Lord Jim
that ever was, and you . . .” “I have an appointment,” I pleaded mildly.
“What of that?” he asked with genuine surprise; “let it wait.” “That’s
exactly what I am doing now,” I remarked; “hadn’t you better tell me
what it is you want?” “Buy twenty hotels like that,” he growled to
himself; “and every joker boarding in them too--twenty times over.” He
lifted his head smartly “I want that young chap.” “I don’t understand,”
I said. “He’s no good, is he?” said Chester crisply. “I know nothing
about it,” I protested. “Why, you told me yourself he was taking it to
heart,” argued Chester. “Well, in my opinion a chap who . . . Anyhow, he
can’t be much good; but then you see I am on the look-out for somebody,
and I’ve just got a thing that will suit him. I’ll give him a job on
my island.” He nodded significantly. “I’m going to dump forty coolies
there--if I’ve to steal ‘em. Somebody must work the stuff. Oh! I mean
to act square: wooden shed, corrugated-iron roof--I know a man in Hobart
who will take my bill at six months for the materials. I do. Honour
bright. Then there’s the water-supply. I’ll have to fly round and get
somebody to trust me for half-a-dozen second-hand iron tanks. Catch
rain-water, hey? Let him take charge. Make him supreme boss over the
coolies. Good idea, isn’t it? What do you say?” “There are whole years
when not a drop of rain falls on Walpole,” I said, too amazed to laugh.
He bit his lip and seemed bothered. “Oh, well, I will fix up something
for them--or land a supply. Hang it all! That’s not the question.”
‘I said nothing. I had a rapid vision of Jim perched on a shadowless
rock, up to his knees in guano, with the screams of sea-birds in his
ears, the incandescent ball of the sun above his head; the empty sky and
the empty ocean all a-quiver, simmering together in the heat as far as
the eye could reach. “I wouldn’t advise my worst enemy . . .” I began.
“What’s the matter with you?” cried Chester; “I mean to give him a good
screw--that is, as soon as the thing is set going, of course. It’s as
easy as falling off a log. Simply nothing to do; two six-shooters in his
belt . . . Surely he wouldn’t be afraid of anything forty coolies could
do--with two six-shooters and he the only armed man too! It’s much
better than it looks. I want you to help me to talk him over.” “No!”
I shouted. Old Robinson lifted his bleared eyes dismally for a moment,
Chester looked at me with infinite contempt. “So you wouldn’t advise
him?” he uttered slowly. “Certainly not,” I answered, as indignant as
though he had requested me to help murder somebody; “moreover, I am sure
he wouldn’t. He is badly cut up, but he isn’t mad as far as I know.” “He
is no earthly good for anything,” Chester mused aloud. “He would just
have done for me. If you only could see a thing as it is, you would
see it’s the very thing for him. And besides . . . Why! it’s the most
splendid, sure chance . . .” He got angry suddenly. “I must have a man.
There! . . .” He stamped his foot and smiled unpleasantly. “Anyhow, I
could guarantee the island wouldn’t sink under him--and I believe he
is a bit particular on that point.” “Good morning,” I said curtly. He
looked at me as though I had been an incomprehensible fool. . . . “Must
be moving, Captain Robinson,” he yelled suddenly into the old man’s ear.
“These Parsee Johnnies are waiting for us to clinch the bargain.” He
took his partner under the arm with a firm grip, swung him round, and,
unexpectedly, leered at me over his shoulder. “I was trying to do him
a kindness,” he asserted, with an air and tone that made my blood boil.
“Thank you for nothing--in his name,” I rejoined. “Oh! you are devilish
smart,” he sneered; “but you are like the rest of them. Too much in the
clouds. See what you will do with him.” “I don’t know that I want to
do anything with him.” “Don’t you?” he spluttered; his grey moustache
bristled with anger, and by his side the notorious Robinson, propped
on the umbrella, stood with his back to me, as patient and still as a
worn-out cab-horse. “I haven’t found a guano island,” I said. “It’s
my belief you wouldn’t know one if you were led right up to it by the
hand,” he riposted quickly; “and in this world you’ve got to see a thing
first, before you can make use of it. Got to see it through and through
at that, neither more nor less.” “And get others to see it, too,” I
insinuated, with a glance at the bowed back by his side. Chester snorted
at me. “His eyes are right enough--don’t you worry. He ain’t a puppy.”
“Oh, dear, no!” I said. “Come along, Captain Robinson,” he shouted, with
a sort of bullying deference under the rim of the old man’s hat; the
Holy Terror gave a submissive little jump. The ghost of a steamer was
waiting for them, Fortune on that fair isle! They made a curious pair
of Argonauts. Chester strode on leisurely, well set up, portly, and of
conquering mien; the other, long, wasted, drooping, and hooked to his
arm, shuffled his withered shanks with desperate haste.’
CHAPTER 15
‘I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an
appointment which I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have
it, in my agent’s office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from
Madagascar with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of business. It
had something to do with cattle and cartridges and a Prince Ravonalo
something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stupidity of some
admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the
chap couldn’t find words strong enough to express his confidence. He had
globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on
his forehead, and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting.
He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating triumphantly, “The
minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?” He made
my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right;
and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straight for the water-side.
I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native
boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his
elbow. He didn’t hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight
contact of my finger had released a catch. “I was looking,” he
stammered. I don’t remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no
difficulty in following me to the hotel.
‘He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air,
with no sort of manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting
for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so
surprised as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to
some seems so big and that others affect to consider as rather smaller
than a mustard-seed, he had no place where he could--what shall I
say?--where he could withdraw. That’s it! Withdraw--be alone with his
loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here and there, and
once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat
and yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump
of anthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even
remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not
edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe
he would have gone straight before him in any direction till stopped by
a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat
down at once to write letters. This was the only place in the world
(unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not so handy) where he
could have it out with himself without being bothered by the rest of
the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made
him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my
chair I bent over my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for
the movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I
can’t say I was frightened; but I certainly kept as still as if there
had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a
movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not
much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort of four-poster
bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I was
writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah,
and he stood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible
privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of movement
and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is
no doubt that he had a very hard time of it, and so had I, even to the
point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at
least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was,
perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. That strange
idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it
were. It was enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see
the true aspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless
to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the
arrears of my correspondence, and then went on writing to people who had
no reason whatever to expect from me a gossipy letter about nothing at
all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot,
but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave
suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, as it
seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of
the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of
the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming
fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the
scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence
and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance
and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing
uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what
I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritation with a sort of
craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but which gives
a quite special merit to one’s endurance. I don’t claim any merit
for standing the stress of Jim’s emotions; I could take refuge in the
letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I
was taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first
sound that, since we had been shut up together, had come to my ears in
the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my
hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such
faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, sounds wrung from a
racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force
that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining
my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really
taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester’s rigorous
criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as
they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to
an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One
could intelligibly break one’s heart over that. A feeble burst of many
voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the
dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light
from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood
on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of
a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it--to
be sure--a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My
compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn’t have