Lord Jim | Page 4

her scanty rigging humming in a deep bass the breathless song
of her youth at sea. 'Lower away!' He saw the boat, manned, drop
swiftly below the rail, and rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go;
clear the falls!' He leaned over. The river alongside seethed in frothy
streaks. The cutter could be seen in the falling darkness under the spell
of tide and wind, that for a moment held her bound, and tossing abreast
of the ship. A yelling voice in her reached him faintly: 'Keep stroke,
you young whelps, if you want to save anybody! Keep stroke!' And
suddenly she lifted high her bow, and, leaping with raised oars over a
wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide.
Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain
of the ship laid a restraining hand on that boy, who seemed on the point
of leaping overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of conscious
defeat in his eyes. The captain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck next
time. This will teach you to be smart.'
A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of
water, and with two exhausted men washing about on her bottom
boards. The tumult and the menace of wind and sea now appeared very
contemptible to Jim, increasing the regret of his awe at their inefficient
menace. Now he knew what to think of it. It seemed to him he cared
nothing for the gale. He could affront greater perils. He would do
so--better than anybody. Not a particle of fear was left. Nevertheless he
brooded apart that evening while the bowman of the cutter--a boy with
a face like a girl's and big grey eyes--was the hero of the lower deck.
Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head
bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his
breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old
Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs--the boat nearly swamped.

Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy
with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only
his way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully
excitable--isn't he? No--not the little fair chap--the other, the big one
with a beard. When we pulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh, my
leg!" and turned up his eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl.
Would any of you fellows faint for a jab with a boat-hook?--I wouldn't.
It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat-hook, which he had
carried below for the purpose, and produced a sensation. 'No, silly! It
was not his flesh that held him--his breeches did. Lots of blood, of
course.'
Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to a
heroism as spurious as its own pretence of terror. He felt angry with the
brutal tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and checking
unfairly a generous readiness for narrow escapes. Otherwise he was
rather glad he had not gone into the cutter, since a lower achievement
had served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledge more than those
who had done the work. When all men flinched, then--he felt sure--he
alone would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind and
seas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed
contemptible. He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the
final effect of a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart from the
noisy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for
adventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage.


CHAPTER 2
After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so
well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of
adventure. He made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of
existence between sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men,
the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that

gives bread--but whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work.
This reward eluded him. Yet he could not go back, because there is
nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
Besides, his prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady,
tractable, with a thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when
yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever
having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of
day the inner