n his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, but I
heard him mutter, 'Live rightly, die, die...' I listened. There was
nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, or was it a
fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article? He had been writing
for the papers and meant to do so again, 'for the furthering of my
ideas. It's a duty.'

"His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at
a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never
shines. But I had not much time to give him, because I was helping the
engine-driver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders, to straighten a
bent connecting-rod, and in other such matters. I lived in an
infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers,
ratchet-drills--things I abominate, because I don't get on with them. I
tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard; I toiled wearily in a
wretched scrap-heap--unless I had the shakes too bad to stand.

"One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a
little tremulously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.'
The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, 'Oh,
nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed.

"Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have
never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched.
I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that
ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven
terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again
in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme
moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at
some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:

"'The horror! The horror!'

"I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in
the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his
eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored.
He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the
unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies
streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces.
Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway,
and said in a tone of scathing contempt:

"'Mistah Kurtz--he dead.'

"All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my
dinn