feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_22_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 38-39
feat_summary_id: chapters 38-39
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 38-39", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-3839", "summary": "Marlow's first sentence focuses on \"the man called Brown.\" Brown was the terror of the Polynesian islands; he was a well-known, much-feared, immoral pirate who operated off the Australian coast. He did some gun-running, and he robbed and killed and even maimed people for little or no reason. It was also reported that he once kidnapped the young wife of a missionary. He was infamous for his arrogance and for his uncontrollable temper, and he was particularly contemptuous of men who were weak, \"quiet and unoffending.\" At the height of Jim's fame as the beloved Lord Jim of Patusan, Brown had a run of bad luck. Finally, he was captured by a Spanish patrol. They intended to imprison him, but when they docked at a small Spanish settlement, Brown and his men stole a schooner and headed through the Straits of Macassar. They planned to take the ship to Madagascar, but first, they had to cross the Indian Ocean and, in order to do that, they needed both food and water. Thus, they anchored off the mouth of the river leading to Patusan, hoping to find provisions there. Brown and fourteen of his crew headed upriver. When they reached Patusan, they were fired upon, but they were able to secure themselves on a knoll about nine hundred yards from Rajah Allang's stockade. They were far from safe, however. As they looked down into the town, they could see the village swarming with \"thousands of angry men.\" Brown was in utter disbelief at the size of the place. Jim was away when Brown's party was fired upon. He had been away in the interior for over a week, and Dain Waris was in charge. Dain Waris wanted to kill Brown and his men immediately, but the Bugis were not convinced that it was necessary to massacre the white men. It was a decision that Lord Jim would have to make. They trusted only Lord Jim's judgment. Besides, Dain Waris might be killed. In contrast, Jim was the physical incarnation of Truth; he was invincible. Thus, he had to decide what must be done. And so, in Jim's absence, the villagers crowded into his stockade, much like uncertain children waiting for a parent to return home. Like Dain Waris, Jewel tried to convince the villagers to destroy Brown's band of pirates, but they would not listen to her. Jewel even had the key to the hut in which five hundred kegs of explosive powder were stored, but no one was willing to initiate such violence. Old Doramin, of course, could have decided the fate of Brown and his men, but he too hesitated; he feared for his son's safety. Nonetheless, he finally ordered that some powder, bullets, and percussion caps be distributed under Jewel's supervision. Almost immediately, wild and exaggerated rumors began spreading that a large, armed vessel might be moving upriver to aid Brown, so Doramin sent Dain Waris downriver in order to cut off Brown's retreat and to prevent another ship from assisting Brown. A native called Kassim, a representative of Rajah Allang, arranged for the slimy Cornelius to make contact with Brown's party. Kasumi secretly wanted to take over Patusan, and he knew that he could count on Cornelius to help him by telling Brown about the \"unusual,\" white, Lord Jim who \"ruled\" Patusan. Jim was a man whom Kassim could not understand; he could not figure out how to take the country from him. Jim was not like the other white men he knew. But Brown was another matter. Brown had a criminal nature, and Kassim could manipulate that kind of man -- providing Brown was sufficiently tempted to try and take Patusan by force. Cornelius, of course, hated Jim, and so he tried to make the possibility of conquest seem as easy as possible. Jim, he told Brown, would be a pushover. Jim was an idealist with no real bravery. The natives had been \"captured\" by the man's charisma, not by his physical courage. Once Jim was dead, Cornelius vowed, the country would belong to Brown.", "analysis": "Chapters 38 and 39 present more of Gentleman Brown's background, further showing his corruptness, his evil nature, and his amorality. Brown kills for the sake of killing: he is \"a blind accomplice to the Dark Powers.\" What makes Brown so dangerous is the fact that he \"was tired of his life and not afraid of death.\" In fact, Brown would rather be killed than face the possibility of imprisonment. This lack of a fear of death is what makes Brown such a danger to everyone. It is ironic that Lord Jim is trusted so thoroughly by the people of Patusan that they will not do anything on their own concerning the fate of Gentleman Brown. Even though Dain Waris and Jewel both want the evil man to be killed, the other natives want to wait until Jim's return. Thus, by the very trust that the natives have for Jim, they place Jim in a position of having to make a decision about Brown's life, a decision which will ultimately bring about the deaths of many people, including Dain Waris and Jim himself. These two chapters also present the other forces aligned against Jim. Kassim is a bitter and evil person who hates without reason, and Cornelius has long despised Jim and has longed for his death because Jim is so perfect and good. Rajah Allang wants Jim dead so that he can return to terrorizing the natives again. Thus, they are all aligned in their treachery against Jim and the forces for good."}
text: 
  'It all begins, as I've told you, with the man called Brown,' ran the
  opening sentence of Marlow's narrative. 'You who have knocked about the
  Western Pacific must have heard of him. He was the show ruffian on the
  Australian coast--not that he was often to be seen there, but because
  he was always trotted out in the stories of lawless life a visitor from
  home is treated to; and the mildest of these stories which were told
  about him from Cape York to Eden Bay was more than enough to hang a man
  if told in the right place. They never failed to let you know, too,
  that he was supposed to be the son of a baronet. Be it as it may, it is
  certain he had deserted from a home ship in the early gold-digging days,
  and in a few years became talked about as the terror of this or that
  group of islands in Polynesia. He would kidnap natives, he would strip
  some lonely white trader to the very pyjamas he stood in, and after he
  had robbed the poor devil, he would as likely as not invite him to fight
  a duel with shot-guns on the beach--which would have been fair enough
  as these things go, if the other man hadn't been by that time already
  half-dead with fright. Brown was a latter-day buccaneer, sorry enough,
  like his more celebrated prototypes; but what distinguished him from
  his contemporary brother ruffians, like Bully Hayes or the mellifluous
  Pease, or that perfumed, Dundreary-whiskered, dandified scoundrel known
  as Dirty Dick, was the arrogant temper of his misdeeds and a vehement
  scorn for mankind at large and for his victims in particular. The
  others were merely vulgar and greedy brutes, but he seemed moved by some
  complex intention. He would rob a man as if only to demonstrate his poor
  opinion of the creature, and he would bring to the shooting or maiming
  of some quiet, unoffending stranger a savage and vengeful earnestness
  fit to terrify the most reckless of desperadoes. In the days of his
  greatest glory he owned an armed barque, manned by a mixed crew of
  Kanakas and runaway whalers, and boasted, I don't know with what truth,
  of being financed on the quiet by a most respectable firm of copra
  merchants. Later on he ran off--it was reported--with the wife of a
  missionary, a very young girl from Clapham way, who had married the
  mild, flat-footed fellow in a moment of enthusiasm, and, suddenly
  transplanted to Melanesia, lost her bearings somehow. It was a dark
  story. She was ill at the time he carried her off, and died on board his
  ship. It is said--as the most wonderful put of the tale--that over her
  body he gave way to an outburst of sombre and violent grief. His luck
  left him, too, very soon after. He lost his ship on some rocks off
  Malaita, and disappeared for a time as though he had gone down with her.
  He is heard of next at Nuka-Hiva, where he bought an old French schooner
  out of Government service. What creditable enterprise he might have had
  in view when he made that purchase I can't say, but it is evident that
  what with High Commissioners, consuls, men-of-war, and international
  control, the South Seas were getting too hot to hold gentlemen of his
  kidney. Clearly he must have shifted the scene of his operations farther
  west, because a year later he plays an incredibly audacious, but not a
  very profitable part, in a serio-comic business in Manila Bay, in which
  a peculating governor and an absconding treasurer are the principal
  figures; thereafter he seems to have hung around the Philippines in his
  rotten schooner battling with un adverse fortune, till at last, running
  his appointed course, he sails into Jim's history, a blind accomplice of
  the Dark Powers.
  
  'His tale goes that when a Spanish patrol cutter captured him he was
  simply trying to run a few guns for the insurgents. If so, then I can't
  understand what he was doing off the south coast of Mindanao. My belief,
  however, is that he was blackmailing the native villages along the
  coast. The principal thing is that the cutter, throwing a guard on
  board, made him sail in company towards Zamboanga. On the way, for some
  reason or other, both vessels had to call at one of these new Spanish
  settlements--which never came to anything in the end--where there was
  not only a civil official in charge on shore, but a good stout coasting
  schooner lying at anchor in the little bay; and this craft, in every way
  much better than his own, Brown made up his mind to steal.
  
  'He was down on his luck--as he told me himself. The world he had
  bullied for twenty years with fierce, aggressive disdain, had yielded
  him nothing in the way of material advantage except a small bag of
  silver dollars, which was concealed in his cabin so that "the devil
  himself couldn't smell it out." And that was all--absolutely all. He
  was tired of his life, and not afraid of death. But this man, who would
  stake his existence on a whim with a bitter and jeering recklessness,
  stood in mortal fear of imprisonment. He had an unreasoning cold-sweat,
  nerve-shaking, blood-to-water-turning sort of horror at the bare
  possibility of being locked up--the sort of terror a superstitious man
  would feel at the thought of being embraced by a spectre. Therefore the
  civil official who came on board to make a preliminary investigation
  into the capture, investigated arduously all day long, and only went
  ashore after dark, muffled up in a cloak, and taking great care not to
  let Brown's little all clink in its bag. Afterwards, being a man of his
  word, he contrived (the very next evening, I believe) to send off
  the Government cutter on some urgent bit of special service. As her
  commander could not spare a prize crew, he contented himself by taking
  away before he left all the sails of Brown's schooner to the very last
  rag, and took good care to tow his two boats on to the beach a couple of
  miles off.
  
  'But in Brown's crew there was a Solomon Islander, kidnapped in his
  youth and devoted to Brown, who was the best man of the whole gang. That
  fellow swam off to the coaster--five hundred yards or so--with the end
  of a warp made up of all the running gear unrove for the purpose. The
  water was smooth, and the bay dark, "like the inside of a cow," as Brown
  described it. The Solomon Islander clambered over the bulwarks with the
  end of the rope in his teeth. The crew of the coaster--all Tagals--were
  ashore having a jollification in the native village. The two shipkeepers
  left on board woke up suddenly and saw the devil. It had glittering eyes
  and leaped quick as lightning about the deck. They fell on their knees,
  paralysed with fear, crossing themselves and mumbling prayers. With
  a long knife he found in the caboose the Solomon Islander, without
  interrupting their orisons, stabbed first one, then the other; with the
  same knife he set to sawing patiently at the coir cable till suddenly it
  parted under the blade with a splash. Then in the silence of the bay
  he let out a cautious shout, and Brown's gang, who meantime had been
  peering and straining their hopeful ears in the darkness, began to
  pull gently at their end of the warp. In less than five minutes the two
  schooners came together with a slight shock and a creak of spars.
  
  'Brown's crowd transferred themselves without losing an instant, taking
  with them their firearms and a large supply of ammunition. They were
  sixteen in all: two runaway blue-jackets, a lanky deserter from a Yankee
  man-of-war, a couple of simple, blond Scandinavians, a mulatto of sorts,
  one bland Chinaman who cooked--and the rest of the nondescript spawn
  of the South Seas. None of them cared; Brown bent them to his will, and
  Brown, indifferent to gallows, was running away from the spectre of
  a Spanish prison. He didn't give them the time to trans-ship enough
  provisions; the weather was calm, the air was charged with dew, and when
  they cast off the ropes and set sail to a faint off-shore draught there
  was no flutter in the damp canvas; their old schooner seemed to detach
  itself gently from the stolen craft and slip away silently, together
  with the black mass of the coast, into the night.
  
  'They got clear away. Brown related to me in detail their passage down
  the Straits of Macassar. It is a harrowing and desperate story. They
  were short of food and water; they boarded several native craft and got
  a little from each. With a stolen ship Brown did not dare to put into
  any port, of course. He had no money to buy anything, no papers to show,
  and no lie plausible enough to get him out again. An Arab barque, under
  the Dutch flag, surprised one night at anchor off Poulo Laut, yielded a
  little dirty rice, a bunch of bananas, and a cask of water; three days
  of squally, misty weather from the north-east shot the schooner across
  the Java Sea. The yellow muddy waves drenched that collection of hungry
  ruffians. They sighted mail-boats moving on their appointed routes;
  passed well-found home ships with rusty iron sides anchored in the
  shallow sea waiting for a change of weather or the turn of the tide; an
  English gunboat, white and trim, with two slim masts, crossed their bows
  one day in the distance; and on another occasion a Dutch corvette, black
  and heavily sparred, loomed up on their quarter, steaming dead slow
  in the mist. They slipped through unseen or disregarded, a wan,
  sallow-faced band of utter outcasts, enraged with hunger and hunted by
  fear. Brown's idea was to make for Madagascar, where he expected, on
  grounds not altogether illusory, to sell the schooner in Tamatave, and
  no questions asked, or perhaps obtain some more or less forged papers
  for her. Yet before he could face the long passage across the Indian
  Ocean food was wanted--water too.
  
  'Perhaps he had heard of Patusan--or perhaps he just only happened to
  see the name written in small letters on the chart--probably that of a
  largish village up a river in a native state, perfectly defenceless, far
  from the beaten tracks of the sea and from the ends of submarine cables.
  He had done that kind of thing before--in the way of business;
  and this now was an absolute necessity, a question of life and
  death--or rather of liberty. Of liberty! He was sure to get
  provisions--bullocks--rice--sweet-potatoes. The sorry gang licked
  their chops. A cargo of produce for the schooner perhaps could be
  extorted--and, who knows?--some real ringing coined money! Some of these
  chiefs and village headmen can be made to part freely. He told me he
  would have roasted their toes rather than be baulked. I believe him. His
  men believed him too. They didn't cheer aloud, being a dumb pack, but
  made ready wolfishly.
  
  'Luck served him as to weather. A few days of calm would have brought
  unmentionable horrors on board that schooner, but with the help of land
  and sea breezes, in less than a week after clearing the Sunda Straits,
  he anchored off the Batu Kring mouth within a pistol-shot of the fishing
  village.
  
  'Fourteen of them packed into the schooner's long-boat (which was big,
  having been used for cargo-work) and started up the river, while two
  remained in charge of the schooner with food enough to keep starvation
  off for ten days. The tide and wind helped, and early one afternoon the
  big white boat under a ragged sail shouldered its way before the sea
  breeze into Patusan Reach, manned by fourteen assorted scarecrows
  glaring hungrily ahead, and fingering the breech-blocks of cheap rifles.
  Brown calculated upon the terrifying surprise of his appearance. They
  sailed in with the last of the flood; the Rajah's stockade gave no sign;
  the first houses on both sides of the stream seemed deserted. A few
  canoes were seen up the reach in full flight. Brown was astonished at
  the size of the place. A profound silence reigned. The wind dropped
  between the houses; two oars were got out and the boat held on
  up-stream, the idea being to effect a lodgment in the centre of the town
  before the inhabitants could think of resistance.
  
  'It seems, however, that the headman of the fishing village at Batu
  Kring had managed to send off a timely warning. When the long-boat came
  abreast of the mosque (which Doramin had built: a structure with gables
  and roof finials of carved coral) the open space before it was full of
  people. A shout went up, and was followed by a clash of gongs all up the
  river. From a point above two little brass 6-pounders were discharged,
  and the round-shot came skipping down the empty reach, spurting
  glittering jets of water in the sunshine. In front of the mosque a
  shouting lot of men began firing in volleys that whipped athwart the
  current of the river; an irregular, rolling fusillade was opened on the
  boat from both banks, and Brown's men replied with a wild, rapid fire.
  The oars had been got in.
  
  'The turn of the tide at high water comes on very quickly in that river,
  and the boat in mid-stream, nearly hidden in smoke, began to drift back
  stern foremost. Along both shores the smoke thickened also, lying below
  the roofs in a level streak as you may see a long cloud cutting the
  slope of a mountain. A tumult of war-cries, the vibrating clang
  of gongs, the deep snoring of drums, yells of rage, crashes of
  volley-firing, made an awful din, in which Brown sat confounded but
  steady at the tiller, working himself into a fury of hate and rage
  against those people who dared to defend themselves. Two of his men
  had been wounded, and he saw his retreat cut off below the town by some
  boats that had put off from Tunku Allang's stockade. There were six of
  them, full of men. While he was thus beset he perceived the entrance of
  the narrow creek (the same which Jim had jumped at low water). It was
  then brim full. Steering the long-boat in, they landed, and, to make a
  long story short, they established themselves on a little knoll about
  900 yards from the stockade, which, in fact, they commanded from that
  position. The slopes of the knoll were bare, but there were a few trees
  on the summit. They went to work cutting these down for a breastwork,
  and were fairly intrenched before dark; meantime the Rajah's boats
  remained in the river with curious neutrality. When the sun set the glue
  of many brushwood blazes lighted on the river-front, and between the
  double line of houses on the land side threw into black relief the
  roofs, the groups of slender palms, the heavy clumps of fruit trees.
  Brown ordered the grass round his position to be fired; a low ring of
  thin flames under the slow ascending smoke wriggled rapidly down the
  slopes of the knoll; here and there a dry bush caught with a tall,
  vicious roar. The conflagration made a clear zone of fire for the rifles
  of the small party, and expired smouldering on the edge of the forests
  and along the muddy bank of the creek. A strip of jungle luxuriating in
  a damp hollow between the knoll and the Rajah's stockade stopped it
  on that side with a great crackling and detonations of bursting bamboo
  stems. The sky was sombre, velvety, and swarming with stars. The
  blackened ground smoked quietly with low creeping wisps, till a little
  breeze came on and blew everything away. Brown expected an attack to
  be delivered as soon as the tide had flowed enough again to enable the
  war-boats which had cut off his retreat to enter the creek. At any rate
  he was sure there would be an attempt to carry off his long-boat,
  which lay below the hill, a dark high lump on the feeble sheen of a wet
  mud-flat. But no move of any sort was made by the boats in the river.
  Over the stockade and the Rajah's buildings Brown saw their lights on
  the water. They seemed to be anchored across the stream. Other lights
  afloat were moving in the reach, crossing and recrossing from side to
  side. There were also lights twinkling motionless upon the long walls of
  houses up the reach, as far as the bend, and more still beyond, others
  isolated inland. The loom of the big fires disclosed buildings, roofs,
  black piles as far as he could see. It was an immense place. The
  fourteen desperate invaders lying flat behind the felled trees raised
  their chins to look over at the stir of that town that seemed to extend
  up-river for miles and swarm with thousands of angry men. They did not
  speak to each other. Now and then they would hear a loud yell, or a
  single shot rang out, fired very far somewhere. But round their position
  everything was still, dark, silent. They seemed to be forgotten, as if
  the excitement keeping awake all the population had nothing to do with
  them, as if they had been dead already.'
  'All the events of that night have a great importance, since they
  brought about a situation which remained unchanged till Jim's return.
  Jim had been away in the interior for more than a week, and it was Dain
  Waris who had directed the first repulse. That brave and intelligent
  youth ("who knew how to fight after the manner of white men") wished to
  settle the business off-hand, but his people were too much for him.
  He had not Jim's racial prestige and the reputation of invincible,
  supernatural power. He was not the visible, tangible incarnation of
  unfailing truth and of unfailing victory. Beloved, trusted, and
  admired as he was, he was still one of _them_, while Jim was one of
  us. Moreover, the white man, a tower of strength in himself, was
  invulnerable, while Dain Waris could be killed. Those unexpressed
  thoughts guided the opinions of the chief men of the town, who elected
  to assemble in Jim's fort for deliberation upon the emergency, as if
  expecting to find wisdom and courage in the dwelling of the absent white
  man. The shooting of Brown's ruffians was so far good, or lucky, that
  there had been half-a-dozen casualties amongst the defenders. The
  wounded were lying on the verandah tended by their women-folk. The women
  and children from the lower part of the town had been sent into the
  fort at the first alarm. There Jewel was in command, very efficient and
  high-spirited, obeyed by Jim's "own people," who, quitting in a body
  their little settlement under the stockade, had gone in to form the
  garrison. The refugees crowded round her; and through the whole affair,
  to the very disastrous last, she showed an extraordinary martial ardour.
  It was to her that Dain Waris had gone at once at the first intelligence
  of danger, for you must know that Jim was the only one in Patusan who
  possessed a store of gunpowder. Stein, with whom he had kept up intimate
  relations by letters, had obtained from the Dutch Government a special
  authorisation to export five hundred kegs of it to Patusan. The
  powder-magazine was a small hut of rough logs covered entirely with
  earth, and in Jim's absence the girl had the key. In the council, held
  at eleven o'clock in the evening in Jim's dining-room, she backed up
  Waris's advice for immediate and vigorous action. I am told that she
  stood up by the side of Jim's empty chair at the head of the long table
  and made a warlike impassioned speech, which for the moment extorted
  murmurs of approbation from the assembled headmen. Old Doramin, who had
  not showed himself outside his own gate for more than a year, had been
  brought across with great difficulty. He was, of course, the chief man
  there. The temper of the council was very unforgiving, and the old man's
  word would have been decisive; but it is my opinion that, well aware of
  his son's fiery courage, he dared not pronounce the word. More dilatory
  counsels prevailed. A certain Haji Saman pointed out at great length
  that "these tyrannical and ferocious men had delivered themselves to
  a certain death in any case. They would stand fast on their hill and
  starve, or they would try to regain their boat and be shot from ambushes
  across the creek, or they would break and fly into the forest and perish
  singly there." He argued that by the use of proper stratagems these
  evil-minded strangers could be destroyed without the risk of a battle,
  and his words had a great weight, especially with the Patusan men
  proper. What unsettled the minds of the townsfolk was the failure of
  the Rajah's boats to act at the decisive moment. It was the diplomatic
  Kassim who represented the Rajah at the council. He spoke very little,
  listened smilingly, very friendly and impenetrable. During the sitting
  messengers kept arriving every few minutes almost, with reports of the
  invaders' proceedings. Wild and exaggerated rumours were flying: there
  was a large ship at the mouth of the river with big guns and many more
  men--some white, others with black skins and of bloodthirsty appearance.
  They were coming with many more boats to exterminate every living thing.
  A sense of near, incomprehensible danger affected the common people.
  At one moment there was a panic in the courtyard amongst the women;
  shrieking; a rush; children crying--Haji Sunan went out to quiet them.
  Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly
  killed a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe together with
  the best of his domestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused more
  confusion. Meantime the palaver inside Jim's house went on in the
  presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced, heavy, looking at the
  speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. He didn't speak till
  the last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah's boats would be
  called in because the men were required to defend his master's stockade.
  Dain Waris in his father's presence would offer no opinion, though the
  girl entreated him in Jim's name to speak out. She offered him Jim's own
  men in her anxiety to have these intruders driven out at once. He only
  shook his head, after a glance or two at Doramin. Finally, when the
  council broke up it had been decided that the houses nearest the creek
  should be strongly occupied to obtain the command of the enemy's boat.
  The boat itself was not to be interfered with openly, so that the
  robbers on the hill should be tempted to embark, when a well-directed
  fire would kill most of them, no doubt. To cut off the escape of those
  who might survive, and to prevent more of them coming up, Dain Waris was
  ordered by Doramin to take an armed party of Bugis down the river to a
  certain spot ten miles below Patusan, and there form a camp on the shore
  and blockade the stream with the canoes. I don't believe for a moment
  that Doramin feared the arrival of fresh forces. My opinion is that his
  conduct was guided solely by his wish to keep his son out of harm's
  way. To prevent a rush being made into the town the construction of a
  stockade was to be commenced at daylight at the end of the street on
  the left bank. The old nakhoda declared his intention to command there
  himself. A distribution of powder, bullets, and percussion-caps was made
  immediately under the girl's supervision. Several messengers were to be
  dispatched in different directions after Jim, whose exact whereabouts
  were unknown. These men started at dawn, but before that time Kassim had
  managed to open communications with the besieged Brown.
  
  'That accomplished diplomatist and confidant of the Rajah, on leaving
  the fort to go back to his master, took into his boat Cornelius, whom he
  found slinking mutely amongst the people in the courtyard. Kassim had a
  little plan of his own and wanted him for an interpreter. Thus it came
  about that towards morning Brown, reflecting upon the desperate nature
  of his position, heard from the marshy overgrown hollow an amicable,
  quavering, strained voice crying--in English--for permission to come up,
  under a promise of personal safety and on a very important errand. He
  was overjoyed. If he was spoken to he was no longer a hunted wild beast.
  These friendly sounds took off at once the awful stress of vigilant
  watchfulness as of so many blind men not knowing whence the deathblow
  might come. He pretended a great reluctance. The voice declared itself
  "a white man--a poor, ruined, old man who had been living here for
  years." A mist, wet and chilly, lay on the slopes of the hill, and after
  some more shouting from one to the other, Brown called out, "Come on,
  then, but alone, mind!" As a matter of fact--he told me, writhing with
  rage at the recollection of his helplessness--it made no difference.
  They couldn't see more than a few yards before them, and no treachery
  could make their position worse. By-and-by Cornelius, in his
  week-day attire of a ragged dirty shirt and pants, barefooted, with a
  broken-rimmed pith hat on his head, was made out vaguely, sidling up to
  the defences, hesitating, stopping to listen in a peering posture. "Come
  along! You are safe," yelled Brown, while his men stared. All their
  hopes of life became suddenly centered in that dilapidated, mean
  newcomer, who in profound silence clambered clumsily over a felled
  tree-trunk, and shivering, with his sour, mistrustful face, looked about
  at the knot of bearded, anxious, sleepless desperadoes.
  
  'Half an hour's confidential talk with Cornelius opened Brown's eyes as
  to the home affairs of Patusan. He was on the alert at once. There were
  possibilities, immense possibilities; but before he would talk over
  Cornelius's proposals he demanded that some food should be sent up as
  a guarantee of good faith. Cornelius went off, creeping sluggishly down
  the hill on the side of the Rajah's palace, and after some delay a
  few of Tunku Allang's men came up, bringing a scanty supply of rice,
  chillies, and dried fish. This was immeasurably better than nothing.
  Later on Cornelius returned accompanying Kassim, who stepped out with
  an air of perfect good-humoured trustfulness, in sandals, and muffled
  up from neck to ankles in dark-blue sheeting. He shook hands with Brown
  discreetly, and the three drew aside for a conference. Brown's men,
  recovering their confidence, were slapping each other on the back, and
  cast knowing glances at their captain while they busied themselves with
  preparations for cooking.
  
  'Kassim disliked Doramin and his Bugis very much, but he hated the new
  order of things still more. It had occurred to him that these whites,
  together with the Rajah's followers, could attack and defeat the
  Bugis before Jim's return. Then, he reasoned, general defection of
  the townsfolk was sure to follow, and the reign of the white man who
  protected poor people would be over. Afterwards the new allies could be
  dealt with. They would have no friends. The fellow was perfectly able to
  perceive the difference of character, and had seen enough of white men
  to know that these newcomers were outcasts, men without country.
  Brown preserved a stern and inscrutable demeanour. When he first heard
  Cornelius's voice demanding admittance, it brought merely the hope of a
  loophole for escape. In less than an hour other thoughts were seething
  in his head. Urged by an extreme necessity, he had come there to steal
  food, a few tons of rubber or gum may be, perhaps a handful of dollars,
  and had found himself enmeshed by deadly dangers. Now in consequence
  of these overtures from Kassim he began to think of stealing the whole
  country. Some confounded fellow had apparently accomplished something of
  the kind--single-handed at that. Couldn't have done it very well though.
  Perhaps they could work together--squeeze everything dry and then go out
  quietly. In the course of his negotiations with Kassim he became aware
  that he was supposed to have a big ship with plenty of men outside.
  Kassim begged him earnestly to have this big ship with his many guns and
  men brought up the river without delay for the Rajah's service. Brown
  professed himself willing, and on this basis the negotiation was carried
  on with mutual distrust. Three times in the course of the morning the
  courteous and active Kassim went down to consult the Rajah and came up
  busily with his long stride. Brown, while bargaining, had a sort of grim
  enjoyment in thinking of his wretched schooner, with nothing but a heap
  of dirt in her hold, that stood for an armed ship, and a Chinaman and
  a lame ex-beachcomber of Levuka on board, who represented all his many
  men. In the afternoon he obtained further doles of food, a promise
  of some money, and a supply of mats for his men to make shelters
  for themselves. They lay down and snored, protected from the burning
  sunshine; but Brown, sitting fully exposed on one of the felled trees,
  feasted his eyes upon the view of the town and the river. There was much
  loot there. Cornelius, who had made himself at home in the camp, talked
  at his elbow, pointing out the localities, imparting advice, giving his
  own version of Jim's character, and commenting in his own fashion upon
  the events of the last three years. Brown, who, apparently indifferent
  and gazing away, listened with attention to every word, could not make
  out clearly what sort of man this Jim could be. "What's his name?
  Jim! Jim! That's not enough for a man's name." "They call him," said
  Cornelius scornfully, "Tuan Jim here. As you may say Lord Jim." "What is
  he? Where does he come from?" inquired Brown. "What sort of man is he?
  Is he an Englishman?" "Yes, yes, he's an Englishman. I am an Englishman
  too. From Malacca. He is a fool. All you have to do is to kill him and
  then you are king here. Everything belongs to him," explained Cornelius.
  "It strikes me he may be made to share with somebody before very long,"
  commented Brown half aloud. "No, no. The proper way is to kill him the
  first chance you get, and then you can do what you like," Cornelius
  would insist earnestly. "I have lived for many years here, and I am
  giving you a friend's advice."
  
  'In such converse and in gloating over the view of Patusan, which he had
  determined in his mind should become his prey, Brown whiled away most
  of the afternoon, his men, meantime, resting. On that day Dain Waris's
  fleet of canoes stole one by one under the shore farthest from the
  creek, and went down to close the river against his retreat. Of this
  Brown was not aware, and Kassim, who came up the knoll an hour before
  sunset, took good care not to enlighten him. He wanted the white
  man's ship to come up the river, and this news, he feared, would be
  discouraging. He was very pressing with Brown to send the "order,"
  offering at the same time a trusty messenger, who for greater secrecy
  (as he explained) would make his way by land to the mouth of the river
  and deliver the "order" on board. After some reflection Brown judged
  it expedient to tear a page out of his pocket-book, on which he simply
  wrote, "We are getting on. Big job. Detain the man." The stolid youth
  selected by Kassim for that service performed it faithfully, and was
  rewarded by being suddenly tipped, head first, into the schooner's empty
  hold by the ex-beachcomber and the Chinaman, who thereupon hastened to
  put on the hatches. What became of him afterwards Brown did not say.'
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 38-39
target: Marlow's first sentence focuses on "the man called Brown." Brown was the terror of the Polynesian islands; he was a well-known, much-feared, immoral pirate who operated off the Australian coast. He did some gun-running, and he robbed and killed and even maimed people for little or no reason. It was also reported that he once kidnapped the young wife of a missionary. He was infamous for his arrogance and for his uncontrollable temper, and he was particularly contemptuous of men who were weak, "quiet and unoffending." At the height of Jim's fame as the beloved Lord Jim of Patusan, Brown had a run of bad luck. Finally, he was captured by a Spanish patrol. They intended to imprison him, but when they docked at a small Spanish settlement, Brown and his men stole a schooner and headed through the Straits of Macassar. They planned to take the ship to Madagascar, but first, they had to cross the Indian Ocean and, in order to do that, they needed both food and water. Thus, they anchored off the mouth of the river leading to Patusan, hoping to find provisions there. Brown and fourteen of his crew headed upriver. When they reached Patusan, they were fired upon, but they were able to secure themselves on a knoll about nine hundred yards from Rajah Allang's stockade. They were far from safe, however. As they looked down into the town, they could see the village swarming with "thousands of angry men." Brown was in utter disbelief at the size of the place. Jim was away when Brown's party was fired upon. He had been away in the interior for over a week, and Dain Waris was in charge. Dain Waris wanted to kill Brown and his men immediately, but the Bugis were not convinced that it was necessary to massacre the white men. It was a decision that Lord Jim would have to make. They trusted only Lord Jim's judgment. Besides, Dain Waris might be killed. In contrast, Jim was the physical incarnation of Truth; he was invincible. Thus, he had to decide what must be done. And so, in Jim's absence, the villagers crowded into his stockade, much like uncertain children waiting for a parent to return home. Like Dain Waris, Jewel tried to convince the villagers to destroy Brown's band of pirates, but they would not listen to her. Jewel even had the key to the hut in which five hundred kegs of explosive powder were stored, but no one was willing to initiate such violence. Old Doramin, of course, could have decided the fate of Brown and his men, but he too hesitated; he feared for his son's safety. Nonetheless, he finally ordered that some powder, bullets, and percussion caps be distributed under Jewel's supervision. Almost immediately, wild and exaggerated rumors began spreading that a large, armed vessel might be moving upriver to aid Brown, so Doramin sent Dain Waris downriver in order to cut off Brown's retreat and to prevent another ship from assisting Brown. A native called Kassim, a representative of Rajah Allang, arranged for the slimy Cornelius to make contact with Brown's party. Kasumi secretly wanted to take over Patusan, and he knew that he could count on Cornelius to help him by telling Brown about the "unusual," white, Lord Jim who "ruled" Patusan. Jim was a man whom Kassim could not understand; he could not figure out how to take the country from him. Jim was not like the other white men he knew. But Brown was another matter. Brown had a criminal nature, and Kassim could manipulate that kind of man -- providing Brown was sufficiently tempted to try and take Patusan by force. Cornelius, of course, hated Jim, and so he tried to make the possibility of conquest seem as easy as possible. Jim, he told Brown, would be a pushover. Jim was an idealist with no real bravery. The natives had been "captured" by the man's charisma, not by his physical courage. Once Jim was dead, Cornelius vowed, the country would belong to Brown.
feat_summary_analysis: Chapters 38 and 39 present more of Gentleman Brown's background, further showing his corruptness, his evil nature, and his amorality. Brown kills for the sake of killing: he is "a blind accomplice to the Dark Powers." What makes Brown so dangerous is the fact that he "was tired of his life and not afraid of death." In fact, Brown would rather be killed than face the possibility of imprisonment. This lack of a fear of death is what makes Brown such a danger to everyone. It is ironic that Lord Jim is trusted so thoroughly by the people of Patusan that they will not do anything on their own concerning the fate of Gentleman Brown. Even though Dain Waris and Jewel both want the evil man to be killed, the other natives want to wait until Jim's return. Thus, by the very trust that the natives have for Jim, they place Jim in a position of having to make a decision about Brown's life, a decision which will ultimately bring about the deaths of many people, including Dain Waris and Jim himself. These two chapters also present the other forces aligned against Jim. Kassim is a bitter and evil person who hates without reason, and Cornelius has long despised Jim and has longed for his death because Jim is so perfect and good. Rajah Allang wants Jim dead so that he can return to terrorizing the natives again. Thus, they are all aligned in their treachery against Jim and the forces for good.