0 Heart of DarknessHe was useful because he had been instructed; and what he
knew was this—that should the water in that transparent
thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get
angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a ter-
rible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched
the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of
rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big
as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the
wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was
left behind, the interminable miles of silence—and we crept
on, towards Kurtz. But the snags were thick, the water was
treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a
sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any
time to peer into our creepy thoughts.
‘Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon
a hut of reeds, an inclined and melancholy pole, with the
unrecognizable tatters of what had been a flag of some sort
flying from it, and a neatly stacked wood-pile. This was un-
expected. We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood
found a flat piece of board with some faded pencil-writing
on it. When deciphered it said: ‘Wood for you. Hurry up.
Approach cautiously.’ There was a signature, but it was illeg-
ible—not Kurtz—a much longer word. ‘Hurry up.’ Where?
Up the river? ‘Approach cautiously.’ We had not done so.
But the warning could not have been meant for the place
where it could be only found after approach. Something was
wrong above. But what—and how much? That was the ques-
tion. We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that
telegraphic style. The bush around said nothing, and would