章节正文
the very earth. He had steered that very course thirty-
six times by the same compass--if anything was certain
in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness.
Then what had happened? Did the Serang lie? Why
lie? Why? Was he going blind too?
"Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down,
I say."
"Tuan, there's no mist. See for yourself."
Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs
by an effort. Should he stop the engines at once and
give himself away. A gust of irresolution swayed all
sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The unusual had
come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage
of inexpressible anguish he saw her face--the face of
a young girl--with an amazing strength of illusion.
No, he must not give himself away after having gone
so far for her sake. "You steered the course? You
made it? Speak the truth."
"Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look."
Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him
made such a dim spot of light in an infinity of shape-
less shadow. By bending his face right down to the
glass he had been able before . . .
Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his
arm to where he knew there was a stanchion to steady
himself against. His hand closed on something that
was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the
weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy's coat falling,
struck the deck heavily with a dull thump, accompanied
by a lot of clicks.
"What's this?"
Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands
extended in a frank gesture of blindness. They trem-
bled, these hands feeling for the truth. He saw it. Iron
near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His
ship. Oh no. Not that.
"Jump and stop her!" he roared out in a voice not
his own.
He ran himself--hands forward, a blind man, and
while the clanging of the gong echoed still all over the
ship, she seemed to butt full tilt into the side of a
mountain.
It was low water along the north side of the strait.
Mr. Massy had not reckoned on that. Instead of run-
ning aground for half her length, the Sofala butted the
sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been
awash at high water. This made the shock absolutely
terrific. Everybody in the ship that was standing was
thrown down headlong: the shaken rigging made a great
rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went out:
several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the
funnel: there were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope,
splintering sounds, loud cracks, the masthead lamp flew
over the bows, and all the doors about the deck began
to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded,
hit the second time the very same spot like a battering-
ram. This completed the havoc: the funnel, with all
the guys gone, fell over with a hollow sound of thunder,
smashing the wheel to bits, crushing the frame of the
awnings, breaking the lockers, filling the bridge with
a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken wood. Captain
Whalley picked himself up and stood knee-deep in
wreckage, torn, bleeding, knowing the nature of the
danger he had escaped mostly by the sound, and holding
Mr. Massy's coat in his arms.
By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his
bunk) had set the engines astern. They worked for a
few turns, then a voice bawled out, "Get out of the
damned engine-room, Jack!"--and they stopped; but
the ship had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a
heavy cloud of steam issuing from the broken deck-
pipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes into the night.
Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there
was no shouting, as if the very violence of the shock
had half-stunned the shadowy lot of people swaying
here and there about her decks. The voice of the Serang
pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs--
"Eight fathom." He had heaved the lead.
Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch--
"Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?"
Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass--
"Amongst the reefs to the eastward."
"You know it, sir? Then she will never get out
again."
"She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne.
Even one will save you all in this calm."
The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for
the port boats. Nobody tried to check them. The
Malays, after a moment of confusion, became quiet,
and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain
Whalley had not moved. His thoughts were darker
than this night in which he had lost his first ship.
"He made me lose a ship."
Another tall figure standing before him amongst the
litter of the smash on the bridge whispered insanely--
"Say nothing of it."
Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the
chattering of his teeth.
"I have the coat."
"Throw it down and come along," urged the chatter-
ing voice. "B-b-b-b-boat!"
"You will get fifteen years for this."
Mr. Massy had lost his voice. His speech was a mere
dry rustling in his throat.
"Have mercy!"
"Had you any when you made me lose my ship? Mr.
Massy, you shall get fifteen years for this!"
"I wanted money! Money! My own money! I will
give you some money. Take half of it. You love
money yourself."
"There's a justice . . ."
Massy made an awful effort, and in a strange, half
choked utterance--
"You blind devil! It's you that drove me to it."
Captain Whalley, hugging the coat to his breast,
made no sound. The light had ebbed for ever from the
world--let everything go. But this man should not
escape scot-free.
Sterne's voice commanded--
"Lower away!"
The blocks rattled.
"Now then," he cried, "over with you. This way.
You, Jack, here. Mr. Massy! Mr. Massy! Captain!
Quick, sir! Let's get--
"I shall go to prison for trying to cheat the insurance,
but you'll get exposed; you, honest man, who has been
cheating me. You are poor. Aren't you? You've
nothing but the five hundred pounds. Well, you have
nothing at all now. The ship's lost, and the insurance
won't be paid."
Captain Whalley did not move. True! Ivy's money!
Gone in this wreck. Again he had a flash of insight.
He was indeed at the end of his tether.
Urgent voices cried out together alongside. Massy
did not seem able to tear himself away from the bridge.
He chattered and hissed despairingly--
"Give it up to me! Give it up!"
"No," said Captain Whalley; "I could not give it up.
You had better go. Don't wait, man, if you want to
live. She's settling down by the head fast. No; I shall
keep it, but I shall stay on board."
Massy did not seem to understand; but the love of life,
awakened suddenly, drove him away from the bridge.
Captain Whalley laid the coat down, and stumbled
amongst the heaps of wreckage to the side.
"Is Mr. Massy in with you?" he called out into the
night.
Sterne from the boat shouted--
"Yes; we've got him. Come along, sir. It's madness
to stay longer."
Captain Whalley felt along the rail carefully, and,
without a word, cast off the painter. They were ex-
pecting him still down there. They were waiting, till
a voice suddenly exclaimed--
"We are adrift! Shove off!"
"Captain Whalley! Leap! . . . pull up a little . . .
leap! You can swim."
In that old heart, in that vigorous body, there was,
that nothing should be wanting, a horror of death that
apparently could not be overcome by the horror of
blindness. But after all, for Ivy he had carried his
point, walking in his darkness to the very verge of a
crime. God had not listened to his prayers. The light
had finished ebbing out of the world; not a glimmer. It
was a dark waste; but it was unseemly that a Whalley
who had gone so far to carry a point should continue
to live. He must pay the price.
"Leap as far as you can, sir; we will pick you up."
They did not hear him answer. But their shouting
seemed to remind him of something. He groped his
way back, and sought for Mr. Massy's coat. He could
swim indeed; people sucked down by the whirlpool of
a sinking ship do come up sometimes to the surface, and
it was unseemly that a Whalley, who had made up his
mind to die, should be beguiled by chance into a
struggle. He would put all these pieces of iron into his
own pockets.
They, looking from the boat, saw the Sofala, a black
mass upon a black sea, lying still at an appalling cant.
No sound came from her. Then, with a great bizarre
shuffling noise, as if the boilers had broken through the
bulkheads, and with a faint muffled detonation, where
the ship had been there appeared for a moment some-
thing standingupright and narrow, like a rock out of
the sea. Then that too disappeared.
When the Sofala failed to come back to Batu Beru at
the proper time, Mr. Van Wyk understood at once that
he would never see her any more. But he did not know
what had happened till some months afterwards, when,
in a native craft lent him by his Sultan, he had made
his way to the Sofala's port of registry, where already
her existence and the official inquiry into her loss was
beginning to be forgotten.
It had not been a very remarkable or interesting case,
except for the fact that the captain had gone down with
his sinking ship. It was the only life lost; and Mr. Van
Wyk would not have been able to learn any details had
it not been for Sterne, whom he met one day on the quay
near the bridge over the creek, almost on the very spot
where Captain Whalley, to preserve his daughter's five
hundred pounds intact, had turned to get a sampan
six times by the same compass--if anything was certain
in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness.
Then what had happened? Did the Serang lie? Why
lie? Why? Was he going blind too?
"Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down,
I say."
"Tuan, there's no mist. See for yourself."
Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs
by an effort. Should he stop the engines at once and
give himself away. A gust of irresolution swayed all
sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The unusual had
come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage
of inexpressible anguish he saw her face--the face of
a young girl--with an amazing strength of illusion.
No, he must not give himself away after having gone
so far for her sake. "You steered the course? You
made it? Speak the truth."
"Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look."
Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him
made such a dim spot of light in an infinity of shape-
less shadow. By bending his face right down to the
glass he had been able before . . .
Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his
arm to where he knew there was a stanchion to steady
himself against. His hand closed on something that
was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the
weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy's coat falling,
struck the deck heavily with a dull thump, accompanied
by a lot of clicks.
"What's this?"
Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands
extended in a frank gesture of blindness. They trem-
bled, these hands feeling for the truth. He saw it. Iron
near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His
ship. Oh no. Not that.
"Jump and stop her!" he roared out in a voice not
his own.
He ran himself--hands forward, a blind man, and
while the clanging of the gong echoed still all over the
ship, she seemed to butt full tilt into the side of a
mountain.
It was low water along the north side of the strait.
Mr. Massy had not reckoned on that. Instead of run-
ning aground for half her length, the Sofala butted the
sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been
awash at high water. This made the shock absolutely
terrific. Everybody in the ship that was standing was
thrown down headlong: the shaken rigging made a great
rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went out:
several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the
funnel: there were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope,
splintering sounds, loud cracks, the masthead lamp flew
over the bows, and all the doors about the deck began
to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded,
hit the second time the very same spot like a battering-
ram. This completed the havoc: the funnel, with all
the guys gone, fell over with a hollow sound of thunder,
smashing the wheel to bits, crushing the frame of the
awnings, breaking the lockers, filling the bridge with
a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken wood. Captain
Whalley picked himself up and stood knee-deep in
wreckage, torn, bleeding, knowing the nature of the
danger he had escaped mostly by the sound, and holding
Mr. Massy's coat in his arms.
By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his
bunk) had set the engines astern. They worked for a
few turns, then a voice bawled out, "Get out of the
damned engine-room, Jack!"--and they stopped; but
the ship had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a
heavy cloud of steam issuing from the broken deck-
pipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes into the night.
Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there
was no shouting, as if the very violence of the shock
had half-stunned the shadowy lot of people swaying
here and there about her decks. The voice of the Serang
pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs--
"Eight fathom." He had heaved the lead.
Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch--
"Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?"
Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass--
"Amongst the reefs to the eastward."
"You know it, sir? Then she will never get out
again."
"She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne.
Even one will save you all in this calm."
The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for
the port boats. Nobody tried to check them. The
Malays, after a moment of confusion, became quiet,
and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain
Whalley had not moved. His thoughts were darker
than this night in which he had lost his first ship.
"He made me lose a ship."
Another tall figure standing before him amongst the
litter of the smash on the bridge whispered insanely--
"Say nothing of it."
Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the
chattering of his teeth.
"I have the coat."
"Throw it down and come along," urged the chatter-
ing voice. "B-b-b-b-boat!"
"You will get fifteen years for this."
Mr. Massy had lost his voice. His speech was a mere
dry rustling in his throat.
"Have mercy!"
"Had you any when you made me lose my ship? Mr.
Massy, you shall get fifteen years for this!"
"I wanted money! Money! My own money! I will
give you some money. Take half of it. You love
money yourself."
"There's a justice . . ."
Massy made an awful effort, and in a strange, half
choked utterance--
"You blind devil! It's you that drove me to it."
Captain Whalley, hugging the coat to his breast,
made no sound. The light had ebbed for ever from the
world--let everything go. But this man should not
escape scot-free.
Sterne's voice commanded--
"Lower away!"
The blocks rattled.
"Now then," he cried, "over with you. This way.
You, Jack, here. Mr. Massy! Mr. Massy! Captain!
Quick, sir! Let's get--
"I shall go to prison for trying to cheat the insurance,
but you'll get exposed; you, honest man, who has been
cheating me. You are poor. Aren't you? You've
nothing but the five hundred pounds. Well, you have
nothing at all now. The ship's lost, and the insurance
won't be paid."
Captain Whalley did not move. True! Ivy's money!
Gone in this wreck. Again he had a flash of insight.
He was indeed at the end of his tether.
Urgent voices cried out together alongside. Massy
did not seem able to tear himself away from the bridge.
He chattered and hissed despairingly--
"Give it up to me! Give it up!"
"No," said Captain Whalley; "I could not give it up.
You had better go. Don't wait, man, if you want to
live. She's settling down by the head fast. No; I shall
keep it, but I shall stay on board."
Massy did not seem to understand; but the love of life,
awakened suddenly, drove him away from the bridge.
Captain Whalley laid the coat down, and stumbled
amongst the heaps of wreckage to the side.
"Is Mr. Massy in with you?" he called out into the
night.
Sterne from the boat shouted--
"Yes; we've got him. Come along, sir. It's madness
to stay longer."
Captain Whalley felt along the rail carefully, and,
without a word, cast off the painter. They were ex-
pecting him still down there. They were waiting, till
a voice suddenly exclaimed--
"We are adrift! Shove off!"
"Captain Whalley! Leap! . . . pull up a little . . .
leap! You can swim."
In that old heart, in that vigorous body, there was,
that nothing should be wanting, a horror of death that
apparently could not be overcome by the horror of
blindness. But after all, for Ivy he had carried his
point, walking in his darkness to the very verge of a
crime. God had not listened to his prayers. The light
had finished ebbing out of the world; not a glimmer. It
was a dark waste; but it was unseemly that a Whalley
who had gone so far to carry a point should continue
to live. He must pay the price.
"Leap as far as you can, sir; we will pick you up."
They did not hear him answer. But their shouting
seemed to remind him of something. He groped his
way back, and sought for Mr. Massy's coat. He could
swim indeed; people sucked down by the whirlpool of
a sinking ship do come up sometimes to the surface, and
it was unseemly that a Whalley, who had made up his
mind to die, should be beguiled by chance into a
struggle. He would put all these pieces of iron into his
own pockets.
They, looking from the boat, saw the Sofala, a black
mass upon a black sea, lying still at an appalling cant.
No sound came from her. Then, with a great bizarre
shuffling noise, as if the boilers had broken through the
bulkheads, and with a faint muffled detonation, where
the ship had been there appeared for a moment some-
thing standingupright and narrow, like a rock out of
the sea. Then that too disappeared.
When the Sofala failed to come back to Batu Beru at
the proper time, Mr. Van Wyk understood at once that
he would never see her any more. But he did not know
what had happened till some months afterwards, when,
in a native craft lent him by his Sultan, he had made
his way to the Sofala's port of registry, where already
her existence and the official inquiry into her loss was
beginning to be forgotten.
It had not been a very remarkable or interesting case,
except for the fact that the captain had gone down with
his sinking ship. It was the only life lost; and Mr. Van
Wyk would not have been able to learn any details had
it not been for Sterne, whom he met one day on the quay
near the bridge over the creek, almost on the very spot
where Captain Whalley, to preserve his daughter's five
hundred pounds intact, had turned to get a sampan
- absolute [´æbsəlu:t]
a.绝对的 n.绝对 (初中英语单词) - unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- amazing [ə´meiziŋ] a.惊人的；惊奇的 (初中英语单词)
- gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
- compass [´kʌmpəs] n.指南针；圆规 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
- disaster [di´zɑ:stə] n.灾难，不幸 (初中英语单词)
- violence [´vaiələns] n.猛烈；暴力(行) (初中英语单词)
- distinctly [di´stiŋktli] ad.清楚地，明晰地 (初中英语单词)
- confusion [kən´fju:ʒən] n.混乱(状态)；骚乱 (初中英语单词)
- countenance [´kauntinəns] n.面部表情；脸色；面容 (初中英语单词)
- painter [´peintə] n.画家；(油)漆工 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
- overcome [,əuvə´kʌm] vt.战胜，克服 (初中英语单词)
- remind [ri´maind] vt.提醒；使记(想)起 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- inquiry [in´kwaiəri] n.询问；质询；调查 (初中英语单词)
- remarkable [ri´mɑ:kəbl] a.值得注意的；显著的 (初中英语单词)
- preserve [pri´zə:v] v.保藏 n.保藏物 (初中英语单词)
- anguish [´æŋgwiʃ] n.(极度的)痛苦；苦恼 (高中英语单词)
- strode [strəud] stride的过去式 (高中英语单词)
- headlong [´hedlɔŋ] ad.&a.轻率地(的) (高中英语单词)
- shadowy [´ʃædəui] a.有阴影的；模糊的 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- alongside [əlɔŋ´said] ad.在旁 prep.横靠 (高中英语单词)
- vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
- upright [´ʌprait] a.直立的 ad.直立地 (高中英语单词)
- sultan [´sʌltən] n.苏丹 (高中英语单词)
- instinctively [in´stiŋktivli] ad.本能地 (英语四级单词)
- blindness [´blaindnis] n.失明；愚味，文盲 (英语四级单词)
- bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- glimmer [´glimə] n.&vi.闪光 (英语四级单词)
- appalling [ə´pɔ:liŋ] a.令人震惊的 (英语四级单词)
- funnel [´fʌnəl] n.漏斗；通气道 v.集中 (英语六级单词)
- wanting [´wɔntiŋ, wɑ:n-] a.短缺的；不足的 (英语六级单词)
- intact [in´tækt] a.未动过的，完整的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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