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I left Conseil to the proper stowing of our luggage and climbed on deck to watch the preparations for getting under way.
我留下康塞爾安頓我們的箱子，獨自一個人上了甲板，觀看準備開船的操作。
Just then Commander Farragut was giving orders to cast off the last moorings holding the Abraham Lincoln to its Brooklyn pier.
這時候，法拉古艦長正要人解開布洛克林碼頭纜柱上拴住林肯號的最后幾根鐵索。
And so if I'd been delayed by a quarter of an hour or even less, the frigate would have gone without me,
看來如果我遲到一刻鐘，半刻鐘，船就會開走，
and I would have missed out on this unearthly, extraordinary, and inconceivable expedition, whose true story might well meet with some skepticism.
我也就不能參加這次出奇的、神秘的、難以相信的遠征了。
But Commander Farragut didn't want to waste a single day, or even a single hour, in making for those seas where the animal had just been sighted.
這次遠征的經過，雖然是真實記錄，將來可能還會有人懷疑的。法拉古艦長不愿意耽擱一天甚至一小時，他要趕快把船開到那個動物所在的海中。
He summoned his engineer.
他把船上的工程師叫來了。
"Are we up to pressure?" he asked the man.
“蒸汽燒足了嗎？”艦長問他。
"Aye, sir," the engineer replied.
“燒足了，艦長。”工程師答。
"Go ahead, then!" Commander Farragut called.
“開船！”法拉古艦長喊。
At this order, which was relayed to the engine by means of a compressed-air device, the mechanics activated the start-up wheel.
開船的命令通過話筒傳到機器房，輪機人員接到命令，立即讓機輪轉動起來。
Steam rushed whistling into the gaping valves. Long horizontal pistons groaned and pushed the tie rods of the drive shaft.
蒸汽涌入半開的機關中；發出呼呼的嘯聲。一排排橫列的活塞發出格格的聲響，推動機軸的杠桿。
The blades of the propeller churned the waves with increasing speed, and the Abraham Lincoln moved out majestically amid a spectator-laden escort of some 100 ferries and tenders.
推進器的輪翼不斷加大速率，攪動海水，于是林肯號在上百只滿載觀眾前來送別的渡輪和汽艇的行列中，莊嚴地向前行駛著。
