He confronted savages on tropiwater. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a furious earcal shores, quel ed mutinies on the high seas, and in a smal nestness in the screech of the wind, in the brutal tumult of boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men—

earth and sky, that seemed directed at him, and made him always an example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as hold his breath in awe. He stood stil . It seemed to him he a hero in a book.

was whirled around.

‘Something’s up. Come along.’

He was jostled. ‘Man the cutter!’ Boys rushed past him. A He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladcoaster running in for shelter had crashed through a schooders. Above could be heard a great scurrying about and shoutner at anchor, and one of the ship’s instructors had seen the ing, and when he got through the hatchway he stood stil —

accident. A mob of boys clambered on the rails, clustered as if confounded. round the davits. ‘Col ision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symons It was the dusk of a winter’s day. The gale had freshened saw it.’ A push made him stagger against the mizzen-mast, since noon, stopping the traffic on the river, and now blew and he caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship chained with the strength of a hurricane in fitful bursts that boomed to her moorings quivered al over, bowing gently head to like salvoes of great guns firing over the ocean. The rain wind, and with her scanty rigging humming in a deep bass slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided, and between the breathless song of her youth at sea. ‘Lower away!’ He saw whiles Jim had threatening glimpses of the tumbling tide, the boat, manned, drop swiftly below the rail, and rushed the smal craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the after her. He heard a splash. ‘Let go; clear the fal s!’ He leaned motionless buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferryover. The river alongside seethed in frothy streaks. The cut8

Joseph Conrad

ter could be seen in the fal ing darkness under the spel of ertheless he brooded apart that evening while the bowman tide and wind, that for a moment held her bound, and tossof the cutter—a boy with a face like a girl’s and big grey ing abreast of the ship. A yel ing voice in her reached him eyes—was the hero of the lower deck. Eager questioners faintly: ‘Keep stroke, you young whelps, if you want to save crowded round him. He narrated: ‘I just saw his head bobanybody! Keep stroke!’ And suddenly she lifted high her bow, bing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in and, leaping with raised oars over a wave, broke the spel cast his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I upon her by the wind and tide.

would, only old Symons let go the til er and grabbed my Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly.