These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down.
這時桶子便被吊到那印第安人伸手可及的地方,另外一個人又從下面遞給他一根很長的棍子。塔斯蒂哥把這根棍子插在桶里后,就把桶子往下引進(jìn)那只海德堡大桶里去,直放得那只桶子完全看不見了。于是,他對那些拉著小滑車的才手發(fā)聲號令,那只桶子就又朝上出來,泡沫沸騰,賽似擠奶婦擠出來的一桶鮮牛乳。大家把它小心地卸下來,這只裝得滿滿的容器就由事先指定的一個人抓住,迅速倒進(jìn)一只大木桶里。接著,又再把桶子吊上去,又再經(jīng)過同樣的往復(fù)動作,直到那只大水槽再也榨不出什么來為止。在快要完畢的時候,塔斯蒂哥還得把那支長棍拼命地塞,越塞越深,直往那只海德堡大桶塞去,塞得這根二十來英尺長的棍子都完全看不到了。
Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up,
且說"裴廓德號"的人們已經(jīng)這樣地汲了一陣;芬香的鯨腦也已經(jīng)裝滿了好幾桶,不料,這時,猝然發(fā)生了一件古怪的事故。究竟是那個塔斯蒂哥,那個印第安野人非常粗心大意,一時間竟把原來抓著吊在他頭頂?shù)膹?fù)滑車大纜的手放松了呢;還是他站的地方實在是十分不牢靠,滑溜溜;還是魔鬼本身故意要無端弄出這等事來,可就弄不清楚了;總之,突然間,就在汲上了第十八九桶后的時候,