10 Heart of Darkness‘He is all right now.’ ‘Ye-e-es,’ he muttered, not very con-
vinced 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 sandalwise 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,’ etc., etc. He seemed to think himself ex-
cellently 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!’ ‘Good-bye,’ 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! ...
‘When I woke up shortly after midnight his warning
came to my mind with its hint of danger that seemed, in
the starred darkness, real enough to make me get up for the
purpose of having a look round. On the hill a big fire burned,