“Poor perishing heathens!” muttered Bumpo. “No wonder the old chief died of cold!”
At that moment we heard a crying sound at the door. And turning round, we saw a weeping Indian mother with a baby in her arms. She said something to the Indians which we could not understand; and Long Arrow told us the baby was sick and she wanted the white doctor to try and cure it.
“Oh Lord!” groaned2 Polynesia in my ear—“Just like Puddleby: patients arriving in the middle of dinner. Well, one thing: the food’s raw, so nothing can get cold anyway.”
The Doctor examined the baby and found at once that it was thoroughly3 chilled.
“Fire—fire! That’s what it needs,” he said turning to Long Arrow—“That’s what you all need. This child will have pneumonia4 if it isn’t kept warm.”
“Aye, truly. But how to make a fire,” said Long Arrow—“where to get it: that is the difficulty. All the volcanoes in this land are dead.”
Then we fell to hunting through our pockets to see if any matches had survived the shipwreck5. The best we could muster6 were two whole ones and a half—all with the heads soaked off them by salt water.
“Hark, Long Arrow,” said the Doctor: “divers ways there be of making fire without the aid of matches. One: with a strong glass and the rays of the sun. That however, since the sun has set, we cannot now employ. Another is by grinding a hard stick into a soft log—Is the daylight gone without?—Alas yes. Then I fear we must await the morrow; for besides the different woods, we need an old squirrel’s nest for fuel—And that without lamps you could not find in your forests at this hour.”
“Great are your cunning and your skill, oh White Man,” Long Arrow replied. “But in this you do us an injustice7. Know you not that all fireless peoples can see in the dark? Having no lamps we are forced to train ourselves to travel through the blackest night, lightless. I will despatch8 a messenger and you shall have your squirrel’s nest within the hour.”
He gave an order to two of our boy-servants who promptly9 disappeared running. And sure[268] enough, in a very short space of time a squirrel’s nest, together with hard and soft woods, was brought to our door.
The moon had not yet risen and within the house it was practically pitch-black. I could feel and hear, however, that the Indians were moving about comfortably as though it were daylight. The task of making fire the Doctor had to perform almost entirely10 by the sense of touch, asking Long Arrow and the Indians to hand him his tools when he mislaid them in the dark. And then I made a curious discovery: now that I had to, I found that I was beginning to see a little in the dark myself. And for the first time I realized that of course there is no such thing as pitch-dark, so long as you have a door open or a sky above you.
Calling for the loan of a bow, the Doctor loosened the string, put the hard stick into a loop and began grinding this stick into the soft wood of the log. Soon I smelt11 that the log was smoking. Then he kept feeding the part that was smoking with the inside lining12 of the squirrel’s nest, and he asked me to blow upon it with my breath. He made the stick drill faster and faster. More smoke filled the room. And at last the darkness about us was suddenly lit up. The squirrel’s nest had burst into flame.
The Indians murmured and grunted14 with astonishment15. At first they were all for falling on their knees and worshiping the fire. Then they wanted to pick it up with their bare hands and play with it. We had to teach them how it was to be used; and they were quite fascinated when we laid our fish across it on sticks and cooked it. They sniffed16 the air with relish17 as, for the first time in history, the smell of fried fish passed through the village of Popsipetel.
Then we got them to bring us piles and stacks of dry wood; and we made an enormous bonfire in the middle of the main street. Round this, when they felt its warmth, the whole tribe gathered and smiled and wondered. It was a striking sight, one of the pictures from our voyages that I most frequently remember: that roaring jolly blaze beneath the black night sky, and all about it a vast ring of Indians, the firelight gleaming on bronze cheeks, white teeth and flashing eyes—a whole town trying to get warm, giggling18 and pushing like school-children.
In a little, when we had got them more used to the handling of fire, the Doctor showed them how it could be taken into their houses if a hole were only made in the roof to let the smoke out. And before we turned in after that long, long, tiring day, we had fires going in every hut in the village.
The poor people were so glad to get really warm again that we thought they’d never go to bed. Well on into the early hours of the morning thelittle town fairly buzzed with a great low murmur13: the Popsipetels sitting up talking of their wonderful pale-faced visitor and this strange good thing he had brought with him—fire!
点击收听单词发音
1 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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2 groaned | |
v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
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3 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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4 pneumonia | |
n.肺炎 | |
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5 shipwreck | |
n.船舶失事,海难 | |
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6 muster | |
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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7 injustice | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
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8 despatch | |
n./v.(dispatch)派遣;发送;n.急件;新闻报道 | |
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9 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
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10 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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11 smelt | |
v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼 | |
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12 lining | |
n.衬里,衬料 | |
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13 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
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14 grunted | |
(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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15 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
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16 sniffed | |
v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说 | |
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17 relish | |
n.滋味,享受,爱好,调味品;vt.加调味料,享受,品味;vi.有滋味 | |
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18 giggling | |
v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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