"The Secret Sharer"
by Joseph Conrad

  Previous Page   Next Page   Speaker On

     He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring through the open port. And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out--a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of which I should have been perfectly incapable.

 

     "I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land," he continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing near as we were to each other, shoulder touching shoulder almost. "So I asked to speak to the old man. He always seemed very sick when he came to see me--as if he could not look me in the face. You know, that foresail saved the ship. She was too deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was I that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I had him in my cabin--he stood by the door looking at me as if I had the halter round my neck already--I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits. There would be the Java coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I wanted nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming my second year in the Conway."

 
Text provided by Project Gutenberg.
Performance by David Kirkland and provided by LiteralSystems through the generous support of Consumer Insights, Inc.
Flash mp3 player by Jeroen Wijering. (cc) some rights reserved.
Web page presentation by LoudLit.org.