Part 2

Part Two

"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 him-

self, the station being by that time bare of goods and

stores, but after coming three hundred miles, had sud-

denly 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 mo-

tive. 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 sud-

denly 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 pru-

dence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as 'that

scoundrel.' The 'scoundrel' had reported that the

'man' had been very ill--had recovered imperfectly.

... 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 rumors.' They approached again, just

as the manager was saying, 'No one, as far as I know,

unless a species of wandering trader--a pestilential fel-

low, 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 extraor-

dinary 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 center for trade of course, but also for human-

izing, 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 gesture that took in the forest, the

creek, the mud, the river,--seemed to beckon with a dis-

honoring 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 some-

times. 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 it 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 it compara-

tively. It was just two months from the day we left

the creek when we came to the bank below Kurtz's sta-

tion.

"Going up that river was like traveling 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 over-

shadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and

alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broaden-

ing 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--some

where--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 inten-

tion. 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

next day's steaming. When you have to attend to

things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the sur-

face, 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 my-

self.

"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 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 ap-

pearance 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 feel-

ing. 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 toward 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 in-

heritance, 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, wel-

coming 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 traveling 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 pas-

sionate 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 re-

sponse 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 com-

prehend. 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, valor, 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. Acquisi-

tions, 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 senti-

ments, 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 senti-

ments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about

with white-lead and strips of woolen 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 fear-

fully (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 fire-

man 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 unrecognizable 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. Some-

thing 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 con-

cern 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 penciled 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 ex-

travagant 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 be-

fore 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 anyone 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 ex-

pression at the delay, and most unreasonably too, since

one night more 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 tower-

ing 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 clamor, 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, leav-

ing us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and ob-

stinately listening to the nearly as appalling and ex-

cessive 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 min-

ute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush out in-

continently and stand darting scared glances, with Win-

chesters 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 no-

where, 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 ex-

pressions 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 es-

sentially 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 art-

fully 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 be-

longed to the beginnings of time--had no inherited ex-

perience to teach them as it were), and of course, as

long as there was a piece of paper written over in ac-

cordance 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 proceed-

ing; but it was really a case of legitimate self-defense.

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 pro-

visions 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 honorable trading company. For the

rest, the only thing to eat--though it didn't look eat-

able in the least--I saw in their possession was a few

lumps of some stuff like half-cooked dough, of a dirty

lavender color, they kept wrapped in leaves, and now and

then swallowed a piece of, but so small that it seemed

done more for the looks of the thing than for any seri-

ous 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 con-

sequences, 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 quicken-

ing 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--unappetizing: 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 wilder-

ness, 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 supersti-

tion, disgust, patience, fear--or some kind of primitive

honor? 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 somber 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, dishonor, 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 un-

fathomable enigma, a mystery greater--when I thought

of it--than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate

grief in this savage clamor that had swept by us on the

river-bank, behind the blind whiteness of the fog.

"Two pilgrims were quarreling 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 authorize 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 cap-

tain,' he said, with marked civility. I turned my shoul-

der to him in sign of my appreciation, and looked into

the fog. How long would it last? It was the most hope-

less 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--cer-

tainly 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 hu-

man passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ulti-

mately 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 bother-

ing. 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 discolored, 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 pro-

jected 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 sound-

ing 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 feel-

ing 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 be-

low 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. Con-

found 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 color. 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 shape

of a V-shaped ripple on the water ahead. What? An-

other 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 glint-

ing whizz that traversed the pilot-house, in at one shutter-

hole and out at the other. Looking past that mad helms-

man, 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. Some-

thing 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, pro-

found, 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 wrench-

ing 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 open-

ing, 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 luster. The fusillade burst out again. He

looked at me anxiously, gripping the spear like some-

thing 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-whistled, and jerked out screech after screech hur-

riedly. 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 mourn-

ful 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-star-

board 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 utter-

ing 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 somber,

brooding, and menacing expression. The luster of in-

quiring 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 under-

stood 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 fel-

low, 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 al-

together without a substance. I couldn't have been more

disgusted if I had traveled 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 pre-

sented 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 to-

bacco."...

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 nervous-

ness 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 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 per-

ceived 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

favorite. 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 favor 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 be-

longed 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--trying to 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 neigh-

bors 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 untrammeled feet may take him into

by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a police-

man--by the way of silence, utter silence, where no

warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whisper-

ing 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 ex-

plain--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 honored 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 Sup-

pression 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 beau-

tiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, how-

ever, 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 a 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 mag-

nificent, 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 en-

thusiasm. 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 valu-

able postscriptum, 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 everlast-

ing rest in the dust-bin of progress, amongst all the

sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the dead cats

of civilization. But then, you see, I can't choose. He

won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not com-

mon. He had the power to charm or frighten rudi-

mentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his

honor; 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 door-step; his shoulders were

pressed to my breast; I hugged him from behind des-

perately. 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 scandalized 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 scandalized,

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 tempta-

tion, 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, any-

how.' 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 confi-

dentially 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 inter-

spersed with rare trees and perfectly free from under-

growth. 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 inclosure

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 orna-

mented with round carved balls. The rails, or what-

ever 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 man-

ager. '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 maneuvered

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 yel-

low,--patches on the back, patches on front, patches on

elbows, on knees; colored binding round his jacket, scar-

let edging at the bottom of his trousers; and the sun-

shine 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 harle-

quin 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 encourag-

ingly. '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...

honor... 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 wan-

dering 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 favorite 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 some-

times--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 him-

self. 'Why did they attack us?' I pursued. He hesi-

tated, 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."