Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

done something, he
had steered; for months I had him at my back—a help—an instrument. It
was a kind of partnership. He steered for me—I had to look after him, I
worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created,
of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken. And the
intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt
remains to this day in my memory—like a claim of distant kinship
affirmed in a supreme moment.
    "Poor fool! If he had only left that shutter alone. He had no restraint,
no restraint—just like Kurtz—a tree swayed by the wind. As soon as
I had put on a dry pair of slippers, I dragged him out, after first
jerking the spear out of his side, which operation I confess I performed
with my eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together over the little
doorstep; his shoulders were pressed to my breast; I hugged him from
behind desperately. Oh! he was heavy, heavy; heavier than any man on
earth, I should imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him overboard.
The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I
saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever. All the
pilgrims and the manager were then congregated on the awning-deck
about the pilot-house, chattering at each other like a flock of excited
magpies, and there was a scandalized murmur at my heartless promptitude.
What they wanted to keep that body hanging about for I can't guess.
Embalm it, maybe. But I had also heard another, and a very ominous,
murmur on the deck below. My friends the wood-cutters were likewise
scandalized, and with a better show of reason—though I admit that the
reason itself was quite inadmissible. Oh, quite! I had made up my mind
that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fishes alone should have
him. He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now he was
dead he might have become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause
some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the
man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business.
    "This I did directly the simple funeral was over. We were going
half-speed, keeping right in the middle of the stream, and I listened
to the talk about me. They had given up Kurtz, they had given up the
station; Kurtz was dead, and the station had been burnt—and so on—and
so on. The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that
at least this poor Kurtz had been properly avenged. 'Say! We must have
made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush. Eh? What do you think?
Say?' He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar.
And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! I could not help
saying, 'You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' I had seen, from the
way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew, that almost all the shots
had gone too high. You can't hit anything unless you take aim and fire
from the shoulder; but these chaps fired from the hip with their eyes
shut. The retreat, I maintained—and I was right—was caused by the
screeching of the steam whistle. Upon this they forgot Kurtz, and began
to howl at me with indignant protests.
    "The manager stood by the wheel murmuring confidentially about the
necessity of getting well away down the river before dark at all events,
when I saw in the distance a clearing on the riverside and the outlines
of some sort of building. 'What's this?' I asked. He clapped his hands
in wonder. 'The station!' he cried. I edged in at once, still going
half-speed.
    "Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed with rare
trees and perfectly free from undergrowth. A long decaying building on
the summit was half buried in the high grass; the large holes in the
peaked roof gaped black from afar; the jungle and the woods made a
background. There was no enclosure or fence of any kind; but there had
been one apparently, for near the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained
in a row, roughly trimmed,