He complained vehemently about being imprisoned in defiance of his civil rights, asked by virtue of which law he was hereby detained, invoked writs of habeas corpus,

他愤愤地埋怨人家蔑视人权，把我们关在这里，质问人家凭什么法律扣留我们，他引证了人身保障法的条文，

threatened to press charges against anyone holding him in illegal custody, ranted, gesticulated, shouted,

说要控诉非法羁禁他的人，他全身激动，指手画脚，大声叫喊，

and finally conveyed by an expressive gesture that we were dying of hunger.

最后，他用富于表情的手势，让对方明白，我们饿得要命。

This was perfectly true, but we had nearly forgotten the fact.

这却是真话，但我们差不多完全忘记自己饿了。

Much to his amazement, the harpooner seemed no more intelligible than I had been.

鱼叉手很吃惊，因为他的话跟我说的一样，好像也没有为对方所了解。

Our visitors didn't bat an eye. Apparently they were engineers who understood the languages of neither the French physicist Arago nor the English physicist Faraday.

来看我们的这两个人，连眉头也没有皱一皱。很明显，他们既不懂得阿拉哥的语言，也不懂得法拉第的语言。

Thoroughly baffled after vainly exhausting our philological resources, I no longer knew what tactic to pursue, when Conseil told me:

我们所有的语言资本都拿出来了，可是并没有解决问题，我很为难，不知道怎么办才好，这时康塞尔对我说：

If master will authorize me, I'll tell the whole business in German.

如果先生允许的活，我现在用德语来讲一讲。