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'Twixt Land & Sea-Part30_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Heemskirk, giving his orders in English, apparently for Jasper's

edification. "You hear?"



"Ya, mynherr."

"You will remain on deck and in charge all the time."



"Ya, mynherr."

Jasper felt as if, together with the command of the brig, his very



heart were being taken out of his breast. Heemskirk asked, with a

change of tone:



"What weapons have you on board?"

At one time all the ships trading in the China Seas had a licence



to carry a certain quantity of firearms for purposes of defence.

Jasper answered:



"Eighteen rifles with their bayonets, which were on board when I

bought her, four years ago. They have been declared."



"Where are they kept?"

"Fore-cabin. Mate has the key."



"You will take possession of them," said Heemskirk to the gunner.

"Ya, mynherr."



"What is this for? What do you mean to imply?" cried out Jasper;

then bit his lip. "It's monstrous!" he muttered.



Heemskirk raised for a moment a heavy, as if suffering, glance.

"You may go," he said to his gunner. The fat man saluted, and



departed.

During the next thirty hours the steady towing was interrupted



once. At a signal from the brig, made by waving a flag on the

forecastle, the gunboat was stopped. The badly-stuffed specimen of



a warrant-officer, getting into his boat, arrived on board the

Neptun and hurried straight into his commander's cabin, his



excitement at something he had to communicate being betrayed by the

blinking of his small eyes. These two were closeted together for



some time, while Jasper at the taffrail tried to make out if

anything out of the common had occurred on board the brig.



But nothing seemed to be amiss on board. However, he kept a look-

out for the gunner; and, though he had avoided speaking to anybody



since he had finished with Heemskirk, he stopped that man when he

came out on deck again to ask how his mate was.



"He was feeling not very well when I left," he explained.

The fat warrant-officer, holding himself as though the effort of



carrying his big stomach in front of him demanded a rigid carriage,

understood with difficulty. Not a single one of his features



showed the slightest animation, but his little eyes blinked rapidly

at last.



"Oh, ya! The mate. Ya, ya! He is very well. But, mein Gott, he

is one very funny man!"



Jasper could get no explanation of that remark, because the

Dutchman got into the boat hurriedly, and went back on board the



brig. But he consoled himself with the thought that very soon all

this unpleasant and rather absurd experience would be over. The



roadstead of Makassar was in sight already. Heemskirk passed by

him going on the bridge. For the first time the lieutenant looked



at Jasper with marked intention; and the strange roll of his eyes

was so funny - it had been long agreed by Jasper and Freya that the



lieutenant was funny - so ecstatically gratified, as though he were

rolling a tasty morsel on his tongue, that Jasper could not help a



broad smile. And then he turned to his brig again.

To see her, his cherished possession, animated by something of his



Freya's soul, the only foothold of two lives on the wide earth, the

security of his passion, the companion of adventure, the power to



snatch the calm, adorable Freya to his breast, and carry her off to

the end of the world; to see this beautiful thing embodying



worthily his pride and his love, to see her captive at the end of a

tow-rope was not indeed a pleasant experience. It had something



nightmarish in it, as, for instance, the dream of a wild sea-bird

loaded with chains.



Yet what else could he want to look at? Her beauty would sometimes

come to his heart with the force of a spell, so that he would



forget where he was. And, besides, that sense of superiority which

the certitude of being loved gives to a young man, that illusion of



being set above the Fates by a tender look in a woman's eyes,

helped him, the first shock over, to go through these experiences



with an amused self-confidence. For what evil could touch the




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