While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old man's line — now parting — admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to rescue whom he could; — in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils, — Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven by invisible wires, — as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its bottom, and sent it turning over and over, into the air; till it fell again — gunwale downwards — and Ahab and his men struggled out from under it, like seals from a sea-side cave.
這時，那兩只小艇的水手都還在浪濤里不住打旋，大家都伸著手去抓住那些滾動的索桶。槳子，和其它各種漂來浮去的用具，小弗拉斯克象只空瓶子傾斜地上下浮動，雙腳向上曲起，以避開那些鯊魚的可怕的嘴巴；斯塔布則死勁地呼叫看，要人把他撈起來；至于那個老人的繩索——現在已經斷了——只能讓他給拖進奶油色的水塘里晃來晃去，碰到誰就救誰；——在那暴風雨似的百難臨頭的同時，——亞哈那只還沒有遭到沖損的小艇，似乎是讓一根眼不能見的繩索直往上天曳拉上去，——就在這時，白鯨象一支箭似的，從海里筆直地射了出來，用它那寬大的前額朝艇底猛地一頂，把它撞在空中，翻過來又翻過去，最后又落了下來——艇舷朝下——于是亞哈和他幾個水手，就象一群從海邊的洞穴里鉆出來的海豹一般，從小艇下面掙扎出來。
The first uprising momentum of the whale — modifying its direction as he struck the surface — involuntarily launched him along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace.
這條大鯨初次向上一冒的勢頭——它往上沖時，把方向弄歪了——不自覺地一沖就沖得跟它所要毀擊的目標稍微隔開了些；于是它的背頂著小艇，就那么停了一會兒，裂尾悠然地甩來甩去；每當一支漂泛的槳子，一片木板，一小塊艇木碎片碰著它的身子時，它的尾巴就迅疾地一縮，斜斜地伸出來拍擊著浪潮。但是，不一會兒，好象認為自己這番做法可以到此為止了，它把它那打褶的前額在海里往前一沖，后邊拖著一串糾纏著的繩索，象個旅客那樣，拖著慢條斯理的步子，繼續向下風游去。
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