‘End of the Tether, The’

a story by Joseph Conrad, serialized in Blackwood's Magazine (1902), and collected in Youth, A Narrative; and Two Other Stories (1902). Conrad's longest short story, it tells of the progressive deterioration of the character of Captain Whalley under the pressure of the financial needs of his beloved daughter and in the face of his oncoming blindness. The story emphasizes Whalley's heroic and honourable past, and it traces his moral corruption through a series of encounters: his lack of frankness with Captain Elliott; his fraudulent agreement with Massy; and his confession to Van Wyck. Through the temporal span of Captain Whalley's long career, the story reflects on the changes that have taken place in the Malay Archipelago, while the remorseless development of the narrative casts doubt upon Whalley's asserted ‘boundless trust’ in divine justice.