Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (801 page)

Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which he found his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a great deal of blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity to that circumstance.  He sets down Gonzales’ profuse apologies in full too.  For it was Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the English, had come down to the inn with half his band, on his way to the sea.  “His excellency,” he explained, “rushed out with fierce impetuosity, and, moreover, was not known to us for a friend, and so we . . . etc., etc.  When asked what had become of the witches, he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, then voiced calmly a moral reflection: “The passion for gold is pitiless in the very old, señor,” he said.  “No doubt in former days they have put many a solitary traveller to sleep in the archbishop’s bed.”

“There was also a gipsy girl there,” said Byrne feebly from the improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast by a squad of guerilleros.

“It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it was she too who lowered it that night,” was the answer.

“But why?  Why?” exclaimed Byrne.  “Why should she wish for my death?”

“No doubt for the sake of your excellency’s coat buttons,” said politely the saturnine Gonzales.  “We found those of the dead mariner concealed on her person.  But your excellency may rest assured that everything that is fitting has been done on this occasion.”

Byrne asked no more questions.  There was still another death which was considered by Gonzales as “fitting to the occasion.”  The one-eyed Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received the charge of six escopettas into his breast.  As the shots rang out the rough bier with Tom’s body on it went past carried by a bandit-like gang of Spanish patriots down the ravine to the shore, where two boats from the ship were waiting for what was left on earth of her best seaman.

Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried the body of his humble friend.  For it was decided that Tom Corbin should rest far out in the bay of Biscay.  The officer took the tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule — that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained mysterious for ever.

BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS

CHAPTER I

While we were hanging about near the water’s edge, as sailors idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour Office of a great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the “front” of business houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps.  He attracted my attention because in the movement of figures in white drill suits on the pavement from which he stepped, his costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being made of light grey flannel, made him noticeable.

I had time to observe him.  He was stout, but he was not grotesque.  His face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair.  On his nearer approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a good many white hairs.  And he had, for a stout man, quite a good chin.  In passing us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with and smiled.

My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had known so many queer people in that part of the (more or less) gorgeous East in the days of his youth.  He said: “That’s a good man.  I don’t mean good in the sense of smart or skilful in his trade.  I mean a really good man.”

I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon.  The “really good man” had a very broad back.  I saw him signal a sampan to come alongside, get into it, and go off in the direction of a cluster of local steamers anchored close inshore.

I said: “He’s a seaman, isn’t he?”

“Yes.  Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: ‘Sissie — Glasgow.’  He has never commanded anything else but the ‘Sissie — Glasgow,’ only it wasn’t always the same Sissie.  The first he had was about half the length of this one, and we used to tell poor Davidson that she was a size too small for him.  Even at that time Davidson had bulk.  We warned him he would get callosities on his shoulders and elbows because of the tight fit of his command.  And Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us for our chaff.  He made lots of money in her.  She belonged to a portly Chinaman resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how to be.

“The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such gentlemanly instincts.  Once they become convinced that you are a straight man, they give you their unbounded confidence.  You simply can’t do wrong, then.  And they are pretty quick judges of character, too.  Davidson’s Chinaman was the first to find out his worth, on some theoretical principle.  One day in his counting-house, before several white men he was heard to declare: ‘Captain Davidson is a good man.’  And that settled it.  After that you couldn’t tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson.  It was he who, shortly before he died, ordered in Glasgow the new Sissie for Davidson to command.”

We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our elbows on the parapet of the quay.

“She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson,” continued Hollis.  “Can you fancy anything more naïvely touching than this old mandarin spending several thousand pounds to console his white man?  Well, there she is.  The old mandarin’s sons have inherited her, and Davidson with her; and he commands her; and what with his salary and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; and everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles — you have seen it?  Well, the smile’s the only thing which isn’t as before.”

“Tell me, Hollis,” I asked, “what do you mean by good in this connection?”

“Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born witty.  What I mean is his nature.  No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul had ever lived in such a — a — comfortable envelope.  How we used to laugh at Davidson’s fine scruples!  In short, he’s thoroughly humane, and I don’t imagine there can be much of any other sort of goodness that counts on this earth.  And as he’s that with a shade of particular refinement, I may well call him a ‘really good man.’”

I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value of shades.  And I said: “I see” — because I really did see Hollis’s Davidson in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little while before.  But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled his placid face appeared veiled in melancholy — a sort of spiritual shadow.  I went on.

“Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling his smile?”

“That’s quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you like.  Confound it!  It’s quite a surprising one, too.  Surprising in every way, but mostly in the way it knocked over poor Davidson — and apparently only because he is such a good sort.  He was telling me all about it only a few days ago.  He said that when he saw these four fellows with their heads in a bunch over the table, he at once didn’t like it.  He didn’t like it at all.  You mustn’t suppose that Davidson is a soft fool.  These men —

“But I had better begin at the beginning.  We must go back to the first time the old dollars had been called in by our Government in exchange for a new issue.  Just about the time when I left these parts to go home for a long stay.  Every trader in the islands was thinking of getting his old dollars sent up here in time, and the demand for empty French wine cases — you know the dozen of vermouth or claret size — was something unprecedented.  The custom was to pack the dollars in little bags of a hundred each.  I don’t know how many bags each case would hold.  A good lot.  Pretty tidy sums must have been moving afloat just then.  But let us get away from here.  Won’t do to stay in the sun.  Where could we — ?  I know! let us go to those tiffin-rooms over there.”

We moved over accordingly.  Our appearance in the long empty room at that early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China boys.  But Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the windows screened by rattan blinds.  A brilliant half-light trembled on the ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of vacant chairs and tables in a peculiar, stealthy glow.

“All right.  We will get something to eat when it’s ready,” he said, waving the anxious Chinaman waiter aside.  He took his temples touched with grey between his hands, leaning over the table to bring his face, his dark, keen eyes, closer to mine.

“Davidson then was commanding the steamer Sissie — the little one which we used to chaff him about.  He ran her alone, with only the Malay serang for a deck officer.  The nearest approach to another white man on board of her was the engineer, a Portuguese half-caste, as thin as a lath and quite a youngster at that.  For all practical purposes Davidson was managing that command of his single-handed; and of course this was known in the port.  I am telling you of it because the fact had its influence on the developments you shall hear of presently.

“His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks and into shallow bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, collecting produce, where no other vessel but a native craft would think of venturing.  It is a paying game, often.  Davidson was known to visit in her places that no one else could find and that hardly anybody had ever heard of.

“The old dollars being called in, Davidson’s Chinaman thought that the Sissie would be just the thing to collect them from small traders in the less frequented parts of the Archipelago.  It’s a good business.  Such cases of dollars are dumped aft in the ship’s lazarette, and you get good freight for very little trouble and space.

“Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together they made up a list of his calls on his next trip.  Then Davidson (he had naturally the chart of his voyages in his head) remarked that on his way back he might look in at a certain settlement up a mere creek, where a poor sort of white man lived in a native village.  Davidson pointed out to his Chinaman that the fellow was certain to have some rattans to ship.

“‘Probably enough to fill her forward,’ said Davidson.  ‘And that’ll be better than bringing her back with empty holds.  A day more or less doesn’t matter.’

“This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not but agree.  But if it hadn’t been sound it would have been just the same.  Davidson did what he liked.  He was a man that could do no wrong.  However, this suggestion of his was not merely a business matter.  There was in it a touch of Davidsonian kindness.  For you must know that the man could not have continued to live quietly up that creek if it had not been for Davidson’s willingness to call there from time to time.  And Davidson’s Chinaman knew this perfectly well, too.  So he only smiled his dignified, bland smile, and said: ‘All right, Captain.  You do what you like.’

“I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson and that fellow came about.  Now I want to tell you about the part of this affair which happened here — the preliminaries of it.

“You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we are sitting now have been in existence for many years.  Well, next day about twelve o’clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something to eat.

“And here comes the only moment in this story where accident — mere accident — plays a part.  If Davidson had gone home that day for tiffin, there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing changed in his kindly, placid smile.

“But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this very table that he remarked to a friend of mine that his next trip was to be a dollar-collecting trip.  He added, laughing, that his wife was making rather a fuss about it.  She had begged him to stay ashore and get somebody else to take his place for a voyage.  She thought there was some danger on account of the dollars.  He told her, he said, that there were no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in boys’ books.  He had laughed at her fears, but he was very sorry, too; for when she took any notion in her head it was impossible to argue her out of it.  She would be worrying herself all the time he was away.  Well, he couldn’t help it.  There was no one ashore fit to take his place for the trip.

“This friend of mine and I went home together in the same mail-boat, and he mentioned that conversation one evening in the Red Sea while we were talking over the things and people we had just left, with more or less regret.

“I can’t say that Davidson occupied a very prominent place.  Moral excellence seldom does.  He was quietly appreciated by those who knew him well; but his more obvious distinction consisted in this, that he was married.  Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor crowd; in spirit anyhow, if not absolutely in fact.  There might have been a few wives in existence, but if so they were invisible, distant, never alluded to.  For what would have been the good?  Davidson alone was visibly married.

“Being married suited him exactly.  It fitted him so well that the wildest of us did not resent the fact when it was disclosed.  Directly he had felt his feet out here, Davidson sent for his wife.  She came out (from West Australia) in the Somerset, under the care of Captain Ritchie — you know, Monkey-face Ritchie — who couldn’t praise enough her sweetness, her gentleness, and her charm.  She seemed to be the heaven-born mate for Davidson.  She found on arrival a very pretty bungalow on the hill, ready for her and the little girl they had.  Very soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap and a Burmah pony, and she used to drive down of an evening to pick up Davidson, on the quay.  When Davidson, beaming, got into the trap, it would become very full all at once.