PART II.

CHAPTER One

THE "FERNDALE."

As I have said before, the story of Flora de Barral was imparted to me in stages. After the last words of it had been spoken, I did not see Marlow for some time. At last, one evening rather early, very soon after dinner, he turned up in my rooms.

I had been waiting for his call primed with a remark which had not occurred to me till after he had gone away.

"I say," I tackled him at once, "how can you be certain that Flora de Barral ever went to sea? After all, the wife of the captain of the "Ferndale" - "the lady that mustn't be disturbed" of the old shipkeeper - may not have been Flora."

"Well, I do know," he said, "if only because I have been keeping in touch with Mr. Powell."

"You have!" I cried. "This is the first I hear of it. And since when?"

"Why, since the first day you went up to town leaving

2.

me in the inn. I slept ashore. In the morning Mr. Powell
came in for breakfast; and after the first awkwardness of
meeting a man you have been yarning with overnight had worn
off, we discovered a liking for each other."

As I had discovered the fact of their mutual liking
before either of them, I was not surprised.

"And so you kept in touch," I said.

"It was not so very difficult." As he was always knocking
about the river I hired Dingle's sloop-rigged 3-tonner to be
more on an equality. Powell was friendly but elusive. I don't think he
ever wanted to avoid me. But it is a fact that he used to
disappear out of the river in a very mysterious manner some-
times. A man may land anywhere and bolt inland - but what
about his five-ton cutter? You can't carry that in the hand
like a suit-case."

"Then as suddenly he would reappear in the river -
after one was gone, I had given him up." I did not like to be beaten.
That's why I hired Dingle's decked boat. There was just the
accommodation in her to sleep a man and a dog. But I had no
dog-friend to invite. Fyne's dog who, it seems, saved - and
not I - Flora de Barral's life, was the last I saw. He must be
dead now. So I was rather lonely cruising about; but that,
too, on the river has its charm - sometimes. I chased the

3.

mystery of the vanishing Powell dreamily, looking about me at
the ships, thinking of the girl Flora, of life's chances -
and, do you know, it was very simple."

"What was very simple?" I asked innocently.

"The mystery."

"They generally are that," I said.

Marlow eyed me for a moment in a peculiar manner.

"Well, I have discovered the mystery of Powell's dis-
appearances. The fellow used to run into one of these narrow
tidal creeks on the Essex shore. They are so inconspicuous
that till I had studied the chart pretty carefully I did not
know of their existence. One afternoon I made Powell's bank
about these creeks, for they have sometimes to go up them on
business. And Mr. Powell knew very well the one I saw him
dodging into one late afternoon. I had made him out heading

out, heading into the shore, from a long distance. By the time I got close
to the mud-flat his craft had disappeared inland. But I could
see the mouth of the creek by then, and the tide being in and
on the turn I took the risk of getting stuck in the mud suddenly
and headed in. All I had to guide me was the top of the roof
of some sort of small building. I got in more by good luck
than by good management. The sun had set some time before;

4.

my boat glided in a sort of winding ditch between two low
grassy banks. On both sides of me was the flatness of the
Essex marsh, perfectly still. All I saw moving was a heron;
he was flying low, and disappeared in the murk. Before I had
gone half a mile, I was up with the building the roof of which
I had seen from the river. It looked like a small barn. A
row of piles driven into the soft bank in front of it and sup-
porting a few planks made a sort of wharf. All this was black
in the falling dusk, and I could just distinguish the whitish
ruts of a ~~cart-track~~ cart-track stretching over the marsh
towards the higher land, far away. Not a sound was to be
heard. Suddenly, against the low streak of light in the sky
I saw the mast of Powell's cutter moored to the bank some
twenty yards, no more, beyond that black barn or whatever it
was. I hailed him with a loud shout. Got no answer. After
making fast my boat just astern, I walked along the bank to
have a look at Powell's. Being so much bigger than mine she
was aground already. Her sails were furled; the slide of
her scuttle hatch was closed and padlocked. Powell was gone.
He had walked off into that dark still marsh somewhere. I
had not seen a single house anywhere near; there did not seem
to be any human habitation for miles; and now as darkness

5.

fell denser over the land I couldn't see the glimmer of a single
light. However, I supposed that there must be some village or
hamlet not very far away; or only one of these mysterious
little inns one comes upon sometimes in most unexpected and
lonely places.

"The stillness was oppressive. I went back to my
boat, made some coffee over a spirit-lamp, devoured a few biscuits, and stretched myself aft, to smoke and gaze at the stars.
The earth was a mere shadow, formless and silent, till suddenly
a bullock turned up from somewhere, quite shadowy too. He
came smartly to the very edge of the bank as though he meant
to come on board, and stretched his muzzle right over my
boat, blew heavily once, and then walked off contemptuously
into the darkness from which he had come. It was startling.
I had not expected a call from a bullock, though a moment's
thought would have shown me that there must be lots of cattle
and sheep on that marsh. Then it became still as before.
I might have imagined myself arrived on a desert island. In
fact, as I reclined smoking a sense of absolute loneliness grew
on me. And just as it had become intense, very abruptly and
without any preliminary sound I heard firm, quick footsteps on
the little wharf. Somebody coming along the cart-track had

6.

just stepped at a swinging gait on to the planks. That some-
body could only have been Mr. Powell. Suddenly he stopped
short, having made out that there were two masts alongside the
bank where he had left only one. Then he came on silent on the
grass. When I spoke to him he was astonished.

"Who would have thought of seeing you here?" he ex-
claimed, after returning my good evening.

"I told him I had run in for company. It was rigor-
ously true."

"You knew I was here?" he exclaimed.

"Of course," I said. "I tell you I came in for
company."

"He is a really good fellow," went on Marlow. "And
his capacity for astonishment is quickly exhausted, it seems.
It was in the most matter-of-fact manner that he said, 'Come on
board of me, then; I have here enough supper for two.' He
was holding a bulky parcel in the crook of his arm. I did not
wait to be asked twice, as you may guess. His cutter has a
very neat little cabin, quite big enough for two men not only
to sleep but to sit and smoke in. We left the scuttle wide
open, of course. As to his provisions for supper, they were
not of a luxurious kind. He complained that the shops in the

8.

But in this case it did not matter. I - we - have already
the inner knowledge. We know the history of Flora de Barral.
We know something of Captain Anthony. We have the secret of
the situation. The man was intoxicated with the pity and
tenderness of his part. Oh yes! Intoxicated is not too
strong a word; for you know that love and desire take many dis-
guises. To be sure, I believe that the girl has been frank
with him, with the frankness of women to whom perfect frankness
is impossible, because so much of their safety depends on
reticences
judicious cancellation. I am not indulging in cheap sneers.
There is necessity in these things. And moreover she could
not have spoken with a certain voice in the face of his impetu-
osity, because she did not have time to understand either the
state of her feelings, or yet the precise nature of what she
was doing.

"Had she spoken ever so clearly he was, I take it,
too elated to hear it distinctly. I don't mean to imply that he
was a fool. Oh dear no! But he had no training in the usual
conventions, and we must remember that he had no experience
whatever of women. He could only have an ideal conception
of his position. An ideal is often but a flaming vision of
reality.

9.

To him enters Fyne, wound up, if I may express myself so irreverently, wound up to a high pitch by his wife's interpretation of the girl's letter. He enters with his talk of meanness and cruelty, like a bucket of water on the flame. Clearly a shock. But the effects of a bucket of water are diverse. They depend on the kind of flame. A mere blaze of dry straw, of course ... but there can be no question of straw there. Anthony of the "Ferndale" was not, could not have been a straw-stuffed specimen of a man. There are flames when a bucket of water sends leaping sky-high.

We may well wonder what happened when, after Fyne had left him, the hesitating girl went up at last and opened the door of that room where our man, I am certain, was not extinguished, oh no! Nor cold; whatever else he might have been.

"It is conceivable he might have cried at her in the first moment of humiliation, of exasperation, "Oh, here you are! Why are you here? Well, you may go."

If I am so odious to you that you must write to my sister to say so, I give you back your word.' But then, don't you see, it could not have been that. I have the practical certitude that soon afterwards they went together in

10.

a hansom to see the ship - as agreed. I hung about like a
common leafer on the pavement after parting from Fyne; I saw
the boots call a hansom; I saw them get in - like any ordinary
couple - and drive off in the direction of the docks. That
was my reason for saying that Flora de Barral did go to sea."...

"Yes. It seems conclusive," I agreed. "But even
without that - if, as you seem to think, the very desolation
of that girlish figure had a sort of perversely seductive charm,
making its way through his compassion to his senses (and everything
is possible) - then such words could not have been spoken."

"They might have escaped him involuntarily," I observed Marlow, looking. "However, a plain fact settles it. They went off together to see the ship."

"Do you conclude from this that nothing whatever was
said?" I inquired.

"I should have liked to see the first meeting of their
glances upstairs there," mused Marlow. "And perhaps nothing
was said. But no man comes out of such a 'wrangle' (as Fyne
called it) without showing some traces of it. And you may be
sure that a girl so bruised all over would feel the slightest
touch of anything resembling coldness. She was mistrustful;

11.

she could not be otherwise; for the energy of evil is so much
more forcible than the energy of good that she could not help
looking still upon her abominable governess as an authority.

How could one expect her to throw off the unholy prestige of
that long domination? She could not help believing what
she had been told, that she was in some mysterious way odious and
unlovable. It was cruelly true. The oracle of so
many years had spoken. Only other people did not find her out at once.

I would not go so far as to say she believed it altogether. That would be hardly possible. But then haven't we been, the most flattered, the most conceited, their moments of doubt. Haven't they? Well, I don't know. There may be lucky beings in this world unable to believe any evil of themselves. For myself I'll tell you that once, many years ago now, it came to my knowledge that a fellow I had been mixed up with in a certain transaction — a clever fellow whom I really despised — was going around telling people that I was a consummate hypocrite. He could know nothing of it. It suited his humour to say so. I had given him no ground for that particular calumny. Yet to this day there are moments when it comes into my mind, and involuntarily I ask myself, "What if it were true?" It's absurd, but it has on one or two occasions

12.

nearly affected my conduct. And yet I was not an impression-
able ignorant young girl at the time.
I had heard it only at
...
I had taken the exact measure of the fellow's
utter worthlessness long before. He had never been for me a
person of prestige and power, as that awful governess had been
to Flora de Barral. See the might of suggestion? We live at
the mercy of a malevolent word. A sound, a mere disturbance
of the air, sinks into our very soul sometimes. Flora de Barral
was more astounded than convinced by the impetuosity of Roderick
Anthony. She let herself be carried along by a mysterious
force which her person had called into being, as her father had
been carried away out of his depth by the unexpected power of
successful advertising.

They went on board that morning. The "Ferndale" had
just come to her loading berth. The only living creature on
board was the ship-keeper - whether the same who had been de-
scribed to us by Mr. Powell, or another, I don't know. Possibly
some other man. He, looking over the side, saw, in his own
words, "the Captain come sailing round the corner of the nearest
cargo-shed, in company with a girl." He lowered the accommoda-
tion ladder down onto the jetty
"

"How do you know all this?" I interrupted.

13.

Marlow

We interjected an impatient:

Flora

"You shall see by-and-bye ... went up first,

Not like a sleep-walker, got down on deck and stood stock-
still till the captain took her by the arm and led her aft.

The ship-keeper let them into the saloon. He had the keys of all the cabins, and stumped in after them. The captain ordered him to open all the doors - every blessed door, state-rooms, passages, pantry, fore-cabin, etc., and then sent him away.

"The "Ferndale" had magnificent accommodation. At the end of 10 passages leading from the quarter-deck there was a large saloon, with its sumptuosity slightly tarnished perhaps, but having a grand air of roominess and comfort. The harbour carpets were down, and silver lamps hung, and everything in its place, etc.

Two large stern cabins opened one on each side of the rudder casing. They communicated through a small bathroom between them, and one was finished as the captain's state-room. The other was vacant, and furnished with armchairs and a round table, more like a room on shore, except for the long curved settee following the shape of the

14.

In a dim, inclined mirror
ship's stern. Flora caught sight down to the waist of a pale
white
~o-faced girl in a black~ straw hat trimmed with roses, dis-
tant, shadowy, as if immersed in water, in a dim, inclined
~and was surprised to recognise herself in those sur-
roundings. They seemed to her arbitrary, bizarre, strange.
Captain Anthony moved on, and she followed him. He showed
the
~~her~~other cabins. He talked all the time loudly in a voice
she seemed to have known extremely well for a long time - and
yet she reflected she had not heard it often in her life. What
he was saying she did not quite follow. He was speaking
of comparatively indifferent things in a rather moody tone,
but she felt it round her like a caress. And when he stopped
she could hear, alarming in the sudden silence, the precipitated beating of her heart.

The ship-keeper dodged about the quarter-deck, out of hearing, and trying to keep out of sight. At the same time, taking advantage of the open doors with skill and prudence, he could see the captain and 'that girl' aboard. The captain was showing her round very thoroughly. Through the whole length of the passage, far away aft in the saloon the ship-keeper had interesting glimpses

15.

of them as they went in and out of the various cabins, crossing
from side to side, remaining invisible for a time in one or an-
other of the state-rooms, and then reappearing again distant in
the narrow perspective.

The girl, always following the captain,
had her sunshade in her hands. Mostly she would hang her head,
but now and then she would look up. They had a lot to
say to each other, and seemed to forget they weren't alone in
the ship. He saw the captain put his hand on her shoulder, and
was preparing himself with a certain zeet for what might follow,
when the "old man" seemed to recollect himself, and came striding
down all the length of the saloon. At this move the ship-keeper
promptly dodged out of sight, and
couldn't see them then, but he heard perfectly the captain slam
the inner door of the passage. After that disappointment the
ship-keeper waited resently for them to clear out of the ship. It
happened much sooner than he had expected. The girl
walked out on deck first. As before she did not look round.
She didn't look at anything; and she seemed to be in such a
hurry to get ashore that she made for the gangway and started
down the ladder without waiting for the captain.

16.

What struck most the ship-keeper was the absent, un-
seeing expression of the captain, striding after the girl. He
passed him, the ship-keeper, without notice, without an order,
without so much as a look. The captain had never done so
before. Always had a nod and a pleasant word for a man.
From this slight the ship-keeper drew a conclusion unfavourable
to the strange girl. He gave them time to get down on the
wharf before crossing the deck to steal one more look at the
pair over the rail. The captain took hold of the arm just before a couple of railway trucks drawn
by a horse came rolling along and hid them from
the ship-keeper's sight for good.

Next day, when the chief-mate joined the ship, he told
him the tale of the visit, and expressed himself about the girl
'who had got hold of the captain' disparagingly. She didn't
look healthy, he explained. "Shabby clothes, too," he added
spitefully.

The mate was very much interested. He had been with
Anthony for several years, and had won for himself a footing of
a certain familiarity in the course of many long voyages, which
was to be expected with a man of Anthony's character. But in

17.

that slowly grown intimacy of the sea, which in its duration
and solitude has its unguarded moments, no words had passed,
even of the most casual, to prepare him for the vision of his
captain associated with any kind of girl. His impression
had been that women did not exist for Captain Anthony. Ex-
hibiting himself with a girl! A girl! What did he want with
a girl? Bringing her on board and showing her round the
cabin! That was really a little bit too much. Captain An-
thony ought to have known better.

“Franklin (the chief mate's name was Franklin) felt
disappointed; almost disillusioned. Silly thing to do!
Here was a confounded old ship-keeper set talking. He snubbed
the ship-keeper, and tried to think of that insignificant bit of
foolishness no more; for it diminished Captain Anthony in his
eyes of a jealously devoted subordinate.

Franklin was over forty; his mother was still alive.
She stood in front of all women for him, just as Captain An-
thony stood in front of all men. We may suppose that these
groups were not very large. He had gone to sea at a very early
age. The feeling which caused these two people to partly
eclipse the rest of mankind were of course not similar;
though in time he had acquired the conviction that he was

18.

taking care" of

looking after them both. The "old lady" of course had to be
honored after she had lived of as long as she lived. In regard to Captain An-
thony, he used to say that: why should he leave him? It wasn't
likely that he would come across a better sailor or a better man
or a more comfortable ship. As to trying to better himself in
the way of promotion he had no connections with influences, he
declared quite simply, that commands were not the sort of thing one
picked up in the streets, and when it came to that, Captain An-
thony was as likely to give him a push on occasion as anyone in
the world.

From Mr. Powell's description he was a short, thick,
chequered man, black-haired, bald on the top. His head sunk be-
tween the shoulders, his staring prominent eyes, a florid colour,
gave him a rather apoplectic appearance, and in repose, his card
face had a humorously melancholy expression.

The ship-keeper having given him up all the keys, and
having been chased forward with the admonition to mind his own
business and not to chatter about what did not concern him,
Mr. Franklin went under the poop. He opened one door after
another, and in the saloon, in the captain's state-room and
everywhere, he stared all about as anxiously as if expecting
to see on the bulkheads, on the deck, in the air, something un-
usual — sign, mark, emanation, shadow — he hardly knew what —

19.

some subtle change wrought by the passage of a girl. But there
was nothing. He entered the unoccupied stern cabin and spent
some time there unscrewing the two stern ports. In the absence
of all material evidences his uneasiness was passing away. With
a last glance round he came out and found himself in the presence
of his captain advancing from the other end of the saloon.

Franklin came up quickly. "Oh! you are here, Mr. Franklin."
mate
And he said, "I was giving a little air to the place, sir."

Then the captain, his hat pulled down over his eyes, laid his stick
on the table and asked in his kind way: "How did you find your
mother, Franklin?" "The old lady's first-rate, sir, thank
you."
And then they had nothing to say to each other. It
was a strange and disturbing feeling for Franklin. He just
back from leave, the ship just come to her loading berth, the
captain just come on board, and apparently, nothing to say! The
several questions he had been anxious to ask as to various things
which had to be done had slipped out of his mind. He, too, felt
as though he had nothing to say.

They had met each other on the starboard side.
The captain, picking up his stick off the table, marched into his

20.

state-room and shut the door after him. Franklin remained
still for a moment and then started slowly to go on deck.

But before he had time to reach the other end of the saloon
he heard himself the captain opened his door and called him by name. He turned
round. The captain was standing in the doorway of his state-
room. Franklin said, Yes, sir." But the captain,
silent, leaned a little forward grasping the door-handle. So
he, Franklin, walked aft keeping his eyes on him. When he
had come up quite close he said again, 'Yes, sir?' interroga-
ly. Still silence. The mate didn't like to be stared at in
that manner, a manner quite new in his captain, with a sort of
defiant and irregardless stare at his self-conscious, like
a man who feels ill and dares you to notice it. Something like
that. Franklin looked at the speaker.
He gazed at his captain, felt that there was something wrong,
and in his simplicity voiced his feelings by asking point-
blank:

"What's wrong, sir?"

"What? The captain gave a slight start, and the
character of his stare changed to a sort of sinister surprise.
Franklin grew very uncomfortable, but the captain asked negli-
gently:

22.

wickedness you find that to set it right is not so easy as it
looks ... Oh! I called you back to tell you that there will
be a lot of workmen, ~~joiners and all that~~ sent down on board
first thing to-morrow morning to start making alterations in
the cabin .... You will see to it that they don't loaf. There
isn't much time."

Franklin was impressed by this unexpected lecture
upon the wickedness of the solid world surrounded by the salt,
uncorruptible waters on which he and his captain had dwelt all
their lives in happy innocence and mutual amity. What he could
not understand was why it should have been delivered, and what
connection it could have with such a matter as the alterations
to be carried out in the cabin. The work did not seem to him
to be called for in such a hurry. What was the use of altering
anything? It was a very good accommodation — spacious, well-
distributed, on a rather old-fashioned plan and with its deco-
rations somewhat tarnished. But a dab of varnish, a touch of
gilding here and there, was all that was necessary. As to com-
fort, it could not be improved by any alterations. He re-
sented the notion of change; but he said dutifully that he
would keep his eye on the workmen if the captain would only
let him know what was the nature of the work he had ordered to

23.

be done.

"You'll find a note of it on this table. I'll leave it for you as I go ashore," said Captain Anthony hastily.

Franklin thought there was no more to hear, and made a movement to leave the saloon. But the captain continued after a slight pause, "You will be surprised, no doubt, when you look at it."

Yes, there'll be a good many alterations. It's on account of a lady coming with us. I am going to get married, Mr. Franklin."

24.

CHAPTER II.

YOUNG POWELL SEES & HEARS.

"You remember," went on Marlow, "how I feared
that Mr. Powell's want of experience would stand in his way
of appreciating the unusual. That was a needless fear. I
do not mean to credit him with a special gift of intuition;
I don't think he had it then - or has it even now. No. But the
unusual I had in my mind then was something of a very subtle
sort - the unusual in marital relations. I may well have
doubted the capacity of a young man too much concerned with
the creditable performance of his professional duties to ob-
serve what in the nature of things is not easily observable
in itself, and still less so under the special circumstances.
In the majority of ships a second officer has not many points
of contact with the captain's wife. He sits at the same
table with her at meals, generally speaking; he may now and
then be addressed more or less kindly on insignificant matters,
and have the opportunity to show her some small attentions on
depart. And that is all. Under such conditions, signs can
be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I am alluding

25.

now to troubles which are subtle often to the extent of not
being understood by the very hearts they devastate or uplift.

Yes, Mr. Powell, whom the chance of his name had
thrown upon the floating stage of that tragi-comedy would have
been perfectly useless for my purpose if the unusual of an ob-
vious kind had not aroused his attention from the first.

We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered
to his anxious desire to make a real start in his profession.
He had come on board breathless with the hurried winding up of
his shore affairs, accompanied by two horrible nightbirds,
escorted by a dock policeman on the make, received by an
asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make a noise
in the darkness of the passage because the captain and his
wife were already on board. That in itself was already some-
what unusual. Captains and their wives do not, as a rule,
join a moment sooner than is necessary. They prefer to spend
the last moments with their friends and relations. A ship in
one of London's older docks with their restrictions as to lights
and so on is not the place for a happy evening. Still, as
the tide served at six in the morning, one could understand
them coming on board the evening before.

26.

Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough to be quit of the shore. We know he was an orphan from a very early age, without brothers or sisters - no near relations of any kind, I believe, except that aunt who had quarrelled with his father. No affection stood in the way of the quiet satisfaction with which he thought that now all the worries were over, that there was nothing before him but duties, that he knew what he would have to do as soon as the dawn broke and for a long succession of days. A most soothing certitude. He enjoyed it in the dark, stretched out in his bunk with his new blankets pulled over him. Some clock ashore beyond the dock gates struck two. And then he heard nothing more, because he went off into a light sleep from which he woke up with a start. He had not taken his clothes off, it was hardly worth while. He jumped up and went on deck.

The morning was clear, colourless, grey overhead; the dock like a sheet of darkling glass crowded with upside-down reflections of warehouses, of hulls and masts of silent ships. Rare figures moved here and there on the distant quays. A knot of men stood alongside with clothes-bags and wooden chests at their feet. Others were coming down the

27.

lane between tall blind walls, surrounding a hand cart loaded
with more bags and boxes. It was the crew of the "Perndale."
They began to come on board. He scanned their faces as they
passed forward filling the roomy deck with the shuffle of their
footsteps and the murmur of voices, like the awakening to life
of a world about to be launched into space.

Far away down the clear glassy stretch in the middle
of the long dock Mr. Powell watched the tugs coming in quietly
through the open gates. A subdued firm voice behind him in=
terrupted this contemplation. It was Franklin, the thick chief
mate, who was addressing him with a watchful appraising stare
of his prominent black eyes: "You'd better take a couple of
these chaps with you and look out for her aft. We are going to
cast off."

"Yes, sir," Powell said with proper alacrity; but for
a moment they remained looking at each other fixedly. Some-
thing like a faint smile altered the set of the chief mate's
lips just before he moved off forward with his brisk step.

Mr. Powell, getting up on the poop, touched his cap to
Captain Anthony, who was there alone. He told us that it was only
then he saw his captain for the first time. The day before, in the
shipping office, what with the bad light and his excitement at

28.

this berth obtained as if by a brusque and unscrupulous
miracle, did not count. He had then seemed to him much
older and heavier. He was surprised at the lithe figure,
bread of shoulder, narrow at the hips, the fire of the a
eyes, the springiness of the walk. The captain gave him a
short steady stare, nodded slightly, and went on pacing the
poop of the ship with an air of not being aware of what
was going on, his head rigid, his movements rapid.

Powell stole several glances at him with a curiosity
very natural under the circumstances. He wore a short grey
jacket and a grey cap. In the light of the dawn, growing more
limpid rather than brighter, Powell noticed the slightly sunken
cheeks under the trimmed beard, the perpendicular fold on the
forehead, something hard and set about the mouth.

It was too early yet for the work to have begun in
the dock. The water gleamed placidly, no movement anywhere
on the long straight lines of the quays, no one about to be
seen except the few dock hands busy alongside the "Ferndale",
knowing their work, mostly silent or exchanging a few words
in low tones as if they, too, had been aware of that lady "who
mustn't be disturbed." The "Ferndale" was the only ship to

29.

leave that tide. The others seemed still asleep, without a
sound, and only here and there a figure, coming up on the fore-
castle, leaned on the rail to watch the proceedings idly.
Without trouble and fuss and almost without a sound was the
"Ferndale" leaving the land, almost as if stealing away. Even
the tugs, now with their engines stopped, were approaching her
without a ripple, the burly-looking paddle-boat sheering for-
ward, while the other, a screw, smaller and of slender shape,
made for her quarter so gently that she did not divide the
smooth water visibly, but seemed to glide on its surface as
if on a sheet of plate glass, a man in her bow, the master at
the wheel visible only from the waist upwards above the white
screen of the bridge, both of them so still-eyed as to fascinate
young Powell into a sort of curious self-forgetfulness and im-
mobility. He was steeped, sunk in the general quietness, re-
membering the statement 'she's a lady that mustn't be dis-
turbed', and repeating to himself idly: "No. She won't be
disturbed. She won't be disturbed." Then the first loud
words of that morning breaking that strange hush of departure
with a sharp hail: 'Look out for that line there,' made him
start. The line whizzed past his head, one of the sailors

50.

aft caught it, and there was an end to the fascination, to the
quietness of spirit which had stolen on him at the very moment
of departure. From that moment till two hours afterwards,
when the ship was brought up in one of the lower reaches of the
Thames off an apparently uninhabited shore, near some sort of
inlet where nothing but two anchored barges flying a red flag
could be seen, Powell was too busy to think of the lady 'that
mustn't be disturbed', or of his captain - or of anything else
unconnected with his immediate duties. In fact, he had no
occasion to go on the poop, or even look that way much; but
while the ship was about to anchor, casting his eyes in that
direction, he received an absurd impression that his captain
(he was up there, of course,) was sitting on both sides of the
aftermost skylight at once. He was too occupied to reflect
on this curious delusion, this phenomenon of seeing double
as though he had had a drop too much. He only smiled at
himself.

As often happens after a grey daybreak the sun had
risen in a warm and glorious splendour above the smooth immense
gleam of the enlarged estuary. Wisps of mist floated like
trails of luminous dust, and in the dazzling reflections of

31.

water and vapour, the shores had the murky semi-transparent
darkness of shadows cast mysteriously from below into all this
immense and silent display of sheen and glitter and radiance,
poured down miraculously from the pale-blue, cool, incandescence
of the sky.

Powell, who had sailed out of London all his young
seaman's life, told me that it was then, in a moment of en-
tranced vision an hour or so after sunrise that the river was
revealed to him for all time, like a fair face often seen before,
which is suddenly perceived to be the expression of an inner
and unsuspected beauty, of that something unique and only its
own, which rouses a passion of wonder and fidelity and an unap-
peasable memory of its charm. The hull of the *Ferndale* swung
head to the eastward, where it caught the light, her tall spars
and rigging steeped in a bath of red gold from the water-line
full of glitter to the trucks slight and gleaming against the
delicate expanse of the blue.

32.

"Time we had a mouthful to eat," said a voice at his side. It was Mr. Franklin, the chief mate, with his head sunk between his shoulders, and melancholy eyes. "Let the men have their breakfast, bo'sun," he went on, "and have the fire out in the galley in half an hour at the latest, so that we can call these barges of explosives alongside. Come along, young man.— I don't know your name. Haven't seen the captain, not to speak to, since yesterday afternoon when he rushed off to pick up a second mate somewhere. How did he get you?"

Young Powell, a little shy notwithstanding the friendly disposition of the other, answered him smilingly, aware somehow that there was something marked in this inquisitiveness, natural, after all— something anxious. His name was Powell, and he was put in the way of this berth by Mr. Powell, the shipping master. He blushed.

"Ah, I see. Well, you have been smart in getting ready. The ship-keeper, before he went away, told me you joined at one o'clock. I didn't sleep on board last night. Not I. There was a time when I never cared to leave this ship for more than a couple of hours in the evening, even when in London, but now, since ...... "

33.

He checked himself with a roll of his prominent eyes
towards that youngster, that stranger. Meantime, he was leading
the way across the quarter deck under the poop into the long
passage with the door of the saloon at the far end. It was
shut. But Mr. Franklin did not go so far. After passing the
pantry he opened suddenly a door on the left of the passage, to
Powell's great surprise.

"Our mess-room," he said, entering a small cabin
painted white, bare, lighted from part of the foremost skylight,
and furnished only with a table and two bench-like settees
with movable backs. "That surprises you? Well, it isn't
usual. And it wasn't so in this ship either, before. It's
only since

He checked himself again. "Yes. Here we shall feed,
you and I, facing each other for the next twelve months or
more. God knows how much more! The bo'sun keeps the deck at
meal times in fine weather."

"He talked not exactly wheezing, but like a man whose
breath is somewhat short, and the spirit (young Powell could not
help thinking) embittered by some mysterious grievance.

"There was enough of the unusual there to be recognised
even by Powell's inexperience. The officers kept out of the

34.

cabin against the custom of the service, and then this sort of
accent in the mate's talk. Franklin did not seem to expect
conversational ease from the new second mate. He made several
remarks about the old, deploring the accident. Awkward. Very
awkward this thing to happen on the very eve of sailing.

"/Collar-bone and arm/ broken," he sighed. "Sad, very sad. Did you notice if the captain was at all affected? Eh? Must have been."

"Before this congested face, these globular eyes turned
slowly yearningly upon him, young Powell, (one must keep in mind
he was but a youngster then) who could not remember any signs of
visible grief, confessed with an embarrassed laugh that, owing
to the suddenness of this lucky chance coming to him, he was not
in a condition to notice the state of other people."

"/I was so pleased to get a ship at last," he murmured,
further disconcerted by the sort of pent-up gravity in Mr.
Franklin's aspect.

"/One man's food another man's poison," the mate remarked. "That holds true beyond mere victuals. I suppose it didn't occur to you that it was a dam' poor way for a good man to be knocked out."

Mr. Powell admitted openly that he had not thought of

35.

that. He was ready to admit that it was very reprehensible
of him. But Franklin had no intention apparently to moralize.
He did not fall silent either. His further remarks were to
the effect that there had been a time when Captain Anthony
would have showed more than enough concern for the least thing
happening to one of his officers. Yes, there had been a time

"And mind," he went on, laying down suddenly a half-
consumed piece of bread and butter and raising his voice, "poor
Mathews was the second man the longest on board. I was the
first. He joined a month later - about the same time as the
steward by a few days. The bo'sun and the carpenter came the
voyage after. Steady men. Still here. No good man need
ever have thought of leaving the Ferndale unless he were a
fool. Some good men are fools. Don't know when they are
well off. I mean the best of good men; men that you would
do anything for. They go on for years, then all of a sudden-"

"Our young friend listened to the mate with interest
but with a queer sense of discomfort growing on him. For it
was as though Mr. Franklin were thinking aloud, and putting
him into the delicate position of an unwilling eavesdropper.
But there was in the mess-room another listener. It was the

36.

steward who had come in carrying a tin coffee-pot with a long
handle, and stood quietly by: a man with a middle-aged, sallow
face, long features, heavy eyelids, a soldierly grey moustache.
His body encased in a short black jacket with narrow sleeves,
his long legs in very tight trousers, made up an agile, youthful,
slender figure. He moved forward suddenly, and interrupted
the mate's monologue.

"More coffee, Mr. Franklin? Nice fresh lot. Piping
hot. I am going to give breakfast to the cabin directly, and
the cook is raking his fire out. Now's your chance."

The mate who, on account of his peculiar build, could
not turn his head freely, twisted his thick trunk slightly, and
ran his black eyes in the corners towards the steward.

"And is the precious pair of them out?" he growled.

The steward, pouring out the coffee into the mate's
cup, muttered moodily but distinctly: "The lady wasn't when I
was laying the table."

Powell's ears were fine enough to detect something
hostile in this reference to the captain's wife. For of what
other person could they be speaking? The steward added with
a gloomy sort of fairness: "But she will be before I bring the
dishes in. She never gives that sort of trouble. That she

37.

doesn't.'

"No. Not in that way," Mr. Franklin agreed, and then both he and the steward, after glancing at Powell - the stranger to the ship - said nothing more.

But this had been enough to rouse his curiosity. Curiosity is natural to man. Of course it was not a malevolent curiosity which, if not exactly natural, is to be met fairly frequently in men and perhaps more frequently in women - especially if a woman be in question; and that woman under a cloud, in a manner of speaking. For under a cloud Flora de Barral was fated to be even at sea. Yes, even that sort of darkness which attends a woman for whom there is no clear place in the world hung over her. Yes. Even at sea!

And this is the pathos of being a woman. A man can struggle to get a place for himself or perish. But a woman's part is passive, say what you like, and shuffle the facts of the world as you may, hinting at lack of energy, of wisdom, of courage. As a matter of fact, almost all women have all that of their own kind. But they cannot help it. They are not made

38.

for attack. Wait they must. I am speaking here of women who
are really women. And it's no use talking of opportunities,
either. I know that some of them do talk of it. But not the
genuine women. Those know better. Nothing can beat a true
woman for a clear vision of reality; I would say a cynical
vision, if I were not afraid of wounding your chivalrous feelings
for which, by the bye, women are not so grateful as you may
think, to fellows of your kind."

"Upon my word, Marlow," I cried, "what are you flying
out at me for like this? I wouldn't use an ill-sounding word
about women, but what right have you to imagine that I am look-
ing for gratitude?"

Marlow raised a soothing hand.

"There! There! I take back the ill-sounding word,
with the remark, though, that cynicism seems to me a word in-
vented by hypocrites. But let that pass. As to women, they
know that the clamour for opportunities for them to become some-
thing which they cannot be, is as reasonable as if mankind at
large started asking for opportunities of winning immortality
in this world, in which death is the very condition of life.
You must understand that I am not talking here of material

39.

existence. That naturally is implied; but you won't maintain
that a woman who, say, enlisted, for instance, (there have been
cases) has conquered her place in the world. She has only
got her living in it - which is quite meritorious, but not
quite the same thing.

All these reflections which arise from my picking
up the thread of Flora de Barral's existence did not, I am
certain, present themselves to Mr. Powell - not the Mr. Powell
we know taking solitary week-end cruises in the estuary of the
Thames (with mysterious dashes into lonely creeks) - but to the
young Mr. Powell, the chance second officer of the ship Fern-
dale, commanded (and for the most part owned) by Roderick
Anthony, the son of the poet - you know. A Mr. Powell, who
can imagine him much slenderer than our robust friend is now,
with the bloom of innocence not quite rubbed off his smooth
cheeks, and apt not only to be interested but also to be sur-
prised by the experience life was holding in store for him.
This would account for his remembering so much of it with con-
siderable vividness. For instance, the impressions attending
his first breakfast on board the 'Ferndale', both visual and
mental, were as fresh to him as if received yesterday.

The surprise, it is easy to understand, would arise

40

from the inability to interpret aright the signs which ex-
perience (a thing mysterious in itself) makes to our under-
standing and emotions. For it is never more than that. Our
experience never gets into our blood and bones. It always
remains outside of us. That's why so often we look with
wonder at the past. And this persists even when from practice
and through growing callousness of fibre we come to the point
when nothing that we meet in that rapid blinking stumble across
a flick of sunshine -- which our life is -- nothing, I say, which
we run against surprises us any more. Not at the time, I mean.
If, later on, we recover the faculty with some such exclamation:
'Well! Well! I'll be hanged if I ever ....', it is probably
because this very thing that there should be a past to look
back upon, other people's, is very astounding in itself when
one has the time, a fleeting and immense instant to think of
it ...

I was on the point of interrupting Marlow when he
stopped of himself, his eyes fixed on vacancy, or -- perhaps --
(I wouldn't be too hard on him) on a vision. He has that
habit, or, say, that fault, of defective mantelpiece clocks,
of suddenly stopping in the very fulness of the tick. If you
have ever lived with a clock afflicted with that perversity,

41.

you know how vexing it is - such a stoppage. I was vexed with Marlow. He was smiling faintly while I waited, and that was irritating. He even laughed a little. And then I said acidly:

"Am I to understand that you have ferreted out something comic in the history of Flora de Barral?"

"Comic!" he exclaimed. "No! What makes you say?.... Oh, I laughed - did I? But don't you know that people laugh at absurdities that are very far from being comic? Didn't you read the latest books about laughter written by philosophers, psychologists? There is a lot of them ..."

"I dare say there has been a lot of nonsense written about laughter - and tears, too, for that matter -" I said impatiently.

"They say," pursued the unabashed Marlow, "that we laugh from a sense of superiority. Therefore, observe, simplicity, honesty, warmth of feeling, delicacy of heart and of conduct, self-confidence, magnanimity are laughed at, because the presence of these traits in a man's character often puts him into difficult, cruel or absurd situations, and makes us, the majority who are fairly free as a rule from these peculiarities, feel pleasantly superior."

42.

"Speak for yourself," I said. "But have you discovered all these fine things in the story; or has Mr. Powell discovered them to you in his artless talk? Have you two been having good healthy laughs together? Come! Are your sides aching yet, Marlow?"

Marlow took no offence at my banter. He was quite serious.

"I should not like to say off-hand how much of that there was," he pursued with amusing caution. "But there was a situation, tense enough for the signs of it to give many surprises to Mr. Powell - neither of them shocking in itself, but with a cumulative effect which made the whole unforgettable in the detail of its progress. And the first surprise came very soon, when the explosives (to which he owed his sudden chance of engagement) - dynamite in cases and blasting powder in barrels - taken on board, main hatch battened for sea, cook restored to his functions in the galley, anchor fished and the tug ahead, rounding the South Foreland, and with the sun sinking clear and red down the purple vista of the channel, he went on the poop, on duty, it is true, but with time to take the first freer breath in the busy day of departure. The pilot was still on

43.

board, who gave him first a silent glance, and then passed an insignificant remark before resuming his lounging to and fro between the steering wheel and the binnACLE. Powell took his station modestly at the break of the PoOP. He had noticed across the skylight a head in a grey cap. But when, after a time, he crossed over to the other side of the deck he discovered that it was not the captain's head at all. He became aware of grey hairs curling over the nape of the neck. How could he have made that mistake? But on board ship away from the land one does not expect to come upon a stranger.

Powell walked past, A thin, somewhat sunken face, with a tightly closed mouth, stared across the channel misty at the distant French coast, vague like a suggestion of solid darkness, lying abeam beyond the evening light reflected from the level waters, themselves growing more sombre than the sky; a stare across which Powell had to pass and did pass with a quick side glance, noting its immovable stillness, This passage disturbed those eyes no more than if he had been as immaterial as a ghost. And this failure of his person in producing an impression affected him strangely. Who could that old man be?

He was so curious that he even ventured to ask the

44.

pilot in a low voice. The pilot turned out to be a good-natured specimen of his kind, condescending, sententious. He had been down to his meals in the main cabin, and had something to impart.

"That? Queer fish eh? Mrs. Anthony's father. I've been introduced to him in the cabin at breakfast time. Name of Smith. Wonder if he has all his wits about him. They take him about with them, it seems. Don't look very happy - eh?"

Then, changing his tone abruptly, he desired Powell to get all hands on deck and sail on the ship. "I shall be leaving you in half an hour. You'll have plenty of time to find out all about the old gent," he added with a thick laugh.

"In the secret emotion of giving his first order as a fully responsible officer of a ship, young Powell forgot the very existence of that old man in a moment. The following days, in the interest of getting in touch with the ship, with the men in her, with his duties, in the rather anxious period of settling

45

down, his curiosity slumbered; for of course the pilot's few
words had not extinguished it.

This settling down was made easy for him by
the friendly character of his immediate superior - the
chief Powell could not defend himself from some sympathy
for that thick, bald man, comically shaped, with his
crimson complexion and something pathetic in the rolling
of his very movable black eyes in an apparently immovable
head, who was so tactfully ready to take his competency
for granted.

There can be nothing more reassuring to a
young man tackling his life's work for the first time.
Mr. Powell, his mind at ease about himself, had time to
observe the people around with friendly interest. Very
early in the beginning of the passage, he had discovered
with some amusement that the marriage of Captain Anthony
was resented by those to whom Powell (conscious of being
looked upon as something of an outsider) referred in his
mind as 'the old lot.'

They had the funny, regretful glances, intonations,
nods of men who had seen other, better times. What difference
it could have made to the bo'sun and the carpenter Powell
could not very well understand. Yet these two pulled long faces
and even gave hostile glances to the popo. The cook and the
steward might have been more directly affected. But the

46.

steward used to remark on occasion, "Oh, she gives no extra
trouble," with scrupulous fairness of the most gloomy kind.
He was rather a silent man with a great sense of his personal
worth which made his speeches guarded. The cook, a neat man
with fair side whiskers, who had been only three years in the
ship, seemed the least affected. He was even known to have
inquired once or twice as to the success of some of his dishes
with the captain's wife. This was considered a sort of disloyal
falling away from the ruling feeling.

The mate's annoyance was yet the easiest to understand.
As he let it out to Powell before the first week of the passage
was over: "You can't expect me to be pleased at being chucked
out of the saloon as if I weren't good enough to sit down to
meat with that woman." But he hastened to add: "Don't you
think I'm blaming the captain. He isn't a man to be found fault
with. You, Mr. Powell, are too young yet to understand such
matters."

Some considerable time afterwards, at the end of a
conversation of that aggrieved sort, he enlarged a little more
by repeating: "Yes! You are too young to understand these things.
I don't say you haven't plenty of sense. You are doing very
well here. Jolly sight better than I expected, though I liked

47.

your looks from the first.'

It was in the trade-winds, at night, under a velvety,~~
bespangled sky; a great multitude of stars watching the shadows
of the sea gleaming mysteriously in the wake of the ship; while
the leisurely swishing of the water to leeward was like a
drowsy comment on her progress. Mr. Powell expressed his
satisfaction by a half-bashful laugh. The mate mused on: "And
of course you haven't known the ship as she used to be. She
was more than a home to a man. She was not like any other
ship; and Captain Anthony was not like any other master to sail
with. Neither is she now. But before one never had a care
in the world as to her, and as to him, too. No, indeed, there
was never anything to worry about."

Young Powell couldn't see what there was to worry about
even then. The serenity of the peaceful night seemed as vast
as all space, and as enduring as eternity itself. It's true
the sea is an uncertain element, but no sailor remembers this
in the presence of its bewitching power any more than a lover
ever thinks of the proverbial inconstancy of women. And Mr.
Powell, being young, thought naively that the captain being
married, there could be no occasion for anxiety as to his con-
dition. I suppose that to him life, perhaps not so much his

48.

own as that of others, was something still in the nature of
a fairy-tale with a 'they lived happy ever after' termination.
We are the creatures of our light literature much more than is
generally suspected in a world which prides itself on being
scientific and practical, and in possession of incontrovertible
theories. Powell felt in that way the more because the cap-
tain of a ship at sea is a remote, inaccessible creature, some-
thing like a prince of a fairy tale, alone of his kind, de-
pending on nobody, nor to be called to account, except by powers
practically invisible, and so distant that they might well be
looked upon as supernatural, for all that the rest of the crew
knows of them, as a rule.

So he did not understand the aggrieved attitude of the
mate, or rather he understood it obscurely as a result of
simple causes which did not seem to him adequate. He would
have dismissed all this out of his mind with a contemptuous:
'What the devil do I care?' if the captain's wife herself had
not been so young. To see her the first time had been some-
thing of a shock to him. He had some preconceived ideas as
to captain's wives which, while he did not believe the testimony
of his eyes, made him open them very wide. He had stared
till the captain's wife noticed it plainly and turned her face

49.

away. Captain's wife! That girl covered with rugs in a long
chair. Captain's ..... ! He gasped mentally. It had never
occurred to him that a captain's wife could be anything but a
woman to be described as stout or thin, as jolly or crabbed, but
always mature and even, in comparison with his own years, frankly
old. But this! It was a sort of moral upset as though he had
discovered a case of abduction or something as surprising as
that. You understand that nothing is more disturbing than the
upsetting of a preconceived idea. Each of us arranges the
world according to his own notion of the fitness of things.
To behold a girl where your average mediocre imagination had
placed a comparatively old woman may easily become one of the
strongest shocks ...

Marlow paused, smiling to himself.

"Powell remained impressed after all these years by
the very recollection," he continued in a voice, amused perhaps
but not mocking. "He said to me only the other day with some-
thing like the first awe of that discovery lingering in his
tone - he said to me: "Why, she seemed so young, so girlish,
that I looked round for some woman which would be the captain's
wife, though of course I knew there was no other woman on board
that voyage." The voyage before, it seems, there had been the

50.

steward's wife to act as maid to Mrs. Anthony; but she was not
taken that time for some reason he didn't know. Mrs. Anthony...!
If it hadn't been the captain's wife he would have referred to
her mentally as a kid, he said. I suppose there must be a sort
of divinity hedging in a captain's wife (however incredible)
which prevented him applying to her that contemptuous definition
in the secret of his thoughts.

I asked him when this had happened; and he told me
that it was three days after parting from the ship, just outside
the channel to be precise. A head wind had set in with un-
pleasant damp weather. He had come up to leeward of the poop,
still feeling very much of a stranger, and an untried officer,
at six in the evening to take his watch. To see her was quite
as unexpected as seeing a vision. When she turned away her
head he recollected himself and dropped his eyes. What he
could see then was only, close to the long chair on which she
reclined, a pair of long, thin legs ending in black cloth boots
tucked in close to the skylight seat. Whence he concluded that
the 'old gentleman', who wore a grey cap like the captain's, was
sitting by his daughter. In his first astonishment he
had stopped dead short, with the consequence that now he felt
very much abashed at having betrayed his surprise. But he

51.

couldn't very well turn tail and bolt off the poop. He had
come there on duty. So, still with downcast eyes, he made his
way past them. Only when he got as far as the wheel-grating
did he look up. She was hidden from him by the back of her
deck-chair; but he had the view of the owner of the thin, aged
legs seated on the skylight, his clean-shaved cheek, his thin
compressed mouth with a hollow in each corner, the thin grey
locks escaping from under the tweed cap, and curling slightly
on the collar of the coat. He leaned forward a little over
Mrs. Anthony, but they were not talking. Captain Anthony,
walking with a springy hurried gait on the other side of the
poop from end to end, gazed straight before him. Young
Powell might have thought that his captain was not aware of
his presence either. However, he knew better, and for that
reason spent a most uncomfortable hour motionless by the com-
pass before his captain stopped in his swift pacing and with an
almost visible effort made some remark to him about the weather
in a low voice. Before Powell, who was startled, could find
a word of answer, the captain swung off again on his endless
tramp with a fixed gaze. And till the supper bell rang
silence dwelt over that poop like an evil spell. The captain
walked up and down looking straight before him, the helmsman

52.

steered, looking upwards at the sails, the old gent on the skylight looked down on his daughter—and Mr. Powell confessed to me that he didn't know where to look, feeling as though he had blundered somewhere he had no business to go into. The old man was absurd. At last he fastened his eyes on the compass card, took refuge, in spirit, as it were, inside the binnACLE. He felt chilled more than he should have been by the chill dusk falling on the muddy green sea of the soundings from a smoothly clouded sky. A fitful wind swept the cheerless waste, and the ship, hauled up so close as to check her way, seemed to progress by a few yards against the short seas which swept along her sides with a snarling sound.

Young Powell thought that this was the dreariest evening aspect of the sea he had ever seen. He was glad when the other occupants of the poem left it at the sound of the bell. The captain first, with a sudden swerve in his walk towards the companion, and not even looking once towards his wife and his wife's father. Those two got up and moved towards the companion, the old man very erect, his thin locks stirring gently about the nape of his neck, and carrying the rugs over his arm. The girl who was Mrs. Anthony went down

53.

first. The murky twilight had settled in a deep shadow on her
face. She looked at Mr. Powell in passing. He thought that
she was very pale. Cold perhaps. The old gent stopped a
moment, thin and stiff, before the young man, and in a voice
which was low but distinct enough, and without any particular
accent - not even of inquiry - he said:

"You are the new second officer, I believe."

Powell answered in the affirmative, wondering
if this were a friendly overture, or the proof of an almost
incredibly unobservant disposition. He had noticed that Mr.
Smith's eyes had a sort of inward look as though he had disliked
or disdained his surroundings. The captain's wife had disappeared
then down the companion stairs. Mr. Smith said 'Ah!'
and waited a little longer to put another question in his in-
curious voice.

"And did you know the man who was here before you?"

"No," said young Powell, "I didn't know anybody be-
longing to this ship before I joined."

"He was much older than you. Twice your age. Per-
haps more. His hair was iron grey. Yes. Certainly more."

"The low, repressed voice paused, but the old man did
not move away. He added: "Isn't it unusual?"

54.

"Mr. Powell was surprised not only by being engaged in conversation, but also by its character. It might have been the suggestion of the word uttered by this old man, but it was distinctly at that moment that he became aware of something unusual not only in this encounter but generally around him, about everybody, in the atmosphere. The very sea, with short flashes of foam bursting out here and there in the gloomy distances, the unchangeable, safe sea sheltering a man from all passions, except its own anger, seemed queer to the quick glance he threw to windward where the already effaced horizon traced no reassuring limit to the eye. In the expiring, diffused twilight, and before the clouded night dropped its mysterious veil, it was the immensity of space made visible — almost palpable. Young Powell felt it. He felt it in the sudden sense of his isolation; the trustworthy, powerful ship of his first acquaintance reduced to a speck, to something almost undistinguishable, the mere support for the soles of his two feet before that unexpected old man becoming so suddenly articulate in a darkening universe."

It took him a moment or so to seize the drift of the question. He repeated slowly: "Unusual ... Oh, you mean for an elderly man to be the second of a ship. I don't know.

55.

There are a good many of us who don't get on. He didn't get on, I suppose."

The other, his head bowed a little, had the air of listening with acute attention.

"And now he has been taken to the hospital," he said.

"I believe so. Yes. I remember Captain Anthony saying so in the shipping office."

"Possibly about to die," went on the old man, in his careful deliberate tone. "And perhaps glad enough to die."

Mr. Powell was young enough to be startled at the suggestion, which sounded confidential and blood-curdling in the dusk. He said sharply that it was not very likely, as if defending the absent victim of the accident from an unkind aspersion. He felt, in fact, indignant. The other man in the room emitted a short stifled laugh of a conciliatory nature. The second bell rang under the poop. He made a movement at the sound, but lingered.

"It was not meant seriously," he murmured, with that strange air of fearing to be overheard. "Not in this case. I know the man."

The occasion, or rather the want of occasion, for this

56.

conversation, and also its character, had sharpened the perceptions of the unsophisticated second officer of the "Fern-dale." He was alive to the slightest shade of tone, and felt as if this "I know the man" should have been followed by a "He was no friend of mine." But after the shortest possible break the old gentleman continued to murmur distinctly and evenly:

"Whereas you have never seen him. Nevertheless, when you have gone through as many years as I have, you will understand how an event putting an end to one's existence may not be altogether unwelcome. Of course there are stupid accidents. And even then one needn't be very angry. What is it to be deprived of life? It's soon done. But what would you think of the feelings of a man who should have had his life stolen from him? Cheated out of it, I say !"

He ceased abruptly, and remained still long enough for the astonished young man to stammer out an indistinct: "What do you mean? I don't understand." Then, with a low murmur, "Good night" glided a few steps, and sank through the shadow of the companion into the lamp-light below which did not reach higher than the turn of the staircase.

The strange words, the cautious tone, the whole person left a strong uneasiness in the mind of Mr. Powell.

57.

He started walking the poop in great mental confusion. He felt all adrift. That was funny talk and no mistake. And this cautious low tone as though he were watched by someone was more than funny. The young second officer hesitated to break the established rule of every ship's discipline; but at last could not resist the temptation of getting hold of some other human being, and spoke to the man at the wheel.

"Did you hear what this gentleman was saying to me?"

"No, sir," answered the sailor quietly. Then, encouraged by this evidence of laxity in his officer, made bold to add, "A queer fish, sir." This was tentative, and Mr. Powell, busy with his own view, not saying anything, he ventured farther. "They are more like passengers. One sees some queer passengers."

"Who are like passengers?" asked Powell gruffly.

"Why, these two, sir."

58.

CHAPTER III.
LIGHT
DEVOTED SERVANTS - AND THE MANNINGS OF A FLARE.

Young Powell thought to himself: "The men, too, are noticing it." Indeed, the captain's behaviour to his wife and to his wife's father was noticeable enough. It was as if they had been a pair of not very congenial passengers. But perhaps it was not always like that. The captain might have been put out by something.

When the aggrieved Franklin came on deck Mr. Powell made a remark to that effect. For his curiosity was aroused.

The mate grumbled "Seems to you?.... Put out....eh?"
He buttoned his thick jacket up to the throat, and only then
added a gloomy "Aye, likely enough," which discouraged
further conversation. But no encouragement would have in-
duced the newly-joined second mate to enter the way of confi-
dences. His was an instinctive prudence. Powell did not know
why it was he had resolved to keep his own counsel as to his
colloquy with Mr. Smith. But his curiosity was also aroused.
Some time afterwards, again at the relief of watches, in the
course of a little talk, he mentioned Mrs. Anthony's father

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quite casually, and tried to find out from the mate who he was.

"It would take a clever man to find that out, as things are on board now," Mr. Franklin said, unexpectedly communicative.

"The first I knew of him was when she brought him alongside in a four-wheeler ~~one morning~~ car about half past eleven. The captain had come on board early, and was down in his cabin that had been fitted out for him. Did I tell you that if you want the captain for anything you must stamp on the port side of the deck? That's so. This ship is not only unlike what she used to be, but she is like no other ship, anyhow. Did you ever hear of the captain's room being on the port side? Both of them stern cabins have been fitted up afresh like a blessed palace. A gang of people from some tip-top West-end house were fussing here on board with hangings and furniture for a fortnight, as if the Queen were coming with us. Of course the starboard cabin is the bedroom one, but the poor captain hangs out to port on a couch, so that in case we want him on deck at night, Mrs. Anthony should not be startled. Nervous! Phoo! A woman who marries a sailor and makes up her mind to come to sea should have no blamed jumpiness about her, I say. But never mind. Directly the old cab pointed round the corner of the warehouse

60.

I called out to the captain that his lady was coming aboard.
He answered me, but as I didn't see him coming, I went down the
gangway myself to help her alight. She jumped out excitedly
without touching my arm, or as much as saying "thank you" or
"good morning" or anything, turns back to the cab, and then that
old joker comes out slowly. I hadn't noticed him inside.

I hadn't expected to see anybody. It gave me a start. She
says: "My father - Mr. Franklin." He was staring at me like
an owl. "How do you do?" says I. Both of them looked funny.
It was as if something had happened to them on the way.

Neither of them moved, and I stood by waiting. The captain
showed himself on the poop; and I saw him at the side looking
over, and then he disappeared; on the way to meet them on
shore, I expected. But it wasn't he just went down below again.

So, not seeing him come, I said: "Let me help you on board,
sir." "On board!" says he in a silly fashion. "On board!" "
"It's not a very good ladder, but it's quite firm," says I,
as he seemed to be afraid of it. And he didn't look a broken-
down old man, either. You can see yourself what he is.

Straight as a poker, and life enough in them yet. But he made
no move, and I began to feel foolish. Then she comes forward.
"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Franklin. I'll help my father up."

61.

Flabbergasted me — to be choked off like this. Pushed in between him and me without as much as a look my way. So of course I dropped it. What do you think? I fell back. I would have gone up on board at once and left them on the quay to come up or stay there till next week, only they were blocking the way. I couldn't very well shove them on one side.

~~They were chokes~~, the devil only knows what was up between them. There she was, pale as death, as she always was, talking to him very fast. He got as red as a turkey-cock — dash me if he didn't.

~~Anger, of course~~. A bad-tempered red old bloke, I can tell you. And a bad lot, too. Never mind. I couldn't hear what she was saying to him, but she put force enough into it to shake her. It seemed — it seemed, mind! — that he didn't want to go on board. Of course it couldn't have been that.

I know better. Well, she took him by the arm, above the elbow, as if to lead him, or push him rather. I was standing not quite ten feet off. Why should I have gone away? I was anxious to get back on board as soon as they would let me. As I have told you, I couldn't hear her. She whispered, whispered. What the devil! she found to talk about in whispers so long beats me. I didn't want to overhear her blamed whispering either. But I couldn't stay there for ever, so I made a move

62.

to get past them if I could. And that's how I heard a few
words. It was the old chap, and he was fairly unarmed. To be
forgiven was one thing he said, and then something nasty
about being "under the heel" of somebody or other. Then he
says, "I don't want this sacrifice." What it meant I can't
tell. It was a quarrel - of that I am certain. She looks
over her shoulder, and sees me pretty close to them. I don't
know what she found to say into his ear, but he gave way sud-
denly. He looked round at me too, and they went up together
so quickly then that when I got on the quarter-deck I was only
in time to see the inner door of the passage close after them.
Queer - eh? But if it were only queerness one wouldn't mind.
Some luggage in new trunks came on board in the afternoon. We
unlocked at midnight. And may I be hanged if I know who or
what he was or is. I haven't been able to find out. No, I
don't know. He may have been anything. All I know that once,
years ago, when I went to see the Derby with a friend I saw a
pea-and thimble chap who looked just like that old mystery
father out of a cab."

All this the goggle-eyed mate had said in a resentful
and melancholy voice, with pauses, to the gentle murmur of the

63

sea. It was for him a bitter sort of pleasure to have a fresh
pair of ears, a newcomer, to whom he could repeat all these
matters of grief and suspicion talked over endlessly by the
band of Captain Anthony's faithful subordinates. It was
evidently so refreshing to his worried spirit that it made him
forget the advisability of a little caution with a complete
stranger. But really with Mr. Powell there was no danger.

Amuse, at first, amuse at these plaints, he provoked them for fun.

Afterwards, turning them over in his mind, he became impressed;
and as the impression grew stronger with the days his resolution
to keep it to himself grew stronger too.

Drop
3 lines
here

What made it all the easier to keep - I mean the
resolution - was that Powell's sentiment of amused surprise at what
struck him at first as mere absurdity was not unmingled with
indignation. And his years were too few, his position too
novel, his reliance on his own opinion not yet firm enough to
allow him to express it with any effect. And then what would
have been the use, anyhow - and where was the necessity?

But this thing, familiar and mysterious at the same

64.

time, occupied his imagination. The solitude of the sea intensifies the thoughts and the facts of one's experience which seems to lie at the very centre of the world, as the ship which carries one always remains the centre figure of the round horizon. He viewed the apoplectic, goggle-eyed mate and the saturnine, heavy-eyed steward as the victims of a peculiar and secret form of lunacy which poisoned their lives. But he did not give them his sympathy on that account. No. That strange affliction awakened in him a sort of suspicious wonder.

Once - and it was at night again; for the officers of the *Ferndale* keeping watch and watch as was customary in those days, had but few occasions for intercourse - once, I say, the thick Mr. Franklin, a quaintly *bulky* figure under the stars, the usual witnesses of his outpourings, asked him with an abruptness which was not callous, but in his simple way:

"I believe you have no parents living?"

Mr. Powell said that he had lost his father and mother at a very early age.

"My mother is still alive," declared Mr. Franklin in a tone which suggested that he was gratified by the fact. "The old lady is lasting well. Of course she's got to be made

65.

comfortable. A woman must be looked after, and, if it comes
to that, I say, give me a mother. I daresay if she had not
lasted it out so well I might have gone and got married. I
don't know, though. We sailors haven't got much time to
look about us to any purpose. Anyhow, as the old lady was
there I haven't, I may say, looked at a girl in all my life.
Not that I wasn't partial to female society in my time," he
added with a pathetic intonation, while the whites of his
_glassy_ eyes gleamed amorously under the clear night sky.
"Very partial, I may say."

Mr. Powell was amused; and as these communications
took place only when the mate was relieved off duty he had no
serious objection to them. The mate's presence made the first
half hour and sometimes even more of his watch on deck pass
away. If his senior did not mind losing some of his rest
it was not Mr. Powell's affair. Franklin was a decent fellow.
His intention was not to boast of his filial piety.

"Of course I mean respectable female society," he ex-
plained. "The other sort is neither here nor there. I would
blame no man but a well-brought-up young fellow like you
who doesn't know that there's precious little fun to be got out of
it." He fetched a deep sigh. "I wish Captain Anthony's

66.

mother had been a lasting sort like my old lady. He would
have had to look after her and he would have done it well.
Captain Anthony is a proper man. And it would have saved him
from the most foolish —

He did not finish the phrase which certainly was
turning bitter in his mouth. Mr. Powell thought to himself
"There he goes again." He laughed a little.

"I don't understand why you are so hard on the captain, Mr. Franklin." I thought you were a great friend of his."

Mr. Franklin exclaimed at this. He was not hard on
the captain. Nothing was further from his thoughts. Friend!
Of course he was a good friend and a faithful servant. He
begged Powell to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to
strike a bargain with Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were
good to the captain, Franklin would find it in his heart to
love Old Nick for the captain's sake. That was so. On the
other hand, if a saint, an angel with white wings came along
and —

"He broke off short again as if his own vehemence had
frightened him. Then in his strained pathetic voice (which
he had never raised) he observed that it was no use talking.
Anybody could see that the man was changed.

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"As to that," I said young Powell, "it is impossible
for me to judge."

"Good Lord!" whispered the mate. "An educated,
clever young fellow like you with a pair of eyes on him and
some sense too! Is that how a happy man looks? Eh? Young
you may be, but you aren't a kid; and I dare you to say: 'Yes!'"

Mr. Powell did not take up the challenge. He did
not know what to think of the mate's view. Still, it seemed
as if it had opened his understanding in a measure. He con-
ceded that the captain did not look very well.

"Not very well," repeated the mate mournfully. "Do
you think a man with a face like that can hope to live his life
out? You haven't knocked about long in this world yet, but
you are a sailor, you have been in three or four ships, you say.
Well, have you ever seen a shipmaster walking his own deck as
if he did not know what he had underfoot? Have you? Dam'me
if I don't think that he forgets where he is. Of course he
can be no other than a prime seaman; but it's lucky, all the
same, he has me on board. I know by this time what he wants
done without being told. Do you know that I have had no order
given me since we left port? Do you know that he has never
once opened his lips to me unless I spoke to him first? I?

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His chief officer; his shipmate for full six years, with whom he
had no cross word — not once in all that time. Aye. Not a
cross look even. True, that
is his dear old self, the quick eye, the kind voice. Could
hardly be other to his old Franklin. But what's the good?
Eyes, voice, everything's miles away. And for all that I take
good care never to address him when the poop isn't clear. Yes!
Only we two and nothing but the sea with us. You think it would
be all right; the only chief mate he ever had — Mr. Franklin
here and Mr. Franklin there — when anything went wrong the first
word you would hear about the decks was 'Franklin!' I am
thirteen years older than he is — you would think it would be
all right, wouldn't you? Only we two on this poop on which
we saw each other first — he a young master — told me that he
thought I would suit him very well — we two, and thirty-one days
out at sea, and it's no good! It's like talking to a man
standing on shore. I can't get him back. I can't get at him.
I feel sometimes as if I must shake him by the arm: 'Wake up!
Wake up! You are wanted, sir ..... !'

Young Powell recognised the expression of a true sentiment, a thing so rare in this world where there are so many

69.

mutes and so many excellent reasons even at sea for an articulate
man not to give himself away, that he felt something like re-
spect for this outburst. It was not loud. The grotesque
squat shape, with the knob of the head as if rammed down be-
tween the square shoulders by a blow from a club, moved vaguely
in a circumscribed space limited by the two harness-casks lashed
to the front rail of the poop, without gestures, hands in the
pockets of the jacket, elbows pressed closely to its side; and
the voice without resonance, passed from anger to dismay and
back again without a single louder word in the hurried delivery,
interrupted only by slight gasps for air as if the speaker
were being chocked by the suppressed passion of his grief.

Mr. Powell, though moved to a certain extent, was by
no means carried away, and just as he thought it was
all over, the other, fidgetting in the darkness, was heard again
explosive, bewildered, but not very loud in the silence of the
ship and the great empty peace of the sea.

"They have done something to him! What is it? What can it be? Can't you guess? Don't you know?"

"Good heavens!" Young Powell was astounded on dis-
covering that this was an appeal addressed to him. "How
on earth can I know?"

70.

"You do talk to that white-faced, black-eyed ... I've seen you talking to her more than a dozen times."

"Young Powell, his sympathy suddenly chilled, remarked in a disdainful tone that Mrs. Anthony's eyes were not black.

"I wish to God she had never set them on the captain, whatever colour they are," retorted Franklin. "She and that old chap with the scraped jaws who sits over her and stares down at her dead-white face with his yellow eyes — confound them! Perhaps you will tell us that his eyes are not yellow?"

"Powell, not interested in the colour of Mr. Smith's eyes, made a vague gesture. Yellow or not yellow, it was all one to him."

"The mate murmured to himself: "No. He can't know. No! No more than a baby. It would take an older head."

"I don't even understand what you mean," observed Mr. Powell coldly.

"And even the best head would be puzzled by such devil-work," the mate continued, muttering. "Well, I have heard tell of women doing for a man in one way or another when they got him fairly ashore. But to bring their devilry to sea and fasten on such a man! It's something I can't

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understand. But I can watch. Let them look out - I say!"

"His short figure, unable to stoop, without flexibility, could not express dejection. He was very tired suddenly; he dragged his feet going off the poop. Before he left it with nearly an hour of his watch below sacrificed, he addressed himself once more to our young man who stood abreast of the mizzen rigging in an unreceptive mood expressed by silence and immobility. He did not regret, he said, having spoken openly on this very serious matter."

"I don't know about its seriousness, sir," was Mr. Powell's frank answer. "But if you think you have been telling me something very new you are mistaken. You can't keep that matter out of your speeches. It's the sort of thing I've been hearing more or less ever since I came on board."

"Mr. Powell, speaking truthfully, did not mean to speak offensively. He had instincts of wisdom; he felt that this was a serious affair, for it had nothing to do with reason. He did not want to raise an enemy for himself in the mate. And Mr. Franklin did not take offence. To Mr. Powell's truthful statement he answered with equal truth and simplicity that it was very likely, very likely. With a thing like that

72.

(next door to witch-craft almost) weighing on his mind, the
wonder was that he could think of anything else. The poor
man must have found in the restlessness of his thoughts the
illusion of being engaged in an active contest with some power
of evil; for his last words as he went lingeringly down the
poop ladder expressed the quaint hope that he would get him,
Powell, on our side yet."

Mr. Powell — just imagine a straightforward youngster
assailed in this fashion on the high seas — answered merely by
an embarrassed and uneasy laugh which reflected exactly the
state of his innocent soul. The apoplectic mate, already half
way down, went up again three steps of the poop ladder. Why,
yes. A proper young fellow, the mate expected, wouldn't stand
by and see a man, a good sailor and his own skipper, in trouble,
without taking his part against a couple of shore people who —
Mr. Powell interrupted him impatiently, asking what was the
trouble?

"What is it you are hinting at?" he cried with an in-
explicable irritation.

"I don't like to think of him all alone down there
with these two," Franklin whispered impressively. "Upon my

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word I don't. God only knows what may be going on there ...
Don't laugh ... It was bad enough last voyage when Mrs. Brown
had a cabin afoot but now it's worse. It frightens me.
I can't sleep sometimes for thinking of him all alone there,
shut off from us all.'

Mrs. Brown was the steward's wife. You must understand
that shortly after his visit to the Fyne cottage (with all its
consequences) Anthony had got an offer to go to the Western
Islands, and bring home the cargo of some ship which, damaged
in a collision or a stranding, took refuge in St. Michael, and
was condemned there. Roderick Anthony had connections which
would put such paying jobs in his way. So Flora de Barral
had but a five months' voyage, a mere excursion, for her first
trial of sea-life. And Anthony, clearly trying to be most
attentive, had induced this Mrs. Brown, the wife of his faithful
steward, to come along as maid to his bride. But for some
reason or other this arrangement was not continued. And the
mate, tormented by indefinite alarms and forebodings, regretted
it. He regretted that Jane Brown was no longer on board -
as a sort of representative of Captain Anthony's faithful
servants, to watch quietly what went on in that part of the

74

ship this fatal marriage had closed to their vigilance. That
had been excellent. For she was a dependable woman.

Powell did not detect any particular excellence in
what seemed a spying employment. But in his simplicity he said
that he should have thought Mrs. Anthony would have been glad
anyhow to have another woman on board. He was thinking of the
white-faced girlish personality which it seemed to him ought
to have been cared for. The innocent young man always looked
upon the girl as immature; something of a kid yet.

"She glad! Why, it was she who had her fired out. She didn't
want anybody around the cabin. Mrs. Brown is certain of it.
She told her husband so. You ask the steward and hear what he
has to say about it. That's why I don't like it. A capable
woman who knew her place. But no. Out she must go. For no
fault mind you. The Captain was ashamed to send her away. But
that wife of his — aye the precious pair of them—have got hold
of him. I can't speak to him for a minute on the poop without
that thimble-rigging coon coming gliding up. I'll tell
you what. I overheard once — God knows I didn't try to —
only he forgot I was on the other side of the skylight with my
sextant — I overheard him — you know how he sits hanging over
her chair and talking away without properly opening his mouth —
yes I caught the word right enough. He stole quietly into my
cabin. He was alluding to the Captain as "the jailer".

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The jail....!

Franklin broke off with a profane execration. A silence reigned for a long time and the slight, very gentle rolling of the ship slipping before the N.E. trade-wind seemed to be a soothing device for lulling to sleep the suspicions of men who trust themselves to the sea.

A deep sigh was heard followed by the mate's voice asking dismally if that was the way one would speak of a man to whom one wished well? No better proof of something wrong was needed. Therefore he hoped, as he vanished at last, that Mr. Powell would be on their side. And this time Mr. Powell did not answer this hope with an embarrassed laugh.

That young officer was more and more surprised at the nature of the incongruous revelations coming to him in the surroundings and in the atmosphere of the open sea. It is difficult for us to understand the extent, the completeness, the comprehensiveness of his inexperience; for us who didn't go to sea out of a small private school at the age of fourteen years and nine months. Leaning on his elbow in the mizzen rigging and so still that the helmsman over there at the other end of the poop might have (and he probably did) suspect him of being criminally asleep on duty, he tried to "get hold of that thing" by some side which would fit in with his simple notions of psychology. "What the deuce are they worrying about?" he asked himself in a dazed and contemptuous impatience.

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But all the same "jailer" was a funny name to give a man;
unkind, unfriendly, nasty. He was sorry that Mr. Smith was
guilty in that matter because, the truth must be told, he
had been to a certain extent sensible of having been noticed
in a quiet manner by the father of Mrs. Anthony. Youth
appreciates that sort of recognition which is the subtlest form
of flattery age can offer. Mr. Smith seized opportunities to
approach him on deck. His remarks were sometimes weird and
enigmatical. He was doubtless an eccentric old gent. But
from that to calling his son-in-law (whom he never approached
on deck) nasty names behind his back was a long step.

And Mr. Powell marvelled..."

"While he was telling me all this," - Marlow changed
his tone - "I marvelled even more. It was as if misfortune
marked its victims on the forehead for the dislike of the crowd.

I am not thinking here of numbers. Two men may behave like a
crowd, three certainly will when their emotions are engaged.
It was as if the forehead of Flora De Barral were marked.

Was the girl born to be a victim, or to be always disliked and
crushed as if she were too fine for this world, or too luckless
since that also is often counted as sin.

"Yes, I marvelled more since I knew more of the girl
than Mr. Powell - if only her true name, and more of Captain
Anthony - if only the fact that he was the son of a delicate
erotic poet of a markedly refined and autocratic temperament.

77.

Yes I knew their joint stories which Mr. Powell did not know.
The chapter in it he was opening to me, the sea-chapter, with
such new personages as the sentimental and apoplectic chief
mate and the morose steward, however astounding to him in
its detached condition was much more so to me as a member of
a series, following the chapter *outside* the Eastern Hotel in
which I myself had played my part. In view of her declarations
and my sage remarks it was very unexpected. She had meant
well, and I had certainly meant well too. Captain Anthony —
as far as I could gather from *little Fyne* — had meant well.
As far as such lofty words may be applied to the obscure
personages of this story we were all filled with the noblest
sentiments and *intimations* of a shelter of its solitude free from the earth's petty suggestions.
I could well marvel in myself, as to what had happened.

I hope that if he saw it, Mr. Powell forgave me the
smile of which I was guilty at that moment. The light in the
cabin of his little cutter was dim. And the smile was dim too.
Dim and floating. The girl's life had presented itself to me
as a tragi-comical adventure, the saddest thing on earth,
slipping between frank laughter and unabashed tears. Yes, the
saddest facts and the most common, and, being common perhaps
they are worthy of our unreserved pity.

The purely human reality is capable of lyrism but not
of abstraction. Nothing will serve for its understanding but

78

the evidence of rational linking up of characters and facts.
And beginning with Flora De Barral, in the light of my
memories I was certain that she at least must have been
passive; for that is of necessity the part of women, this
waiting on fate which some of them, and not the most intelligent,
cover up by the vain appearances of agitation. Flora De
Barral was not exceptionally intelligent but she was thoroughly
feminine. She would be passive (and that does not mean inanimate
in the circumstances, where the mere fact of being a woman
was enough to give her an occult and supreme significance.
And she would be enduring which is the essence of woman's
visible, tangible power. Of that I was certain. Had she not
endured already? Yet it is so true that the germ of
destruction lies in wait for us mortals, even at the very
source of our force, that one may die of too much endurance
as well as of too little of it.

Such was my train of thought. And I was mindful
also of my first view of her -- toying or perhaps communing
in earnest with the possibilities of a precipice. But I did
not ask Mr. Powell anxiously what had happened to Mrs. Anthony
in the end. I let him go on in his own way feeling, that no
matter what strange facts he would have to disclose, I
was certain to know much more of them than he ever did know
or could possibly guess...

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Marlow paused for quite a long time. He seemed
uncertain as though he had advanced something beyond my
grasp. Purposely I made no sign. "You understand?" he
asked.

"Perfectly," I said. "You are the expert in the
psychological wilderness. This is like one of those Red-skin
stories where the noble savages carry off a girl and the
honest <u>backwoodsman</u> with his incomparable knowledge follows
the track and reads the signs of her fate in a footprint here,
a broken twig there, a trinket dropped by the way. I have
always liked such stories. Go on."

Marlow smiled indulgently at my jesting. "It is
not exactly a story for boys," he said. "I go on then. The
sign, as you call it, was not very plentiful but very much
to the purpose and when Mr. Powell heard (at a certain moment
I felt bound to tell him) when he heard that I had known
Mrs. Anthony before her marriage, that, to a certain extent,
I was her confidant... For you can't deny that to a certain
extent... Well let us say that I had a look in.. A young
girl, you know, is something like a temple. You pass by and
wonder what mysterious rites are going on in there, what
prayers, what visions? The privileged men, the lover, the
husband, who are given the key of the sanctuary do not always
know how to use it. For myself, without claim, without merit,
simply by chance I had been allowed to look through the half
opened door and I had seen the saddest possible desecration,

80

the withered brightness of youth, a spirit neither made cringing nor yet dulled but as if bewildered in quivering hopelessness by gratuitous cruelty; self-confidence destroyed and, instead, a resigned recklessness, a mournful callousness (and all this simple, almost naive) well before the material and moral difficulties of the situation. The passive anguish of the luckless!

I asked myself: wasn't that ill-luck exhausted yet? Ill luck which is like the hate of invisible powers which interpreted, made sensible and injurious by the actions of men?

Mr. Powell as you may well imagine had opened his eyes at my statement. But he was full of his recalled experiences on board the Ferndale, and the strangeness of being mixed up in what went on aboard, simply because his name was also the name of a shipping-master, kept him in a state of wonder which made other coincidences, however unlikely, not so very surprising after all.

This astonishing occurrence was so present to his mind that he always felt as though he were there under false pretences. And this feeling was so uncomfortable that it nerved him to break through the awe-inspiring aloofness of his captain. He wanted to make a clean breast of it. I imagine that his youth stood in good stead to Mr. Powell. Oh, yes. Youth is a power. Even Captain Anthony had to take