Treasure Island · XXIII. The Ebb-tide Runs

二十三 退潮奔流

那艘小划子——在我和它打过交道之后大有体会——对于我这种身高体重的人来说，是艘很安全的船，浮性好，在风浪里也灵巧；但它却是最别扭、最偏歪难弄的船。任你怎么摆弄，它总是比什么船都更容易横向漂走，而最拿手的本事就是原地打转。连本·甘恩自己都承认，这船“没摸透脾气之前，难伺候得很”。

我当然没摸透它的脾气。它朝各个方向转，就是不往我要去的方向；大半时间里，船身都是横着的，我十分确信，若不是靠潮水，我根本到不了大船那儿。幸好，任我怎么划，潮水仍一路把我往下冲；而伊斯帕尼奥拉号就正停在航道当中，几乎不可能错过。

起初它像一团比黑暗更黑的东西隐约浮现，接着桅杆和船身开始显出轮廓，仿佛下一瞬——因为我越往前，退潮的水流越急——我就贴上了它的缆绳，并一把抓住。

缆绳绷得像弓弦，水流太急，拽得船直扯锚。船身四周的黑暗里，潺潺的急流像山间小溪般冒泡、哗哗作响。只要用我的水手刀割一下，伊斯帕尼奥拉号就会哼着歌随潮而去。

到此还算顺利，可我接着想起，绷紧的缆绳猛然割断，就像会踢人的马一样危险。十有八九，我要是鲁莽地把伊斯帕尼奥拉号从锚上割开，我和划子会被直接打出水面。

这让我完全停了手，若非运气再次特别眷顾我，我只好放弃计划。不过，白天从东南和南面吹起的微风，入夜后转成了西南风。就在我盘算时，一阵风来，刮上伊斯帕尼奥拉号，把它推入水流；令我大喜的是，我觉出手里缆绳一松，抓绳的手一时浸到了水下。

当下我拿定主意，掏出水手刀，用牙拨开，一刀刀割断股股绳丝，直到船只剩两股吊着。然后我静静躺着，等风一吹、拉力稍松时再割断最后两股。

这其间我一直听见舱里高声说话，但说实话，我心全在别处，几乎没去听。然而此刻闲着，便留了意。

一个声音我认出是舵手以色列·汉兹的，他从前是弗林特的炮手。另一个自然是我那红睡帽朋友。两人显然都喝高了，而且还在喝，因为我正听时，其中一个醉醺醺叫了声，推开尾窗扔出个东西，我猜是空酒瓶。可他们不光醉，分明还怒不可遏。咒骂像冰雹乱飞，不时爆出一阵，我以为准要动手。但每次吵闹都平息下去，声音咕哝着低了一阵，直到下一回危机又过，仍无结果。

岸上，我望见大营火的红光透过岸边树木暖暖燃着。有人在唱，一首沉闷老迈、水手特有的歌，每段末尾拖着颤音，似乎除非唱的人没了耐性，否则没个完。航程里我听过不止一回，记得这几句：

“她船上一人活命归， 七十五人出海去。”

我想这歌对早上才遭惨重损失的一伙人，实在悲得贴切。不过看情形，这些海盗都和脚下的海一样没心没肺。

终于风来；双桅船在暗里侧身靠近；我觉得缆绳又松，便使劲一刀割断最后几缕纤维。

微风对划子没什么用，我几乎立刻被扫到伊斯帕尼奥拉号船头。同时，双桅船开始打转，缓缓掉头，横过水流。

我像恶鬼般划，料着随时会翻；既然推不开划子，我便直往后撑。终于脱了这危险邻居，正最后用力一推时，手碰到一根拖在船尾栏杆外水中的细绳。我立刻抓住。

为何这么做，我也说不清。起先纯是本能，但一抓在手觉着牢，好奇便占了上风，我决意从舱窗瞅上一眼。

我一手接一手拽绳，估摸够近了，冒极大险直起约半身高， thereby瞧见舱顶和舱内一隅。

此时双桅船和小伴船正飞快滑水；实则已平了营火。船正像水手说的“大声说话”，不停扑碎无数涟漪，哗哗作响；我眼没过窗沿前，不懂望哨怎没惊动。可一眼便够；也只敢从这晃船上看一眼。只见汉兹和他同伙死死缠斗，各一手掐着对方喉咙。

我赶紧落回坐板，差点儿就翻出去。一时只看见两张暴怒通红的脸在油烟灯下晃荡，便闭眼让它们再习惯黑暗。

那没完没了的歌谣终于唱尽，营火边稀落的人齐声合唱我听熟的那段：

“死人箱上十五汉—— 哟嗬嗬，一瓶朗姆酒！ 喝与鬼送其余完—— 哟嗬嗬，一瓶朗姆酒！”

我正想此刻船舱里酒和鬼多忙活，划子猛一歪，吓我一跳。同时它急转，像改了方向。速度却怪异地增了。

我立刻睁眼。四周都是小浪，刷着尖响微光。几码前我被卷着的伊斯帕尼奥拉号似也踉跄，桅杆在夜黑里略摆；久看更确，它也在向南转。

我扭头一望，心撞肋骨。营火红光就在正后。水流直角一转，卷着高桅船和跳舞小划子同转；愈急、愈高、愈响，打着旋过窄口奔开阔海。

突前船猛偏，约转二十度；几乎同时舱里一声接一声喊；伴梯上脚咚咚，知两醉汉终被扰，醒觉大祸。

我平躺这破船底，虔心交魂于造主。峡口外必撞怒涛断命；虽死可受，却不堪看灾临近。

我便如此躺数时，浪间往复，偶溅水湿，死期只待下一浪。倦意渐生；惧中麻木昏沉，终睡去，于浪里划子梦故园与老本鲍将军店。

XXIII The Ebb-tide Runs

The coracle--as I had ample reason to know before I was done with her--was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight, both buoyant and clever in a seaway; but she was the most cross-grained, lop-sided craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more leeway than anything else, and turning round and round was the manoeuvre she was best at. Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was “queer to handle till you knew her way.”

Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in every direction but the one I was bound to go; the most part of the time we were broadside on, and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tide was still sweeping me down; and there lay the HISPANIOLA right in the fairway, hardly to be missed.

First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went, the brisker grew the current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold.

The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the tide.

So far so good, but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the HISPANIOLA from her anchor, I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water.

This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again particularly favoured me, I should have had to abandon my design. But the light airs which had begun blowing from the south-east and south had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west. Just while I was meditating, a puff came, caught the HISPANIOLA, and forced her up into the current; and to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water.

With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth, and cut one strand after another, till the vessel swung only by two. Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain should be once more lightened by a breath of wind.

All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin, but to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts that I had scarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothing else to do, I began to pay more heed.

One I recognized for the coxswain’s, Israel Hands, that had been Flint’s gunner in former days. The other was, of course, my friend of the red night-cap. Both men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were still drinking, for even while I was listening, one of them, with a drunken cry, opened the stern window and threw out something, which I divined to be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and then there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lower for a while, until the next crisis came and in its turn passed away without result.

On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp-fire burning warmly through the shore-side trees. Someone was singing, a dull, old, droning sailor’s song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had heard it on the voyage more than once and remembered these words:

“But one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventy-five.”

And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning. But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed on.

At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a good, tough effort, cut the last fibres through.

The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was almost instantly swept against the bows of the HISPANIOLA. At the same time, the schooner began to turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, across the current.

I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be swamped; and since I found I could not push the coracle directly off, I now shoved straight astern. At length I was clear of my dangerous neighbour, and just as I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across a light cord that was trailing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I grasped it.

Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere instinct, but once I had it in my hands and found it fast, curiosity began to get the upper hand, and I determined I should have one look through the cabin window.

I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and when I judged myself near enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height and thus commanded the roof and a slice of the interior of the cabin.

By this time the schooner and her little consort were gliding pretty swiftly through the water; indeed, we had already fetched up level with the camp-fire. The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I got my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand upon the other’s throat.

I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for I was near overboard. I could see nothing for the moment but these two furious, encrimsoned faces swaying together under the smoky lamp, and I shut my eyes to let them grow once more familiar with the darkness.

The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished company about the camp-fire had broken into the chorus I had heard so often:

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil were at that very moment in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, when I was surprised by a sudden lurch of the coracle. At the same moment, she yawed sharply and seemed to change her course. The speed in the meantime had strangely increased.

I opened my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent. The HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also was wheeling to the southward.

I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped against my ribs. There, right behind me, was the glow of the camp-fire. The current had turned at right angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and the little dancing coracle; ever quickening, ever bubbling higher, ever muttering louder, it went spinning through the narrows for the open sea.

Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent yaw, turning, perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost at the same moment one shout followed another from on board; I could hear feet pounding on the companion ladder and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster.

I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff and devoutly recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the end of the straits, I made sure we must fall into some bar of raging breakers, where all my troubles would be ended speedily; and though I could, perhaps, bear to die, I could not bear to look upon my fate as it approached.

So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten to and fro upon the billows, now and again wetted with flying sprays, and never ceasing to expect death at the next plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon me; a numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my mind even in the midst of my terrors, until sleep at last supervened and in my sea-tossed coracle I lay and dreamed of home and the old Admiral Benbow.