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_ 'The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted,
admired, with a legend of strength and prowess forming round his
name as though he had been the stuff of a hero. It's true--I assure
you; as true as I'm sitting here talking about him in vain. He, on
his side, had that faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his
desire and the shape of his dream, without which the earth would
know no lover and no adventurer. He captured much honour and an
Arcadian happiness (I won't say anything about innocence) in the
bush, and it was as good to him as the honour and the Arcadian
happiness of the streets to another man. Felicity, felicity--how
shall I say it?--is quaffed out of a golden cup in every latitude:
the flavour is with you--with you alone, and you can make it as
intoxicating as you please. He was of the sort that would drink
deep, as you may guess from what went before. I found him, if not
exactly intoxicated, then at least flushed with the elixir at his
lips. He had not obtained it at once. There had been, as you know,
a period of probation amongst infernal ship-chandlers, during which
he had suffered and I had worried about--about--my trust--you may
call it. I don't know that I am completely reassured now, after
beholding him in all his brilliance. That was my last view of him--in
a strong light, dominating, and yet in complete accord with his
surroundings--with the life of the forests and with the life of men.
I own that I was impressed, but I must admit to myself that after all
this is not the lasting impression. He was protected by his isolation,
alone of his own superior kind, in close touch with Nature, that keeps
faith on such easy terms with her lovers. But I cannot fix before my
eye the image of his safety. I shall always remember him as seen
through the open door of my room, taking, perhaps, too much to heart
the mere consequences of his failure. I am pleased, of course, that
some good--and even some splendour--came out of my endeavours; but at
times it seems to me it would have been better for my peace of mind if
I had not stood between him and Chester's confoundedly generous offer.
I wonder what his exuberant imagination would have made of Walpole
islet--that most hopelessly forsaken crumb of dry land on the face of
the waters. It is not likely I would ever have heard, for I must tell
you that Chester, after calling at some Australian port to patch up
his brig-rigged sea-anachronism, steamed out into the Pacific with a
crew of twenty-two hands all told, and the only news having a possible
bearing upon the mystery of his fate was the news of a hurricane which
is supposed to have swept in its course over the Walpole shoals, a
month or so afterwards. Not a vestige of the Argonauts ever turned up;
not a sound came out of the waste. Finis! The Pacific is the most
discreet of live, hot-tempered oceans: the chilly Antarctic can keep
a secret too, but more in the manner of a grave.
'And there is a sense of blessed finality in such discretion, which
is what we all more or less sincerely are ready to admit--for what
else is it that makes the idea of death supportable? End! Finis!
the potent word that exorcises from the house of life the haunting
shadow of fate. This is what--notwithstanding the testimony of my
eyes and his own earnest assurances--I miss when I look back upon
Jim's success. While there's life there is hope, truly; but there is
fear too. I don't mean to say that I regret my action, nor will I
pretend that I can't sleep o' nights in consequence; still, the idea
obtrudes itself that he made so much of his disgrace while it is the
guilt alone that matters. He was not--if I may say so--clear to me.
He was not clear. And there is a suspicion he was not clear to himself
either. There were his fine sensibilities, his fine feelings, his fine
longings--a sort of sublimated, idealised selfishness. He was--if
you allow me to say so--very fine; very fine--and very unfortunate.
A little coarser nature would not have borne the strain; it would
have had to come to terms with itself--with a sigh, with a grunt,
or even with a guffaw; a still coarser one would have remained
invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting.
'But he was too interesting or too unfortunate to be thrown to
the dogs, or even to Chester. I felt this while I sat with my face over
the paper and he fought and gasped, struggling for his breath in
that terribly stealthy way, in my room; I felt it when he rushed out
on the verandah as if to fling himself over--and didn't; I felt it more
and more all the time he remained outside, faintly lighted on the
background of night, as if standing on the shore of a sombre and
hopeless sea.
'An abrupt heavy rumble made me lift my head. The noise
seemed to roll away, and suddenly a searching and violent glare fell
on the blind face of the night. The sustained and dazzling flickers
seemed to last for an unconscionable time. The growl of the thunder
increased steadily while I looked at him, distinct and black, planted
solidly upon the shores of a sea of light. At the moment of greatest
brilliance the darkness leaped back with a culminating crash, and
he vanished before my dazzled eyes as utterly as though he had been
blown to atoms. A blustering sigh passed; furious hands seemed to
tear at the shrubs, shake the tops of the trees below, slam doors,
break window-panes, all along the front of the building. He stepped
in, closing the door behind him, and found me bending over the
table: my sudden anxiety as to what he would say was very great,
and akin to a fright. "May I have a cigarette?" he asked. I gave a
push to the box without raising my head. "I want--want--tobacco,"
he muttered. I became extremely buoyant. "Just a moment." I
grunted pleasantly. He took a few steps here and there. "That's
over," I heard him say. A single distant clap of thunder came from
the sea like a gun of distress. "The monsoon breaks up early this
year," he remarked conversationally, somewhere behind me. This
encouraged me to turn round, which I did as soon as I had finished
addressing the last envelope. He was smoking greedily in the middle
of the room, and though he heard the stir I made, he remained with
his back to me for a time.
' "Come--I carried it off pretty well," he said, wheeling suddenly.
"Something's paid off--not much. I wonder what's to come." His
face did not show any emotion, only it appeared a little darkened
and swollen, as though he had been holding his breath. He smiled
reluctantly as it were, and went on while I gazed up at him
mutely. . . . "Thank you, though--your room--jolly convenient--for
a chap--badly hipped." . . . The rain pattered and swished in the
garden; a water-pipe (it must have had a hole in it) performed
just outside the window a parody of blubbering woe with funny sobs
and gurgling lamentations, interrupted by jerky spasms of silence. . . .
"A bit of shelter," he mumbled and ceased.
'A flash of faded lightning darted in through the black framework
of the windows and ebbed out without any noise. I was thinking
how I had best approach him (I did not want to be flung off again)
when he gave a little laugh. "No better than a vagabond now" . . .
the end of the cigarette smouldered between his fingers . . . "without
a single--single," he pronounced slowly; "and yet . . ." He
paused; the rain fell with redoubled violence. "Some day one's
bound to come upon some sort of chance to get it all back again.
Must!" he whispered distinctly, glaring at my boots.
'I did not even know what it was he wished so much to regain,
what it was he had so terribly missed. It might have been so much
that it was impossible to say. A piece of ass's skin, according to
Chester. . . . He looked up at me inquisitively. "Perhaps. If life's
long enough," I muttered through my teeth with unreasonable animosity.
"Don't reckon too much on it."
' "Jove! I feel as if nothing could ever touch me," he said in a
tone of sombre conviction. "If this business couldn't knock me
over, then there's no fear of there being not enough time to--climb
out, and . . ." He looked upwards.
'It struck me that it is from such as he that the great army of
waifs and strays is recruited, the army that marches down, down
into all the gutters of the earth. As soon as he left my room, that
"bit of shelter," he would take his place in the ranks, and begin the
journey towards the bottomless pit. I at least had no illusions; but
it was I, too, who a moment ago had been so sure of the power of
words, and now was afraid to speak, in the same way one dares not
move for fear of losing a slippery hold. It is when we try to grapple
with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible,
wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of
the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if loneliness were
a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope of
flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the
outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable,
and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp. It
was the fear of losing him that kept me silent, for it was borne
upon me suddenly and with unaccountable force that should I let
him slip away into the darkness I would never forgive myself.
' "Well. Thanks--once more. You've been--er--uncommonly--really
there's no word to . . . Uncommonly! I don't know why, I am sure.
I am afraid I don't feel as grateful as I would if the whole
thing hadn't been so brutally sprung on me. Because at bottom . . .
you, yourself . . ." He stuttered.
' "Possibly," I struck in. He frowned.
' "All the same, one is responsible." He watched me like a hawk.
' "And that's true, too," I said.
' "Well. I've gone with it to the end, and I don't intend to let any
man cast it in my teeth without--without--resenting it." He
clenched his fist.
' "There's yourself," I said with a smile--mirthless enough, God
knows--but he looked at me menacingly. "That's my business," he
said. An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face
like a vain and passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good
boy in trouble, as before. He flung away the cigarette. "Good-bye,"
he said, with the sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long
in view of a pressing bit of work waiting for him; and then for
a second or so he made not the slightest movement. The downpour
fell with the heavy uninterrupted rush of a sweeping flood, with
a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that called to one's mind
the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted trees, of undermined
mountains. No man could breast the colossal and headlong stream
that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness in which
we were precariously sheltered as if on an island. The perforated
pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and splashed in odious ridicule of a
swimmer fighting for his life. "It is raining," I remonstrated, "and
I . . ." "Rain or shine," he began brusquely, checked himself, and
walked to the window. "Perfect deluge," he muttered after a while:
he leaned his forehead on the glass. "It's dark, too."
' "Yes, it is very dark," I said.
'He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually
opened the door leading into the corridor before I leaped up from
my chair. "Wait," I cried, "I want you to . . ." "I can't dine with
you again to-night," he flung at me, with one leg out of the room
already. "I haven't the slightest intention to ask you," I shouted.
At this he drew back his foot, but remained mistrustfully in the
very doorway. I lost no time in entreating him earnestly not to be
absurd; to come in and shut the door.' _
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