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Adventure-Part29_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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nothing unusual nor bizarre in the event. Gogoomy had completed

the life-cycle of the bushman. He had taken heads, and now his own



head had been taken. He had eaten men, and now he had been eaten

by men.



The Poonga-Poonga men's laughter died down, and they regarded the

spectacle with glittering eyes and gluttonous expressions. The



Tahitians, on the other hand, were shocked, and Adamu Adam was

shaking his head slowly and grunting forth his disgust. Joan was



angry. Her face was white, but in each cheek was a vivid spray of

red. Disgust had been displaced by wrath, and her mood was clearly



vengeful.

Sheldon laughed.



"It's nothing to be angry over," he said. "You mustn't forget that

he hacked off Kwaque's head, and that he ate one of his own



comrades that ran away with him. Besides, he was born to it. He

has but been eaten out of the same trough from which he himself has



eaten."

Joan looked at him with lips that trembled on the verge of speech.



"And don't forget," Sheldon added, "that he is the son of a chief,

and that as sure as fate his Port Adams tribesmen will take a white



man's head in payment."

"It is all so ghastly ridiculous," Joan finally said.



"And--er--romantic," he suggested slyly.

She did not answer, and turned away; but Sheldon knew that the



shaft had gone home.

"That fella boy he sick, belly belong him walk about," Binu Charley



said, pointing to the Poonga-Poonga man whose shoulder had been

scratched by the arrow an hour before.



The boy was sitting down and groaning, his arms clasping his bent

knees, his head drooped forward and rolling painfully back and



forth. For fear of poison, Sheldon had immediately scarified the

wound and injected permanganate of potash; but in spite of the



precaution the shoulder was swelling rapidly.

"We'll take him on to where Tudor is lying," Joan said. "The



walking will help to keep up his circulation and scatter the

poison. Adamu Adam, you take hold that boy. Maybe he will want to



sleep. Shake him up. If he sleep he die."

The advance was more rapid now, for Binu Charley placed the captive



bushman in front of him and made him clear the run-way of traps.

Once, at a sharp turn where a man's shoulder would unavoidably



brush against a screen of leaves, the bushman displayed great

caution as he spread the leaves aside and exposed the head of a



sharp-pointed spear, so set that the casual passer-by would receive

at the least a nasty scratch.



"My word," said Binu Charley, "that fella spear allee same devil-

devil."



He took the spear and was examining it when suddenly he made as if

to stick it into the bushman. It was a bit of simulated



playfulness, but the bushman sprang back in evident fright.

Poisoned the weapon was beyond any doubt, and thereafter Binu



Charley carried it threateningly at the prisoner's back.

The sun, sinking behind a lofty western peak, brought on an early



but lingering twilight, and the expedition plodded on through the

evil forest--the place of mystery and fear, of death swift and



silent and horrible, of brutish appetite and degraded instinct, of

human life that still wallowed in the primeval slime, of savagery



degenerate and abysmal. No slightest breezes blew in the gloomy

silence, and the air was stale and humid and suffocating. The



sweat poured unceasingly from their bodies, and in their nostrils

was the heavy smell of rotting vegetation and of black earth that



was a-crawl with fecund life.

They turned aside from the run-way at a place indicated by Binu



Charley, and, sometimes crawling on hands and knees through the

damp black muck, at other times creeping and climbing through the



tangled undergrowth a dozen feet from the ground, they came to an

immense banyan tree, half an acre in extent, that made in the



innermost heart of the jungle a denser jungle of its own. From out

of its black depths came the voice of a man singing in a cracked,



eerie voice.

"My word, that big fella marster he no die!"



The singing stopped, and the voice, faint and weak, called out a

hello. Joan answered, and then the voice explained.



"I'm not wandering. I was just singing to keep my spirits up.

Have you got anything to eat?"



A few minutes saw the rescued man lying among blankets, while fires

were building, water was being carried, Joan's tent was going up,






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