In spite of the critical attention that it has received, Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" continues to present mysteries that usually affect our understanding of the story's climax in which Leggatt, the murderer and fugitive, is given his chance to escape while the ship hovers on the edge of disaster. Clearly enough, in its broadest aspects, the story is framed by a question and its answer. The narrative opens by presenting an uninitiated captain, a stranger to his ship and to himself, wondering how far he "should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly." It closes with the answer that through self-knowledge and self-mastery the captain has achieved "the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command." But between these two points, knowledge and self-mastery are won only after the disconcerting ordeal of protecting Leggatt and the strange exposure of the ship to near destruction, for the dangers from which the captain is allowed to extricate himself seem unnecessary ones of his own making. In turning towards the rocks of Koh-ring, he has done what he "certainly should not have done… if it had been only a question of getting out of that sleepy gulf as quickly as possible." Moreover, in shaving the land "as close as possible," he has approached disaster far closer than necessary if it had been only a question of testing his authority or granting Leggatt a reasonable chance to escape. He did not even turn his ship until he could answer his question about being "close enough" with the words, "Already she was, I won't say in the shadow of the land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too close to be recalled, gone from me altogether." Even after swinging the mainyard, while the fate of the ship "hung in the balance," the captain could do nothing but wait "helplessly." Obviously Leggatt could have made his escape long before this; "half a mile" would have been easy for this powerful swimmer. Why, then, was the ship about to enter "the gates of everlasting night"? And why was Leggatt being given so much more than the reasonable distance that he had asked for? Unquestionably this was beyond an absolute limit for any responsible mariner, even though it involved an act of compassion.

It is true that without a supreme test of his authority, the captain might never have experienced that "perfect communion" with his first command, but this reward came afterwards, almost by accident. What we are actually told at the moment of rashness is something quite different: "It was now a matter of conscience to shave the land as close as possible—for now he must go overboard whenever the ship was put in stays. Must! There could be no going back for him." Ostensibly, this means that beyond the kindness of giving Leggatt the opportunity to escape, the captain had created a situation which gave Leggatt no other rational choice but to go. But Leggatt already knew this and had earlier convinced the captain of this very fact. Something new was obviously disturbing the captain's mind when he expressed the hope that "perhaps he was able to understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close—no less." This is more than an effort to embarrass a guest into leaving by providing a suitable opportunity—all this had been agreed upon and the guest stood ready, hat upon head. There is here a new matter of "conscience" that Leggatt would "perhaps" be able to fathom. Was he to understand that the captain needed to face his supreme test alone with his first command, in which "Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection". Obviously this assertion of independence is crucial, but there is also something more that involves the character of Leggatt.

In evaluating Leggatt, there is always the danger of representing him as nothing more than some dangerous but potentially useful manifestation of the captain's suppressed alter ego. In this role he is seen as the mysterious source of the captain's strength and courage. Conrad often describes him as a "strong soul," appearing always "perfectly self-controlled, more than calm—almost invulnerable." But Leggatt is also a human being in his own right, fully aware of the danger he faces as an outlaw and suffering from terrible loneliness and the need "to talk with somebody" before going on. Even as the captain's other self, he represents this weakness as well as strength, and depends upon the captain to provide the same kind of moral support that the captain found in him. In their roles as doubles or as separate individuals, "the two become interchangeable, and the success of one depends upon the success of the other" [Frederick R. Karl, A Reader's Guide to Joseph Conrad, 1960]. Outward events as well as inner psychology have brought them together to share strength and weakness, and nowhere is this sharing more essential than at the moment of parting.

It is near the climax of the story that we learn most clearly that just as the captain received strength from his double, so Leggatt found in the captain what he needed most, someone who had "understood thoroughly" and who had declined to make a judgment about his guilt. It was precisely this understanding that had given Leggatt the courage to accept exile and to persuade the reluctant captain to recognize the truth of his warning, "You must maroon me." Unfortunately, such sympathetic understanding had become for each a sustaining bond, a union with a second self. Shortly before the moment of parting, the captain "for the first time" had observed in Leggatt "a faltering, something strained in his whisper," which had ended in Leggatt's clutching the captain's arm. For the first time the captain had been made aware of the intensity of Leggatt's emotional attachment, occurring at a moment when the captain had already overcome his own reluctance and was prepared to let Leggatt go. Leggatt too had made his decision, but at the heart of it lay the need for an absolute assurance, expressed by his words to the captain, "As long as I know that you understand." Regardless of what was behind Leggatt's faltering, whether it was a weakening of this assurance or a reluctance to leave its source, the captain sensed it and now realized that Leggatt's dependence upon this emotional bond had to be broken, by shaving the rocks of Koh-ring if necessary. It was a matter of conscience, ultimately, to offer Leggatt a compelling demonstration of absolute understanding and sympathy by indulging in an act of supreme daring, rash enough to convince a hesitant Leggatt of the sincerity of the captain's moral support. In essence, this matter of conscience was a demonstration of sympathetic understanding that momentarily involved the risk of sharing Leggatt's doom in order to justify deserting him. When the ship's "very fate hung in the balance," the captain waited "helplessly" in the darkness, unable to detect movement and hence unable to act. It is essential to realize that at this moment the captain had almost put his ship beyond rescue, for there was not time enough to get the marker he needed. He was almost as committed to the consequences of rashness as his outcast secret sharer had been, for he knew he was on the verge of sharing Leggatt's exile: "I realised suddenly that all my future, the only future for which I was fit, would perhaps go irretrievably to pieces in any mishap to my first command." If Leggatt had needed the assurance of some final demonstration of sympathy, he now had it. It can be assumed that he understood why the captain's rashness was a "matter of conscience," just as the obligation to go was now also a matter of conscience. Ironically enough, the rash act designed to force Leggatt into the water also provided the "saving mark" for the captain's eyes—the floppy hat given for Leggatt's protection against the sun. That the captain was allowed this saving mark, a symbol of compassion, was presumably a fortunate accident "which counts for so much in the book of success." Competence alone had not saved the ship. On this basis, Leggatt the murderer had at least as much right to become "a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny" as did the rash captain to feel "the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command." In saving a ship, Leggatt has unnecessarily stepped beyond acceptable moral limits by violently killing a man, and he accepts the punishment of becoming an outcast, though along with this punishment stands the opportunity for a new destiny. Likewise, the captain, while saving a fugitive and winning back his command, daringly exposes his ship to possible destruction. The truth that he was not also a fugitive, if this defines a moral difference between them, was a mere accident having little to do with degrees of innocence or guilt. In fact, had the ship gone upon the rocks, more than the blood of one man might have been upon the captain's hands. There would have been nothing marginal about his guilt in the eyes of a British court. Leggatt's murderous rage and the captain's decision to risk his ship, though not alike in terms of motivation, came surprisingly close to having the same destructive consequences in terms of human life.

Having thus placed emphasis upon the captain's desperate manner of freeing himself from Leggatt's hold, there is danger of forgetting that other problems remain. Even if the sensing of Leggatt's hesitation justifies the risk of going beyond a convenient distance to a daring and absolute limit, it does not explain the logic of placing the ship so nearly "beyond recall" that there was serious doubt about saving her. Above all it does not explain why Conrad leaves us with the impression that there is no need to condemn what appears as the shocking behavior of reaching the point where the loss of the ship and much of its crew seemed so nearly certain. We can only marvel why such rashness is rewarded with a clear conscience and serene self-assurance. It can be assumed that it is not usual for Conrad to approve of a captain who risks a ship to remove a troublesome passenger, just as it can be assumed that Leggatt's punishment implies that we are not to approve of a chief mate who murders to subdue a rebellious seaman. We need think only of Mac Whirr's admirable concern for the lives of those aboard the Nan-Shan and of how he subdued his mutinous second mate without killing him. In contrast stands the shame that haunted Jim even after he had learned of the rescue of the pilgrims he had abandoned. Naturally it is made clear in "The Secret Sharer" that punishment awaited the captain if he had lost his ship; nevertheless, in any exacting moral sense his miraculous escape hardly seems to lessen his guilt. As Carl Benson protests, from the viewpoint of those endangered, the captain has still "demonstrated the power of authority in a needlessly fear-inspiring way" ["Conrad's Two Stories of Initiation," PMLA, March, 1954]. The judgment of the terrified mate verifies the statement: "You have done it, sir. I knew it'd end in something like this … She'll drift ashore before she's round." The captain's own thoughts during the crisis support the accusation.

In the light of such severe judgments, it would appear that Conrad has indulged in a specious argument that the miraculous escape has cleared the record and given his captain an honorable place beside such conscientious men as MacWhirr and the young captain in The Shadow-Line. Yet we know from a letter to Garnett how Conrad felt that he had luckily achieved the exact effect intended when he wrote, "Every word fits and there's not a single uncertain note." The reader can only assume that the text of the story somehow supplies the additional evidence needed to help us "accept" the near disaster. As the narrator in "Falk" saw the alternatives, to overcome obstacles standing in the way of efficient command "a skipper would be justified in going to any length, short of absolute crime." How, then, in spite of appearances, has Conrad kept the actions of his captain within acceptable moral bounds?

The most obvious device that Conrad uses, of course, is to suggest through parallels that it is actually possible to understand the captain as sympathetically as he has understood Leggatt. Although Leggatt is condemned as a murderer by the captain and crew of the Sephora and admits his kinship to Cain, he wins his protector's sympathy and understanding by making him aware of very genuine extenuating circumstances, including the exhausting strain of the storm, the heroic action of saving the Sephora, and the savage though not entirely unprovoked attack of a "half-crazed" seaman. Through the captain's feelings of identity, the reader is persuaded to understand how Leggatt's heroism so easily turns into unnecessary violence. Similarly, from the moment the fugitive is offered shelter, we are made aware of how the pressure of unforeseen consequences tightens about the captain until we are ready to admit the need for desperate remedies if there is to be any escape at all.

The necessity of compelling Leggatt to leave becomes crucial only when it is understood how desperately the captain needed to establish his authority. Just as any mishap to the ship would have wrecked the captain's career, so also would the mere discovery of Leggatt's presence. Either way, the proper management of the ship and the captain's career are in jeopardy. Added to this are the inevitable complications, the intensity of the strain and the certainty of defeat even if nothing is done, which must surely be included in any evaluation of Conrad's stories of initiation. The test of character must be made while body and spirit are being crushed and death or defeat is imminent. Just how desperate the captain's predicament became receives constant attention until it is made clear that the captain came "as near insanity as any man who has not actually gone over the border." Extreme fatigue, the unrelieved "strain of stealthiness," the "confused sensation of being in two places at once," and above all the dread of "accidental discovery" were distracting "almost to the point of insanity." It is entirely to the captain's credit, however, that his greatest concern was over the manner in which his seamanship was affected: "I was not wholly alone with my command … not completely and wholly with her. Part of me was absent." Final emphasis is placed upon the manner in which the captain's physical sensitivity is deadened, for this complication enters with a vengeance at the climax of the story: "But I was also more seriously affected. There are to a seaman certain words, gestures, that should in given conditions come as naturally, as instinctively as the winking of a menaced eye. A certain order should spring on to his lips without thinking; a certain sign should get itself made, so to speak, without reflection. But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me. I had to make an effort of will to recall myself back … to the conditions of the moment." Thus it is from all these crushing consequences of his predicament that the captain must save himself if he is to win back the command he is losing. Removing Leggatt is the key. Gaining absolute control of his ship is the commendable goal.

It is the "self-controlled, more than calm" Leggatt, with his "sane forehead," who shows the captain the way of escape. The "sanity" of the advice is insisted upon. Leggatt forces the captain to realize that further "hesitation in letting that man swim away" would have been "a mere sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice." Leggatt thoughtfully releases the captain from any further moral obligations to his fugitive once the ship is brought within reasonable distance from the shore—"I want no more." But unquestionably Leggatt gets much more when the effort to compel him to act ends in the rashness of taking the ship momentarily beyond control. This fact is hard to deny. Even if it be magnanimously granted that the captain had exaggerated when he expressed the fear that his ship was "beyond recall," "gone from me altogether," the fact remains that the ship would have been lost without the "saving mark" of Leggatt's hat. This kind of escape could not have been part of the plan. Put in this way, there is still the crux of explaining away what normally should have ended in responsibility for a wrecked ship.

Surely critical evaluation and not Conrad has erred at this point. The redeeming fact is simply that any genuinely courageous action involves a risk of error and failure, and while taking such a risk the captain unintentionally found himself at the mercy of an error, a moment of ignorance, that nearly made failure certain. In making this error a part of the record, Conrad excludes any question of wilful destruction, even if the ship had been lost and the question of taking unpardonable risks remained. For it is also a part of the record that the captain had conscientiously set for himself practical limits that were always included in his plans. For example, on the evening he was to depart, Leggatt was told, "I'll edge her in to half a mile, as far as I may be able to judge in the dark"; and later, "I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her round." There was never any plan to include difficulties that might make it impossible to "come about." Even as the ship began to approach the dangerous windward side of the island and the captain first formulated the idea that it was a matter of conscience to "shave the land," there was still the reservation as close "as possible" and the plan to come about by putting the ship "in stays" at the last moment. The maneuver, criticized by the mate, was understood to be a dangerous one, but the captain insisted that "She will weather." The nautical details are important here because more than anything else they record the exact moral significance of what the captain thought he was doing.

Unfortunately, at some moment in the maneuver, a moment during which the captain lost touch, the ship was nearly wrecked. When the captain suddenly assumes that he had "gone too close to be recalled," he skillfully impresses his will upon the alarmed crew and presumably upon Leggatt as he enforces the orders to bring the boat around, doing exactly what he had intended doing all along except for one thing. In spite of all the planning, one crucial factor, forgotten as the captain's will was being exerted upon Leggatt, again enters the pattern of unforeseen consequences. As the ship hangs in the balance, only half about and poised near the rocks, the captain recalls what he should never have forgotten: "And now I … remembered only that I was a total stranger to the ship. I did not know her. Would she do it? How was she to be handled?" It was essential for the captain to know that the ship had gathered sternway, but in spite of all his skill "it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to." This important failure, repeated in three consecutive paragraphs, is surely a reminder of the earlier passages already quoted in which the captain had been concerned about how "unconscious alertness" had abandoned him. But in the shadow of Kohring, with "no time" left to compensate for a weakness, the captain was paying for what an earlier alertness would have given him—instinctive knowledge of his ship. Again the narrator in "Falk," also a stranger to his ship, explains the difficulty: "A misunderstanding between a man and his ship, in a difficult river with no room to make it up, is bound to end in trouble for the man." If he had understood his ship better, our captain, even in "that smooth water and light wind," would have known what his ship was doing and hence what should be done to complete his stalled maneuver.

Even at this point in the crisis, the ship near ruin and the captain waiting "helplessly" in his ignorance, the margin for error that was turning daring skill into disaster was a matter of a few feet or a few seconds only, measured against the time that could not be spared to "run down" for some object to throw upon the water as a mark. When Leggatt does not "bother" to retrieve the dropped hat, he provides just in time the only means of learning that the ship had ceased moving forward, had gathered sternway, and would then finish coming about and start forward again only if the helm were shifted. Had the helm not been shifted, and without knowledge of the drift sternward the captain would have seen no reason to shift it, the rudder would have begun to swing the bow back towards the rocks, and there would have been no room for a second try. With these unexpected consequences of his inexperience to explain how the captain exceeded his own absolute limits and survived, Conrad leaves himself free to record how his reprieved captain can be left to enjoy his new command amid the "cheery cries" of his crew. Both sharers, the exiled murderer and the lucky navigator, have been given a second chance. In the light of all the difficulties that had to be overcome, if the questionable decision to come about at the last possible moment should not weigh upon the captain's conscience, neither should the moment of ignorance that placed the ship at the mercy of an abandoned hat.

The verdict for the captain (and Leggatt) is something very near to a suspended sentence. "What can they know whether I am guilty or not—or of what I am guilty, either?" A fugitive has been sheltered, a dangerous maneuver attempted in a bid for full authority, and a slight miscalculation about instinctive skills nearly proven fatal. It can always be said that such risks should never have been taken in a private matter of conscience, but then the degree of guilt and the kind of guilt become matters for debate, preferably among master mariners. In weighing honorable intentions against faulty execution, Conrad has tried to counter the easy verdict of guilty with just enough evidence on the other side to cast a shadow of doubt: not quite murder for Leggatt, not quite unforgivable risk for the captain, but an ambivalent realm where guilt and innocence, selfishness and compassion, inexperience and skill all overlap. In short, we are left with the thoughts of an earlier story: "I had no desire to judge—which is an idle practice anyhow."

Conrad, then, has hinted at a theme that is central to Heart of Darkness. As Guerard expresses it, "Conrad believes, with the greatest moralists, that we must know evil—our own capacities for evil—before we can be capable of good" [Introduction to Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer, 1958]. Likewise, Marlow's words about Kurtz may be applied to Leggatt: "True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps this is the whole difference … That is why I have remained loyal… to the last." The captain had remained loyal to his fugitive, but in spite of the worthiness of his motives, he had all but stepped over the threshold of disaster. If in some way the compassion for Leggatt was responsible for the gift of the "saving mark," then Leggatt also, as a secret sharer, should be permitted something for his own compassionate concern for the captain and the sincere warning to "Be careful." But at crucial moments, neither one had been careful enough, and so the whole difference lay in the permission, granted by an accident, to draw back a hesitating foot. With this wisdom about life's uncertainties, a gift of the sea brought by Leggatt, the captain was prepared for his first command. He now understood the precarious terms upon which success is won.