"Heart of Darkness"
by Joseph Conrad

  Previous Page   Next Page   Speaker Off
 

     All the pilgrims and the manager were then congregated on the awning-deck about the pilot-house, chattering at each other like a flock of excited magpies, and there was a scandalized murmur at my heartless promptitude.

     What they wanted to keep that body hanging about for I can't guess. Embalm it, maybe. But I had also heard another, and a very ominous, murmur on the deck below.

 

     My friends the wood-cutters were likewise scandalized, and with a better show of reason -- though I admit that the reason itself was quite inadmissible. Oh, quite! I had made up my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fishes alone should have him. He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble.

     Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business.

 
Text provided by Project Gutenberg.
Audio by LiteralSystems, told by David Kirkwood with narration by Tom Franks,
through the generous support of Gordon W. Draper.
Audio copyright, 2007 LoudLit.org, some rights reserved.
Flash mp3 player by Jeroen Wijering. (cc) some rights reserved.
Web page presentation by LoudLit.org.