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"No; I can't forget him [Kurtz], though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully - I missed him even while his body was still lying in the pilot-house. Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well, don't you see, he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him at my back - a help - an instrument. It was a kind of partnership. He steered for me - I had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory - like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment." (2.29)
Marlow shows a surprising amount of compassion for his dead helmsman. During his life, Marlow considered him almost an equal, a partner, almost a true friend. He even claims "kinship" to him at his death. However, he still looks upon his helmsman (and the native Africans) as primarily "an instrument" to help him get where he wants to go.
"The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly avenged. 'Say! We must have made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush. Eh? What do you think? Say?' He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar. And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! I could not help saying, 'You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' I had seen, from the way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew, that almost all the shots had gone too high." (2.31)
The red-haired pilgrim shows his evil side by rejoicing at the thought of killing the native Africans who attacked them. He is not only "bloodthirsty" but also a hypocrite, since he "nearly fainted" at the sight of the wounded helmsman. Marlow despises him.
"I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness." (3.3)
Nature seems to Marlow completely "hopeless" and "dark," entirely inaccessible to the human mind, incomprehensible and merciless to human weakness. In other words, nature seems evil.