uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, being
something that had a right to exist -- obviously -- in the
sunshine. The young man looked at me with surprise.
I suppose it did not occur to him that Mr. Kurtz was
no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't heard any of these
splendid monologues on, what was it? on love, jus-
tice, conduct of life -- or what not. If it had come to
crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the
veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the condi-
tions, he said: these heads were the heads of rebels. I
shocked him excessively by laughing. Rebels! What
would be the next definition I was to hear? There had
been enemies, criminals, workers -- and these were
rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to
me on their sticks. 'You don't know how such a life
tries a man like Kurtz,' cried Kurtz's last disciple.
'Well, and you?' I said. 'I! I! I am a simple man. I
have no great thoughts. I want nothing from anybody.
How can you compare me to . . . ?' His feelings
were too much for speech, and suddenly he broke
down. 'I don't understand,' he groaned. 'I've been
doing my best to keep him alive, and that's enough.
I had no hand in all this. I have no abilities. There
hasn't been a drop of medicine or a mouthful of in-
valid food for months here. He was shamefully aban-
doned. A man like this, with such ideas. Shamefully!
Shamefully! I -- I -- haven't slept for the last ten
nights . . .'
"His voice lost itself in the calm of the evening.
The long shadows of the forest had slipped downhill
while we talked, had gone far beyond the ruined
hovel, beyond the symbolic row of stakes. All this
was in the gloom, while we down there were yet in
the sunshine, and the stretch of the river abreast of
the clearing glittered in a still and dazzling splendour,
with a murky and overshadowed bend above and
below. Not a living soul was seen on the shore. The
bushes did not rustle.
"Suddenly round the corner of the house a group
of men appeared, as though they had come up from
the ground. They waded waist-deep in the grass, in a
compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their
midst. Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a
cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a
sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the
land; and, as if by enchantment, streams of human
beings -- of naked human beings -- with spears in their
hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances and
savage movements, were poured into the dearing by
the dark-faced and pensive forest. The bushes shook,
the grass swayed for a time, and then everything
stood still in attentive immobility.
" 'Now, if he does not say the right thing to them
we are all done for,' said the Russian at my elbow.
The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped, too,
halfway to the steamer, as if petrified. I saw the man
on the stretcher sit up, lank and with an uplifted arm,
above the shoulders of the bearers. 'Let us hope that
the man who can talk so well of love in general will
find some particular reason to spare us this time,' I
said. I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situ-
ation, as if to be at the mercy of that atrocious phan-
tom had been a dishonouring necessity. I could not
hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin
arm extended commandingly, the lower jaw moving,
the eyes of that apparition shining darkly far in its
bony head that nodded with grotesque jerks. Kurtz --
Kurtz -- that means short in German -- don't it? Well,
the name was as true as everything else in his life --
and death. He looked at least seven feet long. His
covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it
pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet. I could
see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm
waving. It was as though an animated image of death
carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with
menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark
and glittering bronze. I saw him open his mouth wide
-- it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he
had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the
men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. He
must have been shouting. He fell back suddenly. The
stretcher shook as the bearers staggered forward
again, and almost at the same time I noticed that the
crowd of savages was vanishing without any percepti-
ble movement of retreat, as if the forest that had
ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in
again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration.
"Some of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried
his arms -- two shot-guns, a heavy rifle, and a light
revolver-carbine -- the thunderbolts of that pitiful
Jupiter. The manager bent over him murmuring as
he walked beside his head. They laid him down in one
of the little cabins -- just a room for a bed place and a
camp-stool or two, you know. We had brought his
belated correspondence, and a lot of torn envelopes
and open letters littered his bed. His hand roamed
feebly amongst these papers. I was struck by the fire
of his eyes and the composed languor of his expres-
sion. It was not so much the exhaustion of disease. He
did not seem in pain. This shadow looked satiated and
calm, as though for the moment it had had its fill of
all the emotions.
"He rustled one of the letters, and looking straight
in my face said, 'I am glad.' Somebody had been writ-
ing to him about me. These special recommendations
were turning up again. The volume of tone he emitted
without effort, almost without the trouble of moving
his lips, amazed me. A voice! a voice! It was grave,
profound, vibrating, while the man did not seem cap-
able of a whisper. However, he had enough strength
in him -- factitious no doubt -- to very nearly make an
end of us, as you shall hear directly.
"The manager appeared silently in the doorway; I
stepped out at once and he drew the curtain after me.
The Russian, eyed curiously by the pilgrims, was star-
ing at the shore. I followed the direction of his glance.
"Dark human shapes could be made out in the dis-
tance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border
of the forest, and near the river two bronze figures,
leaning on tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fan-
tastic head-dresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in
statuesque repose. And from right to left along the
lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition
of a woman.
"She walked with measured steps, draped in striped
and fringed clothes, treading the earth proudly, with
a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She
carried her head high; her ha
ir was done in the shape
of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass
wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her
tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on
her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men,
that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every
step. She must have had the value of several elephant
tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed
and magnificent; there was something ominous and
stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush
that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful
land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the
fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her,
pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of
its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
"She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and
faced us. Her long shadow fell to the water's edge.
Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow
and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some
struggling, half-shaped resolve. She stood looking at
us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an
air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole
minute passed, and then she made a step forward.
There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a
sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her
heart had failed her. The young fellow by my side
growled. The pilgrims murmured at my back. She
looked at us all as if her life had depended upon the
unswerving steadiness of her glance. Suddenly she
opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid
above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire
to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shad-
ows darted out on the earth, swept around on the
river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace.
A formidable silence hung over the scene.
"She turned away slowly, walked on, following the
bank, and passed into the bushes to the left. Once
only her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of the
thickets before she disappeared.
" 'If she had offered to come aboard I really think
I would have tried to shoot her,' said the man of
patches, nervously. 'I have been risking my life every
day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house.
She got in one day and kicked up a row about those
miserable rags I picked up in the storeroom to mend
my clothes with. I wasn't decent. At least it must have
been that, for she talked like a fury to Kurtz for an
hour, pointing at me now and then. I don't under-
stand the dialect of this tribe. Luckily for me, I fancy
Kurtz felt too ill that day to care, or there would have
been mischief. I don't understand.... No -- it's too
much for me. Ah, well, it's all over now.'
"At this moment I heard Kurtz's deep voice behind
the curtain: 'Save me! -- save the ivory, you mean.
Don't tell me. Save me! Why, I've had to save you.
You are interrupting my plans now. Sick! Sick! Not
so sick as you would like to believe. Never mind. I'll
carry my ideas out yet -- I will return. I'll show you
what can be done. You with your little peddling no-
tions -- you are interfering with me. I will return.
I....'
"The manager came out. He did me the honour to
take me under the arm and lead me aside. 'He is very
low, very low,' he said. He considered it necessary to
sigh, but neglected to be consistently sorrowful. 'We
have done all we could for him -- haven't we? But
there is no disguising the fact, Mr. Kurtz has done
more harm than good to the Company. He did not
see the time was not ripe for vigorous action. Cau-
tiously, cautiously -- that's my principle. We must be
cautious yet. The district is closed to us for a time.
Deplorable! Upon the whole, the trade will suffer.
I don't deny there is a remarkable quantity of ivory --
mostly fossil. We must save it, at all events -- but look
how precarious the position is -- and why? Because the
method is unsound.' 'Do you,' said I, looking at the
shore, 'call it "unsound method?" ' 'Without doubt,'
he exclaimed hotly. 'Don't you?' . . . 'No method at
all,' I murmured after a while. 'Exactly,' he exulted.
'I anticipated this. Shows a complete want of judg-
ment. It is my duty to point it out in the proper quar-
ter.' 'Oh,' said I, 'that fellow -- what's his name? -- the
brickmaker, will make a readable report for you.' He
appeared confounded for a moment. It seemed to me
I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I
turned mentally to Kurtz for relief -- positively for
relief. 'Nevertheless I think Mr. Kurtz is a remark-
able man,' I said with emphasis. He started, dropped
on me a cold heavy glance, said very quietly, 'he was
and turned his back on me. My hour of favour was
over; I found myself lumped along with Kurtz as a
partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe:
I was unsound! Ah! but it was something to have at
least a choice of nightmares.
"I had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr.
Kurtz, who, I was ready to admit, was as good as
buried. And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also
were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets.
I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the
smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of vic-
torious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable
night.... The Russian tapped me on the shoulder.
I heard him mumbling and stammering something
about 'brother seaman -- couldn't conceal -- knowledge
of matters that would affect Mr. Kurtz's reputation.'
I waited. For him evidently Mr. Kurtz was not in his
grave; I suspect that for him Mr. Kuutz was one of
the immortals. 'Well!' said I at last, 'speak out. As it
happens, I am Mr. Kurtz's friend -- in a way.'
"He stated with a good deal of formality that had
we not been 'of the same profession,' he would have
kept the matter to himself without regard to conse-
quences. 'He suspected there was an active ill will to-
wards him on the part of these white men that --'
'You are right,' I said, remembering a certain conver-
sation I had overheard. 'The manager thinks you
ought to be hanged.' He showed a concern at this
intelligence which amused me at first. 'I had better
get out of the way quietly,' he said earnestly. 'I can do
no more for Kurtz now, and they would soon find
some excuse. What's to stop them? There's a military
post three hundred miles from here.' 'Well, upon my
word,' said I, 'perhaps you had better go if you have
any friends amongst the savages near by.' 'Plenty,' he
said. 'They are simple people -- and I want nothing,
you know.' He stood biting his lip, then: 'I didn't want
any harm to happen to these whites here, but of course
I was thinking of Mr. Kurtz's reputation -- bu
t you
are a brother seaman and --' 'All right,' said I, after
a time. 'Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.' I did
not know how truly I spoke.
"He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was
Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the
steamer. 'He hated sometimes the idea of being taken
away -- and then again.... But I don't understand
these matters. I am a simple man. He thought it
would scare you away -- that you would give it up,
thinking him dead. I could not stop him. Oh, I had an
awful time of it this last month.' 'Very well,' I said.
'He is all right now.' 'Ye-e-es,' he muttered, not very
convinced apparently. 'Thanks,' said I; 'I shall keep
my eyes open.' 'But quiet -- eh?' he urged anxiously.
'It would be awful for his reputation if anybody
here --' I promised a complete discretion with great
gravity. 'I have a canoe and three black fellows wait-
ing not very far. I am off. Could you give me a few
Martini-Henry cartridges?' I could, and did, with
proper secrecy. He helped himself, with a wink at me,
to a handful of my tobacco. 'Between sailors -- you
know -- good English tobacco.' At the door of the
pilot-house he turned round -- 'I say, haven't you a
pair of shoes you could spare?' He raised one leg.
'Look' The soles were tied with knotted strings san-
dalwise under his bare feet. I rooted out an old pair,
at which he looked with admiration before tucking it
under his left arm. One of his pockets (bright red)
was bulging with cartridges, from the other (dark
blue) peeped 'Towson's Inquiry,' ctc., etc. He seemed
to think himself excellently well equipped for a re-
newed encounter with the wilderness. 'Ah! I'll never,
never meet such a man again. You ought to have
heard him recite poetry -- his own, too, it was, he told
me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at the recollection of
these delights. 'Oh, he enlarged my mind!' 'Good-
bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the
night. Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever
really seen him -- whether it was possible to meet such
a phenomenon! . . .
"When I woke up shortly after midnight his warn-
ing came to my mind with its hint of danger that
seemed, in the starred darkness, real enough to make
me get up for the purpose of having a look round. On
the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a
crooked corner of the station-house. One of the agents
with a picket of a few of our blacks, armed for the
purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory; but deep
within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that
seemed to sink and rise from the ground amongst
confused columnar shapes of intense blackness, showed
the exact position of the camp where Mr. Kurtz's
adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil. The monoto-
nous beating of a big drum filled the air with muf-
fled shocks and a lingering vibration. A steady
droning sound of many men chanting each to himself
some weird incantation came out from the black, flat
wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out
of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my
half-awake senses. I believe I dozed off leaning over
the rail, till an abrupt burst of yells, an overwhelming
outbreak of a pent-up and mysterious frenzy, woke me
up in a bewildered wonder. It was cut short all at
once, and the low droning went on with an effect of
audible and soothing silence. I glanced casually into
the little cabin. A light was burning within, but Mr.
Kurtz was not there.
"I think I would have raised an outcry if I had
believed my eyes. But I didn't believe them at first --
the thing seemed so impossible. The fact is I was com-
pletely unnerved by a sheer blank fright, pure abstract
terror, unconnected with any distinct shape of physical
danger. What made this emotion so overpowering
was -- how shall I define it? -- the moral shock I re-
ceived, as if something altogether monstrous, intoler-
able to thought and odious to the soul, had been
thrust upon me unexpectedly. This lasted of course
the merest fraction of a second, and then the usual
sense of commonplace, deadly danger, the possibility
of a sudden onslaught and massacre, or something of
the kind, which I saw impending, was positively wel-
come and composing. It pacified me, in fact, so much
that I did not raise an alarm.
"There was an agent buttoned up inside an ulster
and sleeping on a chair on deck within three feet of
me. The yells had not awakened him; he snored very