章节正文
with rising vehemence. "Couldn't let that go on in my ship, if I
knew she hadn't five minutes to live. Couldn't bear it, Mr.
Jukes."
A hollow echoing noise, like that of a shout rolling in a rocky
chasm, approached the ship and went away again. The last star,
blurred, enlarged, as if returning to the fiery mist of its
beginning, struggled with the colossal depth of blackness hanging
over the ship -- and went out.
"Now for it!" muttered Captain MacWhirr. "Mr. Jukes."
"Here, sir."
The two men were growing indistinct to each other.
"We must trust her to go through it and come out on the other
side. That's plain and straight. There's no room for Captain
Wilson's storm-strategy here."
"No, sir."
"She will be smothered and swept again for hours," mumbled the
Captain. "There's not much left by this time above deck for the
sea to take away -- unless you or me."
"Both, sir," whispered Jukes, breathlessly.
"You are always meeting trouble half way, Jukes," Captain
MacWhirr remonstrated quaintly. "Though it's a fact that the
second mate is no good. D'ye hear, Mr. Jukes? You would be left
alone if. . . ."
Captain MacWhirr interrupted himself, and Jukes, glancing on all
sides, remained silent.
"Don't you be put out by anything," the Captain continued,
mumbling rather fast. "Keep her facing it. They may say what
they like, but the heaviest seas run with the wind. Facing it --
always facing it -- that's the way to get through. You are a
young sailor. Face it. That's enough for any man. Keep a cool
head."
"Yes, sir," said Jukes, with a flutter of the heart.
In the next few seconds the Captain spoke to the engine-room and
got an answer.
For some reason Jukes experienced an access of confidence, a
sensation that came from outside like a warm breath, and made him
feel equal to every demand. The distant muttering of the
darkness stole into his ears. He noted it unmoved, out of that
sudden belief in himself, as a man safe in a shirt of mail would
watch a point.
The ship laboured without intermission amongst the black hills of
water, paying with this hard tumbling the price of her life. She
rumbled in her depths, shaking a white plummet of steam into the
night, and Jukes' thought skimmed like a bird through the
engine-room, where Mr. Rout -- good man -- was ready. When the
rumbling ceased it seemed to him that there was a pause of every
sound, a dead pause in which Captain MacWhirr's voice rang out
startlingly.
"What's that? A puff of wind?" -- it spoke much louder than
Jukes had ever heard it before -- "On the bow. That's right.
She may come out of it yet."
The mutter of the winds drew near apace. In the forefront could
be distinguished a drowsy waking plaint passing on, and far off
the growth of a multiple clamour, marching and expanding. There
was the throb as of many drums in it, a vicious rushing note, and
like the chant of a tramping multitude.
Jukes could no longer see his captain distinctly. The darkness
was absolutely piling itself upon the ship. At most he made out
movements, a hint of elbows spread out, of a head thrown up.
Captain MacWhirr was trying to do up the top button of his
oilskin coat with unwonted haste. The hurricane, with its power
to madden the seas, to sink ships, to uproot trees, to overturn
strong walls and dash the very birds of the air to the ground,
had found this taciturn man in its path, and, doing its utmost,
had managed to wring out a few words. Before the renewed wrath
of winds swooped on his ship, Captain MacWhirr was moved to
declare, in a tone of vexation, as it were: "I wouldn't like to
lose her."
He was spared that annoyance.
VI
ON A bright sunshiny day, with the breeze chasing her smoke far
ahead, the Nan-Shan came into Fu-chau. Her arrival was at once
noticed on shore, and the seamen in harbour said: "Look! Look at
that steamer. What's that? Siamese -- isn't she? Just look at
her!"
She seemed, indeed, to have been used as a running target for the
secondary batteries of a cruiser. A hail of minor shells could
not have given her upper works a more broken, torn, and
devastated aspect: and she had about her the worn, weary air of
ships coming from the far ends of the world -- and indeed with
truth, for in her short passage she had been very far; sighting,
verily, even the coast of the Great Beyond, whence no ship ever
returns to give up her crew to the dust of the earth. She was
incrusted and gray with salt to the trucks of her masts and to
the top of her funnel; as though (as some facetious seaman said)
"the crowd on board had fished her out somewhere from the bottom
of the sea and brought her in here for salvage." And further,
excited by the felicity of his own wit, he offered to give five
pounds for her -- "as she stands."
Before she had been quite an hour at rest, a meagre little man,
with a red-tipped nose and a face cast in an angry mould, landed
from a sampan on the quay of the Foreign Concession, and
incontinently turned to shake his fist at her.
A tall individual, with legs much too thin for a rotund stomach,
and with watery eyes, strolled up and remarked, "Just left her --
eh? Quick work."
He wore a soiled suit of blue flannel with a pair of dirty
cricketing shoes; a dingy gray moustache drooped from his lip,
and daylight could be seen in two places between the rim and the
crown of his hat.
"Hallo! what are you doing here?" asked the exsecond-mate of the
Nan-Shan, shaking hands hurriedly.
"Standing by for a job -- chance worth taking -- got a quiet
hint," explained the man with the broken hat, in jerky, apathetic
wheezes.
The second shook his fist again at the Nan-Shan. "There's a
fellow there that ain't fit to have the command of a scow," he
declared, quivering with passion, while the other looked about
listlessly.
"Is there?"
But he caught sight on the quay of a heavy seaman's chest,
painted brown under a fringed sailcloth cover, and lashed with
new manila line. He eyed it with awakened interest.
"I would talk and raise trouble if it wasn't for that damned
Siamese flag. Nobody to go to -- or I would make it hot for him.
The fraud! Told his chief engineer -- that's another fraud for
you -- I had lost my nerve. The greatest lot of ignorant fools
that ever sailed the seas. No! You can't think . . ."
"Got your money all right?" inquired his seedy acquaintance
suddenly.
"Yes. Paid me off on board," raged the second mate. "'Get your
breakfast on shore,' says he."
"Mean skunk!" commented the tall man, vaguely, and passed his
tongue on his lips. "What about having a drink of some sort?"
"He struck me," hissed the second mate.
"No! Struck! You don't say?" The man in blue began to bustle
about sympathetically. "Can't possibly talk here. I want to
know all about it.
Struck -- eh? Let's get a fellow to carry your chest. I know a
quiet place where they have some bottled beer. . . ."
Mr. Jukes, who had been scanning the shore through a pair of
glasses, informed the chief engineer afterwards that "our late
second mate hasn't been long in finding a friend. A chap looking
uncommonly like a bummer. I saw them walk away together from the
quay."
The hammering and banging of the needful repairs did not disturb
Captain MacWhirr. The steward found in the letter he wrote, in a
tidy chart-room, passages of such absorbing interest that twice
he was nearly caught in the act. But Mrs. MacWhirr, in the
drawing-room of the forty-pound house, stifled a yawn -- perhaps
out of self-respect -- for she was alone.
She reclined in a plush-bottomed and gilt hammockchair near a
tiled fireplace, with Japanese fans on the mantel and a glow of
coals in the grate. Lifting her hands, she glanced wearily here
and there into the many pages. It was not her fault they were so
prosy, so completely uninteresting -- from "My darling wife" at
the beginning, to "Your loving husband" at the end. She couldn't
be really expected to understand all these ship affairs. She was
glad, of course, to hear from him, but she had never asked
herself why, precisely.
". . . They are called typhoons . . . The mate did not seem to
like it . . . Not in books . . . Couldn't think of letting it
go on. . . ."
The paper rustled sharply. ". . . . A calm that lasted more
than twenty minutes," she read perfunctorily; and the next words
her thoughtless eyes caught, on the top of another page, were:
"see you and the children again. . . ." She had a movement of
impatience. He was always thinking of coming home. He had never
had such a good salary before. What was the matter now?
It did not occur to her to turn back overleaf to look. She would
have found it recorded there that between 4 and 6 A. M. on
December 25th, Captain MacWhirr did actually think that his ship
could not possibly live another hour in such a sea, and that he
would never see his wife and children again. Nobody was to know
this (his letters got mislaid so quickly) -- nobody whatever but
the steward, who had been greatly impressed by that disclosure.
So much so, that he tried to give the cook some idea of the
"narrow squeak we all had" by sayingsolemnly, "The old man
himself had a dam' poor opinion of our chance."
"How do you know?" asked, contemptuously, the cook, an old
soldier. "He hasn't told you, maybe?"
"Well, he did give me a hint to that effect," the steward
brazened it out.
"Get along with you! He will be coming to tell me next," jeered
the old cook, over his shoulder.
Mrs. MacWhirr glanced farther, on the alert. ". . . Do what's
fair. . . . Miserable objects . . . . Only three, with a broken
leg each, and one . . . Thought had better keep the matter quiet
. . . hope to have done the fair thing. . . ."
She let fall her hands. No: there was nothing more about coming
home. Must have been merely expressing a pious wish. Mrs.
MacWhirr's mind was set at ease, and a black marble clock, priced
by the local jeweller at 拢3 18s. 6d., had a discreet
stealthy tick.
The door flew open, and a girl in the long-legged, short-frocked
period of existence, flung into the room.
A lot of colourless, rather lanky hair was scattered over her
shoulders. Seeing her mother, she stood still, and directed her
pale prying eyes upon the letter.
"From father," murmured Mrs. MacWhirr. "What have you done with
your ribbon?"
The girl put her hands up to her head and pouted.
"He's well," continued Mrs. MacWhirr languidly. "At least I think
so. He never says." She had a little laugh. The girl's face
expressed a wandering indifference, and Mrs. MacWhirr surveyed
her with fond pride.
"Go and get your hat," she said after a while. "I am going out
to do some shopping. There is a sale at Linom's."
"Oh, how jolly!" uttered the child, impressively, in unexpectedly
grave vibrating tones, and bounded out of the room.
It was a fine afternoon, with a gray sky and dry sidewalks.
knew she hadn't five minutes to live. Couldn't bear it, Mr.
Jukes."
A hollow echoing noise, like that of a shout rolling in a rocky
chasm, approached the ship and went away again. The last star,
blurred, enlarged, as if returning to the fiery mist of its
beginning, struggled with the colossal depth of blackness hanging
over the ship -- and went out.
"Now for it!" muttered Captain MacWhirr. "Mr. Jukes."
"Here, sir."
The two men were growing indistinct to each other.
"We must trust her to go through it and come out on the other
side. That's plain and straight. There's no room for Captain
Wilson's storm-strategy here."
"No, sir."
"She will be smothered and swept again for hours," mumbled the
Captain. "There's not much left by this time above deck for the
sea to take away -- unless you or me."
"Both, sir," whispered Jukes, breathlessly.
"You are always meeting trouble half way, Jukes," Captain
MacWhirr remonstrated quaintly. "Though it's a fact that the
second mate is no good. D'ye hear, Mr. Jukes? You would be left
alone if. . . ."
Captain MacWhirr interrupted himself, and Jukes, glancing on all
sides, remained silent.
"Don't you be put out by anything," the Captain continued,
mumbling rather fast. "Keep her facing it. They may say what
they like, but the heaviest seas run with the wind. Facing it --
always facing it -- that's the way to get through. You are a
young sailor. Face it. That's enough for any man. Keep a cool
head."
"Yes, sir," said Jukes, with a flutter of the heart.
In the next few seconds the Captain spoke to the engine-room and
got an answer.
For some reason Jukes experienced an access of confidence, a
sensation that came from outside like a warm breath, and made him
feel equal to every demand. The distant muttering of the
darkness stole into his ears. He noted it unmoved, out of that
sudden belief in himself, as a man safe in a shirt of mail would
watch a point.
The ship laboured without intermission amongst the black hills of
water, paying with this hard tumbling the price of her life. She
rumbled in her depths, shaking a white plummet of steam into the
night, and Jukes' thought skimmed like a bird through the
engine-room, where Mr. Rout -- good man -- was ready. When the
rumbling ceased it seemed to him that there was a pause of every
sound, a dead pause in which Captain MacWhirr's voice rang out
startlingly.
"What's that? A puff of wind?" -- it spoke much louder than
Jukes had ever heard it before -- "On the bow. That's right.
She may come out of it yet."
The mutter of the winds drew near apace. In the forefront could
be distinguished a drowsy waking plaint passing on, and far off
the growth of a multiple clamour, marching and expanding. There
was the throb as of many drums in it, a vicious rushing note, and
like the chant of a tramping multitude.
Jukes could no longer see his captain distinctly. The darkness
was absolutely piling itself upon the ship. At most he made out
movements, a hint of elbows spread out, of a head thrown up.
Captain MacWhirr was trying to do up the top button of his
oilskin coat with unwonted haste. The hurricane, with its power
to madden the seas, to sink ships, to uproot trees, to overturn
strong walls and dash the very birds of the air to the ground,
had found this taciturn man in its path, and, doing its utmost,
had managed to wring out a few words. Before the renewed wrath
of winds swooped on his ship, Captain MacWhirr was moved to
declare, in a tone of vexation, as it were: "I wouldn't like to
lose her."
He was spared that annoyance.
VI
ON A bright sunshiny day, with the breeze chasing her smoke far
ahead, the Nan-Shan came into Fu-chau. Her arrival was at once
noticed on shore, and the seamen in harbour said: "Look! Look at
that steamer. What's that? Siamese -- isn't she? Just look at
her!"
She seemed, indeed, to have been used as a running target for the
secondary batteries of a cruiser. A hail of minor shells could
not have given her upper works a more broken, torn, and
devastated aspect: and she had about her the worn, weary air of
ships coming from the far ends of the world -- and indeed with
truth, for in her short passage she had been very far; sighting,
verily, even the coast of the Great Beyond, whence no ship ever
returns to give up her crew to the dust of the earth. She was
incrusted and gray with salt to the trucks of her masts and to
the top of her funnel; as though (as some facetious seaman said)
"the crowd on board had fished her out somewhere from the bottom
of the sea and brought her in here for salvage." And further,
excited by the felicity of his own wit, he offered to give five
pounds for her -- "as she stands."
Before she had been quite an hour at rest, a meagre little man,
with a red-tipped nose and a face cast in an angry mould, landed
from a sampan on the quay of the Foreign Concession, and
incontinently turned to shake his fist at her.
A tall individual, with legs much too thin for a rotund stomach,
and with watery eyes, strolled up and remarked, "Just left her --
eh? Quick work."
He wore a soiled suit of blue flannel with a pair of dirty
cricketing shoes; a dingy gray moustache drooped from his lip,
and daylight could be seen in two places between the rim and the
crown of his hat.
"Hallo! what are you doing here?" asked the exsecond-mate of the
Nan-Shan, shaking hands hurriedly.
"Standing by for a job -- chance worth taking -- got a quiet
hint," explained the man with the broken hat, in jerky, apathetic
wheezes.
The second shook his fist again at the Nan-Shan. "There's a
fellow there that ain't fit to have the command of a scow," he
declared, quivering with passion, while the other looked about
listlessly.
"Is there?"
But he caught sight on the quay of a heavy seaman's chest,
painted brown under a fringed sailcloth cover, and lashed with
new manila line. He eyed it with awakened interest.
"I would talk and raise trouble if it wasn't for that damned
Siamese flag. Nobody to go to -- or I would make it hot for him.
The fraud! Told his chief engineer -- that's another fraud for
you -- I had lost my nerve. The greatest lot of ignorant fools
that ever sailed the seas. No! You can't think . . ."
"Got your money all right?" inquired his seedy acquaintance
suddenly.
"Yes. Paid me off on board," raged the second mate. "'Get your
breakfast on shore,' says he."
"Mean skunk!" commented the tall man, vaguely, and passed his
tongue on his lips. "What about having a drink of some sort?"
"He struck me," hissed the second mate.
"No! Struck! You don't say?" The man in blue began to bustle
about sympathetically. "Can't possibly talk here. I want to
know all about it.
Struck -- eh? Let's get a fellow to carry your chest. I know a
quiet place where they have some bottled beer. . . ."
Mr. Jukes, who had been scanning the shore through a pair of
glasses, informed the chief engineer afterwards that "our late
second mate hasn't been long in finding a friend. A chap looking
uncommonly like a bummer. I saw them walk away together from the
quay."
The hammering and banging of the needful repairs did not disturb
Captain MacWhirr. The steward found in the letter he wrote, in a
tidy chart-room, passages of such absorbing interest that twice
he was nearly caught in the act. But Mrs. MacWhirr, in the
drawing-room of the forty-pound house, stifled a yawn -- perhaps
out of self-respect -- for she was alone.
She reclined in a plush-bottomed and gilt hammockchair near a
tiled fireplace, with Japanese fans on the mantel and a glow of
coals in the grate. Lifting her hands, she glanced wearily here
and there into the many pages. It was not her fault they were so
prosy, so completely uninteresting -- from "My darling wife" at
the beginning, to "Your loving husband" at the end. She couldn't
be really expected to understand all these ship affairs. She was
glad, of course, to hear from him, but she had never asked
herself why, precisely.
". . . They are called typhoons . . . The mate did not seem to
like it . . . Not in books . . . Couldn't think of letting it
go on. . . ."
The paper rustled sharply. ". . . . A calm that lasted more
than twenty minutes," she read perfunctorily; and the next words
her thoughtless eyes caught, on the top of another page, were:
"see you and the children again. . . ." She had a movement of
impatience. He was always thinking of coming home. He had never
had such a good salary before. What was the matter now?
It did not occur to her to turn back overleaf to look. She would
have found it recorded there that between 4 and 6 A. M. on
December 25th, Captain MacWhirr did actually think that his ship
could not possibly live another hour in such a sea, and that he
would never see his wife and children again. Nobody was to know
this (his letters got mislaid so quickly) -- nobody whatever but
the steward, who had been greatly impressed by that disclosure.
So much so, that he tried to give the cook some idea of the
"narrow squeak we all had" by sayingsolemnly, "The old man
himself had a dam' poor opinion of our chance."
"How do you know?" asked, contemptuously, the cook, an old
soldier. "He hasn't told you, maybe?"
"Well, he did give me a hint to that effect," the steward
brazened it out.
"Get along with you! He will be coming to tell me next," jeered
the old cook, over his shoulder.
Mrs. MacWhirr glanced farther, on the alert. ". . . Do what's
fair. . . . Miserable objects . . . . Only three, with a broken
leg each, and one . . . Thought had better keep the matter quiet
. . . hope to have done the fair thing. . . ."
She let fall her hands. No: there was nothing more about coming
home. Must have been merely expressing a pious wish. Mrs.
MacWhirr's mind was set at ease, and a black marble clock, priced
by the local jeweller at 拢3 18s. 6d., had a discreet
stealthy tick.
The door flew open, and a girl in the long-legged, short-frocked
period of existence, flung into the room.
A lot of colourless, rather lanky hair was scattered over her
shoulders. Seeing her mother, she stood still, and directed her
pale prying eyes upon the letter.
"From father," murmured Mrs. MacWhirr. "What have you done with
your ribbon?"
The girl put her hands up to her head and pouted.
"He's well," continued Mrs. MacWhirr languidly. "At least I think
so. He never says." She had a little laugh. The girl's face
expressed a wandering indifference, and Mrs. MacWhirr surveyed
her with fond pride.
"Go and get your hat," she said after a while. "I am going out
to do some shopping. There is a sale at Linom's."
"Oh, how jolly!" uttered the child, impressively, in unexpectedly
grave vibrating tones, and bounded out of the room.
It was a fine afternoon, with a gray sky and dry sidewalks.
- flutter [´flʌtə]
vi.飘扬；摆 n.拍动 (初中英语单词) - breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- belief [bi´li:f] n.相信；信仰，信条 (初中英语单词)
- mutter [´mʌtə] v.&n.咕哝；嘀咕 (初中英语单词)
- distinctly [di´stiŋktli] ad.清楚地，明晰地 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- button [´bʌtn] n.钮扣 vt.扣上(扣子) (初中英语单词)
- breeze [bri:z] n.微风；不费力的事 (初中英语单词)
- arrival [ə´raivəl] n.到达；到达的人(物) (初中英语单词)
- steamer [´sti:mə] n.汽船；轮船；蒸笼 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- aspect [´æspekt] n.面貌；神色；方向 (初中英语单词)
- daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
- darling [´dɑ:liŋ] n.爱人 a.亲爱的 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- access [´ækses] n.接近；通路；进入 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- drowsy [´drauzi] a.困倦的；催眠的 (高中英语单词)
- concession [kən´seʃən] n.让步；租界 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- steward [´stju:əd] n.管家；服务员 (高中英语单词)
- fireplace [´faiəpleis] n.壁炉，炉灶 (高中英语单词)
- loving [´lʌviŋ] a.爱的，有爱情的 (高中英语单词)
- squeak [skwi:k] n.&vi.(发)尖叫(声) (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- solemnly [´sɔləmli] ad.严肃地，庄严地 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- indifference [in´difrəns] n.冷淡；无足轻重 (高中英语单词)
- colossal [kə´lɔsəl] a.庞大的；异常的 (英语四级单词)
- blackness [´blæknis] n.黑色；阴险 (英语四级单词)
- experienced [ik´spiəriənst] a.有经验的；熟练的 (英语四级单词)
- vicious [´viʃəs] a.不道德的；刻毒的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- hurricane [´hʌrikən] n.飓风 (英语四级单词)
- cruiser [´kru:zə] n.巡洋舰 (英语四级单词)
- whence [wens] ad.从何处；从那里 (英语四级单词)
- flannel [´flænl] n.法兰绒 (英语四级单词)
- vaguely [´veigli] ad.含糊地，暖昧地 (英语四级单词)
- wearily [´wiərili] ad.疲倦地；厌烦地 (英语四级单词)
- vehemence [´vi:iməns] n.激烈，猛烈；热烈 (英语六级单词)
- unmoved [ʌn´mu:vd] a.无动于衷的；坚定的 (英语六级单词)
- madden [´mædən] vt.使发狂；使大怒 (英语六级单词)
- uproot [,ʌp´ru:t] vt.将...连根拔掉 (英语六级单词)
- vexation [vek´seiʃən] n.烦恼(的原因) (英语六级单词)
- funnel [´fʌnəl] n.漏斗；通气道 v.集中 (英语六级单词)
- seaman [´si:mən] n.海员，水手 (英语六级单词)
- felicity [fi´lisiti] n.幸福；(措词)适当 (英语六级单词)
- watery [´wɔ:təri] a.水的；像水的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- mantel [´mæntl] n.壁炉面饰；壁炉架 (英语六级单词)
- thoughtless [´θɔ:tləs] a.粗心的，轻率的 (英语六级单词)
- contemptuously [kən´temptjuəsli] ad.蔑视地；傲慢地 (英语六级单词)
- colourless [´kʌləlis] a.无色的；不生动的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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