Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (549 page)

“It was dare — or give up. The help from the Straits would have been too late anyhow if I hadn’t the power to keep you safe; and if I had the power I could see you through it — alone. I expected to find a reasonable man to talk to. I ought to have known better. You come from too far to understand these things. Well, I dared; I’ve sent after your other boat a fellow who, with me at his back, would try to stop the governor of the Straits himself. He will do it. Perhaps it’s done already. You have nothing to hope for. But I am here. You said you believed I meant well — ”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“That’s why I thought I would tell you everything. I had to begin with this business about the boat. And what do you think of me now? I’ve cut you off from the rest of the earth. You people would disappear like a stone in the water. You left one foreign port for another. Who’s there to trouble about what became of you? Who would know? Who could guess? It would be months before they began to stir.”

“I understand,” she said, steadily, “we are helpless.”

“And alone,” he added.

After a pause she said in a deliberate, restrained voice:

“What does this mean? Plunder, captivity?”

“It would have meant death if I hadn’t been here,” he answered.

“But you have the power to — ”

“Why, do you think, you are alive yet?” he cried. “Jorgenson has been arguing with them on shore,” he went on, more calmly, with a swing of his arm toward where the night seemed darkest. “Do you think he would have kept them back if they hadn’t expected me every day? His words would have been nothing without my fist.”

She heard a dull blow struck on the side of the yacht and concealed in the same darkness that wrapped the unconcern of the earth and sea, the fury and the pain of hearts; she smiled above his head, fascinated by the simplicity of images and expressions.

Lingard made a brusque movement, the lively little boat being unsteady under his feet, and she spoke slowly, absently, as if her thought had been lost in the vagueness of her sensations.

“And this — this — Jorgenson, you said? Who is he?”

“A man,” he answered, “a man like myself.”

“Like yourself?”

“Just like myself,” he said with strange reluctance, as if admitting a painful truth. “More sense, perhaps, but less luck. Though, since your yacht has turned up here, I begin to think that my luck is nothing much to boast of either.”

“Is our presence here so fatal?”

“It may be death to some. It may be worse than death to me. And it rests with you in a way. Think of that! I can never find such another chance again. But that’s nothing! A man who has saved my life once and that I passed my word to would think I had thrown him over. But that’s nothing! Listen! As true as I stand here in my boat talking to you, I believe the girl would die of grief.”

“You love her,” she said, softly.

“Like my own daughter,” he cried, low.

Mrs. Travers said, “Oh!” faintly, and for a moment there was a silence, then he began again:

“Look here. When I was a boy in a trawler, and looked at you yacht people, in the Channel ports, you were as strange to me as the Malays here are strange to you. I left home sixteen years ago and fought my way all round the earth. I had the time to forget where I began. What are you to me against these two? If I was to die here on the spot would you care? No one would care at home. No one in the whole world — but these two.”

“What can I do?” she asked, and waited, leaning over.

He seemed to reflect, then lifting his head, spoke gently:

“Do you understand the danger you are in? Are you afraid?”

“I understand the expression you used, of course. Understand the danger?” she went on. “No — decidedly no. And — honestly — I am not afraid.”

“Aren’t you?” he said in a disappointed voice. “Perhaps you don’t believe me? I believed you, though, when you said you were sure I meant well. I trusted you enough to come here asking for your help — telling you what no one knows.”

“You mistake me,” she said with impulsive earnestness. “This is so extraordinarily unusual — sudden — outside my experience.”

“Aye!” he murmured, “what would you know of danger and trouble? You! But perhaps by thinking it over — ”

“You want me to think myself into a fright!” Mrs. Travers laughed lightly, and in the gloom of his thought this flash of joyous sound was incongruous and almost terrible. Next moment the night appeared brilliant as day, warm as sunshine; but when she ceased the returning darkness gave him pain as if it had struck heavily against his breast. “I don’t think I could do that,” she finished in a serious tone.

“Couldn’t you?” He hesitated, perplexed. “Things are bad enough to make it no shame. I tell you,” he said, rapidly, “and I am not a timid man, I may not be able to do much if you people don’t help me.”

“You want me to pretend I am alarmed?” she asked, quickly.

“Aye, to pretend — as well you may. It’s a lot to ask of you — who perhaps never had to make-believe a thing in your life — isn’t it?”

“It is,” she said after a time.

The unexpected bitterness of her tone struck Lingard with dismay.

“Don’t be offended,” he entreated. “I’ve got to plan a way out of this mess. It’s no play either. Could you pretend?”

“Perhaps, if I tried very hard. But to what end?”

“You must all shift aboard the brig,” he began, speaking quickly, “and then we may get over this trouble without coming to blows. Now, if you were to say that you wish it; that you feel unsafe in the yacht — don’t you see?”

“I see,” she pronounced, thoughtfully.

“The brig is small but the cuddy is fit for a lady,” went on Lingard with animation.

“Has it not already sheltered a princess?” she commented, coolly.

“And I shall not intrude.”

“This is an inducement.”

“Nobody will dare to intrude. You needn’t even see me.”

“This is almost decisive, only — ”

“I know my place.”

“Only, I might not have the influence,” she finished.

“That I can not believe,” he said, roughly. “The long and the short of it is you don’t trust me because you think that only people of your own condition speak the truth always.”

“Evidently,” she murmured.

“You say to yourself — here’s a fellow deep in with pirates, thieves, niggers — ”

“To be sure — ”

“A man I never saw the like before,” went on Lingard, headlong, “a — ruffian.”

He checked himself, full of confusion. After a time he heard her saying, calmly:

“You are like other men in this, that you get angry when you can not have your way at once.”

“I angry!” he exclaimed in deadened voice. “You do not understand. I am thinking of you also — it is hard on me — ”

“I mistrust not you, but my own power. You have produced an unfortunate impression on Mr. Travers.”

“Unfortunate impression! He treated me as if I had been a long-shore loafer. Never mind that. He is your husband. Fear in those you care for is hard to bear for any man. And so, he — ”

“What Machiavellism!”

“Eh, what did you say?”

“I only wondered where you had observed that. On the sea?”

“Observed what?” he said, absently. Then pursuing his idea — ”One word from you ought to be enough.”

“You think so?”

“I am sure of it. Why, even I, myself — ”

“Of course,” she interrupted. “But don’t you think that after parting with you on such — such — inimical terms, there would be a difficulty in resuming relations?”

“A man like me would do anything for money — don’t you see?”

After a pause she asked:

“And would you care for that argument to be used?”

“As long as you know better!”

His voice vibrated — she drew back disturbed, as if unexpectedly he had touched her.

“What can there be at stake?” she began, wonderingly.

“A kingdom,” said Lingard.

Mrs. Travers leaned far over the rail, staring, and their faces, one above the other, came very close together.

“Not for yourself?” she whispered.

He felt the touch of her breath on his forehead and remained still for a moment, perfectly still as if he did not intend to move or speak any more.

“Those things,” he began, suddenly, “come in your way, when you don’t think, and they get all round you before you know what you mean to do. When I went into that bay in New Guinea I never guessed where that course would take me to. I could tell you a story. You would understand! You! You!”

He stammered, hesitated, and suddenly spoke, liberating the visions of two years into the night where Mrs. Travers could follow them as if outlined in words of fire.

VII

His tale was as startling as the discovery of a new world. She was being taken along the boundary of an exciting existence, and she looked into it through the guileless enthusiasm of the narrator. The heroic quality of the feelings concealed what was disproportionate and absurd in that gratitude, in that friendship, in that inexplicable devotion. The headlong fierceness of purpose invested his obscure design of conquest with the proportions of a great enterprise. It was clear that no vision of a subjugated world could have been more inspiring to the most famous adventurer of history.

From time to time he interrupted himself to ask, confidently, as if he had been speaking to an old friend, “What would you have done?” and hurried on without pausing for approval.

It struck her that there was a great passion in all this, the beauty of an implanted faculty of affection that had found itself, its immediate need of an object and the way of expansion; a tenderness expressed violently; a tenderness that could only be satisfied by backing human beings against their own destiny. Perhaps her hatred of convention, trammelling the frankness of her own impulses, had rendered her more alert to perceive what is intrinsically great and profound within the forms of human folly, so simple and so infinitely varied according to the region of the earth and to the moment of time.

What of it that the narrator was only a roving seaman; the kingdom of the jungle, the men of the forest, the lives obscure! That simple soul was possessed by the greatness of the idea; there was nothing sordid in its flaming impulses. When she once understood that, the story appealed to the audacity of her thoughts, and she became so charmed with what she heard that she forgot where she was. She forgot that she was personally close to that tale which she saw detached, far away from her, truth or fiction, presented in picturesque speech, real only by the response of her emotion.

Lingard paused. In the cessation of the impassioned murmur she began to reflect. And at first it was only an oppressive notion of there being some significance that really mattered in this man’s story. That mattered to her. For the first time the shadow of danger and death crossed her mind. Was that the significance? Suddenly, in a flash of acute discernment, she saw herself involved helplessly in that story, as one is involved in a natural cataclysm.

He was speaking again. He had not been silent more than a minute. It seemed to Mrs. Travers that years had elapsed, so different now was the effect of his words. Her mind was agitated as if his coming to speak and confide in her had been a tremendous occurrence. It was a fact of her own existence; it was part of the story also. This was the disturbing thought. She heard him pronounce several names: Belarab, Daman, Tengga, Ningrat. These belonged now to her life and she was appalled to find she was unable to connect these names with any human appearance. They stood out alone, as if written on the night; they took on a symbolic shape; they imposed themselves upon her senses. She whispered as if pondering: “Belarab, Daman, Ningrat,” and these barbarous sounds seemed to possess an exceptional energy, a fatal aspect, the savour of madness.

“Not one of them but has a heavy score to settle with the whites. What’s that to me! I had somehow to get men who would fight. I risked my life to get that lot. I made them promises which I shall keep — or — ! Can you see now why I dared to stop your boat? I am in so deep that I care for no Sir John in the world. When I look at the work ahead I care for nothing. I gave you one chance — one good chance. That I had to do. No! I suppose I didn’t look enough of a gentleman. Yes! Yes! That’s it. Yet I know what a gentleman is. I lived with them for years. I chummed with them — yes — on gold-fields and in other places where a man has got to show the stuff that’s in him. Some of them write from home to me here — such as you see me, because I — never mind! And I know what a gentleman would do. Come! Wouldn’t he treat a stranger fairly? Wouldn’t he remember that no man is a liar till you prove him so? Wouldn’t he keep his word wherever given? Well, I am going to do that. Not a hair of your head shall be touched as long as I live!”

She had regained much of her composure but at these words she felt that staggering sense of utter insecurity which is given one by the first tremor of an earthquake. It was followed by an expectant stillness of sensations. She remained silent. He thought she did not believe him.

“Come! What on earth do you think brought me here — to — to — talk like this to you? There was Hassim — Rajah Tulla, I should say — who was asking me this afternoon: ‘What will you do now with these, your people?’ I believe he thinks yet I fetched you here for some reason. You can’t tell what crooked notion they will get into their thick heads. It’s enough to make one swear.” He swore. “My people! Are you? How much? Say — how much? You’re no more mine than I am yours. Would any of you fine folks at home face black ruin to save a fishing smack’s crew from getting drowned?”

Notwithstanding that sense of insecurity which lingered faintly in her mind she had no image of death before her. She felt intensely alive. She felt alive in a flush of strength, with an impression of novelty as though life had been the gift of this very moment. The danger hidden in the night gave no sign to awaken her terror, but the workings of a human soul, simple and violent, were laid bare before her and had the disturbing charm of an unheard-of experience. She was listening to a man who concealed nothing. She said, interrogatively: