feeling that the struggle is a
symbol of man's life.

Threatened by the advancing cyclone, Captain MacWhirr, 'the stupid man'
of no imagination, decides, almost instinctively, that the only thing to
be done is to keep up steam and face the wind. By sheer force of
personality he holds the crew together and carries the ship through. And
in the desperate struggle, every nerve on the strain for hours that seem
unending, MacWhirr finds time to care for the miserable pack of
terrified coolies on board, who have given way to panic and are fighting
madly in the hold. MacWhirr stops this, brings about order and a chance
for the Chinese, when the rest of his men, fine men as most of them
are, can think of nothing but the safety of the ship. 'Had to do what's
fair for all,' he mumbles stolidly to his clever grumbling mate, Jukes,
during a dead lull in the storm--'they are only Chinamen. Give them the
same chance with ourselves' ... 'Couldn't let that go on in my ship, if
I knew she hadn't five minutes to live. Couldn't bear it, Mr. Jukes.' He
does not know whether the ship will be lost or not--(and we do not know
whether mankind will be lost or not)--what he does know is how he must
act. But also he never loses hope. 'She may come out of it yet': that is
the kind of answer the taciturn man gives when driven to speech. The
chief mate, locked in his captain's arms to brace himself against the
hurricane, scarcely able to make the other hear in the terrific gale
though he shouts close to his head, gets back such answers, and with
them the power to endure. He tells him the boats are gone: the captain
yells back sensibly, 'Can't be helped.'

And so noble is the power with which Conrad uses our tongue, the tongue
he has made his own by adoption and genius, that I must let him speak
for himself, and can find no better close for my own lame words. Jukes
has been shouting to his captain again:

'And again he heard that voice, forced and ringing feebly, but
with a penetrating effect of quietness in the enormous discord of
noises, as if sent out from some remote spot of peace beyond the
black wastes of the gale; again he heard a man's voice--the frail
and indomitable sound that can be made to carry an infinity of
thought, resolution, and purpose, that shall be pronouncing
confident words on the last day, when heavens fall and justice is
done--again he heard it, and it was crying to him, as if from