The Rescue: A Romance of the Shallows

by Joseph Conrad

  PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH

  I

  "Have you got King Tom's watch in there?" said a voice that seemed notto attach the slightest importance to the question. Jorgenson, outsidethe door of Mrs. Travers' part of the deckhouse, waited for the answer.He heard a low cry very much like a moan, the startled sound of painthat may be sometimes heard in sick rooms. But it moved him not at all.He would never have dreamt of opening the door unless told to do so,in which case he would have beheld, with complete indifference, Mrs.Travers extended on the floor with her head resting on the edge of thecamp bedstead (on which Lingard had never slept), as though she hadsubsided there from a kneeling posture which is the attitude of prayer,supplication, or defeat. The hours of the night had passed Mrs. Traversby. After flinging herself on her knees, she didn't know why, since shecould think of nothing to pray for, had nothing to invoke, and was toofar gone for such a futile thing as despair, she had remained there tillthe sense of exhaustion had grown on her to the point in which she losther belief in her power to rise. In a half-sitting attitude, her headresting against the edge of the couch and her arms flung above her head,she sank into an indifference, the mere resignation of a worn-out bodyand a worn-out mind which often is the only sort of rest that comes topeople who are desperately ill and is welcome enough in a way. The voiceof Jorgenson roused her out of that state. She sat up, aching in everylimb and cold all over.

  Jorgenson, behind the door, repeated with lifeless obstinacy:

  "Do you see King Tom's watch in there?"

  Mrs. Travers got up from the floor. She tottered, snatching at the air,and found the back of the armchair under her hand.

  "Who's there?"

  She was also ready to ask: "Where am I?" but she remembered and at oncebecame the prey of that active dread which had been lying dormant fora few hours in her uneasy and prostrate body. "What time is it?" shefaltered out.

  "Dawn," pronounced the imperturbable voice at the door. It seemed toher that it was a word that could make any heart sink with apprehension.Dawn! She stood appalled. And the toneless voice outside the doorinsisted:

  "You must have Tom's watch there!"

  "I haven't seen it," she cried as if tormented by a dream.

  "Look in that desk thing. If you push open the shutter you will be ableto see."

  Mrs. Travers became aware of the profound darkness of the cabin.Jorgenson heard her staggering in there. After a moment a woman's voice,which struck even him as strange, said in faint tones:

  "I have it. It's stopped."

  "It doesn't matter. I don't want to know the time. There should be a keyabout. See it anywhere?"

  "Yes, it's fastened to the watch," the dazed voice answered from within.Jorgenson waited before making his request. "Will you pass it out to me?There's precious little time left now!"

  The door flew open, which was certainly something Jorgenson had notexpected. He had expected but a hand with the watch protruded througha narrow crack, But he didn't start back or give any other sign ofsurprise at seeing Mrs. Travers fully dressed. Against the faintclearness in the frame of the open shutter she presented to him the darksilhouette of her shoulders surmounted by a sleek head, because herhair was still in the two plaits. To Jorgenson Mrs. Travers in herun-European dress had always been displeasing, almost monstrous. Herstature, her gestures, her general carriage struck his eye asabsurdly incongruous with a Malay costume, too ample, too free, toobold--offensive. To Mrs. Travers, Jorgenson, in the dusk of the passage,had the aspect of a dim white ghost, and he chilled her by his ghost'saloofness.

  He picked up the watch from her outspread palm without a word of thanks,only mumbling in his moustache, "H'm, yes, that's it. I haven't yetforgotten how to count seconds correctly, but it's better to have awatch."

  She had not the slightest notion what he meant. And she did not care.Her mind remained confused and the sense of bodily discomfort oppressedher. She whispered, shamefacedly, "I believe I've slept."

  "I haven't," mumbled Jorgenson, growing more and more distinct to hereyes. The brightness of the short dawn increased rapidly as if the sunwere impatient to look upon the Settlement. "No fear of that," he added,boastfully.

  It occurred to Mrs. Travers that perhaps she had not slept either. Herstate had been more like an imperfect, half-conscious, quivering death.She shuddered at the recollection.

  "What an awful night," she murmured, drearily.

  There was nothing to hope for from Jorgenson. She expected him tovanish, indifferent, like a phantom of the dead carrying off theappropriately dead watch in his hand for some unearthly purpose.Jorgenson didn't move. His was an insensible, almost a senselesspresence! Nothing could be extorted from it. But a wave of anguish asconfused as all her other sensations swept Mrs. Travers off her feet.

  "Can't you tell me something?" she cried.

  For half a minute perhaps Jorgenson made no sound; then: "For yearsI have been telling anybody who cared to ask," he mumbled in hismoustache. "Telling Tom, too. And Tom knew what he wanted to do. How'sone to know what _you_ are after?"

  She had never expected to hear so many words from that rigid shadow. Itsmonotonous mumble was fascinating, its sudden loquacity was shocking.And in the profound stillness that reigned outside it was as if therehad been no one left in the world with her but the phantom of that oldadventurer. He was heard again: "What I could tell you would be worsethan poison."

  Mrs. Travers was not familiar with Jorgenson's consecrated phrases. Themechanical voice, the words themselves, his air of abstraction appalledher. And he hadn't done yet; she caught some more of his unconcernedmumbling: "There is nothing I don't know," and the absurdity of thestatement was also appalling. Mrs. Travers gasped and with a wild littlelaugh:

  "Then you know why I called after King Tom last night."

  He glanced away along his shoulder through the door of the deckhouse atthe growing brightness of the day. She did so, too. It was coming. Ithad come! Another day! And it seemed to Mrs. Travers a worse calamitythan any discovery she had made in her life, than anything she couldhave imagined to come to her. The very magnitude of horror steadied her,seemed to calm her agitation as some kinds of fatal drugs do before theykill. She laid a steady hand on Jorgenson's sleeve and spoke quietly,distinctly, urgently.

  "You were on deck. What I want to know is whether I was heard?"

  "Yes," said Jorgenson, absently, "I heard you." Then, as if roused alittle, he added less mechanically: "The whole ship heard you."

  Mrs. Travers asked herself whether perchance she had not simplyscreamed. It had never occurred to her before that perhaps she had. Atthe time it seemed to her she had no strength for more than a whisper.Had she been really so loud? And the deadly chill, the night that hadgone by her had left in her body, vanished from her limbs, passed out ofher in a flush. Her face was turned away from the light, and thatfact gave her courage to continue. Moreover, the man before her was sodetached from the shames and prides and schemes of life that he seemednot to count at all, except that somehow or other he managed at times tocatch the mere literal sense of the words addressed to him--and answerthem. And answer them! Answer unfailingly, impersonally, without anyfeeling.

  "You saw Tom--King Tom? Was he there? I mean just then, at the moment.There was a light at the gangway. Was he on deck?"

  "No. In the boat."

  "Already? Could I have been heard in the boat down there? You say thewhole ship heard me--and I don't care. But could he hear me?"

  "Was it Tom you were after?" said Jorgenson in the tone of a negligentremark.

  "Can't you answer me?" she cried, angrily.

  "Tom was busy. No child's play. The boat shoved off," said Jorgenson, asif he were merely thinking aloud.

  "You won't tell me, then?" Mrs. Travers apostrophized him, fearlessly.She was not afraid of Jorgenson. Just then she was afraid of nothing andnobody. And Jorgenson went on thinking aloud.

  "I guess he will be kept busy from now on and so shall
I."

  Mrs. Travers seemed ready to take by the shoulders and shake thatdead-voiced spectre till it begged for mercy. But suddenly her strongwhite arms fell down by her side, the arms of an exhausted woman.

  "I shall never, never find out," she whispered to herself.

  She cast down her eyes in intolerable humiliation, in intolerabledesire, as though she had veiled her face. Not a sound reached theloneliness of her thought. But when she raised her eyes again Jorgensonwas no longer standing before her.

  For an instant she saw him all black in the brilliant and narrowdoorway, and the next moment he had vanished outside, as if devoured bythe hot blaze of light. The sun had risen on the Shore of Refuge.

  When Mrs. Travers came out on deck herself it was as it were with aboldly unveiled face, with wide-open and dry, sleepless eyes. Theirgaze, undismayed by the sunshine, sought the innermost heart of thingseach day offered to the passion of her dread and of her impatience. Thelagoon, the beach, the colours and the shapes struck her more than everas a luminous painting on an immense cloth hiding the movements of aninexplicable life. She shaded her eyes with her hand. There were figureson the beach, moving dark dots on the white semicircle bounded by thestockades, backed by roof ridges above the palm groves. Further back themass of carved white coral on the roof of the mosque shone like a whiteday-star. Religion and politics--always politics! To the left, beforeTengga's enclosure, the loom of fire had changed into a pillar of smoke.But there were some big trees over there and she couldn't tell whetherthe night council had prolonged its sitting. Some vague forms were stillmoving there and she could picture them to herself: Daman, the supremechief of sea-robbers, with a vengeful heart and the eyes of a gazelle;Sentot, the sour fanatic with the big turban, that other saint witha scanty loin cloth and ashes in his hair, and Tengga whom she couldimagine from hearsay, fat, good-tempered, crafty, but ready to spillblood on his ambitious way and already bold enough to flaunt a yellowstate umbrella at the very gate of Belarab's stockade--so they said.

  She saw, she imagined, she even admitted now the reality of thosethings no longer a mere pageant marshalled for her vision with barbaroussplendour and savage emphasis. She questioned it no longer--but she didnot feel it in her soul any more than one feels the depth of the seaunder its peaceful glitter or the turmoil of its grey fury. Her eyesranged afar, unbelieving and fearful--and then all at once she becameaware of the empty Cage with its interior in disorder, the campbedsteads not taken away, a pillow lying on the deck, the dying flamelike a shred of dull yellow stuff inside the lamp left hanging overthe table. The whole struck her as squalid and as if already decayed,a flimsy and idle phantasy. But Jorgenson, seated on the deck with hisback to it, was not idle. His occupation, too, seemed fantastic and sotruly childish that her heart sank at the man's utter absorption in it.Jorgenson had before him, stretched on the deck, several bits of ratherthin and dirty-looking rope of different lengths from a couple of inchesto about a foot. He had (an idiot might have amused himself in thatway) set fire to the ends of them. They smouldered with amazing energy,emitting now and then a splutter, and in the calm air within thebulwarks sent up very slender, exactly parallel threads of smoke,each with a vanishing curl at the end; and the absorption with whichJorgenson gave himself up to that pastime was enough to shake allconfidence in his sanity.

  In one half-opened hand he was holding the watch. He was also providedwith a scrap of paper and the stump of a pencil. Mrs. Travers wasconfident that he did not either hear or see her.

  "Captain Jorgenson, you no doubt think. . . ."

  He tried to wave her away with the stump of the pencil. He did not wantto be interrupted in his strange occupation. He was playing very gravelyindeed with those bits of string. "I lighted them all together," hemurmured, keeping one eye on the dial of the watch. Just then theshortest piece of string went out, utterly consumed. Jorgenson madea hasty note and remained still while Mrs. Travers looked at him withstony eyes thinking that nothing in the world was any use. The otherthreads of smoke went on vanishing in spirals before the attentiveJorgenson.

  "What are you doing?" asked Mrs. Travers, drearily.

  "Timing match . . . precaution. . . ."

  He had never in Mrs. Travers' experience been less spectral than then.He displayed a weakness of the flesh. He was impatient at her intrusion.He divided his attention between the threads of smoke and the face ofthe watch with such interest that the sudden reports of several gunsbreaking for the first time for days the stillness of the lagoon and theillusion of the painted scene failed to make him raise his head. He onlyjerked it sideways a little. Mrs. Travers stared at the wisps ofwhite vapour floating above Belarab's stockade. The series of sharpdetonations ceased and their combined echoes came back over the lagoonlike a long-drawn and rushing sigh.

  "What's this?" cried Mrs. Travers.

  "Belarab's come home," said Jorgenson.

  The last thread of smoke disappeared and Jorgenson got up. He had lostall interest in the watch and thrust it carelessly into his pocket,together with the bit of paper and the stump of pencil. He had resumedhis aloofness from the life of men, but approaching the bulwark hecondescended to look toward Belarab's stockade.

  "Yes, he is home," he said very low.

  "What's going to happen?" cried Mrs. Travers. "What's to be done?"Jorgenson kept up his appearance of communing with himself.

  "I know what to do," he mumbled.

  "You are lucky," said Mrs. Travers, with intense bitterness.

  It seemed to her that she was abandoned by all the world. The oppositeshore of the lagoon had resumed its aspect of a painted scene that wouldnever roll up to disclose the truth behind its blinding and soullesssplendour. It seemed to her that she had said her last words to all ofthem: to d'Alcacer, to her husband, to Lingard himself--and that theyhad all gone behind the curtain forever out of her sight. Of all thewhite men Jorgenson alone was left, that man who had done with life socompletely that his mere presence robbed it of all heat and mystery,leaving nothing but its terrible, its revolting insignificance. And Mrs.Travers was ready for revolt. She cried with suppressed passion:

  "Are you aware, Captain Jorgenson, that I am alive?"

  He turned his eyes on her, and for a moment she was daunted by theircold glassiness. But before they could drive her away, something likethe gleam of a spark gave them an instant's animation.

  "I want to go and join them. I want to go ashore," she said, firmly."There!"

  Her bare and extended arm pointed across the lagoon, and Jorgenson'sresurrected eyes glided along the white limb and wandered off intospace.

  "No boat," he muttered.

  "There must be a canoe. I know there is a canoe. I want it."

  She stepped forward compelling, commanding, trying to concentrate inher glance all her will power, the sense of her own right to dispose ofherself and her claim to be served to the last moment of her life. Itwas as if she had done nothing. Jorgenson didn't flinch.

  "Which of them are you after?" asked his blank, unringing voice.

  She continued to look at him; her face had stiffened into a severe mask;she managed to say distinctly:

  "I suppose you have been asking yourself that question for some time,Captain Jorgenson?"

  "No. I am asking you now."

  His face disclosed nothing to Mrs. Travers' bold and weary eyes."What could you do over there?" Jorgenson added as merciless, asirrepressible, and sincere as though he were the embodiment of thatinner voice that speaks in all of us at times and, like Jorgenson, isoffensive and difficult to answer.

  "Remember that I am not a shadow but a living woman still, CaptainJorgenson. I can live and I can die. Send me over to share their fate."

  "Sure you would like?" asked the roused Jorgenson in a voice that had anunexpected living quality, a faint vibration which no man had known init for years. "There may be death in it," he mumbled, relapsing intoindifference.

  "Who cares?" she said, recklessly. "All I want is to ask Tom a quest
ionand hear his answer. That's what I would like. That's what I must have."