CHAPTER XXXV. — PERILS BY THE WAY.

Three weeks later, two torn and tattered¹, half-starved Europeans sat under a burning South African sun by the dry bed of a shrunken summer torrent². It was in the depths of Namaqua land, among the stony³ Karoo; and the fugitives⁴ were straggling, helplessly and hopelessly, seaward, thirsty and weary, through a half-hostile country, making their marches as best they could at dead of night and resting by day where the natives would permit them.

Their commissariat had indeed been a lean and hungry one. Though they carried many thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds about their persons, they had nothing negotiable with which to buy food or shelter from the uncivilized Namaquas. Ivory, cloth, and beads⁵ were the currency of the country. No native thereabouts would look for a moment at their little round nobs of water-worn pebbles⁶. The fame of the diamond fields hadn’t penetrated⁷ as yet so far west in the land as to have reached to the huts of the savage⁸ Namaquas.

And now their staying power was almost worn out Granville Kelmscott lay down on the sandy soil with a wild gesture of despair. All around were bare rocks and the dry sweltering veldts, covered only with round stones and red sand and low bushy vegetation.

“Waring,” he said feebly, in a very faint voice, “I wish you’d leave me and go on by yourself. I’m no good any more. I’m only a drag upon you. This fever’s too bad for me to stand much longer. I can never pull through to the coast alive. I’ve no energy left, were it even to try. I’d like to lie down here and die where I sit. Do go and leave me.”

“Never!” Guy answered resolutely⁹. “I’ll never desert you, Kelmscott, while I’ve a drop of blood left. If I carry you on my back to the coast, I’ll get you there at last, or else we’ll both die on the veldt together.”

Granville held his friend’s hand in his own fevered fingers as he might have held a woman’s.

“Oh, Waring,” he cried once more, in a voice half choked with profound emotion, “I don’t know how to thank you enough for all you’ve done for me. You’ve behaved to me like a brother—like a brother indeed. It makes me ashamed to think, when I see how unselfish, and good, and kind you’ve been—ashamed to think I once distrusted you. You’ve been an angel to me all through. Without you, I don’t know how I could ever have lived on through this journey at all. And I can’t bear to feel now I may spoil your retreat—can’t bear to know I’m a drag and burden to you.”

“My dear fellow,” Guy said, holding the thin and fevered hand very tenderly in his, “don’t talk to me like that. I feel to you every bit as you feel to me in this matter. I was afraid of you at first, because I knew you misunderstood me. But the more I’ve seen of you, the better we’ve each of us learned to sympathize with the other. We’ve long been friends. I love you now, as you say, like a brother.”

Granville hesitated for a moment. Should he out with it or not? Then at last the whole long-suppressed truth came out with a burst. He seized his companion’s two hands at once in a convulsive grasp.

“That’s not surprising either,” he said, “after all—for Guy, do you know, we ARE really brothers!”

Guy gazed at him in astonishment¹⁰. For a moment he thought his friend’s reason was giving way. Then slowly and gradually he took it all in.

“ARE really brothers!” he repeated, in a dazed sort of way. “Do you mean it, Kelmscott? Then my father and Cyril’s—”

“Was mine too, Waring. Yes; I couldn’t bear to die without telling you that. And I tell it now to you. You two are the heirs of the Tilgate estates. And the unknown person who paid six thousand pounds to Cyril, just before you left England, was your father and mine—Colonel Henry Kelmscott.”

Guy bent¹¹ over him for a few seconds in speechless surprise. Words failed him at first. “How do you know all this, Kelmscott?” he said at last faintly.

Granville told him in as few words as possible—for indeed he was desperately¹² weak and ill—by what accident he had discovered his father’s secret. But he told him only what he knew himself. For, of course, he was ignorant as yet of the Colonel’s seizure¹³ and sudden death on the very day after they had sailed from England.

Guy listened to it all in profound silence. It was a strange, and for him a momentous¹⁴ tale. Then he said at last, as Granville finished, “And you never told me this all these long months, Kelmscott.”

“I always meant to tell you, Guy,” his half-brother answered, in a sudden fit of penitence¹⁵. “I always meant in the end you and your brother Cyril should come into your own at Tilgate as you ought. I was only waiting—”

“Till you’d realized enough to make good some part of your personal loss,” Guy suggested, not unkindly.

“Oh no,” Granville answered, flushing up at the suggestion. “I wasn’t waiting for that. Don’t think me so mercenary. I was waiting for YOU, in your turn to extend to ME your own personal confidence. You know, Guy,” he went on, dropping into a still more hushed and solemn undertone, “I saw an evening paper the night we left Plymouth—”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Guy cried, interrupting him, with a very pale face. “Don’t speak to me of that. I can’t bear to think of it. Kelmscott, I was mad when I did that deed. I wasn’t myself. I acted under somebody else’s compulsion and influence. The man had a sort of hypnotic power over my will, I believe. I couldn’t help doing whatever he ordered me. It was he who suggested it. It was he that did it. And it’s he who was really and truly guilty.”

“And who was that man?” Granville Kelmscott asked with some little curiosity.

“There’s no reason I shouldn’t tell you,” Guy answered, “now we’ve once broken the ice; and I’m glad in my heart, I must say, that we’ve broken it. For a year and a half, day and night, that barrier has been raised between us always, and I’ve longed to get rid of it. But I was afraid to speak of it to you, and you to me! Well, the man, if you must know, was Montague Nevitt!”

Granville Kelmscott looked up at him in credulous¹⁶ surprise. But he was too ill and weak to ask the meaning of this riddle¹⁷. Montague Nevitt! What on earth could Waring mean by that? How on earth could Montague Nevitt have influenced and directed him in assaulting and murdering Montague Nevitt?

For a long time there was silence. Each brother was thinking his own thoughts to himself about this double disclosure. At last, Granville lifted his head and spoke¹⁸ again.

“And you’ll go home to England now,” he said, “under an assumed name, I suppose; and arrange with your brother Cyril for him to claim the Kelmscott estates, and allow you something out of them in retirement¹⁹ somewhere.”

“Oh no,” Guy answered manfully. “I’m going home to England now, if I go at all, under my own proper name that I’ve always borne, to repay Cyril in full every penny I owe him, to make what reparation I can for the wrong I’ve done, and to give myself up to the police for trial.”

Granville gazed at him, more surprised and more admiring than ever.

“You’re a brave man, Waring,” he said slowly. “I don’t understand it at all. But I know you’re right. And I almost believe you. I almost believe it was not your fault. I should like to get through to England after all, if it was only to see you safe out of your troubles.”

Guy looked at him fixedly²⁰.

“My dear fellow,” he said, in a compassionate²¹ tone, “you mustn’t talk any more. You’ve talked a great deal too much already. I see a hut, I fancy, over yonder, beside that dark patch of brush. Now, you must do exactly as I bid you. Don’t struggle or kick. Lie as still as you can. I’ll carry you there on my back, and then we’ll see if we can get you anyhow a drop of pure water.”

1 tattered   

adj.破旧的，衣衫破的

参考例句：

• Her tattered clothes in no way detracted from her beauty.她的破衣烂衫丝毫没有影响她的美貌。
• Their tattered clothing and broken furniture indicated their poverty.他们褴褛的衣服和破烂的家具显出他们的贫穷。

2 torrent   

n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发

参考例句：

• The torrent scoured a channel down the hillside. 急流沿着山坡冲出了一条沟。
• Her pent-up anger was released in a torrent of words.她压抑的愤怒以滔滔不绝的话爆发了出来。

3 stony   

adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的

参考例句：

• The ground is too dry and stony.这块地太干，而且布满了石头。
• He listened to her story with a stony expression.他带着冷漠的表情听她讲经历。

4 fugitives   

n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Three fugitives from the prison are still at large. 三名逃犯仍然未被抓获。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Members of the provisional government were prisoners or fugitives. 临时政府的成员或被捕或逃亡。 来自演讲部分

5 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

6 pebbles   

[复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet. 汽车道上的小石子在他脚底下喀嚓作响。
• Line the pots with pebbles to ensure good drainage. 在罐子里铺一层鹅卵石，以确保排水良好。

7 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

8 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

9 resolutely   

adj.坚决地，果断地

参考例句：

• He resolutely adhered to what he had said at the meeting. 他坚持他在会上所说的话。
• He grumbles at his lot instead of resolutely facing his difficulties. 他不是果敢地去面对困难，而是抱怨自己运气不佳。

10 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

11 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

12 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。

13 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

14 momentous   

adj.重要的，重大的

参考例句：

• I am deeply honoured to be invited to this momentous occasion.能应邀出席如此重要的场合，我深感荣幸。
• The momentous news was that war had begun.重大的新闻是战争已经开始。

15 penitence   

n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过

参考例句：

• The thief expressed penitence for all his past actions. 那盗贼对他犯过的一切罪恶表示忏悔。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Of penitence, there has been none! 可是悔过呢，还一点没有！ 来自英汉文学 - 红字

16 credulous   

adj.轻信的，易信的

参考例句：

• You must be credulous if she fooled you with that story.连她那种话都能把你骗倒，你一定是太容易相信别人了。
• Credulous attitude will only make you take anything for granted.轻信的态度只会使你想当然。

17 riddle   

n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜

参考例句：

• The riddle couldn't be solved by the child.这个谜语孩子猜不出来。
• Her disappearance is a complete riddle.她的失踪完全是一个谜。

18 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

19 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

20 fixedly   

adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地

参考例句：

• He stared fixedly at the woman in white. 他一直凝视着那穿白衣裳的女人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground. 绝大部分的人都不闹不动，呆呆地望着地面。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

21 compassionate   

adj.有同情心的，表示同情的

参考例句：

• She is a compassionate person.她是一个有同情心的人。
• The compassionate judge gave the young offender a light sentence.慈悲的法官从轻判处了那个年轻罪犯。