Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (622 page)

“They are not far wrong,” was the other’s ominous reply. “Each man has a devil not very far from his elbow. Don’t argue, signore, don’t call him up in me! You had better say no more and go in peace from here.”

The young traveller did not change his careless attitude. The man in the cap heard him say quietly, almost in a tone of self-communion:

“I prefer to stay in peace here.”

It was indeed a wonderful peace. The sound of their quiet voices did not seem to affect it in the least. It had an enormous and overpowering amplitude which seemed rather to the man in the cap to take the part of the Englishman’s calm obstinacy against his growing anger. He couldn’t repress an impulsively threatening movement in the direction of his inconvenient companion but it died out in perplexity. He pushed his cap still more on one side and simply scratched his head.

“You are one of those people that are accustomed to have their own way. Well, you can’t have your way this time. I have asked you quietly to leave me alone on this tower. I asked you as man to man. But if you won’t listen to reason I . . . “

Cosmo, putting the palms of his hands against the edge of the parapet, sprang lightly nearly to the middle of the platform and landed without a stagger. His voice was perfectly even.

“Reason is my only guide,” he declared. “But your request looks like mere caprice. For what can you possibly have to do here? The sea birds are gone to sleep and I have as much right to the air up here as you. Therefore ...”

A thought seemed to strike him. “Surely this can’t be your trysting place,” he commented in a changed tone through which pierced a certain sympathy.

A short scornful laugh from the other checked him and he muttered to himself soberly, “No. Altogether unfit . . . amongst those grim old guns.” He raised his voice. “Ail I can do is to give you all the room.” He backed away from the centre of the platform and perched himself this time on the massive breech of a sixty-pounder. “Go on with your incantations,” he said then to the tall and dim figure whose immobility appeared helpless for a moment. It broke the short period of silence, saying deliberately:

“I suppose you are aware that at any time since we have begun to talk together it was open to me to fling myself upon you unawares as you sat on the parapet and knock you over to the bottom of this tower?” He waited a moment, then in a deeper tone, “Will you deny it?” he said.

“No, I won’t deny it,” was the careless answer. “I hadn’t thought to be on my guard. But I can swim.”

“Don’t you know there is a border of big blocks of stone there? It would have been a terrible death. . . . Andnow, will the signore do what I ask him and return to his inn which is a much safer place than this platform?”

“Safety is not a great inducement; and I don’t believe for a moment you ever thought of attacking me in a treacherous manner.”

“Well,” the tall shadowy figure crowned by the shape of the strange cap admitted reluctantly. “Well, since you put it in those words, signore, I did not.”

“You see! I believe you are a fine fellow. But as it is I am under no sort of obligation to listen to you.”

“You are crafty,” burst out the other violently.

‘‘It’s in the blood. How is one to deal with people like you?”

“You could try to drive me off,” suggested the other.

There was no answer for a time, then the tall figure muttered reflectively to itself.

“After all — he’s an Englishman.”

“I don’t think myself invincible on that account,” observed Cosmo calmly.

“I know. I have fought against English soldiers in Buenos Ayres. I was only thinking that, to give the devil his due, men of your nation don’t consort with spies or love tyranny either. . . . Tell me, is it true that you have only been two hours in this town?”

“Perfectly true.”

“And yet all the tyrants of the world are your allies,” the shadowy man pursued his train of thought half aloud.

The no less shadowy traveller remarked quietly into the gathering night:

“You don’t know who my friends are.”

“I don’t, but I think you are not likely to go with a tale to the Austrian spies or consort with the Piedmont-ese sbirri. As to the priests who are poking their noses everywhere, I . . . “

“I don’t know a single soul in Italy,” interrupted the other.

“But you will soon. People like you make acquaintances everywhere. But it’s idle talk with strangers that I fear. Can I trust you as an Englishman not to talk of what you may see?”

“You may. I can’t imagine what unlawful thing you are about to commit here. I am dying from curiosity. Can it be that you are really some sort of sorcerer? Go on! Trace your magic circle if that is your business, and call up the spirits of the dead.”

A low grunt was the only answer to this speech uttered in a tone between jest and earnest. Cosmo watched from the breech of his gun with intense interest the movements of the man who objected so strongly to his presence but who now seemed to pay no attention to him at all. They were not the movements of a magician in so far that they certainly had nothing to do with the tracing of circles. The figure had stepped over to the seaward face of the tower and seemed to be pulling endless things out of the breast pocket of his jacket. The young Englishman got down from the breech of the gun, without ceasing to peer in a fascinated way, and moved closer step by step till he threw himself back with an exclamation cf astonishment. “By heavens! The fellow is going to fish.” . . . Cosmo remained mute with surprise for a good many seconds and then burst out loudly:

“Is this what you displayed all this secrecy for? This is the worst hoax I ever ...”

“Come nearer, signore, but take care not to tangle all my twine with your feet. . . . Do you see this box?”

The heads of the two men had come together confidentially and the young traveller made out a cylindrical object which was in fact a round tin box. His companion thrust it into his hand with the request, “Hold it for me a moment, signore,” and then Cosmo had the opportunity to ascertain that the lid of it was hermetically sealed. The man in the strange cap dived into the pocket of his breeches for flint and steel. The Englishman beheld with surprise his lately inimical companion squeeze himself between the massive tube of the piece of ordnance and the wall of stone and wriggle outwards into the depth of the thick embrasure till nothing of him remained visible but his black stockings and the soles of his heavy shoes. After a time his voice came deadened along the thickness of the wall:

“Will you hand me the box now, signore?” Cosmo, enlisted in these mysterious proceedings, the nature of which was becoming clear enough to him, obeyed at once, and approaching the embrasure thrust the box in at the full length of his arm till it came in contact with the ready hand of the man who was lying flat on his stomach with his head projecting beyond the wall of the tower. His groping hand found and snatched away the box. The twine was attached to the box and at once its length laid on the platform began to run out till the very end disappeared. Then the man lying prone within the thickness of the gun embrasure lay still as death and the young traveller strained his ears in the absolute silence to catch the slightest sound at the foot of the tower. But all he could hear was the faint sound of some distant clock striking somewhere in the town. He waited a little longer, then in the cautious tone of a willing accomplice murmured within the opening:

“Got a bite yet?” The answer came hardly audible: “No. But this is the very hour.” Cosmo felt his interest growing. And yet the facts in themselves were not very exciting, but all this had the complexion and the charm of an unexpected adventure, heightened by its mystery, playing itself out before that old town towering like a carved hill decorated with lights that began to appear quickly on the sombre and colossal mass of that lofty shore. The last gleam had died out in the west. The harbour was dark except for the lantern at the stern of the British ship of the line. The man in the embrasure made a slight movement. Cosmo became more alert but apparently nothing happened. There was no murmur of voices, splash of water, or sign of the slightest stir all round the tower. Suddenly the man in the embrasure began to wriggle back on to the platform and in a very few minutes stood up to his full height facing the unexpected helper.

“She has come and gone,” he said. “Did you hear anything, signore ?”

“Not a sound. She might have been the ghost of a boat — for you are alluding to a boat, are you not?”

“Si. And I hope that if any eye on shore had made her out it had taken her for only a ghost. Of course that English vessel of war rows guard at night. But it isn’t to look out for ghosts.”

“I should think not. Ghosts are of no account. Could there be anything more futile than the ghost of a boat?”

“You are one of the strong-minded, signore. Ghosts are the concern of the ignorant — yet who knows? But it does sound funny tp talk of the ghost of a boat, a thing of brute matter. For wouldn’t a ghost be a thing of spirit, a man’s soul itself made restless by grief or love, or remorse or anger? Such are the stories that one hears. But the old hermit of the plain, of whom I spoke, assured me that the dead are too glad to be done with life to make trouble on earth.”

“You and your hermit!” exclaimed Cosmo in a boyish and marvelling tone. “I suppose it is no use me asking you what I have been just helping you in.”

“A, little smuggling operation, signore. Surely, signore, England has custom houses and therefore must have smugglers too.”

“One has heard of them of course. But I wouldn’t mind a bet that there is not one of them that resembles you. Neither do I believe that they deal with packages as small as the one you lowered into that ghostly boat. You saw her of course. There was a boat.”

“There was somebody to cut the string, as you see, signore. Look, here is all that twine, all of it but a little piece. It may have been a man swimming in the dark water. A man with a soul, fit to make a ghost of . . . let us call him a ghost, signore.”

“Oh yes, let us,” the other said lightly. “I am sure that when I wake up to-morrow all this will seem to me a dream. Even now I feel inclined to pinch myself.”

“What’s that for, in Heaven’s name?”

“It’s a saying we have in our country. Yes, you, your hermit, our talk, and this very tower, all this will be like a dream.”

“I would say “nothing better’ if it was not that most people are only too ready to talk about their dreams. No, signore, let all this be to you of less consequence than if it were a tale of ghosts, of mere ghosts in which you do not believe. You forced yourself on me as if you were the lord of this place, but I feel friendly enough to you.”

“I didn’t ask for your friendship,” retorted the young traveller in a clear voice so void of all offence that the other man accepted it for a mere statement of a fact.

“Certainly not. I spoke of my own feelings, and though I am, you may say, a newcomer and a stranger in my own native city, I assure you it is better to have me for a friend than for an enemy. And the best thing of all would be to forget all about me. It would be also the kindest thing you could do.”

“Really?” said Cosmo in a tone of sympathy. “How can you expect me to forget the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to me in all my life?”

“ In all your life! H’m! You have a long life before you yet, signorino.”

“Oh, but this is an adventure.”

“That’s what I mean. You have so many marvellous adventures before you, signorino, that this one is sure to be forgotten very soon. Then why not at once?”

“No, my friend, you don’t seem somehow a person one could easily forget.”

“I-God forbid. . . . Good-night, signore.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the man in the cap bounded across the platform, dived into the black square opening on its landward side, and ran down the steps so lightly that not a sound reached the ears of the other. Cosmo went down the winding stair, but cautiously in the profound darkness. The door at the bottom stood open and he stepped out on to the deserted jetty. He could see on it nothing in the shape of a fleeting shadow.

On the very edge of the shore a low little building with three arcades sent a dim gleam of light through its open door. It seemed to be a sort of guardroom, for there was a sentry, an Austrian soldier apparently, in a white coat. His duty, however, seemed to be concerned with the landing-steps in front of the guardhouse, and he let the young traveller pass on as though he had not seen him at all. Dark night had settled upon the long quay. Here and there a dim street lamp threw a feeble light on the uneven stones which the feet of the young traveller with his springy walk seemed hardly to touch. The pleasurable sensation of something extraordinary having happened to him accelerated his movements. He was also feeling very hungry and he was making haste towards his inn to dine first and then to think his adventure over, for there was a strong conviction within him that he certainly had had an adventure of a nature at the same time stimulating and obscure.

II

Cosmo Latham had an inborn faculty of orientation in strange surroundings, most invaluable in a cavalry officer, but of which he had never made much use, not even during the few months when he served as a cornet of horse in the Duke of Wellington’s army in the last year of the peninsular campaign. There had been but few occasions to make use of it for a freshly joined subaltern. It stood him in good stead that night, however, while making his way to his inn in a town in which he was a complete stranger, for it allowed him, with but little concern for the direction he took, to think of his home which he loved for itself, every stone and every tree of it — and of the two people he left there, whom he loved too, each in a different way: his father, Sir Charles, and his sister Henrietta.

Latham Hall, a large straggling building showing traces of many styles, flanked by a romantic park and commanding a vast view of the Yorkshire hills, had been the hereditary home of Lathams from the times before the Great Rebellion. That it escaped confiscation then might have been the effect of the worldly prudence of the Latham of the time. He probably took good care not to shock persons of position and influence. That, however, was not the characteristic of the later Lathams down to Sir Charles, Cosmo’s father.