feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/gradesaver/Lord Jim/section_10_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 37-39
feat_summary_id: chapters 37-39
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 37-39", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422054542/https://www.gradesaver.com/lord-jim/study-guide/summary-chapters-37-39", "summary": "The story resumes in Marlow's written form. Marlow explains in his letter that he encountered a man named Brown at the direction of Schomberg . Brown is more than ready to tell his tale. He is a suspicious character, a thief, and a kind of figure of evil. The narrative then cuts back in time, creating additional suspense. Eight months prior to this encounter with Brown in Bangkok, Marlow had gone to visit Stein at his home, where he had found Tamb' Itam, Jim's Malay servant. Marlow had hoped that Jim was not far away, but the Malay had said quietly, \"He would not fight\" . Stein had appeared and told Marlow that the girl Jewel was also there, and that the two had arrived two days earlier. Jewel had said to Marlow, \"He has left me\" . She spoke in grief and shock. \"He is false!\" she cried. Stein protested: \"True!\" . The shock of the events \"seems to have changed their natures. It had turned her passion into stone\" . Tamb' Itam and the Malay boat-driver who had helped them to escape were both \"over-awed by a sense of deep, inexpressible wonder, by the touch of an inscrutable mystery,\" echoing Marlow's own statement to Jim that Jim would always remain a mystery to them . The letter concludes with Marlow's signature. Now, the \"privileged reader\" is able to focus on the \"story\" that Marlow has written of the last events. Brown has led a lawless life as a virtual \"latter-day buccaneer.\" The story went, apparently, that Brown had once run off with the wife of a missionary, a very young girl, who had died of fever on board the ship. The girl had hoped to make a great conversion in the name of her husband. When she died, Brown had wept violently. His shipmate always comments on that scene. Brown had lost his ship on the rocks. Soon after, Brown stole a schooner. His best man, a devoted Solomon Islander, killed two shipkeepers with a long knife, and Brown's sixteen men all rushed off to sea. They planned to cross the Indian Ocean, but were low on supplies and, out of the need to replenish their water and food, headed for Patusan. The big white boat carried the \"assorted scarecrows\" to the Patusan Reach, whence fourteen of them took to the river in a small boat. The headman of the fishing village, by this time, sent a warning to the town, and, when Brown's men arrived to see the flourishing community, shouting men fired from the mosque. There were armed men in the river, blocking their retreat. The natives fired, and Brown's men fired in reply. Brown saw the entrance to a narrow creek and established his men in the little knoll near the Rajah's stockade. As the sun set, they cut down the few trees for protection, and Brown lay on his back, in awe at the immensity of the place. Brown's story turns to consider Jim's absence, although he has not yet met the man. Jim has been gone in the interior for more than a week, while Dain Waris has been leading the fight in his absence. Dain Waris, significantly, is not Jim: \"He was not the visible, tangible incarnation of unfailing truth and of unfailing victory\" . Dain Waris fails to compare favorably with Jim's mythical stature. Jim is the one everyone believes cannot die. He holds the store of gunpowder in Patusan, supplied by Stein, and Jewel takes charge as they wait. The council gathers at Doramin's, and the townspeople are disturbed that the Rajah's boat did not act when it could have. Kassim, the Rajah's diplomat at the meeting, is unreadable. Rumors fly about a large ship and many men. The danger of panic is in the air, and Doramin orders Dain Waris to take an armed party down the river, to make a camp and to blockade the stream with canoes. Doramin seems motivated most by a desire to keep his son out of harm's way. Kassim goes into open communication with Brown, taking Cornelius with him to serve as interpreter. Brown, overjoyed to hear English words, demands food as a guarantee of good faith. The Rajah sends them rice, chillies, and dried fish. It becomes clear that Kassim intends to double-deal, however, given his unhappiness with the order of things and with Jim's power, and given his dislike for Doramin. He asks Brown to quickly send for his big ship and many men, and then to attack and defeat the Bugis settlement before Jim's return. This is where Brown hears about Jim for the first time. He hears the story of Jim's accomplishments, how the whole area is basically his. Brown begins to get the idea of accomplishing something of the same. Cornelius urges him to kill Jim at the first opportunity. The men doze on the stockade, and Brown gazes greedily. Kassim presses Brown for his ship again, and Brown writes the message, \"We are getting on. Big job. Detain the man.\" He sends this message to his two remaining men on the schooner.", "analysis": "Marlow's letter to the \"privileged reader\" provides his sources for the conclusion of the events that help him understand his subject, Jim.  First, he describes a man named Brown, who had communicated his part in the story to Marlow in Bangkok.  Second, upon a visit to see Stein, Marlow finds Tamb' Itam, who is Jim's servant, and Jewel.  From these three characters, along with his own imagination and understanding, Marlow builds the conclusion to the story. Brown's character presents a foil against both Stein's and Jim's romantically charmed lives, particularly by way of the woman he is associated with.  She is a missionary's wife who dies of fever, like Stein's wife and daughter.  For Brown, however, the woman dies quickly, before there is a chance for Brown to know happiness.  The forcefulness of his weeping, a poignant detail that adds depth and mystery to his character, suggests that, for Brown, fortune has always been tough.  His \"Eastern bride\" of opportunity, also veiled in the hope of a more spiritual salvation, is lost to him before being realized.  Therefore, Brown becomes decrepit, almost without hope, yet has just enough strength and anger at the world to continue to eke his way through it.  Jim may very well have descended to resemble such a character, given his anger and frustration and feeling that he had been cheated of some of his opportunities, but Jim differs from Brown in that Jim was lucky enough to have found helpers in both Marlow and Stein.  Brown had never come upon someone who had had this kind of encouraging faith in his underlying character. Brown is a significant figure, particularly in comparison with Jim and Brierly.  While Brierly had lived the length of his life committed to a particular ideal of honor, his honest recognition of something dishonorable in his heart had led him to commit suicide.  Brown, on the other hand, with little comfort or faith in the world, struggles to survive with as much effort as Brierly had struggled in order to live a life of honor.  These two characters therefore delineate two paths along which a man may live.  Brown's abhorrent character is not unlike that of the crewmen of the Patna, who had leapt from the steamship in an act that privileged personal survival over honor.  The reader, by this point, knows that Jim harbors this element within him, but at the same time desires to live a life of honor and ideals.  The question presented by the events unfolding before the reader is, therefore: what kind of man is Jim; which path is he following? Stein's character is also a mixture of the impulse to survive with the desire to live by ideals.  This tension is expressed by his struggle to begin again--successfully, after the fantastical life of the Malay court falls upon him.  He persists.  Again, however, note that the parallels between Stein's and Jim's situations are often reversed: if this pattern of reversal continues, we might predict that Jim's end will go the opposite way compared with Stein's. Therefore, when Brown arrives in Patusan, a sinister force has arrived: Brown is not there in order to prove himself capable of achieving romantic ideals, but he arrives in need of water and food.  The opposition between the romanticism of Jim and Stein is therefore set against the Darwinian struggle to survive  in Brown . Brown's arrival thus has a profoundly destabilizing effect on the community in Patusan.  Neither Jim nor his influence is present to adequately protect the community.  This lack reveals the degree to which Jim had become the de facto leader, primarily because of his \"racial prestige\" .  Dain Waris is truly \"beloved, trusted, and admired,\" but he remains just one of the natives, in their view.  According to Marlow, in contrast, \"Jim was one of us,\" and by reiterating this statement, Marlow puts Jim in a superior category: that of Western men, men of good character, men who have remained committed to higher, romantic ideals.   Without him, the community does not have such a leader.  Marlow thus accentuates Jim's difference from the community of Patusan, recalling his claim that Jim would always remain a mystery to them. The community has found stability and faith in the presence of a great mystery living amongst them.  Fortune, however, has intervened.  It is only by chance that Jim is not present at Brown's arrival, and the plot line implies that if Dain Waris had not been left to lead, the reaction to Brown might not have been a shower of gunfire, thickening the tension between Patusan and the white newcomers.  When Jim had first arrived, in contrast, he had successfully diffused tensions and avoided conflict and death.  Dain Waris, however, has reacted hastily. Thus the plot thickens: Brown's arrival becomes an opportunity for the less trustworthy characters in Patusan--Rajah, Kassim, and Cornelius--to make their moves."}
text: 'It all begins with a remarkable exploit of a man called Brown, who
  stole with complete success a Spanish schooner out of a small bay near
  Zamboanga. Till I discovered the fellow my information was incomplete,
  but most unexpectedly I did come upon him a few hours before he gave up
  his arrogant ghost. Fortunately he was willing and able to talk between
  the choking fits of asthma, and his racked body writhed with malicious
  exultation at the bare thought of Jim. He exulted thus at the idea that
  he had "paid out the stuck-up beggar after all." He gloated over his
  action. I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce crow-footed eyes if
  I wanted to know; and so I bore it, reflecting how much certain forms
  of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense egoism, inflamed by
  resistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigour to
  the body. The story also reveals unsuspected depths of cunning in the
  wretched Cornelius, whose abject and intense hate acts like a subtle
  inspiration, pointing out an unerring way towards revenge.
  
  '"I could see directly I set my eyes on him what sort of a fool he was,"
  gasped the dying Brown. "He a man! Hell! He was a hollow sham. As if he
  couldn't have said straight out, 'Hands off my plunder!' blast him! That
  would have been like a man! Rot his superior soul! He had me there--but
  he hadn't devil enough in him to make an end of me. Not he! A thing like
  that letting me off as if I wasn't worth a kick! . . ." Brown struggled
  desperately for breath. . . . "Fraud. . . . Letting me off. . . . And
  so I did make an end of him after all. . . ." He choked again. . . . "I
  expect this thing'll kill me, but I shall die easy now. You . . . you
  here . . . I don't know your name--I would give you a five-pound note
  if--if I had it--for the news--or my name's not Brown. . . ." He grinned
  horribly. . . . "Gentleman Brown."
  
  'He said all these things in profound gasps, staring at me with his
  yellow eyes out of a long, ravaged, brown face; he jerked his left arm;
  a pepper-and-salt matted beard hung almost into his lap; a dirty ragged
  blanket covered his legs. I had found him out in Bankok through that
  busybody Schomberg, the hotel-keeper, who had, confidentially, directed
  me where to look. It appears that a sort of loafing, fuddled vagabond--a
  white man living amongst the natives with a Siamese woman--had
  considered it a great privilege to give a shelter to the last days of
  the famous Gentleman Brown. While he was talking to me in the wretched
  hovel, and, as it were, fighting for every minute of his life, the
  Siamese woman, with big bare legs and a stupid coarse face, sat in a
  dark corner chewing betel stolidly. Now and then she would get up for
  the purpose of shooing a chicken away from the door. The whole hut shook
  when she walked. An ugly yellow child, naked and pot-bellied like a
  little heathen god, stood at the foot of the couch, finger in mouth,
  lost in a profound and calm contemplation of the dying man.
  
  'He talked feverishly; but in the middle of a word, perhaps, an
  invisible hand would take him by the throat, and he would look at me
  dumbly with an expression of doubt and anguish. He seemed to fear that
  I would get tired of waiting and go away, leaving him with his tale
  untold, with his exultation unexpressed. He died during the night, I
  believe, but by that time I had nothing more to learn.
  
  'So much as to Brown, for the present.
  
  'Eight months before this, coming into Samarang, I went as usual to see
  Stein. On the garden side of the house a Malay on the verandah greeted
  me shyly, and I remembered that I had seen him in Patusan, in Jim's
  house, amongst other Bugis men who used to come in the evening to talk
  interminably over their war reminiscences and to discuss State affairs.
  Jim had pointed him out to me once as a respectable petty trader owning
  a small seagoing native craft, who had showed himself "one of the best
  at the taking of the stockade." I was not very surprised to see him,
  since any Patusan trader venturing as far as Samarang would naturally
  find his way to Stein's house. I returned his greeting and passed on. At
  the door of Stein's room I came upon another Malay in whom I recognised
  Tamb' Itam.
  
  'I asked him at once what he was doing there; it occurred to me that
  Jim might have come on a visit. I own I was pleased and excited at the
  thought. Tamb' Itam looked as if he did not know what to say. "Is Tuan
  Jim inside?" I asked impatiently. "No," he mumbled, hanging his head
  for a moment, and then with sudden earnestness, "He would not fight. He
  would not fight," he repeated twice. As he seemed unable to say anything
  else, I pushed him aside and went in.
  
  'Stein, tall and stooping, stood alone in the middle of the room between
  the rows of butterfly cases. "Ach! is it you, my friend?" he said
  sadly, peering through his glasses. A drab sack-coat of alpaca hung,
  unbuttoned, down to his knees. He had a Panama hat on his head, and
  there were deep furrows on his pale cheeks. "What's the matter now?"
  I asked nervously. "There's Tamb' Itam there. . . ." "Come and see the
  girl. Come and see the girl. She is here," he said, with a half-hearted
  show of activity. I tried to detain him, but with gentle obstinacy he
  would take no notice of my eager questions. "She is here, she is here,"
  he repeated, in great perturbation. "They came here two days ago. An old
  man like me, a stranger--sehen Sie--cannot do much. . . . Come this way.
  . . . Young hearts are unforgiving. . . ." I could see he was in utmost
  distress. . . . "The strength of life in them, the cruel strength of
  life. . . ." He mumbled, leading me round the house; I followed him,
  lost in dismal and angry conjectures. At the door of the drawing-room he
  barred my way. "He loved her very much," he said interrogatively, and
  I only nodded, feeling so bitterly disappointed that I would not trust
  myself to speak. "Very frightful," he murmured. "She can't understand
  me. I am only a strange old man. Perhaps you . . . she knows you. Talk
  to her. We can't leave it like this. Tell her to forgive him. It was
  very frightful." "No doubt," I said, exasperated at being in the dark;
  "but have you forgiven him?" He looked at me queerly. "You shall hear,"
  he said, and opening the door, absolutely pushed me in.
  
  'You know Stein's big house and the two immense reception-rooms,
  uninhabited and uninhabitable, clean, full of solitude and of shining
  things that look as if never beheld by the eye of man? They are cool
  on the hottest days, and you enter them as you would a scrubbed cave
  underground. I passed through one, and in the other I saw the girl
  sitting at the end of a big mahogany table, on which she rested her
  head, the face hidden in her arms. The waxed floor reflected her dimly
  as though it had been a sheet of frozen water. The rattan screens were
  down, and through the strange greenish gloom made by the foliage of the
  trees outside a strong wind blew in gusts, swaying the long draperies
  of windows and doorways. Her white figure seemed shaped in snow; the
  pendent crystals of a great chandelier clicked above her head like
  glittering icicles. She looked up and watched my approach. I was chilled
  as if these vast apartments had been the cold abode of despair.
  
  'She recognised me at once, and as soon as I had stopped, looking down
  at her: "He has left me," she said quietly; "you always leave us--for
  your own ends." Her face was set. All the heat of life seemed withdrawn
  within some inaccessible spot in her breast. "It would have been easy to
  die with him," she went on, and made a slight weary gesture as if giving
  up the incomprehensible. "He would not! It was like a blindness--and yet
  it was I who was speaking to him; it was I who stood before his eyes;
  it was at me that he looked all the time! Ah! you are hard, treacherous,
  without truth, without compassion. What makes you so wicked? Or is it
  that you are all mad?"
  
  'I took her hand; it did not respond, and when I dropped it, it hung
  down to the floor. That indifference, more awful than tears, cries, and
  reproaches, seemed to defy time and consolation. You felt that nothing
  you could say would reach the seat of the still and benumbing pain.
  
  'Stein had said, "You shall hear." I did hear. I heard it all, listening
  with amazement, with awe, to the tones of her inflexible weariness.
  She could not grasp the real sense of what she was telling me, and her
  resentment filled me with pity for her--for him too. I stood rooted to
  the spot after she had finished. Leaning on her arm, she stared with
  hard eyes, and the wind passed in gusts, the crystals kept on clicking
  in the greenish gloom. She went on whispering to herself: "And yet he
  was looking at me! He could see my face, hear my voice, hear my grief!
  When I used to sit at his feet, with my cheek against his knee and his
  hand on my head, the curse of cruelty and madness was already within
  him, waiting for the day. The day came! . . . and before the sun had
  set he could not see me any more--he was made blind and deaf and without
  pity, as you all are. He shall have no tears from me. Never, never. Not
  one tear. I will not! He went away from me as if I had been worse than
  death. He fled as if driven by some accursed thing he had heard or seen
  in his sleep. . . ."
  
  'Her steady eyes seemed to strain after the shape of a man torn out of
  her arms by the strength of a dream. She made no sign to my silent bow.
  I was glad to escape.
  
  'I saw her once again, the same afternoon. On leaving her I had gone
  in search of Stein, whom I could not find indoors; and I wandered out,
  pursued by distressful thoughts, into the gardens, those famous gardens
  of Stein, in which you can find every plant and tree of tropical
  lowlands. I followed the course of the canalised stream, and sat for
  a long time on a shaded bench near the ornamental pond, where some
  waterfowl with clipped wings were diving and splashing noisily. The
  branches of casuarina trees behind me swayed lightly, incessantly,
  reminding me of the soughing of fir trees at home.
  
  'This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my
  meditations. She had said he had been driven away from her by a
  dream,--and there was no answer one could make her--there seemed to be
  no forgiveness for such a transgression. And yet is not mankind itself,
  pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and
  its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive
  devotion? And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?
  
  'When I rose to get back to the house I caught sight of Stein's drab
  coat through a gap in the foliage, and very soon at a turn of the path
  I came upon him walking with the girl. Her little hand rested on his
  forearm, and under the broad, flat rim of his Panama hat he bent over
  her, grey-haired, paternal, with compassionate and chivalrous deference.
  I stood aside, but they stopped, facing me. His gaze was bent on the
  ground at his feet; the girl, erect and slight on his arm, stared
  sombrely beyond my shoulder with black, clear, motionless eyes.
  "Schrecklich," he murmured. "Terrible! Terrible! What can one do?" He
  seemed to be appealing to me, but her youth, the length of the days
  suspended over her head, appealed to me more; and suddenly, even as I
  realised that nothing could be said, I found myself pleading his cause
  for her sake. "You must forgive him," I concluded, and my own voice
  seemed to me muffled, lost in un irresponsive deaf immensity. "We all
  want to be forgiven," I added after a while.
  
  '"What have I done?" she asked with her lips only.
  
  '"You always mistrusted him," I said.
  
  '"He was like the others," she pronounced slowly.
  
  '"Not like the others," I protested, but she continued evenly, without
  any feeling--
  
  '"He was false." And suddenly Stein broke in. "No! no! no! My poor
  child! . . ." He patted her hand lying passively on his sleeve. "No! no!
  Not false! True! True! True!" He tried to look into her stony face. "You
  don't understand. Ach! Why you do not understand? . . . Terrible," he
  said to me. "Some day she _shall_ understand."
  
  '"Will you explain?" I asked, looking hard at him. They moved on.
  
  'I watched them. Her gown trailed on the path, her black hair fell
  loose. She walked upright and light by the side of the tall man, whose
  long shapeless coat hung in perpendicular folds from the stooping
  shoulders, whose feet moved slowly. They disappeared beyond that
  spinney (you may remember) where sixteen different kinds of bamboo grow
  together, all distinguishable to the learned eye. For my part, I was
  fascinated by the exquisite grace and beauty of that fluted grove,
  crowned with pointed leaves and feathery heads, the lightness, the
  vigour, the charm as distinct as a voice of that unperplexed luxuriating
  life. I remember staying to look at it for a long time, as one would
  linger within reach of a consoling whisper. The sky was pearly grey. It
  was one of those overcast days so rare in the tropics, in which memories
  crowd upon one, memories of other shores, of other faces.
  
  'I drove back to town the same afternoon, taking with me Tamb' Itam
  and the other Malay, in whose seagoing craft they had escaped in the
  bewilderment, fear, and gloom of the disaster. The shock of it seemed to
  have changed their natures. It had turned her passion into stone, and
  it made the surly taciturn Tamb' Itam almost loquacious. His surliness,
  too, was subdued into puzzled humility, as though he had seen the
  failure of a potent charm in a supreme moment. The Bugis trader, a shy
  hesitating man, was very clear in the little he had to say. Both were
  evidently over-awed by a sense of deep inexpressible wonder, by the
  touch of an inscrutable mystery.'
  
  There with Marlow's signature the letter proper ended. The privileged
  reader screwed up his lamp, and solitary above the billowy roofs of the
  town, like a lighthouse-keeper above the sea, he turned to the pages of
  the story.
  
  'It all begins, as I've told you, with the man called Brown,' ran the
  opening sentence of Marlow's narrative. 'You who have knocked about the
  Western Pacific must have heard of him. He was the show ruffian on the
  Australian coast--not that he was often to be seen there, but because
  he was always trotted out in the stories of lawless life a visitor from
  home is treated to; and the mildest of these stories which were told
  about him from Cape York to Eden Bay was more than enough to hang a man
  if told in the right place. They never failed to let you know, too,
  that he was supposed to be the son of a baronet. Be it as it may, it is
  certain he had deserted from a home ship in the early gold-digging days,
  and in a few years became talked about as the terror of this or that
  group of islands in Polynesia. He would kidnap natives, he would strip
  some lonely white trader to the very pyjamas he stood in, and after he
  had robbed the poor devil, he would as likely as not invite him to fight
  a duel with shot-guns on the beach--which would have been fair enough
  as these things go, if the other man hadn't been by that time already
  half-dead with fright. Brown was a latter-day buccaneer, sorry enough,
  like his more celebrated prototypes; but what distinguished him from
  his contemporary brother ruffians, like Bully Hayes or the mellifluous
  Pease, or that perfumed, Dundreary-whiskered, dandified scoundrel known
  as Dirty Dick, was the arrogant temper of his misdeeds and a vehement
  scorn for mankind at large and for his victims in particular. The
  others were merely vulgar and greedy brutes, but he seemed moved by some
  complex intention. He would rob a man as if only to demonstrate his poor
  opinion of the creature, and he would bring to the shooting or maiming
  of some quiet, unoffending stranger a savage and vengeful earnestness
  fit to terrify the most reckless of desperadoes. In the days of his
  greatest glory he owned an armed barque, manned by a mixed crew of
  Kanakas and runaway whalers, and boasted, I don't know with what truth,
  of being financed on the quiet by a most respectable firm of copra
  merchants. Later on he ran off--it was reported--with the wife of a
  missionary, a very young girl from Clapham way, who had married the
  mild, flat-footed fellow in a moment of enthusiasm, and, suddenly
  transplanted to Melanesia, lost her bearings somehow. It was a dark
  story. She was ill at the time he carried her off, and died on board his
  ship. It is said--as the most wonderful put of the tale--that over her
  body he gave way to an outburst of sombre and violent grief. His luck
  left him, too, very soon after. He lost his ship on some rocks off
  Malaita, and disappeared for a time as though he had gone down with her.
  He is heard of next at Nuka-Hiva, where he bought an old French schooner
  out of Government service. What creditable enterprise he might have had
  in view when he made that purchase I can't say, but it is evident that
  what with High Commissioners, consuls, men-of-war, and international
  control, the South Seas were getting too hot to hold gentlemen of his
  kidney. Clearly he must have shifted the scene of his operations farther
  west, because a year later he plays an incredibly audacious, but not a
  very profitable part, in a serio-comic business in Manila Bay, in which
  a peculating governor and an absconding treasurer are the principal
  figures; thereafter he seems to have hung around the Philippines in his
  rotten schooner battling with un adverse fortune, till at last, running
  his appointed course, he sails into Jim's history, a blind accomplice of
  the Dark Powers.
  
  'His tale goes that when a Spanish patrol cutter captured him he was
  simply trying to run a few guns for the insurgents. If so, then I can't
  understand what he was doing off the south coast of Mindanao. My belief,
  however, is that he was blackmailing the native villages along the
  coast. The principal thing is that the cutter, throwing a guard on
  board, made him sail in company towards Zamboanga. On the way, for some
  reason or other, both vessels had to call at one of these new Spanish
  settlements--which never came to anything in the end--where there was
  not only a civil official in charge on shore, but a good stout coasting
  schooner lying at anchor in the little bay; and this craft, in every way
  much better than his own, Brown made up his mind to steal.
  
  'He was down on his luck--as he told me himself. The world he had
  bullied for twenty years with fierce, aggressive disdain, had yielded
  him nothing in the way of material advantage except a small bag of
  silver dollars, which was concealed in his cabin so that "the devil
  himself couldn't smell it out." And that was all--absolutely all. He
  was tired of his life, and not afraid of death. But this man, who would
  stake his existence on a whim with a bitter and jeering recklessness,
  stood in mortal fear of imprisonment. He had an unreasoning cold-sweat,
  nerve-shaking, blood-to-water-turning sort of horror at the bare
  possibility of being locked up--the sort of terror a superstitious man
  would feel at the thought of being embraced by a spectre. Therefore the
  civil official who came on board to make a preliminary investigation
  into the capture, investigated arduously all day long, and only went
  ashore after dark, muffled up in a cloak, and taking great care not to
  let Brown's little all clink in its bag. Afterwards, being a man of his
  word, he contrived (the very next evening, I believe) to send off
  the Government cutter on some urgent bit of special service. As her
  commander could not spare a prize crew, he contented himself by taking
  away before he left all the sails of Brown's schooner to the very last
  rag, and took good care to tow his two boats on to the beach a couple of
  miles off.
  
  'But in Brown's crew there was a Solomon Islander, kidnapped in his
  youth and devoted to Brown, who was the best man of the whole gang. That
  fellow swam off to the coaster--five hundred yards or so--with the end
  of a warp made up of all the running gear unrove for the purpose. The
  water was smooth, and the bay dark, "like the inside of a cow," as Brown
  described it. The Solomon Islander clambered over the bulwarks with the
  end of the rope in his teeth. The crew of the coaster--all Tagals--were
  ashore having a jollification in the native village. The two shipkeepers
  left on board woke up suddenly and saw the devil. It had glittering eyes
  and leaped quick as lightning about the deck. They fell on their knees,
  paralysed with fear, crossing themselves and mumbling prayers. With
  a long knife he found in the caboose the Solomon Islander, without
  interrupting their orisons, stabbed first one, then the other; with the
  same knife he set to sawing patiently at the coir cable till suddenly it
  parted under the blade with a splash. Then in the silence of the bay
  he let out a cautious shout, and Brown's gang, who meantime had been
  peering and straining their hopeful ears in the darkness, began to
  pull gently at their end of the warp. In less than five minutes the two
  schooners came together with a slight shock and a creak of spars.
  
  'Brown's crowd transferred themselves without losing an instant, taking
  with them their firearms and a large supply of ammunition. They were
  sixteen in all: two runaway blue-jackets, a lanky deserter from a Yankee
  man-of-war, a couple of simple, blond Scandinavians, a mulatto of sorts,
  one bland Chinaman who cooked--and the rest of the nondescript spawn
  of the South Seas. None of them cared; Brown bent them to his will, and
  Brown, indifferent to gallows, was running away from the spectre of
  a Spanish prison. He didn't give them the time to trans-ship enough
  provisions; the weather was calm, the air was charged with dew, and when
  they cast off the ropes and set sail to a faint off-shore draught there
  was no flutter in the damp canvas; their old schooner seemed to detach
  itself gently from the stolen craft and slip away silently, together
  with the black mass of the coast, into the night.
  
  'They got clear away. Brown related to me in detail their passage down
  the Straits of Macassar. It is a harrowing and desperate story. They
  were short of food and water; they boarded several native craft and got
  a little from each. With a stolen ship Brown did not dare to put into
  any port, of course. He had no money to buy anything, no papers to show,
  and no lie plausible enough to get him out again. An Arab barque, under
  the Dutch flag, surprised one night at anchor off Poulo Laut, yielded a
  little dirty rice, a bunch of bananas, and a cask of water; three days
  of squally, misty weather from the north-east shot the schooner across
  the Java Sea. The yellow muddy waves drenched that collection of hungry
  ruffians. They sighted mail-boats moving on their appointed routes;
  passed well-found home ships with rusty iron sides anchored in the
  shallow sea waiting for a change of weather or the turn of the tide; an
  English gunboat, white and trim, with two slim masts, crossed their bows
  one day in the distance; and on another occasion a Dutch corvette, black
  and heavily sparred, loomed up on their quarter, steaming dead slow
  in the mist. They slipped through unseen or disregarded, a wan,
  sallow-faced band of utter outcasts, enraged with hunger and hunted by
  fear. Brown's idea was to make for Madagascar, where he expected, on
  grounds not altogether illusory, to sell the schooner in Tamatave, and
  no questions asked, or perhaps obtain some more or less forged papers
  for her. Yet before he could face the long passage across the Indian
  Ocean food was wanted--water too.
  
  'Perhaps he had heard of Patusan--or perhaps he just only happened to
  see the name written in small letters on the chart--probably that of a
  largish village up a river in a native state, perfectly defenceless, far
  from the beaten tracks of the sea and from the ends of submarine cables.
  He had done that kind of thing before--in the way of business;
  and this now was an absolute necessity, a question of life and
  death--or rather of liberty. Of liberty! He was sure to get
  provisions--bullocks--rice--sweet-potatoes. The sorry gang licked
  their chops. A cargo of produce for the schooner perhaps could be
  extorted--and, who knows?--some real ringing coined money! Some of these
  chiefs and village headmen can be made to part freely. He told me he
  would have roasted their toes rather than be baulked. I believe him. His
  men believed him too. They didn't cheer aloud, being a dumb pack, but
  made ready wolfishly.
  
  'Luck served him as to weather. A few days of calm would have brought
  unmentionable horrors on board that schooner, but with the help of land
  and sea breezes, in less than a week after clearing the Sunda Straits,
  he anchored off the Batu Kring mouth within a pistol-shot of the fishing
  village.
  
  'Fourteen of them packed into the schooner's long-boat (which was big,
  having been used for cargo-work) and started up the river, while two
  remained in charge of the schooner with food enough to keep starvation
  off for ten days. The tide and wind helped, and early one afternoon the
  big white boat under a ragged sail shouldered its way before the sea
  breeze into Patusan Reach, manned by fourteen assorted scarecrows
  glaring hungrily ahead, and fingering the breech-blocks of cheap rifles.
  Brown calculated upon the terrifying surprise of his appearance. They
  sailed in with the last of the flood; the Rajah's stockade gave no sign;
  the first houses on both sides of the stream seemed deserted. A few
  canoes were seen up the reach in full flight. Brown was astonished at
  the size of the place. A profound silence reigned. The wind dropped
  between the houses; two oars were got out and the boat held on
  up-stream, the idea being to effect a lodgment in the centre of the town
  before the inhabitants could think of resistance.
  
  'It seems, however, that the headman of the fishing village at Batu
  Kring had managed to send off a timely warning. When the long-boat came
  abreast of the mosque (which Doramin had built: a structure with gables
  and roof finials of carved coral) the open space before it was full of
  people. A shout went up, and was followed by a clash of gongs all up the
  river. From a point above two little brass 6-pounders were discharged,
  and the round-shot came skipping down the empty reach, spurting
  glittering jets of water in the sunshine. In front of the mosque a
  shouting lot of men began firing in volleys that whipped athwart the
  current of the river; an irregular, rolling fusillade was opened on the
  boat from both banks, and Brown's men replied with a wild, rapid fire.
  The oars had been got in.
  
  'The turn of the tide at high water comes on very quickly in that river,
  and the boat in mid-stream, nearly hidden in smoke, began to drift back
  stern foremost. Along both shores the smoke thickened also, lying below
  the roofs in a level streak as you may see a long cloud cutting the
  slope of a mountain. A tumult of war-cries, the vibrating clang
  of gongs, the deep snoring of drums, yells of rage, crashes of
  volley-firing, made an awful din, in which Brown sat confounded but
  steady at the tiller, working himself into a fury of hate and rage
  against those people who dared to defend themselves. Two of his men
  had been wounded, and he saw his retreat cut off below the town by some
  boats that had put off from Tunku Allang's stockade. There were six of
  them, full of men. While he was thus beset he perceived the entrance of
  the narrow creek (the same which Jim had jumped at low water). It was
  then brim full. Steering the long-boat in, they landed, and, to make a
  long story short, they established themselves on a little knoll about
  900 yards from the stockade, which, in fact, they commanded from that
  position. The slopes of the knoll were bare, but there were a few trees
  on the summit. They went to work cutting these down for a breastwork,
  and were fairly intrenched before dark; meantime the Rajah's boats
  remained in the river with curious neutrality. When the sun set the glue
  of many brushwood blazes lighted on the river-front, and between the
  double line of houses on the land side threw into black relief the
  roofs, the groups of slender palms, the heavy clumps of fruit trees.
  Brown ordered the grass round his position to be fired; a low ring of
  thin flames under the slow ascending smoke wriggled rapidly down the
  slopes of the knoll; here and there a dry bush caught with a tall,
  vicious roar. The conflagration made a clear zone of fire for the rifles
  of the small party, and expired smouldering on the edge of the forests
  and along the muddy bank of the creek. A strip of jungle luxuriating in
  a damp hollow between the knoll and the Rajah's stockade stopped it
  on that side with a great crackling and detonations of bursting bamboo
  stems. The sky was sombre, velvety, and swarming with stars. The
  blackened ground smoked quietly with low creeping wisps, till a little
  breeze came on and blew everything away. Brown expected an attack to
  be delivered as soon as the tide had flowed enough again to enable the
  war-boats which had cut off his retreat to enter the creek. At any rate
  he was sure there would be an attempt to carry off his long-boat,
  which lay below the hill, a dark high lump on the feeble sheen of a wet
  mud-flat. But no move of any sort was made by the boats in the river.
  Over the stockade and the Rajah's buildings Brown saw their lights on
  the water. They seemed to be anchored across the stream. Other lights
  afloat were moving in the reach, crossing and recrossing from side to
  side. There were also lights twinkling motionless upon the long walls of
  houses up the reach, as far as the bend, and more still beyond, others
  isolated inland. The loom of the big fires disclosed buildings, roofs,
  black piles as far as he could see. It was an immense place. The
  fourteen desperate invaders lying flat behind the felled trees raised
  their chins to look over at the stir of that town that seemed to extend
  up-river for miles and swarm with thousands of angry men. They did not
  speak to each other. Now and then they would hear a loud yell, or a
  single shot rang out, fired very far somewhere. But round their position
  everything was still, dark, silent. They seemed to be forgotten, as if
  the excitement keeping awake all the population had nothing to do with
  them, as if they had been dead already.'
  'All the events of that night have a great importance, since they
  brought about a situation which remained unchanged till Jim's return.
  Jim had been away in the interior for more than a week, and it was Dain
  Waris who had directed the first repulse. That brave and intelligent
  youth ("who knew how to fight after the manner of white men") wished to
  settle the business off-hand, but his people were too much for him.
  He had not Jim's racial prestige and the reputation of invincible,
  supernatural power. He was not the visible, tangible incarnation of
  unfailing truth and of unfailing victory. Beloved, trusted, and
  admired as he was, he was still one of _them_, while Jim was one of
  us. Moreover, the white man, a tower of strength in himself, was
  invulnerable, while Dain Waris could be killed. Those unexpressed
  thoughts guided the opinions of the chief men of the town, who elected
  to assemble in Jim's fort for deliberation upon the emergency, as if
  expecting to find wisdom and courage in the dwelling of the absent white
  man. The shooting of Brown's ruffians was so far good, or lucky, that
  there had been half-a-dozen casualties amongst the defenders. The
  wounded were lying on the verandah tended by their women-folk. The women
  and children from the lower part of the town had been sent into the
  fort at the first alarm. There Jewel was in command, very efficient and
  high-spirited, obeyed by Jim's "own people," who, quitting in a body
  their little settlement under the stockade, had gone in to form the
  garrison. The refugees crowded round her; and through the whole affair,
  to the very disastrous last, she showed an extraordinary martial ardour.
  It was to her that Dain Waris had gone at once at the first intelligence
  of danger, for you must know that Jim was the only one in Patusan who
  possessed a store of gunpowder. Stein, with whom he had kept up intimate
  relations by letters, had obtained from the Dutch Government a special
  authorisation to export five hundred kegs of it to Patusan. The
  powder-magazine was a small hut of rough logs covered entirely with
  earth, and in Jim's absence the girl had the key. In the council, held
  at eleven o'clock in the evening in Jim's dining-room, she backed up
  Waris's advice for immediate and vigorous action. I am told that she
  stood up by the side of Jim's empty chair at the head of the long table
  and made a warlike impassioned speech, which for the moment extorted
  murmurs of approbation from the assembled headmen. Old Doramin, who had
  not showed himself outside his own gate for more than a year, had been
  brought across with great difficulty. He was, of course, the chief man
  there. The temper of the council was very unforgiving, and the old man's
  word would have been decisive; but it is my opinion that, well aware of
  his son's fiery courage, he dared not pronounce the word. More dilatory
  counsels prevailed. A certain Haji Saman pointed out at great length
  that "these tyrannical and ferocious men had delivered themselves to
  a certain death in any case. They would stand fast on their hill and
  starve, or they would try to regain their boat and be shot from ambushes
  across the creek, or they would break and fly into the forest and perish
  singly there." He argued that by the use of proper stratagems these
  evil-minded strangers could be destroyed without the risk of a battle,
  and his words had a great weight, especially with the Patusan men
  proper. What unsettled the minds of the townsfolk was the failure of
  the Rajah's boats to act at the decisive moment. It was the diplomatic
  Kassim who represented the Rajah at the council. He spoke very little,
  listened smilingly, very friendly and impenetrable. During the sitting
  messengers kept arriving every few minutes almost, with reports of the
  invaders' proceedings. Wild and exaggerated rumours were flying: there
  was a large ship at the mouth of the river with big guns and many more
  men--some white, others with black skins and of bloodthirsty appearance.
  They were coming with many more boats to exterminate every living thing.
  A sense of near, incomprehensible danger affected the common people.
  At one moment there was a panic in the courtyard amongst the women;
  shrieking; a rush; children crying--Haji Sunan went out to quiet them.
  Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly
  killed a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe together with
  the best of his domestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused more
  confusion. Meantime the palaver inside Jim's house went on in the
  presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced, heavy, looking at the
  speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. He didn't speak till
  the last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah's boats would be
  called in because the men were required to defend his master's stockade.
  Dain Waris in his father's presence would offer no opinion, though the
  girl entreated him in Jim's name to speak out. She offered him Jim's own
  men in her anxiety to have these intruders driven out at once. He only
  shook his head, after a glance or two at Doramin. Finally, when the
  council broke up it had been decided that the houses nearest the creek
  should be strongly occupied to obtain the command of the enemy's boat.
  The boat itself was not to be interfered with openly, so that the
  robbers on the hill should be tempted to embark, when a well-directed
  fire would kill most of them, no doubt. To cut off the escape of those
  who might survive, and to prevent more of them coming up, Dain Waris was
  ordered by Doramin to take an armed party of Bugis down the river to a
  certain spot ten miles below Patusan, and there form a camp on the shore
  and blockade the stream with the canoes. I don't believe for a moment
  that Doramin feared the arrival of fresh forces. My opinion is that his
  conduct was guided solely by his wish to keep his son out of harm's
  way. To prevent a rush being made into the town the construction of a
  stockade was to be commenced at daylight at the end of the street on
  the left bank. The old nakhoda declared his intention to command there
  himself. A distribution of powder, bullets, and percussion-caps was made
  immediately under the girl's supervision. Several messengers were to be
  dispatched in different directions after Jim, whose exact whereabouts
  were unknown. These men started at dawn, but before that time Kassim had
  managed to open communications with the besieged Brown.
  
  'That accomplished diplomatist and confidant of the Rajah, on leaving
  the fort to go back to his master, took into his boat Cornelius, whom he
  found slinking mutely amongst the people in the courtyard. Kassim had a
  little plan of his own and wanted him for an interpreter. Thus it came
  about that towards morning Brown, reflecting upon the desperate nature
  of his position, heard from the marshy overgrown hollow an amicable,
  quavering, strained voice crying--in English--for permission to come up,
  under a promise of personal safety and on a very important errand. He
  was overjoyed. If he was spoken to he was no longer a hunted wild beast.
  These friendly sounds took off at once the awful stress of vigilant
  watchfulness as of so many blind men not knowing whence the deathblow
  might come. He pretended a great reluctance. The voice declared itself
  "a white man--a poor, ruined, old man who had been living here for
  years." A mist, wet and chilly, lay on the slopes of the hill, and after
  some more shouting from one to the other, Brown called out, "Come on,
  then, but alone, mind!" As a matter of fact--he told me, writhing with
  rage at the recollection of his helplessness--it made no difference.
  They couldn't see more than a few yards before them, and no treachery
  could make their position worse. By-and-by Cornelius, in his
  week-day attire of a ragged dirty shirt and pants, barefooted, with a
  broken-rimmed pith hat on his head, was made out vaguely, sidling up to
  the defences, hesitating, stopping to listen in a peering posture. "Come
  along! You are safe," yelled Brown, while his men stared. All their
  hopes of life became suddenly centered in that dilapidated, mean
  newcomer, who in profound silence clambered clumsily over a felled
  tree-trunk, and shivering, with his sour, mistrustful face, looked about
  at the knot of bearded, anxious, sleepless desperadoes.
  
  'Half an hour's confidential talk with Cornelius opened Brown's eyes as
  to the home affairs of Patusan. He was on the alert at once. There were
  possibilities, immense possibilities; but before he would talk over
  Cornelius's proposals he demanded that some food should be sent up as
  a guarantee of good faith. Cornelius went off, creeping sluggishly down
  the hill on the side of the Rajah's palace, and after some delay a
  few of Tunku Allang's men came up, bringing a scanty supply of rice,
  chillies, and dried fish. This was immeasurably better than nothing.
  Later on Cornelius returned accompanying Kassim, who stepped out with
  an air of perfect good-humoured trustfulness, in sandals, and muffled
  up from neck to ankles in dark-blue sheeting. He shook hands with Brown
  discreetly, and the three drew aside for a conference. Brown's men,
  recovering their confidence, were slapping each other on the back, and
  cast knowing glances at their captain while they busied themselves with
  preparations for cooking.
  
  'Kassim disliked Doramin and his Bugis very much, but he hated the new
  order of things still more. It had occurred to him that these whites,
  together with the Rajah's followers, could attack and defeat the
  Bugis before Jim's return. Then, he reasoned, general defection of
  the townsfolk was sure to follow, and the reign of the white man who
  protected poor people would be over. Afterwards the new allies could be
  dealt with. They would have no friends. The fellow was perfectly able to
  perceive the difference of character, and had seen enough of white men
  to know that these newcomers were outcasts, men without country.
  Brown preserved a stern and inscrutable demeanour. When he first heard
  Cornelius's voice demanding admittance, it brought merely the hope of a
  loophole for escape. In less than an hour other thoughts were seething
  in his head. Urged by an extreme necessity, he had come there to steal
  food, a few tons of rubber or gum may be, perhaps a handful of dollars,
  and had found himself enmeshed by deadly dangers. Now in consequence
  of these overtures from Kassim he began to think of stealing the whole
  country. Some confounded fellow had apparently accomplished something of
  the kind--single-handed at that. Couldn't have done it very well though.
  Perhaps they could work together--squeeze everything dry and then go out
  quietly. In the course of his negotiations with Kassim he became aware
  that he was supposed to have a big ship with plenty of men outside.
  Kassim begged him earnestly to have this big ship with his many guns and
  men brought up the river without delay for the Rajah's service. Brown
  professed himself willing, and on this basis the negotiation was carried
  on with mutual distrust. Three times in the course of the morning the
  courteous and active Kassim went down to consult the Rajah and came up
  busily with his long stride. Brown, while bargaining, had a sort of grim
  enjoyment in thinking of his wretched schooner, with nothing but a heap
  of dirt in her hold, that stood for an armed ship, and a Chinaman and
  a lame ex-beachcomber of Levuka on board, who represented all his many
  men. In the afternoon he obtained further doles of food, a promise
  of some money, and a supply of mats for his men to make shelters
  for themselves. They lay down and snored, protected from the burning
  sunshine; but Brown, sitting fully exposed on one of the felled trees,
  feasted his eyes upon the view of the town and the river. There was much
  loot there. Cornelius, who had made himself at home in the camp, talked
  at his elbow, pointing out the localities, imparting advice, giving his
  own version of Jim's character, and commenting in his own fashion upon
  the events of the last three years. Brown, who, apparently indifferent
  and gazing away, listened with attention to every word, could not make
  out clearly what sort of man this Jim could be. "What's his name?
  Jim! Jim! That's not enough for a man's name." "They call him," said
  Cornelius scornfully, "Tuan Jim here. As you may say Lord Jim." "What is
  he? Where does he come from?" inquired Brown. "What sort of man is he?
  Is he an Englishman?" "Yes, yes, he's an Englishman. I am an Englishman
  too. From Malacca. He is a fool. All you have to do is to kill him and
  then you are king here. Everything belongs to him," explained Cornelius.
  "It strikes me he may be made to share with somebody before very long,"
  commented Brown half aloud. "No, no. The proper way is to kill him the
  first chance you get, and then you can do what you like," Cornelius
  would insist earnestly. "I have lived for many years here, and I am
  giving you a friend's advice."
  
  'In such converse and in gloating over the view of Patusan, which he had
  determined in his mind should become his prey, Brown whiled away most
  of the afternoon, his men, meantime, resting. On that day Dain Waris's
  fleet of canoes stole one by one under the shore farthest from the
  creek, and went down to close the river against his retreat. Of this
  Brown was not aware, and Kassim, who came up the knoll an hour before
  sunset, took good care not to enlighten him. He wanted the white
  man's ship to come up the river, and this news, he feared, would be
  discouraging. He was very pressing with Brown to send the "order,"
  offering at the same time a trusty messenger, who for greater secrecy
  (as he explained) would make his way by land to the mouth of the river
  and deliver the "order" on board. After some reflection Brown judged
  it expedient to tear a page out of his pocket-book, on which he simply
  wrote, "We are getting on. Big job. Detain the man." The stolid youth
  selected by Kassim for that service performed it faithfully, and was
  rewarded by being suddenly tipped, head first, into the schooner's empty
  hold by the ex-beachcomber and the Chinaman, who thereupon hastened to
  put on the hatches. What became of him afterwards Brown did not say.'
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 37-39
target: The story resumes in Marlow's written form. Marlow explains in his letter that he encountered a man named Brown at the direction of Schomberg . Brown is more than ready to tell his tale. He is a suspicious character, a thief, and a kind of figure of evil. The narrative then cuts back in time, creating additional suspense. Eight months prior to this encounter with Brown in Bangkok, Marlow had gone to visit Stein at his home, where he had found Tamb' Itam, Jim's Malay servant. Marlow had hoped that Jim was not far away, but the Malay had said quietly, "He would not fight" . Stein had appeared and told Marlow that the girl Jewel was also there, and that the two had arrived two days earlier. Jewel had said to Marlow, "He has left me" . She spoke in grief and shock. "He is false!" she cried. Stein protested: "True!" . The shock of the events "seems to have changed their natures. It had turned her passion into stone" . Tamb' Itam and the Malay boat-driver who had helped them to escape were both "over-awed by a sense of deep, inexpressible wonder, by the touch of an inscrutable mystery," echoing Marlow's own statement to Jim that Jim would always remain a mystery to them . The letter concludes with Marlow's signature. Now, the "privileged reader" is able to focus on the "story" that Marlow has written of the last events. Brown has led a lawless life as a virtual "latter-day buccaneer." The story went, apparently, that Brown had once run off with the wife of a missionary, a very young girl, who had died of fever on board the ship. The girl had hoped to make a great conversion in the name of her husband. When she died, Brown had wept violently. His shipmate always comments on that scene. Brown had lost his ship on the rocks. Soon after, Brown stole a schooner. His best man, a devoted Solomon Islander, killed two shipkeepers with a long knife, and Brown's sixteen men all rushed off to sea. They planned to cross the Indian Ocean, but were low on supplies and, out of the need to replenish their water and food, headed for Patusan. The big white boat carried the "assorted scarecrows" to the Patusan Reach, whence fourteen of them took to the river in a small boat. The headman of the fishing village, by this time, sent a warning to the town, and, when Brown's men arrived to see the flourishing community, shouting men fired from the mosque. There were armed men in the river, blocking their retreat. The natives fired, and Brown's men fired in reply. Brown saw the entrance to a narrow creek and established his men in the little knoll near the Rajah's stockade. As the sun set, they cut down the few trees for protection, and Brown lay on his back, in awe at the immensity of the place. Brown's story turns to consider Jim's absence, although he has not yet met the man. Jim has been gone in the interior for more than a week, while Dain Waris has been leading the fight in his absence. Dain Waris, significantly, is not Jim: "He was not the visible, tangible incarnation of unfailing truth and of unfailing victory" . Dain Waris fails to compare favorably with Jim's mythical stature. Jim is the one everyone believes cannot die. He holds the store of gunpowder in Patusan, supplied by Stein, and Jewel takes charge as they wait. The council gathers at Doramin's, and the townspeople are disturbed that the Rajah's boat did not act when it could have. Kassim, the Rajah's diplomat at the meeting, is unreadable. Rumors fly about a large ship and many men. The danger of panic is in the air, and Doramin orders Dain Waris to take an armed party down the river, to make a camp and to blockade the stream with canoes. Doramin seems motivated most by a desire to keep his son out of harm's way. Kassim goes into open communication with Brown, taking Cornelius with him to serve as interpreter. Brown, overjoyed to hear English words, demands food as a guarantee of good faith. The Rajah sends them rice, chillies, and dried fish. It becomes clear that Kassim intends to double-deal, however, given his unhappiness with the order of things and with Jim's power, and given his dislike for Doramin. He asks Brown to quickly send for his big ship and many men, and then to attack and defeat the Bugis settlement before Jim's return. This is where Brown hears about Jim for the first time. He hears the story of Jim's accomplishments, how the whole area is basically his. Brown begins to get the idea of accomplishing something of the same. Cornelius urges him to kill Jim at the first opportunity. The men doze on the stockade, and Brown gazes greedily. Kassim presses Brown for his ship again, and Brown writes the message, "We are getting on. Big job. Detain the man." He sends this message to his two remaining men on the schooner.
feat_summary_analysis: Marlow's letter to the "privileged reader" provides his sources for the conclusion of the events that help him understand his subject, Jim.  First, he describes a man named Brown, who had communicated his part in the story to Marlow in Bangkok.  Second, upon a visit to see Stein, Marlow finds Tamb' Itam, who is Jim's servant, and Jewel.  From these three characters, along with his own imagination and understanding, Marlow builds the conclusion to the story. Brown's character presents a foil against both Stein's and Jim's romantically charmed lives, particularly by way of the woman he is associated with.  She is a missionary's wife who dies of fever, like Stein's wife and daughter.  For Brown, however, the woman dies quickly, before there is a chance for Brown to know happiness.  The forcefulness of his weeping, a poignant detail that adds depth and mystery to his character, suggests that, for Brown, fortune has always been tough.  His "Eastern bride" of opportunity, also veiled in the hope of a more spiritual salvation, is lost to him before being realized.  Therefore, Brown becomes decrepit, almost without hope, yet has just enough strength and anger at the world to continue to eke his way through it.  Jim may very well have descended to resemble such a character, given his anger and frustration and feeling that he had been cheated of some of his opportunities, but Jim differs from Brown in that Jim was lucky enough to have found helpers in both Marlow and Stein.  Brown had never come upon someone who had had this kind of encouraging faith in his underlying character. Brown is a significant figure, particularly in comparison with Jim and Brierly.  While Brierly had lived the length of his life committed to a particular ideal of honor, his honest recognition of something dishonorable in his heart had led him to commit suicide.  Brown, on the other hand, with little comfort or faith in the world, struggles to survive with as much effort as Brierly had struggled in order to live a life of honor.  These two characters therefore delineate two paths along which a man may live.  Brown's abhorrent character is not unlike that of the crewmen of the Patna, who had leapt from the steamship in an act that privileged personal survival over honor.  The reader, by this point, knows that Jim harbors this element within him, but at the same time desires to live a life of honor and ideals.  The question presented by the events unfolding before the reader is, therefore: what kind of man is Jim; which path is he following? Stein's character is also a mixture of the impulse to survive with the desire to live by ideals.  This tension is expressed by his struggle to begin again--successfully, after the fantastical life of the Malay court falls upon him.  He persists.  Again, however, note that the parallels between Stein's and Jim's situations are often reversed: if this pattern of reversal continues, we might predict that Jim's end will go the opposite way compared with Stein's. Therefore, when Brown arrives in Patusan, a sinister force has arrived: Brown is not there in order to prove himself capable of achieving romantic ideals, but he arrives in need of water and food.  The opposition between the romanticism of Jim and Stein is therefore set against the Darwinian struggle to survive  in Brown . Brown's arrival thus has a profoundly destabilizing effect on the community in Patusan.  Neither Jim nor his influence is present to adequately protect the community.  This lack reveals the degree to which Jim had become the de facto leader, primarily because of his "racial prestige" .  Dain Waris is truly "beloved, trusted, and admired," but he remains just one of the natives, in their view.  According to Marlow, in contrast, "Jim was one of us," and by reiterating this statement, Marlow puts Jim in a superior category: that of Western men, men of good character, men who have remained committed to higher, romantic ideals.   Without him, the community does not have such a leader.  Marlow thus accentuates Jim's difference from the community of Patusan, recalling his claim that Jim would always remain a mystery to them. The community has found stability and faith in the presence of a great mystery living amongst them.  Fortune, however, has intervened.  It is only by chance that Jim is not present at Brown's arrival, and the plot line implies that if Dain Waris had not been left to lead, the reaction to Brown might not have been a shower of gunfire, thickening the tension between Patusan and the white newcomers.  When Jim had first arrived, in contrast, he had successfully diffused tensions and avoided conflict and death.  Dain Waris, however, has reacted hastily. Thus the plot thickens: Brown's arrival becomes an opportunity for the less trustworthy characters in Patusan--Rajah, Kassim, and Cornelius--to make their moves.