The late afternoon sky flaunted1 its splendour of blue and gold like a banner over the Pacific, across whose depths the trade wind droned in measured cadence2. On the ocean's wide expanse a hulk wallowed sluggishly3, the forgotten relict of a once brave and sightly ship, possibly the Sphinx of some untold4 ocean tragedy, she lay black and forbidding in the ordered procession of waves. Half a mile to the east of the derelict hovered5 a ship's cutter, the turn of her crew's heads speaking expectancy6. As far again beyond, the United States cruiser _Wolverine_ outlined her severe and trim silhouette7 against the horizon. In all the spread of wave and sky no other thing was visible. For this was one of the desert parts of the Pacific, three hundred miles north of the steamship8 route from Yokohama to Honolulu, five hundred miles from the nearest land, Gardner Island, and more than seven hundred northwest of the Hawaiian group.
On the cruiser's quarter-deck the officers lined the starboard rail. Their interest was focussed on the derelict.
"Looks like a heavy job," said Ives, one of the junior lieutenants9. "These floaters that lie with deck almost awash will stand more hammering than a mud fort."
"Wish they'd let us put some six-inch shells into her," said Billy Edwards, the ensign, a wistful expression on his big round cheerful face. "I'd like to see what they would do."
"Nothing but waste a few hundred dollars of your Uncle Sam's money," observed Carter, the officer of the deck. "It takes placed charges inside and out for that kind of work."
"Barnett's the man for her then," said Ives. "He's no economist10 when it comes to getting results. There she goes!"
Without any particular haste, as it seemed to the watchers, the hulk was shouldered out of the water, as by some hidden leviathan. Its outlines melted into a black, outshowering mist, and from that mist leaped a giant. Up, up, he towered, tossed whirling arms a hundred feet abranch, shivered, and dissolved into a widespread cataract11. The water below was lashed12 into fury, in the midst of which a mighty13 death agony beat back the troubled waves of the trade wind. Only then did the muffled14 double boom of the explosion reach the ears of the spectators, presently to be followed by a whispering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept irresistibly15 across the bigger surges and lapped the ship's side, as for a message that the work was done.
Here and there in the sea a glint of silver, a patch of purple, or dull red, or a glistening16 apparition17 of black showed where the unintended victims of the explosion, the gay-hued open-sea fish of the warm waters, had succumbed18 to the force of the shock. Of the intended victim there was no sign save a few fragments of wood bobbing in a swirl19 of water.
When Barnett, the ordnance20 officer in charge of the destruction, returned to the ship, Carter complimented him.
"Good clean job, Barnett. She was a tough customer, too."
"What was she?" asked Ives.
"The _Caroline Lemp_, three-masted schooner21. Anyone know about her?"
Ives turned to the ship's surgeon, Trendon, a grizzled and brief-spoken veteran, who had at his finger's tips all the lore22 of all the waters under the reign23 of the moon.
"What does the information bureau of the Seven Seas know about it?"
"Lost three years ago--spring of 1901--got into ice field off the tip of the Aleutians. Some of the crew froze. Others got ashore24. Part of survivors25 accounted for. Others not. Say they've turned native. Don't know myself."
"The Aleutians!" exclaimed Billy Edwards. "Great Cats! What a drift! How many thousand miles would that be?"
"Not as far as many another derelict has wandered in her time, son," said Barnett.
The talk washed back and forth26 across the hulks of classic sea mysteries, new and old; of the _City of Boston_, which went down with all hands, leaving for record only a melancholy27 scrawl28 on a bit of board to meet the wondering eyes of a fisherman on the far Cornish coast; of the _Great Queensland_, which set out with five hundred and sixty-nine souls aboard, bound by a route unknown to a tragic29 end; of the _Naronic_, with her silent and empty lifeboats alone left, drifting about the open sea, to hint at the story of her fate; of the _Huronian_, which, ten years later, on the same day and date, and hailing from the same port as the _Naronic_, went out into the void, leaving no trace; of Newfoundland captains who sailed, roaring with drink, under the arches of cathedral bergs, only to be prisoned, buried, and embalmed30 in the one icy embrace; of craft assailed31 by the terrible one-stroke lightning clouds of the Indian Ocean, found days after, stone blind, with their crews madly hauling at useless sheets, while the officers clawed the compass and shrieked32; of burnings and piracies33; of pest ships and slave ships, and ships mad for want of water; of whelming earthquake waves, and mysterious suctions, drawing irresistibly against wind and steam power upon unknown currents; of stout34 hulks deserted35 in panic although sound and seaworthy; and of others so swiftly dragged down that there was no time for any to save himself; and of a hundred other strange, stirring and pitiful ventures such as make up the inevitable36 peril37 and incorrigible38 romance of the ocean. In a pause Billy Edwards said musingly39:
"Well, there was the _Laughing Lass_."
"How did you happen to hit on her?" asked Barnett quickly.
"Why not, sir? It naturally came into my head. She was last seen somewhere about this part of the world, wasn't she?" After a moment's hesitation40 he added: "From something I heard ashore I judge we've a commission to keep a watch out for her as well as to destroy derelicts."
"What about the _Laughing Lass_?" asked McGuire, the paymaster, a New Englander, who had been in the service but a short time.
"Good Lord! don't you remember the _Laughing Lass_ mystery and the disappearance41 of Doctor Schermerhorn?"
"Karl Augustus Schermerhorn, the man whose experiments to identify telepathy with the Marconi wireless42 waves made such a furore in the papers?"
"Oh, that was only a by-product43 of his mind. He was an original investigator44 in every line of physics and chemistry, besides most of the natural sciences," said Barnett. "The government is particularly interested in him because of his contributions to aerial photography."
"And he was lost with the _Laughing Lass_?"
"Nobody knows," said Edwards. "He left San Francisco two years ago on a hundred-foot schooner, with an assistant, a big brass-bound chest, and a ragamuffin crew. A newspaper man named Slade, who dropped out of the world about the same time, is supposed to have gone along, too. Their schooner was last sighted about 450 miles northeast of Oahu, in good shape, and bound westward45. That's all the record of her that there is."
"Was that Ralph Slade?" asked Barnett.
"Yes. He was a free-lance writer and artist."
"I knew him well," said Barnett. "He was in our mess in the Philippine campaign, on the _North Dakota_. War correspondent then. It's strange that I never identified him before with the Slade of the _Laughing Lass_."
"What was the object of the voyage?" asked Ives.
"They were supposed to be after buried treasure," said Barnett.
"I've always thought it more likely that Doctor Schermerhorn was on a scientific expedition," said Edwards. "I knew the old boy, and he wasn't the sort to care a hoot46 in Sheol for treasure, buried or unburied."
"Every time a ship sets out from San Francisco without publishing to all the world just what her business is, all the world thinks it's one of those wild-goose hunts," observed Ives.
"Yes," agreed Barnett. "Flora47 and fauna48 of some unknown island would be much more in the Schermerhorn line of traffic. Not unlikely that some of the festive49 natives collected the unfortunate professor."
Various theories were advanced, withdrawn50, refuted, defended, and the discussion carried them through the swift twilight51 into the darkness which had been hastened by a high-spreading canopy52 of storm-clouds. Abruptly53 from the crow's-nest came startling news for those desolate54 seas: "Light--ho! Two points on the port bow."
The lookout55 had given extra voice to it. It was plainly heard throughout the ship.
The group of officers stared in the direction indicated, but could see nothing. Presently Ives and Edwards, who were the keenest-sighted, made out a faint, suffused56 radiance. At the same time came a second hail from the crow's-nest.
"On deck, sir."
"Hello," responded Carter, the officer of the deck.
"There's a light here I can't make anything out of, sir."
"What's it like?"
"Sort of a queer general glow."
"General glow, indeed!" muttered Forsythe, among the group aft. "That fellow's got an imagination."
"Can't you describe it better than that?" called Carter.
"Don't make it out at all, sir. 'Tain't any regular and proper light. Looks like a lamp in a fog."
Among themselves the officers discussed it interestedly, as it grew plainer.
"Not unlike the electric glow above a city, seen from a distance," said Barnett, as it grew plainer.
"Yes: but the nearest electric-lighted city is some eight hundred miles away," objected Ives.
"Mirage57, maybe," suggested Edwards.
"Pretty hard-working mirage, to cover that distance" said Ives. "Though I've seen 'em----"
"Great heavens! Look at that!" shouted Edwards.
A great shaft58 of pale brilliance59 shot up toward the zenith. Under it whirled a maelstrom60 of varied61 radiance, pale with distance, but marvellously beautiful. Forsythe passed them with a troubled face, on his way below to report, as his relief went up.
"The quartermaster reports the compass behaving queerly," he said.
Three minutes later the captain was on the bridge. The great ship had swung, and they were speeding direct for the phenomenon. But within a few minutes the light had died out.
"Another sea mystery to add to our list," said Billy Edwards. "Did anyone ever see a show like that before? What do you think, Doc?"
"Humph!" grunted62 the veteran. "New to me. Volcanic63, maybe."
收听单词发音 |
1
flaunted
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| v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的过去式和过去分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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sluggishly
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| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
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untold
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| adj.数不清的，无数的 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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steamship
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| n.汽船，轮船 | |
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lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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swirl
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| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
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ordnance
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| n.大炮，军械 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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embalmed
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| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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piracies
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| n.海上抢劫( piracy的名词复数 )；盗版行为，非法复制 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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incorrigible
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| adj.难以纠正的，屡教不改的 | |
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musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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by-product
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| n.副产品，附带产生的结果 | |
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investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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fauna
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| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
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festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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50
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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51
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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52
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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54
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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55
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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56
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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maelstrom
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| n.大乱动；大漩涡 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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