'After these words, and without a change of attitude, he, so to speak,
submitted himself passively to a state of silence. I kept him company;
and suddenly, but not abruptly, as if the appointed time had arrived
for his moderate and husky voice to come out of his immobility, he
pronounced, "Mon Dieu! how the time passes!" Nothing could have been
more commonplace than this remark; but its utterance coincided for me
with a moment of vision. It's extraordinary how we go through life with
eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just
as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to
the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless,
there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments
of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much--everything--in
a flash--before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. I
raised my eyes when he spoke, and I saw him as though I had never seen
him before. I saw his chin sunk on his breast, the clumsy folds of his
coat, his clasped hands, his motionless pose, so curiously suggestive
of his having been simply left there. Time had passed indeed: it had
overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with
a few poor gifts: the iron-grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned
face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulder-straps; one of those
steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations,
one of those uncounted lives that are buried without drums and
trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes. "I am now third
lieutenant of the Victorieuse" (she was the flagship of the French
Pacific squadron at the time), he said, detaching his shoulders from
the wall a couple of inches to introduce himself. I bowed slightly on my
side of the table, and told him I commanded a merchant vessel at present
anchored in Rushcutters' Bay. He had "remarked" her,--a pretty little
craft. He was very civil about it in his impassive way. I even fancy
he went the length of tilting his head in compliment as he repeated,
breathing visibly the while, "Ah, yes. A little craft painted
black--very pretty--very pretty (tres coquet)." After a time he twisted
his body slowly to face the glass door on our right. "A dull town
(triste ville)," he observed, staring into the street. It was a
brilliant day; a southerly buster was raging, and we could see the
passers-by, men and women, buffeted by the wind on the sidewalks, the
sunlit fronts of the houses across the road blurred by the tall whirls
of dust. "I descended on shore," he said, "to stretch my legs a little,
but . . ." He didn't finish, and sank into the depths of his repose.
"Pray--tell me," he began, coming up ponderously, "what was there at the
bottom of this affair--precisely (au juste)? It is curious. That dead
man, for instance--and so on."

'"There were living men too," I said; "much more curious."

'"No doubt, no doubt," he agreed half audibly, then, as if after
mature consideration, murmured, "Evidently." I made no difficulty in
communicating to him what had interested me most in this affair. It
seemed as though he had a right to know: hadn't he spent thirty hours
on board the Patna--had he not taken the succession, so to speak, had
he not done "his possible"? He listened to me, looking more priest-like
than ever, and with what--probably on account of his downcast eyes--had
the appearance of devout concentration. Once or twice he elevated
his eyebrows (but without raising his eyelids), as one would say "The
devil!" Once he calmly exclaimed, "Ah, bah!" under his breath, and when
I had finished he pursed his lips in a deliberate way and emitted a sort
of sorrowful whistle.

'In any one else it might have been an evidence of boredom, a sign of
indifference; but he, in his occult way, managed to make his immobility
appear profoundly responsive, and as full of valuable thoughts as an
egg is of meat. What he said at last was nothing more than a "Very
interesting," pronounced politely, and not much above a whisper. Before
I got over my disappointment he added, but as if speaking to himself,
"That's it. That _is_ it." His chin seemed to sink lower on his breast,
his body to weigh heavier on his seat. I was about to ask him what he
meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person,
as a faint ripple may be seen upon stagnant water even before the wind
is felt. "And so that poor young man ran away along with the others," he
said, with grave tranquillity.

'I don't know what made me smile: it is the only genuine smile of mine
I can remember in connection with Jim's affair. But somehow this simple
statement of the matter sounded funny in French. . . . "S'est enfui avec
les autres," had said the lieutenant. And suddenly I began to admire the
discrimination of the man. He had made out the point at once: he did
get hold of the only thing I cared about. I felt as though I were taking
professional opinion on the case. His imperturbable and mature calmness
was that of an expert in possession of the facts, and to whom one's
perplexities are mere child's-play. "Ah! The young, the young," he said
indulgently. "And after all, one does not die of it." "Die of what?" I
asked swiftly. "Of being afraid." He elucidated his meaning and sipped
his drink.

'I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff
and could not move independently of each other, so that he took up his
tumbler with an ungainly clutch. "One is always afraid. One may talk,
but . . ." He put down the glass awkwardly. . . . "The fear, the
fear--look you--it is always there." . . . He touched his breast near
a brass button, on the very spot where Jim had given a thump to his
own when protesting that there was nothing the matter with his heart. I
suppose I made some sign of dissent, because he insisted, "Yes! yes! One
talks, one talks; this is all very fine; but at the end of the reckoning
one is no cleverer than the next man--and no more brave. Brave! This
is always to be seen. I have rolled my hump (roule ma bosse)," he said,
using the slang expression with imperturbable seriousness, "in all parts
of the world; I have known brave men--famous ones! Allez!" . . . He
drank carelessly. . . . "Brave--you conceive--in the Service--one has
got to be--the trade demands it (le metier veut ca). Is it not so?" he
appealed to me reasonably. "Eh bien! Each of them--I say each of them,
if he were an honest man--bien entendu--would confess that there is a
point--there is a point--for the best of us--there is somewhere a point
when you let go everything (vous lachez tout). And you have got to
live with that truth--do you see? Given a certain combination
of circumstances, fear is sure to come. Abominable funk (un trac
epouvantable). And even for those who do not believe this truth there is
fear all the same--the fear of themselves. Absolutely so. Trust me. Yes.
Yes. . . . At my age one knows what one is talking about--que diable!"
. . . He had delivered himself of all this as immovably as though he had
been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened
the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. "It's
evident--parbleu!" he continued; "for, make up your mind as much as you
like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un derangement
d'estomac) is enough to . . . Take me, for instance--I have made my
proofs. Eh bien! I, who am speaking to you, once . . ."

'He drained his glass and returned to his twirling. "No, no; one does
not die of it," he pronounced finally, and when I found he did not mean
to proceed with the personal anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the
more so as it was not the sort of story, you know, one could very well
press him for. I sat silent, and he too, as if nothing could please him
better. Even his thumbs were still now. Suddenly his lips began to move.
"That is so," he resumed placidly. "Man is born a coward (L'homme est ne
poltron). It is a difficulty--parbleu! It would be too easy other vise.
But habit--habit--necessity--do you see?--the eye of others--voila. One
puts up with it. And then the example of others who are no better than
yourself, and yet make good countenance. . . ."

'His voice ceased.

'"That young man--you will observe--had none of these inducements--at
least at the moment," I remarked.

'He raised his eyebrows forgivingly: "I don't say; I don't say. The
young man in question might have had the best dispositions--the best
dispositions," he repeated, wheezing a little.

'"I am glad to see you taking a lenient view," I said. "His own feeling
in the matter was--ah!--hopeful, and . . ."

'The shuffle of his feet under the table interrupted me. He drew up
his heavy eyelids. Drew up, I say--no other expression can describe the
steady deliberation of the act--and at last was disclosed completely to
me. I was confronted by two narrow grey circlets, like two tiny steel
rings around the profound blackness of the pupils. The sharp glance,
coming from that massive body, gave a notion of extreme efficiency, like
a razor-edge on a battle-axe. "Pardon," he said punctiliously. His right
hand went up, and he swayed forward. "Allow me . . . I contended that
one may get on knowing very well that one's courage does not come of
itself (ne vient pas tout seul). There's nothing much in that to
get upset about. One truth the more ought not to make life
impossible. . . . But the honour--the honour, monsieur! . . . The honour
. . . that is real--that is! And what life may be worth when" . . . he
got on his feet with a ponderous impetuosity, as a startled ox might
scramble up from the grass . . . "when the honour is gone--ah
ca! par exemple--I can offer no opinion. I can offer no
opinion--because--monsieur--I know nothing of it."

'I had risen too, and, trying to throw infinite politeness into
our attitudes, we faced each other mutely, like two china dogs on a
mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he had pricked the bubble. The blight
of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our
conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. "Very well," I said,
with a disconcerted smile; "but couldn't it reduce itself to not being
found out?" He made as if to retort readily, but when he spoke he had
changed his mind. "This, monsieur, is too fine for me--much above me--I
don't think about it." He bowed heavily over his cap, which he held
before him by the peak, between the thumb and the forefinger of his
wounded hand. I bowed too. We bowed together: we scraped our feet at
each other with much ceremony, while a dirty specimen of a waiter looked
on critically, as though he had paid for the performance. "Serviteur,"
said the Frenchman. Another scrape. "Monsieur" . . . "Monsieur." . . .
The glass door swung behind his burly back. I saw the southerly buster
get hold of him and drive him down wind with his hand to his head, his
shoulders braced, and the tails of his coat blown hard against his legs.

'I sat down again alone and discouraged--discouraged about Jim's case.
If you wonder that after more than three years it had preserved its
actuality, you must know that I had seen him only very lately. I had
come straight from Samarang, where I had loaded a cargo for Sydney: an
utterly uninteresting bit of business,--what Charley here would call one
of my rational transactions,--and in Samarang I had seen something
of Jim. He was then working for De Jongh, on my recommendation.
Water-clerk. "My representative afloat," as De Jongh called him. You
can't imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable of
being invested with a spark of glamour--unless it be the business of an
insurance canvasser. Little Bob Stanton--Charley here knew him well--had
gone through that experience. The same who got drowned afterwards trying
to save a lady's-maid in the Sephora disaster. A case of collision on a
hazy morning off the Spanish coast--you may remember. All the passengers
had been packed tidily into the boats and shoved clear of the ship, when
Bob sheered alongside again and scrambled back on deck to fetch that
girl. How she had been left behind I can't make out; anyhow, she had
gone completely crazy--wouldn't leave the ship--held to the rail like
grim death. The wrestling-match could be seen plainly from the boats;
but poor Bob was the shortest chief mate in the merchant service, and
the woman stood five feet ten in her shoes and was as strong as a horse,
I've been told. So it went on, pull devil, pull baker, the wretched girl
screaming all the time, and Bob letting out a yell now and then to
warn his boat to keep well clear of the ship. One of the hands told me,
hiding a smile at the recollection, "It was for all the world, sir, like
a naughty youngster fighting with his mother." The same old chap said
that "At the last we could see that Mr. Stanton had given up hauling
at the gal, and just stood by looking at her, watchful like. We thought
afterwards he must've been reckoning that, maybe, the rush of water
would tear her away from the rail by-and-by and give him a show to save
her. We daren't come alongside for our life; and after a bit the old
ship went down all on a sudden with a lurch to starboard--plop. The suck
in was something awful. We never saw anything alive or dead come up."
Poor Bob's spell of shore-life had been one of the complications of a
love affair, I believe. He fondly hoped he had done with the sea for
ever, and made sure he had got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it
came to canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up
to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh
till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized
and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and
say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul
was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that
work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself to the new
conditions of his life--I was kept too busy in getting him something to
do that would keep body and soul together--but I am pretty certain his
adventurous fancy was suffering all the pangs of starvation. It had
certainly nothing to feed upon in this new calling. It was distressing
to see him at it, though he tackled it with a stubborn serenity for
which I must give him full credit. I kept my eye on his shabby plodding
with a sort of notion that it was a punishment for the heroics of his
fancy--an expiation for his craving after more glamour than he could
carry. He had loved too well to imagine himself a glorious racehorse,
and now he was condemned to toil without honour like a costermonger's
donkey. He did it very well. He shut himself in, put his head down, said
never a word. Very well; very well indeed--except for certain
fantastic and violent outbreaks, on the deplorable occasions when the
irrepressible Patna case cropped up. Unfortunately that scandal of the
Eastern seas would not die out. And this is the reason why I could never
feel I had done with Jim for good.

'I sat thinking of him after the French lieutenant had left, not,
however, in connection with De Jongh's cool and gloomy backshop, where
we had hurriedly shaken hands not very long ago, but as I had seen him
years before in the last flickers of the candle, alone with me in the
long gallery of the Malabar House, with the chill and the darkness of
the night at his back. The respectable sword of his country's law was
suspended over his head. To-morrow--or was it to-day? (midnight had
slipped by long before we parted)--the marble-faced police
magistrate, after distributing fines and terms of imprisonment in the
assault-and-battery case, would take up the awful weapon and smite his
bowed neck. Our communion in the night was uncommonly like a last vigil
with a condemned man. He was guilty too. He was guilty--as I had told
myself repeatedly, guilty and done for; nevertheless, I wished to spare
him the mere detail of a formal execution. I don't pretend to explain
the reasons of my desire--I don't think I could; but if you haven't got
a sort of notion by this time, then I must have been very obscure in
my narrative, or you too sleepy to seize upon the sense of my words.
I don't defend my morality. There was no morality in the impulse which
induced me to lay before him Brierly's plan of evasion--I may call
it--in all its primitive simplicity. There were the rupees--absolutely
ready in my pocket and very much at his service. Oh! a loan; a loan of
course--and if an introduction to a man (in Rangoon) who could put some
work in his way . . . Why! with the greatest pleasure. I had pen, ink,
and paper in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I
was impatient to begin the letter--day, month, year, 2.30 A.M. . . . for
the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of
Mr. James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &c. . . . I was even ready to write
in that strain about him. If he had not enlisted my sympathies he had
done better for himself--he had gone to the very fount and origin of
that sentiment he had reached the secret sensibility of my egoism. I
am concealing nothing from you, because were I to do so my action would
appear more unintelligible than any man's action has the right to be,
and--in the second place--to-morrow you will forget my sincerity along
with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction, to speak
grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle
intentions of my immorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the
criminal. No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher
origin, a more lofty aim. I discovered that, say what I would, he was
eager to go through the ceremony of execution, and I didn't say much,
for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against me heavily: he
believed where I had already ceased to doubt. There was something fine
in the wildness of his unexpressed, hardly formulated hope. "Clear out!
Couldn't think of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "I make you
an offer for which I neither demand nor expect any sort of gratitude,"
I said; "you shall repay the money when convenient, and . . ." "Awfully
good of you," he muttered without looking up. I watched him narrowly:
the future must have appeared horribly uncertain to him; but he did not
falter, as though indeed there had been nothing wrong with his heart.
I felt angry--not for the first time that night. "The whole wretched
business," I said, "is bitter enough, I should think, for a man of your
kind . . ." "It is, it is," he whispered twice, with his eyes fixed on
the floor. It was heartrending. He towered above the light, and I could
see the down on his cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth
skin of his face. Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously
heartrending. It provoked me to brutality. "Yes," I said; "and allow me
to confess that I am totally unable to imagine what advantage you can
expect from this licking of the dregs." "Advantage!" he murmured out of
his stillness. "I am dashed if I do," I said, enraged. "I've been trying
to tell you all there is in it," he went on slowly, as if meditating
something unanswerable. "But after all, it is _my_ trouble." I opened my
mouth to retort, and discovered suddenly that I'd lost all confidence in
myself; and it was as if he too had given me up, for he mumbled like a
man thinking half aloud. "Went away . . . went into hospitals. . . . Not
one of them would face it. . . . They! . . ." He moved his hand slightly
to imply disdain. "But I've got to get over this thing, and I mustn't
shirk any of it or . . . I won't shirk any of it." He was silent. He
gazed as though he had been haunted. His unconscious face reflected the
passing expressions of scorn, of despair, of resolution--reflected
them in turn, as a magic mirror would reflect the gliding passage of
unearthly shapes. He lived surrounded by deceitful ghosts, by austere
shades. "Oh! nonsense, my dear fellow," I began. He had a movement of
impatience. "You don't seem to understand," he said incisively; then
looking at me without a wink, "I may have jumped, but I don't run away."
"I meant no offence," I said; and added stupidly, "Better men than you
have found it expedient to run, at times." He coloured all over, while
in my confusion I half-choked myself with my own tongue. "Perhaps so,"
he said at last, "I am not good enough; I can't afford it. I am bound to
fight this thing down--I am fighting it now." I got out of my chair and
felt stiff all over. The silence was embarrassing, and to put an end
to it I imagined nothing better but to remark, "I had no idea it was so
late," in an airy tone. . . . "I dare say you have had enough of this,"
he said brusquely: "and to tell you the truth"--he began to look round
for his hat--"so have I."

'Well! he had refused this unique offer. He had struck aside my helping
hand; he was ready to go now, and beyond the balustrade the night seemed
to wait for him very still, as though he had been marked down for its
prey. I heard his voice. "Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a
few seconds we hung in the wind. "What will you do after--after . . ."
I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely as not," he answered in a
gruff mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, and judged best to
take it lightly. "Pray remember," I said, "that I should like very much
to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to prevent
you. The damned thing won't make me invisible," he said with intense
bitterness,--"no such luck." And then at the moment of taking leave he
treated me to a ghastly muddle of dubious stammers and movements, to an
awful display of hesitations. God forgive him--me! He had taken it
into his fanciful head that I was likely to make some difficulty as to
shaking hands. It was too awful for words. I believe I shouted suddenly
at him as you would bellow to a man you saw about to walk over a cliff;
I remember our voices being raised, the appearance of a miserable grin
on his face, a crushing clutch on my hand, a nervous laugh. The candle
spluttered out, and the thing was over at last, with a groan that
floated up to me in the dark. He got himself away somehow. The night
swallowed his form. He was a horrible bungler. Horrible. I heard the
quick crunch-crunch of the gravel under his boots. He was running.
Absolutely running, with nowhere to go to. And he was not yet
four-and-twenty.'

'I slept little, hurried over my breakfast, and after a slight
hesitation gave up my early morning visit to my ship. It was really
very wrong of me, because, though my chief mate was an excellent man all
round, he was the victim of such black imaginings that if he did not get
a letter from his wife at the expected time he would go quite distracted
with rage and jealousy, lose all grip on the work, quarrel with all
hands, and either weep in his cabin or develop such a ferocity of temper
as all but drove the crew to the verge of mutiny. The thing had always
seemed inexplicable to me: they had been married thirteen years; I had a
glimpse of her once, and, honestly, I couldn't conceive a man abandoned
enough to plunge into sin for the sake of such an unattractive person. I
don't know whether I have not done wrong by refraining from putting
that view before poor Selvin: the man made a little hell on earth for
himself, and I also suffered indirectly, but some sort of, no doubt,
false delicacy prevented me. The marital relations of seamen would make
an interesting subject, and I could tell you instances. . . . However,
this is not the place, nor the time, and we are concerned with Jim--who
was unmarried. If his imaginative conscience or his pride; if all the
extravagant ghosts and austere shades that were the disastrous familiars
of his youth would not let him run away from the block, I, who of course
can't be suspected of such familiars, was irresistibly impelled to go
and see his head roll off. I wended my way towards the court. I didn't
hope to be very much impressed or edified, or interested or even
frightened--though, as long as there is any life before one, a jolly
good fright now and then is a salutary discipline. But neither did I
expect to be so awfully depressed. The bitterness of his punishment was
in its chill and mean atmosphere. The real significance of crime is in
its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind, and from
that point of view he was no mean traitor, but his execution was a
hole-and-corner affair. There was no high scaffolding, no scarlet cloth
(did they have scarlet cloth on Tower Hill? They should have had), no
awe-stricken multitude to be horrified at his guilt and be moved to
tears at his fate--no air of sombre retribution. There was, as I walked
along, the clear sunshine, a brilliance too passionate to be consoling,
the streets full of jumbled bits of colour like a damaged kaleidoscope:
yellow, green, blue, dazzling white, the brown nudity of an undraped
shoulder, a bullock-cart with a red canopy, a company of native infantry
in a drab body with dark heads marching in dusty laced boots, a native
policeman in a sombre uniform of scanty cut and belted in patent
leather, who looked up at me with orientally pitiful eyes as though his
migrating spirit were suffering exceedingly from that unforeseen--what
d'ye call 'em?--avatar--incarnation. Under the shade of a lonely tree
in the courtyard, the villagers connected with the assault case sat in a
picturesque group, looking like a chromo-lithograph of a camp in a book
of Eastern travel. One missed the obligatory thread of smoke in the
foreground and the pack-animals grazing. A blank yellow wall rose behind
overtopping the tree, reflecting the glare. The court-room was sombre,
seemed more vast. High up in the dim space the punkahs were swaying
short to and fro, to and fro. Here and there a draped figure, dwarfed
by the bare walls, remained without stirring amongst the rows of empty
benches, as if absorbed in pious meditation. The plaintiff, who had
been beaten,--an obese chocolate-coloured man with shaved head, one
fat breast bare and a bright yellow caste-mark above the bridge of his
nose,--sat in pompous immobility: only his eyes glittered, rolling
in the gloom, and the nostrils dilated and collapsed violently as he
breathed. Brierly dropped into his seat looking done up, as though
he had spent the night in sprinting on a cinder-track. The pious
sailing-ship skipper appeared excited and made uneasy movements, as
if restraining with difficulty an impulse to stand up and exhort
us earnestly to prayer and repentance. The head of the magistrate,
delicately pale under the neatly arranged hair, resembled the head of a
hopeless invalid after he had been washed and brushed and propped up in
bed. He moved aside the vase of flowers--a bunch of purple with a few
pink blossoms on long stalks--and seizing in both hands a long sheet of
bluish paper, ran his eye over it, propped his forearms on the edge of
the desk, and began to read aloud in an even, distinct, and careless
voice.

'By Jove! For all my foolishness about scaffolds and heads rolling
off--I assure you it was infinitely worse than a beheading. A heavy
sense of finality brooded over all this, unrelieved by the hope of rest
and safety following the fall of the axe. These proceedings had all the
cold vengefulness of a death-sentence, and the cruelty of a sentence of
exile. This is how I looked at it that morning--and even now I seem to
see an undeniable vestige of truth in that exaggerated view of a common
occurrence. You may imagine how strongly I felt this at the time.
Perhaps it is for that reason that I could not bring myself to admit
the finality. The thing was always with me, I was always eager to take
opinion on it, as though it had not been practically settled: individual
opinion--international opinion--by Jove! That Frenchman's, for instance.
His own country's pronouncement was uttered in the passionless and
definite phraseology a machine would use, if machines could speak. The
head of the magistrate was half hidden by the paper, his brow was like
alabaster.

'There were several questions before the court. The first as to whether
the ship was in every respect fit and seaworthy for the voyage. The
court found she was not. The next point, I remember, was, whether up
to the time of the accident the ship had been navigated with proper and
seamanlike care. They said Yes to that, goodness knows why, and then
they declared that there was no evidence to show the exact cause of
the accident. A floating derelict probably. I myself remember that a
Norwegian barque bound out with a cargo of pitch-pine had been given up
as missing about that time, and it was just the sort of craft that would
capsize in a squall and float bottom up for months--a kind of maritime
ghoul on the prowl to kill ships in the dark. Such wandering corpses are
common enough in the North Atlantic, which is haunted by all the terrors
of the sea,--fogs, icebergs, dead ships bent upon mischief, and long
sinister gales that fasten upon one like a vampire till all the strength
and the spirit and even hope are gone, and one feels like the empty
shell of a man. But there--in those seas--the incident was rare enough
to resemble a special arrangement of a malevolent providence, which,
unless it had for its object the killing of a donkeyman and the bringing
of worse than death upon Jim, appeared an utterly aimless piece of
devilry. This view occurring to me took off my attention. For a time I
was aware of the magistrate's voice as a sound merely; but in a moment
it shaped itself into distinct words . . . "in utter disregard of their
plain duty," it said. The next sentence escaped me somehow, and
then . . . "abandoning in the moment of danger the lives and property
confided to their charge" . . . went on the voice evenly, and stopped. A
pair of eyes under the white forehead shot darkly a glance above the
edge of the paper. I looked for Jim hurriedly, as though I had expected
him to disappear. He was very still--but he was there. He sat pink and
fair and extremely attentive. "Therefore, . . ." began the voice
emphatically. He stared with parted lips, hanging upon the words of the
man behind the desk. These came out into the stillness wafted on the
wind made by the punkahs, and I, watching for their effect upon him,
caught only the fragments of official language. . . . "The Court . . .
Gustav So-and-so . . . master . . . native of Germany . . . James
So-and-so . . . mate . . . certificates cancelled." A silence fell. The
magistrate had dropped the paper, and, leaning sideways on the arm of
his chair, began to talk with Brierly easily. People started to move
out; others were pushing in, and I also made for the door. Outside I
stood still, and when Jim passed me on his way to the gate, I caught at
his arm and detained him. The look he gave discomposed me, as though I
had been responsible for his state he looked at me as if I had been the
embodied evil of life. "It's all over," I stammered. "Yes," he said
thickly. "And now let no man . . ." He jerked his arm out of my grasp. I
watched his back as he went away. It was a long street, and he remained
in sight for some time. He walked rather slow, and straddling his legs a
little, as if he had found it difficult to keep a straight line. Just
before I lost him I fancied he staggered a bit.

'"Man overboard," said a deep voice behind me. Turning round, I saw a
fellow I knew slightly, a West Australian; Chester was his name. He,
too, had been looking after Jim. He was a man with an immense girth of
chest, a rugged, clean-shaved face of mahogany colour, and two blunt
tufts of iron-grey, thick, wiry hairs on his upper lip. He had
been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler too, I believe; in his own
words--anything and everything a man may be at sea, but a pirate. The
Pacific, north and south, was his proper hunting-ground; but he had
wandered so far afield looking for a cheap steamer to buy. Lately he
had discovered--so he said--a guano island somewhere, but its approaches
were dangerous, and the anchorage, such as it was, could not be
considered safe, to say the least of it. "As good as a gold-mine," he
would exclaim. "Right bang in the middle of the Walpole Reefs, and if
it's true enough that you can get no holding-ground anywhere in less
than forty fathom, then what of that? There are the hurricanes, too. But
it's a first-rate thing. As good as a gold-mine--better! Yet there's not
a fool of them that will see it. I can't get a skipper or a shipowner
to go near the place. So I made up my mind to cart the blessed stuff
myself." . . . This was what he required a steamer for, and I knew he
was just then negotiating enthusiastically with a Parsee firm for an
old, brig-rigged, sea-anachronism of ninety horse-power. We had met and
spoken together several times. He looked knowingly after Jim. "Takes
it to heart?" he asked scornfully. "Very much," I said. "Then he's no
good," he opined. "What's all the to-do about? A bit of ass's skin. That
never yet made a man. You must see things exactly as they are--if you
don't, you may just as well give in at once. You will never do anything
in this world. Look at me. I made it a practice never to take anything
to heart." "Yes," I said, "you see things as they are." "I wish I could
see my partner coming along, that's what I wish to see," he said. "Know
my partner? Old Robinson. Yes; _the_ Robinson. Don't _you_ know? The
notorious Robinson. The man who smuggled more opium and bagged more
seals in his time than any loose Johnny now alive. They say he used to
board the sealing-schooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thick that
the Lord God, He alone, could tell one man from another. Holy-Terror
Robinson. That's the man. He is with me in that guano thing. The best
chance he ever came across in his life." He put his lips to my ear.
"Cannibal?--well, they used to give him the name years and years ago.
You remember the story? A shipwreck on the west side of Stewart Island;
that's right; seven of them got ashore, and it seems they did not get
on very well together. Some men are too cantankerous for anything--don't
know how to make the best of a bad job--don't see things as they are--as
they _are_, my boy! And then what's the consequence? Obvious! Trouble,
trouble; as likely as not a knock on the head; and serve 'em right too.
That sort is the most useful when it's dead. The story goes that a boat
of Her Majesty's ship Wolverine found him kneeling on the kelp, naked as
the day he was born, and chanting some psalm-tune or other; light snow
was falling at the time. He waited till the boat was an oar's length
from the shore, and then up and away. They chased him for an hour up and
down the boulders, till a marihe flung a stone that took him behind
the ear providentially and knocked him senseless. Alone? Of course. But
that's like that tale of sealing-schooners; the Lord God knows the right
and the wrong of that story. The cutter did not investigate much. They
wrapped him in a boat-cloak and took him off as quick as they could,
with a dark night coming on, the weather threatening, and the ship
firing recall guns every five minutes. Three weeks afterwards he was as
well as ever. He didn't allow any fuss that was made on shore to upset
him; he just shut his lips tight, and let people screech. It was bad
enough to have lost his ship, and all he was worth besides, without
paying attention to the hard names they called him. That's the man for
me." He lifted his arm for a signal to some one down the street. "He's
got a little money, so I had to let him into my thing. Had to! It
would have been sinful to throw away such a find, and I was cleaned out
myself. It cut me to the quick, but I could see the matter just as
it was, and if I _must_ share--thinks I--with any man, then give me
Robinson. I left him at breakfast in the hotel to come to court, because
I've an idea. . . . Ah! Good morning, Captain Robinson. . . . Friend of
mine, Captain Robinson."

'An emaciated patriarch in a suit of white drill, a solah topi with a
green-lined rim on a head trembling with age, joined us after crossing
the street in a trotting shuffle, and stood propped with both hands on
the handle of an umbrella. A white beard with amber streaks hung lumpily
down to his waist. He blinked his creased eyelids at me in a bewildered
way. "How do you do? how do you do?" he piped amiably, and tottered. "A
little deaf," said Chester aside. "Did you drag him over six thousand
miles to get a cheap steamer?" I asked. "I would have taken him twice
round the world as soon as look at him," said Chester with immense
energy. "The steamer will be the making of us, my lad. Is it my fault
that every skipper and shipowner in the whole of blessed Australasia
turns out a blamed fool? Once I talked for three hours to a man in
Auckland. 'Send a ship,' I said, 'send a ship. I'll give you half of the
first cargo for yourself, free gratis for nothing--just to make a good
start.' Says he, 'I wouldn't do it if there was no other place on
earth to send a ship to.' Perfect ass, of course. Rocks, currents, no
anchorage, sheer cliff to lay to, no insurance company would take the
risk, didn't see how he could get loaded under three years. Ass! I
nearly went on my knees to him. 'But look at the thing as it is,' says
I. 'Damn rocks and hurricanes. Look at it as it is. There's guano there
Queensland sugar-planters would fight for--fight for on the quay, I
tell you.' . . . What can you do with a fool? . . . 'That's one of your
little jokes, Chester,' he says. . . . Joke! I could have wept. Ask
Captain Robinson here. . . . And there was another shipowning fellow--a
fat chap in a white waistcoat in Wellington, who seemed to think I was
up to some swindle or other. 'I don't know what sort of fool you're
looking for,' he says, 'but I am busy just now. Good morning.' I longed
to take him in my two hands and smash him through the window of his own
office. But I didn't. I was as mild as a curate. 'Think of it,' says I.
'_Do_ think it over. I'll call to-morrow.' He grunted something about
being 'out all day.' On the stairs I felt ready to beat my head against
the wall from vexation. Captain Robinson here can tell you. It was awful
to think of all that lovely stuff lying waste under the sun--stuff that
would send the sugar-cane shooting sky-high. The making of Queensland!
The making of Queensland! And in Brisbane, where I went to have a last
try, they gave me the name of a lunatic. Idiots! The only sensible man
I came across was the cabman who drove me about. A broken-down swell he
was, I fancy. Hey! Captain Robinson? You remember I told you about my
cabby in Brisbane--don't you? The chap had a wonderful eye for things.
He saw it all in a jiffy. It was a real pleasure to talk with him. One
evening after a devil of a day amongst shipowners I felt so bad that,
says I, 'I must get drunk. Come along; I must get drunk, or I'll go
mad.' 'I am your man,' he says; 'go ahead.' I don't know what I would
have done without him. Hey! Captain Robinson."

'He poked the ribs of his partner. "He! he! he!" laughed the Ancient,
looked aimlessly down the street, then peered at me doubtfully with sad,
dim pupils. . . . "He! he! he!" . . . He leaned heavier on the umbrella,
and dropped his gaze on the ground. I needn't tell you I had tried to
get away several times, but Chester had foiled every attempt by simply
catching hold of my coat. "One minute. I've a notion." "What's your
infernal notion?" I exploded at last. "If you think I am going in with
you . . ." "No, no, my boy. Too late, if you wanted ever so much. We've
got a steamer." "You've got the ghost of a steamer," I said. "Good
enough for a start--there's no superior nonsense about us. Is there,
Captain Robinson?" "No! no! no!" croaked the old man without lifting
his eyes, and the senile tremble of his head became almost fierce with
determination. "I understand you know that young chap," said Chester,
with a nod at the street from which Jim had disappeared long ago. "He's
been having grub with you in the Malabar last night--so I was told."

'I said that was true, and after remarking that he too liked to live
well and in style, only that, for the present, he had to be saving of
every penny--"none too many for the business! Isn't that so, Captain
Robinson?"--he squared his shoulders and stroked his dumpy moustache,
while the notorious Robinson, coughing at his side, clung more than ever
to the handle of the umbrella, and seemed ready to subside passively
into a heap of old bones. "You see, the old chap has all the money,"
whispered Chester confidentially. "I've been cleaned out trying to
engineer the dratted thing. But wait a bit, wait a bit. The good time is
coming." . . . He seemed suddenly astonished at the signs of impatience
I gave. "Oh, crakee!" he cried; "I am telling you of the biggest thing
that ever was, and you . . ." "I have an appointment," I pleaded mildly.
"What of that?" he asked with genuine surprise; "let it wait." "That's
exactly what I am doing now," I remarked; "hadn't you better tell me
what it is you want?" "Buy twenty hotels like that," he growled to
himself; "and every joker boarding in them too--twenty times over." He
lifted his head smartly "I want that young chap." "I don't understand,"
I said. "He's no good, is he?" said Chester crisply. "I know nothing
about it," I protested. "Why, you told me yourself he was taking it to
heart," argued Chester. "Well, in my opinion a chap who . . . Anyhow, he
can't be much good; but then you see I am on the look-out for somebody,
and I've just got a thing that will suit him. I'll give him a job on
my island." He nodded significantly. "I'm going to dump forty coolies
there--if I've to steal 'em. Somebody must work the stuff. Oh! I mean
to act square: wooden shed, corrugated-iron roof--I know a man in Hobart
who will take my bill at six months for the materials. I do. Honour
bright. Then there's the water-supply. I'll have to fly round and get
somebody to trust me for half-a-dozen second-hand iron tanks. Catch
rain-water, hey? Let him take charge. Make him supreme boss over the
coolies. Good idea, isn't it? What do you say?" "There are whole years
when not a drop of rain falls on Walpole," I said, too amazed to laugh.
He bit his lip and seemed bothered. "Oh, well, I will fix up something
for them--or land a supply. Hang it all! That's not the question."

'I said nothing. I had a rapid vision of Jim perched on a shadowless
rock, up to his knees in guano, with the screams of sea-birds in his
ears, the incandescent ball of the sun above his head; the empty sky and
the empty ocean all a-quiver, simmering together in the heat as far as
the eye could reach. "I wouldn't advise my worst enemy . . ." I began.
"What's the matter with you?" cried Chester; "I mean to give him a good
screw--that is, as soon as the thing is set going, of course. It's as
easy as falling off a log. Simply nothing to do; two six-shooters in his
belt . . . Surely he wouldn't be afraid of anything forty coolies could
do--with two six-shooters and he the only armed man too! It's much
better than it looks. I want you to help me to talk him over." "No!"
I shouted. Old Robinson lifted his bleared eyes dismally for a moment,
Chester looked at me with infinite contempt. "So you wouldn't advise
him?" he uttered slowly. "Certainly not," I answered, as indignant as
though he had requested me to help murder somebody; "moreover, I am sure
he wouldn't. He is badly cut up, but he isn't mad as far as I know." "He
is no earthly good for anything," Chester mused aloud. "He would just
have done for me. If you only could see a thing as it is, you would
see it's the very thing for him. And besides . . . Why! it's the most
splendid, sure chance . . ." He got angry suddenly. "I must have a man.
There! . . ." He stamped his foot and smiled unpleasantly. "Anyhow, I
could guarantee the island wouldn't sink under him--and I believe he
is a bit particular on that point." "Good morning," I said curtly. He
looked at me as though I had been an incomprehensible fool. . . . "Must
be moving, Captain Robinson," he yelled suddenly into the old man's ear.
"These Parsee Johnnies are waiting for us to clinch the bargain." He
took his partner under the arm with a firm grip, swung him round, and,
unexpectedly, leered at me over his shoulder. "I was trying to do him
a kindness," he asserted, with an air and tone that made my blood boil.
"Thank you for nothing--in his name," I rejoined. "Oh! you are devilish
smart," he sneered; "but you are like the rest of them. Too much in the
clouds. See what you will do with him." "I don't know that I want to
do anything with him." "Don't you?" he spluttered; his grey moustache
bristled with anger, and by his side the notorious Robinson, propped
on the umbrella, stood with his back to me, as patient and still as a
worn-out cab-horse. "I haven't found a guano island," I said. "It's
my belief you wouldn't know one if you were led right up to it by the
hand," he riposted quickly; "and in this world you've got to see a thing
first, before you can make use of it. Got to see it through and through
at that, neither more nor less." "And get others to see it, too," I
insinuated, with a glance at the bowed back by his side. Chester snorted
at me. "His eyes are right enough--don't you worry. He ain't a puppy."
"Oh, dear, no!" I said. "Come along, Captain Robinson," he shouted, with
a sort of bullying deference under the rim of the old man's hat; the
Holy Terror gave a submissive little jump. The ghost of a steamer was
waiting for them, Fortune on that fair isle! They made a curious pair
of Argonauts. Chester strode on leisurely, well set up, portly, and of
conquering mien; the other, long, wasted, drooping, and hooked to his
arm, shuffled his withered shanks with desperate haste.''I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an
appointment which I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have
it, in my agent's office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from
Madagascar with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of business. It
had something to do with cattle and cartridges and a Prince Ravonalo
something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stupidity of some
admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the
chap couldn't find words strong enough to express his confidence. He had
globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on
his forehead, and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting.
He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating triumphantly, "The
minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?" He made
my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right;
and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straight for the water-side.
I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native
boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his
elbow. He didn't hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight
contact of my finger had released a catch. "I was looking," he
stammered. I don't remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no
difficulty in following me to the hotel.

'He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air,
with no sort of manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting
for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so
surprised as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to
some seems so big and that others affect to consider as rather smaller
than a mustard-seed, he had no place where he could--what shall I
say?--where he could withdraw. That's it! Withdraw--be alone with his
loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here and there, and
once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat
and yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump
of anthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even
remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not
edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe
he would have gone straight before him in any direction till stopped by
a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat
down at once to write letters. This was the only place in the world
(unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not so handy) where he
could have it out with himself without being bothered by the rest of
the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made
him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my
chair I bent over my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for
the movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I
can't say I was frightened; but I certainly kept as still as if there
had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a
movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not
much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort of four-poster
bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I was
writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah,
and he stood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible
privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of movement
and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is
no doubt that he had a very hard time of it, and so had I, even to the
point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at
least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was,
perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. That strange
idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it
were. It was enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see
the true aspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless
to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the
arrears of my correspondence, and then went on writing to people who had
no reason whatever to expect from me a gossipy letter about nothing at
all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot,
but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave
suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, as it
seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of
the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of
the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming
fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the
scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence
and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance
and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing
uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what
I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritation with a sort of
craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but which gives
a quite special merit to one's endurance. I don't claim any merit
for standing the stress of Jim's emotions; I could take refuge in the
letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I
was taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first
sound that, since we had been shut up together, had come to my ears in
the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my
hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such
faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, sounds wrung from a
racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force
that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining
my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really
taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous
criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as
they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to
an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One
could intelligibly break one's heart over that. A feeble burst of many
voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the
dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light
from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood
on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of
a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it--to
be sure--a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My
compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn't have
liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself.
His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an
arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank
to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy
that for a second I wished heartily that the only course left open for
me was to pay for his funeral. Even the law had done with him. To bury
him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much
in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of
sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality;
all that makes against our efficiency--the memory of our failures, the
hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he
did take it too much to heart. And if so then--Chester's offer. . . . At
this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There
was nothing but myself between him and the dark ocean. I had a sense of
responsibility. If I spoke, would that motionless and suffering youth
leap into the obscurity--clutch at the straw? I found out how difficult
it may be sometimes to make a sound. There is a weird power in a spoken
word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself persistently while I
drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the very
point of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner,
very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with stride and
gestures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy. I would
watch them for a while. No! They were too phantasmal and extravagant
to enter into any one's fate. And a word carries far--very far--deals
destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. I said
nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound
and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no
sound.'

'The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted, admired, with
a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he
had been the stuff of a hero. It's true--I assure you; as true as
I'm sitting here talking about him in vain. He, on his side, had that
faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his desire and the shape
of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no
adventurer. He captured much honour and an Arcadian happiness (I won't
say anything about innocence) in the bush, and it was as good to him
as the honour and the Arcadian happiness of the streets to another man.
Felicity, felicity--how shall I say it?--is quaffed out of a golden cup
in every latitude: the flavour is with you--with you alone, and you can
make it as intoxicating as you please. He was of the sort that would
drink deep, as you may guess from what went before. I found him, if not
exactly intoxicated, then at least flushed with the elixir at his lips.
He had not obtained it at once. There had been, as you know, a period of
probation amongst infernal ship-chandlers, during which he had suffered
and I had worried about--about--my trust--you may call it. I don't
know that I am completely reassured now, after beholding him in all his
brilliance. That was my last view of him--in a strong light, dominating,
and yet in complete accord with his surroundings--with the life of the
forests and with the life of men. I own that I was impressed, but I must
admit to myself that after all this is not the lasting impression. He
was protected by his isolation, alone of his own superior kind, in close
touch with Nature, that keeps faith on such easy terms with her lovers.
But I cannot fix before my eye the image of his safety. I shall always
remember him as seen through the open door of my room, taking, perhaps,
too much to heart the mere consequences of his failure. I am pleased,
of course, that some good--and even some splendour--came out of my
endeavours; but at times it seems to me it would have been better for my
peace of mind if I had not stood between him and Chester's confoundedly
generous offer. I wonder what his exuberant imagination would have made
of Walpole islet--that most hopelessly forsaken crumb of dry land on the
face of the waters. It is not likely I would ever have heard, for I must
tell you that Chester, after calling at some Australian port to patch
up his brig-rigged sea-anachronism, steamed out into the Pacific with a
crew of twenty-two hands all told, and the only news having a possible
bearing upon the mystery of his fate was the news of a hurricane which
is supposed to have swept in its course over the Walpole shoals, a month
or so afterwards. Not a vestige of the Argonauts ever turned up; not a
sound came out of the waste. Finis! The Pacific is the most discreet of
live, hot-tempered oceans: the chilly Antarctic can keep a secret too,
but more in the manner of a grave.

'And there is a sense of blessed finality in such discretion, which is
what we all more or less sincerely are ready to admit--for what else is
it that makes the idea of death supportable? End! Finis! the potent word
that exorcises from the house of life the haunting shadow of fate. This
is what--notwithstanding the testimony of my eyes and his own earnest
assurances--I miss when I look back upon Jim's success. While there's
life there is hope, truly; but there is fear too. I don't mean to say
that I regret my action, nor will I pretend that I can't sleep o' nights
in consequence; still, the idea obtrudes itself that he made so much of
his disgrace while it is the guilt alone that matters. He was not--if I
may say so--clear to me. He was not clear. And there is a suspicion he
was not clear to himself either. There were his fine sensibilities,
his fine feelings, his fine longings--a sort of sublimated, idealised
selfishness. He was--if you allow me to say so--very fine; very
fine--and very unfortunate. A little coarser nature would not have borne
the strain; it would have had to come to terms with itself--with a sigh,
with a grunt, or even with a guffaw; a still coarser one would have
remained invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting.

'But he was too interesting or too unfortunate to be thrown to the dogs,
or even to Chester. I felt this while I sat with my face over the paper
and he fought and gasped, struggling for his breath in that terribly
stealthy way, in my room; I felt it when he rushed out on the verandah
as if to fling himself over--and didn't; I felt it more and more all the
time he remained outside, faintly lighted on the background of night, as
if standing on the shore of a sombre and hopeless sea.

'An abrupt heavy rumble made me lift my head. The noise seemed to roll
away, and suddenly a searching and violent glare fell on the blind face
of the night. The sustained and dazzling flickers seemed to last for an
unconscionable time. The growl of the thunder increased steadily while I
looked at him, distinct and black, planted solidly upon the shores of a
sea of light. At the moment of greatest brilliance the darkness leaped
back with a culminating crash, and he vanished before my dazzled eyes as
utterly as though he had been blown to atoms. A blustering sigh passed;
furious hands seemed to tear at the shrubs, shake the tops of the
trees below, slam doors, break window-panes, all along the front of
the building. He stepped in, closing the door behind him, and found me
bending over the table: my sudden anxiety as to what he would say was
very great, and akin to a fright. "May I have a cigarette?" he asked. I
gave a push to the box without raising my head. "I want--want--tobacco,"
he muttered. I became extremely buoyant. "Just a moment." I grunted
pleasantly. He took a few steps here and there. "That's over," I heard
him say. A single distant clap of thunder came from the sea like a
gun of distress. "The monsoon breaks up early this year," he remarked
conversationally, somewhere behind me. This encouraged me to turn round,
which I did as soon as I had finished addressing the last envelope. He
was smoking greedily in the middle of the room, and though he heard the
stir I made, he remained with his back to me for a time.

'"Come--I carried it off pretty well," he said, wheeling suddenly.
"Something's paid off--not much. I wonder what's to come." His face did
not show any emotion, only it appeared a little darkened and swollen, as
though he had been holding his breath. He smiled reluctantly as it
were, and went on while I gazed up at him mutely. . . . "Thank you,
though--your room--jolly convenient--for a chap--badly hipped." . . .
The rain pattered and swished in the garden; a water-pipe (it must
have had a hole in it) performed just outside the window a parody of
blubbering woe with funny sobs and gurgling lamentations, interrupted
by jerky spasms of silence. . . . "A bit of shelter," he mumbled and
ceased.

'A flash of faded lightning darted in through the black framework of the
windows and ebbed out without any noise. I was thinking how I had best
approach him (I did not want to be flung off again) when he gave a
little laugh. "No better than a vagabond now" . . . the end of
the cigarette smouldered between his fingers . . . "without a
single--single," he pronounced slowly; "and yet . . ." He paused; the
rain fell with redoubled violence. "Some day one's bound to come upon
some sort of chance to get it all back again. Must!" he whispered
distinctly, glaring at my boots.

'I did not even know what it was he wished so much to regain, what it
was he had so terribly missed. It might have been so much that it was
impossible to say. A piece of ass's skin, according to Chester. . . .
He looked up at me inquisitively. "Perhaps. If life's long enough," I
muttered through my teeth with unreasonable animosity. "Don't reckon too
much on it."

'"Jove! I feel as if nothing could ever touch me," he said in a tone
of sombre conviction. "If this business couldn't knock me over, then
there's no fear of there being not enough time to--climb out, and . . ."
He looked upwards.

'It struck me that it is from such as he that the great army of waifs
and strays is recruited, the army that marches down, down into all the
gutters of the earth. As soon as he left my room, that "bit of shelter,"
he would take his place in the ranks, and begin the journey towards the
bottomless pit. I at least had no illusions; but it was I, too, who a
moment ago had been so sure of the power of words, and now was afraid to
speak, in the same way one dares not move for fear of losing a slippery
hold. It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that
we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings
that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It
is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the
envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the
outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable,
and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp. It was
the fear of losing him that kept me silent, for it was borne upon me
suddenly and with unaccountable force that should I let him slip away
into the darkness I would never forgive myself.

'"Well. Thanks--once more. You've been--er--uncommonly--really there's
no word to . . . Uncommonly! I don't know why, I am sure. I am afraid
I don't feel as grateful as I would if the whole thing hadn't been so
brutally sprung on me. Because at bottom . . . you, yourself . . ." He
stuttered.

'"Possibly," I struck in. He frowned.

'"All the same, one is responsible." He watched me like a hawk.

'"And that's true, too," I said.

'"Well. I've gone with it to the end, and I don't intend to let any man
cast it in my teeth without--without--resenting it." He clenched his
fist.

'"There's yourself," I said with a smile--mirthless enough, God
knows--but he looked at me menacingly. "That's my business," he said.
An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain
and passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble,
as before. He flung away the cigarette. "Good-bye," he said, with the
sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long in view of a pressing
bit of work waiting for him; and then for a second or so he made not the
slightest movement. The downpour fell with the heavy uninterrupted rush
of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that
called to one's mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted
trees, of undermined mountains. No man could breast the colossal and
headlong stream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness
in which we were precariously sheltered as if on an island. The
perforated pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and splashed in odious ridicule
of a swimmer fighting for his life. "It is raining," I remonstrated,
"and I . . ." "Rain or shine," he began brusquely, checked himself, and
walked to the window. "Perfect deluge," he muttered after a while: he
leaned his forehead on the glass. "It's dark, too."

'"Yes, it is very dark," I said.

'He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the
door leading into the corridor before I leaped up from my chair. "Wait,"
I cried, "I want you to . . ." "I can't dine with you again to-night,"
he flung at me, with one leg out of the room already. "I haven't the
slightest intention to ask you," I shouted. At this he drew back his
foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway. I lost no time
in entreating him earnestly not to be absurd; to come in and shut the
door.'

'He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it;
it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted
down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his
bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My
talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of
saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close
so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to
accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that
absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of
being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable,
impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.

'"I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in
the usual way," I remember saying with irritation. "You say you won't
touch the money that is due to you." . . . He came as near as his sort
can to making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five
days' pay owing him as mate of the Patna.) "Well, that's too little to
matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Where will you turn? You
must live . . ." "That isn't the thing," was the comment that escaped
him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed
to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. "On every conceivable
ground," I concluded, "you must let me help you." "You can't," he said
very simply and gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I
could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which
I despaired of ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his
well-proportioned bulk. "At any rate," I said, "I am able to help what
I can see of you. I don't pretend to do more." He shook his head
sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. "But I can," I
insisted. "I can do even more. I _am_ doing more. I am trusting
you . . ." "The money . . ." he began. "Upon my word you deserve being
told to go to the devil," I cried, forcing the note of indignation. He
was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. "It isn't a question
of money at all. You are too superficial," I said (and at the same time
I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is, after
all). "Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of
whom I've never asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that
one only ventures to use when speaking of an intimate friend. I make
myself unreservedly responsible for you. That's what I am doing. And
really if you will only reflect a little what that means . . ."

'He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water-pipe went
on shedding tears with an absurd drip, drip outside the window. It was
very quiet in the room, whose shadows huddled together in corners, away
from the still flame of the candle flaring upright in the shape of a
dagger; his face after a while seemed suffused by a reflection of a soft
light as if the dawn had broken already.

'"Jove!" he gasped out. "It is noble of you!"

'Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have
felt more humiliated. I thought to myself--Serve me right for a sneaking
humbug. . . . His eyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived
it was not a mocking brightness. All at once he sprang into jerky
agitation, like one of those flat wooden figures that are worked by a
string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. He became another
man altogether. "And I had never seen," he shouted; then suddenly bit
his lip and frowned. "What a bally ass I've been," he said very slow
in an awed tone. . . . "You are a brick!" he cried next in a muffled
voice. He snatched my hand as though he had just then seen it for the
first time, and dropped it at once. "Why! this is what I--you--I . . ."
he stammered, and then with a return of his old stolid, I may say
mulish, manner he began heavily, "I would be a brute now if I . . ." and
then his voice seemed to break. "That's all right," I said. I was almost
alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strange
elation. I had pulled the string accidentally, as it were; I did not
fully understand the working of the toy. "I must go now," he said.
"Jove! You _have_ helped me. Can't sit still. The very thing . . ." He
looked at me with puzzled admiration. "The very thing . . ."

'Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from
starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated
with drink. This was all. I had not a single illusion on that score, but
looking at him, I allowed myself to wonder at the nature of the one he
had, within the last three minutes, so evidently taken into his bosom.
I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious
business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind
while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hop and
flutter into some hole to die quietly of inanition there. This is what
I had thrust upon him: a definitely small thing; and--behold!--by the
manner of its reception it loomed in the dim light of the candle like
a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerous shadow. "You don't mind me not
saying anything appropriate," he burst out. "There isn't anything one
could say. Last night already you had done me no end of good. Listening
to me--you know. I give you my word I've thought more than once the top
of my head would fly off. . ." He darted--positively darted--here and
there, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked them out again, flung
his cap on his head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily
brisk. I thought of a dry leaf imprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a
mysterious apprehension, a load of indefinite doubt, weighed me down in
my chair. He stood stock-still, as if struck motionless by a discovery.
"You have given me confidence," he declared, soberly. "Oh! for God's
sake, my dear fellow--don't!" I entreated, as though he had hurt me.
"All right. I'll shut up now and henceforth. Can't prevent me thinking
though. . . . Never mind! . . . I'll show yet . . ." He went to the
door in a hurry, paused with his head down, and came back, stepping
deliberately. "I always thought that if a fellow could begin with a
clean slate . . . And now you . . . in a measure . . . yes . . . clean
slate." I waved my hand, and he marched out without looking back; the
sound of his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door--the
unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad daylight.

'But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangely
unenlightened. I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn
the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in
evil. I smiled to think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who
had the light. And I felt sad. A clean slate, did he say? As if the
initial word of each our destiny were not graven in imperishable
characters upon the face of a rock.'
'Six months afterwards my friend (he was a cynical, more than
middle-aged bachelor, with a reputation for eccentricity, and owned
a rice-mill) wrote to me, and judging, from the warmth of my
recommendation, that I would like to hear, enlarged a little upon Jim's
perfections. These were apparently of a quiet and effective sort.
"Not having been able so far to find more in my heart than a resigned
toleration for any individual of my kind, I have lived till now alone
in a house that even in this steaming climate could be considered as too
big for one man. I have had him to live with me for some time past. It
seems I haven't made a mistake." It seemed to me on reading this letter
that my friend had found in his heart more than tolerance for Jim--that
there were the beginnings of active liking. Of course he stated his
grounds in a characteristic way. For one thing, Jim kept his freshness
in the climate. Had he been a girl--my friend wrote--one could have
said he was blooming--blooming modestly--like a violet, not like some of
these blatant tropical flowers. He had been in the house for six weeks,
and had not as yet attempted to slap him on the back, or address him
as "old boy," or try to make him feel a superannuated fossil. He had
nothing of the exasperating young man's chatter. He was good-tempered,
had not much to say for himself, was not clever by any means, thank
goodness--wrote my friend. It appeared, however, that Jim was clever
enough to be quietly appreciative of his wit, while, on the other hand,
he amused him by his naiveness. "The dew is yet on him, and since I
had the bright idea of giving him a room in the house and having him
at meals I feel less withered myself. The other day he took it into his
head to cross the room with no other purpose but to open a door for
me; and I felt more in touch with mankind than I had been for years.
Ridiculous, isn't it? Of course I guess there is something--some awful
little scrape--which you know all about--but if I am sure that it is
terribly heinous, I fancy one could manage to forgive it. For my part,
I declare I am unable to imagine him guilty of anything much worse than
robbing an orchard. Is it much worse? Perhaps you ought to have told me;
but it is such a long time since we both turned saints that you may have
forgotten we, too, had sinned in our time? It may be that some day I
shall have to ask you, and then I shall expect to be told. I don't care
to question him myself till I have some idea what it is. Moreover, it's
too soon as yet. Let him open the door a few times more for me. . . ."
Thus my friend. I was trebly pleased--at Jim's shaping so well, at the
tone of the letter, at my own cleverness. Evidently I had known what
I was doing. I had read characters aright, and so on. And what if
something unexpected and wonderful were to come of it? That evening,
reposing in a deck-chair under the shade of my own poop awning (it
was in Hong-Kong harbour), I laid on Jim's behalf the first stone of a
castle in Spain.

'I made a trip to the northward, and when I returned I found another
letter from my friend waiting for me. It was the first envelope I tore
open. "There are no spoons missing, as far as I know," ran the first
line; "I haven't been interested enough to inquire. He is gone, leaving
on the breakfast-table a formal little note of apology, which is either
silly or heartless. Probably both--and it's all one to me. Allow me to
say, lest you should have some more mysterious young men in reserve,
that I have shut up shop, definitely and for ever. This is the last
eccentricity I shall be guilty of. Do not imagine for a moment that I
care a hang; but he is very much regretted at tennis-parties, and for
my own sake I've told a plausible lie at the club. . . ." I flung the
letter aside and started looking through the batch on my table, till
I came upon Jim's handwriting. Would you believe it? One chance in a
hundred! But it is always that hundredth chance! That little second
engineer of the Patna had turned up in a more or less destitute state,
and got a temporary job of looking after the machinery of the mill. "I
couldn't stand the familiarity of the little beast," Jim wrote from a
seaport seven hundred miles south of the place where he should have been
in clover. "I am now for the time with Egstrom & Blake, ship-chandlers,
as their--well--runner, to call the thing by its right name. For
reference I gave them your name, which they know of course, and if you
could write a word in my favour it would be a permanent employment." I
was utterly crushed under the ruins of my castle, but of course I wrote
as desired. Before the end of the year my new charter took me that way,
and I had an opportunity of seeing him.

'He was still with Egstrom & Blake, and we met in what they called
"our parlour" opening out of the store. He had that moment come in from
boarding a ship, and confronted me head down, ready for a tussle. "What
have you got to say for yourself?" I began as soon as we had shaken
hands. "What I wrote you--nothing more," he said stubbornly. "Did the
fellow blab--or what?" I asked. He looked up at me with a troubled
smile. "Oh, no! He didn't. He made it a kind of confidential business
between us. He was most damnably mysterious whenever I came over to the
mill; he would wink at me in a respectful manner--as much as to say 'We
know what we know.' Infernally fawning and familiar--and that sort of
thing . . ." He threw himself into a chair and stared down his legs.
"One day we happened to be alone and the fellow had the cheek to say,
'Well, Mr. James'--I was called Mr. James there as if I had been the
son--'here we are together once more. This is better than the old
ship--ain't it?' . . . Wasn't it appalling, eh? I looked at him, and
he put on a knowing air. 'Don't you be uneasy, sir,' he says. 'I know
a gentleman when I see one, and I know how a gentleman feels. I hope,
though, you will be keeping me on this job. I had a hard time of it too,
along of that rotten old Patna racket.' Jove! It was awful. I don't know
what I should have said or done if I had not just then heard Mr. Denver
calling me in the passage. It was tiffin-time, and we walked together
across the yard and through the garden to the bungalow. He began to
chaff me in his kindly way . . . I believe he liked me . . ."

'Jim was silent for a while.

'"I know he liked me. That's what made it so hard. Such a splendid man!
. . . That morning he slipped his hand under my arm. . . . He, too, was
familiar with me." He burst into a short laugh, and dropped his chin on
his breast. "Pah! When I remembered how that mean little beast had been
talking to me," he began suddenly in a vibrating voice, "I couldn't bear
to think of myself . . . I suppose you know . . ." I nodded. . . . "More
like a father," he cried; his voice sank. "I would have had to tell him.
I couldn't let it go on--could I?" "Well?" I murmured, after waiting a
while. "I preferred to go," he said slowly; "this thing must be buried."

'We could hear in the shop Blake upbraiding Egstrom in an abusive,
strained voice. They had been associated for many years, and every day
from the moment the doors were opened to the last minute before closing,
Blake, a little man with sleek, jetty hair and unhappy, beady eyes,
could be heard rowing his partner incessantly with a sort of scathing
and plaintive fury. The sound of that everlasting scolding was part of
the place like the other fixtures; even strangers would very soon come
to disregard it completely unless it be perhaps to mutter "Nuisance," or
to get up suddenly and shut the door of the "parlour." Egstrom himself,
a raw-boned, heavy Scandinavian, with a busy manner and immense blonde
whiskers, went on directing his people, checking parcels, making out
bills or writing letters at a stand-up desk in the shop, and comported
himself in that clatter exactly as though he had been stone-deaf. Now
and again he would emit a bothered perfunctory "Sssh," which neither
produced nor was expected to produce the slightest effect. "They are
very decent to me here," said Jim. "Blake's a little cad, but Egstrom's
all right." He stood up quickly, and walking with measured steps to a
tripod telescope standing in the window and pointed at the roadstead,
he applied his eye to it. "There's that ship which has been becalmed
outside all the morning has got a breeze now and is coming in," he
remarked patiently; "I must go and board." We shook hands in silence,
and he turned to go. "Jim!" I cried. He looked round with his hand on
the lock. "You--you have thrown away something like a fortune." He came
back to me all the way from the door. "Such a splendid old chap," he
said. "How could I? How could I?" His lips twitched. "Here it does not
matter." "Oh! you--you--" I began, and had to cast about for a suitable
word, but before I became aware that there was no name that would just
do, he was gone. I heard outside Egstrom's deep gentle voice saying
cheerily, "That's the Sarah W. Granger, Jimmy. You must manage to be
first aboard"; and directly Blake struck in, screaming after the manner
of an outraged cockatoo, "Tell the captain we've got some of his mail
here. That'll fetch him. D'ye hear, Mister What's-your-name?" And there
was Jim answering Egstrom with something boyish in his tone. "All right.
I'll make a race of it." He seemed to take refuge in the boat-sailing
part of that sorry business.

'I did not see him again that trip, but on my next (I had a six months'
charter) I went up to the store. Ten yards away from the door Blake's
scolding met my ears, and when I came in he gave me a glance of utter
wretchedness; Egstrom, all smiles, advanced, extending a large bony
hand. "Glad to see you, captain. . . . Sssh. . . . Been thinking you
were about due back here. What did you say, sir? . . . Sssh. . . . Oh!
him! He has left us. Come into the parlour." . . . After the slam of the
door Blake's strained voice became faint, as the voice of one scolding
desperately in a wilderness. . . . "Put us to a great inconvenience,
too. Used us badly--I must say . . ." "Where's he gone to? Do you
know?" I asked. "No. It's no use asking either," said Egstrom, standing
bewhiskered and obliging before me with his arms hanging down his sides
clumsily, and a thin silver watch-chain looped very low on a rucked-up
blue serge waistcoat. "A man like that don't go anywhere in particular."
I was too concerned at the news to ask for the explanation of that
pronouncement, and he went on. "He left--let's see--the very day a
steamer with returning pilgrims from the Red Sea put in here with
two blades of her propeller gone. Three weeks ago now." "Wasn't there
something said about the Patna case?" I asked, fearing the worst. He
gave a start, and looked at me as if I had been a sorcerer. "Why, yes!
How do you know? Some of them were talking about it here. There was a
captain or two, the manager of Vanlo's engineering shop at the harbour,
two or three others, and myself. Jim was in here too, having a sandwich
and a glass of beer; when we are busy--you see, captain--there's no time
for a proper tiffin. He was standing by this table eating sandwiches,
and the rest of us were round the telescope watching that steamer come
in; and by-and-by Vanlo's manager began to talk about the chief of the
Patna; he had done some repairs for him once, and from that he went on
to tell us what an old ruin she was, and the money that had been made
out of her. He came to mention her last voyage, and then we all struck
in. Some said one thing and some another--not much--what you or any
other man might say; and there was some laughing. Captain O'Brien of the
Sarah W. Granger, a large, noisy old man with a stick--he was sitting
listening to us in this arm-chair here--he let drive suddenly with his
stick at the floor, and roars out, 'Skunks!' . . . Made us all jump.
Vanlo's manager winks at us and asks, 'What's the matter, Captain
O'Brien?' 'Matter! matter!' the old man began to shout; 'what are you
Injuns laughing at? It's no laughing matter. It's a disgrace to human
natur'--that's what it is. I would despise being seen in the same room
with one of those men. Yes, sir!' He seemed to catch my eye like, and
I had to speak out of civility. 'Skunks!' says I, 'of course, Captain
O'Brien, and I wouldn't care to have them here myself, so you're quite
safe in this room, Captain O'Brien. Have a little something cool to
drink.' 'Dam' your drink, Egstrom,' says he, with a twinkle in his eye;
'when I want a drink I will shout for it. I am going to quit. It stinks
here now.' At this all the others burst out laughing, and out they go
after the old man. And then, sir, that blasted Jim he puts down the
sandwich he had in his hand and walks round the table to me; there was
his glass of beer poured out quite full. 'I am off,' he says--just like
this. 'It isn't half-past one yet,' says I; 'you might snatch a smoke
first.' I thought he meant it was time for him to go down to his work.
When I understood what he was up to, my arms fell--so! Can't get a man
like that every day, you know, sir; a regular devil for sailing a boat;
ready to go out miles to sea to meet ships in any sort of weather. More
than once a captain would come in here full of it, and the first thing
he would say would be, 'That's a reckless sort of a lunatic you've got
for water-clerk, Egstrom. I was feeling my way in at daylight under
short canvas when there comes flying out of the mist right under my
forefoot a boat half under water, sprays going over the mast-head, two
frightened niggers on the bottom boards, a yelling fiend at the tiller.
Hey! hey! Ship ahoy! ahoy! Captain! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake's man
first to speak to you! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake! Hallo! hey! whoop!
Kick the niggers--out reefs--a squall on at the time--shoots ahead
whooping and yelling to me to make sail and he would give me a lead
in--more like a demon than a man. Never saw a boat handled like that in
all my life. Couldn't have been drunk--was he? Such a quiet, soft-spoken
chap too--blush like a girl when he came on board. . . .' I tell you,
Captain Marlow, nobody had a chance against us with a strange ship when
Jim was out. The other ship-chandlers just kept their old customers, and
. . ."

'Egstrom appeared overcome with emotion.

'"Why, sir--it seemed as though he wouldn't mind going a hundred miles
out to sea in an old shoe to nab a ship for the firm. If the business
had been his own and all to make yet, he couldn't have done more in
that way. And now . . . all at once . . . like this! Thinks I to myself:
'Oho! a rise in the screw--that's the trouble--is it?' 'All right,' says
I, 'no need of all that fuss with me, Jimmy. Just mention your figure.
Anything in reason.' He looks at me as if he wanted to swallow something
that stuck in his throat. 'I can't stop with you.' 'What's that blooming
joke?' I asks. He shakes his head, and I could see in his eye he was as
good as gone already, sir. So I turned to him and slanged him till all
was blue. 'What is it you're running away from?' I asks. 'Who has been
getting at you? What scared you? You haven't as much sense as a rat;
they don't clear out from a good ship. Where do you expect to get a
better berth?--you this and you that.' I made him look sick, I can tell
you. 'This business ain't going to sink,' says I. He gave a big jump.
'Good-bye,' he says, nodding at me like a lord; 'you ain't half a
bad chap, Egstrom. I give you my word that if you knew my reasons you
wouldn't care to keep me.' 'That's the biggest lie you ever told in your
life,' says I; 'I know my own mind.' He made me so mad that I had to
laugh. 'Can't you really stop long enough to drink this glass of beer
here, you funny beggar, you?' I don't know what came over him; he didn't
seem able to find the door; something comical, I can tell you, captain.
I drank the beer myself. 'Well, if you're in such a hurry, here's luck
to you in your own drink,' says I; 'only, you mark my words, if you keep
up this game you'll very soon find that the earth ain't big enough to
hold you--that's all.' He gave me one black look, and out he rushed with
a face fit to scare little children."

'Egstrom snorted bitterly, and combed one auburn whisker with knotty
fingers. "Haven't been able to get a man that was any good since. It's
nothing but worry, worry, worry in business. And where might you have
come across him, captain, if it's fair to ask?"

'"He was the mate of the Patna that voyage," I said, feeling that I
owed some explanation. For a time Egstrom remained very still, with his
fingers plunged in the hair at the side of his face, and then exploded.
"And who the devil cares about that?" "I daresay no one," I began . . .
"And what the devil is he--anyhow--for to go on like this?" He stuffed
suddenly his left whisker into his mouth and stood amazed. "Jee!" he
exclaimed, "I told him the earth wouldn't be big enough to hold his
caper."'

Marlow concludes his conversation with the French lieutenant. He tells the man the story of the inquiry and subsequent events. Somehow, the man discerns Marlow's interest in Jim and inquires whether Jim, too, ran off rather than stand trial. This leads the lieutenant to meditate on bravery and fear. Like Marlow, he fails to find words for what he is trying to say, and as they take leave of one another, Marlow is struck by the futility of conversation. Marlow mentions that he has seen Jim recently, working as a water-clerk  in the port of Samarang. He also notes that it is through his recommendation that Jim got the job. Marlow digresses briefly to tell the story of Bob Stanton, a sailor he once knew who also spent some time as a water-clerk, who drowned trying to save a woman after a ship collision. Marlow goes back in time to the dinner with Jim at his hotel, recalling that the next day was to be Jim's day of sentencing. That night, Marlow makes Jim the offer he has discussed with Captain Brierly, telling him that if he chooses to flee, Marlow will provide him with money and a job recommendation. Jim refuses. Marlow realizes that Jim has made the ultimate appeal to his  ego: would Marlow behave the way Jim does, in the same situation? Marlow thinks he'd be able to do better. The next morning, Marlow goes to the court to hear the verdict. The court finds the Patna to have been unfit to go to sea, deems her navigation and operation up to the accident proper, declines to speculate as to the cause of the collision, and finds the crew derelict in their duties, revoking their officers' certifications. Leaving the court, Marlow encounters Chester and Captain Robinson, two suspicious characters who have stayed one step ahead of the law for years. They discuss with Marlow a business scheme in which they want to involve Jim. They want to find a derelict old boat and send it out to a deserted, waterless island to harvest guano , which can then be sold as fertilizer to sugar planters in Australia, and they want Jim to command the boat. Marlow refuses to make Jim the offer, and the men insult Jim, noting that at least the island won't sink. Aware of Jim's vulnerability to people like Chester and Robinson now that he has been punished, Marlow finds him and takes him back to his hotel room, where he writes letters as Jim struggles with his own thoughts. Marlow admits his responsibility to Jim and thinks about ways to help him. Suddenly Marlow draws back and reveals to the audience that soon Jim will be "loved, trusted, admired, with a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name." He explains why he will not present Chester and Robinson's offer to Jim , and notes that their expedition was lost without a trace after a hurricane. The narrative returns to Marlow's hotel room. Jim tells Marlow that he thinks he will have another chance to become a hero, that he's "bound to come upon some sort of chance to get it all back again." Marlow convinces Jim to stay a little longer and persuades him to accept a letter of recommendation for a job. Jim thanks him for giving him a "clean slate." Marlow receives a letter from Jim's new employer, praising Jim. The man wonders at what Jim has done to need Marlow's protection, but says that Jim is "blooming. . .like a violet" in his new position. Not long afterward, Marlow receives another letter from his friend. Jim has departed suddenly, leaving only a note of apology. In the same batch of mail, there is a letter from Jim, explaining that the second engineer from the Patna turned up and got a job with Jim's employer. The engineer tormented Jim, reminding him of the incident; the anguish forced Jim to leave. Marlow soon runs into Jim, who is now working as a water-clerk in another port. Returning to that port a few months later, he finds that Jim has again quit a promising job, this time because a damaged steamer carrying pilgrims had put in, and the Patna case had again become a subject of conversation. His most recent employer remarks to Marlow that he had told Jim that, although he didn't know what he had done, "the earth wouldn't be big enough to hold his caper."

Commentary This section explores the aftermath of Jim's "conviction." Jim believes that he still has the chance to be a hero, but Chester and Robinson's questionable offer and his difficulty in retaining a job suggest otherwise. Jim has been marked in some way by his actions . Marlow hints at a mysterious future for Jim, however, in which he will be wildly successful, although the statement is qualified in an odd way; Marlow says that a legend will develop around Jim "as though he had been the stuff of a hero. " Why is Jim just comparable to a hero in the future, rather than actually becoming one? It seems that the moment that has been omitted from the narrative, the moment of Jim's leap overboard, will become the moment that defines his life, and that, for Jim, there can be no such thing as a "clean slate. " This is in part a result of his punishment. Tried by a court of his professional peers, Jim has been found to be unfit to keep the certification he earned as a young man; in some way, he's no longer "one of us." Marlow, however, still thinks that he and Jim do belong to the same fraternity. He helps Jim recover some semblance of a life and continues to follow him with interest. Marlow's interpretive skills are called into question in this section, though, as he declares himself "unenlightened" by his encounter with Jim. He also makes the strange claim that by helping Jim out he "had saved him from starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated with drink." This is a strange claim to make. It doesn't square with what we know of Jim, and it doesn't seem in line with Marlow's opinion of Jim in general. Perhaps Marlow has begun to fear the implications of his own association with Jim, and comments like this one are a way for him to distance himself. Chester and Robinson approach him because of his budding friendship with Jim, after all, and Marlow himself sadly notes that, of he and Jim, "it was yet he, of us two, who had the light." Jim may have been publicly condemned, but it is Marlow who has no chance. Jim seems to be headed for a successful future, while Marlow will be left only to repeat Jim's tale to anyone who will listen.