Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness

3. PART III (continued)

"He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer. `He hated sometimes the idea of being taken away--and then again. . . . But I don't understand these matters. I am a simple man. He thought it would scare you away--that you would give it up, thinking him dead. I could not stop him. Oh, I had an awful time of it this last month.' `Very well,' I said. `He is all right now.' `Ye-e-es,' he muttered, not very convinced apparently. `Thanks,' said I; `I shall keep my eyes open.' `But quiet--eh?' he urged, anxiously. `It would be awful for his reputation if anybody here--' I promised a complete discretion with great gravity. `I have a canoe and three black fellows waiting not very far. I am off. Could you give me a few Martini-Henry cartridges?' I could, and did, with proper secrecy. He helped himself, with a wink at me, to a handful of my tobacco. `Between sailors-- you know--good English tobacco.' At the door of the pilot-house he turned round--' I say, haven't you a pair of shoes you could spare?' He raised one leg. `Look.' The soles were tied with knotted strings sandal-wise under his bare feet. I rooted out an old pair, at which he looked with admiration before tucking it under his left arm. One of his pockets (bright red) was bulging with cartridges, from the other (dark blue) peeped `Towson's Inquiry,' &c., &c. He seemed to think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed encounter with the wilderness. `Ah! I'll never, never meet such a man again. You ought to have heard him recite poetry-- his own too it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at the recollection of these delights. `Oh, he enlarged my mind!' `Goodby,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night. Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever really seen him-- whether it was possible to meet such a phenomenon! . . .