26 Twenty-six

Twenty-six The Centipede, who had begun dancing wildly round the deck during this song, had suddenly gone too close to the downward curving edge of the peach, and for three awful seconds he had stood teetering on the brink, swinging his legs frantically in circles in an effort to stop himself from falling over backward into space. But before anyone could reach him – down he went! He gave a shriek of terror as he fell, and the others, rushing to the side and peering over, saw his poor long body tumbling over and over through the air, getting smaller and smaller until it was out of sight. 'Silkworm!' yelled James. 'Quick! Start spinning!' The Silkworm sighed, for she was still very tired from spinning all that silk for the seagulls, but she did as she was told.

听着这首歌，蜈蚣已经开始在甲板上疯狂地跳舞了，突然离桃子向下弯曲的边缘太近了，在可怕的三秒钟里，它摇摇晃晃地站在边缘上，疯狂地摆动着双腿，想阻止自己向后摔到空中。 可是，还没等别人够到他，他就倒下了!他倒下时发出一声恐怖的尖叫，其他人都冲到旁边，朝旁边张望，只见他那可怜的长身体在空中翻滚着，越来越小，直到看不见了。 “蚕!詹姆斯喊道。“快!旋转!”蚕叹了口气，因为她为海鸥织了那么多丝，还很累，但她还是照做了。

'I'm going down after him!' cried James, grabbing the silk string as it started coming out of the Silkworm and tying the end of it around his waist. 'The rest of you hold on to Silkworm so I don't pull her over with me, and later on, if you feel three tugs on the string, start hauling me up again!' He jumped, and he went tumbling down after the Centipede, down, down, down towards the sea below, and you can imagine how quickly the Silkworm had to spin to keep up with the speed of his fall. 'We'll never see either of them again!' cried the Ladybird. 'Oh, dear! Oh dear! Just when we were all so happy, too!' Miss Spider, the Glow-worm, and the Ladybird all began to cry. So did the Earthworm. 'I don't care a bit about the Centipede,' the Earthworm sobbed. 'But I really did love that little boy.' Very softly, the Old-Green-Grasshopper started to play the Funeral March on his violin, and by the time he had finished, everyone, including himself, was in a flood of tears.

“我要下去追他!”詹姆斯叫道，当丝线开始从蚕身上出来时，他抓住丝线，把它的一端系在自己的腰上。 “你们其余的人抓紧‘蚕’，这样我就不会把她拉过来了。过一会儿，如果你们觉得绳子被拉了三次，就再把我拉上来!”他跳了起来，跟着蜈蚣滚了下去，往下，往下，往下，向下面的大海滚去。你可以想象，蚕得旋转得有多快，才能跟上他下落的速度。 “我们再也见不到他们俩了!”瓢虫叫道。 “哦,亲爱的!噢,亲爱的!就在我们都很高兴的时候!”蜘蛛小姐、萤火虫和瓢虫都哭了起来。 蚯蚓也一样。“我一点也不在乎蜈蚣。”蚯蚓抽泣着说。 “但我真的很爱那个小男孩。”老绿蚱蜢轻轻地开始用小提琴演奏《葬礼进行曲》，当他演奏完时，包括他自己在内的每个人都流下了眼泪。

Suddenly, there came three sharp tugs on the rope. 'Pull!' shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'Everyone get behind me and pull!' There was about a mile of string to be hauled in, but they all worked like mad, and in the end, over the side of the peach, there appeared a dripping-wet James with a dripping-wet Centipede clinging to him tightly with all forty-two of his legs. 'He saved me!' gasped the Centipede. 'He swam around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean until he found me!'

突然，绳子上传来三声尖锐的拉扯。 “拉!老绿蚱蜢喊道。 “大家到我后面拉!”要拉进去的绳子大约有一英里长，但他们都拼命地工作，最后，桃子的另一边出现了一个浑身湿漉漉的詹姆斯，一条浑身湿漉漉的蜈蚣紧紧地抓住了他的四十二条腿。 “他救了我!”蜈蚣喘着气说。 “他在大西洋中央游来游去，直到找到我!”

'My dear boy,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, patting James on the back. 'I do congratulate you.' 'My boots!' cried the Centipede. 'Just look at my precious boots! They are ruined by the water!' 'Be quiet!' the Earthworm said. 'You are lucky to be alive.' 'Are we still going up and up?' asked James. 'We certainly are,' answered the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'And it's beginning to get dark.' 'I know. It'll soon be night.' 'Why don't we all go down below and keep warm until tomorrow morning?' Miss Spider suggested. 'No,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said. 'I think that would be very unwise. It will be safer if we all stay up here through the night and keep watch. Then, if anything happens, we shall anyway be ready for it.'

“我亲爱的孩子，”老绿蚱蜢拍着詹姆斯的背说。 “我向你表示祝贺。“我的靴子!”蜈蚣叫道。 “看看我那双珍贵的靴子!”他们被水毁了!“安静!”蚯蚓说。 “你能活着真是幸运。“我们还在不断地上升吗?”詹姆斯问。 “当然是，”老绿蚱蜢回答说。 “天开始黑了。”“我知道。 马上就要天黑了。“我们为什么不都到下面去暖和暖和，直到明天早上呢?”蜘蛛小姐建议道。 “不，”老绿蚱蜢说。 “我认为这是非常不明智的。 如果我们整晚都待在这里放哨会更安全。 然后，如果发生什么事，我们无论如何也要做好准备。”