Victory: An Island Tale E-Book

Joseph Conrad

• Herausgeber: Joseph Conrad
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Victory (also published as Victory: An Island Tale) is a psychological novel by Joseph Conrad first published in 1915, through which Conrad achieved "popular success."The New York Times, however, called it "an uneven book" and "more open to criticism than most of Mr. Conrad's best work.

The novel's "most striking formal characteristic is its shifting narrative and temporal perspective with the first section from the viewpoint of a sailor, the second from omniscient perspective of Axel Heyst, the third from an interior perspective from Heyst, and the final section.

It has been adapted into film a number of times

Leseprobe

Joseph Conrad

Victory: An Island Tale

First digital edition 2017 by Anna Ruggieri

CONTENTS

NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

PART THREE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

PART FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The last word of this novel was written on 29 May 1914. And thatlast word was the single word of the title.

Those were the times of peace. Now that the moment ofpublicationapproaches I have been considering the discretion ofaltering the title-page. The word “Victory” the shiningand tragic goal of noble effort, appeared too great, too august, tostand at the head of a mere novel. There was also the possibilityof falling under the suspicion of commercial astuteness deceivingthe public into the belief that the book had something to do withwar.

Of that, however, I was not afraid very much. What influenced mydecision most were the obscure promptings of that pagan residuumofawe and wonder which lurks still at the bottom of our oldhumanity. “Victory” was the last word I had written inpeace-time. It was the last literary thought which had occurred tome before the doors of the Temple of Janus flying open with a crashshook the minds, the hearts, the consciences of men all over theworld. Such coincidence could not be treated lightly. And I made upmy mind to let the word stand, in the same hopeful spirit in whichsome simple citizen of Old Rome would have “accepted theOmen.”

The second point on which I wish to offer a remark is theexistence (in the novel) of a person named Schomberg.

That I believe him to be true goes without saying. I am notlikely to offer pinchbeck wares to my public consciously. Schombergis an old member of my company. A very subordinate personage inLord Jim as far back as the year 1899, he became notably active ina certain short story of mine published in 1902. Here he appears ina still larger part, true to life (I hope), but also true tohimself. Only, in this instance, his deeper passions come intoplay, and thus his grotesque psychology is completed at last.

I don’t pretend to say that this is the entire Teutonicpsychology; but it is indubitably the psychology of a Teuton. Myobject in mentioninghim here is to bring out the fact that, farfrom being the incarnation of recent animosities, he is thecreature of my old deep-seated, and, as it were, impartialconviction.

J. C.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On approaching the task of writing this Note for Victory, thefirst thing I am conscious of is the actual nearness of the book,its nearness to me personally, to the vanished mood in which it waswritten, and to the mixed feelings aroused by the critical noticesthe book obtained when first published almostexactly a year afterthe beginning of the war. The writing of it was finished in 1914long before the murder of an Austrian Archduke sounded the firstnote of warning for a world already full of doubts and fears.

The contemporaneous very short Author’s Note which ispreserved in this edition bears sufficient witness to the feelingswith which I consented to the publication of the book. The fact ofthe book having been published in the United States early in theyear made it difficult to delay its appearancein England anylonger. It came out in the thirteenth month of the war, and myconscience was troubled by the awful incongruity of throwing thisbit of imagined drama into the welter of reality, tragic enough inall conscience, but even more cruel than tragic and more inspiringthan cruel. It seemed awfully presumptuous to think there would beeyes to spare for those pages in a community which in the crash ofthe big guns and in the din of brave words expressing the truth ofan indomitable faith could not but feel the edge of a sharp knifeat its throat.

The unchanging Man of history is wonderfully adaptable both byhis power of endurance and in his capacity for detachment. The factseems to be that the play of his destiny is too great for his fearsand toomysterious for his understanding. Were the trump of the LastJudgement to sound suddenly on a working day the musician at hispiano would go on with his performance of Beethoven’s sonataand the cobbler at his stall stick to his last in undisturbedconfidence in the virtues of the leather. And with perfectpropriety. For what are we to let ourselves be disturbed by anangel’s vengeful music too mighty for our ears and too awfulfor our terrors? Thus it happens to us to be struck suddenly by thelightning ofwrath. The reader will go on reading if the bookpleases him and the critic will go on criticizing with that facultyof detachment born perhaps from a sense of infinite littleness andwhich is yet the only faculty that seems to assimilate man to theimmortal gods.

It is only when the catastrophe matches the natural obscurity ofour fate that even the best representative of the race is liable tolose his detachment. It is very obvious that on the arrival of thegentlemanly Mr. Jones, the single-minded Ricardo, and the faithfulPedro, Heyst, the man of universal detachment, loses his mentalself-possession, that fine attitude before the universallyirremediable which wears the name of stoicism. It is all a matterof proportion. There should have been a remedyfor that sort ofthing. And yet there is no remedy. Behind this minute instance oflife’s hazards Heyst sees the power of blind destiny.Besides, Heyst in his fine detachment had lost the habit ofasserting himself. I don’t mean the courage ofself-assertion, either moral or physical, but the mere way of it,the trick of the thing, the readiness of mind and the turn of thehand that come without reflection and lead the man to excellence inlife, in art, in crime, in virtue, and, for the matter of that,even in love. Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habitof profound reflection, I am compelled to say, is the mostpernicious of all the habits formed by the civilized man.

But I wouldn’t be suspected even remotely of making fun ofAxel Heyst. I have always liked him. The flesh-and-blood individualwho stands behind the infinitely more familiar figure of the book Iremember as a mysterious Swede right enough. Whether he was abaron, too, I am not so certain. He himself never laid claim tothat distinction. His detachment was too great to make any claims,big or small, on one’s credulity. I will not say where I methim because I fear to give my readers a wrong impression, since amarked incongruity between a man and his surroundings is often avery misleading circumstance. We became very friendly for a time,and I would not like to expose him to unpleasant suspicions though,personally, I am sure he would have been indifferent to suspicionsas he was indifferent to all the other disadvantages of life.He wasnot the whole Heyst of course; he is only the physical and moralfoundation of my Heyst laid on the ground of a short acquaintance.That it was short was certainly not my fault for he had charmed meby the mere amenity of his detachment which, in this case, I cannothelp thinking he had carried to excess. He went away from his roomswithout leaving a trace. I wondered where he had gone to—butnow I know. He vanished from my ken only to drift into thisadventure that, unavoidable, waited for him in aworld which hepersisted in looking upon as a malevolent shadow spinning in thesunlight. Often in the course of years an expressed sentiment, theparticular sense of a phrase heard casually, would recall him to mymind so that I have fastened on to him many words heard on othermen’s lips and belonging to other men’s less perfect,less pathetic moods.

The same observation will apply mutatis mutandis to Mr. Jones,who is built on a much slenderer connection. Mr. Jones (or whateverhis name was) did not drift away from me. He turned his back on meand walked out of the room. It was in a little hotel in the islandof St. Thomas in the West Indies (in the year ‘75) where wefound him one hot afternoon extended on three chairs, all alone inthe loud buzzing of flies to which his immobility and hiscadaverous aspect gave a most gruesome significance. Our invasionmust have displeased him because he got off the chairs brusquelyand walked out, leaving with me an indelibly weird impression ofhis thin shanks. One ofthe men with me said that the fellow was themost desperate gambler he had ever come across. I said: “Aprofessional sharper?” and got for an answer:“He’s a terror; but I must say that up to a certainpoint he will play fair. . . .” I wonder what the point was.I never saw him again because I believe he went straight on board amail-boat which left within the hour for other ports of call in thedirection of Aspinall. Mr. Jones’s characteristic insolencebelongs to another man of a quite different type. Iwill say nothingas to the origins of his mentality because I don’t intend tomake any damaging admissions.

It so happened that the very same year Ricardo—thephysical Ricardo—was a fellow passenger of mine on board anextremely small and extremely dirty little schooner, during a fourdays’ passage between two places in the Gulf of Mexico whosenames don’t matter. For the most part he lay on deck aft asit were at my feet, and raising himself from time to time on hiselbow would talk about himself and go ontalking, not exactly to meor even at me (he would not even look up but kept his eyes fixed onthe deck) but more as if communing in a low voice with his familiardevil. Now and then he would give me a glance and make the hairs ofhis stiff little moustache stir quaintly. His eyes were green andevery cat I see to this day reminds me of the exact contour of hisface. What he was travelling foror what was his business in life henever confided to me. Truth to say, the only passenger on boardthat schoonerwho could have talked openly about his activities andpurposes was a very snuffy and conversationally delightful friar,the superior of a convent, attended by a very young lay brother, ofa particularly ferocious countenance. We had with us also, lyingprostrate in the dark and unspeakable cuddy of that schooner, anold Spanish gentleman, owner of much luggage and, as Ricardoassured me, very ill indeed. Ricardo seemed to be either a servantor the confidant of that aged and distinguished-looking invalid,who early on the passage held a long murmured conversation with thefriar, and after that did nothing but groan feebly, smokecigarettes, and now and then call for Martin in a voice full ofpain. Then he who had become Ricardo in the book would go belowinto that beastly and noisome hole, remain there mysteriously, andcoming up on deck again with a face on which nothing could be read,would as likely as not resume for my edification the exposition ofhis moral attitude towards life illustrated by striking particularinstances of the most atrocious complexion. Did he mean to frightenme? Or seduce me? Or astonish me? Or arouse my admiration? All hedid was to arouse my amused incredulity. As scoundrels go he wasfar from being a bore. For the rest my innocence was so great thenthat I could not take his philosophy seriously. All the time hekept one ear turned to the cuddy in the manner of a devotedservant, but I had the idea that in some way or other he hadimposed the connection on the invalid for some endof his own. Thereader, therefore, won’t be surprised to hear that onemorning I was told without any particular emotion by the padrone ofthe schooner that the “rich man” down there was dead:He had died in the night. I don’t remember ever being somovedby the desolate end of a complete stranger. I looked down theskylight, and there was the devoted Martin busy cording cowhidetrunks belonging to the deceased whose white beard and hooked nosewere the only parts I could make out in the dark depths of ahorrible stuffy bunk.

As it fell calm in the course of the afternoon and continuedcalm during all that night and the terrible, flaming day, the late“rich man” had to be thrown overboard at sunset, thoughas a matter of fact we were in sight of the low pestilentialmangrove-lined coast of our destination. The excellent FatherSuperior mentioned to me with an air of immense commiseration:“The poor man has left a young daughter.” Who was tolook after her I don’t know, but I saw the devoted Martintaking thetrunks ashore with great care just before I landedmyself. I would perhaps have tracked the ways of that man ofimmense sincerity for a little while, but I had some of my own verypressing business to attend to, which in the end got mixed up withan earthquake and so I had no time to give to Ricardo. The readerneed not be told that I have not forgotten him, though.

My contact with the faithful Pedro was much shorter and myobservation of him was less complete but incomparably more anxious.It ended in a sudden inspiration to get out of his way. It was in ahovel of sticks and mats by the side of a path. As I went in thereonly to ask for a bottle of lemonade I have not to this day theslightest idea what in my appearance or actions could have rousedhis terrible ire. It became manifest to me less than two minutesafter I had set eyes on him for the first time, and thoughimmensely surprised of course I didn’t stop to think it out Itook the nearest short cut—through the wall. This bestialapparition and a certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haitionly a couple of months afterwards, have fixed my conception ofblind, furious, unreasoning rage, asmanifested in the human animal,to the end of my days. Of the nigger I used to dream for yearsafterwards.Of Pedro never. The impression was less vivid. I gotaway from him too quickly.

It seems to me but natural that those three buried in a cornerof my memory should suddenly get out into the light of theworld—so natural that I offer no excuse for their existence,They were there, they had to come out; and this is a sufficientexcuse for a writer of tales who had taken to his trade withoutpreparation, or premeditation, and without any moral intention butthat which pervades the whole scheme of this world ofsenses.

Since this Note is mostly concerned with personal contacts andthe origins of the persons in the tale, I am bound also to speak ofLena, because if I were to leave her out it would look like aslight; and nothing would be further from my thoughts than puttinga slight on Lena. If of all the personages involved in the“mystery of Samburan” I have lived longest with Heyst(or with him I call Heyst) it was at her, whom I call Lena, that Ihave looked the longest and with a most sustained attention. Thisattention originated in idleness for which I have a natural talent.One evening I wandered into a cafe, in a town not of the tropicsbut of the South of France. It was filled with tobacco smoke, thehum of voices, the rattling of dominoes, and the soundsof stridentmusic. The orchestra was rather smaller than the one that performedat Schomberg’s hotel, had the air more of a family party thanof an enlisted band, and, I must confess, seemed rather morerespectable than the Zangiacomo musical enterprise.It was lesspretentious also, more homely and familiar, so to speak, insomuchthat in the intervals when all the performers left the platform oneof them went amongst the marble tables collecting offerings of sousand francs in a battered tin receptacle recalling the shape of asauceboat. It was a girl. Her detachment from her task seems to menow to have equalled or even surpassed Heyst’s aloofness fromall the mental degradations to which a man’s intelligence isexposed in its way through life. Silent andwide-eyed she went fromtable to table with the air of a sleep-walker and with no othersound but the slight rattle of the coins to attract attention. Itwas long after the sea-chapter of my life had been closed but it isdifficult to discard completely the characteristics of half alifetime, and it was in something of the Jack-ashore spirit that Idropped a five-franc piece into the sauceboat; whereupon thesleep-walker turned her head to gaze at me and said “Merci,Monsieur” in a tone in which there wasno gratitude but onlysurprise. I must have been idle indeed to take the trouble toremark on such slight evidence that the voice was very charming andwhen the performers resumed their seats I shifted my positionslightly in order not to have that particular performer hidden fromme by the little man with the beard who conducted, and who mightfor all I know have been her father, but whose real mission in lifewas to be a model for the Zangiacomo of Victory. Having got a clearline of sight I naturally (being idle) continued to look at thegirl through all the second part of the programme. The shape of herdark head inclined over the violin was fascinating, and, whileresting between the pieces of that interminable programme she was,in her white dress andwith her brown hands reposing in her lap, thevery image of dreamy innocence. The mature, bad-tempered woman atthe piano might have been her mother, though there was not theslightest resemblance between them. All I am certain of in theirpersonal relation to each other is that cruel pinch on the upperpart of the arm. That I am sure I have seen! There could be nomistake. I was in too idle a mood to imagine such a gratuitousbarbarity.It may have been playfulness, yet the girl jumped up asif she had been stung by a wasp. It may have been playfulness. YetI saw plainly poor “dreamy innocence” rub gently theaffected place as she filed off with the other performers down themiddle aisle between the marble tables in the uproar of voices, therattling of dominoes through a blue atmosphere of tobacco smoke. Ibelieve that those people left the town next day.

Or perhaps they had only migrated to the other big cafe, on theother side of the Place de la Comedie. It is very possible. I didnot go across to find out. It was my perfect idleness that hadinvested the girl with a peculiar charm, and I did not want todestroy it by any superfluous exertion. The receptivity of myindolence made the impression so permanent that when the momentcame for her meeting with Heyst I felt that she would be heroicallyequal to every demand of the risky and uncertain future. I was soconvinced of it that I let her go with Heyst, I won’t saywithout a pang but certainly without misgivings. And in view of hertriumphant end what morecould I have done for her rehabilitationand her happiness?

1920. J. C.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, avery close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. Itis thereason, I believe, why some people allude to coal as “blackdiamonds.” Both these commodities represent wealth; but coalis a much less portable form of property. There is, from that pointof view, a deplorable lack of concentration in coal. Now, if acoal-mine could be put into one’s waistcoat pocket—butit can’t! At the same time, there is a fascination in coal,the supreme commodity of the age in which we are camped likebewildered travellers in a garish, unrestful hotel. And I supposethose twoconsiderations, the practical and the mystical, preventedHeyst—Axel Heyst—from going away.

The Tropical Belt Coal Company went into liquidation. The worldof finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the factmay appear, evaporation precedes liquidation. First the capitalevaporates, and then the company goes into liquidation. These arevery unnatural physics, but they account for the persistent inertiaof Heyst, at which we “out there” used to laugh amongourselves—but not inimically. An inertbody can do no harm toanyone, provokes no hostility, is scarcely worth derision. It may,indeed, be in the way sometimes; but this could not be said of AxelHeyst. He was out of everybody’s way, as if he were perchedon the highest peak of the Himalayas,and in a sense as conspicuous.Everyone in that part of the world knew of him, dwelling on hislittle island. An island is but the top of a mountain. Axel Heyst,perched on it immovably, was surrounded, instead of theimponderable stormy and transparent ocean of air merging intoinfinity, by a tepid, shallow sea; a passionless offshoot of thegreat waters which embrace the continents of this globe. His mostfrequent visitors were shadows, the shadows of clouds, relievingthe monotony of the inanimate, brooding sunshine of the tropics.His nearest neighbour—I am speaking now of things showingsome sort of animation—was an indolent volcano which smokedfaintly all day with its head just above the northern horizon, andat night levelled at him, from amongst the clear stars, a dull redglow, expanding and collapsing spasmodically like the end of agigantic cigar puffed at intermittently in the dark. Axel Heyst wasalso a smoker; and when he lounged out on his veranda with hischeroot, the last thing before goingto bed, he made in the nightthe same sort of glow and of the same size as that other one somany miles away.

In a sense, the volcano was company to him in the shades of thenight—which were often too thick, one would think, to let abreath of air through. There was seldom enough wind to blow afeather along. On most evenings of the year Heyst could have satoutside with a naked candle to read one of the books left him byhis late father. It was not a mean store. But he never did that.Afraid of mosquitoes, very likely. Neither was he ever tempted bythe silence to address any casual remarks to the companion glow ofthe volcano. He was not mad. Queer chap—yes, that may havebeen said, and in fact was said; but there is a tremendousdifference between the two, you will allow.

On the nights of full moon the silence around Samburan—the“Round Island” of the charts—was dazzling; and inthe flood of cold light Heyst could see his immediatesurroundings,which had the aspect of an abandoned settlement invaded by thejungle: vague roofs above low vegetation, broken shadows of bamboofences in the sheen of long grass, something like an overgrown bitof road slanting among ragged thickets towards the shore only acouple of hundred yards away, with a black jetty and amound of somesort, quite inky on its unlighted side. But the most conspicuousobject was a gigantic blackboard raised on two posts and presentingto Heyst, when the moon got over that side, the white letters“T. B. C. Co.” in a row at least two feet high.Thesewere the initials of the Tropical Belt Coal Company, hisemployers—his late employers, to be precise.

According to the unnatural mysteries of the financial world, theT. B. C. Company’s capital having evaporated in the course oftwo years, the company went into liquidation—forced, Ibelieve, not voluntary. There was nothing forcible in the process,however. It was slow; and while the liquidation—in London andAmsterdam—pursued its languid course, Axel Heyst, styled inthe prospectus “manager in the tropics,” remained athis post on Samburan, the No. 1 coaling-station of the company.

And it was not merely a coaling-station. There was a coal-minethere, with an outcrop in the hillside less than five hundred yardsfrom the rickety wharf and the imposingblackboard. Thecompany’s object had been to get hold of all the outcrops ontropical islands and exploit them locally. And, Lord knows, therewere any amount of outcrops. It was Heyst who had located most ofthem in this part of the tropical belt during his rather aimlesswanderings, and being a ready letter-writer had written pages andpages about them to his friends in Europe. At least, so it wassaid.

We doubted whether he had any visions of wealth—forhimself, at any rate. What he seemed mostly concerned for was the“stride forward,” as he expressed it, in the generalorganization of the universe, apparently. He was heard by more thana hundred persons in the islands talking of a “great strideforward for these regions.” The convinced wave of the handwhich accompanied the phrase suggested tropical distances beingimpelled onward. In connection with the finished courtesy of hismanner, it was persuasive, or at any rate silencing—for atime, at least. Nobody cared to argue with him when he talked inthisstrain. His earnestness could do no harm to anybody. There wasno danger of anyone taking seriously his dream of tropical coal, sowhat was the use of hurting his feelings?

Thus reasoned men in reputable business offices where he had hisentree as a personwho came out East with letters ofintroduction—and modest letters of credit, too—someyears before these coal-outcrops began to crop up in his playfullycourteous talk. From the first there was some difficulty in makinghim out. He was not a traveller. Atraveller arrives and departs,goes on somewhere. Heyst did not depart. I met a man once—themanager of the branch of the Oriental Banking Corporation inMalacca—to whom Heyst exclaimed, in no connection withanything in particular (it was in the billiard-room of theclub):

“I am enchanted with these islands!”

He shot it out suddenly, a propos des bottes, as the French say,and while chalking his cue. And perhaps it was some sort ofenchantment. There are more spells than your commonplace magiciansever dreamed of.

Roughly speaking, a circle with a radius of eight hundred milesdrawn round a point in North Borneo was in Heyst’s case amagic circle. It just touched Manila, and he had beenseen there. Itjust touched Saigon, and he was likewise seen there once. Perhapsthese were his attempts to break out. If so, they were failures.The enchantment must have been an unbreakable one. Themanager—the man who heard the exclamation—had been soimpressed by the tone, fervour, rapture, what you will, or perhapsby the incongruity of it that he had related the experience to morethan one person.

“Queer chap, that Swede,” was his only comment; butthis is the origin of the name “Enchanted Heyst” whichsome fellows fastened on our man.

He also had other names. In his early years, long before he gotso becomingly bald on the top, he went to present a letter ofintroduction to Mr. Tesman of Tesman Brothers, a Sourabayafirm—tip-top house. Well, Mr. Tesman was a kindly, benevolentold gentleman. He did not know what to makeof that caller. Aftertelling him that they wished to render his stay among the islandsas pleasant as possible, and that they were ready to assist him inhis plans, and so on, and after receiving Heyst’sthanks—you know the usual kind of conversation—heproceeded to query in a slow, paternal tone:

“And you are interested in—?”

“Facts,” broke in Heyst in his courtly voice.“There’s nothing worth knowing but facts. Hard facts!Facts alone, Mr. Tesman.”

I don’t know if old Tesman agreed with him or not, buthemust have spoken about it, because, for a time, our man got thename of “Hard Facts.” He had the singular good fortunethat his sayings stuck to him and became part of his name.Thereafter he mooned about the Java Sea in some of theTesmans’ trading schooners, and then vanished, on board anArab ship, in the direction of New Guinea. He remained so long inthat outlying part of his enchanted circle that he was nearlyforgotten before he swam into view again in a native proa full ofGoram vagabonds, burntblack by the sun, very lean, his hair muchthinned, and a portfolio of sketches under his arm. He showed thesewillingly, but was very reserved as to anything else. He had had an“amusing time,” he said. A man who will go to NewGuinea for fun—well!

Later,years afterwards, when the last vestiges of youth had goneoff his face and all the hair off the top of his head, and hisred-gold pair of horizontal moustaches had grown to really nobleproportions, a certain disreputable white man fastened upon him anepithet. Putting down with a shaking hand a long glass emptied ofits contents—paid for by Heyst—he said, with thatdeliberate sagacity which no mere water-drinker ever attained:

“Heyst’s a puffect g’n’lman. Puffect!But he’s a ut-uto-utopist.”

Heyst had just gone out of the place of public refreshment wherethis pronouncement was voiced. Utopist, eh? Upon my word, the onlything I heard him say which might have had a bearing on the pointwas his invitation to old McNab himself. Turning with that finishedcourtesy of attitude, movement voice, which was his obviouscharacteristic, he had said with delicate playfulness:

“Come along and quench your thirst with us, Mr.McNab!”

Perhaps that was it. A man who could propose, even playfully, toquench old McNab’s thirst must have been a utopist, a pursuerof chimeras; for of downright irony Heyst was not prodigal. And,may be, this was the reason why he was generally liked. At thatepoch inhis life, in the fulness of his physical development, of abroad, martial presence, with his bald head and long moustaches, heresembled the portraits of Charles XII., of adventurous memory.However, there was no reason to think that Heyst was in any way afighting man.

CHAPTER TWO

It was about this time that Heyst becameassociated with Morrisonon terms about which people were in doubt. Some said he was apartner, others said he was a sort of paying guest, but the realtruth of the matter was more complex. One day Heyst turned up inTimor. Why in Timor, of all places in the world, no one knows.Well, he was mooning about Delli, that highly pestilential place,possibly in search of some undiscovered facts, when he came in thestreet upon Morrison, who, in his way, was also an“enchanted” man. When you spoke to Morrison of goinghome—he was from Dorsetshire—he shuddered. He said itwas dark and wet there; that it was like living with your head andshoulders in a moist gunny-bag. That was only his exaggerated styleof talking. Morrison was “one of us.” He was owner andmasterof the Capricorn, trading brig, and was understood to bedoing well with her, except for the drawback of too much altruism.He was the dearly beloved friend of a quantity of God-forsakenvillages up dark creeks and obscure bays, where he traded forproduce. He would often sail, through awfully dangerous channels upto some miserable settlement, only to find a very hungry populationclamorous for rice, and without so much “produce”between them as would have filled Morrison’s suitcase. Amidgeneral rejoicings, he would land the rice all the same, explain tothe people that it was an advance, that they were in debt to himnow; would preach to them energy and industry, and make anelaborate note in a pocket-diary which he always carried; and thiswould be the end of that transaction. I don’t know ifMorrison thought so, but the villagers had no doubt whatever aboutit. Whenever a coast village sighted the brig it would begin tobeat all its gongs and hoist all its streamers, and all its girlswould put flowers in their hair and the crowd would line the riverbank, and Morrison would beam and glitter at all this excitementthrough his single eyeglass with an air of intense gratification.He was tall and lantern-jawed, and clean-shaven, and looked like abarristerwho had thrown his wig to the dogs.

We used to remonstrate with him:

“You will never see any of your advances if you go on likethis, Morrison.”

He would put on a knowing air.

“I shall squeeze them yet some day—never you fear.And that reminds me”—pullingout his inseparablepocketbook—“there’s that So-and-So village. Theyare pretty well off again; I may just as well squeeze them to beginwith.”

He would make a ferocious entry in the pocketbook.

Memo: Squeeze the So-and-So village at the first time ofcalling.

Then he would stick the pencil back and snap the elastic on withinflexible finality; but he never began the squeezing. Some mengrumbled at him. He was spoiling the trade. Well, perhaps to acertain extent; not much. Most of the places he traded withwereunknown not only to geography but also to the traders’special lore which is transmitted by word of mouth, withoutostentation, and forms the stock of mysterious local knowledge. Itwas hinted also that Morrison had a wife in each and every one ofthem, but the majority of usrepulsed these innuendoes withindignation. He was a true humanitarian and rather ascetic thanotherwise.

When Heyst met him in Delli, Morrison was walking along thestreet, his eyeglass tossed over his shoulder, his head down, withthe hopeless aspect of those hardened tramps one sees on our roadstrudging from workhouse to workhouse. Being hailed on the street helooked up with a wild worried expression. He was really in trouble.He had come the week before into Delli and the Portugueseauthorities, on some pretence of irregularity in his papers, hadinflicted a fine upon him and had arrested his brig.

Morrison never had any spare cash in hand. With his system oftrading it would have been strange if he had; and all these debtsentered in the pocketbook weren’t good enough to raise amillrei on—let alone a shilling. The Portuguese officialsbegged him not to distress himself. They gave him a week’sgrace, and then proposed to sell the brig at auction. This meantruin for Morrison;and when Heyst hailed him across the street inhis usual courtly tone, the week was nearly out.

Heyst crossed over, and said with a slight bow, and in themanner of a prince addressing another prince on a privateoccasion:

“What an unexpected pleasure. Would you have any objectionto drink something with me in that infamous wine-shop over there?The sun is really too strong to talk in the street.”

The haggard Morrison followed obediently into a sombre, coolhovel which he would have distained to enter at any other time. Hewas distracted. He did not know what he was doing. You could haveled him over the edge of a precipice just as easily as into thatwine-shop. He sat down like an automaton. He was speechless, but hesaw a glass full of rough red wine before him, and emptied it.Heyst meantime, politely watchful, had taken a seat opposite.

“You are in for a bout of fever, I fear,” he saidsympathetically.

Poor Morrison’s tongue was loosened at that.

“Fever!” he cried. “Give me fever. Give meplague. They are diseases. One gets over them. But I am beingmurdered. I am being murdered by the Portuguese. The gang heredowned me at last among them. I am to have my throat cut the dayafter tomorrow.”

In the face of this passion Heyst made, with his eyebrows, aslight motion of surprise which would not have been misplaced in adrawing-room. Morrison’s despairing reserve had broken down.He had been wandering with a dry throat all over that miserabletown of mud hovels, silent, with no soul to turn to in hisdistress, and positively maddened by his thoughts; and suddenly hehad stumbled on a white man, figuratively and actuallywhite—for Morrison refused to accept the racial whiteness ofthe Portuguese officials. He let himself go for the mere relief ofviolent speech, his elbows planted on the table, his eyesblood-shot, his voice nearly gone, the brim of his round pith hatshading an unshaven, livid face. His white clothes, which he hadnot taken off for three days, were dingy. He had already gone tothe bad, past redemption. The sight was shocking to Heyst; but helet nothing of it appear in his bearing, concealing his impressionunder that consummate good-society manner of his. Polite attention,what’s due from one gentleman listening to another, was whathe showed;and, as usual, it was catching; so that Morrison pulledhimself together and finished his narrative in a conversationaltone, with a man-of-the-world air.

“It’s a villainous plot. Unluckily, one is helpless.That scoundrel Cousinho—Andreas, you know—has beencoveting the brig for years. Naturally, I would never sell. She isnot only my livelihood; she’s my life. So he has hatched thispretty little plot with the chief of the customs. The sale, ofcourse, will be a farce. There’s no one here to bid. Hewillget the brig for a song—no, not even that—a line ofa song. You have been some years now in the islands, Heyst. Youknow us all; you have seen how we live. Now you shall have theopportunity to see how some of us end; for it is the end, for me. Ican’t deceive myself any longer. You see it—don’tyou?”

Morrison had pulled himself together, but one felt the snappingstrain on his recovered self-possession. Heyst was beginning to saythat he “could very well see all the bearings of thisunfortunate—” when Morrison interrupted himjerkily.

“Upon my word, I don’t know why I have been tellingyou all this. I suppose seeing a thoroughly white man made itimpossible to keep my trouble to myself. Words can’t do itjustice; but since I’ve told you so much I may as well tellyou more. Listen. This morning on board, in my cabin I went down onmy knees and prayed for help. I went down on my knees!”

“You are a believer, Morrison?” asked Heyst with adistinct note of respect.

“Surely I am not an infidel.”

Morrison was swiftly reproachful in his answer, and there came apause, Morrison perhaps interrogating his conscience, and Heystpreserving a mien of unperturbed, polite interest.

“I prayed like a child, of course. I believe in childrenpraying—well, women, too, but I rather think God expects mento be more self-reliant. I don’t hold with a maneverlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly troubles. Itseems such cheek. Anyhow, this morning I—I have never doneany harm to any God’s creature knowingly—I prayed. Asudden impulse—I went flop on my knees; so you mayjudge—”

They were gazing earnestly into each other’s eyes. PoorMorrison added, as a discouraging afterthought:

“Only this is such a God-forsaken spot.”

Heyst inquired with a delicate intonation whether hemight knowthe amount for which the brig was seized.

Morrison suppressed an oath, and named curtly a sum which was initself so insignificant that any other person than Heyst would haveexclaimed at it. And even Heyst could hardly keep incredulity outof his politely modulated voice as he asked if it was a fact thatMorrison had not that amount in hand.

Morrison hadn’t. He had only a little English gold, a fewsovereigns, on board. He had left all his spare cash with theTesmans, in Samarang, to meet certain bills which would fall duewhile he was away on his cruise. Anyhow, that money would not havebeen any more good to him than if it had been in the innermostdepths of the infernal regions. He said all this brusquely. Helooked with sudden disfavour at that noble forehead, at those greatmartial moustaches, at the tired eyes of the man sitting oppositehim. Who the devil was he? What was he, Morrison, doing there,talking like this? Morrison knew no more of Heyst than therest ofus trading in the Archipelago did. Had the Swede suddenly risen andhit him on the nose, he could not have been taken more aback thanwhen this stranger, this nondescript wanderer, said with a littlebow across the table:

“Oh! If that’s the case I would be very happy ifyou’d allowme to be of use!”

Morrison didn’t understand. This was one of those thingsthat don’t happen—unheard of things. He had no realinkling of what it meant, till Heyst said definitely:

“I can lend you the amount.”

“You have the money?” whispered Morrison.“Doyou mean here, in your pocket?”

“Yes, on me. Glad to be of use.”

Morrison, staring open-mouthed, groped over his shoulder for thecord of the eyeglass hanging down his back. When he found it, hestuck it in his eye hastily. It was as if he expected Heyst’susual white suit of the tropics to change into a shining garment,flowing down to his toes, and a pair of great dazzling wings tosprout out on the Swede’s shoulders—and didn’twant to miss a single detail of the transformation. But if Heystwas an angelfrom on high, sent in answer to prayer, he did notbetray his heavenly origin by outward signs. So, instead of goingon his knees, as he felt inclined to do, Morrison stretched out hishand, which Heyst grasped with formal alacrity and a polite murmurinwhich “Trifle—delighted—of service,”could just be distinguished.

“Miracles do happen,” thought the awestruckMorrison. To him, as to all of us in the Islands, this wanderingHeyst, who didn’t toil or spin visibly, seemed the very lastperson to be the agent of Providence in an affair concerned withmoney. The fact of his turning up in Timor or anywhere else was nomore wonderful than the settling of a sparrow on one’swindow-sill at any given moment. But that he should carry a sum ofmoney in his pocket seemed somehow inconceivable.

So inconceivable that as they were trudging together through thesand of the roadway to the custom-house—another mudhovel—to pay the fine, Morrison broke into a cold sweat,stopped short, and exclaimed in faltering accents:

“Isay! You aren’t joking, Heyst?”

“Joking!” Heyst’s blue eyes went hard as heturned them on the discomposed Morrison. “In what way, may Iask?” he continued with austere politeness.

Morrison was abashed.

“Forgive me, Heyst. You must have been sent by Godinanswer to my prayer. But I have been nearly off my chump forthree days with worry; and it suddenly struck me: ‘What ifit’s the Devil who has sent him?’”

“I have no connection with the supernatural,” saidHeyst graciously, moving on. “Nobody has sent me.I justhappened along.”

“I know better,” contradicted Morrison. “I maybe unworthy, but I have been heard. I know it. I feel it. For whyshould you offer—”

Heyst inclined his head, as from respect for a conviction inwhich he could not share. But he stuckto his point by mutteringthat in the presence of an odious fact like this, it wasnatural—

Later in the day, the fine paid, and the two of them on boardthe brig, from which the guard had been removed, Morrison who,besides, being a gentleman was also anhonest fellow began to talkabout repayment. He knew very well his inability to lay by any sumof money. It was partly the fault of circumstances and partly ofhis temperament; and it would have been very difficult to apportionthe responsibility betweenthe two. Even Morrison himself could notsay, while confessing to the fact. With a worried air he ascribedit to fatality:

“I don’t know how it is that I’ve never beenable to save. It’s some sort of curse. There’s always abill or two to meet.”

He plungedhis hand into his pocket for the famous notebook sowell known in the islands, the fetish of his hopes, and flutteredthe pages feverishly.

“And yet—look,” he went on. “There itis—more than five thousand dollars owing. Surely that’ssomething.”

He ceasedsuddenly. Heyst, who had been all the time trying tolook as unconcerned as he could, made reassuring noises in histhroat. But Morrison was not only honest. He was honourable, too;and on this stressful day, before this amazing emissary ofProvidence andin the revulsion of his feelings, he made his greatrenunciation. He cast off the abiding illusion of hisexistence.

“No. No. They are not good. I’ll never be able tosqueeze them. Never. I’ve been saying for years I would, butI give it up. I never really believed I could. Don’t reckonon that, Heyst. I have robbed you.”

Poor Morrison actually laid his head on the cabin table, andremained in that crushed attitude while Heyst talked to himsoothingly with the utmost courtesy. The Swede was as muchdistressed as Morrison; for he understood the other’sfeelings perfectly. No decent feeling was ever scorned by Heyst.But he was incapable of outward cordiality of manner, and he feltacutely his defect. Consummate politeness is not the right tonicfor an emotional collapse. They must have had, both of them, afairly painful time of it in the cabin of the brig. In the endMorrison, casting desperately for an idea in the blackness of hisdespondency, hit upon the notion of inviting Heyst to travel withhim in hisbrig and have a share in his trading ventures up to theamount of his loan.

It is characteristic of Heyst’s unattached, floatingexistence that he was in a position to accept this proposal. Thereis no reason to think that he wanted particularly just thento gopoking aboard the brig into all the holes and corners of theArchipelago where Morrison picked up most of his trade. Far fromit; but he would have consented to almost any arrangement in orderto put an end to the harrowing scene in the cabin. Therewas at oncea great transformation act: Morrison raising his diminished head,and sticking the glass in his eye to look affectionately at Heyst,a bottle being uncorked, and so on. It was agreed that nothingshould be said to anyone of this transaction. Morrison, youunderstand, was not proud of the episode, and he was afraid ofbeing unmercifully chaffed.

“An old bird like me! To let myself be trapped by thosedamned Portuguese rascals! I should never hear the last of it. Wemust keep it dark.”

From quiteother motives, among which his native delicacy was theprincipal, Heyst was even more anxious to bind himself to silence.A gentleman would naturally shrink from thepart of heavenlymessenger that Morrison would force upon him. It made Heystuncomfortable, as it was. And perhaps he did not care that itshould be known that he had some means, whatever they might havebeen—sufficient, at any rate, to enable him to lend money topeople. These two had a duet down there, like conspirators in acomic opera, of “Sh—ssh, shssh! Secrecy!Secrecy!” It must have been funny, because they were veryserious about it.

And for a time the conspiracy was successful in so far that weall concluded that Heyst was boarding with thegood-natured—some said: sponging on theimbecile—Morrison, in his brig. But you know how it is withall such mysteries. There is always a leak somewhere. Morrisonhimself, not a perfect vessel by any means, was bursting withgratitude, and under the stress he must have let out somethingvague—enough to give the island gossip a chance. And you knowhow kindly the world is in its comments on what it does notunderstand. A rumour sprang out that Heyst, having obtained somemysterious hold on Morrison, had fastened himself on him and wassucking him dry. Those who had traced these mutters back to theirorigin were very careful not to believe them. The originator, itseems, was a certain Schomberg, a big, manly, bearded creature ofthe Teutonic persuasion, with an ungovernable tongue which surelymust have worked on a pivot. Whether he was a Lieutenant of theReserve, as he declared, I don’t know. Out there he was byprofession a hotel-keeper, first in Bangkok, then somewhere else,and ultimately in Sourabaya. He dragged after him up and down thatsection ofthe tropical belt a silent, frightened, little woman withlong ringlets, who smiled at one stupidly, showing a blue tooth. Idon’t know why so many of us patronized his variousestablishments. He was a noxious ass, and he satisfied his lust forsilly gossip at the cost of his customers. It was he who, oneevening, as Morrison and Heyst went past the hotel—they werenot his regular patrons—whispered mysteriously to the mixedcompany assembled on the veranda:

“The spider and the fly just gone by,gentlemen.”Then, very important and confidential, his thickpaw at the side of his mouth: “We are among ourselves; well,gentlemen, all I can say is, don’t you ever get mixed up withthat Swede. Don’t you ever get caught in his web.”

CHAPTER THREE

Human nature being what it is, having a silly side to it as wellas a mean side, there were not a few who pretended to be indignanton no better authority than a general propensity to believe everyevil report; and a good many others who found it simply funny tocallHeyst the Spider—behind his back, of course. He was asserenely unconscious of this as of his several other nicknames. Butsoon people found other things to say of Heyst; not long afterwardshe came very much to the fore in larger affairs. He blossomed outinto something definite. He filled the public eye as the manager onthe spot of the Tropical Belt Coal Company with offices in Londonand Amsterdam, and other things about it that sounded and lookedgrandiose. The offices in the two capitals may haveconsisted—and probably did—of one room in each; but atthat distance, out East there, all this had an air. We were morepuzzled than dazzled, it is true; but even the most sober-mindedamong us began to think that there was something in it. The Tesmansappointed agents, a contract for government mail-boats secured, theera of steam beginning for the islands—a great strideforward—Heyst’s stride!

And all this sprang from the meeting of the cornered Morrisonand of the wandering Heyst, which may or may not havebeen thedirect outcome of a prayer. Morrison was not an imbecile, but heseemed to have got himself into a state of remarkable haziness asto his exact position towards Heyst. For, if Heyst had been sentwith money in his pocket by a direct decree of theAlmighty inanswer to Morrison’s prayer then there was no reason forspecial gratitude, since obviously he could not help himself. ButMorrison believed both, in the efficacy of prayer and in theinfinite goodness of Heyst. He thanked God with awed sincerity forhis mercy, and could not thank Heyst enough for the servicerendered as between man and man. In this (highly creditable) tangleof strong feelings Morrison’s gratitude insisted onHeyst’s partnership in the great discovery. Ultimately weheard thatMorrison had gone home through the Suez Canal in order topush the magnificent coal idea personally in London. He parted fromhis brig and disappeared from our ken; but we heard that he hadwritten a letter or letters to Heyst, saying that London wascoldand gloomy; that he did not like either the men or things, thathe was “as lonely as a crow in a strange country.” Intruth, he pined after the Capricorn—I don’t mean onlythe tropic; I mean the ship too. Finally he went into Dorsetshireto see his people,caught a bad cold, and died with extraordinaryprecipitation in the bosom of his appalled family. Whether hisexertions in the City of London had enfeebled his vitality Idon’t know; but I believe it was this visit which put lifeinto the coal idea. Be itas it may, the Tropical Belt Coal Companywas born very shortly after Morrison, the victim of gratitude andhis native climate, had gone to join his forefathers in aDorsetshire churchyard.

Heyst was immensely shocked. He got the news in the Moluccasthrough the Tesmans, and then disappeared for a time. It appearsthat he stayed with a Dutch government doctor in Amboyna, a friendof his who looked after him for a bit in his bungalow. He becamevisible again rather suddenly, his eyes sunk in his head, and witha sort of guarded attitude, as if afraid someone would reproach himwith the death of Morrison.

Naive Heyst! As if anybody would . . . Nobody amongst us had anyinterest in men who went home. They were all right; they did notcount any more. Going to Europe was nearly as final as going toHeaven. It removed a man from the world of hazard andadventure.

As a matter of fact, many of us did not hear of this death tillmonths afterwards—from Schomberg, who disliked Heystgratuitously and made up a piece ofsinister whispered gossip:

“That’s what comes of having anything to do withthat fellow. He squeezes you dry like a lemon, then chucks youout—sends you home to die. Take warning byMorrison!”

Of course, we laughed at the innkeeper’s suggestions ofblack mystery. Several of us heard that Heyst was prepared to go toEurope himself, to push on his coal enterprise personally; but henever went. It wasn’t necessary. The company was formedwithout him, and his nomination of manager in the tropics came outto himby post.

From the first he had selected Samburan, or Round Island, forthe central station. Some copies of the prospectus issued inEurope, having found their way out East, were passed from hand tohand. We greatly admired the map which accompanied them for theedification of the shareholders. On it Samburan was represented asthe central spot of the Eastern Hemisphere with its name engravedin enormous capitals. Heavy lines radiated from it in alldirections through the tropics, figuring a mysterious andeffectivestar—lines of influence or lines of distance, or something ofthat sort. Company promoters have an imagination of their own.There’s no more romantic temperament on earth than thetemperament of a company promoter. Engineers came out, coolies wereimported, bungalows were put up on Samburan, a gallery driven intothe hillside, and actually some coal got out.

These manifestations shook the soberest minds. For a timeeverybody in the islands was talking of the Tropical Belt Coal, andeven those whosmiled quietly to themselves were only hiding theiruneasiness. Oh, yes; it had come, and anybody could see what wouldbe the consequences—the end of the individual trader,smothered under a great invasion of steamers. We could not affordto buy steamers.Not we. And Heyst was the manager.

“You know, Heyst, enchanted Heyst.”

“Oh, come! He has been no better than a loafer around hereas far back as any of us can remember.”

“Yes, he said he was looking for facts. Well, he’sgot hold of one that will do for all of us,” commented abitter voice.

“That’s what they call development—and behanged to it!” muttered another.

Never was Heyst talked about so much in the tropical beltbefore.

“Isn’t he a Swedish baron or something?”

“He, a baron? Get along with you!”

Formy part I haven’t the slightest doubt that he was.While he was still drifting amongst the islands, enigmatical anddisregarded like an insignificant ghost, he told me so himself on acertain occasion. It was a long time before he materialized in thisalarming way into the destroyer of our little industry—Heystthe Enemy.

It became the fashion with a good many to speak of Heyst as theEnemy. He was very concrete, very visible now. He was rushing allover the Archipelago, jumping in and out of local mail-packets asif they had been tram-cars, here, there, andeverywhere—organizing with all his might. This was no mooningabout. This was business. And this sudden display of purposefulenergy shook the incredulity of the most sceptical more than anyscientificdemonstration of the value of these coal-outcrops couldhave done. It was impressive. Schomberg was the only one whoresisted the infection. Big, manly in a portly style, and profuselybearded, with a glass of beer in his thick paw, he would approachsometable where the topic of the hour was being discussed, wouldlisten for a moment, and then come out with his invariabledeclaration:

“All this is very well, gentlemen; but he can’tthrow any of his coal-dust in my eyes. There’s nothing in it.Why, there can’t be anything in it. A fellow like that formanager? Phoo!”

Was it the clairvoyance of imbecile hatred, or mere stupidtenacity of opinion, which ends sometimes by scoring against theworld in a most astonishing manner? Most of us can rememberinstancesof triumphant folly; and that ass Schomberg triumphed. TheT.B.C. Company went into liquidation, as I began by telling you.The Tesmans washed their hands of it. The Government cancelledthose famous contracts, the talk died out, and presently it wasremarked here and there that Heyst had faded completely away. Hehad become invisible, as in those early days when he used to make abolt clear out of sight in his attempts to break away from theenchantment of “these isles,” either in the directionof New Guinea or in the direction of Saigon—to cannibals orto cafes. The enchanted Heyst! Had he at last broken the spell? Hadhe died? We were too indifferent to wonder overmuch. You see we hadon the whole liked him well enough. And liking is not sufficient tokeep going the interest one takes in a human being. With hatred,apparently, it is otherwise. Schomberg couldn’t forget Heyst.The keen, manly Teutonic creature was a good hater. A fool oftenis.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Have you got everything youwant? So!Good! You see? What was I always telling you? Aha! Therewas nothing in it. I knew it. But what I would like to know is whatbecame of that—Swede.”

He put a stress on the word Swede as if it meant scoundrel. Hedetested Scandinavians generally. Why? Goodness only knows. A foollike that is unfathomable. He continued:

“It’s five months or more since I have spoken toanybody who has seen him.”

As I have said, we were not much interested; but Schomberg, ofcourse, could not understand that. He was grotesquelydense.Whenever three people came together in his hotel, he took good carethat Heyst should be with them.

“I hope the fellow did not go and drown himself,” hewould add with a comical earnestness that ought to have made usshudder; only our crowd was superficial, and did not apprehend thepsychology of this pious hope.

“Why? Heyst isn’t in debt to you for drinks ishe?” somebody asked him once with shallow scorn.

“Drinks! Oh, dear no!”

The innkeeper was not mercenary. Teutonic temperament seldom is.Buthe put on a sinister expression to tell us that Heyst had notpaid perhaps three visits altogether to his“establishment.” This was Heyst’s crime, forwhich Schomberg wished him nothing less than a long and tormentedexistence. Observe the Teutonic sense of proportion and niceforgiving temper.

At last, one afternoon, Schomberg was seen approaching a groupof his customers. He was obviously in high glee. He squared hismanly chest with great importance.

“Gentlemen, I have news of him. Who? why, that Swede.He isstill on Samburan. He’s never been away from it. The companyis gone, the engineers are gone, the clerks are gone, the cooliesare gone, everything’s gone; but there he sticks. CaptainDavidson, coming by from the westward, saw him with his owneyes.Something white on the wharf, so he steamed in and went ashorein a small boat. Heyst, right enough. Put a book into his pocket,always very polite. Been strolling on the wharf and reading.‘I remain in possession here,’ he told CaptainDavidson. What I want to know is what he gets to eat there. A pieceof dried fish now and then—what? That’s coming downpretty low for a man who turned up his nose at my tabled’hote!”

He winked with immense malice. A bell started ringing, and heled the way to the dining-room as if into a temple, very grave,with the air of a benefactor of mankind. His ambition was to feedit at a profitable price, and his delight was to talk of it behindits back. It was very characteristic of him to gloat over the ideaof Heyst having nothing decent to eat.

CHAPTER FOUR

A few of us who were sufficiently interested went to Davidsonfor details. These were not many. He told us that he passed to thenorth of Samburan on purpose to see what was going on. At first, itlooked as if thatside of the island had been altogether abandoned.This was what he expected. Presently, above the dense mass ofvegetation that Samburan presents to view, he saw the head of theflagstaff without a flag. Then, while steaming across the slightindentationwhich for a time was known officially as Black DiamondBay, he made out with his glass the white figure on thecoaling-wharf. It could be no one but Heyst.

“I thought for certain he wanted to be taken off, so Isteamed in. He made no signs. However, I lowered a boat. I couldnot see another living being anywhere. Yes. He had a book in hishand. He looked exactly as we have always seen him—very neat,white shoes, cork helmet. He explained to me that he had always hada taste for solitude. It was the first Iever heard of it, I toldhim. He only smiled. What could I say? He isn’t the sort ofman one can speak familiarly to. There’s something in him.One doesn’t care to.

“‘But what’s the object? Are you thinking ofkeeping possession of the mine?’ I asked him.

“‘Something of the sort,’ he says. ‘I amkeeping hold.’

“‘But all this is as dead as Julius Caesar,’ Icried. ‘In fact, you have nothing worth holding on to,Heyst.’

“‘Oh, I am done with facts,’ says he, puttinghis hand to his helmet sharply with one of his shortbows.”

Thus dismissed, Davidson went on board his ship, swung her out,and as he was steaming away he watched from the bridge Heystwalking shoreward along the wharf. He marched into the long grassand vanished—all but the top of his white cork helmet, whichseemed to swim in a green sea. Then that too disappeared, as if ithad sunk into the living depths of the tropical vegetation, whichis more jealous of men’s conquests than the ocean, and whichwas about to close over the last vestiges of the liquidatedTropical Belt Coal Company—A. Heyst, manager in the East.

Davidson, a good, simple fellow in his way, was strangelyaffected. It is to be noted that he knew very little of Heyst. Hewas one of those whom Heyst’s finished courtesy of attitudeandintonation most strongly disconcerted. He himself was a fellowof fine feeling, I think, though of course he had no more polishthan the rest of us. We were naturally a hail-fellow-well-metcrowd, with standards of our own—no worse, I daresay, thanother people’s; but polish was not one of them.Davidson’s fineness was real enough to alter the course ofthe steamer he commanded. Instead of passing to the south ofSamburan, he made it his practice to take the passage along thenorth shore, within about a mile of the wharf.

“He can see us if he likes to see us,” remarkedDavidson. Then he had an afterthought: “I say! I hope hewon’t think I am intruding, eh?”

We reassured him on the point of correct behaviour. The sea isopen to all.

This slight deviation added some ten miles to Davidson’sround trip, but as that was sixteen hundred miles it did not mattermuch.

“I have told my owner of it,” said the conscientiouscommander of the Sissie.

His owner had a face like an ancient lemon. He was small andwizened—which was strange, because generally a Chinaman, ashe grows in prosperity, puts on inches of girth and stature. Toserve a Chinese firm is not so bad. Once they become convinced youdeal straight by them, their confidence becomes unlimited. You cando no wrong. So Davidson’s old Chinaman squeakedhurriedly:

“All right, all right, all right. You do what you like,captain—”

And there was an end of the matter; not altogether, though. Fromtime to time the Chinaman used to ask Davidson about the white man.He wasstill there, eh?

“I never see him,” Davidson had to confess to hisowner, who would peer at him silently through round, horn-rimmedspectacles, several sizes too large for his little old face.“I never see him.”

To me, on occasions he would say:

“I haven’ta doubt he’s there. He hides.It’s very unpleasant.” Davidson was a little vexed withHeyst. “Funny thing,” he went on. “Of all thepeople I speak to, nobody ever asks after him but that Chinaman ofmine—and Schomberg,” he added after a while.

Yes, Schomberg, of course. He was asking everybody abouteverything, and arranging the information into the most scandalousshape his imagination could invent. From time to time he would stepup, his blinking, cushioned eyes, his thick lips, his very chestnutbeard,looking full of malice.

“Evening, gentlemen. Have you got all you want? So! Good!Well, I am told the jungle has choked the very sheds in BlackDiamond Bay. Fact. He’s a hermit in the wilderness now. Butwhat can this manager get to eat there? It beats me.”

Sometimes a stranger would inquire with natural curiosity:

“Who? What manager?”

“Oh, a certain Swede,”—with a sinisteremphasis, as if he were saying “a certain brigand.”“Well known here. He’s turned hermit from shame.That’s what the devil does when he’s foundout.”

Hermit. This was the latest of the more or less witty labelsapplied to Heyst during his aimless pilgrimage in this section ofthe tropical belt, where the inane clacking of Schomberg’stongue vexed our ears.

But apparently Heyst was not a hermit by temperament. The sightof his land was not invincibly odious to him. We must believe this,since for some reason or other he did come out from his retreat fora while. Perhaps it was only to see whether there were any lettersfor him at the Tesmans. I don’t know. No one knows. But thisreappearance shows that his detachment from the world was notcomplete. And incompleteness of any sort leads to trouble. AxelHeyst ought not to have cared for his letters—or whatever itwas that brought him out after something more than a year and ahalf in Samburan. But it was of no use. He had not thehermit’s vocation! That was the trouble, it seems.

Be this as it may, he suddenly reappeared in the world, broadchest, bald forehead, long moustaches, polite manner,andall—the complete Heyst, even to the kindly sunken eyes onwhich there still rested the shadow of Morrison’s death.Naturally, it was Davidson who had given him a lift out of hisforsaken island. There were no other [...]