And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! I could not help
saying, 'You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' I had seen, from the
way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew, that almost all the shots
had gone too high. You can't hit anything unless you take aim and fire
from the shoulder; but these chaps fired from the hip with their eyes
shut. The retreat, I maintained--and I was right--was caused by the
screeching of the steam whistle. Upon this they forgot Kurtz, and began
to howl at me with indignant protests.
"The manager stood by the wheel murmuring confidentially about the
necessity of getting well away down the river before dark at all events,
when I saw in the distance a clearing on the riverside and the outlines
of some sort of building. 'What's this?' I asked. He clapped his hands
in wonder. 'The station!' he cried. I edged in at once, still going
half-speed.
"Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed with rare
trees and perfectly free from undergrowth. A long decaying building on
the summit was half buried in the high grass; the large holes in the
peaked roof gaped black from afar; the jungle and the woods made a
background. There was no enclosure or fence of any kind; but there had
been one apparently, for near the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained
in a row, roughly trimmed, and with their upper ends ornamented with
round carved balls.
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