I don't suppose any of you have heard of Patusan? It doesn't matter. There are many stars in the sky that most people have never heard of, and which are of no importance to them anyway. Patusan was like one of these stars. It was occasionally mentioned by officials in Batavia, and it was known by name to a very few in the trading world. But nobody had ever been there, and, I suspect, nobody wanted to go there. That was where Stein arranged to send Jim. It was like sending him to the moon; he left his past world behind him, and started a completely new life.

Marlow's cigar had gone out. He stood up, moved to the edge of the veranda, and stared out into the darkness. Behind him, the circle of listeners in their armchairs waited for the story to continue. At last, one of them said encouragingly, "Well?"

Marlow turned to face them, carefully relit his cigar, and then continued with his story.

Stein knew more about Patusan than anybody else. I have no doubt he had been there, perhaps looking for butterflies, when he was younger. It was at breakfast the next morning after our talk about Jim that he mentioned the place. I had just repeated what poor Brierly had said to me, "He should creep away somewhere and hide."

Stein looked up at me with interest. "That could be done," he said, drinking his coffee.

"You know, bury himself somewhere," I explained.

"There may be some difficulty with Cornelius," said Stein. "He'll be angry with Jim for taking his job. I don't think he'll want to leave Patusan, so he may cause trouble. But that has nothing to do with me. As he has a daughter, I think I shall let him keep the house he's been living in, if he wants to stay."

"Yes, he is young, and could make another life for himself. Well, there is Patusan." He added, "And the woman is dead now."

I didn't know the woman he had mentioned, but I learnt from Stein that she had been an intelligent, good-looking Dutch-Malay girl. She had married a worthless Portuguese man, who made her life extremely miserable. Because Stein felt sorry for her, he gave her husband a job, as manager of Stein & Company's trading-post in Patusan. Unfortunately, the Portuguese, whose name was Cornelius, was dishonest and lazy, so the trading-post lost money. Now that the woman had died, Stein wanted to replace Cornelius, and he generously suggested offering the job to Jim.

"Wonderful effect," said Jim by my side. "Worth seeing, isn't it?" He spoke proudly, and that made me smile. Did he feel he could control even the movements of the moon? He was in control of so many things in Patusan! Things that had once seemed as far beyond his control as the moon and the stars.

Patusan is an area of deep jungle, far up the river, about sixty kilometres from the sea. There is a native village of the same name. Behind the roofs of the native houses, you can see the forest, and behind that there are two steep hills very close together, separated by a narrow valley. I saw all this later, when I visited Jim in Patusan. We were standing outside the very fine house that he had built for himself, on a warm, silent evening, watching an almost full moon rise behind the black hills. Red, and round, and nearly perfect, it sailed slowly upwards between the sides of the valley, finally moving away above the hill-tops, like a soul escaping from a buried body.

But Stein and I had no idea of this when we talked about sending him to Patusan. We both wanted to get him away, away from himself rather than anyone else. We knew he would be safer in a quiet, lonely place, with nobody who knew or cared about his past.

I must tell you, however, that I had another reason for sending him away. I was about to go home to England for a while, and I think I wanted, more than I myself realized at the time, to be free of him -- do you understand? -- before I left. I was going home, and he had come to me from there, with his miserable trouble and his shadowy dreams, like a man carrying something heavy on his tired shoulders in a thick mist. I cannot say I had ever seen him clearly, right up to the day when I had my last view of him. But the less I understood him, the closer I felt to him. After all, I did not know much more about myself. And then, I repeat, I was going home -- to that distant place we all come from. We, the famous and the unknown, travel in our thousands all over the world, earning beyond the seas our good name, our fortune or perhaps just enough bread for that day. But when we go home, we meet again our friends, our family, and others -- those whom we obey and those whom we love. More than that, we have to meet the soul of the country, that lives in its air, in its valleys, in its rivers and its trees -- a wordless friend and judge. To breathe in the peace of home, to be happy there, I think we have to return with a clear conscience. I know that Jim felt something of this. He would never go home now. Never! He could not bear the idea of it.

And so, like a much older brother, I felt responsible for Jim. I was worried about what would happen to him. For example, he could start drinking. The world is small, and I was afraid of meeting him one day, in a foreign port, a red-eyed, dirty drunk, asking to borrow five dollars from me. You know how often that happens, when you can only just recognize a sadly changed figure from the past, who reappears in your life for a moment. That seemed the worst danger I could see for him or for me, but I knew I had no imagination. And Jim had plenty. People with imagination often go further than others in life, for good or evil. How could I tell what Jim would do?

You see, I'm telling you so much about my fears for him because there is not much of the story left. I hear you ask, was I right to be afraid for him? I won't say. Perhaps you can decide, better than I can. Anyway, Jim did not go wrong, not at all. In fact, he developed wonderfully, and lived his life bravely and honestly to the end. I ought to be delighted, because I was closely involved in his success. But somehow I am not as pleased as I expected to be. I ask myself if he really managed to carry himself out of that mist in which I had seen him. And another thing, the last word has not been said -- will probably never be said. Our lives are too short for anyone to judge us fully. And we ourselves never have time to say our last word -- the last word of our love, our trust, our sadness, our guilt, our fight against the darkness.

I won't tell you much more about Jim. In my opinion he reached greatness, but you may see it differently. My words may not be enough to persuade you, as I'm afraid you people think more of your bodies than your imaginations. I don't want to be rude; it is sensible to have no dreams -- and safe -- and useful -- and boring. But surely, my friends, you too have known, once in your time, the brightness of life, the fire that burns in you so strongly and unexpectedly, then, too soon, disappears!

Jim's fame never reached the outside world, of course, from a place so lonely and far from anywhere. At one time Patusan was famous for its pepper, and in the seventeenth century Dutch and English traders travelled far through the jungle in their desperate search for this valuable plant. These heroic adventurers did not care about disease, hunger or death. Some of them left their bones whitening in a distant land, so that companies at home could make fortunes selling pepper. For a hundred years, they sent back news of Patusan, describing its rivers and jungle, its natives and customs, and the great Sultan who controlled the fate of all who lived there.

"This is the chance I've been dreaming of! I'm so grateful to Mr Stein! But of course it's you I have to thank…"

It was Stein who told me all this. He was perfectly honest with me over the breakfast table that morning. It was an extremely dangerous place, where people could lose their lives at any time. This situation was mostly caused by Rajah Allang, the worst of the young Sultan's uncles. He controlled the river and the land around it, and, by robbing and murdering, made the local Malays fear and obey him. They could not get away, because they had nowhere to go and no way of escaping.

Well, I told Jim about Stein's generous offer, but I also described what I knew of Patusan and the dangers involved. I watched the expression on his face change from tiredness to surprise, interest and delight.

I spoke quickly to stop his flow of words. "Stein was helped when he was young, and now he wants to help you. And I just mentioned your name, that's all."

But now the pepper has all gone, nobody writes or talks about Patusan any longer, and the present Sultan is a young boy whose uncles have stolen his fortune.

"Why, this is exactly what I want!"

"I've got to prove myself. But you won't be sorry you trusted me, I promise!"

He reddened, saying shyly, "You've always trusted me."

I smiled. He was so enthusiastic! "You see," I said, "you wanted to go out and shut the door behind you."

"Yes. If you go through it, I can promise it will be shut behind you. No one will ask what has happened to you in that distant, unknown place. You will be alone, and you will have to manage everything yourself. The outside world will forget about you completely."

"That's true. But do you trust yourself?"

"Did I?" he asked, looking suddenly unhappy. "Well, you've shown me a door, haven't you?"

"Forget about me completely, that's it!" he whispered to himself, his eyes shining delightedly.

"Remember, you must decide. You are responsible for this -- this plan, you and no one else."

"Well, if you understand the conditions, you'd better find a horse and trap, and drive to Mr Stein's house as soon as possible." And before I had finished speaking, he had run out of the room.

"What a wonderful man Mr Stein is! And how well he speaks English! In my pocket I've got a letter for Cornelius -- you know, the man I'm replacing. And look -- here's a silver ring that Mr Stein has given me. It was given to him by an old Malay friend of his called Doramin. He's one of the most important chiefs in Patusan. It seems that they fought side by side when Mr Stein was there, having all those adventures, so if I show Doramin this ring, he'll help me. I think Mr Stein saved his life once -- he's a brave man, isn't he? He's hoping things are all right in Patusan -- he hasn't had any news for over a year, so he doesn't really know. And the river's closed, but I'm sure I'll be able to get in."

He almost frightened me with his excited talk. After all, he wasn't a boy going on holiday, but a grown man making a dangerous journey into the unknown. He noticed my expression, and it seemed to calm him a bit. "You probably don't realize," he said, "how important the ring is to me. It means a friend, and it's a good thing to have a friend. Like you." He paused. "I'm going to stay there, you know."

He did not return until next morning, because he had stayed there for dinner and the night. He could not stop talking.

"If you live long enough, you'll want to come back."

I went back to my own ship, and Jim came to say goodbye to me there. I gave him a gun and two boxes of ammunition, in case he needed them. "The gun may help you to remain," I said, then corrected myself quickly, "may help you to get in, I mean." But Jim was not troubled by this. He thanked me warmly, shouted goodbye, and jumped into his own boat. As his boatmen rowed away, I suddenly noticed he had left the ammunition behind, and I ordered my men to get a boat into the water at once. Jim was making his men row like madmen, and we could not catch him before he reached Stein's ship. In fact, our two boats arrived at the same moment.

"Come back to what?" he asked absently.

We both stepped on to the deck, where I gave him the ammunition boxes. The ship was ready to sail. Stein's captain, a half-caste, spoke to me. He did not think Jim had any chance of survival, and was only prepared to take his passenger to the mouth of the river. "Anybody who goes further into Patusan will certainly die," he said. "Between you and me, your friend is already a dead man."

"Is it to be never, then?" I asked after a moment.

"Never," he repeated dreamily, then suddenly jumped up. "My God! Mr Stein's ship sails in two hours' time!"

As my boat pulled away from the ship, I saw him high up on deck, in the light of the dying sun, waving to me. I heard, "You shall hear of me." Because the sun was in my eyes, I couldn't see him well -- it was my fate never to see him clearly -- but I must say he looked very unlike a dead man to me.

Then, while the captain shouted his orders, and the sails rose around us, Jim and I stood alone together on deck, shook hands, and said our last hurried words to each other. I no longer felt annoyed with him, as I had sometimes done in the past. It was clear to me what miserable danger he was going into. I believe I called him "dear boy" and he called me "old man". For an unexpected, short moment we were very close.

"Don't worry," he said. "I promise to take care of myself. My God! Nothing can touch me. What a wonderful opportunity!"