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n I had overheard. `The manager thinks you ought to be hanged.' He showed a concern at this intelligence which amused me at first. `I had better get out of the way quietly,' he said, earnestly. `I can do no more for Kurtz now, and they would soon find some excuse. What's to stop them? There's a military post three hundred miles from here.' `Well, upon my word,' said I, `perhaps you had better go if you have any friends amongst the savages near by.' `Plenty,' he said. `They are simple people--and I want nothing, you know.' He stood biting his lips, then: `I don't want any harm to happen to these whites here, but of course I was thinking of Mr. Kurtz's reputation--but you are a brother seaman and--' `All right,' said I, after a time. `Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.' I did not know how truly I spoke.
"He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer. `He hated sometimes the idea of being taken away--and then again. . . . But I don't understand these matters. I am a simple man. He thought it would scare you away--that you would give it up, thinking him dead. I could not stop him. Oh, I had an awful time of it this last month.' `Very well,' I said. `He is all right now.' `Ye-e-es,' he muttered, not very convinced apparently. `Thanks,' said I; `I shall keep my eyes open.' `But quiet--eh?' he urged, anxiously. `It would be awful for his reputation if anybody here--' I promised a complete discretion with great gravity. `I have a canoe and three black fellows waiting not very far. I am off. Could you give me a few Martini-Henry cartridges?' I could, and did, with proper secrecy. He helped himself, with a wink at me, to a handful of my tobacco. `Between sailors-- you know--good English tobacco.' At the door of the pilot-house he turned round--' I say, haven't you a pair of shoes you could spare?' He raised one leg. `Look.' The soles were tied with knotted strings sandal-wise under his bare feet. I rooted out an old pair, at which he looked with admir
