"ONE
evening as I was lying flat on the
deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approaching — and there
were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I
laid my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself in
a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: 'I am as
harmless as a little child, but I don't like to be dictated
to. Am I the manager — or am I not? I was ordered to send him
there. It's incredible.' . . . I became aware that the two
were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the
steamboat, just below my head. I did not move; it did not
occur to me to move. I was sleepy. 'It is
unpleasant,' grunted the uncle. 'He has asked the
Administration to be sent there,' said the other, 'with the
idea of showing what he could do; and I was instructed
accordingly. Look at the influence that man must have. Is it
not frightful?' They both agreed it was frightful, then made
several bizarre remarks: 'Make rain and fine weather — one
man — the Council — by the nose' — bits of absurd sentences
that got the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty
near the whole of my wits about me when the uncle said, 'The
climate may do
away with this difficulty for you. Is he
alone there?' 'Yes,' answered the manager; 'he sent his
assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms:
"Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't
bother sending more of that sort. I had rather be alone than
have the kind of men you can dispose of with me." It
was more than a year ago. Can you imagine such impudence!'
'Anything since then?' asked the other, hoarsely. 'Ivory,'
jerked the nephew; 'lots of it — prime sort — lots — most
annoying, from him.' 'And with that?' questioned the heavy
rumble. 'Invoice,' was the reply fired out, so to speak.
Then silence. They had been talking about Kurtz.
"I was broad awake by this time, but,
lying perfectly at ease, remained still, having no
inducement to change my position. 'How did that ivory come
all this way?' growled the elder man, who seemed very vexed.
The other explained that it had come with a fleet of canoes
in charge of an English half-caste clerk Kurtz had with him;
that Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the
station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but
after coming three
hundred miles, had suddenly decided to go
back, which he started to do alone in a small dug-out with
four paddlers, leaving the half-caste to continue down the
river with the ivory. The two fellows there seemed astounded
at anybody attempting such a thing. They were at a loss for
an adequate motive. As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the
first time. It was a distinct glimpse. The dug-out, four
paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back
suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of
home — perhaps; setting his face towards the depths of the
wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station. I did
not know the motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine
fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake. His name, you
understand, had not been pronounced once. He was 'that man.'
The half-caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted a
difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably
alluded to as 'that scoundrel.' The 'scoundrel' had said the
'man' had been ill — had recovered.... The two below me moved
away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some
little distance. I heard: 'Military post — doctor — two
hundred miles — quite alone now — unavoidable delays — nine
months — no news — strange rumours.' They approached again,
just as the manager was saying, 'Nobody unless a species of
wandering trader — a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from
the natives.' Who was it they were
talking about now? I
gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed to be
in Kurtz's district, and of whom the manager did not
approve. 'We will not be free from unfair competition till
one of these fellows is hanged for an example,' he said.
'Certainly,' grunted the other; 'get him hanged! Why not?
Anything — anything can be done in this country. That's what
I say; nobody here, you understand, here can
endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate — you
outlast them all. The danger is in Europe; but there before
I left I took care to ——' They moved off and whispered,
then their voices rose again. 'The extraordinary series of
delays is not my fault. I did my possible.' The fat man
sighed, 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his
talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he
was here. "Each station should be like a beacon on the
road towards better things, a centre for trade of course,
but also for humanising, improving, instructing."
Conceive you — that ass! And he wants to be manager! No,
it's ——' Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I
lifted my head the least bit. I was surprised to see how
near they were — right under me. I could have spat upon their
hats. They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought.
The manager was switching his leg with a slender twig: his
sagacious relative lifted his head. 'You have been well
since you came out this
time?' he asked. The other gave a
start. 'Who? I? Oh! Like a charm — like a charm. But the
rest — oh, my goodness! All sick. They die so quick, too,
that I haven't the time to send them out of the
country — it's incredible!' 'H'm. Just so,' grunted the
uncle. 'Ah! my boy, trust to this — I say, trust to this.' I
saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a
semicircular gesture that took in the forest, the creek, the
mud, the river — seemed to beckon with a dishonouring
flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous
appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the
profound darkness of its heart. It was so startling that I
leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the forest,
as though I had expected an answer of some sort to that
black display of confidence. You know the foolish notions
that come to one sometimes. The high stillness confronted
these two figures with its ominous patience, waiting for the
passing away of a fantastic invasion.
"They swore aloud together — out of sheer
fright, I believe — then pretending not to know anything of
my existence, turned back to the station. The sun was low;
and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging
painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal
length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass
without bending a single blade.
"In a few days the Eldorado Expedition
went into the
patient wilderness, that closed upon them as
the sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards the news came
that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the
fate of the less valuable animals. They, no doubt, like the
rest of us, found what they deserved. I did not inquire. I
was then rather excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz
very soon. When I say very soon I mean comparatively. It was
just two months from the day we left the creek when we came
to the bank below Kurtz's station.
"Going up that river was like travelling
back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when
vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.
An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest.
The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy
in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the
waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed
distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned
themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed
through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that
river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long
against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought
yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you
had known once — somewhere — far away — in another existence
perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to
one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to
spare to yourself; but
it came in the shape of an unrestful
and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the
overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and
water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in
the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an
implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It
looked at you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it
afterwards; I did not see it any more; I had no time. I had
to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by
inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken
stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my
heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly
old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot
steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a
look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the
night for the next day's steaming. When you have to attend
to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the
surface, the reality — the reality, I tell you — fades. The
inner truth is hidden — luckily, luckily. But I felt it all
the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me
at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows
performing on your respective tight-ropes for — what is it?
half-a-crown a tumble ——"
"Try to be civil, Marlow," growled
a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake
besides myself.
"I beg your pardon. I forgot the
heartache which makes
up the rest of the price. And indeed
what does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You
do your tricks very well. And I didn't do badly either,
since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip.
It's a wonder to me yet. Imagine a blindfolded man set to
drive a van over a bad road. I sweated and shivered over
that business considerably, I can tell you. After all, for a
seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that's supposed to
float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin.
No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump — eh? A
blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it,
you wake up at night and think of it — years after — and go
hot and cold all over. I don't pretend to say that steamboat
floated all the time. More than once she had to wade for a
bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and pushing. We
had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine
fellows — cannibals — in their place. They were men one could
work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they
did not eat each other before my face: they had brought
along a provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made
the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils. Phoo! I
can sniff it now. I had the manager on board and three or
four pilgrims with their staves — all complete. Sometimes we
came upon a station close by the bank, clinging to the
skirts of the unknown, and the white men rushing out of a
tumble-down hovel,
with great gestures of joy and surprise
and welcome, seemed very strange, — had the appearance of
being held there captive by a spell. The word ivory would
ring in the air for a while — and on we went again into the
silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between
the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow
claps the ponderous beat of the stern-wheel. Trees, trees,
millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high; and at
their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the
little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling
on the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel very
small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing
that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle
crawled on — which was just what you wanted it to do. Where
the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I don't know. To some
place where they expected to get something, I bet! For me it
crawled towards Kurtz — exclusively; but when the steam-pipes
started leaking we crawled very slow. The reaches opened
before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped
leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We
penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It
was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums
behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and
remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high
over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it
meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were
heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the
wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of
a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a
prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an
unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of
men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be
subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive
toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there
would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a
burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands
clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes
rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage.
The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and
incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us,
praying to us, welcoming us — who could tell? We were cut off
from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past
like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men
would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We
could not understand, because we were too far and could not
remember, because we were travelling in the night of first
ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a
sign — and no memories.
"The earth seemed unearthly. We are
accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered
monster, but there — there you could look at a thing
monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were ——
No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the
worst of it — this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It
would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun,
and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the
thought of their humanity — like yours — the thought of your
remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly.
Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you
would admit to yourself that there was in you just the
faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of
that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it
which you — you so remote from the night of first ages — could
comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of
anything — because everything is in it, all the past as well
as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear,
sorrow, devotion, valour, rage — who can tell? — but
truth — truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool
gape and shudder — the man knows, and can look on without a
wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on
the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true
stuff — with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles
won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags — rags that
would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a
deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row — is
there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too,
and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot
be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine
sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder
I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no — I
didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments be hanged!
I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and
strips of woollen blanket helping to put bandages on those
leaky steam-pipes — I tell you. I had to watch the steering,
and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by
hook or by crook. There was surface-truth enough in these
things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look
after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved
specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there
below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying
as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat,
walking on his hind-legs. A few months of training had done
for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge
and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of
intrepidity — and he had filed teeth too, the poor devil, and
the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three
ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have
been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank,
instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange
witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful
because he had been instructed; and what he knew was
this — that should the water in that
transparent thing
disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry
through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible
vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass
fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to
his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch,
stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded
banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left
behind, the interminable miles of silence — and we crept on,
towards Kurtz. But the snags were thick, the water was
treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a
sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had
any time to peer into our creepy thoughts.
"Some fifty miles below the Inner
Station we came upon a hut of reeds, an inclined and
melancholy pole, with the unrecognisable tatters of what had
been a flag of some sort flying from it, and a neatly
stacked wood-pile. This was unexpected. We came to the bank,
and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board
with some faded pencil-writing on it. When deciphered it
said: 'Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.' There
was a signature, but it was illegible — not Kurtz — a much
longer word. Hurry up. Where? Up the river? 'Approach
cautiously.' We had not done so. But the warning could not
have been meant for the place where it could be only found
after approach. Something was wrong above. But what — and how
much? That was the question. We commented adversely upon the
imbecility of that telegraphic style. The bush around said
nothing, and would not let us look very far, either. A torn
curtain of red twill hung in the doorway of the hut, and
flapped sadly in our faces. The dwelling was dismantled; but
we could see a white man had lived there not very long ago.
There remained a rude table — a plank on two posts; a heap of
rubbish reposed in a dark corner, and by the door I picked
up a book. It had lost its covers, and the pages had been
thumbed into a state of extremely dirty softness; but the
back had been lovingly stitched afresh with white cotton
thread, which looked clean yet. It was an extraordinary
find. Its title was, 'An Inquiry into some Points of
Seamanship,' by a man Tower, Towson — some such name — Master
in His Majesty's Navy. The matter looked dreary reading
enough, with illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of
figures, and the copy was sixty years old. I handled this
amazing antiquity with the greatest possible tenderness,
lest it should dissolve in my hands. Within, Towson or
Towser was inquiring earnestly into the breaking strain of
ships' chains and tackle, and other such matters. Not a very
enthralling book; but at the first glance you could see
there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the
right way of going to work, which made these humble pages,
thought out so many years ago, luminous with another than a
professional light. The simple old sailor, with his talk of
chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the
pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon
something unmistakably real. Such a book being there was
wonderful enough; but still more astounding were the notes
pencilled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text.
I couldn't believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it
looked like cipher. Fancy a man lugging with him a book of
that description into this nowhere and studying it — and
making notes — in cipher at that! It was an extravagant
mystery.
"I had been dimly aware for some time of
a worrying noise, and when I lifted my eyes I saw the
wood-pile was gone, and the manager, aided by all the
pilgrims, was shouting at me from the river-side. I slipped
the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading
was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and
solid friendship.
"I started the lame engine ahead. 'It
must be this miserable trader — this intruder,' exclaimed the
manager, looking back malevolently at the place we had left.
'He must be English,' I said. 'It will not save him from
getting into trouble if he is not careful,' muttered the
manager darkly. I observed with assumed innocence that no
man was safe from trouble in this world.
"The current was more rapid now, the
steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped
languidly, and I caught
myself listening on tiptoe for the
next beat of the float, for in sober truth I expected the
wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching
the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes
I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our
progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before
we got abreast. To keep the eyes so long on one thing was
too much for human patience. The manager displayed a
beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and took to
arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with
Kurtz; but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred
to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of
mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what any
one knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One
gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of
this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and
beyond my power of meddling.
"Towards the evening of the second day
we judged ourselves about eight miles from Kurtz's station.
I wanted to push on; but the manager looked grave, and told
me the navigation up there was so dangerous that it would be
advisable, the sun being very low already, to wait where we
were till next morning. Moreover, he pointed out that if the
warning to approach cautiously were to be followed, we must
approach in daylight — not at dusk, or in the dark. This was
sensible enough. Eight miles meant nearly three hours'
steaming for us, and I could also see suspicious ripples at
the upper end of the reach. Nevertheless, I was annoyed
beyond expression at the delay, and most unreasonably too,
since one more night could not matter much after so many
months. As we had plenty of wood, and caution was the word,
I brought up in the middle of the stream. The reach was
narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting.
The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set.
The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat
on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the
creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might
have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig,
to the lightest leaf. It was not sleep — it seemed unnatural,
like a state of trance. Not the faintest sound of any kind
could be heard. You looked on amazed, and began to suspect
yourself of being deaf — then the night came suddenly, and
struck you blind as well. About three in the morning some
large fish leaped, and the loud splash made me jump as
though a gun had been fired. When the sun rose there was a
white fog, very warm and clammy, and more blinding than the
night. It did not shift or drive; it was just there,
standing all round you like something solid. At eight or
nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts. We had a
glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immense
matted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun
hanging over it — all perfectly still — and
then the white
shutter came down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased
grooves. I ordered the chain, which we had begun to heave
in, to be paid out again. Before it stopped running with a
muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite
desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A
complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, filled
our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir
under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others: to me
it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so
suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did this
tumultuous and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a
hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking,
which stopped short, leaving us stiffened in a variety of
silly attitudes, and obstinately listening to the nearly as
appalling and excessive silence. 'Good God! What is the
meaning ——?' stammered at my elbow one of the pilgrims — a
little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore
side-spring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks.
Two others remained open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashed
into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand
darting scared glances, with Winchesters at 'ready' in their
hands. What we could see was just the steamer we were on,
her outlines blurred as though she had been on the point of
dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet
broad, around her — and that was all. The rest of
the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned.
Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept off without leaving a
whisper or a shadow behind.
"I went forward, and ordered the chain
to be hauled in short, so as to be ready to trip the anchor
and move the steamboat at once if necessary. Will they
attack?' whispered an awed voice. 'We will all be butchered
in this fog,' murmured another. The faces twitched with the
strain, the hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to
wink. It was very curious to see the contrast of expressions
of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who
were as much strangers to that part of the river as we,
though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The
whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious
look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row.
The others had an alert, naturally interested expression;
but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the
one or two who grinned as they hauled at the chain. Several
exchanged short, grunting phrases, which seemed to settle
the matter to their satisfaction. Their headman, a young,
broad-chested black, severely draped in dark-blue fringed
cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up
artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me. 'Aha!' I said,
just for good fellowship's sake. 'Catch 'im,' he snapped,
with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth
— 'catch 'im. Give 'im to us.' 'To you, eh?' I asked;
'what would you do with them?' 'Eat 'im!' he said, curtly,
and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out into the fog
in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. I would no
doubt have been properly horrified, had it not occurred to
me that he and his chaps must be very hungry: that they must
have been growing increasingly hungry for at least this
month past. They had been engaged for six months (I don't
think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we
at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to
the beginnings of time — had no inherited experience to teach
them, as it were), and of course, as long as there was a
piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical
law or other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's
head to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had
brought with them some rotten hippo-meat, which couldn't
have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn't,
in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable
quantity of it overboard. It looked like a high-handed
proceeding; but it was really a case of legitimate
self-defence. You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping,
and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip
on existence. Besides that, they had given them every week
three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long; and
the theory was they were to buy their provisions with that
currency in
river-side villages. You can see how
that worked. There were either no villages, or the
people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest of
us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he-goat thrown
in, didn't want to stop the steamer for some more or less
recondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself,
or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don't see
what good their extravagant salary could be to them. I must
say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and
honourable trading company. For the rest, the only thing to
eat — though it didn't look eatable in the least — I saw in
their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like
half-cooked dough, of a dirty lavender colour, they kept
wrapped in leaves, and now and then swallowed a piece of,
but so small that it seemed done more for the look of the
thing than for any serious purpose of sustenance. Why in the
name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn't go for
us — they were thirty to five — and have a good tuck in for
once, amazes me now when I think of it. They were big
powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the
consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though
their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no
longer hard. And I saw that something restraining, one of
those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into
play there. I looked at them with a swift quickening of
interest — not because it
occurred to me I might be eaten by
them before very long, though I own to you that just then I
perceived — in a new light, as it were — how unwholesome the
pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that
my aspect was not so — what shall I say? — so — unappetising: a
touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the
dream-sensation that pervaded all my days at that time.
Perhaps I had a little fever too. One can't live with one's
finger everlastingly on one's pulse. I had often 'a little
fever,' or a little touch of other things — the playful
paw-strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifling
before the more serious onslaught which came in due course.
Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being, with
a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities,
weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable
physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? Was
it superstition, disgust, patience, fear — or some kind of
primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no
patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist
where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what
you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a
breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation,
its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and
brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn
strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to
face bereavement, dishonour, and the
perdition of one's
soul — than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And
these chaps too had no earthly reason for any kind of
scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected
restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a
battlefield. But there was the fact facing me — the fact
dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the
sea, like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery
greater — when I thought of it — than the curious,
inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour
that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind the blind
whiteness of the fog.
"Two pilgrims were quarrelling in
hurried whispers as to which bank. 'Left.' 'No, no; how can
you? Right, right, of course.' 'It is very serious,' said
the manager's voice behind me; 'I would be desolated if
anything should happen to Mr Kurtz before we came up.' I
looked at him, and had not the slightest doubt he was
sincere. He was just the kind of man who would wish to
preserve appearances. That was his restraint. But when he
muttered something about going on at once, I did not even
take the trouble to answer him. I knew, and he knew, that it
was impossible. Were we to let go our hold of the bottom, we
would be absolutely in the air — in space. We wouldn't be
able to tell where we were going to — whether up or down
stream, or across — till we fetched against one bank or the
other, — and then we wouldn't know at first which it was. Of
course
I made no move. I had no mind for a smash-up. You
couldn't imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck.
Whether drowned at once or not, we were sure to perish
speedily in one way or another. 'I authorise you to take all
the risks,' he said, after a short silence. 'I refuse to
take any,' I said shortly; which was just the answer he
expected, though its tone might have surprised him. 'Well, I
must defer to your judgment. You are captain,' he said, with
marked civility. I turned my shoulder to him in sign of my
appreciation, and looked into the fog. How long would it
last? It was the most hopeless look-out. The approach to
this Kurtz grubbing for ivory in the wretched bush was beset
by as many dangers as though he had been an enchanted
princess sleeping in a fabulous castle. 'Will they attack,
do you think?' asked the manager, in a confidential tone.
"I did not think they would attack, for
several obvious reasons. The thick fog was one. If they left
the bank in their canoes they would get lost in it, as we
would be if we attempted to move. Still, I had also judged
the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable — and yet eyes
were in it, eyes that had seen us. The river-side bushes
were certainly very thick; but the undergrowth behind was
evidently penetrable. However, during the short lift I had
seen no canoes anywhere in the reach — certainly not abreast
of the steamer. But what made the idea of attack
inconceivable to me was the
nature of the noise — of the
cries we had heard. They had not the fierce character boding
of immediate hostile intention. Unexpected, wild, and
violent as they had been, they had given me an irresistible
impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboat had for
some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief.
The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a
great human passion let loose. Even extreme grief may
ultimately vent itself in violence — but more generally takes
the form of apathy....
"You should have seen the pilgrims
stare! They had no heart to grin, or even to revile me; but
I believe they thought me gone mad — with fright, maybe. I
delivered a regular lecture. My dear boys, it was no good
bothering. Keep a look-out? Well, you may guess I watched
the fog for the signs of lifting as a cat watches a mouse;
but for anything else our eyes were of no more use to us
than if we had been buried miles deep in a heap of
cotton-wool. It felt like it too — choking, warm, stifling.
Besides, all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was
absolutely true to fact. What we afterwards alluded to as an
attack was really an attempt at repulse. The action was very
far from being aggressive — it was not even defensive, in the
usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of
desperation, and in its essence was purely protective.
"It developed itself, I should say, two
hours after the fog lifted, and its commencement
was at a spot, roughly speaking, about a mile and a half below
Kurtz's station. We had just floundered and flopped round a
bend, when I saw an islet, a mere grassy hummock of bright
green, in the middle of the stream. It was the only thing of
the kind; but as we opened the reach more, I perceived it
was the head of a long sandbank, or rather of a chain of
shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river.
They were discoloured, just awash, and the whole lot was
seen just under the water, exactly as a man's backbone is
seen running down the middle of his back under the skin.
Now, as far as I did see, I could go to the right or to the
left of this. I didn't know either channel, of course. The
banks looked pretty well alike, the depth appeared the same;
but as I had been informed the station was on the west side,
I naturally headed for the western passage.
"No sooner had we fairly entered it than
I became aware it was much narrower than I had supposed. To
the left of us there was the long uninterrupted shoal, and
to the right a high steep bank heavily overgrown with
bushes. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks. The
twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to
distance a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over
the stream. It was then well on in the afternoon, the face
of the forest was gloomy, and a broad strip of shadow had
already fallen on the water. In
this shadow we steamed
up — very slowly, as you may imagine. I sheered her well
inshore — the water being deepest near the bank, as the
sounding-pole informed me.
"One of my hungry and forbearing friends
was sounding in the bows just below me. This steamboat was
exactly like a decked scow. On the deck there were two
little teak-wood houses, with doors and windows. The boiler
was in the fore-end, and the machinery right astern. Over
the whole there was a light roof, supported on stanchions.
The funnel projected through that roof, and in front of the
funnel a small cabin built of light planks served for a
pilot-house. It contained a couch, two camp-stools, a loaded
Martini-Henry leaning in one corner, a tiny table, and the
steering-wheel. It had a wide door in front and a broad
shutter at each side. All these were always thrown open, of
course. I spent my days perched up there on the extreme
fore-end of that roof, before the door. At night I slept, or
tried to, on the couch. An athletic black belonging to some
coast tribe, and educated by my poor predecessor, was the
helmsman. He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue
cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all
the world of himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool
I had ever seen. He steered with no end of a swagger while
you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became
instantly the prey of an abject funk, and would let that
cripple
of a steamboat get the upper hand of him in a minute.
"I was looking down at the
sounding-pole, and feeling much annoyed to see at each try a
little more of it stick out of that river, when I saw my
poleman give up the business suddenly, and stretch himself
flat on the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul
his pole in. He kept hold on it though, and it trailed in
the water. At the same time the fireman, whom I could also
see below me, sat down abruptly before his furnace and
ducked his head. I was amazed. Then I had to look at the
river mighty quick, because there was a snag in the fairway.
Sticks, little sticks, were flying about — thick: they were
whizzing before my nose, dropping below me, striking behind
me against my pilot-house. All this time the river, the
shore, the woods, were very quiet — perfectly quiet. I could
only hear the heavy splashing thump of the stern-wheel and
the patter of these things. We cleared the snag clumsily.
Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at! I stepped in quickly
to close the shutter on the land-side. That fool-helmsman,
his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high,
stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in
horse. Confound him! And we were staggering within ten feet
of the bank. I had to lean right out to swing the heavy
shutter, and I saw a face amongst the leaves on the level
with my own, looking at me very fierce and steady; and then
suddenly, as though a veil had
been removed from my eyes, I
made out, deep in the tangled gloom, naked breasts, arms,
legs, glaring eyes — the bush was swarming with human limbs
in movement, glistening, of bronze colour. The twigs shook,
swayed, and rustled, the arrows flew out of them, and then
the shutter came to. 'Steer her straight,' I said to the
helmsman. He held his head rigid, face forward; but his eyes
rolled, he kept on lifting and setting down his feet gently,
his mouth foamed a little. 'Keep quiet!' I said in a fury. I
might just as well have ordered a tree not to sway in the
wind. I darted out. Below me there was a great scuffle of
feet on the iron deck; confused exclamations; a voice
screamed, 'Can you turn back?' I caught sight of a V-shaped
ripple on the water ahead. What? Another snag! A fusillade
burst out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened with their
Winchesters, and were simply squirting lead into that bush.
A deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove slowly forward.
I swore at it. Now I couldn't see the ripple or the snag
either. I stood in the doorway, peering, and the arrows came
in swarms. They might have been poisoned, but they looked as
though they wouldn't kill a cat. The bush began to howl. Our
wood-cutters raised a warlike whoop; the report of a rifle
just at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder, and
the pilot-house was yet full of noise and smoke when I made
a dash at the wheel. The fool-nigger had
dropped everything,
to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry. He
stood before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him
to come back, while I straightened the sudden twist out of
that steamboat. There was no room to turn even if I had
wanted to, the snag was somewhere very near ahead in that
confounded smoke, there was no time to lose, so I just
crowded her into the bank — right into the bank, where I knew
the water was deep.
"We tore slowly along the overhanging
bushes in a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves. The
fusillade below stopped short, as I had foreseen it would
when the squirts got empty. I threw my head back to a
glinting whizz that traversed the pilot-house, in at one
shutter-hole and out at the other. Looking past that mad
helmsman, who was shaking the empty rifle and yelling at the
shore, I saw vague forms of men running bent double,
leaping, gliding, distinct, incomplete, evanescent.
Something big appeared in the air before the shutter, the
rifle went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly,
looked at me over his shoulder in an extraordinary,
profound, familiar manner, and fell upon my feet. The side
of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what
appeared a long cane clattered round and knocked over a
little camp-stool. It looked as though after wrenching that
thing from somebody ashore he had lost his balance in the
effort. The thin smoke had blown away, we
were clear of the
snag, and looking ahead I could see that in another hundred
yards or so I would be free to sheer off, away from the
bank; but my feet felt so very warm and wet that I had to
look down. The man had rolled on his back and stared
straight up at me; both his hands clutched that cane. It was
the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lunged through
the opening, had caught him in the side just below the ribs;
the blade had gone in out of sight, after making a frightful
gash; my shoes were full; a pool of blood lay very still,
gleaming dark-red under the wheel; his eyes shone with an
amazing lustre. The fusillade burst out again. He looked at
me anxiously, gripping the spear like something precious,
with an air of being afraid I would try to take it away from
him. I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze
and attend to the steering. With one hand I felt above my
head for the line of the steam-whistle, and jerked out
screech after screech hurriedly. The tumult of angry and
warlike yells was checked instantly, and then from the
depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged
wail of mournful fear and utter despair as may be imagined
to follow the flight of the last hope from the earth. There
was a great commotion in the bush; the shower of arrows
stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply — then
silence, in which the languid beat of the stern-wheel came
plainly to my ears. I put the helm hard a-starboard at the
moment when the pilgrim in pink pyjamas, very hot and
agitated, appeared in the doorway. 'The manager sends
me ——' he began in an official tone, and stopped short.
'Good God!' he said, glaring at the wounded man.
"We two whites stood over him, and his
lustrous and inquiring glance enveloped us both. I declare
it looked as though he would presently put to us some
question in an understandable language; but he died without
uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a
muscle. Only in the very last moment, as though in response
to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could not
hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black
death-mask an inconceivably sombre, brooding, and menacing
expression. The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly
into vacant glassiness. 'Can you steer?' I asked the agent
eagerly. He looked very dubious; but I made a grab at his
arm, and he understood at once I meant him to steer whether
or no. To tell you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to
change my shoes and socks. 'He is dead,' murmured the
fellow, immensely impressed. 'No doubt about it,' said I,
tugging like mad at the shoe-laces. 'And, by the way, I
suppose Mr Kurtz is dead as well by this time.'
"For the moment that was the dominant
thought. There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as
though I had found out I had been striving
after something
altogether without a substance. I couldn't have been more
disgusted if I had travelled all this way for the sole
purpose of talking with Mr Kurtz. Talking with. . . . I
flung one shoe overboard, and became aware that that was
exactly what I had been looking forward to — a talk with
Kurtz. I made the strange discovery that I had never
imagined him as doing, you know, but as discoursing. I
didn't say to myself, 'Now I will never see him,' or 'Now I
will never shake him by the hand,' but, 'Now I will never
hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice. Not of
course that I did not connect him with some sort of action.
Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and
admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or
stolen more ivory than all the other agents together. That
was not the point. The point was in his being a gifted
creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out
pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real
presence, was his ability to talk, his words — the gift of
expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most
exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of
light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an
impenetrable darkness.
"The other shoe went flying unto the
devil-god of that river. I thought, By Jove! it's all over.
We are too late; he has vanished — the gift has vanished, by
means of some spear, arrow, or club. I will never hear that
chap speak after all, — and my sorrow had a startling
extravagance of emotion, even such as I had noticed in the
howling sorrow of these savages in the bush. I couldn't have
felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of
a belief or had missed my destiny in life.... Why do you
sigh in this beastly way, somebody? Absurd? Well, absurd.
Good Lord! mustn't a man ever —— Here, give me some
tobacco." . . .
There was a pause of profound stillness, then
a match flared, and Marlow's lean face appeared, worn,
hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an
aspect of concentrated attention; and as he took vigorous
draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of
the night in the regular flicker of the tiny flame. The
match went out.
"Absurd!" he cried. "This is
the worst of trying to tell. . . . Here you all are, each
moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with two
anchors, a butcher round one corner, a policeman round
another, excellent appetites, and temperature normal — you
hear — normal from year's end to year's end. And you say,
Absurd! Absurd be — exploded! Absurd! My dear boys, what can
you expect from a man who out of sheer nervousness had just
flung overboard a pair of new shoes. Now I think of it, it
is amazing I did not shed tears. I am, upon the whole, proud
of my fortitude. I was cut up to the quick at the idea of
having lost the inestimable
privilege of listening to the
gifted Kurtz. Of course I was wrong. The privilege was
waiting for me. Oh yes, I heard more than enough. And I was
right, too. A voice. He was very little more than a voice.
And I heard — him — it — this voice — other voices — all of them
were so little more than voices — and the memory of that time
itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration
of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or
simply mean, without any kind of sense. Voices, voices — even
the girl herself — now ——"
He was silent for a long time.
"I laid the ghost of his gifts at last
with a lie," he began suddenly. "Girl! What? Did I
mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it — completely. They — the
women I mean — are out of it — should be out of it. We must
help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest
ours gets worse. Oh, she had to be out of it. You should
have heard the disinterred body of Mr Kurtz saying, 'My
Intended.' You would have perceived directly then how
completely she was out of it. And the lofty frontal bone of
Mr Kurtz! They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, but
this — ah — specimen, was impressively bald. The wilderness
had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a
ball — an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and — lo! — he had
withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got
into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its
own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish
initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered favourite.
Ivory? I should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old
mud shanty was bursting with it. You would think there was
not a single tusk left either above or below the ground in
the whole country. 'Mostly fossil,' the manager had remarked
disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; but they
call it fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers
do bury the tusks sometimes — but evidently they couldn't
bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr Kurtz
from his fate. We filled the steamboat with it, and had to
pile a lot on the deck. Thus he could see and enjoy as long
as he could see, because the appreciation of this favour had
remained with him to the last. You should have heard him
say, 'My ivory.' Oh yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my
ivory, my station, my river, my ——' everything belonged to
him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the
wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that
would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything
belonged to him — but that was a trifle. The thing was to
know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness
claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made
you creepy all over. It was impossible — it was not good for
one either — to try and imagine. He had taken a high seat
amongst the devils of the land — I mean literally.
You can't understand. How could you? — with solid pavement under your
feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to
fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the
policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and
lunatic asylums — how can you imagine what particular region
of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him
into by the way of solitude — utter solitude without a
policeman — by the way of silence — utter silence, where no
warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of
public opinion. These little things make all the great
difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your
own innate strength, upon your own capacity for
faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go
wrong — too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the
powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain
for his soul with the devil: the fool is too much of a fool,
or the devil too much of a devil — I don't know which. Or you
may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be
altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights
and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing
place — and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain
I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor
the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we
must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by
Jove! — breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? your strength comes
in, the faith in your ability for the digging of
unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in — your power of
devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking
business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying
to excuse or even explain — I am trying to account to myself
for — for — Mr Kurtz — for the shade of Mr Kurtz. This
initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with
its amazing confidence before it vanished altogether. This
was because it could speak English to me. The original Kurtz
had been educated partly in England, and — as he was good
enough to say himself — his sympathies were in the right
place. His mother was half-English, his father was
half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz;
and by-and-by I learned that, most appropriately, the
International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs
had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its
future guidance. And he had written it too. I've seen it.
I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but
too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing
he had found time for! But this must have been before
his — let us say — nerves, went wrong, and caused him to
preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable
rites, which — as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I
heard at various times — were offered
up to him — do you
understand? — to Mr Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful
piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the
light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He
began with the argument that we whites, from the point of
development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to
them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings — we
approach them with the might as of deity,' and so on, and so
on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power
for good practically unbounded,' &c. &c. From that
point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was
magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave
me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august
Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the
unbounded power of eloquence — of words — of burning noble
words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic
current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the
last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady
hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was
very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every
altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and
terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky:
'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part was that he
had apparently forgotten all about that valuable
post-scriptum,
because, later on, when he in a sense came to
himself, he
repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my
pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the
future a good influence upon his career. I had full
information about all these things, and, besides, as it
turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. I've done
enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it,
if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dust-bin of
progress, amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively
speaking, all the dead cats of civilisation. But then, you
see, I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was,
he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten
rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his
honour; he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims
with bitter misgivings: he had one devoted friend at least,
and he had conquered one soul in the world that was neither
rudimentary nor tainted with self-seeking. No; I can't
forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow
was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I
missed my late helmsman awfully — I missed him even while his
body was still lying in the pilot-house. Perhaps you will
think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no
more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well,
don't you see, he had done something, he had steered; for
months I had him at my back — a help — an instrument. It was a
kind of partnership. He steered for me — I had to look after
him, I worried about
his deficiencies, and thus a subtle
bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it
was suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that
look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this
day in my memory — like a claim of distant kinship affirmed
in a supreme moment.
"Poor fool! If he had only left that
shutter alone. He had no restraint, no restraint — just like
Kurtz — a tree swayed by the wind. As soon as I had put on a
dry pair of slippers, I dragged him out, after first jerking
the spear out of his side, which operation I confess I
performed with my eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together
over the little doorstep; his shoulders were pressed to my
breast; I hugged him from behind desperately. Oh! he was
heavy, heavy; heavier than any man on earth, I should
imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him overboard. The
current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass,
and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it
for ever. All the pilgrims and the manager were then
congregated on the awning-deck about the pilot-house,
chattering at each other like a flock of excited magpies,
and there was a scandalised murmur at my heartless
promptitude. What they wanted to keep that body hanging
about for I can't guess. Embalm it, maybe. But I had also
heard another, and a very ominous, murmur on the deck below.
My friends the wood-cutters were likewise scandalised, and
with a better show of reason — though
I admit that the reason
itself was quite inadmissible. Oh, quite! I had made up my
mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fishes
alone should have him. He had been a very second-rate
helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have
become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some
startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel,
the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at
the business.
"This I did directly the simple funeral
was over. We were going half-speed, keeping right in the
middle of the stream, and I listened to the talk about me.
They had given up Kurtz, they had given up the station;
Kurtz was dead, and the station had been burnt — and so on —
and so on. The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with
the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly
revenged. 'Say! We must have made a glorious slaughter of
them in the bush. Eh? What do you think? Say?' He positively
danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar. And he had
nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! I could not help
saying, 'You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' I had
seen, from the way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew,
that almost all the shots had gone too high. You can't hit
anything unless you take aim and fire from the shoulder; but
these chaps fired from the hip with their eyes shut. The
retreat, I maintained — and I was right — was
caused by the screeching
of the steam-whistle. Upon this they forgot
Kurtz, and began to howl at me with indignant protests.
"The manager stood by the wheel
murmuring confidentially about the necessity of getting well
away down the river before dark at all events, when I saw in
the distance a clearing on the river-side and the outlines
of some sort of building. 'What's this?' I asked. He clapped
his hands in wonder. 'The station!' he cried. I edged in at
once, still going half-speed.
"Through my glasses I saw the slope of a
hill interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free from
undergrowth. A long decaying building on the summit was half
buried in the high grass; the large holes in the peaked roof
gaped black from afar; the jungle and the woods made a
background. There was no enclosure or fence of any kind; but
there had been one apparently, for near the house half a
dozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, and
with their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls.
The rails, or whatever there had been between, had
disappeared. Of course the forest surrounded all that. The
river-bank was clear, and on the water-side I saw a white
man under a hat like a cart-wheel beckoning persistently
with his whole arm. Examining the edge of the forest above
and below, I was almost certain I could see movements — human
forms gliding here and there. I steamed past prudently, then
stopped
the engines and let her drift down. The man on the
shore began to shout, urging us to land. 'We have been
attacked,' screamed the manager. 'I know — I know. It's all
right,' yelled back the other, as cheerful as you please.
'Come along. It's all right. I am glad.'
"His aspect reminded me of something I
had seen — something funny I had seen somewhere. As I
manœuvred to get alongside, I was asking myself, 'What does
this fellow look like?' Suddenly I got it. He looked like a
harlequin. His clothes had been made of some stuff that was
brown holland probably, but it was covered with patches all
over, with bright patches, blue, red, and yellow, — patches
on the back, patches on the front, patches on elbows, on
knees; coloured binding round his jacket, scarlet edging at
the bottom of his trousers; and the sunshine made him look
extremely gay and wonderfully neat withal, because you could
see how beautifully all this patching had been done. A
beardless, boyish face, very fair, no features to speak of,
nose peeling, little blue eyes, smiles and frowns chasing
each other over that open countenance like sunshine and
shadow on a wind-swept plain. 'Look out, captain!' he cried;
'there's a snag lodged in here last night.' What! Another
snag? I confess I swore shamefully. I had nearly holed my
cripple, to finish off that charming trip. The harlequin on
the bank turned his little pug nose up to me. 'You English?'
he asked, all
smiles. 'Are you?' I shouted from the wheel.
The smiles vanished, and he shook his head as if sorry for
my disappointment. Then he brightened up. 'Never mind!' he
cried encouragingly. 'Are we in time?' I asked. 'He is up
there,' he replied, with a toss of the head up the hill, and
becoming gloomy all of a sudden. His face was like the
autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next.
"When the manager, escorted by the
pilgrims, all of them armed to the teeth, had gone to the
house, this chap came on board. 'I say, I don't like this.
These natives are in the bush,' I said. He assured me
earnestly it was all right. 'They are simple people,' he
added; 'well, I am glad you came. It took me all my time to
keep them off.' 'But you said it was all right,' I cried.
'Oh, they meant no harm,' he said; and as I stared he
corrected himself, 'Not exactly.' Then vivaciously, 'My
faith, your pilot-house wants a clean-up!' In the next
breath he advised me to keep enough steam on the boiler to
blow the whistle in case of any trouble. 'One good screech
will do more for you than all your rifles. They are simple
people,' he repeated. He rattled away at such a rate he
quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make up for
lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such
was the case. 'Don't you talk with Mr Kurtz?' I said. 'You
don't talk with that man — you listen to him,' he exclaimed
with
severe exaltation. 'But now ——' He waved his arm, and
in the twinkling of an eye was in the uttermost depths of
despondency. In a moment he came up again with a jump,
possessed himself of both my hands, shook them continuously,
while he gabbled: 'Brother sailor . . . honour . .. pleasure
. . . delight . . . introduce myself . . . Russian . . . son
of an arch-priest . . . Government of Tambov . . . What?
Tobacco! English tobacco; the excellent English tobacco!
Now, that's brotherly. Smoke? Where's a sailor that does not
smoke?'
"The pipe soothed him, and gradually I
made out he had run away from school, had gone to sea in a
Russian ship; ran away again; served some time in English
ships; was now reconciled with the arch-priest. He made a
point of that. 'But when one is young one must see things,
gather experience, ideas; enlarge the mind.' 'Here!' I
interrupted. 'You can never tell! Here I have met Mr Kurtz,'
he said, youthfully solemn and reproachful. I held my tongue
after that. It appears he had persuaded a Dutch
trading-house on the coast to fit him out with stores and
goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart,
and no more idea of what would happen to him than a baby. He
had been wandering about that river for nearly two years
alone, cut off from everybody and everything. 'I am not so
young as I look. I am twenty-five,' he said. 'At first old
Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,' he narrated
with keen enjoyment; 'but I stuck to him, and talked and
talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the hind-leg
off his favourite dog, so he gave me some cheap things and a
few guns, and told me he hoped he would never see my face
again. Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten. I've sent him one
small lot of ivory a year ago, so that he can't call me a
little thief when I get back. I hope he got it. And for the
rest I don't care. I had some wood stacked for you. That was
my old house. Did you see?'
"I gave him Towson's book. He made as
though he would kiss me, but restrained himself. 'The only
book I had left, and I thought I had lost it,' he said,
looking at it ecstatically. 'So many accidents happen to a
man going about alone, you
know. Canoes get upset
sometimes — and sometimes you've got to clear out so quick
when the people get angry.' He thumbed the pages. 'You made
notes in Russian?' I asked. He nodded. 'I thought they were
written in cipher,' I said. He laughed, then became serious.
'I had lots of trouble to keep these people off,' he said.
'Did they want to kill you?' I asked. 'Oh no!' he cried, and
checked himself. 'Why did they attack us?' I pursued. He
hesitated, then said shamefacedly, 'They don't want him to
go.' 'Don't they?' I said, curiously. He nodded a nod full
of mystery and wisdom. 'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has
enlarged my mind.' He opened his arms wide, staring at me
with his little blue eyes that were perfectly round.
(To be concluded.)
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(Prepared by Cindy Kogut in 1997)