with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the "scarf," simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast As It Is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.
船身便前俯后仰地翻騰起來,跟鯨分開了,那只奏凱的復(fù)滑車往上一冒,便拖出第一塊割下來的半圓形的鯨脂。且說鯨脂之包著鯨身,正如橘皮之包著橘子,所以人們把它從鯨身上剝下來,也正如人們有時(shí)螺旋式地剝下橘皮一樣。因?yàn)榻g車經(jīng)常保持著的那股力量,不住地使得那只鯨在水里滾來滾去,加上這時(shí)大副斯達(dá)巴克和二副斯塔布兩人,都在同時(shí)使用鏟子,循著那叫做"魚皮"的紋路,把鯨脂一塊塊地、齊齊整整地剝開來,鯨脂就被這樣快速地剝開來,而且也正由于這樣的剝法,所以它一直是越吊越高,最后,它的頂端都擦到主桅樓了;到了這時(shí),那些轉(zhuǎn)絞車的人才停止絞動,那只血淋淌滴的大鯨身,仿佛要從天上放下來似的,晃來晃去,晃了一兩分鐘模樣。在場的每一個(gè)人,在它晃著的時(shí)候,都得好生注意回避,否則,就會給重重地敲記耳光,給立刻摔進(jìn)海里。
One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass.
這時(shí),在旁邊照料的標(biāo)槍手之一,就拿著一支又快又長、叫做"攻船劍"的家伙走上前去,他瞄好機(jī)會,很熟練地在那晃來晃去的大東西下端挖出一個(gè)大洞來。