Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains8 with his friends, and “the mourners go about the streets”; but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore — you follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the event. There is always something which helps you to realize it when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled10 body remains an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you — at your side — you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy11 shows his loss. Then, too, at sea — to use a homely12 but expressive13 phrase — you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth14 in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night-watch is mustered15. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss.
All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The officers are more watchful16, and the crew go more carefully aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with a sailor’s rude eulogy18 — “Well, poor George is gone! His cruise is up soon! He knew his work, and did his duty, and was a good shipmate.” Then usually follows some allusion19 to another world, for sailors are almost all believers, in their way; though their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends. They say, “God won’t be hard upon the poor fellow,” and seldom get beyond the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard treatment here will be passed to their credit in the books of the Great Captain hereafter — “To work hard, live hard, die hard, and go to hell after all, would be hard indeed!” Our cook, a simple-hearted old African, who had been through a good deal in his day, and was rather seriously inclined, always going to church twice a day when on shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the galley20, talked to the crew about spending the Lord’s Days badly, and told them that they might go as suddenly as George had, and be as little prepared.
Yet a sailor’s life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime21 with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous.
Not long after we had returned on board with our sad report, an auction22 was held of the poor man’s effects. The captain had first, however, called all hands aft and asked them if they were satisfied that everything had been done to save the man, and if they thought there was any use in remaining there longer. The crew all said that it was in vain, for the man did not know how to swim, and was very heavily dressed. So we then filled away and kept the brig off to her course.
The laws regulating navigation make the captain answerable for the effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a law or a custom, established for convenience, that the captain should soon hold an auction of his things, in which they are bid off by the sailors, and the sums which they give are deducted23 from their wages at the end of the voyage. In this way the trouble and risk of keeping his things through the voyage are avoided, and the clothes are usually sold for more than they would be worth on shore. Accordingly, we had no sooner got the ship before the wind, than his chest was brought up upon the forecastle, and the sale began. The jackets and trousers in which we had seen him dressed so lately were exposed and bid off while the life was hardly out of his body, and his chest was taken aft and used as a store-chest, so that there was nothing left which could be called his. Sailors have an unwillingness24 to wear a dead man’s clothes during the same voyage, and they seldom do so, unless they are in absolute want.
As is usual after a death, many stories were told about George. Some had heard him say that he repented25 never having learned to swim, and that he knew that he should meet his death by drowning. Another said that he never knew any good to come of a voyage made against the will, and the deceased man shipped and spent his advance, and was afterwards very unwilling to go, but, not being able to refund26, was obliged to sail with us. A boy, too, who had become quite attached to him, said that George talked to him, during most of the watch on the night before, about his mother and family at home, and this was the first time that he had mentioned the subject during the voyage.
The night after this event, when I went to the galley to get a light, I found the cook inclined to be talkative, so I sat down on the spars, and gave him an opportunity to hold a yarn27. I was the more inclined to do so, as I found that he was full of the superstitions28 once more common among seamen29, and which the recent death had waked up in his mind. He talked about George’s having spoken of his friends, and said he believed few men died without having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories of dreams, and of unusual behavior of men before death. From this he went on to other superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, &c., and talked rather mysteriously, having something evidently on his mind. At length he put his head out of the galley and looked carefully about to see if any one was within hearing, and, being satisfied on that point, asked me in a low tone —
“I say! you know what countryman ‘e carpenter be?”
“Yes,” said I; “he’s a German.”
“What kind of a German?” said the cook.
“He belongs to Bremen,” said I.
“Are you sure o’ dat?” said he.
I satisfied him on that point by saying that he could speak no language but the German and English.
“I’m plaguy glad o’ dat,” said the cook. “I was mighty30 ‘fraid he was a Fin31. I tell you what, I been plaguy civil to that man all the voyage.”
I asked him the reason of this, and found that he was fully17 possessed32 with the notion that Fins33 are wizards, and especially have power over winds and storms. I tried to reason with him about it, but he had the best of all arguments, that from experience, at hand, and was not to be moved. He had been to the Sandwich Islands in a vessel in which the sail-maker was a Fin, and could do anything he was of a mind to. This sail-maker kept a junk bottle in his berth, which was always just half full of rum, though he got drunk upon it nearly every day. He had seen him sit for hours together, talking to this bottle, which he stood up before him on the table. The same man cut his throat in his berth, and everybody said he was possessed.
He had heard of ships, too, beating up the gulf34 of Finland against a head wind, and having a ship heave in sight astern, overhaul35, and pass them, with as fair a wind as could blow, and all studding-sails out, and find she was from Finland.
“Oh, no!” said he; “I’ve seen too much o’ dem men to want to see ’em ‘board a ship. If dey can’t have dare own way, they’ll play the d —— l with you.”
As I still doubted, he said he would leave it to John, who was the oldest seaman aboard, and would know, if anybody did. John, to be sure, was the oldest, and at the same time the most ignorant, man in the ship; but I consented to have him called. The cook stated the matter to him, and John, as I anticipated, sided with the cook, and said that he himself had been in a ship where they had a head wind for a fortnight, and the captain found out at last that one of the men, with whom he had had same hard words a short time before, was a Fin, and immediately told him if he didn’t stop the head wind he would shut him down in the fore2 peak. The Fin would not give in, and the captain shut him down in the fore peak, and would not give him anything to eat. The Fin held out for a day and a half, when he could not stand it any longer, and did something or other which brought the wind round again, and they let him up.
“Dar,” said the cook, “what you tink o’ dat?”
I told him I had no doubt it was true, and that it would have been odd if the wind had not changed in fifteen days, Fin or no Fin.
“O,” says he, “go ‘way! You tink, ‘cause you been to college, you know better dan anybody. You know better dan dem as ‘as seen it wid der own eyes. You wait till you’ve been to sea as long as I have, and den9 you’ll know.”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
vessel
|
|
| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
fore
|
|
| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
seaman
|
|
| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
strap
|
|
| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
shrouds
|
|
| n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 )；寿衣；遮蔽物；覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 )；保密 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
den
|
|
| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mangled
|
|
| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
vacancy
|
|
| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
homely
|
|
| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
expressive
|
|
| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
berth
|
|
| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
mustered
|
|
| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的过去式和过去分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
watchful
|
|
| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
eulogy
|
|
| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
allusion
|
|
| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
galley
|
|
| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
sublime
|
|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
auction
|
|
| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
deducted
|
|
| v.扣除，减去( deduct的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
unwillingness
|
|
| n. 不愿意，不情愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
repented
|
|
| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
refund
|
|
| v.退还，偿还；n.归还，偿还额，退款 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
yarn
|
|
| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
superstitions
|
|
| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
seamen
|
|
| n.海员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
fin
|
|
| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
fins
|
|
| [医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
gulf
|
|
| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
overhaul
|
|
| v./n.大修，仔细检查 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |