Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

“What do you think, Excellency? There is my own native village not very far from Genoa on the Riviera di Ponente, and you will be amongst friends to carry out such orders as you may give, or pass you from one to another back to Genoa as fast as mules can climb or horses trot. And it would be the same from any point in Italy. They would get you into Genoa in disguise, or without disguise, and into the very house of Cantelucci, so that you could appear there without a soul knowing how you entered or how you came back.”

Cosmo, feeling a sudden relief, wondered that he should have found it in the mere resolution to go off secretly with only the clothes he stood up in, absolutely without money or anything of value on him, not even a watch, and without a hat, at the mere bidding of a man bound on some secret work—God knows where, and for what object—and who had volunteered to him no statement except that he had cousins in every spot in Italy, and a love–affair with an ortolana . The enormous absurdity of it made him impatient to be doing, and upon his expressed desire to make a start, Attilio, with the words, “You command here, signore,” told his men it was time to be moving.

In less than half an hour the boat, with all her crew crouching at the bottom, and using the oars for poling in the shallow water along the coast with infinite precaution to avoid knocks and bangs, as though the boat, the oars, and everything in her were made of glass, had been moved far enough from the tower to have her nose put to the open sea. After the first few strokes Cosmo felt himself drawn back again to the receding shore. But it was too late. He seemed to feel profoundly that he was not—perhaps no man was—a free agent. He felt a sort of fear, a faltering of all his limbs, as he swung back to his oar. Then his eyes caught the galley, indeed everybody’s eyes in the boat were turned that way, except the eyes of the ancient steersman, the white–headed figure in an unexpectedly erect attitude, who, with hardly any breath left in his body, and a mere helpless victim of other men’s will, had a strange appearance of the man in command.

In less than ten minutes the galley became invisible, and even the long shadows of the jetties had sunk to the level of the sea. There was a moment when one of the men observed without excitement: “She’s after us,” but this remark provoked no answer, and turned out to be mistaken, and for an hour longer Attilio, pulling stroke, watched the faint phosphorescent wake, the evanescent fire under the black smoothness of the sea, elusive like the tail of a comet amongst the dim reflections of the stars. Its straightness was the only proof of the silent helmsman with his arm resting along the tiller being still alive. Then he began to look about him, and presently laying in his oar relieved the old man at the tiller. He had to take his arm off it. The other never said a word.

The boat moved slowly now. The problem was to discover the awaiting felucca without lights, and with her sails lowered. Several times Attilio stood up to have a look without being able to make out anything. He was growing uneasy. He spoke to Cosmo.

“I hope we haven’t passed her by. If we once get her between us and the land, it will be hopeless to catch sight of her till the day breaks. Better rest on your oars.”

He remained standing himself. His eyes roamed to and fro patiently, and suddenly he emitted a short laugh.

“Why, there she is!”

He steered, still standing, while the others pulled gently. The old man, who had not emitted a sound, had slipped off the seat on to the stern–sheets. Attilio said quietly: “Take your oars in,” and suddenly Cosmo felt the boat bump against the low side of the felucca, which he had never turned his head to see. No hail or even murmur came from her. She had no lights. Attilio’s voice said: “You first, signore,” and Cosmo, looking up, saw three motionless heads above the bulwarks. No word was spoken to him. He was not even looked at by those silent and shadowy men. The first sound he heard were the words: “Take care,” pronounced by Attilio in connection with getting the old boatman on board. Cosmo standing aside saw a group carry him over to the other side of the deck. While the sails were being hoisted, he sat on the hatch and came to the very verge of believing himself invisible, till suddenly Attilio stood by his side.

“Like this, we will catch the very first breath of daybreak, and may a breeze follow it to take us out of sight of that town defiled by the Austrians and soon to be the prey of the nobles and the priests.” He paused. “So at least Cantelucci says. There are bed–places below, if you want to take some rest, signore.”

“I am not sleepy,” said Cosmo. If no longer invisible, he could still feel disembodied, as it were. He was neither sleepy nor tired, nor hungry, nor even curious, as if altogether freed from the weaknesses of the body, and not indifferent, but without apprehensions or speculations of any sort to disturb his composure, as if of a fully–informed wisdom. He did not seem to himself to weigh more than a feather. He was suffering the reaction of the upheaval of all his feelings and the endless contest of his thoughts, and that sort of mental agony which had taken possession of him while he was descending the great staircase of the palazzo under the eye of the Count de Montevesso. It was as though one of those fevers in which the victim watches his own delirium had left him irresponsible, like a sick man in his bed. Attilio went on:

“Cantelucci’s an experienced conspirator. He thinks that the force of the people is such that it would be like an uprising of the ground itself. May be, but where is the man that would know how to use it?”

Cosmo let it go by like a problem that could await solution or as a matter of mere vain words. The night air did not stir, and Attilio changed his tone.

“They had their lines out ever since the calm began. We will have fish to eat in the morning. You will have to be one of ourselves for a time and observe the customs of the common people.”

“Tell me, Attilio,” Cosmo questioned, not widely, but in a quiet, almost confidential tone, and laying his hand for the first time on the shoulder of that man only a little older than himself. “Tell me, what am I doing here?”

Attilio, the wanderer of the seas along the southern shores of the earth, and the pupil of the hermit of the plains that lie under the constellation of the Southern sky, smiled in the dark, a faint friendly gleam of white teeth in an over–shadowed face. But all the answer he made was:

“Who would dare say now that our stars have not come together? Come and sit at the stern, signore. I can find a rug to throw over a coil of rope for a seat. I am now the padrone of this felucca, but of course, barring her appointed work, you are entirely the master of her.”

These words were said with a marked accent of politeness, such as one uses for a courtesy formula. But he stopped for a moment on his way aft to point his finger on the deck.

“We have thrown a bit of canvas over him. Yes, that is the old man whose last bit of work was to steer a boat, and strange to think, perhaps it was done for Italy.”

“Where is his star now?” said Cosmo, after looking down in silence for a time.

“Signore, it should be out,” said Attilio, with studied intonation. “But who will miss it from the sky?”