The Secret Sharer and Other Stories

by Joseph Conrad

  He looked round anxiously. “Sir!”

  “Can you get me a little hot water from the galley?”

  “I am afraid, sir, the galley fire’s been out for some time now.”

  “Go and see.”

  He fled up the stairs.

  “Now,” I whispered, loudly, into the saloon—too loudly, perhaps, but I was afraid I couldn’t make a sound. He was by my side in an instant—the double captain slipped past the stairs—through the tiny dark passage . . . a sliding door. We were in the sail locker, scrambling on our knees over the sails. A sudden thought struck me. I saw myself wandering barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark poll. I snatched off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly in the dark to ram it on my other self. He dodged and fended off silently. I wonder what he thought had come to me before he understood and suddenly desisted. Our hands met gropingly, lingered united in a steady, motionless clasp for a second. . . . No word was breathed by either of us when they separated.

  I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the steward returned.

  “Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light the spirit lamp?”

  “Never mind.”

  I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of conscience to shave the land as close as possible—for now he must go overboard whenever the ship was put in stays. Must! There could be no going back for him. After a moment I walked over to leeward and my heart flew into my mouth at the nearness of the land on the bow. Under any other circumstances I would not have held on a minute longer. The second mate had followed me anxiously.

  I looked on till I felt I could command my voice.

  “She will weather,” I said then in a quiet tone.

  “Are you going to try that, sir?” he stammered out incredulously.

  I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard by the helmsman.

  “Keep her good full.”

  “Good full, sir.”

  The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent. The strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser was too much for me. I had shut my eyes—because the ship must go closer. She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we standing still?

  When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump. The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a towering fragment of the everlasting night. On that enormous mass of blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not a sound to be heard. It was gliding irresistibly toward us and yet seemed already within reach of the hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist, gazing in awed silence.

  “Are you going on, sir?” inquired an unsteady voice at my elbow.

  I ignored it. I had to go on.

  “Keep her full. Don’t check her way. That won’t do now,” I said warningly.

  “I can’t see the sails very well,” the helmsman answered me, in strange, quavering tones.

  Was she close enough? Already she was, I won’t say in the shadow of the land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.

  “Give the mate a call,” I said to the young man who stood at my elbow as still as death. “And turn all hands up.”

  My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the land. Several voices cried out together: “We are all on deck, sir.”

  Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding closer, towering higher, without a light, without a sound. Such a hush had fallen on the ship that she might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly under the very gate of Erebus.

  “My God! Where are we?”

  It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was thunderstruck, and as it were deprived of the moral support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands and absolutely cried out, “Lost!”

  “Be quiet,” I said sternly.

  He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture of his despair. “What are we doing here?”

  “Looking for the land wind.”

  He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me recklessly.

  “She will never get out. You have done it, sir. I knew it’d end in something like this. She will never weather, and you are too close now to stay. She’ll drift ashore before she’s round. O my God!”

  I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his poor devoted head, and shook it violently.

  “She’s ashore already,” he wailed, trying to tear himself away.

  “Is she? ... Keep good full there!”

  “Good full, sir,” cried the helmsman in a frightened, thin, childlike voice.

  I hadn’t let go the mate’s arm and went on shaking it. “Ready about, do you hear? You go forward”—shake—“and stop there”—shake—“and hold your noise”—shake—“and see these head sheets properly overhauled”—shake, shake—shake.

  And all the time I dared not look toward the land lest my heart should fail me. I released my grip at last and he ran forward as if fleeing for dear life.

  I wondered what my double there in the sail locker thought of this commotion. He was able to hear everything—and perhaps he was able to understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close—no less. My first order “Hard alee!” re-echoed ominously under the towering shadow of Koh-ring as if I had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I watched the land intently. In that smooth water and light wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to. No! I could not feel her. And my second self was making now ready to slip out and lower himself overboard. Perhaps he was gone already . . . ?

  The great black mass brooding over our very mastheads began to pivot away from the ship’s side silently. And now I forgot the secret stranger ready to depart, and remembered only that I was a total stranger to the ship. I did not know her. Would she do it? How was she to be handled?

  I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly She was perhaps stopped, and her very fate hung in the balance, with the black mass of Koh-ring like the gate of the everlasting night towering over her taffrail. What would she do now? Had she way on her yet? I stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water I could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping surface. It was impossible to tell—and I had not learned yet the feel of my ship. Was she moving? What I needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper, which I could throw overboard and watch. I had nothing on me. To run down for it I didn’t dare. There was no time. All at once my strained, yearning stare distinguished a white object floating within a yard of the ship’s side. White on the black water. A phosphorescent flash passed under it. What was that thing? ... I recognized my own floppy hat. It must have fallen off his head . . . and he didn’t bother. Now I had what I wanted—the saving mark for my eyes. But I hardly thought of my other self, now gone from the ship, to be hidden forever from all friendly faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, with no brand of the curse on his sane forehead to stay a slaying hand... too proud to explain.

  And I watched the hat—the expression of my sudden pity for his mere flesh. It had been meant to save his homeless head from the dangers of the sun. And now—behold—it was saving the ship, by serving me for a mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness. Ha! It was drifting forward, warning me just in time that the ship had gathered sternway.

  “Shift the helm,” I said in a low voice to the seaman standing still like a statue.

  The man’s eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped round to the other side and spun round the wheel.

  I walked to the break of the poop. On the overshadowed deck all hands stood by the forebraces waiting for my order. The stars ahead seemed to be gliding from right to left. And all was so still in the world that I heard the quiet remark “She’s round,” passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen.

  “Let go and haul.”

  The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst cheery cries. And n
ow the frightful whiskers made themselves heard giving various orders. Already the ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command.

  Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of Erebus—yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself into the water to take his punishment: a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny.

  POETRY

  THE CONGO AND OTHER POEMS, Vachel Lindsay. 96pp. 0-486-27272-9

  EVANGELINE AND OTHER POEMS, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 64pp. 0-486-28255-4

  FAVORITE POEMS, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 96pp. 0-486-27273-7

  “To His COY MISTRESS” AND OTHER POEMS, Andrew Marvell. 64pp. 0-486-29544-3

  SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, Edgar Lee Masters. 144pp. 0-486-27275-3

  SELECTED POEMS, Claude McKay. 80pp. 0-486-40876-0

  RENASCENCE AND OTHER POEMS, Edna St. Vincent Millay. 64pp. (Not available in Europe or the United Kingdom) 0-486-26873-X

  SELECTED POEMS, John Milton. 128pp. 0-486-27554-X

  CIVIL WAR POETRY: An Anthology, Paul Negri (ed.). 128pp. 0-486-29883-3

  ENGLISH VICTORIAN POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY, Paul Negri (ed.). 256pp. 0-486-40425-0

  GREAT SONNETS, Paul Negri (ed.). 96pp. 0-486-28052-7

  THE RAVEN AND OTHER FAVORITE POEMS, Edgar Allan Poe. 64pp. 0-486-26685-0

  ESSAY ON MAN AND OTHER POEMS, Alexander Pope. 128pp. 0-486-28053-5

  EARLY POEMS, Ezra Pound. 80pp. (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-28745-9

  GREAT POEMS BY AMERICAN WOMEN: An Anthology, Susan L. Rattiner (ed.). 224pp. (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-40164-2

  GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS, Christina Rossetti. 64pp. 0-486-28055-1

  CHICAGO POEMS, Carl Sandburg. 80pp. 0-486-28057-8

  CORNHUSKERS, Carl Sandburg. 157pp. 0-486-41409-4

  COMPLETE SONNETS, William Shakespeare. 80pp. 0-486-26686-9

  SELECTED POEMS, Percy Bysshe Shelley. 128pp. 0-486-27558-2

  AFRICAN-AMERICAN POETRY: An Anthology, 1773-1930, Joan R. Sherman (ed.). 96pp. 0-486-29604-0

  100 BEST-LOVED POEMS, Philip Smith (ed.). 96pp. 0-486-28553-7

  NATIVE AMERICAN SONGS AND POEMS: An Anthology, Brian Swann (ed.). 64pp. 0-486-29450-1

  SELECTED POEMS, Alfred Lord Tennyson. 112pp. 0-486-27282-6

  AENEID, Vergil (Publius Vergilius Maro). 256pp. 0-486-28749-1

  CHRISTMAS CAROLS: COMPLETE VERSES, Shane Weller (ed.). 64pp. 0-486-27397-0

  GREAT LOVE POEMS, Shane Weller (ed.). 128pp. 0-486-27284-2

  CIVIL WAR POETRY AND PROSE, Walt Whitman. 96pp. 0-486-28507-3

  SELECTED POEMS, Walt Whitman. 128pp. 0-486-26878-0

  THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL AND OTHER POEMS, Oscar Wilde. 64pp. 0-486-27072-6

  EARLY POEMS, William Carlos Williams. 64pp. (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-29294-0

  FAVORITE POEMS, William Wordsworth. 80pp. 0-486-27073-4

  WORLD WAR ONE BRITISH POETS: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg, and Others, Candace Ward (ed.). (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-29568-0

  EARLY POEMS, William Butler Yeats. 128pp. 0-486-27808-5

  “EASTER, 1916” AND OTHER POEMS, William Butler Yeats. 80pp. (Not available in Europe or United Kingdom.) 0-486-29771-3

  FICTION

  FLATLAND: A ROMANCE OF MANY DIMENSIONS, Edwin A. Abbott. 96pp. 0-486-27263-X

  SHORT STORIES, Louisa May Alcott. 64pp. 0-486-29063-8

  WINESBURG, OHIO, Sherwood Anderson. 160pp. 0-486-28269-4

  PERSUASION, Jane Austen. 224pp. 0-486-29555-9

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Jane Austen. 272pp. 0-486-28473-5

  SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, Jane Austen. 272pp. 0-486-29049-2

  LOOKING BACKWARD, Edward Bellamy. 160pp. 0-486-29038-7

  BEOWULF, Beowulf (trans. by R. K. Gordon). 64pp. 0-486-27264-8

  CIVIL WAR STORIES, Ambrose Bierce. 128pp. 0-486-28038-1

  WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Emily Brontë. 256pp. 0-486-29256-8

  THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS, John Buchan. 96pp. 0-486-28201-5

  TARZAN OF THE APES, Edgar Rice Burroughs. 224pp. (Not available in Europe or United Kingdom.) 0-486-29570-2

  ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, Lewis Carroll. 96pp. 0-486-27543-4

  THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, Lewis Carroll. 128pp. 0-486-40878-7

  MY ÁNTONIA, Willa Cather. 176pp. 0-486-28240-6

  O PIONEERS!, Willa Cather. 128pp. 0-486-27785-2

  FIVE GREAT SHORT STORIES, Anton Chekhov. 96pp. 0-486-26463-7

  TALES OF CONJURE AND THE COLOR LINE, Charles Waddell Chesnutt. 128pp. 0-486-40426-9

  FAVORITE FATHER BROWN STORIES, G. K. Chesterton. 96pp. 0-486-27545-0

  THE AWAKENING, Kate Chopin. 128pp. 0-486-27786-0

  A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS AND OTHER STORIES, Kate Chopin. 64pp. 0-486-29264-9

  HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad. 80pp. 0-486-26464-5

  LORD JIM, Joseph Conrad. 256pp. 0-486-40650-4

  THE SECRET SHARER AND OTHER STORIES, Joseph Conrad. 128pp. 0-486-27546-9

  THE “LITTLE REGIMENT” AND OTHER CIVIL WAR STORIES, Stephen Crane. 80pp. 0-486-29557-5

  THE OPEN BOAT AND OTHER STORIES, Stephen Crane. 128pp. 0-486-27547-7

  THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, Stephen Crane. 112pp. 0-486-26465-3

  MOLL FLANDERS, Daniel Defoe. 256pp. 0-486-29093-X

  ROBINSON CRUSOE, Daniel Defoe. 288pp. 0-486-40427-7

  A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Charles Dickens. 80pp. 0-486-26865-9

  THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH AND OTHER CHRISTMAS STORIES, Charles Dickens. 128pp. 0-486-28039-X

  A TALE OF Two CITIES, Charles Dickens. 304pp. 0-486-40651-2

  THE DOUBLE, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 128pp. 0-486-29572-9

  THE GAMBLER, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 112pp. 0-486-29081-6

  NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 96pp. 0-486-27053-X

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN AND OTHER STORIES, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 80pp. 0-486-29558-3

  THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Arthur Conan Doyle. 128pp. 0-486-28214-7

  THE LOST WORLD, Arthur Conan Doyle. 176pp. 0-486-40060-3

  FICTION

  A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, Daniel Defoe. 192pp. 0-486-41919-3

  Six GREAT SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 112pp. 0-486-27055-6

  SHORT STORIES, Theodore Dreiser. 112pp. 0-486-28215-5

  SILAS MARNER, George Eliot. 160pp. 0-486-29246-0

  JOSEPH ANDREW, Henry Fielding. 288pp. 0-486-41588-0

  THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 208pp. 0-486-28999-0

  “THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ” AND OTHER STORIES, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 0-486-29991-0

  MADAM BOVARY, Gustave Flaubert. 256pp. 0-486-29257-6

  THE REVOLT OF “MOTHER” AND OTHER STORIES, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. 128pp. 0-486-40428-5

  A ROOM WITH A VIEW, E. M. Forster. 176pp. (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-28467-0

  WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD, E. M. Forster. 128pp. (Available in U.S. Only.) 0-486-27791-7

  THE IMMORALIST, André Gide. 112pp. (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-29237-1

  HERLAND, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 128pp. 0-486-40429-3

  “THE YELLOW WALLPAPER” AND OTHER STORIES, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 80pp. 0-486-29857-4

  THE OVERCOAT AND OTHER STORIES, Nikolai Gogol. 112pp. 0-486-27057-2

  CHELKASH AND OTHER STORIES, Maxim Gorky. 64pp. 0-486-40652-0

  GREAT GHOST STORIES, John Grafton (ed.). 112pp. 0-486-27270-2

  DETECTION BY GASLIGHT, Douglas G. Greene (ed.). 272pp. 0-486-29928-7

  THE MABINOGION, Lady Charlotte E. Guest. 192pp. 0-486-29541-9

  “THE FIDDLER OF THE REELS” AND OTHER SHORT STORIES, Thomas Hardy. 80pp. 0-486-29960-0

&nb
sp; THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER STORIES, Bret Harte. 96pp. 0-486-27271-0

  THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, Nathaniel Hawthorne. 272pp. 0-486-40882-5

  THE SCARLET LETTER, Nathaniel Hawthorne. 192pp. 0-486-28048-9

  YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN AND OTHER STORIES, Nathaniel Hawthorne. 128pp. 0-486-27060-2

  THE GIFT OF THE MAGI AND OTHER SHORT STORIES, O. Henry. 96pp. 0-486-27061-0

  THE ASPERN PAPERS, Henry James. 112pp. 0-486-41922-3

  THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE AND OTHER STORIES, Henry James. 128pp. 0-486-27552-3

  DAISY MILLER, Henry James. 64pp. 0-486-28773-4

  THE TURN OF THE SCREW, Henry James. 96pp. 0-486-26684-2

  WASHINGTON SQUARE, Henry James. 176pp. 0-486-40431-5

  THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS, Sarah Orne Jewett. 96pp. 0-486-28196-5

  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN, James Weldon Johnson. 112pp. 0-486-28512-X

  DUBLINERS, James Joyce. 160pp. 0-486-26870-5

  A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, James Joyce. 192pp. 0-486-28050-0

  THE METAMORPHOSIS AND OTHER STORIES, Franz Kafka. 96pp. 0-486-29030-1

  THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING AND OTHER STORIES, Rudyard Kipling. 128pp. 0-486-28051-9

  You KNOW ME AL, Ring Lardner. 128pp. 0-486-28513-8

  SELECTED SHORT STORIES, D. H. Lawrence. 128pp. 0-486-27794-1

  THE CALL OF THE WILD, Jack London. 64pp. 0-486-26472-6

  FIVE GREAT SHORT STORIES, Jack London. 96pp. 0-486-27063-7

  THE SEA-WOLF, Jack London. 248pp. 0-486-41108-7

  WHITE FANG, Jack London. 160pp. 0-486-26968-X

  DEATH IN VENICE, Thomas Mann. 96pp. (Available in U.S. only.) 0-486-28714-9

  THE NECKLACE AND OTHER SHORT STORIES, Guy de Maupassant. 128pp. 0-486-27064-5

  BARTLEBY AND BENITO CERENO, Herman Melville. 112pp. 0-486-26473-4

  THE OIL JAR AND OTHER STORIES, Luigi Pirandello. 96pp. 0-486-28459-X

  THE GOLD-BUG AND OTHER TALES, Edgar Allan Poe. 128pp. 0-486-26875-6

  TALES OF TERROR AND DETECTION, Edgar Allan Poe. 96pp. 0-486-28744-0

  FICTION

  THE QUEEN OF SPADES AND OTHER STORIES, Alexander Pushkin. 128pp. 0-486-28054-3