They were heavy stuff, travelling on a thick brass rod
with some contrivance to keep the rings from sliding to and fro when the
ship rolled. But just then the ship was as still almost as a model shut
up in a glass case while the curtains, joined closely, and, perhaps on
purpose, made a little too long moved no more than a solid wall."
* * * * *
Marlow got up to get another cigar. The night was getting on to what I
may call its deepest hour, the hour most favourable to evil purposes of
men's hate, despair or greed--to whatever can whisper into their ears the
unlawful counsels of protest against things that are; the hour of ill-
omened silence and chill and stagnation, the hour when the criminal plies
his trade and the victim of sleeplessness reaches the lowest depth of
dreadful discouragement; the hour before the first sight of dawn. I know
it, because while Marlow was crossing the room I looked at the clock on
the mantelpiece. He however never looked that way though it is possible
that he, too, was aware of the passage of time. He sat down heavily.
"Our friend Powell," he began again, "was very anxious that I should
understand the topography of that cabin.
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