Witch’s Money BY JOHN COLLIER FULL SHORT STORY

Witch’s Money

BY JOHN COLLIER FULL SHORT STORY

FOIRAL HAD TAKEN A LOAD OF CORK Up tO the high road,

¥ where he met the motor truck from Perpignan. He was on his way back to the village, walking harmlessly beside his mule, and thinking of nothing at all, when he was passed by a striding madman, half naked, and of a type never seen ’ before in this district of the Pyrinees Orientales.

He was not of the idiot sort, with the big head, like two | or three of them down in the village. Nor was he a lean, , raving creature, like Barilles’s old father after the house burned down. Nor had he a little, tiny, shrunken-up, chattering head, like the younger Lloubes. He was a new sort altogether.

Foiral decided he was kind of bursting madman, all blare and racket, as bad as the sun. His red flesh burst out of his little bits of coloured clothes; red arms, red knees, red neck, and a great round red face bursting with smiles, words, laughter.

Foiral overtook him at the top of the ridge. He was staring down Into the valley like a man thunderstruck.

“My God!" he said to Foiral. “Just look at it!” Foiral looked at it. There was nothing wrong.

“Here have I,” said the mad Jack, "been walking up and down these goddam Pyrenees for weeks—meadows, birch trees, pine trees, waterfalls—green as a dish of

haricots verts! And here's what I’ve been looking for all the time. Why did no one tell me?”

There’s a damned question to answer! However, mad­men answer themselves. Foiral thumped his mule and started off down the track, but the mad fellow fell in step beside him.

“What is it, for God’s sake?” said he. “A bit of Spain strayed over the frontier, or what? Might be a crater in the moon. No water, I suppose? God, look at that ring of red hills! Look at that pink and yellow land! Are those villages down there? Or the bones of some creatures that have died?

“I like it,” he said. “I like the way the fig trees burst out of the rock. I like the way the seeds are bursting out of the figs. Ever heard of surrealism? This is surrealism come to life. What are those? Cork forests? They look like petrified ogres. Excellent ogres, who bleed when these impudent mortals flay you, with my little brush, on my little piece of canvas, I shall restore to you an important part of your life!”

Foiral, by no means devout, took the sensible precaution of crossing himself. The fellow went on and on, all the way down, two or three kilometres, Foiral answering with a "yes,” a “no,” and a grunt. “This is my countryl” cried the lunatic. “It’s made for me. Glad I didn't go to Morocco! Is this your village? Wonderful! Look at those houses— three, four stories. Why do they look as if they'd been piled up by cave-dwellers, cave-dwellers who couldn’t find a cliff? Or are they caves from which the cliff his crumbled away, leaving them uneasy in the sunlight, huddling to­gether? Why don’t you have any windows? I like that yellow belfry. Sort of Spanish. I like the way'the bell hangs in that iron cage. Black as your hat. Dead. Maybe that’s why it’s so quiet here. Dead noise, gibbeted against the blue! Ha! Ha! You’re not amused, eh? Yoi^don't care for surrealism? So much the worse, my friend, because you’re the stuff that sort of dream is made of. I like the black clothes all you people wear. Spanish touch again, I sup­pose? It makes you look like holes in the light.” “Goodbye,” said Foiral.

“Wait a minute,” said the stranger. “Where can 1 put up in this village? Is there an inn?”

“No,” said Foiral, turning into his yard.

“Hell!” said the stranger. “1 suppose someone has a room I can sleep in?”

\

“No,” said Foiral.

That set the fellow back a bit. “Well,” said he at last, *T11 have a look around, anyway.”

So he went up the street. Foiral saw him talking to Madame Arago, and she was shaking her head. Then he saw him trying it on at the baker’s, and the baker shook his head as well. However, he bought a loaf there, and some cheese and wine from Barilles. He sat down on the bench outside and ate it; then he went pottering off up the slope.

Foiral thought he'd keep an eye on him, so he followed to the top of the village, where he could see all over the hillside. The fellow was just mooning about; he picked up nothing, he did nothing. Then he began to drift over to the little farm-house, where the well is, a few hundred yards above the rest of the houses.

This happened to be Foiral’s property, through his wife: a good place, if they’d had a son to live in it Seeing the stranger edging that way, Foiral followed, not too fast, you understand, and not too slow either. Sure enough, when he got there, there was the fellow peering through the chinks in the shutters, even trying the door. He might have been up to anything.

He looked round as Foiral came up. “Nobody lives here?” he said.

“No,” said Foiral.

"Who does it belong to?” said the stranger.

Foiral hardly knew what to say. In the end he had to admit it was his.

“Will you rent it to me?” said the stranger.

“What’s that?” said Foiral.

“I want the house for six months,” said the stranger. “What for?” said Foiral.

“Damn it!” said the stranger. “To live in.”

“Why?” said Foiral.

The stranger holds up his hand. He picks hold of the thumb. He says, very slowly, “I am an artist, a painter.”

“Yes,” says Foiral.

Then the stranger lays hold of his forefinger. “I can work here. I like it. I like the view. I like those two ilex trees.”

“Very good,” says Foiral.

Then the stranger takes hold of his middle finger. “I want to stay here six months.”

“Yes,” says Foiral.

Then the stranger takes hold of his third finger. “In this house. Which, I may say, on this yellow ground, looks interestingly like a die on a desert. Or does it look like a skull?”

“Ah!” says Foiral.                                                                     fl|

Then the stranger takes hold of his little finger, and he -1 says, “How much—do you want—to let me—live and work —in this house—for six months?”

“Why?” said Foiral.                                                                       ^

At this the stranger began to stamp up and down. They I had quite an argument. Foiral clinched the matter by saying that people didn’t rent houses in that part of the world; everyone had his own.

“It is necessary,” said the stranger, grinding his teeth,

“for me to paint pictures here.”

“So much the worse,” said Foiral.

The stranger uttered a number of cries in some foreign gibberish, possibly that of hell itself. “I see your soul,” said he, “as a small and exceedingly sterile black marble, on a waste of burning white alkali.”

Foiral, holding his two middle fingers under his thumb, extended the first and fourth in the direction of the stran­ger, careless of whether he gave offence.

“What will you take for the shack?” said the stranger. “Maybe I’ll buy it.”

It was quite a relief to Foiral to find that after all he was just a plain, simple, ordinary lunatic. Without a proper pair of pants to his back-side, he was offering to buy this

excellent sound house, for which Foiral would have asked twenty thousand francs, had there been anyone of whom to ask it.

“Come on,” said the stranger. “How much?”

Foiral, thinking he had wasted enough time, and not objecting to an agreeable sensation, said, “Forty thou­sand.”

Said the stranger, “I’ll give you thirty-five.”

Foiral laughed heartily.

I ‘That’s a good laugh,’⁵ said the stranger. “1 should like to paint a laugh like mat. I should express it by a melange of the roots of recently extracted teetn. Well, what about it? Thirty-five? I can pay you a deposit right now.” And, pulling out a wallet, tnis Croesus among madmen rustled one, two, three, four, five thousand-franc notes under Foiral’s nose.

“It’ll leave me dead broke,” he said. "Still, I expect I can sell it again?”

“If God wills,” said Foiral.

"Anyway, I could come here now and then,” said the other. “My God! I can paint a showful of pictures here in six months. New York*ll go crazy. Then 111 come back here and paint another show.”

Foiral, ravished with joy, ceased attempting to under­stand. He began to praise his house furiously: he dragged the man inside, showed him the oven, banged the wails, made him look up the chimney, into the shed, down the well— “All right. All right,” said the stranger. “That’s grand. Everything’s grand. Whitewash the walls. Find me some woman to come and dean and cook. I’ll go back to Perpignan and turn up in a week with my things. Listen, I want that table chucked in, two or three of me chairs, and the bedstead. I’ll get the rest Here’s your deposit” "No, no,” said Foiral. "Everything must be done prop­erly, before witnesses. Then, when the lawyer comes, he can make out the papers. Come back with me. I’ll call Arago, he’s a very honest man. Guis, very honest Vign£, honest as the good earth. And a bottle of old wine. I have it It shall cost nothing.”

“Fine!” said the blessed madman, sent by God.

Back they went. In came Arago, Guis, Vign£, all as hon- i ' est as the day. The deposit was paid, the wine was opened, the stranger called for more, others crowded in; those who i®|| were not allowed in stood outside to listen to the laughter. Bj You’d have thought there was a wedding going on, or some wickedness in the house. In fact, Foiral’s old woman went and stood in the doorway every now and then, just IQ to let people see her.

There was no doubt about it, there was something very JjsS magnificent about this madman. Next day, after he had gone, they talked him over thoroughly. “To listen,” said 1||| little Guis, “is to be drunk without spending a penny. J||l You think you understand; you seem to fly through the air; you have to burst out laughing.”

"I somehow had the delectable impression that I was rich,” said Arago. “Not, I mean, with something in the chimney, but as if I—well, as if I were to spend it. And more.”

“I like him,” said little Guis. “He is my friend.”

“Now you speak like a fool,” said Foiral. “He is mad.

And it is I who deal with him.”

“I thought maybe he was not so mad when he said the house was like an old skull looking out of the ground,” said Guis, looking sideways, as well he might.

"Nor a liar, perhaps?” said Foiral. “Let me tell you, he said also it was like a die on a desert. Can it be both?”

“He said in one breath,” said Arago, “that he came from Paris. In the next, that he was an American.”

“Oh, yes. Unquestionably a great liar,” said Qu£s. “Per­haps one of the biggest rogues in the whole world, going up and down. But, fortunately, mad as well.”

"So he buys a house,” said Lafago. “If he had his wits about him, a liar of that size, he’d take it—like that. As it 1 is, he buys it. Thirty-five thousand francs!”

“Madness turns a great man inside out, like a sack,” 1 said Arago. “And if he is rich as well—”

“—money flies in all directions,” said Guis.

Nothing could be more satisfactory. They waited im-

patiently for the stranger's return. Foiral whitewashed the house, cleaned the chimneys, put everything to rights. You may be sure he had a good search for anything that his wife’s old man might have left hidden there years ago, and which this fellow might have heard of. They say they’re up to anything in Paris.

The stranger came back, and they were all day with the mules getting his stuff from where the motor truck had left it. By the evening they were in the house, witnesses, helpers, and all—there was just the little matter of paying up the money.

Foiral indicated this with the greatest delicacy in the world. The stranger, all smiles and readiness, went into the room where his bags were piled up, and soon emerged with a sort of book in his hand, full of little billets, like those they try to sell for the lottery in Perpignan. He tore off the top one. “Here you are,” he said to Foiral, holding it out “Thirty thousand francs.”

“No,” said Foiral.

“What the hell now?” asked the stranger.

“I’ve seen that sort of thing,” said Foiral. “And not for thirty thousand francs, my friend, but for three million. And afterwards—they tell you it hasn’t won. I should pre­fer the money.”

“This is the money,” said the stranger. “It’s as good as money anyway. Present this, and you’ll get thirty thou­sand-franc notes, just like those I gave you.”

Foiral was rather at a loss. It’s quite usual in these parts to settle a sale at the end of a month. Certainly he wanted to run no risk of crabbing the deal. So he pocketed the piece of paper, gave the fellow good-day, and went off with the rest of them to the village.

The stranger settled in. Soon he got to know everybody. Foiral, a little uneasy, cross-examined him whenever they talked. It appeared, after all, that he did come from Paris, having lived there, and he was an American, having been bom there. “Then you have no relations in this part of the world?” said Foiral.

“No relations at all.”

Witch'* Moiwf

Well! Well! Well! Foiral hoped the money was all right.

Yet there was more in it than that. No relations! It was fH quite a thought. Foiral put it away at the back of his mind: he meant to extract the juice from it some night when he couldn’t sleep.

At the end of the month, he took out his piece of paper, and marched up to the house again. There was the fellow, > ¹ three parts naked, sitting under one of the ilex trees, painting away on a bit of canvas. And what do you think he had chosen to paint? Roustand’s mangy olives, that haven’t borne a crop in living memory!

“What is it?” said the mad fellow. “I’m busy.”                             

“This,” said Foiral, holding out the bit of paper. “I need the money.”

“Then why, in the name of the devil,” said the other,

82

“don't you go and get the money, instead of coming here - J

L________ I never seen him in this sort of mood before.

But a lot of these laughers stop laughing when it comes to hard cash. “Look here,” said Foiral. “This is a very serious matter.”

“Look here,” said the stranger. “That's what's called a cheque. I give it to you. You take it to a bank. The bank gives you the money.”

“Which bank?” said Foiral.

“Your bank. Any bank. The bank in Perpignan,” said the stranger. “You go there. They’ll do it for you.”

Foiral, still hankering after the cash, pointed out that J|jgjlg he was a very poor man, and it took a whole day to get to Perpignan, a considerable thing to such an extremely poor man as he was.

“Listen,” said the stranger. “You know goddam well you’ve made a good thing out of this sale. Let me get on with my work. Take the cheque to Perpignan. It's worth the trouble. I've paid you plenty.”

Foiral knew then that Guis had been talking about the price of the house. “All right, my little Guis, I’ll think that over some long evening when the rains begin.” How­ever, there was nothing for it, he had to put on his best

black, take the mule to Estagel, and there get the bus, and the bus took him to Perpignan.

In Perpignan they are like So many monkeys. They push you, look you up and down, snigger in your face. If a man has business—with a bank, let us say—and he stands on the pavement opposite to have a good look at it, he gets elbowed into the roadway half a dozen times in five min­utes, and he’s lucky if he escapes with his life.

% Nevertheless, Foiral got into the bank at last. As a spec­tacle it was tremendous. Brass rails, polished wood, a clock big enough for a church, little cotton-backs sitting among heaps of money like mice in a cheese.

He stood at the back for about half an hour, waiting, and no one took any notice of him at all. In the end one of the little cotton-backs beckoned him up to the brass railing. Foiral delved in his pocket, and produced the cheque. The cotton-back looked at it as if it were a mere nothing. “Holy Virgin!” thought Foiral,

“I want the money for it,” said he.

“Are you a client of the bank?”

"No.”

I "Do you wish to be?”’

"Shall I get the money?”

"But naturally. Sign this. Sign this. Sign on the back of i the cheque. Take this. Sign this. Thank you. Good-day.” “But the thirty thousand francs?” cried Foiral.

"For that, my dear sir, we must wait till the cheque is cleared. Come back in about a week.”

^ Foiral, half dazed, went home. It was a bad week. By | day he felt reasonably sure of the cash, but at night, as soon as he closed his eyes, he could see himself going into that bank, and all the cotton-backs swearing they’d never seen him before. Still, he got through it, and as soon as | the time was up, he presented himself at the bank again. “Do you want a cheque-book?”

"No. Just the money. The money.” ,

"All of it? You want to close the account? Weill Weill £%n here. Sign here.” k Foiral signed.

"There you are. Twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and ninety.”

"But, sir, it was thirty thousand.”

"But, my dear sir, the charges.”

Foiral found it was no good arguing. He went off with his money. That was good. But the other hundred and ten I That sticks in a man’s throat.

As soon as he got home, Foiral interviewed the stranger. "I am a poor man,” said he.

"So am I,” said the stranger. “A damned sight too poor to pay you extra because you can’t get a cheque cashed in a civilized way.”

This was a peculiarly villainous lie. Foiral had, with his own eyes, seen a whole block of these extraordinary thirty-thousand-franc billets in the little book from which the stranger had tom this one. But once more there was nothing to be done about it; a plain honest man is always being baffled and defeated. Foiral went home, and put his crippled twenty-nine thousand-odd into the little box behind the stone in the chimney. How different, if it had been a round thirty thousand! What barbarous injustice!

Here was something to think about in the evenings. Foiral thought about it a lot. In the end he decided it was impossible to act alone, and called in Arago, Qu£s, Lafago, Vign£, Barilles. Not Guis. It was Guis who had told the fellow he had paid too much for the house, and put his back up. Let Guis stay out of it.

To the rest he explained everything very forcefully. "Not a relation in the whole countryside. And in that book, my dear friends—you have seen it yourselves—ten, twelve, fifteen, maybe twenty of these extraordinary little billets.^,>

"And if somebody comes after him? Somebody from America?”

"He has gone off, walking, mad, just as he came here. Anything can happen to a madman, walking about, scat­tering money.”

“It’s true. Anything can happen.”

“But it should happen before the lawyer comes.”

“That’s true. So far even the curd hasn’t seen him.”

“There must be justice, my good friends, society cannot exist without it. A man, an honest man, is not to be robbed of a hundred and ten francs.”

“No, that is intolerable.”

The next night, these very honest men left their houses, those houses whose tall uprights of white plaster and black shadow appear, in moonlight even more than in sunlight, like a heap of bleached ribs lying in the desert. Without much conversation they made their way up the hill and knocked upon the stranger’s door.

After a brief interval they returned, still without much conversation, and slipped one by one into their extremely dark doorways, and that was all.

For a whole week there was no perceptible change in the village. If anything, its darks and silences, those holes in the fierce light, were deeper. In every black interior sat a man who had two of these excellent billets, each of which commanded thirty thousand francs. Such a possession brightens the eyes, and enhances the savour of solitude, enabling a man, as the artist would have said, to partake of the nature of Fabre’s tarantula, motionless at the angle of her tunnel. But they found it no longer easy to remem­ber the artist. His jabbering, his laughter, even his final yelp, left no echo at all. It was all gone, like the rattle and flash of yesterday’s thunderstorm.

So apart from the tasks of the morning and the evening, performing which they were camouflaged by habit, they sat in their houses alone. Their wives scarcely dared to speak to them, and they were too rich to speak to each other. Guis found it out, for it was no secret except to the world outside, and Guis was furious. But his wife rated him from morning till night, and left him no energy for reproaching his neighbours.

At the end of the week, Barilles sprang into existence in the doorway of his house. His thumbs were stuck in his belt, his face was flushed from lead colour to plum colour, his bearing expressed an irritable resolution.

He crossed to Arago’s, knocked, leaned against a door-

post. Arago, emerging, leaned against the other. They talked for some little time of nothing at all. Then Barilles, throwing away the stump of his cigarette, made an oblique and sympathetic reference to a certain small enclosure belonging to Arago, on which there was a shed, a few vines, a considerable grove of olives. “It is the very devil," said Barilles, “how the worm gets into the olive in these days. Such a grove as that, at one time, might have been worth something.”

“It is worse than the devil,” said Arago. “Believe me or not, my dear friend, in some years I get no more than three thousand francs from that grove.”

Barilles burst into what passes for laughter in this part of the world. “Forgive me!” he said. “I thought you said three thousand. Three hundred-yes. I suppose in a good year you might make that very easily.”

This conversation continued through phases of civility, sarcasm, rage, fury and desperation until it ended with a cordial handshake, and a sale of the enclosure to Barilles for twenty-five thousand francs. The witnesses were called in; Barilles handed over one of his billets, and received five thousand in cash from the box Arago kept in his chim­ney. Everyone was delighted by the sale: it was felt that things were beginning to move in the village.

They were. Before the company separated, pourparlers were already started for the sale of Vigny’s mules to Qu&s for eight thousand, the transfer of Lloubes’s cork conces­sion to Foiral for fifteen thousand, the marriage of Rou- stand’s daughter to Vigny’s brother with a dowry of twenty thousand, and the sale of a miscellaneous collection of brass objects belonging to Madame Arago for sixty-five francs, after some very keen bargaining.

Only Guis was left out in the cold, but on the way home, Lloubes, with his skin full of wine, ventured to step inside the outcast’s doorway, and looked his wife Filomena up and down, from top to toe, three times. A mild interest, imperfectly concealed, softened the bitter and sullen ex­pression upon the face of Guis.

This was a mere beginning. Soon properties began to

change hands at a bewildering rate and at increasing prices. It was a positive boom. Change was constantly be­ing dug out from under flagstones, from the strawy in­teriors of mattresses, from hollows in beams, and from holes in walls. With the release of these frozen credits the village blossomed like an orchid sprung from a dry stick. Wine flowed with every bargain. Old enemies shook hands. Elderly spinsters embraced young suitors. Wealthy wid­owers married young brides. Several of the weaker sort wore their best black every day. One of these was Lloubes, who spent his evenings in the house of Guis. Guis in the evenings would wander round the village, no longer sul­len, and was seen cheapening a set of harness at Lafago’s, a first-rate gun at Roustand’s. There was talk of something very special by way of a fiesta after the grape harvest, but this was only whispered, lest the cur6 should hear of it on one of his visits.

Foiral, keeping up his reputation as leader, made a stag­gering proposal. It was nothing less than to improve the mule track all the way from the metalled road on the rim of the hills, so that motor trucks could visit the village. It was objected that the wage bill would be enormous. “Yes,” said Foiral, “but we shall draw the wages ourselves. We shall get half as much again for our produce.”

The proposal was adopted. The mere boys of the village now shared the prosperity. Barilles now called his little shop “Grand Cam Glacier de l’Univers et des Pyr£n£es.” The widow Loyau offered room, board, and clothing to certain unattached young women, and gave select parties in the evenings.

Barilles went to Perpignan and returned with a sprayer that would double the yield of his new olive grove. Lloubes went and returned with a positive bale of ladies’ under­clothing, designed, you would say, by the very devil him­self. Two or three keen card players went and returned with new packs of cards, so lustrous that your hand seemed to be all aces and kings. Vign£ went, and returned with a long face.

The bargaining, increasing all the time, called for more

and more ready money. Foiral made a new proposal. “We will all go to Perpignan, the whole damned lot of us, march to the bank, thump down our billets, and show the little cotton-backs whom the money belongs to. Boys, we'll leave them without a franc.”

“They will have the hundred and ten,” said Qu&s.

"To hell with the hundred and ten!” said Foiral. “And, boys, after that—well—hal hal—all men sin once. They say the smell alone of one of those creatures is worth fifty francs. Intoxicating! Stair carpets, red hair, every sort of wickedness! Tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow!” they all cried, and on the morrow they went off, in their stiffest clothes, their faces shining. Every man was smoking like a chimney, and every man had washed his feet

The journey was tremendous. They stopped the bus at every cafe on the road, and saw nothing they didn’t ask the price of. In Perpignan they kept together in a close phalanx; if the townspeople stared, our friends stared back twice as hard. As they crossed over to the bank, ‘Where is Guis?” said Foiral, affecting to look for him among their number. “Has he nothing due to him?” That set them all laughing. Try as they might, they couldn’t hold their faces straight. They were still choking with laughter when the swing doors closed behind them.

An Outpost of Progress BY JOSEPH CONRAD. Full Short Story.

An Outpost of Progress BY JOSEPH CONRAD************************************************************************************************************************* THERE WERE TWO WHITE MEN in charge of the trading sta¬tion. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who main¬tained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping;, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship or evil spirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his low, shed¬like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, de-spised the two white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-grass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton doth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola’s hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds, with a veranda on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it The one in the middle was the living room, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn weanng apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also another dwelling place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular^ slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the con¬struction of this outpost of progress. He had been, at home, an unsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on an empty stomach, had gone out there through high pro¬tections. He had been the first chief of that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of fever in the just finished house with his usual kind of “I told you so” in¬difference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his fam- ily, his account books, and the Evil Spirit that rules the lands under the equator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had propitiated him by a promise of more white men to play with, by and by. At any rate the director of the Great Trading Company, coming up in a steamer that resembled an enormous sardine box with a flat-roofed shed erected on it, found the station in good order, and Makola as usual quietly diligent. The director had the cross put up over the first agent’s grave, and appointed Kayerts to the post. Carlier was told off as second in charge. The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who at times, but very imperceptibly, indulged in grim humor. He made a speech to Kayerts and Carlier, pointing out to them the promising aspect of their station. The nearest trading post was about three hundred miles away. It was an exceptional opportunity for them to distinguish them¬selves and to earn percentages on the trade. This appoint-ment was a favor done to beginners. Kayerts was moved almost to tears by his director’s kindness. He would, he said, by doing his best, try to justify the flattering confi¬dence, etc, etc Kayerts had been in the Administration of the Telegraphs, and knew how to express himself cor¬rectly. Carlier, an ex-noncommissioned officer of cavalry in an army guaranteed from harm by several European powers, was less impressed. If there were commissions to get, so much the better; and, trailing a sulky glance over the river, the forests, the impenetrable bush that seemed to cut off the station from the rest of the world, he mut¬tered between his teeth, “We shall see, very soon.” Next day, some bales of cotton goods and a few cases of provisions having been thrown on shore, the sardine- box steamer went off, not to return for another six months. On the deck the director touched his cap to the two agents, who stood on the bank waving their hats, and turning to an old servant of the Company on his passage to head¬quarters, said, “Look at those two imbeciles. They must be mad at home to send me such specimens. I told those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build new storehouses and fences, and construct a landing stage. I bet nothing will be done! They won't know how to begin. I always thought the station on this river useless, and they just fit the station!”- “They will form themselves there,” said the old stager with a quiet smile. “At any rate, 1 am rid of them for six months,” retorted I the director. The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the station. They had been in this vast and dark coun¬try only a very short time, and as yet always in the midst' of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as they were to the subtle in¬fluences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to face the wilder¬ness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incom¬prehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their sur¬roundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insig¬nificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primi-tive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one’s kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one’s thoughts, of one’s sensations—to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike. Kayerts and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one another as children do in the dark, and they had the same, not altogether unpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be imaginary. They chatted persistent¬ly in familiar tones. “Our station is prettily situated,” said one. The other assented with enthusiasm, enlarging volu¬bly on the beauties of the situation. Then they passed near the grave. “Poor devil!” said Kayerts. “He died of fever, didn't he?” muttered Carlier, stopping short “Why,” retorted Kayerts, with indignation, “I've been told that the fellow exposed himself recklessly to the sun. The climate here, everybody says, is not at all worse than at home, as long as you keep out of the sun. Do you hear that, Carlier? I am chief here, and my orders are that you should not expose yourself to the sun!” He assumed his superiority jocularly, but his meaning was serious. The idea that he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier and remain alone, gave him an inward shiver. He felt suddenly that this Carlier was more precious to him here, in the center of Africa, than a brother could be anywhere else. Carlier, entering into the spirit of the thing, made a mili¬tary salute and answered m a brisk tone, “Your orders shall be attended to, chief!” Then he burst out laughing, slapped Kayerts on the back and shouted, “We shall let life run easily here! Just sit still and gather in the ivory those savages will bring. This country has its good points, after alll” They both laughed loudly while Carlier thought: “That poor Kayerts; he is so fat and unhealthy. It would be awful if I had to bury him here. He is a man I respect.” . . . Before they reached the veranda of their house they called one another “my dear fellow.” The first day they were very active, pottering about with hammers and nails and red calico, to put up curtains, make their house habitable and pretty; resolved to settle down comfortably to their new life. For them an impos¬sible task. To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines. And now, released from the fostering care of men with pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they were like those life-long prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedom. They did not know what use to make of their faculties, . being both, through want of practice, incapable of inde-pendent thought. At the end of two months Kayerts often would say, “If it was not for my Melie, you wouldn’t catch me here.” Melie was his daughter. He had thrown up his post in the Administration of the Telegraphs, though he had been for seventeen years perfectly happy there, to earn a dowry for his girl. His wife was dead, and the child was being brought up by his sisters. He regretted the streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friends of many years; all the things he used to see, day after day; all the thoughts sug¬gested by familiar things—the thoughts effortless, monot¬onous, and soothing of a Government derk; he regretted all the gossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government offices. “If I had had a decent brother-in-law,” Carlier would remark, “a fellow with a heart, I would not be here.” He had left the army and had made himself so obnoxious to his family by his laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brother-in- law had made superhuman efforts to procure him an ap¬pointment in the Company as a second-class agent. Having not a penny in the world he was compelled to accept this means of livelihood as soon as it became quite clear to him that there was nothing more to squeeze out of his relations. He, like Kayerts, regretted his old life. He re¬gretted the clink of saber and spurs on a fine afternoon, the barrack-room wittirisms, the girls of garrison towns; but, besides, he had also a sense of grievance. He was evi¬dently a much ill-psed man. This made him moody, at < i times. But the two men got on well together in the fellow¬ship of their stupidity and laziness. Together they did nothing, absolutely nothing, and enjoyed the sense of the idleness for which they were paid. Ana in time they came to feel something resembling affection for one another. They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what came in contact with them (and of that only im¬perfectly) , but unable to see the general aspect of things. The river, the forest, all the great land throbbing with life, were like a great emptiness. Even the brilliant sun¬shine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected and aim¬less kind of way. The river seemed to come from nowhere and flow nowhither. It flowed through a void. Out of that void, at times, came canoes, and men with spears in their hands would suddenly crowd the yard of the station. They were naked, glossy black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brass wire, perfect of limb. They made an uncouth babbling noise when they spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out of their startled, never-resting eyes. Those warriors would squat in long rows, four or more deep, before the veranda, while their chiefs bargained for hours with Makola over an ele¬phant tusk. Kayerts sat on his chair and looked down on the proceedings, understanding nothing. He stared at them with his round blue eyes, called out to Carlier, “Here, look! look at that fellow there—and that other one, to the left. Did you ever see such a face? Oh, the funny brute!” Carlier, smoking native tobacco in a short wooden pipe, would swagger up twirling his mustaches, and surveying the warriors with haughty indulgence, would say: “Fine animals. Brought any bone? Yes? It's not any too soon. Look at the muscles of that fellow—third from the end. I wouldn’t care to get a punch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no good below the knee. Couldn't make cavalry men of them.” And after glancing down compla¬cently at his own shanks, he always concluded, “Pah! Don’t they stink! You, Makola! Take that herd over to the fetish” (the storehouse was in every station called the fetish, perhaps because of the spirit of civilization it con¬tained) “ana give them up some of the rubbish you keep there. I’d rather see it full of bone than full of rags.** Kayerts approved. “Yes, yesl Go and finish that palaver over there, Mr. Makola. I will come round when you are ready, to weigh the tusk. We must be careful.” Then turning to his com¬panion: “This is the Bribe that lives down the river; they are rather aromatic I remember, they had been once be¬fore here. D’ye hear that row?. What a fellow has got to put up with in this dog of a countryl My head is split.” Such profitable visits were rare. For days the two pio¬neers of trade and progress would look on their empty courtyard in the vibrating brilliance of vertical sunshine. Below the high bank, the silent river flowed on glittering and steady. On the sands in the middle of the stream, hippos ana alligators sunned themselves side by side. And stretching away in all directions, surrounding the insig¬nificant clearea spot of the trading post, immense forests, hiding fateful complications of fantastic life, lay in the eloquent silence of mute greatness. The two men under¬stood nothing, cared for nothing but for the passage of days that separated them from the steamers return. Their predecessor had left some tom books. They took up these wrecks of novels, and, as they had never read anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused. Then during long days there were interminable and silly dis¬cussions about plots and personages. In the center of Africa they made acquaintance of Richelieu and of d’Ar- tagnan, of Hawk’s Eye and of Father Goriot, and of many other people. All these imaginary personages became sub¬jects for gossip as if they had been living friends. They discounted their virtues, suspected their motives, decried their successes; were scandalized at their duplicity or were doubtful about their courage. The accounts of crimes filled them with indignation, while tender or pathetic passages moved them deeply. Carlier cleared his throat and said in a soldierly voice, “What nonsense!” Kayerts, his round eyes suffusea with tears, his fat cheeks quivering,  rubbed his bald head, and declared, “This is a splendid book. I had no idea there were such clever fellows in the world." They also found some old copies of a home paper. That print discussed what it was pleased to call “Our Colonial Expansion" in high-flown language. It spoke much of the rights and duties of civilization, of the sacred¬ness of the civilizing work, and extolled the merits of i those who went about bringing light, and faith and com¬merce to the dark places of the earth. Carlier and Kayerts read, wondered, and began to think better of themselves. Carlier said one evening, waving his hand about, “In a hundred years, there will be perhaps a town here. Quays, and warehouses, and barracks, ana—and—billiard rooms. I Civilization, my boy, and virtue—and all. And then, chaps will read that two good fellows, Kayerts and Carlier, were the first civilized men to live in this very spotl” Kayerts nodded, "Yes, it is a consolation to think of that.” They seemed to forget their dead predecessor; but, early one day, Carlier went out and replanted the cross firmly. “It used to make me squint whenever I walked that way,” he explained to Kayerts over the morning coffee. “It made me squint, leaning over so much. So I just planted it up¬right. And solid, I promise youl I suspended myself with both hands to the cross-piece. Not a move. Oh, I did that properly." At times Gobila came to see them. Gobila was the chief of the neighboring villages. He was a gray-headed savage, thin and black, with a white cloth round his loins and a mangy panther skin hanging over his back. He came up with long strides of his skeleton legs, swinging a staff as tall as himself, and, entering the common room of the station, would squat on his heels to the left of the door. There he sat, watching Kayerts, and now and then making a speech which the other did not understand. Kayerts, without interrupting his occupation, would from time to time say in a friendly manner: “How goes it, you old image?" and they would smile at one another. The two whites had a liking for that old and incomprehensible creature, and called him Father Gobila. Gobila’s manner  was paternal, and he seemed really to love all white men. They all appeared to him very young, indistinguishably alike (except for stature), and he knew that they were all brothers, and also immortal. The death of the artist, who was the first white man whom he knew intimately, did not disturb this belief, because he was firmly convinced that the white stranger had pretended to die and got himself buried for some mysterious purpose of his own, into which it was useless to inquire. Perhaps it was his way of going home to his own country? At any rate, these were his broth¬ers, and he transferred his absurd affection to them. They returned it in a way. Carlier slapped him on the back, and recklessly struck off matches for his amusement Kayerts was always ready to let him have a sniff at the ammonia bottle. In short, they behaved just like that other white creature that had hidden itself in a hole in the ground. Gobila considered them attentively. Perhaps they were the same being with the other—or one of them was. He couldn't decide—clear up that mystery; but he remained always very friendly. In consequence of that friendship the women of Gobila’s village walked in single file through the reedy grass, bringing every morning to the station, fowls, and sweet potatoes, and palm wine, and sometimes a goat. The Company never provisions the sta¬tions fully, and the agents required those local supplies to live. They had them througn the good will of Golbila, and lived well. Now and then one of them had a bout of fever, and the other nursed him with gentle devotion. They did not think much of it. It left them weaker, and their appearance changed for the worse. Carlier was hol¬low-eyed and irritable. Kayerts showed a drawn, flabby face above the rotundity of his stomach, which gave him a weird aspect. But being constantly together, they did not notice the change that took place gradually in their appearance, and also in their dispositions. Five months passed in that way. Then, one morning, as Kayerts and Carlier, lounging in their chairs under the veranda, talked about the ap-proaching visit of the steamer, a knot of armed men came It was like a reminiscence of something not exactly fa- m miliar, and yet resembling the speech of civilized men. It * sounded like one of those impossible languages which sometimes we hear in our dreams. “What lingo is that?” said the amazed Carlier. “In the first moment I fancied the fellow was going to speak French. Anyway, it is a different kind of gibberish to what we ever heard.” “Yes,” replied Kayerts. “Hey, Makola, what does he say? Where do they come from? Who are they?” But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks, answered hurriedly, “I don’t know. They come from very far. Perhaps Mrs. Price will understand. They are perhaps bad men.” The leader, after waiting for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head. Then the man, after looking round, noticed Makola’s hut and walked over there. The next moment Mrs. Makola was heard speaking with great volubility. The other strangers—they were six in all—strolled about with an air of ease, put their heads through the door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointed understanding^ at the cross, and generally made themselves at home. “I don’t like those chaps—and, I say, Kayerts, they must be from the coast; they’ve got firearms,” observed the  sagacious Carlier. Kayerts also did not like those chaps. They both, for the first time, became aware that they lived in conditions where the unusual may be dangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside of themselves to stand between them and the unusual. They became uneasy, went in and loaded their revolvers. Kayerts said, “We must order Ma- kola to tell them to go away before dark.” The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal prepared for them by Mrs. Makola. The immense woman was excited, and talked much with the visitors. She rattled away shrilly, pointing here and there at the forests and at the river. Makola sat apart and watched. At times he got up and whispered to his wife. He accompanied the stran¬gers across the ravine at the back of the station-ground, and returned slowly looking very thoughtful. When ques¬tioned by the white men he was very strange, seemed not to understand, seemed to have forgotten French—seemed to have forgotten how to speak altogether. Kayerts and Carlier agreed that the nigger had had too much palm wine. There was some talk about keeping a watch in turn, but in the evening everything seemed so quiet and peace¬ful that they retired as usual. All night they were disturbed by a lot of drumming in the villages. A deep, rapid roll near by would be followed by another far off—then all ceased. Soon short appeals would rattle out here and there, then all mingle together, increase, become vigorous and sustained, would spread out over the forest, roll through the night, unbroken and ceaseless, near and far, as if the whole land had been one immense drum booming out steadily an appeal to heaven. And through the deep and tremendous noise sudden yells that resembled snatches of songs from a madhouse darted shrill and high in discord¬ant jets of sound which seemed to rush far above the earth and drive all peace from under the stars. Carlier and Kayerts slept badly. They both thought they had heard shots fired during the night—but they could not agree as to the direction. In the morning Makola was  gone somewhere. He returned about noon with one of J yesterday’s strangers, and eluded all Kayerts’ attempts to close with him: had become deaf apparently. Kayerts won- M dered. Carlier, who had been fishing off the bank, came V back and remarked while he showed his catch, “The nig- M gers seem to be in a deuce of a stir; I wonder what’s up. I ’ saw about fifteen canoes cross the river during the two /f| hours I was there fishing.” Kayerts, worried, said, “Isn’t '/jm this Makola very queer today?” Carlier advised, “Keep all ,■ our men together in case of some trouble.” n 1 There were ten station men who had been left by the Director. Those fellows, having engaged themselves to m the Company for six months (without having any idea ! of a month in particular and only a very faint notion of ■ time in general), had been serving the cause of progress ■ for upwards of two years. Belonging to a tribe from a very distant part of the land of darkness and sorrow, they did not run away, naturally supposing that as wandering stran¬gers they would be killed by the inhabitants of the coun¬try; in which they were right. They lived in straw huts on the slope of a ravine overgrown with reedy grass, just be¬hind the station buildings. They were not happy, regret¬ting the festive incantations, the sorceries, the human sac¬rifices of their own land; where they also had parents, brothers, sisters, admired chiefs, respected magicians, loved friends, and other ties supposed generally to be human. Besides, the rice rations served out by the Company did not agree with them, being a food unluiown to their land, and to which they could not get used. Consequently they were unhealthy and miserable. Had they been of any other tribe they would have made up their minds to die—for nothing is easier to certain savages than suicide—and so have escaped from the puzzling difficulties of existence. But belonging, as they did, to a warlike tribe with filed teeth, they had more grit, and went on stupidly living through disease and sorrow. They did very little work, and had lost their splendid physique. Carlier and Kayerts doctored them assiduously without being able to bring them back into condition again. They were mustered every morning and told off to different tasks—grass-cutting, fence-building, tree-felling, etc., etc., which no power on earth could induce them to execute efficiently. The two whites had practically very little control over them. In the afternoon Makola came over to the big house and found Kayerts watching three heavy columns of smoke rising above the forests. "What is that?" asked Kayerts. "Some villages burn,” answered Makola, who seemed to have regained his wits. Then he said abruptly: “We have got very little ivory; bad six months’ trading. Do you like get a little more ivory?" “Yes," said Kayerts, eagerly. He thought of percentages which ware low. “Those men who came yesterday are traders from Lo* anda who have got more ivory than they can carry home. Shall I buy? I know their camp.” “Certainly," said Kayerts. “What are those traders?" “Bad fellows," said Makola, indifferently. “They fight with people, and catch women and children. They are bad men, ana got guns. There is a great disturbance in the country. Do you want ivory?" "Yes," said Kayerts. Makola said nothing for a while. Then: "Those workmen of ours are no good at all,” he muttered, looking round. "Station in very bad order, sir. Director will growl. Better get a fine lot of ivory, then he say nothing." “I can't help it; the men won’t work," said Kayerts. "When will you get that ivory?” “Very soon,” said Makola. "Perhaps tonight. You leave it to me, and keep indoors, sir. I think you had better give some palm wine to our men to make a dance this evening. Enjoy themselves. Work better tomorrow. There’s plenty palm wine—gone a little sour.” Kayerts said "yes," and Makola, with his own hands carried big calabashes to the door of his hut They stood there till the evening, and Mrs. Makola looked into every one. The men got them at sunset When Kayerts and Carlier retired, a big bonfire was flaring before the men's huts. They could hear their shouts and drumming. Some men from Gobila’s village had joined the station hands, and the entertainment was a great success. In the middle of the night, Carlier waking suddenly, heard a man shout loudly; then a shot was fired Only one. Carlier ran out and met Kayerts on the veranda. They were both startled. As they went across the yard to call Makola, they saw shadows moving in the night One of them cried, “Don’t shoot! It’s me, Price.” Then Makola appeared dose to them. “Go back, go back, please,” he urged, “you spoil all.” “There are strange men about,” said Carlier. “Never mind; I know,” said Makola. Then he whispered, “All right Bring ivory. Say nothing! I know my business.” The two white men reluctantly went back to the house, but did not sleep. They heanl footsteps, whispers, some groans. It seemed as if a lot of men came in, dumped heavy things on the ground, squabbled a long time, then went away. They lay on their hard beds ana thought: “This Makola is invaluable.” In the morning Carlier came out, very sleepy, and pulled at the cord of the big bell. The station hands mustered every morning to the sound of the bell. That morning nobody came. Kay* erts turned out also, yawning. Across the yard they saw Makola come out of his hut, a tin basin of soapy water in his hand. Makola, a civilized nigger, was very neat in his person. He threw the soapsuds skillfully over a wretched little yellow cur he had, then turning his face to the agent’s house, he shouted from the distance, “All the men gone last night!” They heard him plainly, but in their surprise they both yelled out together: “What!” Then they stared at one an¬other. “We are in a proper fix now,” growled Carlier. “It’s incredible!” muttered Kayerts. “I will go to the huts and see,” said Carlier, striding off. Makola coming up found Kayerts standing alone. “I can hardly believe it," said Kayerts tearfully. “We took care of them as if they had been our children.” “They went with the coast people,” said Makola after | a moment of hesitation. "What do I care with whom they went—the ungrateful brutes!” exclaimed the other. Then with sudden suspicion, and looking hard at Makola, he added: “What do you know about it?” Makola moved his shoulders, looking down on the ground. 'What do I know? I think only. Will you come and look at the ivory I’ve got there? It is a fine lot. You never saw such.” He moved towards the store. Kayerts followed him me¬chanically, thinking about the incredible desertion of the men. On the ground before the door of the fetish lay six splendid tusks. “What did you give for it?” asked Kayerts, after survey¬ing the lot with satisfaction. “No regular trade,” said Makola. “They brought the ivory and gave it to me. I told them to take what they most wanted in the station. It is a beautiful lot. No station can show such tusks. Those traders wanted carriers badly, and our men were no good here. No trade, no entry in books; all correct.” Kayerts nearly burst with indignation. “Why!” he shouted, “I believe you have sold our men for these tusks!” Makola stood impassive and silent. “I—I—will—I,” stut¬tered Kayerts. “You fiend!” he yelled out. “I did the best for you and the Company,” said Makola, imperturbably. “Why you shout so much? Look at this tusk.” “I dismiss you I I will report you—I won’t look at the tusk. I forbid you to touch them. I order you to throw them into the river. You—you!” “You very red, Mr. Kayerts. If you are so irritable in the sun, you will get fever and die—like the first chief!” pro¬nounced Makola impressively. They stood still, contemplating one another with in-tense eyes, as if fhey had been looking with effort across immense distances. Kayerts shivered. Makola had meant no more than he said, but his words seemed to Kayerts full of ominous menace! He turned sharply and went away to the house. Makola retired into the bosom of his family; and the tusks, left lying before the store, looked very large and valuable in the sunshine. Carlier came back on the veranda. “They’re all gone, hey?” asked Kayerts from the far end of the common room in a muffled voice. “You did not find anybody?” "Oh, yes,” said Carlier, “I found one of Gobila’s people lying dead before the huts—shot through the body. We heard that shot last night.” Kayerts came out quickly. He found his companion star¬ing grimly over the yard at the tusks, away by the store. They both sat in silence for a while. Then Kayerts related his conversation with Makola. Carlier said nothing. At the midday meal they ate very little. They hardly ex¬changed a word that day. A great silence seemed to lie heavily over the station and press on their lips. Makola did not open the store; he spent the day playing with his children. He lay full-length on a mat outside his door, and the youngsters sat on his chest and clambered all over him. It was a touching picture. Mrs. Makola was busy cooking all day as usual. The white men made a somewhat better meal in the evening. Afterwards, Carlier smoking his pipe strolled over to the store; he stood for a long time over the tusks, touched one or two with his foot, even tried to lift the largest one by its small end. He came back to his chief, who had not stirred from the veranda, threw himself in the chair and said: “I can see it! They were pounced upon while they slept heavily after drinking all that palm wine you’ve allowed Makola to give them. A put-up job! See? The worst is, some of Gobila’s people were there, and got carried off too, no doubt The least drunk woke up, and got shot for his sobriety. This is a funny country. What will you do now?” “We can’t touch it, of course,” said Kayerts. “Of course not,” assented Carlier. “Slavery is an awful thing,” stammered out Kayerts in an unsteady voice. “Frightful—the sufferings,” grunted Carlier with con- viction. They believed their words. Everybody shows a respect¬ful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about op¬pression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean—except, perhaps the vic¬tims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions. Next morning they saw Makola very busy setting up in the yard the big scales used for weighing ivory. By ana by Cartier said: