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The Jacket (The Star-Rover)-Part40_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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plentifully distributed with a sort of fish more nearly like the



mullet than any I had ever observed. Of these I picked up no less

than twelve hundred and nineteen, which I split and cured in the sun



after the manner of cod. This welcome change of diet was not

without its consequence. I was guilty of gluttony, and for all of



the succeeding night I was near to death's door.

In the seventh year of my stay on the island, in the very same month



of March, occurred a similar storm of great violence. Following

upon it, to my astonishment, I found an enormous dead whale, quite



fresh, which had been cast up high and dry by the waves. Conceive

my gratification when in the bowels of the great fish I found deeply



imbedded a harpoon of the common sort with a few fathoms of new line

attached thereto.



Thus were my hopes again revived that I should finally meet with an

opportunity to quit the desolate island. Beyond doubt these seas



were frequented by whalemen, and, so long as I kept up a stout

heart, sooner or later I should be saved. For seven years I had



lived on seal meat, so that at sight of the enormous plentitude of

different and succulent food I fell a victim to my weakness and ate



of such quantities that once again I was well nigh to dying. And

yet, after all, this, and the affair of the small fish, were mere



indispositions due to the foreignness of the food to my stomach,

which had learned to prosper on seal meat and on nothing but seal



meat.

Of that one whale I preserved a full year's supply of provision.



Also, under the sun's rays, in the rock hollows, I tried out much of

the oil, which, with the addition of salt, was a welcome thing in



which to dip my strips of seal-meat whilst dining. Out of my

precious rags of shirts I could even have contrived a wick, so that,



with the harpoon for steel and rock for flint, I might have had a

light at night. But it was a vain thing, and I speedily forwent the



thought of it. I had no need for light when God's darkness

descended, for I had schooled myself to sleep from sundown to



sunrise, winter and summer.

I, Darrell Standing, cannot refrain from breaking in on this recital



of an earlier existence in order to note a conclusion of my own.

Since human personality is a growth, a sum of all previous



existences added together, what possibility was there for Warden

Atherton to break down my spirit in the inquisition of solitary? I



am life that survived, a structure builded up through the ages of

the past--and such a past! What were ten days and nights in the



jacket to me?--to me, who had once been Daniel Foss, and for eight

years learnedpatience in that school of rocks in the far South



Ocean?

At the end of my eighth year on the island in the month of



September, when I had just sketched most ambitious plans to raise my

pyramid to sixty feet above the summit of the island, I awoke one



morning to stare out upon a ship with topsails aback and nearly

within hail. That I might be discovered, I swung my oar in the air,



jumped from rock to rock, and was guilty of all manner of

livelinesses of action, until I could see the officers on the



quarter-deck looking at me through their spyglasses. They answered

by pointing to the extreme westerly end of the island, whither I



hastened and discovered their boat manned by half a dozen men. It

seems, as I was to learn afterward, the ship had been attracted by



my pyramid and had altered its course to make closer examination of

so strange a structure that was greater of height than the wild



island on which it stood.

But the surf proved to be too great to permit the boat to land on my



inhospitable shore. After diversunsuccessful attempts they

signalled me that they must return to the ship. Conceive my despair



at thus being unable to quit the desolate island. I seized my oar

(which I had long since determined to present to the Philadelphia



Museum if ever I were preserved) and with it plunged headlong into

the foaming surf. Such was my good fortune, and my strength and



agility, that I gained the boat.

I cannot refrain from telling here a curious incident. The ship had



by this time drifted so far away, that we were all of an hour in




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