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Updated: May 10, 2025
Koh-ring let it be." He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying chances and distances from a lofty height and following with his eyes his own figure wandering on the blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing off that piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted regions. And it was as if the ship had two captains to plan her course for her.
I said to him: "You are not fit to be here." "I can manage, sir," he said feebly. As a matter of fact, there was nothing for him to do. The ship had no steerage way. She lay with her head to the westward, the everlasting Koh-ring visible over the stern, with a few small islets, black spots in the great blaze, swimming before my troubled eyes.
The strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser was too much for me. I had shut my eyes because the ship must go closer. She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we standing still? When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump. The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a towering fragment of the everlasting night.
Koh-ring let it be." He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying chances and distances from a lofty height and following with his eyes his own figure wandering on the blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing off that piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted regions. And it was as if the ship had two captains to plan her course for her.
More than once, in a favourable breeze, I would take its bearings in the fast-ebbing twilight, thinking that it was for the last time. Vain hope. A night of fitful airs would undo the gains of temporary favour, and the rising sun would throw out the black relief of Koh-ring looking more barren, inhospitable, and grim than ever. "It's like being bewitched, upon my word," I said once to Mr.
He was able to hear everything and perhaps he was able to understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close no less. My first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed ominously under the towering shadow of Koh-ring as if I had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I watched the land intently. In that smooth water and light wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to. No! I could not feel her.
The island of Koh-ring, a great, black, upheaved ridge amongst a lot of tiny islets, lying upon the glassy water like a triton amongst minnows, seemed to be the centre of the fatal circle. It seemed impossible to get away from it. Day after day it remained in sight.
I said to myself disdainfully that it should take much more than that to affect in the smallest degree my fortitude. I didn't know then how soon and from what unexpected direction it would be attacked. It was the very next day. The sun had risen clear of the southern shoulder of Koh-ring, which still hung, like an evil attendant, on our port quarter. It was intensely hateful to my sight.
There we two bent our dark heads over a half-unrolled chart lying on my bed. "There," I said. "It's got to be Koh-ring. I've been looking at it ever since sunrise. It has got two hills and a low point. It must be inhabited. And on the coast opposite there is what looks like the mouth of a biggish river with some town, no doubt, not far up. It's the best chance for you that I can see." "Anything.
Here is an extract from the notes I wrote at the time. "We have lost Koh-ring at last. For many days now I don't think I have been two hours below altogether. I remain on deck, of course, night and day, and the nights and the days wheel over us in succession, whether long or short, who can say?
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