feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/Lord Jim/section_10_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 39-42
feat_summary_id: chapters 39 - 42
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 39 - 42", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210126121516/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lordjim/section11/", "summary": "Dain Waris leads the initial attack against Gentleman Brown and his men. Unfortunately, he is not able to rally his people effectively enough to rout the pirate, and Jim, who could provide the inspiration and leadership needed, is away in the countryside. A council of war is held, at which everyone's personal motives get in the way of agreement; Doramin wishes to protect his son, and Rajah Allang, who is pretending to cooperate, is secretly working to form an alliance with Brown to bring Jim down. The Rajah's representative contacts Cornelius and arranges for him to serve as a go-between with Brown. Cornelius is a little too persuasive as to the friendliness of the Rajah, the charms of Patusan, and the ease with which he claims Jim can be defeated. Brown decides to stay and fight, not just for supplies and a chance to escape, but to try to seize the territory for himself. Meanwhile, Dain Waris has sent canoes downstream to seal Brown's avenue of escape and reinforcement. Brown dallies with Cornelius and the Rajah, buying time and always intending to double-cross them. One of Brown's men shoots a villager from a great distance. The pirate hopes that this will evoke fear among the people of Patusan, and that they will overestimate his strength. As night falls, one of Brown's men sneaks down to their beached boat to get some tobacco that has been left there. He is not cautious enough, however, and he is shot by a relative of the villager who was killed earlier in the day. Brown and his men have to listen to the dying moans of their comrade for several hours; it is not until the tide comes in, drowning him and carrying him off, that his screams cease. Cornelius and Brown talk again. Drums begin to beat in the village, and fires are lit. Cornelius tells Brown that this is a sign that Jim has returned, and that Jim will surely come to talk to him face to face. He recommends that Brown have one of his men shoot Jim from a position of cover. This action, he says, will give Brown the psychological edge and enable him to defeat the Bugis. The next morning, Jim indeed approaches Brown's stronghold. He and Brown speak warily. Jim asks him what has brought him to Patusan; Brown replies simply, \"Hunger,\" and redirects the question toward Jim. Jim is startled. Brown asks him to remember that they are both white men, and then requests that his men either be ambushed directly or allowed to leave, rather than left to starve and suffer like \"rat in a trap.\" He admits to Jim that his greatest fear is of prison, and that this fear is what has motivated him his entire life, even at this very moment. Marlow, listening to the story at Brown's deathbed, wonders how much of Brown's account is the truth. Jim, bothered by something, says little to Brown, but promises him \"a clear road  or else a clear fight\" and leaves. Cornelius rages at Brown for not shooting Jim when he had the chance. Jim goes directly to Doramin to recommend that Brown be allowed to escape unharmed. Doramin is reluctant. Jim appeals to the people, reminding them that he has never led them wrong. Doramin still hesitates, and Jim declares that, if they are to fight, he will not lead. Dain Waris will have to command.", "analysis": "Commentary Gentleman Brown does the one thing nearly every other character in this novel is afraid to do: he asks Jim what it was that he hoped to gain by coming to Patusan. Brown is honest about his own motives and fears, and Jim realizes that he has been living a lie. Brown speaks the truth about Jim; to have him killed would seem like just another attempt at deceit. In recommending that Brown be let go, Jim does what is honorable for his personal reputation, not what is best for Patusan. In part, Brown defeats Jim by speaking the \"truth\" about him; in part, Jim defeats himself by adhering to a false ideal. In offering to defer to Dain Waris, Jim is exercising the only option available to him that compromises neither himself nor Patusan. No heroic action is possible. Marlow questions the veracity of Brown's account of his conversation with Jim. This is an implicit reminder to the reader to question Marlow's account, to remember that we are receiving the story just as Marlow does--in fragments. More obviously, however, Marlow is upset because Brown has appealed to Jim on the basis of being \"one of us\"; through their conversation runs \"a vein of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption of common experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt. . . \" This, of course, is exactly the foundation on which Marlow has premised his own identification with Jim. Now it seems to link Marlow, through Jim, to Brown. Issues of racial dynamics also arise in this section. Dain Waris is unable to defeat Brown initially because he does not possess the mystique of the white man, according to the narrative. The people of Patusan seem to have a faith in Jim that is naive in the extreme, based solely on his status as a white man. When Jim returns from the countryside, things immediately return to normal despite the continued presence of Brown and his men on the hilltop. On the other hand, it is Cornelius who behaves the most despicably in this section of the novel, and Doramin who will turn out to be right. Also, it is Brown who tells this part of the story, and therefore it is his opinions that we are receiving. Nevertheless, Jim is being asked to choose between the people of Patusan and a fellow white man, and the situation is certainly racially charged."}
text: '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.'
  
  
  'Brown's object was to gain time by fooling with Kassim's diplomacy. For
  doing a real stroke of business he could not help thinking the white man
  was the person to work with. He could not imagine such a chap (who must
  be confoundedly clever after all to get hold of the natives like
  that) refusing a help that would do away with the necessity for slow,
  cautious, risky cheating, that imposed itself as the only possible
  line of conduct for a single-handed man. He, Brown, would offer him
  the power. No man could hesitate. Everything was in coming to a clear
  understanding. Of course they would share. The idea of there being a
  fort--all ready to his hand--a real fort, with artillery (he knew this
  from Cornelius), excited him. Let him only once get in and . . . He
  would impose modest conditions. Not too low, though. The man was no
  fool, it seemed. They would work like brothers till . . . till the time
  came for a quarrel and a shot that would settle all accounts. With grim
  impatience of plunder he wished himself to be talking with the man now.
  The land already seemed to be his to tear to pieces, squeeze, and throw
  away. Meantime Kassim had to be fooled for the sake of food first--and
  for a second string. But the principal thing was to get something to eat
  from day to day. Besides, he was not averse to begin fighting on that
  Rajah's account, and teach a lesson to those people who had received him
  with shots. The lust of battle was upon him.
  
  'I am sorry that I can't give you this part of the story, which of
  course I have mainly from Brown, in Brown's own words. There was in the
  broken, violent speech of that man, unveiling before me his thoughts
  with the very hand of Death upon his throat, an undisguised ruthlessness
  of purpose, a strange vengeful attitude towards his own past, and a
  blind belief in the righteousness of his will against all mankind,
  something of that feeling which could induce the leader of a horde of
  wandering cut-throats to call himself proudly the Scourge of God.
  No doubt the natural senseless ferocity which is the basis of such
  a character was exasperated by failure, ill-luck, and the recent
  privations, as well as by the desperate position in which he found
  himself; but what was most remarkable of all was this, that while he
  planned treacherous alliances, had already settled in his own mind the
  fate of the white man, and intrigued in an overbearing, offhand manner
  with Kassim, one could perceive that what he had really desired, almost
  in spite of himself, was to play havoc with that jungle town which had
  defied him, to see it strewn over with corpses and enveloped in flames.
  Listening to his pitiless, panting voice, I could imagine how he must
  have looked at it from the hillock, peopling it with images of murder
  and rapine. The part nearest to the creek wore an abandoned aspect,
  though as a matter of fact every house concealed a few armed men on the
  alert. Suddenly beyond the stretch of waste ground, interspersed with
  small patches of low dense bush, excavations, heaps of rubbish, with
  trodden paths between, a man, solitary and looking very small, strolled
  out into the deserted opening of the street between the shut-up, dark,
  lifeless buildings at the end. Perhaps one of the inhabitants, who had
  fled to the other bank of the river, coming back for some object of
  domestic use. Evidently he supposed himself quite safe at that distance
  from the hill on the other side of the creek. A light stockade, set up
  hastily, was just round the turn of the street, full of his friends.
  He moved leisurely. Brown saw him, and instantly called to his side the
  Yankee deserter, who acted as a sort of second in command. This lanky,
  loose-jointed fellow came forward, wooden-faced, trailing his rifle
  lazily. When he understood what was wanted from him a homicidal and
  conceited smile uncovered his teeth, making two deep folds down his
  sallow, leathery cheeks. He prided himself on being a dead shot. He
  dropped on one knee, and taking aim from a steady rest through the
  unlopped branches of a felled tree, fired, and at once stood up to look.
  The man, far away, turned his head to the report, made another step
  forward, seemed to hesitate, and abruptly got down on his hands and
  knees. In the silence that fell upon the sharp crack of the rifle, the
  dead shot, keeping his eyes fixed upon the quarry, guessed that "this
  there coon's health would never be a source of anxiety to his friends
  any more." The man's limbs were seen to move rapidly under his body
  in an endeavour to run on all-fours. In that empty space arose a
  multitudinous shout of dismay and surprise. The man sank flat, face
  down, and moved no more. "That showed them what we could do," said Brown
  to me. "Struck the fear of sudden death into them. That was what we
  wanted. They were two hundred to one, and this gave them something to
  think over for the night. Not one of them had an idea of such a long
  shot before. That beggar belonging to the Rajah scooted down-hill with
  his eyes hanging out of his head."
  
  'As he was telling me this he tried with a shaking hand to wipe the thin
  foam on his blue lips. "Two hundred to one. Two hundred to one . . .
  strike terror, . . . terror, terror, I tell you. . . ." His own eyes
  were starting out of their sockets. He fell back, clawing the air with
  skinny fingers, sat up again, bowed and hairy, glared at me sideways
  like some man-beast of folk-lore, with open mouth in his miserable and
  awful agony before he got his speech back after that fit. There are
  sights one never forgets.
  
  'Furthermore, to draw the enemy's fire and locate such parties as
  might have been hiding in the bushes along the creek, Brown ordered the
  Solomon Islander to go down to the boat and bring an oar, as you send a
  spaniel after a stick into the water. This failed, and the fellow came
  back without a single shot having been fired at him from anywhere.
  "There's nobody," opined some of the men. It is "onnatural," remarked
  the Yankee. Kassim had gone, by that time, very much impressed, pleased
  too, and also uneasy. Pursuing his tortuous policy, he had dispatched a
  message to Dain Waris warning him to look out for the white men's
  ship, which, he had had information, was about to come up the river.
  He minimised its strength and exhorted him to oppose its passage. This
  double-dealing answered his purpose, which was to keep the Bugis forces
  divided and to weaken them by fighting. On the other hand, he had in
  the course of that day sent word to the assembled Bugis chiefs in town,
  assuring them that he was trying to induce the invaders to retire; his
  messages to the fort asked earnestly for powder for the Rajah's men. It
  was a long time since Tunku Allang had had ammunition for the score or
  so of old muskets rusting in their arm-racks in the audience-hall.
  The open intercourse between the hill and the palace unsettled all the
  minds. It was already time for men to take sides, it began to be said.
  There would soon be much bloodshed, and thereafter great trouble for
  many people. The social fabric of orderly, peaceful life, when every man
  was sure of to-morrow, the edifice raised by Jim's hands, seemed on that
  evening ready to collapse into a ruin reeking with blood. The poorer
  folk were already taking to the bush or flying up the river. A good many
  of the upper class judged it necessary to go and pay their court to the
  Rajah. The Rajah's youths jostled them rudely. Old Tunku Allang, almost
  out of his mind with fear and indecision, either kept a sullen silence
  or abused them violently for daring to come with empty hands: they
  departed very much frightened; only old Doramin kept his countrymen
  together and pursued his tactics inflexibly. Enthroned in a big chair
  behind the improvised stockade, he issued his orders in a deep veiled
  rumble, unmoved, like a deaf man, in the flying rumours.
  
  'Dusk fell, hiding first the body of the dead man, which had been left
  lying with arms outstretched as if nailed to the ground, and then the
  revolving sphere of the night rolled smoothly over Patusan and came to
  a rest, showering the glitter of countless worlds upon the earth. Again,
  in the exposed part of the town big fires blazed along the only street,
  revealing from distance to distance upon their glares the falling
  straight lines of roofs, the fragments of wattled walls jumbled in
  confusion, here and there a whole hut elevated in the glow upon the
  vertical black stripes of a group of high piles and all this line of
  dwellings, revealed in patches by the swaying flames, seemed to flicker
  tortuously away up-river into the gloom at the heart of the land. A
  great silence, in which the looms of successive fires played without
  noise, extended into the darkness at the foot of the hill; but the
  other bank of the river, all dark save for a solitary bonfire at the
  river-front before the fort, sent out into the air an increasing tremor
  that might have been the stamping of a multitude of feet, the hum of
  many voices, or the fall of an immensely distant waterfall. It was
  then, Brown confessed to me, while, turning his back on his men, he sat
  looking at it all, that notwithstanding his disdain, his ruthless faith
  in himself, a feeling came over him that at last he had run his head
  against a stone wall. Had his boat been afloat at the time, he believed
  he would have tried to steal away, taking his chances of a long chase
  down the river and of starvation at sea. It is very doubtful whether he
  would have succeeded in getting away. However, he didn't try this. For
  another moment he had a passing thought of trying to rush the town,
  but he perceived very well that in the end he would find himself in the
  lighted street, where they would be shot down like dogs from the houses.
  They were two hundred to one--he thought, while his men, huddling round
  two heaps of smouldering embers, munched the last of the bananas and
  roasted the few yams they owed to Kassim's diplomacy. Cornelius sat
  amongst them dozing sulkily.
  
  'Then one of the whites remembered that some tobacco had been left in
  the boat, and, encouraged by the impunity of the Solomon Islander,
  said he would go to fetch it. At this all the others shook off
  their despondency. Brown applied to, said, "Go, and be d--d to you,"
  scornfully. He didn't think there was any danger in going to the creek
  in the dark. The man threw a leg over the tree-trunk and disappeared. A
  moment later he was heard clambering into the boat and then clambering
  out. "I've got it," he cried. A flash and a report at the very foot of
  the hill followed. "I am hit," yelled the man. "Look out, look out--I am
  hit," and instantly all the rifles went off. The hill squirted fire
  and noise into the night like a little volcano, and when Brown and
  the Yankee with curses and cuffs stopped the panic-stricken firing, a
  profound, weary groan floated up from the creek, succeeded by a plaint
  whose heartrending sadness was like some poison turning the blood
  cold in the veins. Then a strong voice pronounced several distinct
  incomprehensible words somewhere beyond the creek. "Let no one fire,"
  shouted Brown. "What does it mean?" . . . "Do you hear on the hill?
  Do you hear? Do you hear?" repeated the voice three times. Cornelius
  translated, and then prompted the answer. "Speak," cried Brown, "we
  hear." Then the voice, declaiming in the sonorous inflated tone of a
  herald, and shifting continually on the edge of the vague waste-land,
  proclaimed that between the men of the Bugis nation living in Patusan
  and the white men on the hill and those with them, there would be no
  faith, no compassion, no speech, no peace. A bush rustled; a haphazard
  volley rang out. "Dam' foolishness," muttered the Yankee, vexedly
  grounding the butt. Cornelius translated. The wounded man below
  the hill, after crying out twice, "Take me up! take me up!" went on
  complaining in moans. While he had kept on the blackened earth of the
  slope, and afterwards crouching in the boat, he had been safe enough.
  It seems that in his joy at finding the tobacco he forgot himself and
  jumped out on her off-side, as it were. The white boat, lying high and
  dry, showed him up; the creek was no more than seven yards wide in that
  place, and there happened to be a man crouching in the bush on the other
  bank.
  
  'He was a Bugis of Tondano only lately come to Patusan, and a relation
  of the man shot in the afternoon. That famous long shot had indeed
  appalled the beholders. The man in utter security had been struck down,
  in full view of his friends, dropping with a joke on his lips, and they
  seemed to see in the act an atrocity which had stirred a bitter rage.
  That relation of his, Si-Lapa by name, was then with Doramin in the
  stockade only a few feet away. You who know these chaps must admit that
  the fellow showed an unusual pluck by volunteering to carry the message,
  alone, in the dark. Creeping across the open ground, he had deviated
  to the left and found himself opposite the boat. He was startled when
  Brown's man shouted. He came to a sitting position with his gun to his
  shoulder, and when the other jumped out, exposing himself, he pulled the
  trigger and lodged three jagged slugs point-blank into the poor wretch's
  stomach. Then, lying flat on his face, he gave himself up for dead,
  while a thin hail of lead chopped and swished the bushes close on his
  right hand; afterwards he delivered his speech shouting, bent double,
  dodging all the time in cover. With the last word he leaped sideways,
  lay close for a while, and afterwards got back to the houses unharmed,
  having achieved on that night such a renown as his children will not
  willingly allow to die.
  
  'And on the hill the forlorn band let the two little heaps of embers
  go out under their bowed heads. They sat dejected on the ground with
  compressed lips and downcast eyes, listening to their comrade below. He
  was a strong man and died hard, with moans now loud, now sinking to a
  strange confidential note of pain. Sometimes he shrieked, and again,
  after a period of silence, he could be heard muttering deliriously a
  long and unintelligible complaint. Never for a moment did he cease.
  
  '"What's the good?" Brown had said unmoved once, seeing the Yankee, who
  had been swearing under his breath, prepare to go down. "That's so,"
  assented the deserter, reluctantly desisting. "There's no encouragement
  for wounded men here. Only his noise is calculated to make all the
  others think too much of the hereafter, cap'n." "Water!" cried the
  wounded man in an extraordinarily clear vigorous voice, and then went
  off moaning feebly. "Ay, water. Water will do it," muttered the other to
  himself, resignedly. "Plenty by-and-by. The tide is flowing."
  
  'At last the tide flowed, silencing the plaint and the cries of pain,
  and the dawn was near when Brown, sitting with his chin in the palm of
  his hand before Patusan, as one might stare at the unscalable side of a
  mountain, heard the brief ringing bark of a brass 6-pounder far away
  in town somewhere. "What's this?" he asked of Cornelius, who hung about
  him. Cornelius listened. A muffled roaring shout rolled down-river over
  the town; a big drum began to throb, and others responded, pulsating and
  droning. Tiny scattered lights began to twinkle in the dark half of the
  town, while the part lighted by the loom of fires hummed with a deep and
  prolonged murmur. "He has come," said Cornelius. "What? Already? Are
  you sure?" Brown asked. "Yes! yes! Sure. Listen to the noise." "What
  are they making that row about?" pursued Brown. "For joy," snorted
  Cornelius; "he is a very great man, but all the same, he knows no more
  than a child, and so they make a great noise to please him, because they
  know no better." "Look here," said Brown, "how is one to get at him?"
  "He shall come to talk to you," Cornelius declared. "What do you mean?
  Come down here strolling as it were?" Cornelius nodded vigorously in the
  dark. "Yes. He will come straight here and talk to you. He is just like
  a fool. You shall see what a fool he is." Brown was incredulous. "You
  shall see; you shall see," repeated Cornelius. "He is not afraid--not
  afraid of anything. He will come and order you to leave his people
  alone. Everybody must leave his people alone. He is like a little child.
  He will come to you straight." Alas! he knew Jim well--that "mean little
  skunk," as Brown called him to me. "Yes, certainly," he pursued with
  ardour, "and then, captain, you tell that tall man with a gun to shoot
  him. Just you kill him, and you will frighten everybody so much that
  you can do anything you like with them afterwards--get what you like--go
  away when you like. Ha! ha! ha! Fine . . ." He almost danced with
  impatience and eagerness; and Brown, looking over his shoulder at him,
  could see, shown up by the pitiless dawn, his men drenched with dew,
  sitting amongst the cold ashes and the litter of the camp, haggard,
  cowed, and in rags.'
  
  
  'To the very last moment, till the full day came upon them with a
  spring, the fires on the west bank blazed bright and clear; and then
  Brown saw in a knot of coloured figures motionless between the advanced
  houses a man in European clothes, in a helmet, all white. "That's him;
  look! look!" Cornelius said excitedly. All Brown's men had sprung up and
  crowded at his back with lustreless eyes. The group of vivid colours
  and dark faces with the white figure in their midst were observing the
  knoll. Brown could see naked arms being raised to shade the eyes and
  other brown arms pointing. What should he do? He looked around, and the
  forests that faced him on all sides walled the cock-pit of an unequal
  contest. He looked once more at his men. A contempt, a weariness, the
  desire of life, the wish to try for one more chance--for some other
  grave--struggled in his breast. From the outline the figure presented
  it seemed to him that the white man there, backed up by all the power of
  the land, was examining his position through binoculars. Brown jumped up
  on the log, throwing his arms up, the palms outwards. The coloured group
  closed round the white man, and fell back twice before he got clear of
  them, walking slowly alone. Brown remained standing on the log till
  Jim, appearing and disappearing between the patches of thorny scrub, had
  nearly reached the creek; then Brown jumped off and went down to meet
  him on his side.
  
  'They met, I should think, not very far from the place, perhaps on the
  very spot, where Jim took the second desperate leap of his life--the
  leap that landed him into the life of Patusan, into the trust, the love,
  the confidence of the people. They faced each other across the creek,
  and with steady eyes tried to understand each other before they opened
  their lips. Their antagonism must have been expressed in their glances;
  I know that Brown hated Jim at first sight. Whatever hopes he might have
  had vanished at once. This was not the man he had expected to see. He
  hated him for this--and in a checked flannel shirt with sleeves cut
  off at the elbows, grey bearded, with a sunken, sun-blackened face--he
  cursed in his heart the other's youth and assurance, his clear eyes and
  his untroubled bearing. That fellow had got in a long way before him!
  He did not look like a man who would be willing to give anything for
  assistance. He had all the advantages on his side--possession, security,
  power; he was on the side of an overwhelming force! He was not hungry
  and desperate, and he did not seem in the least afraid. And there was
  something in the very neatness of Jim's clothes, from the white helmet
  to the canvas leggings and the pipeclayed shoes, which in Brown's sombre
  irritated eyes seemed to belong to things he had in the very shaping of
  his life condemned and flouted.
  
  '"Who are you?" asked Jim at last, speaking in his usual voice. "My
  name's Brown," answered the other loudly; "Captain Brown. What's yours?"
  and Jim after a little pause went on quietly, as If he had not heard:
  "What made you come here?" "You want to know," said Brown bitterly.
  "It's easy to tell. Hunger. And what made you?"
  
  '"The fellow started at this," said Brown, relating to me the opening of
  this strange conversation between those two men, separated only by
  the muddy bed of a creek, but standing on the opposite poles of that
  conception of life which includes all mankind--"The fellow started at
  this and got very red in the face. Too big to be questioned, I suppose.
  I told him that if he looked upon me as a dead man with whom you may
  take liberties, he himself was not a whit better off really. I had
  a fellow up there who had a bead drawn on him all the time, and only
  waited for a sign from me. There was nothing to be shocked at in this.
  He had come down of his own free will. 'Let us agree,' said I, 'that we
  are both dead men, and let us talk on that basis, as equals. We are
  all equal before death,' I said. I admitted I was there like a rat in
  a trap, but we had been driven to it, and even a trapped rat can give
  a bite. He caught me up in a moment. 'Not if you don't go near the trap
  till the rat is dead.' I told him that sort of game was good enough for
  these native friends of his, but I would have thought him too white to
  serve even a rat so. Yes, I had wanted to talk with him. Not to beg
  for my life, though. My fellows were--well--what they were--men like
  himself, anyhow. All we wanted from him was to come on in the devil's
  name and have it out. 'God d--n it,' said I, while he stood there as
  still as a wooden post, 'you don't want to come out here every day with
  your glasses to count how many of us are left on our feet. Come. Either
  bring your infernal crowd along or let us go out and starve in the open
  sea, by God! You have been white once, for all your tall talk of this
  being your own people and you being one with them. Are you? And what the
  devil do you get for it; what is it you've found here that is so d--d
  precious? Hey? You don't want us to come down here perhaps--do you? You
  are two hundred to one. You don't want us to come down into the open.
  Ah! I promise you we shall give you some sport before you've done. You
  talk about me making a cowardly set upon unoffending people. What's
  that to me that they are unoffending, when I am starving for next to no
  offence? But I am not a coward. Don't you be one. Bring them along or,
  by all the fiends, we shall yet manage to send half your unoffending
  town to heaven with us in smoke!'"
  
  'He was terrible--relating this to me--this tortured skeleton of a man
  drawn up together with his face over his knees, upon a miserable bed in
  that wretched hovel, and lifting his head to look at me with malignant
  triumph.
  
  '"That's what I told him--I knew what to say," he began again, feebly
  at first, but working himself up with incredible speed into a fiery
  utterance of his scorn. "We aren't going into the forest to wander like
  a string of living skeletons dropping one after another for ants to
  go to work upon us before we are fairly dead. Oh no! . . . 'You don't
  deserve a better fate,' he said. 'And what do you deserve,' I shouted
  at him, 'you that I find skulking here with your mouth full of your
  responsibility, of innocent lives, of your infernal duty? What do
  you know more of me than I know of you? I came here for food. D'ye
  hear?--food to fill our bellies. And what did _you_ come for? What did
  you ask for when you came here? We don't ask you for anything but to
  give us a fight or a clear road to go back whence we came. . . .' 'I
  would fight with you now,' says he, pulling at his little moustache.
  'And I would let you shoot me, and welcome,' I said. 'This is as good a
  jumping-off place for me as another. I am sick of my infernal luck. But
  it would be too easy. There are my men in the same boat--and, by God, I
  am not the sort to jump out of trouble and leave them in a d--d lurch,'
  I said. He stood thinking for a while and then wanted to know what I
  had done ('out there' he says, tossing his head down-stream) to be hazed
  about so. 'Have we met to tell each other the story of our lives?' I
  asked him. 'Suppose you begin. No? Well, I am sure I don't want to hear.
  Keep it to yourself. I know it is no better than mine. I've lived--and
  so did you, though you talk as if you were one of those people that
  should have wings so as to go about without touching the dirty earth.
  Well--it is dirty. I haven't got any wings. I am here because I was
  afraid once in my life. Want to know what of? Of a prison. That scares
  me, and you may know it--if it's any good to you. I won't ask you what
  scared you into this infernal hole, where you seem to have found pretty
  pickings. That's your luck and this is mine--the privilege to beg for
  the favour of being shot quickly, or else kicked out to go free and
  starve in my own way.' . . ."
  
  'His debilitated body shook with an exultation so vehement, so assured,
  and so malicious that it seemed to have driven off the death waiting for
  him in that hut. The corpse of his mad self-love uprose from rags and
  destitution as from the dark horrors of a tomb. It is impossible to say
  how much he lied to Jim then, how much he lied to me now--and to himself
  always. Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of
  every passion wants some pretence to make it live. Standing at the gate
  of the other world in the guise of a beggar, he had slapped this world's
  face, he had spat on it, he had thrown upon it an immensity of scorn
  and revolt at the bottom of his misdeeds. He had overcome them all--men,
  women, savages, traders, ruffians, missionaries--and Jim--"that
  beefy-faced beggar." I did not begrudge him this triumph in articulo
  mortis, this almost posthumous illusion of having trampled all the earth
  under his feet. While he was boasting to me, in his sordid and repulsive
  agony, I couldn't help thinking of the chuckling talk relating to the
  time of his greatest splendour when, during a year or more, Gentleman
  Brown's ship was to be seen, for many days on end, hovering off an islet
  befringed with green upon azure, with the dark dot of the mission-house
  on a white beach; while Gentleman Brown, ashore, was casting his spells
  over a romantic girl for whom Melanesia had been too much, and giving
  hopes of a remarkable conversion to her husband. The poor man, some time
  or other, had been heard to express the intention of winning "Captain
  Brown to a better way of life." . . . "Bag Gentleman Brown for
  Glory"--as a leery-eyed loafer expressed it once--"just to let them see
  up above what a Western Pacific trading skipper looks like." And this
  was the man, too, who had run off with a dying woman, and had shed tears
  over her body. "Carried on like a big baby," his then mate was never
  tired of telling, "and where the fun came in may I be kicked to death by
  diseased Kanakas if _I_ know. Why, gents! she was too far gone when he
  brought her aboard to know him; she just lay there on her back in his
  bunk staring at the beam with awful shining eyes--and then she died.
  Dam' bad sort of fever, I guess. . . ." I remembered all these stories
  while, wiping his matted lump of a beard with a livid hand, he was
  telling me from his noisome couch how he got round, got in, got home,
  on that confounded, immaculate, don't-you-touch-me sort of fellow. He
  admitted that he couldn't be scared, but there was a way, "as broad as
  a turnpike, to get in and shake his twopenny soul around and inside out
  and upside down--by God!"''I don't think he could do more than perhaps look upon that straight
  path. He seemed to have been puzzled by what he saw, for he interrupted
  himself in his narrative more than once to exclaim, "He nearly slipped
  from me there. I could not make him out. Who was he?" And after
  glaring at me wildly he would go on, jubilating and sneering. To me the
  conversation of these two across the creek appears now as the deadliest
  kind of duel on which Fate looked on with her cold-eyed knowledge of the
  end. No, he didn't turn Jim's soul inside out, but I am much mistaken if
  the spirit so utterly out of his reach had not been made to taste to the
  full the bitterness of that contest. These were the emissaries with whom
  the world he had renounced was pursuing him in his retreat--white men
  from "out there" where he did not think himself good enough to live.
  This was all that came to him--a menace, a shock, a danger to his
  work. I suppose it is this sad, half-resentful, half-resigned feeling,
  piercing through the few words Jim said now and then, that puzzled Brown
  so much in the reading of his character. Some great men owe most of
  their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for
  their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work;
  and Brown, as though he had been really great, had a satanic gift of
  finding out the best and the weakest spot in his victims. He admitted
  to me that Jim wasn't of the sort that can be got over by truckling, and
  accordingly he took care to show himself as a man confronting without
  dismay ill-luck, censure, and disaster. The smuggling of a few guns was
  no great crime, he pointed out. As to coming to Patusan, who had the
  right to say he hadn't come to beg? The infernal people here let loose
  at him from both banks without staying to ask questions. He made
  the point brazenly, for, in truth, Dain Waris's energetic action had
  prevented the greatest calamities; because Brown told me distinctly
  that, perceiving the size of the place, he had resolved instantly in his
  mind that as soon as he had gained a footing he would set fire right and
  left, and begin by shooting down everything living in sight, in order to
  cow and terrify the population. The disproportion of forces was so great
  that this was the only way giving him the slightest chance of attaining
  his ends--he argued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't tell Jim this.
  As to the hardships and starvation they had gone through, these had been
  very real; it was enough to look at his band. He made, at the sound of a
  shrill whistle, all his men appear standing in a row on the logs in full
  view, so that Jim could see them. For the killing of the man, it had
  been done--well, it had--but was not this war, bloody war--in a corner?
  and the fellow had been killed cleanly, shot through the chest, not like
  that poor devil of his lying now in the creek. They had to listen to him
  dying for six hours, with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this
  was a life for a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness,
  with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he
  cares not where he runs. When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque
  despairing frankness, whether he himself--straight now--didn't
  understand that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, one
  didn't care who else went--three, thirty, three hundred people"--it was
  as if a demon had been whispering advice in his ear. "I made him wince,"
  boasted Brown to me. "He very soon left off coming the righteous over
  me. He just stood there with nothing to say, and looking as black as
  thunder--not at me--on the ground." He asked Jim whether he had nothing
  fishy in his life to remember that he was so damnedly hard upon a man
  trying to get out of a deadly hole by the first means that came to
  hand--and so on, and so on. And there ran through the rough talk a
  vein of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption of common
  experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secret knowledge
  that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts.
  
  'At last Brown threw himself down full length and watched Jim out of
  the corners of his eyes. Jim on his side of the creek stood thinking and
  switching his leg. The houses in view were silent, as if a pestilence
  had swept them clean of every breath of life; but many invisible eyes
  were turned, from within, upon the two men with the creek between them,
  a stranded white boat, and the body of the third man half sunk in the
  mud. On the river canoes were moving again, for Patusan was recovering
  its belief in the stability of earthly institutions since the return of
  the white lord. The right bank, the platforms of the houses, the rafts
  moored along the shores, even the roofs of bathing-huts, were covered
  with people that, far away out of earshot and almost out of sight, were
  straining their eyes towards the knoll beyond the Rajah's stockade.
  Within the wide irregular ring of forests, broken in two places by the
  sheen of the river, there was a silence. "Will you promise to leave the
  coast?" Jim asked. Brown lifted and let fall his hand, giving everything
  up as it were--accepting the inevitable. "And surrender your arms?" Jim
  went on. Brown sat up and glared across. "Surrender our arms! Not till
  you come to take them out of our stiff hands. You think I am gone crazy
  with funk? Oh no! That and the rags I stand in is all I have got in the
  world, besides a few more breechloaders on board; and I expect to sell
  the lot in Madagascar, if I ever get so far--begging my way from ship to
  ship."
  
  'Jim said nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in
  his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I
  have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to
  give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose they say one
  thing to you, and do the other thing to me." He calmed down markedly. "I
  dare say you have the power, or what's the meaning of all this talk?" he
  continued. "What did you come down here for? To pass the time of day?"
  
  '"Very well," said Jim, lifting his head suddenly after a long silence.
  "You shall have a clear road or else a clear fight." He turned on his
  heel and walked away.
  
  'Brown got up at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had seen
  Jim disappear between the first houses. He never set his eyes on him
  again. On his way back he met Cornelius slouching down with his head
  between his shoulders. He stopped before Brown. "Why didn't you kill
  him?" he demanded in a sour, discontented voice. "Because I could do
  better than that," Brown said with an amused smile. "Never! never!"
  protested Cornelius with energy. "Couldn't. I have lived here for many
  years." Brown looked up at him curiously. There were many sides to the
  life of that place in arms against him; things he would never find out.
  Cornelius slunk past dejectedly in the direction of the river. He was
  now leaving his new friends; he accepted the disappointing course of
  events with a sulky obstinacy which seemed to draw more together his
  little yellow old face; and as he went down he glanced askant here and
  there, never giving up his fixed idea.
  
  'Henceforth events move fast without a check, flowing from the very
  hearts of men like a stream from a dark source, and we see Jim amongst
  them, mostly through Tamb' Itam's eyes. The girl's eyes had watched him
  too, but her life is too much entwined with his: there is her passion,
  her wonder, her anger, and, above all, her fear and her unforgiving
  love. Of the faithful servant, uncomprehending as the rest of them, it
  is the fidelity alone that comes into play; a fidelity and a belief in
  his lord so strong that even amazement is subdued to a sort of saddened
  acceptance of a mysterious failure. He has eyes only for one figure,
  and through all the mazes of bewilderment he preserves his air of
  guardianship, of obedience, of care.
  
  'His master came back from his talk with the white men, walking slowly
  towards the stockade in the street. Everybody was rejoiced to see him
  return, for while he was away every man had been afraid not only of him
  being killed, but also of what would come after. Jim went into one of
  the houses, where old Doramin had retired, and remained alone for a
  long time with the head of the Bugis settlers. No doubt he discussed
  the course to follow with him then, but no man was present at the
  conversation. Only Tamb' Itam, keeping as close to the door as he could,
  heard his master say, "Yes. I shall let all the people know that such
  is my wish; but I spoke to you, O Doramin, before all the others, and
  alone; for you know my heart as well as I know yours and its greatest
  desire. And you know well also that I have no thought but for the
  people's good." Then his master, lifting the sheeting in the doorway,
  went out, and he, Tamb' Itam, had a glimpse of old Doramin within,
  sitting in the chair with his hands on his knees, and looking between
  his feet. Afterwards he followed his master to the fort, where all the
  principal Bugis and Patusan inhabitants had been summoned for a talk.
  Tamb' Itam himself hoped there would be some fighting. "What was it but
  the taking of another hill?" he exclaimed regretfully. However, in the
  town many hoped that the rapacious strangers would be induced, by the
  sight of so many brave men making ready to fight, to go away. It would
  be a good thing if they went away. Since Jim's arrival had been made
  known before daylight by the gun fired from the fort and the beating of
  the big drum there, the fear that had hung over Patusan had broken and
  subsided like a wave on a rock, leaving the seething foam of excitement,
  curiosity, and endless speculation. Half of the population had been
  ousted out of their homes for purposes of defence, and were living in
  the street on the left side of the river, crowding round the fort, and
  in momentary expectation of seeing their abandoned dwellings on the
  threatened bank burst into flames. The general anxiety was to see the
  matter settled quickly. Food, through Jewel's care, had been served
  out to the refugees. Nobody knew what their white man would do. Some
  remarked that it was worse than in Sherif Ali's war. Then many people
  did not care; now everybody had something to lose. The movements of
  canoes passing to and fro between the two parts of the town were watched
  with interest. A couple of Bugis war-boats lay anchored in the middle of
  the stream to protect the river, and a thread of smoke stood at the bow
  of each; the men in them were cooking their midday rice when Jim, after
  his interviews with Brown and Doramin, crossed the river and entered by
  the water-gate of his fort. The people inside crowded round him, so that
  he could hardly make his way to the house. They had not seen him before,
  because on his arrival during the night he had only exchanged a few
  words with the girl, who had come down to the landing-stage for the
  purpose, and had then gone on at once to join the chiefs and the
  fighting men on the other bank. People shouted greetings after him.
  One old woman raised a laugh by pushing her way to the front madly and
  enjoining him in a scolding voice to see to it that her two sons, who
  were with Doramin, did not come to harm at the hands of the robbers.
  Several of the bystanders tried to pull her away, but she struggled and
  cried, "Let me go. What is this, O Muslims? This laughter is unseemly.
  Are they not cruel, bloodthirsty robbers bent on killing?" "Let her be,"
  said Jim, and as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly, "Everybody
  shall be safe." He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud
  murmurs of satisfaction, had died out.
  
  'There's no doubt his mind was made up that Brown should have his way
  clear back to the sea. His fate, revolted, was forcing his hand. He
  had for the first time to affirm his will in the face of outspoken
  opposition. "There was much talk, and at first my master was silent,"
  Tamb' Itam said. "Darkness came, and then I lit the candles on the long
  table. The chiefs sat on each side, and the lady remained by my master's
  right hand."
  
  'When he began to speak, the unaccustomed difficulty seemed only to
  fix his resolve more immovably. The white men were now waiting for his
  answer on the hill. Their chief had spoken to him in the language of his
  own people, making clear many things difficult to explain in any other
  speech. They were erring men whom suffering had made blind to right and
  wrong. It is true that lives had been lost already, but why lose more?
  He declared to his hearers, the assembled heads of the people, that
  their welfare was his welfare, their losses his losses, their mourning
  his mourning. He looked round at the grave listening faces and told them
  to remember that they had fought and worked side by side. They knew his
  courage . . . Here a murmur interrupted him . . . And that he had never
  deceived them. For many years they had dwelt together. He loved the
  land and the people living in it with a very great love. He was ready to
  answer with his life for any harm that should come to them if the white
  men with beards were allowed to retire. They were evil-doers, but their
  destiny had been evil, too. Had he ever advised them ill? Had his words
  ever brought suffering to the people? he asked. He believed that it
  would be best to let these whites and their followers go with their
  lives. It would be a small gift. "I whom you have tried and found always
  true ask you to let them go." He turned to Doramin. The old nakhoda made
  no movement. "Then," said Jim, "call in Dain Waris, your son, my friend,
  for in this business I shall not lead."'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 39 - 42
target: Dain Waris leads the initial attack against Gentleman Brown and his men. Unfortunately, he is not able to rally his people effectively enough to rout the pirate, and Jim, who could provide the inspiration and leadership needed, is away in the countryside. A council of war is held, at which everyone's personal motives get in the way of agreement; Doramin wishes to protect his son, and Rajah Allang, who is pretending to cooperate, is secretly working to form an alliance with Brown to bring Jim down. The Rajah's representative contacts Cornelius and arranges for him to serve as a go-between with Brown. Cornelius is a little too persuasive as to the friendliness of the Rajah, the charms of Patusan, and the ease with which he claims Jim can be defeated. Brown decides to stay and fight, not just for supplies and a chance to escape, but to try to seize the territory for himself. Meanwhile, Dain Waris has sent canoes downstream to seal Brown's avenue of escape and reinforcement. Brown dallies with Cornelius and the Rajah, buying time and always intending to double-cross them. One of Brown's men shoots a villager from a great distance. The pirate hopes that this will evoke fear among the people of Patusan, and that they will overestimate his strength. As night falls, one of Brown's men sneaks down to their beached boat to get some tobacco that has been left there. He is not cautious enough, however, and he is shot by a relative of the villager who was killed earlier in the day. Brown and his men have to listen to the dying moans of their comrade for several hours; it is not until the tide comes in, drowning him and carrying him off, that his screams cease. Cornelius and Brown talk again. Drums begin to beat in the village, and fires are lit. Cornelius tells Brown that this is a sign that Jim has returned, and that Jim will surely come to talk to him face to face. He recommends that Brown have one of his men shoot Jim from a position of cover. This action, he says, will give Brown the psychological edge and enable him to defeat the Bugis. The next morning, Jim indeed approaches Brown's stronghold. He and Brown speak warily. Jim asks him what has brought him to Patusan; Brown replies simply, "Hunger," and redirects the question toward Jim. Jim is startled. Brown asks him to remember that they are both white men, and then requests that his men either be ambushed directly or allowed to leave, rather than left to starve and suffer like "rat in a trap." He admits to Jim that his greatest fear is of prison, and that this fear is what has motivated him his entire life, even at this very moment. Marlow, listening to the story at Brown's deathbed, wonders how much of Brown's account is the truth. Jim, bothered by something, says little to Brown, but promises him "a clear road  or else a clear fight" and leaves. Cornelius rages at Brown for not shooting Jim when he had the chance. Jim goes directly to Doramin to recommend that Brown be allowed to escape unharmed. Doramin is reluctant. Jim appeals to the people, reminding them that he has never led them wrong. Doramin still hesitates, and Jim declares that, if they are to fight, he will not lead. Dain Waris will have to command.
feat_summary_analysis: Commentary Gentleman Brown does the one thing nearly every other character in this novel is afraid to do: he asks Jim what it was that he hoped to gain by coming to Patusan. Brown is honest about his own motives and fears, and Jim realizes that he has been living a lie. Brown speaks the truth about Jim; to have him killed would seem like just another attempt at deceit. In recommending that Brown be let go, Jim does what is honorable for his personal reputation, not what is best for Patusan. In part, Brown defeats Jim by speaking the "truth" about him; in part, Jim defeats himself by adhering to a false ideal. In offering to defer to Dain Waris, Jim is exercising the only option available to him that compromises neither himself nor Patusan. No heroic action is possible. Marlow questions the veracity of Brown's account of his conversation with Jim. This is an implicit reminder to the reader to question Marlow's account, to remember that we are receiving the story just as Marlow does--in fragments. More obviously, however, Marlow is upset because Brown has appealed to Jim on the basis of being "one of us"; through their conversation runs "a vein of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption of common experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt. . . " This, of course, is exactly the foundation on which Marlow has premised his own identification with Jim. Now it seems to link Marlow, through Jim, to Brown. Issues of racial dynamics also arise in this section. Dain Waris is unable to defeat Brown initially because he does not possess the mystique of the white man, according to the narrative. The people of Patusan seem to have a faith in Jim that is naive in the extreme, based solely on his status as a white man. When Jim returns from the countryside, things immediately return to normal despite the continued presence of Brown and his men on the hilltop. On the other hand, it is Cornelius who behaves the most despicably in this section of the novel, and Doramin who will turn out to be right. Also, it is Brown who tells this part of the story, and therefore it is his opinions that we are receiving. Nevertheless, Jim is being asked to choose between the people of Patusan and a fellow white man, and the situation is certainly racially charged.