All that day they were passing the land, close in. That coast must have been the same when the earliest travelers saw it. Man had made no impression on it. It had defeated his feverish activities with a tougher and more abundant growth. The gloom of its forests looked like a sullen defiance. It would give no quarter. The turmoil of humanity at the big seaport from which they had sailed that morning appeared to have less significance than ever. This jungle, with the least chance, would push that swarm of men and women into the sea again. The day died in flames behind the forest, a dread spectacle of wrath, as in a final effort, soon surrendered, to light an earth abandoned to dark savagery. Let it go.
The Brunei was in ultimate night, carrying her own frail glints, apparently nowhither. There was nothing in sight. The stars were hidden. There was only the melancholy chant of the surge, the song of the bodiless memory of an earth which had passed. On the lower deck, just showing in the feeble glow of a few lamps hanging from the beams, was what appeared to be a cargo of bundles of colored rags. The native passengers were compliant. Not a sound came from there. Beneath the nearest of the lamps a little child lay asleep on its back beside a shapeless heap of crimson cloth. With its ivory skin it looked as though it were dead, in that light. Its tiny face expressed repose and entire confidence. One arm was stretched out, as though it had reached for something it wanted before it died, but the hand was empty and the forgetful fingers were half closed over the palm. On the deck above, the three planters, round a table, were sitting in their pajamas, drinking. They were not talking. They appeared to have surrendered to everything, after trying to escape together under the one light in night for company and refuge. They did not look at him.
Royden remembered that the captain had told him he might go up to the bridge whenever he felt like it. He fumbled in the gloom forward of the deck house for the handrail of the ladder to the bridge, and felt his way up. For a moment he thought nobody was there, that the ship had been left to go where she pleased. Then he saw the head of a Malay, just the head in the darkness, apparently self-luminous, suspended, and with its eyes cast downward, as though steadfastly contemplating the invisible body it had left. In another moment Royden saw the head was bent over the binnacle. Then he heard a mild voice, as though it came from the sea beyond the ship, “Here I am.” The captain was at the extremity of the starboard side of the bridge. The little man was only a shadow even when Royden stood next to him. He was leaning his arms on the rail, looking ahead. Neither spoke for some time. Nothing was to be seen ahead. There was no light and no sea.
“I suppose,” said Bible Brown, presently, “the other passengers below are drinking.”
“Yes. Well, some are sleeping.”
The captain made no comment. Royden said, after a pause: “You must get a curious view of us. You see an odd habit or two of ours, for a few days, and then you see us no more.”
Still the captain was silent. When he spoke, he said: “You are mostly alike. You are simple enough. I know you.”
Royden was slightly startled. The old fellow had never seen him before. But he smiled to himself when he thought that these cranks, too, were all alike.