like a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave.

"And I sat weary beyond expression, exulting like a conqueror, sleepless
and entranced as if before a profound, a fateful enigma.

"A splashing of oars, a measured dip reverberating on the level of
water, intensified by the silence of the shore into loud claps, made me
jump up. A boat, a European boat, was coming in. I invoked the name of
the dead; I hailed: _Judea_ ahoy! A thin shout answered.

"It was the captain. I had beaten the flagship by three hours, and I
was glad to hear the old man's voice, tremulous and tired. 'Is it you,
Marlow?' 'Mind the end of that jetty, sir,' I cried.

"He approached cautiously, and brought up with the deep-sea lead-line
which we had saved--for the under-writers. I eased my painter and fell
alongside. He sat, a broken figure at the stern, wet with dew, his hands
clasped in his lap. His men were asleep already. 'I had a terrible time
of it,' he murmured. 'Mahon is behind--not very far.' We conversed
in whispers, in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land. Guns,
thunder, earthquakes would not have awakened the men just then.

"Looking around as we talked, I saw away at sea a bright light traveling
in the night. 'There's a steamer passing the bay,' I said. She was not
passing, she was entering, and she even came close and anchored. 'I
wish,' said the old man, 'you would find out whether she is English.
Perhaps they could give us a passage somewhere.' He seemed nervously
anxious. So by dint of punching and kicking I started one of my men into
a state of somnambulism, and giving him an oar, took another and pulled
towards the lights of the steamer.