as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into the whale.
因為他每把魚槍投出去,再拉進來時,魚槍就彎了(魚槍上縛有根繩子),斯塔布就得一再把它放在艇舷邊上迅速敲直后,再把它投向鯨身上。
"Pull up—pull up!" he now CRIed to the bowsman, as the waning whale relaxed in his wrath. "Pull up!—close to!" and the boat ranged along the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.
"扳住——扳住!"這時他對那個前槳手叫道,因為那條精疲力竭的大鯨已經(jīng)發(fā)不出脾氣了。"扳?。?mdash;—靠攏去!"于是,小艇靠攏在大鯨身邊。等到小艇靠得很近,人站在艇首伸手碰得到大鯨的時候,斯塔布就慢吞吞地用他那支鋒利的長槍在鯨身里翻撥一陣,仔細地一遍又一遍地翻撥,仿佛要仔細地找找那條鯨也許已經(jīng)吞下了什么金表,怕還沒有把它找出來倒會先把它弄碎了那樣。不過,他要找的金表卻是這條鯨那秘藏在心底里的生命。于是,這時,魚槍又開始戳了;因為這條鯨已從它那昏迷狀態(tài)中突然轉(zhuǎn)成那種說不明白的。叫做"垂死掙扎"的狀態(tài)了,它在血泊里可怖地盡打滾,把它自己蒙在那看不清楚,稀里胡涂,泡沫沸騰的浪花里,這只處境危險的小艇,只得立刻往后退,瞎忙一陣,想從那令人狂亂的幽暗的境界里掙扎出來,劃到光天化日的晴空下去。
And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view! surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations.
現(xiàn)在,這條鯨的"垂死掙扎"逐漸衰弱了,又在慢慢地滾出來,身體翻來騰去,呼吸急劇,格格發(fā)響,煞是怕人。噴水孔抽攣地張張縮縮。