<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER 29 </h2>
<p>'This was the theory of Jim's marital evening walks. I made a third on
more than one occasion, unpleasantly aware every time of Cornelius, who
nursed the aggrieved sense of his legal paternity, slinking in the
neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were
perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth. But do you notice how,
three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat
lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisation wither and die, to
be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility,
often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of
art? Romance had singled Jim for its own—and that was the true part
of the story, which otherwise was all wrong. He did not hide his jewel. In
fact, he was extremely proud of it.</p>
<p>'It comes to me now that I had, on the whole, seen very little of her.
What I remember best is the even, olive pallor of her complexion, and the
intense blue-black gleams of her hair, flowing abundantly from under a
small crimson cap she wore far back on her shapely head. Her movements
were free, assured, and she blushed a dusky red. While Jim and I were
talking, she would come and go with rapid glances at us, leaving on her
passage an impression of grace and charm and a distinct suggestion of
watchfulness. Her manner presented a curious combination of shyness and
audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftly by a look of silent,
repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of some abiding
danger. At times she would sit down with us and, with her soft cheek
dimpled by the knuckles of her little hand, she would listen to our talk;
her big clear eyes would remain fastened on our lips, as though each
pronounced word had a visible shape. Her mother had taught her to read and
write; she had learned a good bit of English from Jim, and she spoke it
most amusingly, with his own clipping, boyish intonation. Her tenderness
hovered over him like a flutter of wings. She lived so completely in his
contemplation that she had acquired something of his outward aspect,
something that recalled him in her movements, in the way she stretched her
arm, turned her head, directed her glances. Her vigilant affection had an
intensity that made it almost perceptible to the senses; it seemed
actually to exist in the ambient matter of space, to envelop him like a
peculiar fragrance, to dwell in the sunshine like a tremulous, subdued,
and impassioned note. I suppose you think that I too am romantic, but it
is a mistake. I am relating to you the sober impressions of a bit of
youth, of a strange uneasy romance that had come in my way. I observed
with interest the work of his—well—good fortune. He was
jealously loved, but why she should be jealous, and of what, I could not
tell. The land, the people, the forests were her accomplices, guarding him
with vigilant accord, with an air of seclusion, of mystery, of invincible
possession. There was no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned within the
very freedom of his power, and she, though ready to make a footstool of
her head for his feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly—as though he
were hard to keep. The very Tamb' Itam, marching on our journeys upon the
heels of his white lord, with his head thrown back, truculent and
be-weaponed like a janissary, with kriss, chopper, and lance (besides
carrying Jim's gun); even Tamb' Itam allowed himself to put on the airs of
uncompromising guardianship, like a surly devoted jailer ready to lay down
his life for his captive. On the evenings when we sat up late, his silent,
indistinct form would pass and repass under the verandah, with noiseless
footsteps, or lifting my head I would unexpectedly make him out standing
rigidly erect in the shadow. As a general rule he would vanish after a
time, without a sound; but when we rose he would spring up close to us as
if from the ground, ready for any orders Jim might wish to give. The girl
too, I believe, never went to sleep till we had separated for the night.
More than once I saw her and Jim through the window of my room come out
together quietly and lean on the rough balustrade—two white forms
very close, his arm about her waist, her head on his shoulder. Their soft
murmurs reached me, penetrating, tender, with a calm sad note in the
stillness of the night, like a self-communion of one being carried on in
two tones. Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquito-net, I was sure
to hear slight creakings, faint breathing, a throat cleared cautiously—and
I would know that Tamb' Itam was still on the prowl. Though he had (by the
favour of the white lord) a house in the compound, had "taken wife," and
had lately been blessed with a child, I believe that, during my stay at
all events, he slept on the verandah every night. It was very difficult to
make this faithful and grim retainer talk. Even Jim himself was answered
in jerky short sentences, under protest as it were. Talking, he seemed to
imply, was no business of his. The longest speech I heard him volunteer
was one morning when, suddenly extending his hand towards the courtyard,
he pointed at Cornelius and said, "Here comes the Nazarene." I don't think
he was addressing me, though I stood at his side; his object seemed rather
to awaken the indignant attention of the universe. Some muttered
allusions, which followed, to dogs and the smell of roast-meat, struck me
as singularly felicitous. The courtyard, a large square space, was one
torrid blaze of sunshine, and, bathed in intense light, Cornelius was
creeping across in full view with an inexpressible effect of stealthiness,
of dark and secret slinking. He reminded one of everything that is
unsavoury. His slow laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive
beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided
evenly. I suppose he made straight enough for the place where he wanted to
get to, but his progress with one shoulder carried forward seemed oblique.
He was often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if following a
scent; passing before the verandah with upward stealthy glances;
disappearing without haste round the corner of some hut. That he seemed
free of the place demonstrated Jim's absurd carelessness or else his
infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played a very dubious part (to say the
least of it) in a certain episode which might have ended fatally for Jim.
As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory. But everything
redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune that he,
who had been too careful of it once, seemed to bear a charmed life.</p>
<p>'You must know he had left Doramin's place very soon after his arrival—much
too soon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long time before the
war. In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look after
Stein's business, he said. Hadn't he? To that end, with an utter disregard
of his personal safety, he crossed the river and took up his quarters with
Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times
I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must have had Doramin's
protection in a measure; and in one way or another he had managed to
wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubt that
his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by that
abjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was his
characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men
are markedly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance. It was
the element of his nature which permeated all his acts and passions and
emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his
civilities and his indignations were alike abject. I am sure his love
would have been the most abject of sentiments—but can one imagine a
loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so that
a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side. He has
his place neither in the background nor in the foreground of the story; he
is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and unclean,
tainting the fragrance of its youth and of its naiveness.</p>
<p>'His position in any case could not have been other than extremely
miserable, yet it may very well be that he found some advantages in it.
Jim told me he had been received at first with an abject display of the
most amicable sentiments. "The fellow apparently couldn't contain himself
for joy," said Jim with disgust. "He flew at me every morning to shake
both my hands—confound him!—but I could never tell whether
there would be any breakfast. If I got three meals in two days I
considered myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign a chit for ten dollars
every week. Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for
nothing. Well—he kept me on nothing as near as possible. Put it down
to the unsettled state of the country, and made as if to tear his hair
out, begging my pardon twenty times a day, so that I had at last to
entreat him not to worry. It made me sick. Half the roof of his house had
fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wisps of dry grass
sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall. He did
his best to make out that Mr. Stein owed him money on the last three
years' trading, but his books were all torn, and some were missing. He
tried to hint it was his late wife's fault. Disgusting scoundrel! At last
I had to forbid him to mention his late wife at all. It made Jewel cry. I
couldn't discover what became of all the trade-goods; there was nothing in
the store but rats, having a high old time amongst a litter of brown paper
and old sacking. I was assured on every hand that he had a lot of money
buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing out of him. It was the
most miserable existence I led there in that wretched house. I tried to do
my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to think of. When I escaped
to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and returned all my things. It
was done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a
Chinaman who keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis
quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began to be said openly that
the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed before long. Pleasant,
wasn't it? And I couldn't see what there was to prevent him if he really
<i>had</i> made up his mind. The worst of it was, I couldn't help feeling
I wasn't doing any good either for Stein or for myself. Oh! it was beastly—the
whole six weeks of it."'</p>
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<h2> CHAPTER 30 </h2>
<p>'He told me further that he didn't know what made him hang on—but of
course we may guess. He sympathised deeply with the defenceless girl, at
the mercy of that "mean, cowardly scoundrel." It appears Cornelius led her
an awful life, stopping only short of actual ill-usage, for which he had
not the pluck, I suppose. He insisted upon her calling him father—"and
with respect, too—with respect," he would scream, shaking a little
yellow fist in her face. "I am a respectable man, and what are you? Tell
me—what are you? You think I am going to bring up somebody else's
child and not be treated with respect? You ought to be glad I let you.
Come—say Yes, father. . . . No? . . . You wait a bit." Thereupon he
would begin to abuse the dead woman, till the girl would run off with her
hands to her head. He pursued her, dashing in and out and round the house
and amongst the sheds, would drive her into some corner, where she would
fall on her knees stopping her ears, and then he would stand at a distance
and declaim filthy denunciations at her back for half an hour at a
stretch. "Your mother was a devil, a deceitful devil—and you too are
a devil," he would shriek in a final outburst, pick up a bit of dry earth
or a handful of mud (there was plenty of mud around the house), and fling
it into her hair. Sometimes, though, she would hold out full of scorn,
confronting him in silence, her face sombre and contracted, and only now
and then uttering a word or two that would make the other jump and writhe
with the sting. Jim told me these scenes were terrible. It was indeed a
strange thing to come upon in a wilderness. The endlessness of such a
subtly cruel situation was appalling—if you think of it. The
respectable Cornelius (Inchi 'Nelyus the Malays called him, with a grimace
that meant many things) was a much-disappointed man. I don't know what he
had expected would be done for him in consideration of his marriage; but
evidently the liberty to steal, and embezzle, and appropriate to himself
for many years and in any way that suited him best, the goods of Stein's
Trading Company (Stein kept the supply up unfalteringly as long as he
could get his skippers to take it there) did not seem to him a fair
equivalent for the sacrifice of his honourable name. Jim would have
enjoyed exceedingly thrashing Cornelius within an inch of his life; on the
other hand, the scenes were of so painful a character, so abominable, that
his impulse would be to get out of earshot, in order to spare the girl's
feelings. They left her agitated, speechless, clutching her bosom now and
then with a stony, desperate face, and then Jim would lounge up and say
unhappily, "Now—come—really—what's the use—you
must try to eat a bit," or give some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius
would keep on slinking through the doorways, across the verandah and back
again, as mute as a fish, and with malevolent, mistrustful, underhand
glances. "I can stop his game," Jim said to her once. "Just say the word."
And do you know what she answered? She said—Jim told me impressively—that
if she had not been sure he was intensely wretched himself, she would have
found the courage to kill him with her own hands. "Just fancy that! The
poor devil of a girl, almost a child, being driven to talk like that," he
exclaimed in horror. It seemed impossible to save her not only from that
mean rascal but even from herself! It wasn't that he pitied her so much,
he affirmed; it was more than pity; it was as if he had something on his
conscience, while that life went on. To leave the house would have
appeared a base desertion. He had understood at last that there was
nothing to expect from a longer stay, neither accounts nor money, nor
truth of any sort, but he stayed on, exasperating Cornelius to the verge,
I won't say of insanity, but almost of courage. Meantime he felt all sorts
of dangers gathering obscurely about him. Doramin had sent over twice a
trusty servant to tell him seriously that he could do nothing for his
safety unless he would recross the river again and live amongst the Bugis
as at first. People of every condition used to call, often in the dead of
night, in order to disclose to him plots for his assassination. He was to
be poisoned. He was to be stabbed in the bath-house. Arrangements were
being made to have him shot from a boat on the river. Each of these
informants professed himself to be his very good friend. It was enough—he
told me—to spoil a fellow's rest for ever. Something of the kind was
extremely possible—nay, probable—but the lying warnings gave
him only the sense of deadly scheming going on all around him, on all
sides, in the dark. Nothing more calculated to shake the best of nerve.
Finally, one night, Cornelius himself, with a great apparatus of alarm and
secrecy, unfolded in solemn wheedling tones a little plan wherein for one
hundred dollars—or even for eighty; let's say eighty—he,
Cornelius, would procure a trustworthy man to smuggle Jim out of the
river, all safe. There was nothing else for it now—if Jim cared a
pin for his life. What's eighty dollars? A trifle. An insignificant sum.
While he, Cornelius, who had to remain behind, was absolutely courting
death by this proof of devotion to Mr. Stein's young friend. The sight of
his abject grimacing was—Jim told me—very hard to bear: he
clutched at his hair, beat his breast, rocked himself to and fro with his
hands pressed to his stomach, and actually pretended to shed tears. "Your
blood be on your own head," he squeaked at last, and rushed out. It is a
curious question how far Cornelius was sincere in that performance. Jim
confessed to me that he did not sleep a wink after the fellow had gone. He
lay on his back on a thin mat spread over the bamboo flooring, trying idly
to make out the bare rafters, and listening to the rustlings in the torn
thatch. A star suddenly twinkled through a hole in the roof. His brain was
in a whirl; but, nevertheless, it was on that very night that he matured
his plan for overcoming Sherif Ali. It had been the thought of all the
moments he could spare from the hopeless investigation into Stein's
affairs, but the notion—he says—came to him then all at once.
He could see, as it were, the guns mounted on the top of the hill. He got
very hot and excited lying there; sleep was out of the question more than
ever. He jumped up, and went out barefooted on the verandah. Walking
silently, he came upon the girl, motionless against the wall, as if on the
watch. In his then state of mind it did not surprise him to see her up,
nor yet to hear her ask in an anxious whisper where Cornelius could be. He
simply said he did not know. She moaned a little, and peered into the
campong. Everything was very quiet. He was possessed by his new idea, and
so full of it that he could not help telling the girl all about it at
once. She listened, clapped her hands lightly, whispered softly her
admiration, but was evidently on the alert all the time. It seems he had
been used to make a confidant of her all along—and that she on her
part could and did give him a lot of useful hints as to Patusan affairs
there is no doubt. He assured me more than once that he had never found
himself the worse for her advice. At any rate, he was proceeding to
explain his plan fully to her there and then, when she pressed his arm
once, and vanished from his side. Then Cornelius appeared from somewhere,
and, perceiving Jim, ducked sideways, as though he had been shot at, and
afterwards stood very still in the dusk. At last he came forward
prudently, like a suspicious cat. "There were some fishermen there—with
fish," he said in a shaky voice. "To sell fish—you understand." . .
. It must have been then two o'clock in the morning—a likely time
for anybody to hawk fish about!</p>
<p>'Jim, however, let the statement pass, and did not give it a single
thought. Other matters occupied his mind, and besides he had neither seen
nor heard anything. He contented himself by saying, "Oh!" absently, got a
drink of water out of a pitcher standing there, and leaving Cornelius a
prey to some inexplicable emotion—that made him embrace with both
arms the worm-eaten rail of the verandah as if his legs had failed—went
in again and lay down on his mat to think. By-and-by he heard stealthy
footsteps. They stopped. A voice whispered tremulously through the wall,
"Are you asleep?" "No! What is it?" he answered briskly, and there was an
abrupt movement outside, and then all was still, as if the whisperer had
been startled. Extremely annoyed at this, Jim came out impetuously, and
Cornelius with a faint shriek fled along the verandah as far as the steps,
where he hung on to the broken banister. Very puzzled, Jim called out to
him from the distance to know what the devil he meant. "Have you given
your consideration to what I spoke to you about?" asked Cornelius,
pronouncing the words with difficulty, like a man in the cold fit of a
fever. "No!" shouted Jim in a passion. "I have not, and I don't intend to.
I am going to live here, in Patusan." "You shall d-d-die h-h-here,"
answered Cornelius, still shaking violently, and in a sort of expiring
voice. The whole performance was so absurd and provoking that Jim didn't
know whether he ought to be amused or angry. "Not till I have seen you
tucked away, you bet," he called out, exasperated yet ready to laugh. Half
seriously (being excited with his own thoughts, you know) he went on
shouting, "Nothing can touch me! You can do your damnedest." Somehow the
shadowy Cornelius far off there seemed to be the hateful embodiment of all
the annoyances and difficulties he had found in his path. He let himself
go—his nerves had been over-wrought for days—and called him
many pretty names,—swindler, liar, sorry rascal: in fact, carried on
in an extraordinary way. He admits he passed all bounds, that he was quite
beside himself—defied all Patusan to scare him away—declared
he would make them all dance to his own tune yet, and so on, in a
menacing, boasting strain. Perfectly bombastic and ridiculous, he said.
His ears burned at the bare recollection. Must have been off his chump in
some way. . . . The girl, who was sitting with us, nodded her little head
at me quickly, frowned faintly, and said, "I heard him," with child-like
solemnity. He laughed and blushed. What stopped him at last, he said, was
the silence, the complete deathlike silence, of the indistinct figure far
over there, that seemed to hang collapsed, doubled over the rail in a
weird immobility. He came to his senses, and ceasing suddenly, wondered
greatly at himself. He watched for a while. Not a stir, not a sound.
"Exactly as if the chap had died while I had been making all that noise,"
he said. He was so ashamed of himself that he went indoors in a hurry
without another word, and flung himself down again. The row seemed to have
done him good though, because he went to sleep for the rest of the night
like a baby. Hadn't slept like that for weeks. "But <i>I</i> didn't
sleep," struck in the girl, one elbow on the table and nursing her cheek.
"I watched." Her big eyes flashed, rolling a little, and then she fixed
them on my face intently.'</p>
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