But it was especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colorless misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.
尤其是这艘船上三个主要头目,那大二三副的态度,都表现得足以教人消除这些无谓的忧虑,足以教人对航程的各种情况引起信心和愉快。这三个比较好又比较象船上头目和水手的人,虽然各有一套,却并不是容易找得到的,他们每个人都是美洲人;一个是南塔开特人,一个是维因耶德人,一个是科德角人。且说这只船离开港埠的时候,正是圣诞节期间,虽然暂时我们还在过着冷彻肌肤的北极气候,但航程却时刻都在离开那种气候,向南奔驶;而且我们向前驶去的每分每秒,也正在慢慢地把那种无情的冬季,和冬季种种难耐的气候撂在我们后边。有一天早晨,正是天色不那么阴霾,将明未亮,但还是灰??的时分,船只随着一阵顺风,以报复似的急跳和伤感的速度向前急冲,那会儿,我正登上甲板去值上午班,把眼睛向船尾栏杆一瞄,我顿时浑身掠过一阵预兆性的寒颤。现实超过恐惧;亚哈船长站在他的后甲板上了。
There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness.
他的身体似乎看不出有什么普通的症状,也看不出他已经好了多少。他那样子就象一个刚从火刑柱上解下来的人,虽然火焰烤干了四肢,却没有把四肢烧掉,也分毫没有损及他那久经风霜的结实躯体。