放莽林进入(二)
【英】鲁迪亚德·吉卜林 著
熊良銋 译
附录:原文
Letting in the Jungle(II)
Written by Rudyard Kipling
Translated by William Xiong
Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and
naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter reached for at
least twenty miles round. They all sat down and smoked, and Bagheera and the
others came up and watched while Buldeo began to tell the story of Mowgli, the
Devil-child, from on
“When?” said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much like to be present at the ceremony.
Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned, because the village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first. After that they would dispose of Messua and her husband, and divide their lands and buffaloes among the village. Messua’s husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes, too. It was an excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo thought; and people who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle were clearly the worst kind of witches.
But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English heard of it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad people, who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.
Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that
Messua and her husband had died of snake-bite. THAT was all arranged, and the
on
The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their
stars they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as Buldeo would
find him if any on
“What says he? What says he? What says he?” the wolves repeated every few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch part of the story, which was a little beyond him, and then he said that the man and woman who had been so kind to him were trapped.
“Does Man trap Man?” said Bagheera.
“So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad together. What have Messua and her man to do with me that they should be put in a trap; and what is all this talk about the Red Flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do to Messua they will not do till Buldeo returns. And so ——” Mowgli thought hard, with his fingers playing round the haft of the skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners went off very valiantly in single file.
“I go hot-foot back to the Man–Pack,” Mowgli said at last.
“And those?” said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the brown backs of the charcoal-burners.
“Sing them home,” said Mowgli, with a grin; “I do not wish them to be at the village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold them?”
Gray Brother bared his white teeth in contempt. “We can head them round and round in circles like tethered goats —if I know Man.”
“That I do not need. Sing to them a little, lest they be lonely on the road, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the sweetest. Go with them, Bagheera, and help make that song. When night is shut down, meet me by the village —Gray Brother knows the place.”
“It is no light hunting to work for a Man-cub. When shall I sleep?” said Bagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed that he was delighted with the amusement. “Me to sing to naked men! But let us try.”
He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a
long, long, “Good hunting”— a midnight call in the afternoon, which was quite
awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it rumble, and rise, and fall, and die
off in a creepy sort of whine behind him, and laughed to himself as he ran
through the Jungle. He could see the charcoal-burners huddled in a knot; old
Buldeo’s gun-barrel waving, like a banana-leaf, to every point of the compass
at on
On
No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
And we run home again.
In morning hush, each rock and bush
Stands hard, and high, and raw:
Then give the Call: “Good rest to all
That keep The Jungle Law!”
Now horn and pelt our peoples melt
In covert to abide;
Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill
Our Jungle Barons glide.
Now, stark and plain, Man’s oxen strain,
That draw the new-yoked plough;
Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red
Above the lit talao.
Ho! Get to lair! The sun’s aflare
Behind the breathing grass:
And cracking through the young bamboo
The warning whispers pass.
By day made strange, the woods we range
With blinking eyes we scan;
While down the skies the wild duck cries
“The Day — the Day to Man!”
The dew is dried that drenched our hide
Or washed about our way;
And where we drank, the puddled bank
Is crisping into clay.
The traitor Dark gives up each mark
Of stretched or hooded claw;
Then hear the Call: “Good rest to all
That keep the Jungle Law!”
But no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping
scorn the Four threw into every word of it, as they heard the trees crash when
the men hastily climbed up into the branches, and Buldeo began repeating
incantations and charms. Then they lay down and slept, for, like all who live
by their own exertions, they were of a methodical cast of mind; and no on
Meantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the
hour, swinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped
months among men. The on
It was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered
grazing-grounds, and the dhak-tree where Gray Brother had waited for him on the
morning that he killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the whole breed and
community of Man, something jumped up in his throat and made him catch his
breath when he looked at the village roofs. He noticed that every on
“Men must always be making traps for men, or they are not content,” said Mowgli. “Last night it was Mowgli — but that night seems many Rains ago. To-night it is Messua and her man. To-morrow, and for very many nights after, it will be Mowgli’s turn again.”
He crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua’s hut, and looked through the window into the room. There lay Messua, gagged, and bound hand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning: her husband was tied to the gaily-painted bedstead. The door of the hut that opened into the street was shut fast, and three or four people were sitting with their backs to it.
Mowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very fairly. He argued that so long as they could eat, and talk, and smoke, they would not do anything else; but as soon as they had fed they would begin to be dangerous. Buldeo would be coming in before long, and if his escort had done its duty, Buldeo would have a very interesting tale to tell. So he went in through the window, and, stooping over the man and the woman, cut their thongs, pulling out the gags, and looked round the hut for some milk.
Messua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten
and stoned all the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over her mouth just in
time to stop a scream. Her husband was on
“I knew — I knew he would come,” Messua sobbed at last. “Now do I KNOW that he is my son!” and she hugged Mowgli to her heart. Up to that time Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he began to tremble all over, and that surprised him immensely.
“Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?” he asked, after a pause.
“To be put to the death for making a son of thee — what else?” said the man sullenly. “Look! I bleed.”
Messua said nothing, but it was at her wounds that Mowgli looked, and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood.
“Whose work is this?” said he. “There is a price to pay.”
“The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many cattle. THEREFORE she and I are witches, because we gave thee shelter.”
“I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale.”
“I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?” Messua said timidly. “Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and because I loved thee very dearly. They said that I was thy mother, the mother of a devil, and therefore worthy of death.”
“And what is a devil?” said Mowgli. “Death I have seen.”
The man looked up gloomily, but Messua laughed. “See!” she said to her husband, “I knew — I said that he was no sorcerer. He is my son — my son!”
“Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?” the man answered. “We be as dead already.”
“Yonder is the road to the Jungle”— Mowgli pointed through the window. “Your hands and feet are free. Go now.”
“We do not know the Jungle, my son, as — as thou knowest,” Messua began. “I do not think that I could walk far.”
“And the men and women would be upon our backs and drag us here again,” said the husband.
“H’m!” said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with
the tip of his skinning-knife; “I have no wish to do harm to any on
“He was sent out this morning to kill thee,” Messua cried. “Didst thou meet him?”
“Yes — we — I met him. He has a tale to tell and while he is telling it there is time to do much. But first I will learn what they mean. Think where ye would go, and tell me when I come back.”
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