(原版)澳大利亞語文第六冊 LESSON 34

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LESSON 34 THE DIVER AND THE TURTLE

THE DIVER AND THE TURTLE

II

The water was not very deep where I was working, and there was any amount of light. You have no conception [1] , until you have been there yourself, what a queer world it is down where the pearl-oyster grows. The sea weeds were all sorts of colours—or rather, I should say, they were all sorts of reds and yellows and greens. The rest of the colours of the rainbow you might find in the shells which lay around underfoot or went crawling among the weeds; and away overhead darted and flashed the queerest-looking fish, like birds in a yellow sky. There were lots of big anemones [2] too, waving, stretching, and curling their many-coloured tentacles [3] .

I saw everything with extraordinary vividness about that time, but I wasn't thinking much just then about the beauties of nature. I was trying to think of some way of getting assistance from Larry. At length I concluded I had better give him the signal to haul me up. Finding that I was stuck, he would, I reasoned, hoist the anchor and pull the boat right above the place of my captivity. Then he could easily send me down a hatchet wherewith to chop my way to freedom.

Just as I had come to this resolve, a black shadow passed over my head, and I looked up quickly. It was a big turtle. I didn't like this, I can tell you; but I kept perfectly still, hoping the new-comer would not notice me.

He paddled along very slowly, with his queer little head stuck far out, and presently he noticed my air-tube. My blood fairly turned to ice in my veins as I saw him paddle up and take hold of it in a gingerly fashion with his beak. Luckily, he didn't seem to think it would be good to eat; but I knew that if he should bite it I would be a dead man in about a minute, drowned inside my helmet like a rat in a hole. It is in an emergency like this that a man learns what real terror is.

In my desperation I stooped down and tore with both hands at the shells and weeds for something I might hurl at the turtle, thinking thus perhaps to distract his attention from my air-tube. But what do you suppose happened? Why, I succeeded in pulling up a great lump of shells and stones all bedded together. The mass was fully two feet long. My heart gave a leap of exultation [4] , for I knew at once just what to do with the instrument thus providentially [5] placed in my hands. Instead of trying to hurl it at the turtle, I reached out with it, and managed to scrape that precious hand-spike within grasp. As I gathered it once more into my grip, I straightened up and was a man again.

Just at this moment the turtle decided to take a hand. I had given the signal to be hauled up at the very moment when I took hold of that lump of stones, and now I could feel Larry tugging energetically on the rope. The turtle finished with the tube, and, paddling down to see what was making such a commotion in the water, he tackled me at once.

THE DIVER, THE CLAM, AND THE TURTLE

As it happened, however, he took hold of the big copper nut on the top of the head-piece; and that was too tough a morsel even for his beak, so that all he could do was to shake me a bit. With him at my head, and the clam on my leg, and Larry jerking on my waistband, you may imagine I was not happy. However, I began jabbing my hand-spike into the unprotected parts of the turtle's body, feeling for some vital spot. In a moment the water was red with blood; but that made no difference to me, and for a while it didn't seem to make much difference to the turtle either. All I could do was to keep on jabbing as close to the neck as I could, and between the front flippers. And the turtle kept on chewing at the copper joint.

I believe it was the clam that helped me most effectually in that struggle. You see, that grip on my leg kept me as steady as a rock. If it hadn't been for that, the turtle would have had me off my feet in no time, and would probably have soon got the better of me. As it was, after a few moments of this desperate stabbing with the hand-spike I managed to kill my assailant; and even in death that iron beak of his maintained its hold on the copper nut of my helmet. Having no means of cutting the brute's head off, I turned my attention to the big clam, and with the steel point of my hand-spike I soon released my foot.

Then Larry hauled me up. He told me afterwards he was never in all his life so startled as when that great turtle came to the surface hanging on to the top of my helmet. The creature was so heavy that Larry could not haul us both into the boat; so he slashed the head off with a hatchet, and then lifted me aboard. Beyond a blue-and-black leg, I was not much the worse for that adventure; but I was so used up with the excitement of it all that I wouldn't go down for any more pearls that day."

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[1] conception: Idea, understanding.

[2] anemones: Sea plants.

[3] tentacles: Long waving arms.

[4] exultation: Great joy.

[5] providentially: Given by God; fortunately.