英語聽書《白鯨記》第507期
and also the anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, As It Is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there;all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition didby no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that boat.
人們還看到他急切地在糾正那大腿板(有時也叫系纜粗板，是一種安在船頭的橫式平板，在對大鯨投射魚槍或者標槍時用來撐牢膝頭的)的式樣，也看到他老是站在那只艇里，曲起僅有的一只膝頭，跪在系纜板的半圓形的凹凹里，手里拿著一支木匠的鑿子，這邊鑿掉一點，那邊鑿平一些，我說，所有這些事情，在當時都是教大家很感興趣，又感到奇怪的。不過，幾乎每一個人都認為，亞哈之所以準備得如此小心道地，一定只是為了指望最后追擊到莫比－迪克而已，因為他早已透露出他要親自獵擊那巨獸的意圖。但是，這樣的推測，可一點也沒有聯(lián)系到已經派定水手在那小艇上的這種不著邊際的疑惑上去。
Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle.
現(xiàn)在，隨著那幾個鬼怪似的部下的出現(xiàn)，什么怪事都一下子消散了；因為在捕鯨船上，怪事總是一下子就消散的。再說，時時就有這么一些不知是從什么角落里和垃圾坑里爬出來的、來路不明的異邦的殘渣余滓來做這種漂泊的歹徒似的捕鯨船的水手，而捕鯨船本身也經常把那些漂泛在大海里的船板上，攀在一片破船上，槳子上，小艇上，獨木舟上，攀在被刮散了的日本舢舨上的這種希奇古怪的遭難者收羅了下來；因此，如果魔王本人也會親自爬上船舷，走到船長室里去跟船長聊天，也決不會引起船頭樓里什么壓制不住的激動。
