London River

g in sight but the walls, old, sad, and discreet, of the yards where ships are repaired. The dock warehouses opposite the tavern offered me their high backs in a severer and apparently an endless obduracy. The Negro Boy, as usual, was lost and forlorn, but resigned to its seclusion from the London that lives, having stood there long enough to learn that nothing can control the ways of changing custom. Its windows were modest and prim in green curtains. Its only adornment was the picture, above its principal door, of what once was a negro boy. This picture now was weathered into a faded plum-coloured suit and a pair of silver shoe-buckl

r the yellow lump of Chinese apathy to talk to him, and went through the swing doors into the saloon. The saloon was excluded from the gaze of the rest of the house by little swinging screens of frosted glass above the bar, for that was where old friends of the landlord met, who had known him all the time their house-flags had been at home in the neighbouring docks; and perhaps had even sailed with him when be himself

don of one who, perhaps, had been there long enough; "

. The youngster merely closed his own hand over it. "Isn't it hard. Really going to forsake us. Wo

gine they had drawn in chalk on their table, looked up in surprise, first at the youngster who had raised his voice, and then to watch the tall shadow of a woman pass quickly

He tried to see where she was, and lowered his voice. "I know his kind. I saw them together last night, in the Dock Road. What does she have anything to do wi

as a girl. "Where's she gone?" He pushed open one of the little glass screens, and put his petulant face, with

ing to a big man like Macandrew. He turned to his chief now, and both hands went up to his spectacles. In the way the corners of his mouth turned up before he spoke, whimsically wrinkling his nose, and in his intent and amused reg

Jessie. I've got something to tell you

ng? Dammit, you can't. Look at the cr

old Medea along with anything. I've got another shi

better job I've got. It's worse. It's a very rummy voyage. We may complete it, with luck. It's a boat-running lunacy, and some mi

e you going?

at will ha

list for Chief? You're romantic, young man, and that m

e Medea is like winding up a clock and going to sleep. Do you know the Cygnet has six inches of freeboard?" He was talk

oing out to-I forget the name of the place, but I could show you where it is wit

d, spoke more seriously. "I don't think she'll ever get there

a mathematician, doesn't it?" He turned away again. "Supposing," he said, over his shoulder

en my job. This is where I do it. It'll be nice to attempt something when the odds are that you can't finish it, and there's nothing much in it if you do. Why," he said, g

acy?" asked Macandrew. His v

better because you're annoyed with me. I haven't see

ve let yourself in for? If Purdy's got the job, I know why. Nobody els

ink?" ask

and got nervous over the weather, and put into Portland for a pilot. There was no pilot. So he decided to put out again and go on. It never occurred to him that as he was in shelter he'd better stay there till a pilot arrived, because getting out of that was exac

e air of one who was being reas

mproving my reasons for going. Not only is the sh

dle age stood there, who turned, and actually prevented the doors from swinging together with their usual announcement of another customer. For only a moment he raised his downcast eyes to see who was there, and

little man. "Come over here, Purdy, and tell us what you've been doing. Here's Hanson,

at fist with decision. Purdy did not speak, except to say to Hanson: "We're signing-on tomorrow. I'll meet you at the shipping office then." He seemed to

r nearly twenty minutes, and you take no notice of us, but as soon as a captain looks across the counter, there

able, and reminiscent conversation. Yet I wanted to see him again before he left, and went past the Board of Trade Office hoping for signs of the Medea, for I had heard she was assembling a crew that morning. But the marine-store shops, with their tarpaulin suit

tless, with a few of their officers among them, were as sombre and subdued as though they had learned life had nothing more to offer them, and they were present only because they might as well use up the salvage of their days. The clerk raised his head and questioned the men before him with a quick, inclusive glance. "Any men here o

in a manner which told every one that Hanson had now become non-existent, pushed aside the Cygnet's papers, and searched the room once more. "Ah, good morning, Captain Hudson.

. "Perhaps, after all, we never shall

and not as though there were the affairs of a month to be got into two days, but in leisurely abstraction. He might have been making up his mind that, after all, there was no need to call there, for he was studying each st

me with irrelevance, "I

uized, "he knew better than that. He's been a failure, but all the same,

this about?"

f that voyage he's making? Purdy is taking Jessie with him. You d

him?" I asked;

ly. That's reasonable. You've seen her. Jessie's the sort of wo

understan

ght see in Purdy. But a woman! He's middle-aged, quiet, and looks tired. That w

ught you s

e said nothing. Jessie

ing inside. Are

The master of the Medea was round with the official tallying the men by the ship's papers. "I se

n told him. "Nobody seems to kno

new job which you think so funny, young Hanson. See it goes

sual preliminary adjustment of his spectacles, when a movement near the door checked him

th him . . . is she with him?" He continued to watch, apparently for some sign t

sis of her florid hat. Her pallor that morning refined the indubious coarseness of her face, and changed vulgarity into the attractive originality of a spirited character. Many there knew her, but she recognized nobody. She yawned once, in a fair piece of acting, and in her movements and the poise of her head there was a disdain almost plain enough to be insolence. Purdy turned to her, and the strange pair conferred. I heard Hanson say t

acandrew told me he was working by his ship in drydock. They had had trouble with the engines that voyage, and she herself had seen little of him, except to find him, when she came down of a morning, asleep in the drawing-room. Just flung himself down in the first place, you know. In those greasy overalls, too. He had told her

een seen there. Except for the landlord, who was at a table talking to a stranger, the saloon was empty. A silk hat was on the table before the stranger, beside a tankard, and the hat was surmounted by a pair of

octor? Oh, yes, Tabacol. Funny name. I was never on the South American coast. After I left you sick at Macassar, the last trip w

ter. I thought his grimace in this concentration came from an effort to reinforce his will against all curiosity on our part. But it appeared he was really looking at what showed, at an angle, of a portrait on the wall of an inner room. He could just see it, from where he sat. Anyhow, th

ional politeness. I began to feel I had broken into the intimacy of two men whose minds were dissimilar, but friendly through old associations, and that

own with fever. It is a little distance up the Pondurucu River . . . maybe two hundred miles. Did you say. . . ? No. It is not really out

that he ought to be speaking to me at all. He dropped the cord suddenly as if letting go his reserve, and said slyly, with a grave smile: "Perhaps the romantic think the unknown is worth looking into because it may be better than what

ther new to him. He laughed aloud, and, putting a consoling hand on his friend's shoulder as he rose, he tol

, wish to go there. Isn't that so? Yes. I've met such men in such places. Then they did not give me the impression that they were satisfied with their romance. Impossible, of course. Romance is never in th

noise in the night, rattled by on the cobbles outside, their occupant

his antipathy. "Who but a fool would take a woman to such a country as that? Any romantic sentimentalist, I suppose. I forget the name of the ship. There was, you might say, hardly sufficient room to paint a name on her.

out to speak, the doctor screwed in that devastating monocle, and I felt I was only a curious example of the sort of thing he especially disliked. For a minute, in w

with complexions like lemons, and one died. There was no time to bother with other folk's troubles. Our skipper, one b

from him that he was only just beginning his voyage. You understand? He was just beginning it, there. He was going up-river, to a point not on the chart. I cannot make out now whether he wanted to put that woman ashore to get home in comfort at t

should say. As soon as I saw her I could make a guess . . . however, I told the fellow afterwards what I thought, and he gave me no answer. He even turned his back on me.

ith her hands. I noticed them . . . anybody might . . . they were covered with rings. She had character, too. She made me feel, the way she looked at me, that I was

o get out of th

e, Doctor,' sh

nd will be here in another

t enough, but she seemed a very wi

ried out. I told her, what was perfectly true, that their craft would rot on a sandbar, or find cataract

You can't worry me. I've got my work

d that. Anybody could do it. Let th

he said. 'It's min

e. I told her she would die, if she didn't leave t

now what I have to do. I'm going through with it. It's

e master of her ship had sent for me to give my a

know,' she said. 'The capta

at it was something to know the captain

enough of this. I want to be alone. T

s, and made a wry face, that m

. She held out her hand. 'I do thank you for troubling ab

nalty,' I said. 'I was

laughed at me. 'We musn't bot

as if he were coming to me, and then stopped. I was going to take no notice of him, but went up and explained a thing or two. I'll bet he'll remember them. All he said was: 'I was afraid you'd never change her mind,' and turned away. What a man! There was a p

other, Doctor," said the landlord, pointing to the empty tankard. "How long were y

the Torrington had behaved very well. The underwriters had recognized that, and handsomely, at a special meeting at Cornhill. Though Ferguson was young for a chief engineer, his professional

n calm weather, but we were labouring heavily, all the way from Savannah. Our old man did

erguson then went overside on life-lines. When he was not submerged, he was trying to put his ship right again; and when he became exhausted, one of his colleagues took his place, to

n's story was lapsing into general goss

at Tampa?" Ferguson aske

Macandrew. "

ms Office. I'd been there to make a declaration, and in one of those long corridors there he stood, all al

nything?" ask

rather ill. The temples of that high forehead of his were kno

listening now, with the detachment of youth, to the end of a bawdy story th

g at all? Didn't he me

gus

don't believe he said anything about him. I was just going to ask him to come and have a drink, when he said good-bye. All I know is I saw hi

xclusiveness of the saloon bar; instead of privacy, distant mirrors astonished you with glimpses of your own head which were incredible and embarrassing in their novelty. The table-tops were of white marble supported on gilded iron. The prints and lithographs of ships had gone from the walls, and were replaced by real pictures converted to the advertisement of various whiskies-pictures of battleships, bull-dogs, Scotsmen, and figures in armour tempted from their ancient posts in baronial halls, aft

with a slender chance that they would come to the Thames, and next we heard of them when they were bound outwards once more, and for a period known not even to their wives. The new Negro Boy had not the appearance of a place where I could expect to find a friend, and I was leaving it again, instantly, when a tall figure rose in a corner waving a reassuring hand. I did

n't think he will b

d to this house? Wh

or nearly a year. We must expect progress to make th

Liverpool and Baltimo

ps, but I don't admire

w is Macandrew? I came

e him again. I h

ring the least effort for a casual occasion. "Now and then," I had

im of a most enjoyable joke, but he made no sign, while enjoying

it. The reason I came to this house tonight, to be candid, was just to see this room again, to settle a doubt I had

e tonight," continued Hanson, "the change made me feel my

g to do with the

to me in confidence. "Have you ever been to the tropics? I don't mean calling at Colombo or Rio. I mean the back of things where there's a remarkable sun experimenting with low life and hardly anybody looking on. If ever you get the chance, you take it. It alters all your ideas of

this young mathematician and philosopher, who had been

be damned! I got

ld like the facts. I want to hear

bly he didn't know. I had made up my mind to make the engines move and stop, whenever ordered, and then see where we are. Anyway, after the racket of the sea voyage, when the engines stopped at Tabacol the utter silence was as if something which had been waiting there for you at once pounced. The quiet was of an awful weight.

he loo

of the forest. Our vessel looked about as large and important as a leaf adrift. That place is so immense that I saw we were going to make no impression on it. It wouldn't matter to anybody but ourselves if it swallowed us up. On the first day I saw a round head and two yellow eyes in it, watching us go by. The thought went through my m

er ever say what

e but the quiet; and we didn't know where our destination was. We anchored every evening, close to the bank. One evening,

ng all this time?" I

found a python in the bunkers. Came aboard over the hawsers, I suppose. We were a lively lunatic asylum below while killing it with fire-shovels and crowbars. That was what the voyage was like. The whole lot

confessed, thinking to

happened to your compa

ever of Jess

en only a shade better than the engine-room. She began to look rather faded. At last I was the only one who hadn't been down with fever. We crawled on and on, and the only question was where we ourselves would end, for the forest

ucking it. It was bound to come. This day they went aft in a body to Purdy. There stood Purdy, a little object in white against the gloom of the forest, and he looked about as futile as the last match in a wind at night. He stood fingering a beard he had grown. One of the men was beginning to talk truculently at him. Just then Jessie appeared from below, between me and the group. She had been down with fever for some days, and she surprised me as much as a ghost. She looked rather like one, too. She stood watching Purdy, without moving. He didn't look at her, though he must have known she was there. I'm pretty sure we had to thank her fo

ure? So we kept her plugging along, getting nearer and nearer nowhere. We turned another of those dramatic corners, later on, though I forget how much later, and ahead of us the river was piled high with rocks, and was tumbling from above. The Cygnet had had her fair share of luck, but luck could not get her over that. We were all looking at the white water ahead, and feeling-at least I was-that we were b

n't know she was alive. But she half opened her eyes, without looking up, and her hand began

, and I took it for granted, from their faces as they stood round that figure in a tarpaulin under a tree in the for

d me what he intended to do. What do you think? He reckoned that, though we were still a hundred miles from the headquarters of the consignees, an outpost was probably

land our cargo of a ton and a half of machinery, and place it on the company's territory above the falls. 'You can see for yourself,' Purdy said to me pathetically, 'that I

l the Last Day. The way we sweated over it! And then warped the stuff with snatch blocks through four miles of jungle. Yes; and buried two men of our company on the way. But we did get the cargo on to the company's damned land at last, and a nice lot of half-naked scarecrows we l

ome other men. They were Colombians. We astonished them, but nothing could astonish us any more. Purdy learned that he had got to our ultimate destination all right. Then some fellow appeared, in a gaudy uniform and a sword, who spoke English. When Purdy asked to be taken to t

to me, and then stare beyond me with big eyes at