rigorous criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as they were.  An empty formality; a piece of parchment.  Well, well.  As to an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether.  One could intelligibly break one’s heart over that.  A feeble burst of many voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of a sombre and hopeless ocean.  There was the Walpole Reef in it—­to be sure—­a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man.  My compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn’t have liked his people to see him at that moment.  I found it trying myself.  His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy that for a second I wished heartily that the only course left open for me was to pay for his funeral.  Even the law had done with him.  To bury him would have been such an easy kindness!  It would have been so much in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality; all that makes against our efficiency—­the memory of our failures, the hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends.  Perhaps he did take it too much to heart.  And if so then—­Chester’s offer. . . .  At this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely.  There was nothing but myself between him and the dark ocean.  I had a sense of responsibility.  If I spoke, would that motionless and suffering youth leap into the obscurity—­clutch at the straw?  I found out how difficult it may be sometimes to make a sound.  There is a weird power in a spoken word.  And why the devil not?  I was asking myself persistently while I drove on with my writing.  All at once, on the blank page, under the very point of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner, very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with stride and gestures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy.  I would watch them for a while.  No!  They were too phantasmal and extravagant to enter into any one’s fate.  And a word carries far—­very far—­deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.  I said nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no sound.’

CHAPTER 16