岸上心慌 沙僧探水 Alarm on the Bank; Sha Monk Goes Down to Search
這岸上沙僧與行者心慌道：「怎麼好？老師父步步逢災，才脫了魔障，幸得這一路平安，又遇著黑水迍邅。」沙僧道：「莫是翻了船？我們往下溜頭找尋去。」行者道：「不是翻船，若翻船，八戒會水，他必然保師父，負水而出。我才見那個棹船的有些不正氣，想必就是這廝弄風，把師父拖下水去了。」沙僧聞言道：「哥哥何不早說？你看著馬與行李，等我下水找尋去來。」行者道：「這水色不正，恐你不能去。」沙僧道：「這水比我那流沙河如何？去得，去得。」这岸上沙僧与行者心慌道：「怎么好？老师父步步逢灾，才脱了魔障，幸得这一路平安，又遇着黑水迍邅。」沙僧道：「莫是翻了船？我们往下溜头找寻去。」行者道：「不是翻船，若翻船，八戒会水，他必然保师父，负水而出。我才见那个棹船的有些不正气，想必就是这厮弄风，把师父拖下水去了。」沙僧闻言道：「哥哥何不早说？你看着马与行李，等我下水找寻去来。」行者道：「这水色不正，恐你不能去。」沙僧道：「这水比我那流沙河如何？去得，去得。」
逐句解 Line by line
On the bank, Sha Monk and Pilgrim, seized with alarm, said, "What is to be done?"
Their version of the master's 怎生是好 at the skiff - and they have no more of an answer than he did.
"Our old master meets calamity at every step; barely free of the last demon-snare, blessed with a stretch of quiet road, and now he runs into this black-water trouble."
迍邅 is zhūn zhān, to stumble and be held up, a pair of syllables that chime with each other and only work together. Neither character appears anywhere else in the chapter.
Sha Monk said, "Could the boat have capsized?"
莫是, "could it be that." Sha Monk reaches for the ordinary explanation first, exactly as all three of them did about the colour of the water.
"Let us go search downstream."
溜 is liù in 下溜頭, the current - not the liū of slipping away. They look downstream because that is where a capsized boat would have gone.
Pilgrim said, "It was no capsizing. Had the boat overturned, Eight Rules knows the water — he would surely have borne the master up and swum him out."
Pilgrim reasons it out by elimination, and Pigsy's one genuinely useful skill is what rules the accident out: 會水, he can swim.
"I marked just now that the ferryman had a crooked air about him; it must be this wretch who raised the wind and dragged the master down under the water."
不正氣 - something crooked about him. Pilgrim had read the boatman correctly at the bank and said nothing, which is what Sha Monk is about to point out.
Hearing this, Sha Monk said, "Brother, why did you not say so sooner?"
The reproach is fair and Pilgrim never answers it. Sha Monk simply turns to the water instead.
"You keep watch over the horse and baggage, and let me go down into the water to search."
看 is kān again, to stand guard over - three of the chapter's fourteen take that reading. It is also the exact duty Pigsy handed to Sha Monk at the skiff, now handed back to Pilgrim.
Pilgrim said, "The color of this water is foul — I fear you cannot go down."
水色不正. Pilgrim passes the same judgement on the river that he passed on the boatman, in the same two characters - the water is crooked too.
Sha Monk said, "How is this water, set against my own River of Flowing Sands?"
The River of Flowing Sands is where Sha Monk lived as a water-demon before his conversion, eating travellers. He is measuring this river against the one he used to own.
"I can manage it — I can manage it."
去得, doubled for emphasis - "I can manage it, I can manage it." The 得 follows its verb, so it is unstressed de.
Two disciples on a bank with a horse and no master. Pilgrim works it out from the evidence - the boat cannot have capsized, because Pigsy can swim and would have brought the master up - and lands on the ferryman, whom he had already privately marked as crooked.
Sha Monk's "why did you not say so sooner?" is a real accusation and Pilgrim does not answer it, which is unusual for him. It is one of the few places in the book where his habit of watching and waiting is shown costing something.
The passage then does the quiet work of putting the right character in the water. Sha Monk spent centuries as a monster in the River of Flowing Sands before he joined the pilgrimage, and this is the one stretch of the journey where that past makes him the most capable member of the party rather than the least.