章节正文
which would take him on board the Sofala.
From afar Mr. Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at
him and raise his hand to his hat. They drew into the
shade of a building (it was a bank), and the mate re-
lated how the boat with the crew got into Pangu Bay
about six hours after the accident, and how they had
lived for a fortnight in a state of destitution before they
found an opportunity to get away from that beastly
place. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all
blame. The loss of the ship was put down to an un-
usual set of the current. Indeed, it could not have been
anything else: there was no other way to account for
the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her
position during the middle watch.
"A piece of bad luck for me, sir."
Sterne passed his tongue on his lips, and glanced aside.
"I lost the advantage of being employed by you, sir.
I can never be sorry enough. But here it is: one man's
poison, another man's meat. This could not have been
handier for Mr. Massy if he had arranged that ship-
wreck himself. The most timely total loss I've ever
heard of."
"What became of that Massy?" asked Mr. Van Wyk.
"He, sir? Ha! ha! He would keep on telling me
that he meant to buy another ship; but as soon as he
had the money in his pocket he cleared out for Manilla
by mail-boat early in the morning. I gave him chase
right aboard, and he told me then he was going to make
his fortune dead sure in Manilla. I could go to the
devil for all he cared. And yet he as good as promised
to give me the command if I didn't talk too much."
"You never said anything . . ." Mr. Van Wyk
began.
"Not I, sir. Why should I? I mean to get on, but
the dead aren't in my way," said Sterne. His eyelids
were beating rapidly, then drooped for an instant.
"Besides, sir, it would have been an awkward business.
You made me hold my tongue just a bit too long."
"Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley re-
mained on board? Did he really refuse to leave? Come
now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?"
"Nothing!" Sterne interrupted with energy. "I tell
you I yelled for him to leap overboard. He simply
MUST have cast off the painter of the boat himself. We
all yelled to him--that is, Jack and I. He wouldn't even
answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last.
Then the boilers fetched away, and down she went.
Accident! Not it! The game was up, sir, I tell you."
This was all that Sterne had to say.
Mr. Van Wyk had been of course made the guest of
the club for a fortnight, and it was there that he met
the lawyer in whose office had been signed the agreement
between Massy and Captain Whalley.
"Extraordinary old man," he said. "He came into
my office from nowhere in particular as you may say,
with his five hundred pounds to place, and that engineer
fellow following him anxiously. And now he is gone out
a little inexplicably, just as he came. I could never
understand him quite. There was no mystery at all
about that Massy, eh? I wonder whether Whalley re-
fused to leave the ship. It would have been foolish.
He was blameless, as the court found."
Mr. Van Wyk had known him well, he said, and he
could not believe in suicide. Such an act would not
have been in character with what he knew of the man.
"It is my opinion, too," the lawyer agreed. The gen-
eral theory was that the captain had remained too long
on board trying to save something of importance. Per-
haps the chart which would clear him, or else something
of value in his cabin. The painter of the boat had
come adrift of itself it was supposed. However, strange
to say, some little time before that voyage poor Whalley
had called in his office and had left with him a sealed
envelope addressed to his daughter, to be forwarded to
her in case of his death. Still it was nothing very un-
usual, especially in a man of his age. Mr. Van Wyk
shook his head. Captain Whalley looked good for a
hundred years.
"Perfectly true," assented the lawyer. "The old
fellow looked as though he had come into the world full-
grown and with that long beard. I could never, some-
how, imagine him either younger or older--don't you
know. There was a sense of physical power about that
man too. And perhaps that was the secret of that some-
thing peculiar in his person which struck everybody who
came in contact with him. He looked indestructible by
any ordinary means that put an end to the rest of us.
His deliberate, statelycourtesy of manner was full of
significance. It was as though he were certain of hav-
ing plenty of time for everything. Yes, there was
something indestructible about him; and the way he
talked sometimes you might have thought he believed
it himself. When he called on me last with that letter
he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed at
all. Perhaps a shade more deliberate in his talk and
manner. Not depressed in the least. Had he a pre-
sentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still it seems a misera-
ble end for such a striking figure."
"Oh yes! It was a miserable end," Mr. Van Wyk said,
with so much fervor that the lawyer looked up at him
curiously; and afterwards, after parting with him, he
remarked to an acquaintance--
"Queer person that Dutch tobacco-planter from Batu
Beru. Know anything of him?"
"Heaps of money," answered the bank manager. "I
hear he's going home by the next mail to form a com-
pany to take over his estates. Another tobacco district
thrown open. He's wise, I think. These good times
won't last for ever."
In the southern hemisphere Captain Whalley's daugh-
ter had no presentiment of evil when she opened the
envelope addressed to her in the lawyer's handwriting.
She had received it in the afternoon; all the boarders
had gone out, her boys were at school, her husband sat
upstairs in his big arm-chair with a book, thin-faced,
wrapped up in rugs to the waist. The house was still,
and the grayness of a cloudy day lay against the panes
of three lofty windows.
In a shabby dining-room, where a faint cold smell of
dishes lingered all the year round, sitting at the end of
a long table surrounded by many chairs pushed in with
their backs close against the edge of the perpetually laid
table-cloth, she read the openingsentence: "Most pro-
found regret--painful duty--your father is no more--
in accordance with his instructions--fatal casualty--
consolation--no blame attached to his memory. . . ."
Her face was thin, her temples a little sunk under the
smooth bands of black hair, her lips remained resolutely
compressed, while her dark eyes grew larger, till at last,
with a low cry, she stood up, and instantly stooped to
pick up another envelope which had slipped off her
knees on to the floor.
She tore it open, snatched out the inclosure. . . .
"My dearest child," it said, "I am writing this while
I am able yet to write legibly. I am trying hard to
save for you all the money that is left; I have only kept
it to serve you better. It is yours. It shall not be lost:
it shall not be touched. There's five hundred pounds.
Of what I have earned I have kept nothing back till
now. For the future, if I live, I must keep back some--
a little--to bring me to you. I must come to you. I
must see you once more.
"It is hard to believe that you will ever look on these
lines. God seems to have forgotten me. I want to see
you--and yet death would be a greater favor. If you
ever read these words, I charge you to begin by thank-
ing a God merciful at last, for I shall be dead then, and
it will be well. My dear, I am at the end of my tether."
The next paragraph began with the words: "My sight
is going . . ."
She read no more that day. The hand holding up the
paper to her eyes fell slowly, and her slender figure in
a plain black dress walked rigidly to the window. Her
eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of thanks
went up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too
hard, for all the efforts of his love. It had silenced her
emotions. But for the first time in all these years its
sting had departed, the carking care of poverty, the
meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image
of her husband and of her children seemed to glide away
from her into the gray twilight; it was her father's
face alone that she saw, as though he had come to see
her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but
with something more august and tender in his aspect.
She slipped his folded letter between the two buttons
of her plain black bodice, and leaning her forehead
against a window-pane remained there till dusk, per-
fectly motionless, giving him all the time she could
spare. Gone! Was it possible? My God, was it possi-
ble! The blow had come softened by the spaces of the
earth, by the years of absence. There had been whole
days when she had not thought of him at all--had no
time. But she had loved him, she felt she had loved
him, after all.
End
From afar Mr. Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at
him and raise his hand to his hat. They drew into the
shade of a building (it was a bank), and the mate re-
lated how the boat with the crew got into Pangu Bay
about six hours after the accident, and how they had
lived for a fortnight in a state of destitution before they
found an opportunity to get away from that beastly
place. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all
blame. The loss of the ship was put down to an un-
usual set of the current. Indeed, it could not have been
anything else: there was no other way to account for
the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her
position during the middle watch.
"A piece of bad luck for me, sir."
Sterne passed his tongue on his lips, and glanced aside.
"I lost the advantage of being employed by you, sir.
I can never be sorry enough. But here it is: one man's
poison, another man's meat. This could not have been
handier for Mr. Massy if he had arranged that ship-
wreck himself. The most timely total loss I've ever
heard of."
"What became of that Massy?" asked Mr. Van Wyk.
"He, sir? Ha! ha! He would keep on telling me
that he meant to buy another ship; but as soon as he
had the money in his pocket he cleared out for Manilla
by mail-boat early in the morning. I gave him chase
right aboard, and he told me then he was going to make
his fortune dead sure in Manilla. I could go to the
devil for all he cared. And yet he as good as promised
to give me the command if I didn't talk too much."
"You never said anything . . ." Mr. Van Wyk
began.
"Not I, sir. Why should I? I mean to get on, but
the dead aren't in my way," said Sterne. His eyelids
were beating rapidly, then drooped for an instant.
"Besides, sir, it would have been an awkward business.
You made me hold my tongue just a bit too long."
"Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley re-
mained on board? Did he really refuse to leave? Come
now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?"
"Nothing!" Sterne interrupted with energy. "I tell
you I yelled for him to leap overboard. He simply
MUST have cast off the painter of the boat himself. We
all yelled to him--that is, Jack and I. He wouldn't even
answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last.
Then the boilers fetched away, and down she went.
Accident! Not it! The game was up, sir, I tell you."
This was all that Sterne had to say.
Mr. Van Wyk had been of course made the guest of
the club for a fortnight, and it was there that he met
the lawyer in whose office had been signed the agreement
between Massy and Captain Whalley.
"Extraordinary old man," he said. "He came into
my office from nowhere in particular as you may say,
with his five hundred pounds to place, and that engineer
fellow following him anxiously. And now he is gone out
a little inexplicably, just as he came. I could never
understand him quite. There was no mystery at all
about that Massy, eh? I wonder whether Whalley re-
fused to leave the ship. It would have been foolish.
He was blameless, as the court found."
Mr. Van Wyk had known him well, he said, and he
could not believe in suicide. Such an act would not
have been in character with what he knew of the man.
"It is my opinion, too," the lawyer agreed. The gen-
eral theory was that the captain had remained too long
on board trying to save something of importance. Per-
haps the chart which would clear him, or else something
of value in his cabin. The painter of the boat had
come adrift of itself it was supposed. However, strange
to say, some little time before that voyage poor Whalley
had called in his office and had left with him a sealed
envelope addressed to his daughter, to be forwarded to
her in case of his death. Still it was nothing very un-
usual, especially in a man of his age. Mr. Van Wyk
shook his head. Captain Whalley looked good for a
hundred years.
"Perfectly true," assented the lawyer. "The old
fellow looked as though he had come into the world full-
grown and with that long beard. I could never, some-
how, imagine him either younger or older--don't you
know. There was a sense of physical power about that
man too. And perhaps that was the secret of that some-
thing peculiar in his person which struck everybody who
came in contact with him. He looked indestructible by
any ordinary means that put an end to the rest of us.
His deliberate, statelycourtesy of manner was full of
significance. It was as though he were certain of hav-
ing plenty of time for everything. Yes, there was
something indestructible about him; and the way he
talked sometimes you might have thought he believed
it himself. When he called on me last with that letter
he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed at
all. Perhaps a shade more deliberate in his talk and
manner. Not depressed in the least. Had he a pre-
sentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still it seems a misera-
ble end for such a striking figure."
"Oh yes! It was a miserable end," Mr. Van Wyk said,
with so much fervor that the lawyer looked up at him
curiously; and afterwards, after parting with him, he
remarked to an acquaintance--
"Queer person that Dutch tobacco-planter from Batu
Beru. Know anything of him?"
"Heaps of money," answered the bank manager. "I
hear he's going home by the next mail to form a com-
pany to take over his estates. Another tobacco district
thrown open. He's wise, I think. These good times
won't last for ever."
In the southern hemisphere Captain Whalley's daugh-
ter had no presentiment of evil when she opened the
envelope addressed to her in the lawyer's handwriting.
She had received it in the afternoon; all the boarders
had gone out, her boys were at school, her husband sat
upstairs in his big arm-chair with a book, thin-faced,
wrapped up in rugs to the waist. The house was still,
and the grayness of a cloudy day lay against the panes
of three lofty windows.
In a shabby dining-room, where a faint cold smell of
dishes lingered all the year round, sitting at the end of
a long table surrounded by many chairs pushed in with
their backs close against the edge of the perpetually laid
table-cloth, she read the openingsentence: "Most pro-
found regret--painful duty--your father is no more--
in accordance with his instructions--fatal casualty--
consolation--no blame attached to his memory. . . ."
Her face was thin, her temples a little sunk under the
smooth bands of black hair, her lips remained resolutely
compressed, while her dark eyes grew larger, till at last,
with a low cry, she stood up, and instantly stooped to
pick up another envelope which had slipped off her
knees on to the floor.
She tore it open, snatched out the inclosure. . . .
"My dearest child," it said, "I am writing this while
I am able yet to write legibly. I am trying hard to
save for you all the money that is left; I have only kept
it to serve you better. It is yours. It shall not be lost:
it shall not be touched. There's five hundred pounds.
Of what I have earned I have kept nothing back till
now. For the future, if I live, I must keep back some--
a little--to bring me to you. I must come to you. I
must see you once more.
"It is hard to believe that you will ever look on these
lines. God seems to have forgotten me. I want to see
you--and yet death would be a greater favor. If you
ever read these words, I charge you to begin by thank-
ing a God merciful at last, for I shall be dead then, and
it will be well. My dear, I am at the end of my tether."
The next paragraph began with the words: "My sight
is going . . ."
She read no more that day. The hand holding up the
paper to her eyes fell slowly, and her slender figure in
a plain black dress walked rigidly to the window. Her
eyes were dry: no cry of sorrow or whisper of thanks
went up to heaven from her lips. Life had been too
hard, for all the efforts of his love. It had silenced her
emotions. But for the first time in all these years its
sting had departed, the carking care of poverty, the
meanness of a hard struggle for bread. Even the image
of her husband and of her children seemed to glide away
from her into the gray twilight; it was her father's
face alone that she saw, as though he had come to see
her, always quiet and big, as she had seen him last, but
with something more august and tender in his aspect.
She slipped his folded letter between the two buttons
of her plain black bodice, and leaning her forehead
against a window-pane remained there till dusk, per-
fectly motionless, giving him all the time she could
spare. Gone! Was it possible? My God, was it possi-
ble! The blow had come softened by the spaces of the
earth, by the years of absence. There had been whole
days when she had not thought of him at all--had no
time. But she had loved him, she felt she had loved
him, after all.
End
- inquiry [in´kwaiəri]
n.询问；质询；调查 (初中英语单词) - account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- advantage [əd´vɑ:ntidʒ] n.优势；利益 (初中英语单词)
- aboard [ə´bɔ:d] ad.&prep.在...上 (初中英语单词)
- energy [´enədʒi] n.活力，精力；能力 (初中英语单词)
- painter [´peintə] n.画家；(油)漆工 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- voyage [´vɔi-idʒ] n.&vi.航海；航程；旅行 (初中英语单词)
- physical [´fizikəl] a.物质的；有形的 (初中英语单词)
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə] a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- contact [´kɔntækt] n.接触；联系 v.联络 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- striking [´straikiŋ] a.显著的，明显的 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- manager [´mænidʒə] n.经理；管理人；干事 (初中英语单词)
- tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- instantly [´instəntli] ad.立即，立刻 (初中英语单词)
- envelope [´envələup] n.信封，封皮 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- paragraph [´pærəgrɑ:f] n.段；节 vt.将...分段 (初中英语单词)
- slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- poverty [´pɔvəti] n.贫穷(乏，瘠)；不足 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- absence [´æbsəns] n.不在，缺席；缺乏 (初中英语单词)
- fortnight [´fɔ:tnait] n.两星期 (高中英语单词)
- awkward [´ɔ:kwəd] a.笨拙的；为难的 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- anxiously [´æŋkʃəsli] ad.挂念地；渴望地 (高中英语单词)
- suicide [´su:isaid, ´sju:-] n.&a.自杀(者)(的) (高中英语单词)
- deliberate [di´libəreit] a.慎重的；故意的 (高中英语单词)
- stately [´steitli] a.庄严的，雄伟的 (高中英语单词)
- courtesy [´kə:tisi] n.礼貌；殷勤；好意 (高中英语单词)
- shabby [´ʃæbi] a.(衣服)破旧的 (高中英语单词)
- accordance [ə´kɔ:dəns] n.一致；调和 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- eastward [´i:stwəd] a.&ad.向东(的) (英语四级单词)
- accidental [,æksi´dentl] a.偶然的；附属的 (英语四级单词)
- overboard [´əuvəbɔ:d] ad.向船外；到水中 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- hemisphere [´hemisfiə] n.半球；范围，领域 (英语四级单词)
- timely [´taimli] a.及时的；适合的 (英语六级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
- blameless [´bleimlis] a.无可责难的 (英语六级单词)
- depressed [di´prest] a.消沉的；萧条的 (英语六级单词)
- merciful [´mə:sifəl] a.仁慈的；宽大的 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- rigidly [´ridʒidli] ad.坚硬地；不易弯地 (英语六级单词)
- departed [di´pɑ:tid] a.已往的；已故的 (英语六级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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