Page 91 - HEART OF DARKNESS

Heart of Darkness

‘One of my hungry and forbearing friends was
sounding in the bows just below me. This steamboat was
exactly like a decked scow. On the deck, there were two
little teakwood houses, with doors and windows. The

boiler was in the fore-end, and the machinery right astern.
yOver the whole there was a light roof, supported on
stanchions. The funnel projected through that roof, and in
front of the funnel a small cabin built of light planks served
for a pilot-house. It contained a couch, two camp-stools, a
loaded Martini-Henry leaning in one corner, a tiny table,
and the steering-wheel. It had a wide door in front and a
broad shutter at each side. All these were always thrown
open, of course. I spent my days perched up there on the
extreme fore-end of that roof, before the door. At night I
slept, or tried to, on the couch. An athletic black
belonging to some coast tribe and educated by my poor
predecessor, was the helmsman. He sported a pair of brass
earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist to the
ankles, and thought all the world of himself. He was the
most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen. He steered
with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost
sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject
funk, and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the
upper hand of him in a minute.

90 of 162