Typhoon by Joseph Conrad (inspirational books to read .txt) đ
- Author: Joseph Conrad
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âMeantime, I could hardly keep on my feet. None of us had a spell of any sort for nearly thirty hours, and there the old man sat rubbing his chin, rubbing the top of his head, and so bothered he didnât even think of pulling his long boots off.
ââI hope, sir,â says I, âyou wonât be letting them out on deck before we make ready for them in some shape or other.â Not, mind you, that I felt very sanguine about controlling these beggars if they meant to take charge. A trouble with a cargo of Chinamen is no childâs play. I was damâ tired, too. âI wish,â said I, âyou would let us throw the whole lot of these dollars down to them and leave them to fight it out amongst themselves, while we get a rest.â
ââNow you talk wild, Jukes,â says he, looking up in his slow way that makes you ache all over, somehow. âWe must plan out something that would be fair to all parties.â
âI had no end of work on hand, as you may imagine, so I set the hands going, and then I thought I would turn in a bit. I hadnât been asleep in my bunk ten minutes when in rushes the steward and begins to pull at my leg.
ââFor Godâs sake, Mr. Jukes, come out! Come on deck quick, sir. Oh, do come out!â
âThe fellow scared all the sense out of me. I didnât know what had happened: another hurricane â or what. Could hear no wind.
ââThe Captainâs letting them out. Oh, he is letting them out! Jump on deck, sir, and save us. The chief engineer has just run below for his revolver.â
âThatâs what I understood the fool to say. However, Father Rout swears he went in there only to get a clean pocket-handkerchief. Anyhow, I made one jump into my trousers and flew on deck aft. There was certainly a good deal of noise going on forward of the bridge. Four of the hands with the bossân were at work abaft. I passed up to them some of the rifles all the ships on the China coast carry in the cabin, and led them on the bridge. On the way I ran against Old Sol, looking startled and sucking at an unlighted cigar.
ââCome along,â I shouted to him.
âWe charged, the seven of us, up to the chartroom. All was over. There stood the old man with his sea-boots still drawn up to the hips and in shirt-sleeves -got warm thinking it out, I suppose. Bun Hinâs dandy clerk at his elbow, as dirty as a sweep, was still green in the face. I could see directly I was in for something.
ââWhat the devil are these monkey tricks, Mr. Jukes?â asks the old man, as angry as ever he could be. I tell you frankly it made me lose my tongue. âFor Godâs sake, Mr. Jukes,â says he, âdo take away these rifles from the men. Somebodyâs sure to get hurt before long if you donât. Damme, if this ship isnât worse than Bedlam! Look sharp now. I want you up here to help me and Bun Hinâs Chinaman to count that money. You wouldnât mind lending a hand, too, Mr. Rout, now you are here. The more of us the better.â
âHe had settled it all in his mind while I was having a snooze. Had we been an English ship, or only going to land our cargo of coolies in an English port, like Hong-Kong, for instance, there would have been no end of inquiries and bother, claims for damages and so on. But these Chinamen know their officials better than we do.
âThe hatches had been taken off already, and they were all on deck after a night and a day down below. It made you feel queer to see so many gaunt, wild faces together. The beggars stared about at the sky, at the sea, at the ship, as though they had expected the whole thing to have been blown to pieces. And no wonder! They had had a doing that would have shaken the soul out of a white man. But then they say a Chinaman has no soul. He has, though, something about him that is deuced tough. There was a fellow (amongst others of the badly hurt) who had had his eye all but knocked out. It stood out of his head the size of half a henâs egg. This would have laid out a white man on his back for a month: and yet there was that chap elbowing here and there in the crowd and talking to the others as if nothing had been the matter. They made a great hubbub amongst themselves, and whenever the old man showed his bald head on the foreside of the bridge, they would all leave off jawing and look at him from below.
âIt seems that after he had done his thinking he made that Bun Hinâs fellow go down and explain to them the only way they could get their money back. He told me afterwards that, all the coolies having worked in the same place and for the same length of time, he reckoned he would be doing the fair thing by them as near as possible if he shared all the cash we had picked up equally among the lot. You couldnât tell one manâs dollars from anotherâs, he said, and if you asked each man how much money he brought on board he was afraid they would lie, and he would find himself a long way short. I think he was right there. As to giving up the money to any Chinese official he could scare up in Fu-chau, he said he might just as well put the lot in his own pocket at once for all the good it would be to them. I suppose they thought so, too.
âWe finished the distribution before dark. It was rather a sight: the sea running high, the ship a wreck to look at, these Chinamen staggering up on the bridge one by one for their share, and the old man still booted, and in his shirt-sleeves, busy paying out at the chartroom door, perspiring like anything, and now and then coming down sharp on myself or Father Rout about one thing or another not quite to his mind. He took the share of those who were disabled himself to them on the No. 2 hatch. There were three dollars left over, and these went to the three most damaged coolies, one to each. We turned-to afterwards, and shovelled out on deck heaps of wet rags, all sorts of fragments of things without shape, and that you couldnât give a name to, and let them settle the ownership themselves.
âThis certainly is coming as near as can be to keeping the thing quiet for the benefit of all concerned. Whatâs your opinion, you pampered mail-boat swell? The old chief says that this was plainly the only thing that could be done. The skipper remarked to me the other day, âThere are things you find nothing about in books.â I think that he got out of it very well for such a stupid man.â
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Typhoon, by Joseph Conrad
The other stories included in this volume (âAmy Foster,â âFalk: A Reminiscence,â and âTo-morrowâ) being already available in another volume, I have not entered them here.
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