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so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
所以為了要用鏈條把它箍住，在小艇上是無法用手抓住的。不過這個困難卻給巧妙地克服了；就是用一根牢靠的細索子，一頭縛著一塊浮木，一頭縛在船上，索子中間再吊著一塊重的東西，借熟練動作把那浮木拋到鯨身靠外面的一邊，這樣就把鯨給兜住，于是鐵索也很容易地把它兜住了。而且因為它在鯨身上滑來滑去，最后尾巴的最小部分，就給它緊緊地縛住了，剛好縛在闊大的裂片的叉口的地方。）。
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.
如果說，陰郁的亞哈現在是全然寂靜無聲的，那么，至少就甲板上的情況說來，他那個二副斯塔布，卻因大有收獲而紅光滿面，不自覺地露出一種非常的、然而是適度的興奮神情。他這樣難得的抖來抖去，使得他的上司，那個沉著的斯達巴克，也暫時不聲不響地聽他獨自張羅去了。斯塔布所以會這樣活活潑潑，那個唯一的附帶的小原因，立刻就可以出奇地表明出來。斯塔布是個講究吃食的人；他還有點酷嗜大鯨，把它當做一種可口的佳品。
"A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from his small!"
“我睡覺以前，要吃一頓鯨排，一頓鯨排！大個兒，你下水去，在它腰部那地方給我割點下來！”
