海底兩萬里 第230期 第18章 太平洋下四千里(1)

BY THE NEXT MORNING, November 18, I was fully recovered from my exhaustion of the day before, and I climbed onto the platform just as the Nautilus's chief officer was pronouncing his daily phrase. It then occurred to me that these words either referred to the state of the sea, or that they meant: There's nothing in sight.

第二天，11月18日，昨日的疲勞，完全歇過來了，我走到平合上，諾第留斯號的船副正在這個時候說出他每日必說的那句話。于是我心中想，這句話是跟海面的情形有關系，它的意思或者是:我們什么都望不見。

And in truth, the ocean was deserted. Not a sail on the horizon.The tips of Crespo Island had disappeared during the night. The sea, absorbing every color of the prism except its blue rays, reflected the latter in every direction and sported a wonderful indigo tint. The undulating waves regularly took on the appearance of watered silk with wide stripes.

這時洋面上空無一物。天邊一只船也沒有。克利斯波島的高地在夜間走過不見了。海洋把三棱鏡分出的其他顏色都吸收了，只把藍色向四面八方反射出去，帶上一種十分好看的靛藍色。好像一幅條紋寬闊的天光藍毛布，在層疊的波濤上很規(guī)律地攤開。

I was marveling at this magnificent ocean view when Captain Nemo appeared. He didn't seem to notice my presence and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, his operations finished, he went and leaned his elbows on the beacon housing, his eyes straying over the surface of the ocean.

我正欣賞海洋的美麗景色，尼摩船長出來了。好像他沒有看見我在乎臺上，開始做他的一連串天文觀察。一會兒，做完觀察，他時靠著探照燈籠間，他的眼光注視著洋面。

Meanwhile some twenty of the Nautilus's sailors-all energetic, well-built fellows--climbed onto the platform. They had come to pull up the nets left in our wake during the night. These seamen obviously belonged to different nationalities, although indications of European physical traits could be seen in them all. If I'm not mistaken, I recognized some Irishmen, some Frenchmen, a few Slavs, and a native of either Greece or Crete. Even so, these men were frugal of speech and used among themselves only that bizarre dialect whose origin I couldn't even guess. So I had to give up any notions of questioning them.

同時又有二十名左右的諾第留斯號的水手，走到平臺上來，他們都是身強力壯的大漢，他們來收昨天晚上撒在船后的魚網。這些水手雖然看來全都是歐洲人的體型，但顯然是屬于不同的國籍。我想我不至弄錯，我認出其中有愛爾蘭人、法國人、好幾個斯拉夫人、一個希臘人或克里特島人。不過，這些人都不愛說話，他們彼此間使用的譜言，使我甚至于無從猜想它的源流。所以我沒有法子去問他們，跟他們交談。