palm on each knee, his head low, and fixing Jim through the grey hair that fell over his very eyes. When Jim had done there was a great stillness. Nobody seemed to breathe even; no one made a sound till the old Rajah sighed faintly, and looking up, with a toss of his head, said quickly, "You hear, my people! No more of these little games." This decree was received in profound silence. A rather heavy man, evidently in a position of confidence, with intelligent eyes, a bony, broad, very dark face, and a cheerily of ficious manner (I learned later on he was the executioner), presented to us two cups of coffee on a brass14 tray, which he took from the hands of an inferior attendant. "You needn't drink," muttered Jim very rapidly. I didn't perceive the meaning at first, and only looked at him. He took a good sip16 and sat composedly, holding the saucer in his left hand. In a moment I felt excessively annoyed. "Why the devil," I whispered, smiling at him amiably17, "do you expose me to such a stupid risk?" I drank, of course, there was nothing for it, while he gave no sign, and almost immediately afterwards we took our leave. While we were going down the courtyard to our boat, escorted by the intelligent and cheery executioner, Jim said he was very sorry. It was the barest chance, of course. Personally he thought nothing of poison. The remotest chance. He was -- he assured me -- considered to be infinitely18 more useful than dangerous, and so . . . "But the Rajah is afraid of you abominably19. Anybody can see that," I argued with, I own, a certain peevishness20, and all the time watching anxiously for the first twist of some sort of ghastly colic. I was awfully21 disgusted. "If I am to do any good here and preserve my position," he said, taking his seat by my side in the boat, "I must stand the risk: I take it once every month, at least. Many people trust me to do that -- for them. Afraid of me! That's just it. Most likely he is afraid o f me because I am not afraid of his coffee." Then showing me a place on the north front of the s
tockade where the pointed22 tops of several stakes were broken, "This is where I leaped over on my third day in Patusan. They haven't put new stakes there yet. Good leap, eh?" A moment later we passed the mouth of a muddy creek23. "This is my second leap. I had a bit of a run and took this one flying, but fell short. Thought I would leave my skin there. Lost my shoes struggling. And all the time I was thinking to myself how beastly it would be to get a jab with a bally long spear while sticking in the mud like this. I remember how sick I felt wriggling24 in that slime. I mean really sick -- as if I had bitten something rotten."
'That's how it was -- and the opportunity ran by his side, leaped over the gap, floundered in the mud . . . still veiled. The unexpectedness of his coming was the only thing, you understand, that saved him from being at once dispatched with krisses and flung into the river. They had him, but it was like getting hold of an apparition25, a wraith26, a portent27. What did it mean? What to do with it? Was it too late to conciliate him? Hadn't he better be killed without more delay? But what would happen then? Wretched old Allang went nearly mad with apprehension28 and through the difficulty of making up his mind. Several times the council was broken up, and the advisers29 made a break helter-skelter for the door and out on to the verandah. One -- it is said -- even jumped down to the ground -fifteen feet, I should judge -- and broke his leg. The royai governor of Patusan had bizarre mannerisms, and one of them was to introduce boastful rhapsodies into every arduous30 discussion, when, getting gradually excited, he would end by flying off his perch31 with a kriss in his hand. But, barring such interruptions, the deliberations upon Jim's fate went on night and day.
'Meanwhile he wandered about the courtyard, shunned32 by some, glared at by others, but watched by all, and practically at the mercy of the first casuai ragamuffin with a chopper, in there. He took possession of a small tumble-down shed to sleep in; the effluvia of filth2 and rotten matter incommoded him greatly: it seems he had not lost his appetite though, because -- he told me -- he had been hungry all the blessed time. Now and again "some fussy33 ass15" deputed from the council-room would come out running to him, and in honeyed tones would administer amazing interrogatories: "Were the Dutch coming to take the country? Would the white man like to go back down the river? What was the object of coming to such a miserable34 country? The Rajah wanted to know whether the white man could repair a watch?" They did actually bring out to him a nickel clock of New England make, and out of sheer unbearable35 boredom36 he busied himseif in trying to get the alarum to work. It was apparently37 when thus occupied in his shed that the true perception of his extreme peril38 dawned upon him. He dropped the thing -- he says -- "like a hot potato," and walked out hastily, without the slightest idea of what he would, or indeed could, do. He only knew that the position was intolerable. He strolled aimlessly beyond a sort of ramshackle little granary on posts, and his eyes fell on the broken stakes of the palisade; and then -- he says -- at once, without any mental process as it were, without any stir of emotion, he set about his escape as if executing a plan matured for a month. He walked off carelessly to give himself a good run, and when he faced about there was some dignitary, with two spearmen in attendance, close at his elbow ready with a question. He started off "from under his very nose," went over "like a bird," and landed on the other side with a fall that jarred all his bones and seemed to split his head. He picked himself up instantly. He never thought of anything at the time; all he c ould remember -- he said -- was a great yell; th
e first houses of Patusan were before him four hundred yards away; he saw the creek, and as it were mechanically put on more pace. The earth seemed fairly to fly backwards39 under his feet. He took off from the last dry spot, felt himseif flying through the air, felt himself, without any shock, planted upright in an extremely soft and sticky mudbank. It was only when he tried to move his legs and found he couldn't that, in his own words, "he came to himself." He began to think of the "bally long spears." As a matter of fact, considering that the people inside the stockade40 had to run to the gate, then get down to the landing-place, get into boats, and pull round a point of land, he had more advance than he imagined. Besides, it being low water, the creek was without water -- you couldn't call it dry -- and practically he was safe for a time from everything but a very long shot perhaps. The higher firm ground was about six feet in front of him. "I thought I would have to die there all the same," he said. He reached and grabbed desperately41 with his hands, and only succeeded in gathering42 a horrible cold shiny heap of slime against his breast -- up to his very chin. It seemed to him he was burying himself alive, and then he struck out madly, scattering43 the mud with his fists. It fell on his head, on his face, over his eyes, into his mouth. He told me that he remembered suddenly the courtyard, as you remember a place where you had been very happy years ago. He longed -- so he said -- to be back there again, mending the clock. Mending the clock -- that was the idea. He made efforts, tremendous sobbing44, gasping46 efforts, efforts that seemed to burst his eyeballs in their sockets47 and make him blind, and culminating into one mighty48 supreme49 effort in the darkness to crack the earth asunder50, to throw it off his limbs -- and he felt himself creeping feebly up the bank. He lay full length on the firm ground and saw the light, the sky. Then as a sort of happy thought the notion came to him that he would go to sleep. He will have
it that he did actually go to sleep; that he slept -- perhaps for a minute, perhaps for twenty seconds, or only for one second, but he recollects51 distinctly the violent convulsive start of awakening52. He remained lying still for a while, and then he arose muddy from head to foot and stood there, thinking he was alone of his kind for hundreds of miles, alone, with no help, no sympathy, no pity to expect from any one, like a hunted animal. The first houses were not more than twenty yards from him; and it was the desperate screaming of a frightened woman trying to carry off a child that started him again. He pelted53 straight on in his socks, beplastered with filth out of all semblance54 to a human being. He traversed more than half the length of the settlement. The nimbler women fled right and left, the slower men just dropped whatever they had in their hands, and remained petrified55 with dropping jaws. He was a flying terror. He says he noticed the little children trying to run for life, falling on their little stomachs and kicking. He swerved56 between two houses up a slope, clambered in desperation over a barricade57 of felled trees (there wasn't a week without some fight in Patusan at that time), burst through a fence into a maize-patch, where a scared boy flung a stick at him, blundered upon a path, and ran all at once into the arms of several startled men. He just had breath enough to gasp45 out, "Doramin! Doramin!" He remembers being half-carried, half-rushed to the top of the slope, and in a vast enclosure with palms and fruit trees being run up to a large man sitting massively in a chair in the midst of the greatest possible commotion58 and excitement. He fumbled59 in mud and clothes to produce the ring, and, finding himseif suddenly on his back, wondered who had knocked him down. They had simply let him go -don't you know? -- but he couldn't stand. At the foot of the slope rando m shots were fired, and above the roofs of the settlement there rose a dull roar of amazement60. But he was safe. Doramin's people were barricadin
g the gate and pouring water down his throat; Doramin's old wife, full of business and commiseration61, was issuing shrill62 orders to her girls. "The old woman," he said softly, "made a to-do over me as if I had been her own son. They put me into an immense bed -- her state bed -- and she ran in and out wiping her eyes to give me pats on the back. I must have been a pitiful object. I just lay there like a log for I don't know how long."
'He seemed to have a great liking63 for Doramin's old wife. She on her side had taken a motherly fancy to him. She had a round, nutbrown, soft face, all fine wrinkles, large, bright red lips (she chewed betel assiduously), and screwed up, winking64, benevolent65 eyes. She was constantly in movement, scolding busily and ordering unceasingly a troop of young women with clear brown faces and big grave eyes, her daughters, her servants, her slave-girls. You know how it is in these households: it's generally impossible to tell the difference. She was very spare, and even her ample outer garment, fastened in front with jewelled clasps, had somehow a skimpy effect. Her dark bare feet were thrust into yellow straw slippers66 of Chinese make. I have seen her myself flitting about with her extremely thick, long, grey hair falling about her shoulders. She uttered homely67 shrewd sayings, was of noble birth, and was eccentric and arbitrary. In the afternoon she would sit in a very roomy arm-chair, opposite her husband, gazing steadily68 through a wide opening in the wall which gave an extensive view of the settlement and the river.
'She invariably tucked up her feet under her, but old Doramin sat squarely, sat imposingly69 as a mountain sits on a plain. He was only of the nakhoda or merchant class, but the respect shown to him and the dignity of his bearing were very striking. He was the chief of the second power in Patusan. The immigrants from Celebes (about sixty families that, with dependants and so on, could muster70 some two hundred men "wearing the kriss") had elected him years ago for their head. The men of that race are intelligent, enterprising, revengeful, but with a more frank courage than the other Malays, and restless under oppression. They formed the party opposed to the Rajah. Of course the quarrels were for trade. This was the primary cause of faction71 fights, of the sudden outbreaks that would fill this or that part of the settlement with smoke, flame, the noise of shots and shrieks72. Villages were burnt, men were dragged into the Rajah's stockade to be killed or tortured for the crime of trading with anybody else but himself. Only a day or two before Jim's arrival several heads of households in the very fishing village that was afterwards taken under his especial protection had been driven over the cliffs by a party of the Rajah's spearmen, on suspicion of having been collecting edible73 birds' nests for a Celebes trader. Rajah Allang pretended to be the only trader in his country, and the penalty for the breach74 of the monopoly was death; but his idea of trading was indistinguishable from the commonest forms of robbery. His cruelty and rapacity75 had no other bounds than his cowardice76, and he was afraid of the organised power of the Celebes men, only -- till Jim came -- he was not afraid enough to keep quiet. He struck at them through his subjects, and thought himself pathetically in the right. The situation was complicated by a wandering stranger, an Arab half-breed, who, I believe, on purely77 religious grounds, had incited78 the tribes in the interior (the bush-folk, as Jim himself called them) to rise, and had established himsel
f in a fortified79 camp on the summit of one of the twin hills. He hung over the town of Patusan like a hawk80 over a poultry-yard, but he devastated81 the open country. Whole villages, deserted82, rotted on their blackened posts over the banks of clear streams, dropping piecemeal83 into the water the grass of their walls, the leaves of their roofs, with a curious effect of natural decay as if they had been a form of vegetation stricken by a blight84 at its very root. The two parties in Patusan were not sure which one this partisan85 most desired to plunder86. The Rajah intrigued87 with him feebly. Some of the Bugis settlers, weary with endless insecurity, were half inclined to call him in. The younger spirits amongst them, chaffing, advised to "get Sherif Ali with his wild men and drive the Rajah Allang out of the country." Doramin restrained them with difficulty. He was growing old, and, though his influence had not diminished, the situation was getting beyond him. This was the state of affairs when Jim, bolting from the Rajah's stockade, appeared before the chief of the Bugis, produced the ring, and was received, in a manner of speaking, into the heart of the community.'
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1
dependants
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| 受赡养者，受扶养的家属( dependant的名词复数 ) | |
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filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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waylaid
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| v.拦截，拦路( waylay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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weirdly
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| 古怪地 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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16
sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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20
peevishness
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| 脾气不好；爱发牢骚 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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portent
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| n.预兆；恶兆；怪事 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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30
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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stockade
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| n.栅栏，围栏；v.用栅栏防护 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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42
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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43
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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44
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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45
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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46
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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47
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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48
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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49
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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50
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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51
recollects
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| v.记起，想起( recollect的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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53
pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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54
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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55
petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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56
swerved
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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58
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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59
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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60
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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61
commiseration
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| n.怜悯，同情 | |
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62
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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63
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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64
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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65
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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66
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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67
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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68
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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69
imposingly
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70
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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71
faction
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| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
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72
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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73
edible
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| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
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74
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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75
rapacity
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| n.贪婪，贪心，劫掠的欲望 | |
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76
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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77
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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78
incited
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| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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80
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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81
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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82
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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83
piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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84
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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85
partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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86
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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87
intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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