not be broken, and he had looked irritably for places where +he could set his feet in flight. In the end he too did not move, though +there was plenty of room to pass on. + +"I heard you say up there," went on the mate--"and a very just remark it +was too--that there's always something wrong. . . ." + +"Eavesdropping is what's wrong with _you_, Mr. Sterne." + +"Now, if you would only listen to me for a moment, Mr. Massy, sir, I +could . . ." + +"You are a sneak," interrupted Massy in a great hurry, and even managed +to get so far as to repeat, "a common sneak," before the mate had broken +in argumentatively-- + +"Now, sir, what is it you want? You want . . ." + +"I want--I want," stammered Massy, infuriated and astonished--"I want. +How do you know that I want anything? How dare you? . . . What do you +mean? . . . What are you after--you . . ." + +"Promotion." Sterne silenced him with a sort of candid bravado. The +engineer's round soft cheeks quivered still, but he said quietly +enough-- + +"You are only worrying my head off," and Sterne met him with a confident +little smile. + +"A chap in business I know (well up in the world he is now) used to tell +me that this was the proper way. 'Always push on to the front,' he would +say. 'Keep yourself well before your boss. Interfere whenever you get a +chance. Show him what you know. Worry him into seeing you.' That was his +advice. Now I know no other boss than you here. You are the owner, and +no one else counts for _that_ much in my eyes. See, Mr. Massy? I want to +get on. I make no secret of it that I am one of the sort that means to +get on. These are the men to make use of, sir. You haven't arrived at +the top of the tree, sir, without finding that out--I dare say." + +"Worry your boss in order to get on," mumbled Massy, as if awestruck by +the irreverent originality of the idea. "I shouldn't wonder if this was +just what the Blue Anchor people kicked you out of the employ for. Is +that what you call getting on? You shall get on in the same way here if +you aren't careful--I can promise you." + +At this Sterne hung his head, thoughtful, perplexed, winking hard at +the deck. All his attempts to enter into confidential relations with +his owner had led of late to nothing better than these dark threats +of dismissal; and a threat of dismissal would check him at once into a +hesitating silence as though he were not sure that the proper time for +defying it had come. On this occasion he seemed to have lost his tongue +for a moment, and Massy, getting in motion, heavily passed him by with +an abortive attempt at shouldering. Sterne defeated it by stepping +aside. He turned then swiftly, opening his mouth very wide as if to +shout something after the engineer, but seemed to think better of it. + +Always--as he was ready to confess--on the lookout for an opening to +get on, it had become an instinct with him to watch the conduct of his +immediate superiors for something "that one could lay hold of." It was +his belief that no skipper in the world would keep his command for a +day if only the owners could be "made to know." This romantic and +naive theory had led him into trouble more than once, but he remained +incorrigible; and his character was so instinctively disloyal that +whenever he joined a ship the intention of ousting his commander out +of the berth and taking his place was always present at the back of his +head, as a matter of course. It filled the leisure of his waking hours +with the reveries of careful plans and compromising discoveries--the +dreams of his sleep with images of lucky turns and favorable accidents. +Skippers had been known to sicken and die at sea, than which nothing +could be better to give a smart mate a chance of showing what he's made +of. They also would tumble overboard sometimes: he had heard of one or +two such cases. Others again . . . But, as it were constitutionally, +he was faithful to the belief that the conduct of no single one of them +would stand the test of careful watching by a man who "knew what's what" +and who kept his eyes "skinned pretty well" all the time. + +After he had gained a permanent footing on board the Sofala he allowed +his perennial hope to rise high. To begin with, it was a great advantage +to have an old man for captain: the sort of man besides who in the +nature of things was likely to give up the job before long from one +cause or another. Sterne was greatly chagrined, however, to notice that +he did not seem anyway near being past his work yet. Still, these +old men go to pieces all at once sometimes. Then there was the +owner-engineer close at hand to be impressed by his zeal and steadiness. +Sterne never for a moment doubted the obvious nature of his own merits +(he was really an excellent officer); only, nowadays, professional merit +alone does not take a man along fast enough. A chap must have some push +in him, and must keep his wits at work too to help him forward. He made +up his mind to inherit the charge of this steamer if it was to be done +at all; not indeed estimating the command of the Sofala as a very great +catch, but for the reason that, out East especially, to make a start is +everything, and one command leads to another. + +He began by promising himself to behave with great circumspection; +Massy's somber and fantastic humors intimidated him as being outside +one's usual sea experience; but he was quite intelligent enough to +realize almost from the first that he was there in the presence of an +exceptional situation. His peculiar prying imagination penetrated it +quickly; the feeling that there was in it an element which eluded his +grasp exasperated his impatience to get on. And so one trip came to an +end, then another, and he had begun his third before he saw an opening +by which he could step in with any sort of effect. It had all been very +queer and very obscure; something had been going on near him, as if +separated by a chasm from the common life and the working routine of +the ship, which was exactly like the life and the routine of any other +coasting steamer of that class. + +Then one day he made his discovery. + +It came to him after all these weeks of watchful observation and puzzled +surmises, suddenly, like the long-sought solution of a riddle that +suggests itself to the mind in a flash. Not with the same authority, +however. Great heavens! Could it be that? And after remaining +thunderstruck for a few seconds he tried to shake it off with +self-contumely, as though it had been the product of an unhealthy bias +towards the Incredible, the Inexplicable, the Unheard-of--the Mad! + +This--the illuminating moment--had occurred the trip before, on the +return passage. They had just left a place of call on the mainland +called Pangu; they were steaming straight out of a bay. To the east a +massive headland closed the view, with the tilted edges of the rocky +strata showing through its ragged clothing of rank bushes and thorny +creepers. The wind had begun to sing in the rigging; the sea along the +coast, green and as if swollen a little above the line of the horizon, +seemed to pour itself over, time after time, with a slow and thundering +fall, into the shadow of the leeward cape; and across the wide opening +the nearest of a group of small islands stood enveloped in the hazy +yellow light of a breezy sunrise; still farther out the hummocky tops +of other islets peeped out motionless above the water of the channels +between, scoured tumultuously by the breeze. + +The usual track of the Sofala both going and returning on every trip led +her for a few miles along this reefinfested region. She followed a broad +lane of water, dropping astern, one after another, these crumbs of the +earth's crust resembling a squadron of dismasted hulks run in disorder +upon a foul ground of rocks and shoals. Some of these fragments of land +appeared, indeed, no bigger than a stranded ship; others, quite flat, +lay awash like anchored rafts, like ponderous, black rafts of stone; +several, heavily timbered and round at the base, emerged in squat domes +of deep green foliage that shuddered darkly all over to the flying touch +of cloud shadows driven by the sudden gusts of the squally season. The +thunderstorms of the coast broke frequently over that cluster; it turned +then shadowy in its whole extent; it turned more dark, and as if more +still in the play of fire; as if more impenetrably silent in the peals +of thunder; its blurred shapes vanished--dissolving utterly at times +in the thick rain--to reappear clear-cut and black in the stormy light +against the gray sheet of the cloud--scattered on the slaty round table +of the sea. Unscathed by storms, resisting the work of years, unfretted +by the strife of the world, there it lay unchanged as on that day, four +hundred years ago, when first beheld by Western eyes from the deck of a +high-pooped caravel. + +It was one of these secluded spots that may be found on the busy sea, +as on land you come sometimes upon the clustered houses of a hamlet +untouched by men's restlessness, untouched by their need, by their +thought, and as if forgotten by time itself. The lives of uncounted +generations had passed it by, and the multitudes of seafowl, urging +their way from all the points of the horizon to sleep on the outer rocks +of the group, unrolled the converging evolutions of their flight in +long somber streamers upon the glow of the sky. The palpitating cloud of +their wings soared and stooped over the pinnacles of the rocks, over +the rocks slender like spires, squat like martello towers; over the +pyramidal heaps like fallen ruins, over the lines of bald bowlders +showing like a wall of stones battered to pieces and scorched by +lightning--with the sleepy, clear glimmer of water in every breach. The +noise of their continuous and violent screaming filled the air. + +This great noise would meet the Sofala coming up from Batu Beru; it +would meet her on quiet evenings, a pitiless and savage clamor enfeebled +by distance, the clamor of seabirds settling to rest, and struggling for +a footing at the end of the day. No one noticed it especially on board; +it was the voice of their ship's unerring landfall, ending the steady +stretch of a hundred miles. She had made good her course, she had run +her distance till the punctual islets began to emerge one by one, the +points of rocks, the hummocks of earth . . . and the cloud of birds +hovered--the restless cloud emitting a strident and cruel uproar, the +sound of the familiar scene, the living part of the broken land beneath, +of the outspread sea, and of the high sky without a flaw. + +But when the Sofala happened to close with the land after sunset she +would find everything very still there under the mantle of the night. +All would be still, dumb, almost invisible--but for the blotting out of +the low constellations occulted in turns behind the vague masses of the +islets whose true outlines eluded the eye amongst the dark spaces of the +heaven: and the ship's three lights, resembling three stars--the red and +the green with the white above--her three lights, like three companion +stars wandering on the earth, held their unswerving course for the +passage at the southern end of the group. Sometimes there were human +eyes open to watch them come nearer, traveling smoothly in the somber +void; the eyes of a naked fisherman in his canoe floating over a reef. +He thought drowsily: "Ha! The fire-ship that once in every moon goes in +and comes out of Pangu bay." More he did not know of her. And just as he +had detected the faint rhythm of the propeller beating the calm water +a mile and a half away, the time would come for the Sofala to alter her +course, the lights would swing off him their triple beam--and disappear. + +A few miserable, half-naked families, a sort of outcast tribe of +long-haired, lean, and wild-eyed people, strove for their living in this +lonely wilderness of islets, lying like an abandoned outwork of the land +at the gates of the bay. Within the knots and loops of the rocks the +water rested more transparent than crystal under their crooked and leaky +canoes, scooped out of the trunk of a tree: the forms of the bottom +undulated slightly to the dip of a paddle; and the men seemed to hang +in the air, they seemed to hang inclosed within the fibers of a dark, +sodden log, fishing patiently in a strange, unsteady, pellucid, green +air above the shoals. + +Their bodies stalked brown and emaciated as if dried up in the sunshine; +their lives ran out silently; the homes where they were born, went to +rest, and died--flimsy sheds of rushes and coarse grass eked out with a +few ragged mats--were hidden out of sight from the open sea. No glow +of their household fires ever kindled for a seaman a red spark upon the +blind night of the group: and the calms of the coast, the flaming long +calms of the equator, the unbreathing, concentrated calms like the deep +introspection of a passionate nature, brooded awfully for days and weeks +together over the unchangeable inheritance of their children; till at +last the stones, hot like live embers, scorched the naked sole, till +the water clung warm, and sickly, and as if thickened, about the legs of +lean men with girded loins, wading thigh-deep in the pale blaze of the +shallows. And it would happen now and then that the Sofala, through some +delay in one of the ports of call, would heave in sight making for Pangu +bay as late as noonday. + +Only a blurring cloud at first, the thin mist of her smoke would arise +mysteriously from an empty point on the clear line of sea and sky. The +taciturn fishermen within the reefs would extend their lean arms towards +the offing; and the brown figures stooping on the tiny beaches, the +brown figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search +of turtles' eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over +the eyes, to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve +off--and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes +followed her till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going +at full speed as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the +very bosom of the earth. + +On such days the luminous sea would give no sign of the dangers lurking +on both sides of her path. Everything remained still, crushed by the +overwhelming power of the light; and the whole group, opaque in the +sunshine,--the rocks resembling pinnacles, the rocks resembling spires, +the rocks resembling ruins; the forms of islets resembling beehives, +resembling mole-hills, the islets recalling the shapes of haystacks, the +contours of ivy-clad towers,--would stand reflected together upside +down in the unwrinkled water, like carved toys of ebony disposed on the +silvered plate-glass of a mirror. + +The first touch of blowing weather would envelop the whole at once in +the spume of the windward breakers, as if in a sudden cloudlike burst +of steam; and the clear water seemed fairly to boil in all the passages. +The provoked sea outlined exactly in a design of angry foam the wide +base of the group; the submerged level of broken waste and refuse left +over from the building of the coast near by, projecting its dangerous +spurs, all awash, far into the channel, and bristling with wicked long +spits often a mile long: with deadly spits made of froth and stones. + +And even nothing more than a brisk breeze--as on that morning, the +voyage before, when the Sofala left Pangu bay early, and Mr. Sterne's +discovery was to blossom out like a flower of incredible and evil aspect +from the tiny seed of instinctive suspicion,--even such a breeze had +enough strength to tear the placid mask from the face of the sea. To +Sterne, gazing with indifference, it had been like a revelation to +behold for the first time the dangers marked by the hissing livid +patches on the water as distinctly as on the engraved paper of a chart. +It came into his mind that this was the sort of day most favorable for a +stranger attempting the passage: a clear day, just windy enough for the +sea to break on every ledge, buoying, as it were, the channel plainly +to the sight; whereas during a calm you had nothing to depend on but the +compass and the practiced judgment of your eye. And yet the successive +captains of the Sofala had had to take her through at night more than +once. Nowadays you could not afford to throw away six or seven hours +of a steamer's time. That you couldn't. But then use is everything, and +with proper care . . . The channel was broad and safe enough; the main +point was to hit upon the entrance correctly in the dark--for if a man +got himself involved in that stretch of broken water over yonder he +would never get out with a whole ship--if he ever got out at all. + +This was Sterne's last train of thought independent of the great +discovery. He had just seen to the securing of the anchor, and had +remained forward idling away a moment or two. The captain was in charge +on the bridge. With a slight yawn he had turned away from his survey of +the sea and had leaned his shoulders against the fish davit. + +These, properly speaking, were the very last moments of ease he was to +know on board the Sofala. All the instants that came after were to be +pregnant with purpose and intolerable with perplexity. No more idle, +random thoughts; the discovery would put them on the rack, till +sometimes he wished to goodness he had been fool enough not to make +it at all. And yet, if his chance to get on rested on the discovery of +"something wrong," he could not have hoped for a greater stroke of luck. + + +X + +The knowledge was too disturbing, really. There was "something wrong" +with a vengeance, and the moral certitude of it was at first simply +frightful to contemplate. Sterne had been looking aft in a mood so idle, +that for once he was thinking no harm of anyone. His captain on the +bridge presented himself naturally to his sight. How insignificant, how +casual was the thought that had started the train of discovery--like +an accidental spark that suffices to ignite the charge of a tremendous +mine! + +Caught under by the breeze, the awnings of the foredeck bellied upwards +and collapsed slowly, and above their heavy flapping the gray stuff of +Captain Whalley's roomy coat fluttered incessantly around his arms and +trunk. He faced the wind in full light, with his great silvery beard +blown forcibly against his chest; the eyebrows overhung heavily the +shadows whence his glance appeared to be staring ahead piercingly. +Sterne could just detect the twin gleam of the whites shifting under the +shaggy arches of the brow. At short range these eyes, for all the man's +affable manner, seemed to look you through and through. Sterne never +could defend himself from that feeling when he had occasion to speak +with his captain. He did not like it. What a big heavy man he appeared +up there, with that little shrimp of a Serang in close attendance--as +was usual in this extraordinary steamer! Confounded absurd custom that. +He resented it. Surely the old fellow could have looked after his ship +without that loafing native at his elbow. Sterne wriggled his shoulders +with disgust. What was it? Indolence or what? + +That old skipper must have been growing lazy for years. They all grew +lazy out East here (Sterne was very conscious of his own unimpaired +activity); they got slack all over. But he towered very erect on the +bridge; and quite low by his side, as you see a small child looking over +the edge of a table, the battered soft hat and the brown face of the +Serang peeped over the white canvas screen of the rail. + +No doubt the Malay was standing back, nearer to the wheel; but the +great disparity of size in close association amused Sterne like the +observation of a bizarre fact in nature. They were as queer fish out of +the sea as any in it. + +He saw Captain Whalley turn his head quickly to speak to his Serang; +the wind whipped the whole white mass of the beard sideways. He would +be directing the chap to look at the compass for him, or what not. Of +course. Too much trouble to step over and see for himself. Sterne's +scorn for that bodily indolence which overtakes white men in the East +increased on reflection. Some of them would be utterly lost if they +hadn't all these natives at their beck and call; they grew perfectly +shameless about it too. He was not of that sort, thank God! It wasn't +in him to make himself dependent for his work on any shriveled-up little +Malay like that. As if one could ever trust a silly native for anything +in the world! But that fine old man thought differently, it seems. There +they were together, never far apart; a pair of them, recalling to the +mind an old whale attended by a little pilot-fish. + +The fancifulness of the comparison made him smile. A whale with an +inseparable pilot-fish! That's what the old man looked like; for it +could not be said he looked like a shark, though Mr. Massy had called +him that very name. But Mr. Massy did not mind what he said in his +savage fits. Sterne smiled to himself--and gradually the ideas evoked +by the sound, by the imagined shape of the word pilot-fish; the ideas +of aid, of guidance needed and received, came uppermost in his mind: +the word pilot awakened the idea of trust, of dependence, the idea of +welcome, clear-eyed help brought to the seaman groping for the land +in the dark: groping blindly in fogs: feeling their way in the thick +weather of the gales that, filling the air with a salt mist blown up +from the sea, contract the range of sight on all sides to a shrunken +horizon that seems within reach of the hand. + +A pilot sees better than a stranger, because his local knowledge, like +a sharper vision, completes the shapes of things hurriedly glimpsed; +penetrates the veils of mist spread over the land by the storms of the +sea; defines with certitude the outlines of a coast lying under the pall +of fog, the forms of landmarks half buried in a starless night as in a +shallow grave. He recognizes because he already knows. It is not to +his far-reaching eye but to his more extensive knowledge that the pilot +looks for certitude; for this certitude of the ship's position on +which may depend a man's good fame and the peace of his conscience, the +justification of the trust deposited in his hands, with his own life +too, which is seldom wholly his to throw away, and the humble lives of +others rooted in distant affections, perhaps, and made as weighty as +the lives of kings by the burden of the awaiting mystery. The pilot's +knowledge brings relief and certitude to the commander of a ship; the +Serang, however, in his fanciful suggestion of a pilot-fish attending a +whale, could not in any way be credited with a superior knowledge. Why +should he have it? These two men had come on that run together--the +white and the brown--on the same day: and of course a white man would +learn more in a week than the best native would in a month. He was +made to stick to the skipper as though he were of some use--as the +pilot-fish, they say, is to the whale. But how--it was very marked--how? +A pilot-fish--a pilot--a . . . But if not superior knowledge then . . . + +Sterne's discovery was made. It was repugnant to his imagination, +shocking to his ideas of honesty, shocking to his conception of mankind. +This enormity affected one's outlook on what was possible in this world: +it was as if for instance the sun had turned blue, throwing a new and +sinister light on men and nature. Really in the first moment he had felt +sickish, as though he had got a blow below the belt: for a second the +very color of the sea seemed changed--appeared queer to his wandering +eye; and he had a passing, unsteady sensation in all his limbs as though +the earth had started turning the other way. + +A very natural incredulity succeeding this sense of upheaval brought a +measure of relief. He had gasped; it was over. But afterwards during all +that day sudden paroxysms of wonder would come over him in the midst +of his occupations. He would stop and shake his head. The revolt of +his incredulity had passed away almost as quick as the first emotion +of discovery, and for the next twenty-four hours he had no sleep. That +would never do. At meal-times (he took the foot of the table set up +for the white men on the bridge) he could not help losing himself in +a fascinated contemplation of Captain Whalley opposite. He watched the +deliberate upward movements of the arm; the old man put his food to his +lips as though he never expected to find any taste in his daily bread, +as though he did not know anything about it. He fed himself like a +somnambulist. "It's an awful sight," thought Sterne; and he watched the +long period of mournful, silent immobility, with a big brown hand +lying loosely closed by the side of the plate, till he noticed the two +engineers to the right and left looking at him in astonishment. He would +close his mouth in a hurry then, and lowering his eyes, wink rapidly at +his plate. It was awful to see the old chap sitting there; it was even +awful to think that with three words he could blow him up sky-high. +All he had to do was to raise his voice and pronounce a single short +sentence, and yet that simple act seemed as impossible to attempt as +moving the sun out of its place in the sky. The old chap could eat in +his terrific mechanical way; but Sterne, from mental excitement, could +not--not that evening, at any rate. + +He had had ample time since to get accustomed to the strain of the +meal-hours. He would never have believed it. But then use is everything; +only the very potency of his success prevented anything resembling +elation. He felt like a man who, in his legitimate search for a loaded +gun to help him on his way through the world, chances to come upon a +torpedo--upon a live torpedo with a shattering charge in its head and +a pressure of many atmospheres in its tail. It is the sort of weapon to +make its possessor careworn and nervous. He had no mind to be blown up +himself; and he could not get rid of the notion that the explosion was +bound to damage him too in some way. + +This vague apprehension had restrained him at first. He was able now to +eat and sleep with that fearful weapon by his side, with the conviction +of its power always in mind. It had not been arrived at by any +reflective process; but once the idea had entered his head, the +conviction had followed overwhelmingly in a multitude of observed little +facts to which before he had given only a languid attention. The abrupt +and faltering intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put on +like an armor; the deliberate, as if guarded, movements; the long +immobilities, as if the man he watched had been afraid to disturb the +very air: every familiar gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, +every sigh overheard, had acquired a special significance, a +confirmatory import. + +Every day that passed over the Sofala appeared to Sterne simply crammed +full with proofs--with incontrovertible proofs. At night, when off duty, +he would steal out of his cabin in pyjamas (for more proofs) and stand +a full hour, perhaps, on his bare feet below the bridge, as absolutely +motionless as the awning stanchion in its deck socket near by. On the +stretches of easy navigation it is not usual for a coasting captain to +remain on deck all the time of his watch. The Serang keeps it for him as +a matter of custom; in open water, on a straight course, he is usually +trusted to look after the ship by himself. But this old man seemed +incapable of remaining quietly down below. No doubt he could not sleep. +And no wonder. This was also a proof. Suddenly in the silence of the +ship panting upon the still, dark sea, Sterne would hear a low voice +above him exclaiming nervously-- + +"Serang!" + +"Tuan!" + +"You are watching the compass well?" + +"Yes, I am watching, Tuan." + +"The ship is making her course?" + +"She is, Tuan. Very straight." + +"It is well; and remember, Serang, that the order is that you are to +mind the helmsmen and keep a lookout with care, the same as if I were +not on deck." + +Then, when the Serang had made his answer, the low tones on the bridge +would cease, and everything round Sterne seemed to become more still +and more profoundly silent. Slightly chilled and with his back aching a +little from long immobility, he would steal away to his room on the +port side of the deck. He had long since parted with the last vestige +of incredulity; of the original emotions, set into a tumult by the +discovery, some trace of the first awe alone remained. Not the awe of +the man himself--he could blow him up sky-high with six words--rather it +was an awestruck indignation at the reckless perversity of avarice (what +else could it be?), at the mad and somber resolution that for the +sake of a few dollars more seemed to set at naught the common rule +of conscience and pretended to struggle against the very decree of +Providence. + +You could not find another man like this one in the whole round +world--thank God. There was something devilishly dauntless in the +character of such a deception which made you pause. + +Other considerations occurring to his prudence had kept him tongue-tied +from day to day. It seemed to him now that it would yet have been easier +to speak out in the first hour of discovery. He almost regretted +not having made a row at once. But then the very monstrosity of the +disclosure . . . Why! He could hardly face it himself, let alone +pointing it out to somebody else. Moreover, with a desperado of that +sort one never knew. The object was not to get him out (that was as well +as done already), but to step into his place. Bizarre as the thought +seemed he might have shown fight. A fellow up to working such a fraud +would have enough cheek for anything; a fellow that, as it were, stood +up against God Almighty Himself. He was a horrid marvel--that's what he +was: he was perfectly capable of brazening out the affair scandalously +till he got him (Sterne) kicked out of the ship and everlastingly +damaged his prospects in this part of the East. Yet if you want to get +on something must be risked. At times Sterne thought he had been unduly +timid of taking action in the past; and what was worse, it had come to +this, that in the present he did not seem to know what action to take. + +Massy's savage moroseness was too disconcerting. It was an incalculable +factor of the situation. You could not tell what there was behind that +insulting ferocity. How could one trust such a temper; it did not put +Sterne in bodily fear for himself, but it frightened him exceedingly as +to his prospects. + +Though of course inclined to credit himself with exceptional powers of +observation, he had by now lived too long with his discovery. He had +gone on looking at nothing else, till at last one day it occurred to him +that the thing was so obvious that no one could miss seeing it. There +were four white men in all on board the Sofala. Jack, the second +engineer, was too dull to notice anything that took place out of his +engine-room. Remained Massy--the owner--the interested person--nearly +going mad with worry. Sterne had heard and seen more than enough on +board to know what ailed him; but his exasperation seemed to make him +deaf to cautious overtures. If he had only known it, there was the very +thing he wanted. But how could you bargain with a man of that sort? It +was like going into a tiger's den with a piece of raw meat in your hand. +He was as likely as not to rend you for your pains. In fact, he was +always threatening to do that very thing; and the urgency of the case, +combined with the impossibility of handling it with safety, made Sterne +in his watches below toss and mutter open-eyed in his bunk, for hours, +as though he had been burning with fever. + +Occurrences like the crossing of the bar just now were extremely +alarming to his prospects. He did not want to be left behind by some +swift catastrophe. Massy being on the bridge, the old man had to brace +himself up and make a show, he supposed. But it was getting very bad +with him, very bad indeed, now. Even Massy had been emboldened to find +fault this time; Sterne, listening at the foot of the ladder, had heard +the other's whimpering and artless denunciations. Luckily the beast was +very stupid and could not see the why of all this. However, small blame +to him; it took a clever man to hit upon the cause. Nevertheless, it was +high time to do something. The old man's game could not be kept up for +many days more. + +"I may yet lose my life at this fooling--let alone my chance," Sterne +mumbled angrily to himself, after the stooping back of the chief +engineer had disappeared round the corner of the skylight. Yes, no +doubt--he thought; but to blurt out his knowledge would not advance his +prospects. On the contrary, it would blast them utterly as likely as +not. He dreaded another failure. He had a vague consciousness of not +being much liked by his fellows in this part of the world; inexplicably +enough, for he had done nothing to them. Envy, he supposed. People were +always down on a clever chap who made no bones about his determination +to get on. To do your duty and count on the gratitude of that brute +Massy would be sheer folly. He was a bad lot. Unmanly! A vicious man! +Bad! Bad! A brute! A brute without a spark of anything human about him; +without so much as simple curiosity even, or else surely he would have +responded in some way to all these hints he had been given. . . . Such +insensibility was almost mysterious. Massy's state of exasperation +seemed to Sterne to have made him stupid beyond the ordinary silliness +of shipowners. + +Sterne, meditating on the embarrassments of that stupidity, forgot +himself completely. His stony, unwinking stare was fixed on the planks +of the deck. + +The slight quiver agitating the whole fabric of the ship was more +perceptible in the silent river, shaded and still like a forest +path. The Sofala, gliding with an even motion, had passed beyond the +coast-belt of mud and mangroves. The shores rose higher, in firm sloping +banks, and the forest of big trees came down to the brink. Where the +earth had been crumbled by the floods it showed a steep brown cut, +denuding a mass of roots intertwined as if wrestling underground; and in +the air, the interlaced boughs, bound and loaded with creepers, carried +on the struggle for life, mingled their foliage in one solid wall +of leaves, with here and there the shape of an enormous dark pillar +soaring, or a ragged opening, as if torn by the flight of a cannonball, +disclosing the impenetrable gloom within, the secular inviolable shade +of the virgin forest. The thump of the engines reverberated regularly +like the strokes of a metronome beating the measure of the vast silence, +the shadow of the western wall had fallen across the river, and the +smoke pouring backwards from the funnel eddied down behind the ship, +spread a thin dusky veil over the somber water, which, checked by the +flood-tide, seemed to lie stagnant in the whole straight length of the +reaches. + +Sterne's body, as if rooted on the spot, trembled slightly from top to +toe with the internal vibration of the ship; from under his feet came +sometimes a sudden clang of iron, the noisy burst of a shout below; to +the right the leaves of the tree-tops caught the rays of the low sun, +and seemed to shine with a golden green light of their own shimmering +around the highest boughs which stood out black against a smooth blue +sky that seemed to droop over the bed of the river like the roof of a +tent. The passengers for Batu Beru, kneeling on the planks, were engaged +in rolling their bedding of mats busily; they tied up bundles, they +snapped the locks of wooden chests. A pockmarked peddler of small wares +threw his head back to drain into his throat the last drops out of an +earthenware bottle before putting it away in a roll of blankets. Knots +of traveling traders standing about the deck conversed in low tones; +the followers of a small Rajah from down the coast, broad-faced, simple +young fellows in white drawers and round white cotton caps with their +colored sarongs twisted across their bronze shoulders, squatted on their +hams on the hatch, chewing betel with bright red mouths as if they had +been tasting blood. Their spears, lying piled up together within the +circle of their bare toes, resembled a casual bundle of dry bamboos; a +thin, livid Chinaman, with a bulky package wrapped up in leaves already +thrust under his arm, gazed ahead eagerly; a wandering Kling rubbed his +teeth with a bit of wood, pouring over the side a bright stream of water +out of his lips; the fat Rajah dozed in a shabby deck-chair,--and at the +turn of every bend the two walls of leaves reappeared running parallel +along the banks, with their impenetrable solidity fading at the top to +a vaporous mistiness of countless slender twigs growing free, of young +delicate branches shooting from the topmost limbs of hoary trunks, +of feathery heads of climbers like delicate silver sprays standing up +without a quiver. There was not a sign of a clearing anywhere; not a +trace of human habitation, except when in one place, on the bare end of +a low point under an isolated group of slender tree-ferns, the jagged, +tangled remnants of an old hut on piles appeared with that peculiar +aspect of ruined bamboo walls that look as if smashed with a club. +Farther on, half hidden under the drooping bushes, a canoe containing a +man and a woman, together with a dozen green cocoanuts in a heap, rocked +helplessly after the Sofala had passed, like a navigating contrivance of +venturesome insects, of traveling ants; while two glassy folds of water +streaming away from each bow of the steamer across the whole width of +the river ran with her up stream smoothly, fretting their outer ends +into a brown whispering tumble of froth against the miry foot of each +bank. + +"I must," thought Sterne, "bring that brute Massy to his bearings. It's +getting too absurd in the end. Here's the old man up there buried in his +chair--he may just as well be in his grave for all the use he'll ever be +in the world--and the Serang's in charge. Because that's what he is. +In charge. In the place that's mine by rights. I must bring that savage +brute to his bearings. I'll do it at once, too . . ." + +When the mate made an abrupt start, a little brown half-naked boy, with +large black eyes, and the string of a written charm round his neck, +became panic-struck at once. He dropped the banana he had been munching, +and ran to the knee of a grave dark Arab in flowing robes, sitting like +a Biblical figure, incongruously, on a yellow tin trunk corded with a +rope of twisted rattan. The father, unmoved, put out his hand to pat the +little shaven poll protectingly. + + +XI + +Sterne crossed the deck upon the track of the chief engineer. Jack, +the second, retreating backwards down the engine-room ladder, and still +wiping his hands, treated him to an incomprehensible grin of white teeth +out of his grimy hard face; Massy was nowhere to be seen. He must have +gone straight into his berth. Sterne scratched at the door softly, then, +putting his lips to the rose of the ventilator, said-- + +"I must speak to you, Mr. Massy. Just give me a minute or two." + +"I am busy. Go away from my door." + +"But pray, Mr. Massy . . ." + +"You go away. D'you hear? Take yourself off altogether--to the other +end of the ship--quite away . . ." The voice inside dropped low. "To the +devil." + +Sterne paused: then very quietly-- + +"It's rather pressing. When do you think you will be at liberty, sir?" + +The answer to this was an exasperated "Never"; and at once Sterne, with +a very firm expression of face, turned the handle. + +Mr. Massy's stateroom--a narrow, one-berth cabin--smelt strongly of +soap, and presented to view a swept, dusted, unadorned neatness, not +so much bare as barren, not so much severe as starved and lacking in +humanity, like the ward of a public hospital, or rather (owing to the +small size) like the clean retreat of a desperately poor but exemplary +person. Not a single photograph frame ornamented the bulkheads; not a +single article of clothing, not as much as a spare cap, hung from the +brass hooks. All the inside was painted in one plain tint of pale blue; +two big sea-chests in sailcloth covers and with iron padlocks fitted +exactly in the space under the bunk. One glance was enough to embrace +all the strip of scrubbed planks within the four unconcealed corners. +The absence of the usual settee was striking; the teak-wood top of the +washing-stand seemed hermetically closed, and so was the lid of the +writing-desk, which protruded from the partition at the foot of the +bed-place, containing a mattress as thin as a pancake under a threadbare +blanket with a faded red stripe, and a folded mosquito-net against +the nights spent in harbor. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere in +sight, no boots on the floor, no litter of any sort, not a speck of +dust anywhere; no traces of pipe-ash even, which, in a heavy smoker, was +morally revolting, like a manifestation of extreme hypocrisy; and the +bottom of the old wooden arm-chair (the only seat there), polished +with much use, shone as if its shabbiness had been waxed. The screen +of leaves on the bank, passing as if unrolled endlessly in the round +opening of the port, sent a wavering network of light and shade into the +place. + +Sterne, holding the door open with one hand, had thrust in his head and +shoulders. At this amazing intrusion Massy, who was doing absolutely +nothing, jumped up speechless. + +"Don't call names," murmured Sterne hurriedly. "I won't be called names. +I think of nothing but your good, Mr. Massy." + +A pause as of extreme astonishment followed. They both seemed to have +lost their tongues. Then the mate went on with a discreet glibness. + +"You simply couldn't conceive what's going on on board your ship. +It wouldn't enter your head for a moment. You are too good--too--too +upright, Mr. Massy, to suspect anybody of such a . . . It's enough to +make your hair stand on end." + +He watched for the effect: Massy seemed dazed, uncomprehending. He only +passed the palm of his hand on the coal-black wisps plastered across +the top of his head. In a tone suddenly changed to confidential audacity +Sterne hastened on. + +"Remember that there's only six weeks left to run . . ." The other was +looking at him stonily . . . "so anyhow you shall require a captain for +the ship before long." + +Then only, as if that suggestion had scarified his flesh in the manner +of red-hot iron, Massy gave a start and seemed ready to shriek. He +contained himself by a great effort. + +"Require a captain," he repeated with scathing slowness. "Who requires +a captain? You dare to tell me that I need any of you humbugging sailors +to run my ship. You and your likes have been fattening on me for years. +It would have hurt me less to throw my money overboard. Pam--pe--red +us--e--less f-f-f-frauds. The old ship knows as much as the best of +you." He snapped his teeth audibly and growled through them, "The silly +law requires a captain." + +Sterne had taken heart of grace meantime. + +"And the silly insurance people too, as well," he said lightly. "But +never mind that. What I want to ask is: Why shouldn't _I_ do, sir? I +don't say but you could take a steamer about the world as well as any of +us sailors. I don't pretend to tell _you_ that it is a very great trick +. . ." He emitted a short, hollow guffaw, familiarly . . . "I didn't +make the law--but there it is; and I am an active young fellow! I +quite hold with your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy. I +wouldn't try to give myself airs like that--that--er lazy specimen of an +old man up there." + +He put a marked emphasis on the last sentence, to lead Massy away from +the track in case . . . but he did not doubt of now holding his success. +The chief engineer seemed nonplused, like a slow man invited to catch +hold of a whirligig of some sort. + +"What you want, sir, is a chap with no nonsense about him, who would be +content to be your sailing-master. Quite right, too. Well, I am fit for +the work as much as that Serang. Because that's what it amounts to. +Do you know, sir, that a dam' Malay like a monkey is in charge of your +ship--and no one else. Just listen to his feet pit-patting above us on +the bridge--real officer in charge. He's taking her up the river while +the great man is wallowing in the chair--perhaps asleep; and if he is, +that would not make it much worse either--take my word for it." + +He tried to thrust himself farther in. Massy, with lowered forehead, one +hand grasping the back of the arm-chair, did not budge. + +"You think, sir, that the man has got you tight in his agreement . . ." +Massy raised a heavy snarling face at this . . . "Well, sir, one can't +help hearing of it on board. It's no secret. And it has been the talk on +shore for years; fellows have been making bets about it. No, sir! +It's _you_ who have got him at your mercy. You will say that you can't +dismiss him for indolence. Difficult to prove in court, and so on. Why, +yes. But if you say the word, sir, I can tell you something about his +indolence that will give you the clear right to fire him out on the spot +and put me in charge for the rest of this very trip--yes, sir, before +we leave Batu Beru--and make him pay a dollar a day for his keep till +we get back, if you like. Now, what do you think of that? Come, sir. +Say the word. It's really well worth your while, and I am quite ready to +take your bare word. A definite statement from you would be as good as a +bond." + +His eyes began to shine. He insisted. A simple statement,--and he +thought to himself that he would manage somehow to stick in his berth as +long as it suited him. He would make himself indispensable; the ship had +a bad name in her port; it would be easy to scare the fellows off. Massy +would have to keep him. + +"A definite statement from me would be enough," Massy repeated slowly. + +"Yes, sir. It would." Sterne stuck out his chin cheerily and blinked at +close quarters with that unconscious impudence which had the power to +enrage Massy beyond anything. + +The engineer spoke very distinctly. + +"Listen well to me, then, Mr. Sterne: I wouldn't--d'ye hear?--I wouldn't +promise you the value of two pence for anything _you_ can tell me." + +He struck Sterne's arm away with a smart blow, and catching hold of +the handle pulled the door to. The terrific slam darkened the cabin +instantaneously to his eye as if after the flash of an explosion. +At once he dropped into the chair. "Oh, no! You don't!" he whispered +faintly. + +The ship had in that place to shave the bank so close that the gigantic +wall of leaves came gliding like a shutter against the port; the +darkness of the primeval forest seemed to flow into that bare cabin with +the odor of rotting leaves, of sodden soil--the strong muddy smell of +the living earth steaming uncovered after the passing of a deluge. The +bushes swished loudly alongside; above there was a series of crackling +sounds, with a sharp rain of small broken branches falling on the +bridge; a creeper with a great rustle snapped on the head of a boat +davit, and a long, luxuriant green twig actually whipped in and out of +the open port, leaving behind a few torn leaves that remained suddenly +at rest on Mr. Massy's blanket. Then, the ship sheering out in the +stream, the light began to return but did not augment beyond a subdued +clearness: for the sun was very low already, and the river, wending its +sinuous course through a multitude of secular trees as if at the +bottom of a precipitous gorge, had been already invaded by a deepening +gloom--the swift precursor of the night. + +"Oh, no, you don't!" murmured the engineer again. His lips trembled +almost imperceptibly; his hands too, a little: and to calm himself +he opened the writing-desk, spread out a sheet of thin grayish +paper covered with a mass of printed figures and began to scan them +attentively for the twentieth time this trip at least. + +With his elbows propped, his head between his hands, he seemed to lose +himself in the study of an abstruse problem in mathematics. It was the +list of the winning numbers from the last drawing of the great lottery +which had been the one inspiring fact of so many years of his existence. +The conception of a life deprived of that periodical sheet of paper had +slipped away from him entirely, as another man, according to his nature, +would not have been able to conceive a world without fresh air, without +activity, or without affection. A great pile of flimsy sheets had been +growing for years in his desk, while the Sofala, driven by the faithful +Jack, wore out her boilers in tramping up and down the Straits, from +cape to cape, from river to river, from bay to bay; accumulating by that +hard labor of an overworked, starved ship the blackened mass of these +documents. Massy kept them under lock and key like a treasure. There +was in them, as in the experience of life, the fascination of hope, the +excitement of a half-penetrated mystery, the longing of a half-satisfied +desire. + +For days together, on a trip, he would shut himself up in his berth with +them: the thump of the toiling engines pulsated in his ear; and he +would weary his brain poring over the rows of disconnected figures, +bewildering by their senseless sequence, resembling the hazards of +destiny itself. He nourished a conviction that there must be some logic +lurking somewhere in the results of chance. He thought he had seen +its very form. His head swam; his limbs ached; he puffed at his pipe +mechanically; a contemplative stupor would soothe the fretfulness of his +temper, like the passive bodily quietude procured by a drug, while the +intellect remains tensely on the stretch. Nine, nine, aught, four, +two. He made a note. The next winning number of the great prize was +forty-seven thousand and five. These numbers of course would have to +be avoided in the future when writing to Manilla for the tickets. He +mumbled, pencil in hand . . . "and five. Hm . . . hm." He wetted his +finger: the papers rustled. Ha! But what's this? Three years ago, in the +September drawing, it was number nine, aught, four, two that took the +first prize. Most remarkable. There was a hint there of a definite rule! +He was afraid of missing some recondite principle in the overwhelming +wealth of his material. What could it be? and for half an hour he would +remain dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching a muscle. +At his back the whole berth would be thick with a heavy body of smoke, +as if a bomb had burst in there, unnoticed, unheard. + +At last he would lock up the desk with the decision of unshaken +confidence, jump and go out. He would walk swiftly back and forth on +that part of the foredeck which was kept clear of the lumber and of the +bodies of the native passengers. They were a great nuisance, but they +were also a source of profit that could not be disdained. He needed +every penny of profit the Sofala could make. Little enough it was, in +all conscience! The incertitude of chance gave him no concern, since +he had somehow arrived at the conviction that, in the course of years, +every number was bound to have his winning turn. It was simply a matter +of time and of taking as many tickets as he could afford for every +drawing. He generally took rather more; all the earnings of the ship +went that way, and also the wages he allowed himself as chief engineer. +It was the wages he paid to others that he begrudged with a reasoned +and at the same time a passionate regret. He scowled at the lascars with +their deck brooms, at the quartermasters rubbing the brass rails with +greasy rags; he was eager to shake his fist and roar abuse in bad Malay +at the poor carpenter--a timid, sickly, opium-fuddled Chinaman, in loose +blue drawers for all costume, who invariably dropped his tools and fled +below, with streaming tail and shaking all over, before the fury of that +"devil." But it was when he raised up his eyes to the bridge where one +of these sailor frauds was always planted by law in charge of his ship +that he felt almost dizzy with rage. He abominated them all; it was an +old feud, from the time he first went to sea, an unlicked cub with a +great opinion of himself, in the engine-room. The slights that had +been put upon him. The persecutions he had suffered at the hands of +skippers--of absolute nobodies in a steamship after all. And now that +he had risen to be a shipowner they were still a plague to him: he +had absolutely to pay away precious money to the conceited useless +loafers:--As if a fully qualified engineer--who was the owner as +well--were not fit to be trusted with the whole charge of a ship. Well! +he made it pretty warm for them; but it was a poor consolation. He had +come in time to hate the ship too for the repairs she required, for the +coal-bills he had to pay, for the poor beggarly freights she earned. +He would clench his hand as he walked and hit the rail a sudden blow, +viciously, as though she could be made to feel pain. And yet he could +not do without er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth and nail +to keep his head above water till the expected flood of fortune came +sweeping up and landed him safely on the high shore of his ambition. + +It was now to do nothing, nothing whatever, and have plenty of money +to do it on. He had tasted of power, the highest form of it his limited +experience was aware of--the power of shipowning. What a deception! +Vanity of vanities! He wondered at his folly. He had thrown away the +substance for the shadow. Of the gratification of wealth he did not know +enough to excite his imagination with any visions of luxury. How +could he--the child of a drunken boiler-maker--going straight from the +workshop into the engine-room of a north-country collier! But the notion +of the absolute idleness of wealth he could very well conceive. He +reveled in it, to forget his present troubles; he imagined himself +walking about the streets of Hull (he knew their gutters well as a boy) +with his pockets full of sovereigns. He would buy himself a house; his +married sisters, their husbands, his old workshop chums, would render +him infinite homage. There would be nothing to think of. His word would +be law. He had been out of work for a long time before he won his prize, +and he remembered how Carlo Mariani (commonly known as Paunchy Charley), +the Maltese hotel-keeper at the slummy end of Denham Street, had +cringed joyfully before him in the evening, when the news had come. +Poor Charley, though he made his living by ministering to various abject +vices, gave credit for their food to many a piece of white wreckage. He +was naively overjoyed at the idea of his old bills being paid, and +he reckoned confidently on a spell of festivities in the cavernous +grog-shop downstairs. Massy remembered the curious, respectful looks of +the "trashy" white men in the place. His heart had swelled within him. +Massy had left Charley's infamous den directly he had realized the +possibilities open to him, and with his nose in the air. Afterwards the +memory of these adulations was a great sadness. + +This was the true power of money,--and no trouble with it, nor any +thinking required either. He thought with difficulty and felt vividly; +to his blunt brain the problems offered by any ordered scheme of life +seemed in their cruel toughness to have been put in his way by the +obvious malevolence of men. As a shipowner everyone had conspired to +make him a nobody. How could he have been such a fool as to purchase +that accursed ship. He had been abominably swindled; there was no end +to this swindling; and as the difficulties of his improvident ambition +gathered thicker round him, he really came to hate everybody he had +ever come in contact with. A temper naturally irritable and an amazing +sensitiveness to the claims of his own personality had ended by making +of life for him a sort of inferno--a place where his lost soul had been +given up to the torment of savage brooding. + +But he had never hated anyone so much as that old man who had turned up +one evening to save him from an utter disaster,--from the conspiracy of +the wretched sailors. He seemed to have fallen on board from the sky. +His footsteps echoed on the empty steamer, and the strange deep-toned +voice on deck repeating interrogatively the words, "Mr. Massy, Mr. Massy +there?" had been startling like a wonder. And coming up from the depths +of the cold engine-room, where he had been pottering dismally with a +candle amongst the enormous shadows, thrown on all sides by the skeleton +limbs of machinery, Massy had been struck dumb by astonishment in the +presence of that imposing old man with a beard like a silver plate, +towering in the dusk rendered lurid by the expiring flames of sunset. + +"Want to see me on business? What business? I am doing no business. +Can't you see that this ship is laid up?" Massy had turned at bay before +the pursuing irony of his disaster. Afterwards he could not believe his +ears. What was that old fellow getting at? Things don't happen that way. +It was a dream. He would presently wake up and find the man vanished +like a shape of mist. The gravity, the dignity, the firm and courteous +tone of that athletic old stranger impressed Massy. He was almost +afraid. But it was no dream. Five hundred pounds are no dream. At once +he became suspicious. What did it mean? Of course it was an offer to +catch hold of for dear life. But what could there be behind? + +Before they had parted, after appointing a meeting in a solicitor's +office early on the morrow, Massy was asking himself, What is his +motive? He spent the night in hammering out the clauses of the +agreement--a unique instrument of its sort whose tenor got bruited +abroad somehow and became the talk and wonder of the port. + +Massy's object had been to secure for himself as many ways as possible +of getting rid of his partner without being called upon at once to pay +back his share. Captain Whalley's efforts were directed to making the +money secure. Was it not Ivy's money--a part of her fortune whose only +other asset was the time-defying body of her old father? Sure of his +forbearance in the strength of his love for her, he accepted, with +stately serenity, Massy's stupidly cunning paragraphs against his +incompetence, his dishonesty, his drunkenness, for the sake of other +stringent stipulations. At the end of three years he was at liberty to +withdraw from the partnership, taking his money with him. Provision was +made for forming a fund to pay him off. But if he left the Sofala before +the term, from whatever cause (barring death), Massy was to have a whole +year for paying. "Illness?" the lawyer had suggested: a young man fresh +from Europe and not overburdened with business, who was rather amused. +Massy began to whine unctuously, "How could he be expected? . . ." + +"Let that go," Captain Whalley had said with a superb confidence in his +body. "Acts of God," he added. In the midst of life we are in death, but +he trusted his Maker with a still greater fearlessness--his Maker who +knew his thoughts, his human affections, and his motives. His Creator +knew what use he was making of his health--how much he wanted it . . . +"I trust my first illness will be my last. I've never been ill that I +can remember," he had remarked. "Let it go." + +But at this early stage he had already awakened Massy's hostility by +refusing to make it six hundred instead of five. "I cannot do that," was +all he had said, simply, but with so much decision that Massy desisted +at once from pressing the point, but had thought to himself, "Can't! Old +curmudgeon. _Won't_ He must have lots of money, but he would like to get +hold of a soft berth and the sixth part of my profits for nothing if he +only could." + +And during these years Massy's dislike grew under the restraint +of something resembling fear. The simplicity of that man appeared +dangerous. Of late he had changed, however, had appeared less formidable +and with a lessened vigor of life, as though he had received a secret +wound. But still he remained incomprehensible in his simplicity, +fearlessness, and rectitude. And when Massy learned that he meant to +leave him at the end of the time, to leave him confronted with the +problem of boilers, his dislike blazed up secretly into hate. + +It had made him so clear-eyed that for a long time now Mr. Sterne could +have told him nothing he did not know. He had much ado in trying to +terrorize that mean sneak into silence; he wanted to deal alone with the +situation; and--incredible as it might have appeared to Mr. Sterne--he +had not yet given up the desire and the hope of inducing that hated +old man to stay. Why! there was nothing else to do, unless he were to +abandon his chances of fortune. But now, suddenly, since the crossing of +the bar at Batu Beru things seemed to be coming rapidly to a point. It +disquieted him so much that the study of the winning numbers failed +to soothe his agitation: and the twilight in the cabin deepened, very +somber. + +He put the list away, muttering once more, "Oh, no, my boy, you don't. +Not if I know it." He did not mean the blinking, eavesdropping humbug to +force his action. He took his head again into his hands; his immobility +confined in the darkness of this shut-up little place seemed to make +him a thing apart infinitely removed from the stir and the sounds of the +deck. + +He heard them: the passengers were beginning to jabber excitedly; +somebody dragged a heavy box past his door. He heard Captain Whalley's +voice above-- + +"Stations, Mr. Sterne." And the answer from somewhere on deck forward-- + +"Ay, ay, sir." + +"We shall moor head up stream this time; the ebb has made." + +"Head up stream, sir." + +"You will see to it, Mr. Sterne." + +The answer was covered by the autocratic clang on the engine-room +gong. The propeller went on beating slowly: one, two, three; one, two, +three--with pauses as if hesitating on the turn. The gong clanged time +after time, and the water churned this way and that by the blades was +making a great noisy commotion alongside. Mr. Massy did not move. A +shore-light on the other bank, a quarter of a mile across the river, +drifted, no bigger than a tiny star, passing slowly athwart the circle +of the port. Voices from Mr. Van Wyk's jetty answered the hails from the +ship; ropes were thrown and missed and thrown again; the swaying flame +of a torch carried in a large sampan coming to fetch away in state the +Rajah from down the coast cast a sudden ruddy glare into his cabin, +over his very person. Mr. Massy did not move. After a few last ponderous +turns the engines stopped, and the prolonged clanging of the gong +signified that the captain had done with them. A great number of boats +and canoes of all sizes boarded the off-side of the Sofala. Then after +a time the tumult of splashing, of cries, of shuffling feet, of packages +dropped with a thump, the noise of the native passengers going +away, subsided slowly. On the shore, a voice, cultivated, slightly +authoritative, spoke very close alongside-- + +"Brought any mail for me this time?" + +"Yes, Mr. Van Wyk." This was from Sterne, answering over the rail in a +tone of respectful cordiality. "Shall I bring it up to you?" + +But the voice asked again-- + +"Where's the captain?" + +"Still on the bridge, I believe. He hasn't left his chair. Shall I . . ." + +The voice interrupted negligently. + +"I will come on board." + +"Mr. Van Wyk," Sterne suddenly broke out with an eager effort, "will you +do me the favor . . ." + +The mate walked away quickly towards the gangway. A silence fell. Mr. +Massy in the dark did not move. + +He did not move even when he heard slow shuffling footsteps pass his +cabin lazily. He contented himself to bellow out through the closed +door-- + +"You--Jack!" + +The footsteps came back without haste; the door handle rattled, and the +second engineer appeared in the opening, shadowy in the sheen of the +skylight at his back, with his face apparently as black as the rest of +his figure. + +"We have been very long coming up this time," Mr. Massy growled, without +changing his attitude. + +"What do you expect with half the boiler tubes plugged up for leaks." +The second defended himself loquaciously. + +"None of your lip," said Massy. + +"None of your rotten boilers--I say," retorted his faithful subordinate +without animation, huskily. "Go down there and carry a head of steam on +them yourself--if you dare. I don't." + +"You aren't worth your salt then," Massy said. The other made a faint +noise which resembled a laugh but might have been a snarl. + +"Better go slow than stop the ship altogether," he admonished his +admired superior. Mr. Massy moved at last. He turned in his chair, and +grinding his teeth-- + +"Dam' you and the ship! I wish she were at the bottom of the sea. Then +you would have to starve." + +The trusty second engineer closed the door gently. + +Massy listened. Instead of passing on to the bathroom where he should +have gone to clean himself, the second entered his cabin, which was next +door. Mr. Massy jumped up and waited. Suddenly he heard the lock snap in +there. He rushed out and gave a violent kick to the door. + +"I believe you are locking yourself up to get drunk," he shouted. + +A muffled answer came after a while. + +"My own time." + +"If you take to boozing on the trip I'll fire you out," Massy cried. + +An obstinate silence followed that threat. Massy moved away perplexed. +On the bank two figures appeared, approaching the gangway. He heard a +voice tinged with contempt-- + +"I would rather doubt your word. But I shall certainly speak to him of +this." + +The other voice, Sterne's, said with a sort of regretful formality-- + +"Thanks. That's all I want. I must do my duty." + +Mr. Massy was surprised. A short, dapper figure leaped lightly on the +deck and nearly bounded into him where he stood beyond the circle of +light from the gangway lamp. When it had passed towards the bridge, +after exchanging a hurried "Good evening," Massy said surlily to Sterne +who followed with slow steps-- + +"What is it you're making up to Mr. Van Wyk for, now?" + +"Far from it, Mr. Massy. I am not good enough for Mr. Van Wyk. Neither +are you, sir, in his opinion, I am afraid. Captain Whalley is, it seems. +He's gone to ask him to dine up at the house this evening." + +Then he murmured to himself darkly-- + +"I hope he will like it." + + +XII + +Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex-naval officer who, +for reasons best known to himself, had thrown away the promise of a +brilliant career to become the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that +remote part of the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley. The +appearance of the new skipper had attracted his attention. Nothing more +unlike all the diverse types he had seen succeeding each other on the +bridge of the Sofala could be imagined. + +At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become since: the center of +a prosperous tobacco-growing district, a tropically suburban-looking +little settlement of bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows +of trees, embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance of the gardens, +with a three-mile-long carriage-road for the afternoon drives and a +first-class Resident with a fat, cheery wife to lead the society of +married estate-managers and unmarried young fellows in the service of the +big companies. + +All this prosperity was not yet; and Mr. Van Wyk prospered alone on the +left bank on his deep clearing carved out of the forest, which came down +above and below to the water's edge. His lonely bungalow faced across +the river the houses of the Sultan: a restless and melancholy old ruler +who had done with love and war, for whom life no longer held any savor +(except of evil forebodings) and time never had any value. He was afraid +of death, and hoped he would die before the white men were ready to take +his country from him. He crossed the river frequently (with never +less than ten boats crammed full of people), in the wistful hope of +extracting some information on the subject from his own white man. There +was a certain chair on the veranda he always took: the dignitaries of +the court squatted on the rugs and skins between the furniture: the +inferior people remained below on the grass plot between the house and +the river in rows three or four deep all along the front. Not seldom the +visit began at daybreak. Mr. Van Wyk tolerated these inroads. He would +nod out of his bedroom window, tooth-brush or razor in hand, or pass +through the throng of courtiers in his bathing robe. He appeared and +disappeared humming a tune, polished his nails with attention, rubbed +his shaved face with _eau-de-Cologne_, drank his early tea, went out to +see his coolies at work: returned, looked through some papers on his +desk, read a page or two in a book or sat before his cottage piano +leaning back on the stool, his arms extended, fingers on the keys, his +body swaying slightly from side to side. When absolutely forced to speak +he gave evasive vaguely soothing answers out of pure compassion: the +same feeling perhaps made him so lavishly hospitable with the aerated +drinks that more than once he left himself without soda-water for a whole +week. That old man had granted him as much land as he cared to have +cleared: it was neither more nor less than a fortune. + +Whether it was fortune or seclusion from his kind that Mr. Van Wyk +sought, he could not have pitched upon a better place. Even the +mail-boats of the subsidized company calling on the veriest clusters of +palm-thatched hovels along the coast steamed past the mouth of Batu Beru +river far away in the offing. The contract was old: perhaps in a few +years' time, when it had expired, Batu Beru would be included in the +service; meantime all Mr. Van Wyk's mail was addressed to Malacca, +whence his agent sent it across once a month by the Sofala. It followed +that whenever Massy had run short of money (through taking too many +lottery tickets), or got into a difficulty about a skipper, Mr. Van Wyk +was deprived of his letter and newspapers. In so far he had a personal +interest in the fortunes of the Sofala. Though he considered himself +a hermit (and for no passing whim evidently, since he had stood eight +years of it already), he liked to know what went on in the world. + +Handy on the veranda upon a walnut _etagere_ (it had come last year by the +Sofala)--everything came by the Sofala there lay, piled up under bronze +weights, a pile of the Times' weekly edition, the large sheets of the +Rotterdam Courant, the Graphic in its world-wide green wrappers, an +illustrated Dutch publication without a cover, the numbers of a German +magazine with covers of the "_Bismarck malade_" color. There were also +parcels of new music--though the piano (it had come years ago by the +Sofala in the damp atmosphere of the forests was generally out of tune.) +It was vexing to be cut off from everything for sixty days at a stretch +sometimes, without any means of knowing what was the matter. And when +the Sofala reappeared Mr. Van Wyk would descend the steps of the veranda +and stroll over the grass plot in front of his house, down to the +waterside, with a frown on his white brow. + +"You've been laid up after an accident, I presume." + +He addressed the bridge, but before anybody could answer Massy was sure +to have already scrambled ashore over the rail and pushed in, squeezing +the palms of his hands together, bowing his sleek head as if gummed all +over the top with black threads and tapes. And he would be so enraged +at the necessity of having to offer such an explanation that his moaning +would be positively pitiful, while all the time he tried to compose his +big lips into a smile. + +"No, Mr. Van Wyk. You would not believe it. I couldn't get one of those +wretches to take the ship out. Not a single one of the lazy beasts could +be induced, and the law, you know, Mr. Van Wyk . . ." + +He moaned at great length apologetically; the words conspiracy, plot, +envy, came out prominently, whined with greater energy. Mr. Van Wyk, +examining with a faint grimace his polished finger-nails, would say, +"H'm. Very unfortunate," and turn his back on him. + +Fastidious, clever, slightly skeptical, accustomed to the best society +(he had held a much-envied shore appointment at the Ministry of Marine +for a year preceding his retreat from his profession and from Europe), +he possessed a latent warmth of feeling and a capacity for sympathy +which were concealed by a sort of haughty, arbitrary indifference of +manner arising from his early training; and by a something an enemy +might have called foppish, in his aspect--like a distorted echo of past +elegance. He managed to keep an almost military discipline amongst the +coolies of the estate he had dragged into the light of day out of the +tangle and shadows of the jungle; and the white shirt he put on every +evening with its stiff glossy front and high collar looked as if he had +meant to preserve the decent ceremony of evening-dress, but had wound +a thick crimson sash above his hips as a concession to the wilderness, +once his adversary, now his vanquished companion. + +Moreover, it was a hygienic precaution. Worn wide open in front, a short +jacket of some airy silken stuff floated from his shoulders. His fluffy, +fair hair, thin at the top, curled slightly at the sides; a carefully +arranged mustache, an ungarnished forehead, the gleam of low patent +shoes peeping under the wide bottom of trowsers cut straight from the +same stuff as the gossamer coat, completed a figure recalling, with its +sash, a pirate chief of romance, and at the same time the elegance of +a slightly bald dandy indulging, in seclusion, a taste for unorthodox +costume. + +It was his evening get-up. The proper time for the Sofala to arrive +at Batu Beru was an hour before sunset, and he looked picturesque, and +somehow quite correct too, walking at the water's edge on the background +of grass slope crowned with a low long bungalow with an immensely steep +roof of palm thatch, and clad to the eaves in flowering creepers. While +the Sofala was being made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees +left near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on board. Her +white men were not of his kind. The old Sultan (though his wistful +invasions were a nuisance) was really much more acceptable to his +fastidious taste. But still they were white; the periodical visits of +the ship made a break in the well-filled sameness of the days without +disturbing his privacy. Moreover, they were necessary from a business +point of view; and through a strain of preciseness in his nature he was +irritated when she failed to appear at the appointed time. + +The cause of the irregularity was too absurd, and Massy, in his opinion, +was a contemptible idiot. The first time the Sofala reappeared under the +new agreement swinging out of the bend below, after he had almost given +up all hope of ever seeing her again, he felt so angry that he did not +go down at once to the landing-place. His servants had come running to +him with the news, and he had dragged a chair close against the front +rail of the veranda, spread his elbows out, rested his chin on his +hands, and went on glaring at her fixedly while she was being made fast +opposite his house. He could make out easily all the white faces on +board. Who on earth was that kind of patriarch they had got there on the +bridge now? + +At last he sprang up and walked down the gravel path. It was a fact +that the very gravel for his paths had been imported by the Sofala. +Exasperated out of his quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone +right or left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined a manner +that the engineer, taken aback, began to stammer unintelligibly. Nothing +could be heard but the words: "Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van Wyk +. . . For the future, Mr. Van Wyk"--and by the suffusion of blood Massy's +vast bilious face acquired an unnatural orange tint, out of which the +disconcerted coal-black eyes shone in an extraordinary manner. + +"Nonsense. I am tired of this. I wonder you have the impudence to come +alongside my jetty as if I had it made for your convenience alone." + +Massy tried to protest earnestly. Mr. Van Wyk was very angry. He had +a good mind to ask that German firm--those people in Malacca--what was +their name?--boats with green funnels. They would be only too glad +of the opening to put one of their small steamers on the run. Yes; +Schnitzler, Jacob Schnitzler, would in a moment. Yes. He had decided to +write without delay. + +In his agitation Massy caught up his falling pipe. + +"You don't mean it, sir!" he shrieked. + +"You shouldn't mismanage your business in this ridiculous manner." + +Mr. Van Wyk turned on his heel. The other three whites on the bridge had +not stirred during the scene. Massy walked hastily from side to side, +puffed out his cheeks, suffocated. + +"Stuck up Dutchman!" + +And he moaned out feverishly a long tale of griefs. The efforts he had +made for all these years to please that man. This was the return you +got for it, eh? Pretty. Write to Schnitzler--let in the green-funnel +boats--get an old Hamburg Jew to ruin him. No, really he could laugh. +. . . He laughed sobbingly. . . . Ha! ha! ha! And make him carry the +letter in his own ship presumably. + +He stumbled across a grating and swore. He would not hesitate to fling +the Dutchman's correspondence overboard--the whole confounded bundle. +He had never, never made any charge for that accommodation. But Captain +Whalley, his new partner, would not let him probably; besides, it would +be only putting off the evil day. For his own part he would make a hole +in the water rather than look on tamely at the green funnels overrunning +his trade. + +He raved aloud. The China boys hung back with the dishes at the foot of +the ladder. He yelled from the bridge down at the deck, "Aren't we going +to have any chow this evening at all?" then turned violently to Captain +Whalley, who waited, grave and patient, at the head of the table, +smoothing his beard in silence now and then with a forbearing gesture. + +"You don't seem to care what happens to me. Don't you see that this +affects your interests as much as mine? It's no joking matter." + +He took the foot of the table growling between his teeth. + +"Unless you have a few thousands put away somewhere. I haven't." + +Mr. Van Wyk dined in his thoroughly lit-up bungalow, putting a point of +splendor in the night of his clearing above the dark bank of the river. +Afterwards he sat down to his piano, and in a pause he became aware +of slow footsteps passing on the path along the front. A plank or two +creaked under a heavy tread; he swung half round on the music-stool, +listening with his fingertips at rest on the keyboard. His little +terrier barked violently, backing in from the veranda. A deep voice +apologized gravely for "this intrusion." He walked out quickly. + +At the head of the steps the patriarchal figure, who was the new captain +of the Sofala apparently (he had seen a round dozen of them, but not +one of that sort), towered without advancing. The little dog barked +unceasingly, till a flick of Mr. Van Wyk's handkerchief made him spring +aside into silence. Captain Whalley, opening the matter, was met by a +punctiliously polite but determined opposition. + +They carried on their discussion standing where they had come face to +face. Mr. Van Wyk observed his visitor with attention. Then at last, as +if forced out of his reserve-- + +"I am surprised that you should intercede for such a confounded fool." + +This outbreak was almost complimentary, as if its meaning had been, +"That such a man as you should intercede!" Captain Whalley let it pass +by without flinching. One would have thought he had heard nothing. He +simply went on to state that he was personally interested in putting +things straight between them. Personally . . . + +But Mr. Van Wyk, really carried away by his disgust with Massy, became +very incisive-- + +"Indeed--if I am to be frank with you--his whole character does not seem +to me particularly estimable or trustworthy . . ." + +Captain Whalley, always straight, seemed to grow an inch taller and +broader, as if the girth of his chest had suddenly expanded under his +beard. + +"My dear sir, you don't think I came here to discuss a man with whom I +am--I am--h'm--closely associated." + +A sort of solemn silence lasted for a moment. He was not used to asking +favors, but the importance he attached to this affair had made him +willing to try. . . . Mr. Van Wyk, favorably impressed, and suddenly +mollified by a desire to laugh, interrupted-- + +"That's all right if you make it a personal matter; but you can do no +less than sit down and smoke a cigar with me." + +A slight pause, then Captain Whalley stepped forward heavily. As to the +regularity of the service, for the future he made himself responsible +for it; and his name was Whalley--perhaps to a sailor (he was speaking +to a sailor, was he not?) not altogether unfamiliar. There was a +lighthouse now, on an island. Maybe Mr. Van Wyk himself . . . + +"Oh yes. Oh indeed." Mr. Van Wyk caught on at once. He indicated a +chair. How very interesting. For his own part he had seen some service +in the last Acheen War, but had never been so far East. Whalley Island? +Of course. Now that was very interesting. What changes his guest must +have seen since. + +"I can look further back even--on a whole half-century." + +Captain Whalley expanded a bit. The flavor of a good cigar (it was a +weakness) had gone straight to his heart, also the civility of that +young man. There was something in that accidental contact of which he +had been starved in his years of struggle. + +The front wall retreating made a square recess furnished like a room. +A lamp with a milky glass shade, suspended below the slope of the high +roof at the end of a slender brass chain, threw a bright round of light +upon a little table bearing an open book and an ivory paper-knife. And, +in the translucent shadows beyond, other tables could be seen, a number +of easy-chairs of various shapes, with a great profusion of skin rugs +strewn on the teakwood planking all over the veranda. The flowering +creepers scented the air. Their foliage clipped out between the uprights +made as if several frames of thick unstirring leaves reflecting the +lamplight in a green glow. Through the opening at his elbow Captain +Whalley could see the gangway lantern of the Sofala burning dim by the +shore, the shadowy masses of the town beyond the open lustrous darkness +of the river, and, as if hung along the straight edge of the projecting +eaves, a narrow black strip of the night sky full of stars--resplendent. +The famous cigar in hand he had a moment of complacency. + +"A trifle. Somebody must lead the way. I just showed that the thing +could be done; but you men brought up to the use of steam cannot +conceive the vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to the Eastern +trade of the time. Why, that new route reduced the average time of a +southern passage by eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven +days! It's on record. But the remarkable thing--speaking to a sailor--I +should say was . . ." + +He talked well, without egotism, professionally. The powerful voice, +produced without effort, filled the bungalow even into the empty rooms +with a deep and limpid resonance, seemed to make a stillness outside; +and Mr. Van Wyk was surprised by the serene quality of its tone, like +the perfection of manly gentleness. Nursing one small foot, in a +silk sock and a patent leather shoe, on his knee, he was immensely +entertained. It was as if nobody could talk like this now, and the +overshadowed eyes, the flowing white beard, the big frame, the +serenity, the whole temper of the man, were an amazing survival from the +prehistoric times of the world coming up to him out of the sea. + +Captain Whalley had been also the pioneer of the early trade in the Gulf +of Pe-tchi-li. He even found occasion to mention that he had buried +his "dear wife" there six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive, +could not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to the sort of woman +that would mate with such a man. Did they make an adventurous and +well-matched pair? No. Very possible she had been small, frail, no +doubt very feminine--or most likely commonplace with domestic instincts, +utterly insignificant. But Captain Whalley was no garrulous bore, and +shaking his head as if to dissipate the momentary gloom that had settled +on his handsome old face, he alluded conversationally to Mr. Van Wyk's +solitude. + +Mr. Van Wyk affirmed that sometimes he had more company than he wanted. +He mentioned smilingly some of the peculiarities of his intercourse with +"My Sultan." He made his visits in force. Those people damaged his grass +plot in front (it was not easy to obtain some approach to a lawn in +the tropics) and the other day had broken down some rare bushes he had +planted over there. And Captain Whalley remembered immediately that, +in 'forty-seven, the then Sultan, "this man's grandfather," had been +notorious as a great protector of the piratical fleets of praus from +farther East. They had a safe refuge in the river at Batu Beru. He +financed more especially a Balinini chief called Haji Daman. Captain +Whalley, nodding significantly his bushy white eyebrows, had very good +reason to know something of that. The world had progressed since that +time. + +Mr. Van Wyk demurred with unexpected acrimony. Progressed in what? he +wanted to know. + +Why, in knowledge of truth, in decency, in justice, in order--in honesty +too, since men harmed each other mostly from ignorance. It was, Captain +Whalley concluded quaintly, more pleasant to live in. + +Mr. Van Wyk whimsically would not admit that Mr. Massy, for instance, +was more pleasant naturally than the Balinini pirates. + +The river had not gained much by the change. They were in their way +every bit as honest. Massy was less ferocious than Haji Daman no doubt, +but . . . + +"And what about you, my good sir?" Captain Whalley laughed a deep soft +laugh. "_You_ are an improvement, surely." + +He continued in a vein of pleasantry. A good cigar was better than a +knock on the head--the sort of welcome he would have found on this +river forty or fifty years ago. Then leaning forward slightly, he became +earnestly serious. It seems as if, outside their own sea-gypsy +tribes, these rovers had hated all mankind with an incomprehensible, +bloodthirsty hatred. Meantime their depredations had been stopped, and +what was the consequence? The new generation was orderly, peaceable, +settled in prosperous villages. He could speak from personal knowledge. +And even the few survivors of that time--old men now--had changed so +much, that it would have been unkind to remember against them that they +had ever slit a throat in their lives. He had one especially in his +mind's eye: a dignified, venerable headman of a certain large coast +village about sixty miles sou'west of Tampasuk. It did one's heart +good to see him--to hear that man speak. He might have been a ferocious +savage once. What men wanted was to be checked by superior intelligence, +by superior knowledge, by superior force too--yes, by force held in +trust from God and sanctified by its use in accordance with His declared +will. Captain Whalley believed a disposition for good existed in every +man, even if the world were not a very happy place as a whole. In the +wisdom of men he had not so much confidence. The disposition had to be +helped up pretty sharply sometimes, he admitted. They might be silly, +wrongheaded, unhappy; but naturally evil--no. There was at bottom a +complete harmlessness at least . . . + +"Is there?" Mr. Van Wyk snapped acrimoniously. + +Captain Whalley laughed at the interjection, in the good humor of large, +tolerating certitude. He could look back at half a century, he pointed +out. The smoke oozed placidly through the white hairs hiding his kindly +lips. + +"At all events," he resumed after a pause, "I am glad that they've had +no time to do you much harm as yet." + +This allusion to his comparative youthfulness did not offend Mr. Van +Wyk, who got up and wriggled his shoulders with an enigmatic half-smile. +They walked out together amicably into the starry night towards the +river-side. Their footsteps resounded unequally on the dark path. At the +shore end of the gangway the lantern, hung low to the handrail, threw +a vivid light on the white legs and the big black feet of Mr. Massy +waiting about anxiously. From the waist upwards he remained shadowy, +with a row of buttons gleaming up to the vague outline of his chin. + +"You may thank Captain Whalley for this," Mr. Van Wyk said curtly to him +before turning away. + +The lamps on the veranda flung three long squares of light between +the uprights far over the grass. A bat flitted before his face like a +circling flake of velvety blackness. Along the jasmine hedge the night +air seemed heavy with the fall of perfumed dew; flowerbeds bordered the +path; the clipped bushes uprose in dark rounded clumps here and there +before the house; the dense foliage of creepers filtered the sheen of +the lamplight within in a soft glow all along the front; and everything +near and far stood still in a great immobility, in a great sweetness. + +Mr. Van Wyk (a few years before he had had occasion to imagine himself +treated more badly than anybody alive had ever been by a woman) felt +for Captain Whalley's optimistic views the disdain of a man who had once +been credulous himself. His disgust with the world (the woman for a +time had filled it for him completely) had taken the form of activity +in retirement, because, though capable of great depth of feeling, he was +energetic and essentially practical. But there was in that uncommon old +sailor, drifting on the outskirts of his busy solitude, something that +fascinated his skepticism. His very simplicity (amusing enough) was like +a delicate refinement of an upright character. The striking dignity +of manner could be nothing else, in a man reduced to such a humble +position, but the expression of something essentially noble in the +character. With all his trust in mankind he was no fool; the serenity +of his temper at the end of so many years, since it could not obviously +have been appeased by success, wore an air of profound wisdom. Mr. Van +Wyk was amused at it sometimes. Even the very physical traits of the +old captain of the Sofala, his powerful frame, his reposeful mien, his +intelligent, handsome face, the big limbs, the benign courtesy, the +touch of rugged severity in the shaggy eyebrows, made up a seductive +personality. Mr. Van Wyk disliked littleness of every kind, but there +was nothing small about that man, and in the exemplary regularity of +many trips an intimacy had grown up between them, a warm feeling +at bottom under a kindly stateliness of forms agreeable to his +fastidiousness. + +They kept their respective opinions on all worldly matters. His other +convictions Captain Whalley never intruded. The difference of their +ages was like another bond between them. Once, when twitted with the +uncharitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his eye over the +vast proportions of his interlocutor, retorted in friendly banter-- + +"Oh. You'll come to my way of thinking yet. You'll have plenty of time. +Don't call yourself old: you look good for a round hundred." + +But he could not help his stinging incisiveness, and though moderating +it by an almost affectionate smile, he added-- + +"And by then you will probably consent to die from sheer disgust." + +Captain Whalley, smiling too, shook his head. "God forbid!" + +He thought that perhaps on the whole he deserved something better than +to die in such sentiments. The time of course would have to come, and he +trusted to his Maker to provide a manner of going out of which he need +not be ashamed. For the rest he hoped he would live to a hundred if need +be: other men had been known; it would be no miracle. He expected no +miracles. + +The pronounced, argumentative tone caused Mr. Van Wyk to raise his head +and look at him steadily. Captain Whalley was gazing fixedly with a rapt +expression, as though he had seen his Creator's favorable decree written +in mysterious characters on the wall. He kept perfectly motionless for +a few seconds, then got his vast bulk on to his feet so impetuously that +Mr. Van Wyk was startled. + +He struck first a heavy blow on his inflated chest: and, throwing out +horizontally a big arm that remained steady, extended in the air like +the limb of a tree on a windless day-- + +"Not a pain or an ache there. Can you see this shake in the least?" + +His voice was low, in an awing, confident contrast with the headlong +emphasis of his movements. He sat down abruptly. + +"This isn't to boast of it, you know. I am nothing," he said in his +effortless strong voice, that seemed to come out as naturally as a river +flows. He picked up the stump of the cigar he had laid aside, and added +peacefully, with a slight nod, "As it happens, my life is necessary; it +isn't my own, it isn't--God knows." + +He did not say much for the rest of the evening, but several times Mr. +Van Wyk detected a faint smile of assurance flitting under the heavy +mustache. + +Later on Captain Whalley would now and then consent to dine "at the +house." He could even be induced to drink a glass of wine. "Don't think +I am afraid of it, my good sir," he explained. "There was a very good +reason why I should give it up." + +On another occasion, leaning back at ease, he remarked, "You have +treated me most--most humanely, my dear Mr. Van Wyk, from the very +first." + +"You'll admit there was some merit," Mr. Van Wyk hinted slyly. "An +associate of that excellent Massy. . . . Well, well, my dear captain, I +won't say a word against him." + +"It would be no use your saying anything against him," Captain Whalley +affirmed a little moodily. "As I've told you before, my life--my work, +is necessary, not for myself alone. I can't choose" . . . He paused, +turned the glass before him right round. . . . "I have an only child--a +daughter." + +The ample downward sweep of his arm over the table seemed to suggest +a small girl at a vast distance. "I hope to see her once more before I +die. Meantime it's enough to know that she has me sound and solid, thank +God. You can't understand how one feels. Bone of my bone, flesh of my +flesh; the very image of my poor wife. Well, she . . ." + +Again he paused, then pronounced stoically the words, "She has a hard +struggle." + +And his head fell on his breast, his eyebrows remained knitted, as by +an effort of meditation. But generally his mind seemed steeped in the +serenity of boundless trust in a higher power. Mr. Van Wyk wondered +sometimes how much of it was due to the splendid vitality of the man, +to the bodily vigor which seems to impart something of its force to the +soul. But he had learned to like him very much. + + +XIII + +This was the reason why Mr. Sterne's confidential communication, +delivered hurriedly on the shore alongside the dark silent ship, +had disturbed his equanimity. It was the most incomprehensible and +unexpected thing that could happen; and the perturbation of his spirit +was so great that, forgetting all about his letters, he ran rapidly up +the bridge ladder. + +The portable table was being put together for dinner to the left of the +wheel by two pig-tailed "boys," who as usual snarled at each other +over the job, while another, a doleful, burly, very yellow Chinaman, +resembling Mr. Massy, waited apathetically with the cloth over his arm +and a pile of thick dinner-plates against his chest. A common cabin lamp +with its globe missing, brought up from below, had been hooked to the +wooden framework of the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all +round; Captain Whalley filling the depths of the wicker-chair seemed to +sit benumbed in a canvas tent crudely lighted, and used for the storing +of nautical objects; a shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle +on a stout mahogany stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork fender +lying in a corner, dilapidated deck-lockers with loops of thin rope +instead of door-handles. + +He shook off the appearance of numbness to return Mr. Van Wyk's +unusually brisk greeting, but relapsed directly afterwards. To accept +a pressing invitation to dinner "up at the house" cost him another very +visible physical effort. Mr. Van Wyk, perplexed, folded his arms, and +leaning back against the rail, with his little, black, shiny feet well +out, examined him covertly. + +"I've noticed of late that you are not quite yourself, old friend." + +He put an affectionate gentleness into the last two words. The real +intimacy of their intercourse had never been so vividly expressed +before. + +"Tut, tut, tut!" + +The wicker-chair creaked heavily. + +"Irritable," commented Mr. Van Wyk to himself; and aloud, "I'll expect +to see you in half an hour, then," he said negligently, moving off. + +"In half an hour," Captain Whalley's rigid silvery head repeated behind +him as if out of a trance. + +Amidships, below, two voices, close against the engineroom, could be +heard answering each other--one angry and slow, the other alert. + +"I tell you the beast has locked himself in to get drunk." + +"Can't help it now, Mr. Massy. After all, a man has a right to shut +himself up in his cabin in his own time." + +"Not to get drunk." + +"I heard him swear that the worry with the boilers was enough to drive +any man to drink," Sterne said maliciously. + +Massy hissed out something about bursting the door in. Mr. Van Wyk, to +avoid them, crossed in the dark to the other side of the deserted deck. +The planking of the little wharf rattled faintly under his hasty feet. + +"Mr. Van Wyk! Mr. Van Wyk!" + +He walked on: somebody was running on the path. "You've forgotten to get +your mail." + +Sterne, holding a bundle of papers in his hand, caught up with him. + +"Oh, thanks." + +But, as the other continued at his elbow, Mr. Van Wyk stopped short. +The overhanging eaves, descending low upon the lighted front of the +bungalow, threw their black straight-edged shadow into the great body of +the night on that side. Everything was very still. A tinkle of cutlery +and a slight jingle of glasses were heard. Mr. Van Wyk's servants were +laying the table for two on the veranda. + +"I'm afraid you give me no credit whatever for my good intentions in the +matter I've spoken to you about," said Sterne. + +"I simply don't understand you." + +"Captain Whalley is a very audacious man, but he will understand that +his game is up. That's all that anybody need ever know of it from me. +Believe me, I am very considerate in this, but duty is duty. I don't +want to make a fuss. All I ask you, as his friend, is to tell him from +me that the game's up. That will be sufficient." + +Mr. Van Wyk felt a loathsome dismay at this queer privilege of +friendship. He would not demean himself by asking for the slightest +explanation; to drive the other away with contumely he did not think +prudent--as yet, at any rate. So much assurance staggered him. Who +could tell what there could be in it, he thought? His regard for Captain +Whalley had the tenacity of a disinterested sentiment, and his practical +instinct coming to his aid, he concealed his scorn. + +"I gather, then, that this is something grave." + +"Very grave," Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at having produced +an effect at last. He was ready to add some effusive protestations +of regret at the "unavoidable necessity," but Mr. Van Wyk cut him +short--very civilly, however. + +Once on the veranda Mr. Van Wyk put his hands in his pockets, and, +straddling his legs, stared down at a black panther skin lying on the +floor before a rocking-chair. "It looks as if the fellow had not the +pluck to play his own precious game openly," he thought. + +This was true enough. In the face of Massy's last rebuff Sterne dared +not declare his knowledge. His object was simply to get charge of the +steamer and keep it for some time. Massy would never forgive him for +forcing himself on; but if Captain Whalley left the ship of his own +accord, the command would devolve upon him for the rest of the trip; +so he hit upon the brilliant idea of scaring the old man away. A vague +menace, a mere hint, would be enough in such a brazen case; and, with +a strange admixture of compassion, he thought that Batu Beru was a +very good place for throwing up the sponge. The skipper could go ashore +quietly, and stay with that Dutchman of his. Weren't these two as thick +as thieves together? And on reflection he seemed to see that there was a +way to work the whole thing through that great friend of the old +man's. This was another brilliant idea. He had an inborn preference for +circuitous methods. In this particular case he desired to remain in the +background as much as possible, to avoid exasperating Massy needlessly. +No fuss! Let it all happen naturally. + +Mr. Van Wyk all through the dinner was conscious of a sense of isolation +that invades sometimes the closeness of human intercourse. Captain +Whalley failed lamentably and obviously in his attempts to eat +something. He seemed overcome by a strange absentmindedness. His hand +would hover irresolutely, as if left without guidance by a preoccupied +mind. Mr. Van Wyk had heard him coming up from a long way off in the +profound stillness of the river-side, and had noticed the irresolute +character of the footfalls. The toe of his boot had struck the bottom +stair as though he had come along mooning with his head in the air +right up to the steps of the veranda. Had the captain of the Sofala been +another sort of man he would have suspected the work of age there. But +one glance at him was enough. Time--after, indeed, marking him for its +own--had given him up to his usefulness, in which his simple faith would +see a proof of Divine mercy. "How could I contrive to warn him?" Mr. Van +Wyk wondered, as if Captain Whalley had been miles and miles away, out +of sight and earshot of all evil. He was sickened by an immense disgust +of Sterne. To even mention his threat to a man like Whalley would be +positively indecent. There was something more vile and insulting in +its hint than in a definite charge of crime--the debasing taint of +blackmailing. "What could anyone bring against him?" he asked himself. +This was a limpid personality. "And for what object?" The Power that man +trusted had thought fit to leave him nothing on earth that envy could +lay hold of, except a bare crust of bread. + +"Won't you try some of this?" he asked, pushing a dish slightly. +Suddenly it seemed to Mr. Van Wyk that Sterne might possibly be coveting +the command of the Sofala. His cynicism was quite startled by what +looked like a proof that no man may count himself safe from his kind +unless in the very abyss of misery. An intrigue of that sort was hardly +worth troubling about, he judged; but still, with such a fool as Massy +to deal with, Whalley ought to and must be warned. + +At this moment Captain Whalley, bolt upright, the deep cavities of the +eyes overhung by a bushy frown, and one large brown hand resting on each +side of his empty plate, spoke across the tablecloth abruptly--"Mr. Van +Wyk, you've always treated me with the most humane consideration." + +"My dear captain, you make too much of a simple fact that I am not +a savage." Mr. Van Wyk, utterly revolted by the thought of Sterne's +obscure attempt, raised his voice incisively, as if the mate had been +hiding somewhere within earshot. "Any consideration I have been able to +show was no more than the rightful due of a character I've learned to +regard by this time with an esteem that nothing can shake." + +A slight ring of glass made him lift his eyes from the slice of +pine-apple he was cutting into small pieces on his plate. In changing +his position Captain Whalley had contrived to upset an empty tumbler. + +Without looking that way, leaning sideways on his elbow, his other +hand shading his brow, he groped shakily for it, then desisted. Van Wyk +stared blankly, as if something momentous had happened all at once. +He did not know why he should feel so startled; but he forgot Sterne +utterly for the moment. + +"Why, what's the matter?" + +And Captain Whalley, half-averted, in a deadened, agitated voice, +muttered-- + +"Esteem!" + +"And I may add something more," Mr. Van Wyk, very steady-eyed, +pronounced slowly. + +"Hold! Enough!" Captain Whalley did not change his attitude or raise his +voice. "Say no more! I can make you no return. I am too poor even for +that now. Your esteem is worth having. You are not a man that would +stoop to deceive the poorest sort of devil on earth, or make a ship +unseaworthy every time he takes her to sea." + +Mr. Van Wyk, leaning forward, his face gone pink all over, with the +starched table-napkin over his knees, was inclined to mistrust his +senses, his power of comprehension, the sanity of his guest. + +"Where? Why? In the name of God!--what's this? What ship? I don't +understand who . . ." + +"Then, in the name of God, it is I! A ship's unseaworthy when her +captain can't see. I am going blind." + +Mr. Van Wyk made a slight movement, and sat very still afterwards for +a few seconds; then, with the thought of Sterne's "The game's up," he +ducked under the table to pick up the napkin which had slipped off his +knees. This was the game that was up. And at the same time the muffled +voice of Captain Whalley passed over him-- + +"I've deceived them all. Nobody knows." + +He emerged flushed to the eyes. Captain Whalley, motionless under the +full blaze of the lamp, shaded his face with his hand. + +"And you had that courage?" + +"Call it by what name you like. But you are a humane +man--a--a--gentleman, Mr. Van Wyk. You may have asked me what I had done +with my conscience." + +He seemed to muse, profoundly silent, very still in his mournful pose. + +"I began to tamper with it in my pride. You begin to see a lot of things +when you are going blind. I could not be frank with an old chum even. +I was not frank with Massy--no, not altogether. I knew he took me for +a wealthy sailor fool, and I let him. I wanted to keep up my +importance--because there was poor Ivy away there--my daughter. What did +I want to trade on his misery for? I did trade on it--for her. And now, +what mercy could I expect from him? He would trade on mine if he knew +it. He would hunt the old fraud out, and stick to the money for a year. +Ivy's money. And I haven't kept a penny for myself. How am I going to +live for a year. A year! In a year there will be no sun in the sky for +her father." + +His deep voice came out, awfully veiled, as though he had been +overwhelmed by the earth of a landslide, and talking to you of the +thoughts that haunt the dead in their graves. A cold shudder ran down +Mr. Van Wyk's back. + +"And how long is it since you have . . .?" he began. + +"It was a long time before I could bring myself to believe in this--this +visitation." Captain Whalley spoke with gloomy patience from under his +hand. + +He had not thought he had deserved it. He had begun by deceiving himself +from day to day, from week to week. He had the Serang at hand there--an +old servant. It came on gradually, and when he could no longer deceive +himself . . . + +His voice died out almost. + +"Rather than give her up I set myself to deceive you all." + +"It's incredible," whispered Mr. Van Wyk. Captain Whalley's appalling +murmur flowed on. + +"Not even the sign of God's anger could make me forget her. How could I +forsake my child, feeling my vigor all the time--the blood warm within +me? Warm as yours. It seems to me that, like the blinded Samson, I +would find the strength to shake down a temple upon my head. She's a +struggling woman--my own child that we used to pray over together, my +poor wife and I. Do you remember that day I as well as told you that I +believed God would let me live to a hundred for her sake? What sin is +there in loving your child? Do you see it? I was ready for her sake +to live for ever. I half believed I would. I've been praying for death +since. Ha! Presumptuous man--you wanted to live . . ." + +A tremendous, shuddering upheaval of that big frame, shaken by a gasping +sob, set the glasses jingling all over the table, seemed to make the +whole house tremble to the roof-tree. And Mr. Van Wyk, whose feeling of +outraged love had been translated into a form of struggle with nature, +understood very well that, for that man whose whole life had been +conditioned by action, there could exist no other expression for all the +emotions; that, to voluntarily cease venturing, doing, enduring, for his +child's sake, would have been exactly like plucking his warm love for +her out of his living heart. Something too monstrous, too impossible, +even to conceive. + +Captain Whalley had not changed his attitude, that seemed to express +something of shame, sorrow, and defiance. + +"I have even deceived you. If it had not been for that word 'esteem.' +These are not the words for me. I would have lied to you. Haven't I +lied to you? Weren't you going to trust your property on board this very +trip?" + +"I have a floating yearly policy," Mr. Van Wyk said almost unwittingly, +and was amazed at the sudden cropping up of a commercial detail. + +"The ship is unseaworthy, I tell you. The policy would be invalid if it +were known . . ." + +"We shall share the guilt, then." + +"Nothing could make mine less," said Captain Whalley. + +He had not dared to consult a doctor; the man would have perhaps asked +who he was, what he was doing; Massy might have heard something. He had +lived on without any help, human or divine. The very prayers stuck in +his throat. What was there to pray for? and death seemed as far as ever. +Once he got into his cabin he dared not come out again; when he sat down +he dared not get up; he dared not raise his eyes to anybody's face; +he felt reluctant to look upon the sea or up to the sky. The world was +fading before his great fear of giving himself away. The old ship was +his last friend; he was not afraid of her; he knew every inch of her +deck; but at her too he hardly dared to look, for fear of finding he +could see less than the day before. A great incertitude enveloped him. +The horizon was gone; the sky mingled darkly with the sea. Who was this +figure standing over yonder? what was this thing lying down there? And +a frightful doubt of the reality of what he could see made even the +remnant of sight that remained to him an added torment, a pitfall always +open for his miserable pretense. He was afraid to stumble inexcusably +over something--to say a fatal Yes or No to a question. The hand of God +was upon him, but it could not tear him away from his child. And, as if +in a nightmare of humiliation, every featureless man seemed an enemy. + +He let his hand fall heavily on the table. Mr. Van Wyk, arms down, +chin on breast, with a gleam of white teeth pressing on the lower lip, +meditated on Sterne's "The game's up." + +"The Serang of course does not know." + +"Nobody," said Captain Whalley, with assurance. + +"Ah yes. Nobody. Very well. Can you keep it up to the end of the trip? +That is the last under the agreement with Massy." + +Captain Whalley got up and stood erect, very stately, with the great +white beard lying like a silver breastplate over the awful secret of his +heart. Yes; that was the only hope there was for him of ever seeing her +again, of securing the money, the last he could do for her, before he +crept away somewhere--useless, a burden, a reproach to himself. His +voice faltered. + +"Think of it! Never see her any more: the only human being besides +myself now on earth that can remember my wife. She's just like her +mother. Lucky the poor woman is where there are no tears shed over +those they loved on earth and that remain to pray not to be led into +temptation--because, I suppose, the blessed know the secret of grace in +God's dealings with His created children." + +He swayed a little, said with austere dignity-- + +"I don't. I know only the child He has given me." + +And he began to walk. Mr. Van Wyk, jumping up, saw the full meaning +of the rigid head, the hesitating feet, the vaguely extended hand. +His heart was beating fast; he moved a chair aside, and instinctively +advanced as if to offer his arm. But Captain Whalley passed him by, +making for the stairs quite straight. + +"He could not see me at all out of his line," Van Wyk thought, with a +sort of awe. Then going to the head of the stairs, he asked a little +tremulously-- + +"What is it like--like a mist--like . . ." + +Captain Whalley, half-way down, stopped, and turned round undismayed to +answer. + +"It is as if the light were ebbing out of the world. Have you ever +watched the ebbing sea on an open stretch of sands withdrawing farther +and farther away from you? It is like this--only there will be no flood +to follow. Never. It is as if the sun were growing smaller, the stars +going out one by one. There can't be many left that I can see by this. +But I haven't had the courage to look of late . . ." He must have been +able to make out Mr. Van Wyk, because he checked him by an authoritative +gesture and a stoical-- + +"I can get about alone yet." + +It was as if he had taken his line, and would accept no help from men, +after having been cast out, like a presumptuous Titan, from his heaven. +Mr. Van Wyk, arrested, seemed to count the footsteps right out of +earshot. He walked between the tables, tapping smartly with his heels, +took up a paper-knife, dropped it after a vague glance along the blade; +then happening upon the piano, struck a few chords again and again, +vigorously, standing up before the keyboard with an attentive poise +of the head like a piano-tuner; closing it, he pivoted on his heels +brusquely, avoided the little terrier sleeping trustfully on crossed +forepaws, came upon the stairs next, and, as though he had lost his +balance on the top step, ran down headlong out of the house. His +servants, beginning to clear the table, heard him mutter to himself +(evil words no doubt) down there, and then after a pause go away with a +strolling gait in the direction of the wharf. + +The bulwarks of the Sofala lying alongside the bank made a low, black +wall on the undulating contour of the shore. Two masts and a funnel +uprose from behind it with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, +square elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white boats, +the curves of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, all confused and +mingling darkly everywhere; but low down, amidships, a single lighted +port stared out on the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon, +whose yellow beam caught a patch of wet mud, the edge of trodden grass, +two turns of heavy cable wound round the foot of a thick wooden post in +the ground. + +Mr. Van Wyk, peering alongside, heard a muzzy boastful voice apparently +jeering at a person called Prendergast. It mouthed abuse thickly, +choked; then pronounced very distinctly the word "Murphy," and chuckled. +Glass tinkled tremulously. All these sounds came from the lighted port. +Mr. Van Wyk hesitated, stooped; it was impossible to look through unless +he went down into the mud. + +"Sterne," he said, half aloud. + +The drunken voice within said gladly-- + +"Sterne--of course. Look at him blink. Look at him! Sterne, Whalley, +Massy. Massy, Whalley, Sterne. But Massy's the best. You can't come over +him. He would just love to see you starve." + +Mr. Van Wyk moved away, made out farther forward a shadowy head stuck +out from under the awnings as if on the watch, and spoke quietly in +Malay, "Is the mate asleep?" + +"No. Here, at your service." + +In a moment Sterne appeared, walking as noiselessly as a cat on the +wharf. + +"It's so jolly dark, and I had no idea you would be down to-night." + +"What's this horrible raving?" asked Mr. Van Wyk, as if to explain the +cause of a shudder than ran over him audibly. + +"Jack's broken out on a drunk. That's our second. It's his way. He will +be right enough by to-morrow afternoon, only Mr. Massy will keep on +worrying up and down the deck. We had better get away." + +He muttered suggestively of a talk "up at the house." He had long +desired to effect an entrance there, but Mr. Van Wyk nonchalantly +demurred: it would not, he feared, be quite prudent, perhaps; and +the opaque black shadow under one of the two big trees left at the +landing-place swallowed them up, impenetrably dense, by the side of the +wide river, that seemed to spin into threads of glitter the light of +a few big stars dropped here and there upon its outspread and flowing +stillness. + +"The situation is grave beyond doubt," Mr. Van Wyk said. Ghost-like in +their white clothes they could not distinguish each others' features, +and their feet made no sound on the soft earth. A sort of purring was +heard. Mr. Sterne felt gratified by such a beginning. + +"I thought, Mr. Van Wyk, a gentleman of your sort would see at once how +awkwardly I was situated." + +"Yes, very. Obviously his health is bad. Perhaps he's breaking up. I +see, and he himself is well aware--I assume I am speaking to a man of +sense--he is well aware that his legs are giving out." + +"His legs--ah!" Mr. Sterne was disconcerted, and then turned sulky. +"You may call it his legs if you like; what I want to know is whether he +intends to clear out quietly. That's a good one, too! His legs! Pooh!" + +"Why, yes. Only look at the way he walks." Mr. Van Wyk took him up in a +perfectly cool and undoubting tone. "The question, however, is whether +your sense of duty does not carry you too far from your true interest. +After all, I too could do something to serve you. You know who I am." + +"Everybody along the Straits has heard of you, sir." + +Mr. Van Wyk presumed that this meant something favorable. Sterne had +a soft laugh at this pleasantry. He should think so! To the opening +statement, that the partnership agreement was to expire at the end of +this very trip, he gave an attentive assent. He was aware. One heard of +nothing else on board all the blessed day long. As to Massy, it was no +secret that he was in a jolly deep hole with these worn-out boilers. He +would have to borrow somewhere a couple of hundred first of all to pay +off the captain; and then he would have to raise money on mortgage upon +the ship for the new boilers--that is, if he could find a lender at all. +At best it meant loss of time, a break in the trade, short earnings +for the year--and there was always the danger of having his connection +filched away from him by the Germans. It was whispered about that he +had already tried two firms. Neither would have anything to do with +him. Ship too old, and the man too well known in the place. . . . +Mr. Sterne's final rapid winking remained buried in the deep darkness +sibilating with his whispers. + +"Supposing, then, he got the loan," Mr. Van Wyk resumed in a deliberate +undertone, "on your own showing he's more than likely to get a +mortgagee's man thrust upon him as captain. For my part, I know that I +would make that very stipulation myself if I had to find the money. +And as a matter of fact I am thinking of doing so. It would be worth +my while in many ways. Do you see how this would bear on the case under +discussion?" + +"Thank you, sir. I am sure you couldn't get anybody that would care more +for your interests." + +"Well, it suits my interest that Captain Whalley should finish his time. +I shall probably take a passage with you down the Straits. If that can +be done, I'll be on the spot when all these changes take place, and in a +position to look after _your_ interests." + +"Mr. Van Wyk, I want nothing better. I am sure I am infinitely . . ." + +"I take it, then, that this may be done without any trouble." + +"Well, sir, what risk there is can't be helped; but (speaking to you as +my employer now) the thing is more safe than it looks. If anybody had +told me of it I wouldn't have believed it, but I have been looking on +myself. That old Serang has been trained up to the game. There's nothing +the matter with his--his--limbs, sir. He's got used to doing things +himself in a remarkable way. And let me tell you, sir, that Captain +Whalley, poor man, is by no means useless. Fact. Let me explain to you, +sir. He stiffens up that old monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough +what to do. Why, he must have kept captain's watches in all sorts of +country ships off and on for the last five-and-twenty years. These +natives, sir, as long as they have a white man close at the back, will +go on doing the right thing most surprisingly well--even if left quite +to themselves. Only the white man must be of the sort to put starch into +them, and the captain is just the one for that. Why, sir, he has drilled +him so well that now he needs hardly speak at all. I have seen that +little wrinkled ape made to take the ship out of Pangu Bay on a blowy +morning and on all through the islands; take her out first-rate, sir, +dodging under the old man's elbow, and in such quiet style that you +could not have told for the life of you which of the two was doing the +work up there. That's where our poor friend would be still of use to +the ship even if--if--he could no longer lift a foot, sir. Provided the +Serang does not know that there's anything wrong." + +"He doesn't." + +"Naturally not. Quite beyond his apprehension. They aren't capable of +finding out anything about us, sir." + +"You seem to be a shrewd man," said Mr. Van Wyk in a choked mutter, as +though he were feeling sick. + +"You'll find me a good enough servant, sir." + +Mr. Sterne hoped now for a handshake at least, but unexpectedly, with a +"What's this? Better not to be seen together," Mr. Van Wyk's white shape +wavered, and instantly seemed to melt away in the black air under +the roof of boughs. The mate was startled. Yes. There was that faint +thumping clatter. + +He stole out silently from under the shade. The lighted port-hole shone +from afar. His head swam with the intoxication of sudden success. What +a thing it was to have a gentleman to deal with! He crept aboard, and +there was something weird in the shadowy stretch of empty decks, echoing +with shouts and blows proceeding from a darker part amidships. Mr. Massy +was raging before the door of the berth: the drunken voice within flowed +on undisturbed in the violent racket of kicks. + +"Shut up! Put your light out and turn in, you confounded swilling +pig--you! D'you hear me, you beast?" + +The kicking stopped, and in the pause the muzzy oracular voice announced +from within-- + +"Ah! Massy, now--that's another thing. Massy's deep." + +"Who's that aft there? You, Sterne? He'll drink himself into a fit of +horrors." The chief engineer appeared vague and big at the corner of the +engineroom. + +"He will be good enough for duty to-morrow. I would let him be, Mr. +Massy." + +Sterne slipped away into his berth, and at once had to sit down. His +head swam with exultation. He got into his bunk as if in a dream. A +feeling of profound peace, of pacific joy, came over him. On deck all +was quiet. + +Mr. Massy, with his ear against the door of Jack's cabin, listened +critically to a deep stertorous breathing within. This was a dead-drunk +sleep. The bout was over: tranquilized on that score, he too went in, +and with slow wriggles got out of his old tweed jacket. It was a garment +with many pockets, which he used to put on at odd times of the day, +being subject to sudden chilly fits, and when he felt warmed he would +take it off and hang it about anywhere all over the ship. It would +be seen swinging on belaying-pins, thrown over the heads of winches, +suspended on people's very door-handles for that matter. Was he not the +owner? But his favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning stanchion on +the bridge, almost against the binnacle. He had even in the early days +more than one tussle on that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the +bridge to be kept tidy. He had been overawed then. Of late, though, he +had been able to defy his partner with impunity. Captain Whalley never +seemed to notice anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe of that +scowling man not one of the crew would dream of laying a hand on the +thing, no matter where or what it swung from. + +With an unexpectedness which made Mr. Massy jump and drop the coat +at his feet, there came from the next berth the crash and thud of a +headlong, jingling, clattering fall. The faithful Jack must have dropped +to sleep suddenly as he sat at his revels, and now had gone over chair +and all, breaking, as it seemed by the sound, every single glass and +bottle in the place. After the terrific smash all was still for a time +in there, as though he had killed himself outright on the spot. Mr. +Massy held his breath. At last a sleepy uneasy groaning sigh was exhaled +slowly on the other side of the bulkhead. + +"I hope to goodness he's too drunk to wake up now," muttered Mr. Massy. + +The sound of a softly knowing laugh nearly drove him to despair. He +swore violently under his breath. The fool would keep him awake all +night now for certain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his +maddening troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect no movements. +Without apparently making the slightest attempt to get up, Jack went on +sniggering to himself where he lay; then began to speak, where he had +left off as it were-- + +"Massy! I love the dirty rascal. He would like to see his poor old Jack +starve--but just you look where he has climbed to." . . . He hiccoughed +in a superior, leisurely manner. . . . "Ship-owning it with the best. +A lottery ticket you want. Ha! ha! I will give you lottery tickets, my +boy. Let the old ship sink and the old chum starve--that's right. He +don't go wrong--Massy don't. Not he. He's a genius--that man is. That's +the way to win your money. Ship and chum must go." + +"The silly fool has taken it to heart," muttered Massy to himself. And, +listening with a softened expression of face for any slight sign of +returning drowsiness, he was discouraged profoundly by a burst of +laughter full of joyful irony. + +"Would like to see her at the bottom of the sea! Oh, you clever, clever +devil! Wish her sunk, eh? I should think you would, my boy; the damned +old thing and all your troubles with her. Rake in the insurance money +--turn your back on your old chum--all's well--gentleman again." + +A grim stillness had come over Massy's face. Only his big black eyes +rolled uneasily. The raving fool. And yet it was all true. Yes. Lottery +tickets, too. All true. What? Beginning again? He wished he +wouldn't. . . . + +But it was even so. The imaginative drunkard on the other side of the +bulkhead shook off the deathlike stillness that after his last words had +fallen on the dark ship moored to a silent shore. + +"Don't you dare to say anything against George Massy, Esquire. When he's +tired of waiting he will do away with her. Look out! Down she goes--chum +and all. He'll know how to . . ." + +The voice hesitated, weary, dreamy, lost, as if dying away in a vast +open space. + +". . . Find a trick that will work. He's up to it--never fear . . ." + +He must have been very drunk, for at last the heavy sleep gripped him +with the suddenness of a magic spell, and the last word lengthened +itself into an interminable, noisy, in-drawn snore. And then even the +snoring stopped, and all was still. + +But it seemed as though Mr. Massy had suddenly come to doubt the +efficacy of sleep as against a man's troubles; or perhaps he had found +the relief he needed in the stillness of a calm contemplation that +may contain the vivid thoughts of wealth, of a stroke of luck, of long +idleness, and may bring before you the imagined form of every desire; +for, turning about and throwing his arms over the edge of his bunk, he +stood there with his feet on his favorite old coat, looking out through +the round port into the night over the river. Sometimes a breath of wind +would enter and touch his face, a cool breath charged with the damp, +fresh feel from a vast body of water. A glimmer here and there was all +he could see of it; and once he might after all suppose he had dozed +off, since there appeared before his vision, unexpectedly and connected +with no dream, a row of flaming and gigantic figures--three naught seven +one two--making up a number such as you may see on a lottery ticket. +And then all at once the port was no longer black: it was pearly gray, +framing a shore crowded with houses, thatched roof beyond thatched +roof, walls of mats and bamboo, gables of carved teak timber. Rows +of dwellings raised on a forest of piles lined the steely band of the +river, brimful and still, with the tide at the turn. This was Batu +Beru--and the day had come. + +Mr. Massy shook himself, put on the tweed coat, and, shivering nervously +as if from some great shock, made a note of the number. A fortunate, +rare hint that. Yes; but to pursue fortune one wanted money--ready cash. + +Then he went out and prepared to descend into the engine-room. Several +small jobs had to be seen to, and Jack was lying dead drunk on the +floor of his cabin, with the door locked at that. His gorge rose at +the thought of work. Ay! But if you wanted to do nothing you had to get +first a good bit of money. A ship won't save you. He cursed the Sofala. +True, all true. He was tired of waiting for some chance that would rid +him at last of that ship that had turned out a curse on his life. + + +XIV + +The deep, interminable hoot of the steam-whistle had, in its grave, +vibrating note, something intolerable, which sent a slight shudder down +Mr. Van Wyk's back. It was the early afternoon; the Sofala was leaving +Batu Beru for Pangu, the next place of call. She swung in the stream, +scantily attended by a few canoes, and, gliding on the broad river, +became lost to view from the Van Wyk bungalow. + +Its owner had not gone this time to see her off. Generally he came down +to the wharf, exchanged a few words with the bridge while she cast off, +and waved his hand to Captain Whalley at the last moment. This day he +did not even go as far as the balustrade of the veranda. "He couldn't +see me if I did," he said to himself. "I wonder whether he can make out +the house at all." And this thought somehow made him feel more alone +than he had ever felt for all these years. What was it? six or seven? +Seven. A long time. + +He sat on the veranda with a closed book on his knee, and, as it were, +looked out upon his solitude, as if the fact of Captain Whalley's +blindness had opened his eyes to his own. There were many sorts of +heartaches and troubles, and there was no place where they could not +find a man out. And he felt ashamed, as though he had for six years +behaved like a peevish boy. + +His thought followed the Sofala on her way. On the spur of the moment he +had acted impulsively, turning to the thing most pressing. And what else +could he have done? Later on he should see. It seemed necessary that +he should come out into the world, for a time at least. He had +money--something could be arranged; he would grudge no time, no trouble, +no loss of his solitude. It weighed on him now--and Captain Whalley +appeared to him as he had sat shading his eyes, as if, being deceived in +the trust of his faith, he were beyond all the good and evil that can be +wrought by the hands of men. + +Mr. Van Wyk's thoughts followed the Sofala down the river, winding about +through the belt of the coast forest, between the buttressed shafts of +the big trees, through the mangrove strip, and over the bar. The ship +crossed it easily in broad daylight, piloted, as it happened, by Mr. +Sterne, who took the watch from four to six, and then went below to hug +himself with delight at the prospect of being virtually employed by a +rich man--like Mr. Van Wyk. He could not see how any hitch could occur +now. He did not seem able to get over the feeling of being "fixed up at +last." From six to eight, in the course of duty, the Serang looked alone +after the ship. She had a clear road before her now till about three +in the morning, when she would close with the Pangu group. At eight Mr. +Sterne came out cheerily to take charge again till midnight. At ten he +was still chirruping and humming to himself on the bridge, and about +that time Mr. Van Wyk's thought abandoned the Sofala. Mr. Van Wyk had +fallen asleep at last. + +Massy, blocking the engine-room companion, jerked himself into his tweed +jacket surlily, while the second waited with a scowl. + +"Oh. You came out? You sot! Well, what have you got to say for +yourself?" + +He had been in charge of the engines till then. A somber fury darkened +his mind: a hot anger against the ship, against the facts of life, +against the men for their cheating, against himself too--because of an +inward tremor of his heart. + +An incomprehensible growl answered him. + +"What? Can't you open your mouth now? You yelp out your infernal rot +loud enough when you are drunk. What do you mean by abusing people in +that way?--you old useless boozer, you!" + +"Can't help it. Don't remember anything about it. You shouldn't listen." + +"You dare to tell me! What do you mean by going on a drunk like this!" + +"Don't ask me. Sick of the dam' boilers--you would be. Sick of life." + +"I wish you were dead, then. You've made me sick of you. Don't you +remember the uproar you made last night? You miserable old soaker!" + +"No; I don't. Don't want to. Drink is drink." + +"I wonder what prevents me from kicking you out. What do you want here?" + +"Relieve you. You've been long enough down there, George." + +"Don't you George me--you tippling old rascal, you! If I were to die +to-morrow you would starve. Remember that. Say Mr. Massy." + +"Mr. Massy," repeated the other stolidly. + +Disheveled, with dull blood-shot eyes, a snuffy, grimy shirt, greasy +trowsers, naked feet thrust into ragged slippers, he bolted in head down +directly Massy had made way for him. + +The chief engineer looked around. The deck was empty as far as the +taffrail. All the native passengers had left in Batu Beru this time, and +no others had joined. The dial of the patent log tinkled periodically +in the dark at the end of the ship. It was a dead calm, and, under the +clouded sky, through the still air that seemed to cling warm, with a +seaweed smell, to her slim hull, on a sea of somber gray and unwrinkled, +the ship moved on an even keel, as if floating detached in empty space. +But Mr. Massy slapped his forehead, tottered a little, caught hold of a +belaying-pin at the foot of the mast. + +"I shall go mad," he muttered, walking across the deck unsteadily. A +shovel was scraping loose coal down below--a fire-door clanged. Sterne +on the bridge began whistling a new tune. + +Captain Whalley, sitting on the couch, awake and fully dressed, heard +the door of his cabin open. He did not move in the least, waiting to +recognize the voice, with an appalling strain of prudence. + +A bulkhead lamp blazed on the white paint, the crimson plush, the +brown varnish of mahogany tops. The white wood packing-case under the +bed-place had remained unopened for three years now, as though Captain +Whalley had felt that, after the Fair Maid was gone, there could be +no abiding-place on earth for his affections. His hands rested on his +knees; his handsome head with big eyebrows presented a rigid profile to +the doorway. The expected voice spoke out at last. + +"Once more, then. What am I to call you?" + +Ha! Massy. Again. The weariness of it crushed his heart--and the pain of +shame was almost more than he could bear without crying out. + +"Well. Is it to be 'partner' still?" + +"You don't know what you ask." + +"I know what I want . . ." + +Massy stepped in and closed the door. + +". . . And I am going to have a try for it with you once more." + +His whine was half persuasive, half menacing. + +"For it's no manner of use to tell me that you are poor. You don't spend +anything on yourself, that's true enough; but there's another name for +that. You think you are going to have what you want out of me for three +years, and then cast me off without hearing what I think of you. You +think I would have submitted to your airs if I had known you had only a +beggarly five hundred pounds in the world. You ought to have told me." + +"Perhaps," said Captain Whalley, bowing his head. "And yet it has saved +you." . . . Massy laughed scornfully. . . . "I have told you often +enough since." + +"And I don't believe you now. When I think how I let you lord it over +my ship! Do you remember how you used to bullyrag me about my coat and +_your_ bridge? It was in his way. _His_ bridge! 'And I won't be a party +to this--and I couldn't think of doing that.' Honest man! And now it all +comes out. 'I am poor, and I can't. I have only this five hundred in the +world.'" + +He contemplated the immobility of Captain Whalley, that seemed to +present an inconquerable obstacle in his path. His face took a mournful +cast. + +"You are a hard man." + +"Enough," said Captain Whalley, turning upon him. "You shall get nothing +from me, because I have nothing of mine to give away now." + +"Tell that to the marines!" + +Mr. Massy, going out, looked back once; then the door closed, and +Captain Whalley, alone, sat as still as before. He had nothing of his +own--even his past of honor, of truth, of just pride, was gone. All his +spotless life had fallen into the abyss. He had said his last good-by +to it. But what belonged to _her_, that he meant to save. Only a little +money. He would take it to her in his own hands--this last gift of a man +that had lasted too long. And an immense and fierce impulse, the very +passion of paternity, flamed up with all the unquenched vigor of his +worthless life in a desire to see her face. + +Just across the deck Massy had gone straight to his cabin, struck a +light, and hunted up the note of the dreamed number whose figures had +flamed up also with the fierceness of another passion. He must contrive +somehow not to miss a drawing. That number meant something. But what +expedient could he contrive to keep himself going? + +"Wretched miser!" he mumbled. + +If Mr. Sterne could at no time have told him anything new about his +partner, he could have told Mr. Sterne that another use could be made of +a man's affliction than just to kick him out, and thus defer the term of +a difficult payment for a year. To keep the secret of the affliction +and induce him to stay was a better move. If without means, he would be +anxious to remain; and that settled the question of refunding him his +share. He did not know exactly how much Captain Whalley was disabled; +but if it so happened that he put the ship ashore somewhere for good and +all, it was not the owner's fault--was it? He was not obliged to know +that there was anything wrong. But probably nobody would raise such a +point, and the ship was fully insured. He had had enough self-restraint +to pay up the premiums. But this was not all. He could not believe +Captain Whalley to be so confoundedly destitute as not to have some more +money put away somewhere. If he, Massy, could get hold of it, that would +pay for the boilers, and everything went on as before. And if she +got lost in the end, so much the better. He hated her: he loathed the +troubles that took his mind off the chances of fortune. He wished her +at the bottom of the sea, and the insurance money in his pocket. And +as, baffled, he left Captain Whalley's cabin, he enveloped in the same +hatred the ship with the worn-out boilers and the man with the dimmed +eyes. + +And our conduct after all is so much a matter of outside suggestion, +that had it not been for his Jack's drunken gabble he would have there +and then had it out with this miserable man, who would neither help, nor +stay, nor yet lose the ship. The old fraud! He longed to kick him out. +But he restrained himself. Time enough for that--when he liked. There +was a fearful new thought put into his head. Wasn't he up to it after +all? How that beast Jack had raved! "Find a safe trick to get rid of +her." Well, Jack was not so far wrong. A very clever trick had occurred +to him. Aye! But what of the risk? + +A feeling of pride--the pride of superiority to common prejudices--crept +into his breast, made his heart beat fast, his mouth turn dry. Not +everybody would dare; but he was Massy, and he was up to it! + +Six bells were struck on deck. Eleven! He drank a glass of water, and +sat down for ten minutes or so to calm himself. Then he got out of his +chest a small bull's-eye lantern of his own and lit it. + +Almost opposite his berth, across the narrow passage under the bridge, +there was, in the iron deck-structure covering the stokehold fiddle and +the boiler-space, a storeroom with iron sides, iron roof, iron-plated +floor, too, on account of the heat below. All sorts of rubbish was shot +there: it had a mound of scrap-iron in a corner; rows of empty oil-cans; +sacks of cotton-waste, with a heap of charcoal, a deck-forge, fragments +of an old hencoop, winch-covers all in rags, remnants of lamps, and a +brown felt hat, discarded by a man dead now (of a fever on the Brazil +coast), who had been once mate of the Sofala, had remained for years +jammed forcibly behind a length of burst copper pipe, flung at some +time or other out of the engine-room. A complete and imperious blackness +pervaded that Capharnaum of forgotten things. A small shaft of light +from Mr. Massy's bull's-eye fell slanting right through it. + +His coat was unbuttoned; he shot the bolt of the door (there was no +other opening), and, squatting before the scrap-heap, began to pack his +pockets with pieces of iron. He packed them carefully, as if the rusty +nuts, the broken bolts, the links of cargo chain, had been so much gold +he had that one chance to carry away. He packed his side-pockets till +they bulged, the breast pocket, the pockets inside. He turned over the +pieces. Some he rejected. A small mist of powdered rust began to rise +about his busy hands. Mr. Massy knew something of the scientific basis +of his clever trick. If you want to deflect the magnetic needle of a +ship's compass, soft iron is the best; likewise many small pieces in +the pockets of a jacket would have more effect than a few large ones, +because in that way you obtain a greater amount of surface for weight in +your iron, and it's surface that tells. + +He slipped out swiftly--two strides sufficed--and in his cabin he +perceived that his hands were all red--red with rust. It disconcerted +him, as though he had found them covered with blood: he looked himself +over hastily. Why, his trowsers too! He had been rubbing his rusty palms +on his legs. + +He tore off the waistband button in his haste, brushed his coat, washed +his hands. Then the air of guilt left him, and he sat down to wait. + +He sat bolt upright and weighted with iron in his chair. He had a hard, +lumpy bulk against each hip, felt the scrappy iron in his pockets touch +his ribs at every breath, the downward drag of all these pounds hanging +upon his shoulders. He looked very dull too, sitting idle there, and his +yellow face, with motionless black eyes, had something passive and sad +in its quietness. + +When he heard eight bells struck above his head, he rose and made ready +to go out. His movements seemed aimless, his lower lip had dropped a +little, his eyes roamed about the cabin, and the tremendous tension of +his will had robbed them of every vestige of intelligence. + +With the last stroke of the bell the Serang appeared noiselessly on the +bridge to relieve the mate. Sterne overflowed with good nature, since he +had nothing more to desire. + +"Got your eyes well open yet, Serang? It's middling dark; I'll wait till +you get your sight properly." + +The old Malay murmured, looked up with his worn eyes, sidled away into +the light of the binnacle, and, crossing his hands behind his back, +fixed his eyes on the compass-card. + +"You'll have to keep a good look-out ahead for land, about half-past +three. It's fairly clear, though. You have looked in on the captain as +you came along--eh? He knows the time? Well, then, I am off." + +At the foot of the ladder he stood aside for the captain. He watched him +go up with an even, certain tread, and remained thoughtful for a moment. +"It's funny," he said to himself, "but you can never tell whether that +man has seen you or not. He might have heard me breathe this time." + +He was a wonderful man when all was said and done. They said he had had +a name in his day. Mr. Sterne could well believe it; and he concluded +serenely that Captain Whalley must be able to see people more or less +--as himself just now, for instance--but not being certain of anybody, +had to keep up that unnoticing silence of manner for fear of giving +himself away. Mr. Sterne was a shrewd guesser. + +This necessity of every moment brought home to Captain Whalley's heart +the humiliation of his falsehood. He had drifted into it from paternal +love, from incredulity, from boundless trust in divine justice meted out +to men's feelings on this earth. He would give his poor Ivy the benefit +of another month's work; perhaps the affliction was only temporary. +Surely God would not rob his child of his power to help, and cast him +naked into a night without end. He had caught at every hope; and when +the evidence of his misfortune was stronger than hope, he tried not to +believe the manifest thing. + +In vain. In the steadily darkening universe a sinister clearness fell +upon his ideas. In the illuminating moments of suffering he saw life, +men, all things, the whole earth with all her burden of created nature, +as he had never seen them before. + +Sometimes he was seized with a sudden vertigo and an overwhelming +terror; and then the image of his daughter appeared. Her, too, he had +never seen so clearly before. Was it possible that he should ever be +unable to do anything whatever for her? Nothing. And not see her any +more? Never. + +Why? The punishment was too great for a little presumption, for a little +pride. And at last he came to cling to his deception with a fierce +determination to carry it out to the end, to save her money intact, and +behold her once more with his own eyes. Afterwards--what? The idea of +suicide was revolting to the vigor of his manhood. He had prayed for +death till the prayers had stuck in his throat. All the days of his life +he had prayed for daily bread, and not to be led into temptation, in a +childlike humility of spirit. Did words mean anything? Whence did the +gift of speech come? The violent beating of his heart reverberated in +his head--seemed to shake his brain to pieces. + +He sat down heavily in the deck-chair to keep the pretense of his watch. +The night was dark. All the nights were dark now. + +"Serang," he said, half aloud. + +"Ada, Tuan. I am here." + +"There are clouds on the sky?" + +"There are, Tuan." + +"Let her be steered straight. North." + +"She is going north, Tuan." + +The Serang stepped back. Captain Whalley recognized Massy's footfalls on +the bridge. + +The engineer walked over to port and returned, passing behind the chair +several times. Captain Whalley detected an unusual character as of +prudent care in this prowling. The near presence of that man brought +with it always a recrudescence of moral suffering for Captain Whalley. +It was not remorse. After all, he had done nothing but good to the poor +devil. There was also a sense of danger--the necessity of a greater +care. + +Massy stopped and said-- + +"So you still say you must go?" + +"I must indeed." + +"And you couldn't at least leave the money for a term of years?" + +"Impossible." + +"Can't trust it with me without your care, eh?" + +Captain Whalley remained silent. Massy sighed deeply over the back of +the chair. + +"It would just do to save me," he said in a tremulous voice. + +"I've saved you once." + +The chief engineer took off his coat with careful movements, and +proceeded to feel for the brass hook screwed into the wooden stanchion. +For this purpose he placed himself right in front of the binnacle, thus +hiding completely the compass-card from the quartermaster at the wheel. +"Tuan!" the lascar at last murmured softly, meaning to let the white man +know that he could not see to steer. + +Mr. Massy had accomplished his purpose. The coat was hanging from the +nail, within six inches of the binnacle. And directly he had stepped +aside the quartermaster, a middle-aged, pock-marked, Sumatra Malay, +almost as dark as a negro, perceived with amazement that in that short +time, in this smooth water, with no wind at all, the ship had gone +swinging far out of her course. He had never known her get away like +this before. With a slight grunt of astonishment he turned the wheel +hastily to bring her head back north, which was the course. The grinding +of the steering-chains, the chiding murmurs of the Serang, who had come +over to the wheel, made a slight stir, which attracted Captain Whalley's +anxious attention. He said, "Take better care." Then everything settled +to the usual quiet on the bridge. Mr. Massy had disappeared. + +But the iron in the pockets of the coat had done its work; and the +Sofala, heading north by the compass, made untrue by this simple device, +was no longer making a safe course for Pangu Bay. + +The hiss of water parted by her stem, the throb of her engines, all the +sounds of her faithful and laborious life, went on uninterrupted in the +great calm of the sea joining on all sides the motionless layer of cloud +over the sky. A gentle stillness as vast as the world seemed to wait +upon her path, enveloping her lovingly in a supreme caress. Mr. Massy +thought there could be no better night for an arranged shipwreck. + +Run up high and dry on one of the reefs east of Pangu--wait for +daylight--hole in the bottom--out boats--Pangu Bay same evening. That's +about it. As soon as she touched he would hasten on the bridge, get hold +of the coat (nobody would notice in the dark), and shake it upside-down +over the side, or even fling it into the sea. A detail. Who could +guess? Coat been seen hanging there from that hook hundreds of times. +Nevertheless, when he sat down on the lower step of the bridge-ladder +his knees knocked together a little. The waiting part was the worst +of it. At times he would begin to pant quickly, as though he had been +running, and then breathe largely, swelling with the intimate sense of +a mastered fate. Now and then he would hear the shuffle of the Serang's +bare feet up there: quiet, low voices would exchange a few words, and +lapse almost at once into silence. . . . + +"Tell me directly you see any land, Serang." + +"Yes, Tuan. Not yet." + +"No, not yet," Captain Whalley would agree. + +The ship had been the best friend of his decline. He had sent all the +money he had made by and in the Sofala to his daughter. His thought +lingered on the name. How often he and his wife had talked over the cot +of the child in the big stern-cabin of the Condor; she would grow up, +she would marry, she would love them, they would live near her and look +at her happiness--it would go on without end. Well, his wife was dead, +to the child he had given all he had to give; he wished he could come +near her, see her, see her face once, live in the sound of her +voice, that could make the darkness of the living grave ready for him +supportable. He had been starved of love too long. He imagined her +tenderness. + +The Serang had been peering forward, and now and then glancing at the +chair. He fidgeted restlessly, and suddenly burst out close to Captain +Whalley-- + +"Tuan, do you see anything of the land?" + +The alarmed voice brought Captain Whalley to his feet at once. He! See! +And at the question, the curse of his blindness seemed to fall on him +with a hundredfold force. + +"What's the time?" he cried. + +"Half-past three, Tuan." + +"We are close. You _must_ see. Look, I say. Look." + +Mr. Massy, awakened by the sudden sound of talking from a short doze on +the lowest step, wondered why he was there. Ah! A faintness came over +him. It is one thing to sow the seed of an accident and another to see +the monstrous fruit hanging over your head ready to fall in the sound of +agitated voices. + +"There's no danger," he muttered thickly. + +The horror of incertitude had seized upon Captain Whalley, the miserable +mistrust of men, of things--of the very earth. He had steered that very +course thirty-six times by the same compass--if anything was certain +in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness. Then what had +happened? Did the Serang lie? Why lie? Why? Was he going blind too? + +"Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down, I say." + +"Tuan, there's no mist. See for yourself." + +Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs by an effort. +Should he stop the engines at once and give himself away. A gust of +irresolution swayed all sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The +unusual had come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage of +inexpressible anguish he saw her face--the face of a young girl--with +an amazing strength of illusion. No, he must not give himself away after +having gone so far for her sake. "You steered the course? You made it? +Speak the truth." + +"Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look." + +Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him made such a dim +spot of light in an infinity of shapeless shadow. By bending his face +right down to the glass he had been able before . . . + +Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his arm to where he +knew there was a stanchion to steady himself against. His hand closed +on something that was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the +weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy's coat falling, struck the deck +heavily with a dull thump, accompanied by a lot of clicks. + +"What's this?" + +Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands extended in a +frank gesture of blindness. They trembled, these hands feeling for the +truth. He saw it. Iron near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His +ship. Oh no. Not that. + +"Jump and stop her!" he roared out in a voice not his own. + +He ran himself--hands forward, a blind man, and while the clanging of +the gong echoed still all over the ship, she seemed to butt full tilt +into the side of a mountain. + +It was low water along the north side of the strait. Mr. Massy had not +reckoned on that. Instead of running aground for half her length, the +Sofala butted the sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been +awash at high water. This made the shock absolutely terrific. Everybody +in the ship that was standing was thrown down headlong: the shaken +rigging made a great rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went +out: several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the funnel: there +were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope, splintering sounds, loud +cracks, the masthead lamp flew over the bows, and all the doors about +the deck began to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded, +hit the second time the very same spot like a battering-ram. This +completed the havoc: the funnel, with all the guys gone, fell over with +a hollow sound of thunder, smashing the wheel to bits, crushing the +frame of the awnings, breaking the lockers, filling the bridge with +a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken wood. Captain Whalley picked +himself up and stood knee-deep in wreckage, torn, bleeding, knowing the +nature of the danger he had escaped mostly by the sound, and holding Mr. +Massy's coat in his arms. + +By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his bunk) had set the +engines astern. They worked for a few turns, then a voice bawled out, +"Get out of the damned engine-room, Jack!"--and they stopped; but the +ship had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a heavy cloud of +steam issuing from the broken deckpipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes +into the night. Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there was +no shouting, as if the very violence of the shock had half-stunned the +shadowy lot of people swaying here and there about her decks. The voice +of the Serang pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs-- + +"Eight fathom." He had heaved the lead. + +Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch-- + +"Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?" + +Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass-- + +"Amongst the reefs to the eastward." + +"You know it, sir? Then she will never get out again." + +"She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne. Even one will save you +all in this calm." + +The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for the port boats. +Nobody tried to check them. The Malays, after a moment of confusion, +became quiet, and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain Whalley +had not moved. His thoughts were darker than this night in which he had +lost his first ship. + +"He made me lose a ship." + +Another tall figure standing before him amongst the litter of the smash +on the bridge whispered insanely-- + +"Say nothing of it." + +Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the chattering of his +teeth. + +"I have the coat." + +"Throw it down and come along," urged the chattering voice. +"B-b-b-b-boat!" + +"You will get fifteen years for this." + +Mr. Massy had lost his voice. His speech was a mere dry rustling in his +throat. + +"Have mercy!" + +"Had you any when you made me lose my ship? Mr. Massy, you shall get +fifteen years for this!" + +"I wanted money! Money! My own money! I will give you some money. Take +half of it. You love money yourself." + +"There's a justice . . ." + +Massy made an awful effort, and in a strange, half choked utterance-- + +"You blind devil! It's you that drove me to it." + +Captain Whalley, hugging the coat to his breast, made no sound. The +light had ebbed for ever from the world--let everything go. But this man +should not escape scot-free. + +Sterne's voice commanded-- + +"Lower away!" + +The blocks rattled. + +"Now then," he cried, "over with you. This way. You, Jack, here. Mr. +Massy! Mr. Massy! Captain! Quick, sir! Let's get-- + +"I shall go to prison for trying to cheat the insurance, but you'll get +exposed; you, honest man, who has been cheating me. You are poor. Aren't +you? You've nothing but the five hundred pounds. Well, you have nothing +at all now. The ship's lost, and the insurance won't be paid." + +Captain Whalley did not move. True! Ivy's money! Gone in this wreck. +Again he had a flash of insight. He was indeed at the end of his tether. + +Urgent voices cried out together alongside. Massy did not seem able +to tear himself away from the bridge. He chattered and hissed +despairingly-- + +"Give it up to me! Give it up!" + +"No," said Captain Whalley; "I could not give it up. You had better go. +Don't wait, man, if you want to live. She's settling down by the head +fast. No; I shall keep it, but I shall stay on board." + +Massy did not seem to understand; but the love of life, awakened +suddenly, drove him away from the bridge. + +Captain Whalley laid the coat down, and stumbled amongst the heaps of +wreckage to the side. + +"Is Mr. Massy in with you?" he called out into the night. + +Sterne from the boat shouted-- + +"Yes; we've got him. Come along, sir. It's madness to stay longer." + +Captain Whalley felt along the rail carefully, and, without a word, cast +off the painter. They were expecting him still down there. They were +waiting, till a voice suddenly exclaimed-- + +"We are adrift! Shove off!" + +"Captain Whalley! Leap! . . . pull up a little . . . leap! You can +swim." + +In that old heart, in that vigorous body, there was, that nothing should +be wanting, a horror of death that apparently could not be overcome +by the horror of blindness. But after all, for Ivy he had carried his +point, walking in his darkness to the very verge of a crime. God had not +listened to his prayers. The light had finished ebbing out of the world; +not a glimmer. It was a dark waste; but it was unseemly that a Whalley +who had gone so far to carry a point should continue to live. He must +pay the price. + +"Leap as far as you can, sir; we will pick you up." + +They did not hear him answer. But their shouting seemed to remind him of +something. He groped his way back, and sought for Mr. Massy's coat. He +could swim indeed; people sucked down by the whirlpool of a sinking ship +do come up sometimes to the surface, and it was unseemly that a Whalley, +who had made up his mind to die, should be beguiled by chance into a +struggle. He would put all these pieces of iron into his own pockets. + +They, looking from the boat, saw the Sofala, a black mass upon a black +sea, lying still at an appalling cant. No sound came from her. Then, +with a great bizarre shuffling noise, as if the boilers had broken +through the bulkheads, and with a faint muffled detonation, where the +ship had been there appeared for a moment something standing upright and +narrow, like a rock out of the sea. Then that too disappeared. + + +When the Sofala failed to come back to Batu Beru at the proper time, Mr. +Van Wyk understood at once that he would never see her any more. But he +did not know what had happened till some months afterwards, when, in a +native craft lent him by his Sultan, he had made his way to the Sofala's +port of registry, where already her existence and the official inquiry +into her loss was beginning to be forgotten. + +It had not been a very remarkable or interesting case, except for the +fact that the captain had gone down with his sinking ship. It was the +only life lost; and Mr. Van Wyk would not have been able to learn any +details had it not been for Sterne, whom he met one day on the quay +near the bridge over the creek, almost on the very spot where Captain +Whalley, to preserve his daughter's five hundred pounds intact, had +turned to get a sampan which would take him on board the Sofala. + +From afar Mr. Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at him and raise his +hand to his hat. They drew into the shade of a building (it was a bank), +and the mate related how the boat with the crew got into Pangu Bay about +six hours after the accident, and how they had lived for a fortnight in +a state of destitution before they found an opportunity to get away from +that beastly place. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all blame. +The loss of the ship was put down to an unusual set of the current. +Indeed, it could not have been anything else: there was no other way +to account for the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her +position during the middle watch. + +"A piece of bad luck for me, sir." + +Sterne passed his tongue on his lips, and glanced aside. "I lost the +advantage of being employed by you, sir. I can never be sorry enough. +But here it is: one man's poison, another man's meat. This could not +have been handier for Mr. Massy if he had arranged that shipwreck +himself. The most timely total loss I've ever heard of." + +"What became of that Massy?" asked Mr. Van Wyk. + +"He, sir? Ha! ha! He would keep on telling me that he meant to buy +another ship; but as soon as he had the money in his pocket he cleared +out for Manilla by mail-boat early in the morning. I gave him chase +right aboard, and he told me then he was going to make his fortune dead +sure in Manilla. I could go to the devil for all he cared. And yet he as +good as promised to give me the command if I didn't talk too much." + +"You never said anything . . ." Mr. Van Wyk began. + +"Not I, sir. Why should I? I mean to get on, but the dead aren't in my +way," said Sterne. His eyelids were beating rapidly, then drooped for an +instant. "Besides, sir, it would have been an awkward business. You made +me hold my tongue just a bit too long." + +"Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley remained on board? Did he +really refuse to leave? Come now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?" + +"Nothing!" Sterne interrupted with energy. "I tell you I yelled for him +to leap overboard. He simply _must_ have cast off the painter of the +boat himself. We all yelled to him--that is, Jack and I. He wouldn't +even answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last. Then the +boilers fetched away, and down she went. Accident! Not it! The game was +up, sir, I tell you." + +This was all that Sterne had to say. + +Mr. Van Wyk had been of course made the guest of the club for a +fortnight, and it was there that he met the lawyer in whose office had +been signed the agreement between Massy and Captain Whalley. + +"Extraordinary old man," he said. "He came into my office from nowhere +in particular as you may say, with his five hundred pounds to place, and +that engineer fellow following him anxiously. And now he is gone out +a little inexplicably, just as he came. I could never understand him +quite. There was no mystery at all about that Massy, eh? I wonder +whether Whalley refused to leave the ship. It would have been foolish. +He was blameless, as the court found." + +Mr. Van Wyk had known him well, he said, and he could not believe in +suicide. Such an act would not have been in character with what he knew +of the man. + +"It is my opinion, too," the lawyer agreed. The general theory was that +the captain had remained too long on board trying to save something of +importance. Perhaps the chart which would clear him, or else something +of value in his cabin. The painter of the boat had come adrift of itself +it was supposed. However, strange to say, some little time before that +voyage poor Whalley had called in his office and had left with him a +sealed envelope addressed to his daughter, to be forwarded to her in +case of his death. Still it was nothing very unusual, especially in a +man of his age. Mr. Van Wyk shook his head. Captain Whalley looked good +for a hundred years. + +"Perfectly true," assented the lawyer. "The old fellow looked as though +he had come into the world full-grown and with that long beard. I could +never, somehow, imagine him either younger or older--don't you know. +There was a sense of physical power about that man too. And perhaps that +was the secret of that something peculiar in his person which struck +everybody who came in contact with him. He looked indestructible by +any ordinary means that put an end to the rest of us. His deliberate, +stately courtesy of manner was full of significance. It was as though +he were certain of having plenty of time for everything. Yes, there was +something indestructible about him; and the way he talked sometimes you +might have thought he believed it himself. When he called on me last +with that letter he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed +at all. Perhaps a shade more deliberate in his talk and manner. Not +depressed in the least. Had he a presentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still +it seems a miserable end for such a striking figure." + +"Oh yes! It was a miserable end," Mr. Van Wyk said, with so much fervor +that the lawyer looked up at him curiously; and afterwards, after +parting with him, he remarked to an acquaintance-- + +"Queer person that Dutch tobacco-planter from Batu Beru. Know anything +of him?" + +"Heaps of money," answered the bank manager. "I hear he's going home +by the next mail to form a company to take over his estates. Another +tobacco district thrown open. He's wise, I think. These good times won't +last for ever." + +In the southern hemisphere Captain Whalley's daughter had no +presentiment of evil when she opened the envelope addressed to her in +the lawyer's handwriting. She had received it in the afternoon; all the +boarders had gone out, her boys were at school, her husband sat upstairs +in his big arm-chair with a book, thin-faced, wrapped up in rugs to the +waist. The house was still, and the grayness of a cloudy day lay against +the panes of three lofty windows. + +In a shabby dining-room, where a faint cold smell of dishes lingered all +the year round, sitting at the end of a long table surrounded by +many chairs pushed in with their backs close against the edge of the +perpetually laid table-cloth, she read the opening sentence: "Most +profound regret--painful duty--your father is no more--in accordance +with his instructions--fatal casualty--consolation--no blame attached to +his memory. . . ." + +Her face was thin, her temples a little sunk under the smooth bands of +black hair, her lips remained resolutely compressed, while her dark eyes +grew larger, till at last, with a low cry, she stood up, and instantly +stooped to pick up another envelope which had slipped off her knees on +to the floor. + +She tore it open, snatched out the inclosure. . . . + +"My dearest child," it said, "I am writing this while I am able yet to +write legibly. I am trying hard to save for you all the money that is +left; I have only kept it to serve you better. It is yours. It shall not +be lost: it shall not be touched. There's five hundred pounds. Of what +I have earned I have kept nothing back till now. For the future, if I +live, I must keep back some--a little--to bring me to you. I must come +to you. I must see you once more. + +"It is hard to believe that you will ever look on these lines. God +seems to have forgotten me. I want to see you--and yet death would be +a greater favor. If you ever read these words, I charge you to begin by +thanking a God merciful at last, for I shall be dead then, and it will +be well. My dear, I am at the end of my tether." + +The next paragraph began with the words: "My sight is going . . ." + +She read no more that day. The hand holding up the paper to her eyes +fell slowly, and her slender figure in a plain black dress walked +rigidly to the window. Her eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of +thanks went up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too hard, for all +the efforts of his love. It had silenced her emotions. But for the first +time in all these years its sting had departed, the carking care of +poverty, the meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image of +her husband and of her children seemed to glide away from her into the +gray twilight; it was her father's face alone that she saw, as though he +had come to see her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but +with something more august and tender in his aspect. + +She slipped his folded letter between the two buttons of her plain black +bodice, and leaning her forehead against a window-pane remained there +till dusk, perfectly motionless, giving him all the time she could +spare. Gone! Was it possible? My God, was it possible! The blow had come +softened by the spaces of the earth, by the years of absence. There had +been whole days when she had not thought of him at all--had no time. But +she had loved him, she felt she had loved him, after all. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of End of the Tether, by Joseph Conrad + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK END OF THE TETHER *** + +***** This file should be named 527.txt or 527.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/527/ + +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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The sunrays seemed to fall +violently upon the calm sea--seemed to shatter them- +selves upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, +into a dazzling vapor of light that blinded the eye and +wearied the brain with its unsteady brightness. + +Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his +Serang, approaching the roomy cane arm-chair which +he filled capably, had informed him in a low voice that +the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and +had remained on his feet, face forward, while the head +of his ship swung through a quarter of a circle. He +had not uttered a single word, not even the word to +steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, +little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the +order to the helmsman. And then slowly Captain +Whalley sat down again in the arm-chair on the bridge +and fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet. + +He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane +of the sea. He had been on these coasts for the last +three years. From Low Cape to Malantan the distance +was fifty miles, six hours' steaming for the old ship with +the tide, or seven against. Then you steered straight +for the land, and by-and-by three palms would appear +on the sky, tall and slim, and with their disheveled heads +in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of the dark +mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the +somber strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as +the ship closed with it obliquely, would show several +clean shining fractures--the brimful estuary of a river. +Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water and +one part black earth, on and on between the low shores, +three parts black earth and one part brackish water, the +Sofala would plow her way up-stream, as she had +done once every month for these seven years or more, +long before he was aware of her existence, long before +he had ever thought of having anything to do with her +and her invariable voyages. The old ship ought to have +known the road better than her men, who had not been +kept so long at it without a change; better than the +faithful Serang, whom he had brought over from his +last ship to keep the captain's watch; better than he +himself, who had been her captain for the last three +years only. She could always be depended upon to +make her courses. Her compasses were never out. She +was no trouble at all to take about, as if her great age +had given her knowledge, wisdom, and steadiness. She +made her landfalls to a degree of the bearing, and al- +most to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, +as he sat on the bridge without looking up, or lay sleep- +less in his bed, simply by reckoning the days and the +hours he could tell where he was--the precise spot of the +beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous huckster's +round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and +its sights and its people. Malacca to begin with, in at +daylight and out at dusk, to cross over with a rigid +phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East. +Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black +sky, perhaps the lights of a home steamer keeping her +unswerving course in the middle, or maybe the elusive +shadow of a native craft with her mat sails flitting by +silently--and the low land on the other side in sight +at daylight. At noon the three palms of the next place +of call, up a sluggish river. The only white man re- +siding there was a retired young sailor, with whom he +had become friendly in the course of many voyages. +Sixty miles farther on there was another place of call, +a deep bay with only a couple of houses on the beach. +And so on, in and out, picking up coastwise cargo here +and there, and finishing with a hundred miles' steady +steaming through the maze of an archipelago of small +islands up to a large native town at the end of the beat. +There was a three days' rest for the old ship before +he started her again in inverse order, seeing the same +shores from another bearing, hearing the same voices in +the same places, back again to the Sofala's port of regis- +try on the great highway to the East, where he would +take up a berth nearly opposite the big stone pile of +the harbor office till it was time to start again on the +old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very +enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry +Whalley, otherwise Dare-devil Harry--Whalley of the +Condor, a famous clipper in her day. No. Not a very +enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms, +who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of +them his own); who had made famous passages, had +been the pioneer of new routes and new trades; who had +steered across the unsurveyed tracts of the South Seas, +and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty +years at sea, and forty out in the East ("a pretty thor- +ough apprenticeship," he used to remark smilingly), had +made him honorably known to a generation of ship- +owners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear +over to where the East merges into the West upon the +coast of the two Americas. His fame remained writ, +not very large but plain enough, on the Admiralty +charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia +and China a Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On +that dangerous coral formation the celebrated clipper +had hung stranded for three days, her captain and crew +throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with +the other, as it were, keeping off her a flotilla of savage +war-canoes. At that time neither the island nor the reef +had any official existence. Later the officers of her +Majesty's steam vessel Fusilier, dispatched to make a +survey of the route, recognized in the adoption of these +two names the enterprise of the man and the solidity of +the ship. Besides, as anyone who cares may see, the +"General Directory," vol. ii. p. 410, begins the descrip- +tion of the "Malotu or Whalley Passage" with the +words: "This advantageous route, first discovered in +1850 by Captain Whalley in the ship Condor," &c., +and ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels +leaving the China ports for the south in the months +from December to April inclusive. + +This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing +could rob him of this kind of fame. The piercing of the +Isthmus of Suez, like the breaking of a dam, had let +in upon the East a flood of new ships, new men, new +methods of trade. It had changed the face of the East- +ern seas and the very spirit of their life; so that his +early experiences meant nothing whatever to the new +generation of seamen. + +In those bygone days he had handled many thousands +of pounds of his employers' money and of his own; he +had attended faithfully, as by law a shipmaster is ex- +pected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners, +charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship +or consented to a shady transaction; and he had lasted +well, outlasting in the end the conditions that had gone +to the making of his name. He had buried his wife (in +the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to +the man of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than +an ample competence in the crash of the notorious Tra- +vancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose down- +fall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he +was sixty-five years old. + + +II + + +His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin +he was not ashamed. He had not been alone to believe +in the stability of the Banking Corporation. Men whose +judgment in matters of finance was as expert as his sea- +manship had commended the prudence of his invest- +ments, and had themselves lost much money in the great +failure. The only difference between him and them was +that he had lost his all. And yet not his all. There +had remained to him from his lost fortune a very pretty +little bark, Fair Maid, which he had bought to occupy +his leisure of a retired sailor--"to play with," as he ex- +pressed it himself. + +He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the +year preceding his daughter's marriage. But after the +young couple had gone to settle in Melbourne he found +out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He +was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yacht- +ing to satisfy him. He wanted the illusion of affairs; +and his acquisition of the Fair Maid preserved the con- +tinuity of his life. He introduced her to his acquaint- +ances in various ports as "my last command." When +he grew too old to be trusted with a ship, he would +lay her up and go ashore to be buried, leaving directions +in his will to have the bark towed out and scuttled +decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His +daughter would not grudge him the satisfaction of +knowing that no stranger would handle his last command +after him. With the fortune he was able to leave her, +the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. +All this would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: +the vigorous old man had too much vitality for the sen- +timentalism of regret; and a little wistfully withal, be- +cause he was at home in life, taking a genuine pleasure +in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his +reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter, +and in his satisfaction with the ship--the plaything of +his lonely leisure. + +He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his +simple ideal of comfort at sea. A big bookcase (he was +a great reader) occupied one side of his stateroom; the +portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting +representing the profile and one long black ringlet of +a young woman, faced his bedplace. Three chronometers +ticked him to sleep and greeted him on waking with +the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five every +day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his +early cup of coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through +the wide orifice of the copper ventilators all the splash- +ings, blowings, and splutterings of his captain's toilet. +These noises would be followed by a sustained deep +murmur of the Lord's Prayer recited in a loud earnest +voice. Five minutes afterwards the head and shoulders +of Captain Whalley emerged out of the companion- +hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the +stairs, looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the +trim of the sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh +air. Only then he would step out on the poop, acknowl- +edging the hand raised to the peak of the cap with a +majestic and benign "Good morning to you." He +walked the deck till eight scrupulously. Sometimes, not +above twice a year, he had to use a thick cudgel-like +stick on account of a stiffness in the hip--a slight touch +of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing +of the ills of the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast +bell he went below to feed his canaries, wind up the +chronometers, and take the head of the table. From +there he had before his eyes the big carbon photographs +of his daughter, her husband, and two fat-legged babies +--his grandchildren--set in black frames into the maple- +wood bulkheads of the cuddy. After breakfast he dusted +the glass over these portraits himself with a cloth, and +brushed the oil painting of his wife with a plumate kept +suspended from a small brass hook by the side of the +heavy gold frame. Then with the door of his state- +room shut, he would sit down on the couch under the +portrait to read a chapter out of a thick pocket Bible +--her Bible. But on some days he only sat there for +half an hour with his finger between the leaves and the +closed book resting on his knees. Perhaps he had re- +membered suddenly how fond of boat-sailing she used +to be. + +She had been a real shipmate and a true woman too. +It was like an article of faith with him that there never +had been, and never could be, a brighter, cheerier home +anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under the poop- +deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white +and gold, garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with +an unfading wreath. She had decorated the center of +every panel with a cluster of home flowers. It took her +a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor +of love. To him it had remained a marvel of painting, +the highest achievement of taste and skill; and as to +old Swinburne, his mate, every time he came down to +his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the +progress of the work. You could almost smell these +roses, he declared, sniffing the faint flavor of turpentine +which at that time pervaded the saloon, and (as he con- +fessed afterwards) made him somewhat less hearty than +usual in tackling his food. But there was nothing of +the sort to interfere with his enjoyment of her singing. +"Mrs. Whalley is a regular out-and-out nightingale, +sir," he would pronounce with a judicial air after listen- +ing profoundly over the skylight to the very end of the +piece. In fine weather, in the second dog-watch, the two +men could hear her trills and roulades going on to the +accompaniment of the piano in the cabin. On the very +day they got engaged he had written to London for the +instrument; but they had been married for over a year +before it reached them, coming out round the Cape. +The big case made part of the first direct general cargo +landed in Hongkong harbor--an event that to the men +who walked the busy quays of to-day seemed as hazily +remote as the dark ages of history. But Captain Whal- +ley could in a half hour of solitude live again all his +life, with its romance, its idyl, and its sorrow. He had +to close her eyes himself. She went away from under +the ensign like a sailor's wife, a sailor herself at heart. +He had read the service over her, out of her own prayer- +book, without a break in his voice. When he raised his +eyes he could see old Swinburne facing him with his cap +pressed to his breast, and his rugged, weather-beaten, +impassive face streaming with drops of water like a +lump of chipped red granite in a shower. It was all +very well for that old sea-dog to cry. He had to read +on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember +much of what happened for the next few days. An +elderly sailor of the crew, deft at needlework, put to- +gether a mourning frock for the child out of one of +her black skirts. + +He was not likely to forget; but you cannot dam up +life like a sluggish stream. It will break out and flow +over a man's troubles, it will close upon a sorrow like +the sea upon a dead body, no matter how much love has +gone to the bottom. And the world is not bad. People +had been very kind to him; especially Mrs. Gardner, the +wife of the senior partner in Gardner, Patteson, & Co., +the owners of the Condor. It was she who volunteered +to look after the little one, and in due course took her +to England (something of a journey in those days, +even by the overland mail route) with her own girls to +finish her education. It was ten years before he saw her +again. + +As a little child she had never been frightened of bad +weather; she would beg to be taken up on deck in the +bosom of his oilskin coat to watch the big seas hurling +themselves upon the Condor. The swirl and crash of the +waves seemed to fill her small soul with a breathless de- +light. "A good boy spoiled," he used to say of her in +joke. He had named her Ivy because of the sound of +the word, and obscurely fascinated by a vague associa- +tion of ideas. She had twined herself tightly round his +heart, and he intended her to cling close to her father as +to a tower of strength; forgetting, while she was little, +that in the nature of things she would probably elect +to cling to someone else. But he loved life well enough +for even that event to give him a certain satisfaction, +apart from his more intimate feeling of loss. + +After he had purchased the Fair Maid to occupy his +loneliness, he hastened to accept a rather unprofitable +freight to Australia simply for the opportunity of seeing +his daughter in her own home. What made him dis- +satisfied there was not to see that she clung now to some- +body else, but that the prop she had selected seemed on +closer examination "a rather poor stick"--even in the +matter of health. He disliked his son-in-law's studied +civility perhaps more than his method of handling the +sum of money he had given Ivy at her marriage. But +of his apprehensions he said nothing. Only on the day +of his departure, with the hall-door open already, hold- +ing her hands and looking steadily into her eyes, he +had said, "You know, my dear, all I have is for you and +the chicks. Mind you write to me openly." She had +answered him by an almost imperceptible movement of +her head. She resembled her mother in the color of her +eyes, and in character--and also in this, that she under- +stood him without many words. + +Sure enough she had to write; and some of these letters +made Captain Whalley lift his white eye-brows. For +the rest he considered he was reaping the true reward of +his life by being thus able to produce on demand what- +ever was needed. He had not enjoyed himself so much +in a way since his wife had died. Characteristically +enough his son-in-law's punctuality in failure caused him +at a distance to feel a sort of kindness towards the man. +The fellow was so perpetually being jammed on a lee +shore that to charge it all to his reckless navigation +would be manifestly unfair. No, no! He knew well +what that meant. It was bad luck. His own had been +simply marvelous, but he had seen in his life too many +good men--seamen and others--go under with the sheer +weight of bad luck not to recognize the fatal signs. For +all that, he was cogitating on the best way of tying up +very strictly every penny he had to leave, when, with a +preliminary rumble of rumors (whose first sound reached +him in Shanghai as it happened), the shock of the big +failure came; and, after passing through the phases of +stupor, of incredulity, of indignation, he had to accept +the fact that he had nothing to speak of to leave. + +Upon that, as if he had only waited for this catas- +trophe, the unlucky man, away there in Melbourne, gave +up his unprofitable game, and sat down--in an invalid's +bath-chair at that too. "He will never walk again," +wrote the wife. For the first time in his life Captain +Whalley was a bit staggered. + +The Fair Maid had to go to work in bitter earnest now. +It was no longer a matter of preserving alive the memory +of Dare-devil Harry Whalley in the Eastern Seas, or +of keeping an old man in pocket-money and clothes, with, +perhaps, a bill for a few hundred first-class cigars +thrown in at the end of the year. He would have to +buckle-to, and keep her going hard on a scant allowance +of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem and +stern. + +This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental +changes of the world. Of his past only the familiar +names remained, here and there, but the things and the +men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of +Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the +walls of warehouses by the waterside, on the brass plates +and window-panes in the business quarters of more than +one Eastern port, but there was no longer a Gardner +or a Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Cap- +tain Whalley an arm-chair and a welcome in the private +office, with a bit of business ready to be put in the way +of an old friend, for the sake of bygone services. The +husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks in +that room where, long after he had left the employ, he +had kept his right of entrance in the old man's time. +Their ships now had yellow funnels with black tops, +and a time-table of appointed routes like a confounded +service of tramways. The winds of December and June +were all one to them; their captains (excellent young +men he doubted not) were, to be sure, familiar with +Whalley Island, because of late years the Government +had established a white fixed light on the north end (with +a red danger sector over the Condor Reef), but most of +them would have been extremely surprised to hear that +a flesh-and-blood Whalley still existed--an old man +going about the world trying to pick up a cargo here +and there for his little bark. + +And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men +who would have nodded appreciatively at the mention +of his name, and would have thought themselves bound +in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley. +Departed the opportunities which he would have known +how to seize; and gone with them the white-winged flock +of clippers that lived in the boisterous uncertain life of +the winds, skimming big fortunes out of the foam of +the sea. In a world that pared down the profits to an +irreducible minimum, in a world that was able to count +its disengaged tonnage twice over every day, and in +which lean charters were snapped up by cable three +months in advance, there were no chances of fortune for +an individual wandering haphazard with a little bark +--hardly indeed any room to exist. + +He found it more difficult from year to year. He suf- +fered greatly from the smallness of remittances he was +able to send his daughter. Meantime he had given up +good cigars, and even in the matter of inferior cheroots +limited himself to six a day. He never told her of his +difficulties, and she never enlarged upon her struggle +to live. Their confidence in each other needed no ex- +planations, and their perfect understanding endured +without protestations of gratitude or regret. He would +have been shocked if she had taken it into her head to +thank him in so many words, but he found it perfectly +natural that she should tell him she needed two hundred +pounds. + +He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look +for a freight in the Sofala's port of registry, and her +letter met him there. Its tenor was that it was no use +mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening a +boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, +were good. Good enough, at any rate, to make her tell +him frankly that with two hundred pounds she could +make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily, +on deck, where it was handed to him by the ship- +chandler's runner, who had brought his mail at the mo- +ment of anchoring. For the second time in his life he +was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door +with the paper trembling between his fingers. Open a +boarding-house! Two hundred pounds for a start! The +only resource! And he did not know where to lay his +hands on two hundred pence. + +All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of +his anchored ship, as though he had been about to close +with the land in thick weather, and uncertain of his +position after a run of many gray days without a sight +of sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with +the guiding lights of seamen and the steady straight +lines of lights on shore; and all around the Fair Maid +the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails upon the +water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a +gleam anywhere till the dawn broke and he found out +that his clothing was soaked through with the heavy +dew. + +His ship was awake. He stopped short, stroked his +wet beard, and descended the poop ladder backwards, +with tired feet. At the sight of him the chief officer, +lounging about sleepily on the quarterdeck, remained +open-mouthed in the middle of a great early-morning +yawn. + +"Good morning to you," pronounced Captain Whal- +ley solemnly, passing into the cabin. But he checked +himself in the doorway, and without looking back, "By +the bye," he said, "there should be an empty wooden +case put away in the lazarette. It has not been broken +up--has it?" + +The mate shut his mouth, and then asked as if dazed, +"What empty case, sir?" + +"A big flat packing-case belonging to that painting in +my room. Let it be taken up on deck and tell the +carpenter to look it over. I may want to use it before +long." + +The chief officer did not stir a limb till he had heard +the door of the captain's state-room slam within the +cuddy. Then he beckoned aft the second mate with his +forefinger to tell him that there was something "in the +wind." + +When the bell rang Captain Whalley's authoritative +voice boomed out through a closed door, "Sit down and +don't wait for me." And his impressed officers took their +places, exchanging looks and whispers across the table. +What! No breakfast? And after apparently knock- +ing about all night on deck, too! Clearly, there was +something in the wind. In the skylight above their +heads, bowed earnestly over the plates, three wire cages +rocked and rattled to the restless jumping of the hungry +canaries; and they could detect the sounds of their "old +man's" deliberate movements within his state-room. Cap- +tain Whalley was methodically winding up the chro- +nometers, dusting the portrait of his late wife, getting +a clean white shirt out of the drawers, making himself +ready in his punctilious unhurried manner to go ashore. +He could not have swallowed a single mouthful of food +that morning. He had made up his mind to sell the +Fair Maid. + + +III + + +Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and +wide for ships of European build, and he had no diffi- +culty in finding a purchaser, a speculator who drove a +hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair Maid, +with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about +that Captain Whalley found himself on a certain after- +noon descending the steps of one of the most important +post-offices of the East with a slip of bluish paper in his +hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter en- +closing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed +to Melbourne. Captain Whalley pushed the paper into +his waistcoat-pocket, took his stick from under his arm, +and walked down the street. + +It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with +rudimentary side-walks and a soft layer of dust cushion- +ing the whole width of the road. One end touched the +slummy street of Chinese shops near the harbor, the other +drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of miles, +through patches of jungle-like vegetation, to the yard +gates of the new Consolidated Docks Company. The +crude frontages of the new Government buildings alter- +nated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, and the +view of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to +the broad vista. It was empty and shunned by natives +after business hours, as though they had expected to +see one of the tigers from the neighborhood of the New +Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping canter down +the middle to get a Chinese shopkeeper for supper. Cap- +tain Whalley was not dwarfed by the solitude of the +grandly planned street. He had too fine a presence for +that. He was only a lonely figure walking purposefully, +with a great white beard like a pilgrim, and with a thick +stick that resembled a weapon. On one side the new +Courts of Justice had a low and unadorned portico of +squat columns half concealed by a few old trees left in +the approach. On the other the pavilion wings of the +new Colonial Treasury came out to the line of the street. +But Captain Whalley, who had now no ship and no +home, remembered in passing that on that very site +when he first came out from England there had stood a +fishing village, a few mat huts erected on piles between +a muddy tidal creek and a miry pathway that went +writhing into a tangled wilderness without any docks or +waterworks. + +No ship--no home. And his poor Ivy away there had +no home either. A boarding-house is no sort of home +though it may get you a living. His feelings were +horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding-house. In +his rank of life he had that truly aristocratic tempera- +ment characterized by a scorn of vulgar gentility and +by prejudiced views as to the derogatory nature of cer- +tain occupations. For his own part he had always pre- +ferred sailing merchant ships (which is a straight- +forward occupation) to buying and selling merchandise, +of which the essence is to get the better of somebody in a +bargain--an undignified trial of wits at best. His father +had been Colonel Whalley (retired) of the H. E. I. Com- +pany's service, with very slender means besides his pen- +sion, but with distinguished connections. He could re- +member as a boy how frequently waiters at the inns, coun- +try tradesmen and small people of that sort, used to "My +lord" the old warrior on the strength of his appear- +ance. + +Captain Whalley himself (he would have entered the +Navy if his father had not died before he was fourteen) +had something of a grand air which would have suited +an old and glorious admiral; but he became lost like a +straw in the eddy of a brook amongst the swarm of +brown and yellow humanity filling a thoroughfare, that +by contrast with the vast and empty avenue he had left +seemed as narrow as a lane and absolutely riotous with +life. The walls of the houses were blue; the shops of +the Chinamen yawned like cavernous lairs; heaps of +nondescript merchandise overflowed the gloom of the +long range of arcades, and the fiery serenity of sunset +took the middle of the street from end to end with a +glow like the reflection of a fire. It fell on the bright +colors and the dark faces of the bare-footed crowd, on +the pallid yellow backs of the half-naked jostling coolies, +on the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper with a +parted beard and fierce mustaches on sentry before the +gate of the police compound. Looming very big above +the heads in a red haze of dust, the tightly packed car +of the cable tramway navigated cautiously up the hu- +man stream, with the incessant blare of its horn, in the +manner of a steamer groping in a fog. + +Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other +side, and in the desert shade between the walls of closed +warehouses removed his hat to cool his brow. A certain +disrepute attached to the calling of a landlady of a +boarding-house. These women were said to be rapacious, +unscrupulous, untruthful; and though he contemned no +class of his fellow-creatures--God forbid!--these were +suspicions to which it was unseemly that a Whalley +should lay herself open. He had not expostulated with +her, however. He was confident she shared his feelings; +he was sorry for her; he trusted her judgment; he con- +sidered it a merciful dispensation that he could help her +once more,--but in his aristocratic heart of hearts he +would have found it more easy to reconcile himself to the +idea of her turning seamstress. Vaguely he remembered +reading years ago a touching piece called the "Song of +the Shirt." It was all very well making songs about +poor women. The granddaughter of Colonel Whalley, +the landlady of a boarding-house! Pooh! He replaced +his hat, dived into two pockets, and stopping a moment +to apply a flaring match to the end of a cheap cheroot, +blew an embittered cloud of smoke at a world that could +hold such surprises. + +Of one thing he was certain--that she was the own +child of a clever mother. Now he had got over the +wrench of parting with his ship, he perceived clearly +that such a step had been unavoidable. Perhaps he had +been growing aware of it all along with an unconfessed +knowledge. But she, far away there, must have had +an intuitive perception of it, with the pluck to face that +truth and the courage to speak out--all the qualities +which had made her mother a woman of such excellent +counsel. + +It would have had to come to that in the end! It was +fortunate she had forced his hand. In another year or +two it would have been an utterly barren sale. To keep +the ship going he had been involving himself deeper +every year. He was defenseless before the insidious work +of adversity, to whose more open assaults he could pre- +sent a firm front; like a cliff that stands unmoved the +open battering of the sea, with a lofty ignorance of the +treacherous backwash undermining its base. As it was, +every liability satisfied, her request answered, and owing +no man a penny, there remained to him from the pro- +ceeds a sum of five hundred pounds put away safely. In +addition he had upon his person some forty odd dollars +--enough to pay his hotel bill, providing he did not +linger too long in the modest bedroom where he had +taken refuge. + +Scantily furnished, and with a waxed floor, it opened +into one of the side-verandas. The straggling building +of bricks, as airy as a bird-cage, resounded with the +incessant flapping of rattan screens worried by the wind +between the white-washed square pillars of the sea-front. +The rooms were lofty, a ripple of sunshine flowed over +the ceilings; and the periodical invasions of tourists from +some passenger steamer in the harbor flitted through the +wind-swept dusk of the apartments with the tumult of +their unfamiliar voices and impermanent presences, like +relays of migratory shades condemned to speed headlong +round the earth without leaving a trace. The babble +of their irruptions ebbed out as suddenly as it had arisen; +the draughty corridors and the long chairs of the ve- +randas knew their sight-seeing hurry or their prostrate +repose no more; and Captain Whalley, substantial and +dignified, left wellnigh alone in the vast hotel by each +light-hearted skurry, felt more and more like a stranded +tourist with no aim in view, like a forlorn traveler with- +out a home. In the solitude of his room he smoked +thoughtfully, gazing at the two sea-chests which held all +that he could call his own in this world. A thick roll of +charts in a sheath of sailcloth leaned in a corner; the +flat packing-case containing the portrait in oils and +the three carbon photographs had been pushed under +the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting +at surveys, of all the routine of the business. What to +the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to +him a momentous event involving a radically new view of +existence. He knew that after this ship there would +be no other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of +his abilities, every feeling and achievement of his man- +hood, had been indissolubly connected with ships. He +had served ships; he had owned ships; and even the +years of his actual retirement from the sea had been made +bearable by the idea that he had only to stretch out his +hand full of money to get a ship. He had been at +liberty to feel as though he were the owner of all the +ships in the world. The selling of this one was weary +work; but when she passed from him at last, when he +signed the last receipt, it was as though all the ships +had gone out of the world together, leaving him on the +shore of inaccessible oceans with seven hundred pounds +in his hands. + +Striding firmly, without haste, along the quay, Captain +Whalley averted his glances from the familiar roadstead. +Two generations of seamen born since his first day at +sea stood between him and all these ships at the anchor- +age. His own was sold, and he had been asking him- +self, What next? + +From the feeling of loneliness, of inward emptiness, +--and of loss too, as if his very soul had been taken +out of him forcibly,--there had sprung at first a desire +to start right off and join his daughter. "Here are the +last pence," he would say to her; "take them, my dear. +And here's your old father: you must take him too." + +His soul recoiled, as if afraid of what lay hidden at +the bottom of this impulse. Give up! Never! When +one is thoroughly weary all sorts of nonsense come into +one's head. A pretty gift it would have been for a poor +woman--this seven hundred pounds with the incumbrance +of a hale old fellow more than likely to last for years +and years to come. Was he not as fit to die in harness +as any of the youngsters in charge of these anchored +ships out yonder? He was as solid now as ever he had +been. But as to who would give him work to do, that +was another matter. Were he, with his appearance and +antecedents, to go about looking for a junior's berth, +people, he was afraid, would not take him seriously; or +else if he succeeded in impressing them, he would maybe +obtain their pity, which would be like stripping your- +self naked to be kicked. He was not anxious to give +himself away for less than nothing. He had no use +for anybody's pity. On the other hand, a command-- +the only thing he could try for with due regard for +common decency--was not likely to be lying in wait for +him at the corner of the next street. Commands don't +go a-begging nowadays. Ever since he had come ashore +to carry out the business of the sale he had kept his +ears open, but had heard no hint of one being vacant +in the port. And even if there had been one, his suc- +cessful past itself stood in his way. He had been his +own employer too long. The only credential he could +produce was the testimony of his whole life. What +better recommendation could anyone require? But +vaguely he felt that the unique document would be +looked upon as an archaic curiosity of the Eastern +waters, a screed traced in obsolete words--in a half-for- +gotten language. + + +IV + + +Revolving these thoughts, he strolled on near the rail- +ings of the quay, broad-chested, without a stoop, as +though his big shoulders had never felt the burden of +the loads that must be carried between the cradle and +the grave. No single betraying fold or line of care +disfigured the reposeful modeling of his face. It was +full and untanned; and the upper part emerged, mas- +sively quiet, out of the downward flow of silvery hair, +with the striking delicacy of its clear complexion and +the powerful width of the forehead. The first cast of +his glance fell on you candid and swift, like a boy's; +but because of the ragged snowy thatch of the eyebrows +the affability of his attention acquired the character of +a dark and searching scrutiny. With age he had put +on flesh a little, had increased his girth like an old tree +presenting no symptoms of decay; and even the opulent, +lustrous ripple of white hairs upon his chest seemed an +attribute of unquenchable vitality and vigor. + +Once rather proud of his great bodily strength, and +even of his personal appearance, conscious of his worth, +and firm in his rectitude, there had remained to him, +like the heritage of departed prosperity, the tranquil +bearing of a man who had proved himself fit in every +sort of way for the life of his choice. He strode on +squarely under the projecting brim of an ancient Panama +hat. It had a low crown, a crease through its whole +diameter, a narrow black ribbon. Imperishable and a +little discolored, this headgear made it easy to pick him +out from afar on thronged wharves and in the busy +streets. He had never adopted the comparatively modern +fashion of pipeclayed cork helmets. He disliked the +form; and he hoped he could manage to keep a cool +head to the end of his life without all these contrivances +for hygienic ventilation. His hair was cropped close, +his linen always of immaculate whiteness; a suit of thin +gray flannel, worn threadbare but scrupulously brushed, +floated about his burly limbs, adding to his bulk by the +looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed the good- +humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a +temper carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of +his iron-shod stick accompanied his footfalls with a self- +confident sound on the flagstones. It was impossible to +connect such a fine presence and this unruffled aspect +with the belittling troubles of poverty; the man's whole +existence appeared to pass before you, facile and large, +in the freedom of means as ample as the clothing of his +body. + +The irrational dread of having to break into his five +hundred pounds for personal expenses in the hotel dis- +turbed the steady poise of his mind. There was no +time to lose. The bill was running up. He nourished +the hope that this five hundred would perhaps be the +means, if everything else failed, of obtaining some work +which, keeping his body and soul together (not a matter +of great outlay), would enable him to be of use to his +daughter. To his mind it was her own money which he +employed, as it were, in backing her father and solely +for her benefit. Once at work, he would help her with +the greater part of his earnings; he was good for many +years yet, and this boarding-house business, he argued +to himself, whatever the prospects, could not be much of +a gold-mine from the first start. But what work? He +was ready to lay hold of anything in an honest way so +that it came quickly to his hand; because the five hun- +dred pounds must be preserved intact for eventual use. +That was the great point. With the entire five hundred +one felt a substance at one's back; but it seemed to him +that should he let it dwindle to four-fifty or even four- +eighty, all the efficiency would be gone out of the money, +as though there were some magic power in the round +figure. But what sort of work? + +Confronted by that haunting question as by an uneasy +ghost, for whom he had no exorcising formula, Captain +Whalley stopped short on the apex of a small bridge +spanning steeply the bed of a canalized creek with +granite shores. Moored between the square blocks a sea- +going Malay prau floated half hidden under the arch +of masonry, with her spars lowered down, without a sound +of life on board, and covered from stem to stern with a +ridge of palm-leaf mats. He had left behind him the +overheated pavements bordered by the stone frontages +that, like the sheer face of cliffs, followed the sweep +of the quays; and an unconfined spaciousness of orderly +and sylvan aspect opened before him its wide plots of +rolled grass, like pieces of green carpet smoothly pegged +out, its long ranges of trees lined up in colossal porticos +of dark shafts roofed with a vault of branches. + +Some of these avenues ended at the sea. It was a ter- +raced shore; and beyond, upon the level expanse, pro- +found and glistening like the gaze of a dark-blue eye, +an oblique band of stippled purple lengthened itself in- +definitely through the gap between a couple of verdant +twin islets. The masts and spars of a few ships far +away, hull down in the outer roads, sprang straight from +the water in a fine maze of rosy lines penciled on the +clear shadow of the eastern board. Captain Whalley +gave them a long glance. The ship, once his own, was +anchored out there. It was staggering to think that it +was open to him no longer to take a boat at the jetty +and get himself pulled off to her when the evening came. +To no ship. Perhaps never more. Before the sale was +concluded, and till the purchase-money had been paid, +he had spent daily some time on board the Fair Maid. +The money had been paid this very morning, and now, +all at once, there was positively no ship that he could +go on board of when he liked; no ship that would need +his presence in order to do her work--to live. It seemed +an incredible state of affairs, something too bizarre to +last. And the sea was full of craft of all sorts. There +was that prau lying so still swathed in her shroud of +sewn palm-leaves--she too had her indispensable man. +They lived through each other, this Malay he had never +seen, and this high-sterned thing of no size that seemed +to be resting after a long journey. And of all the ships +in sight, near and far, each was provided with a man, +the man without whom the finest ship is a dead thing, +a floating and purposeless log. + +After his one glance at the roadstead he went on, since +there was nothing to turn back for, and the time must +be got through somehow. The avenues of big trees ran +straight over the Esplanade, cutting each other at di- +verse angles, columnar below and luxuriant above. The +interlaced boughs high up there seemed to slumber; not +a leaf stirred overhead: and the reedy cast-iron lamp- +posts in the middle of the road, gilt like scepters, +diminished in a long perspective, with their globes of +white porcelain atop, resembling a barbarous decoration +of ostriches' eggs displayed in a row. The flaming sky +kindled a tiny crimson spark upon the glistening sur- +face of each glassy shell. + +With his chin sunk a little, his hands behind his back, +and the end of his stick marking the gravel with a faint +wavering line at his heels, Captain Whalley reflected +that if a ship without a man was like a body without +a soul, a sailor without a ship was of not much more +account in this world than an aimless log adrift upon the +sea. The log might be sound enough by itself, tough +of fiber, and hard to destroy--but what of that! And +a sudden sense of irremediable idleness weighted his feet +like a great fatigue. + +A succession of open carriages came bowling along the +newly opened sea-road. You could see across the wide +grass-plots the discs of vibration made by the spokes. +The bright domes of the parasols swayed lightly out- +wards like full-blown blossoms on the rim of a vase; and +the quiet sheet of dark-blue water, crossed by a bar of +purple, made a background for the spinning wheels and +the high action of the horses, whilst the turbaned heads +of the Indian servants elevated above the line of the sea +horizon glided rapidly on the paler blue of the sky. In +an open space near the little bridge each turn-out trotted +smartly in a wide curve away from the sunset; then pull- +ing up sharp, entered the main alley in a long slow- +moving file with the great red stillness of the sky at +the back. The trunks of mighty trees stood all touched +with red on the same side, the air seemed aflame under +the high foliage, the very ground under the hoofs of the +horses was red. The wheels turned solemnly; one after +another the sunshades drooped, folding their colors like +gorgeous flowers shutting their petals at the end of the +day. In the whole half-mile of human beings no voice +uttered a distinct word, only a faint thudding noise went +on mingled with slight jingling sounds, and the motion- +less heads and shoulders of men and women sitting in +couples emerged stolidly above the lowered hoods--as if +wooden. But one carriage and pair coming late did not +join the line. + +It fled along in a noiseless roll; but on entering the +avenue one of the dark bays snorted, arching his neck +and shying against the steel-tipped pole; a flake of +foam fell from the bit upon the point of a satiny shoul- +der, and the dusky face of the coachman leaned for- +ward at once over the hands taking a fresh grip of the +reins. It was a long dark-green landau, having a digni- +fied and buoyant motion between the sharply curved +C-springs, and a sort of strictly official majesty in its +supreme elegance. It seemed more roomy than is usual, +its horses seemed slightly bigger, the appointments a +shade more perfect, the servants perched somewhat +higher on the box. The dresses of three women--two +young and pretty, and one, handsome, large, of mature +age--seemed to fill completely the shallow body of the +carriage. The fourth face was that of a man, heavy +lidded, distinguished and sallow, with a somber, thick, +iron-gray imperial and mustaches, which somehow had +the air of solid appendages. His Excellency-- + +The rapid motion of that one equipage made all the +others appear utterly inferior, blighted, and reduced to +crawl painfully at a snail's pace. The landau distanced +the whole file in a sort of sustained rush; the features +of the occupant whirling out of sight left behind an +impression of fixed stares and impassive vacancy; and +after it had vanished in full flight as it were, notwith- +standing the long line of vehicles hugging the curb at +a walk, the whole lofty vista of the avenue seemed to lie +open and emptied of life in the enlarged impression of +an august solitude. + +Captain Whalley had lifted his head to look, and his +mind, disturbed in its meditation, turned with wonder +(as men's minds will do) to matters of no importance. +It struck him that it was to this port, where he had +just sold his last ship, that he had come with the very +first he had ever owned, and with his head full of a plan +for opening a new trade with a distant part of the +Archipelago. The then governor had given him no end +of encouragement. No Excellency he--this Mr. Den- +ham--this governor with his jacket off; a man who +tended night and day, so to speak, the growing pros- +perity of the settlement with the self-forgetful devotion +of a nurse for a child she loves; a lone bachelor who +lived as in a camp with the few servants and his three +dogs in what was called then the Government Bungalow: +a low-roofed structure on the half-cleared slope of a +hill, with a new flagstaff in front and a police orderly +on the veranda. He remembered toiling up that hill +under a heavy sun for his audience; the unfurnished +aspect of the cool shaded room; the long table covered +at one end with piles of papers, and with two guns, a +brass telescope, a small bottle of oil with a feather stuck +in the neck at the other--and the flattering attention +given to him by the man in power. It was an under- +taking full of risk he had come to expound, but a twenty +minutes' talk in the Government Bungalow on the hill +had made it go smoothly from the start. And as he +was retiring Mr. Denham, already seated before the +papers, called out after him, "Next month the Dido +starts for a cruise that way, and I shall request her +captain officially to give you a look in and see how +you get on." The Dido was one of the smart frigates on +the China station--and five-and-thirty years make a big +slice of time. Five-and-thirty years ago an enterprise +like his had for the colony enough importance to be +looked after by a Queen's ship. A big slice of time. +Individuals were of some account then. Men like him- +self; men, too, like poor Evans, for instance, with his +red face, his coal-black whiskers, and his restless eyes, +who had set up the first patent slip for repairing small +ships, on the edge of the forest, in a lonely bay three +miles up the coast. Mr. Denham had encouraged that +enterprise too, and yet somehow poor Evans had ended +by dying at home deucedly hard up. His son, they said, +was squeezing oil out of cocoa-nuts for a living on some +God-forsaken islet of the Indian Ocean; but it was from +that patent slip in a lonely wooded bay that had sprung +the workshops of the Consolidated Docks Company, with +its three graving basins carved out of solid rock, its +wharves, its jetties, its electric-light plant, its steam- +power houses--with its gigantic sheer-legs, fit to lift the +heaviest weight ever carried afloat, and whose head could +be seen like the top of a queer white monument peeping +over bushy points of land and sandy promontories, as +you approached the New Harbor from the west. + +There had been a time when men counted: there were +not so many carriages in the colony then, though Mr. +Denham, he fancied, had a buggy. And Captain Whal- +ley seemed to be swept out of the great avenue by the +swirl of a mental backwash. He remembered muddy +shores, a harbor without quays, the one solitary wooden +pier (but that was a public work) jutting out crookedly, +the first coal-sheds erected on Monkey Point, that caught +fire mysteriously and smoldered for days, so that +amazed ships came into a roadstead full of sulphurous +smoke, and the sun hung blood-red at midday. He re- +membered the things, the faces, and something more +besides--like the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the +bottom, like a subtle sparkle of the air that was not +to be found in the atmosphere of to-day. + +In this evocation, swift and full of detail like a flash +of magnesium light into the niches of a dark memorial +hall, Captain Whalley contemplated things once impor- +tant, the efforts of small men, the growth of a great +place, but now robbed of all consequence by the great- +ness of accomplished facts, by hopes greater still; and +they gave him for a moment such an almost physical +grip upon time, such a comprehension of our unchange- +able feelings, that he stopped short, struck the ground +with his stick, and ejaculated mentally, "What the devil +am I doing here!" He seemed lost in a sort of surprise; +but he heard his name called out in wheezy tones once, +twice--and turned on his heels slowly. + +He beheld then, waddling towards him autocratically, +a man of an old-fashioned and gouty aspect, with hair +as white as his own, but with shaved, florid cheeks, wear- +ing a necktie--almost a neckcloth--whose stiff ends pro- +jected far beyond his chin; with round legs, round arms, +a round body, a round face--generally producing the +effect of his short figure having been distended by means +of an air-pump as much as the seams of his clothing +would stand. This was the Master-Attendant of the +port. A master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor- +master; a person, out in the East, of some consequence +in his sphere; a Government official, a magistrate for +the waters of the port, and possessed of vast but ill- +defined disciplinary authority over seamen of all classes. +This particular Master-Attendant was reported to con- +sider it miserably inadequate, on the ground that it +did not include the power of life and death. This was +a jocular exaggeration. Captain Eliott was fairly satis- +fied with his position, and nursed no inconsiderable sense +of such power as he had. His conceited and tyrannical +disposition did not allow him to let it dwindle in his +hands for want of use. The uproarious, choleric frank- +ness of his comments on people's character and conduct +caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversa- +tion many pretended not to mind him in the least, others +would only smile sourly at the mention of his name, and +there were even some who dared to pronounce him "a +meddlesome old ruffian." But for almost all of them +one of Captain Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distaste- +ful to face as a chance of annihilation. + + +V + + +As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouth- +ing in a growl-- + +"What's this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you're sell- +ing the Fair Maid?" + +Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was +done--money had been paid that morning; and the other +expressed at once his approbation of such an extremely +sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to +stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. +Sir Frederick looked well at the end of his time. Didn't +he? + +Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the +carriage going past. + +The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the +pockets of an alpaca jacket inappropriately short and +tight for a man of his age and appearance, strutted +with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only to +the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, +staring straight before him. They had been good com- +rades years ago, almost intimates. At the time when +Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had +charge of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same +owners; and when the appointment of Master-Attendant +was created, Whalley would have been the only other +serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the +prime of life, was resolved to serve no one but his own +auspicious Fortune. Far away, tending his hot irons, +he was glad to hear the other had been successful. There +was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that would +serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And +they were so dissimilar at bottom that as they came +slowly to the end of the avenue before the Cathedral, it +had never come into Whalley's head that he might have +been in that man's place--provided for to the end of +his days. + +The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst +the converging avenues of enormous trees, as if to put +grave thoughts of heaven into the hours of ease, pre- +sented a closed Gothic portal to the light and glory of +the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed +like fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. +The two men faced about. + +"I'll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley," +growled Captain Eliott suddenly. + +"Well?" + +"They ought to send a real live lord out here when +Sir Frederick's time is up. Eh?" + +Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord +of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else. +But this was not the other's point of view. + +"No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. +Good enough for a lord," he growled in short sentences. +"Look at the changes in our time. We need a lord +here now. They have got a lord in Bombay." + +He dined once or twice every year at the Government +House--a many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill +laid out in roads and gardens. And lately he had been +taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant's steam- +launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that +he had "most obligingly" gone out in person to pick +out a good berth for the ducal yacht. Afterwards he +had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess her- +self lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. +Complexion quite sunburnt. He should think ruined. +Very gracious manners. They were going on to +Japan. . . . + +He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley's edi- +fication, pausing to blow out his cheeks as if with a +pent-up sense of importance, and repeatedly protruding +his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his nose seemed +to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran +itself; it was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except +in its Marine department--in its Marine department he +repeated twice, and after a heavy snort began to relate +how the other day her Majesty's Consul-General in +French Cochin-China had cabled to him--in his official +capacity--asking for a qualified man to be sent over +to take charge of a Glasgow ship whose master had died +in Saigon. + +"I sent word of it to the officers' quarters in the Sailors' +Home," he continued, while the limp in his gait seemed +to grow more accentuated with the increasing irritation +of his voice. "Place's full of them. Twice as many +men as there are berths going in the local trade. All +hungry for an easy job. Twice as many--and--What +d'you think, Whalley? . . ." + +He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply +downwards, seemed ready to burst the pockets of his +jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain Whalley. + +"Hey? You would think they would be falling over +each other. Not a bit of it. Frightened to go home. +Nice and warm out here to lie about a veranda waiting +for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What +did they suppose? That I was going to sit there like +a dummy with the Consul-General's cable before me? +Not likely. So I looked up a list of them I keep by +me and sent word for Hamilton--the worst loafer of +them all--and just made him go. Threatened to in- +struct the steward of the Sailors' Home to have him +turned out neck and crop. He did not think the berth +was good enough--if--you--please. 'I've your little +records by me,' said I. 'You came ashore here eighteen +months ago, and you haven't done six months' work +since. You are in debt for your board now at the Home, +and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in +the end. Eh? So it shall; but if you don't take this +chance, away you go to England, assisted passage, by +the first homeward steamer that comes along. You are +no better than a pauper. We don't want any white +paupers here.' I scared him. But look at the trouble +all this gave me." + +"You would not have had any trouble," Captain Whal- +ley said almost involuntarily, "if you had sent for +me." + +Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with +laughter as he walked. But suddenly he stopped laugh- +ing. A vague recollection had crossed his mind. Hadn't +he heard it said at the time of the Travancore and Deccan +smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out com- +pletely. "Fellow's hard up, by heavens!" he thought; +and at once he cast a sidelong upward glance at his +companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling austerely +straight before him, with a carriage of the head incon- +ceivable in a penniless man--and he became reassured. +Impossible. Could not have lost everything. That ship +had been only a hobby of his. And the reflection that +a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning +a presumably large sum of money was not likely to +spring upon him a demand for a small loan put him +entirely at his ease again. There had come a long pause +in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin +again, he growled out soberly, "We old fellows ought +to take a rest now." + +"The best thing for some of us would be to die at the +oar," Captain Whalley said negligently. + +"Come, now. Aren't you a bit tired by this time of +the whole show?" muttered the other sullenly. + +"Are you?" + +Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung +on to his berth so long in order to get his pension on the +highest scale before he went home. It would be no better +than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only thing be- +tween him and the workhouse. And he had a family. +Three girls, as Whalley knew. He gave "Harry, old +boy," to understand that these three girls were a source +of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. Enough to +drive a man distracted. + +"Why? What have they been doing now?" asked +Captain Whalley with a sort of amused absent-minded- +ness. + +"Doing! Doing nothing. That's just it. Lawn- +tennis and silly novels from morning to night. . . ." + +If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! +And, as ill-luck would have it, there did not seem to be +any decent young fellows left in the world. When he +looked around in the club he saw only a lot of conceited +popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman +happy. Extreme indigence stared him in the face with +all that crowd to keep at home. He had cherished the +idea of building himself a little house in the country-- +in Surrey--to end his days in, but he was afraid it was +out of the question, . . . and his staring eyes rolled +upwards with such a pathetic anxiety that Captain Whal- +ley charitably nodded down at him, restraining a sort of +sickening desire to laugh. + +"You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls +are the very devil for worry and anxiety." + +"Ay! But mine is doing well," Captain Whalley pro- +nounced slowly, staring to the end of the avenue. + +The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncom- +monly glad. He remembered her well. A pretty girl +she was. + +Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as +if in a dream. + +"She was pretty." + +The procession of carriages was breaking up. + +One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, +animating the vast avenue with their scattered life and +movement; but soon the aspect of dignified solitude re- +turned and took possession of the straight wide road. +A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony har- +nessed to a varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing +waiting by the curb seemed no bigger than a child's toy +forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain Eliott +waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but re- +frained; and keeping one hand resting easily on the +shaft, he changed the conversation from his pension, his +daughters, and his poverty back again to the only other +topic in the world--the Marine Office, the men and the +ships of the port. + +He proceeded to give instances of what was expected +of him; and his thick voice drowsed in the still air like +the obstinate droning of an enormous bumble-bee. Cap- +tain Whalley did not know what was the force or the +weakness that prevented him from saying good-night +and walking away. It was as though he had been too +tired to make the effort. How queer. More queer than +any of Ned's instances. Or was it that overpowering +sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and +listen to these stories. Nothing very real had ever +troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually he seemed to detect +deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy rumble, +something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain +of the Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to +the same extent; and it seemed to him that the voice of +his old chum had not changed so very much--that the +man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly +Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business--and always +a bit of a humbug. He remembered how he used to +amuse his poor wife. She could read him like an open +book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to +be in port together, she would frequently ask him to +bring Captain Eliott to dinner. They had not met often +since those old days. Not once in five years, perhaps. +He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man +he could not bring himself to take into his confidence +at this juncture; and the other went on with his intimate +outpourings, and as remote from his hearer as though +he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away. + +He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer +Sofala. Ultimately every hitch in the port came into +his hands to undo. They would miss him when he was +gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some +retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the ap- +pointment--a man that would understand nothing and +care less. That steamer was a coasting craft having a +steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but +the trouble was she could get no captain to take her +on her regular trip. Nobody would go in her. He +really had no power, of course, to order a man to take +a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on the +demand of a consul-general, but . . . + +"What's the matter with the ship?" Captain Whalley +interrupted in measured tones. + +"Nothing's the matter. Sound old steamer. Her +owner has been in my office this afternoon tearing his +hair." + +"Is he a white man?" asked Whalley in an interested +voice. + +"He calls himself a white man," answered the Master- +Attendant scornfully; "but if so, it's just skin-deep +and no more. I told him that to his face too." + +"But who is he, then?" + +"He's the chief engineer of her. See THAT, Harry?" + +"I see," Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. "The +engineer. I see." + +How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same +time was quite a tale. He came out third in a home +ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain Eliott remem- +bered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both +with his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed +jolly glad to get rid of him at all costs. Clearly a mu- +tinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out here, a per- +fect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, un- +able to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went +through every engine-room afloat belonging to the +colony. Then suddenly, "What do you think hap- +pened, Harry?" + +Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort +as of doing a sum in his head, gave a slight start. He +really couldn't imagine. The Master-Attendant's voice +vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man actually +had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lot- +tery. All these engineers and officers of ships took +tickets in that gamble. It seemed to be a perfect mania +with them all. + +Everybody expected now that he would take himself +off home with his money, and go to the devil in his own +way. Not at all. The Sofala, judged too small and +not quite modern enough for the sort of trade she was +in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, +who had ordered a new steamer from Europe. He +rushed in and bought her. This man had never given +any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere +fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may pro- +duce--not till he got a ship of his own; but then he +went off his balance all at once: came bouncing into the +Marine Office on some transfer business, with his hat +hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in +his hand, and told each one of the clerks separately that +"Nobody could put him out now. It was his turn. +There was no one over him on earth, and there never +would be either." He swaggered and strutted between +the desks, talking at the top of his voice, and trembling +like a leaf all the while, so that the current business +of the office was suspended for the time he was in there, +and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed +looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen +during the hottest hours of the day with his face as +red as fire rushing along up and down the quays to look +at his ship from different points of view: he seemed +inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to +let them know "that there would be no longer anyone +over him; he had bought a ship; nobody on earth could +put him out of his engine-room now." + +Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took +up pretty near all the lottery-money. He had left him- +self no capital to work with. That did not matter so +much, for these were the halcyon days of steam coasting +trade, before some of the home shipping firms had +thought of establishing local fleets to feed their main +lines. These, when once organized, took the biggest +slices out of that cake, of course; and by-and-by a squad +of confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez +Canal and swept up all the crumbs. They prowled on +the cheap to and fro along the coast and between the +islands, like a lot of sharks in the water ready to snap +up anything you let drop. And then the high old times +were over for good; for years the Sofala had made no +more, he judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott +looked upon it as his duty in every way to assist an +English ship to hold her own; and it stood to reason +that if for want of a captain the Sofala began to miss +her trips she would very soon lose her trade. There was +the quandary. The man was too impracticable. "Too +much of a beggar on horseback from the first," he ex- +plained. "Seemed to grow worse as the time went on. +In the last three years he's run through eleven skippers; +he had tried every single man here, outside of the regu- +lar lines. I had warned him before that this would not +do. And now, of course, no one will look at the Sofala. +I had one or two men up at my office and talked to +them; but, as they said to me, what was the good of +taking the berth to lead a regular dog's life for a +month and then get the sack at the end of the first trip? +The fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there +has been a plot hatching for years against him. And +now it had come. All the horrid sailors in the port had +conspired to bring him to his knees, because he was an +engineer." + +Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle. + +"And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips +he need never trouble himself to start again. He won't +find any cargo in his old trade. There's too much com- +petition nowadays for people to keep their stuff lying +about for a ship that does not turn up when she's ex- +pected. It's a bad lookout for him. He swears he will +shut himself on board and starve to death in his cabin +rather than sell her--even if he could find a buyer. And +that's not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would +give her insured value for her. It isn't like selling +sailing-ships. Steamers DO get out of date, besides get- +ting old." + +"He must have laid by a good bit of money though," +observed Captain Whalley quietly. + +The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to +an amazing size. + +"Not a stiver, Harry. Not--a--single--sti-ver." + +He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his +beard slowly, looked down on the ground without a +word, he tapped him on the forearm, tiptoed, and said +in a hoarse whisper-- + +"The Manilla lottery has been eating him up." + +He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. +They all were going in for it; a third of the wages +paid to ships' officers ("in my port," he snorted) went +to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy had +been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; +but after winning once he seemed to have persuaded +himself he had only to try again to get another big +prize. He had taken dozens and scores of tickets for +every drawing since. What with this vice and his ig- +norance of affairs, ever since he had improvidently +bought that steamer he had been more or less short of +money. + +This, in Captain Eliott's opinion, gave an opening +for a sensible sailor-man with a few pounds to step in +and save that fool from the consequences of his folly. +It was his craze to quarrel with his captains. He had +had some really good men too, who would have been +too glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He +seemed to think he was no owner unless he was kicking +somebody out in the morning and having a row with +the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him +was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take +an interest in the ship on proper conditions. You don't +discharge a man for no fault, only because of the fun +of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, when +you know that in that case you are bound to buy back +his share. On the other hand, a fellow with an interest +in the ship is not likely to throw up his job in a huff +about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He had said: +"'This won't do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very +sick of you here in the Marine Office. What you must +do now is to try whether you could get a sailor to join +you as partner. That seems to be the only way.' And +that was sound advice, Harry." + +Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly +still all over, and his hand, arrested in the act of strok- +ing, grasped his whole beard. And what did the fellow +say to that? + +The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master- +Attendant. He had received the advice in a most im- +pudent manner. "I didn't come here to be laughed at," +he had shrieked. "I appeal to you as an Englishman +and a shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an +illegal conspiracy of your beggarly sailors, and all you +condescend to do for me is to tell me to go and get a +partner!" . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp +with rage on the floor of the private office. Where was +he going to get a partner? Was he being taken for +a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot ashore +at the "Home" had twopence in his pocket to bless +himself with. The very native curs in the bazaar knew +that much. . . . "And it's true enough, Harry," rum- +bled Captain Eliott judicially. "They are much more +likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in +Denham Road for the clothes on their backs. 'Well,' +said I, 'you make too much noise over it for my taste, +Mr. Massy. Good morning.' He banged the door after +him; he dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!" + +The head of the Marine department was out of breath +with indignation; then recollecting himself as it were, + +"I'll end by being late to dinner--yarning with you +here . . . wife doesn't like it." + +He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out +sideways, and only then wondered wheezily what on +earth Captain Whalley could have been doing with +himself of late. They had had no sight of each other +for years and years till the other day when he had seen +him unexpectedly in the office. + +What on earth . . . + +Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his +white beard. + +"The earth is big," he said vaguely. + +The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round +from his driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; +only from afar, from very far, a long way from the sea- +shore, across the stretches of grass, through the long +ranges of trees, came faintly the toot--toot--toot of +the cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle +of the Public Library on its three-mile journey to the +New Harbor Docks. + +"Doesn't seem to be so much room on it," growled the +Master-Attendant, "since these Germans came along +shouldering us at every turn. It was not so in our +time." + +He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as +though he had been taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps +he too, on his side, had detected in the silent pilgrim- +like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested +wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belong- +ing to the young captain of the Condor. Good fellow-- +Harry Whalley--never very talkative. You never +knew what he was up to--a bit too off-hand with people +of consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fel- +low's actions. Fact was he had a too good opinion of +himself. He would have liked to tell him to get in and +drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife +would not like it. + +"And it's funny to think, Harry," he went on in a +big, subdued drone, "that of all the people on it there +seems only you and I left to remember this part of the +world as it used to be . . ." + +He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a senti- +mental mood had it not struck him suddenly that Cap- +tain Whalley, unstirring and without a word, seemed +to be awaiting something--perhaps expecting . . . He +gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty +growls-- + +"Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known--the +ships we've sailed--ay! and the things we've done . . ." + +The pony plunged--the syce skipped out of the way. +Captain Whalley raised his arm. + +"Good-by." + + +VI + +The sun had set. And when, after drilling a deep hole +with his stick, he moved from that spot the night had +massed its army of shadows under the trees. They +filled the eastern ends of the avenues as if only waiting +the signal for a general advance upon the open spaces +of the world; they were gathering low between the deep +stone-faced banks of the canal. The Malay prau, half- +concealed under the arch of the bridge, had not altered +its position a quarter of an inch. For a long time Cap- +tain Whalley stared down over the parapet, till at last +the floating immobility of that beshrouded thing seemed +to grow upon him into something inexplicable and +alarming. The twilight abandoned the zenith; its re- +flected gleams left the world below, and the water of the +canal seemed to turn into pitch. Captain Whalley +crossed it. + +The turning to the right, which was his way to his +hotel, was only a very few steps farther. He stopped +again (all the houses of the sea-front were shut up, the +quayside was deserted, but for one or two figures of +natives walking in the distance) and began to reckon the +amount of his bill. So many days in the hotel at so +many dollars a day. To count the days he used his +fingers: plunging one hand into his pocket, he jingled a +few silver coins. All right for three days more; and +then, unless something turned up, he must break into +the five hundred--Ivy's money--invested in her father. +It seemed to him that the first meal coming out of that +reserve would choke him--for certain. Reason was of +no use. It was a matter of feeling. His feelings had +never played him false. + +He did not turn to the right. He walked on, as if +there still had been a ship in the roadstead to which +he could get himself pulled off in the evening. Far +away, beyond the houses, on the slope of an indigo +promontory closing the view of the quays, the slim +column of a factory-chimney smoked quietly straight +up into the clear air. A Chinaman, curled down in the +stern of one of the half-dozen sampans floating off the +end of the jetty, caught sight of a beckoning hand. +He jumped up, rolled his pigtail round his head swiftly, +tucked in two rapid movements his wide dark trousers +high up his yellow thighs, and by a single, noiseless, fin- +like stir of the oars, sheered the sampan alongside the +steps with the ease and precision of a swimming +fish. + +"Sofala," articulated Captain Whalley from above; +and the Chinaman, a new emigrant probably, stared +upwards with a tense attention as if waiting to see the +queer word fall visibly from the white man's lips. +"Sofala," Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his +heart failed him. He paused. The shores, the islets, the +high ground, the low points, were dark: the horizon had +grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of the shore +the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the +telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach +before the dark spread of uneven roofs, intermingled +with palms, of the native town. Captain Whalley be- +gan again. + +"Sofala. Savee So-fa-la, John?" + +This time the Chinaman made out that bizarre sound, +and grunted his assent uncouthly, low down in his bare +throat. With the first yellow twinkle of a star that ap- +peared like the head of a pin stabbed deep into the +smooth, pale, shimmering fabric of the sky, the edge +of a keen chill seemed to cleave through the warm air +of the earth. At the moment of stepping into the sam- +pan to go and try for the command of the Sofala Cap- +tain Whalley shivered a little. + + +When on his return he landed on the quay again Venus, +like a choice jewel set low on the hem of the sky, cast +a faint gold trail behind him upon the roadstead, as +level as a floor made of one dark and polished stone. +The lofty vaults of the avenues were black--all black +overhead--and the porcelain globes on the lamp-posts +resembled egg-shaped pearls, gigantic and luminous, +displayed in a row whose farther end seemed to sink +in the distance, down to the level of his knees. He put +his hands behind his back. He would now consider +calmly the discretion of it before saying the final word +to-morrow. His feet scrunched the gravel loudly--the +discretion of it. It would have been easier to appraise +had there been a workable alternative. The honesty of +it was indubitable: he meant well by the fellow; and +periodically his shadow leaped up intense by his side on +the trunks of the trees, to lengthen itself, oblique and +dim, far over the grass--repeating his stride. + +The discretion of it. Was there a choice? He seemed +already to have lost something of himself; to have given +up to a hungry specter something of his truth and dig- +nity in order to live. But his life was necessary. Let +poverty do its worst in exacting its toll of humiliation. +It was certain that Ned Eliott had rendered him, with- +out knowing it, a service for which it would have been +impossible to ask. He hoped Ned would not think there +had been something underhand in his action. He sup- +posed that now when he heard of it he would understand +--or perhaps he would only think Whalley an eccentric +old fool. What would have been the good of telling +him--any more than of blurting the whole tale to that +man Massy? Five hundred pounds ready to invest. Let +him make the best of that. Let him wonder. You want +a captain--I want a ship. That's enough. B-r-r-r-r. +What a disagreeable impression that empty, dark, +echoing steamer had made upon him. . . . + +A laid-up steamer was a dead thing and no mistake; +a sailing-ship somehow seems always ready to spring +into life with the breath of the incorruptible heaven; +but a teamer, thought Captain Whalley, with her fires +out, without the warm whiffs from below meeting you on +her decks, without the hiss of steam, the clangs of iron +in her breast--lies there as cold and still and pulseless as +a corpse. + +In the solitude of the avenue, all black above and +lighted below, Captain Whalley, considering the dis- +cretion of his course, met, as it were incidentally, the +thought of death. He pushed it aside with dislike and +contempt. He almost laughed at it; and in the un- +quenchable vitality of his age only thought with a kind +of exultation how little he needed to keep body and soul +together. Not a bad investment for the poor woman +this solid carcass of her father. And for the rest--in +case of anything--the agreement should be clear: the +whole five hundred to be paid back to her integrally +within three months. Integrally. Every penny. He +was not to lose any of her money whatever else had +to go--a little dignity--some of his self-respect. He +had never before allowed anybody to remain under any +sort of false impression as to himself. Well, let that +go--for her sake. After all, he had never SAID any- +thing misleading--and Captain Whalley felt himself +corrupt to the marrow of his bones. He laughed a little +with the intimate scorn of his worldly prudence. +Clearly, with a fellow of that sort, and in the peculiar +relation they were to stand to each other, it would not +have done to blurt out everything. He did not like the +fellow. He did not like his spells of fawning loquacity +and bursts of resentfulness. In the end--a poor devil. +He would not have liked to stand in his shoes. Men +were not evil, after all. He did not like his sleek hair, +his queer way of standing at right angles, with his nose +in the air, and glancing along his shoulder at you. No. +On the whole, men were not bad--they were only silly +or unhappy. + +Captain Whalley had finished considering the discre- +tion of that step--and there was the whole long night +before him. In the full light his long beard would +glisten like a silver breastplate covering his heart; in +the spaces between the lamps his burly figure passed less +distinct, loomed very big, wandering, and mysterious. +No; there was not much real harm in men: and all the +time a shadow marched with him, slanting on his left +hand--which in the East is a presage of evil. + + . . . . . . . + +"Can you make out the clump of palms yet, Serang?" +asked Captain Whalley from his chair on the bridge of +the Sofala approaching the bar of Batu Beru. + +"No, Tuan. By-and-by see." The old Malay, in a +blue dungaree suit, planted on his bony dark feet under +the bridge awning, put his hands behind his back and +stared ahead out of the innumerable wrinkles at the +corners of his eyes. + +Captain Whalley sat still, without lifting his head to +look for himself. Three years--thirty-six times. He +had made these palms thirty-six times from the south- +ward. They would come into view at the proper time. +Thank God, the old ship made her courses and distances +trip after trip, as correct as clockwork. At last he mur- +mured again-- + +"In sight yet?" + +"The sun makes a very great glare, Tuan." + +"Watch well, Serang." + +"Ya, Tuan." + +A white man had ascended the ladder from the deck +noiselessly, and had listened quietly to this short col- +loquy. Then he stepped out on the bridge and began +to walk from end to end, holding up the long cherry- +wood stem of a pipe. His black hair lay plastered in +long lanky wisps across the bald summit of his head; +he had a furrowed brow, a yellow complexion, and a +thick shapeless nose. A scanty growth of whisker did +not conceal the contour of his jaw. His aspect was of +brooding care; and sucking at a curved black mouth- +piece, he presented such a heavy overhanging profile +that even the Serang could not help reflecting sometimes +upon the extreme unloveliness of some white men. + +Captain Whalley seemed to brace himself up in his +chair, but gave no recognition whatever to his presence. +The other puffed jets of smoke; then suddenly-- + +"I could never understand that new mania of yours +of having this Malay here for your shadow, partner." + +Captain Whalley got up from the chair in all his im- +posing stature and walked across to the binnacle, hold- +ing such an unswerving course that the other had to +back away hurriedly, and remained as if intimidated, +with the pipe trembling in his hand. "Walk over me +now," he muttered in a sort of astounded and dis- +comfited whisper. Then slowly and distinctly he +said-- + +"I--am--not--dirt." And then added defiantly, "As +you seem to think." + +The Serang jerked out-- + +"See the palms now, Tuan." + +Captain Whalley strode forward to the rail; but his +eyes, instead of going straight to the point, with the +assured keen glance of a sailor, wandered irresolutely +in space, as though he, the discoverer of new routes, had +lost his way upon this narrow sea. + +Another white man, the mate, came up on the bridge. +He was tall, young, lean, with a mustache like a +trooper, and something malicious in the eye. He took +up a position beside the engineer. Captain Whalley, +with his back to them, inquired-- + +"What's on the log?" + +"Eighty-five," answered the mate quickly, and nudged +the engineer with his elbow. + +Captain Whalley's muscular hands squeezed the iron +rail with an extraordinary force; his eyes glared with +an enormous effort; he knitted his eyebrows, the per- +spiration fell from under his hat,--and in a faint voice +he murmured, "Steady her, Serang--when she is on +the proper bearing." + +The silent Malay stepped back, waited a little, and +lifted his arm warningly to the helmsman. The wheel +revolved rapidly to meet the swing of the ship. Again +the made nudged the engineer. But Massy turned upon +him. + +"Mr. Sterne," he said violently, "let me tell you-- +as a shipowner--that you are no better than a con- +founded fool." + + +VII + +Sterne went down smirking and apparently not at +all disconcerted, but the engineer Massy remained on +the bridge, moving about with uneasy self-assertion. +Everybody on board was his inferior--everyone with- +out exception. He paid their wages and found them in +their food. They ate more of his bread and pocketed +more of his money than they were worth; and they had +no care in the world, while he alone had to meet all the +difficulties of shipowning. When he contemplated his +position in all its menacing entirety, it seemed to him +that he had been for years the prey of a band of para- +sites: and for years he had scowled at everybody con- +nected with the Sofala except, perhaps, at the Chinese +firemen who served to get her along. Their use was +manifest: they were an indispensable part of the ma- +chinery of which he was the master. + +When he passed along his decks he shouldered those +he came across brutally; but the Malay deck hands had +learned to dodge out of his way. He had to bring him- +self to tolerate them because of the necessary manual +labor of the ship which must be done. He had to +struggle and plan and scheme to keep the Sofala afloat +--and what did he get for it? Not even enough respect. +They could not have given him enough of that if all +their thoughts and all their actions had been directed +to that end. The vanity of possession, the vainglory +of power, had passed away by this time, and there re- +mained only the material embarrassments, the fear of +losing that position which had turned out not worth +having, and an anxiety of thought which no abject sub- +servience of men could repay. + +He walked up and down. The bridge was his own +after all. He had paid for it; and with the stem of +the pipe in his hand he would stop short at times as +if to listen with a profound and concentrated attention +to the deadened beat of the engines (his own engines) +and the slight grinding of the steering chains upon the +continuous low wash of water alongside. But for these +sounds, the ship might have been lying as still as if +moored to a bank, and as silent as if abandoned by every +living soul; only the coast, the low coast of mud and +mangroves with the three palms in a bunch at the back, +grew slowly more distinct in its long straight line, with- +out a single feature to arrest attention. The native +passengers of the Sofala lay about on mats under the +awnings; the smoke of her funnel seemed the only sign +of her life and connected with her gliding motion in a +mysterious manner. + +Captain Whalley on his feet, with a pair of binoculars +in his hand and the little Malay Serang at his elbow, +like an old giant attended by a wizened pigmy, was tak- +ing her over the shallow water of the bar. + +This submarine ridge of mud, scoured by the stream +out of the soft bottom of the river and heaped up far +out on the hard bottom of the sea, was difficult to get +over. The alluvial coast having no distinguishing +marks, the bearings of the crossing-place had to be +taken from the shape of the mountains inland. The +guidance of a form flattened and uneven at the top like +a grinder tooth, and of another smooth, saddle-backed +summit, had to be searched for within the great un- +clouded glare that seemed to shift and float like a dry +fiery mist, filling the air, ascending from the water, +shrouding the distances, scorching to the eye. In this +veil of light the near edge of the shore alone stood +out almost coal-black with an opaque and motionless +solidity. Thirty miles away the serrated range of the +interior stretched across the horizon, its outlines and +shades of blue, faint and tremulous like a background +painted on airy gossamer on the quivering fabric of an +impalpable curtain let down to the plain of alluvial soil; +and the openings of the estuary appeared, shining +white, like bits of silver let into the square pieces snipped +clean and sharp out of the body of the land bordered +with mangroves. + +On the forepart of the bridge the giant and the pigmy +muttered to each other frequently in quiet tones. Be- +hind them Massy stood sideways with an expression of +disdain and suspense on his face. His globular eyes +were perfectly motionless, and he seemed to have for- +gotten the long pipe he held in his hand. + +On the fore-deck below the bridge, steeply roofed with +the white slopes of the awnings, a young lascar seaman +had clambered outside the rail. He adjusted quickly +a broad band of sail canvas under his armpits, and +throwing his chest against it, leaned out far over the +water. The sleeves of his thin cotton shirt, cut off close +to the shoulder, bared his brown arm of full rounded +form and with a satiny skin like a woman's. He swung +it rigidly with the rotary and menacing action of a +slinger: the 14-lb. weight hurtled circling in the air, +then suddenly flew ahead as far as the curve of the bow. +The wet thin line swished like scratched silk running +through the dark fingers of the man, and the plunge of +the lead close to the ship's side made a vanishing silvery +scar upon the golden glitter; then after an interval the +voice of the young Malay uplifted and long-drawn de- +clared the depth of the water in his own language. + +"Tiga stengah," he cried after each splash and pause, +gathering the line busily for another cast. "Tiga +stengah," which means three fathom and a half. For +a mile or so from seaward there was a uniform depth +of water right up to the bar. "Half-three. Half- +three. Half-three,"--and his modulated cry, returned +leisurely and monotonous, like the repeated call of a +bird, seemed to float away in sunshine and disappear in +the spacious silence of the empty sea and of a lifeless +shore lying open, north and south, east and west, with- +out the stir of a single cloud-shadow or the whisper of +any other voice. + +The owner-engineer of the Sofala remained very still +behind the two seamen of different race, creed, and +color; the European with the time-defying vigor of +his old frame, the little Malay, old, too, but slight and +shrunken like a withered brown leaf blown by a chance +wind under the mighty shadow of the other. Very +busy looking forward at the land, they had not a glance +to spare; and Massy, glaring at them from behind, +seemed to resent their attention to their duty like a per- +sonal slight upon himself. + +This was unreasonable; but he had lived in his own +world of unreasonable resentments for many years. At +last, passing his moist palm over the rare lanky wisps +of coarse hair on the top of his yellow head, he began +to talk slowly. + +"A leadsman, you want! I suppose that's your cor- +rect mail-boat style. Haven't you enough judgment +to tell where you are by looking at the land? Why, +before I had been a twelvemonth in the trade I was up +to that trick--and I am only an engineer. I can point +to you from here where the bar is, and I could tell you +besides that you are as likely as not to stick her in the +mud in about five minutes from now; only you would +call it interfering, I suppose. And there's that written +agreement of ours, that says I mustn't interfere." + +His voice stopped. Captain Whalley, without relax- +ing the set severity of his features, moved his lips to ask +in a quick mumble-- + +"How near, Serang?" + +"Very near now, Tuan," the Malay muttered rapidly. + +"Dead slow," said the Captain aloud in a firm tone. + +The Serang snatched at the handle of the telegraph. +A gong clanged down below. Massy with a scornful +snigger walked off and put his head down the engine- +room skylight. + +"You may expect some rare fooling with the engines, +Jack," he bellowed. The space into which he stared was +deep and full of gloom; and the gray gleams of steel +down there seemed cool after the intense glare of the +sea around the ship. The air, however, came up clammy +and hot on his face. A short hoot on which it would +have been impossible to put any sort of interpretation +came from the bottom cavernously. This was the way +in which the second engineer answered his chief. + +He was a middle-aged man with an inattentive man- +ner, and apparently wrapped up in such a taciturn con- +cern for his engines that he seemed to have lost the use +of speech. When addressed directly his only answer +would be a grunt or a hoot, according to the distance. +For all the years he had been in the Sofala he had never +been known to exchange as much as a frank Good-morn- +ing with any of his shipmates. He did not seem aware +that men came and went in the world; he did not seem +to see them at all. Indeed he never recognized his ship +mates on shore. At table (the four white men of the +Sofala messed together) he sat looking into his plate +dispassionately, but at the end of the meal would jump +up and bolt down below as if a sudden thought had im- +pelled him to rush and see whether somebody had not +stolen the engines while he dined. In port at the end of +the trip he went ashore regularly, but no one knew +where he spent his evenings or in what manner. The +local coasting fleet had preserved a wild and incoherent +tale of his infatuation for the wife of a sergeant in an +Irish infantry regiment. The regiment, however, had +done its turn of garrison duty there ages before, and +was gone somewhere to the other side of the earth, out +of men's knowledge. Twice or perhaps three times in +the course of the year he would take too much to drink. +On these occasions he returned on board at an earlier +hour than usual; ran across the deck balancing himself +with his spread arms like a tight-rope walker; and +locking the door of his cabin, he would converse and +argue with himself the livelong night in an amazing +variety of tones; storm, sneer, and whine with an inex- +haustible persistence. Massy in his berth next door, +raising himself on his elbow, would discover that his +second had remembered the name of every white man +that had passed through the Sofala for years and years +back. He remembered the names of men that had died, +that had gone home, that had gone to America: he +remembered in his cups the names of men whose con- +nection with the ship had been so short that Massy had +almost forgotten its circumstances and could barely re- +call their faces. The inebriated voice on the other side +of the bulkhead commented upon them all with an ex- +traordinary and ingenious venom of scandalous inven- +tions. It seems they had all offended him in some way, +and in return he had found them all out. He muttered +darkly; he laughed sardonically; he crushed them one +after another; but of his chief, Massy, he babbled with +an envious and naive admiration. Clever scoundrel! +Don't meet the likes of him every day. Just look at +him. Ha! Great! Ship of his own. Wouldn't catch +HIM going wrong. No fear--the beast! And Massy, +after listening with a gratified smile to these artless +tributes to his greatness, would begin to shout, thump- +ing at the bulkhead with both fists-- + +"Shut up, you lunatic! Won't you let me go to +sleep, you fool!" + +But a half smile of pride lingered on his lips; outside +the solitary lascar told off for night duty in harbor, +perhaps a youth fresh from a forest village, would stand +motionless in the shadows of the deck listening to the +endless drunken gabble. His heart would be thumping +with breathless awe of white men: the arbitrary and +obstinate men who pursue inflexibly their incompre- +hensible purposes,--beings with weird intonations in the +voice, moved by unaccountable feelings, actuated by in- +scrutable motives. + + + +VIII + +For a while after his second's answering hoot Massy +hung over the engine-room gloomily. Captain Whal- +ley, who, by the power of five hundred pounds, had kept +his command for three years, might have been suspected +of never having seen that coast before. He seemed un- +able to put down his glasses, as though they had been +glued under his contracted eyebrows. This settled +frown gave to his face an air of invincible and just +severity; but his raised elbow trembled slightly, and +the perspiration poured from under his hat as if a +second sun had suddenly blazed up at the zenith by the +side of the ardent still globe already there, in whose +blinding white heat the earth whirled and shone like a +mote of dust. + +From time to time, still holding up his glasses, he +raised his other hand to wipe his streaming face. The +drops rolled down his cheeks, fell like rain upon the +white hairs of his beard, and brusquely, as if guided +by an uncontrollable and anxious impulse, his arm +reached out to the stand of the engine-room telegraph. + +The gong clanged down below. The balanced vibra- +tion of the dead-slow speed ceased together with every +sound and tremor in the ship, as if the great stillness +that reigned upon the coast had stolen in through her +sides of iron and taken possession of her innermost re- +cesses. The illusion of perfect immobility seemed to +fall upon her from the luminous blue dome without a +stain arching over a flat sea without a stir. The faint +breeze she had made for herself expired, as if all at +once the air had become too thick to budge; even the +slight hiss of the water on her stem died out. The nar- +row, long hull, carrying its way without a ripple, +seemed to approach the shoal water of the bar by +stealth. The plunge of the lead with the mournful, +mechanical cry of the lascar came at longer and longer +intervals; and the men on her bridge seemed to hold +their breath. The Malay at the helm looked fixedly +at the compass card, the Captain and the Serang stared +at the coast. + +Massy had left the skylight, and, walking flat-footed, +had returned softly to the very spot on the bridge he +had occupied before. A slow, lingering grin exposed +his set of big white teeth: they gleamed evenly in the +shade of the awning like the keyboard of a piano in a +dusky room. + +At last, pretending to talk to himself in excessive as- +tonishment, he said not very loud-- + +"Stop the engines now. What next, I wonder?" + +He waited, stooping from the shoulders, his head +bowed, his glance oblique. Then raising his voice a +shade-- + +"If I dared make an absurd remark I would say that +you haven't the stomach to . . ." + +But a yelling spirit of excitement, like some frantic +soul wandering unsuspected in the vast stillness of the +coast, had seized upon the body of the lascar at the lead. +The languid monotony of his sing-song changed to a +swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single +whir, the line whistled, splash followed splash in haste. +The water had shoaled, and the man, instead of the +drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the soundings +in feet. + +"Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, four- +teen . . ." + +Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses. +It descended slowly as if by its own weight; no other +part of his towering body stirred; and the swift cries +with their eager warning note passed him by as though +he had been deaf. + +Massy, very still, and turning an attentive ear, had +fastened his eyes upon the silvery, close-cropped back +of the steady old head. The ship herself seemed to be +arrested but for the gradual decrease of depth under +her keel. + +"Thirteen feet . . . Thirteen! Twelve!" cried the +leadsman anxiously below the bridge. And suddenly +the barefooted Serang stepped away noiselessly to steal +a glance over the side. + +Narrow of shoulder, in a suit of faded blue cotton, an +old gray felt hat rammed down on his head, with a hollow +in the nape of his dark neck, and with his slender limbs, +he appeared from the back no bigger than a boy of +fourteen. There was a childlike impulsiveness in the +curiosity with which he watched the spread of the +voluminous, yellowish convolutions rolling up from be- +low to the surface of the blue water like massive clouds +driving slowly upwards on the unfathomable sky. He +was not startled at the sight in the least. It was not +doubt, but the certitude that the keel of the Sofala must +be stirring the mud now, which made him peep over the +side. + +His peering eyes, set aslant in a face of the Chinese +type, a little old face, immovable, as if carved in old +brown oak, had informed him long before that the ship +was not headed at the bar properly. Paid off from +the Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after +the completion of the sale, he had hung, in his faded +blue suit and floppy gray hat, about the doors of the +Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain Whalley +coming along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put +himself quietly in the way, with his bare feet in the dust +and an upward mute glance. The eyes of his old com- +mander had fallen on him favorably--it must have +been an auspicious day--and in less than half an hour +the white men in the "Ofiss" had written his name on +a document as Serang of the fire-ship Sofala. Since +that time he had repeatedly looked at that estuary, upon +that coast, from this bridge and from this side of the +bar. The record of the visual world fell through his +eyes upon his unspeculating mind as on a sensitized +plate through the lens of a camera. His knowledge was +absolute and precise; nevertheless, had he been asked +his opinion, and especially if questioned in the down- +right, alarming manner of white men, he would have +displayed the hesitation of ignorance. He was certain +of his facts--but such a certitude counted for little +against the doubt what answer would be pleasing. +Fifty years ago, in a jungle village, and before he was +a day old, his father (who died without ever seeing +a white face) had had his nativity cast by a man of +skill and wisdom in astrology, because in the arrange- +ment of the stars may be read the last word of human +destiny. His destiny had been to thrive by the favor +of various white men on the sea. He had swept the +decks of ships, had tended their helms, had minded their +stores, had risen at last to be a Serang; and his placid +mind had remained as incapable of penetrating the sim- +plest motives of those he served as they themselves were +incapable of detecting through the crust of the earth +the secret nature of its heart, which may be fire or may +be stone. But he had no doubt whatever that the Sofala +was out of the proper track for crossing the bar at +Batu Beru. + +It was a slight error. The ship could not have been +more than twice her own length too far to the north- +ward; and a white man at a loss for a cause (since it +was impossible to suspect Captain Whalley of blunder- +ing ignorance, of want of skill, or of neglect) would +have been inclined to doubt the testimony of his senses. +It was some such feeling that kept Massy motionless, +with his teeth laid bare by an anxious grin. Not so the +Serang. He was not troubled by any intellectual mis- +trust of his senses. If his captain chose to stir the mud +it was well. He had known in his life white men indulge +in outbreaks equally strange. He was only genuinely +interested to see what would come of it. At last, appar- +ently satisfied, he stepped back from the rail. + +He had made no sound: Captain Whalley, however, +seemed to have observed the movements of his Serang. +Holding his head rigidly, he asked with a mere stir of +his lips-- + +"Going ahead still, Serang?" + +"Still going a little, Tuan," answered the Malay. +Then added casually, "She is over." + +The lead confirmed his words; the depth of water in- +creased at every cast, and the soul of excitement de- +parted suddenly from the lascar swung in the canvas +belt over the Sofala's side. Captain Whalley or- +dered the lead in, set the engines ahead without haste, +and averting his eyes from the coast directed the +Serang to keep a course for the middle of the en- +trance. + +Massy brought the palm of his hand with a loud smack +against his thigh. + +"You grazed on the bar. Just look astern and see +if you didn't. Look at the track she left. You can see +it plainly. Upon my soul, I thought you would! What +made you do that? What on earth made you do that? +I believe you are trying to scare me." + +He talked slowly, as it were circumspectly, keeping his +prominent black eyes on his captain. There was also a +slight plaintive note in his rising choler, for, primarily, +it was the clear sense of a wrong suffered undeservedly +that made him hate the man who, for a beggarly five +hundred pounds, claimed a sixth part of the profits +under the three years' agreement. Whenever his resent- +ment got the better of the awe the person of Captain +Whalley inspired he would positively whimper with +fury. + +"You don't know what to invent to plague my life +out of me. I would not have thought that a man of +your sort would condescend . . ." + +He paused, half hopefully, half timidly, whenever +Captain Whalley made the slightest movement in the +deck-chair, as though expecting to be conciliated by a +soft speech or else rushed upon and hunted off the +bridge. + +"I am puzzled," he went on again, with the watchful +unsmiling baring of his big teeth. "I don't know what +to think. I do believe you are trying to frighten me. +You very nearly planted her on the bar for at least +twelve hours, besides getting the engines choked with +mud. Ships can't afford to lose twelve hours on a trip +nowadays--as you ought to know very well, and do +know very well to be sure, only . . ." + +His slow volubility, the sideways cranings of his neck, +the black glances out of the very corners of his eyes, +left Captain Whalley unmoved. He looked at the deck +with a severe frown. Massy waited for some little time, +then began to threaten plaintively. + +"You think you've got me bound hand and foot in +that agreement. You think you can torment me in any +way you please. Ah! But remember it has another +six weeks to run yet. There's time for me to dismiss +you before the three years are out. You will do yet +something that will give me the chance to dismiss you, +and make you wait a twelvemonth for your money before +you can take yourself off and pull out your five hundred, +and leave me without a penny to get the new boilers for +her. You gloat over that idea--don't you? I do be- +lieve you sit here gloating. It's as if I had sold my +soul for five hundred pounds to be everlastingly damned +in the end. . . ." + +He paused, without apparent exasperation, then con- +tinued evenly-- + +". . . With the boilers worn out and the survey hang- +ing over my head, Captain Whalley-- Captain +Whalley, I say, what do you do with your money? You +must have stacks of money somewhere--a man like you +must. It stands to reason. I am not a fool, you know, +Captain Whalley--partner." + +Again he paused, as though he had done for good. +He passed his tongue over his lips, gave a backward +glance at the Serang conning the ship with quiet whis- +pers and slight signs of the hand. The wash of the +propeller sent a swift ripple, crested with dark froth, +upon a long flat spit of black slime. The Sofala had +entered the river; the trail she had stirred up over the +bar was a mile astern of her now, out of sight, had dis- +appeared utterly; and the smooth, empty sea along the +coast was left behind in the glittering desolation of sun- +shine. On each side of her, low down, the growth of +somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid banks; +and Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt +start, as if his speech had been ground out of him, like +the tune of a music-box, by turning a handle. + +"Though if anybody ever got the best of me, it is you. +I don't mind saying this. I've said it--there! What +more can you want? Isn't that enough for your pride, +Captain Whalley. You got over me from the first. It's +all of a piece, when I look back at it. You allowed me +to insert that clause about intemperance without saying +anything, only looking very sick when I made a point +of it going in black on white. How could I tell what +was wrong about you. There's generally something +wrong somewhere. And, lo and behold! when you +come on board it turns out that you've been in the +habit of drinking nothing but water for years and +years." + +His dogmatic reproachful whine stopped. He brooded +profoundly, after the manner of crafty and unintelli- +gent men. It seemed inconceivable that Captain +Whalley should not laugh at the expression of disgust +that overspread the heavy, yellow countenance. But +Captain Whalley never raised his eyes--sitting in his +arm-chair, outraged, dignified, and motionless. + +"Much good it was to me," Massy remonstrated +monotonously, "to insert a clause for dismissal for in- +temperance against a man who drinks nothing but water. +And you looked so upset, too, when I read my draft in +the lawyer's office that morning, Captain Whalley,-- +you looked so crestfallen, that I made sure I had gone +home on your weak spot. A shipowner can't be too +careful as to the sort of skipper he gets. You must +have been laughing at me in your sleeve all the blessed +time. . . . Eh? What are you going to say?" + +Captain Whalley had only shuffled his feet slightly. +A dull animosity became apparent in Massy's sideways +stare. + +"But recollect that there are other grounds of dis- +missal. There's habitual carelessness, amounting to in- +competence--there's gross and persistent neglect of +duty. I am not quite as big a fool as you try to make +me out to be. You have been careless of late--leaving +everything to that Serang. Why! I've seen you let- +ting that old fool of a Malay take bearings for you, +as if you were too big to attend to your work yourself. +And what do you call that silly touch-and-go manner +in which you took the ship over the bar just now? You +expect me to put up with that?" + +Leaning on his elbow against the ladder abaft the +bridge, Sterne, the mate, tried to hear, blinking the +while from the distance at the second engineer, who had +come up for a moment, and stood in the engine-room +companion. Wiping his hands on a bunch of cotton +waste, he looked about with indifference to the right +and left at the river banks slipping astern of the +Sofala steadily. + +Massy turned full at the chair. The character of his +whine became again threatening. + +"Take care. I may yet dismiss you and freeze to your +money for a year. I may . . ." + +But before the silent, rigid immobility of the man +whose money had come in the nick of time to save him +from utter ruin, his voice died out in his throat. + +"Not that I want you to go," he resumed after a si- +lence, and in an absurdly insinuating tone. "I want +nothing better than to be friends and renew the agree- +ment, if you will consent to find another couple of hun- +dred to help with the new boilers, Captain Whalley. +I've told you before. She must have new boilers; you +know it as well as I do. Have you thought this over?" + +He waited. The slender stem of the pipe with its +bulky lump of a bowl at the end hung down from his +thick lips. It had gone out. Suddenly he took it from +between his teeth and wrung his hands slightly. + +"Don't you believe me?" He thrust the pipe bowl +into the pocket of his shiny black jacket. + +"It's like dealing with the devil," he said. "Why +don't you speak? At first you were so high and mighty +with me I hardly dared to creep about my own deck. +Now I can't get a word from you. You don't seem to +see me at all. What does it mean? Upon my soul, you +terrify me with this deaf and dumb trick. What's go- +ing on in that head of yours? What are you plotting +against me there so hard that you can't say a word? +You will never make me believe that you--you--don't +know where to lay your hands on a couple of hundred. +You have made me curse the day I was born. . . ." + +"Mr. Massy," said Captain Whalley suddenly, with- +out stirring. + +The engineer started violently. + +"If that is so I can only beg you to forgive me." + +"Starboard," muttered the Serang to the helmsman; +and the Sofala began to swing round the bend into the +second reach. + +"Ough!" Massy shuddered. "You make my blood +run cold. What made you come here? What made you +come aboard that evening all of a sudden, with your +high talk and your money--tempting me? I always +wondered what was your motive? You fastened yourself +on me to have easy times and grow fat on my life blood, +I tell you. Was that it? I believe you are the greatest +miser in the world, or else why . . ." + +"No. I am only poor," interrupted Captain Whalley, +stonily. + +"Steady," murmured the Serang. Massy turned away +with his chin on his shoulder. + +"I don't believe it," he said in his dogmatic tone. +Captain Whalley made no movement. "There you sit +like a gorged vulture--exactly like a vulture." + +He embraced the middle of the reach and both the +banks in one blank unseeing circular glance, and left the +bridge slowly. + + +IX + +On turning to descend Massy perceived the head of +Sterne the mate loitering, with his sly confident smile, +his red mustaches and blinking eyes, at the foot of the +ladder. + +Sterne had been a junior in one of the larger shipping +concerns before joining the Sofala. He had thrown up +his berth, he said, "on general principles." The pro- +motion in the employ was very slow, he complained, and +he thought it was time for him to try and get on a bit +in the world. It seemed as though nobody would ever +die or leave the firm; they all stuck fast in their berths +till they got mildewed; he was tired of waiting; and he +feared that when a vacancy did occur the best servants +were by no means sure of being treated fairly. Besides, +the captain he had to serve under--Captain Provost-- +was an unaccountable sort of man, and, he fancied, had +taken a dislike to him for some reason or other. For +doing rather more than his bare duty as likely as not. +When he had done anything wrong he could take a +talking to, like a man; but he expected to be treated +like a man too, and not to be addressed invariably as +though he were a dog. He had asked Captain Provost +plump and plain to tell him where he was at fault, and +Captain Provost, in a most scornful way, had told him +that he was a perfect officer, and that if he disliked the +way he was being spoken to there was the gangway-- +he could take himself off ashore at once. But everybody +knew what sort of man Captain Provost was. It was no +use appealing to the office. Captain Provost had too +much influence in the employ. All the same, they had +to give him a good character. He made bold to say +there was nothing in the world against him, and, as he +had happened to hear that the mate of the Sofala had +been taken to the hospital that morning with a sun- +stroke, he thought there would be no harm in seeing +whether he would not do. . . . + +He had come to Captain Whalley freshly shaved, red- +faced, thin-flanked, throwing out his lean chest; and +had recited his little tale with an open and manly as- +surance. Now and then his eyelids quivered slightly, +his hand would steal up to the end of the flaming mus- +tache; his eyebrows were straight, furry, of a chestnut +color, and the directness of his frank gaze seemed to +tremble on the verge of impudence. Captain Whalley +had engaged him temporarily; then, the other man hav- +ing been ordered home by the doctors, he had remained +for the next trip, and then the next. He had now at- +tained permanency, and the performance of his duties +was marked by an air of serious, single-minded appli- +cation. Directly he was spoken to, he began to smile +attentively, with a great deference expressed in his +whole attitude; but there was in the rapid winking +which went on all the time something quizzical, as +though he had possessed the secret of some universal +joke cheating all creation and impenetrable to other +mortals. + +Grave and smiling he watched Massy come down step +by step; when the chief engineer had reached the deck +he swung about, and they found themselves face to face. +Matched as to height and utterly dissimilar, they con- +fronted each other as if there had been something be- +tween them--something else than the bright strip of +sunlight that, falling through the wide lacing of two +awnings, cut crosswise the narrow planking of the deck +and separated their feet as it were a stream; something +profound and subtle and incalculable, like an unex- +pressed understanding, a secret mistrust, or some sort +of fear. + +At last Sterne, blinking his deep-set eyes and sticking +forward his scraped, clean-cut chin, as crimson as the +rest of his face, murmured-- + +"You've seen? He grazed! You've seen?" + +Massy, contemptuous, and without raising his yellow, +fleshy countenance, replied in the same pitch-- + +"Maybe. But if it had been you we would have been +stuck fast in the mud." + +"Pardon me, Mr. Massy. I beg to deny it. Of course +a shipowner may say what he jolly well pleases on his +own deck. That's all right; but I beg to . . ." + +"Get out of my way!" + +The other had a slight start, the impulse of suppressed +indignation perhaps, but held his ground. Massy's +downward glance wandered right and left, as though the +deck all round Sterne had been bestrewn with eggs that +must not be broken, and he had looked irritably for +places where he could set his feet in flight. In the end +he too did not move, though there was plenty of room +to pass on. + +"I heard you say up there," went on the mate--"and +a very just remark it was too--that there's always +something wrong. . . ." + +"Eavesdropping is what's wrong with YOU, Mr. +Sterne." + +"Now, if you would only listen to me for a moment, +Mr. Massy, sir, I could . . ." + +"You are a sneak," interrupted Massy in a great +hurry, and even managed to get so far as to repeat, "a +common sneak," before the mate had broken in argu- +mentatively-- + +"Now, sir, what is it you want? You want . . ." + +"I want--I want," stammered Massy, infuriated and +astonished--"I want. How do you know that I want +anything? How dare you? . . . What do you +mean? . . . What are you after--you . . ." + +"Promotion." Sterne silenced him with a sort of +candid bravado. The engineer's round soft cheeks quiv- +ered still, but he said quietly enough-- + +"You are only worrying my head off," and Sterne +met him with a confident little smile. + +"A chap in business I know (well up in the world +he is now) used to tell me that this was the proper way. +'Always push on to the front,' he would say. 'Keep +yourself well before your boss. Interfere whenever you +get a chance. Show him what you know. Worry him +into seeing you.' That was his advice. Now I know +no other boss than you here. You are the owner, and +no one else counts for THAT much in my eyes. See, Mr. +Massy? I want to get on. I make no secret of it that +I am one of the sort that means to get on. These are +the men to make use of, sir. You haven't arrived at +the top of the tree, sir, without finding that out--I +dare say." + +"Worry your boss in order to get on," mumbled +Massy, as if awestruck by the irreverent originality of +the idea. "I shouldn't wonder if this was just what the +Blue Anchor people kicked you out of the employ for. +Is that what you call getting on? You shall get on in +the same way here if you aren't careful--I can promise +you." + +At this Sterne hung his head, thoughtful, perplexed, +winking hard at the deck. All his attempts to enter into +confidential relations with his owner had led of late +to nothing better than these dark threats of dismissal; +and a threat of dismissal would check him at once into +a hesitating silence as though he were not sure that +the proper time for defying it had come. On this occa- +sion he seemed to have lost his tongue for a moment, and +Massy, getting in motion, heavily passed him by with +an abortive attempt at shouldering. Sterne defeated it +by stepping aside. He turned then swiftly, opening +his mouth very wide as if to shout something after the +engineer, but seemed to think better of it. + +Always--as he was ready to confess--on the lookout +for an opening to get on, it had become an instinct with +him to watch the conduct of his immediate superiors for +something "that one could lay hold of." It was his +belief that no skipper in the world would keep his com- +mand for a day if only the owners could be "made to +know." This romantic and naive theory had led him +into trouble more than once, but he remained incorrigi- +ble; and his character was so instinctively disloyal that +whenever he joined a ship the intention of ousting his +commander out of the berth and taking his place was +always present at the back of his head, as a matter of +course. It filled the leisure of his waking hours with +the reveries of careful plans and compromising discov- +eries--the dreams of his sleep with images of lucky +turns and favorable accidents. Skippers had been +known to sicken and die at sea, than which nothing +could be better to give a smart mate a chance of showing +what he's made of. They also would tumble overboard +sometimes: he had heard of one or two such cases. +Others again . . . But, as it were constitutionally, he +was faithful to the belief that the conduct of no single +one of them would stand the test of careful watching +by a man who "knew what's what" and who kept his +eyes "skinned pretty well" all the time. + +After he had gained a permanent footing on board +the Sofala he allowed his perennial hope to rise high. +To begin with, it was a great advantage to have an old +man for captain: the sort of man besides who in the +nature of things was likely to give up the job before +long from one cause or another. Sterne was greatly +chagrined, however, to notice that he did not seem any- +way near being past his work yet. Still, these old men +go to pieces all at once sometimes. Then there was the +owner-engineer close at hand to be impressed by his zeal +and steadiness. Sterne never for a moment doubted the +obvious nature of his own merits (he was really an ex- +cellent officer); only, nowadays, professional merit alone +does not take a man along fast enough. A chap must +have some push in him, and must keep his wits at work +too to help him forward. He made up his mind to +inherit the charge of this steamer if it was to be done +at all; not indeed estimating the command of the +Sofala as a very great catch, but for the reason that, +out East especially, to make a start is everything, and +one command leads to another. + +He began by promising himself to behave with great +circumspection; Massy's somber and fantastic humors +intimidated him as being outside one's usual sea experi- +ence; but he was quite intelligent enough to realize al- +most from the first that he was there in the presence of +an exceptional situation. His peculiar prying imagina- +tion penetrated it quickly; the feeling that there was +in it an element which eluded his grasp exasperated his +impatience to get on. And so one trip came to an end, +then another, and he had begun his third before he saw +an opening by which he could step in with any sort of +effect. It had all been very queer and very obscure; +something had been going on near him, as if separated +by a chasm from the common life and the working +routine of the ship, which was exactly like the life and +the routine of any other coasting steamer of that class. + +Then one day he made his discovery. + +It came to him after all these weeks of watchful ob- +servation and puzzled surmises, suddenly, like the long- +sought solution of a riddle that suggests itself to the +mind in a flash. Not with the same authority, however. +Great heavens! Could it be that? And after remain- +ing thunderstruck for a few seconds he tried to shake +it off with self-contumely, as though it had been the +product of an unhealthy bias towards the Incredible, +the Inexplicable, the Unheard-of--the Mad! + +This--the illuminating moment--had occurred the trip +before, on the return passage. They had just left a +place of call on the mainland called Pangu; they were +steaming straight out of a bay. To the east a massive +headland closed the view, with the tilted edges of the +rocky strata showing through its ragged clothing of +rank bushes and thorny creepers. The wind had begun +to sing in the rigging; the sea along the coast, green +and as if swollen a little above the line of the horizon, +seemed to pour itself over, time after time, with a slow +and thundering fall, into the shadow of the leeward +cape; and across the wide opening the nearest of a +group of small islands stood enveloped in the hazy +yellow light of a breezy sunrise; still farther out the +hummocky tops of other islets peeped out motionless +above the water of the channels between, scoured +tumultuously by the breeze. + +The usual track of the Sofala both going and return- +ing on every trip led her for a few miles along this reef- +infested region. She followed a broad lane of water, +dropping astern, one after another, these crumbs of the +earth's crust resembling a squadron of dismasted hulks +run in disorder upon a foul ground of rocks and shoals. +Some of these fragments of land appeared, indeed, no +bigger than a stranded ship; others, quite flat, lay +awash like anchored rafts, like ponderous, black rafts +of stone; several, heavily timbered and round at the +base, emerged in squat domes of deep green foliage that +shuddered darkly all over to the flying touch of cloud +shadows driven by the sudden gusts of the squally sea- +son. The thunderstorms of the coast broke frequently +over that cluster; it turned then shadowy in its whole +extent; it turned more dark, and as if more still in the +play of fire; as if more impenetrably silent in the peals +of thunder; its blurred shapes vanished--dissolving ut- +terly at times in the thick rain--to reappear clear-cut +and black in the stormy light against the gray sheet of +the cloud--scattered on the slaty round table of +the sea. Unscathed by storms, resisting the work of +years, unfretted by the strife of the world, there it lay +unchanged as on that day, four hundred years ago, +when first beheld by Western eyes from the deck of +a high-pooped caravel. + +It was one of these secluded spots that may be found +on the busy sea, as on land you come sometimes upon the +clustered houses of a hamlet untouched by men's rest- +lessness, untouched by their need, by their thought, and +as if forgotten by time itself. The lives of uncounted +generations had passed it by, and the multitudes of sea- +fowl, urging their way from all the points of the horizon +to sleep on the outer rocks of the group, unrolled the +converging evolutions of their flight in long somber +streamers upon the glow of the sky. The palpitating +cloud of their wings soared and stooped over the pinna- +cles of the rocks, over the rocks slender like spires, squat +like martello towers; over the pyramidal heaps like fallen +ruins, over the lines of bald bowlders showing like a wall +of stones battered to pieces and scorched by lightning-- +with the sleepy, clear glimmer of water in every breach. +The noise of their continuous and violent screaming +filled the air. + +This great noise would meet the Sofala coming up from +Batu Beru; it would meet her on quiet evenings, a piti- +less and savage clamor enfeebled by distance, the +clamor of seabirds settling to rest, and struggling for +a footing at the end of the day. No one noticed it +especially on board; it was the voice of their ship's un- +erring landfall, ending the steady stretch of a hundred +miles. She had made good her course, she had run her +distance till the punctual islets began to emerge one by +one, the points of rocks, the hummocks of earth . . . +and the cloud of birds hovered--the restless cloud emit- +ting a strident and cruel uproar, the sound of the fa- +miliar scene, the living part of the broken land beneath, +of the outspread sea, and of the high sky without a +flaw. + +But when the Sofala happened to close with the land +after sunset she would find everything very still there +under the mantle of the night. All would be still, dumb, +almost invisible--but for the blotting out of the low +constellations occulted in turns behind the vague masses +of the islets whose true outlines eluded the eye amongst +the dark spaces of the heaven: and the ship's three lights, +resembling three stars--the red and the green with the +white above--her three lights, like three companion +stars wandering on the earth, held their unswerving +course for the passage at the southern end of the group. +Sometimes there were human eyes open to watch them +come nearer, traveling smoothly in the somber void; the +eyes of a naked fisherman in his canoe floating over a +reef. He thought drowsily: "Ha! The fire-ship that +once in every moon goes in and comes out of Pangu +bay." More he did not know of her. And just as he +had detected the faint rhythm of the propeller beating +the calm water a mile and a half away, the time would +come for the Sofala to alter her course, the lights would +swing off him their triple beam--and disappear. + +A few miserable, half-naked families, a sort of outcast +tribe of long-haired, lean, and wild-eyed people, strove +for their living in this lonely wilderness of islets, lying +like an abandoned outwork of the land at the gates of +the bay. Within the knots and loops of the rocks the +water rested more transparent than crystal under their +crooked and leaky canoes, scooped out of the trunk of +a tree: the forms of the bottom undulated slightly to +the dip of a paddle; and the men seemed to hang in the +air, they seemed to hang inclosed within the fibers of a +dark, sodden log, fishing patiently in a strange, un- +steady, pellucid, green air above the shoals. + +Their bodies stalked brown and emaciated as if dried +up in the sunshine; their lives ran out silently; the +homes where they were born, went to rest, and died-- +flimsy sheds of rushes and coarse grass eked out with +a few ragged mats--were hidden out of sight from the +open sea. No glow of their household fires ever kindled +for a seaman a red spark upon the blind night of the +group: and the calms of the coast, the flaming long +calms of the equator, the unbreathing, concentrated +calms like the deep introspection of a passionate nature, +brooded awfully for days and weeks together over the +unchangeable inheritance of their children; till at last +the stones, hot like live embers, scorched the naked sole, +till the water clung warm, and sickly, and as if thick- +ened, about the legs of lean men with girded loins, wad- +ing thigh-deep in the pale blaze of the shallows. And +it would happen now and then that the Sofala, through +some delay in one of the ports of call, would heave in +sight making for Pangu bay as late as noonday. + +Only a blurring cloud at first, the thin mist of her +smoke would arise mysteriously from an empty point on +the clear line of sea and sky. The taciturn fishermen +within the reefs would extend their lean arms towards +the offing; and the brown figures stooping on the tiny +beaches, the brown figures of men, women, and children +grubbing in the sand in search of turtles' eggs, would +rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over the eyes, to +watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve +off--and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that +ship; their eyes followed her till she passed between the +two capes of the mainland going at full speed as though +she hoped to make her way unchecked into the very +bosom of the earth. + +On such days the luminous sea would give no sign of +the dangers lurking on both sides of her path. Every- +thing remained still, crushed by the overwhelming power +of the light; and the whole group, opaque in the sun- +shine,--the rocks resembling pinnacles, the rocks resem- +bling spires, the rocks resembling ruins; the forms of +islets resembling beehives, resembling mole-hills, the +islets recalling the shapes of haystacks, the contours of +ivy-clad towers,--would stand reflected together upside +down in the unwrinkled water, like carved toys of ebony +disposed on the silvered plate-glass of a mirror. + +The first touch of blowing weather would envelop the +whole at once in the spume of the windward breakers, +as if in a sudden cloudlike burst of steam; and the clear +water seemed fairly to boil in all the passages. The +provoked sea outlined exactly in a design of angry foam +the wide base of the group; the submerged level of +broken waste and refuse left over from the building of +the coast near by, projecting its dangerous spurs, all +awash, far into the channel, and bristling with wicked +long spits often a mile long: with deadly spits made of +froth and stones. + +And even nothing more than a brisk breeze--as on +that morning, the voyage before, when the Sofala left +Pangu bay early, and Mr. Sterne's discovery was to +blossom out like a flower of incredible and evil aspect +from the tiny seed of instinctive suspicion,--even such +a breeze had enough strength to tear the placid mask +from the face of the sea. To Sterne, gazing with indif- +ference, it had been like a revelation to behold for the +first time the dangers marked by the hissing livid +patches on the water as distinctly as on the engraved +paper of a chart. It came into his mind that this was +the sort of day most favorable for a stranger attempt- +ing the passage: a clear day, just windy enough for +the sea to break on every ledge, buoying, as it were, +the channel plainly to the sight; whereas during a calm +you had nothing to depend on but the compass and the +practiced judgment of your eye. And yet the suc- +cessive captains of the Sofala had had to take her +through at night more than once. Nowadays you could +not afford to throw away six or seven hours of a +steamer's time. That you couldn't. But then use is +everything, and with proper care . . . The channel +was broad and safe enough; the main point was to hit +upon the entrance correctly in the dark--for if a man +got himself involved in that stretch of broken water +over yonder he would never get out with a whole ship-- +if he ever got out at all. + +This was Sterne's last train of thought independent +of the great discovery. He had just seen to the secur- +ing of the anchor, and had remained forward idling +away a moment or two. The captain was in charge on +the bridge. With a slight yawn he had turned away +from his survey of the sea and had leaned his shoulders +against the fish davit. + +These, properly speaking, were the very last moments +of ease he was to know on board the Sofala. All the +instants that came after were to be pregnant with pur- +pose and intolerable with perplexity. No more idle, +random thoughts; the discovery would put them on the +rack, till sometimes he wished to goodness he had been +fool enough not to make it at all. And yet, if his +chance to get on rested on the discovery of "something +wrong," he could not have hoped for a greater stroke +of luck. + + +X + +The knowledge was too disturbing, really. There was +"something wrong" with a vengeance, and the moral +certitude of it was at first simply frightful to contem- +plate. Sterne had been looking aft in a mood so idle, +that for once he was thinking no harm of anyone. His +captain on the bridge presented himself naturally to +his sight. How insignificant, how casual was the +thought that had started the train of discovery--like an +accidental spark that suffices to ignite the charge of a +tremendous mine! + +Caught under by the breeze, the awnings of the fore- +deck bellied upwards and collapsed slowly, and above +their heavy flapping the gray stuff of Captain Whalley's +roomy coat fluttered incessantly around his arms and +trunk. He faced the wind in full light, with his great +silvery beard blown forcibly against his chest; the eye- +brows overhung heavily the shadows whence his glance +appeared to be staring ahead piercingly. Sterne could +just detect the twin gleam of the whites shifting under +the shaggy arches of the brow. At short range these +eyes, for all the man's affable manner, seemed to look +you through and through. Sterne never could defend +himself from that feeling when he had occasion to speak +with his captain. He did not like it. What a big +heavy man he appeared up there, with that little +shrimp of a Serang in close attendance--as was usual +in this extraordinary steamer! Confounded absurd cus- +tom that. He resented it. Surely the old fellow could +have looked after his ship without that loafing native +at his elbow. Sterne wriggled his shoulders with dis- +gust. What was it? Indolence or what? + +That old skipper must have been growing lazy for +years. They all grew lazy out East here (Sterne was +very conscious of his own unimpaired activity); they +got slack all over. But he towered very erect on the +bridge; and quite low by his side, as you see a small +child looking over the edge of a table, the battered soft +hat and the brown face of the Serang peeped over the +white canvas screen of the rail. + +No doubt the Malay was standing back, nearer to the +wheel; but the great disparity of size in close associa- +tion amused Sterne like the observation of a bizarre fact +in nature. They were as queer fish out of the sea as +any in it. + +He saw Captain Whalley turn his head quickly to +speak to his Serang; the wind whipped the whole white +mass of the beard sideways. He would be directing the +chap to look at the compass for him, or what not. Of +course. Too much trouble to step over and see for him- +self. Sterne's scorn for that bodily indolence which +overtakes white men in the East increased on reflection. +Some of them would be utterly lost if they hadn't all +these natives at their beck and call; they grew perfectly +shameless about it too. He was not of that sort, thank +God! It wasn't in him to make himself dependent for +his work on any shriveled-up little Malay like that. As +if one could ever trust a silly native for anything in +the world! But that fine old man thought differently, +it seems. There they were together, never far apart; +a pair of them, recalling to the mind an old whale at- +tended by a little pilot-fish. + +The fancifulness of the comparison made him smile. +A whale with an inseparable pilot-fish! That's what +the old man looked like; for it could not be said he +looked like a shark, though Mr. Massy had called him +that very name. But Mr. Massy did not mind what he +said in his savage fits. Sterne smiled to himself--and +gradually the ideas evoked by the sound, by the im- +agined shape of the word pilot-fish; the ideas of aid, of +guidance needed and received, came uppermost in his +mind: the word pilot awakened the idea of trust, of +dependence, the idea of welcome, clear-eyed help brought +to the seaman groping for the land in the dark: groping +blindly in fogs: feeling their way in the thick weather +of the gales that, filling the air with a salt mist blown +up from the sea, contract the range of sight on all +sides to a shrunken horizon that seems within reach of +the hand. + +A pilot sees better than a stranger, because his local +knowledge, like a sharper vision, completes the shapes +of things hurriedly glimpsed; penetrates the veils of +mist spread over the land by the storms of the sea; de- +fines with certitude the outlines of a coast lying under +the pall of fog, the forms of landmarks half buried in a +starless night as in a shallow grave. He recognizes be- +cause he already knows. It is not to his far-reaching +eye but to his more extensive knowledge that the pilot +looks for certitude; for this certitude of the ship's posi- +tion on which may depend a man's good fame and the +peace of his conscience, the justification of the trust +deposited in his hands, with his own life too, which is +seldom wholly his to throw away, and the humble lives +of others rooted in distant affections, perhaps, and made +as weighty as the lives of kings by the burden of the +awaiting mystery. The pilot's knowledge brings relief +and certitude to the commander of a ship; the Serang, +however, in his fanciful suggestion of a pilot-fish at- +tending a whale, could not in any way be credited with +a superior knowledge. Why should he have it? These +two men had come on that run together--the white and +the brown--on the same day: and of course a white man +would learn more in a week than the best native would +in a month. He was made to stick to the skipper as +though he were of some use--as the pilot-fish, they say, +is to the whale. But how--it was very marked--how? +A pilot-fish--a pilot--a . . . But if not superior +knowledge then . . . + +Sterne's discovery was made. It was repugnant to his +imagination, shocking to his ideas of honesty, shocking +to his conception of mankind. This enormity affected +one's outlook on what was possible in this world: it was +as if for instance the sun had turned blue, throwing a +new and sinister light on men and nature. Really in +the first moment he had felt sickish, as though he had +got a blow below the belt: for a second the very color +of the sea seemed changed--appeared queer to his wan- +dering eye; and he had a passing, unsteady sensation in +all his limbs as though the earth had started turning +the other way. + +A very natural incredulity succeeding this sense of +upheaval brought a measure of relief. He had gasped; +it was over. But afterwards during all that day sudden +paroxysms of wonder would come over him in the midst +of his occupations. He would stop and shake his head. +The revolt of his incredulity had passed away almost as +quick as the first emotion of discovery, and for the next +twenty-four hours he had no sleep. That would never +do. At meal-times (he took the foot of the table set +up for the white men on the bridge) he could not help +losing himself in a fascinated contemplation of Captain +Whalley opposite. He watched the deliberate upward +movements of the arm; the old man put his food to his +lips as though he never expected to find any taste in +his daily bread, as though he did not know anything +about it. He fed himself like a somnambulist. "It's an +awful sight," thought Sterne; and he watched the long +period of mournful, silent immobility, with a big brown +hand lying loosely closed by the side of the plate, till +he noticed the two engineers to the right and left look- +ing at him in astonishment. He would close his mouth +in a hurry then, and lowering his eyes, wink rapidly at +his plate. It was awful to see the old chap sitting +there; it was even awful to think that with three words +he could blow him up sky-high. All he had to do was +to raise his voice and pronounce a single short sentence, +and yet that simple act seemed as impossible to attempt +as moving the sun out of its place in the sky. The old +chap could eat in his terrific mechanical way; but Sterne, +from mental excitement, could not--not that evening, +at any rate. + +He had had ample time since to get accustomed to the +strain of the meal-hours. He would never have believed +it. But then use is everything; only the very potency +of his success prevented anything resembling elation. +He felt like a man who, in his legitimate search for a +loaded gun to help him on his way through the world, +chances to come upon a torpedo--upon a live torpedo +with a shattering charge in its head and a pressure of +many atmospheres in its tail. It is the sort of weapon +to make its possessor careworn and nervous. He had +no mind to be blown up himself; and he could not get +rid of the notion that the explosion was bound to damage +him too in some way. + +This vague apprehension had restrained him at first. +He was able now to eat and sleep with that fearful +weapon by his side, with the conviction of its power +always in mind. It had not been arrived at by any +reflective process; but once the idea had entered his +head, the conviction had followed overwhelmingly in a +multitude of observed little facts to which before he had +given only a languid attention. The abrupt and falter- +ing intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put +on like an armor; the deliberate, as if guarded, move- +ments; the long immobilities, as if the man he watched +had been afraid to disturb the very air: every familiar +gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, every sigh +overheard, had acquired a special significance, a con- +firmatory import. + +Every day that passed over the Sofala appeared to +Sterne simply crammed full with proofs--with incon- +trovertible proofs. At night, when off duty, he would +steal out of his cabin in pyjamas (for more proofs) and +stand a full hour, perhaps, on his bare feet below the +bridge, as absolutely motionless as the awning stanchion +in its deck socket near by. On the stretches of easy +navigation it is not usual for a coasting captain to re- +main on deck all the time of his watch. The Serang +keeps it for him as a matter of custom; in open water, +on a straight course, he is usually trusted to look after +the ship by himself. But this old man seemed incapable +of remaining quietly down below. No doubt he could +not sleep. And no wonder. This was also a proof. +Suddenly in the silence of the ship panting upon the +still, dark sea, Sterne would hear a low voice above him +exclaiming nervously-- + +"Serang!" + +"Tuan!" + +"You are watching the compass well?" + +"Yes, I am watching, Tuan." + +"The ship is making her course?" + +"She is, Tuan. Very straight." + +"It is well; and remember, Serang, that the order +is that you are to mind the helmsmen and keep a look- +out with care, the same as if I were not on deck." + +Then, when the Serang had made his answer, the low +tones on the bridge would cease, and everything round +Sterne seemed to become more still and more profoundly +silent. Slightly chilled and with his back aching a little +from long immobility, he would steal away to his room +on the port side of the deck. He had long since parted +with the last vestige of incredulity; of the original +emotions, set into a tumult by the discovery, some trace +of the first awe alone remained. Not the awe of the +man himself--he could blow him up sky-high with six +words--rather it was an awestruck indignation at the +reckless perversity of avarice (what else could it be?), +at the mad and somber resolution that for the sake of a +few dollars more seemed to set at naught the common +rule of conscience and pretended to struggle against +the very decree of Providence. + +You could not find another man like this one in the +whole round world--thank God. There was something +devilishly dauntless in the character of such a deception +which made you pause. + +Other considerations occurring to his prudence had +kept him tongue-tied from day to day. It seemed to +him now that it would yet have been easier to speak out +in the first hour of discovery. He almost regretted not +having made a row at once. But then the very mon- +strosity of the disclosure . . . Why! He could hardly +face it himself, let alone pointing it out to somebody +else. Moreover, with a desperado of that sort one never +knew. The object was not to get him out (that was +as well as done already), but to step into his place. +Bizarre as the thought seemed he might have shown +fight. A fellow up to working such a fraud would have +enough cheek for anything; a fellow that, as it were, +stood up against God Almighty Himself. He was a +horrid marvel--that's what he was: he was perfectly +capable of brazening out the affair scandalously till he +got him (Sterne) kicked out of the ship and everlast- +ingly damaged his prospects in this part of the East. +Yet if you want to get on something must be risked. At +times Sterne thought he had been unduly timid of taking +action in the past; and what was worse, it had come to +this, that in the present he did not seem to know what +action to take. + +Massy's savage moroseness was too disconcerting. It +was an incalculable factor of the situation. You could +not tell what there was behind that insulting ferocity. +How could one trust such a temper; it did not put +Sterne in bodily fear for himself, but it frightened him +exceedingly as to his prospects. + +Though of course inclined to credit himself with ex- +ceptional powers of observation, he had by now lived +too long with his discovery. He had gone on looking +at nothing else, till at last one day it occurred to him +that the thing was so obvious that no one could miss +seeing it. There were four white men in all on board +the Sofala. Jack, the second engineer, was too dull to +notice anything that took place out of his engine-room. +Remained Massy--the owner--the interested person-- +nearly going mad with worry. Sterne had heard and +seen more than enough on board to know what ailed him; +but his exasperation seemed to make him deaf to cau- +tious overtures. If he had only known it, there was the +very thing he wanted. But how could you bargain with +a man of that sort? It was like going into a tiger's den +with a piece of raw meat in your hand. He was as +likely as not to rend you for your pains. In fact, he +was always threatening to do that very thing; and the +urgency of the case, combined with the impossibility of +handling it with safety, made Sterne in his watches below +toss and mutter open-eyed in his bunk, for hours, as +though he had been burning with fever. + +Occurrences like the crossing of the bar just now were +extremely alarming to his prospects. He did not want +to be left behind by some swift catastrophe. Massy be- +ing on the bridge, the old man had to brace himself up +and make a show, he supposed. But it was getting very +bad with him, very bad indeed, now. Even Massy had +been emboldened to find fault this time; Sterne, listen- +ing at the foot of the ladder, had heard the other's +whimpering and artless denunciations. Luckily the +beast was very stupid and could not see the why of all +this. However, small blame to him; it took a clever man +to hit upon the cause. Nevertheless, it was high time to +do something. The old man's game could not be kept +up for many days more. + +"I may yet lose my life at this fooling--let alone my +chance," Sterne mumbled angrily to himself, after the +stooping back of the chief engineer had disappeared +round the corner of the skylight. Yes, no doubt--he +thought; but to blurt out his knowledge would not ad- +vance his prospects. On the contrary, it would blast +them utterly as likely as not. He dreaded another +failure. He had a vague consciousness of not being +much liked by his fellows in this part of the world; inex- +plicably enough, for he had done nothing to them. +Envy, he supposed. People were always down on a +clever chap who made no bones about his determination +to get on. To do your duty and count on the gratitude +of that brute Massy would be sheer folly. He was a bad +lot. Unmanly! A vicious man! Bad! Bad! A brute! +A brute without a spark of anything human about him; +without so much as simple curiosity even, or else surely +he would have responded in some way to all these hints +he had been given. . . . Such insensibility was almost +mysterious. Massy's state of exasperation seemed to +Sterne to have made him stupid beyond the ordinary +silliness of shipowners. + +Sterne, meditating on the embarrassments of that stu- +pidity, forgot himself completely. His stony, unwink- +ing stare was fixed on the planks of the deck. + +The slight quiver agitating the whole fabric of the +ship was more perceptible in the silent river, shaded and +still like a forest path. The Sofala, gliding with an +even motion, had passed beyond the coast-belt of mud +and mangroves. The shores rose higher, in firm slop- +ing banks, and the forest of big trees came down to the +brink. Where the earth had been crumbled by the +floods it showed a steep brown cut, denuding a mass of +roots intertwined as if wrestling underground; and in +the air, the interlaced boughs, bound and loaded with +creepers, carried on the struggle for life, mingled their +foliage in one solid wall of leaves, with here and there +the shape of an enormous dark pillar soaring, or a +ragged opening, as if torn by the flight of a cannon- +ball, disclosing the impenetrable gloom within, the +secular inviolable shade of the virgin forest. The +thump of the engines reverberated regularly like the +strokes of a metronome beating the measure of the vast +silence, the shadow of the western wall had fallen across +the river, and the smoke pouring backwards from the +funnel eddied down behind the ship, spread a thin +dusky veil over the somber water, which, checked by +the flood-tide, seemed to lie stagnant in the whole +straight length of the reaches. + +Sterne's body, as if rooted on the spot, trembled slightly +from top to toe with the internal vibration of the ship; +from under his feet came sometimes a sudden clang of +iron, the noisy burst of a shout below; to the right the +leaves of the tree-tops caught the rays of the low sun, +and seemed to shine with a golden green light of their +own shimmering around the highest boughs which stood +out black against a smooth blue sky that seemed to +droop over the bed of the river like the roof of a tent. +The passengers for Batu Beru, kneeling on the planks, +were engaged in rolling their bedding of mats busily; +they tied up bundles, they snapped the locks of wooden +chests. A pockmarked peddler of small wares threw his +head back to drain into his throat the last drops out of +an earthenware bottle before putting it away in a roll +of blankets. Knots of traveling traders standing about +the deck conversed in low tones; the followers of a small +Rajah from down the coast, broad-faced, simple young +fellows in white drawers and round white cotton caps +with their colored sarongs twisted across their bronze +shoulders, squatted on their hams on the hatch, chewing +betel with bright red mouths as if they had been tasting +blood. Their spears, lying piled up together within the +circle of their bare toes, resembled a casual bundle of +dry bamboos; a thin, livid Chinaman, with a bulky +package wrapped up in leaves already thrust under his +arm, gazed ahead eagerly; a wandering Kling rubbed +his teeth with a bit of wood, pouring over the side a +bright stream of water out of his lips; the fat Rajah +dozed in a shabby deck-chair,--and at the turn of every +bend the two walls of leaves reappeared running +parallel along the banks, with their impenetrable solidity +fading at the top to a vaporous mistiness of countless +slender twigs growing free, of young delicate branches +shooting from the topmost limbs of hoary trunks, of +feathery heads of climbers like delicate silver sprays +standing up without a quiver. There was not a sign +of a clearing anywhere; not a trace of human habita- +tion, except when in one place, on the bare end of a low +point under an isolated group of slender tree-ferns, the +jagged, tangled remnants of an old hut on piles ap- +peared with that peculiar aspect of ruined bamboo walls +that look as if smashed with a club. Farther on, half +hidden under the drooping bushes, a canoe containing +a man and a woman, together with a dozen green cocoa- +nuts in a heap, rocked helplessly after the Sofala had +passed, like a navigating contrivance of venturesome +insects, of traveling ants; while two glassy folds of +water streaming away from each bow of the steamer +across the whole width of the river ran with her up +stream smoothly, fretting their outer ends into a brown +whispering tumble of froth against the miry foot of +each bank. + +"I must," thought Sterne, "bring that brute Massy +to his bearings. It's getting too absurd in the end. +Here's the old man up there buried in his chair--he +may just as well be in his grave for all the use he'll ever +be in the world--and the Serang's in charge. Because +that's what he is. In charge. In the place that's mine +by rights. I must bring that savage brute to his bear- +ings. I'll do it at once, too . . ." + +When the mate made an abrupt start, a little brown +half-naked boy, with large black eyes, and the string +of a written charm round his neck, became panic-struck +at once. He dropped the banana he had been munch- +ing, and ran to the knee of a grave dark Arab in flow- +ing robes, sitting like a Biblical figure, incongruously, +on a yellow tin trunk corded with a rope of twisted +rattan. The father, unmoved, put out his hand to pat +the little shaven poll protectingly. + + +XI + +Sterne crossed the deck upon the track of the chief +engineer. Jack, the second, retreating backwards down +the engine-room ladder, and still wiping his hands, +treated him to an incomprehensible grin of white teeth +out of his grimy hard face; Massy was nowhere to be +seen. He must have gone straight into his berth. +Sterne scratched at the door softly, then, putting his +lips to the rose of the ventilator, said-- + +"I must speak to you, Mr. Massy. Just give me a +minute or two." + +"I am busy. Go away from my door." + +"But pray, Mr. Massy . . ." + +"You go away. D'you hear? Take yourself off alto- +gether--to the other end of the ship--quite away . . ." +The voice inside dropped low. "To the devil." + +Sterne paused: then very quietly-- + +"It's rather pressing. When do you think you will +be at liberty, sir?" + +The answer to this was an exasperated "Never"; and +at once Sterne, with a very firm expression of face, +turned the handle. + +Mr. Massy's stateroom--a narrow, one-berth cabin-- +smelt strongly of soap, and presented to view a swept, +dusted, unadorned neatness, not so much bare as barren, +not so much severe as starved and lacking in humanity, +like the ward of a public hospital, or rather (owing to +the small size) like the clean retreat of a desperately +poor but exemplary person. Not a single photograph +frame ornamented the bulkheads; not a single article of +clothing, not as much as a spare cap, hung from the +brass hooks. All the inside was painted in one plain +tint of pale blue; two big sea-chests in sailcloth covers +and with iron padlocks fitted exactly in the space under +the bunk. One glance was enough to embrace all the +strip of scrubbed planks within the four unconcealed +corners. The absence of the usual settee was striking; +the teak-wood top of the washing-stand seemed hermeti- +cally closed, and so was the lid of the writing-desk, +which protruded from the partition at the foot of the +bed-place, containing a mattress as thin as a pancake +under a threadbare blanket with a faded red stripe, and +a folded mosquito-net against the nights spent in harbor. +There was not a scrap of paper anywhere in sight, no +boots on the floor, no litter of any sort, not a speck of +dust anywhere; no traces of pipe-ash even, which, in +a heavy smoker, was morally revolting, like a manifesta- +tion of extreme hypocrisy; and the bottom of the old +wooden arm-chair (the only seat there), polished with +much use, shone as if its shabbiness had been waxed. +The screen of leaves on the bank, passing as if unrolled +endlessly in the round opening of the port, sent a waver- +ing network of light and shade into the place. + +Sterne, holding the door open with one hand, had thrust +in his head and shoulders. At this amazing intrusion +Massy, who was doing absolutely nothing, jumped up +speechless. + +"Don't call names," murmured Sterne hurriedly. "I +won't be called names. I think of nothing but your +good, Mr. Massy." + +A pause as of extreme astonishment followed. They +both seemed to have lost their tongues. Then the mate +went on with a discreet glibness. + +"You simply couldn't conceive what's going on on +board your ship. It wouldn't enter your head for a +moment. You are too good--too--too upright, Mr. +Massy, to suspect anybody of such a . . . It's enough +to make your hair stand on end." + +He watched for the effect: Massy seemed dazed, un- +comprehending. He only passed the palm of his hand +on the coal-black wisps plastered across the top of his +head. In a tone suddenly changed to confidential au- +dacity Sterne hastened on. + +"Remember that there's only six weeks left to +run . . ." The other was looking at him stonily . . . +"so anyhow you shall require a captain for the ship +before long." + +Then only, as if that suggestion had scarified his flesh +in the manner of red-hot iron, Massy gave a start and +seemed ready to shriek. He contained himself by a +great effort. + +"Require a captain," he repeated with scathing slow- +ness. "Who requires a captain? You dare to tell me +that I need any of you humbugging sailors to run my +ship. You and your likes have been fattening on me +for years. It would have hurt me less to throw +my money overboard. Pam--pe--red us--e--less +f-f-f-frauds. The old ship knows as much as the best +of you." He snapped his teeth audibly and growled +through them, "The silly law requires a captain." + +Sterne had taken heart of grace meantime. + +"And the silly insurance people too, as well," he said +lightly. "But never mind that. What I want to ask +is: Why shouldn't _I_ do, sir? I don't say but you could +take a steamer about the world as well as any of us +sailors. I don't pretend to tell YOU that it is a very +great trick . . ." He emitted a short, hollow guffaw, +familiarly . . . "I didn't make the law--but there it +is; and I am an active young fellow! I quite hold with +your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy. +I wouldn't try to give myself airs like that--that--er +lazy specimen of an old man up there." + +He put a marked emphasis on the last sentence, to +lead Massy away from the track in case . . . but he +did not doubt of now holding his success. The chief +engineer seemed nonplused, like a slow man invited to +catch hold of a whirligig of some sort. + +"What you want, sir, is a chap with no nonsense about +him, who would be content to be your sailing-master. +Quite right, too. Well, I am fit for the work as much +as that Serang. Because that's what it amounts to. +Do you know, sir, that a dam' Malay like a monkey is +in charge of your ship--and no one else. Just listen +to his feet pit-patting above us on the bridge--real +officer in charge. He's taking her up the river while +the great man is wallowing in the chair--perhaps asleep; +and if he is, that would not make it much worse either-- +take my word for it." + +He tried to thrust himself farther in. Massy, with +lowered forehead, one hand grasping the back of the +arm-chair, did not budge. + +"You think, sir, that the man has got you tight in +his agreement . . ." Massy raised a heavy snarling +face at this . . . "Well, sir, one can't help hearing +of it on board. It's no secret. And it has been the +talk on shore for years; fellows have been making bets +about it. No, sir! It's YOU who have got him at your +mercy. You will say that you can't dismiss him for +indolence. Difficult to prove in court, and so on. Why, +yes. But if you say the word, sir, I can tell you some- +thing about his indolence that will give you the clear +right to fire him out on the spot and put me in charge +for the rest of this very trip--yes, sir, before we leave +Batu Beru--and make him pay a dollar a day for his +keep till we get back, if you like. Now, what do you +think of that? Come, sir. Say the word. It's really +well worth your while, and I am quite ready to take +your bare word. A definite statement from you would +be as good as a bond." + +His eyes began to shine. He insisted. A simple state- +ment,--and he thought to himself that he would man- +age somehow to stick in his berth as long as it suited +him. He would make himself indispensable; the ship +had a bad name in her port; it would be easy to scare +the fellows off. Massy would have to keep him. + +"A definite statement from me would be enough," +Massy repeated slowly. + +"Yes, sir. It would." Sterne stuck out his chin +cheerily and blinked at close quarters with that uncon- +scious impudence which had the power to enrage Massy +beyond anything. + +The engineer spoke very distinctly. + +"Listen well to me, then, Mr. Sterne: I wouldn't-- +d'ye hear?--I wouldn't promise you the value of two +pence for anything YOU can tell me." + +He struck Sterne's arm away with a smart blow, and +catching hold of the handle pulled the door to. The +terrific slam darkened the cabin instantaneously to his +eye as if after the flash of an explosion. At once he +dropped into the chair. "Oh, no! You don't!" he +whispered faintly. + +The ship had in that place to shave the bank so close +that the gigantic wall of leaves came gliding like a +shutter against the port; the darkness of the primeval +forest seemed to flow into that bare cabin with the odor +of rotting leaves, of sodden soil--the strong muddy smell +of the living earth steaming uncovered after the pass- +ing of a deluge. The bushes swished loudly alongside; +above there was a series of crackling sounds, with a +sharp rain of small broken branches falling on the +bridge; a creeper with a great rustle snapped on the +head of a boat davit, and a long, luxuriant green twig +actually whipped in and out of the open port, leaving +behind a few torn leaves that remained suddenly at rest +on Mr. Massy's blanket. Then, the ship sheering out +in the stream, the light began to return but did not +augment beyond a subdued clearness: for the sun was +very low already, and the river, wending its sinuous +course through a multitude of secular trees as if at the +bottom of a precipitous gorge, had been already in- +vaded by a deepening gloom--the swift precursor of +the night. + +"Oh, no, you don't!" murmured the engineer again. +His lips trembled almost imperceptibly; his hands too, +a little: and to calm himself he opened the writing-desk, +spread out a sheet of thin grayish paper covered with +a mass of printed figures and began to scan them at- +tentively for the twentieth time this trip at least. + +With his elbows propped, his head between his hands, +he seemed to lose himself in the study of an abstruse +problem in mathematics. It was the list of the winning +numbers from the last drawing of the great lottery +which had been the one inspiring fact of so many years +of his existence. The conception of a life deprived of +that periodical sheet of paper had slipped away from +him entirely, as another man, according to his nature, +would not have been able to conceive a world without +fresh air, without activity, or without affection. A +great pile of flimsy sheets had been growing for years +in his desk, while the Sofala, driven by the faithful +Jack, wore out her boilers in tramping up and down the +Straits, from cape to cape, from river to river, from +bay to bay; accumulating by that hard labor of an +overworked, starved ship the blackened mass of these +documents. Massy kept them under lock and key like +a treasure. There was in them, as in the experience +of life, the fascination of hope, the excitement of a half- +penetrated mystery, the longing of a half-satisfied +desire. + +For days together, on a trip, he would shut himself +up in his berth with them: the thump of the toiling +engines pulsated in his ear; and he would weary his +brain poring over the rows of disconnected figures, be- +wildering by their senseless sequence, resembling the +hazards of destiny itself. He nourished a conviction +that there must be some logic lurking somewhere in the +results of chance. He thought he had seen its very +form. His head swam; his limbs ached; he puffed at +his pipe mechanically; a contemplative stupor would +soothe the fretfulness of his temper, like the passive +bodily quietude procured by a drug, while the intellect +remains tensely on the stretch. Nine, nine, aught, four, +two. He made a note. The next winning number of +the great prize was forty-seven thousand and five. These +numbers of course would have to be avoided in the future +when writing to Manilla for the tickets. He mumbled, +pencil in hand . . . "and five. Hm . . . hm." He +wetted his finger: the papers rustled. Ha! But what's +this? Three years ago, in the September drawing, it +was number nine, aught, four, two that took the first +prize. Most remarkable. There was a hint there of +a definite rule! He was afraid of missing some recondite +principle in the overwhelming wealth of his material. +What could it be? and for half an hour he would remain +dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching a +muscle. At his back the whole berth would be thick +with a heavy body of smoke, as if a bomb had burst +in there, unnoticed, unheard. + +At last he would lock up the desk with the decision of +unshaken confidence, jump and go out. He would +walk swiftly back and forth on that part of the foredeck +which was kept clear of the lumber and of the bodies of +the native passengers. They were a great nuisance, but +they were also a source of profit that could not be dis- +dained. He needed every penny of profit the Sofala +could make. Little enough it was, in all conscience! +The incertitude of chance gave him no concern, since +he had somehow arrived at the conviction that, in the +course of years, every number was bound to have his +winning turn. It was simply a matter of time and of +taking as many tickets as he could afford for every +drawing. He generally took rather more; all the earn- +ings of the ship went that way, and also the wages he +allowed himself as chief engineer. It was the wages he +paid to others that he begrudged with a reasoned and +at the same time a passionate regret. He scowled at +the lascars with their deck brooms, at the quarter- +masters rubbing the brass rails with greasy rags; he +was eager to shake his fist and roar abuse in bad Malay +at the poor carpenter--a timid, sickly, opium-fuddled +Chinaman, in loose blue drawers for all costume, who +invariably dropped his tools and fled below, with stream- +ing tail and shaking all over, before the fury of that +"devil." But it was when he raised up his eyes to the +bridge where one of these sailor frauds was always +planted by law in charge of his ship that he felt almost +dizzy with rage. He abominated them all; it was an +old feud, from the time he first went to sea, an un- +licked cub with a great opinion of himself, in the +engine-room. The slights that had been put upon him. +The persecutions he had suffered at the hands of skip- +pers--of absolute nobodies in a steamship after all. +And now that he had risen to be a shipowner they were +still a plague to him: he had absolutely to pay away +precious money to the conceited useless loafers:--As if +a fully qualified engineer--who was the owner as well-- +were not fit to be trusted with the whole charge of a +ship. Well! he made it pretty warm for them; but it +was a poor consolation. He had come in time to hate +the ship too for the repairs she required, for the coal- +bills he had to pay, for the poor beggarly freights she +earned. He would clench his hand as he walked and hit +the rail a sudden blow, viciously, as though she could +be made to feel pain. And yet he could not do without +er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth and +nail to keep his head above water till the expected flood +of fortune came sweeping up and landed him safely on +the high shore of his ambition. + +It was now to do nothing, nothing whatever, and have +plenty of money to do it on. He had tasted of power, +the highest form of it his limited experience was aware +of--the power of shipowning. What a deception! +Vanity of vanities! He wondered at his folly. He had +thrown away the substance for the shadow. Of the +gratification of wealth he did not know enough to excite +his imagination with any visions of luxury. How could +he--the child of a drunken boiler-maker--going +straight from the workshop into the engine-room of a +north-country collier! But the notion of the absolute +idleness of wealth he could very well conceive. He +reveled in it, to forget his present troubles; he imagined +himself walking about the streets of Hull (he knew their +gutters well as a boy) with his pockets full of sov- +ereigns. He would buy himself a house; his married +sisters, their husbands, his old workshop chums, would +render him infinite homage. There would be nothing +to think of. His word would be law. He had been out +of work for a long time before he won his prize, and he +remembered how Carlo Mariani (commonly known as +Paunchy Charley), the Maltese hotel-keeper at the +slummy end of Denham Street, had cringed joyfully +before him in the evening, when the news had come. +Poor Charley, though he made his living by ministering +to various abject vices, gave credit for their food to +many a piece of white wreckage. He was naively over- +joyed at the idea of his old bills being paid, and he +reckoned confidently on a spell of festivities in the +cavernous grog-shop downstairs. Massy remembered +the curious, respectful looks of the "trashy" white men +in the place. His heart had swelled within him. Massy +had left Charley's infamous den directly he had realized +the possibilities open to him, and with his nose in the air. +Afterwards the memory of these adulations was a great +sadness. + +This was the true power of money,--and no trouble +with it, nor any thinking required either. He thought +with difficulty and felt vividly; to his blunt brain the +problems offered by any ordered scheme of life seemed +in their cruel toughness to have been put in his way +by the obvious malevolence of men. As a shipowner +everyone had conspired to make him a nobody. How +could he have been such a fool as to purchase that ac- +cursed ship. He had been abominably swindled; there +was no end to this swindling; and as the difficulties of his +improvident ambition gathered thicker round him, he +really came to hate everybody he had ever come in con- +tact with. A temper naturally irritable and an amazing +sensitiveness to the claims of his own personality had +ended by making of life for him a sort of inferno--a +place where his lost soul had been given up to the tor- +ment of savage brooding. + +But he had never hated anyone so much as that old +man who had turned up one evening to save him from +an utter disaster,--from the conspiracy of the wretched +sailors. He seemed to have fallen on board from the +sky. His footsteps echoed on the empty steamer, and +the strange deep-toned voice on deck repeating inter- +rogatively the words, "Mr. Massy, Mr. Massy there?" +had been startling like a wonder. And coming up from +the depths of the cold engine-room, where he had been +pottering dismally with a candle amongst the enormous +shadows, thrown on all sides by the skeleton limbs of ma- +chinery, Massy had been struck dumb by astonishment +in the presence of that imposing old man with a beard +like a silver plate, towering in the dusk rendered lurid +by the expiring flames of sunset. + +"Want to see me on business? What business? I am +doing no business. Can't you see that this ship is laid +up?" Massy had turned at bay before the pursuing +irony of his disaster. Afterwards he could not believe +his ears. What was that old fellow getting at? Things +don't happen that way. It was a dream. He would +presently wake up and find the man vanished like a +shape of mist. The gravity, the dignity, the firm and +courteous tone of that athletic old stranger impressed +Massy. He was almost afraid. But it was no dream. +Five hundred pounds are no dream. At once he became +suspicious. What did it mean? Of course it was an +offer to catch hold of for dear life. But what could +there be behind? + +Before they had parted, after appointing a meeting +in a solicitor's office early on the morrow, Massy was +asking himself, What is his motive? He spent the night +in hammering out the clauses of the agreement--a +unique instrument of its sort whose tenor got bruited +abroad somehow and became the talk and wonder of the +port. + +Massy's object had been to secure for himself as many +ways as possible of getting rid of his partner without +being called upon at once to pay back his share. Cap- +tain Whalley's efforts were directed to making the money +secure. Was it not Ivy's money--a part of her fortune +whose only other asset was the time-defying body of her +old father? Sure of his forbearance in the strength of +his love for her, he accepted, with stately serenity, +Massy's stupidly cunning paragraphs against his in- +competence, his dishonesty, his drunkenness, for the sake +of other stringent stipulations. At the end of three +years he was at liberty to withdraw from the partner- +ship, taking his money with him. Provision was made +for forming a fund to pay him off. But if he left the +Sofala before the term, from whatever cause (barring +death), Massy was to have a whole year for paying. +"Illness?" the lawyer had suggested: a young man +fresh from Europe and not overburdened with business, +who was rather amused. Massy began to whine unctu- +ously, "How could he be expected? . . ." + +"Let that go," Captain Whalley had said with a +superb confidence in his body. "Acts of God," he +added. In the midst of life we are in death, but he +trusted his Maker with a still greater fearlessness--his +Maker who knew his thoughts, his human affections, and +his motives. His Creator knew what use he was making +of his health--how much he wanted it . . . "I trust +my first illness will be my last. I've never been ill that +I can remember," he had remarked. "Let it go." + +But at this early stage he had already awakened +Massy's hostility by refusing to make it six hundred +instead of five. "I cannot do that," was all he had said, +simply, but with so much decision that Massy desisted +at once from pressing the point, but had thought to +himself, "Can't! Old curmudgeon. WON'T! He must +have lots of money, but he would like to get hold of a +soft berth and the sixth part of my profits for nothing +if he only could." + +And during these years Massy's dislike grew under the +restraint of something resembling fear. The simplicity +of that man appeared dangerous. Of late he had +changed, however, had appeared less formidable and +with a lessened vigor of life, as though he had received +a secret wound. But still he remained incomprehensible +in his simplicity, fearlessness, and rectitude. And when +Massy learned that he meant to leave him at the end of +the time, to leave him confronted with the problem of +boilers, his dislike blazed up secretly into hate. + +It had made him so clear-eyed that for a long time now +Mr. Sterne could have told him nothing he did not +know. He had much ado in trying to terrorize that +mean sneak into silence; he wanted to deal alone with +the situation; and--incredible as it might have ap- +peared to Mr. Sterne--he had not yet given up the de- +sire and the hope of inducing that hated old man to +stay. Why! there was nothing else to do, unless he were +to abandon his chances of fortune. But now, suddenly, +since the crossing of the bar at Batu Beru things +seemed to be coming rapidly to a point. It disquieted +him so much that the study of the winning numbers +failed to soothe his agitation: and the twilight in the +cabin deepened, very somber. + +He put the list away, muttering once more, "Oh, no, +my boy, you don't. Not if I know it." He did not +mean the blinking, eavesdropping humbug to force his +action. He took his head again into his hands; his im- +mobility confined in the darkness of this shut-up little +place seemed to make him a thing apart infinitely re- +moved from the stir and the sounds of the deck. + +He heard them: the passengers were beginning to +jabber excitedly; somebody dragged a heavy box +past his door. He heard Captain Whalley's voice +above-- + +"Stations, Mr. Sterne." And the answer from some- +where on deck forward-- + +"Ay, ay, sir." + +"We shall moor head up stream this time; the ebb +has made." + +"Head up stream, sir." + +"You will see to it, Mr. Sterne." + +The answer was covered by the autocratic clang on the +engine-room gong. The propeller went on beating +slowly: one, two, three; one, two, three--with pauses as +if hesitating on the turn. The gong clanged time after +time, and the water churned this way and that by the +blades was making a great noisy commotion alongside. +Mr. Massy did not move. A shore-light on the other +bank, a quarter of a mile across the river, drifted, no +bigger than a tiny star, passing slowly athwart the cir- +cle of the port. Voices from Mr. Van Wyk's jetty an- +swered the hails from the ship; ropes were thrown and +missed and thrown again; the swaying flame of a torch +carried in a large sampan coming to fetch away in state +the Rajah from down the coast cast a sudden ruddy +glare into his cabin, over his very person. Mr. Massy +did not move. After a few last ponderous turns the +engines stopped, and the prolonged clanging of the +gong signified that the captain had done with them. A +great number of boats and canoes of all sizes boarded +the off-side of the Sofala. Then after a time the tumult +of splashing, of cries, of shuffling feet, of packages +dropped with a thump, the noise of the native passen- +gers going away, subsided slowly. On the shore, a +voice, cultivated, slightly authoritative, spoke very +close alongside-- + +"Brought any mail for me this time?" + +"Yes, Mr. Van Wyk." This was from Sterne, an- +swering over the rail in a tone of respectful cordiality. +"Shall I bring it up to you?" + +But the voice asked again-- + +"Where's the captain?" + +"Still on the bridge, I believe. He hasn't left his +chair. Shall I . . ." + +The voice interrupted negligently. + +"I will come on board." + +"Mr. Van Wyk," Sterne suddenly broke out with an +eager effort, "will you do me the favor . . ." + +The mate walked away quickly towards the gangway. +A silence fell. Mr. Massy in the dark did not move. + +He did not move even when he heard slow shuffling +footsteps pass his cabin lazily. He contented himself +to bellow out through the closed door-- + +"You--Jack!" + +The footsteps came back without haste; the door +handle rattled, and the second engineer appeared in the +opening, shadowy in the sheen of the skylight at his +back, with his face apparently as black as the rest of +his figure. + +"We have been very long coming up this time," Mr. +Massy growled, without changing his attitude. + +"What do you expect with half the boiler tubes +plugged up for leaks." The second defended himself +loquaciously. + +"None of your lip," said Massy. + +"None of your rotten boilers--I say," retorted his +faithful subordinate without animation, huskily. "Go +down there and carry a head of steam on them yourself-- +if you dare. I don't." + +"You aren't worth your salt then," Massy said. The +other made a faint noise which resembled a laugh but +might have been a snarl. + +"Better go slow than stop the ship altogether," he +admonished his admired superior. Mr. Massy moved +at last. He turned in his chair, and grinding his +teeth-- + +"Dam' you and the ship! I wish she were at the +bottom of the sea. Then you would have to starve." + +The trusty second engineer closed the door gently. + +Massy listened. Instead of passing on to the bath- +room where he should have gone to clean himself, the +second entered his cabin, which was next door. Mr. +Massy jumped up and waited. Suddenly he heard the +lock snap in there. He rushed out and gave a violent +kick to the door. + +"I believe you are locking yourself up to get drunk," +he shouted. + +A muffled answer came after a while. + +"My own time." + +"If you take to boozing on the trip I'll fire you out," +Massy cried. + +An obstinate silence followed that threat. Massy +moved away perplexed. On the bank two figures ap- +peared, approaching the gangway. He heard a voice +tinged with contempt-- + +"I would rather doubt your word. But I shall cer- +tainly speak to him of this." + +The other voice, Sterne's, said with a sort of regretful +formality-- + +"Thanks. That's all I want. I must do my duty." + +Mr. Massy was surprised. A short, dapper figure +leaped lightly on the deck and nearly bounded into him +where he stood beyond the circle of light from the gang- +way lamp. When it had passed towards the bridge, +after exchanging a hurried "Good evening," Massy +said surlily to Sterne who followed with slow steps-- + +"What is it you're making up to Mr. Van Wyk for, +now?" + +"Far from it, Mr. Massy. I am not good enough for +Mr. Van Wyk. Neither are you, sir, in his opinion, I +am afraid. Captain Whalley is, it seems. He's gone +to ask him to dine up at the house this evening." + +Then he murmured to himself darkly-- + +"I hope he will like it." + + +XII + +Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex- +naval officer who, for reasons best known to himself, had +thrown away the promise of a brilliant career to become +the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that remote part of +the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley. The +appearance of the new skipper had attracted his atten- +tion. Nothing more unlike all the diverse types he had +seen succeeding each other on the bridge of the Sofala +could be imagined. + +At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become +since: the center of a prosperous tobacco-growing dis- +trict, a tropically suburban-looking little settlement of +bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows of +trees, embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance +of the gardens, with a three-mile-long carriage-road for +the afternoon drives and a first-class Resident with a +fat, cheery wife to lead the society of married estate- +managers and unmarried young fellows in the service +of the big companies. + +All this prosperity was not yet; and Mr. Van Wyk +prospered alone on the left bank on his deep clearing +carved out of the forest, which came down above and +below to the water's edge. His lonely bungalow faced +across the river the houses of the Sultan: a restless and +melancholy old ruler who had done with love and war, +for whom life no longer held any savor (except of evil +forebodings) and time never had any value. He was +afraid of death, and hoped he would die before the white +men were ready to take his country from him. He +crossed the river frequently (with never less than ten +boats crammed full of people), in the wistful hope of +extracting some information on the subject from his +own white man. There was a certain chair on the +veranda he always took: the dignitaries of the court +squatted on the rugs and skins between the furniture: +the inferior people remained below on the grass plot +between the house and the river in rows three or four +deep all along the front. Not seldom the visit began at +daybreak. Mr. Van Wyk tolerated these inroads. He +would nod out of his bedroom window, tooth-brush or +razor in hand, or pass through the throng of courtiers in +his bathing robe. He appeared and disappeared hum- +ming a tune, polished his nails with attention, rubbed +his shaved face with eau-de-Cologne, drank his early +tea, went out to see his coolies at work: returned, looked +through some papers on his desk, read a page or two +in a book or sat before his cottage piano leaning back +on the stool, his arms extended, fingers on the keys, his +body swaying slightly from side to side. When abso- +lutely forced to speak he gave evasive vaguely soothing +answers out of pure compassion: the same feeling per- +haps made him so lavishly hospitable with the aerated +drinks that more than once he left himself without soda- +water for a whole week. That old man had granted him +as much land as he cared to have cleared: it was neither +more nor less than a fortune. + +Whether it was fortune or seclusion from his kind that +Mr. Van Wyk sought, he could not have pitched upon +a better place. Even the mail-boats of the subsidized +company calling on the veriest clusters of palm-thatched +hovels along the coast steamed past the mouth of Batu +Beru river far away in the offing. The contract was +old: perhaps in a few years' time, when it had expired, +Batu Beru would be included in the service; meantime +all Mr. Van Wyk's mail was addressed to Malacca, +whence his agent sent it across once a month by the +Sofala. It followed that whenever Massy had run short +of money (through taking too many lottery tickets), +or got into a difficulty about a skipper, Mr. Van Wyk +was deprived of his letter and newspapers. In so far +he had a personal interest in the fortunes of the Sofala. +Though he considered himself a hermit (and for no +passing whim evidently, since he had stood eight years +of it already), he liked to know what went on in the +world. + +Handy on the veranda upon a walnut etagere (it had +come last year by the Sofala--everything came by the +Sofala) there lay, piled up under bronze weights, a pile +of the Times' weekly edition, the large sheets of the +Rotterdam Courant, the Graphic in its world-wide +green wrappers, an illustrated Dutch publication with- +out a cover, the numbers of a German magazine with +covers of the "Bismarck malade" color. There were +also parcels of new music--though the piano (it had +come years ago by the Sofala in the damp atmosphere +of the forests was generally out of tune. It was vexing +to be cut off from everything for sixty days at a stretch +sometimes, without any means of knowing what was the +matter. And when the Sofala reappeared Mr. Van Wyk +would descend the steps of the veranda and stroll over +the grass plot in front of his house, down to the water- +side, with a frown on his white brow. + +"You've been laid up after an accident, I presume." + +He addressed the bridge, but before anybody could +answer Massy was sure to have already scrambled ashore +over the rail and pushed in, squeezing the palms of his +hands together, bowing his sleek head as if gummed all +over the top with black threads and tapes. And he +would be so enraged at the necessity of having to offer +such an explanation that his moaning would be posi- +tively pitiful, while all the time he tried to compose +his big lips into a smile. + +"No, Mr. Van Wyk. You would not believe it. I +couldn't get one of those wretches to take the ship out. +Not a single one of the lazy beasts could be induced, +and the law, you know, Mr. Van Wyk . . ." + +He moaned at great length apologetically; the words +conspiracy, plot, envy, came out prominently, whined +with greater energy. Mr. Van Wyk, examining with +a faint grimace his polished finger-nails, would say, +"H'm. Very unfortunate," and turn his back on him. + +Fastidious, clever, slightly skeptical, accustomed to the +best society (he had held a much-envied shore appoint- +ment at the Ministry of Marine for a year preceding +his retreat from his profession and from Europe), he +possessed a latent warmth of feeling and a capacity for +sympathy which were concealed by a sort of haughty, +arbitrary indifference of manner arising from his early +training; and by a something an enemy might have +called foppish, in his aspect--like a distorted echo of +past elegance. He managed to keep an almost mili- +tary discipline amongst the coolies of the estate he had +dragged into the light of day out of the tangle and +shadows of the jungle; and the white shirt he put +on every evening with its stiff glossy front and high +collar looked as if he had meant to preserve the decent +ceremony of evening-dress, but had wound a thick crim- +son sash above his hips as a concession to the wilderness, +once his adversary, now his vanquished companion. + +Moreover, it was a hygienic precaution. Worn wide +open in front, a short jacket of some airy silken stuff +floated from his shoulders. His fluffy, fair hair, thin +at the top, curled slightly at the sides; a carefully ar- +ranged mustache, an ungarnished forehead, the gleam +of low patent shoes peeping under the wide bottom of +trowsers cut straight from the same stuff as the gossa- +mer coat, completed a figure recalling, with its sash, a +pirate chief of romance, and at the same time the ele- +gance of a slightly bald dandy indulging, in seclusion, +a taste for unorthodox costume. + +It was his evening get-up. The proper time for the +Sofala to arrive at Batu Beru was an hour before sun- +set, and he looked picturesque, and somehow quite cor- +rect too, walking at the water's edge on the background +of grass slope crowned with a low long bungalow with +an immensely steep roof of palm thatch, and clad to the +eaves in flowering creepers. While the Sofala was being +made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees left +near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on +board. Her white men were not of his kind. The old +Sultan (though his wistful invasions were a nuisance) +was really much more acceptable to his fastidious taste. +But still they were white; the periodical visits of the +ship made a break in the well-filled sameness of the +days without disturbing his privacy. Moreover, they +were necessary from a business point of view; and +through a strain of preciseness in his nature he was +irritated when she failed to appear at the appointed +time. + +The cause of the irregularity was too absurd, and +Massy, in his opinion, was a contemptible idiot. The +first time the Sofala reappeared under the new agree- +ment swinging out of the bend below, after he had +almost given up all hope of ever seeing her again, he +felt so angry that he did not go down at once to the +landing-place. His servants had come running to him +with the news, and he had dragged a chair close against +the front rail of the veranda, spread his elbows out, +rested his chin on his hands, and went on glaring at +her fixedly while she was being made fast opposite his +house. He could make out easily all the white faces on +board. Who on earth was that kind of patriarch they +had got there on the bridge now? + +At last he sprang up and walked down the gravel path. +It was a fact that the very gravel for his paths had +been imported by the Sofala. Exasperated out of his +quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone right +or left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined +a manner that the engineer, taken aback, began to +stammer unintelligibly. Nothing could be heard but +the words: "Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van +Wyk . . . For the future, Mr. Van Wyk"--and by the +suffusion of blood Massy's vast bilious face acquired an +unnatural orange tint, out of which the disconcerted +coal-black eyes shone in an extraordinary manner. + +"Nonsense. I am tired of this. I wonder you have +the impudence to come alongside my jetty as if I had +it made for your convenience alone." + +Massy tried to protest earnestly. Mr. Van Wyk was +very angry. He had a good mind to ask that German +firm--those people in Malacca--what was their name?-- +boats with green funnels. They would be only too glad +of the opening to put one of their small steamers on +the run. Yes; Schnitzler, Jacob Schnitzler, would in a +moment. Yes. He had decided to write without delay. + +In his agitation Massy caught up his falling pipe. + +"You don't mean it, sir!" he shrieked. + +"You shouldn't mismanage your business in this +ridiculous manner." + +Mr. Van Wyk turned on his heel. The other three +whites on the bridge had not stirred during the scene. +Massy walked hastily from side to side, puffed out his +cheeks, suffocated. + +"Stuck up Dutchman!" + +And he moaned out feverishly a long tale of griefs. +The efforts he had made for all these years to please +that man. This was the return you got for it, eh? +Pretty. Write to Schnitzler--let in the green-funnel +boats--get an old Hamburg Jew to ruin him. No, +really he could laugh. . . . He laughed sobbingly. . . . +Ha! ha! ha! And make him carry the letter in his own +ship presumably. + +He stumbled across a grating and swore. He would +not hesitate to fling the Dutchman's correspondence +overboard--the whole confounded bundle. He had +never, never made any charge for that accommodation. +But Captain Whalley, his new partner, would not let +him probably; besides, it would be only putting off the +evil day. For his own part he would make a hole in the +water rather than look on tamely at the green funnels +overrunning his trade. + +He raved aloud. The China boys hung back with the +dishes at the foot of the ladder. He yelled from the +bridge down at the deck, "Aren't we going to have any +chow this evening at all?" then turned violently to +Captain Whalley, who waited, grave and patient, at +the head of the table, smoothing his beard in silence +now and then with a forbearing gesture. + +"You don't seem to care what happens to me. Don't +you see that this affects your interests as much as mine? +It's no joking matter." + +He took the foot of the table growling between his +teeth. + +"Unless you have a few thousands put away some- +where. I haven't." + +Mr. Van Wyk dined in his thoroughly lit-up bunga- +low, putting a point of splendor in the night of his +clearing above the dark bank of the river. Afterwards +he sat down to his piano, and in a pause he became aware +of slow footsteps passing on the path along the front. +A plank or two creaked under a heavy tread; he swung +half round on the music-stool, listening with his finger- +tips at rest on the keyboard. His little terrier barked +violently, backing in from the veranda. A deep voice +apologized gravely for "this intrusion." He walked out +quickly. + +At the head of the steps the patriarchal figure, who +was the new captain of the Sofala apparently (he had +seen a round dozen of them, but not one of that sort), +towered without advancing. The little dog barked un- +ceasingly, till a flick of Mr. Van Wyk's handkerchief +made him spring aside into silence. Captain Whalley, +opening the matter, was met by a punctiliously polite +but determined opposition. + +They carried on their discussion standing where they +had come face to face. Mr. Van Wyk observed his +visitor with attention. Then at last, as if forced out of +his reserve-- + +"I am surprised that you should intercede for such a +confounded fool." + +This outbreak was almost complimentary, as if its +meaning had been, "That such a man as you should +intercede!" Captain Whalley let it pass by without +flinching. One would have thought he had heard noth- +ing. He simply went on to state that he was personally +interested in putting things straight between them. +Personally . . . + +But Mr. Van Wyk, really carried away by his disgust +with Massy, became very incisive-- + +"Indeed--if I am to be frank with you--his whole +character does not seem to me particularly estimable or +trustworthy . . ." + +Captain Whalley, always straight, seemed to grow an +inch taller and broader, as if the girth of his chest had +suddenly expanded under his beard. + +"My dear sir, you don't think I came here to discuss +a man with whom I am--I am--h'm--closely asso- +ciated." + +A sort of solemn silence lasted for a moment. He was +not used to asking favors, but the importance he at- +tached to this affair had made him willing to try. . . . +Mr. Van Wyk, favorably impressed, and suddenly mol- +lified by a desire to laugh, interrupted-- + +"That's all right if you make it a personal matter; +but you can do no less than sit down and smoke a cigar +with me." + +A slight pause, then Captain Whalley stepped forward +heavily. As to the regularity of the service, for the +future he made himself responsible for it; and his name +was Whalley--perhaps to a sailor (he was speaking to +a sailor, was he not?) not altogether unfamiliar. There +was a lighthouse now, on an island. Maybe Mr. Van +Wyk himself . . . + +"Oh yes. Oh indeed." Mr. Van Wyk caught on at +once. He indicated a chair. How very interesting. +For his own part he had seen some service in the last +Acheen War, but had never been so far East. Whalley +Island? Of course. Now that was very interesting. +What changes his guest must have seen since. + +"I can look further back even--on a whole half- +century." + +Captain Whalley expanded a bit. The flavor of a +good cigar (it was a weakness) had gone straight to his +heart, also the civility of that young man. There was +something in that accidental contact of which he had +been starved in his years of struggle. + +The front wall retreating made a square recess fur- +nished like a room. A lamp with a milky glass shade, +suspended below the slope of the high roof at the end +of a slender brass chain, threw a bright round of light +upon a little table bearing an open book and an ivory +paper-knife. And, in the translucent shadows beyond, +other tables could be seen, a number of easy-chairs of +various shapes, with a great profusion of skin rugs +strewn on the teakwood planking all over the veranda. +The flowering creepers scented the air. Their foliage +clipped out between the uprights made as if several +frames of thick unstirring leaves reflecting the lamp- +light in a green glow. Through the opening at his +elbow Captain Whalley could see the gangway lantern +of the Sofala burning dim by the shore, the shadowy +masses of the town beyond the open lustrous darkness +of the river, and, as if hung along the straight edge +of the projecting eaves, a narrow black strip of the +night sky full of stars--resplendent. The famous cigar +in hand he had a moment of complacency. + +"A trifle. Somebody must lead the way. I just +showed that the thing could be done; but you men +brought up to the use of steam cannot conceive the +vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to +the Eastern trade of the time. Why, that new route +reduced the average time of a southern passage by +eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven days! +It's on record. But the remarkable thing--speaking +to a sailor--I should say was . . ." + +He talked well, without egotism, professionally. The +powerful voice, produced without effort, filled the +bungalow even into the empty rooms with a deep and +limpid resonance, seemed to make a stillness outside; +and Mr. Van Wyk was surprised by the serene quality +of its tone, like the perfection of manly gentleness. +Nursing one small foot, in a silk sock and a patent +leather shoe, on his knee, he was immensely entertained. +It was as if nobody could talk like this now, and the +overshadowed eyes, the flowing white beard, the big +frame, the serenity, the whole temper of the man, were +an amazing survival from the prehistoric times of the +world coming up to him out of the sea. + +Captain Whalley had been also the pioneer of the early +trade in the Gulf of Pe-tchi-li. He even found occasion +to mention that he had buried his "dear wife" there +six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive, +could not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to +the sort of woman that would mate with such a man. +Did they make an adventurous and well-matched pair? +No. Very possible she had been small, frail, no doubt +very feminine--or most likely commonplace with do- +mestic instincts, utterly insignificant. But Captain +Whalley was no garrulous bore, and shaking his head +as if to dissipate the momentary gloom that had settled +on his handsome old face, he alluded conversationally to +Mr. Van Wyk's solitude. + +Mr. Van Wyk affirmed that sometimes he had more +company than he wanted. He mentioned smilingly +some of the peculiarities of his intercourse with "My +Sultan." He made his visits in force. Those people +damaged his grass plot in front (it was not easy to +obtain some approach to a lawn in the tropics, and the +other day had broken down some rare bushes he had +planted over there. And Captain Whalley remembered +immediately that, in 'forty-seven, the then Sultan, "this +man's grandfather," had been notorious as a great pro- +tector of the piratical fleets of praus from farther East. +They had a safe refuge in the river at Batu Beru. He +financed more especially a Balinini chief called Haji +Daman. Captain Whalley, nodding significantly his +bushy white eyebrows, had very good reason to know +something of that. The world had progressed since +that time. + +Mr. Van Wyk demurred with unexpected acrimony. +Progressed in what? he wanted to know. + +Why, in knowledge of truth, in decency, in justice, in +order--in honesty too, since men harmed each other +mostly from ignorance. It was, Captain Whalley con- +cluded quaintly, more pleasant to live in. + +Mr. Van Wyk whimsically would not admit that Mr. +Massy, for instance, was more pleasant naturally than +the Balinini pirates. + +The river had not gained much by the change. They +were in their way every bit as honest. Massy was less +ferocious than Haji Daman no doubt, but . . . + +"And what about you, my good sir?" Captain +Whalley laughed a deep soft laugh. "YOU are an im- +provement, surely." + +He continued in a vein of pleasantry. A good cigar +was better than a knock on the head--the sort of wel- +come he would have found on this river forty or fifty +years ago. Then leaning forward slightly, he became +earnestly serious. It seems as if, outside their own sea- +gypsy tribes, these rovers had hated all mankind with +an incomprehensible, bloodthirsty hatred. Meantime +their depredations had been stopped, and what was the +consequence? The new generation was orderly, peace- +able, settled in prosperous villages. He could speak +from personal knowledge. And even the few survivors +of that time--old men now--had changed so much, that +it would have been unkind to remember against them +that they had ever slit a throat in their lives. He had +one especially in his mind's eye: a dignified, venerable +headman of a certain large coast village about sixty +miles sou'west of Tampasuk. It did one's heart good +to see him--to hear that man speak. He might have +been a ferocious savage once. What men wanted was +to be checked by superior intelligence, by superior +knowledge, by superior force too--yes, by force held in +trust from God and sanctified by its use in accordance +with His declared will. Captain Whalley believed a dis- +position for good existed in every man, even if the +world were not a very happy place as a whole. In the +wisdom of men he had not so much confidence. The dis- +position had to be helped up pretty sharply sometimes, +he admitted. They might be silly, wrongheaded, un- +happy; but naturally evil--no. There was at bottom +a complete harmlessness at least . . . + +"Is there?" Mr. Van Wyk snapped acrimoniously. + +Captain Whalley laughed at the interjection, in the +good humor of large, tolerating certitude. He could +look back at half a century, he pointed out. The smoke +oozed placidly through the white hairs hiding his kindly +lips. + +"At all events," he resumed after a pause, "I am +glad that they've had no time to do you much harm as +yet." + +This allusion to his comparative youthfulness did not +offend Mr. Van Wyk, who got up and wriggled his +shoulders with an enigmatic half-smile. They walked +out together amicably into the starry night towards +the river-side. Their footsteps resounded unequally on +the dark path. At the shore end of the gangway the +lantern, hung low to the handrail, threw a vivid light +on the white legs and the big black feet of Mr. Massy +waiting about anxiously. From the waist upwards he +remained shadowy, with a row of buttons gleaming up +to the vague outline of his chin. + +"You may thank Captain Whalley for this," Mr. Van +Wyk said curtly to him before turning away. + +The lamps on the veranda flung three long squares +of light between the uprights far over the grass. A bat +flitted before his face like a circling flake of velvety +blackness. Along the jasmine hedge the night air +seemed heavy with the fall of perfumed dew; flower- +beds bordered the path; the clipped bushes uprose in +dark rounded clumps here and there before the house; +the dense foliage of creepers filtered the sheen of the +lamplight within in a soft glow all along the front; +and everything near and far stood still in a great im- +mobility, in a great sweetness. + +Mr. Van Wyk (a few years before he had had occasion +to imagine himself treated more badly than anybody +alive had ever been by a woman) felt for Captain +Whalley's optimistic views the disdain of a man who +had once been credulous himself. His disgust with the +world (the woman for a time had filled it for him com- +pletely) had taken the form of activity in retirement, +because, though capable of great depth of feeling, he +was energetic and essentially practical. But there was +in that uncommon old sailor, drifting on the outskirts +of his busy solitude, something that fascinated his +skepticism. His very simplicity (amusing enough) was +like a delicate refinement of an upright character. The +striking dignity of manner could be nothing else, in a +man reduced to such a humble position, but the ex- +pression of something essentially noble in the character. +With all his trust in mankind he was no fool; the seren- +ity of his temper at the end of so many years, since it +could not obviously have been appeased by success, wore +an air of profound wisdom. Mr. Van Wyk was amused +at it sometimes. Even the very physical traits of the +old captain of the Sofala, his powerful frame, his re- +poseful mien, his intelligent, handsome face, the big +limbs, the benign courtesy, the touch of rugged severity +in the shaggy eyebrows, made up a seductive person- +ality. Mr. Van Wyk disliked littleness of every kind, +but there was nothing small about that man, and in +the exemplary regularity of many trips an intimacy had +grown up between them, a warm feeling at bottom under +a kindly stateliness of forms agreeable to his fastidious- +ness. + +They kept their respective opinions on all worldly +matters. His other convictions Captain Whalley never +intruded. The difference of their ages was like another +bond between them. Once, when twitted with the un- +charitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his +eye over the vast proportions of his interlocutor, re- +torted in friendly banter-- + +"Oh. You'll come to my way of thinking yet. You'll +have plenty of time. Don't call yourself old: you look +good for a round hundred." + +But he could not help his stinging incisiveness, and +though moderating it by an almost affectionate smile, +he added-- + +"And by then you will probably consent to die from +sheer disgust." + +Captain Whalley, smiling too, shook his head. "God +forbid!" + +He thought that perhaps on the whole he deserved +something better than to die in such sentiments. The +time of course would have to come, and he trusted to +his Maker to provide a manner of going out of which +he need not be ashamed. For the rest he hoped he +would live to a hundred if need be: other men had been +known; it would be no miracle. He expected no miracles. + +The pronounced, argumentative tone caused Mr. Van +Wyk to raise his head and look at him steadily. Cap- +tain Whalley was gazing fixedly with a rapt expression, +as though he had seen his Creator's favorable decree +written in mysterious characters on the wall. He kept +perfectly motionless for a few seconds, then got his vast +bulk on to his feet so impetuously that Mr. Van Wyk +was startled. + +He struck first a heavy blow on his inflated chest: and, +throwing out horizontally a big arm that remained +steady, extended in the air like the limb of a tree on +a windless day-- + +"Not a pain or an ache there. Can you see this shake +in the least?" + +His voice was low, in an awing, confident contrast with +the headlong emphasis of his movements. He sat down +abruptly. + +"This isn't to boast of it, you know. I am nothing," +he said in his effortless strong voice, that seemed to +come out as naturally as a river flows. He picked up the +stump of the cigar he had laid aside, and added peace- +fully, with a slight nod, "As it happens, my life is +necessary; it isn't my own, it isn't--God knows." + +He did not say much for the rest of the evening, but +several times Mr. Van Wyk detected a faint smile of +assurance flitting under the heavy mustache. + +Later on Captain Whalley would now and then consent +to dine "at the house." He could even be induced to +drink a glass of wine. "Don't think I am afraid of it, +my good sir," he explained. "There was a very good +reason why I should give it up." + +On another occasion, leaning back at ease, he remarked, +"You have treated me most--most humanely, my dear +Mr. Van Wyk, from the very first." + +"You'll admit there was some merit," Mr. Van Wyk +hinted slyly. "An associate of that excellent Massy. +. . . Well, well, my dear captain, I won't say a word +against him." + +"It would be no use your saying anything against +him," Captain Whalley affirmed a little moodily. "As +I've told you before, my life--my work, is necessary, not +for myself alone. I can't choose" . . . He paused, +turned the glass before him right round. . . . "I have +an only child--a daughter." + +The ample downward sweep of his arm over the table +seemed to suggest a small girl at a vast distance. "I +hope to see her once more before I die. Meantime it's +enough to know that she has me sound and solid, thank +God. You can't understand how one feels. Bone of my +bone, flesh of my flesh; the very image of my poor wife. +Well, she . . ." + +Again he paused, then pronounced stoically the words, +"She has a hard struggle." + +And his head fell on his breast, his eyebrows remained +knitted, as by an effort of meditation. But generally his +mind seemed steeped in the serenity of boundless trust +in a higher power. Mr. Van Wyk wondered sometimes +how much of it was due to the splendid vitality of the +man, to the bodily vigor which seems to impart some- +thing of its force to the soul. But he had learned to +like him very much. + + +XIII + +This was the reason why Mr. Sterne's confidential com- +munication, delivered hurriedly on the shore alongside +the dark silent ship, had disturbed his equanimity. It +was the most incomprehensible and unexpected thing +that could happen; and the perturbation of his spirit +was so great that, forgetting all about his letters, he ran +rapidly up the bridge ladder. + +The portable table was being put together for dinner +to the left of the wheel by two pig-tailed "boys," who +as usual snarled at each other over the job, while another, +a doleful, burly, very yellow Chinaman, resembling Mr. +Massy, waited apathetically with the cloth over his arm +and a pile of thick dinner-plates against his chest. A +common cabin lamp with its globe missing, brought up +from below, had been hooked to the wooden framework +of the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all +round; Captain Whalley filling the depths of the wicker- +chair seemed to sit benumbed in a canvas tent crudely +lighted, and used for the storing of nautical objects; a +shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle on a +stout mahogany stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork +fender lying in a corner, dilapidated deck-lockers with +loops of thin rope instead of door-handles. + +He shook off the appearance of numbness to return +Mr. Van Wyk's unusually brisk greeting, but relapsed +directly afterwards. To accept a pressing invitation to +dinner "up at the house" cost him another very visible +physical effort. Mr. Van Wyk, perplexed, folded his +arms, and leaning back against the rail, with his little, +black, shiny feet well out, examined him covertly. + +"I've noticed of late that you are not quite yourself, +old friend." + +He put an affectionate gentleness into the last two +words. The real intimacy of their intercourse had never +been so vividly expressed before. + +"Tut, tut, tut!" + +The wicker-chair creaked heavily. + +"Irritable," commented Mr. Van Wyk to himself; and +aloud, "I'll expect to see you in half an hour, then," he +said negligently, moving off. + +"In half an hour," Captain Whalley's rigid silvery +head repeated behind him as if out of a trance. + +Amidships, below, two voices, close against the engine- +room, could be heard answering each other--one angry +and slow, the other alert. + +"I tell you the beast has locked himself in to get +drunk." + +"Can't help it now, Mr. Massy. After all, a man has +a right to shut himself up in his cabin in his own time." + +"Not to get drunk." + +"I heard him swear that the worry with the boilers +was enough to drive any man to drink," Sterne said +maliciously. + +Massy hissed out something about bursting the door +in. Mr. Van Wyk, to avoid them, crossed in the dark +to the other side of the deserted deck. The planking +of the little wharf rattled faintly under his hasty feet. + +"Mr. Van Wyk! Mr. Van Wyk!" + +He walked on: somebody was running on the path. +"You've forgotten to get your mail." + +Sterne, holding a bundle of papers in his hand, caught +up with him. + +"Oh, thanks." + +But, as the other continued at his elbow, Mr. Van +Wyk stopped short. The overhanging eaves, descend- +ing low upon the lighted front of the bungalow, threw +their black straight-edged shadow into the great body +of the night on that side. Everything was very still. +A tinkle of cutlery and a slight jingle of glasses were +heard. Mr. Van Wyk's servants were laying the table +for two on the veranda. + +"I'm afraid you give me no credit whatever for my +good intentions in the matter I've spoken to you about," +said Sterne. + +"I simply don't understand you." + +"Captain Whalley is a very audacious man, but he +will understand that his game is up. That's all that +anybody need ever know of it from me. Believe me, I +am very considerate in this, but duty is duty. I don't +want to make a fuss. All I ask you, as his friend, is +to tell him from me that the game's up. That will be +sufficient." + +Mr. Van Wyk felt a loathsome dismay at this queer +privilege of friendship. He would not demean himself +by asking for the slightest explanation; to drive the +other away with contumely he did not think prudent-- +as yet, at any rate. So much assurance staggered him. +Who could tell what there could be in it, he thought? +His regard for Captain Whalley had the tenacity of +a disinterested sentiment, and his practical instinct com- +ing to his aid, he concealed his scorn. + +"I gather, then, that this is something grave." + +"Very grave," Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at +having produced an effect at last. He was ready to add +some effusive protestations of regret at the "unavoida- +ble necessity," but Mr. Van Wyk cut him short--very +civilly, however. + +Once on the veranda Mr. Van Wyk put his hands in his +pockets, and, straddling his legs, stared down at a +black panther skin lying on the floor before a rocking- +chair. "It looks as if the fellow had not the pluck +to play his own precious game openly," he thought. + +This was true enough. In the face of Massy's last +rebuff Sterne dared not declare his knowledge. His +object was simply to get charge of the steamer and +keep it for some time. Massy would never forgive him +for forcing himself on; but if Captain Whalley left +the ship of his own accord, the command would devolve +upon him for the rest of the trip; so he hit upon the +brilliant idea of scaring the old man away. A vague +menace, a mere hint, would be enough in such a brazen +case; and, with a strange admixture of compassion, he +thought that Batu Beru was a very good place for +throwing up the sponge. The skipper could go ashore +quietly, and stay with that Dutchman of his. Weren't +these two as thick as thieves together? And on reflec- +tion he seemed to see that there was a way to work the +whole thing through that great friend of the old man's. +This was another brilliant idea. He had an inborn +preference for circuitous methods. In this particular +case he desired to remain in the background as much +as possible, to avoid exasperating Massy needlessly. +No fuss! Let it all happen naturally. + +Mr. Van Wyk all through the dinner was conscious +of a sense of isolation that invades sometimes the close- +ness of human intercourse. Captain Whalley failed +lamentably and obviously in his attempts to eat some- +thing. He seemed overcome by a strange absent- +mindedness. His hand would hover irresolutely, as if +left without guidance by a preoccupied mind. Mr. Van +Wyk had heard him coming up from a long way off in +the profound stillness of the river-side, and had noticed +the irresolute character of the footfalls. The toe of his +boot had struck the bottom stair as though he had come +along mooning with his head in the air right up to the +steps of the veranda. Had the captain of the Sofala +been another sort of man he would have suspected the +work of age there. But one glance at him was enough. +Time--after, indeed, marking him for its own--had +given him up to his usefulness, in which his simple +faith would see a proof of Divine mercy. "How could +I contrive to warn him?" Mr. Van Wyk wondered, as +if Captain Whalley had been miles and miles away, out +of sight and earshot of all evil. He was sickened by +an immense disgust of Sterne. To even mention his +threat to a man like Whalley would be positively inde- +cent. There was something more vile and insulting in +its hint than in a definite charge of crime--the debasing +taint of blackmailing. "What could anyone bring +against him?" he asked himself. This was a limpid +personality. "And for what object?" The Power +that man trusted had thought fit to leave him nothing +on earth that envy could lay hold of, except a bare crust +of bread. + +"Won't you try some of this?" he asked, pushing a +dish slightly. Suddenly it seemed to Mr. Van Wyk that +Sterne might possibly be coveting the command of the +Sofala. His cynicism was quite startled by what looked +like a proof that no man may count himself safe from +his kind unless in the very abyss of misery. An in- +trigue of that sort was hardly worth troubling about, +he judged; but still, with such a fool as Massy to deal +with, Whalley ought to and must be warned. + +At this moment Captain Whalley, bolt upright, the +deep cavities of the eyes overhung by a bushy frown, +and one large brown hand resting on each side of his +empty plate, spoke across the tablecloth abruptly-- + +"Mr. Van Wyk, you've always treated me with the +most humane consideration." + +"My dear captain, you make too much of a simple +fact that I am not a savage." Mr. Van Wyk, utterly +revolted by the thought of Sterne's obscure attempt, +raised his voice incisively, as if the mate had been hiding +somewhere within earshot. "Any consideration I have +been able to show was no more than the rightful due +of a character I've learned to regard by this time with +an esteem that nothing can shake." + +A slight ring of glass made him lift his eyes from the +slice of pine-apple he was cutting into small pieces on +his plate. In changing his position Captain Whalley +had contrived to upset an empty tumbler. + +Without looking that way, leaning sideways on his +elbow, his other hand shading his brow, he groped +shakily for it, then desisted. Van Wyk stared blankly, +as if something momentous had happened all at once. +He did not know why he should feel so startled; but he +forgot Sterne utterly for the moment. + +"Why, what's the matter?" + +And Captain Whalley, half-averted, in a deadened, +agitated voice, muttered-- + +"Esteem!" + +"And I may add something more," Mr. Van Wyk, +very steady-eyed, pronounced slowly. + +"Hold! Enough!" Captain Whalley did not +change his attitude or raise his voice. "Say no more! +I can make you no return. I am too poor even for that +now. Your esteem is worth having. You are not a +man that would stoop to deceive the poorest sort of devil +on earth, or make a ship unseaworthy every time he +takes her to sea." + +Mr. Van Wyk, leaning forward, his face gone pink +all over, with the starched table-napkin over his knees, +was inclined to mistrust his senses, his power of com- +prehension, the sanity of his guest. + +"Where? Why? In the name of God!--what's this? +What ship? I don't understand who . . ." + +"Then, in the name of God, it is I! A ship's unsea- +worthy when her captain can't see. I am going blind." + +Mr. Van Wyk made a slight movement, and sat very +still afterwards for a few seconds; then, with the +thought of Sterne's "The game's up," he ducked under +the table to pick up the napkin which had slipped off +his knees. This was the game that was up. And at +the same time the muffled voice of Captain Whalley +passed over him-- + +"I've deceived them all. Nobody knows." + +He emerged flushed to the eyes. Captain Whalley, +motionless under the full blaze of the lamp, shaded his +face with his hand. + +"And you had that courage?" + +"Call it by what name you like. But you are a hu- +mane man--a--a--gentleman, Mr. Van Wyk. You may +have asked me what I had done with my conscience." + +He seemed to muse, profoundly silent, very still in his +mournful pose. + +"I began to tamper with it in my pride. You begin +to see a lot of things when you are going blind. I +could not be frank with an old chum even. I was not +frank with Massy--no, not altogether. I knew he took +me for a wealthy sailor fool, and I let him. I wanted +to keep up my importance--because there was poor Ivy +away there--my daughter. What did I want to trade +on his misery for? I did trade on it--for her. And +now, what mercy could I expect from him? He would +trade on mine if he knew it. He would hunt the old +fraud out, and stick to the money for a year. Ivy's +money. And I haven't kept a penny for myself. How +am I going to live for a year. A year! In a year there +will be no sun in the sky for her father." + +His deep voice came out, awfully veiled, as though he +had been overwhelmed by the earth of a landslide, and +talking to you of the thoughts that haunt the dead in +their graves. A cold shudder ran down Mr. Van Wyk's +back. + +"And how long is it since you have . . .?" he +began. + +"It was a long time before I could bring myself to +believe in this--this visitation." Captain Whalley +spoke with gloomy patience from under his hand. + +He had not thought he had deserved it. He had begun +by deceiving himself from day to day, from week to +week. He had the Serang at hand there--an old +servant. It came on gradually, and when he could no +longer deceive himself . . . + +His voice died out almost. + +"Rather than give her up I set myself to deceive +you all." + +"It's incredible," whispered Mr. Van Wyk. Captain +Whalley's appalling murmur flowed on. + +"Not even the sign of God's anger could make me +forget her. How could I forsake my child, feeling my +vigor all the time--the blood warm within me? Warm +as yours. It seems to me that, like the blinded Samson, +I would find the strength to shake down a temple upon +my head. She's a struggling woman--my own child +that we used to pray over together, my poor wife and I. +Do you remember that day I as well as told you +that I believed God would let me live to a hundred for +her sake? What sin is there in loving your child? Do +you see it? I was ready for her sake to live for ever. +I half believed I would. I've been praying for death +since. Ha! Presumptuous man--you wanted to +live . . ." + +A tremendous, shuddering upheaval of that big frame, +shaken by a gasping sob, set the glasses jingling all +over the table, seemed to make the whole house tremble +to the roof-tree. And Mr. Van Wyk, whose feeling of +outraged love had been translated into a form of strug- +gle with nature, understood very well that, for that man +whose whole life had been conditioned by action, there +could exist no other expression for all the emotions; that, +to voluntarily cease venturing, doing, enduring, for his +child's sake, would have been exactly like plucking his +warm love for her out of his living heart. Something +too monstrous, too impossible, even to conceive. + +Captain Whalley had not changed his attitude, that +seemed to express something of shame, sorrow, and +defiance. + +"I have even deceived you. If it had not been for +that word 'esteem.' These are not the words for me. +I would have lied to you. Haven't I lied to you? +Weren't you going to trust your property on board this +very trip?" + +"I have a floating yearly policy," Mr. Van Wyk said +almost unwittingly, and was amazed at the sudden crop- +ping up of a commercial detail. + +"The ship is unseaworthy, I tell you. The policy +would be invalid if it were known . . ." + +"We shall share the guilt, then." + +"Nothing could make mine less," said Captain +Whalley. + +He had not dared to consult a doctor; the man would +have perhaps asked who he was, what he was doing; +Massy might have heard something. He had lived on +without any help, human or divine. The very prayers +stuck in his throat. What was there to pray for? and +death seemed as far as ever. Once he got into his cabin +he dared not come out again; when he sat down he dared +not get up; he dared not raise his eyes to anybody's +face; he felt reluctant to look upon the sea or up to +the sky. The world was fading before his great fear +of giving himself away. The old ship was his last +friend; he was not afraid of her; he knew every inch +of her deck; but at her too he hardly dared to look, for +fear of finding he could see less than the day before. +A great incertitude enveloped him. The horizon was +gone; the sky mingled darkly with the sea. Who was +this figure standing over yonder? what was this thing +lying down there? And a frightful doubt of the reality +of what he could see made even the remnant of sight +that remained to him an added torment, a pitfall always +open for his miserable pretense. He was afraid to +stumble inexcusably over something--to say a fatal Yes +or No to a question. The hand of God was upon him, +but it could not tear him away from his child. And, +as if in a nightmare of humiliation, every featureless +man seemed an enemy. + +He let his hand fall heavily on the table. Mr. Van +Wyk, arms down, chin on breast, with a gleam of white +teeth pressing on the lower lip, meditated on Sterne's +"The game's up." + +"The Serang of course does not know." + +"Nobody," said Captain Whalley, with assurance. + +"Ah yes. Nobody. Very well. Can you keep it up +to the end of the trip? That is the last under the agree- +ment with Massy." + +Captain Whalley got up and stood erect, very stately, +with the great white beard lying like a silver breastplate +over the awful secret of his heart. Yes; that was the +only hope there was for him of ever seeing her again, +of securing the money, the last he could do for her, +before he crept away somewhere--useless, a burden, a +reproach to himself. His voice faltered. + +"Think of it! Never see her any more: the only +human being besides myself now on earth that can re- +member my wife. She's just like her mother. Lucky +the poor woman is where there are no tears shed over +those they loved on earth and that remain to pray not +to be led into temptation--because, I suppose, the +blessed know the secret of grace in God's dealings with +His created children." + +He swayed a little, said with austere dignity-- + +"I don't. I know only the child He has given me." + +And he began to walk. Mr. Van Wyk, jumping up, +saw the full meaning of the rigid head, the hesitating +feet, the vaguely extended hand. His heart was beat- +ing fast; he moved a chair aside, and instinctively ad- +vanced as if to offer his arm. But Captain Whalley +passed him by, making for the stairs quite straight. + +"He could not see me at all out of his line," Van Wyk +thought, with a sort of awe. Then going to the head +of the stairs, he asked a little tremulously-- + +"What is it like--like a mist--like . . ." + +Captain Whalley, half-way down, stopped, and turned +round undismayed to answer. + +"It is as if the light were ebbing out of the world. +Have you ever watched the ebbing sea on an open +stretch of sands withdrawing farther and farther away +from you? It is like this--only there will be no flood +to follow. Never. It is as if the sun were growing +smaller, the stars going out one by one. There can't be +many left that I can see by this. But I haven't had the +courage to look of late . . ." He must have been able +to make out Mr. Van Wyk, because he checked him by +an authoritative gesture and a stoical-- + +"I can get about alone yet." + +It was as if he had taken his line, and would accept no +help from men, after having been cast out, like a pre- +sumptuous Titan, from his heaven. Mr. Van Wyk, ar- +rested, seemed to count the footsteps right out of ear- +shot. He walked between the tables, tapping smartly +with his heels, took up a paper-knife, dropped it after +a vague glance along the blade; then happening upon +the piano, struck a few chords again and again, vigor- +ously, standing up before the keyboard with an atten- +tive poise of the head like a piano-tuner; closing it, he +pivoted on his heels brusquely, avoided the little terrier +sleeping trustfully on crossed forepaws, came upon the +stairs next, and, as though he had lost his balance on +the top step, ran down headlong out of the house. His +servants, beginning to clear the table, heard him mutter +to himself (evil words no doubt) down there, and then +after a pause go away with a strolling gait in the direc- +tion of the wharf. + +The bulwarks of the Sofala lying alongside the bank +made a low, black wall on the undulating contour of the +shore. Two masts and a funnel uprose from behind it +with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, square +elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white +boats, the curves of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, +all confused and mingling darkly everywhere; but low +down, amidships, a single lighted port stared out on +the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon, +whose yellow beam caught a patch of wet mud, the +edge of trodden grass, two turns of heavy cable +wound round the foot of a thick wooden post in the +ground. + +Mr. Van Wyk, peering alongside, heard a muzzy +boastful voice apparently jeering at a person called +Prendergast. It mouthed abuse thickly, choked; then +pronounced very distinctly the word "Murphy," and +chuckled. Glass tinkled tremulously. All these sounds +came from the lighted port. Mr. Van Wyk hesitated, +stooped; it was impossible to look through unless he +went down into the mud. + +"Sterne," he said, half aloud. + +The drunken voice within said gladly-- + +"Sterne--of course. Look at him blink. Look at +him! Sterne, Whalley, Massy. Massy, Whalley, +Sterne. But Massy's the best. You can't come over +him. He would just love to see you starve." + +Mr. Van Wyk moved away, made out farther forward +a shadowy head stuck out from under the awnings as +if on the watch, and spoke quietly in Malay, "Is the +mate asleep?" + +"No. Here, at your service." + +In a moment Sterne appeared, walking as noiselessly +as a cat on the wharf. + +"It's so jolly dark, and I had no idea you would be +down to-night." + +"What's this horrible raving?" asked Mr. Van Wyk, +as if to explain the cause of a shudder than ran over +him audibly. + +"Jack's broken out on a drunk. That's our second. +It's his way. He will be right enough by to-morrow +afternoon, only Mr. Massy will keep on worrying up +and down the deck. We had better get away." + +He muttered suggestively of a talk "up at the house." +He had long desired to effect an entrance there, but Mr. +Van Wyk nonchalantly demurred: it would not, he +feared, be quite prudent, perhaps; and the opaque +black shadow under one of the two big trees left at the +landing-place swallowed them up, impenetrably dense, +by the side of the wide river, that seemed to spin into +threads of glitter the light of a few big stars dropped +here and there upon its outspread and flowing stillness. + +"The situation is grave beyond doubt," Mr. Van Wyk +said. Ghost-like in their white clothes they could not +distinguish each others' features, and their feet made +no sound on the soft earth. A sort of purring was +heard. Mr. Sterne felt gratified by such a beginning. + +"I thought, Mr. Van Wyk, a gentleman of your sort +would see at once how awkwardly I was situated." + +"Yes, very. Obviously his health is bad. Perhaps +he's breaking up. I see, and he himself is well aware-- +I assume I am speaking to a man of sense--he is well +aware that his legs are giving out." + +"His legs--ah!" Mr. Sterne was disconcerted, and +then turned sulky. "You may call it his legs if you +like; what I want to know is whether he intends to clear +out quietly. That's a good one, too! His legs! +Pooh!" + +"Why, yes. Only look at the way he walks." Mr. +Van Wyk took him up in a perfectly cool and undoubt- +ing tone. "The question, however, is whether your +sense of duty does not carry you too far from your true +interest. After all, I too could do something to serve +you. You know who I am." + +"Everybody along the Straits has heard of you, sir." + +Mr. Van Wyk presumed that this meant something +favorable. Sterne had a soft laugh at this pleasantry. +He should think so! To the opening statement, that +the partnership agreement was to expire at the end of +this very trip, he gave an attentive assent. He was +aware. One heard of nothing else on board all the +blessed day long. As to Massy, it was no secret that he +was in a jolly deep hole with these worn-out boilers. +He would have to borrow somewhere a couple of hun- +dred first of all to pay off the captain; and then he +would have to raise money on mortgage upon the ship +for the new boilers--that is, if he could find a lender at +all. At best it meant loss of time, a break in the trade, +short earnings for the year--and there was always the +danger of having his connection filched away from him +by the Germans. It was whispered about that he had +already tried two firms. Neither would have anything +to do with him. Ship too old, and the man too well +known in the place. . . . Mr. Sterne's final rapid wink- +ing remained buried in the deep darkness sibilating with +his whispers. + +"Supposing, then, he got the loan," Mr. Van Wyk +resumed in a deliberate undertone, "on your own show- +ing he's more than likely to get a mortgagee's man +thrust upon him as captain. For my part, I know that +I would make that very stipulation myself if I had to +find the money. And as a matter of fact I am thinking +of doing so. It would be worth my while in many ways. +Do you see how this would bear on the case under dis- +cussion?" + +"Thank you, sir. I am sure you couldn't get any- +body that would care more for your interests." + +"Well, it suits my interest that Captain Whalley +should finish his time. I shall probably take a passage +with you down the Straits. If that can be done, I'll be +on the spot when all these changes take place, and in a +position to look after YOUR interests." + +"Mr. Van Wyk, I want nothing better. I am sure +I am infinitely . . ." + +"I take it, then, that this may be done without any +trouble." + +"Well, sir, what risk there is can't be helped; but +(speaking to you as my employer now) the thing is +more safe than it looks. If anybody had told me of it +I wouldn't have believed it, but I have been looking on +myself. That old Serang has been trained up to the +game. There's nothing the matter with his--his-- +limbs, sir. He's got used to doing things himself in a +remarkable way. And let me tell you, sir, that Cap- +tain Whalley, poor man, is by no means useless. Fact. +Let me explain to you, sir. He stiffens up that old +monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough what to do. +Why, he must have kept captain's watches in all sorts of +country ships off and on for the last five-and-twenty +years. These natives, sir, as long as they have a white +man close at the back, will go on doing the right thing +most surprisingly well--even if left quite to themselves. +Only the white man must be of the sort to put starch +into them, and the captain is just the one for that. +Why, sir, he has drilled him so well that now he needs +hardly speak at all. I have seen that little wrinkled +ape made to take the ship out of Pangu Bay on a +blowy morning and on all through the islands; take +her out first-rate, sir, dodging under the old man's +elbow, and in such quiet style that you could not have +told for the life of you which of the two was doing the +work up there. That's where our poor friend would be +still of use to the ship even if--if--he could no longer +lift a foot, sir. Provided the Serang does not know +that there's anything wrong." + +"He doesn't." + +"Naturally not. Quite beyond his apprehension. +They aren't capable of finding out anything about us, +sir." + +"You seem to be a shrewd man," said Mr. Van Wyk +in a choked mutter, as though he were feeling sick. + +"You'll find me a good enough servant, sir." + +Mr. Sterne hoped now for a handshake at least, but +unexpectedly, with a "What's this? Better not to be +seen together," Mr. Van Wyk's white shape wavered, +and instantly seemed to melt away in the black air under +the roof of boughs. The mate was startled. Yes. +There was that faint thumping clatter. + +He stole out silently from under the shade. The +lighted port-hole shone from afar. His head swam with +the intoxication of sudden success. What a thing it +was to have a gentleman to deal with! He crept aboard, +and there was something weird in the shadowy stretch +of empty decks, echoing with shouts and blows proceed- +ing from a darker part amidships. Mr. Massy was +raging before the door of the berth: the drunken voice +within flowed on undisturbed in the violent racket of +kicks. + +"Shut up! Put your light out and turn in, you +confounded swilling pig--you! D'you hear me, you +beast?" + +The kicking stopped, and in the pause the muzzy +oracular voice announced from within-- + +"Ah! Massy, now--that's another thing. Massy's +deep." + +"Who's that aft there? You, Sterne? He'll drink +himself into a fit of horrors." The chief engineer ap- +peared vague and big at the corner of the engine- +room. + +"He will be good enough for duty to-morrow. I would +let him be, Mr. Massy." + +Sterne slipped away into his berth, and at once had +to sit down. His head swam with exultation. He got +into his bunk as if in a dream. A feeling of profound +peace, of pacific joy, came over him. On deck all was +quiet. + +Mr. Massy, with his ear against the door of Jack's +cabin, listened critically to a deep stertorous breathing +within. This was a dead-drunk sleep. The bout was +over: tranquilized on that score, he too went in, and +with slow wriggles got out of his old tweed jacket. It +was a garment with many pockets, which he used to put +on at odd times of the day, being subject to sudden +chilly fits, and when he felt warmed he would take it off +and hang it about anywhere all over the ship. It would +be seen swinging on belaying-pins, thrown over the +heads of winches, suspended on people's very door- +handles for that matter. Was he not the owner? But +his favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning +stanchion on the bridge, almost against the binnacle. +He had even in the early days more than one tussle on +that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the +bridge to be kept tidy. He had been overawed then. +Of late, though, he had been able to defy his partner +with impunity. Captain Whalley never seemed to +notice anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe +of that scowling man not one of the crew would dream +of laying a hand on the thing, no matter where or what +it swung from. + +With an unexpectedness which made Mr. Massy jump +and drop the coat at his feet, there came from the next +berth the crash and thud of a headlong, jingling, clat- +tering fall. The faithful Jack must have dropped to +sleep suddenly as he sat at his revels, and now had +gone over chair and all, breaking, as it seemed by the +sound, every single glass and bottle in the place. After +the terrific smash all was still for a time in there, as +though he had killed himself outright on the spot. Mr. +Massy held his breath. At last a sleepy uneasy groan- +ing sigh was exhaled slowly on the other side of the +bulkhead. + +"I hope to goodness he's too drunk to wake up now," +muttered Mr. Massy. + +The sound of a softly knowing laugh nearly drove +him to despair. He swore violently under his breath. +The fool would keep him awake all night now for cer- +tain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his +maddening troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect +no movements. Without apparently making the slight- +est attempt to get up, Jack went on sniggering to him- +self where he lay; then began to speak, where he had +left off as it were-- + +"Massy! I love the dirty rascal. He would like to +see his poor old Jack starve--but just you look where +he has climbed to." . . . He hiccoughed in a superior, +leisurely manner. . . . "Ship-owning it with the best. +A lottery ticket you want. Ha! ha! I will give you +lottery tickets, my boy. Let the old ship sink and the +old chum starve--that's right. He don't go wrong-- +Massy don't. Not he. He's a genius--that man is. +That's the way to win your money. Ship and chum +must go." + +"The silly fool has taken it to heart," muttered Massy +to himself. And, listening with a softened expression +of face for any slight sign of returning drowsiness, he +was discouraged profoundly by a burst of laughter full +of joyful irony. + +"Would like to see her at the bottom of the sea! Oh, +you clever, clever devil! Wish her sunk, eh? I should +think you would, my boy; the damned old thing and +all your troubles with her. Rake in the insurance money +--turn your back on your old chum--all's well--gentle- +man again." + +A grim stillness had come over Massy's face. Only +his big black eyes rolled uneasily. The raving fool. +And yet it was all true. Yes. Lottery tickets, too. +All true. What? Beginning again? He wished he +wouldn't. . . . + +But it was even so. The imaginative drunkard on +the other side of the bulkhead shook off the deathlike +stillness that after his last words had fallen on the dark +ship moored to a silent shore. + +"Don't you dare to say anything against George +Massy, Esquire. When he's tired of waiting he will do +away with her. Look out! Down she goes--chum and +all. He'll know how to . . ." + +The voice hesitated, weary, dreamy, lost, as if dying +away in a vast open space. + +". . . Find a trick that will work. He's up to it-- +never fear . . ." + +He must have been very drunk, for at last the heavy +sleep gripped him with the suddenness of a magic spell, +and the last word lengthened itself into an interminable, +noisy, in-drawn snore. And then even the snoring +stopped, and all was still. + +But it seemed as though Mr. Massy had suddenly come +to doubt the efficacy of sleep as against a man's troubles; +or perhaps he had found the relief he needed in the +stillness of a calm contemplation that may contain the +vivid thoughts of wealth, of a stroke of luck, of long +idleness, and may bring before you the imagined form +of every desire; for, turning about and throwing his +arms over the edge of his bunk, he stood there with his +feet on his favorite old coat, looking out through the +round port into the night over the river. Sometimes +a breath of wind would enter and touch his face, a cool +breath charged with the damp, fresh feel from a vast +body of water. A glimmer here and there was all he +could see of it; and once he might after all suppose he +had dozed off, since there appeared before his vision, +unexpectedly and connected with no dream, a row of +flaming and gigantic figures--three naught seven one +two--making up a number such as you may see on a +lottery ticket. And then all at once the port was no +longer black: it was pearly gray, framing a shore +crowded with houses, thatched roof beyond thatched +roof, walls of mats and bamboo, gables of carved teak +timber. Rows of dwellings raised on a forest of piles +lined the steely band of the river, brimful and still, with +the tide at the turn. This was Batu Beru--and the +day had come. + +Mr. Massy shook himself, put on the tweed coat, and, +shivering nervously as if from some great shock, made +a note of the number. A fortunate, rare hint that. +Yes; but to pursue fortune one wanted money--ready +cash. + +Then he went out and prepared to descend into the +engine-room. Several small jobs had to be seen to, and +Jack was lying dead drunk on the floor of his cabin, +with the door locked at that. His gorge rose at the +thought of work. Ay! But if you wanted to do noth- +ing you had to get first a good bit of money. A +ship won't save you. He cursed the Sofala. True, all +true. He was tired of waiting for some chance that +would rid him at last of that ship that had turned out +a curse on his life. + + +XIV + +The deep, interminable hoot of the steam-whistle had, +in its grave, vibrating note, something intolerable, +which sent a slight shudder down Mr. Van Wyk's back. +It was the early afternoon; the Sofala was leaving Batu +Beru for Pangu, the next place of call. She swung in +the stream, scantily attended by a few canoes, and, glid- +ing on the broad river, became lost to view from the +Van Wyk bungalow. + +Its owner had not gone this time to see her off. Gen- +erally he came down to the wharf, exchanged a few +words with the bridge while she cast off, and waved his +hand to Captain Whalley at the last moment. This day +he did not even go as far as the balustrade of the +veranda. "He couldn't see me if I did," he said to +himself. "I wonder whether he can make out the house +at all." And this thought somehow made him feel more +alone than he had ever felt for all these years. What +was it? six or seven? Seven. A long time. + +He sat on the veranda with a closed book on his knee, +and, as it were, looked out upon his solitude, as if the +fact of Captain Whalley's blindness had opened his +eyes to his own. There were many sorts of heartaches +and troubles, and there was no place where they could +not find a man out. And he felt ashamed, as though +he had for six years behaved like a peevish boy. + +His thought followed the Sofala on her way. On the +spur of the moment he had acted impulsively, turning +to the thing most pressing. And what else could he +have done? Later on he should see. It seemed neces- +sary that he should come out into the world, for a time +at least. He had money--something could be ar- +ranged; he would grudge no time, no trouble, no loss +of his solitude. It weighed on him now--and Captain +Whalley appeared to him as he had sat shading his +eyes, as if, being deceived in the trust of his faith, he +were beyond all the good and evil that can be wrought +by the hands of men. + +Mr. Van Wyk's thoughts followed the Sofala down the +river, winding about through the belt of the coast forest, +between the buttressed shafts of the big trees, through +the mangrove strip, and over the bar. The ship crossed +it easily in broad daylight, piloted, as it happened, by +Mr. Sterne, who took the watch from four to six, and +then went below to hug himself with delight at the pros- +pect of being virtually employed by a rich man--like +Mr. Van Wyk. He could not see how any hitch could +occur now. He did not seem able to get over the feeling +of being "fixed up at last." From six to eight, in the +course of duty, the Serang looked alone after the ship. +She had a clear road before her now till about three in +the morning, when she would close with the Pangu +group. At eight Mr. Sterne came out cheerily to take +charge again till midnight. At ten he was still chir- +ruping and humming to himself on the bridge, and +about that time Mr. Van Wyk's thought abandoned the +Sofala. Mr. Van Wyk had fallen asleep at last. + +Massy, blocking the engine-room companion, jerked +himself into his tweed jacket surlily, while the second +waited with a scowl. + +"Oh. You came out? You sot! Well, what have +you got to say for yourself?" + +He had been in charge of the engines till then. A +somber fury darkened his mind: a hot anger against +the ship, against the facts of life, against the men for +their cheating, against himself too--because of an in- +ward tremor of his heart. + +An incomprehensible growl answered him. + +"What? Can't you open your mouth now? You yelp +out your infernal rot loud enough when you are drunk. +What do you mean by abusing people in that way?-- +you old useless boozer, you!" + +"Can't help it. Don't remember anything about it. +You shouldn't listen." + +"You dare to tell me! What do you mean by going +on a drunk like this!" + +"Don't ask me. Sick of the dam' boilers--you would +be. Sick of life." + +"I wish you were dead, then. You've made me sick +of you. Don't you remember the uproar you made last +night? You miserable old soaker!" + +"No; I don't. Don't want to. Drink is drink." + +"I wonder what prevents me from kicking you out. +What do you want here?" + +"Relieve you. You've been long enough down there, +George." + +"Don't you George me--you tippling old rascal, you! +If I were to die to-morrow you would starve. Remem- +ber that. Say Mr. Massy." + +"Mr. Massy," repeated the other stolidly. + +Disheveled, with dull blood-shot eyes, a snuffy, grimy +shirt, greasy trowsers, naked feet thrust into ragged +slippers, he bolted in head down directly Massy had +made way for him. + +The chief engineer looked around. The deck was +empty as far as the taffrail. All the native passengers +had left in Batu Beru this time, and no others had +joined. The dial of the patent log tinkled periodically +in the dark at the end of the ship. It was a dead calm, +and, under the clouded sky, through the still air that +seemed to cling warm, with a seaweed smell, to her slim +hull, on a sea of somber gray and unwrinkled, the ship +moved on an even keel, as if floating detached in empty +space. But Mr. Massy slapped his forehead, tottered +a little, caught hold of a belaying-pin at the foot of +the mast. + +"I shall go mad," he muttered, walking across the deck +unsteadily. A shovel was scraping loose coal down be- +low--a fire-door clanged. Sterne on the bridge began +whistling a new tune. + +Captain Whalley, sitting on the couch, awake and fully +dressed, heard the door of his cabin open. He did not +move in the least, waiting to recognize the voice, with +an appalling strain of prudence. + +A bulkhead lamp blazed on the white paint, the crim- +son plush, the brown varnish of mahogany tops. The +white wood packing-case under the bed-place had re- +mained unopened for three years now, as though Cap- +tain Whalley had felt that, after the Fair Maid was +gone, there could be no abiding-place on earth for his +affections. His hands rested on his knees; his hand- +some head with big eyebrows presented a rigid profile +to the doorway. The expected voice spoke out at +last. + +"Once more, then. What am I to call you?" + +Ha! Massy. Again. The weariness of it crushed his +heart--and the pain of shame was almost more than he +could bear without crying out. + +"Well. Is it to be 'partner' still?" + +"You don't know what you ask." + +"I know what I want . . ." + +Massy stepped in and closed the door. + +". . . And I am going to have a try for it with you +once more." + +His whine was half persuasive, half menacing. + +"For it's no manner of use to tell me that you are +poor. You don't spend anything on yourself, that's +true enough; but there's another name for that. You +think you are going to have what you want out of me +for three years, and then cast me off without hearing +what I think of you. You think I would have submitted +to your airs if I had known you had only a beggarly +five hundred pounds in the world. You ought to have +told me." + +"Perhaps," said Captain Whalley, bowing his head. +"And yet it has saved you." . . . Massy laughed +scornfully. . . . "I have told you often enough +since." + +"And I don't believe you now. When I think how +I let you lord it over my ship! Do you remember how +you used to bullyrag me about my coat and YOUR bridge? +It was in his way. HIS bridge! 'And I won't be a +party to this--and I couldn't think of doing that.' +Honest man! And now it all comes out. 'I am poor, +and I can't. I have only this five hundred in the world.'" + +He contemplated the immobility of Captain Whalley, +that seemed to present an inconquerable obstacle in +his path. His face took a mournful cast. + +"You are a hard man." + +"Enough," said Captain Whalley, turning upon him. +"You shall get nothing from me, because I have noth- +ing of mine to give away now." + +"Tell that to the marines!" + +Mr. Massy, going out, looked back once; then the door +closed, and Captain Whalley, alone, sat as still as before. +He had nothing of his own--even his past of honor, +of truth, of just pride, was gone. All his spotless life +had fallen into the abyss. He had said his last good-by +to it. But what belonged to HER, that he meant to save. +Only a little money. He would take it to her in his own +hands--this last gift of a man that had lasted too long. +And an immense and fierce impulse, the very passion of +paternity, flamed up with all the unquenched vigor of +his worthless life in a desire to see her face. + +Just across the deck Massy had gone straight to his +cabin, struck a light, and hunted up the note of the +dreamed number whose figures had flamed up also with +the fierceness of another passion. He must contrive +somehow not to miss a drawing. That number meant +something. But what expedient could he contrive to +keep himself going? + +"Wretched miser!" he mumbled. + +If Mr. Sterne could at no time have told him anything +new about his partner, he could have told Mr. Sterne +that another use could be made of a man's affliction than +just to kick him out, and thus defer the term of a diffi- +cult payment for a year. To keep the secret of the +affliction and induce him to stay was a better move. If +without means, he would be anxious to remain; and that +settled the question of refunding him his share. He did +not know exactly how much Captain Whalley was dis- +abled; but if it so happened that he put the ship ashore +somewhere for good and all, it was not the owner's fault +--was it? He was not obliged to know that there was +anything wrong. But probably nobody would raise +such a point, and the ship was fully insured. He had +had enough self-restraint to pay up the premiums. But +this was not all. He could not believe Captain Whalley +to be so confoundedly destitute as not to have some more +money put away somewhere. If he, Massy, could get +hold of it, that would pay for the boilers, and every- +thing went on as before. And if she got lost in the +end, so much the better. He hated her: he loathed the +troubles that took his mind off the chances of fortune. +He wished her at the bottom of the sea, and the in- +surance money in his pocket. And as, baffled, he left +Captain Whalley's cabin, he enveloped in the same +hatred the ship with the worn-out boilers and the man +with the dimmed eyes. + +And our conduct after all is so much a matter of outside +suggestion, that had it not been for his Jack's drunken +gabble he would have there and then had it out with this +miserable man, who would neither help, nor stay, nor +yet lose the ship. The old fraud! He longed to kick +him out. But he restrained himself. Time enough for +that--when he liked. There was a fearful new thought +put into his head. Wasn't he up to it after all? How +that beast Jack had raved! "Find a safe trick to get +rid of her." Well, Jack was not so far wrong. A very +clever trick had occurred to him. Aye! But what of +the risk? + +A feeling of pride--the pride of superiority to com- +mon prejudices--crept into his breast, made his heart +beat fast, his mouth turn dry. Not everybody would +dare; but he was Massy, and he was up to it! + +Six bells were struck on deck. Eleven! He drank a +glass of water, and sat down for ten minutes or so to +calm himself. Then he got out of his chest a small +bull's-eye lantern of his own and lit it. + +Almost opposite his berth, across the narrow passage +under the bridge, there was, in the iron deck-structure +covering the stokehold fiddle and the boiler-space, a +storeroom with iron sides, iron roof, iron-plated floor, +too, on account of the heat below. All sorts of rubbish +was shot there: it had a mound of scrap-iron in a corner; +rows of empty oil-cans; sacks of cotton-waste, with a +heap of charcoal, a deck-forge, fragments of an old hen- +coop, winch-covers all in rags, remnants of lamps, and +a brown felt hat, discarded by a man dead now (of a +fever on the Brazil coast), who had been once mate of +the Sofala, had remained for years jammed forcibly be- +hind a length of burst copper pipe, flung at some time +or other out of the engine-room. A complete and im- +perious blackness pervaded that Capharnaum of for- +gotten things. A small shaft of light from Mr. Massy's +bull's-eye fell slanting right through it. + +His coat was unbuttoned; he shot the bolt of the door +(there was no other opening), and, squatting before the +scrap-heap, began to pack his pockets with pieces of +iron. He packed them carefully, as if the rusty nuts, +the broken bolts, the links of cargo chain, had been so +much gold he had that one chance to carry away. He +packed his side-pockets till they bulged, the breast +pocket, the pockets inside. He turned over the pieces. +Some he rejected. A small mist of powdered rust began +to rise about his busy hands. Mr. Massy knew some- +thing of the scientific basis of his clever trick. If you +want to deflect the magnetic needle of a ship's compass, +soft iron is the best; likewise many small pieces in the +pockets of a jacket would have more effect than a few +large ones, because in that way you obtain a greater +amount of surface for weight in your iron, and it's sur- +face that tells. + +He slipped out swiftly--two strides sufficed--and in +his cabin he perceived that his hands were all red--red +with rust. It disconcerted him, as though he had found +them covered with blood: he looked himself over hastily. +Why, his trowsers too! He had been rubbing his rusty +palms on his legs. + +He tore off the waistband button in his haste, brushed +his coat, washed his hands. Then the air of guilt left +him, and he sat down to wait. + +He sat bolt upright and weighted with iron in his +chair. He had a hard, lumpy bulk against each hip, +felt the scrappy iron in his pockets touch his ribs at +every breath, the downward drag of all these pounds +hanging upon his shoulders. He looked very dull too, +sitting idle there, and his yellow face, with motionless +black eyes, had something passive and sad in its quiet- +ness. + +When he heard eight bells struck above his head, he +rose and made ready to go out. His movements seemed +aimless, his lower lip had dropped a little, his eyes +roamed about the cabin, and the tremendous tension of +his will had robbed them of every vestige of intelligence. + +With the last stroke of the bell the Serang appeared +noiselessly on the bridge to relieve the mate. Sterne +overflowed with good nature, since he had nothing more +to desire. + +"Got your eyes well open yet, Serang? It's middling +dark; I'll wait till you get your sight properly." + +The old Malay murmured, looked up with his worn +eyes, sidled away into the light of the binnacle, and, +crossing his hands behind his back, fixed his eyes on the +compass-card. + +"You'll have to keep a good look-out ahead for +land, about half-past three. It's fairly clear, though. +You have looked in on the captain as you came +along--eh? He knows the time? Well, then, I am +off." + +At the foot of the ladder he stood aside for the captain. +He watched him go up with an even, certain tread, and +remained thoughtful for a moment. "It's funny," he +said to himself, "but you can never tell whether that +man has seen you or not. He might have heard me +breathe this time." + +He was a wonderful man when all was said and done. +They said he had had a name in his day. Mr. Sterne +could well believe it; and he concluded serenely that +Captain Whalley must be able to see people more or less +--as himself just now, for instance--but not being cer- +tain of anybody, had to keep up that unnoticing silence +of manner for fear of giving himself away. Mr. Sterne +was a shrewd guesser. + +This necessity of every moment brought home to Cap- +tain Whalley's heart the humiliation of his falsehood. +He had drifted into it from paternal love, from in- +credulity, from boundless trust in divine justice meted +out to men's feelings on this earth. He would give his +poor Ivy the benefit of another month's work; perhaps +the affliction was only temporary. Surely God would +not rob his child of his power to help, and cast him +naked into a night without end. He had caught at +every hope; and when the evidence of his misfortune +was stronger than hope, he tried not to believe the mani- +fest thing. + +In vain. In the steadily darkening universe a sinister +clearness fell upon his ideas. In the illuminating mo- +ments of suffering he saw life, men, all things, the whole +earth with all her burden of created nature, as he had +never seen them before. + +Sometimes he was seized with a sudden vertigo and an +overwhelming terror; and then the image of his daughter +appeared. Her, too, he had never seen so clearly before. +Was it possible that he should ever be unable to do +anything whatever for her? Nothing. And not see +her any more? Never. + +Why? The punishment was too great for a little pre- +sumption, for a little pride. And at last he came to +cling to his deception with a fierce determination to carry +it out to the end, to save her money intact, and behold +her once more with his own eyes. Afterwards--what? +The idea of suicide was revolting to the vigor of his +manhood. He had prayed for death till the prayers had +stuck in his throat. All the days of his life he had +prayed for daily bread, and not to be led into tempta- +tion, in a childlike humility of spirit. Did words mean +anything? Whence did the gift of speech come? The +violent beating of his heart reverberated in his head-- +seemed to shake his brain to pieces. + +He sat down heavily in the deck-chair to keep the pre- +tense of his watch. The night was dark. All the nights +were dark now. + +"Serang," he said, half aloud. + +"Ada, Tuan. I am here." + +"There are clouds on the sky?" + +"There are, Tuan." + +"Let her be steered straight. North." + +"She is going north, Tuan." + +The Serang stepped back. Captain Whalley recog- +nized Massy's footfalls on the bridge. + +The engineer walked over to port and returned, pass- +ing behind the chair several times. Captain Whalley +detected an unusual character as of prudent care in this +prowling. The near presence of that man brought with +it always a recrudescence of moral suffering for Captain +Whalley. It was not remorse. After all, he had done +nothing but good to the poor devil. There was also +a sense of danger--the necessity of a greater care. + +Massy stopped and said-- + +"So you still say you must go?" + +"I must indeed." + +"And you couldn't at least leave the money for a term +of years?" + +"Impossible." + +"Can't trust it with me without your care, eh?" + +Captain Whalley remained silent. Massy sighed +deeply over the back of the chair. + +"It would just do to save me," he said in a tremulous +voice. + +"I've saved you once." + +The chief engineer took off his coat with careful +movements, and proceeded to feel for the brass hook +screwed into the wooden stanchion. For this purpose he +placed himself right in front of the binnacle, thus hid- +ing completely the compass-card from the quarter- +master at the wheel. "Tuan!" the lascar at last mur- +mured softly, meaning to let the white man know that +he could not see to steer. + +Mr. Massy had accomplished his purpose. The coat +was hanging from the nail, within six inches of the +binnacle. And directly he had stepped aside the quarter- +master, a middle-aged, pock-marked, Sumatra Malay, +almost as dark as a negro, perceived with amazement +that in that short time, in this smooth water, with no +wind at all, the ship had gone swinging far out of her +course. He had never known her get away like this +before. With a slight grunt of astonishment he turned +the wheel hastily to bring her head back north, which +was the course. The grinding of the steering-chains, +the chiding murmurs of the Serang, who had come over +to the wheel, made a slight stir, which attracted Cap- +tain Whalley's anxious attention. He said, "Take +better care." Then everything settled to the usual quiet +on the bridge. Mr. Massy had disappeared. + +But the iron in the pockets of the coat had done its +work; and the Sofala, heading north by the compass, +made untrue by this simple device, was no longer mak- +ing a safe course for Pangu Bay. + +The hiss of water parted by her stem, the throb of her +engines, all the sounds of her faithful and laborious life, +went on uninterrupted in the great calm of the sea join- +ing on all sides the motionless layer of cloud over the +sky. A gentle stillness as vast as the world seemed to +wait upon her path, enveloping her lovingly in a su- +preme caress. Mr. Massy thought there could be no +better night for an arranged shipwreck. + +Run up high and dry on one of the reefs east of +Pangu--wait for daylight--hole in the bottom--out +boats--Pangu Bay same evening. That's about it. As +soon as she touched he would hasten on the bridge, get +hold of the coat (nobody would notice in the dark), +and shake it upside-down over the side, or even fling +it into the sea. A detail. Who could guess? Coat been +seen hanging there from that hook hundreds of times. +Nevertheless, when he sat down on the lower step of the +bridge-ladder his knees knocked together a little. The +waiting part was the worst of it. At times he would +begin to pant quickly, as though he had been running, +and then breathe largely, swelling with the intimate +sense of a mastered fate. Now and then he would hear +the shuffle of the Serang's bare feet up there: quiet, low +voices would exchange a few words, and lapse almost +at once into silence. . . . + +"Tell me directly you see any land, Serang." + +"Yes, Tuan. Not yet." + +"No, not yet," Captain Whalley would agree. + +The ship had been the best friend of his decline. He +had sent all the money he had made by and in the +Sofala to his daughter. His thought lingered on the +name. How often he and his wife had talked over the +cot of the child in the big stern-cabin of the Condor; she +would grow up, she would marry, she would love them, +they would live near her and look at her happiness--it +would go on without end. Well, his wife was dead, to +the child he had given all he had to give; he wished he +could come near her, see her, see her face once, live in +the sound of her voice, that could make the darkness of +the living grave ready for him supportable. He had +been starved of love too long. He imagined her tender- +ness. + +The Serang had been peering forward, and now and +then glancing at the chair. He fidgeted restlessly, and +suddenly burst out close to Captain Whalley-- + +"Tuan, do you see anything of the land?" + +The alarmed voice brought Captain Whalley to his feet +at once. He! See! And at the question, the curse of +his blindness seemed to fall on him with a hundredfold +force. + +"What's the time?" he cried. + +"Half-past three, Tuan." + +"We are close. You MUST see. Look, I say. Look." + +Mr. Massy, awakened by the sudden sound of talking +from a short doze on the lowest step, wondered why he +was there. Ah! A faintness came over him. It is one +thing to sow the seed of an accident and another to see +the monstrous fruit hanging over your head ready to +fall in the sound of agitated voices. + +"There's no danger," he muttered thickly. + +The horror of incertitude had seized upon Captain +Whalley, the miserable mistrust of men, of things--of +the very earth. He had steered that very course thirty- +six times by the same compass--if anything was certain +in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness. +Then what had happened? Did the Serang lie? Why +lie? Why? Was he going blind too? + +"Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down, +I say." + +"Tuan, there's no mist. See for yourself." + +Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs +by an effort. Should he stop the engines at once and +give himself away. A gust of irresolution swayed all +sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The unusual had +come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage +of inexpressible anguish he saw her face--the face of +a young girl--with an amazing strength of illusion. +No, he must not give himself away after having gone +so far for her sake. "You steered the course? You +made it? Speak the truth." + +"Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look." + +Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him +made such a dim spot of light in an infinity of shape- +less shadow. By bending his face right down to the +glass he had been able before . . . + +Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his +arm to where he knew there was a stanchion to steady +himself against. His hand closed on something that +was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the +weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy's coat falling, +struck the deck heavily with a dull thump, accompanied +by a lot of clicks. + +"What's this?" + +Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands +extended in a frank gesture of blindness. They trem- +bled, these hands feeling for the truth. He saw it. Iron +near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His +ship. Oh no. Not that. + +"Jump and stop her!" he roared out in a voice not +his own. + +He ran himself--hands forward, a blind man, and +while the clanging of the gong echoed still all over the +ship, she seemed to butt full tilt into the side of a +mountain. + +It was low water along the north side of the strait. +Mr. Massy had not reckoned on that. Instead of run- +ning aground for half her length, the Sofala butted the +sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been +awash at high water. This made the shock absolutely +terrific. Everybody in the ship that was standing was +thrown down headlong: the shaken rigging made a great +rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went out: +several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the +funnel: there were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope, +splintering sounds, loud cracks, the masthead lamp flew +over the bows, and all the doors about the deck began +to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded, +hit the second time the very same spot like a battering- +ram. This completed the havoc: the funnel, with all +the guys gone, fell over with a hollow sound of thunder, +smashing the wheel to bits, crushing the frame of the +awnings, breaking the lockers, filling the bridge with +a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken wood. Captain +Whalley picked himself up and stood knee-deep in +wreckage, torn, bleeding, knowing the nature of the +danger he had escaped mostly by the sound, and holding +Mr. Massy's coat in his arms. + +By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his +bunk) had set the engines astern. They worked for a +few turns, then a voice bawled out, "Get out of the +damned engine-room, Jack!"--and they stopped; but +the ship had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a +heavy cloud of steam issuing from the broken deck- +pipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes into the night. +Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there +was no shouting, as if the very violence of the shock +had half-stunned the shadowy lot of people swaying +here and there about her decks. The voice of the Serang +pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs-- + +"Eight fathom." He had heaved the lead. + +Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch-- + +"Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?" + +Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass-- + +"Amongst the reefs to the eastward." + +"You know it, sir? Then she will never get out +again." + +"She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne. +Even one will save you all in this calm." + +The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for +the port boats. Nobody tried to check them. The +Malays, after a moment of confusion, became quiet, +and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain +Whalley had not moved. His thoughts were darker +than this night in which he had lost his first ship. + +"He made me lose a ship." + +Another tall figure standing before him amongst the +litter of the smash on the bridge whispered insanely-- + +"Say nothing of it." + +Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the +chattering of his teeth. + +"I have the coat." + +"Throw it down and come along," urged the chatter- +ing voice. "B-b-b-b-boat!" + +"You will get fifteen years for this." + +Mr. Massy had lost his voice. His speech was a mere +dry rustling in his throat. + +"Have mercy!" + +"Had you any when you made me lose my ship? Mr. +Massy, you shall get fifteen years for this!" + +"I wanted money! Money! My own money! I will +give you some money. Take half of it. You love +money yourself." + +"There's a justice . . ." + +Massy made an awful effort, and in a strange, half +choked utterance-- + +"You blind devil! It's you that drove me to it." + +Captain Whalley, hugging the coat to his breast, +made no sound. The light had ebbed for ever from the +world--let everything go. But this man should not +escape scot-free. + +Sterne's voice commanded-- + +"Lower away!" + +The blocks rattled. + +"Now then," he cried, "over with you. This way. +You, Jack, here. Mr. Massy! Mr. Massy! Captain! +Quick, sir! Let's get-- + +"I shall go to prison for trying to cheat the insurance, +but you'll get exposed; you, honest man, who has been +cheating me. You are poor. Aren't you? You've +nothing but the five hundred pounds. Well, you have +nothing at all now. The ship's lost, and the insurance +won't be paid." + +Captain Whalley did not move. True! Ivy's money! +Gone in this wreck. Again he had a flash of insight. +He was indeed at the end of his tether. + +Urgent voices cried out together alongside. Massy +did not seem able to tear himself away from the bridge. +He chattered and hissed despairingly-- + +"Give it up to me! Give it up!" + +"No," said Captain Whalley; "I could not give it up. +You had better go. Don't wait, man, if you want to +live. She's settling down by the head fast. No; I shall +keep it, but I shall stay on board." + +Massy did not seem to understand; but the love of life, +awakened suddenly, drove him away from the bridge. + +Captain Whalley laid the coat down, and stumbled +amongst the heaps of wreckage to the side. + +"Is Mr. Massy in with you?" he called out into the +night. + +Sterne from the boat shouted-- + +"Yes; we've got him. Come along, sir. It's madness +to stay longer." + +Captain Whalley felt along the rail carefully, and, +without a word, cast off the painter. They were ex- +pecting him still down there. They were waiting, till +a voice suddenly exclaimed-- + +"We are adrift! Shove off!" + +"Captain Whalley! Leap! . . . pull up a little . . . +leap! You can swim." + +In that old heart, in that vigorous body, there was, +that nothing should be wanting, a horror of death that +apparently could not be overcome by the horror of +blindness. But after all, for Ivy he had carried his +point, walking in his darkness to the very verge of a +crime. God had not listened to his prayers. The light +had finished ebbing out of the world; not a glimmer. It +was a dark waste; but it was unseemly that a Whalley +who had gone so far to carry a point should continue +to live. He must pay the price. + +"Leap as far as you can, sir; we will pick you up." + +They did not hear him answer. But their shouting +seemed to remind him of something. He groped his +way back, and sought for Mr. Massy's coat. He could +swim indeed; people sucked down by the whirlpool of +a sinking ship do come up sometimes to the surface, and +it was unseemly that a Whalley, who had made up his +mind to die, should be beguiled by chance into a +struggle. He would put all these pieces of iron into his +own pockets. + +They, looking from the boat, saw the Sofala, a black +mass upon a black sea, lying still at an appalling cant. +No sound came from her. Then, with a great bizarre +shuffling noise, as if the boilers had broken through the +bulkheads, and with a faint muffled detonation, where +the ship had been there appeared for a moment some- +thing standing upright and narrow, like a rock out of +the sea. Then that too disappeared. + + +When the Sofala failed to come back to Batu Beru at +the proper time, Mr. Van Wyk understood at once that +he would never see her any more. But he did not know +what had happened till some months afterwards, when, +in a native craft lent him by his Sultan, he had made +his way to the Sofala's port of registry, where already +her existence and the official inquiry into her loss was +beginning to be forgotten. + +It had not been a very remarkable or interesting case, +except for the fact that the captain had gone down with +his sinking ship. It was the only life lost; and Mr. Van +Wyk would not have been able to learn any details had +it not been for Sterne, whom he met one day on the quay +near the bridge over the creek, almost on the very spot +where Captain Whalley, to preserve his daughter's five +hundred pounds intact, had turned to get a sampan +which would take him on board the Sofala. + +From afar Mr. Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at +him and raise his hand to his hat. They drew into the +shade of a building (it was a bank), and the mate re- +lated how the boat with the crew got into Pangu Bay +about six hours after the accident, and how they had +lived for a fortnight in a state of destitution before they +found an opportunity to get away from that beastly +place. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all +blame. The loss of the ship was put down to an un- +usual set of the current. Indeed, it could not have been +anything else: there was no other way to account for +the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her +position during the middle watch. + +"A piece of bad luck for me, sir." + +Sterne passed his tongue on his lips, and glanced aside. +"I lost the advantage of being employed by you, sir. +I can never be sorry enough. But here it is: one man's +poison, another man's meat. This could not have been +handier for Mr. Massy if he had arranged that ship- +wreck himself. The most timely total loss I've ever +heard of." + +"What became of that Massy?" asked Mr. Van Wyk. + +"He, sir? Ha! ha! He would keep on telling me +that he meant to buy another ship; but as soon as he +had the money in his pocket he cleared out for Manilla +by mail-boat early in the morning. I gave him chase +right aboard, and he told me then he was going to make +his fortune dead sure in Manilla. I could go to the +devil for all he cared. And yet he as good as promised +to give me the command if I didn't talk too much." + +"You never said anything . . ." Mr. Van Wyk +began. + +"Not I, sir. Why should I? I mean to get on, but +the dead aren't in my way," said Sterne. His eyelids +were beating rapidly, then drooped for an instant. +"Besides, sir, it would have been an awkward business. +You made me hold my tongue just a bit too long." + +"Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley re- +mained on board? Did he really refuse to leave? Come +now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?" + +"Nothing!" Sterne interrupted with energy. "I tell +you I yelled for him to leap overboard. He simply +MUST have cast off the painter of the boat himself. We +all yelled to him--that is, Jack and I. He wouldn't even +answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last. +Then the boilers fetched away, and down she went. +Accident! Not it! The game was up, sir, I tell you." + +This was all that Sterne had to say. + +Mr. Van Wyk had been of course made the guest of +the club for a fortnight, and it was there that he met +the lawyer in whose office had been signed the agreement +between Massy and Captain Whalley. + +"Extraordinary old man," he said. "He came into +my office from nowhere in particular as you may say, +with his five hundred pounds to place, and that engineer +fellow following him anxiously. And now he is gone out +a little inexplicably, just as he came. I could never +understand him quite. There was no mystery at all +about that Massy, eh? I wonder whether Whalley re- +fused to leave the ship. It would have been foolish. +He was blameless, as the court found." + +Mr. Van Wyk had known him well, he said, and he +could not believe in suicide. Such an act would not +have been in character with what he knew of the man. + +"It is my opinion, too," the lawyer agreed. The gen- +eral theory was that the captain had remained too long +on board trying to save something of importance. Per- +haps the chart which would clear him, or else something +of value in his cabin. The painter of the boat had +come adrift of itself it was supposed. However, strange +to say, some little time before that voyage poor Whalley +had called in his office and had left with him a sealed +envelope addressed to his daughter, to be forwarded to +her in case of his death. Still it was nothing very un- +usual, especially in a man of his age. Mr. Van Wyk +shook his head. Captain Whalley looked good for a +hundred years. + +"Perfectly true," assented the lawyer. "The old +fellow looked as though he had come into the world full- +grown and with that long beard. I could never, some- +how, imagine him either younger or older--don't you +know. There was a sense of physical power about that +man too. And perhaps that was the secret of that some- +thing peculiar in his person which struck everybody who +came in contact with him. He looked indestructible by +any ordinary means that put an end to the rest of us. +His deliberate, stately courtesy of manner was full of +significance. It was as though he were certain of hav- +ing plenty of time for everything. Yes, there was +something indestructible about him; and the way he +talked sometimes you might have thought he believed +it himself. When he called on me last with that letter +he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed at +all. Perhaps a shade more deliberate in his talk and +manner. Not depressed in the least. Had he a pre- +sentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still it seems a misera- +ble end for such a striking figure." + +"Oh yes! It was a miserable end," Mr. Van Wyk said, +with so much fervor that the lawyer looked up at him +curiously; and afterwards, after parting with him, he +remarked to an acquaintance-- + +"Queer person that Dutch tobacco-planter from Batu +Beru. Know anything of him?" + +"Heaps of money," answered the bank manager. "I +hear he's going home by the next mail to form a com- +pany to take over his estates. Another tobacco district +thrown open. He's wise, I think. These good times +won't last for ever." + +In the southern hemisphere Captain Whalley's daugh- +ter had no presentiment of evil when she opened the +envelope addressed to her in the lawyer's handwriting. +She had received it in the afternoon; all the boarders +had gone out, her boys were at school, her husband sat +upstairs in his big arm-chair with a book, thin-faced, +wrapped up in rugs to the waist. The house was still, +and the grayness of a cloudy day lay against the panes +of three lofty windows. + +In a shabby dining-room, where a faint cold smell of +dishes lingered all the year round, sitting at the end of +a long table surrounded by many chairs pushed in with +their backs close against the edge of the perpetually laid +table-cloth, she read the opening sentence: "Most pro- +found regret--painful duty--your father is no more-- +in accordance with his instructions--fatal casualty-- +consolation--no blame attached to his memory. . . ." + +Her face was thin, her temples a little sunk under the +smooth bands of black hair, her lips remained resolutely +compressed, while her dark eyes grew larger, till at last, +with a low cry, she stood up, and instantly stooped to +pick up another envelope which had slipped off her +knees on to the floor. + +She tore it open, snatched out the inclosure. . . . + +"My dearest child," it said, "I am writing this while +I am able yet to write legibly. I am trying hard to +save for you all the money that is left; I have only kept +it to serve you better. It is yours. It shall not be lost: +it shall not be touched. There's five hundred pounds. +Of what I have earned I have kept nothing back till +now. For the future, if I live, I must keep back some-- +a little--to bring me to you. I must come to you. I +must see you once more. + +"It is hard to believe that you will ever look on these +lines. God seems to have forgotten me. I want to see +you--and yet death would be a greater favor. If you +ever read these words, I charge you to begin by thank- +ing a God merciful at last, for I shall be dead then, and +it will be well. My dear, I am at the end of my tether." + +The next paragraph began with the words: "My sight +is going . . ." + +She read no more that day. The hand holding up the +paper to her eyes fell slowly, and her slender figure in +a plain black dress walked rigidly to the window. Her +eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of thanks +went up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too +hard, for all the efforts of his love. It had silenced her +emotions. But for the first time in all these years its +sting had departed, the carking care of poverty, the +meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image +of her husband and of her children seemed to glide away +from her into the gray twilight; it was her father's +face alone that she saw, as though he had come to see +her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but +with something more august and tender in his aspect. + +She slipped his folded letter between the two buttons +of her plain black bodice, and leaning her forehead +against a window-pane remained there till dusk, per- +fectly motionless, giving him all the time she could +spare. Gone! Was it possible? My God, was it possi- +ble! The blow had come softened by the spaces of the +earth, by the years of absence. There had been whole +days when she had not thought of him at all--had no +time. But she had loved him, she felt she had loved +him, after all. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of End of the Tether, by Joseph Conrad + diff --git a/old/tethr10.zip b/old/tethr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..34bea96 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tethr10.zip |