________________________________________________
_ 'You may imagine with what interest I listened. All these details
were perceived to have some significance twenty-four hours later.
In the morning Cornelius made no allusion to the events of the
night. "I suppose you will come back to my poor house," he muttered,
surlily, slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to go
over to Doramin's campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at
him. "You find it good fun, no doubt," muttered the other in a
sour tone. Jim spent the day with the old nakhoda, preaching the
necessity of vigorous action to the principal men of the Bugis
community, who had been summoned for a big talk. He remembered
with pleasure how very eloquent and persuasive he had been. "I
managed to put some backbone into them that time, and no mistake,"
he said. Sherif Ali's last raid had swept the outskirts of the
settlement, and some women belonging to the town had been carried
off to the stockade. Sherif Ali's emissaries had been seen in the
market-place the day before, strutting about haughtily in white
cloaks, and boasting of the Rajah's friendship for their master. One
of them stood forward in the shade of a tree, and, leaning on the
long barrel of a rifle, exhorted the people to prayer and repentance,
advising them to kill all the strangers in their midst, some of whom,
he said, were infidels and others even worse--children of Satan in
the guise of Moslems. It was reported that several of the Rajah's
people amongst the listeners had loudly expressed their approbation.
The terror amongst the common people was intense. Jim, immensely
pleased with his day's work, crossed the river again before sunset.
'As he had got the Bugis irretrievably committed to action and
had made himself responsible for success on his own head, he was
so elated that in the lightness of his heart he absolutely tried to be
civil with Cornelius. But Cornelius became wildly jovial in
response, and it was almost more than he could stand, he says, to
hear his little squeaks of false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink,
and suddenly catch hold of his chin and crouch low over the table
with a distracted stare. The girl did not show herself, and Jim
retired early. When he rose to say good-night, Cornelius jumped
up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out of sight as if to pick
up something he had dropped. His good-night came huskily from
under the table. Jim was amazed to see him emerge with a dropping
jaw, and staring, stupidly frightened eyes. He clutched the edge of
the table. "What's the matter? Are you unwell?" asked Jim. "Yes,
yes, yes. A great colic in my stomach," says the other; and it is
Jim's opinion that it was perfectly true. If so, it was, in view of his
contemplated action, an abject sign of a still imperfect callousness
for which he must be given all due credit.
'Be it as it may, Jim's slumbers were disturbed by a dream of
heavens like brass resounding with a great voice, which called upon
him to Awake! Awake! so loud that, notwithstanding his desperate
determination to sleep on, he did wake up in reality. The glare of
a red spluttering conflagration going on in mid-air fell on his eyes.
Coils of black thick smoke curved round the head of some apparition,
some unearthly being, all in white, with a severe, drawn,
anxious face. After a second or so he recognised the girl. She was
holding a dammar torch at arm's-length aloft, and in a persistent,
urgent monotone she was repeating, "Get up! Get up! Get up!"
'Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a
revolver, his own revolver, which had been hanging on a nail, but
loaded this time. He gripped it in silence, bewildered, blinking in
the light. He wondered what he could do for her.
'She asked rapidly and very low, "Can you face four men with
this?" He laughed while narrating this part at the recollection of his
polite alacrity. It seems he made a great display of it. "Certainly--
of course--certainly--command me." He was not properly awake,
and had a notion of being very civil in these extraordinary circumstances,
of showing his unquestioning, devoted readiness. She left the room,
and he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did
the casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to
be hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled
behind them, mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of
sail-cloth, belonging to Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of
Jim's elbow. It was empty.
'The Patusan establishment, like all the posts of Stein's Trading
Company, had originally consisted of four buildings. Two of them
were represented by two heaps of sticks, broken bamboos, rotten
thatch, over which the four corner-posts of hardwood leaned sadly
at different angles: the principal storeroom, however, stood yet,
facing the agent's house. It was an oblong hut, built of mud and
clay; it had at one end a wide door of stout planking, which so far
had not come off the hinges, and in one of the side walls there was
a square aperture, a sort of window, with three wooden bars. Before
descending the few steps the girl turned her face over her shoulder
and said quickly, "You were to be set upon while you slept." Jim
tells me he experienced a sense of deception. It was the old story.
He was weary of these attempts upon his life. He had had his fill of
these alarms. He was sick of them. He assured me he was angry
with the girl for deceiving him. He had followed her under the
impression that it was she who wanted his help, and now he had
half a mind to turn on his heel and go back in disgust. "Do you
know," he commented profoundly, "I rather think I was not quite
myself for whole weeks on end about that time." "Oh yes. You
were though," I couldn't help contradicting.
'But she moved on swiftly, and he followed her into the courtyard.
All its fences had fallen in a long time ago; the neighbours'
buffaloes would pace in the morning across the open space, snorting
profoundly, without haste; the very jungle was invading it already.
Jim and the girl stopped in the rank grass. The light in which they
stood made a dense blackness all round, and only above their heads
there was an opulent glitter of stars. He told me it was a beautiful
night--quite cool, with a little stir of breeze from the river. It seems
he noticed its friendly beauty. Remember this is a love story I am
telling you now. A lovely night seemed to breathe on them a soft
caress. The flame of the torch streamed now and then with a fluttering
noise like a flag, and for a time this was the only sound. "They
are in the storeroom waiting," whispered the girl; "they are waiting
for the signal." "Who's to give it?" he asked. She shook the torch,
which blazed up after a shower of sparks. "Only you have been
sleeping so restlessly," she continued in a murmur; "I watched
your sleep, too." "You!" he exclaimed, craning his neck to look
about him. "You think I watched on this night only!" she said,
with a sort of despairing indignation.
'He says it was as if he had received a blow on the chest. He
gasped. He thought he had been an awful brute somehow, and he
felt remorseful, touched, happy, elated. This, let me remind you
again, is a love story; you can see it by the imbecility, not a repulsive
imbecility, the exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station
in torchlight, as if they had come there on purpose to have it out
for the edification of concealed murderers. If Sherif Ali's emissaries
had been possessed--as Jim remarked--of a pennyworth of spunk,
this was the time to make a rush. His heart was thumping--not
with fear--but he seemed to hear the grass rustle, and he stepped
smartly out of the light. Something dark, imperfectly seen, flitted
rapidly out of sight. He called out in a strong voice, "Cornelius! O
Cornelius!" A profound silence succeeded: his voice did not seem
to have carried twenty feet. Again the girl was by his side. "Fly!"
she said. The old woman was coming up; her broken figure hovered
in crippled little jumps on the edge of the light; they heard her
mumbling, and a light, moaning sigh. "Fly!" repeated the girl
excitedly. "They are frightened now--this light--the voices. They
know you are awake now--they know you are big, strong, fearless . . ."
"If I am all that," he began; but she interrupted him: "Yes--to-night!
But what of to-morrow night? Of the next night? Of the night after--of
all the many, many nights? Can I be always watching?" A sobbing catch
of her breath affected him beyond the power of words.
'He told me that he had never felt so small, so powerless--and
as to courage, what was the good of it? he thought. He was so
helpless that even flight seemed of no use; and though she kept
on whispering, "Go to Doramin, go to Doramin," with feverish
insistence, he realised that for him there was no refuge from that
loneliness which centupled all his dangers except--in her. "I
thought," he said to me, "that if I went away from her it would be
the end of everything somehow." Only as they couldn't stop there
for ever in the middle of that courtyard, he made up his mind to go
and look into the storehouse. He let her follow him without thinking
of any protest, as if they had been indissolubly united. "I am
fearless--am I?" he muttered through his teeth. She restrained his arm.
"Wait till you hear my voice," she said, and, torch in hand, ran
lightly round the corner. He remained alone in the darkness, his
face to the door: not a sound, not a breath came from the other side.
The old hag let out a dreary groan somewhere behind his back. He
heard a high-pitched almost screaming call from the girl. "Now!
Push!" He pushed violently; the door swung with a creak and a
clatter, disclosing to his intense astonishment the low dungeon-like
interior illuminated by a lurid, wavering glare. A turmoil of smoke
eddied down upon an empty wooden crate in the middle of the
floor, a litter of rags and straw tried to soar, but only stirred feebly
in the draught. She had thrust the light through the bars of the
window. He saw her bare round arm extended and rigid, holding
up the torch with the steadiness of an iron bracket. A conical ragged
heap of old mats cumbered a distant corner almost to the ceiling,
and that was all.
'He explained to me that he was bitterly disappointed at this. His
fortitude had been tried by so many warnings, he had been for
weeks surrounded by so many hints of danger, that he wanted the
relief of some reality, of something tangible that he could meet. "It
would have cleared the air for a couple of hours at least, if you know
what I mean," he said to me. "Jove! I had been living for days with
a stone on my chest." Now at last he had thought he would get hold
of something, and--nothing! Not a trace, not a sign of anybody.
He had raised his weapon as the door flew open, but now his arm
fell. "Fire! Defend yourself," the girl outside cried in an agonising
voice. She, being in the dark and with her arm thrust in to the
shoulder through the small hole, couldn't see what was going on,
and she dared not withdraw the torch now to run round. "There's
nobody here!" yelled Jim contemptuously, but his impulse to burst
into a resentful exasperated laugh died without a sound: he had
perceived in the very act of turning away that he was exchanging
glances with a pair of eyes in the heap of mats. He saw a shifting
gleam of whites. "Come out!" he cried in a fury, a little doubtful,
and a dark-faced head, a head without a body, shaped itself in the
rubbish, a strangely detached head, that looked at him with a steady
scowl. Next moment the whole mound stirred, and with a low grunt
a man emerged swiftly, and bounded towards Jim. Behind him the
mats as it were jumped and flew, his right arm was raised with a
crooked elbow, and the dull blade of a kriss protruded from his fist
held off, a little above his head. A cloth wound tight round his
loins seemed dazzlingly white on his bronze skin; his naked body
glistened as if wet.
'Jim noted all this. He told me he was experiencing a feeling of
unutterable relief, of vengeful elation. He held his shot, he says,
deliberately. He held it for the tenth part of a second, for three
strides of the man--an unconscionable time. He held it for the
pleasure of saying to himself, That's a dead man! He was absolutely
positive and certain. He let him come on because it did not matter.
A dead man, anyhow. He noticed the dilated nostrils, the wide eyes,
the intent, eager stillness of the face, and then he fired.
'The explosion in that confined space was stunning. He stepped
back a pace. He saw the man jerk his head up, fling his arms
forward, and drop the kriss. He ascertained afterwards that he had
shot him through the mouth, a little upwards, the bullet coming
out high at the back of the skull. With the impetus of his rush the
man drove straight on, his face suddenly gaping disfigured, with
his hands open before him gropingly, as though blinded, and landed
with terrific violence on his forehead, just short of Jim's bare toes.
Jim says he didn't lose the smallest detail of all this. He found
himself calm, appeased, without rancour, without uneasiness, as if
the death of that man had atoned for everything. The place was
getting very full of sooty smoke from the torch, in which the
unswaying flame burned blood-red without a flicker. He walked in
resolutely, striding over the dead body, and covered with his
revolver another naked figure outlined vaguely at the other end. As
he was about to pull the trigger, the man threw away with force a
short heavy spear, and squatted submissively on his hams, his back
to the wall and his clasped hands between his legs. "You want your
life?" Jim said. The other made no sound. "How many more of
you?" asked Jim again. "Two more, Tuan," said the man very
softly, looking with big fascinated eyes into the muzzle of the
revolver. Accordingly two more crawled from under the mats,
holding out ostentatiously their empty hands.' _
Read next: CHAPTER 32
Read previous: CHAPTER 30
Table of content of Lord Jim
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
