course, the killing him there and then, which wasn't so good, on account of unavoidable noise. But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. I had -for my sins, I suppose-to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could be so withering as his final burst of sincerity. He struggled with himself, too. I saw it, I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself. I kept my head pretty well; but when I had him at last stretched on the couch, I wiped my forehead, while my legs shook under me as though I had carried half a ton on my back down that hill. And yet I had only supported him, his bony arm clasped round my neck, and he was not much heavier than a child.

"And when next day we left at noon, the crowd, of whose presence behind the curtain of trees I had been acutely conscious all the time, flowed out of the woods again, filled the clearing, covered the slope with a mass of naked, breathing, quivering bronze bodies. I steamed up a bit, then swung down stream, and 2000 eyes followed the evolutions of the splashing, thumping, fierce river demon, beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air. In front of the first rank, along the river, three men, plastered with bright red earth from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly. When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies; they shook towards the same river demon a bunch of black feathers, a spotted skin with a pendant tail-something that looked like a dried gourd; they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language; and the deep murmurs

of the crowd, interrupted suddenly, were like the responses of some satanic litany.

Ly

"We had carried Kurtz into the pilot house; there was more air there. ing on the couch, he stared through the open shutter. There was an eddy in the mass of black heads, and the woman with helmeted head and tawny cheeks rushed out to the very brink of the stream. She put out her hands, shouted something, and all that wild mob took up the shout in an amazing chorus of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance.

"Do you understand this?' I asked. "He kept on looking out with fiery, longing eyes, with mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He did not answer me, but at my question I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear in his colorless lips that a moment after twitched convulsively with pain or rage. 'I will return,' he said slowly, gasping as if the words of promise and menace had been torn out of him by a supernatural power.

"I pulled the string of the whistle, and I did this because I saw the pilgrims on deck getting out their rifles with an air of anticipating a jolly lark. At the sudden screech there was a movement of abject terror through that wedged mass of bodies. 'Don't! don't! you frighten them away,' cried some one on deck disconsolately. I pulled the string again and again. They broke and ran, they leaped, they crouched, they swerved, as if dodging the terrible sound. The three red chaps had fallen flat, face down on the shore, as though they had been shot dead. Only the barbarous and superb woman did not so much as flinch, and stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the brown and glittering river.

"And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke. "The brown current ran swiftly out

of the heart of darkness, bearing us down toward the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running out swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. The manager was very placid. He had no vital anxieties now. He took in both of us in a comprehensive and satisfied glance. The 'affair' had come off as well as could be wished. I saw the time approaching when I would be left alone of the party of 'unsound method.' The pilgrims looked upon me with disfavor. I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead. It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me in the tenebrous land invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms.

"Kurtz discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to the very last. It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled! he struggled! The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images now-images of wealth and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression. My intended, my station, my career, my ideas-these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mold of primeval earth. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries it had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power.

"Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet him at railway stations on his return from ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things. 'You

show them that you have in you something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,' he would say. 'Of course you must take care of the motives-right motives-always.' The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings. I looked ahead-piloting. 'Close the shutter,' said Kurtz suddenly one day; I can't bear to look at this.' I did so. There was a silence. 'O, but I will wring your heart yet!' he cried at the invisible wilderness.

"We broke down-as I had expected -and had to lie up for repairs at the head of an island. This delay was the first thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a photograph-the lot tied together with a shoestring. 'Keep this for me,' he said. "This noxious fool (meaning the manager) is capable of prying into my boxes when I am not looking.' In the afternoon I saw him. He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, but I heard him mutter: 'Live rightly, die, die. 'I listened. There was nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech ir his sleep, or was it a fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article? He had been writing for the papers and meant to do so again, 'for the furthering of my ideas. It's a duty.'

"His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. But I had not much time to give him, because I was helping the engine driver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders, to straighten a bent connecting-rod, and in other such matters. I lived in a

repulsive mess of nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers, ratchets-things I abominate, because I don't get on with them. I tended the little forge we had fortunately aboard; I toiled wearily in a wretched scrapheap, unless I had the shakes too bad to stand.

"One evening, coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little querulously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.' The light was within a foot of his eyes. I managed to murmur, 'O, nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed.

"Anything approaching the expression that came over his face I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. O, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a vail had been rent. I saw on that ivory visage the expression of strange pride, of mental power, of avarice, of bloodthirstiness, of cunning, of excessive terror, of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life through in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried whisperingly at some image, at some vision, he cried with a cry that was no more than a breath, 'O, the horror!'

"I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-cabin. I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black face in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt, 'Mistah Kurtz-he dead.'

"All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner. I believe I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat

much. There was a lamp in therelight, don't you know-and outside it was so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had so unhesitatingly pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there? But I am of course aware that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy hole.

"And then they very nearly buried

me.

"However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then. I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life is-that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself that comes too late-a crop or inextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. That is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the

hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up he had judged. 'O, the horror!' He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief. It had candor, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth-the strange commingling of desire and hate. And it is not my own extremity I remember best-a vision of grayness without form filled with physical pain, and a careless contempt for the evanescence of all things-even of this pain itself. No! It is his extremity that I seem to have lived through. True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summing up would not have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry-much better. It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by inrumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory. That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond, when long time after I heard once more, not his own voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence thrown to me from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal.

"No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire. I found myself in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other or to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, or to

dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew; and their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals, going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance. I daresay I was not very well at that time. I tottered about the streetsthere were various affairs to settlegrinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behavior was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days. My dear aunt's endeavors to 'nurse up my strength' seemed altogether beside the mark. It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing, really. I kept the bundle of papers given me by Kurtz, not knowing exactly what to do with it. His mother had died lately, watched over, as I was told, by his intended. A clean-shaved man, with an official manner and wearing goldrimmed spectacles, called on me one day and made inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing, about what he was pleased to denominate certain 'documents.' I was not very surprised, because I had had two rows with the manager on the subject out there. I had refused to give up the smallest scrap out of that package to him, and I took the same attitude with the spectacled man. He became darkly menacing at last, and with much heat argued that the company had the right to every bit of information about their 'territories.' 'And,' said he, 'Mr. Kurtz's

have been necessarily extensive and peculiar owing to his great abilities and to the deplorable circumstances in which he had been placed; therefore-' I assured him Mr. Kurtz's knowledge, however extensive, did not bear upon the problems of commerce or administration. He invoked then the name of science. 'It would be an incalculable loss if,' etc, etc. I offered him the report on the 'Suppression of Savage Customs,' with the postscriptum torn off. He took it up eagerly, but ended by sniffing at it with an air of contempt. "That is not what we had a right to expect,' he remarked. 'Expect nothing else,' I said. "There are only private letters.' He withdrew upon some threat of legal proceedings, and I saw him no more; but another fellow calling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days later, and was anxious to hear all the details about his dear relative's last moments. Incidentally he gave me to understand that Kurtz had been essentially a great musician. "There was the making of a great success,' said the man, who was an organist, I believe, with lank gray hair flowing over a greasy coatcollar. I had no reason to doubt his statement, and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had any, which was the greatest of all his talents. I had thought him a painter who wrote for the papers, or a journalist who could paint-but even the cousin (who took snuff during the interview) could not tell me what he had been-exactly. He was a universal genius-on that point I agreed with the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off some family letters and memoranda without importance. Ultimately a journalist anxious to know something of the fate of his 'dear colleague' turned up. This visitor informed me Kurtz's

'on the popular side.' He had furry straight eyebrows, bristly hair cropped short, and eyeglass on a broad ribbon, and becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that Kurtz couldn't write a bit-'but heavens! how that man could talk! He electrified large meetings. He had faith-don't you see-he had the faith. He could believe anything-anything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.' 'What party?' I asked. 'Any party,' answered the other. 'He was an-an-extremist.' Did I not think so? I assented. Did I know, he asked with a sudden flash of curiosity, 'what induced him to go out there?' 'Yes,' said I, and forthwith handed him the famous report for publication, if he thought fit. He glanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged 'it would do,' and then took himself off with this plunder.

"Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters and the girl's portrait. She struck me as beautiful-I mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunshine can be made to lie, too, yet that face on paper seemed to be a reflection of truth itself. One felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features. She looked out truthfully. She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation, without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I concluded I would go and give her back the portrait and those letters myself. Curiosity? Yes; and also some other feeling, perhaps. All that had been Kurtz's had passed out of my hands; his soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. There remained only his memory and his intended-and I wanted to give that up, too, to the past, in a way-to surrender personally all that remained of him with me to that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. I don't defend myself. I