血字的研究-Chapter 18

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夏洛克•福尔摩斯托人找来了一位马车夫，正当所有人都以为他要出门旅游时，他却把手铐套在了马车夫的手上，原来，这位，马车夫就是凶手。

Chapter 18

IN the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier against the advance of civilisation.

From the Sierra Nevada（内华达州）to Nebraska（内布拉斯加州）, and from the Yellowstone River（黄石河）in the north to the Colorado（科罗拉多州）upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence.

Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys.

There are swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged cañons; and there are enormous plains, which in winter are white with snow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali dust.

They all preserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.

There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees（波尼族）or of Blackfeet（黑脚族）may occasionally traverse（横穿）it in order to reach other hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their prairies.

The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.

In the whole world there can be no more dreary（沉闷的）view than that from the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco（布兰卡山脉）.

As far as the eye can reach stretches the great flat plain- land, all dusted over with patches of alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes.

On the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks, with their rugged（崎岖的）summits flecked with snow.

In this great stretch of country there is no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to（和…有关）life.

There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull, grey earth—above all, there is absolute silence.

Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness（荒野）; nothing but silence—complete and heart-subduing silence.

It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad plain. That is hardly true.

Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is lost in the extreme distance.

It is rutted（轧）with wheels and trodden down by the feet of many adventurers.

Here and there there are scattered white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull deposit of alkali.

Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate.

The former have belonged to oxen（牛）, and the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one may trace this ghastly（可怕的）caravan route by these scattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.

Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller.

His appearance was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the region.

An observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty.

His face was lean and haggard（憔悴的）, and the brown parchment-like（像羊皮纸一样的）skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones; his long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white; his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with an unnatural lustre; while the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton.

As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and yet his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry（瘦而结实的）and vigorous constitution.

His gaunt face, however, and his clothes, which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man was dying—dying from hunger and from thirst.

He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little elevation（高度）, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water.

Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage（荒野的）mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture.

In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag（峭壁）, he was about to die.

"Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence," he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder（大圆石）.

Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl（披肩）, which he had carried slung over his right shoulder.

It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some little violence.

Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a little moaning cry, and from it there protruded（伸出）a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled（有斑点的）, dimpled（有小窝的）fists.

"You've hurt me!" said a childish voice reproachfully.

"Have I though," the man answered penitently, "I didn't go for to do it."

As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother's care. The child was pale and wan（病态的）, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her companion.

"How is it now?" he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing（摩擦）the towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

"Kiss it and make it well," she said, with perfect gravity, shoving（挪）the injured part up to him."That's what mother used to do. Where's mother?"

"Mother's gone. I guess you'll see her before long."

"Gone, eh!" said the little girl. "Funny, she didn't say good-bye; she 'most always did if she was just goin' over to Auntie's for tea, and now she's been away three days. Say, it's awful dry, ain't it? Ain't there no water, nor nothing to eat?"

"No, there ain't nothing, dearie. You'll just need to be patient awhile, and then you'll be all right. Put your head up agin（靠着）me like that, and then you'll feel bullier（好一些）. It ain't easy to talk when your lips is like leather, but I guess I'd best let you know how the cards lie. What's that you've got?"

"Pretty things! Fine things!" cried the little girl enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica（云母）. "When we goes back to home I'll give them to brother Bob."

"You'll see prettier things than them soon," said the man confidently. "You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though—you remember when we left the river?"

"Oh, yes."（1173 words）

-今日短语-

1. many a许多

2. serve as充当

3. pick up抓捕

4. be flecked with点缀着

5. appertaining to和…有关

6. tread down踏平

7. trace out描绘出，探寻出

8. in the hope of期待着，希望

9. sling over挎着

备注：本专辑为知米阅读提升营配套音频，方便学员循环收听。