Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of mighty1 bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on like giants' palms outspread. The strong unstaggering breeze abounded2 so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled3 in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity4 of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned5 over everything. The sea was as a crucible6 of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.
Long maintaining an enchanted7 silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time the teetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye the bright sun's rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake.
"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow8, I bring the sun to ye! Yoke9 on the further billows; hallo! a tandem10, I drive the sea!"
But suddenly reined11 back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.
"East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steersman.
"Thou liest!" smiting13 him with his clenched14 fist. "Heading East at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern?"
Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very blinding palpableness must have been the cause.
Thrusting his head half-way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing15 behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed16 East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.
But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid17 laugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compasses--that's all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it."
"Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said the pale mate, gloomily.
Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all know, essentially18 one with the electricity beheld19 in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled20 at, that such things should be. In instances where the lightning has actually struck the vessel21, so as to smite22 down some of the spars and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal; all its loadstone virtue23 being annihilated24, so that the before magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original virtue thus marred25 or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected26, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson.
Deliberately27 standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were exactly inverted28, shouted out his orders for the ship's course to be changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair one had only been juggling29 her.
Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite30 orders; while Stubb and Flask--who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings--likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced31. As for the men, though some of them lowly rumbled32, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism33 shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible34 Ahab's.
For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper35 sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.
"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked36 thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck--a lance without the pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles. Quick!"
Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating37 the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives38, whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous39 as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that to steer12 by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious40 sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents41.
"Men," said he, steadily42 turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had demanded, "my men, the thunder turned old Ahab's needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any."
Abashed43 glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away.
With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching44 the deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions with it--whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment45 the awe46 of the crew, is uncertain-- he called for linen47 thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly48 back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,--"Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not the lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!"
One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk away.
In his fiery49 eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride.
1 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 abounded | |
v.大量存在,充满,富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 muffled | |
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 crucible | |
n.坩锅,严酷的考验 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 enchanted | |
adj. 被施魔法的,陶醉的,入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 prow | |
n.(飞机)机头,船头 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 yoke | |
n.轭;支配;v.给...上轭,连接,使成配偶 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 tandem | |
n.同时发生;配合;adv.一个跟着一个地;纵排地;adj.(两匹马)前后纵列的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 reined | |
勒缰绳使(马)停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 ); 驾驭; 严格控制; 加强管理 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 steer | |
vt.驾驶,为…操舵;引导;vi.驾驶 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 smiting | |
v.猛打,重击,打击( smite的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 clenched | |
v.紧握,抓紧,咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 marvelled | |
v.惊奇,对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 smite | |
v.重击;彻底击败;n.打;尝试;一点儿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 annihilated | |
v.(彻底)消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 );使无效;废止;彻底击溃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 marred | |
adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 inverted | |
adj.反向的,倒转的v.使倒置,使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 juggling | |
n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 requisite | |
adj.需要的,必不可少的;n.必需品 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 acquiesced | |
v.默认,默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 rumbled | |
发出隆隆声,发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 轰鸣着缓慢行进; 发现…的真相; 看穿(阴谋) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 magnetism | |
n.磁性,吸引力,磁学 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 inflexible | |
adj.不可改变的,不受影响的,不屈服的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 wrecked | |
adj.失事的,遇难的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 dictating | |
v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 );口授;支配;摆布 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 motives | |
n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 portents | |
n.预兆( portent的名词复数 );征兆;怪事;奇物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 abashed | |
adj.窘迫的,尴尬的v.使羞愧,使局促,使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 augment | |
vt.(使)增大,增加,增长,扩张 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 fiery | |
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |