英语听书《白鲸记》第18期

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 Ignorance is the parent of fear,and being completely nonplussed³ and confounded about the stranger, 

 I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. 

 In fact,I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, 

 and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable⁴ in him. 

 Meanwhile,he continued the business of undressing,and at last showed his chest and arms. 

 As I live,these covered parts of him were checkered⁵ with the same squares as his face; 

 his back,too,was all over the same dark squares;he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years ' War,and just escaped from it with a sticking plaster shirt. 

 Still more,his very legs were marked,as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. 

 It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable⁶ savage⁷ or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, 

 and so landed in this Christian⁸ country.I quaked to think of it.A peddler of heads too perhaps the heads of his own brothers. 

 He might take a fancy to mine heavens!look at that tomahawk! 

 But there was no time for shuddering,or now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, 

 and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen.Going to his heavy grego,or wrapall, 

 or dreadnaught,which he had previously⁹ hung on a chair,he fumbled¹⁰ in the pockets, 

 and produced at length a curious little deformed¹¹ image with a hunch¹² on its back, 

 and exactly the colour of a three days ' old Congo baby.Remembering the embalmed¹³ head, 

 at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner. 

 But seeing that it was not at all limber,and that it glistened¹⁴ a good deal like polished ebony, 

 I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol¹⁵,which indeed it proved to be. 

 For now the savage goes up to the empty fire place,and removing the papered fire board, 

 sets up this little hunch backed image,like a tenpin,between the andirons. 

 The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, 

 so that I thought this fire place made a very appropriate little shrine¹⁶ or chapel¹⁷ for his Congo idol. 

 I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image,feeling but ill at ease meantime to see what was next to follow. 

 First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket,and places them carefully before the idol; 

 then laying a bit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp,he kindled¹⁸ the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. 

 Presently,after many hasty snatches into the fire,and still hastier withdrawals¹⁹ of his fingers, 

 he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit;then blowing off the heat and ashes a little,he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. 

 But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all. 

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