Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (536 page)

“Do I speak like a blamed Dutchman? Pull a stroke, boys — oars! Tend bow, John.”

The boat came alongside with a gentle knock, and a man’s shape began to climb at once up the brig’s side with a kind of ponderous agility. It poised itself for a moment on the rail to say down into the boat — ”Sheer off a little, boys,” then jumped on deck with a thud, and said to Shaw who was coming aft: “Good evening . . . Captain, sir?”

“No. On the poop!” growled Shaw.

“Come up here. Come up,” called Lingard, impatiently.

The Malays had left their stations and stood clustered by the mainmast in a silent group. Not a word was spoken on the brig’s decks, while the stranger made his way to the waiting captain. Lingard saw approaching him a short, dapper man, who touched his cap and repeated his greeting in a cool drawl:

“Good evening. . . Captain, sir?”

“Yes, I am the master — what’s the matter? Adrift from your ship? Or what?”

“Adrift? No! We left her four days ago, and have been pulling that gig in a calm, nearly ever since. My men are done. So is the water. Lucky thing I sighted you.”

“You sighted me!” exclaimed Lingard. “When? What time?”

“Not in the dark, you may be sure. We’ve been knocking about amongst some islands to the southward, breaking our hearts tugging at the oars in one channel, then in another — trying to get clear. We got round an islet — a barren thing, in shape like a loaf of sugar — and I caught sight of a vessel a long way off. I took her bearing in a hurry and we buckled to; but another of them currents must have had hold of us, for it was a long time before we managed to clear that islet. I steered by the stars, and, by the Lord Harry, I began to think I had missed you somehow — because it must have been you I saw.”

“Yes, it must have been. We had nothing in sight all day,” assented Lingard. “Where’s your vessel?” he asked, eagerly.

“Hard and fast on middling soft mud — I should think about sixty miles from here. We are the second boat sent off for assistance. We parted company with the other on Tuesday. She must have passed to the northward of you to-day. The chief officer is in her with orders to make for Singapore. I am second, and was sent off toward the Straits here on the chance of falling in with some ship. I have a letter from the owner. Our gentry are tired of being stuck in the mud and wish for assistance.”

“What assistance did you expect to find down here?”

“The letter will tell you that. May I ask, Captain, for a little water for the chaps in my boat? And I myself would thank you for a drink. We haven’t had a mouthful since this afternoon. Our breaker leaked out somehow.”

“See to it, Mr. Shaw,” said Lingard. “Come down the cabin, Mr. — ”

“Carter is my name.”

“Ah! Mr. Carter. Come down, come down,” went on Lingard, leading the way down the cabin stairs.

The steward had lighted the swinging lamp, and had put a decanter and bottles on the table. The cuddy looked cheerful, painted white, with gold mouldings round the panels. Opposite the curtained recess of the stern windows there was a sideboard with a marble top, and, above it, a looking-glass in a gilt frame. The semicircular couch round the stern had cushions of crimson plush. The table was covered with a black Indian tablecloth embroidered in vivid colours. Between the beams of the poop-deck were fitted racks for muskets, the barrels of which glinted in the light. There were twenty-four of them between the four beams. As many sword-bayonets of an old pattern encircled the polished teakwood of the rudder-casing with a double belt of brass and steel. All the doors of the state-rooms had been taken off the hinges and only curtains closed the doorways. They seemed to be made of yellow Chinese silk, and fluttered all together, the four of them, as the two men entered the cuddy.

Carter took in all at a glance, but his eyes were arrested by a circular shield hung slanting above the brass hilts of the bayonets. On its red field, in relief and brightly gilt, was represented a sheaf of conventional thunderbolts darting down the middle between the two capitals T. L. Lingard examined his guest curiously. He saw a young man, but looking still more youthful, with a boyish smooth face much sunburnt, twinkling blue eyes, fair hair and a slight moustache. He noticed his arrested gaze.

“Ah, you’re looking at that thing. It’s a present from the builder of this brig. The best man that ever launched a craft. It’s supposed to be the ship’s name between my initials — flash of lightning — d’you see? The brig’s name is Lightning and mine is Lingard.”

“Very pretty thing that: shows the cabin off well,” murmured Carter, politely.

They drank, nodding at each other, and sat down.

“Now for the letter,” said Lingard.

Carter passed it over the table and looked about, while Lingard took the letter out of an open envelope, addressed to the commander of any British ship in the Java Sea. The paper was thick, had an embossed heading: “Schooner-yacht Hermit” and was dated four days before. The message said that on a hazy night the yacht had gone ashore upon some outlying shoals off the coast of Borneo. The land was low. The opinion of the sailing-master was that the vessel had gone ashore at the top of high water, spring tides. The coast was completely deserted to all appearance. During the four days they had been stranded there they had sighted in the distance two small native vessels, which did not approach. The owner concluded by asking any commander of a homeward-bound ship to report the yacht’s position in Anjer on his way through Sunda Straits — or to any British or Dutch man-of-war he might meet. The letter ended by anticipatory thanks, the offer to pay any expenses in connection with the sending of messages from Anjer, and the usual polite expressions.

Folding the paper slowly in the old creases, Lingard said — ”I am not going to Anjer — nor anywhere near.”

“Any place will do, I fancy,” said Carter.

“Not the place where I am bound to,” answered Lingard, opening the letter again and glancing at it uneasily. “He does not describe very well the coast, and his latitude is very uncertain,” he went on. “I am not clear in my mind where exactly you are stranded. And yet I know every inch of that land — over there.”

Carter cleared his throat and began to talk in his slow drawl. He seemed to dole out facts, to disclose with sparing words the features of the coast, but every word showed the minuteness of his observation, the clear vision of a seaman able to master quickly the aspect of a strange land and of a strange sea. He presented, with concise lucidity, the picture of the tangle of reefs and sandbanks, through which the yacht had miraculously blundered in the dark before she took the ground.

“The weather seems clear enough at sea,” he observed, finally, and stopped to drink a long draught. Lingard, bending over the table, had been listening with eager attention. Carter went on in his curt and deliberate manner:

“I noticed some high trees on what I take to be the mainland to the south — and whoever has business in that bight was smart enough to whitewash two of them: one on the point, and another farther in. Landmarks, I guess. . . . What’s the matter, Captain?”

Lingard had jumped to his feet, but Carter’s exclamation caused him to sit down again.

“Nothing, nothing . . . Tell me, how many men have you in that yacht?”

“Twenty-three, besides the gentry, the owner, his wife and a Spanish gentleman — a friend they picked up in Manila.”

“So you were coming from Manila?”

“Aye. Bound for Batavia. The owner wishes to study the Dutch colonial system. Wants to expose it, he says. One can’t help hearing a lot when keeping watch aft — you know how it is. Then we are going to Ceylon to meet the mail-boat there. The owner is going home as he came out, overland through Egypt. The yacht would return round the Cape, of course.”

“A lady?” said Lingard. “You say there is a lady on board. Are you armed?”

“Not much,” replied Carter, negligently. “There are a few muskets and two sporting guns aft; that’s about all — I fancy it’s too much, or not enough,” he added with a faint smile.

Lingard looked at him narrowly.

“Did you come out from home in that craft?” he asked.

“Not I! I am not one of them regular yacht hands. I came out of the hospital in Hongkong. I’ve been two years on the China coast.”

He stopped, then added in an explanatory murmur:

“Opium clippers — you know. Nothing of brass buttons about me. My ship left me behind, and I was in want of work. I took this job but I didn’t want to go home particularly. It’s slow work after sailing with old Robinson in the Ly-e-moon. That was my ship. Heard of her, Captain?”

“Yes, yes,” said Lingard, hastily. “Look here, Mr. Carter, which way was your chief officer trying for Singapore? Through the Straits of Rhio?”

“I suppose so,” answered Carter in a slightly surprised tone; “why do you ask?”

“Just to know . . . What is it, Mr. Shaw?”

“There’s a black cloud rising to the northward, sir, and we shall get a breeze directly,” said Shaw from the doorway.

He lingered there with his eyes fixed on the decanters.

“Will you have a glass?” said Lingard, leaving his seat. “I will go up and have a look.”

He went on deck. Shaw approached the table and began to help himself, handling the bottles in profound silence and with exaggerated caution, as if he had been measuring out of fragile vessels a dose of some deadly poison. Carter, his hands in his pockets, and leaning back, examined him from head to foot with a cool stare. The mate of the brig raised the glass to his lips, and glaring above the rim at the stranger, drained the contents slowly.

“You have a fine nose for finding ships in the dark, Mister,” he said, distinctly, putting the glass on the table with extreme gentleness.

“Eh? What’s that? I sighted you just after sunset.”

“And you knew where to look, too,” said Shaw, staring hard.

“I looked to the westward where there was still some light, as any sensible man would do,” retorted the other a little impatiently. “What are you trying to get at?”

“And you have a ready tongue to blow about yourself — haven’t you?”

“Never saw such a man in my life,” declared Carter, with a return of his nonchalant manner. “You seem to be troubled about something.”

“I don’t like boats to come sneaking up from nowhere in particular, alongside a ship when I am in charge of the deck. I can keep a lookout as well as any man out of home ports, but I hate to be circumvented by muffled oars and such ungentlemanlike tricks. Yacht officer — indeed. These seas must be full of such yachtsmen. I consider you played a mean trick on me. I told my old man there was nothing in sight at sunset — and no more there was. I believe you blundered upon us by chance — for all your boasting about sunsets and bearings. Gammon! I know you came on blindly on top of us, and with muffled oars, too. D’ye call that decent?”

“If I did muffle the oars it was for a good reason. I wanted to slip past a cove where some native craft were moored. That was common prudence in such a small boat, and not armed — as I am. I saw you right enough, but I had no intention to startle anybody. Take my word for it.”

“I wish you had gone somewhere else,” growled Shaw. “I hate to be put in the wrong through accident and untruthfulness — there! Here’s my old man calling me — ”

He left the cabin hurriedly and soon afterward Lingard came down, and sat again facing Carter across the table. His face was grave but resolute.

“We shall get the breeze directly,” he said.

“Then, sir,” said Carter, getting up, “if you will give me back that letter I shall go on cruising about here to speak some other ship. I trust you will report us wherever you are going.”

“I am going to the yacht and I shall keep the letter,” answered Lingard with decision. “I know exactly where she is, and I must go to the rescue of those people. It’s most fortunate you’ve fallen in with me, Mr. Carter. Fortunate for them and fortunate for me,” he added in a lower tone.

“Yes,” drawled Carter, reflectively. “There may be a tidy bit of salvage money if you should get the vessel off, but I don’t think you can do much. I had better stay out here and try to speak some gunboat — ”

“You must come back to your ship with me,” said Lingard, authoritatively. “Never mind the gunboats.”

“That wouldn’t be carrying out my orders,” argued Carter. “I’ve got to speak a homeward-bound ship or a man-of-war — that’s plain enough. I am not anxious to knock about for days in an open boat, but — let me fill my fresh-water breaker, Captain, and I will be off.”

“Nonsense,” said Lingard, sharply. “You’ve got to come with me to show the place and — and help. I’ll take your boat in tow.”

Carter did not seem convinced. Lingard laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Look here, young fellow. I am Tom Lingard and there’s not a white man among these islands, and very few natives, that have not heard of me. My luck brought you into my ship — and now I’ve got you, you must stay. You must!”

The last “must” burst out loud and sharp like a pistol-shot. Carter stepped back.

“Do you mean you would keep me by force?” he asked, startled.

“Force,” repeated Lingard. “It rests with you. I cannot let you speak any vessel. Your yacht has gone ashore in a most inconvenient place — for me; and with your boats sent off here and there, you would bring every infernal gunboat buzzing to a spot that was as quiet and retired as the heart of man could wish. You stranding just on that spot of the whole coast was my bad luck. And that I could not help. You coming upon me like this is my good luck. And that I hold!”

He dropped his clenched fist, big and muscular, in the light of the lamp on the black cloth, amongst the glitter of glasses, with the strong fingers closed tight upon the firm flesh of the palm. He left it there for a moment as if showing Carter that luck he was going to hold. And he went on:

“Do you know into what hornet’s nest your stupid people have blundered? How much d’ye think their lives are worth, just now? Not a brass farthing if the breeze fails me for another twenty-four hours. You may well open your eyes. It is so! And it may be too late now, while I am arguing with you here.”