The Shadow-Line by Joseph Conrad

movements. When one was in the secret this was apparent in his manner. After the poor steward died, and as he could not be replaced by a white man in this Oriental port, Ransome had volunteered to do the double work.
    â€œI can do it all right, sir, as long as I go about it quietly,” he had assured me.
    But obviously he couldn’t be expected to take up sick-nursing in addition. Moreover, the doctor peremptorily ordered Mr. Burns ashore.
    With a seaman on each side holding him up under the arms, the mate went over the gangway more sullen than ever. We built him up with pillows in the gharry, and he made an effort to say brokenly:
    â€œNow—you’ve got—what you wanted—got me out of—the ship.”
    â€œYou were never more mistaken in your life, Mr. Burns,” I said quietly, duly smiling at him; and the trap drove off to a sort of sanatorium, a pavilion of bricks which the doctor had in the grounds of his residence.
    I visited Mr. Burns regularly. After the first few days, when he didn’t know anybody, he received me as if I had come either to gloat over an enemy or else to curry favour with a deeply wronged person. It was either one or the other, just as it happened according to his fantastic sickroom moods. Whichever it was, he managed to convey it to me even during the period when he appeared almost too weak to talk. I treated him to my invariable kindliness.
    Then one day, suddenly, a surge of downright panic burst through all this craziness.
    If I left him behind in this deadly place he would die. He felt it, he was certain of it. But I wouldn’t have the heart to leave him ashore. He had a wife and child in Sydney.
    He produced his wasted forearms from under the sheet which covered him and clasped his fleshless claws. He would die! He would die here. . . .
    He absolutely managed to sit up, but only for a moment, and when he fell back I really thought that he would die there and then. I called to the Bengali dispenser, and hastened away from the room.
    Next day he upset me thoroughly by renewing his entreaties. I returned an evasive answer, and left him the picture of ghastly despair. The day after I went in with reluctance, and he attacked me at once in a much stronger voice and with an abundance of argument which was quite startling. He presented his case with a sort of crazy vigour, and asked me finally how would I like to have a man’s death on my conscience? He wanted me to promise that I would not sail without him.
    I said that I really must consult the doctor first. He cried out at that. The doctor! Never! That would be a death sentence.
    The effort had exhausted him. He closed his eyes, but went on rambling in a low voice. I had hated him from the start. The late captain had hated him, too. Had wished him dead. Had wished all hands dead. . . .
    â€œWhat do you want to stand in with that wicked corpse for, sir? He’ll have you, too,” he ended, blinking his glazed eyes vacantly.
    â€œMr. Burns,” I cried, very much discomposed, “what on earth are you talking about?”
    He seemed to come to himself, though he was too weak to start.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said languidly. “But don’t ask that doctor, sir. You and I are sailors. Don’t ask him, sir. Someday perhaps you will have a wife and child yourself.”
    And again he pleaded for the promise that I would not leave him behind. I had the firmness of mind not to give it to him. Afterward this sternness seemed criminal; for my mind was made up. That prostrated man, with hardly strength enough to breathe and ravaged by a passion of fear, was irresistible. And, besides, he had happened to hit on the right words. He and I were sailors. That was a claim, for I had no other family. As to the wife and child (some day) argument, it had no force. It sounded merely bizarre.
    I could imagine no claim that would be stronger and more absorbing than the claim of that ship, of these