国王的象叉（四）
【英】鲁迪亚德·吉卜林 著
熊良銋 译
小猎手之歌
孔雀莫尔尚未展翅，猴民们尚未呼号，
老鹰契尔尚未从高空猛扑下去，
莽林里轻轻掠过一个黑影和一声叹息——
他就是恐惧，小猎手呀，他就是恐惧！
一个等候、注视着的幽灵轻轻地跑过林间空地，
悄声细语在远远近近不断延续；
你的额头上汗水淋漓，因为他目前还在游弋——
他就是恐惧，小猎手呀，他就是恐惧！
月亮还没有爬上山岗，岩石上的光道尚未形成，
往下倾斜的小径阴湿而又沉郁，
你的身后传来粗重的呼吸——呼哧呼哧响彻夜空——
那就是恐惧，小猎手呀，那就是恐惧！
在紧要关头拉开弓；让尖叫的箭往前直冲；
在虚虚玄玄的灌木丛里把长矛投出去；
可是你既无力又放松，鲜血流下了你的面孔——
那就是恐惧，小猎手呀，他那就是恐惧！
热云吮足了暴风雨，裂口的松树倒下身亡，
胡抽乱打的是那眯眼咆哮的暴风骤雨，
穿过战鼓似的雷声，有一个声音最为响亮——
那就是恐惧，小猎手呀，那就是恐惧！
这时洪水泱泱；无脚的圆石也乱跳乱闯——
雷电把最细小的叶脉也暴露无余——
可是你的喉咙已关闭枯僵，你的心捶打着胸腔：
这就是恐惧，小猎手呀，这就是恐惧！
附录：原文
The King’s Ankus（IV）
Written by Rudyard Kipling
Translated by William Xiong
Bagheera leaped back to the original trail, leaving Mowgli stooping above the curious narrow track of the wild little man of the woods.
“Now,” said Bagheera, moving step by step along the chain of footprints, “I, Big Foot, turn aside here. Now I hide me behind a rock and stand still, not daring to shift my feet. Cry thy trail, Little Brother.”
“Now, I, Little Foot, come to the rock,” said Mowgli, running up his trail. “Now, I sit down under the rock, leaning upon my right hand, and resting my bow between my toes. I wait long, for the mark of my feet is deep here.”
“I also,” said Bagheera, hidden behind the rock. “I wait, resting the end of the thorn-pointed thing upon a stone. It slips, for here is a scratch upon the stone. Cry thy trail, Little Brother.”
“On
The panther had been casting in every direction to see how Big Foot’s trail led away from behind the rock. Then he gave tongue:
“I come from behind the rock upon my knees, dragging the
thorn-pointed thing. Seeing no on
Bagheera swept on along the clearly-marked trail, and Mowgli followed the steps of the Gond. For some time there was silence in the Jungle.
“Where art thou, Little Foot?” cried Bagheera. Mowgli’s voice answered him not fifty yards to the right.
“Um!” said the Panther, with a deep cough. “The two run side by side, drawing nearer!”
They raced on another half-mile, always keeping about the same distance, till Mowgli, whose head was not so close to the ground as Bagheera’s, cried: “They have met. Good hunting — look! Here stood Little Foot, with his knee on a rock —and yonder is Big Foot indeed!”
Not ten yards in front of them, stretched across a pile of broken rocks, lay the body of a villager of the district, a long, small-feathered Gond arrow through his back and breast.
“Was the Thuu so old and so mad, Little Brother?” said Bagheera
gently. “Here is on
“Follow on. But where is the drinker of elephant’s blood — the red-eyed thorn?”
“Little Foot has it — perhaps. It is single-foot again now.”
The single trail of a light man who had been running quickly and bearing a burden on his left shoulder held on round a long, low spur of dried grass, where each footfall seemed, to the sharp eyes of the trackers, marked in hot iron.
Neither spoke till the trail ran up to the ashes of a camp-fire hidden in a ravine.
“Again!” said Bagheera, checking as though he had been turned into stone.
The body of a little wizened Gond lay with its feet in the ashes, and Bagheera looked inquiringly at Mowgli.
“That was done with a bamboo,” said the boy, after on
“Indeed, they killed for the sake of the red and blue stones,” Bagheera answered. “Remember, I was in the King’s cages at Oodeypore.”
“On
“It is not good hunting to leave game afoot. Follow!” said the panther. “Those eight shod feet have not gone far.”
No more was said for fully an hour, as they worked up the broad trail of the four men with shod feet.
It was clear, hot daylight now, and Bagheera said, “I smell smoke.”
Men are always more ready to eat than to run, Mowgli answered, trotting in and out between the low scrub bushes of the new Jungle they were exploring. Bagheera, a little to his left, made an indescribable noise in his throat.
“Here is on
“That was done by the bamboo again,” said Mowgli. “See! that
white dust is what men eat. They have taken the kill from this on
“It is the third,” said Bagheera.
“I will go with new, big frogs to the Father of Cobras, and feed him fat,” said Mowgli to himself. “The drinker of elephant’s blood is Death himself — but still I do not understand!”
“Follow!” said Bagheera.
They had not gone half a mile farther when they heard Ko, the Crow, singing the death-song in the top of a tamarisk under whose shade three men were lying. A half-dead fire smoked in the centre of the circle, under an iron plate which held a blackened and burned cake of unleavened bread. Close to the fire, and blazing in the sunshine, lay the ruby-and-turquoise ankus.
“The thing works quickly; all ends here,” said Bagheera. “How did THESE die, Mowgli? There is no mark on any.”
A Jungle-dweller gets to learn by experience as much as many doctors know of poisonous plants and berries. Mowgli sniffed the smoke that came up from the fire, broke off a morsel of the blackened bread, tasted it, and spat it out again.
“Apple of Death,” he coughed. “The first must have made it ready in the food for THESE, who killed him, having first killed the Gond.”
“Good hunting, indeed! The kills follow close,” said Bagheera.
“Apple of Death” is what the Jungle call thorn-apple or dhatura, the readiest poison in all India.
“What now?” said the panther. “Must thou and I kill each other for yonder red-eyed slayer?”
“Can it speak?” said Mowgli in a whisper. “Did I do it a wrong
when I threw it away? Between us two it can do no wrong, for we do not desire
what men desire. If it be left here, it will assuredly continue to kill men on
“What matter? They are on
“They are cubs none the less; and a cub will drown himself to bite the moon’s light on the water. The fault was mine,” said Mowgli, who spoke as though he knew all about everything. “I will never again bring into the Jungle strange things — not though they be as beautiful as flowers. This”— he handled the ankus gingerly —“goes back to the Father of Cobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near these sleepers. Also we must bury HIM, lest he run away and kill another six. Dig me a hole under that tree.”
“But, Little Brother,” said Bagheera, moving off to the spot, “I tell thee it is no fault of the blood-drinker. The trouble is with the men.”
“All on
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Two nights later, as the White Cobra sat mourning in the darkness of the vault, ashamed, and robbed, and alone, the turquoise ankus whirled through the hole in the wall, and clashed on the floor of golden coins.
“Father of Cobras,” said Mowgli (he was careful to keep the
other side of the wall), “get thee a young and ripe on
“Ah-ha! It returns, then. I said the thing was Death. How comes it that thou art still alive?” the old Cobra mumbled, twining lovingly round the ankus-haft.
“By the Bull that bought me, I do not know! That thing has killed six times in a night. Let him go out no more.”
The Song of the Little Hunter
Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,
Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,
Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh—
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!
Very softly down the glade runs a warning, watching shade,
And the whisper spreads and widens far and near;
And the sweat is on the brow, for the passes even now—
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!
Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, the rocks are ribbed with light,
When the downward dippling trails are dank and dreer,
Comes a breathing hard behind thee—snuffle-snuffle through the night—
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
On thy knees and draw the brow; bid the shrilling arrows go;
In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear;
But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left thy cheek—
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
When the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered pine-trees fall,
When the blinding, blaring rain-squalls lash and veer;
Through the war-gongs of the thinder rings a voice more loud and call——
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
Now spates are banked and deep; now the footless boulders leap—
Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf-rib clear—
But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side hanmmers:
This is Fear, O Little Hunter,thist is Fear!
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