Chapter 11

第十一章

THE GREAT AGRA TREASURE

素晴らしいアグラの財宝

OUR captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned reckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all over his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid and contained countenance. Once he looked up at me with a gleam of something like humour in his eyes.

我々が捕らえた男は船室で鉄の箱の反対側に座った / 彼がこんなにも努力し / 入手するのをこんなにも長い間待った◆彼は日に焼けた、無鉄砲な目の男だった / 皺が網の目のようになって / マホガニーのような顔全体を覆っていた / それは厳しい屋外の生活を物語っていた◆彼の髭を生やした顎は非常に隆起していた / それは彼が簡単に目的を諦めないという人間であることを特徴付けていた◆年は50歳かその前後だったかもしれない / 彼の黒い巻き毛にかなり白髪が混じっていたため◆彼の落ち着いた顔は不愉快なものではなかった / しかし彼の濃い眉と攻撃的な顎は / 私がついさっき見たように / 怒った時には恐ろしい印象を与えた◆彼は今、手錠をかけられた手を膝に置き / 頭はうなだれて胸にあてられていた / 彼が鋭いキラキラ輝く目で箱を見ているとき / 彼の犯罪の原因となった◆私には見えた / 怒りよりも悲しみを / 彼の硬直し自制した振る舞いの中に◆一度彼は私を見た / 何かユーモアのような輝きを目にたたえて

“Well, Jonathan Small,” said Holmes, lighting a cigar, “I am sorry that it has come to this.”

「さて / ジョナサン・スモール」 / ホームズは言った / 葉巻に火をつけながら / 「こういう結果になって申し訳ない」

“And so am I, sir,” he answered frankly. “I don’t believe that I can swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound, Tonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could not undo it again.”

「俺もだ」 / 彼はざっくばらんに言った◆「俺はこの件で縛り首になるとは思っていない◆聖書に手を置いて誓ってもいい / 俺はショルトに一切手をかけていない◆やったのはちんけな悪魔の犬、トンガだ / 奴は呪われた矢の一本を彼に打ち込んだ◆俺はこれには関係していない◆俺は肉親がやられたのと同じぐらい悲しんだよ◆俺はそのために、あの小悪魔をロープの端で打ち据えた / しかしやってしまっていた / そしてもう取り返しがつかん」

“Have a cigar,” said Holmes; “and you had best take a pull out of my flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while you were climbing the rope?”

「葉巻を吸え」 / ホームズは言った / 「僕の懐中瓶から一杯やった方がいいな / びしょ濡れだから◆あんな小さくて弱い黒人になぜ期待できたんだ / ショルト氏を取り押さえて捕まえておくことを / お前がロープを上っている間」

“You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The best defence that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had been the old major I would have swung for him with a light heart. I would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar. But it’s cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel whatever.”

「あんたはその場にいたかのように何でも知っているようだな◆実は俺はあの部屋に誰もいないと思っていた◆俺はあの家の習慣を非常に良く知っていた / そしてあの時刻にはたいていショルトは下に行って夕食をとっていた◆俺はこの件で隠し立てはしないよ◆単純な事実が、俺が出来る一番の抗弁だ◆もしあれが父親の少佐だったなら / 俺は喜んで縛り首になっただろうがね◆あいつを切り刻むのはこの煙草を吸うよりも大したことじゃないと思っただろう◆しかしそれはやりすぎだ / 俺がショルトの息子まで引きずるのは / まったく反目した事のない」

“You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard. He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached the room.”

「お前はロンドン警視庁のアセルニー・ジョーンズ警部の管理下にある◆彼はお前を僕の部屋に連れて行くことにしている / そして僕はお前にこの事件の真相を尋ねるつもりだ◆お前は隠し事をせずに言わなければならない / もしそうすれば僕はお前のためになると思う◆僕は証明できると思っている / あの毒の効き目は非常に素早くて被害者は死んでいたと / お前が部屋にたどり着く前に」

“That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed through the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I’d have half killed Tonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it is more than I can tell. I don’t feel no malice against you for it. But it does seem a queer thing,” he added with a bitter smile, “that I, who have a fair claim to half a million of money, should spend the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was an evil day for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet and had to do with the Agra treasure, which never brought anything but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it brought murder, to Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery for life.”

「彼は死んでたよ◆俺は生まれてあれほど驚いた事はない / 彼が肩に頭を向けて笑っているのを見た時ほど / 俺が窓を通って上がってきて◆本当に衝撃的だった◆もしトンガが逃げなかったら半殺しにしていただろう◆それで奴は棍棒と何本かの矢を忘れることになった / 奴が俺に言ったところでは / それが多分あんたらが俺らの跡をつける役にたったんだろう / しかしどうやって最後までたどり着けたかは分からんが◆それであんたに対して悪い気持ちは感じてない◆しかし奇妙な事だ」 / 彼は苦笑いをして付け加えた / 「俺が / 50万ポンドの金を正当に要求できる俺が / 人生の前半をアンダマンで防波堤を作るのに費やし / そして後半をダートムーアで溝を掘るのに費やしそうになっているとは◆あれは運の悪い日だった / 俺が初めてアチメットの商人を目にして / アグラの財宝に関わりができた / それを所有したものには呪い以外の何物ももたらさない◆それは彼に殺人をもたらし / ショルト少佐には恐怖と罪の意識を / 俺にはそれは奴隷の人生を意味している」

At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy shoulders into the tiny cabin.

この瞬間 / アセルニー・ジョーンズが大きな顔と重い上体を狭い船室に突っ込んだ