英语听书《白鲸记》第17期

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 but I rolled about a good deal,and could not sleep for a long time. 

 At last I slid off into a light doze,and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, 

 when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage,and saw a glimmer² of light come into the room from under the door. 

 Lord save me,thinks I,that must be the harpooneer,the infernal head peddler. 

 But I lay perfectly³ still,and resolved not to say a word till spoken to.Holding a light in one hand, 

 and that identical New Zealand head in the other,the stranger entered the room, 

 and without looking towards the bed,placed his candle a good way off from me on the floor in one corner, 

 and then began working away at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke⁴ of as being in the room. 

 I was all eagerness to see his face,but he kept it averted⁵ for some time while employed in unlacing the bag's mouth. 

 This accomplished,however,he turned round when,good heavens!what a sight!Such a face!It was of a dark,purplish, 

 yellow colour,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 the surgeon. 

 But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so towards the light,that I plainly saw they could not be sticking plasters at all, 

 those black squares on his cheeks.They were stains of some sort or other. 

 At first I knew not what to make of this;but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. 

 I remembered a story of a white man a whaleman too who,falling among the cannibals,had been tattooed⁶ by them. 

 I concluded that this harpooneer,in the course of his distant voyages,must have met with a similar adventure. 

 And what is it,thought I,after all!It's only his outside;a man can be honest in any sort of skin. 

 But then,what to make of his unearthly complexion,that part of it,I mean,lying round about,and completely independent of the squares of tattooing⁷. 

 To be sure,it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning; 

 but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. 

 However,I had never been in the South Seas;and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin. 

 Now,while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning,this harpooneer never noticed me at all. 

 But,after some difficulty having opened his bag,he commenced fumbling⁸ 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 then took the New Zealand head a ghastly thing enough and crammed⁹ it down into the bag. 

 He now took off his hat a new beaver¹⁰ 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 knot twisted up on his forehead. 

 His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed¹¹ skull¹².Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, 

 I would have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. 

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

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