2. II
"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 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 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 center for trade of course, but also for humanizing,
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 dishonoring
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 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 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 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 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 — 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 expression
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 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 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, 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-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 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 honorable 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 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 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 — 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 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
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 unfathomable
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 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 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 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 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? 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 shutterhole
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 luster. 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-whistled, 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-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 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 somber,
brooding, and menacing expression. The luster 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 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 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 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
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 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 — 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 neighbors
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 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 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 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 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 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
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 everlasting
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 common.
He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 yellow, — patches
on the back, patches on front, patches on
elbows, on knees; colored 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 . . .
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 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 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 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."