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Tracks of a Rolling Stone-Part6_Henry J.Coke(1827-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the city walls. Fully exposed to the fire, which was pretty



hot, 'old Tommy' as we called him, paced to and fro with

contemptuous indifference, stopping occasionally to spy the



enemy with his long ship's telescope. A number of

bluejackets, in reserve, were stationed about half a mile



further off at the bottom of the protecting hill. They were

completely screened from the fire by some buildings of the



suburbs abutting upon the slope. Those in front were

watching the cannon-balls which had struck the crest and were



rolling as it were by mere force of gravitation down the

hillside. Some jokes were made about football, when suddenly



a smart and popular young officer - Fox, first lieutenant of

one of the brigs - jumped out at one of these spent balls,



which looked as though it might have been picked up by the

hands, and gave it a kick. It took his foot off just above



the ankle. There was no surgeon at hand, and he was bleeding

to death before one could be found. Sir Thomas had come down



the hill, and seeing the wounded officer on the ground with a

group around him, said in passing, 'Well, Fox, this is a bad



job, but it will make up the pair of epaulets, which is

something.'



'Yes sir,' said the dying man feebly, 'but without a pair of

legs.' Half an hour later he was dead.



I have spokenlightly of courage, as if, by implication, I

myself possessed it. Let me make a confession. From my soul



I pity the man who is or has been such a miserablecoward as

I was in my infancy, and up to this youthful period of my



life. No fear of bullets or bayonets could ever equal mine.

It was the fear of ghosts. As a child, I think that at times



when shut up for punishment, in a dark cellar for instance, I

must have nearly gone out of my mind with this appalling



terror.

Once when we were lying just below Whampo, the captain took



nearly every officer and nearly the whole ship's crew on a

punitive expedition up the Canton river. They were away



about a week. I was left behind, dangerously ill with fever

and ague. In his absence, Sir Thomas had had me put into his



cabin, where I lay quite alone day and night, seeing hardly

anyone save the surgeon and the captain's steward, who was



himself a shadow, pretty nigh. Never shall I forget my

mental sufferings at night. In vain may one attempt to



describe what one then goes through; only the victims know

what that is. My ghost - the ghost of the Whampo Reach - the



ghost of those sultry and miasmal nights, had no shape, no

vaporous form; it was nothing but a presence, a vague



amorphous dread. It may have floated with the swollen and

putrid corpses which hourly came bobbing down the stream, but



it never appeared; for there was nothing to appear. Still it

might appear. I expected every instant through the night to



see it in some inconceivable form. I expected it to touch

me. It neither stalked upon the deck, nor hovered in the



dark, nor moved, nor rested anywhere. And yet it was there

about me, - where, I knew not. On every side I was



threatened. I feared it most behind the head of my cot,

because I could not see it if it were so.



This, it will be said, is the description of a nightmare.

Exactly so. My agony of fright was a nightmare; but a



nightmare when every sense was strained with wakefulness,

when all the powers of imagination were concentrated to



paralyse my shattered reason.

The experience here spoken of is so common in some form or



other that we may well pause to consider it. What is the

meaning of this fear of ghosts? - how do we come by it? It



may be thought that its cradle is our own, that we are

purposely frightened in early childhood to keep us calm and



quiet. But I do not believe that nurses' stories would




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