twenty-six

the centipede, who had begun dancing wildly round the deck during this song, had suddenly gone tooclose to the downward curving edge of the peach, and for three awful seconds he had stood teetering onthe brink, swinging his legs frantically in circles in an effort to stop himself from falling over backwardinto 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 overthrough 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 shedid as she was told.

‘i‘m going down after him!’ cried james, grabbing the silk string as it started coming out of thesilkworm and tying the end of it around his waist. ‘the rest of you hold on to silkworm so i don’t pullher 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 seabelow, 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 wereall so happy, too!’

miss spider, the glow-worm, and the ladybird all began to cry. so did the earthworm. ‘i don’t carea 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 thetime he had finished, everyone, including himself, was in a flood of tears.

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, overthe side of the peach, there appeared a dripping-wet james with a dripping-wet centipede clinging tohim 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 hefound me!’

‘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 allstay up here through the night and keep watch. then, if anything happens, we shall anyway be readyfor it.’

二十六

这时，蜈蚣一边唱着歌，一边又疯疯癫癫地在甲板上跳起舞来。突然，他跳到了仙桃朝下弯曲的边沿。有三秒钟的工夫，他趔趔趄趄地站在桃沿上，疯狂地一圈一圈甩动着腿脚，想努力稳住自己，别往后跌到半空里去。然而，谁都还没有来得及拉住他的当儿，他已经跌了下去！他吓得见了鬼似的嚎叫起来，别的人赶到边沿，朝下望过去的时候，只见他那可怜的身子，在半空中翻着筋斗，越来越小，越来越小，后来就不见了。

“蚕儿呀，”詹姆斯喊叫着说，“快！快吐丝！”

蚕儿叹了一口气。为了套住海鸥，她吐了那么多的丝，还没有缓过劲来哩。不过，她还是按照詹姆斯的意思吐起丝来。

“我想下去找他！”詹姆斯说着，一下抓住蚕儿开始吐出来的丝绳，一头缠在了腰上，“你们别的人要抓牢蚕儿，这样，我就不会把她也带下去啦。过一会儿，你们如果觉得丝绳能够拉动三下的话，就再把我拉上来！”

说着，他跳了下去，翻着筋斗去追蜈蚣，而且，跌得越来越深，越来越深，一直朝下面的大海跌下去。你想象得出，蚕儿的丝得吐得多快，才能跟上他往下跌的速度。

“再也见不到他们俩当中的哪一个了！”瓢虫哭喊道，“哎呀！哎呀呀！偏偏大家又在兴头上！”

蜘蛛小姐、萤火虫和瓢虫都哭泣起来。蚯蚓也哭起鼻子来。“蜈蚣，我才不放在心上哪。”瓢虫说，“可我真喜欢小詹姆斯。”

轻轻地，绿色老蚱蜢在小提琴上奏起了《葬礼进行曲》。演奏完毕的时候，每个人，包括他自己在内，都哭得泪人儿似的了。

突然之间，绳子狠劲拉动了三下。“拉呀！”绿色老蚱蜢吼叫着，“都到我后边去，一块拉！”

需要拉上来的绳子，大约有一英里长。末了，仙桃边沿上，爬上来湿淋淋的小詹姆斯。

蜈蚣用自己那四十二条腿紧紧地抓着詹姆斯。

“小詹姆斯救了我一命！”蜈蚣气喘吁吁地说，“他在大西洋中间来回游水，最后找到了我！”

“我亲爱的孩子，”绿色老蚱蜢拍了拍詹姆斯的脊背，说，“我真心祝贺你！”

“我的靴子！”蜈蚣叫起来，“看看我那些宝贝儿似的靴子吧！它们给海水弄坏啦！”

“别吱声！”蚯蚓说，“留了条命，就算你运气！”

“咱们是不是还在上升呢？”詹姆斯问。

“当然是啦。”绿色老蚱蜢回答，“而且，天也快黑了。”

“这我知道。很快就会到黑夜了。”

“咱们干吗不都下去，暖和暖和，等着天明呢？”蜘蛛小姐说。

“不行，”绿色老蚱蜢说，“依我看，这不太明智。如果大伙儿一整夜都待在上面瞭望着点，就安全一点儿。万一出了什么事儿，反正都准备好了。”