I turned to the door. When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out into а screech of despair so shrill that I feared it might awaken the sleeping servants.
I turned to the door. When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out into а screech of despair so shrill that I feared it might awaken the sleeping servants.
My presence of mind in emergencies is proverbial among those who know me. I tore open the cupboard in which he kept his linen seized а handful of his handkerchiefs gagged him with one of them, and secured his hands with the others. There was now no danger of his alarming the servants. After tying the last knot, I looked up.
The door between the Englishmans room and mine was open. My fair friend was standing on the threshold watching him as he lay helpless on the bed; watching me as I tied the last knot.
What are you doing there? I asked. Why did you open the door?
She stepped up to me, and whispered her answer in my ear, with her eyes all the time upon the man on the bed:
I heard him scream.
Well?
I thought you had killed him.
I drew back from her in horror. The suspicion of me which her words implied was sufficiently detestable in itself. But her manner when she uttered the words was more revolting still. It so powerfully affected me that I started back from that beautiful creature as I might have recoiled from а reptile crawling over my flesh.
Before I had recovered myself sufficiently to reply, my nerves were assailed by another shock. I suddenly heard my mistresss voice calling to me from the stable yard.
There was no time to think there was only time to act. The one thing needed was to keep Mrs. Fairbank from ascending the stairs, and discovering not my lady guest only but the Englishman also, gagged and bound on his bed. I instantly hurried to the yard. As I ran down the stairs I heard the stable clock strike the quarter to two in the morning.
My mistress was eager and agitated. The doctor (in attendance on her) was smiling to himself, like а man amused at his own thoughts.
Is Francis awake or asleep? Mrs. Fairbank inquired.
He has been а little restless, madam. But he is now quiet again. If he is not disturbed (I added those words to prevent her from ascending the stairs), he will soon fall off into а quiet sleep.
Has nothing happened since I was here last?
Nothing, madam.
The doctor lifted his eyebrows with а comical look of distress. Alas, alas, Mrs. Fairbank! he said. Nothing has happened! The days of romance are over!
It is not two oclock yet, my mistress answered, а little irritably.
The smell of the stables was strong on the morning air. She put her handkerchief to her nose and led the way out of the yard by the north entrance the entrance communicating with the gardens and the house. I was ordered to follow her, along with the doctor. Once out of the smell of the stables she began to question me again. She was unwilling to believe that nothing had occurred in her absence. I invented the best answers I could think of on the spur of the moment; and the doctor stood by laughing. So the minutes passed till the clock struck two. Upon that, Mrs. Fairbank announced her intention of personally visiting the Englishman in his room. To my great relief, the doctor interfered to stop her from doing this.
You have heard that Francis is just falling asleep, he said. If you enter his room you may disturb him. It is essential to the success of my experiment that he should have а good nights rest, and that he should own it himself, before I tell him the truth. I must request, madam, that you will not disturb the man. Rigobert will ring the alarm bell if anything happens.
My mistress was unwilling to yield. For the next five minutes, at least, there was а warm discussion between the two. In the end Mrs. Fairbank was obliged to give way for the time. In half an hour, she said, Francis will either be sound asleep, or awake again. In half an hour I shall come back. She took the doctors arm. They returned together to the house.
Left by myself, with half an hour before me, I resolved to take the Englishwoman back to the village then, returning to the stables, to remove the gag and the bindings from Francis, and to let him screech to his hearts content. What would his alarming the whole establishment matter to me after I had got rid of the compromising presence of my guest?
Returning to the yard I heard а sound like the creaking of an open door on its hinges. The gate of the north entrance I had just closed with my own hand. I went round to the west entrance, at the back of the stables. It opened on а field crossed by two footpaths in Mr. Fairbanks grounds. The nearest footpath led to the village. The other led to the highroad and the river.
Arriving at the west entrance I found the door open swinging to and fro slowly in the fresh morning breeze. I had myself locked and bolted that door after admitting my fair friend at eleven oclock. А vague dread of something wrong stole its way into my mind. I hurried back to the stables.
I looked into my own room. It was empty. I went to the harness room. Not а sign of the woman was there. I returned to my room, and approached the door of the Englishmans bedchamber. Was it possible that she had remained there during my absence? An unaccountable reluctance to open the door made me hesitate, with my hand on the lock. I listened. There was not а sound inside. I called softly. There was no answer. I drew back а step, still hesitating. I noticed something dark moving slowly in the crevice between the bottom of the door and the boarded floor. Snatching up the candle from the table, I held it low, and looked. The dark, slowly moving object was а stream of blood!
That horrid sight roused me. I opened the door. The Englishman lay on his bed alone in the room. He was stabbed in two places in the throat and in the heart. The weapon was left in the second wound. It was а knife of English manufacture, with а handle of buckhorn as good as new.
I instantly gave the alarm. Witnesses can speak to what followed. It is monstrous to suppose that I am guilty of the murder. I admit that I am capable of committing follies: but I shrink from the bare idea of а crime. Besides, I had no motive for killing the man. The woman murdered him in my absence. The woman escaped by the west entrance while I was talking to my mistress. I have no more to say. I swear to you what I have here written is а true statement of all that happened on the morning of the first of March.
Accept, sir, the assurance of my sentiments of profound gratitude and respect.
JOSEPH RIGOBERT.Last Lines Added by Percy Fairbank
Tried for the murder of Francis Raven, Joseph Rigobert was found Not Guilty; the papers of the assassinated man presented ample evidence of the deadly animosity felt toward him by his wife.
The investigations pursued on the morning when the crime was committed showed that the murderess, after leaving the stable, had taken the footpath which led to the river. The river was dragged without result. It remains doubtful to this day whether she died by drowning or not. The one thing certain is that Alicia Warlock was never seen again.
So beginning in mystery, ending in mystery the Dream Woman passes from your view. Ghost; demon; or living human creature say for yourselves which she is. Or, knowing what unfathomed wonders are around you, what unfathomed wonders are in you, let the wise words of the greatest of all poets be explanation enough:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with, a sleep.
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness
I
The Nellie, а cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without а flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without а joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. А haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into а mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest town on earth.
The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled а pilot, which to а seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each others yarns and even convictions. The Lawyer the best of old fellows had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already а box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, а yellow complexion, а straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged а few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in а serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without а speck, was а benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like а gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.