Authors: Joseph Conrad
Carter took in all at a glance, but his eyes were arrested by a circular
shield hung slanting above the brass hilts of the bayonets. On its
red field, in relief and brightly gilt, was represented a sheaf of
conventional thunderbolts darting down the middle between the two
capitals T. L. Lingard examined his guest curiously. He saw a young
man, but looking still more youthful, with a boyish smooth face much
sunburnt, twinkling blue eyes, fair hair and a slight moustache. He
noticed his arrested gaze.
"Ah, you're looking at that thing. It's a present from the builder of
this brig. The best man that ever launched a craft. It's supposed to be
the ship's name between my initials—flash of lightning—d'you see? The
brig's name is Lightning and mine is Lingard."
"Very pretty thing that: shows the cabin off well," murmured Carter,
politely.
They drank, nodding at each other, and sat down.
"Now for the letter," said Lingard.
Carter passed it over the table and looked about, while Lingard took
the letter out of an open envelope, addressed to the commander of any
British ship in the Java Sea. The paper was thick, had an embossed
heading: "Schooner-yacht Hermit" and was dated four days before. The
message said that on a hazy night the yacht had gone ashore upon some
outlying shoals off the coast of Borneo. The land was low. The opinion
of the sailing-master was that the vessel had gone ashore at the top
of high water, spring tides. The coast was completely deserted to all
appearance. During the four days they had been stranded there they
had sighted in the distance two small native vessels, which did
not approach. The owner concluded by asking any commander of a
homeward-bound ship to report the yacht's position in Anjer on his way
through Sunda Straits—or to any British or Dutch man-of-war he might
meet. The letter ended by anticipatory thanks, the offer to pay any
expenses in connection with the sending of messages from Anjer, and the
usual polite expressions.
Folding the paper slowly in the old creases, Lingard said—"I am not
going to Anjer—nor anywhere near."
"Any place will do, I fancy," said Carter.
"Not the place where I am bound to," answered Lingard, opening the
letter again and glancing at it uneasily. "He does not describe very
well the coast, and his latitude is very uncertain," he went on. "I
am not clear in my mind where exactly you are stranded. And yet I know
every inch of that land—over there."
Carter cleared his throat and began to talk in his slow drawl. He seemed
to dole out facts, to disclose with sparing words the features of the
coast, but every word showed the minuteness of his observation, the
clear vision of a seaman able to master quickly the aspect of a strange
land and of a strange sea. He presented, with concise lucidity, the
picture of the tangle of reefs and sandbanks, through which the yacht
had miraculously blundered in the dark before she took the ground.
"The weather seems clear enough at sea," he observed, finally, and
stopped to drink a long draught. Lingard, bending over the table, had
been listening with eager attention. Carter went on in his curt and
deliberate manner:
"I noticed some high trees on what I take to be the mainland to the
south—and whoever has business in that bight was smart enough to
whitewash two of them: one on the point, and another farther in.
Landmarks, I guess. . . . What's the matter, Captain?"
Lingard had jumped to his feet, but Carter's exclamation caused him to
sit down again.
"Nothing, nothing . . . Tell me, how many men have you in that yacht?"
"Twenty-three, besides the gentry, the owner, his wife and a Spanish
gentleman—a friend they picked up in Manila."
"So you were coming from Manila?"
"Aye. Bound for Batavia. The owner wishes to study the Dutch colonial
system. Wants to expose it, he says. One can't help hearing a lot when
keeping watch aft—you know how it is. Then we are going to Ceylon
to meet the mail-boat there. The owner is going home as he came out,
overland through Egypt. The yacht would return round the Cape, of
course."
"A lady?" said Lingard. "You say there is a lady on board. Are you
armed?"
"Not much," replied Carter, negligently. "There are a few muskets and
two sporting guns aft; that's about all—I fancy it's too much, or not
enough," he added with a faint smile.
Lingard looked at him narrowly.
"Did you come out from home in that craft?" he asked.
"Not I! I am not one of them regular yacht hands. I came out of the
hospital in Hongkong. I've been two years on the China coast."
He stopped, then added in an explanatory murmur:
"Opium clippers—you know. Nothing of brass buttons about me. My ship
left me behind, and I was in want of work. I took this job but I didn't
want to go home particularly. It's slow work after sailing with old
Robinson in the Ly-e-moon. That was my ship. Heard of her, Captain?"
"Yes, yes," said Lingard, hastily. "Look here, Mr. Carter, which way was
your chief officer trying for Singapore? Through the Straits of Rhio?"
"I suppose so," answered Carter in a slightly surprised tone; "why do
you ask?"
"Just to know . . . What is it, Mr. Shaw?"
"There's a black cloud rising to the northward, sir, and we shall get a
breeze directly," said Shaw from the doorway.
He lingered there with his eyes fixed on the decanters.
"Will you have a glass?" said Lingard, leaving his seat. "I will go up
and have a look."
He went on deck. Shaw approached the table and began to help himself,
handling the bottles in profound silence and with exaggerated caution,
as if he had been measuring out of fragile vessels a dose of some deadly
poison. Carter, his hands in his pockets, and leaning back, examined
him from head to foot with a cool stare. The mate of the brig raised the
glass to his lips, and glaring above the rim at the stranger, drained
the contents slowly.
"You have a fine nose for finding ships in the dark, Mister," he said,
distinctly, putting the glass on the table with extreme gentleness.
"Eh? What's that? I sighted you just after sunset."
"And you knew where to look, too," said Shaw, staring hard.
"I looked to the westward where there was still some light, as any
sensible man would do," retorted the other a little impatiently. "What
are you trying to get at?"
"And you have a ready tongue to blow about yourself—haven't you?"
"Never saw such a man in my life," declared Carter, with a return of his
nonchalant manner. "You seem to be troubled about something."
"I don't like boats to come sneaking up from nowhere in particular,
alongside a ship when I am in charge of the deck. I can keep a lookout
as well as any man out of home ports, but I hate to be circumvented by
muffled oars and such ungentlemanlike tricks. Yacht officer—indeed.
These seas must be full of such yachtsmen. I consider you played a mean
trick on me. I told my old man there was nothing in sight at sunset—and
no more there was. I believe you blundered upon us by chance—for all
your boasting about sunsets and bearings. Gammon! I know you came
on blindly on top of us, and with muffled oars, too. D'ye call that
decent?"
"If I did muffle the oars it was for a good reason. I wanted to slip
past a cove where some native craft were moored. That was common
prudence in such a small boat, and not armed—as I am. I saw you right
enough, but I had no intention to startle anybody. Take my word for it."
"I wish you had gone somewhere else," growled Shaw. "I hate to be put in
the wrong through accident and untruthfulness—there! Here's my old man
calling me—"
He left the cabin hurriedly and soon afterward Lingard came down,
and sat again facing Carter across the table. His face was grave but
resolute.
"We shall get the breeze directly," he said.
"Then, sir," said Carter, getting up, "if you will give me back that
letter I shall go on cruising about here to speak some other ship. I
trust you will report us wherever you are going."
"I am going to the yacht and I shall keep the letter," answered Lingard
with decision. "I know exactly where she is, and I must go to the rescue
of those people. It's most fortunate you've fallen in with me, Mr.
Carter. Fortunate for them and fortunate for me," he added in a lower
tone.
"Yes," drawled Carter, reflectively. "There may be a tidy bit of salvage
money if you should get the vessel off, but I don't think you can do
much. I had better stay out here and try to speak some gunboat—"
"You must come back to your ship with me," said Lingard,
authoritatively. "Never mind the gunboats."
"That wouldn't be carrying out my orders," argued Carter. "I've got to
speak a homeward-bound ship or a man-of-war—that's plain enough. I am
not anxious to knock about for days in an open boat, but—let me fill my
fresh-water breaker, Captain, and I will be off."
"Nonsense," said Lingard, sharply. "You've got to come with me to show
the place and—and help. I'll take your boat in tow."
Carter did not seem convinced. Lingard laid a heavy hand on his
shoulder.
"Look here, young fellow. I am Tom Lingard and there's not a white man
among these islands, and very few natives, that have not heard of me. My
luck brought you into my ship—and now I've got you, you must stay. You
must!"
The last "must" burst out loud and sharp like a pistol-shot. Carter
stepped back.
"Do you mean you would keep me by force?" he asked, startled.
"Force," repeated Lingard. "It rests with you. I cannot let you speak
any vessel. Your yacht has gone ashore in a most inconvenient place—for
me; and with your boats sent off here and there, you would bring every
infernal gunboat buzzing to a spot that was as quiet and retired as the
heart of man could wish. You stranding just on that spot of the whole
coast was my bad luck. And that I could not help. You coming upon me
like this is my good luck. And that I hold!"
He dropped his clenched fist, big and muscular, in the light of the
lamp on the black cloth, amongst the glitter of glasses, with the strong
fingers closed tight upon the firm flesh of the palm. He left it there
for a moment as if showing Carter that luck he was going to hold. And he
went on:
"Do you know into what hornet's nest your stupid people have blundered?
How much d'ye think their lives are worth, just now? Not a brass
farthing if the breeze fails me for another twenty-four hours. You may
well open your eyes. It is so! And it may be too late now, while I am
arguing with you here."
He tapped the table with his knuckles, and the glasses, waking up,
jingled a thin, plaintive finale to his speech. Carter stood leaning
against the sideboard. He was amazed by the unexpected turn of the
conversation; his jaw dropped slightly and his eyes never swerved for a
moment from Lingard's face. The silence in the cabin lasted only a few
seconds, but to Carter, who waited breathlessly, it seemed very long.
And all at once he heard in it, for the first time, the cabin clock tick
distinctly, in pulsating beats, as though a little heart of metal behind
the dial had been started into sudden palpitation.
"A gunboat!" shouted Lingard, suddenly, as if he had seen only in
that moment, by the light of some vivid flash of thought, all the
difficulties of the situation. "If you don't go back with me there will
be nothing left for you to go back to—very soon. Your gunboat won't
find a single ship's rib or a single corpse left for a landmark. That
she won't. It isn't a gunboat skipper you want. I am the man you
want. You don't know your luck when you see it, but I know mine, I
do—and—look here—"
He touched Carter's chest with his forefinger, and said with a sudden
gentleness of tone:
"I am a white man inside and out; I won't let inoffensive people—and a
woman, too—come to harm if I can help it. And if I can't help, nobody
can. You understand—nobody! There's no time for it. But I am like any
other man that is worth his salt: I won't let the end of an undertaking
go by the board while there is a chance to hold on—and it's like
this—"
His voice was persuasive—almost caressing; he had hold now of a coat
button and tugged at it slightly as he went on in a confidential manner:
"As it turns out, Mr. Carter, I would—in a manner of speaking—I would
as soon shoot you where you stand as let you go to raise an alarm
all over this sea about your confounded yacht. I have other lives to
consider—and friends—and promises—and—and myself, too. I shall keep
you," he concluded, sharply.
Carter drew a long breath. On the deck above, the two men could
hear soft footfalls, short murmurs, indistinct words spoken near the
skylight. Shaw's voice rang out loudly in growling tones:
"Furl the royals, you tindal!"
"It's the queerest old go," muttered Carter, looking down on to the
floor. "You are a strange man. I suppose I must believe what you
say—unless you and that fat mate of yours are a couple of escaped
lunatics that got hold of a brig by some means. Why, that chap up there
wanted to pick a quarrel with me for coming aboard, and now you threaten
to shoot me rather than let me go. Not that I care much about that; for
some time or other you would get hanged for it; and you don't look like
a man that will end that way. If what you say is only half true, I ought
to get back to the yacht as quick as ever I can. It strikes me that your
coming to them will be only a small mercy, anyhow—and I may be of some
use—But this is the queerest. . . . May I go in my boat?"
"As you like," said Lingard. "There's a rain squall coming."
"I am in charge and will get wet along of my chaps. Give us a good long
line, Captain."
"It's done already," said Lingard. "You seem a sensible sailorman and
can see that it would be useless to try and give me the slip."