Then "Lord Jim," with about seventeen pages already written at
odd times, put in his claim which was irresistible. Thus every stroke
of the pen was taking me further away from the abandoned "Rescue," not
without some compunction on my part but with a gradually diminishing
resistance; till at last I let myself go as if recognising a superior
influence against which it was useless to contend.
The years passed and the pages grew in number, and the long reveries of
which they were the outcome stretched wide between me and the deserted
"Rescue" like the smooth hazy spaces of a dreamy sea. Yet I never
actually lost sight of that dark speck in the misty distance. It
had grown very small but it asserted itself with the appeal of old
associations. It seemed to me that it would be a base thing for me to
slip out of the world leaving it out there all alone, waiting for its
fate--that would never come?
Sentiment, pure sentiment as you see, prompted me in the last instance
to face the pains and hazards of that return. As I moved slowly towards
the abandoned body of the tale it loomed up big amongst the glittering
shallows of the coast, lonely but not forbidding. There was nothing
about it of a grim derelict. It had an air of expectant life. One after
another I made out the familiar faces watching my approach with faint
smiles of amused recognition.
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