3 I HAVE A SCARE, AND GET OVER IT

 I went to the stern of the brig and looked at the tug¹, far off and almost out of sight in the dusk, and at the loom² of the Highlands, above which shone the light-house lamps—and my heart went down into my boots, and for a while stayed there. For a moment the thought came into my head to cut away the buoy³ lashed⁴ to the rail and to take my chances with it overboard—trusting to being picked up by some passing vessel⁵ and so set safe ashore⁶. But the night was closing down fast and a lively sea was running, and I had sense enough to perceive that leaving the brig that way would be about the same as getting out of the frying-pan into the fire.

 

Fortunately, in a little while I began to get wholesomely⁷ angry; which always is a good thing, I think, when a man gets into a tight place—if he don't carry it too far—since it rouses the fighting spirit in him and so helps him to pull through. In reason, I ought to have been angry with myself, for the trouble that I was in was all of my own making; but, beyond giving myself a passing kick or two, all my anger was turned upon Captain Luke for taking advantage of my greenness to land me in such a pickle⁸ when his gain from it would be so small. I know now that I did Captain Luke injustice⁹. His subsequent conduct showed that he did not want me aboard with him any more than I wanted to be there. Had I not taken matters into my own hands by boarding the brig in such a desperate hurry—just as I had hurried to close with his offer and to clinch¹⁰ it by paying down my passage-money—he would have gone off without me. And very likely he would have thought that the lesson in worldly wisdom he had given me was only fairly paid for by the fifty dollars which had jumped so easily out of my pocket into his.

 

But that was not the way I looked at the matter then; and in my heart I cursed Captain Luke up hill and down dale for having, as I fancied, lured¹¹ me aboard the brig and so into peril¹² of my skin. And my anger was so strong that I went by turns hot and cold with it, and itched¹³ to get at Captain Luke with my fists and give him a dressing—which I very well could have done, had we come to fighting, for I was a bigger man than he was and a stronger man, too.

 

It is rather absurd as I look back at it, considering what a taking I was in and how strong was my desire just then to punch Captain Luke's head for him, that while I was at the top of my rage he came aft to where I was leaning against the rail and put his hand on my shoulder as friendly as possible and asked me to come down into the cabin to supper. I suppose I had a queer pale look, because of my anger, for he said not to mind if I did feel sickish, but to eat all the same and I would feel better for it; and he really was so cordial and so pleasant that for a moment or two I could not answer him. It was upsetting, when I was so full of fight, to have him come at me in that friendly way; and I must say that I felt rather sheepish, and wondered whether I had not been working myself up over a mare's-nest as I followed him below.

 

We had the mate to supper with us, at a square table in the middle of the cabin, and at breakfast the next morning we had the second mate; and so it went turn and turn with them at meals—except that they had some sort of dog-watch way about the Saturday night and Sunday morning that always gave the mate his Sunday dinner with the captain, as was the due of his rank.

 

The mate was a surly brute¹⁴, and when Captain Chilton said, in quite a formal way, "Mr. Roger Stetworth, let me make you acquainted with Mr. George Hinds," he only grunted¹⁶ and gave me a sort of a nod. He did not have much to say while the supper went on, speaking only when the captain spoke¹⁷ to him, and then shortly; but from time to time he snatched a mighty¹⁸ sharp look at me—that I pretended not to notice, but saw well enough out of the tail of my eye. It was plain enough that he was taking my measure, and I even fancied that he would have been better pleased had I been six inches or so shorter and with less well-made shoulders and arms. When he did speak it was in a growling¹⁹ rumble²⁰ of a voice, and he swore naturally.

 

Captain Luke evidently tried to make up for the mate's surliness; and he really was very pleasant indeed—telling me stories about the Coast, and giving me good advice about guarding against sickness there, and showing such an interest in my prospects²¹ with the palm-oil people, and in my welfare generally, that I was still more inclined to think that my scare about the shackles²² was only foolishness from first to last. He seemed to be really pleased when he found that I was not seasick²³, and interested when I told him how well I knew the sea and the management of small craft from my sailing in the waters about Nantucket every summer for so many years; and then we got to talking about the Coast again and about my outfit²⁴ for it, which he said was a very good one; and he especially commended me—instead of laughing at me, as I was afraid he would—for having brought along such a lot of quinine. Indeed, the quinine seemed to make a good deal of an impression on him, for he turned to the mate and said: "Do you hear that, George? Mr. Stetworth has with him a whole case of quinine—enough to serve a ship's company through a cruise." And the mate rumbled²⁵ out, as he got up from the table and started for the deck, that quinine was a damned good thing.

 

We waited below until the second mate came down, to whom the captain introduced me with his regular formula: "Mr. Roger Stetworth, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Martin Bowers²⁶." He was a young fellow, of no more than my own age, and I took a fancy to him at sight—for he not only shook my hand heartily²⁷ but he looked me squarely in the eyes, and that is a thing I like a man to do. It seemed to me that my being there was a good deal of a puzzle to him; and he also took my measure, but quite frankly—telling me when he had looked me over that if I knew how to steer²⁸ I'd be a good man to have at the wheel in a gale²⁹.

 

The captain brought out a bottle of his favorite arrack, and he and I had a glass together—in which, as I thought rather hard, Bowers was not given a chance to join us—and then we went on deck and walked up and down for a while, smoking our pipes and talking about the weather and the prospects for the voyage. And it all went so easily and so pleasantly that I couldn't help laughing a little to myself over my scare.

 

I turned in early, for I was pretty well tired after so lively a day; but when I got into my bunk³⁰ I could not get to sleep for a long while—although the bunk was a good one and the easy motion of the brig lulled³¹ me—for the excitement I was in because my voyage fairly was begun. I slipped through my mind all that had happened to me that day—from my meeting with Captain Luke in the forenoon until there I was, at nine o'clock at night, fairly out at sea; and I was so pleased with the series of lucky chances which had put me on my way so rapidly that my one mischance—my scare about the shackles—seemed utterly³² absurd.

 

It was perfectly³³ reasonable, I reflected, for Captain Luke to carry out a lot of shackles simply as "trade." It was pretty dirty "trade," of course, but so was the vile³⁴ so-called brandy he was carrying out with him; and so, for that matter, were the arms—which pretty certainly would be used in slaving forays up from the Coast. And even supposing the very worst—that Captain Luke meant to ship a cargo³⁵ of slaves himself and had these irons ready for them—that worst would come after I was out of the brig and done with her; the captain having told me that Loango, which was my landing-place, would be his first port of call. When I was well quit of the Golden Hind¹⁵ she and her crew and her captain, for all that I cared, might all go to the devil together. It was enough for me that I should be well treated on the voyage over; and from the way that the voyage had begun—unless the surly mate and I might have a bit of a flare-up—it looked as though I were going to be very well treated indeed. And so, having come to this comforting conclusion, I let the soft motion of the brig have its way with me and began to snooze.

 

A little later I was partly aroused by the sound of steps coming down the companion-way; and then by hearing, in the mate's rumble, these words: "I guess you're right, captain. As you had to run for it to-day before you could buy our quinine, it's a damn good thing he did get aboard, after all!"

 

I was too nearly asleep to pay much attention to this, but in a drowsy³⁶ way I felt glad that my stock of quinine had removed the mate's objections to me as a passenger; and I concluded that my purchase of such an absurd lot of it—after getting worked up by my reading about the West Coast fevers—had turned out to be a good thing for me in the long-run.

 

After that the talk went on in the cabin for a good while, but in such low tones that even had I been wide awake I could not have followed it. But I kept dozing³⁷ off, catching³⁸ only a word or two now and then; and the only whole sentence I heard was in the mate's rumble again: "Well, if we can't square things, there's always room for one more in the sea."

 

It all was very dream-like—and fitted into a dream that came later, in the light sleep of early morning, I suppose, in which the mate wore the uniform of a street-car conductor, and I was giving him doses of quinine, and he was asking the passengers in a car full of salt-water to move up and make room for me, and was telling them and me that in a sea-car there always was room for one more.

1 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

• We need to tug the car round to the front.我们需要把那辆车拉到前面。
• The tug is towing three barges.那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。

2 loom   

n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近

参考例句：

• The old woman was weaving on her loom.那位老太太正在织布机上织布。
• The shuttle flies back and forth on the loom.织布机上梭子来回飞动。

3 buoy   

n.浮标；救生圈；v.支持，鼓励

参考例句：

• The party did little to buoy up her spirits.这次聚会并没有让她振作多少。
• The buoy floated back and forth in the shallow water.这个浮标在浅水里漂来漂去。

4 lashed   

adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
• The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

6 ashore   

adv.在(向)岸上，上岸

参考例句：

• The children got ashore before the tide came in.涨潮前，孩子们就上岸了。
• He laid hold of the rope and pulled the boat ashore.他抓住绳子拉船靠岸。

7 wholesomely   

卫生地，有益健康地

参考例句：

• The papers we found shed some valuable light on this question, wholesomely contradicting all lies. 我们找到的这些论文资料对认识这个问题很有帮助，有利于反驳所有的谎言。

8 pickle   

n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡

参考例句：

• Mother used to pickle onions.妈妈过去常腌制洋葱。
• Meat can be preserved in pickle.肉可以保存在卤水里。

9 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

10 clinch   

v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench

参考例句：

• Clinch the boards together.用钉子把木板钉牢在一起。
• We don't accept us dollars,please Swiss francs to clinch a deal business.我方不收美元，请最好用瑞士法郎来成交生意。

11 lured   

吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The child was lured into a car but managed to escape. 那小孩被诱骗上了车，但又设法逃掉了。
• Lured by the lust of gold,the pioneers pushed onward. 开拓者在黄金的诱惑下，继续奋力向前。

12 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

13 itched   

v.发痒( itch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Seeing the children playing ping-pong, he itched to have a go. 他看到孩子们打乒乓，不觉技痒。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He could hardly sIt'still and itched to have a go. 他再也坐不住了，心里跃跃欲试。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。

15 hind   

adj.后面的，后部的

参考例句：

• The animal is able to stand up on its hind limbs.这种动物能够用后肢站立。
• Don't hind her in her studies.不要在学业上扯她后腿。

16 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

参考例句：

• She just grunted, not deigning to look up from the page. 她只咕哝了一声，继续看书，不屑抬起头来看一眼。
• She grunted some incomprehensible reply. 她咕噜着回答了些令人费解的话。

17 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。

18 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

19 growling   

n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼

参考例句：

• We heard thunder growling in the distance. 我们听见远处有隆隆雷声。
• The lay about the deck growling together in talk. 他们在甲板上到处游荡，聚集在一起发牢骚。

20 rumble   

n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说

参考例句：

• I hear the rumble of thunder in the distance.我听到远处雷声隆隆。
• We could tell from the rumble of the thunder that rain was coming.我们根据雷的轰隆声可断定，天要下雨了。

21 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

22 shackles   

手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊

参考例句：

• a country struggling to free itself from the shackles of colonialism 为摆脱殖民主义的枷锁而斗争的国家
• The cars of the train are coupled together by shackles. 火车的车厢是用钩链连接起来的。

23 seasick   

adj.晕船的

参考例句：

• When I get seasick,I throw up my food.我一晕船就呕吐。
• He got seasick during the voyage.在航行中他晕船。

24 outfit   

n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装

参考例句：

• Jenney bought a new outfit for her daughter's wedding.珍妮为参加女儿的婚礼买了一套新装。
• His father bought a ski outfit for him on his birthday.他父亲在他生日那天给他买了一套滑雪用具。

25 rumbled   

发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋）

参考例句：

• The machine rumbled as it started up. 机器轰鸣着发动起来。
• Things rapidly became calm, though beneath the surface the argument rumbled on. 事情迅速平静下来了，然而，在这种平静的表面背后争论如隆隆雷声，持续不断。

26 bowers   

n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人

参考例句：

• If Mr Bowers is right, low government-bond yields could lose their appeal and equities could rebound. 如果鲍尔斯先生的预计是对的，那么低收益的国债将会失去吸引力同时股价将会反弹。 来自互联网

27 heartily   

adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很

参考例句：

• He ate heartily and went out to look for his horse.他痛快地吃了一顿，就出去找他的马。
• The host seized my hand and shook it heartily.主人抓住我的手，热情地和我握手。

28 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

29 gale   

n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等）

参考例句：

• We got our roof blown off in the gale last night.昨夜的大风把我们的房顶给掀掉了。
• According to the weather forecast,there will be a gale tomorrow.据气象台预报，明天有大风。

30 bunk   

n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话

参考例句：

• He left his bunk and went up on deck again.他离开自己的铺位再次走到甲板上。
• Most economists think his theories are sheer bunk.大多数经济学家认为他的理论纯属胡说。

31 lulled   

vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• They lulled her into a false sense of security. 他们哄骗她，使她产生一种虚假的安全感。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The movement of the train lulled me to sleep. 火车轻微的震动催我进入梦乡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

32 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

33 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

34 vile   

adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的

参考例句：

• Who could have carried out such a vile attack?会是谁发起这么卑鄙的攻击呢？
• Her talk was full of vile curses.她的话里充满着恶毒的咒骂。

35 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

36 drowsy   

adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的

参考例句：

• Exhaust fumes made him drowsy and brought on a headache.废气把他熏得昏昏沉沉，还引起了头疼。
• I feel drowsy after lunch every day.每天午饭后我就想睡觉。

37 dozing   

v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• He never falters in his determination. 他的决心从不动摇。

38 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。