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Jerry of the Islands-Part17_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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His forefeet missed the rail by a yard, and he plunged down into the



sea. He came up, swimming frantically, swallowing and strangling

salt water because he still yelped and wailed and barked his



yearning to be on board with Skipper.

But a boy of twelve, in another canoe, having witnessed the first



black's adventure with Jerry, treated him without ceremony, laying,

first the flat, and next the edge, of a paddle upon his head while



he still swam. And the darkness of unconsciousness welled over his

bright little love-suffering brain, so that it was a limp and



motionless puppy that the black boy dragged into his canoe.

In the meantime, down below in the Arangi's cabin, ere ever Jerry



hit the water from Lerumie's kick, even while he was in the air, Van

Horn, in one great flashing profoundfraction of an instant, had



known his death. Not for nothing had old Bashti lived longest of

any living man in his tribe, and ruled wisest of all the long line



of rulers since Somo's time. Had he been placed more generously in

earth space and time, he might well have proved an Alexander, a



Napoleon, or a swarthy Kahehameha. As it was, he performed well,

and splendidly well, in his limited little kingdom on the leeward



coast of the dark cannibal island of Malaita.

And such a performance! In cool good nature in rigid maintenance of



his chiefship rights, he had smiled at Van Horn, given royal

permission to his young men to sign on for three years of plantation



slavery, and exacted his share of each year's advance. Aora, who

might be described as his prime minister and treasurer, had received



the tithes as fast as they were paid over, and filled them into

large, fine-netted bags of coconut sennit. At Bashti's back,



squatting on the bunk-boards, a slim and smooth-skinned maid of

thirteen had flapped the flies away from his royal head with the



royal fly-flapper. At his feet had squatted his three old wives,

the oldest of them, toothless and somewhat palsied, ever presenting



to his hand, at his head nod, a basket rough-woven of pandanus leaf.

And Bashti, his keen old ears pitched for the first untoward sound



from on deck, had continually nodded his head and dipped his hand

into the proffered basket--now for betel-nut, and lime-box, and the



invariable green leaf with which to wrap the mouthful; now for

tobacco with which to fill his short clay pipe; and, again, for



matches with which to light the pipe which seemed not to draw well

and which frequently went out.



Toward the last the basket had hovered constantly close to his hand,

and, at the last, he made one final dip. It was at the moment when



the Mary's axe, on deck, had struck Borckman down and when Tambi

loosed the first shot at her from his Lee-Enfield. And Bashti's



withered ancient hand, the back of it netted with a complex of large

up-standing veins from which the flesh had shrunk away, dipped out a



huge pistol of such remote vintage that one of Cromwell's round-

heads might well have carried it or that it might well have voyaged



with Quiros or La Perouse. It was a flint-lock, as long as a man's

forearm, and it had been loaded that afternoon by no less a person



than Bashti himself.

Quick as Bashti had been, Van Horn was almost as quick, but not



quite quick enough. Even as his hand leapt to the modern automatic

lying out of it's holster and loose on his knees, the pistol of the



centuries went off. Loaded with two slugs and a round bullet, its

effect was that of a sawed-off shotgun. And Van Horn knew the blaze



and the black of death, even as "Gott fer dang!" died unuttered on

his lips and as his fingers relaxed from the part-lifted automatic,



dropping it to the floor.

Surcharged with black powder, the ancient weapon had other effect.



It burst in Bashti's hand. While Aora, with a knife produced

apparently from nowhere, proceeded to hack off the white master's



head, Bashti looked quizzically at his right forefinger dangling by

a strip of skin. He seized it with his left hand, with a quick pull



and twist wrenched it off, and grinningly tossed it, as a joke, into

the pandanus basket which still his wife with one hand held before



him while with the other she clutched her forehead bleeding from a

flying fragment of pistol.



Collaterally with this, three of the young recruits, joined by their

fathers and uncles, had downed, and were finishing off the only one






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