So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.
我在掌着舵，好几个钟头不声不响地引着这艘火轮向海上前进的时候，我就有这么个看法。我那时虽然被包裹在黑暗里，然而却能更清楚地看到其他一些人的红彤彤、疯狂而可怕的面孔。我看到的尽是不绝如缕的幢幢鬼影，在浓烟里，在烈火里半隐半现，最后弄得我的心灵里尽是这些类似的幻影，我本人在午夜掌舵时分就很容易打盹，这样一来，我马上就开始昏昏沉沉地睡着了。
But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me.
尤其是那天晚上，我竟碰到了一件古怪的事情（直到如今还很费解）。我打小睡里惊醒过来，站在那里，就满怀恐怖地觉察到有什么致命的不对头的事儿了。我腰间靠着的那支骨制舵柄竟猛击起我的腰际来；耳朵里听到篷帆开始在风里抖索，发出一阵低沉的哼哼声；我心想，我的眼睛是张开的；我半信半疑地把我的手指凑到眼皮上，硬把它撑得更大。但是，这都不顶事；我根本看不到我面前那只掌舵用的罗盘；虽然好象我在一分钟以前，还靠着那盏坚定的罗盘灯光望过那罗盘面。在我面前似乎什么都看不到，光是一股阴森森的喷水，不时地给赤热的火光照耀得鬼一般可怕。首先掠过我心里的念头是，尽管我多快多急地笔直驶去，但与其说是要奔向前边的任何避难所，不如说是要赶紧离开后边一切的避难所。我突然感到非常惶惑无措，好象死了一般。