Further, by the dim, shadowy ways of intuition, he knew his weakness in that merciless sea with no heart of warmth, that threatened the unknowable thing, vaguely6 but terribly guessed, namely, death. As regarded himself, he did not comprehend death. He, who had never known the time when he was not alive, could not conceive of the time when he would cease to be alive.
Yet it was there, shouting its message of warning through every tissue cell, every nerve quickness and brain sensitivity of him—a totality of sensation that foreboded the ultimate catastrophe8 of life about which he knew nothing at all, but which, nevertheless, he felt to be the conclusive9 supreme10 disaster. Although he did not comprehend it, he apprehended11 it no less poignantly12 than do men who know and generalize far more deeply and widely than mere13 four-legged dogs.
As a man struggles in the throes of nightmare, so Jerry struggled in the vexed14, salt-suffocating sea. And so he whimpered and cried, lost child, lost puppy-dog that he was, only half a year existent in the fair world sharp with joy and suffering. And he wanted Skipper. Skipper was a god.
* * * * *
On board the Arangi, relieved by the lowering of her mainsail, as the fierceness went out of the wind and the cloudburst of tropic rain began to fall, Van Horn and Borckman lurched toward each other in the blackness.
“A double squall,” said Van Horn. “Hit us to starboard and to port.”
“And kept all the rain in the second half—”
Van Horn broke off with an oath.
“Hey! What’s the matter along you fella boy?” he shouted to the man at the wheel.
For the ketch, under her spanker which had just then been flat-hauled, had come into the wind, emptying her after-sail and permitting her headsails to fill on the other tack16. The Arangi was beginning to work back approximately over the course she had just traversed. And this meant that she was going back toward Jerry floundering in the sea. Thus, the balance, on which his life titubated, was inclined in his favour by the blunder of a black steersman.
Keeping the Arangi on the new tack, Van Horn set Borckman clearing the mess of ropes on deck, himself, squatting17 in the rain, undertaking18 to long-splice the tackle he had cut. As the rain thinned, so that the crackle of it on deck became less noisy, he was attracted by a sound from out over the water. He suspended the work of his hands to listen, and, when he recognized Jerry’s wailing20, sprang to his feet, galvanized into action.
“The pup’s overboard!” he shouted to Borckman. “Back your jib to wind’ard!”
He sprang aft, scattering21 a cluster of return boys right and left.
He darted23 a look into the binnacle and took a hurried compass bearing of the sounds Jerry was making.
“Hard down your wheel!” he ordered the helmsman, then leaped to the wheel and put it down himself, repeating over and over aloud, “Nor’east by east a quarter, nor’east by east a quarter.”
Back and peering into the binnacle, he listened vainly for another wail19 from Jerry in the hope of verifying his first hasty bearing. But not long he waited. Despite the fact that by his manoeuvre24 the Arangi had been hove to, he knew that windage and sea-driftage would quickly send her away from the swimming puppy. He shouted Borckman to come aft and haul in the whaleboat, while he hurried below for his electric torch and a boat compass.
The ketch was so small that she was compelled to tow her one whaleboat astern on long double painters, and by the time the mate had it hauled in under the stern, Van Horn was back. He was undeterred by the barbed wire, lifting boy after boy of the boat’s crew over it and dropping them sprawling25 into the boat, following himself, as the last, by swinging over on the spanker boom, and calling his last instructions as the painters were cast off.
“Get a riding light on deck, Borckman. Keep her hove to. Don’t hoist26 the mainsail. Clean up the decks and bend the watch tackle on the main boom.”
He took the steering-sweep and encouraged the rowers with: “Washee-washee, good fella, washee-washee!”—which is the bêche-de-mer for “row hard.”
As he steered27, he kept flashing the torch on the boat compass so that he could keep headed north-east by east a quarter east. Then he remembered that the boat compass, on such course, deviated28 two whole points from the Arangi’s compass, and altered his own course accordingly.
Occasionally he bade the rowers cease, while he listened and called for Jerry. He had them row in circles, and work back and forth29, up to windward and down to leeward30, over the area of dark sea that he reasoned must contain the puppy.
“Now you fella boy listen ear belong you,” he said, toward the first. “Maybe one fella boy hear ’m pickaninny dog sing out, I give ’m that fella boy five fathom31 calico, two ten sticks tobacco.”
At the end of half an hour he was offering “Two ten fathoms32 calico and ten ten sticks tobacco” to the boy who first heard “pickaninny dog sing out.”
* * * * *
Jerry was in bad shape. Not accustomed to swimming, strangled by the salt water that lapped into his open mouth, he was getting loggy when first he chanced to see the flash of the captain’s torch. This, however, he did not connect with Skipper, and so took no more notice of it than he did of the first stars showing in the sky. It never entered his mind that it might be a star nor even that it might not be a star. He continued to wail and to strangle with more salt water. But when he at length heard Skipper’s voice he went immediately wild. He attempted to stand up and to rest his forepaws on Skipper’s voice coming out of the darkness, as he would have rested his forepaws on Skipper’s leg had he been near. The result was disastrous33. Out of the horizontal, he sank down and under, coming up with a new spasm34 of strangling.
This lasted for a short time, during which the strangling prevented him from answering Skipper’s cry, which continued to reach him. But when he could answer he burst forth in a joyous35 yelp2. Skipper was coming to take him out of the stinging, biting sea that blinded his eyes and hurt him to breathe. Skipper was truly a god, his god, with a god’s power to save.
Soon he heard the rhythmic36 clack of the oars37 on the thole-pins, and the joy in his own yelp was duplicated by the joy in Skipper’s voice, which kept up a running encouragement, broken by objurgations to the rowers.
“All right, Jerry, old man. All right, Jerry. All right.—Washee-washee, you fella boy!—Coming, Jerry, coming. Stick it out, old man. Stay with it.—Washee-washee like hell!—Here we are, Jerry. Stay with it. Hang on, old boy, we’ll get you.—Easy . . . easy. ’Vast washee.”
And then, with amazing abruptness38, Jerry saw the whaleboat dimly emerge from the gloom close upon him, was blinded by the stab of the torch full in his eyes, and, even as he yelped his joy, felt and recognized Skipper’s hand clutching him by the slack of the neck and lifting him into the air.
He landed wet and soppily against Skipper’s rain-wet chest, his tail bobbing frantically40 against Skipper’s containing arm, his body wriggling41, his tongue dabbing42 madly all over Skipper’s chin and mouth and cheeks and nose. And Skipper did not know that he was himself wet, and that he was in the first shock of recurrent malaria43 precipitated44 by the wet and the excitement. He knew only that the puppy-dog, given him only the previous morning, was safe back in his arms.
While the boat’s crew bent45 to the oars, he steered with the sweep between his arm and his side in order that he might hold Jerry with the other arm.
“You little son of a gun,” he crooned, and continued to croon, over and over. “You little son of a gun.”
And Jerry responded with tongue-kisses, whimpering and crying as is the way of lost children immediately after they are found. Also, he shivered violently. But it was not from the cold. Rather was it due to his over-strung, sensitive nerves.
Again on board, Van Horn stated his reasoning to the mate.
“The pup didn’t just calmly walk overboard. Nor was he washed overboard. I had him fast and triced in the blanket with a rope yarn46.”
He walked over, the centre of the boat’s crew and of the three-score return boys who were all on deck, and flashed his torch on the blanket still lying on the yams.
“That proves it. The rope-yarn’s cut. The knot’s still in it. Now what nigger is responsible?”
He looked about at the circle of dark faces, flashing the light on them, and such was the accusation47 and anger in his eyes, that all eyes fell before his or looked away.
“If only the pup could speak,” he complained. “He’d tell who it was.”
He bent suddenly down to Jerry, who was standing48 as close against his legs as he could, so close that his wet forepaws rested on Skipper’s bare feet.
“You know ’m, Jerry, you known the black fella boy,” he said, his words quick and exciting, his hand moving in questing circles toward the blacks.
“I do believe the dog could lead me to him,” Van Horn confided50 to the mate. “Come on, Jerry, find ’m, sick ’m, shake ’m down. Where is he, Jerry? Find ’m. Find ’m.”
All that Jerry knew was that Skipper wanted something. He must find something that Skipper wanted, and he was eager to serve. He pranced51 about aimlessly and willingly for a space, while Skipper’s urging cries increased his excitement. Then he was struck by an idea, and a most definite idea it was. The circle of boys broke to let him through as he raced for’ard along the starboard side to the tight-lashed heap of trade-boxes. He put his nose into the opening where the wild-dog laired, and sniffed52. Yes, the wild-dog was inside. Not only did he smell him, but he heard the menace of his snarl53.
He looked up to Skipper questioningly. Was it that Skipper wanted him to go in after the wild-dog? But Skipper laughed and waved his hand to show that he wanted him to search in other places for something else.
He leaped away, sniffing54 in likely places where experience had taught him cockroaches55 and rats might be. Yet it quickly dawned on him that it was not such things Skipper was after. His heart was wild with desire to serve, and, without clear purpose, he began sniffing legs of black boys.
This brought livelier urgings and encouragements from Skipper, and made him almost frantic39. That was it. He must identify the boat’s crew and the return boys by their legs. He hurried the task, passing swiftly from boy to boy, until he came to Lerumie.
And then he forgot that Skipper wanted him to do something. All he knew was that it was Lerumie who had broken the taboo56 of his sacred person by laying hands on him, and that it was Lerumie who had thrown him overboard.
With a cry of rage, a flash of white teeth, and a bristle57 of short neck-hair, he sprang for the black. Lerumie fled down the deck, and Jerry pursued amid the laughter of all the blacks. Several times, in making the circuit of the deck, he managed to scratch the flying calves58 with his teeth. Then Lerumie took to the main rigging, leaving Jerry impotently to rage on the deck beneath him.
About this point the blacks grouped in a semi-circle at a respectful distance, with Van Horn to the fore7 beside Jerry. Van Horn centred his electric torch on the black in the rigging, and saw the long parallel scratches on the fingers of the hand that had invaded Jerry’s blanket. He pointed59 them out significantly to Borckman, who stood outside the circle so that no black should be able to come at his back.
“Good boy, Jerry. You marked and sealed him. Some dog, you, some big man-dog.”
He turned back to Lerumie, illuminating61 him as he clung in the rigging, and his voice was harsh and cold as he addressed him.
“What name belong along you fella boy?” he demanded.
“You come along Pennduffryn?”
“Me come along Meringe.”
Captain Van Horn debated the while he fondled the puppy in his arms. After all, it was a return boy. In a day, in two days at most, he would have him landed and be quit of him.
“My word,” he harangued63, “me angry along you. Me angry big fella too much along you. Me angry along you any amount. What name you fella boy make ’m pickaninny dog belong along me walk about along water?”
Lerumie was unable to answer. He rolled his eyes helplessly, resigned to receive a whipping such as he had long since bitterly learned white masters were wont64 to administer.
Captain Van Horn repeated the question, and the black repeated the helpless rolling of his eyes.
“For two sticks tobacco I knock ’m seven bells outa you,” the skipper bullied65. “Now me give you strong fella talk too much. You look ’m eye belong you one time along this fella dog belong me, I knock ’m seven bells and whole starboard watch outa you. Savve?”
“Me savve,” Lerumie, plaintively replied; and the episode was closed.
The return boys went below to sleep in the cabin. Borckman and the boat’s crew hoisted66 the mainsail and put the Arangi on her course. And Skipper, under a dry blanket from below, lay down to sleep with Jerry, head on his shoulder, in the hollow of his arm.
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收听单词发音
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1
yelped
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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yearningly
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| 怀念地，思慕地，同情地； 渴 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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poignantly
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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concurred
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| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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17
squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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20
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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21
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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22
flatten
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| v.把．．．弄平，使倒伏；使(漆等)失去光泽 | |
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23
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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24
manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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25
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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26
hoist
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| n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起 | |
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27
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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28
deviated
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| v.偏离，越轨( deviate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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31
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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32
fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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33
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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37
oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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38
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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41
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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42
dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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43
malaria
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| n.疟疾 | |
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44
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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45
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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46
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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47
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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48
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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49
yelps
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| n.（因痛苦、气愤、兴奋等的）短而尖的叫声( yelp的名词复数 )v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的第三人称单数 ) | |
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50
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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51
pranced
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
sniffed
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| 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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53
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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54
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；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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55
cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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56
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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57
bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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58
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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59
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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60
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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61
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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62
chirping
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 ) | |
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63
harangued
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| v.高谈阔论( harangue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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65
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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