| s-203
| 'I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leading up the hill. |
| s-204
| It turned aside for the bowlders, and also for an undersized railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. |
| s-205
| One was off. |
| s-206
| The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. |
| s-207
| I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails. |
| s-208
| To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. |
| s-209
| I blinked, the path was steep. |
| s-210
| A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. |
| s-211
| No change appeared on the face of the rock. |
| s-212
| They were building a railway. |
| s-213
| The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on. |
| s-214
| A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. |
| s-215
| Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. |
| s-216
| Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind wagged to and fro like tails. |
| s-217
| I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. |
| s-218
| Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. |
| s-219
| It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. |
| s-220
| They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from over the sea. |
| s-221
| All their meager breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. |
| s-222
| They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. |
| s-223
| Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. |
| s-224
| He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. |
| s-225
| This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be. |
| s-226
| He was speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. |
| s-227
| After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings. |
| s-228
| Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. |
| s-229
| My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. |
| s-230
| You know I am not particularly tender; |
| s-231
| I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist and to attack sometimes – that's only one way of resisting – without counting the exact cost, according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into. |
| s-232
| I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men – men, I tell you. |
| s-233
| But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. |
| s-234
| How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. |
| s-235
| For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning. |
| s-236
| Finally I descended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees I had seen. |
| s-237
| I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. |
| s-238
| It wasn't a quarry or a sandpit, anyhow. |
| s-239
| It was just a hole. |
| s-240
| It might have been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do. |
| s-241
| I don't know. |
| s-242
| Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside. |
| s-243
| I discovered that a lot of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been tumbled in there. |
| s-244
| There wasn't one that was not broken. |
| s-245
| It was a wanton smash-up. |
| s-246
| at last I got under the trees. |
| s-247
| My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment; but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped into a gloomy circle of some Inferno. |
| s-248
| The rapids were near, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved, with a mysterious sound – as though the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible. |
| s-249
| Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. |
| s-250
| He is waiting! ' |
| s-251
| I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. |
| s-252
| I fancy I see it now, but I am not sure – not at all. |
| s-253
| Certainly the affair was too stupid – when I think of it – to be altogether natural. |
| s-254
| Still.... But at the moment it presented itself simply as a confounded nuisance. |
| s-255
| The steamer was sunk. |
| s-256
| They had started two days before in a sudden hurry up the river with the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer skipper, and before they had been out three hours they tore the bottom out of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank. |
| s-257
| I asked myself what I was to do there, now my boat was lost. |
| s-258
| As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my command out of the river. |
| s-259
| I had to set about it the very next day. |
| s-260
| That, and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station, took some months. |
| s-261
| My first interview with the manager was curious. |
| s-262
| He did not ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. |
| s-263
| He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. |
| s-264
| He was of middle size and of ordinary build. |
| s-265
| His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. |
| s-266
| But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. |
| s-267
| Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy – a smile – not a smile – I remember it, but I can't explain. |
| s-268
| It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. |
| s-269
| It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. |
| s-270
| He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts – nothing more. |
| s-271
| He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. |
| s-272
| He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust – just uneasiness – nothing more. |
| s-273
| You have no idea how effective such a... a... faculty can be. |
| s-274
| He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. |
| s-275
| That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. |
| s-276
| He had no learning, and no intelligence. |
| s-277
| His position had come to him – why? Perhaps because he was never ill... |
| s-278
| He had served three terms of three years out there... Because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. |
| s-279
| When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale – pompously. Jack ashore – with a difference – in externals only. |
| s-280
| This one could gather from his casual talk. |
| s-281
| He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going – that's all. But he was great. |
| s-282
| He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. |
| s-283
| He never gave that secret away. |
| s-284
| Perhaps there was nothing within him. |
| s-285
| Such a suspicion made one pause – for out there there were no external checks. |
| s-286
| Once when various tropical diseases had laid low almost every agent in the station, he was heard to say, 'Men who come out here should have no entrails. |
| s-287
| 'He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. |
| s-288
| You fancied you had seen things – but the seal was on. |
| s-289
| When annoyed at meal-times by the constant quarrels of the white men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table to be made, for which a special house had to be built. |
| s-290
| This was the station's mess-room. |
| s-291
| Where he sat was the first place – the rest were nowhere. |
| s-292
| One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. |
| s-293
| He was neither civil nor uncivil. |
| s-294
| He was quiet. |
| s-295
| He allowed his boy – an overfed young negro from the coast – to treat the white men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence. |
| s-296
| He began to speak as soon as he saw me. |
| s-297
| I had been very long on the road. |
| s-298
| He could not wait. Had to start without me. |
| s-299
| The up-river stations had to be relieved. |
| s-300
| There had been so many delays already that he did not know who was dead and who was alive, and how they got on – and so on, and so on. |
| s-301
| He paid no attention to my explanations, and, playing with a stick of sealing-wax, repeated several times that the situation was 'very grave, very grave. ' |
| s-302
| There were rumors that a very important station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. |