28 Twenty-eight

Twenty-eight One by one, the travellers came out again on to the top of the peach and gazed carefully around. The moon was still shining as brightly as ever, and there were still plenty of huge shimmering cloudmountains on all sides. But there were no Cloud-Men in sight now. 'The peach is leaking!' shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper, peering over the side. 'It's full of holes and the juice is dripping out everywhere!' 'That does it!' cried the Earthworm. 'If the peach is leaking then we shall surely sink!' 'Don't be an ass!' the Centipede told him. 'We're not in the water now!' 'Oh, look!' shouted the Ladybird. 'Look, look, look! Over there!' Everybody swung round to look.

二十八、旅客们一个接一个地又出来了，来到桃子的顶上，仔细地环顾四周。 月亮仍然像往常一样明亮地照耀着，四周仍然有许多巨大的云山在闪烁。 但是现在看不见云人了。 “桃子在漏水!”老绿蚱蜢喊道，从侧面往外看了看。 “到处都是洞，果汁滴得到处都是!”“够了!”蚯蚓叫道。 “如果桃子漏了，我们肯定会沉下去!”“别犯傻!”蜈蚣告诉他。 “我们现在不在水里!”“哦，看!”瓢虫喊道。 “看，看，看!”在那边!”每个人都转过身去看。

In the distance and directly ahead of them, they now saw a most extraordinary sight. It was a kind of arch, a colossal curvy-shaped thing that reached high up into the sky and came down again at both ends. The ends were resting upon a huge flat cloud that was as big as a desert. 'Now what in the world is that?' asked James. 'It's a bridge!' 'It's an enormous hoop cut in half!' 'It's a giant horseshoe standing upside down!' 'Stop me if I'm wrong,' murmured the Centipede, going white in the face, 'but might those not be Cloud-Men climbing all over it?' There was a dreadful silence. The peach floated closer and closer. 'They are Cloud-Men!' 'There are hundreds of them!' 'Thousands!' 'Millions!' 'I don't want to hear about it!' shrieked the poor blind Earthworm. 'I'd rather be on the end of

在他们正前方的远处，他们看到了一幅最不寻常的景象。 它是一种拱门，一种巨大的曲线状的东西，伸向天空，在两端又下来。 它的两端落在一片像沙漠一样大的平坦的云上。 “那到底是什么?”詹姆斯问。 “那是一座桥!”“这是一个切成两半的大铁环!”“这是一个巨大的马蹄铁倒立着!”“如果我说错了就打断我，”蜈蚣嘟囔着，脸色发白，“爬在上面的不是云人吗?”一阵可怕的沉默。 桃子漂得越来越近了。 “他们是云人!”“有好几百只呢!”“成千上万的人!“数百万!“我不想听!”可怜的瞎蚯蚓尖声叫道。 “我宁愿站在尽头。

a fish hook and used as bait than come up against those terrible creatures again!' 'I'd rather be fried alive and eaten by a Mexican!' wailed the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'Please keep quiet,' whispered James. 'It's our only hope.' They crouched very still on top of the peach, staring at the Cloud-Men. The whole surface of the cloud was literally swarming with them, and there were hundreds more up above climbing about on that monstrous crazy arch. 'But what is that thing?' whispered the Ladybird. 'And what are they doing to it?' 'I don't care what they're doing to it!' the Centipede said, scuttling over to the tunnel entrance. 'I'm not staying up here! Good-bye!' But the rest of them were too frightened or too hypnotized by the whole affair to make a move. 'Do you know what?' James whispered. 'What?' they said. 'What?' 'That enormous arch – they seem to be painting it! They've got pots of paint and big brushes! You

用鱼钩和鱼饵来对付那些可怕的生物!“我宁愿被一个墨西哥人活活炸了吃掉!”老绿蚱蜢哭着说。 “请保持安静。”詹姆斯小声说。 “这是我们唯一的希望。”他们静静地蹲在桃子上，盯着云人。 整个云层表面都挤满了它们，上面还有几百只在那巨大的疯狂拱门上爬来爬去。 “可那是什么东西?”瓢虫低声说。 “他们对它做了什么?”“我才不管他们对它做了什么!”蜈蚣说着，快步跑到隧道入口。 “我不要呆在这儿!”再见!”但其余的人都被整件事吓得魂不守舍，一动也不动。 “你知道吗?”詹姆斯低声说。 “什么?他们说。“什么?“那个巨大的拱门——他们好像正在粉刷它!”他们有颜料罐和大刷子!你

look!' And he was quite right. The travellers were close enough now to see that this was exactly what the Cloud-Men were doing. They all had huge brushes in their hands and they were splashing the paint on to the great curvy arch in a frenzy of speed, so fast, in fact, that in a few minutes the whole of the arch became covered with the most glorious colours – reds, blues, greens, yellows, and purples. 'It's a rainbow!' everyone said at once. 'They are making a rainbow!' 'Oh, isn't it beautiful!' 'Just look at those colours!' 'Centipede!' they shouted. 'You must come up and see this!' They were so enthralled by the beauty and brilliance of the rainbow that they forgot to keep their voices low any longer. The Centipede poked his head cautiously out of the tunnel entrance. 'Well, well, well,' he said. 'I've always wondered how those things were made. But why

看!”他说得很对。 旅行者们现在离得足够近了，可以看到云人正在做的事情。 他们手里都拿着大刷子，以疯狂的速度把颜料洒在弯曲的大拱门上，事实上，速度是如此之快，几分钟后，整个拱门就被最绚丽的颜色覆盖了——红、蓝、绿、黄、紫。 “这是彩虹!”大家异口同声地说。 “他们在做彩虹!”“啊，多美啊!”“看看这些颜色!”“蜈蚣!他们喊道。 “你一定要上来看看!”他们被彩虹的美丽和光辉所吸引，忘记了再压低声音。 蜈蚣小心翼翼地从隧道入口探出头来。 “好了，好了，好了，”他说。 “我一直想知道这些东西是怎么做出来的。 但是为什么

all the ropes? What are they doing with those ropes?' 'Good heavens, they are pushing it off the cloud!' cried James. 'There it goes! They are lowering it down to the earth with ropes!' 'And I'll tell you something else,' the Centipede said sharply. 'If I'm not greatly mistaken, we ourselves are going to bump right into it!' 'Bless my soul, he's right!' the Old-Green-Grasshopper exclaimed. The rainbow was now dangling in the air below the cloud. The peach was also just below the level of the cloud, and it was heading directly towards the rainbow, travelling rather fast. 'We are lost!' Miss Spider cried, wringing her feet again. 'The end has come!' 'I can't stand it!' wailed the Earthworm. 'Tell me what's happening!' 'We're going to miss it!' shouted the Ladybird. 'No, we're not!' 'Yes, we are!'

所有的绳子?他们用这些绳子做什么?“天哪，他们把它从云上推下来了!”詹姆斯叫道。 “它走了!”他们正在用绳子把它拉到地上!“我还要告诉你一件事。”蜈蚣厉声说。 “如果我没有弄错的话，我们自己就要撞上它了!”“上帝保佑，他说得对!”老绿蚱蜢叫道。 彩虹现在悬挂在云层下面的空中。 桃子也刚好在云层的下面，它正朝着彩虹飞去，速度相当快。 “我们迷路了!”蜘蛛小姐叫道，又扭了扭她的脚。 “末日来了!”“我受不了了!”蚯蚓哀号道。 “告诉我发生了什么事!”“我们要错过了!”瓢虫喊道。 “不，我们没有!”“是的，我们是!”

'Yes! – Yes! – No! – Oh, my heavens!' 'Hold on, everybody!' James called out, and suddenly there was a tremendous thud as the peach went crashing into the top of the rainbow. This was followed by an awful splintering noise as the enormous rainbow snapped right across the middle and became two separate pieces. The next thing that happened was extremly unfortunate. The ropes that the Cloud-Men had

“是的!——是的!——不!-我的天啊!“大家坚持住!”詹姆斯大声喊道，突然传来一声巨大的撞击声，桃子撞到了彩虹的顶端。 接着是可怕的碎裂声，巨大的彩虹正好从中间折断，变成了两个独立的部分。 接下来发生的事情非常不幸。 云人的绳子