"You are all wet, Saranga! Listen to me, on this merchant ship doing ocean trade, the bow looks like a dragon. " Frank Luke's honey-colored hair forms a canvas in the sun, which is colorful because it shakes.

"Dragon? What kind of sea dragon? A big reptile covered with acne like a toad? Come on, I've seen how they build a' sea dragon' at the shipyard in Bergen, and I know what it is. "

"You don't know anything, you pseudo-pedant stealing vestments!"

Saranga's thin arm began to wave in front of his eyes, as if to drive away the cows and flies blocking his sight. "I know! I know what your stupid brain and Hailong lack! It's called ... it's called' aesthetics'! Aesthetically speaking,' eagle' is much superior to any big reptile in the water! "

"Fuck your aesthetics, you seem to feel that you really stayed at that Besancon University for six years."

"I don't like eagles. Sounds like an Indian. " Nu echoed Frank Luke.

Hearing Nukou's words, Levy thought that the signal of democratic discussion appeared. "As for me, I believe Saranga. Maybe his master's hat is fake, but he has really been to the' college', where he can learn a lot, a lot of things we don't know, such as ... "

"Shut up little rascal! We are talking about a boat, a real boat, not a bottle or a diaper! " Frank Luke interrupted Levi Jr., but not loudly, as if he didn't think it was worth his effort.

Little Levi immediately felt this contempt. And because of this contempt rather than being interrupted, the freckles on his face began to attract each other sharply, making a gesture of unity and erupting from his face. If no one intervenes, I bet it will burst into another crying and swearing, which will eventually be ended by Nu's binding technology.

"Use seals."

I opened my mouth, so everyone else was silent. I know this is not because of my authority. Recently, more and more frequent quarrels have gradually weakened my authority, but because of what I said.

The island is full of seals. The five of us will know soon after we wake up from the beach. The first person to regain consciousness was not me, but little Levi, who seemed to have supernatural intuition about seals. While Frank Luke and I were still busy counting the remnants of the storm, little Levi was already there shouting, "Seals! Seals! Thousands! "

We counted the medicine boxes on the life raft over and over again. A jar of butter that barely escaped the storm and infighting; Two ammunition boxes with little damage unexpectedly appeared in the sawdust; We can't tell whether the beige linen corset belongs to Miss Tannock or "Red" Renee. Captain Yarrell's command knife, the unknown man's pistol; Ron Bruck, Nu, Levi and I, the remnants of the "journey of hope" of 300 people, are all these.

We don't know the name of this island, except that it doesn't produce tall trees and solid vines. The life raft crashed on a reef a mile away. Without the help of passing ships, the five of us could not have left here.

The butter was quickly eaten up. After six days of narrow escape, four adult men were so hungry that they could swallow a walrus. Little Levi has no savings at all. He even teased the seals with butter. But thanks to his play, we started hunting seals with two boxes of dry ammunition, the cunning of human beings and the polygamous family structure of seals.

At first, we just sneaked into the harem of the fierce seal owner and stole his concubine when he was hunting or in conflict with other male seals. It's safe to do this-male seals always take as many wives as possible, whether they can afford it or not. A strong male seal is often surrounded by thirty or forty female seals, and sometimes the number even exceeds seventy. When one of them disappears, he won't even notice.

A female seal can grow to about 120 Jin, which is enough for five people to eat and rot. We put the extra meat in a wooden box and sink it into the sea, and we can catch a box full of crayfish in ten minutes. If we have hooks and fishing lines and are equipped with the same bait, we can catch enough fish for a week in one day. Food is not a problem for us, but there are no plants on this island, so there are no vegetables.

However, we were soon no longer satisfied with sneaking around hunting, but shifted our target to male seals.

Hunting is carried out according to a procedure: kill the master seal, wait beside the wives who have no owners, and wait for the Daredevil who is eager to inherit the harem of the deceased to appear.

In order to cope with the hunger caused by uncontrolled mating and innocent hunting, male seals have accumulated a lot of fat, making themselves look huge among petite wives and concubines. This fat is particularly young, unmated male seals. We have lost our ancestors' worship of oil, but this is the only reason we can find.

12 months have passed, and the days after that are beyond our calculation. The season here is opposite to that in the northern hemisphere, and Salome's rags are enough for us to make do with. So, when Nu showed his skills for the first time, we immediately realized that it was by no means to keep out the cold.

Even cut from the abdomen, you can see that the whole skin was knocked for a while, smooth and flat. This sensual body is like a monster, with two faces lying in an odd posture and a martyr's strong desire to express himself. The hole left by the gun was cleverly hidden in Nu's own shadow. The ugly body lay less than six feet next to the artwork, and the light made it look ups and downs. On the road of blood flow, small black eyes are particularly shiny.

I only noticed Saranga's swallowing sound, because he was closest to me.

As apprentices, it didn't take us long to surpass Nu. When they finished independently and the competing works were outdated, we began to try the efficiency brought by the division of labor. Hunting has completely become my job with Lankrook, and we were eliminated because of lack of talent. Saranga started at the latest but was the most talented. His position as the chief surgeon came from our selfless recommendation. Little Levi served as Saranga's assistant, and used his dagger to peel off the gonads and other pieces from the leather that were difficult to clean at one time. During this work, he occasionally came to help me maintain the trap and reported a new record every time. The last plastic surgery work was painstaking, and his experience made him fully qualified.

In a word, we are immersed in the industrial experiment, constantly exerting human dexterity and intelligence until the hapless warship appears on the horizon.

Frank Luke shouted near the beach, "Ship! Ship! " This move is completely subconscious, understandable and worthy of sympathy. And I shouted with him and waved my handkerchief on the gun pole in the direction of the ship, which was a stupid thing that could not be shirked. The warship lowered the boat, but it was impossible to get close to the coast from that position. We followed its sailing direction to the "great basin" on the east side of the island, and Saranga, Nu and Little Levy were also disturbed.

During the long time of waiting for the boat, or rather, during the course of running across a large beach, my dull head only thought of the most important question. This made the waiting time suddenly shorter, and it was transmitted to others from my expression and frightened look. Anger bowed his head without saying a word and did not lift it for a long time. Saranga's slender fingers turned twenty times around his hair, neck and lips, and his knife landed at his feet, making a sound that no one heard. The only one who spoke was little Levi: "Who? Who is it? "

It was not until I turned my eyes to him without hesitation that Frank Luke woke up from his dream. His face was blank at first, then it was a spasm caused by sudden enlightenment, and then it was a despair of being abandoned ... That expression was sad, so when he grabbed my collar in a rage and shouted, I could have refuted and defeated him in a firm tone-it was not difficult in terms of trauma-but I didn't do it. He's right, shouting that people on the boat can't find us, but waving a white flag can.

I must take responsibility.

It is easier to perform a play in front of Shakespeare's compatriots than expected. "This boat is very beautiful. We just want to say hello and see the excitement. You know, it is boring to do business outside all the year round. " But this is really just the beginning. I used all my intelligence and wisdom to make it seem that I refused to help, not because of the arrogance or madness of Mr. Peron, a Frenchman, but because there were enough reasons.

So there are three Frenchmen and two Englishmen on Amsterdam Island. The reason why these two Englishmen don't speak pure English is that they have become American citizens and spent too long in the New World. The 3,000 sea leopard skins scattered all over the island are only part of the 25,000 leather goods business. Yes, we have produced 8000 pieces, of which 5000 pieces have been shipped by my cargo ship. Our efficiency? One hundred a day-that's the truth. As for the place of sale, China, of course. People there are good at trimming fur and have a high demand for leather goods. You know, there are many people in China. Of course, in Guangzhou, depending on the quality, a piece of leather can be sold for one to three pounds. I mean, China pounds, or ... You know what I mean, I don't know much about their pronunciation. Yes, as you can see, this island is a volcano, and it smells of sulfur everywhere, but the smell of corpses is not much. It's dirty enough, but we are used to it. You don't have to be surprised at our clothes. In order to work, men have to put up with many things. Our ship set out from ile-de-france, first transported a batch of sea dragon skins to China in Nukat Strait on the northwest coast of the United States, and then returned here to transport seals. Yes, the profit is high, but it's a trade secret. If you need anything, it's vegetables. The geothermal heat makes nothing grow here.

When I said these words, I also heard Saranga, Nu, levi and Frank Luke speak urgently and orderly, correcting me and helping me in my mind. It turns out that they also care about French that I haven't practiced for a long time as I do.

When I saw the British warship off that afternoon, I was unexpectedly proud of my performance, but the subsequent careful reflection and deliberation brought more dissatisfaction. There are always so many loopholes and imperfections that I can't fix them by myself. Partners participate in my career responsibly. From that afternoon on, the production of works of art stopped completely-although it took Saranga a long time to understand that with the end of this career, his state returned to normal. We only get some food when we are hungry-and avoid seals completely-and the rest of the time is spent correcting and enriching our fur companies, cargo ships and sales representatives.

Everything went well at first, and we soon agreed on everyone's name and position, even Saranga, who was most concerned about his position. At this time, the only basis should be appearance rather than knowledge. Frank Luke's review of the company's history is inspiring; Little Levi unexpectedly reached a cooperation with him in this matter. The daily dribs and drabs of his memories since he was engaged in leather goods business made us laugh and cry. China's vast and vibrant market is vivid in the narrative, and the taciturn Nu also puts forward convincing opinions on the route arrangement.

We spent a lot of time on the arrangement between cargo partners and sailors, but the whole ship still lacked vitality. Finally, little Levi recalled an important detail: there was a primitive man on our ship.

This agile primitive man came from the Sandwich Islands. He doesn't understand our language, but he is very gentle. He has superhuman reaction and water-based, and can dodge or even catch spears thrown by two people at the same time; Throw a coin into the sea from the bow and stern at the same time, and he can jump into the water to get the money from the bow and catch up with the money from the stern. There is only one such figure, and all his kin were extinct because of the cruelty of the Portuguese.

Then, we had an argument about whether the ship was two-masted or three-masted. Saranga insisted that the ship should be three-masted, with a spinnaker. Frank Luke believes that as a small company, we should be realistic. It should be enough for dhows to transport leather goods, and there is room for square sails in the calm China Sea. I finally put forward a compromise: two masts and a jib.

Perhaps it is the dangerous distance that makes us lose interest in helping each other in the same boat, and everyone is more interested in proving that they are right. In the days that followed, we argued endlessly about the name of the ship, the port of call, the name of the seller in China, and even whether there was a sea dragon. This argument soon spread to the disagreement between Frank Luke and Saranga on the image of the bow.

So I ended the argument with "Feng". No one spoke, no one refuted me or accused me of having ulterior motives in mentioning this word. As we all know, this is the case-a brig off the coast of China, the Amelia, carrying seal skin, belongs to the Frenchman Peron, with a spinnaker and a bow like a seal.

I have the situation under control for the time being. But I don't know how long this will last. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next hour, little Levi or Nu will question whether the name "Peron" is more like French or Spanish. I can bargain with them and make appropriate concessions, but in any case, I can't let the story go back to before the British warship came to sail. I have no choice. Maybe I should destroy that ship and start all over again.

1793, British special envoy magal visited China aboard the "Lion". George Stanton, the secretary of the delegation, made a retrospective record of the whole journey. In the record of165438+1October 2 1, he wrote: "The lion met a schooner and found that it belonged to five people who met on Amsterdam Island in February this year. Sir Goethe heard the news of the war between Britain and France from Guangzhou. This masthead ship set out from the French island and belongs to the French property. Sir Goyle immediately legally seized the brig as a trophy. The ship and the leather goods on board were confiscated as British property, and they will never return to Amsterdam Island where Peron and others are located. Peron and several other people waiting on the island will live on that desolate island forever, unless they are lucky enough to have ships from other countries moored on the island to return home by boat. But I'm worried that they will refuse the kindness of other ships like they refused us. After all, they can't know that Amelia has disappeared forever. "

1 Amsterdam

2 Sandwich

A real account from the British King's embassy to Emperor China. But the last sentence is not in the original text.

The translated names in this article, such as "Perron", "Hailong" and "Nukat Strait", all refer to the Chinese translation of this book.