船员一醒来发现船长的真实面目（满舱的船员都抛弃他）

About noon I stopped at the captain's door with some cooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited.

中午时分，我拿着一些清凉饮料和药品到船长门前。他还像我们离开时那样躺在那里，只是枕头垫得稍微高了点。他看上去既虚弱又兴奋。

"Jim," he said, "you're the only one here that's worth anything, and you know I've been always good to you. Never a month but I've given you a silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low, and deserted by all; and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey?"

“吉姆，”他说，“你是这里唯一一个有用的人，你知道我一向对你很好。我每个月都给你一枚四便士的银币。现在你看，伙计，我身体很不好，被所有人遗弃。吉姆，现在给我拿一小杯朗姆酒好么，伙计？”

"The doctor—” I began.

“医生——”我开口说。

But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. "Doctors is all swabs," he said; "and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a—heaving like the sea with earthquakes—what to the doctor know of lands like that? —and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab"; and he ran on again for a while with curses. "Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges," he continued in the pleading tone. "I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain o' rum, Jim, I'll have the horrors; I seen some on 'em already. I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as plain as print, ...

但是他打断我，诅咒起那个医生来，声音虚弱，但是发自内心。“医生都是笨蛋。”他说，“那个医生，凭什么，他对水手懂多少？我到过热得像沥青一样的地方，到过水手们得了黄热病一批批离去的地方，到过地面摇晃得像地震的海面的鬼地方——那个医生知道那种地方吗？——我以朗姆酒度日，我告诉你。对我来说，它是肉，是水，是朋友和老婆。如果我现在没有了朗姆酒，我就像条被风刮到下风岸的老破船，你们的身上会沾着我的血，吉姆你，还有那个笨蛋医生。”他又咒骂了一阵。“看，吉姆，我的手指抖得多厉害。”他用乞求的口气接着说。“我不能让他们保持静止，我不能。在这个该死的日子里，我都没有沾一滴酒。那个医生就是个蠢货，我告诉你。如果我不喝上一口酒，吉姆，我就会出现幻觉，我已经看到一些人了。我看到老弗林特在角落里，就在你的身后，像印出来的一样清楚。如果我出现幻觉，我就会变得粗野，我会闹事。你们医生自己说过，一杯酒不会伤害到我。我会为一小杯酒给你一枚金几尼，吉姆。”

He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my father, who was very low that day and needed quiet; besides, I was reassured by the doctor's words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by the offer of a bribe.

他变得越发兴奋，这使我警觉地想起我父亲来。他那天很虚弱，需要安静。而且，他引自医生的话打消了我的顾虑，不过他想给我贿赂倒令我有些恼怒。

"I want none of your money," said I, "but what you owe my father. I'll get you one glass, and no more."

“我不想要你一分钱，”我说，“但是我要你欠我父亲的钱。我会给你一杯酒，但不会再多了。”

When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out.

当我把酒给他的时候，他贪婪地抓起酒杯，一饮而尽。

"Aye, aye," said he, "that's some better, sure enough. And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old berth?"

“是啊，是啊，”他说，“这就好多了，千真万确。现在伙计，那个医生说过我要在这张老床上躺多久吗？”

"A week at least," said I.

“至少一个星期。”我说。

"Thunder!" he cried. "A week! I can't do that; they'd have the black spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour, now, I want to know? But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it neither; and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."

“天哪！”他叫道，“一个星期！我可办不到。他们那会儿就该给我黑券了。那些蠢货在这个该死的时候正在到处打听我的风声呢。他们保不住自己得到的东西，又想掠夺别人的。这是水手的作风吗？我现在倒真想知道。但我是个节俭的人。我从不乱花钱，也不会把钱弄丢，我会再逗他们一下的。我不怕他们。我要再次扬帆起航，伙计，我要再捉弄他们一把。”

As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry out, and moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting position on the edge. "That doctor's done me," he murmured. "My ears is singing.Lay me back."

他一边说着话，一边费了好大力气从床上起来。他一把抓住我的肩膀，差点让我哭出来，又挪动着他死沉死沉的腿。他的那些话，虽然意思上情绪饱满，却与他声音的虚弱形成了可悲的对比。他在床边坐起来后，停了一下。“那个医生把我害苦了。”他低声抱怨着，“我的耳朵在响。让我躺回去。”

Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again to his former place, where he lay for a while silent.

我还没怎么来得及帮他，他就又倒回了原来躺着的地方，半天都没说话。

"Jim," he said at length, "you saw that seafaring man today?"

“吉姆，”他最后说道，“你今天看到那个水手了吗？”

"Black Dog?" I asked.

“黑狗吗？”我问。

"Ah!Black Dog," said he. "He's a bad un; but there's worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my old sea-chest they're after; you get on a horse—you can, can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to—well, yes, I will!

“啊！黑狗。”他说道，“他是个坏蛋，但是派他来的人更坏。现在，如果我不能离开、而他们给我下黑券的话，你注意，他们想要的是我航海用的旧箱子，你就骑上一匹马——你可以的，不是吗？那么，你骑上马，去——是的，我决定！

—to that eternal doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all hands—magistrates and sich—and he'll lay 'em aboard at the Admiral Benbow—all old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm the on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he lay a—dying, like as if I was to now, you see. But you won't peach unless they get the black spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a seafaring man with one leg, Jim—him above all.”

——去那个该死的医生那里，让他召集所有的人——地方官之类的——他会在‘本博将军’这里把他们一网打尽——所有老弗林特的下属，老的少的，所有剩下的人。我曾是个大副，我曾是，老弗林特船上的大副，我是唯一知道那个地方的人。他在萨凡纳把它给了我，那时候他快要——死了，就像我现在一样，你看。但是，除非他们给我下了黑券，或者除非你看见那个黑狗又来了，或者一个独腿水手——吉姆，尤其是他，你再去报告。”

"But what is the black spot, captain?" I asked.

“但是，什么是黑券呢，船长？”我问。

"That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and I'll share with you equals, upon my honour."

“那是一种传唤令，伙计。如果他们送来了，我会告诉你的。但是你要留神——睁大眼睛，吉姆，我会和你平分所得，以我的名誉保证。”

He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker; but soon after I had given him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, "If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me," he fell at last into a heavy, swoon—like sleep, in which I left him. What I should have done had all gone well I do not know. Probably I should have told the whole story to the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell out, my poor father died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other matters on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be carried on in the meanwhile kept me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of the captain, far less to be afraid of him.

他又胡思乱想了一小会儿，声音变得更加虚弱。但是就在我给他拿了药之后，他一边像个孩子似的吃着药，一边说：“如果有一个水手想要吃药，那就是我。”最后，他昏昏沉沉地倒下——像睡着了一样，我就离开他了。我不知道，如果一切顺利的话，我该怎么做。很有可能我会把一切告诉那个医生，因为我害怕极了，担心船长后悔自己的坦白而把我干掉。但事情越发糟糕，我可怜的父亲那天晚上突然去世了，让所有其他的事情都搁置了下来。我们自然而生的悲痛，邻里的拜访，葬礼的安排，以及旅店所有事情的料理接踵而至，让我忙得无暇顾及船长，更不用说怕他了。

He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his meals as usual, though he ate little and had more, I am afraid, than his usual supply of rum, for he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and blowing through his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the night before the funeral he was as drunk as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as he was, we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with a case many miles away and was never near the house after my father's death. I have said the captain was weak, and indeed he seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength. He clambered up and down stairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and back again, and sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea, holding on to the walls as he went for support and breathing hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain. He never particularly addressed me, and it is my belief he had as good as forgotten his confidences; but his temper was more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weakness, more violent than ever. He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table. But with all that, he minded people less and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather wandering. Once, for instance, to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a different air, a king of country love—song that he must have learned in his youth before he had begun to follow the sea.

第二天他下楼来，确实，像往常一样用餐，尽管他吃得很少，但我估计他喝了比往常还要多的朗姆酒。他自己从酒吧间里把酒拿出来，满脸怒气，还哼着鼻子，没人敢从他面前经过。葬礼的前一天晚上，他和往常一样醉醺醺的。在这间充满哀悼的屋子里听到他唱起那首难听的老船歌，真是令人震惊。但是他又是那么虚弱，我们都担心他会死掉。医生也突然到几英里外的地方看诊去了，自我父亲去世后，他就再也不在我家附近了。我说过船长很虚弱，而且他看起来的确越来越衰弱，而不是恢复他的力气。他在楼梯上爬上爬下的，从大厅走到酒吧，然后再回到大厅。有时他会把鼻子伸出门外闻一闻海的味道。他用手扶着墙支撑着走路，呼吸沉重而急促得像一个在爬陡坡的人。他再没特意和我说过话，我相信他完全忘了他的秘密。但是他的脾气越来越糟，而且随着他身体的日渐衰弱，他的脾气变得比以往更加粗暴。现在，他有一种警戒方式。当他喝酒时，他就把自己的短刀拔出来，赤裸裸地放在他面前的桌子上。但是做这些的同时，他对别人也更不在意了。他似乎把自己关在了自己的想法里，更加神志恍惚。比如有一次，极其出乎我们的意料，他哼出了一首不同的调子，一首乡村情歌。这一定是在他还年轻、尚未出海之前学会的。

So things passed until, the day after the funeral, and about three o'clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon, I was standing at the door for a moment, full of sad thoughts about my father, when I saw someone drawing slowly near along the road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with a stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear positively deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure. He stopped a little from the inn, and raising his voice in an odd sing-song, addressed the air in front of him, "will any kind friend inform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defence of his native country, England—and God bless King George! —where or in what part of this country he may now be?”

事情一直这样持续着，直到葬礼后第二天下午大约三点钟。那是一个寒冷而霜雾蒙蒙的下午，我站在门口呆了一会儿，满怀对父亲的哀思。这时，我看到有人慢慢沿着大路朝这边走近。他显然是个瞎子，因为他用棍子敲着前面的路，而且眼睛和鼻子上戴着一个大绿罩子。他弯着身子，似乎年岁很大或者身体虚弱。他还带了一个有风帽的巨大的旧航海斗篷，使他显得非常怪异。我这辈子从没见过比这更可怕的样子。他在离旅店不远的地方停下来，抬高嗓门用一种古怪的唱歌调子对着他面前的空气说起话来，“哪位好心的朋友能告诉一位可怜的瞎子，他在高尚的保卫祖国英格兰的反抗中失去了宝贵的视力——上帝保佑乔治王！——他现在在哪里，或者在祖国的哪个地方？”

"You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, my good man," said I.

“您在‘本博将军’旅店，在黑山湾，我的好人。”我说。

"I hear a voice," said he, "a young voice. Will you give me your hand, my kind young friend, and lead me in?"

“我听到一个声音，”他说，“一个年轻的声音。我好心的年轻朋友，你愿意把你的手给我，领我进去吗？”

I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was so much startled that I struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close up to him with a single action of his arm.

我伸出手，那个可怕的、口气软绵绵的瞎眼家伙像把虎钳一样立刻抓住了它。我吓了一大跳，挣扎着想把手缩回去，但是那个瞎子胳膊一用力一把我拉到他的身边。

"Now, boy," he said, "take me in to the captain."

“现在，小男孩，”他说，“带我去见船长。”

"Sir," said I, "upon my word I dare not."

“先生，”我说，“我发誓我不敢。”

"Oh," he sneered, "that's it! Take me in straight or I'll break your arm."

“哦，”他冷笑了一下，“原来如此！直接带我进去，否则我就弄断你的胳膊。”

And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out.

说着他就拧了一下，这一拧差点让我叫出来。

"Sir," said I, "it is for yourself I mean. The captain is not what he used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman—”

“先生，”我说，“我是为您着想。船长不是从前那个样子了。他拿着一把短刀坐着。另外一位先生——”

"Come, now, march," interrupted he; and I never heard a voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's. It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice.

“好了，现在走吧。”他打断了我的话。我从来没听过像这个瞎子那样如此残忍、冷酷而又难听的声音。这比刚才的疼痛更让我恐惧，我立刻开始听他的话，从门口直向大厅走去。我们虚弱的老海盗就坐在那里喝得烂醉。那个瞎子用一个铁拳紧紧抓着我，而且几乎把他全部的重量都倾到我的身上，超出了我能承受的重量。“带我直接到他那儿，我到他视野里的时候，你就喊‘这是你的一位朋友，比尔。’如果你不喊，我就会这样。”说着他扯了我一下，我觉得自己差点晕过去。两者比较一下，我完全被这个瞎乞丐吓坏了，而忘了对船长的恐惧。当我打开大厅门时，我用颤抖的声音喊出了刚才瞎子命令我说的话。

The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had enough force left in his body.

可怜的船长抬起眼睛，只瞥了一眼，朗姆酒就烟消云散了，他清醒地瞪着。他脸上的表情与其说是恐怖，不如说是垂死的病态。他动了一下想站起来，但是我不相信他身体里还有足够的力量。

"Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right."

“现在，比尔，坐在原地。”乞丐说道。“就算我不能看，我也能听到一根手指颤动的声音。公事公办。伸出你的左手。孩子，握住他的左手腕，把它拿到我的右边来。”

We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon it instantly.

我们都照着他的话办了，我看到他从握手杖的手心里拿出个东西放到了船长的手掌上，船长立刻合上了手掌。

"And now that's done," said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap—tapping into the distance.

“现在结束了。”瞎子说。然后，他突然放开我，以难以置信的精确和敏捷蹿出了大厅，到路上去了。我还呆呆地站在那里，能听到他的棍子笃笃笃地敲着路面的声音，越来越远。

It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply into the palm.

我和船长都过了很大一会儿才恢复了神志，但是最终，几乎是同时，我松开了仍握着的船长的手腕；他则把手收回去，飞快地看了一眼手掌。

"Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll do them yet," and he sprang to his feet. Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole height face foremost to the floor.

“十点钟！”他喊道。“六个小时。我们还可以捉弄他们。”他跳了起来。但他刚这么做，他就晃了一下，一只手放在喉咙上，摇摇晃晃地站了一会儿。然后他发出一种奇怪的声音，整个身体向脸朝下倒在了地板上。

I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart.

我立刻跑向他，喊着母亲。但是再快也都是徒劳。船长已经因为中风死了，异乎寻常的中风。这是件不好理解的怪事，因为尽管我最近才开始同情他，我肯定从来没喜欢过这个人。但是一看到他死了，我却也泪如泉涌起来。这是我知道的第二个起死亡，而那时我心中对第一起死亡的哀恸仍然鲜明。

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