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Right your helm! Engines forward! Commander Farragut called.
法拉古艦長喊:舵向右，向前開!
These orders were executed, and the frigate swiftly retreated from this core of light.
以上命令執行了，戰艦很快離開了發光的中心。
My mistake. It wanted to retreat, but the unearthly animal came at us with a speed double our own.
我弄錯了。我們船要走開，但那神秘的動物卻以加借的速度逼近來。
We gasped. More stunned than afraid, we stood mute and motionless. The animal caught up with us, played with us.
我們氣都喘不過來。當時，驚呆更甚于恐懼，弄得我們靜默不動。
It made a full circle around the frigate--then doing fourteen knots-and wrapped us in sheets of electricity that were like luminous dust.
這個動物好像開玩笑似的在海面上向我們沖來。它繞著戰艦，并且把船罩在像光塵一樣的電光網中。
Then it retreated two or three miles, leaving a phosphorescent trail comparable to those swirls of steam that shoot behind the locomotive of an express train.
然后它走出兩三海里遠，后面拖著一條磷光的尾巴，好像快車的機車留在后面的一團團煙霧般的氣體。
Suddenly, all the way from the dark horizon where it had gone to gather momentum, the monster abruptly dashed toward the Abraham Lincoln with frightening speed,
忽然間，這個怪物從天邊的盡頭。以驚人的速度突然向林肯號沖來，在離船身二十英尺的海而上又突然停住，
stopped sharply twenty feet from our side plates, and died out-not by diving under the water,
光全滅了—不是潛入水中，因為它的光不是慢慢地消散，
since its glow did not recede gradually-but all at once, as if the source of this brilliant emanation had suddenly dried up.
而是猝然地，像光的來源陡然斷了一般！
