'Twixt Land & Sea Tales

by Joseph Conrad
Contents

A Smile of Fortune
The Secret Sharer

Freya of the Seven Isles
A SMILE OF FORTUNE - HARBOUR STORY

Ever since the sun rose I had been looking ahead. The ship glided
gently in smooth water. After a sixty days' passage I was anxious

to make my landfall, a fertile and beautiful island of the tropics.
The more enthusiastic of its inhabitants delight in describing it

as the "Pearl of the Ocean." Well, let us call it the "Pearl."
It's a good name. A pearl distilling much sweetness upon the

world.
This is only a way of telling you that first-rate sugar-cane is

grown there. All the population of the Pearl lives for it and by
it. Sugar is their daily bread, as it were. And I was coming to

them for a cargo of sugar in the hope of the crop having been good
and of the freights being high.

Mr. Burns, my chief mate, made out the land first; and very soon I
became entranced by this blue, pinnacled apparition, almost

transparent against the light of the sky, a mere emanation, the
astral body of an island risen to greet me from afar. It is a rare

phenomenon, such a sight of the Pearl at sixty miles off. And I
wondered half seriously whether it was a good omen, whether what

would meet me in that island would be as luckily exceptional as
this beautiful, dreamlike vision so very few seamen have been

privileged to behold.
But horrid thoughts of business interfered with my enjoyment of an

accomplished passage. I was anxious for success and I wished, too,
to do justice to the flatteringlatitude of my owners' instructions

contained in one noble phrase: "We leave it to you to do the best
you can with the ship." . . . All the world being thus given me for

a stage, my abilities appeared to me no bigger than a pinhead.
Meantime the wind dropped, and Mr. Burns began to make disagreeable

remarks about my usual bad luck. I believe it was his devotion for
me which made him critically outspoken on every occasion. All the

same, I would not have put up with his humours if it had not been
my lot at one time to nurse him through a desperateillness at sea.

After snatching him out of the jaws of death, so to speak, it would
have been absurd to throw away such an efficient officer. But

sometimes I wished he would dismiss himself.
We were late in closing in with the land, and had to anchor outside

the harbour till next day. An unpleasant and unrestful night
followed. In this roadstead, strange to us both, Burns and I

remained on deck almost all the time. Clouds swirled down the
porphyry crags under which we lay. The rising wind made a great

bullying noise amongst the naked spars, with interludes of sad
moaning. I remarked that we had been in luck to fetch the

anchorage before dark. It would have been a nasty, anxious night
to hang off a harbour under canvas. But my chief mate was

uncompromising in his attitude.
"Luck, you call it, sir! Ay - our usual luck. The sort of luck to

thank God it's no worse!"
And so he fretted through the dark hours, while I drew on my fund

of philosophy. Ah, but it was an exasperating, weary, endless
night, to be lying at anchor close under that black coast! The

agitated water made snarling sounds all round the ship. At times a
wild gust of wind out of a gully high up on the cliffs struck on

our rigging a harsh and plaintive note like the wail of a forsaken
soul.

CHAPTER I
By half-past seven in the morning, the ship being then inside the

harbour at last and moored within a long stone's-throw from the
quay, my stock of philosophy was nearly exhausted. I was dressing

hurriedly in my cabin when the steward came tripping in with a
morning suit over his arm.

Hungry, tired, and depressed, with my head engaged inside a white
shirt irritatingly stuck together by too much starch, I desired him

peevishly to "heave round with that breakfast." I wanted to get
ashore as soon as possible.

"Yes, sir. Ready at eight, sir. There's a gentleman from the
shore waiting to speak to you, sir."

This statement was curiously slurred over. I dragged the shirt
violently over my head and emerged staring.

"So early!" I cried. "Who's he? What does he want?"
On coming in from sea one has to pick up the conditions of an

utterly unrelated existence. Every little event at first has the
peculiar emphasis of novelty. I was greatly surprised by that

early caller; but there was no reason for my steward to look so
particularly foolish.

"Didn't you ask for the name?" I inquired in a stern tone.
"His name's Jacobus, I believe," he mumbled shamefacedly.

"Mr. Jacobus!" I exclaimed loudly, more surprised than ever, but
with a total change of feeling. "Why couldn't you say so at once?"

But the fellow had scuttled out of my room. Through the
momentarily opened door I had a glimpse of a tall, stout man

standing in the cuddy by the table on which the cloth was already
laid; a "harbour" table-cloth, stainless and dazzlingly white. So

far good.
I shouted courteously through the closed door, that I was dressing

and would be with him in a moment. In return the assurance that
there was no hurry reached me in the visitor's deep, quiet

undertone. His time was my own. He dared say I would give him a
cup of coffee presently.

"I am afraid you will have a poor breakfast," I cried
apologetically. "We have been sixty-one days at sea, you know."

A quiet little laugh, with a "That'll be all right, Captain," was
his answer. All this, words, intonation, the glimpsed attitude of

the man in the cuddy, had an unexpectedcharacter, a something
friendly in it - propitiatory. And my surprise was not diminished

thereby. What did this call mean? Was it the sign of some dark
design against my commercial innocence?

Ah! These commercial interests - spoiling the finest life under
the sun. Why must the sea be used for trade - and for war as well?

Why kill and traffic on it, pursuing selfish aims of no great
importance after all? It would have been so much nicer just to

sail about with here and there a port and a bit of land to stretch
one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change of cooking for a

while. But, living in a world more or less homicidal and
desperately mercantile, it was plainly my duty to make the best of

its opportunities.
My owners' letter had left it to me, as I have said before, to do

my best for the ship, according to my own judgment. But it
contained also a postscript worded somewhat as follows:

"Without meaning to interfere with your liberty of action we are
writing by the outgoing mail to some of our business friends there

who may be of assistance to you. We desire you particularly to
call on Mr. Jacobus, a prominent merchant and charterer. Should

you hit it off with him he may be able to put you in the way of
profitable employment for the ship."

Hit it off! Here was the prominent creature absolutely on board
asking for the favour of a cup of coffee! And life not being a

fairy-tale the improbability of the event almost shocked me. Had I
discovered an enchanted nook of the earth where wealthy merchants

rush fasting on board ships before they are fairly moored? Was
this white magic or merely some black trick of trade? I came in