英語聽書《白鯨記》第17期

Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobsor broken crockery, there is no telling, but I rolledabout a good deal, and could not sleep for a longtime. At last I slid off into a light doze, and hadpretty nearly made a good offing towards the land ofNod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage,and saw a glimmer of light come into the room fromunder the door.

Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer,the infernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still,and resolved not to say a word till spoken to. Holdinga light in one hand, and that identical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered theroom, and without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on thefloor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords of the large bag I beforespoke of as being in the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted forsome time while employed in unlacing the bag's mouth. This accomplished, however, heturned round—when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, purplish, yellowcolour, here and there stuck over with large blackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought,he's a terrible bedfellow; he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just from thesurgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainlysaw they could not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They werestains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this; but soon an inkling ofthe truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man—a whaleman too—who, fallingamong the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in thecourse of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, thoughtI, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then, what tomake of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completelyindependent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat oftropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a purplish yellowone. However, I had never been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced theseextraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me likelightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened hisbag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he thentook the New Zealand head—a ghastly thing enough—and crammed it down into the bag. Henow took off his hat—a new beaver hat—when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise.There was no hair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a small scalp-knottwisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewedskull. Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of itquicker than ever I bolted a dinner.

Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floorback.