feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/gradesaver/Lord Jim/section_11_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 40-45
feat_summary_id: chapters 40-45
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 40-45", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422054542/https://www.gradesaver.com/lord-jim/study-guide/summary-chapters-40-45", "summary": "As Brown tells his story to Marlow, Marlow writes that he is struck by his impression of \"an undisguised ruthlessness of purpose, a strange vengeful attitude towards his own past, and a blind belief in the righteousness of his will against all mankind\" . In the battle, Brown was almost paralyzed by fear. The numbers were 200 to one. Fear among the people, however, had also begun to unravel the social fabric. One of Brown's men is shot down, so Brown shoots one of the Bugis three times in the stomach. Then, sounds of joy lift in the air. Cornelius tells Brown that Jim has returned, not afraid of anything. When Brown sees Jim, he sees a man in European clothes, all in white, with a helmet. The two meet near the very spot where Jim had taken \"the second desperate leap of his life--the leap that landed him into the life of Patusan, into the trust, the love, the confidence of the people\" . Brown hates Jim on sight--for his youth and his assurance, his self-possession, his power and neatness. They converse, and Brown yells to him that it was hunger that had driven him to Patusan. Why had Jim come? The conversation strikes Marlow as a duel, and as if Brown, like a great man, had discovered Jim's weakest spot. He says, \"if it came to saving one's life in the dark, one didn't care who else went--three, thirty, three hundred people\" . Jim says nothing in response, and he is struck by \"their common blood, an assumption of common experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secret knowledge that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts\" . With that, Jim turns away, telling Brown he will have a clear road or a clear fight . The story now continues from Tamb' Itam's point of view. He describes the shock of Jim insisting that Dain Waris lead. Tamb' Itam is given the duty of sending word to Dain Waris to let Brown and his men pass. Jim includes Stein's silver ring as a sign of good faith and, at the same time, he sends Brown a note with Cornelius as messenger. The note says, \"You get the clear road\" . But, upon delivering the note, Cornelius remains with Brown and tells him that Dain Waris's party is downriver and lying in wait to lay ambush on him as they pass. Brown feels betrayed yet, strangely enough, he doesn't seem to believe it. To be safe, he takes the creek he had noticed upon his first arrival. Through the fog, he takes Cornelius with him in the longboat. After Tamb' Itam approaches Dain Waris's camp and delivers the message with the ring, saying that all is well and that the trouble has passed, Dain Waris slips the ring onto the forefinger of his right hand. Brown's men land nearby and, though Cornelius tries to get away, force him to lead the way to the camp. No one had imagined that the white men would know of the creek. Fourteen shots ring out, and Dain Waris jumps up, running to the open shore. There, Tamb' Itam sees a bullet hit Darin Waris's forehead, and a great fear falls upon him. The white men disappear. Tamb' Itam sees Cornelius and shoots him twice, watching him die. He then hurries back to the town, knowing that it is important that he be the first bearer of the news. When he arrives, the town is festive. He seeks out the girl and reports what has happened. They go to find Jim, and he tells Jim that it is not safe for him to go out amongst the people. This is when Jim understands that it is all over: \"the work of his own hands, had fallen in ruins upon his head\" . Marlow believes it was then that Jim had tried to write to someone. He says to Jewel, \"I have no life\" . The girl insists that either he should fight, or they should run away. But he ignores her. Dain Waris's body is brought to Doramin, and as Doramin sees the wound in the forehead and then the ring on his son's forefinger, he begins to cry in fury. Jim walks to meet him: \"There is nothing to fight for\" . He tells Doramin that he has come ready and unarmed, and that is when Doramin shoots him through the chest. Jim, with a proud and unflinching look, falls dead. The story concludes with Jewel in Stein's home, \"leading a sort of soundless, inert life\" . Stein has grown old and sorrowful. He feels himself preparing to leave \"all this,\" and he \"waves his hand sadly at his butterflies\" .", "analysis": "When Brown and Jim finally meet, Brown expresses hatred.  This hatred is, on some level, understandable.  He hates the world for never having given him the opportunity or the \"clean slate\" that Jim had been given.  When Brown and Jim face each other, each sees in the other a vision of what might have been.  The moment is one of recognition. Brown, the reader can surmise from subtle hints in the narrative, is a quick man.  He is charismatic enough to be a leader, albeit of an outcast group.  Still, his eye sees the hidden creek and, in the way that a great man senses another man's greatest weakness, Brown hits Jim in his weak spot.  He rouses in their interaction a sense of challenge.  Jim, now the embodiment of a mythical romantic ideal, begins to collapse.  The reason is less from a worry that Brown knows who Jim than the realization  that Jim will never be able to escape his moment of weakness on the Patna: his choice is part of his character, and his history is an integral part of his personality.  This history is not knowledge that is external to him, but something that has become deeply seated in his being.  Brown is a personification of that hidden and rejected self-knowledge. Jim likewise recognizes that Brown is a man who has potential or \"Ability in the abstract.\" In an attempt to pass along to him an opportunity in the same generous spirit with which Stein and Marlow had aided him, Jim gives Brown \"the clear road\"--not quite a clean slate, but a chance to achieve his goals.  This is an opportunity for Brown, though it is not nearly of the same quality as the one that had been given to Jim, because the clear road does not promise a realization of the romantic ideal, the achievement of the dreams of a life of glory and honor.  Instead, it is an opportunity for Brown to persist in his merely Darwinian-style struggle to survive.  The lesser opportunity here, however, is perhaps not so much a result of individual potential and character as it is a product of fortune or chance. The tragic conclusion ensues in a fog of mistrust.  Cornelius presses Brown to see the possibility of betrayal, though there is something in Brown that recognizes \"that there could be no treachery intended\" .  Brown is an astute judge of character.  Still, in the end, he acts mistrustful all the same, choosing to be retaliatory and violent.  These actions do more to reveal the true nature of his character.  Up the creek, and in secret, he wreaks havoc and death among Dain Waris's camp, and then escapes quickly. We again meet fairly clear evidence of Brown's character, should the story be true, that he is found at sea in a lifeboat telling the same story that the Patna crew had told their rescuers: the ship had sunk beneath their feet.  The irony in this tale, however, is that Jim had been one of them, as well as \"one of us.\"  Can Jim exorcise from himself the negative spirit that persists in Brown?  The ambiguity of character suggests that all men are mixtures of potential characters: the romantic, the hopeless, the corrupt, and the cowardly.  \"One of us\" can refer to being one more such complex being within the company of all men. As for Jim's fate, Dain Waris's death extinguishes the flame that had charmed the life of Patusan.  This parallel to Stein's best friend being assassinated is obvious, though in Jim's case, the death comes out of a failure of judgment on his part.  The ring, signifying the promise of good will from Stein to Doramin, becomes a symbol of betrayal.  Additionally, the death causes Jim's reputation and secure place in Patusan society to begin to crumble.  He has no place in the world beyond, and now that his work in Patusan is finished, there is nowhere for him to go, except to be extinguished himself. Therefore, as the reader recalls the vision of Stein blowing out a flaming match with the idea that all life is fleeting, Jim is compelled to do what is logically demanded at this climax.  He cannot fight in the way Brown had--struggling for his life--because to do so would liken him further to Brown.  Instead, he leaps in the direction of his fate.  He does not fight it. Jewel, representing the love that the community had felt for Jim and the delight of opportunity he had known, is discarded.  His final atonement requires a clean break.  Jim goes to meet Doramin with a calm face, in the same way that he had arrived, in the face of possible assault.  Here, the assault is certain, and Jim dies in a manner that atones for his past failure at sea.  This time, he goes down with the iron ship as it sinks.  He does not run.  He refuses to leap for a lifeboat to share with Jewel and Tamb' Itam.  Instead he remains--as George had remained--aboard, to die. The native audience looks at Jim's body, as the Muslim pilgrims had looked upon George's, with curiosity and fascination.  The mystery man of Patusan is brought to an end.  Jim is, after all, a man who dies, in spite of the myths of his immortality.  Nevertheless, in true Conradian fashion and poetic tradition, Jim lives on through his show of action.  He remains committed to his ideal and takes responsibility for what he has done and, in this way, Marlow finishes his story.  This man's story is worth finishing.  The inquiry into Jim's soul has been mysterious but it also has been fruitful, revelatory, and illustrative of what is human. The novel concludes with a final view of an aging Stein and a broken, mute Jewel.  The ring has been lost, and there is no one to inherit what Stein has built .  For Stein, the romantic tradition comes to an end.  As his hands wave at the butterflies beneath the glass, we sense that Stein, Jewel, the butterflies, everyone, all etherized in their places, will soon disintegrate into dust."}
text: 'Brown's object was to gain time by fooling with Kassim's diplomacy. For
  doing a real stroke of business he could not help thinking the white man
  was the person to work with. He could not imagine such a chap (who must
  be confoundedly clever after all to get hold of the natives like
  that) refusing a help that would do away with the necessity for slow,
  cautious, risky cheating, that imposed itself as the only possible
  line of conduct for a single-handed man. He, Brown, would offer him
  the power. No man could hesitate. Everything was in coming to a clear
  understanding. Of course they would share. The idea of there being a
  fort--all ready to his hand--a real fort, with artillery (he knew this
  from Cornelius), excited him. Let him only once get in and . . . He
  would impose modest conditions. Not too low, though. The man was no
  fool, it seemed. They would work like brothers till . . . till the time
  came for a quarrel and a shot that would settle all accounts. With grim
  impatience of plunder he wished himself to be talking with the man now.
  The land already seemed to be his to tear to pieces, squeeze, and throw
  away. Meantime Kassim had to be fooled for the sake of food first--and
  for a second string. But the principal thing was to get something to eat
  from day to day. Besides, he was not averse to begin fighting on that
  Rajah's account, and teach a lesson to those people who had received him
  with shots. The lust of battle was upon him.
  
  'I am sorry that I can't give you this part of the story, which of
  course I have mainly from Brown, in Brown's own words. There was in the
  broken, violent speech of that man, unveiling before me his thoughts
  with the very hand of Death upon his throat, an undisguised ruthlessness
  of purpose, a strange vengeful attitude towards his own past, and a
  blind belief in the righteousness of his will against all mankind,
  something of that feeling which could induce the leader of a horde of
  wandering cut-throats to call himself proudly the Scourge of God.
  No doubt the natural senseless ferocity which is the basis of such
  a character was exasperated by failure, ill-luck, and the recent
  privations, as well as by the desperate position in which he found
  himself; but what was most remarkable of all was this, that while he
  planned treacherous alliances, had already settled in his own mind the
  fate of the white man, and intrigued in an overbearing, offhand manner
  with Kassim, one could perceive that what he had really desired, almost
  in spite of himself, was to play havoc with that jungle town which had
  defied him, to see it strewn over with corpses and enveloped in flames.
  Listening to his pitiless, panting voice, I could imagine how he must
  have looked at it from the hillock, peopling it with images of murder
  and rapine. The part nearest to the creek wore an abandoned aspect,
  though as a matter of fact every house concealed a few armed men on the
  alert. Suddenly beyond the stretch of waste ground, interspersed with
  small patches of low dense bush, excavations, heaps of rubbish, with
  trodden paths between, a man, solitary and looking very small, strolled
  out into the deserted opening of the street between the shut-up, dark,
  lifeless buildings at the end. Perhaps one of the inhabitants, who had
  fled to the other bank of the river, coming back for some object of
  domestic use. Evidently he supposed himself quite safe at that distance
  from the hill on the other side of the creek. A light stockade, set up
  hastily, was just round the turn of the street, full of his friends.
  He moved leisurely. Brown saw him, and instantly called to his side the
  Yankee deserter, who acted as a sort of second in command. This lanky,
  loose-jointed fellow came forward, wooden-faced, trailing his rifle
  lazily. When he understood what was wanted from him a homicidal and
  conceited smile uncovered his teeth, making two deep folds down his
  sallow, leathery cheeks. He prided himself on being a dead shot. He
  dropped on one knee, and taking aim from a steady rest through the
  unlopped branches of a felled tree, fired, and at once stood up to look.
  The man, far away, turned his head to the report, made another step
  forward, seemed to hesitate, and abruptly got down on his hands and
  knees. In the silence that fell upon the sharp crack of the rifle, the
  dead shot, keeping his eyes fixed upon the quarry, guessed that "this
  there coon's health would never be a source of anxiety to his friends
  any more." The man's limbs were seen to move rapidly under his body
  in an endeavour to run on all-fours. In that empty space arose a
  multitudinous shout of dismay and surprise. The man sank flat, face
  down, and moved no more. "That showed them what we could do," said Brown
  to me. "Struck the fear of sudden death into them. That was what we
  wanted. They were two hundred to one, and this gave them something to
  think over for the night. Not one of them had an idea of such a long
  shot before. That beggar belonging to the Rajah scooted down-hill with
  his eyes hanging out of his head."
  
  'As he was telling me this he tried with a shaking hand to wipe the thin
  foam on his blue lips. "Two hundred to one. Two hundred to one . . .
  strike terror, . . . terror, terror, I tell you. . . ." His own eyes
  were starting out of their sockets. He fell back, clawing the air with
  skinny fingers, sat up again, bowed and hairy, glared at me sideways
  like some man-beast of folk-lore, with open mouth in his miserable and
  awful agony before he got his speech back after that fit. There are
  sights one never forgets.
  
  'Furthermore, to draw the enemy's fire and locate such parties as
  might have been hiding in the bushes along the creek, Brown ordered the
  Solomon Islander to go down to the boat and bring an oar, as you send a
  spaniel after a stick into the water. This failed, and the fellow came
  back without a single shot having been fired at him from anywhere.
  "There's nobody," opined some of the men. It is "onnatural," remarked
  the Yankee. Kassim had gone, by that time, very much impressed, pleased
  too, and also uneasy. Pursuing his tortuous policy, he had dispatched a
  message to Dain Waris warning him to look out for the white men's
  ship, which, he had had information, was about to come up the river.
  He minimised its strength and exhorted him to oppose its passage. This
  double-dealing answered his purpose, which was to keep the Bugis forces
  divided and to weaken them by fighting. On the other hand, he had in
  the course of that day sent word to the assembled Bugis chiefs in town,
  assuring them that he was trying to induce the invaders to retire; his
  messages to the fort asked earnestly for powder for the Rajah's men. It
  was a long time since Tunku Allang had had ammunition for the score or
  so of old muskets rusting in their arm-racks in the audience-hall.
  The open intercourse between the hill and the palace unsettled all the
  minds. It was already time for men to take sides, it began to be said.
  There would soon be much bloodshed, and thereafter great trouble for
  many people. The social fabric of orderly, peaceful life, when every man
  was sure of to-morrow, the edifice raised by Jim's hands, seemed on that
  evening ready to collapse into a ruin reeking with blood. The poorer
  folk were already taking to the bush or flying up the river. A good many
  of the upper class judged it necessary to go and pay their court to the
  Rajah. The Rajah's youths jostled them rudely. Old Tunku Allang, almost
  out of his mind with fear and indecision, either kept a sullen silence
  or abused them violently for daring to come with empty hands: they
  departed very much frightened; only old Doramin kept his countrymen
  together and pursued his tactics inflexibly. Enthroned in a big chair
  behind the improvised stockade, he issued his orders in a deep veiled
  rumble, unmoved, like a deaf man, in the flying rumours.
  
  'Dusk fell, hiding first the body of the dead man, which had been left
  lying with arms outstretched as if nailed to the ground, and then the
  revolving sphere of the night rolled smoothly over Patusan and came to
  a rest, showering the glitter of countless worlds upon the earth. Again,
  in the exposed part of the town big fires blazed along the only street,
  revealing from distance to distance upon their glares the falling
  straight lines of roofs, the fragments of wattled walls jumbled in
  confusion, here and there a whole hut elevated in the glow upon the
  vertical black stripes of a group of high piles and all this line of
  dwellings, revealed in patches by the swaying flames, seemed to flicker
  tortuously away up-river into the gloom at the heart of the land. A
  great silence, in which the looms of successive fires played without
  noise, extended into the darkness at the foot of the hill; but the
  other bank of the river, all dark save for a solitary bonfire at the
  river-front before the fort, sent out into the air an increasing tremor
  that might have been the stamping of a multitude of feet, the hum of
  many voices, or the fall of an immensely distant waterfall. It was
  then, Brown confessed to me, while, turning his back on his men, he sat
  looking at it all, that notwithstanding his disdain, his ruthless faith
  in himself, a feeling came over him that at last he had run his head
  against a stone wall. Had his boat been afloat at the time, he believed
  he would have tried to steal away, taking his chances of a long chase
  down the river and of starvation at sea. It is very doubtful whether he
  would have succeeded in getting away. However, he didn't try this. For
  another moment he had a passing thought of trying to rush the town,
  but he perceived very well that in the end he would find himself in the
  lighted street, where they would be shot down like dogs from the houses.
  They were two hundred to one--he thought, while his men, huddling round
  two heaps of smouldering embers, munched the last of the bananas and
  roasted the few yams they owed to Kassim's diplomacy. Cornelius sat
  amongst them dozing sulkily.
  
  'Then one of the whites remembered that some tobacco had been left in
  the boat, and, encouraged by the impunity of the Solomon Islander,
  said he would go to fetch it. At this all the others shook off
  their despondency. Brown applied to, said, "Go, and be d--d to you,"
  scornfully. He didn't think there was any danger in going to the creek
  in the dark. The man threw a leg over the tree-trunk and disappeared. A
  moment later he was heard clambering into the boat and then clambering
  out. "I've got it," he cried. A flash and a report at the very foot of
  the hill followed. "I am hit," yelled the man. "Look out, look out--I am
  hit," and instantly all the rifles went off. The hill squirted fire
  and noise into the night like a little volcano, and when Brown and
  the Yankee with curses and cuffs stopped the panic-stricken firing, a
  profound, weary groan floated up from the creek, succeeded by a plaint
  whose heartrending sadness was like some poison turning the blood
  cold in the veins. Then a strong voice pronounced several distinct
  incomprehensible words somewhere beyond the creek. "Let no one fire,"
  shouted Brown. "What does it mean?" . . . "Do you hear on the hill?
  Do you hear? Do you hear?" repeated the voice three times. Cornelius
  translated, and then prompted the answer. "Speak," cried Brown, "we
  hear." Then the voice, declaiming in the sonorous inflated tone of a
  herald, and shifting continually on the edge of the vague waste-land,
  proclaimed that between the men of the Bugis nation living in Patusan
  and the white men on the hill and those with them, there would be no
  faith, no compassion, no speech, no peace. A bush rustled; a haphazard
  volley rang out. "Dam' foolishness," muttered the Yankee, vexedly
  grounding the butt. Cornelius translated. The wounded man below
  the hill, after crying out twice, "Take me up! take me up!" went on
  complaining in moans. While he had kept on the blackened earth of the
  slope, and afterwards crouching in the boat, he had been safe enough.
  It seems that in his joy at finding the tobacco he forgot himself and
  jumped out on her off-side, as it were. The white boat, lying high and
  dry, showed him up; the creek was no more than seven yards wide in that
  place, and there happened to be a man crouching in the bush on the other
  bank.
  
  'He was a Bugis of Tondano only lately come to Patusan, and a relation
  of the man shot in the afternoon. That famous long shot had indeed
  appalled the beholders. The man in utter security had been struck down,
  in full view of his friends, dropping with a joke on his lips, and they
  seemed to see in the act an atrocity which had stirred a bitter rage.
  That relation of his, Si-Lapa by name, was then with Doramin in the
  stockade only a few feet away. You who know these chaps must admit that
  the fellow showed an unusual pluck by volunteering to carry the message,
  alone, in the dark. Creeping across the open ground, he had deviated
  to the left and found himself opposite the boat. He was startled when
  Brown's man shouted. He came to a sitting position with his gun to his
  shoulder, and when the other jumped out, exposing himself, he pulled the
  trigger and lodged three jagged slugs point-blank into the poor wretch's
  stomach. Then, lying flat on his face, he gave himself up for dead,
  while a thin hail of lead chopped and swished the bushes close on his
  right hand; afterwards he delivered his speech shouting, bent double,
  dodging all the time in cover. With the last word he leaped sideways,
  lay close for a while, and afterwards got back to the houses unharmed,
  having achieved on that night such a renown as his children will not
  willingly allow to die.
  
  'And on the hill the forlorn band let the two little heaps of embers
  go out under their bowed heads. They sat dejected on the ground with
  compressed lips and downcast eyes, listening to their comrade below. He
  was a strong man and died hard, with moans now loud, now sinking to a
  strange confidential note of pain. Sometimes he shrieked, and again,
  after a period of silence, he could be heard muttering deliriously a
  long and unintelligible complaint. Never for a moment did he cease.
  
  '"What's the good?" Brown had said unmoved once, seeing the Yankee, who
  had been swearing under his breath, prepare to go down. "That's so,"
  assented the deserter, reluctantly desisting. "There's no encouragement
  for wounded men here. Only his noise is calculated to make all the
  others think too much of the hereafter, cap'n." "Water!" cried the
  wounded man in an extraordinarily clear vigorous voice, and then went
  off moaning feebly. "Ay, water. Water will do it," muttered the other to
  himself, resignedly. "Plenty by-and-by. The tide is flowing."
  
  'At last the tide flowed, silencing the plaint and the cries of pain,
  and the dawn was near when Brown, sitting with his chin in the palm of
  his hand before Patusan, as one might stare at the unscalable side of a
  mountain, heard the brief ringing bark of a brass 6-pounder far away
  in town somewhere. "What's this?" he asked of Cornelius, who hung about
  him. Cornelius listened. A muffled roaring shout rolled down-river over
  the town; a big drum began to throb, and others responded, pulsating and
  droning. Tiny scattered lights began to twinkle in the dark half of the
  town, while the part lighted by the loom of fires hummed with a deep and
  prolonged murmur. "He has come," said Cornelius. "What? Already? Are
  you sure?" Brown asked. "Yes! yes! Sure. Listen to the noise." "What
  are they making that row about?" pursued Brown. "For joy," snorted
  Cornelius; "he is a very great man, but all the same, he knows no more
  than a child, and so they make a great noise to please him, because they
  know no better." "Look here," said Brown, "how is one to get at him?"
  "He shall come to talk to you," Cornelius declared. "What do you mean?
  Come down here strolling as it were?" Cornelius nodded vigorously in the
  dark. "Yes. He will come straight here and talk to you. He is just like
  a fool. You shall see what a fool he is." Brown was incredulous. "You
  shall see; you shall see," repeated Cornelius. "He is not afraid--not
  afraid of anything. He will come and order you to leave his people
  alone. Everybody must leave his people alone. He is like a little child.
  He will come to you straight." Alas! he knew Jim well--that "mean little
  skunk," as Brown called him to me. "Yes, certainly," he pursued with
  ardour, "and then, captain, you tell that tall man with a gun to shoot
  him. Just you kill him, and you will frighten everybody so much that
  you can do anything you like with them afterwards--get what you like--go
  away when you like. Ha! ha! ha! Fine . . ." He almost danced with
  impatience and eagerness; and Brown, looking over his shoulder at him,
  could see, shown up by the pitiless dawn, his men drenched with dew,
  sitting amongst the cold ashes and the litter of the camp, haggard,
  cowed, and in rags.'
  
  
  'To the very last moment, till the full day came upon them with a
  spring, the fires on the west bank blazed bright and clear; and then
  Brown saw in a knot of coloured figures motionless between the advanced
  houses a man in European clothes, in a helmet, all white. "That's him;
  look! look!" Cornelius said excitedly. All Brown's men had sprung up and
  crowded at his back with lustreless eyes. The group of vivid colours
  and dark faces with the white figure in their midst were observing the
  knoll. Brown could see naked arms being raised to shade the eyes and
  other brown arms pointing. What should he do? He looked around, and the
  forests that faced him on all sides walled the cock-pit of an unequal
  contest. He looked once more at his men. A contempt, a weariness, the
  desire of life, the wish to try for one more chance--for some other
  grave--struggled in his breast. From the outline the figure presented
  it seemed to him that the white man there, backed up by all the power of
  the land, was examining his position through binoculars. Brown jumped up
  on the log, throwing his arms up, the palms outwards. The coloured group
  closed round the white man, and fell back twice before he got clear of
  them, walking slowly alone. Brown remained standing on the log till
  Jim, appearing and disappearing between the patches of thorny scrub, had
  nearly reached the creek; then Brown jumped off and went down to meet
  him on his side.
  
  'They met, I should think, not very far from the place, perhaps on the
  very spot, where Jim took the second desperate leap of his life--the
  leap that landed him into the life of Patusan, into the trust, the love,
  the confidence of the people. They faced each other across the creek,
  and with steady eyes tried to understand each other before they opened
  their lips. Their antagonism must have been expressed in their glances;
  I know that Brown hated Jim at first sight. Whatever hopes he might have
  had vanished at once. This was not the man he had expected to see. He
  hated him for this--and in a checked flannel shirt with sleeves cut
  off at the elbows, grey bearded, with a sunken, sun-blackened face--he
  cursed in his heart the other's youth and assurance, his clear eyes and
  his untroubled bearing. That fellow had got in a long way before him!
  He did not look like a man who would be willing to give anything for
  assistance. He had all the advantages on his side--possession, security,
  power; he was on the side of an overwhelming force! He was not hungry
  and desperate, and he did not seem in the least afraid. And there was
  something in the very neatness of Jim's clothes, from the white helmet
  to the canvas leggings and the pipeclayed shoes, which in Brown's sombre
  irritated eyes seemed to belong to things he had in the very shaping of
  his life condemned and flouted.
  
  '"Who are you?" asked Jim at last, speaking in his usual voice. "My
  name's Brown," answered the other loudly; "Captain Brown. What's yours?"
  and Jim after a little pause went on quietly, as If he had not heard:
  "What made you come here?" "You want to know," said Brown bitterly.
  "It's easy to tell. Hunger. And what made you?"
  
  '"The fellow started at this," said Brown, relating to me the opening of
  this strange conversation between those two men, separated only by
  the muddy bed of a creek, but standing on the opposite poles of that
  conception of life which includes all mankind--"The fellow started at
  this and got very red in the face. Too big to be questioned, I suppose.
  I told him that if he looked upon me as a dead man with whom you may
  take liberties, he himself was not a whit better off really. I had
  a fellow up there who had a bead drawn on him all the time, and only
  waited for a sign from me. There was nothing to be shocked at in this.
  He had come down of his own free will. 'Let us agree,' said I, 'that we
  are both dead men, and let us talk on that basis, as equals. We are
  all equal before death,' I said. I admitted I was there like a rat in
  a trap, but we had been driven to it, and even a trapped rat can give
  a bite. He caught me up in a moment. 'Not if you don't go near the trap
  till the rat is dead.' I told him that sort of game was good enough for
  these native friends of his, but I would have thought him too white to
  serve even a rat so. Yes, I had wanted to talk with him. Not to beg
  for my life, though. My fellows were--well--what they were--men like
  himself, anyhow. All we wanted from him was to come on in the devil's
  name and have it out. 'God d--n it,' said I, while he stood there as
  still as a wooden post, 'you don't want to come out here every day with
  your glasses to count how many of us are left on our feet. Come. Either
  bring your infernal crowd along or let us go out and starve in the open
  sea, by God! You have been white once, for all your tall talk of this
  being your own people and you being one with them. Are you? And what the
  devil do you get for it; what is it you've found here that is so d--d
  precious? Hey? You don't want us to come down here perhaps--do you? You
  are two hundred to one. You don't want us to come down into the open.
  Ah! I promise you we shall give you some sport before you've done. You
  talk about me making a cowardly set upon unoffending people. What's
  that to me that they are unoffending, when I am starving for next to no
  offence? But I am not a coward. Don't you be one. Bring them along or,
  by all the fiends, we shall yet manage to send half your unoffending
  town to heaven with us in smoke!'"
  
  'He was terrible--relating this to me--this tortured skeleton of a man
  drawn up together with his face over his knees, upon a miserable bed in
  that wretched hovel, and lifting his head to look at me with malignant
  triumph.
  
  '"That's what I told him--I knew what to say," he began again, feebly
  at first, but working himself up with incredible speed into a fiery
  utterance of his scorn. "We aren't going into the forest to wander like
  a string of living skeletons dropping one after another for ants to
  go to work upon us before we are fairly dead. Oh no! . . . 'You don't
  deserve a better fate,' he said. 'And what do you deserve,' I shouted
  at him, 'you that I find skulking here with your mouth full of your
  responsibility, of innocent lives, of your infernal duty? What do
  you know more of me than I know of you? I came here for food. D'ye
  hear?--food to fill our bellies. And what did _you_ come for? What did
  you ask for when you came here? We don't ask you for anything but to
  give us a fight or a clear road to go back whence we came. . . .' 'I
  would fight with you now,' says he, pulling at his little moustache.
  'And I would let you shoot me, and welcome,' I said. 'This is as good a
  jumping-off place for me as another. I am sick of my infernal luck. But
  it would be too easy. There are my men in the same boat--and, by God, I
  am not the sort to jump out of trouble and leave them in a d--d lurch,'
  I said. He stood thinking for a while and then wanted to know what I
  had done ('out there' he says, tossing his head down-stream) to be hazed
  about so. 'Have we met to tell each other the story of our lives?' I
  asked him. 'Suppose you begin. No? Well, I am sure I don't want to hear.
  Keep it to yourself. I know it is no better than mine. I've lived--and
  so did you, though you talk as if you were one of those people that
  should have wings so as to go about without touching the dirty earth.
  Well--it is dirty. I haven't got any wings. I am here because I was
  afraid once in my life. Want to know what of? Of a prison. That scares
  me, and you may know it--if it's any good to you. I won't ask you what
  scared you into this infernal hole, where you seem to have found pretty
  pickings. That's your luck and this is mine--the privilege to beg for
  the favour of being shot quickly, or else kicked out to go free and
  starve in my own way.' . . ."
  
  'His debilitated body shook with an exultation so vehement, so assured,
  and so malicious that it seemed to have driven off the death waiting for
  him in that hut. The corpse of his mad self-love uprose from rags and
  destitution as from the dark horrors of a tomb. It is impossible to say
  how much he lied to Jim then, how much he lied to me now--and to himself
  always. Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of
  every passion wants some pretence to make it live. Standing at the gate
  of the other world in the guise of a beggar, he had slapped this world's
  face, he had spat on it, he had thrown upon it an immensity of scorn
  and revolt at the bottom of his misdeeds. He had overcome them all--men,
  women, savages, traders, ruffians, missionaries--and Jim--"that
  beefy-faced beggar." I did not begrudge him this triumph in articulo
  mortis, this almost posthumous illusion of having trampled all the earth
  under his feet. While he was boasting to me, in his sordid and repulsive
  agony, I couldn't help thinking of the chuckling talk relating to the
  time of his greatest splendour when, during a year or more, Gentleman
  Brown's ship was to be seen, for many days on end, hovering off an islet
  befringed with green upon azure, with the dark dot of the mission-house
  on a white beach; while Gentleman Brown, ashore, was casting his spells
  over a romantic girl for whom Melanesia had been too much, and giving
  hopes of a remarkable conversion to her husband. The poor man, some time
  or other, had been heard to express the intention of winning "Captain
  Brown to a better way of life." . . . "Bag Gentleman Brown for
  Glory"--as a leery-eyed loafer expressed it once--"just to let them see
  up above what a Western Pacific trading skipper looks like." And this
  was the man, too, who had run off with a dying woman, and had shed tears
  over her body. "Carried on like a big baby," his then mate was never
  tired of telling, "and where the fun came in may I be kicked to death by
  diseased Kanakas if _I_ know. Why, gents! she was too far gone when he
  brought her aboard to know him; she just lay there on her back in his
  bunk staring at the beam with awful shining eyes--and then she died.
  Dam' bad sort of fever, I guess. . . ." I remembered all these stories
  while, wiping his matted lump of a beard with a livid hand, he was
  telling me from his noisome couch how he got round, got in, got home,
  on that confounded, immaculate, don't-you-touch-me sort of fellow. He
  admitted that he couldn't be scared, but there was a way, "as broad as
  a turnpike, to get in and shake his twopenny soul around and inside out
  and upside down--by God!"''I don't think he could do more than perhaps look upon that straight
  path. He seemed to have been puzzled by what he saw, for he interrupted
  himself in his narrative more than once to exclaim, "He nearly slipped
  from me there. I could not make him out. Who was he?" And after
  glaring at me wildly he would go on, jubilating and sneering. To me the
  conversation of these two across the creek appears now as the deadliest
  kind of duel on which Fate looked on with her cold-eyed knowledge of the
  end. No, he didn't turn Jim's soul inside out, but I am much mistaken if
  the spirit so utterly out of his reach had not been made to taste to the
  full the bitterness of that contest. These were the emissaries with whom
  the world he had renounced was pursuing him in his retreat--white men
  from "out there" where he did not think himself good enough to live.
  This was all that came to him--a menace, a shock, a danger to his
  work. I suppose it is this sad, half-resentful, half-resigned feeling,
  piercing through the few words Jim said now and then, that puzzled Brown
  so much in the reading of his character. Some great men owe most of
  their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for
  their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work;
  and Brown, as though he had been really great, had a satanic gift of
  finding out the best and the weakest spot in his victims. He admitted
  to me that Jim wasn't of the sort that can be got over by truckling, and
  accordingly he took care to show himself as a man confronting without
  dismay ill-luck, censure, and disaster. The smuggling of a few guns was
  no great crime, he pointed out. As to coming to Patusan, who had the
  right to say he hadn't come to beg? The infernal people here let loose
  at him from both banks without staying to ask questions. He made
  the point brazenly, for, in truth, Dain Waris's energetic action had
  prevented the greatest calamities; because Brown told me distinctly
  that, perceiving the size of the place, he had resolved instantly in his
  mind that as soon as he had gained a footing he would set fire right and
  left, and begin by shooting down everything living in sight, in order to
  cow and terrify the population. The disproportion of forces was so great
  that this was the only way giving him the slightest chance of attaining
  his ends--he argued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't tell Jim this.
  As to the hardships and starvation they had gone through, these had been
  very real; it was enough to look at his band. He made, at the sound of a
  shrill whistle, all his men appear standing in a row on the logs in full
  view, so that Jim could see them. For the killing of the man, it had
  been done--well, it had--but was not this war, bloody war--in a corner?
  and the fellow had been killed cleanly, shot through the chest, not like
  that poor devil of his lying now in the creek. They had to listen to him
  dying for six hours, with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this
  was a life for a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness,
  with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he
  cares not where he runs. When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque
  despairing frankness, whether he himself--straight now--didn't
  understand that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, one
  didn't care who else went--three, thirty, three hundred people"--it was
  as if a demon had been whispering advice in his ear. "I made him wince,"
  boasted Brown to me. "He very soon left off coming the righteous over
  me. He just stood there with nothing to say, and looking as black as
  thunder--not at me--on the ground." He asked Jim whether he had nothing
  fishy in his life to remember that he was so damnedly hard upon a man
  trying to get out of a deadly hole by the first means that came to
  hand--and so on, and so on. And there ran through the rough talk a
  vein of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption of common
  experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secret knowledge
  that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts.
  
  'At last Brown threw himself down full length and watched Jim out of
  the corners of his eyes. Jim on his side of the creek stood thinking and
  switching his leg. The houses in view were silent, as if a pestilence
  had swept them clean of every breath of life; but many invisible eyes
  were turned, from within, upon the two men with the creek between them,
  a stranded white boat, and the body of the third man half sunk in the
  mud. On the river canoes were moving again, for Patusan was recovering
  its belief in the stability of earthly institutions since the return of
  the white lord. The right bank, the platforms of the houses, the rafts
  moored along the shores, even the roofs of bathing-huts, were covered
  with people that, far away out of earshot and almost out of sight, were
  straining their eyes towards the knoll beyond the Rajah's stockade.
  Within the wide irregular ring of forests, broken in two places by the
  sheen of the river, there was a silence. "Will you promise to leave the
  coast?" Jim asked. Brown lifted and let fall his hand, giving everything
  up as it were--accepting the inevitable. "And surrender your arms?" Jim
  went on. Brown sat up and glared across. "Surrender our arms! Not till
  you come to take them out of our stiff hands. You think I am gone crazy
  with funk? Oh no! That and the rags I stand in is all I have got in the
  world, besides a few more breechloaders on board; and I expect to sell
  the lot in Madagascar, if I ever get so far--begging my way from ship to
  ship."
  
  'Jim said nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in
  his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I
  have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to
  give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose they say one
  thing to you, and do the other thing to me." He calmed down markedly. "I
  dare say you have the power, or what's the meaning of all this talk?" he
  continued. "What did you come down here for? To pass the time of day?"
  
  '"Very well," said Jim, lifting his head suddenly after a long silence.
  "You shall have a clear road or else a clear fight." He turned on his
  heel and walked away.
  
  'Brown got up at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had seen
  Jim disappear between the first houses. He never set his eyes on him
  again. On his way back he met Cornelius slouching down with his head
  between his shoulders. He stopped before Brown. "Why didn't you kill
  him?" he demanded in a sour, discontented voice. "Because I could do
  better than that," Brown said with an amused smile. "Never! never!"
  protested Cornelius with energy. "Couldn't. I have lived here for many
  years." Brown looked up at him curiously. There were many sides to the
  life of that place in arms against him; things he would never find out.
  Cornelius slunk past dejectedly in the direction of the river. He was
  now leaving his new friends; he accepted the disappointing course of
  events with a sulky obstinacy which seemed to draw more together his
  little yellow old face; and as he went down he glanced askant here and
  there, never giving up his fixed idea.
  
  'Henceforth events move fast without a check, flowing from the very
  hearts of men like a stream from a dark source, and we see Jim amongst
  them, mostly through Tamb' Itam's eyes. The girl's eyes had watched him
  too, but her life is too much entwined with his: there is her passion,
  her wonder, her anger, and, above all, her fear and her unforgiving
  love. Of the faithful servant, uncomprehending as the rest of them, it
  is the fidelity alone that comes into play; a fidelity and a belief in
  his lord so strong that even amazement is subdued to a sort of saddened
  acceptance of a mysterious failure. He has eyes only for one figure,
  and through all the mazes of bewilderment he preserves his air of
  guardianship, of obedience, of care.
  
  'His master came back from his talk with the white men, walking slowly
  towards the stockade in the street. Everybody was rejoiced to see him
  return, for while he was away every man had been afraid not only of him
  being killed, but also of what would come after. Jim went into one of
  the houses, where old Doramin had retired, and remained alone for a
  long time with the head of the Bugis settlers. No doubt he discussed
  the course to follow with him then, but no man was present at the
  conversation. Only Tamb' Itam, keeping as close to the door as he could,
  heard his master say, "Yes. I shall let all the people know that such
  is my wish; but I spoke to you, O Doramin, before all the others, and
  alone; for you know my heart as well as I know yours and its greatest
  desire. And you know well also that I have no thought but for the
  people's good." Then his master, lifting the sheeting in the doorway,
  went out, and he, Tamb' Itam, had a glimpse of old Doramin within,
  sitting in the chair with his hands on his knees, and looking between
  his feet. Afterwards he followed his master to the fort, where all the
  principal Bugis and Patusan inhabitants had been summoned for a talk.
  Tamb' Itam himself hoped there would be some fighting. "What was it but
  the taking of another hill?" he exclaimed regretfully. However, in the
  town many hoped that the rapacious strangers would be induced, by the
  sight of so many brave men making ready to fight, to go away. It would
  be a good thing if they went away. Since Jim's arrival had been made
  known before daylight by the gun fired from the fort and the beating of
  the big drum there, the fear that had hung over Patusan had broken and
  subsided like a wave on a rock, leaving the seething foam of excitement,
  curiosity, and endless speculation. Half of the population had been
  ousted out of their homes for purposes of defence, and were living in
  the street on the left side of the river, crowding round the fort, and
  in momentary expectation of seeing their abandoned dwellings on the
  threatened bank burst into flames. The general anxiety was to see the
  matter settled quickly. Food, through Jewel's care, had been served
  out to the refugees. Nobody knew what their white man would do. Some
  remarked that it was worse than in Sherif Ali's war. Then many people
  did not care; now everybody had something to lose. The movements of
  canoes passing to and fro between the two parts of the town were watched
  with interest. A couple of Bugis war-boats lay anchored in the middle of
  the stream to protect the river, and a thread of smoke stood at the bow
  of each; the men in them were cooking their midday rice when Jim, after
  his interviews with Brown and Doramin, crossed the river and entered by
  the water-gate of his fort. The people inside crowded round him, so that
  he could hardly make his way to the house. They had not seen him before,
  because on his arrival during the night he had only exchanged a few
  words with the girl, who had come down to the landing-stage for the
  purpose, and had then gone on at once to join the chiefs and the
  fighting men on the other bank. People shouted greetings after him.
  One old woman raised a laugh by pushing her way to the front madly and
  enjoining him in a scolding voice to see to it that her two sons, who
  were with Doramin, did not come to harm at the hands of the robbers.
  Several of the bystanders tried to pull her away, but she struggled and
  cried, "Let me go. What is this, O Muslims? This laughter is unseemly.
  Are they not cruel, bloodthirsty robbers bent on killing?" "Let her be,"
  said Jim, and as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly, "Everybody
  shall be safe." He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud
  murmurs of satisfaction, had died out.
  
  'There's no doubt his mind was made up that Brown should have his way
  clear back to the sea. His fate, revolted, was forcing his hand. He
  had for the first time to affirm his will in the face of outspoken
  opposition. "There was much talk, and at first my master was silent,"
  Tamb' Itam said. "Darkness came, and then I lit the candles on the long
  table. The chiefs sat on each side, and the lady remained by my master's
  right hand."
  
  'When he began to speak, the unaccustomed difficulty seemed only to
  fix his resolve more immovably. The white men were now waiting for his
  answer on the hill. Their chief had spoken to him in the language of his
  own people, making clear many things difficult to explain in any other
  speech. They were erring men whom suffering had made blind to right and
  wrong. It is true that lives had been lost already, but why lose more?
  He declared to his hearers, the assembled heads of the people, that
  their welfare was his welfare, their losses his losses, their mourning
  his mourning. He looked round at the grave listening faces and told them
  to remember that they had fought and worked side by side. They knew his
  courage . . . Here a murmur interrupted him . . . And that he had never
  deceived them. For many years they had dwelt together. He loved the
  land and the people living in it with a very great love. He was ready to
  answer with his life for any harm that should come to them if the white
  men with beards were allowed to retire. They were evil-doers, but their
  destiny had been evil, too. Had he ever advised them ill? Had his words
  ever brought suffering to the people? he asked. He believed that it
  would be best to let these whites and their followers go with their
  lives. It would be a small gift. "I whom you have tried and found always
  true ask you to let them go." He turned to Doramin. The old nakhoda made
  no movement. "Then," said Jim, "call in Dain Waris, your son, my friend,
  for in this business I shall not lead."'
  'Tamb' Itam behind his chair was thunderstruck. The declaration produced
  an immense sensation. "Let them go because this is best in my knowledge
  which has never deceived you," Jim insisted. There was a silence. In
  the darkness of the courtyard could be heard the subdued whispering,
  shuffling noise of many people. Doramin raised his heavy head and said
  that there was no more reading of hearts than touching the sky with the
  hand, but--he consented. The others gave their opinion in turn. "It is
  best," "Let them go," and so on. But most of them simply said that they
  "believed Tuan Jim."
  
  'In this simple form of assent to his will lies the whole gist of
  the situation; their creed, his truth; and the testimony to that
  faithfulness which made him in his own eyes the equal of the
  impeccable men who never fall out of the ranks. Stein's words,
  "Romantic!--Romantic!" seem to ring over those distances that will never
  give him up now to a world indifferent to his failings and his virtues,
  and to that ardent and clinging affection that refuses him the dole of
  tears in the bewilderment of a great grief and of eternal separation.
  From the moment the sheer truthfulness of his last three years of life
  carries the day against the ignorance, the fear, and the anger of men,
  he appears no longer to me as I saw him last--a white speck catching all
  the dim light left upon a sombre coast and the darkened sea--but greater
  and more pitiful in the loneliness of his soul, that remains even for
  her who loved him best a cruel and insoluble mystery.
  
  'It is evident that he did not mistrust Brown; there was no reason to
  doubt the story, whose truth seemed warranted by the rough frankness,
  by a sort of virile sincerity in accepting the morality and the
  consequences of his acts. But Jim did not know the almost inconceivable
  egotism of the man which made him, when resisted and foiled in his will,
  mad with the indignant and revengeful rage of a thwarted autocrat.
  But if Jim did not mistrust Brown, he was evidently anxious that some
  misunderstanding should not occur, ending perhaps in collision and
  bloodshed. It was for this reason that directly the Malay chiefs had
  gone he asked Jewel to get him something to eat, as he was going out of
  the fort to take command in the town. On her remonstrating against this
  on the score of his fatigue, he said that something might happen for
  which he would never forgive himself. "I am responsible for every life
  in the land," he said. He was moody at first; she served him with her
  own hands, taking the plates and dishes (of the dinner-service presented
  him by Stein) from Tamb' Itam. He brightened up after a while; told her
  she would be again in command of the fort for another night. "There's
  no sleep for us, old girl," he said, "while our people are in danger."
  Later on he said jokingly that she was the best man of them all. "If you
  and Dain Waris had done what you wanted, not one of these poor devils
  would be alive to-day." "Are they very bad?" she asked, leaning over his
  chair. "Men act badly sometimes without being much worse than others,"
  he said after some hesitation.
  
  'Tamb' Itam followed his master to the landing-stage outside the fort.
  The night was clear but without a moon, and the middle of the river was
  dark, while the water under each bank reflected the light of many fires
  "as on a night of Ramadan," Tamb' Itam said. War-boats drifted silently
  in the dark lane or, anchored, floated motionless with a loud ripple.
  That night there was much paddling in a canoe and walking at his
  master's heels for Tamb' Itam: up and down the street they tramped,
  where the fires were burning, inland on the outskirts of the town where
  small parties of men kept guard in the fields. Tuan Jim gave his orders
  and was obeyed. Last of all they went to the Rajah's stockade, which a
  detachment of Jim's people manned on that night. The old Rajah had fled
  early in the morning with most of his women to a small house he had
  near a jungle village on a tributary stream. Kassim, left behind, had
  attended the council with his air of diligent activity to explain away
  the diplomacy of the day before. He was considerably cold-shouldered,
  but managed to preserve his smiling, quiet alertness, and professed
  himself highly delighted when Jim told him sternly that he proposed to
  occupy the stockade on that night with his own men. After the council
  broke up he was heard outside accosting this and that deputing chief,
  and speaking in a loud, gratified tone of the Rajah's property being
  protected in the Rajah's absence.
  
  'About ten or so Jim's men marched in. The stockade commanded the mouth
  of the creek, and Jim meant to remain there till Brown had passed below.
  A small fire was lit on the flat, grassy point outside the wall of
  stakes, and Tamb' Itam placed a little folding-stool for his master. Jim
  told him to try and sleep. Tamb' Itam got a mat and lay down a little
  way off; but he could not sleep, though he knew he had to go on an
  important journey before the night was out. His master walked to and fro
  before the fire with bowed head and with his hands behind his back. His
  face was sad. Whenever his master approached him Tamb' Itam pretended to
  sleep, not wishing his master to know he had been watched. At last his
  master stood still, looking down on him as he lay, and said softly, "It
  is time."
  
  'Tamb' Itam arose directly and made his preparations. His mission was
  to go down the river, preceding Brown's boat by an hour or more, to tell
  Dain Waris finally and formally that the whites were to be allowed to
  pass out unmolested. Jim would not trust anybody else with that service.
  Before starting, Tamb' Itam, more as a matter of form (since his
  position about Jim made him perfectly known), asked for a token.
  "Because, Tuan," he said, "the message is important, and these are thy
  very words I carry." His master first put his hand into one pocket, then
  into another, and finally took off his forefinger Stein's silver ring,
  which he habitually wore, and gave it to Tamb' Itam. When Tamb' Itam
  left on his mission, Brown's camp on the knoll was dark but for a single
  small glow shining through the branches of one of the trees the white
  men had cut down.
  
  'Early in the evening Brown had received from Jim a folded piece of
  paper on which was written, "You get the clear road. Start as soon
  as your boat floats on the morning tide. Let your men be careful. The
  bushes on both sides of the creek and the stockade at the mouth are full
  of well-armed men. You would have no chance, but I don't believe you
  want bloodshed." Brown read it, tore the paper into small pieces, and,
  turning to Cornelius, who had brought it, said jeeringly, "Good-bye, my
  excellent friend." Cornelius had been in the fort, and had been sneaking
  around Jim's house during the afternoon. Jim chose him to carry the note
  because he could speak English, was known to Brown, and was not likely
  to be shot by some nervous mistake of one of the men as a Malay,
  approaching in the dusk, perhaps might have been.
  
  'Cornelius didn't go away after delivering the paper. Brown was sitting
  up over a tiny fire; all the others were lying down. "I could tell you
  something you would like to know," Cornelius mumbled crossly. Brown paid
  no attention. "You did not kill him," went on the other, "and what do
  you get for it? You might have had money from the Rajah, besides the
  loot of all the Bugis houses, and now you get nothing." "You had better
  clear out from here," growled Brown, without even looking at him. But
  Cornelius let himself drop by his side and began to whisper very fast,
  touching his elbow from time to time. What he had to say made Brown sit
  up at first, with a curse. He had simply informed him of Dain Waris's
  armed party down the river. At first Brown saw himself completely sold
  and betrayed, but a moment's reflection convinced him that there could
  be no treachery intended. He said nothing, and after a while Cornelius
  remarked, in a tone of complete indifference, that there was another way
  out of the river which he knew very well. "A good thing to know, too,"
  said Brown, pricking up his ears; and Cornelius began to talk of
  what went on in town and repeated all that had been said in council,
  gossiping in an even undertone at Brown's ear as you talk amongst
  sleeping men you do not wish to wake. "He thinks he has made me
  harmless, does he?" mumbled Brown very low. . . . "Yes. He is a fool. A
  little child. He came here and robbed me," droned on Cornelius, "and he
  made all the people believe him. But if something happened that they did
  not believe him any more, where would he be? And the Bugis Dain who
  is waiting for you down the river there, captain, is the very man who
  chased you up here when you first came." Brown observed nonchalantly
  that it would be just as well to avoid him, and with the same detached,
  musing air Cornelius declared himself acquainted with a backwater broad
  enough to take Brown's boat past Waris's camp. "You will have to be
  quiet," he said as an afterthought, "for in one place we pass close
  behind his camp. Very close. They are camped ashore with their boats
  hauled up." "Oh, we know how to be as quiet as mice; never fear," said
  Brown. Cornelius stipulated that in case he were to pilot Brown out, his
  canoe should be towed. "I'll have to get back quick," he explained.
  
  'It was two hours before the dawn when word was passed to the stockade
  from outlying watchers that the white robbers were coming down to their
  boat. In a very short time every armed man from one end of Patusan
  to the other was on the alert, yet the banks of the river remained so
  silent that but for the fires burning with sudden blurred flares the
  town might have been asleep as if in peace-time. A heavy mist lay very
  low on the water, making a sort of illusive grey light that showed
  nothing. When Brown's long-boat glided out of the creek into the
  river, Jim was standing on the low point of land before the Rajah's
  stockade--on the very spot where for the first time he put his foot on
  Patusan shore. A shadow loomed up, moving in the greyness, solitary,
  very bulky, and yet constantly eluding the eye. A murmur of low talking
  came out of it. Brown at the tiller heard Jim speak calmly: "A clear
  road. You had better trust to the current while the fog lasts; but
  this will lift presently." "Yes, presently we shall see clear," replied
  Brown.
  
  'The thirty or forty men standing with muskets at ready outside the
  stockade held their breath. The Bugis owner of the prau, whom I saw
  on Stein's verandah, and who was amongst them, told me that the boat,
  shaving the low point close, seemed for a moment to grow big and hang
  over it like a mountain. "If you think it worth your while to wait a
  day outside," called out Jim, "I'll try to send you down something--a
  bullock, some yams--what I can." The shadow went on moving. "Yes. Do,"
  said a voice, blank and muffled out of the fog. Not one of the many
  attentive listeners understood what the words meant; and then Brown
  and his men in their boat floated away, fading spectrally without the
  slightest sound.
  
  'Thus Brown, invisible in the mist, goes out of Patusan elbow to elbow
  with Cornelius in the stern-sheets of the long-boat. "Perhaps you shall
  get a small bullock," said Cornelius. "Oh yes. Bullock. Yam. You'll get
  it if he said so. He always speaks the truth. He stole everything I had.
  I suppose you like a small bullock better than the loot of many houses."
  "I would advise you to hold your tongue, or somebody here may fling
  you overboard into this damned fog," said Brown. The boat seemed to be
  standing still; nothing could be seen, not even the river alongside,
  only the water-dust flew and trickled, condensed, down their beards and
  faces. It was weird, Brown told me. Every individual man of them felt
  as though he were adrift alone in a boat, haunted by an almost
  imperceptible suspicion of sighing, muttering ghosts. "Throw me out,
  would you? But I would know where I was," mumbled Cornelius surlily.
  "I've lived many years here." "Not long enough to see through a fog like
  this," Brown said, lolling back with his arm swinging to and fro on the
  useless tiller. "Yes. Long enough for that," snarled Cornelius. "That's
  very useful," commented Brown. "Am I to believe you could find that
  backway you spoke of blindfold, like this?" Cornelius grunted. "Are you
  too tired to row?" he asked after a silence. "No, by God!" shouted Brown
  suddenly. "Out with your oars there." There was a great knocking in
  the fog, which after a while settled into a regular grind of invisible
  sweeps against invisible thole-pins. Otherwise nothing was changed, and
  but for the slight splash of a dipped blade it was like rowing a balloon
  car in a cloud, said Brown. Thereafter Cornelius did not open his lips
  except to ask querulously for somebody to bale out his canoe, which
  was towing behind the long-boat. Gradually the fog whitened and became
  luminous ahead. To the left Brown saw a darkness as though he had been
  looking at the back of the departing night. All at once a big bough
  covered with leaves appeared above his head, and ends of twigs, dripping
  and still, curved slenderly close alongside. Cornelius, without a word,
  took the tiller from his hand.'
  
  'I don't think they spoke together again. The boat entered a narrow
  by-channel, where it was pushed by the oar-blades set into crumbling
  banks, and there was a gloom as if enormous black wings had been
  outspread above the mist that filled its depth to the summits of the
  trees. The branches overhead showered big drops through the gloomy fog.
  At a mutter from Cornelius, Brown ordered his men to load. "I'll
  give you a chance to get even with them before we're done, you dismal
  cripples, you," he said to his gang. "Mind you don't throw it away--you
  hounds." Low growls answered that speech. Cornelius showed much fussy
  concern for the safety of his canoe.
  
  'Meantime Tamb' Itam had reached the end of his journey. The fog had
  delayed him a little, but he had paddled steadily, keeping in touch with
  the south bank. By-and-by daylight came like a glow in a ground glass
  globe. The shores made on each side of the river a dark smudge, in which
  one could detect hints of columnar forms and shadows of twisted branches
  high up. The mist was still thick on the water, but a good watch was
  being kept, for as Iamb' Itam approached the camp the figures of two men
  emerged out of the white vapour, and voices spoke to him boisterously.
  He answered, and presently a canoe lay alongside, and he exchanged news
  with the paddlers. All was well. The trouble was over. Then the men in
  the canoe let go their grip on the side of his dug-out and incontinently
  fell out of sight. He pursued his way till he heard voices coming to him
  quietly over the water, and saw, under the now lifting, swirling mist,
  the glow of many little fires burning on a sandy stretch, backed by
  lofty thin timber and bushes. There again a look-out was kept, for he
  was challenged. He shouted his name as the two last sweeps of his paddle
  ran his canoe up on the strand. It was a big camp. Men crouched in many
  little knots under a subdued murmur of early morning talk. Many thin
  threads of smoke curled slowly on the white mist. Little shelters,
  elevated above the ground, had been built for the chiefs. Muskets were
  stacked in small pyramids, and long spears were stuck singly into the
  sand near the fires.
  
  'Tamb' Itam, assuming an air of importance, demanded to be led to Dain
  Waris. He found the friend of his white lord lying on a raised couch
  made of bamboo, and sheltered by a sort of shed of sticks covered with
  mats. Dain Waris was awake, and a bright fire was burning before his
  sleeping-place, which resembled a rude shrine. The only son of nakhoda
  Doramin answered his greeting kindly. Tamb' Itam began by handing him
  the ring which vouched for the truth of the messenger's words. Dain
  Waris, reclining on his elbow, bade him speak and tell all the news.
  Beginning with the consecrated formula, "The news is good," Tamb' Itam
  delivered Jim's own words. The white men, deputing with the consent of
  all the chiefs, were to be allowed to pass down the river. In answer to
  a question or two Tamb' Itam then reported the proceedings of the last
  council. Dain Waris listened attentively to the end, toying with the
  ring which ultimately he slipped on the forefinger of his right hand.
  After hearing all he had to say he dismissed Tamb' Itam to have food
  and rest. Orders for the return in the afternoon were given immediately.
  Afterwards Dain Waris lay down again, open-eyed, while his personal
  attendants were preparing his food at the fire, by which Tamb' Itam also
  sat talking to the men who lounged up to hear the latest intelligence
  from the town. The sun was eating up the mist. A good watch was kept
  upon the reach of the main stream where the boat of the whites was
  expected to appear every moment.
  
  'It was then that Brown took his revenge upon the world which, after
  twenty years of contemptuous and reckless bullying, refused him the
  tribute of a common robber's success. It was an act of cold-blooded
  ferocity, and it consoled him on his deathbed like a memory of an
  indomitable defiance. Stealthily he landed his men on the other side
  of the island opposite to the Bugis camp, and led them across. After a
  short but quite silent scuffle, Cornelius, who had tried to slink away
  at the moment of landing, resigned himself to show the way where the
  undergrowth was most sparse. Brown held both his skinny hands together
  behind his back in the grip of one vast fist, and now and then impelled
  him forward with a fierce push. Cornelius remained as mute as a fish,
  abject but faithful to his purpose, whose accomplishment loomed before
  him dimly. At the edge of the patch of forest Brown's men spread
  themselves out in cover and waited. The camp was plain from end to end
  before their eyes, and no one looked their way. Nobody even dreamed that
  the white men could have any knowledge of the narrow channel at the back
  of the island. When he judged the moment come, Brown yelled, "Let them
  have it," and fourteen shots rang out like one.
  
  'Tamb' Itam told me the surprise was so great that, except for those who
  fell dead or wounded, not a soul of them moved for quite an appreciable
  time after the first discharge. Then a man screamed, and after that
  scream a great yell of amazement and fear went up from all the throats.
  A blind panic drove these men in a surging swaying mob to and fro along
  the shore like a herd of cattle afraid of the water. Some few jumped
  into the river then, but most of them did so only after the last
  discharge. Three times Brown's men fired into the ruck, Brown, the only
  one in view, cursing and yelling, "Aim low! aim low!"
  
  'Tamb' Itam says that, as for him, he understood at the first volley
  what had happened. Though untouched he fell down and lay as if dead,
  but with his eyes open. At the sound of the first shots Dain Waris,
  reclining on the couch, jumped up and ran out upon the open shore, just
  in time to receive a bullet in his forehead at the second discharge.
  Tamb' Itam saw him fling his arms wide open before he fell. Then, he
  says, a great fear came upon him--not before. The white men retired as
  they had come--unseen.
  
  'Thus Brown balanced his account with the evil fortune. Notice that even
  in this awful outbreak there is a superiority as of a man who carries
  right--the abstract thing--within the envelope of his common desires.
  It was not a vulgar and treacherous massacre; it was a lesson, a
  retribution--a demonstration of some obscure and awful attribute of our
  nature which, I am afraid, is not so very far under the surface as we
  like to think.
  
  'Afterwards the whites depart unseen by Tamb' Itam, and seem to vanish
  from before men's eyes altogether; and the schooner, too, vanishes after
  the manner of stolen goods. But a story is told of a white long-boat
  picked up a month later in the Indian Ocean by a cargo steamer. Two
  parched, yellow, glassy-eyed, whispering skeletons in her recognised
  the authority of a third, who declared that his name was Brown. His
  schooner, he reported, bound south with a cargo of Java sugar, had
  sprung a bad leak and sank under his feet. He and his companions were
  the survivors of a crew of six. The two died on board the steamer which
  rescued them. Brown lived to be seen by me, and I can testify that he
  had played his part to the last.
  
  'It seems, however, that in going away they had neglected to cast off
  Cornelius's canoe. Cornelius himself Brown had let go at the beginning
  of the shooting, with a kick for a parting benediction. Tamb' Itam,
  after arising from amongst the dead, saw the Nazarene running up and
  down the shore amongst the corpses and the expiring fires. He uttered
  little cries. Suddenly he rushed to the water, and made frantic efforts
  to get one of the Bugis boats into the water. "Afterwards, till he had
  seen me," related Tamb' Itam, "he stood looking at the heavy canoe and
  scratching his head." "What became of him?" I asked. Tamb' Itam, staring
  hard at me, made an expressive gesture with his right arm. "Twice I
  struck, Tuan," he said. "When he beheld me approaching he cast himself
  violently on the ground and made a great outcry, kicking. He screeched
  like a frightened hen till he felt the point; then he was still, and lay
  staring at me while his life went out of his eyes."
  
  'This done, Tamb' Itam did not tarry. He understood the importance of
  being the first with the awful news at the fort. There were, of course,
  many survivors of Dain Waris's party; but in the extremity of panic some
  had swum across the river, others had bolted into the bush. The fact is
  that they did not know really who struck that blow--whether more white
  robbers were not coming, whether they had not already got hold of
  the whole land. They imagined themselves to be the victims of a vast
  treachery, and utterly doomed to destruction. It is said that some small
  parties did not come in till three days afterwards. However, a few tried
  to make their way back to Patusan at once, and one of the canoes that
  were patrolling the river that morning was in sight of the camp at
  the very moment of the attack. It is true that at first the men in her
  leaped overboard and swam to the opposite bank, but afterwards they
  returned to their boat and started fearfully up-stream. Of these Tamb'
  Itam had an hour's advance.''When Tamb' Itam, paddling madly, came into the town-reach, the women,
  thronging the platforms before the houses, were looking out for the
  return of Dain Waris's little fleet of boats. The town had a festive
  air; here and there men, still with spears or guns in their hands, could
  be seen moving or standing on the shore in groups. Chinamen's shops had
  been opened early; but the market-place was empty, and a sentry, still
  posted at the corner of the fort, made out Tamb' Itam, and shouted to
  those within. The gate was wide open. Tamb' Itam jumped ashore and ran
  in headlong. The first person he met was the girl coming down from the
  house.
  
  'Tamb' Itam, disordered, panting, with trembling lips and wild eyes,
  stood for a time before her as if a sudden spell had been laid on him.
  Then he broke out very quickly: "They have killed Dain Waris and many
  more." She clapped her hands, and her first words were, "Shut the
  gates." Most of the fortmen had gone back to their houses, but Tamb'
  Itam hurried on the few who remained for their turn of duty within. The
  girl stood in the middle of the courtyard while the others ran about.
  "Doramin," she cried despairingly, as Tamb' Itam passed her. Next time
  he went by he answered her thought rapidly, "Yes. But we have all the
  powder in Patusan." She caught him by the arm, and, pointing at the
  house, "Call him out," she whispered, trembling.
  
  'Tamb' Itam ran up the steps. His master was sleeping. "It is I, Tamb'
  Itam," he cried at the door, "with tidings that cannot wait." He saw
  Jim turn over on the pillow and open his eyes, and he burst out at
  once. "This, Tuan, is a day of evil, an accursed day." His master raised
  himself on his elbow to listen--just as Dain Waris had done. And then
  Tamb' Itam began his tale, trying to relate the story in order, calling
  Dain Waris Panglima, and saying: "The Panglima then called out to the
  chief of his own boatmen, 'Give Tamb' Itam something to eat'"--when
  his master put his feet to the ground and looked at him with such a
  discomposed face that the words remained in his throat.
  
  '"Speak out," said Jim. "Is he dead?" "May you live long," cried Tamb'
  Itam. "It was a most cruel treachery. He ran out at the first shots and
  fell." . . . His master walked to the window and with his fist struck
  at the shutter. The room was made light; and then in a steady voice, but
  speaking fast, he began to give him orders to assemble a fleet of boats
  for immediate pursuit, go to this man, to the other--send messengers;
  and as he talked he sat down on the bed, stooping to lace his boots
  hurriedly, and suddenly looked up. "Why do you stand here?" he asked
  very red-faced. "Waste no time." Tamb' Itam did not move. "Forgive me,
  Tuan, but . . . but," he began to stammer. "What?" cried his master
  aloud, looking terrible, leaning forward with his hands gripping the
  edge of the bed. "It is not safe for thy servant to go out amongst the
  people," said Tamb' Itam, after hesitating a moment.
  
  'Then Jim understood. He had retreated from one world, for a small
  matter of an impulsive jump, and now the other, the work of his own
  hands, had fallen in ruins upon his head. It was not safe for his
  servant to go out amongst his own people! I believe that in that very
  moment he had decided to defy the disaster in the only way it occurred
  to him such a disaster could be defied; but all I know is that, without
  a word, he came out of his room and sat before the long table, at the
  head of which he was accustomed to regulate the affairs of his world,
  proclaiming daily the truth that surely lived in his heart. The dark
  powers should not rob him twice of his peace. He sat like a stone
  figure. Tamb' Itam, deferential, hinted at preparations for defence.
  The girl he loved came in and spoke to him, but he made a sign with his
  hand, and she was awed by the dumb appeal for silence in it. She went
  out on the verandah and sat on the threshold, as if to guard him with
  her body from dangers outside.
  
  'What thoughts passed through his head--what memories? Who can tell?
  Everything was gone, and he who had been once unfaithful to his trust
  had lost again all men's confidence. It was then, I believe, he tried
  to write--to somebody--and gave it up. Loneliness was closing on him.
  People had trusted him with their lives--only for that; and yet they
  could never, as he had said, never be made to understand him. Those
  without did not hear him make a sound. Later, towards the evening, he
  came to the door and called for Tamb' Itam. "Well?" he asked. "There is
  much weeping. Much anger too," said Tamb' Itam. Jim looked up at him.
  "You know," he murmured. "Yes, Tuan," said Tamb' Itam. "Thy servant does
  know, and the gates are closed. We shall have to fight." "Fight! What
  for?" he asked. "For our lives." "I have no life," he said. Tamb' Itam
  heard a cry from the girl at the door. "Who knows?" said Tamb' Itam.
  "By audacity and cunning we may even escape. There is much fear in men's
  hearts too." He went out, thinking vaguely of boats and of open sea,
  leaving Jim and the girl together.
  
  'I haven't the heart to set down here such glimpses as she had given
  me of the hour or more she passed in there wrestling with him for the
  possession of her happiness. Whether he had any hope--what he expected,
  what he imagined--it is impossible to say. He was inflexible, and with
  the growing loneliness of his obstinacy his spirit seemed to rise above
  the ruins of his existence. She cried "Fight!" into his ear. She could
  not understand. There was nothing to fight for. He was going to prove
  his power in another way and conquer the fatal destiny itself. He came
  out into the courtyard, and behind him, with streaming hair, wild
  of face, breathless, she staggered out and leaned on the side of the
  doorway. "Open the gates," he ordered. Afterwards, turning to those of
  his men who were inside, he gave them leave to depart to their homes.
  "For how long, Tuan?" asked one of them timidly. "For all life," he
  said, in a sombre tone.
  
  'A hush had fallen upon the town after the outburst of wailing and
  lamentation that had swept over the river, like a gust of wind from the
  opened abode of sorrow. But rumours flew in whispers, filling the hearts
  with consternation and horrible doubts. The robbers were coming back,
  bringing many others with them, in a great ship, and there would be no
  refuge in the land for any one. A sense of utter insecurity as during
  an earthquake pervaded the minds of men, who whispered their suspicions,
  looking at each other as if in the presence of some awful portent.
  
  'The sun was sinking towards the forests when Dain Waris's body was
  brought into Doramin's campong. Four men carried it in, covered decently
  with a white sheet which the old mother had sent out down to the gate to
  meet her son on his return. They laid him at Doramin's feet, and the old
  man sat still for a long time, one hand on each knee, looking down. The
  fronds of palms swayed gently, and the foliage of fruit trees stirred
  above his head. Every single man of his people was there, fully armed,
  when the old nakhoda at last raised his eyes. He moved them slowly over
  the crowd, as if seeking for a missing face. Again his chin sank on his
  breast. The whispers of many men mingled with the slight rustling of the
  leaves.
  
  'The Malay who had brought Tamb' Itam and the girl to Samarang was there
  too. "Not so angry as many," he said to me, but struck with a great
  awe and wonder at the "suddenness of men's fate, which hangs over their
  heads like a cloud charged with thunder." He told me that when Dain
  Waris's body was uncovered at a sign of Doramin's, he whom they often
  called the white lord's friend was disclosed lying unchanged with his
  eyelids a little open as if about to wake. Doramin leaned forward a
  little more, like one looking for something fallen on the ground. His
  eyes searched the body from its feet to its head, for the wound maybe.
  It was in the forehead and small; and there was no word spoken while
  one of the by-standers, stooping, took off the silver ring from the cold
  stiff hand. In silence he held it up before Doramin. A murmur of dismay
  and horror ran through the crowd at the sight of that familiar token.
  The old nakhoda stared at it, and suddenly let out one great fierce cry,
  deep from the chest, a roar of pain and fury, as mighty as the bellow of
  a wounded bull, bringing great fear into men's hearts, by the magnitude
  of his anger and his sorrow that could be plainly discerned without
  words. There was a great stillness afterwards for a space, while the
  body was being borne aside by four men. They laid it down under a tree,
  and on the instant, with one long shriek, all the women of the household
  began to wail together; they mourned with shrill cries; the sun
  was setting, and in the intervals of screamed lamentations the high
  sing-song voices of two old men intoning the Koran chanted alone.
  
  'About this time Jim, leaning on a gun-carriage, looked at the river,
  and turned his back on the house; and the girl, in the doorway, panting
  as if she had run herself to a standstill, was looking at him across the
  yard. Tamb' Itam stood not far from his master, waiting patiently for
  what might happen. All at once Jim, who seemed to be lost in quiet
  thought, turned to him and said, "Time to finish this."
  
  '"Tuan?" said Tamb' Itam, advancing with alacrity. He did not know what
  his master meant, but as soon as Jim made a movement the girl started
  too and walked down into the open space. It seems that no one else of
  the people of the house was in sight. She tottered slightly, and about
  half-way down called out to Jim, who had apparently resumed his peaceful
  contemplation of the river. He turned round, setting his back against
  the gun. "Will you fight?" she cried. "There is nothing to fight for,"
  he said; "nothing is lost." Saying this he made a step towards her.
  "Will you fly?" she cried again. "There is no escape," he said, stopping
  short, and she stood still also, silent, devouring him with her eyes.
  "And you shall go?" she said slowly. He bent his head. "Ah!" she
  exclaimed, peering at him as it were, "you are mad or false. Do you
  remember the night I prayed you to leave me, and you said that you could
  not? That it was impossible! Impossible! Do you remember you said you
  would never leave me? Why? I asked you for no promise. You promised
  unasked--remember." "Enough, poor girl," he said. "I should not be worth
  having."
  
  'Tamb' Itam said that while they were talking she would laugh loud and
  senselessly like one under the visitation of God. His master put his
  hands to his head. He was fully dressed as for every day, but without
  a hat. She stopped laughing suddenly. "For the last time," she cried
  menacingly, "will you defend yourself?" "Nothing can touch me," he said
  in a last flicker of superb egoism. Tamb' Itam saw her lean forward
  where she stood, open her arms, and run at him swiftly. She flung
  herself upon his breast and clasped him round the neck.
  
  '"Ah! but I shall hold thee thus," she cried. . . . "Thou art mine!"
  
  'She sobbed on his shoulder. The sky over Patusan was blood-red,
  immense, streaming like an open vein. An enormous sun nestled crimson
  amongst the tree-tops, and the forest below had a black and forbidding
  face.
  
  'Tamb' Itam tells me that on that evening the aspect of the heavens was
  angry and frightful. I may well believe it, for I know that on that very
  day a cyclone passed within sixty miles of the coast, though there was
  hardly more than a languid stir of air in the place.
  
  'Suddenly Tamb' Itam saw Jim catch her arms, trying to unclasp her
  hands. She hung on them with her head fallen back; her hair touched the
  ground. "Come here!" his master called, and Tamb' Itam helped to ease
  her down. It was difficult to separate her fingers. Jim, bending
  over her, looked earnestly upon her face, and all at once ran to the
  landing-stage. Tamb' Itam followed him, but turning his head, he saw
  that she had struggled up to her feet. She ran after them a few steps,
  then fell down heavily on her knees. "Tuan! Tuan!" called Tamb' Itam,
  "look back;" but Jim was already in a canoe, standing up paddle in hand.
  He did not look back. Tamb' Itam had just time to scramble in after
  him when the canoe floated clear. The girl was then on her knees, with
  clasped hands, at the water-gate. She remained thus for a time in
  a supplicating attitude before she sprang up. "You are false!" she
  screamed out after Jim. "Forgive me," he cried. "Never! Never!" she
  called back.
  
  'Tamb' Itam took the paddle from Jim's hands, it being unseemly that he
  should sit while his lord paddled. When they reached the other shore his
  master forbade him to come any farther; but Tamb' Itam did follow him at
  a distance, walking up the slope to Doramin's campong.
  
  'It was beginning to grow dark. Torches twinkled here and there. Those
  they met seemed awestruck, and stood aside hastily to let Jim pass. The
  wailing of women came from above. The courtyard was full of armed Bugis
  with their followers, and of Patusan people.
  
  'I do not know what this gathering really meant. Were these preparations
  for war, or for vengeance, or to repulse a threatened invasion? Many
  days elapsed before the people had ceased to look out, quaking, for
  the return of the white men with long beards and in rags, whose exact
  relation to their own white man they could never understand. Even for
  those simple minds poor Jim remains under a cloud.
  
  'Doramin, alone! immense and desolate, sat in his arm-chair with the
  pair of flintlock pistols on his knees, faced by a armed throng. When
  Jim appeared, at somebody's exclamation, all the heads turned round
  together, and then the mass opened right and left, and he walked up a
  lane of averted glances. Whispers followed him; murmurs: "He has worked
  all the evil." "He hath a charm." . . . He heard them--perhaps!
  
  'When he came up into the light of torches the wailing of the women
  ceased suddenly. Doramin did not lift his head, and Jim stood silent
  before him for a time. Then he looked to the left, and moved in that
  direction with measured steps. Dain Waris's mother crouched at the head
  of the body, and the grey dishevelled hair concealed her face. Jim came
  up slowly, looked at his dead friend, lifting the sheet, than dropped it
  without a word. Slowly he walked back.
  
  '"He came! He came!" was running from lip to lip, making a murmur to
  which he moved. "He hath taken it upon his own head," a voice said
  aloud. He heard this and turned to the crowd. "Yes. Upon my head." A few
  people recoiled. Jim waited awhile before Doramin, and then said gently,
  "I am come in sorrow." He waited again. "I am come ready and unarmed,"
  he repeated.
  
  'The unwieldy old man, lowering his big forehead like an ox under a
  yoke, made an effort to rise, clutching at the flintlock pistols on his
  knees. From his throat came gurgling, choking, inhuman sounds, and his
  two attendants helped him from behind. People remarked that the ring
  which he had dropped on his lap fell and rolled against the foot of
  the white man, and that poor Jim glanced down at the talisman that had
  opened for him the door of fame, love, and success within the wall of
  forests fringed with white foam, within the coast that under the western
  sun looks like the very stronghold of the night. Doramin, struggling to
  keep his feet, made with his two supporters a swaying, tottering group;
  his little eyes stared with an expression of mad pain, of rage, with
  a ferocious glitter, which the bystanders noticed; and then, while Jim
  stood stiffened and with bared head in the light of torches, looking him
  straight in the face, he clung heavily with his left arm round the neck
  of a bowed youth, and lifting deliberately his right, shot his son's
  friend through the chest.
  
  'The crowd, which had fallen apart behind Jim as soon as Doramin had
  raised his hand, rushed tumultuously forward after the shot. They say
  that the white man sent right and left at all those faces a proud and
  unflinching glance. Then with his hand over his lips he fell forward,
  dead.
  
  'And that's the end. He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart,
  forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively romantic. Not in the wildest days
  of his boyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an
  extraordinary success! For it may very well be that in the short moment
  of his last proud and unflinching glance, he had beheld the face of that
  opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his side.
  
  'But we can see him, an obscure conqueror of fame, tearing himself out
  of the arms of a jealous love at the sign, at the call of his exalted
  egoism. He goes away from a living woman to celebrate his pitiless
  wedding with a shadowy ideal of conduct. Is he satisfied--quite, now, I
  wonder? We ought to know. He is one of us--and have I not stood up once,
  like an evoked ghost, to answer for his eternal constancy? Was I so very
  wrong after all? Now he is no more, there are days when the reality of
  his existence comes to me with an immense, with an overwhelming force;
  and yet upon my honour there are moments, too when he passes from my
  eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions of this
  earth, ready to surrender himself faithfully to the claim of his own
  world of shades.
  
  'Who knows? He is gone, inscrutable at heart, and the poor girl is
  leading a sort of soundless, inert life in Stein's house. Stein has
  aged greatly of late. He feels it himself, and says often that he is
  "preparing to leave all this; preparing to leave . . ." while he waves
  his hand sadly at his butterflies.'
feat_summary_name: Chapters 40-45
target: As Brown tells his story to Marlow, Marlow writes that he is struck by his impression of "an undisguised ruthlessness of purpose, a strange vengeful attitude towards his own past, and a blind belief in the righteousness of his will against all mankind" . In the battle, Brown was almost paralyzed by fear. The numbers were 200 to one. Fear among the people, however, had also begun to unravel the social fabric. One of Brown's men is shot down, so Brown shoots one of the Bugis three times in the stomach. Then, sounds of joy lift in the air. Cornelius tells Brown that Jim has returned, not afraid of anything. When Brown sees Jim, he sees a man in European clothes, all in white, with a helmet. The two meet near the very spot where Jim had taken "the second desperate leap of his life--the leap that landed him into the life of Patusan, into the trust, the love, the confidence of the people" . Brown hates Jim on sight--for his youth and his assurance, his self-possession, his power and neatness. They converse, and Brown yells to him that it was hunger that had driven him to Patusan. Why had Jim come? The conversation strikes Marlow as a duel, and as if Brown, like a great man, had discovered Jim's weakest spot. He says, "if it came to saving one's life in the dark, one didn't care who else went--three, thirty, three hundred people" . Jim says nothing in response, and he is struck by "their common blood, an assumption of common experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secret knowledge that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts" . With that, Jim turns away, telling Brown he will have a clear road or a clear fight . The story now continues from Tamb' Itam's point of view. He describes the shock of Jim insisting that Dain Waris lead. Tamb' Itam is given the duty of sending word to Dain Waris to let Brown and his men pass. Jim includes Stein's silver ring as a sign of good faith and, at the same time, he sends Brown a note with Cornelius as messenger. The note says, "You get the clear road" . But, upon delivering the note, Cornelius remains with Brown and tells him that Dain Waris's party is downriver and lying in wait to lay ambush on him as they pass. Brown feels betrayed yet, strangely enough, he doesn't seem to believe it. To be safe, he takes the creek he had noticed upon his first arrival. Through the fog, he takes Cornelius with him in the longboat. After Tamb' Itam approaches Dain Waris's camp and delivers the message with the ring, saying that all is well and that the trouble has passed, Dain Waris slips the ring onto the forefinger of his right hand. Brown's men land nearby and, though Cornelius tries to get away, force him to lead the way to the camp. No one had imagined that the white men would know of the creek. Fourteen shots ring out, and Dain Waris jumps up, running to the open shore. There, Tamb' Itam sees a bullet hit Darin Waris's forehead, and a great fear falls upon him. The white men disappear. Tamb' Itam sees Cornelius and shoots him twice, watching him die. He then hurries back to the town, knowing that it is important that he be the first bearer of the news. When he arrives, the town is festive. He seeks out the girl and reports what has happened. They go to find Jim, and he tells Jim that it is not safe for him to go out amongst the people. This is when Jim understands that it is all over: "the work of his own hands, had fallen in ruins upon his head" . Marlow believes it was then that Jim had tried to write to someone. He says to Jewel, "I have no life" . The girl insists that either he should fight, or they should run away. But he ignores her. Dain Waris's body is brought to Doramin, and as Doramin sees the wound in the forehead and then the ring on his son's forefinger, he begins to cry in fury. Jim walks to meet him: "There is nothing to fight for" . He tells Doramin that he has come ready and unarmed, and that is when Doramin shoots him through the chest. Jim, with a proud and unflinching look, falls dead. The story concludes with Jewel in Stein's home, "leading a sort of soundless, inert life" . Stein has grown old and sorrowful. He feels himself preparing to leave "all this," and he "waves his hand sadly at his butterflies" .
feat_summary_analysis: When Brown and Jim finally meet, Brown expresses hatred.  This hatred is, on some level, understandable.  He hates the world for never having given him the opportunity or the "clean slate" that Jim had been given.  When Brown and Jim face each other, each sees in the other a vision of what might have been.  The moment is one of recognition. Brown, the reader can surmise from subtle hints in the narrative, is a quick man.  He is charismatic enough to be a leader, albeit of an outcast group.  Still, his eye sees the hidden creek and, in the way that a great man senses another man's greatest weakness, Brown hits Jim in his weak spot.  He rouses in their interaction a sense of challenge.  Jim, now the embodiment of a mythical romantic ideal, begins to collapse.  The reason is less from a worry that Brown knows who Jim than the realization  that Jim will never be able to escape his moment of weakness on the Patna: his choice is part of his character, and his history is an integral part of his personality.  This history is not knowledge that is external to him, but something that has become deeply seated in his being.  Brown is a personification of that hidden and rejected self-knowledge. Jim likewise recognizes that Brown is a man who has potential or "Ability in the abstract." In an attempt to pass along to him an opportunity in the same generous spirit with which Stein and Marlow had aided him, Jim gives Brown "the clear road"--not quite a clean slate, but a chance to achieve his goals.  This is an opportunity for Brown, though it is not nearly of the same quality as the one that had been given to Jim, because the clear road does not promise a realization of the romantic ideal, the achievement of the dreams of a life of glory and honor.  Instead, it is an opportunity for Brown to persist in his merely Darwinian-style struggle to survive.  The lesser opportunity here, however, is perhaps not so much a result of individual potential and character as it is a product of fortune or chance. The tragic conclusion ensues in a fog of mistrust.  Cornelius presses Brown to see the possibility of betrayal, though there is something in Brown that recognizes "that there could be no treachery intended" .  Brown is an astute judge of character.  Still, in the end, he acts mistrustful all the same, choosing to be retaliatory and violent.  These actions do more to reveal the true nature of his character.  Up the creek, and in secret, he wreaks havoc and death among Dain Waris's camp, and then escapes quickly. We again meet fairly clear evidence of Brown's character, should the story be true, that he is found at sea in a lifeboat telling the same story that the Patna crew had told their rescuers: the ship had sunk beneath their feet.  The irony in this tale, however, is that Jim had been one of them, as well as "one of us."  Can Jim exorcise from himself the negative spirit that persists in Brown?  The ambiguity of character suggests that all men are mixtures of potential characters: the romantic, the hopeless, the corrupt, and the cowardly.  "One of us" can refer to being one more such complex being within the company of all men. As for Jim's fate, Dain Waris's death extinguishes the flame that had charmed the life of Patusan.  This parallel to Stein's best friend being assassinated is obvious, though in Jim's case, the death comes out of a failure of judgment on his part.  The ring, signifying the promise of good will from Stein to Doramin, becomes a symbol of betrayal.  Additionally, the death causes Jim's reputation and secure place in Patusan society to begin to crumble.  He has no place in the world beyond, and now that his work in Patusan is finished, there is nowhere for him to go, except to be extinguished himself. Therefore, as the reader recalls the vision of Stein blowing out a flaming match with the idea that all life is fleeting, Jim is compelled to do what is logically demanded at this climax.  He cannot fight in the way Brown had--struggling for his life--because to do so would liken him further to Brown.  Instead, he leaps in the direction of his fate.  He does not fight it. Jewel, representing the love that the community had felt for Jim and the delight of opportunity he had known, is discarded.  His final atonement requires a clean break.  Jim goes to meet Doramin with a calm face, in the same way that he had arrived, in the face of possible assault.  Here, the assault is certain, and Jim dies in a manner that atones for his past failure at sea.  This time, he goes down with the iron ship as it sinks.  He does not run.  He refuses to leap for a lifeboat to share with Jewel and Tamb' Itam.  Instead he remains--as George had remained--aboard, to die. The native audience looks at Jim's body, as the Muslim pilgrims had looked upon George's, with curiosity and fascination.  The mystery man of Patusan is brought to an end.  Jim is, after all, a man who dies, in spite of the myths of his immortality.  Nevertheless, in true Conradian fashion and poetic tradition, Jim lives on through his show of action.  He remains committed to his ideal and takes responsibility for what he has done and, in this way, Marlow finishes his story.  This man's story is worth finishing.  The inquiry into Jim's soul has been mysterious but it also has been fruitful, revelatory, and illustrative of what is human. The novel concludes with a final view of an aging Stein and a broken, mute Jewel.  The ring has been lost, and there is no one to inherit what Stein has built .  For Stein, the romantic tradition comes to an end.  As his hands wave at the butterflies beneath the glass, we sense that Stein, Jewel, the butterflies, everyone, all etherized in their places, will soon disintegrate into dust.