so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
所以为了要用链条把它箍住，在小艇上是无法用手抓住的。不过这个困难却给巧妙地克服了；就是用一根牢靠的细索子，一头缚着一块浮木，一头缚在船上，索子中间再吊着一块重的东西，借熟练动作把那浮木抛到鲸身靠外面的一边，这样就把鲸给兜住，于是铁索也很容易地把它兜住了。而且因为它在鲸身上滑来滑去，最后尾巴的最小部分，就给它紧紧地缚住了，刚好缚在阔大的裂片的叉口的地方。）。
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.
如果说，阴郁的亚哈现在是全然寂静无声的，那么，至少就甲板上的情况说来，他那个二副斯塔布，却因大有收获而红光满面，不自觉地露出一种非常的、然而是适度的兴奋神情。他这样难得的抖来抖去，使得他的上司，那个沉着的斯达巴克，也暂时不声不响地听他独自张罗去了。斯塔布所以会这样活活泼泼，那个唯一的附带的小原因，立刻就可以出奇地表明出来。斯塔布是个讲究吃食的人；他还有点酷嗜大鲸，把它当做一种可口的佳品。
"A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from his small!"
“我睡觉以前，要吃一顿鲸排，一顿鲸排！大个儿，你下水去，在它腰部那地方给我割点下来！”