small boat, a
high outline of mountains, blue and afar in the morning; like faint mist
at noon; a jagged wall of purple at sunset. I have the feel of the oar
in my hand, the vision of a scorching blue sea in my eyes. And I see a
bay, a wide bay, smooth as glass and polished like ice, shimmering in
the dark. A red light burns far off upon the gloom of the land, and
the night is soft and warm. We drag at the oars with aching arms, and
suddenly a puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange
odors of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out of the still night--the
first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was
impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of
mysterious delight.

"We had been pulling this finishing spell for eleven hours. Two pulled,
and he whose turn it was to rest sat at the tiller. We had made out the
red light in that bay and steered for it, guessing it must mark some
small coasting port. We passed two vessels, outlandish and high-sterned,
sleeping at anchor, and, approaching the light, now very dim, ran the
boat's nose against the end of a jutting wharf. We were blind with
fatigue. My men dropped the oars and fell off the thwarts as if dead. I
made fast to a pile. A current rippled softly. The scented obscurity of
the shore was grouped into vast masses, a density of colossal clumps of
vegetation, probably--mute and fantastic shapes. And at their foot the
semicircle of a beach gleamed faintly, like an illusion. There was not
a light, not a stir, not a sound. The mysterious East faced me, perfumed
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