海底兩萬里 第126期 第9章 尼德蘭的憤怒(11)

I give you my word, professor, Ned Land replied in an unenthusiastic tone.

尼德蘭帶著不大能使人安心得語氣回答,

No vehement phrases will leave my mouth, no vicious gestures will give my feelings away, not even when they don't feed us on time.

我不說一句粗話，也不露一個結果對我不利的粗暴動作，就是桌上的菜飯不按照心中想望的時間端出來，我也同樣不動火。

I have your word, Ned, I answered the Canadian.

尼德·蘭，這么說，那就一言為定了。我這樣回答了加拿大人。

Then our conversation petered out, and each of us withdrew into his own thoughts.

隨后，我們的談話停止了，我們各自思考。

For my part, despite the harpooner's confident talk, I admit that I entertained no illusions.

至于我個人，我承認，不管魚叉手怎樣有信心，我對他的辦法絲毫沒有什么幻想。

I had no faith in those promising opportunities that Ned Land mentioned.

我不承認會有像尼德·蘭所說的那些機會。

To operate with such efficiency, this underwater boat had to have a sizeable crew, so if it came to a physical contest, we would be facing an overwhelming opponent.

這艘潛水艇既然能開得這樣穩(wěn)穩(wěn)當當?shù)?，上面一定有不少人，因此，萬一斗起來，我們碰到的對手是強大的。

Besides, before we could do anything, we had to be free, and that we definitely were not.

再說，最要緊的是能夠自由，可是我們現(xiàn)在根本就沒有自由。

I didn't see any way out of this sheet-iron, hermetically sealed cell.

我簡直想不出有什么方法可以從這關閉得密密實實的鐵板房里逃出去。

And if the strange commander of this boat did have a secret to keep-which seemed rather likely-he would never give us freedom of movement aboard his vessel.

其次，這位古怪的船長只要有點保守秘密的意：思—至少看來是這樣—他決不讓我們隨便在船上自由行動。

Now then, would he resort to violence in order to be rid of us, or would he drop us off one day on some remote coast?

現(xiàn)在，他會不會用暴力把我們于掉，或者有一天把我們拋棄在某一個角落里?

There lay the unknown. All these hypotheses seemed extremely plausible to me, and to hope for freedom through use of force, you had to be a harpooner.

這都是不可知的事。不過這些假設在我看來都十分可能，都可以講得通，只有那腦筋簡單盼魚叉手才指望能夠重新取得自己的自由。