adventure(冒险)

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ADVENTURE
1
ADVENTURE
by Jack London
ADVENTURE
2
CHAPTER I--SOMETHING TO
BE DONE
He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-
headed, black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced
and stretched until one had torn out, while the other carried a circular
block of carved wood three inches in diameter. The torn ear had been
pierced again, but this time not so ambitiously, for the hole accommodated
no more than a short clay pipe. The man-horse was greasy and dirty, and
naked save for an exceedingly narrow and dirty loin-cloth; but the white
man clung to him closely and desperately. At times, from weakness, his
head drooped and rested on the woolly pate. At other times he lifted his
head and stared with swimming eyes at the cocoanut palms that reeled and
swung in the shimmering heat. He was clad in a thin undershirt and a
strip of cotton cloth, that wrapped about his waist and descended to his
knees. On his head was a battered Stetson, known to the trade as a
Baden-Powell. About his middle was strapped a belt, which carried a
large-calibred automatic pistol and several spare clips, loaded and ready
for quick work.
The rear was brought up by a black boy of fourteen or fifteen, who
carried medicine bottles, a pail of hot water, and various other hospital
appurtenances. They passed out of the compound through a small wicker
gate, and went on under the blazing sun, winding about among new-
planted cocoanuts that threw no shade. There was not a breath of wind,
and the superheated, stagnant air was heavy with pestilence. From the
direction they were going arose a wild clamour, as of lost souls wailing
and of men in torment. A long, low shed showed ahead, grass-walled and
grass-thatched, and it was from here that the noise proceeded. There
were shrieks and screams, some unmistakably of grief, others
unmistakably of unendurable pain. As the white man drew closer he
could hear a low and continuous moaning and groaning. He shuddered at
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the thought of entering, and for a moment was quite certain that he was
going to faint. For that most dreaded of Solomon Island scourges,
dysentery, had struck Berande plantation, and he was all alone to cope
with it. Also, he was afflicted himself.
By stooping close, still on man-back, he managed to pass through the
low doorway. He took a small bottle from his follower, and sniffed
strong ammonia to clear his senses for the ordeal. Then he shouted,
"Shut up!" and the clamour stilled. A raised platform of forest slabs, six
feet wide, with a slight pitch, extended the full length of the shed.
Alongside of it was a yard-wide run-way. Stretched on the platform, side
by side and crowded close, lay a score of blacks. That they were low in
the order of human life was apparent at a glance. They were man-eaters.
Their faces were asymmetrical, bestial; their bodies were ugly and ape-
like. They wore nose-rings of clam-shell and turtle-shell, and from the
ends of their noses which were also pierced, projected horns of beads
strung on stiff wire. Their ears were pierced and distended to
accommodate wooden plugs and sticks, pipes, and all manner of barbaric
ornaments. Their faces and bodies were tattooed or scarred in hideous
designs. In their sickness they wore no clothing, not even loin-cloths,
though they retained their shell armlets, their bead necklaces, and their
leather belts, between which and the skin were thrust naked knives. The
bodies of many were covered with horrible sores. Swarms of flies rose
and settled, or flew back and forth in clouds.
The white man went down the line, dosing each man with medicine.
To some he gave chlorodyne. He was forced to concentrate with all his
will in order to remember which of them could stand ipecacuanha, and
which of them were constitutionally unable to retain that powerful drug.
One who lay dead he ordered to be carried out. He spoke in the sharp,
peremptory manner of a man who would take no nonsense, and the well
men who obeyed his orders scowled malignantly. One muttered deep in
his chest as he took the corpse by the feet. The white man exploded in
speech and action. It cost him a painful effort, but his arm shot out,
landing a back- hand blow on the black's mouth.
"What name you, Angara?" he shouted. "What for talk 'long you, eh?
ADVENTURE
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I knock seven bells out of you, too much, quick!"
With the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered
himself to spring. The anger of a wild animal was in his eyes; but he saw
the white man's hand dropping to the pistol in his belt. The spring was
never made. The tensed body relaxed, and the black, stooping over the
corpse, helped carry it out. This time there was no muttering.
"Swine!" the white man gritted out through his teeth at the whole
breed of Solomon Islanders.
He was very sick, this white man, as sick as the black men who lay
helpless about him, and whom he attended. He never knew, each time he
entered the festering shambles, whether or not he would be able to
complete the round. But he did know in large degree of certainty that, if
he ever fainted there in the midst of the blacks, those who were able would
be at his throat like ravening wolves.
Part way down the line a man was dying. He gave orders for his
removal as soon as he had breathed his last. A black stuck his head
inside the shed door, saying, -
"Four fella sick too much."
Fresh cases, still able to walk, they clustered about the spokesman.
The white man singled out the weakest, and put him in the place just
vacated by the corpse. Also, he indicated the next weakest, telling him to
wait for a place until the next man died. Then, ordering one of the well
men to take a squad from the field- force and build a lean-to addition to
the hospital, he continued along the run-way, administering medicine and
cracking jokes in beche-de-mer English to cheer the sufferers. Now and
again, from the far end, a weird wail was raised. When he arrived there
he found the noise was emitted by a boy who was not sick. The white
man's wrath was immediate.
"What name you sing out alla time?" he demanded.
"Him fella my brother belong me," was the answer. "Him fella die
too much."
"You sing out, him fella brother belong you die too much," the white
man went on in threatening tones. "I cross too much along you. What
name you sing out, eh? You fat-head make um brother belong you die
ADVENTURE
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dose up too much. You fella finish sing out, savvee? You fella no finish
sing out I make finish damn quick."
He threatened the wailer with his fist, and the black cowered down,
glaring at him with sullen eyes.
"Sing out no good little bit," the white man went on, more gently. "You
no sing out. You chase um fella fly. Too much strong fella fly. You
catch water, washee brother belong you; washee plenty too much, bime
bye brother belong you all right. Jump!" he shouted fiercely at the end,
his will penetrating the low intelligence of the black with dynamic force
that made him jump to the task of brushing the loathsome swarms of flies
away.
Again he rode out into the reeking heat. He clutched the black's neck
tightly, and drew a long breath; but the dead air seemed to shrivel his
lungs, and he dropped his head and dozed till the house was reached.
Every effort of will was torture, yet he was called upon continually to
make efforts of will. He gave the black he had ridden a nip of trade-gin.
Viaburi, the house-boy, brought him corrosive sublimate and water, and he
took a thorough antiseptic wash. He dosed himself with chlorodyne,
took his own pulse, smoked a thermometer, and lay back on the couch
with a suppressed groan. It was mid-afternoon, and he had completed his
third round that day. He called the house-boy.
"Take um big fella look along Jessie," he commanded.
The boy carried the long telescope out on the veranda, and searched
the sea.
"One fella schooner long way little bit," he announced. "One fella
Jessie."
The white man gave a little gasp of delight.
"You make um Jessie, five sticks tobacco along you," he said.
There was silence for a time, during which he waited with eager
impatience.
"Maybe Jessie, maybe other fella schooner," came the faltering
admission.
The man wormed to the edge of the couch, and slipped off to the floor
on his knees. By means of a chair he drew himself to his feet. Still
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clinging to the chair, supporting most of his weight on it, he shoved it to
the door and out upon the veranda. The sweat from the exertion
streamed down his face and showed through the undershirt across his
shoulders. He managed to get into the chair, where he panted in a state
of collapse. In a few minutes he roused himself. The boy held the end
of the telescope against one of the veranda scantlings, while the man
gazed through it at the sea. At last he picked up the white sails of the
schooner and studied them.
"No Jessie," he said very quietly. "That's the Malakula."
He changed his seat for a steamer reclining-chair. Three hundred feet
away the sea broke in a small surf upon the beach. To the left he could
see the white line of breakers that marked the bar of the Balesuna River,
and, beyond, the rugged outline of Savo Island. Directly before him,
across the twelve-mile channel, lay Florida Island; and, farther to the right,
dim in the distance, he could make out portions of Malaita--the savage
island, the abode of murder, and robbery, and man-eating--the place from
which his own two hundred plantation hands had been recruited.
Between him and the beach was the cane-grass fence of the compound.
The gate was ajar, and he sent the house-boy to close it. Within the fence
grew a number of lofty cocoanut palms. On either side the path that led
to the gate stood two tall flagstaffs. They were reared on artificial
mounds of earth that were ten feet high. The base of each staff was
surrounded by short posts, painted white and connected by heavy chains.
The staffs themselves were like ships' masts, with topmasts spliced on in
true nautical fashion, with shrouds, ratlines, gaffs, and flag-halyards.
From the gaff of one, two gay flags hung limply, one a checkerboard of
blue and white squares, the other a white pennant centred with a red disc.
It was the international code signal of distress.
On the far corner of the compound fence a hawk brooded. The man
watched it, and knew that it was sick. He wondered idly if it felt as bad
as he felt, and was feebly amused at the thought of kinship that somehow
penetrated his fancy. He roused himself to order the great bell to be rung
as a signal for the plantation hands to cease work and go to their barracks.
Then he mounted his man-horse and made the last round of the day.
ADVENTURE
7
In the hospital were two new cases. To these he gave castor-oil. He
congratulated himself. It had been an easy day. Only three had died.
He inspected the copra-drying that had been going on, and went through
the barracks to see if there were any sick lying hidden and defying his rule
of segregation. Returned to the house, he received the reports of the
boss-boys and gave instructions for next day's work. The boat's crew
boss also he had in, to give assurance, as was the custom nightly, that the
whale-boats were hauled up and padlocked. This was a most necessary
precaution, for the blacks were in a funk, and a whale-boat left lying on
the beach in the evening meant a loss of twenty blacks by morning.
Since the blacks were worth thirty dollars apiece, or less, according to how
much of their time had been worked out, Berande plantation could ill
afford the loss. Besides, whale-boats were not cheap in the Solomons;
and, also, the deaths were daily reducing the working capital. Seven
blacks had fled into the bush the week before, and four had dragged
themselves back, helpless from fever, with the report that two more had
been killed and kai-kai'd {1} by the hospitable bushmen. The seventh
man was still at large, and was said to be working along the coast on the
lookout to steal a canoe and get away to his own island.
Viaburi brought two lighted lanterns to the white man for inspection.
He glanced at them and saw that they were burning brightly with clear,
broad flames, and nodded his head. One was hoisted up to the gaff of the
flagstaff, and the other was placed on the wide veranda. They were the
leading lights to the Berande anchorage, and every night in the year they
were so inspected and hung out.
He rolled back on his couch with a sigh of relief. The day's work was
done. A rifle lay on the couch beside him. His revolver was within
reach of his hand. An hour passed, during which he did not move. He
lay in a state of half-slumber, half-coma. He became suddenly alert. A
creak on the back veranda was the cause. The room was L-shaped; the
corner in which stood his couch was dim, but the hanging lamp in the
main part of the room, over the billiard table and just around the corner, so
that it did not shine on him, was burning brightly. Likewise the verandas
were well lighted. He waited without movement. The creaks were
ADVENTURE
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repeated, and he knew several men lurked outside.
"What name?" he cried sharply.
The house, raised a dozen feet above the ground, shook on its pile
foundations to the rush of retreating footsteps.
"They're getting bold," he muttered. "Something will have to be
done."
The full moon rose over Malaita and shone down on Berande.
Nothing stirred in the windless air. From the hospital still proceeded the
moaning of the sick. In the grass-thatched barracks nearly two hundred
woolly-headed man-eaters slept off the weariness of the day's toil, though
several lifted their heads to listen to the curses of one who cursed the
white man who never slept. On the four verandas of the house the
lanterns burned. Inside, between rifle and revolver, the man himself
moaned and tossed in intervals of troubled sleep.
ADVENTURE
9
CHAPTER II--SOMETHING IS
DONE
In the morning David Sheldon decided that he was worse. That he
was appreciably weaker there was no doubt, and there were other
symptoms that were unfavourable. He began his rounds looking for
trouble. He wanted trouble. In full health, the strained situation would
have been serious enough; but as it was, himself growing helpless,
something had to be done. The blacks were getting more sullen and
defiant, and the appearance of the men the previous night on his veranda--
one of the gravest of offences on Berande--was ominous. Sooner or later
they would get him, if he did not get them first, if he did not once again
sear on their dark souls the flaming mastery of the white man.
He returned to the house disappointed. No opportunity had presented
itself of making an example of insolence or insubordination--such as had
occurred on every other day since the sickness smote Berande. The fact
that none had offended was in itself suspicious. They were growing
crafty. He regretted that he had not waited the night before until the
prowlers had entered. Then he might have shot one or two and given the
rest a new lesson, writ in red, for them to con. It was one man against
two hundred, and he was horribly afraid of his sickness overpowering him
and leaving him at their mercy. He saw visions of the blacks taking
charge of the plantation, looting the store, burning the buildings, and
escaping to Malaita. Also, one gruesome vision he caught of his own
head, sun-dried and smoke-cured, ornamenting the canoe house of a
cannibal village. Either the Jessie would have to arrive, or he would
have to do something.
The bell had hardly rung, sending the labourers into the fields, when
Sheldon had a visitor. He had had the couch taken out on the veranda,
and he was lying on it when the canoes paddled in and hauled out on the
beach. Forty men, armed with spears, bows and arrows, and war-clubs,
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gathered outside the gate of the compound, but only one entered. They
knew the law of Berande, as every native knew the law of every white
man's compound in all the thousand miles of the far-flung Solomons.
The one man who came up the path, Sheldon recognized as Seelee, the
chief of Balesuna village. The savage did not mount the steps, but stood
beneath and talked to the white lord above.
Seelee was more intelligent than the average of his kind, but his
intelligence only emphasized the lowness of that kind. His eyes, close
together and small, advertised cruelty and craftiness. A gee-string and a
cartridge-belt were all the clothes he wore. The carved pearl-shell
ornament that hung from nose to chin and impeded speech was purely
ornamental, as were the holes in his ears mere utilities for carrying pipe
and tobacco. His broken-fanged teeth were stained black by betel-nut,
the juice of which he spat upon the ground.
As he talked or listened, he made grimaces like a monkey. He said
yes by dropping his eyelids and thrusting his chin forward. He spoke
with childish arrogance strangely at variance with the subservient position
he occupied beneath the veranda. He, with his many followers, was lord
and master of Balesuna village. But the white man, without followers,
was lord and master of Berande--ay, and on occasion, single-handed, had
made himself lord and master of Balesuna village as well. Seelee did not
like to remember that episode. It had occurred in the course of learning
the nature of white men and of learning to abominate them. He had once
been guilty of sheltering three runaways from Berande. They had given
him all they possessed in return for the shelter and for promised aid in
getting away to Malaita. This had given him a glimpse of a profitable
future, in which his village would serve as the one depot on the
underground railway between Berande and Malaita.
Unfortunately, he was ignorant of the ways of white men. This
particular white man educated him by arriving at his grass house in the
gray of dawn. In the first moment he had felt amused. He was so
perfectly safe in the midst of his village. But the next moment, and
before he could cry out, a pair of handcuffs on the white man's knuckles
had landed on his mouth, knocking the cry of alarm back down his throat.
摘要:

ADVENTURE1ADVENTUREbyJackLondonADVENTURE2CHAPTERI--SOMETHINGTOBEDONEHewasaverysickwhiteman.Herodepick-a-backonawoolly-headed,black-skinnedsavage,thelobesofwhoseearshadbeenpiercedandstretcheduntilonehadtornout,whiletheothercarriedacircularblockofcarvedwoodthreeinchesindiameter.Thetornearhadbeenpierce...

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