"Conrad, Joseph - The Shadow Line" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

more the character of divorce--almost of deser-
tion. For no reason on which a sensible person
could put a finger I threw up my job--chucked
my berth--left the ship of which the worst that
could be said was that she was a steamship and
therefore, perhaps, not entitled to that blind
loyalty which. . . . However, it's no use try-
ing to put a gloss on what even at the time I myself
half suspected to be a caprice.

It was in an Eastern port. She was an Eastern
ship, inasmuch as then she belonged to that port.
She traded among dark islands on a blue reef-
scarred sea, with the Red Ensign over the taffrail
and at her masthead a house-flag, also red, but
with a green border and with a white crescent in
it. For an Arab owned her, and a Syed at that.
Hence the green border on the flag. He was the
head of a great House of Straits Arabs, but as
loyal a subject of the complex British Empire as
you could find east of the Suez Canal. World
politics did not trouble him at all, but he had a
great occult power amongst his own people.

It was all one to us who owned the ship. He
had to employ white men in the shipping part of
his business, and many of those he so employed
had never set eyes on him from the first to the
last day. I myself saw him but once, quite
accidentally on a wharf--an old, dark little man
blind in one eye, in a snowy robe and yellow
slippers. He was having his hand severely kissed
by a crowd of Malay pilgrims to whom he had
done some favour, in the way of food and money.
His alms-giving, I have heard, was most exten-
sive, covering almost the whole Archipelago. For
isn't it said that "The charitable man is the friend
of Allah"?

Excellent (and picturesque) Arab owner, about
whom one needed not to trouble one's head, a
most excellent Scottish ship--for she was that
from the keep up--excellent sea-boat, easy to
keep clean, most handy in every way, and if it
had not been for her internal propulsion, worthy
of any man's love, I cherish to this day a profound
respect for her memory. As to the kind of trade
she was engaged in and the character of my ship-
mates, I could not have been happier if I had had
the life and the men made to my order by a