One evening, Marlow overhears the uncle and nephew talking about Kurtz, who has rejected the Company’s recent communications and remained far up the river; he continues to send a vast quantity of ivory to the Company even though he has taken ill. There has been no news for nine months. The two men conspire, but Marlow does not understand the full details of their plan. They notice Marlow and depart silently; the Eldorado Expedition leaves the camp a few days later. Long afterwards, Marlow hears that all their donkeys died. Marlow is excited by the prospect of meeting Kurtz.

Very soon, he gets his wish. Two months later, having set off upriver, Marlow and his crew arrive on the bank beside Kurtz’s Inner Station. To get there, he travels through “an empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest” (106). Marlow must watch the river closely, as it is filled with dangerous impediments that might scuttle his boat. His crew is made from Company men and locals recruited along the way. They pass by European camps and native villages; Marlow has no time to assure them as he is occupied by keeping the steam engine in working order. He has trained a local man to work the vertical boiler and is shocked that the man does not consider the engine to be “strange witchcraft” (109). Some 50 miles from Kurtz’s Inner Station, they stop at a hut outside that bears a tattered flag and a stack of neatly chopped and apparently free wood. Marlow is concerned; the hut is abandoned, but Marlow finds a book, and inside the book a coded message. The boat departs quickly, and Marlow returns onboard, taking the book with him.

As the boat travels upriver, Marlow tries to plan what he will do when he inevitably meets Kurtz but gives up, knowing that whatever he says or does will be futile. The reality of what lies ahead is “beyond [his] reach, and beyond [his] power of meddling” (111). As night falls, Marlow wants to press on through the final eight miles, but the Manager warns him to proceed with caution. Reluctantly, Marlow agrees. He awakes after a sleepless night to find the river cloaked in fog. As the boat tries to depart, a loud shriek pierces the fog. The crew fetch their guns. One of the African crew tells Marlow to hand over whomever they find to the crew, who will then cannibalize him. Marlow remembers that the men are very hungry, as the rotting hippo flesh they had brought had long ago been thrown overboard. In a moment of vanity, he wonders why he appears so unappetizing to them.

Marlow overhears the sound of an argument on the riverbank; the fog has disorientated the crew, who cannot identify one bank from the other. Marlow refuses to take any risks and does not want to engage an unseen enemy. All around them, shrieking and arguments can be heard, “unexpected, wild, and violent” (115), though they give Marlow a sorrowful feeling. The boat drifts along the river when the fog reveals an islet, a mile and a half from Kurtz’s station. Marlow steers around it, into a narrow section of the river. Suddenly, a flurry of arrows is fired from the shore into the boat. As the crew ducks for cover, Marlow worries that the boat will crash. The crew fires their rifles, causing a cloud of gun smoke to obfuscate Marlow’s view of the river ahead. He runs to the pilothouse, where he seizes the wheel from the African helmsman. As Marlow steers, the helmsman is hit by a spear. He collapses to the floor in a pool of blood. Marlow watches as the man dies. The blood on Marlow’s shoes and socks bothers him; he makes another man steer while he goes to change them. At the same time, the death makes him assume that “Mr. Kurtz is dead as well by this time” (121). Marlow throws his shoes overboard, despondent that he might not have the chance to talk to Kurtz.

A member of Marlow’s audience insists that the story is absurd. Marlow responds by detailing his obsession with Kurtz and why it is justified, explaining Kurtz’s educational and family background and the detailed report he wrote for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. The report was a “beautiful piece of writing” (122), Marlow says, but highly strung and imbued with the notion that white people must appear as supernatural beings to the people of Africa. It ends with the command to “exterminate all the brutes” (123). Marlow considers himself the caretaker of Kurtz’s memory.

Back in the story, Marlow dumps the helmsman’s body into the river and retakes the wheel of the boat. They soon arrive at Kurtz’s station, and Marlow brings the boat to the shore. They are met by a Russian man in heavily patched clothes, who assures them that the natives gathered around are “simple people” (125) who do not pose a threat; a blast on the whistle will disperse them if needed. Marlow calms the Russian trader and talks to him, learning about his fanatical devotion to Kurtz. The Russian has been wandering the jungle for two years; he left the wood in the abandoned hut along the river. Marlow gives the Russian back his book, learning that the coded messages were Russian annotations. The locals attacked Marlow’s boat, the Russian says, because they do not want Kurtz to leave. They are worried that Marlow will take Kurtz away. The Russian says that Kurtz has “enlarged my mind” (127).