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<h2> CHAPTER 8 </h2>
<p>'How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to feel
the ship dip under his feet and the rush of water take him at the back and
toss him like a chip, I cannot say. Not very long—two minutes
perhaps. A couple of men he could not make out began to converse drowsily,
and also, he could not tell where, he detected a curious noise of
shuffling feet. Above these faint sounds there was that awful stillness
preceding a catastrophe, that trying silence of the moment before the
crash; then it came into his head that perhaps he would have time to rush
along and cut all the lanyards of the gripes, so that the boats would
float as the ship went down.</p>
<p>'The Patna had a long bridge, and all the boats were up there, four on one
side and three on the other—the smallest of them on the port-side
and nearly abreast of the steering gear. He assured me, with evident
anxiety to be believed, that he had been most careful to keep them ready
for instant service. He knew his duty. I dare say he was a good enough
mate as far as that went. "I always believed in being prepared for the
worst," he commented, staring anxiously in my face. I nodded my approval
of the sound principle, averting my eyes before the subtle unsoundness of
the man.</p>
<p>'He started unsteadily to run. He had to step over legs, avoid stumbling
against the heads. Suddenly some one caught hold of his coat from below,
and a distressed voice spoke under his elbow. The light of the lamp he
carried in his right hand fell upon an upturned dark face whose eyes
entreated him together with the voice. He had picked up enough of the
language to understand the word water, repeated several times in a tone of
insistence, of prayer, almost of despair. He gave a jerk to get away, and
felt an arm embrace his leg.</p>
<p>'"The beggar clung to me like a drowning man," he said impressively.
"Water, water! What water did he mean? What did he know? As calmly as I
could I ordered him to let go. He was stopping me, time was pressing,
other men began to stir; I wanted time—time to cut the boats adrift.
He got hold of my hand now, and I felt that he would begin to shout. It
flashed upon me it was enough to start a panic, and I hauled off with my
free arm and slung the lamp in his face. The glass jingled, the light went
out, but the blow made him let go, and I ran off—I wanted to get at
the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me from behind. I
turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I had half
throttled him before I made out what he wanted. He wanted some water—water
to drink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and he had with him a
young boy I had noticed several times. His child was sick—and
thirsty. He had caught sight of me as I passed by, and was begging for a
little water. That's all. We were under the bridge, in the dark. He kept
on snatching at my wrists; there was no getting rid of him. I dashed into
my berth, grabbed my water-bottle, and thrust it into his hands. He
vanished. I didn't find out till then how much I was in want of a drink
myself." He leaned on one elbow with a hand over his eyes.</p>
<p>'I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was something
peculiar in all this. The fingers of the hand that shaded his brow
trembled slightly. He broke the short silence.</p>
<p>'"These things happen only once to a man and . . . Ah! well! When I got on
the bridge at last the beggars were getting one of the boats off the
chocks. A boat! I was running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on my
shoulder, just missing my head. It didn't stop me, and the chief engineer—they
had got him out of his bunk by then—raised the boat-stretcher again.
Somehow I had no mind to be surprised at anything. All this seemed natural—and
awful—and awful. I dodged that miserable maniac, lifted him off the
deck as though he had been a little child, and he started whispering in my
arms: 'Don't! don't! I thought you were one of them niggers.' I flung him
away, he skidded along the bridge and knocked the legs from under the
little chap—the second. The skipper, busy about the boat, looked
round and came at me head down, growling like a wild beast. I flinched no
more than a stone. I was as solid standing there as this," he tapped
lightly with his knuckles the wall beside his chair. "It was as though I
had heard it all, seen it all, gone through it all twenty times already. I
wasn't afraid of them. I drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering—</p>
<p>'"'Ah! it's you. Lend a hand quick.'</p>
<p>'"That's what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough. 'Aren't
you going to do something?' I asked. 'Yes. Clear out,' he snarled over his
shoulder.</p>
<p>'"I don't think I understood then what he meant. The other two had picked
themselves up by that time, and they rushed together to the boat. They
tramped, they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship, each
other—cursed me. All in mutters. I didn't move, I didn't speak. I
watched the slant of the ship. She was as still as if landed on the blocks
in a dry dock—only she was like this," He held up his hand, palm
under, the tips of the fingers inclined downwards. "Like this," he
repeated. "I could see the line of the horizon before me, as clear as a
bell, above her stem-head; I could see the water far off there black and
sparkling, and still—still as a-pond, deadly still, more still than
ever sea was before—more still than I could bear to look at. Have
you watched a ship floating head down, checked in sinking by a sheet of
old iron too rotten to stand being shored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up?
I thought of that—I thought of every mortal thing; but can you shore
up a bulkhead in five minutes—or in fifty for that matter? Where was
I going to get men that would go down below? And the timber—the
timber! Would you have had the courage to swing the maul for the first
blow if you had seen that bulkhead? Don't say you would: you had not seen
it; nobody would. Hang it—to do a thing like that you must believe
there is a chance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a chance;
and you would not have believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me
a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't
tell—nobody can tell. One must have time to turn round. What would
you have me do? Where was the kindness in making crazy with fright all
those people I could not save single-handed—that nothing could save?
Look here! As true as I sit on this chair before you . . ."</p>
<p>'He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my
face, as though in his anguish he were watchful of the effect. He was not
speaking to me, he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with an
invisible personality, an antagonistic and inseparable partner of his
existence—another possessor of his soul. These were issues beyond
the competency of a court of inquiry: it was a subtle and momentous
quarrel as to the true essence of life, and did not want a judge. He
wanted an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the risk I ran of being
circumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite
part in a dispute impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all the
phantoms in possession—to the reputable that had its claims and to
the disreputable that had its exigencies. I can't explain to you who
haven't seen him and who hear his words only at second hand the mixed
nature of my feelings. It seemed to me I was being made to comprehend the
Inconceivable—and I know of nothing to compare with the discomfort
of such a sensation. I was made to look at the convention that lurks in
all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood. He appealed to all
sides at once—to the side turned perpetually to the light of day,
and to that side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon,
exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a fearful ashy light
falling at times on the edge. He swayed me. I own to it, I own up. The
occasion was obscure, insignificant—what you will: a lost youngster,
one in a million—but then he was one of us; an incident as
completely devoid of importance as the flooding of an ant-heap, and yet
the mystery of his attitude got hold of me as though he had been an
individual in the forefront of his kind, as if the obscure truth involved
were momentous enough to affect mankind's conception of itself. . . .'</p>
<p>Marlow paused to put new life into his expiring cheroot, seemed to forget
all about the story, and abruptly began again.</p>
<p>'My fault of course. One has no business really to get interested. It's a
weakness of mine. His was of another kind. My weakness consists in not
having a discriminating eye for the incidental—for the externals—no
eye for the hod of the rag-picker or the fine linen of the next man. Next
man—that's it. I have met so many men,' he pursued, with momentary
sadness—'met them too with a certain—certain—impact, let
us say; like this fellow, for instance—and in each case all I could
see was merely the human being. A confounded democratic quality of vision
which may be better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to
me, I can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine
linen. But I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh!
it's a failing; it's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of
men too indolent for whist—and a story. . . .'</p>
<p>He paused again to wait for an encouraging remark, perhaps, but nobody
spoke; only the host, as if reluctantly performing a duty, murmured—</p>
<p>'You are so subtle, Marlow.'</p>
<p>'Who? I?' said Marlow in a low voice. 'Oh no! But <i>he</i> was; and try
as I may for the success of this yarn, I am missing innumerable shades—they
were so fine, so difficult to render in colourless words. Because he
complicated matters by being so simple, too—the simplest poor devil!
. . . By Jove! he was amazing. There he sat telling me that just as I saw
him before my eyes he wouldn't be afraid to face anything—and
believing in it too. I tell you it was fabulously innocent and it was
enormous, enormous! I watched him covertly, just as though I had suspected
him of an intention to take a jolly good rise out of me. He was confident
that, on the square, "on the square, mind!" there was nothing he couldn't
meet. Ever since he had been "so high"—"quite a little chap," he had
been preparing himself for all the difficulties that can beset one on land
and water. He confessed proudly to this kind of foresight. He had been
elaborating dangers and defences, expecting the worst, rehearsing his
best. He must have led a most exalted existence. Can you fancy it? A
succession of adventures, so much glory, such a victorious progress! and
the deep sense of his sagacity crowning every day of his inner life. He
forgot himself; his eyes shone; and with every word my heart, searched by
the light of his absurdity, was growing heavier in my breast. I had no
mind to laugh, and lest I should smile I made for myself a stolid face. He
gave signs of irritation.</p>
<p>'"It is always the unexpected that happens," I said in a propitiatory
tone. My obtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous "Pshaw!" I suppose he
meant that the unexpected couldn't touch him; nothing less than the
unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He
had been taken unawares—and he whispered to himself a malediction
upon the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men. Everything
had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of high-minded
resignation which prevented him lifting as much as his little finger,
while these others who had a very clear perception of the actual necessity
were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over that boat
business. Something had gone wrong there at the last moment. It appears
that in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious way to get the
sliding bolt of the foremost boat-chock jammed tight, and forthwith had
gone out of the remnants of their minds over the deadly nature of that
accident. It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce industry of these
beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated quietly in the silence
of a world asleep, fighting against time for the freeing of that boat,
grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair, tugging, pushing,
snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill, ready to weep, and only
kept from flying at each other's throats by the fear of death that stood
silent behind them like an inflexible and cold-eyed taskmaster. Oh yes! It
must have been a pretty sight. He saw it all, he could talk about it with
scorn and bitterness; he had a minute knowledge of it by means of some
sixth sense, I conclude, because he swore to me he had remained apart
without a glance at them and at the boat—without one single glance.
And I believe him. I should think he was too busy watching the threatening
slant of the ship, the suspended menace discovered in the midst of the
most perfect security—fascinated by the sword hanging by a hair over
his imaginative head.</p>
<p>'Nothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to
himself without hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line,
the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise, the
brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the
starlight closing over his head for ever like the vault of a tomb—the
revolt of his young life—the black end. He could! By Jove! who
couldn't? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that peculiar
way, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty of swift and forestalling
vision. The sights it showed him had turned him into cold stone from the
soles of his feet to the nape of his neck; but there was a hot dance of
thoughts in his head, a dance of lame, blind, mute thoughts—a whirl
of awful cripples. Didn't I tell you he confessed himself before me as
though I had the power to bind and to loose? He burrowed deep, deep, in
the hope of my absolution, which would have been of no good to him. This
was one of those cases which no solemn deception can palliate, where no
man can help; where his very Maker seems to abandon a sinner to his own
devices.</p>
<p>'He stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get from
the struggle for the boat, which went on with the agitation of madness and
the stealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had meantime remained
holding to the wheel. Just picture to yourselves the actors in that, thank
God! unique, episode of the sea, four beside themselves with fierce and
secret exertions, and three looking on in complete immobility, above the
awnings covering the profound ignorance of hundreds of human beings, with
their weariness, with their dreams, with their hopes, arrested, held by an
invisible hand on the brink of annihilation. For that they were so, makes
no doubt to me: given the state of the ship, this was the deadliest
possible description of accident that could happen. These beggars by the
boat had every reason to go distracted with funk. Frankly, had I been
there, I would not have given as much as a counterfeit farthing for the
ship's chance to keep above water to the end of each successive second.
And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish
their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if
the Omnipotence whose mercy they confessed had needed their humble
testimony on earth for a while longer, and had looked down to make a sign,
"Thou shalt not!" to the ocean. Their escape would trouble me as a
prodigiously inexplicable event, did I not know how tough old iron can be—as
tough sometimes as the spirit of some men we meet now and then, worn to a
shadow and breasting the weight of life. Not the least wonder of these
twenty minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of the two helmsmen. They
were amongst the native batch of all sorts brought over from Aden to give
evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under intense bashfulness,
was very young, and with his smooth, yellow, cheery countenance looked
even younger than he was. I remember perfectly Brierly asking him, through
the interpreter, what he thought of it at the time, and the interpreter,
after a short colloquy, turning to the court with an important air—</p>
<p>'"He says he thought nothing."</p>
<p>'The other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handkerchief, faded
with much washing, bound with a smart twist over a lot of grey wisps, his
face shrunk into grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by a mesh of
wrinkles, explained that he had a knowledge of some evil thing befalling
the ship, but there had been no order; he could not remember an order; why
should he leave the helm? To some further questions he jerked back his
spare shoulders, and declared it never came into his mind then that the
white men were about to leave the ship through fear of death. He did not
believe it now. There might have been secret reasons. He wagged his old
chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was a man of great experience, and
he wanted <i>that</i> white Tuan to know—he turned towards Brierly,
who didn't raise his head—that he had acquired a knowledge of many
things by serving white men on the sea for a great number of years—and,
suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a
lot of queer-sounding names, names of dead-and-gone skippers, names of
forgotten country ships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the
hand of dumb time had been at work on them for ages. They stopped him at
last. A silence fell upon the court,—a silence that remained
unbroken for at least a minute, and passed gently into a deep murmur. This
episode was the sensation of the second day's proceedings—affecting
all the audience, affecting everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily
at the end of the first bench, and never looked up at this extraordinary
and damning witness that seemed possessed of some mysterious theory of
defence.</p>
<p>'So these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without steerage-way,
where death would have found them if such had been their destiny. The
whites did not give them half a glance, had probably forgotten their
existence. Assuredly Jim did not remember it. He remembered he could do
nothing; he could do nothing, now he was alone. There was nothing to do
but to sink with the ship. No use making a disturbance about it. Was
there? He waited upstanding, without a sound, stiffened in the idea of
some sort of heroic discretion. The first engineer ran cautiously across
the bridge to tug at his sleeve.</p>
<p>'"Come and help! For God's sake, come and help!"</p>
<p>'He ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned directly
to worry at his sleeve, begging and cursing at the same time.</p>
<p>'"I believe he would have kissed my hands," said Jim savagely, "and, next
moment, he starts foaming and whispering in my face, 'If I had the time I
would like to crack your skull for you.' I pushed him away. Suddenly he
caught hold of me round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I hit out without
looking. 'Won't you save your own life—you infernal coward?' he
sobs. Coward! He called me an infernal coward! Ha! ha! ha! ha! He called
me—ha! ha! ha! . . ."</p>
<p>'He had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never in
my life heard anything so bitter as that noise. It fell like a blight on
all the merriment about donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not. Along the
whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped, the pale blotches of
faces turned our way with one accord, and the silence became so profound
that the clear tinkle of a teaspoon falling on the tesselated floor of the
verandah rang out like a tiny and silvery scream.</p>
<p>'"You mustn't laugh like this, with all these people about," I
remonstrated. "It isn't nice for them, you know."</p>
<p>'He gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a stare
that, missing me altogether, seemed to probe the heart of some awful
vision, he muttered carelessly—"Oh! they'll think I am drunk."</p>
<p>'And after that you would have thought from his appearance he would never
make a sound again. But—no fear! He could no more stop telling now
than he could have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.'</p>
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