The First Lieutenant4 of the Guards assumed command and held the full company in their armoury under arms day and night. Beneath his door he had found a notice which was also nailed on the courthouse. It appeared in the Piedmont Eagle and in rapid succession in every newspaper not under negro influence in the State. It read as follows:
“Headquarters of Realm No 4.
”Dreadful Era, Black Epoch5,
“Hideous Hour.
“General Order No. I.
“The Negro Militia6 now organized in this State threatens the extinction7 of civilization. They have avowed8 their purpose to make war upon and exterminate10 the Ku Klux Klan, an organization which is now the sole guardian11 of Society. All negroes are hereby given forty-eight hours from the publication of this notice in their respective counties to surrender 328 their arms at the courthouse door. Those who refuse must take the consequences.
“By order of the G. D. of Realm No. 4.
“By the Grand Scribe.”
The white people of Piedmont read this notice with a thrill of exultant12 joy. Men walked the streets with an erect13 bearing which said without words:
“Stand out of the way.”
For the first time since the dawn of Black Rule negroes began to yield to white men and women the right of way on the streets.
On the day following, the old Commoner sent for Phil.
“What is the latest news?” he asked.
“The town is in a fever of excitement—not over the discovery in Lynch’s yard—but over the blacker rumour14 that Marion and her mother committed suicide to conceal15 an assault by this fiend.”
“A trumped-up lie,” said the old man emphatically.
“It’s true, sir. I’ll take Doctor Cameron’s word for it.”
“You have just come from the Camerons?”
“Yes.”
“Let it be your last visit. The Camerons are on the road to the gallows16, father and son. Lynch informs me that the murder committed last night, and the insolent17 notice nailed on the courthouse door, could have come only from their brain. They are the hereditary18 leaders of these people. They alone would have the audacity19 to fling this crime into the teeth of the world and threaten worse. We are face to face with Southern barbarism. 329 Every man now to his own standard! The house of Stoneman can have no part with midnight assassins.”
“Nor with black barbarians20, father. It is a question of who possesses the right of life and death over the citizen, the organized virtue21 of the community, or its organized crime. You have mistaken for death the patience of a generous people. We call ourselves the champions of liberty. Yet for less than they have suffered, kings have lost their heads and empires perished before the wrath22 of freemen.”
“My boy, this is not a question for argument between us,” said the father with stern emphasis. “This conspiracy23 of terror and assassination24 threatens to shatter my work to atoms. The election on which turns the destiny of Congress, and the success or failure of my life, is but a few weeks away. Unless this foul25 conspiracy is crushed, I am ruined, and the Nation falls again beneath the heel of a slaveholders’ oligarchy26.”
“Your nightmare of a slaveholders’ oligarchy does not disturb me.”
“At least you will have the decency27 to break your affair with Margaret Cameron pending28 the issue of my struggle of life and death with her father and brother?”
“Never.”
“Then I will do it for you.”
“I warn you, sir,” Phil cried, with anger, “that if it comes to an issue of race against race, I am a white man. The ghastly tragedy of the condition of society here is something for which the people of the South are no longer responsible——” 330
“I’ll take the responsibility!” growled29 the old cynic.
“Don’t ask me to share it,” said the younger man emphatically.
The father winced30, his lips trembled, and he answered brokenly:
“My boy, this is the bitterest hour of my life that has had little to make it sweet. To hear such words from you is more than I can bear. I am an old man now—my sands are nearly run. But two human beings love me, and I love but two. On you and your sister I have lavished31 all the treasures of a maimed and strangled soul—and it has come to this! Read the notice which one of your friends thrust into the window of my bedroom last night.”
He handed Phil a piece of paper on which was written:
“The old club-footed beast who has sneaked32 into our town, pretending to search for health, in reality the leader of the infernal union League, will be given forty-eight hours to vacate the house and rid this community of his presence.
“K. K. K.”
“Are you an officer of the union League?” Phil asked in surprise.
“I am its soul.”
“How could a Southerner discover this, if your own children didn’t know it?”
“By their spies who have joined the League.”
“And do the rank and file know the Black Pope at the head of the order?”
“No, but high officials do.” 331
“Does Lynch?”
“Certainly.”
“Then he is the scoundrel who placed that note in your room. It is a clumsy attempt to forge an order of the Klan. The white man does not live in this town capable of that act. I know these people.”
“My boy, you are bewitched by the smiles of a woman to deny your own flesh and blood.”
“Nonsense, father—you are possessed33 by an idea which has become an insane mania——”
“Will you respect my wishes?” the old man broke in angrily.
“I will not,” was the clear answer. Phil turned and left the room, and the old man’s massive head sank on his breast in helpless baffled rage and grief.
He was more successful in his appeal to Elsie. He convinced her of the genuineness of the threat against him. The brutal34 reference to his lameness35 roused the girl’s soul. When the old man, crushed by Phil’s desertion, broke down the last reserve of his strange cold nature, tore his wounded heart open to her, cried in agony over his deformity, his lameness, and the anguish36 with which he saw the threatened ruin of his life-work, she threw her arms around his neck in a flood of tears and cried:
“Hush, father, I will not desert you. I will never leave you, or wed9 without your blessing37. If I find that my lover was in any way responsible for this insult, I’ll tear his image out of my heart and never speak his name again!”
She wrote a note to Ben, asking him to meet her at sundown on horseback at Lover’s Leap. 332
Ben was elated at the unexpected request. He was hungry for an hour with his sweetheart, whom he had not seen save for a moment since the storm of excitement broke following the discovery of the crime.
He hastened through his work of ordering the movement of the Klan for the night, and determined38 to surprise Elsie by meeting her in his uniform of a Grand Dragon.
Secure in her loyalty39, he would deliberately40 thus put his life in her hands. Using the water of a brook41 in the woods for a mirror, he adjusted his yellow sash and pushed the two revolvers back under the cape42 out of sight, saying to himself with a laugh:
“Betray me? Well, if she does, life would not be worth the living!”
When Elsie had recovered from the first shock of surprise at the white horse and rider waiting for her under the shadows of the old beech43, her surprise gave way to grief at the certainty of his guilt44, and the greatness of his love in thus placing his life without a question in her hands.
He tied the horses in the woods, and they sat down on the rustic45.
He removed his helmet cap, threw back the white cape showing the scarlet46 lining47, and the two golden circles with their flaming crosses on his breast, with boyish pride. The costume was becoming to his slender graceful48 figure, and he knew it.
“You see, sweetheart, I hold high rank in the Empire,” he whispered.
From beneath his cape he drew a long bundle which he unrolled. It was a triangular49 flag of brilliant yellow 333 edged in scarlet. In the centre of the yellow ground was the figure of a huge black dragon with fiery50 red eyes and tongue. Around it was a Latin motto worked in scarlet: “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus”—what always, what everywhere, what by all has been held to be true. “The battle-flag of the Klan,” he said; “the standard of the Grand Dragon.”
Elsie seized his hand and kissed it, unable to speak.
“Why so serious to-night?”
“Do you love me very much?” she answered.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay his life at the feet of his beloved,” he responded tenderly.
“Yes, yes; I know—and that is why you are breaking my heart. When first I met you—it seems now ages and ages ago—I was a vain, self-willed, pert little thing——”
“It’s not so. I took you for an angel—you were one. You are one to-night.”
“Now,” she went on slowly, “in what I have lived through you I have grown into an impassioned, serious, self-disciplined, bewildered woman. Your perfect trust to-night is the sweetest revelation that can come to a woman’s soul and yet it brings to me unspeakable pain——”
“For what?”
“You are guilty of murder.”
Ben’s figure stiffened51.
“The judge who pronounces sentence of death on a criminal outlawed52 by civilized53 society is not usually called a murderer, my dear.”
“And by whose authority are you a judge?”
“By authority of the sovereign people who created the 334 State of South Carolina. The criminals who claim to be our officers are usurpers placed there by the subversion54 of law.”
“Won’t you give this all up for my sake?” she pleaded. “Believe me, you are in great danger.”
“Not so great as is the danger of my sister and mother and my sweetheart—it is a man’s place to face danger,” he gravely answered.
“This violence can only lead to your ruin and shame——”
“I am fighting the battle of a race on whose fate hangs the future of the South and the Nation. My ruin and shame will be of small account if they are saved,” was the even answer.
“Come, my dear,” she pleaded tenderly, “you know that I have weighed the treasures of music and art and given them all for one clasp of your hand, one throb55 of your heart against mine. I should call you cruel did I not know you are infinitely56 tender. This is the only thing I have ever asked you to do for me——”
“Desert my people! You must not ask of me this infamy57, if you love me,” he cried.
“But, listen; this is wrong—this wild vengeance58 is a crime you are doing, however great the provocation59. We cannot continue to love one another if you do this. Listen: I love you better than father, mother, life, or career—all my dreams I’ve lost in you. I’ve lived through eternity60 to-day with my father——”
“You know me guiltless of the vulgar threat against him——” 335
“Yes, and yet you are the leader of desperate men who might have done it. As I fought this battle to-day, I’ve lost you, lost myself, and sunk down to the depths of despair, and at the end rang the one weak cry of a woman’s heart for her lover! Your frown can darken the brightest sky. For your sake I can give up all save the sense of right. I’ll walk by your side in life—lead you gently and tenderly along the way of my dreams if I can, but if you go your way, it shall be mine; and I shall still be glad because you are there! See how humble61 I am—only you must not commit crime!”
“Come, sweetheart, you must not use that word,” he protested, with a touch of wounded pride.
“You are a conspirator——”
“I am a revolutionist.”
“You are committing murder!”
“I am waging war.”
Elsie leaped to her feet in a sudden rush of anger and extended her hand:
“Good-bye. I shall not see you again. I do not know you. You are still a stranger to me.”
He held her hand firmly.
“We must not part in anger,” he said slowly. “I have grave work to do before the day dawns. We may not see each other again.”
She led her horse to the seat quickly and without waiting for his assistance sprang into the saddle.
“Do you not fear my betrayal of your secret?” she asked.
He rode to her side, bent62 close, and whispered: 336
“It’s as safe as if locked in the heart of God.”
A little sob63 caught her voice, yet she said slowly in firm tones:
“If another crime is committed in this county by your Klan, we will never see each other again.”
He escorted her to the edge of the town without a word, pressed her hand in silence, wheeled his horse, and disappeared on the road to the North Carolina line.
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收听单词发音
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1
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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4
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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8
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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9
wed
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| v.娶，嫁，与…结婚 | |
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exterminate
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| v.扑灭，消灭，根绝 | |
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11
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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12
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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13
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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14
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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15
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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16
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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17
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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18
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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19
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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20
barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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21
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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22
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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23
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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24
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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25
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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26
oligarchy
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| n.寡头政治 | |
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27
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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28
pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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29
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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30
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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33
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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34
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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35
lameness
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| n. 跛, 瘸, 残废 | |
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36
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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37
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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38
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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39
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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40
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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41
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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42
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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43
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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44
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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45
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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46
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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47
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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48
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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49
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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50
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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51
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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52
outlawed
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| 宣布…为不合法（outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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54
subversion
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| n.颠覆，破坏 | |
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55
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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56
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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57
infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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58
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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59
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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60
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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61
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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62
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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