“He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of these lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade—and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know—meek, friendly men at that—couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior—indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West,1 you could not have ignored2 your inferiority in his presence—but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was—don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not the fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind—for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after.
“No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas—start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard3 at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception.
“Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief-officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. ‘It was ten minutes to four,’ he said, ‘and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow—I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said “Good morning.” I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head.’ (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) ‘I've a wife and children,’ he went on, ‘and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command—more fool I. Says he, just like this: “Come in here, Mr Jones,” in that swagger voice of his—“Come in here, Mr Jones.” In I went. “We'll lay down her position,” says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. “Thirty-two miles more as she goes,” says he, “and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.”’
“‘We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank4 that voyage. I said, “All right, sir,” wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way—“Seventy-one on the log.” Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: “I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see—the correction on the log is six per cent additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance—is there?” I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog—“Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on—get.” Then he calls out to me from the dark, “Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr Jones—will you?”’
“‘This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir.’ At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. ‘He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?’ he pursued with a quaver. ‘Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he—would you believe it?—he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boatswain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge—“Will you please come aft, Mr Jones,” he says. “There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.” It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain.’
“‘As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none—if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had writt
en two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage—I had been in the trade before he was out of his time5—and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners—it was left open for me to see—he said that he had always done his duty by them—up to that moment—and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found—meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over,’ went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. ‘You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump6 for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa7—came aboard in Shanghai—a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. “Aw—I am—aw—your new captain, Mister—Mister—aw—Jones.” He was drowned in scent—fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I daresay it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment—I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion—he had nothing to do with it, of course—supposed the office knew best—sorry…. Says I, “Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam’ his soul, he's used to it.” I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin8 together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy9 show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something: up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting cock. “You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.” “I've found it,” says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. “You are an old ruffian, Mr—aw—Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,” he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. “I may be a hard case,” answers I, “but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.” With that I lay down my knife and fork. “You would like to sit in it yourself—that's where the shoe pinches,” he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift—on shore—after ten years’ service—and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses—here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog—here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?’ The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table.
“All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of—quite by a funny accident, too—from Matherson—mad Matherson they generally called him—the same who used to hang out in Haï-phong,10 you know, before the occupation11 days. The old chap snuffled on—
“‘Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply—neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!— nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know.’
“The sight of that watery-eyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cotton handkerchief, the sorrowing yelp of the dog, the squalor of that fly-blown cuddy which was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of inexpressibly mean pathos over Brierly's remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for that belief in his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legitimate terrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who can tell what flattering view he had induced himself to take of his own suicide?
“‘Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow—can you think?’ asked Jones, pressing his palms together. ‘Why? It beats me! Why?’ He slapped his low and wrinkled forehead. ‘If he had been poor and old and in debt—and never a show—or else mad. But he wasn't of the kind that goes mad, not he. You trust me. What a mate don't know about his skipper isn't worth knowing. Young, healthy, well off, no cares…. I sit here sometimes thinking, thinking, till my head fairly begins to buzz. There was some reason.’
“‘You may depend on it, Captain Jones,’ said I, ‘it wasn't anything that would have disturbed much either of us two,’ I said; and then, as if a light had been flashed into the muddle of his brain, poor old Jones found a last word of amazing profundity. He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: ‘Ay, ay! neither you nor I, sir, had ever thought so much of ourselves.’
“Of course the recollection of my last conversation with Brierly is tinged with the knowledge of his end that followed so close upon it. I spoke with him for the last time during the progress of the inquiry. It was after the first adjournment, and he came up with me in the street. He was in a state of irritation, which I noticed with surprise, his usual behaviour when he condescended to converse being perfectly cool, with a trace of amused tolerance, as if the existence of his interlocutor had been a rather good joke. ‘They caught me for that inquiry, you see,’ he began, and for a while enlarged complainingly upon the inconveniences of daily attendance in court. ‘And goodness knows how long it will last. Three days, I suppose.’ I heard him out in silence; in my then opinion it was a way as good as another of putting on side.12 ‘What's the use of it? It is the stupidest set out you can imagine,’ he pursued hotly. I remarked that there was no option. He interrupted me with a sort of pent-up violence. ‘I feel like a fool all the time.’ I looked up at him. This was going very far—for Brierly—when talking of Brierly. He stopped short, and seizing the lapel of my coat, gave it a slight tug. ‘Why are we tormenting that young chap?’ he asked. This question chimed in so well to the tolling of a certain thought of mine that, with the image of the absconding renegade in my eye, I answered at once, ‘Hanged if I know, unless it be that he lets you.’ I was astonished to see him fall into line, so to speak, with that utterance, which ought to have been tolerably cryptic. He said angrily, ‘Why, yes. Can't he see that wretched skipper of his has cleared out? What does he expect to happen? Nothing can save him. He's done for.’ We walked on in silence a few steps. ‘Why eat all that dirt?’ he exclaimed, with an oriental energy of expression—about the only sort of energy you can find a trace of east of the fiftieth meridian.13 I wondered greatly at the direction of his thoughts, but now I strongly suspect it was strictly in character: at bottom poor Brierly must have been thinking of himself. I pointed out to him that the skipper of the Patna was known to have feathered his nest pretty well, and could procure almost anywhere the means of getting away. With Jim it was otherwise: the Government was keeping him in the Sailors’ Home for the time being, and probably he hadn't a penny in his pocket to bless himself with. It costs some money to run away. ‘Does it? Not always,’ he said, with a bitter laugh, and to some further remark of mine—‘Well, then, let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there! By heavens! I would.’ I don't know why his tone provoked me, and I said, ‘There is a kind of courage in facing it out as he does, knowing very well that if he went away nobody would trouble to run after him.’ ‘Courage be hanged!’ growled Brierly. ‘That sort of courage is of no use to keep a man straight, and I don't c
are a snap for such courage. If you were to say it was a kind of cowardice now—of softness. I tell you what, I will put up two hundred rupees if you put up another hundred and undertake to make the beggar clear out early to-morrow morning. The fellow's a gentleman if he ain't fit to be touched—he will understand. He must! This infernal publicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded natives, serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn a man to ashes with shame. This is abominable. Why, Marlow, don't you think, don't you feel, that this is abominable; don't you now—come—as a seaman? If he went away all this would stop at once.’ Brierly said these words with a most unusual animation, and made as if to reach after his pocket-book. I restrained him, and declared coldly that the cowardice of these four men did not seem to me a matter of such great importance. ‘And you call yourself a seaman, I suppose,’ he pronounced angrily. I said that's what I called myself, and I hoped I was too. He heard me out, and made a gesture with his big arm that seemed to deprive me of my individuality, to push me away into the crowd. ‘The worst of it,’ he said, ‘is that all you fellows have no sense of dignity; you don't think enough of what you are supposed to be.’
“We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbour office, in sight of the very spot from which the immense captain of the Patna had vanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a hurricane. I smiled. Brierly went on: ‘This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us—some anointed scoundrels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or we become no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Do you understand?—trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap for all the pilgrims that ever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved like this to a full cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of men, and the only thing that holds us together is just the name for that kind of decency. Such an affair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near through his whole sea-life without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when the call comes…. Aha!… If I…’