 their untroubled shapes, with a stern and romantic aspect, but always
mute, dark - under a cloud.
    The story of the last events you will find in the few pages enclosed here.
You must admit that it is romantic beyond the wildest dreams of his boyhood, and
yet there is to my mind a sort of profound and terrifying logic in it, as if it
were our imagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an
overwhelming destiny. The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who
toys with the sword shall perish by the sword. This astounding adventure, of
which the most astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable
consequence. Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself
while you marvel that such a thing could happen in the year of grace before
last. But it has happened - and there is no disputing its logic.
    I put it down here for you as though I had been an eye-witness. My
information was fragmentary, but I've fitted the pieces together, and there is
enough of them to make an intelligible picture. I wonder how he would have
related it himself. He has confided so much in me that at times it seems as
though he must come in presently and tell the story in his own words, in his
careless yet feeling voice, with his off-hand manner, a little puzzled, a little
bothered, a little hurt, but now and then by a word or a phrase giving one of
these glimpses of his very own self that were never any good for purposes of
orientation. It's difficult to believe he will never come. I shall never hear
his voice again, nor shall I see his smooth tan-and-pink face with a white line
on the forehead, and the youthful eves darkened by excitement to a profound,
unfathomable blue.«
 

                              Chapter Thirty-Seven

»It all begins with a remarkable exploit of a man called Brown, who stole with
complete success a Spanish schooner out of a small bay near Zamboanga. Till I
discovered the fellow my information was incomplete, but most unexpectedly I did
come upon him a few hours before he gave up his arrogant ghost. Fortunately, he
was willing and able to talk between the choking fits of asthma, and his racked
body writhed with malicious exultation at the bare thought of Jim. He exulted
thus at the idea that he had paid out the stuck-up beggar after all. He gloated
over his action. I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce, crow-footed
