“P h y j s l y d d q f d z x g a s g z z q q e h x g k f n d r x u j u g I o c y t d x v k s b x h h u y p o h d v y r y m h u h p u y d k j o x p h e t o z l s l e t n p m v f f o v p d p a j x h y y n o j y g g a y m e q y n f u q l n m v l y f g s u z m q I z t l b q q y u g s q e u b v n r c r e d g r u z b l r m x y u h q h p z d r r g c r o h e p q x u f I v v r p l p h o n t h v d d q f h q s n t z h h h n f e p m q k y u u e x k t o g z g k y u u m f v I j d q d p z j q s y k r p l x h x q r y m v k l o h h h o t o z v d k s p p s u v j h d.”
THE MAN who held in his hand the document of which this strange assemblage of letters formed the concluding paragraph remained for some moments lost in thought.
It contained about a hundred of these lines, with the letters at even distances, and undivided into words. It seemed to have been written many years before, and time had already laid his tawny1 finger on the sheet of good stout2 paper which was covered with the hieroglyphics3.
On what principle had these letters been arranged? He who held the paper was alone able to tell. With such cipher4 language it is as with the locks of some of our iron safes — in either case the protection is the same. The combinations which they lead to can be counted by millions, and no calculator’s life would suffice to express them. Some particular “word” has to be known before the lock of the safe will act, and some “cipher” is necessary before that cryptogram5 can be read.
He who had just reperused the document was but a simple “captain of the woods.” Under the name of “Capitaes do Mato” are known in Brazil those individuals who are engaged in the recapture of fugitive6 slaves. The institution dates from 1722. At that period anti-slavery ideas had entered the minds of a few philanthropists, and more than a century had to elapse before the mass of the people grasped and applied7 them. That freedom was a right, that the very first of the natural rights of man was to be free and to belong only to himself, would seem to be self-evident, and yet thousands of years had to pass before the glorious thought was generally accepted, and the nations of the earth had the courage to proclaim it.
In 1852, the year in which our story opens, there were still slaves in Brazil, and as a natural consequence, captains of the woods to pursue them. For certain reasons of political economy the hour of general emancipation8 had been delayed, but the black had at this date the right to ransom9 himself, the children which were born to him were born free. The day was not far distant when the magnificent country, into which could be put three-quarters of the continent of Europe, would no longer count a single slave among its ten millions of inhabitants.
The occupation of the captains of the woods was doomed10, and at the period we speak of the advantages obtainable from the capture of fugitives11 were rapidly diminishing. While, however, the calling continued sufficiently12 profitable, the captains of the woods formed a peculiar13 class of adventurers, principally composed of freedmen and deserters — of not very enviable reputation. The slave hunters in fact belonged to the dregs of society, and we shall not be far wrong in assuming that the man with the cryptogram was a fitting comrade for his fellow “capitaes do mato.” Torres — for that was his name — unlike the majority of his companions, was neither half-breed, Indian, nor negro. He was a white of Brazilian origin, and had received a better education than befitted his present condition. One of those unclassed men who are found so frequently in the distant countries of the New World, at a time when the Brazilian law still excluded mulattoes and others of mixed blood from certain employments, it was evident that if such exclusion14 had affected15 him, it had done so on account of his worthless character, and not because of his birth.
Torres at the present moment was not, however, in Brazil. He had just passed the frontier, and was wandering in the forests of Peru, from which issue the waters of the Upper Amazon.
He was a man of about thirty years of age, on whom the fatigues16 of a precarious17 existence seemed, thanks to an exceptional temperament18 and an iron constitution, to have had no effect. Of middle height, broad shoulders, regular features, and decided19 gait, his face was tanned with the scorching20 air of the tropics. He had a thick black beard, and eyes lost under contracting eyebrows21, giving that swift but hard glance so characteristic of insolent22 natures. Clothed as backwoodsmen are generally clothed, not over elaborately, his garments bore witness to long and roughish wear. On his head, stuck jauntily23 on one side, was a leather hat with a large brim. Trousers he had of coarse wool, which were tucked into the tops of the thick, heavy boots which formed the most substantial part of his attire24, and over all, and hiding all, was a faded yellowish poncho25.
But if Torres was a captain of the woods it was evident that he was not now employed in that capacity, his means of attack and defense26 being obviously insufficient27 for any one engaged in the pursuit of the blacks. No firearms — neither gun nor revolver. In his belt only one of those weapons, more sword than hunting-knife, called a “manchetta,” and in addition he had an “enchada,” which is a sort of hoe, specially28 employed in the pursuit of the tatous and agoutis which abound29 in the forests of the Upper Amazon, where there is generally little to fear from wild beasts.
On the 4th of May, 1852, it happened, then, that our adventurer was deeply absorbed in the reading of the document on which his eyes were fixed30, and, accustomed as he was to live in the forests of South America, he was perfectly31 indifferent to their splendors32. Nothing could distract his attention; neither the constant cry of the howling monkeys, which St. Hillaire has graphically33 compared to the ax of the woodman as he strikes the branches of the trees, nor the sharp jingle34 of the rings of the rattlesnake (not an aggressive reptile35, it is true, but one of the most venomous); neither the bawling36 voice of the horned toad37, the most hideous38 of its kind, nor even the solemn and sonorous39 croak40 of the bellowing41 frog, which, though it cannot equal the bull in size, can surpass him in noise.
Torres heard nothing of all these sounds, which form, as it were, the complex voice of the forests of the New World. Reclining at the foot of a magnificent tree, he did not even admire the lofty boughs42 of that “pao ferro,” or iron wood, with its somber43 bark, hard as the metal which it replaces in the weapon and utensil44 of the Indian savage45. No. Lost in thought, the captain of the woods turned the curious paper again and again between his fingers. With the cipher, of which he had the secret, he assigned to each letter its true value. He read, he verified the sense of those lines, unintelligible46 to all but him, and then he smiled — and a most unpleasant smile it was.
Then he murmured some phrases in an undertone which none in the solitude47 of the Peruvian forests could hear, and which no one, had he been anywhere else, would have heard.
“Yes,” said he, at length, “here are a hundred lines very neatly48 written, which, for some one that I know, have an importance that is undoubted. That somebody is rich. It is a question of life or death for him, and looked at in every way it will cost him something.” And, scrutinizing49 the paper with greedy eyes, “At a conto* only for each word of this last sentence it will amount to a considerable sum, and it is this sentence which fixes the price. It sums up the entire document. It gives their true names to true personages; but before trying to understand it I ought to begin by counting the number of words it contains, and even when this is done its true meaning may be missed.”
* One thousand reis are equal to three francs, and a conto of reis is worth three thousand francs.
In saying this Torres began to count mentally.
“There are fifty-eight words, and that makes fifty-eight contos. With nothing but that one could live in Brazil, in America, wherever one wished, and even live without doing anything! And what would it be, then, if all the words of this document were paid for at the same price? It would be necessary to count by hundreds of contos. Ah! there is quite a fortune here for me to realize if I am not the greatest of duffers!”
It seemed as though the hands of Torres felt the enormous sum, and were already closing over the rolls of gold. Suddenly his thoughts took another turn.
“At length,” he cried, “I see land; and I do not regret the voyage which has led me from the coast of the Atlantic to the Upper Amazon. But this man may quit America and go beyond the seas, and then how can I touch him? But no! he is there, and if I climb to the top of this tree I can see the roof under which he lives with his family!” Then seizing the paper and shaking it with terrible meaning: “Before to-morrow I will be in his presence; before to-morrow he will know that his honor and his life are contained in these lines. And when he wishes to see the cipher which permits him to read them, he — well, he will pay for it. He will pay, if I wish it, with all his fortune, as he ought to pay with all his blood! Ah! My worthy50 comrade, who gave me this cipher, who told me where I could find his old colleague, and the name under which he has been hiding himself for so many years, hardly suspects that he has made my fortune!”
For the last time Torres glanced over the yellow paper, and then, after carefully folding it, put it away into a little copper51 box which he used for a purse. This box was about as big as a cigar case, and if what was in it was all Torres possessed52 he would nowhere have been considered a wealthy man. He had a few of all the coins of the neighboring States — ten double-condors in gold of the United States of Colombia, worth about a hundred francs; Brazilian reis, worth about as much; golden sols of Peru, worth, say, double; some Chilian escudos, worth fifty francs or more, and some smaller coins; but the lot would not amount to more than five hundred francs, and Torres would have been somewhat embarrassed had he been asked how or where he had got them. One thing was certain, that for some months, after having suddenly abandoned the trade of the slave hunter, which he carried on in the province of Para, Torres had ascended53 the basin of the Amazon, crossed the Brazilian frontier, and come into Peruvian territory. To such a man the necessaries of life were but few; expenses he had none — nothing for his lodging54, nothing for his clothes. The forest provided his food, which in the backwoods cost him naught55. A few reis were enough for his tobacco, which he bought at the mission stations or in the villages, and for a trifle more he filled his flask56 with liquor. With little he could go far.
When he had pushed the paper into the metal box, of which the lid shut tightly with a snap, Torres, instead of putting it into the pocket of his under-vest, thought to be extra careful, and placed it near him in a hollow of a root of the tree beneath which he was sitting. This proceeding57, as it turned out, might have cost him dear.
It was very warm; the air was oppressive. If the church of the nearest village had possessed a clock, the clock would have struck two, and, coming with the wind, Torres would have heard it, for it was not more than a couple of miles off. But he cared not as to time. Accustomed to regulate his proceedings58 by the height of the sun, calculated with more or less accuracy, he could scarcely be supposed to conduct himself with military precision. He breakfasted or dined when he pleased or when he could; he slept when and where sleep overtook him. If his table was not always spread, his bed was always ready at the foot of some tree in the open forest. And in other respects Torres was not difficult to please. He had traveled during most of the morning, and having already eaten a little, he began to feel the want of a snooze. Two or three hours’ rest would, he thought, put him in a state to continue his road, and so he laid himself down on the grass as comfortably as he could, and waited for sleep beneath the ironwood-tree.
Torres was not one of those people who drop off to sleep without certain preliminaries. HE was in the habit of drinking a drop or two of strong liquor, and of then smoking a pipe; the spirits, he said, overexcited the brain, and the tobacco smoke agreeably mingled59 with the general haziness60 of his reverie.
Torres commenced, then, by applying to his lips a flask which he carried at his side; it contained the liquor generally known under the name of “chica” in Peru, and more particularly under that of “caysuma” in the Upper Amazon, to which fermented61 distillation62 of the root of the sweet manioc the captain had added a good dose of “tafia” or native rum.
When Torres had drunk a little of this mixture he shook the flask, and discovered, not without regret, that it was nearly empty.
“Must get some more,” he said very quietly.
Then taking out a short wooden pipe, he filled it with the coarse and bitter tobacco of Brazil, of which the leaves belong to that old “petun” introduced into France by Nicot, to whom we owe the popularization of the most productive and widespread of the solanaceae.
This native tobacco had little in common with the fine qualities of our present manufacturers; but Torres was not more difficult to please in this matter than in others, and so, having filled his pipe, he struck a match and applied the flame to a piece of that stick substance which is the secretion63 of certain of the hymenoptera, and is known as “ants’ amadou.” With the amadou he lighted up, and after about a dozen whiffs his eyes closed, his pipe escaped from his fingers, and he fell asleep.
收听单词发音 |
1
tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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hieroglyphics
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| n.pl.象形文字 | |
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cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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cryptogram
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| n.密码 | |
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6
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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7
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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15
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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fatigues
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| n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 )；杂役；厌倦；（士兵穿的）工作服 | |
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17
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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20
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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poncho
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| n.斗篷，雨衣 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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splendors
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| n.华丽( splendor的名词复数 )；壮丽；光辉；显赫 | |
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graphically
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| adv.通过图表；生动地，轮廓分明地 | |
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34
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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35
reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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36
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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toad
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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40
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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42
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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43
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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44
utensil
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| n.器皿，用具 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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47
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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48
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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49
scrutinizing
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的现在分词 ) | |
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50
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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51
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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52
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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53
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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55
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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56
flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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57
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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59
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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60
haziness
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| 有薄雾，模糊； 朦胧之性质或状态； 零能见度 | |
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61
fermented
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| v.（使）发酵( ferment的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
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62
distillation
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| n.蒸馏，蒸馏法 | |
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63
secretion
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| n.分泌 | |
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