Chapter 4 Summary

A month or so later, in a police court of an Eastern port, Jim finds himself answering questions and giving evidence at an official inquiry into the matter. Jim reveals that after the incident he was ordered not to alert any of the passengers so as, purportedly, not to incite panic, but in investigating the forepeak of the ship, discovers it almost half-full of water. He recalls the engineer panicking and that the captain had knocked him down, ordering him to go and stop the engines instead of bellowing about it on deck. In the court, Jim notices, among the varied natives and Europeans in attendance, a man he thinks he'd come across before.

Chapter 4 Analysis

Conrad's predilection for jumping around within the timeline of the narrative is by this point in the book becoming rather evident. Already we have been told of...