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South Sea Tales-Part10_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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but the weight of the bodies behind tore such grips loose.

One man I noticed fetch up, head on and square on, with the starboard bitt.



His head cracked like an egg. I saw what was coming, sprang on top of the

cabin, and from there into the mainsail itself. Ah Choon and one of the



Americans tried to follow me, but I was one jump ahead of them. The American

was swept away and over the stern like a piece of chaff. Ah Choon caught a



spoke of the wheel, and swung in behind it. But a strapping Raratonga vahine

(woman)--she must have weighed two hundred and fifty--brought up against him,



and got an arm around his neck. He clutched the kanaka steersman with his

other hand; and just at that moment the schooner flung down to starboard.



The rush of bodies and sea that was coming along the port runway between the

cabin and the rail turned abruptly and poured to starboard. Away they



went--vahine, Ah Choon, and steersman; and I swear I saw Ah Choon grin at me

with philosophic resignation as he cleared the rail and went under.



The third sea--the biggest of the three--did not do so much damage. By the

time it arrived nearly everybody was in the rigging. On deck perhaps a dozen



gasping, half-drowned, and half-stunned wretches were rolling about or

attempting to crawl into safety. They went by the board, as did the wreckage



of the two remaining boats. The other pearl buyers and myself, between seas,

managed to get about fifteen women and children into the cabin, and battened



down. Little good it did the poor creatures in the end.

Wind? Out of all my experience I could not have believed it possible for the



wind to blow as it did. There is no describing it. How can one describe a

nightmare? It was the same way with that wind. It tore the clothes off our



bodies. I say TORE THEM OFF, and I mean it. I am not asking you to believe it.

I am merely telling something that I saw and felt. There are times when I do



not believe it myself. I went through it, and that is enough. One could not

face that wind and live. It was a monstrous thing, and the most monstrous



thing about it was that it increased and continued to increase.

Imagine countless millions and billions of tons of sand. Imagine this sand



tearing along at ninety, a hundred, a hundred and twenty, or any other number

of miles per hour. Imagine, further, this sand to be invisible, impalpable,



yet to retain all the weight and density of sand. Do all this, and you may get

a vague inkling of what that wind was like.



Perhaps sand is not the right comparison. Consider it mud, invisible,

impalpable, but heavy as mud. Nay, it goes beyond that. Consider every



molecule of air to be a mudbank in itself. Then try to imagine the

multitudinous impact of mudbanks. No; it is beyond me. Language may be



adequate to express the ordinary conditions of life, but it cannot possibly

express any of the conditions of so enormous a blast of wind. It would have



been better had I stuck by my original intention of not attempting a

description.



I will say this much: The sea, which had risen at first, was beaten down by

that wind. 'more: it seemed as if the whole ocean had been sucked up in the



maw of the hurricane, and hurled on through that portion of space which

previously had been occupied by the air.



Of course, our canvas had gone long before. But Captain Oudouse had on the

Petite Jeanne something I had never before seen on a South Sea schooner--a sea



anchor. It was a conical canvas bag, the mouth of which was kept open by a

huge loop of iron. The sea anchor was bridled something like a kite, so that



it bit into the water as a kite bites into the air, but with a difference. The

sea anchor remained just under the surface of the ocean in a perpendicular



position. A long line, in turn, connected it with the schooner. As a result,

the Petite Jeanne rode bow on to the wind and to what sea there was.



The situation really would have been favorable had we not been in the path of

the storm. True, the wind itself tore our canvas out of the gaskets, jerked



out our topmasts, and made a raffle of our running gear, but still we would

have come through nicely had we not been square in front of the advancing



storm center. That was what fixed us. I was in a state of stunned, numbed,

paralyzed collapse from enduring the impact of the wind, and I think I was



just about ready to give up and die when the center smote us. The blow we

received was an absolute lull. There was not a breath of air. The effect on



one was sickening.

Remember that for hours we had been at terrificmusculartension, withstanding



the awful pressure of that wind. And then, suddenly, the pressure was removed.

I know that I felt as though I was about to expand, to fly apart in all



directions. It seemed as if every atom composing my body was repelling every

other atom and was on the verge of rushing off irresistibly into space. But



that lasted only for a moment. Destruction was upon us.

In the absence of the wind and pressure the sea rose. It jumped, it leaped, it



soared straight toward the clouds. Remember, from every point of the compass




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