Part II
seaplane and desolate island

With her anchor at the bow and clothed in can-
vas to her very trucks my command seemed to stand as
motionless as a model ship set on the smoothness of
shadowy marble. It was impossible to distinguish land
from water in the enigmatic tranquillity of the immense
forces of the world. A sudden impatience possessed me.

“Once she answered the helm at all?” I said irritably, -
and then to the man whose head was indistinct at
whose strong brown hands grasping the spokes of the wheel
stood out strongly lighted on the darkness, like a symbol
of mankind’s claim to the direction of its own fate.

He answered me.

"Yes sir. She is going off slowly."

"Let her head come south."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

- 1 -

I paced the poop. There was not a sound but
that of my footsteps, till the man spoke again.
"She is at south now, sir."

I felt a slight tightness of the chest before I
gave out the first course of my first command to the
silent hour of that night, heavy with dew and sparkling
with stars. There was a finality in the act committing
me to the endless vigilance of my long-seen task.

"Steady her head at that" I said at last." The
course is south."

"South, sir", echoed the man.

I sent below the second mate and his watch and
remained in charge walking the deck through the chill
heavy hours that preceded the dawn.

Slight puffs came and went, and whenever they were
strong enough to wake up the black water the murmur along
side seemed to run through my very heart in a delicate

-2-

crescendo of delight and die away swiftly. I was bit-
terly tired, the very stars seemed weary of waiting for
daybreak. It came at last with a mother-of-pearl effect
at the zenith such as I had never seen before in the
tropics, unglowing, almost grey with a strange reminder
of high latitudes, cold of the tropics on the water gold on the horizon
far off yet disturbing with its suggestion of winter
chill in the tend air.

The voice of the look-out man, hailed from far away.

"Land on the port bow, sir."

"All right."

Leaning on the rail I never even raised my eyes.

Presently the motion of the ship was imperceptible. Pleasantly
Mansome brought me the cup of morning coffee. After
had drunk it I looked ahead and in the still streak
of very bright pale orange light I saw the land.

-3-

The watch began to wash the decks. I went below and stopped at Mr. Burns' door. (he could not bear to have it shut) but hesitated to speak to him till he moved his eyes. I gave him my news.

-4-

Later that morning when relieved by my second officer I threw myself on my couch and for some three hours or so I really found oblivion. It was so perfect that on waking up I wondered where I was, until a flash of relief Then came the immense of the thought; on board my ship! At sea! At sea!

As to the last I might well have been in a state for there was not the slightest evidence of motion. Through the port-holes I beheld an unruffled sun-smitten horizon. The horizon of a windless day. But its spacyness alone was enough to give me a sense of a fortunate escape, a momentary exaltation of freedom.

I went out into the saloon with my heart lighter than it had been for days. Within my breast Ransome was at the side-board preparing to lay the table for the first sea dinner of the passage. He turned his head and something in his eyes checked my elation.

-5-

Tropical fever is tropical fever. But that it should
have stretched its claw after us over the sea seemed to
me an extraordinary and unfair license. Sometimes I
could hardly believe it could be anything worse than
the last desperate pluck of the evil from which we were
escaping into the pure breath of the sea. If
only that breath had been a little stronger. However,
there was the quinine. I went into the spare cabin
where the medicine chest was to prepare two doses. I
opened it full of faith as a man opens a holy shrine.
The upper part was inhabited by a collection of bottles
all square shouldered and as like each other as
two-peas---Under-letter-A-there-were-a-euple-of-drawers.
Two peas. Under that orderly array there were two
drawers, stuffed as full of things as one could imagine,
paper packages, bandages, cardboard boxes, officially
labeled.

-8-

labeled. The lot of the two, in one of its compartments,
contained its our provision of quinine.

There were five bottles, all I had in my eye. Five bottles, round and all of a size. One about a third full, and the other four still wrapped up in paper and sealed. This is what I had in my eye, but I did not expect to see an envelope laying on top of them. A square envelope, belonging in fact to the ship's stationery.

It laid so that I could see that it was not closed down, and on picking it up and turning it over I perceived that it was addressed to myself. In the usual unintelligent way I wondered how the thing had got there. The handwriting was not familiar to me and anyway that anybody should address a letter to me and then stuff it into the medicine chest drawer, was so absurdly unlikely that it kept even curiosity at bay.

All the same, it contained a half sheet of note-

-9-

paper, which I unfolded with a queer sense of dealing with
the uncanny, but without any excitement as people make~ meet
and do extraordinary things in a dream.

"My dear Captain," it began,
but I ran to the signature,
By that time my sensate
tears were sufficiently in touch with the waking world to
cause me to run to the signature.
The writer was the doctor.
The date was that of the day on which, returning from my
visit to Mr. Burns in the hospital, I had found the excellent
doctor waiting for me in the cabin, and when he told me that
he had been putting in time inspecting the medicine-chest
for me. How bizarre! apparently While expecting me to
come in at any moment, he has been amusing himself by
writing me a letter and then as I came in had hastened to
stuff it into the medicine-chest drawer. A rather un-
incredible proceeding, and I turned to the text with a
smile.

-10-

It was impossible to say the effect it had on him. He only pulled his eye a little, but whether fright, impatience, or annoyance was behind that movement I could not tell. At first I thought that he was speechless. His head lay sunk deep in the pillow. He moved his lips enough, however, to assure me that he was getting much stronger; a statement which I found incredible in the face of it.

That afternoon I took my watch as a matter of course. A great over-heated stillness enveloped the ship and seemed to hold her motionless in the glare. A faint hot puff of smoke, Projected nervelessly from her sails, without being able to impel her forward. And yet she moved. She must have. For, as the sun was setting, we had drawn abreast of the Cape, and dropped it behind us; an ominous retreating shadow in the last gleams of twilight.

In the evening, under the crude lamplight, Mr. Burns

12.

seemed to have come more to the surface of his bedding.

as if
It was a depressing hand had been lifted. To the
few words I addressed to him he answered by a comparatively
long, connected speech. He asserted himself against me
of resignation. If he escaped being smothered by this stag-
nant heat, he said, he felt that in a very few days, he would
be able to come up on deck and me.
help

While he was speaking I was afraid that this effort
of energy would leave him lifeless. But I can not deny that
there was something comforting in this manifestation of his
pathetic weakness. From some time he panted heavily.

A suitable reply but pointed out to him that the only
thing that could help us was a fair wind.

He rolled his head impatiently on the pillow. And
it was not comforting in the least to hear him begin to
mutter crazily about that old man who was on South, at the

-13-

in our way - embushed at the entrance of the Eulogium
entire of the class.

“Are you still thinking of the late Captain,
Mr. Burns?” I said. “I believe the dead have no animos-
ity against the living.”

“You didn’t know him,” he breathed feebly.

“No. I didn’t. And he didn’t know me.” And so
he can’t have any grievance against me, anyway.”

“Yes. But there’s the rest of us” he insisted.

I felt the inexplicable strength of common sense
insidiously menaced by this gruesome, by this insane
delusion. And I said:

“You musn’t talk so much.” You will tire yourself.”

“And there is the ship herself,” he persisted in a
whisper.

“Now, not a word more”, I said, stepping in and
laying my hand on his cold forehead, which proved to me,
that this atrocious absurdity was rooted in the man himself

-14-

and not in the disease, which, apparently, had emptied
him of every power mental and physical, except that one
fixed idea.

"Do what I would to react against it I could not
altogether throw it off. And I was so conscious of this
weakness that I avoided giving Mr. Burns any opening for
conversation for the next two weeks. I merely
gave him a short look and a hasty cheery word when
passing his
door. I believe if he had had the strength he would have
called out after me, more than once. But he hadn't the
strength. Ransome, however, observed to me on the after-
noon of the next day that the mate "Seemed to be picking
up wonderfully," and so on.

"Did he talk any nonsense to you?" I asked casual-
ly.

"No, sir," Ransome was startled by the direct
question.

-‡5

I did not expect to be beset by hurricanes. I knew better
than that. In the Gulf of Siam there are no hurricanes.
But neither did I expect to find myself bound hand and foot
to that hopeless extent which was disclosed to me as the
days went on.

Not that we held motionless. Mysterious currents
drifted us here and there, with a stealthy power disclosed
only by the changing vistas of the islands fringing the east
shore of the Gulf. And there were winds too. Fitful and
deceitful. They raised hopes only to dash them into the
bitterest disappointment, promises of advance ending in
lost ground, expiring in sighs, dying into dumb stillness,
in which the currents had it all their own way -- their
own inimical way.

The Island of Koh-ring a great, black, upheaved ridge
laying upon the glassy water like a triton amongst minnows,
seemed to be the centre of the fatal circle. It

19 a

seemed impossible to get away from it. Day after day it remained in sight. More than once, in a favourable breeze, I would take its bearings by the last glow of twilight, thinking that it was for the last time. Vain hope.

A night of fitful airs would undo the gains of temporary favour, and the rising sun would throw out the black relief of Koh-ring looking more barren, inhospitable and grim than ever.

"It's like being bewitched, upon my word," I said once to Mr. Burns, from my usual position in the doorway.

He was sitting up in his bed-place. He was progressing towards the world of living men; he could hardly have been said to have rejoined it completely because his enor-mously red mustachions were still the most prominent part of him, startlingly, like a material appendage to a ghostly apparition. He nodded to me his grail and bony head in a sort of wisely mysterious agreement.

20.

"Oh yes, I know what you mean," I said. "But you cannot expect me to believe that a dead man has a power to put out of joint the meteorology of this part of the world. Though I indeed it seems to have gone wrong altogether. The land and sea breezes have got broken up into small pieces. We cannot depend upon them for five minutes together."

"It won't be very long now before I can come up
on deck; muttered Mr. Burns. "And then we shall see"

A terrible pride in that power. Whether he meant
supernatural power to grapple with the powers of darkness I couldn't tell.

At any rate, it wasn't the kind of assistance I needed.
On the other hand I had been living on deck practically
night and day so as to take advantage of every chance to
get my ship a little more to the southward. The more I
could see, was extremely weak yet, and not quite rid of his
delusion, which to me appeared but a symptom of his
illness.

over others for a time, leaving this one, returning to
another, so that all of them had now an invalidish aspect,
and a hunted, apprehensive look in their eyes; while
Ransome and I, the only two completely untouched, went
amongst them assiduously, distributing quinine. It was a
double fight, the weather held us in front, and the disease pressed
on our rear. I must say that the men were very good.
In the constant toil of trimming the yards they moved wil-
lingly. But all spring was out of them and as I looked at
them from the poop I could not keep from my mind the dread-
ful impression that they were moving in poisoned air.

Down below, in his cabin, Mr. Burns had advanced so
far as not only able to sit up, but even to draw up his
knees, clasping them round with bony arms, like an
animatd skeleton, emitted deep, impatient sighs.

"The great thing, sir," he would tell me on
every occasion when I gave him the chance, "the great thing

23

burship past an 8:20 of latitude. Once this
is to get him out of third degree of latitude. Once this
past that we're all right."

At first I used only to smile at him, though,
God knows, I had not much heart left for smiles. But
at last I lost my patience.

"Oh yes, the latitude 8°20' that's the parallel
on which you buried the late Captain, isn't it?" Then
with severity "Don't you think, Mr. Burns, it's about
time you dropped that nonsense?"

He robled at me his deep-sunk eyes in
a full of returning life, it was a glance of invinc-
ible obstinacy. But for the rest, he only muttered, just
loud enough for me to hear, something about " Not surprised
... find . . . play us some beastly trick yet . . ."

Such passages as this were not exactly wholesome
for my fortitude. One is almost ashamed to confess such
weakness. But the circumstances must be taken into
account, the constant stress of watch and anxiety against

23.

an imponderable adversary was beginning to tell on me.

At the same time I felt a contempt for that obscure
weakening
notance of my soul. I said to myself disdainfully,
that it would take much more than that to affect in the
smallest degree my fortitude.

I didn't know then how soon and from what un-
expected
opposed direction it would be attacked, aimed directly
at the very depth of my feelings.

It was the very next day. The sun had risen
clear of the southern shoulder of Koh-ring, which
still hung, like an evil attendant, on our port water,
During the
it was intensely hateful to my sight. All night we had been
heading to different points of compass, trimming the yards
again and again, to what I fear must have been for the most
part, imaginary puffs of air. Then just about sunrise we
got for an hour an inexplicable, steady breeze, right in

24.

be done without everybody that could totter mustering on
the braces. No, it was no use remonstrating with them.
But I fully believed that drugging them was of very great
use indeed. And the only drug, of course, was quinine.

I believed in it. I pinned my faith to it.

It would save the men, the ship, break the spell by its
medicinal virtue, make time of no account, the weather
but a passing worry and be, like a magic powder working
against mysterious malefices, secure the first passage of
my first command against the evil powers of Calms
and pestilence. I looked upon it as more precious
than gold, and unlike gold, of which there ever hardly seems
anywhere, the ship had a sufficient store of it.
I went
to be enough. I had a sufficient store. I went
in to get it the with the purpose of weighing out doses.

I neglected that another bottle had to be opened. I
stretched my hand with the feeling of a man reaching for
a free bottle and unzipping
security, took up and handed the wrapper noticing

28.

because I was instinctively rushing up on deck. An example
this of training become instinct. The difficulties, the
dangers, the problems of the sea, are to be met on deck.

To this fact, as it were of nature, I responded instinct-
ively; which may be taken for a proof that for a moment I must
have been robbed of my reason.

I was certainly off my balance, a prey to impulse;
for at the bottom of the stairs, I turned and
flung myself at the
doorway of Mr. Burns' cabin. The wildness of his aspect
was the first lay outside impression which checked
my mental disorder. He was sitting up in his
bunk, his body looking immensely long, his head drooping
a little sideways, with an extraordinary effect of
affected
complacency. He flourished, in his trembling
hand, on the end of a forearm, no thicker than a stout walking-
stick, a very shining pair of scissors, which he tried before
his very eyes to jab at his throat.

31.

I was to a certain extent horrified; but it was
rather a secondary sort of thing, ~~effectively~~ the way, not really
strong enough to make me exclaim in some such manner as
"Stop!".."Heavens!".."What are you doing!"..

In reality he was simply overtaxing his returning
strength in an attempt to clip off the thick growth of his
red beard. A large towel was spread over his lap, and a
hairs like shower of stiff bits of copper wire, was descending on it
at every snip of the scissors.

He left off, of course, on seeing me and turned to
me his face, a grossesque, uglier than ever beyond the
fearfulness of mad dreams, one side all bushy, as if with a swollen
flame, the other denuded and sunken, with untouched moustache
on that side, asserting itself menacingly. And while
It was in truth
through personally
shocking, but not so, I was so, personally.
was not shocked. I was for beyond such impressions. And whole

32

he sat thunder-struck, with the gaping scissors on his fingers
I told him of my discovery, in six words, without comment.

I heard the clatter of the scissors, noted the perils
heave of his whole person, perdently over the edge of the
bunk, and returning to my first purpose, pursued my course on
the deck. The sprinkle of the sea filled my eyes,
taking that seemed to move in the level solitude of the Gulf.
It was gorgeous and barren, monotonous and without hope
under the empty curve of the sky. The sails hung motionless
and slack, the very folds of their sagging surfaces moved
no more than carved marble. The impetuosity of my advent
the man made him at the helm start slightly. A block aloft
squeaked slightly, in comprehensibly, for what on earth could
have made it do so? It was a whistling note like a bird's. For
a long, long time I faced a stone world. I seemed to feel the
infinity of the silence, through which the sunshine poured and

33.

flowed as if for a mysterious purpose. Then I heard
Ransome's voice at my elbow.

"I have put Mr. Burns back to bed, sir."

"You have."

"Well, sir, he got out, all of a sudden, but
when he left go of the edge of his bunk, he fell down.
He isn't light-headed, though, it seems to me."

"No," I said dully, without looking at Ransome.
He waited for a moment at my elbow, then, cautiously, as it
were, "I don't think we need lose much of that stuff, sir,"
he said, "I can sweep it up, every bit of it almost, and then
we could sift the glass out. I will go about it at once,
sir." It will not make the breakfast late, not ten minutes."

"Oh, yes", I said bitterly. "Let the breakfast
wait, sweep up every bit of it, and then throw it away."

overboard!"

34.

A profound silence ensued, and when I looked over
my shoulder, Ransome, the intelligent, serene Ransome, had
vanished silently from my side. The intense loneliness
of the sea seemed like poison to my brain. And when I
turned my eyes to the ship, I had a horrible vision of her
as a floating grave. Who hasn't heard of ships found
floating, haphazard, with their crews all dead. I looked
at the seaman at the helm, I had an impulse to speak to him
and indeed his face took on an expectant cast as if he had
guessed my intention. But in the end I went below, thinking I would be alone with the greatness of my trouble for a
little while. But through
Mr Burns saw me
come down, and addressed me cheerily, "Well, sir?"

I went in. "It isn't well, at all," I said.

Mr Burns, re-established in his bed-place, was
nursing his hirsute cheek in his hand.

35.

" That confounded fellow has taken away the scissors from me" were the last words he said.

The tension I was suffering from was so great that it was perhaps just as well that Mr. Burns had started on such a tack. He seemed very sore on the point and grumbled. "Does he think I am mad, or what?"

"I don't think so, Mr Burns," I said. Indeed, I looked upon him at that moment as enviably sane. I even conceived on that account a sort of admittance for the man, who was, (apart from the intense materiality of what was left of his beard) come as near to being a disembodied spirit, as near as any man can do and live. I noticed the preternatural sharpness of the ridge of his nose, the deep cavities of his temples, and I envied him. He was so reduced that he would probably die very soon. Enviable man! So near extinction. While I felt within me a tumult of suffering vitality, doubt, confusion, self-reproach and an indefinite

36

logic
reluctance to face the horrid of- the situation. I found
help muttering, "I feel as if I were going mad, myself."

Mr. Burns glared spectrally, but otherwise wonderfully
composed.

"I always thought he would play us some deadly trick"
like this he said, with a peculiar emphasis on the _he_.

It gave me a mental shock, but I had neither the mind
nor the heart, nor the spirit to argue with him. My danger
was indifference, that stems from one on an extrinsic
a hopelessly situation.
The creeping paralysis of the insensate. So I only gazed
at him. I can imagine the sort of expression, and I am glad
there was no glass anywhere for me to see myself, with such
a benevolent eye.
But it provoked Mr. Burns into further speech.

"Er! What! No! You won't believe it! Well, how
do you account for that? How do you think it has happened?"

"Happened", I repeated dully. "Why, yes, how in the

37.

name of the infernal powers did this thing happen?"

Indeed, on thinking it out, it seemed incomprehensible, that it should be just like this: the bottles emptied, refilled, rewrapped, and replaced. A sort of plot, a sinister attempt to deceive, a thing resembling sly vengeance, but, for what? . . . or else a fiendish joke. But Mr. Burns was in possession of a theory. It was simple, and he muttered it solemnly in a hollow voice.

"I suppose" he said in a hollow tone, "they have given him about twelve pounds in Hai-phong for that lot."

"Mr. Burns!", I cried.

He nodded grotesquely over his raised legs, like two very wide broom-sticks in the pyjamas, with enormous bare feet at the end.

"Why not? The stuff is pretty expensive, but in this part of the world, they were very short of it in Tokyo. And what did he care. You have not known him. I have, and I have faced

38.

him." He feared neither God, nor devil, man, nor wind, sea, nor himself. And I believe he hated everybody and everything, But I think he was afraid to die. I believe I am the only man who ever faced him. I faced him in that cabin where you now live, when he was sick, and I believed I frightened him so. He thought I was going to twist his neck for him. And if he had had his way, he would be still beating up against the monsoon, for as long as he lived and afterwards too. Playing the Flying Butchman in the China Sea! Ha! Ha!"

"But why should he replace me, I began,"

"Why shouldn't he? Why should he want to throw the bottles away? They fit the drawer. They belong to the medicine chest."

"And they were wrapped up," I cried.

"Well, the paper was there. Did it from habit,"

39.

and as to refilling, there is always a lot of stuff they send in parcels that burst after a time. And then, who can tell. I suppose you didn't taste it, sir. But of course you are sure . . ."

"No" I said, "I didn't taste it. It is all overboard now."

Behind me, a soft cultivated voice said, "I have tasted it. It seemed a mixture of all sorts, sweetish, saltish, very horrible."

Ransome stepping out of the pantry had been listening for some time, as it was very excusable in him to do.

"A dirty trick", said Mr. Burns. "I always said he would."

It was no use arguing with him. And besides, there was no such thing as a natural sense of guilt, and the magnitude of my indignation was unbounded. And the kind, sympathetic doctor too, the only sympathetic man I ever knew . . . instead

40.

4

I perceived Ransome looking at me blankly, he appreciated
what it meant, but he managed to produce his pleasant, wistful
smile. Then he stepped back into his pantry, and I rushed
up on deck again, to see whether there was any wind, any
breath under the sky, any stir of the air, any sign of hope.
A most deadly stillness met me. Nothing was changed except
that there was a different man at the wheel. He looked ill.
His whole figure drooped and he seemed rather to cling to the
spokes
set than hold them with a controlling grip. I said to him;
"You are not fit to be here."

"I can image, sir," he said feebly.

As a matter of fact there was nothing for him to do.
The ship had no steerage way. She lay with her head to
the westward, the everlasting Koh-ring visible over the stern,
with a few small islets, black spots in the great blaze, swimming
before my troubled eyes. And but for those bits of land

42.

A voice or two was heard "Yes, sir . . . we understand."

They had kept silent simply because they thought that there was no reason to say anything, and when I continued saying, that I intended to run into Singapore and that their best chance was for the ship and the men in their efforts all was for a sick and well had to make to get her along out of this, I received encouragement of a low assenting murmur and of a louder voice exclaiming, "Surely there is a way out somewhere, out of the blamed hole."

44

I notice he is lying flat on his back, he still appears very determined. From the side glance he gives me it seems as though he were annoyed at being interrupted in some arduous mental performance; and as I pass up on deck the ordered arrangement of the stars meets my eye, unclouded, infinitely wearisome. There they are; stars, sun, sea, light, darkness, space, great waters; the formidable work of the seven days, into which mankind seems to have blundered unbidden. Or else decayed. Even as I have been decayed, yet by a remote combination of blundering goodwill into this awful, this terrible command."

The only spot of light in the ship at night was that of the compass lights, lighting up the faces of the succeeding helmsmen; for the rest we were lost in the darkness, I walking the gangway and the men lying about the decks. They were so reduced by sickness, that no watches could be kept.

47.

All who were able to walk remained all the time on duty, lying about in the shadows of the main deck, till my voice raised for an order would bring them to their enfeebled feet, a tottering little group, moving silently about the ship, with hardly a murmur, a whisper, amongst them all.

And every time I had to raise my voice, it was with a pang of remorse and pity.

Then about four o'clock in the morning, a light would gleam forward in the galley. The unfailing Ransome with the uneasy heart, immune, serene and active, was getting ready the early coffee for the men. Presently he would bring me a cup of tea on the deck and it was then that I allowed myself to drop into my deck chair for a couple of hours of real sleep.

No doubt, I must have been snatching a few minutes doges when leaning against the rail for a moment in sheer weariness; but

48.

honestly I was not aware of them, except in the convulsive pain starts, that seemed to come on me even while I walked. From about five, however, until seven, I would sleep openly, under the fading stars.

I would say to the helmsman "Call me at need" and drop into that chair and close my eyes, feeling that there was no more sleep for me on earth. And then I would know nothing till some time between seven and eight I would feel a touch on my shoulder and look up at Ransome's face, with its faint wistful smile and friendly grey eyes, as though he were tenderly amused at my slumbers. Occasionally, the second-mate would come up and relieve me at the early hour, but it didn't really matter. Generally it was dead calm, or faint airs so changing and fugitive that it really wasn't worth while to touch a brace for them. If the air steadied at all the seaman at the helm could be trusted for a warning shout:

48

"Ships" all aback, sir!" which like a madonna would make me spring a foot above the deck. Those were the words which it seemed to me would have made me spring up from eternal sleep. But this was not often. I have never met since such breathless sunrises, in which the ship would lay still as if buried in a grave of light. And if the second mate happened to be there (he had generally one day in three free of fever) I would find him sitting on the skylight half senseless as it were, and with a horribly empty gaze fastened on some object nearby, a rope, a cleat, or a belaying pin.

That young man was rather troublesome. He remained cubbish in his sufferings. He seemed to have become completely imbecile, and when the return of fever drove him to his cabin below, the next thing that would happen would be that we would miss him from there. The first time it happened Ransome and

50.

were the

To see him coming after the wheel comforted me somewhat. The blue
ungaree trousers turned up the leg, one a little higher than the other,
the clean check shirt, the white canvas cap, evidently made by himself,
had something smart in it, and the invincible jauntiness of his step even,
poor fellow, when he came tottering of his invincible spirit. There
was also a man, called Smith. I remember him tottering was the only
grizzled person in the ship. His face was of an austere type. But if
remember all their faces, wasting tragically before my eyes, most
of their names have vanished from my memory.

The words that passed between us, very few, and puerile, in the
face of the situation. I had to force myself to look them in the face.
I expected to meet reproachful glances. There were none. The
expression of suffering in their eyes was indeed hard enough to bear. But that they

2a.

couldn't help. For the rest, I ask myself, whether it was the temper
of their souls or the dullness of their imagination that made them so
wonderful, so worthy of my undying regard.

For myself, neither my soul was highly tempered nor my imagination
properly under control. There were moments when I felt ___________ - not only
that I would go mad but that I had gone mad already; so that I dared ___________
open my lips for fear of betraying myself by some insane shriek. Luckily
I had only orders to give and an order has been made a steady influence upon
him who has to give it. Moreover, the seaman, the watch officer in
per觉 but mad
me was sane. I was like a carpenter making a box. Were he ever so
convinced that he was King of Jerusalem, the box he would make would be
a sane box. What I feared was a shrill note escaping me involuntarily and
upsetting my balance. Luckily again, there was no necessity to raise the voice.
The brooding stillness of the world seemed sensitive to the slightest
sound like a whispering gallery. The conversational tone would almost

3a.

carry a word from one end of the ship to the other. The terrible
thing was that the only voice that I ever heard was my own. At night
especially it vibrated ~~very lonely, amongst the planes~~ of the unstir-
ring sails.

Mr. Burns ~~down below~~ still keeping to his bed with that air of sick
 determination was moved to complain ~~of it~~. Our interviews were short
 five-minutes affairs, but fairly frequent. I was everlastingly diving
down below to light my pipe. Truly I did not smoke much at that time.
The thing was always going out; for indeed my mind was not composed
enough to ~~let a decent smoke.~~ Likewise, for most of the time during
the twenty-four hours I could have struck matches on deck and held them
aloft till the flame burnt my fingers. But I always used to run
~~It was a change~~ always break the constant strain; and, of course,
Mr. Burns through the open door could see me come in and go out every
time.

4a.

With his knees gathered up under his chin and staring with his greenish eyes at them, he was a weird figure, and with my knowledge of the crazy notion in his head, not a very attractive one for me. Still I had to speak to him now and then and one day he complained that the ship was very silent. For hours and hours, he said, he was lying there not hearing a sound, till he did not know what to do with himself.

"When Ransome happens to be forward in his galley, so still that one might think that everybody in the ship was dead," he grumbled. "The only voice I do hear sometimes is yours, Sir, and that isn't enough to cheer me up. What's the matter with them? Isn't there one that can sing out at the ropes."

"Not one, Mr. Burns," I said. "There is no breath to spare on board this ship for that. Are you aware that there are times that I can't muster more than three men to do anything."

5a.

He asked swiftly:

"Nobody dead yet, Sir?"

"No."

"It wouldn't do," Mr. Burns declared forcibly, "Musn't let him.

If he gets hold of one, he will get them all."

I cried out at him for this. I believe I even swore I felt
that they attacked all the self-possession that was left to me. In my
endless vigil in the face of the enemy I had been haunted by gruesome
images enough. I had had visions of a ship drifting in calms and
swinging in the airs, with all her crew dead about her decks. Such
things had been known to happen.

Mr. Burns met my outburst by a mysterious silence.

6a.

"Look here," I said, "You don't believe yourself what you say.

You can't. It's impossible. It isn't the sort of thing I have a right to expect from you. My position's bad enough without your ghastly imaginings."

He remained unmoved. On account of the way in which the light fell on his head I could not be sure whether he had smiled faintly or not. I changed my tone.

"Listen," I said. "It's getting so desperate that I had thought

for a moment, since we can't make our way South, I wouldn't try to steer

west, and make an attempt to reach the mail boat track in the

middle of the Gulf. We could always get some quinine from her, at least,

What do you think?"

He cried out, "No, no, no. Don't do that, Sir. You mustn't for

a moment give up facing it. If you don't, he will get the upper hand

7a.

of us."

I, left him. He was impossible. It was like a case of possession.

It was my own doing a compulsion which I had to obey, and I obeyed it. I could not defend myself, for I was so much Superior than my伴 in a matter of life or death. However, I buried in my heart of waters this protest which was essentially reasonable, and as a matter of fact, my own life was going out into

In Westward the Gulf on the chance of sighting a problematical steamer could not bear calm examination. On the east side where we were we had enough wind, at least from time to time, to struggle on towards the South. Enough, at least, to keep alive. But suppose that I had used it? used those capricious gusts of wind to sail away to the westward, into some region where there was not a breath of air for days on end, what then? Perhaps my horrible vision of a ship floating with a dead crew would become a reality for the discovery weeks afterwards of some

8a.

horror-struck mariners.

That afternoon Ransome brought me up a cup of tea and while
waiting there, tray in hand, he remarked:

"You are holding out well, Sir."

"Yes," I said. "You and I seem to have been forgotten."

"Forgotten, Sir?"

"Yes, by that fever-devil who has got on board ship," I said.

Ransome gave me one of his sympathetic, intelligent smiles and
went away with the tray. It occurred to me that I had been talking
somewhat in Mr. Burns' manner. It annoyed me. Yet often in darker
moments I forgot myself into an altitude of an altitude of
more fit for a contest against a living enemy.

Yes. The fever-devil had not laid his hand either on Ransome or on
me, but he might at any time. It was one of those thoughts one had to
fight down, keep at arm's length at any cost. It was unbearable to

9a.

contemplate the possibility of Ransome, the housekeeper of the ship,
being laid low. And what would happen to Mr. Burns if I got knocked over
with Mr. Burns too weak to stand without holding on to his
bed and the second-mate reduced to a state of permanent imbecility?

It was impossible to imagine, or, rather, it was only too easy to imagine.

I was alone on the poop. The ship having no steerage way, I had
sent the helmsman away to sit down or lay down somewhere in the shade.
The men's strength was so reduced that all necessary call had to be
avoided. It was the austere Smith with the grizzly beard. He went
away readily enough but he was so weakened by repeated bouts of fever
poor fellow, that in order to get down the poop ladder he had to turn
sideways and hang on with both hands to the brass rail. It was just
simply heartbreaking. Yet he was neither very much worse nor much better

than one of the half-dozen miserable victims I could find on deck.

lla.

"Will you go down and eat something, Sir?" he suggested.

His low voice startled me. I had been standing looking out over
the rail, saying nothing, feeling nothing, not even the weariness of
my limbs, overcome by the evil spell.

"Ransome," I asked abruptly, "How long have I been on deck?
I am losing the notion of time."

"Ten days, Sir," he said. "It's just a fortnight since we
left the anchorage."

His equable voice sounded mournful somehow. He waited a bit, then
added: "It's the first time that it looks as if we were to have some
rain."

I noticed then for the first time the broad shadow on the horizon.
It ringed the ship extinguishing the low stars completely while those
overhead when I looked up seemed to shine down on us through a veil of
smoke.

12a.

How it got there, how it had crept up so high,
it was impossible

had an appearance.

say. It was ominous. The air did not stir. At a renewed invitation from Ransome I did go down into the cabin to, in Ransome's words,

"try and eat something." I don't know that the trial was very successful.

I suppose at that period of my life I did consume some food but the
memory is now that in those days life was sustained on invincible an-
guish, as a sort of infernal stimulant exciting and consuming at the
same time..

It's the only period of my life in which I kept a sort of diary.

moral isolation

No, not the only one. Years later, in conditions of mobilisation I did
put down on paper the thoughts and events of a score of days. But
this was the first time. I don't remember how it came about or how
the pocket book and the pencil came into my hands. It's unconceivable
that I should have looked for them on purpose. I suppose they saved
me from the crazy trick of talking to myself.

14a.

And on deck there are five men with the vitality and the strength of say
two. We may have all sails blown away. Every stitch of canvas had been
set ever since we broke ground at the mouth of the Mei-nam, fifteen days
ago. . . or fifteen centuries. It seems to me that all my life be-
fore that day is infinitely remote, a fading memory of light-hearted

youth; something on the other side of a shadow.
Yes, sails may very well be blown away. And that would be dead-
ly. We haven't strength enough on board to bend another incredible
thought, but it is true. Or we may even get dismasted. Ships have been
dismasted in squalls simply because they weren't handled quick
enough and we have no strength to whirl the yards around. It's like
being bound hand and foot, to have one's throat cut. And what appals
me most of all is that I shrink from going on deck to face it. It's
due to the ship, it's due to the men who are there on deck - some of
them, ready to put out the last remnant of their strength at a word from
me, And I am shrinking from it. From the mere vision. My first command.

16a.

"Very black / Sir. There is something in it for certain."

"In what quarter?" I asked.

"All round, Sir."

I repeated idly, "All round. For certain," with my elbow on the table.

Ransome lingered in the cabin as if he had something to do there, but hesitated about doing it. I said suddenly:

"You think I ought to be on deck?"

He answered at once, but without any particular emphasis or accent,
"I do sir."

I got to my feet briskly and he made way for me to go
stood at the side of the doorway
our
to let me pass. As I passed through the lobby I heard Mr. Burns' voice
saying:

"Shut the door of my room, will you, steward?" "And Ransome's
rather surprised, "Certainly, Sir."

17a.

I thought that all my feelings were dulled into complete indifference. But certainly it was trying to be on deck. The inpenetrable blackness all round beset the ship so close that it seemed that by thrusting one's hand over the side one could touch something solid.

There was in it an effect of inconceivable terror and of inexpressible mystery. The few stars overhead extremely brilliant by contrast, seemed to shed a dim light upon the ship alone with no gleams of any kind upon the water, in detached shafts piercing an atmosphere which had turned to death. It was something I had never seen before, giving no hint of the direction from which any change would come, the closing in of fatal death from all sides.

There was still no man at the helm. The immobility of all things was perfect. If the air had turned black, the sea, for all I knew, might have turned solid. It was no good looking in any direction, watching

18a.

for any sign, speculating upon the nearness of the moment. When the time
came the blackness would overwhelm silently ~~the bit of star-light~~
falling upon the ship and the end of all things would come without a
sigh, stir, or murmur of any kind, and all our hearts would cease to beat
like run-down clocks.

It was impossible ~~to~~ to shake off that impression. The quiet-
ness that came over me was like a foretaste of annihilation. It gave me
a sort of comfort as though my soul had been~~suddenly~~ reconciled to an eternity
of blind stillness.

The seaman's instinct alone survived ~~the~~ *I* descended the ladder
to the quarter-deck. The starlight seemed to die~~out~~ *And so on*
but when I asked quietly, "Are you there, men?" my eyes made out
shadowy forms starting up around me, very few, very indistinct; and a
voice spoke, "All there, Sir." And another added:

"Those that are any good for anything."

19a.

Both voices were very quiet and ringing without any special intonation of readiness, or fatigue. discouragement. Very much out of focus. Voices.

"We must try to haul this mainsail up," I said.

The shadows swayed away from me without a word. Those men were the ghosts of themselves and their weight on a rope was no more than the weight of a bunch of ghosts. Indeed if ever a sail was hauled up by spiritual means it was that sail for properly speaking, there was not muscle enough for the work in the whole lot of them. Of course, I went to work with them. We went from rope to rope, stumbling and panting. They toiled like Titans. We were half-an-hour at it at least and all the time the black universe made no sound. When the last rope was made fast, my eyes accustomed to the darkness, made out exhausted forms drooping over the rails, collapsed on hatches. One hung over the capstan. And they stood amongst them like a sun tower of strength after

20a.

imperious to disease and feeling only the sickness of my soul. I
waited for some time fighting against the weight of my sins, against
my sense of unworthiness, and then I said:

"Now, men, we'll go aft and square the mainyard. That's about all we can do for the ship, and for the rest she must take her chance."

# The Shadow-line (i)

By Joseph Conrad

ONLY the young have such moments. I don't mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.

One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness—and enters an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of the path has its seduction. And it isn't because it is an undiscovered country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that way. It is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an uncommon or personal sensation—a bit of one's own.

One goes on recognising the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together—the kicks and the halfpence, as the saying is—the picturesque common lot that holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. Yes. One goes on. And the time, too, goes on—till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be left behind.

This is the period of life in which such moments of which I have spoken are likely to come. What moments? Why, the moments of boredom, of weariness, of dissatisfaction. Rash moments. I mean moments when the still young are inclined to commit rash actions, such as getting married suddenly or else throwing up a job for no reason.

This is not a marriage story. It wasn't so bad as that with me. My action, rash as it was, had more the character of divorce—almost of desertion. For no reason on which a sensible person could put a finger I threw up my job—chucked my berth—left the ship of which the worst that could be said was that she was a steamship and therefore, perhaps, not entitled to that blind loyalty which . . . How-

THE ENGLISH REVIEW

ever, it's no use trying to put a gloss on what even at the
time I myself half suspected to be a caprice.

It was in an Eastern port. She was an Eastern ship,
inasmuch as then she belonged to that port. She traded
among dark islands on a blue reef-scarred sea, with the
Red Ensign over the taffrail and at her masthead a house-
flag, also red, but with a green border and with a white
crescent in it. For an Arab owned her, and a Syed at that.
Hence the green border on the flag. He was the head of a
great House of Straits Arabs, but as loyal a subject of the
complicated British Empire as you could find east of the
Suez Canal. World politics did not trouble him at all, but
he had a great occult power amongst his own people.

It was all one to us who owned the ship. He had to
employ white men in the shipping part of his business, and
many of those he so employed had never set eyes on him
from the first to the last day. I myself saw him but once,
quite accidentally on a wharf—an old, dark little man, blind
in one eye, in a snowy robe and yellow slippers. He was
having his hand severely kissed by a crowd of Malay
pilgrims to whom he had done some favour, in the way of
food and money. His alms-giving, I have heard, was most
extensive, covering almost the whole Archipelago. For
isn't it said that "The charitable man is the friend of
Allah"?

Excellent (and picturesque) Arab owner, about whom
one needed not to trouble one's head, a most excellent
Scottish ship—for she was that from the keel up—excellent
sea-boat, easy to keep clean, most handy in every way, and
if it had not been for her internal propulsion, worthy of
any man's love, I cherish to this day a profound respect
for her memory. As to the kind of trade she was engaged
in and the character of my shipmates, I could not have
been happier if I had had the life and the men made to
my order by a benevolent Enchanter.

And suddenly I left all this. I left it in that, to us,
inconsequential manner in which a bird flies away from a
comfortable branch. It was as though all unknowing I
had heard a whisper or seen something. Well—perhaps!
One day I was perfectly right and the next everything was
gone—glamour, flavour, interest, contentment—everything.
It was one of these moments, you know. The green sick-

AUTHOR'S NOTE
THE SHADOW LINE.

This story, which I admit to be in its brevity a fairly complex piece of work, was not intended to touch on the supernatural. Yet more than one critic has been inclined to take it in that way, seeing in it an attempt on my part to give the pulpit scope to an idea which, in my imagination, by taking it beyond the confines of the world of the living, suffering humanity. But as a matter of fact my imagination is not, I believe, limited by any outside constraint. I attempted to put the strain of the supernatural on it, and it would fail deplorably and exhibit an unlovely gap. But I could never have attempted such a thing for an invisible audience, however falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot in its entirety be different from all else. But if we are a separate species, we are a separate species in the other effects of the visible and tangible world. However enough marvels and mysteries as it is; marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too much in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere Supernatural, which (take it any way you like) is but an manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicieties of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their subtlety, a description of our tenderest memories and an outrage on our dignity. Whatever my native modesty may be it will never be so low as to

3

we begin to meditate on the meaning of our own past it seems to fill all the world in its profundity and its magnitude. This book was written in the last three months of the year 1916. Of all the subjects I have been most conscious of which a writer of tales is more or less conscious within himself this is the only one I found it possible to approach with a feeling with which I approached it is best expressed perhaps in the dedication which strikes me now as a most disproportionate thing—another instance of the overwhelming greatness of our own emotion to ourselves.

This much having been said I may pass on now to a few remarks about the mere material of the story. As to locality it belongs to that part of the Eastern Seas from which I have carried away my writing life the greatest number of suggestions. From my statement that I thought of this for a long time under the title of First Command the reader may guess that this is concerned with my personal experience. And as a matter of fact it is personal experience seen in perspective with the eye of the mind and coloured by that affection which can only be felt for such events as one has no reason to be ashamed of. And that affection is as intense as (I appeal here to universal experience) as the shame, guilt and almost guilt with which one remembers some unfortunate occurrences, down to mere mistakes in speech, that have been perpetrated by one in the past. The effect of perspective in memory is to make things loom large because

## AUTHOR'S NOTE

THIS story, which I admit to be in its brevity a fairly complex piece of work, was not intended to touch on the supernatural. Yet more than one critic has been inclined to take it in that way, seeing in it an attempt on my part to give the fullest scope to my imagination by taking it beyond the confines of the world of the living, suffering humanity. But as a matter of fact my imagination is not made of stuff so elastic as all that. I believe that if I attempted to put the strain of the Supernatural on it it would fail deplorably and exhibit an unlovely gap. But I could never have attempted such a thing, because all my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part. The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is; marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural, which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in

ix

x

AUTHOR'S NOTE

their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tender-
est memories; an outrage on our dignity.

Whatever my native modesty may be it will never condescend so low as to seek help for my imagination within those vain imaginings common to all ages and that in themselves are enough to fill all lovers of man-kind with unutterable sadness. As to the effect of a mental or moral shock on a common mind that is quite a legitimate subject for study and description. Mr. Burns' moral being receives a severe shock in his relations with his late captain, and this in his diseased state turns into a mere superstitious fancy compounded of fear and animosity. This fact is one of the elements of the story, but there is nothing supernatural in it, nothing so to speak from beyond the confines of this world, which in all conscience holds enough mystery and terror in itself.

Perhaps if I had published this tale, which I have
had for a long time in my mind, under the title of "First
Command" no suggestion of the Supernatural would
have been found in it by any impartial reader, critical
or otherwise. I will not consider here the origins of the
feeling in which its actual title, "The Shadow Line," oc-
curred to my mind. Primarily the aim of this piece
of writing was the presentation of certain facts which
certainly were associated with the change from youth,
care-free and fervent, to the more self-conscious and
more poignant period of maturer life. Nobody can
doubt that before the supreme trial of a whole genera-
tion I had an acute consciousness of the minute and
insignificant character of my own obscure experience.
There could be no question here of any parallelism.
That notion never entered my head. But there was a
feeling of identity, though with an enormous difference
of scale—as of one single drop measured against the

AUTHOR'S NOTE

xi

bitter and stormy immensity of an ocean. And this
was very natural too. For when we begin to meditate
on the meaning of our own past it seems to fill all the
world in its profundity and its magnitude. This book
was written in the last three months of the year 1916.
Of all the subjects of which a writer of tales is more or
less conscious within himself this is the only one I found
it possible to attempt at the time. The depth and the
nature of the mood with which I approached it is
best expressed perhaps in the dedication which strikes
me now as a most disproportionate thing—as another
instance of the overwhelming greatness of our own emo-
tion to ourselves.

This much having been said I may pass on now to a
few remarks about the mere material of the story. As
to locality it belongs to that part of the Eastern Seas
from which I have carried away into my writing life
the greatest number of suggestions. From my state-
ment that I thought of this story for a long time under
the title of "First Command" the reader may guess that
it is concerned with my personal experience. And as
a matter of fact it *is* personal experience seen in per-
spective with the eye of the mind and coloured by that
affection one can't help feeling for such events of one's
life as one has no reason to be ashamed of. And that
affection is as intense (I appeal here to universal ex-
perience) as the shame, and almost the anguish with
which one remembers some unfortunate occurrences,
down to mere mistakes in speech, that have been per-
petrated by one in the past. The effect of perspective
in memory is to make things loom large because the
essentials stand out isolated from their surroundings of
insignificant daily facts which have naturally faded out
of one's mind. I remember that period of my sea-life
with pleasure because begun inauspiciously it turned