Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad [world of reading TXT] 📗

stopping me, time was pressing, other men began to stir; I wanted time⁠—time to cut the boats adrift. He got hold of my hand now, and I felt that he would begin to shout. It flashed upon me it was enough to start a panic, and I hauled off with my free arm and slung the lamp in his face. The glass jingled, the light went out, but the blow made him let go, and I ran off⁠—I wanted to get at the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me from behind. I turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I had half throttled him before I made out what he wanted. He wanted some water⁠—water to drink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and he had with him a young boy I had noticed several times. His child was sick⁠—and thirsty. He had caught sight of me as I passed by, and was begging for a little water. That’s all. We were under the bridge, in the dark. He kept on snatching at my wrists; there was no getting rid of him. I dashed into my berth, grabbed my water-bottle, and thrust it into his hands. He vanished. I didn’t find out till then how much I was in want of a drink myself.’ He leaned on one elbow with a hand over his eyes.

“I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was something peculiar in all this. The fingers of the hand that shaded his brow trembled slightly. He broke the short silence.

“ ‘These things happen only once to a man and⁠ ⁠… Ah! well! When I got on the bridge at last the beggars were getting one of the boats off the chocks. A boat! I was running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on my shoulder, just missing my head. It didn’t stop me, and the chief engineer⁠—they had got him out of his bunk by then⁠—raised the boat-stretcher again. Somehow I had no mind to be surprised at anything. All this seemed natural⁠—and awful⁠—and awful. I dodged that miserable maniac, lifted him off the deck as though he had been a little child, and he started whispering in my arms: “Don’t! don’t! I thought you were one of them niggers.” I flung him away, he skidded along the bridge and knocked the legs from under the little chap⁠—the second. The skipper, busy about the boat, looked round and came at me head down, growling like a wild beast. I flinched no more than a stone. I was as solid standing there as this,’ he tapped lightly with his knuckles the wall beside his chair. ‘It was as though I had heard it all, seen it all, gone through it all twenty times already. I wasn’t afraid of them. I drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering⁠—

“ ‘ “Ah! it’s you. Lend a hand quick.”

“ ‘That’s what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough. “Aren’t you going to do something?” I asked. “Yes. Clear out,” he snarled over his shoulder.

“ ‘I don’t think I understood then what he meant. The other two had picked themselves up by that time, and they rushed together to the boat. They tramped, they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship, each other⁠—cursed me. All in mutters. I didn’t move, I didn’t speak. I watched the slant of the ship. She was as still as if landed on the blocks in a dry dock⁠—only she was like this,’ He held up his hand, palm under, the tips of the fingers inclined downwards. ‘Like this,’ he repeated. ‘I could see the line of the horizon before me, as clear as a bell, above her stem-head; I could see the water far off there black and sparkling, and still⁠—still as a pond, deadly still, more still than ever sea was before⁠—more still than I could bear to look at. Have you watched a ship floating head down, checked in sinking by a sheet of old iron too rotten to stand being shored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up? I thought of that⁠—I thought of every mortal thing; but can you shore up a bulkhead in five minutes⁠—or in fifty for that matter? Where was I going to get men that would go down below? And the timber⁠—the timber! Would you have had the courage to swing the maul for the first blow if you had seen that bulkhead? Don’t say you would: you had not seen it; nobody would. Hang it⁠—to do a thing like that you must believe there is a chance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a chance; and you would not have believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can’t tell⁠—nobody can tell. One must have time to turn round. What would you have me do? Where was the kindness in making crazy with fright all those people I could not save single-handed⁠—that nothing could save? Look here! As true as I sit on this chair before you⁠ ⁠…’

“He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my face, as though in his anguish he were watchful of the effect. He was not speaking to me, he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with an invisible personality, an antagonistic and inseparable partner of his existence⁠—another possessor of his soul. These were issues beyond the competency of a court of inquiry: it was a subtle and momentous quarrel as to the true essence of life, and did not want a judge. He wanted an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the risk I ran of being circumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite part in a dispute impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all the phantoms in possession⁠—to the reputable that had its claims