“I couldn’t help exclaiming, ‘What an extraordinary affair!’
“‘Not bad—eh?’ he said, as if in some sort astounded. ‘They pretended to think I had done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other. Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn’t I get somehow into that boat? into that boat—I…’ The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious grimace that tore through the mask of his usual expression—something violent, short-lived, and illuminating like a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into the secret convolutions of a cloud. ‘I did, I was plainly there with them—wasn’t I? Isn’t it awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that—and be responsible? What did I know about their George they were howling after? I remembered I had seen him curled up on the deck. “Murdering coward!” the chief kept on calling me. He didn’t seem able to remember any other two words. I didn’t care, only his noise began to worry me. “Shut up,” I said. At that he collected himself for a confounded screech. “You killed him. You killed him.” “No,” I shouted, “but I will kill you directly.” I jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump. I don’t know why. Too dark. Tried to step back, I suppose. I stood still facing aft, and the wretched little second began to whine, “You ain’t going to hit a chap with a broken arm—and you call yourself a gentleman, too.” I heard a heavy tramp—one—two—and wheezy grunting. The other beast was coming at me, clattering his oar over the stern. I saw him moving, big, big—as you see a man in a mist, in a dream. “Come on,” I cried. I would have tumbled him over like a bale of shakings. He stopped, muttered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had heard the wind. I didn’t. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his oar. I was sorry. I would have tried to—to…’
“He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and cruel flutter. ‘Steady, steady,’ I murmured.
“‘Eh? What? I am not excited,’ he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with a convulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac-bottle. I started forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to show me a startled pair of eyes and a face white about the nostrils. A look of intense annoyance succeeded. ‘Awfully sorry. How clumsy of me!’ he mumbled very vexed, while the pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us suddenly with an atmosphere of a low drinking-bout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. The lights had been put out in the dining-hall; our candle glimmered solitary in the long gallery, and the columns had turned black from pediment to capital. On the vivid stars the high corner of the Harbour Office stood out distinct across the Esplanade, as though the sombre pile had glided nearer to see and hear.
“He assumed an air of indifference.
“‘I dare say I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for anything. These were trifles…’
“‘You had a lively time of it in that boat,’ I remarked.
“‘I was ready,’ he repeated. ‘After the ship’s lights had gone, anything might have happened in that boat—anything in the world—and the world no wiser. I felt this, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough, too. We were like men walled up quick in a roomy grave. No concern with anything on earth. Nobody to pass an opinion. Nothing mattered.’ For the third time during this conversation he laughed harshly, but there was no one about to suspect him of being only drunk. ‘No fear, no law, no sounds, no eyes—not even our own, till—till sunrise at least.’
“I was struck by the suggestive truth of his words. There is something peculiar in a small boat upon the wide sea. Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness. When your ship fails you, your whole world seems to fail you; the world that made you, restrained you, taken care of you. It is as if the souls of men floating on an abyss and in touch with immensity had been set free for any excess of heroism, absurdity, or abomination. Of course, as with belief, thought, love, hate, conviction, or even the visual aspect of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there are men, and in this one there was something abject which made the isolation more complete—there was a villainy of circumstances that cut these men off more completely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had never undergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasperated with him for being a half-hearted shirker: he focused on them his hatred of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It was part of the burlesque meanness pervading that particular disaster at sea that they did not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly effective feint, a sham from beginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain of the Dark Powers whose real terrors, always on the verge of triumph, are perpetually foiled by the steadfastness of men. I asked, after waiting for a while, ‘Well, what happened?’ A futile question. I knew too much already to hope for the grace of a single uplifting touch, for the favour of hinted madness, of shadowed horror. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I meant business, but they meant noise only. Nothing happened.’