Part 2 (1/2)

The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at hiy asted, though 'That animal has a charmed life,' he said; 'but you can say this only of brutes in this country No man--you apprehend me?--no man here bears a charht with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and hiswithout a wink, then, with a curt Good night, he strode off I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which reat comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot stea under my feet like an eutter; she was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty in shape, but I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her No influential friend would have served iven me a chance to come out a bit--to find out what I could do No, I don't like work I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work,--the chance to find yourself Your own reality--for yourself, not for others--what no other man can ever know They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it reallyaft, on the deck, with his legs dangling over the mud You see I rather chummed with the few rims naturally despised--on account of their imperfect manners, I suppose This was the foreood worker He was a lank, bony, yellow-facedintense eyes His aspect orried, and his head was as bald as the pal seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist He was a ith six young children (he had left thee of a sister of his to co He was an enthusiast and a connoisseur He would rave about pigeons After work hours he used sometimes to coeons; at work, when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviette he brought for the purpose It had loops to go over his ears In the evening he could be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush to dry

”I slapped him on the back and shouted, 'We shall have rivets!' He scrah he couldn't believe his ears Then in a low voice, 'Youeh?' I don't knoe behaved like lunatics I put er to the side of my nose and nodded ers above his head, lifting one foot I tried a jig We capered on the iron deck

A frightful clatter cain forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station It rihted doorway of the er's hut, vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorway itself vanished too

We stopped, and the silence driven away by the staain froetation, an exuberant and entangled hs, festoons,invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence And it hty splashes and snorts reached us frolitter in the great river 'After all,' said the boiler-et the rivets?'

Why not, indeed! I did not know of any reason e shouldn't 'They'll come in three weeks,' I said confidently

”But they didn't Instead of rivets there came an invasion, an infliction, a visitation It ca the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a whitefroriers trod on the heels of the donkeys; a lot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shot down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station Five such installht with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division It was an inextricable s decent in themselves but that hu

”This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atoht or of serious intention in the whole batch of thes are wanted for the work of the world To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no lars breaking into a safe Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know; but the uncle of our er was leader of that lot

”In exterior he resehborhood, and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and during the ti infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew You could see these two roaether in an everlasting confab

”I had given up worrying myself about the rivets One's capacity for that kind of folly is !--and let things slide I had plenty of tiht to Kurtz I wasn't very interested in him No Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all, and hoould set about his hen there”

II

”One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of --and there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank I laid ain, and had nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: 'I am as harmless as a little child, but I don't like to be dictated to Aer--or am I not? I was ordered to send him there It's incredible'

I becaside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head I did not move; it did not occur to runted the uncle 'He has asked the Administration to be sent there,' said the other, 'with the idea of shohat he could do; and I was instructed accordingly Look at the influence that reed it was frightful, then made several bizarre remarks: 'Make rain and fine weather--one man--the Council--by the nose'--bits of absurd sentences that got the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the whole of my wits about me when the uncle said, 'The climate may do aith this difficulty for you Is he alone there?' 'Yes,' answered the er; 'he sent his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms: ”Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of that sort I had rather be alone than have the kind of o Can you i since then?' asked the other, hoarsely 'Ivory,' jerked the nephew; 'lots of it--pri, from him' 'And with that?'

questioned the heavy rumble 'Invoice,' was the reply fired out, so to speak Then silence They had been talking about Kurtz

”I was broad awake by this ti no inducee rowled the elder man, who seemed very vexed The other explained that it had colish half-caste clerk Kurtz had with him; that Kurtz had apparently intended to return hioods and stores, but after coo back, which he started to do alone in a s the half-caste to continue down the river with the ivory The two fellows there see They were at a loss for an adequate motive As to me, I seelies, and the lone whitehis back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of ho his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station I did not know the motive Perhaps he was just simply a fine felloho stuck to his work for its own sake His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once He was 'that man' The half-caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as 'that scoundrel' The 'scoundrel' had reported that the 'man' had been very ill--had recovered imperfectlyThe two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance I heard: 'Military post--doctor--two hundred miles--quite alone now--unavoidable delays--nine ain, just as the , 'No one, as far as I know, unless a species of wandering trader--a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory froathered in snatches that this was some er did not approve 'We will not be free froed for an exaet hi can be done in this country That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, _here_, can endanger your position And why? You stand the clier is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to--' They ain 'The extraordinary series of delays is not hed, 'Very sad' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered h when he was here ”Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a center for trade of course, but also for hu” Conceive you--that ass! And he wants to be nation, and I lifted my head the least bit I was surprised to see how near they were--right underon the ground, absorbed in thought

The acious relative lifted his head 'You have been well since you caave a start 'Who? I? Oh! Like a charoodness! All sick They die so quick, too, that I haven't the time to send therunted the uncle 'Ah! my boy, trust to this--I say, trust to this' I saw hiesture that took in the forest, the creek, theflourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart It was so startling that I leaped to h I had expected an answer of some sort to that black display of confidence You know the foolish notions that coh stillness confronted these two figures with its o away of a fantastic invasion

”They swore aloud together--out of sheer fright, I believe--then pretending not to know anything of my existence, turned back to the station The sun was low; and leaning forward side by side, they see painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind thele blade

”In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes over a diver Long afterwards the news ca as to the fate of the less valuable animals They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved I did not inquire I was then rather excited at the prospect ofKurtz very soon When I say very soon I mean it comparatively It was just two months from the day we left the creek e ca up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings An ereat silence, an iish There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshi+ne The long stretches of the ay ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned theh a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever fro you had known once--somewhere--far away--in another existence perhaps There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy drea realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace It was the stillness of an i over an inscrutable intention It looked at you with a vengeful aspect I got used to it afterwards; I did not see it anyat the channel; I had to discern, ns of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke so that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot stearins of dead e could cut up in the night for next day's steas of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality--the reality, I tell you--fades The inner truth is hidden--luckily, luckily But I felt it all the sa me aton your respective tight-ropes for--what is it? half-a-crown a turowled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides ot the heartache which makes up the rest of the price And indeed what does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well And I didn't do badly either, since I ed not to sink that steaine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad road

I sweated and shi+vered over that business considerably, I can tell you After all, for a sea that's supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin

No one et the thump--eh? A blow on the very heart You reht and think of it--years after--and go hot and cold all over I don't pretend to say that steamboat floated all the time More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashi+ng around and pushi+ng

We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew Fine fellows--cannibals--in their place They were rateful to them And, after all, they did not eat each other beforea provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in er on board and three or four pilgrims with their staves--all complete So to the skirts of the unknown, and the white estures of joy and surprise and welco held there captive by a spell The word ivory would ring in the air for a while--and on ent again into the silence, along eh walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps the ponderous beat of the stern-wheel Trees, trees, h; and at their foot, hugging the bank against the streaish beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico It ether depressing, that feeling After all, if you were srimy beetle crawled on--which was just what you wanted it to do Where the pilgriined it crawled to I don't know

To so, I bet! For me it crawled toward Kurtz--exclusively; but when the stea we crawled very slow The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness It was very quiet there At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and reh over our heads, till the first break of day Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell The daere heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the woodcutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a tould make you start We anderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet We could have fancied ourselves the first ofpossession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glirass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black li, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and e of a black and inco us, praying to us, welco us--who could tell? We were cut off frolided past like phanto and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse We could not understand, because ere too far and could not rees, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign--and no memories

”The earth seemed unearthly We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conqueredmonstrous and free It was unearthly, and the men were--No, they were not inhuman Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion of their not being inhuman It would come slowly to one They howled, and leaped, and spun, and ht of their huht of your rely Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were h you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a di in it which you--you so rees--could comprehend

And why not? Theis in it, all the past as well as all the future What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage--who can tell?--but truth--truth stripped of its cloak of tiape and shudder--the man knows, and can look on without a wink But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore He must meet that truth with his own true stuff--with his own inborn strength Principles?

Principles won't do Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags--rags that would fly off at the first good shake No; you want a deliberate belief An appeal to me in this fiendish row--is there? Very well; I hear; I adood or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced Of course, a fool, ith sheer fright and fine senti? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no--I didn't Fine sentied! I had no time I had to mess about hite-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky stea, and circu by hook or by crook

There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser e as fireman He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler He was there belowas seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs

A fewhad done for that really fine chap He squinted at the steae with an evident effort of intrepidity--and he had filed teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornaht to have been clapping his hands and sta his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of ie He was useful because he had been instructed; and what he kneas this--that should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an is, tied to his ar as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable s were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that firehts

”Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon a hut of reeds, an inclined and nizable tatters of what had been a flag of so from it, and a neatly stacked woodpile This was unexpected We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board with so on it When deciphered it said: 'Wood for you Hurry up Approach cautiously' There was a signature, but it was illegible--not Kurtz--a er word 'Hurry up' Where? Up the river? 'Approach cautiously' We had not done so But the warning could not have been meant for the place where it could be only found after approach