Chapter 49

In the morning I could not move. I was pinned by weakness to the tarpaulin. Even thinking was exhausting. I applied myself to thinking straight. At length, as slowly as a caravan of camels crossing a desert, some thoughts came together.

The day was like the previous one, warm and overcast, the clouds low, the breeze light. That was one thought. The boat was rocking gently, that was another.

I thought of sustenance for the first time. I had not had a drop to drink or a bite to eat or a minute of sleep in three days. Finding this obvious explanation for my weakness brought me a little strength.

Richard Parker was still on board. In fact, he was directly beneath me. Incredible that such a thing should need consent to be true, but it was only after much deliberation, upon assessing various mental items and points of view, that I concluded that it was not a dream or a delusion or a misplaced memory or a fancy or any other such falsity, but a solid, true thing witnessed while in a weakened, highly agitated state. The truth of it would be confirmed as soon as I felt well enough to investigate.

How I had failed to notice for two and a half days a 450-pound Bengal tiger in a lifeboat twenty-six feet long was a conundrum I would have to try to crack later, when I had more energy. The feat surely made Richard Parker the largest stowaway, proportionally speaking, in the history of navigation. From tip of nose to tip of tail he took up over a third of the length of the ship he was on.

You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better. We see that in sports all the time, don't we? The tennis challenger starts strong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The champion racks up the games. But in the final set, when the challenger has nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant, daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the champion must work hard to get those last points. So it was with me. To cope with a hyena seemed remotely possible, but I was so obviously outmatched by Richard Parker that it wasn't even worth worrying about. With a tiger aboard, my life was over. That being settled, why not do something about my parched throat?

I believe it was this that saved my life that morning, that I was quite literally dying of thirst. Now that the word had popped into my head I couldn't think of anything else, as if the word itself were salty and the more I thought of it, the worse the effect. I have heard that the hunger for air exceeds as a compelling sensation the thirst for water. Only for a few minutes, I say. After a few minutes you die and the discomfort of asphyxiation goes away. Whereas thirst is a drawn-out affair. Look: Christ on the Cross died of suffocation, but His only complaint was of thirst. If thirst can be so taxing that even God Incarnate complains about it, imagine the effect on a regular human. It was enough to make me go raving mad. I have never known a worse physical hell than this putrid taste and pasty feeling in the mouth, this unbearable pressure at the back of the throat, this sensation that my blood was turning to a thick syrup that barely flowed. Truly, by comparison, a tiger was nothing.

And so I pushed aside all thoughts of Richard Parker and fearlessly went exploring for fresh water.

The divining rod in my mind dipped sharply and a spring gushed water when I remembered that I was on a genuine, regulation lifeboat and that such a lifeboat was surely outfitted with supplies. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable proposition. What captain would fail in so elementary a way to ensure the safety of his crew? What ship chandler would not think of making a little extra money under the noble guise of saving lives? It was settled. There was water aboard. All I had to do was find it.

Which meant I had to move.

I made it to the middle of the boat, to the edge of the tarpaulin. It was a hard crawl. I felt I was climbing the side of a volcano and I was about to look over the rim into a boiling cauldron of orange lava. I lay flat. I carefully brought my head over. I did not look over any more than I had to. I did not see Richard Parker. The hyena was plainly visible, though. It was back behind what was left of the zebra. It was looking at me.

I was no longer afraid of it. It wasn't ten feet away, yet my heart didn't skip a beat. Richard Parker's presence had at least that useful aspect. To be afraid of this ridiculous dog when there was a tiger about was like being afraid of splinters when trees are falling down. I became very angry at the animal. "You ugly, foul creature," I muttered. The only reason I didn't stand up and beat it off the lifeboat with a stick was lack of strength and stick, not lack of heart.

Did the hyena sense something of my mastery? Did it say to itself, "Super alpha is watching me-I better not move?" I don't know. At any rate, it didn't move. In fact, in the way it ducked its head it seemed to want to hide from me. But it was no use hiding. It would get its just deserts soon enough.

Richard Parker also explained the animals' strange behaviour. Now it was clear why the hyena had confined itself to such an absurdly small space behind the zebra and why it had waited so long before killing it. It was fear of the greater beast and fear of touching the greater beast's food. The strained, temporary peace between Orange Juice and the hyena, and my reprieve, were no doubt due to the same reason: in the face of such a superior predator, all of us were prey, and normal ways of preying were affected. It seemed the presence of a tiger had saved me from a hyena-surely a textbook example of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

But the great beast was not behaving like a great beast, to such an extent that the hyena had taken liberties. Richard Parker's passivity, and for three long days, needed explaining. Only in two ways could I account for it: sedation and seasickness. Father regularly sedated a number of the animals to lessen their stress. Might he have sedated Richard Parker shortly before the ship sank? Had the shock of the shipwreck-the noises, the falling into the sea, the terrible struggle to swim to the lifeboat-increased the effect of the sedative? Had seasickness taken over after that? These were the only plausible explanations I could come up with.

I lost interest in the question. Only water interested me.

I took stock of the lifeboat.

第四十九章

    早晨，我无法动弹。虚弱的身体将我钉在了油布上。每一次思考都让我筋疲力尽。我让自己专心于正确的思考。最后，几个想法就像穿越沙漠的一队骆驼一样，慢慢地聚到了一起。

    这一天就像前一天一样，空气温暖，阴云密布，云很低，风很轻。这是一个想法。船在轻轻地摇晃，这是另一个想法。

    我第一次想到了食物。三天来我没有喝一滴水，没有吃一口东西，没有睡一分钟。显然这就是我为什么如此虚弱的原因。这一发现让我有了一点儿力气。

    理查德·帕克还在船上。实际上，他就在我下面。这样一件事情还需要经过确认才能相信是真的，真让人难以置信，但是我在仔细考虑了很久以后，在对心里的不同想法和观点做了评估以后，才得出结论：这不是一个梦，不是一个错觉，不是一个错误的记忆，不是一个幻觉，也不是任何其他不真实的东西，而是我在虚弱和非常焦虑的状态下看见的一件实实在在的真实的事情。一旦我感到自己好一些了，可以去调查了，我就会去证实这件事情的真实性。

    两天半以来，我一直都没有注意到在这条26英尺长的救生艇上有一只450磅重的孟加拉虎，这个谜题等我以后更有力气的时候一定要努力解开。按比例算，这样的事迹肯定使理查德·帕克成了航海史上最大的偷渡者。从鼻尖算到尾巴尖，他的身体占据了船长的三分之一。

    你也许认为那一刻我丧失了所有的希望。的确如此。正因为如此，我振作了超来’，感到好多了。我们常常在体育比赛中看到这样的情形，难道不是吗？网球赛的挑战者开始的时候很强壮，但是在比赛中很快便失去了信心。上届冠军连连得分。但是在最后一局，当挑战者已经没有什么好输的时候，他又开始变得放松，大胆，无忧无虑。突然，他开始猛烈拼杀，冠军必须打得非常艰苦才能得到那最后的几分。我也是一样。对付一只鬣狗似乎还有一点点儿可能性，但是理查德·帕克显然比我强壮多了，我甚至都不值得去担心。

    船上有一只老虎，我完了。既然这一点已经注定了，为什么不为我干渴的喉咙做点儿什么呢？

    我相信那天早晨救了我的命的就是这件事，就是我真的快要渴死了这件事。这个词已经跳进了我的头脑里，我再也不能想任何别的事，似乎这个词本身是咸的，我越想越糟。

    我听说对空气的渴望是一种非常强烈的感觉，胜过了对水的渴望。我说，这种对空气的渴望只有几分钟。几分钟以后你就死了，窒息的不舒服感觉消失了。而干渴却是一件长期的事。瞧：十字架上的耶稣因窒息而死，但是他惟一的抱怨是太渴了。如果干渴如此累人，甚至上帝的化身都因此而抱怨，那么想想看这对一个普通人的影响吧。这足以让我疯得胡言乱语。我从不知道还有比嘴里这种腐臭的味道和面糊似的感觉，喉咙后面无法忍受的压迫感，还有血液正变成黏稠的糖浆，几乎无法流动的感觉更糟糕的肉体折磨。的确，相比之下，老虎根本算不了什么。

    于是，我把关于理查德·帕克的所有想法放到一边，毫不畏惧地去寻找淡水。

    我心中能够探测水源的占卜杖灵敏地向下伸去，一口泉眼喷出水来，因为我想起来自己是在一条真正的标准的救生艇上，这样的救生艇一定备有各种补给品的。这似乎是个很有道理的主意。哪一个船长会做不到这样一件保证自己船员安全的最基本的事情呢？哪一个船用杂货零售商不会想到在拯救生命的借口下多赚一些钱呢？这是肯定的。船上有淡水。我所要做的只是找到淡水在哪里。

    这就是说我得移动。

    我朝船中间、油布边缘爬去。这是艰难的爬行。我感到自己正在爬一座火山山坡，就要越过火山口边缘，看到一大锅沸腾的橘黄色岩浆。我趴在地上，小心地把头移过去。我只把头伸到足以让我看清下面的情况的地方。我没有看见理查德·帕克。但是鬣狗却可以看得很清楚。它在斑马被吃剩的尸体后面。正看着我。

    我已经不再害怕它了。它离我还不到10英尺远，但是我的心没有停止跳动一下。理查德·帕克的存在至少有这么一点用处。在老虎面前害怕这样一只滑稽的狗，就像树倒下来时还害怕碎木片。我对这只动物非常生气。“你这只丑陋的臭东西。"我咕哝着说。我没有站起来用一根棍子把它打下船去，这只是因为我没有力气也没有棍子，而不是因为没有勇气。

    鬣狗感觉到了我的优势吗？它有没有对自己说：“超级老大正看着我呢？我最好别动？"我不知道。不管怎样，它没有动。实际上，它低着头的样子似乎说明它想躲开我。但是躲藏是没有用的。很快它就会得到应有的惩罚。

    理查德·帕克也是这只动物行为古怪的原因。鬣狗为什么不离开斑马身后这样一个狭小的空间，它为什么等了那么长时间才把斑马杀死，其中的原因现在已经清楚了。它是害怕那只比自己更大的野兽，害怕碰那只更大的野兽的食物。毫无疑问，“橘子汁”和鬣狗之间能有勉强的暂时的和平，我钝暂时不受侵害，都是由于这同样的原因：在这样一只强大的食肉动物面前，我们都是猎物，平常的捕猎方式受到了影响。似乎老虎的存在把我从鬣狗嘴里救了出来——显然这是教科书上一个跳出油锅又落火坑的例子。

    但是这只巨兽的行为却不像一只巨兽，太不像了，以至于鬣狗敢于冒险。长长的三天当中，理查德·帕克表现消极，这需要解释。我只能想出两个原因：镇静剂和晕船。父亲通常给一些动物注射镇静剂，以缓解它们的紧张情绪。在船沉没之前他刚给理查德·帕克注射了镇静剂吗？沉船给他带来的震惊——吵闹声，落进海里，挣扎着游到救生艇上——增强J，镇静剂的作用吗？在此之后他又开始晕船？这些是我惟一能想到的可能的解释。

    我对这个问题失去了兴趣。我感兴趣的只有水。

    我仔细检查了救生艇。