But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his face as well, that conveyed to me more than his usual words, and in a flash I understood the real reason for his coming. It was because the spell of the place had entered his soul too, and he did not like being alone.
"River still rising," he cried, pointing to the flood in the moonlight, "and the wind's simply awful."
He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship that gave the real importance to his words.
"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think it'll hold all right." I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in order to explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung them across the river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me through the branches, nodding his head.
"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or words to that effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the thought into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself. There was disaster impending1 somewhere, and the sense of presentiment2 lay unpleasantly upon me.
We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking3 it up with our feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind the heat would have been unpleasant. I put this thought into words, and I remember my friend's reply struck me oddly: that he would rather have the heat, the ordinary July weather, than this "diabolical4 wind."
Everything was snug5 for the night; the canoe lying turned over beside the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the provision sack hanging from a willow6-stem, and the washed-up dishes removed to a safe distance from the fire, all ready for the morning meal.
We smothered7 the embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and the white moonlight. The shaking willows8 and the heavy buffetings of the wind against our taut9 little house were the last things I remembered as sleep came down and covered all with its soft and delicious forgetfulness.
Suddenly I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy mattress10 through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was past twelve o'clock—the threshold of a new day—and I had therefore slept a couple of hours. The Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as before; something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There was a sense of disturbance11 in my immediate12 neighborhood.
I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying violently to and fro as the gusts14 smote15 them, but our little bit of green canvas lay snugly16 safe in the hollow, for the wind passed over it without meeting enough resistance to make it vicious. The feeling of disquietude did not pass, however, and I crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our belongings17 were safe. I moved carefully so as not to waken my companion. A curious excitement was on me.
I was half-way out, kneeling on all fours, when my eye first took in that the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving tracery of leaves, made shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches and stared. It was incredible, surely, but there, opposite and slightly above me, were shapes of some indeterminate sort among the willows, and as the branches swayed in the wind they seemed to group themselves about these shapes, forming a series of monstrous18 outlines that shifted rapidly beneath the moon. Close, about fifty feet in front of me, I saw these things.
My first instinct was to waken my companion, that he too might see them, but something made me hesitate—the sudden realization19, probably, that I should not welcome corroboration20; and meanwhile I crouched21 there staring in amazement22 with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to myself that I was not dreaming.
They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just within the tops of the bushes—immense, bronze-colored, moving, and wholly independent of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly and noted23, now I came to examine them more calmly, that they were very much larger than human, and indeed that something in their appearance proclaimed them to be not human at all. Certainly they were not merely the moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They shifted independently. They rose upwards24 in a continuous stream from earth to sky, vanishing utterly25 as soon as they reached the dark of the sky. They were interlaced one with another, making a great column, and I saw their limbs and huge bodies melting in and out of each other, forming this serpentine26 line that bent27 and swayed and twisted spirally with the contortions28 of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude29, fluid shapes, passing up the bushes, within the leaves almost—rising up in a living column into the heavens. Their faces I never could see. Unceasingly they poured upwards, swaying in great bending curves, with a hue30 of dull bronze upon their skins.
I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from my eyes. For a long time I thought they must every moment disappear and resolve themselves into the movements of the branches and prove to be an optical illusion. I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed. For the longer I looked the more certain I became that these figures were real and living, though perhaps not according to the standards that the camera and the biologist would insist upon.
Far from feeling fear, I was possessed31 with a sense of awe32 and wonder such as I have never known. I seemed to be gazing at the personified elemental forces of this haunted and primeval region. Our intrusion had stirred the powers of the place into activity. It was we who were the cause of the disturbance, and my brain filled to bursting with stories and legends of the spirits and deities33 of places that have been acknowledged and worshipped by men in all ages of the world's history. But, before I could arrive at any possible explanation, something impelled34 me to go farther out, and I crept forward on the sand and stood upright. I felt the ground still warm under my bare feet; the wind tore at my hair and face; and the sound of the river burst upon my ears with a sudden roar. These things, I knew, were real, and proved that my senses were acting35 normally. Yet the figures still rose from earth to heaven, silent, majestically36, in a great spiral of grace and strength that overwhelmed me at length with a genuine deep emotion of worship. I felt that I must fall down and worship—absolutely worship.
Perhaps in another minute I might have done so, when a gust13 of wind swept against me with such force that it blew me sideways, and I nearly stumbled and fell. It seemed to shake the dream violently out of me. At least it gave me another point of view somehow. The figures still remained, still ascended37 into heaven from the heart of the night, but my reason at last began to assert itself. It must be a subjective38 experience, I argued—none the less real for that, but still subjective. The moonlight and the branches combined to work out these pictures upon the mirror of my imagination, and for some reason I projected them outwards39 and made them appear objective. I knew this must be the case, of course. I took courage, and began to move forward across the open patches of sand. By Jove, though, was it all hallucination? Was it merely subjective? Did not my reason argue in the old futile40 way from the little standard of the known?
I only know that great column of figures ascended darkly into the sky for what seemed a very long period of time, and with a very complete measure of reality as most men are accustomed to gauge41 reality. Then suddenly they were gone!
And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their great presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold rush. The esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted region suddenly flamed up within me, and I began to tremble dreadfully. I took a quick look round—a look of horror that came near to panic—calculating vainly ways of escape; and then, realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything really effective, I crept back silently into the tent and lay down again upon my sandy mattress, first lowering the door-curtain to shut out the sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then burying my head as deeply as possible beneath the blankets to deaden the sound of the terrifying wind.
As though further to convince me that I had not been dreaming, I remember that it was a long time before I fell again into a troubled and restless sleep; and even then only the upper crust of me slept, and underneath43 there was something that never quite lost consciousness, but lay alert and on the watch.
But this second time I jumped up with a genuine start of terror. It was neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but the slow approach of something that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting bolt upright—listening.
Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little patterings. They had been coming, I was aware, for a long time, and in my sleep they had first become audible. I sat there nervously44 wide awake as though I had not slept at all. It seemed to me that my breathing came with difficulty, and that there was a great weight upon the surface of my body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered. Something surely was pressing steadily45 against the sides of the tent and weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of the wind? Was this the pattering rain, the dripping of the leaves? The spray blown from the river by the wind and gathering46 in big drops? I thought quickly of a dozen things.
Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough47 from the poplar, the only large tree on the island, had fallen with the wind. Still half caught by the other branches, it would fall with the next gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the tight canvas surface of the tent. I raised a loose flap and rushed out, calling to the Swede to follow.
But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was free. There was no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray; nothing approached.
A cold, grey light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead, and the wind howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any glow, and I saw the east reddening in streaks48 through the trees. Several hours must have passed since I stood there before watching the ascending49 figures, and the memory of it now came back to me horribly, like an evil dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless50 night was on me, my nerves were tingling51 with the activity of an equally tireless apprehension52, and all idea of repose53 was out of the question. The river I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled the air, and a fine spray made itself felt through my thin sleeping shirt.
Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidence of anything to cause alarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my heart remained wholly unaccounted for.
My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there was no need to waken him now. I looked about me carefully, noting everything; the turned-over canoe; the yellow paddles—two of them, I'm certain; the provision sack and the extra lantern hanging together from the tree; and, crowding everywhere about me, enveloping54 all, the willows, those endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a string of duck passed with whirring flight overhead in the twilight55. The sand whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare feet in the wind.
I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into the bush, so that I could see across the river to the farther landscape, and the same profound yet indefinable emotion of distress56 seized upon me again as I saw the interminable sea of bushes stretching to the horizon, looking ghostly and unreal in the wan57 light of dawn. I walked softly here and there, still puzzling over that odd sound of infinite pattering, and of that pressure upon the tent that had wakened me. It must have been the wind, I reflected—the wind bearing upon the loose, hot sand, driving the dry particles smartly against the taut canvas—the wind dropping heavily upon our fragile roof.
Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased appreciably58.
I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast-line had altered in the night, and what masses of sand the river had torn away. I dipped my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed my forehead. Already there was a glow of sunrise in the sky and the exquisite59 freshness of coming day. On my way back I passed purposely beneath the very bushes where I had seen the column of figures rising into the air, and midway among the clumps60 I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sense of vast terror. From the shadows a large figure went swiftly by. Someone passed me, as sure as ever man did….
It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward again, and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror diminished strangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember saying to myself, for the winds often move like great presences under the trees. And altogether the fear that hovered61 about me was such an unknown and immense kind of fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt before, that it woke a sense of awe and wonder in me that did much to counteract62 its worst effects; and when I reached a high point in the middle of the island from which I could see the wide stretch of river, crimson63 in the sunrise, the whole magical beauty of it all was so overpowering that a sort of wild yearning64 woke in me and almost brought a cry up into the throat.
But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered from the plain beyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half hidden among the willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, compared to which my terror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at all.
For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different view, but that an alteration65 had apparently66 been effected in the relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the bushes now crowded much closer—unnecessarily, unpleasantly close. They had moved nearer.
Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing imperceptibly nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come closer during the night. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves? I recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the pressure upon the tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I swayed for a moment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep my upright position on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of personal agency, of deliberate intention, of aggressive hostility67, and it terrified me into a sort of rigidity68.
Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre, so absurd, that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came no more readily than the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such dangerous imaginings brought the additional terror that it was through our minds and not through our physical bodies that the attack would come, and was coming.
The wind buffeted69 me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the sun came up over the horizon, for it was after four o'clock, and I must have stood on that little pinnacle70 of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down to close quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the tent, first taking another exhaustive look round and—yes, I confess it—making a few measurements. I paced out on the warm sand the distances between the willows and the tent, making a note of the shortest distance particularly.
I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all appearances, still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was so. Provided my experiences were not corroborated71, I could find strength somehow to deny them, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade myself that it was all a subjective hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection72 of the excited imagination.
Nothing further came in to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost at once, utterly exhausted73, yet still in dread42 of hearing again that weird74 sound of multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my heart that had made it difficult to breathe.
The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent door.
"River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in mid-stream have disappeared altogether. Our own island's much smaller."
"Any wood left?" I asked sleepily.
"The wood and the island will finish tomorrow in a dead heat," he laughed, "but there's enough to last us till then."
I plunged75 in from the point of the island, which had indeed altered a lot in size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment to the landing-place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the banks flew by like the country from an express train. Bathing under such conditions was an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night seemed cleansed76 out of me by a process of evaporation77 in the brain. The sun was blazing hot; not a cloud showed itself anywhere; the wind, however, had not abated78 one little jot79.
Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words flashed across me, showing that he no longer wished to leave post-haste, and had changed his mind. "Enough to last till tomorrow"—he assumed we should stay on the island another night. It struck me as odd. The night before he was so positive the other way. How had the change come about?
Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy splashings and clouds of spray which the wind brought into our frying-pan, and my fellow-traveler talked incessantly80 about the difficulty the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to find the channel in flood. But the state of his mind interested and impressed me far more than the state of the river or the difficulties of the steamers. He had changed somehow since the evening before. His manner was different—a trifle excited, a trifle shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice and gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in cold blood, but at the time I remember being quite certain of one thing—that he had become frightened?
He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. He had the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its markings.
"We'd better get off sharp in an hour," I said presently, feeling for an opening that must bring him indirectly81 to a partial confession82 at any rate. And his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: "Rather! If they'll let us."
"The powers of this awful place, whoever they are," he replied, keeping his eyes on the map. "The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world."
"The elements are always the true immortals," I replied, laughing as naturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well that my face reflected my true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and spoke85 across the smoke:
"We shall be fortunate if we get away without further disaster."
This was exactly what I had dreaded86, and I screwed myself up to the point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist to extract the tooth; it had to come anyhow in the long run, and the rest was all pretence87.
"Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"
"The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for this was our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. "But what—"
"And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added, with a genuine little tremor89 in his voice.
I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his face somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burning sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending90 round us. I got up to follow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way towards the tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The canoe still lay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs91 uppermost, the paddles, or rather, the paddle, on the sand beside her.
"There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And here's the rent in the base-board."
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed two paddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think better of it, and I said nothing. I approached to see.
There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where a little slither of wood had been neatly93 taken clean out; it looked as if the tooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and investigation94 showed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in her without observing it we must inevitably95 have foundered96. At first the water would have made the wood swell97 so as to close the hole, but once out in mid-stream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, never more than two inches above the surface, would have filled and sunk very rapidly.
"There, you see an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice," I heard him saying, more to himself than to me, "two victims rather," he added as he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit92.
I began to whistle—a thing I always do unconsciously when utterly nonplussed—and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was determined98 to consider them foolish.
"It wasn't there last night," he said presently, straightening up from his examination and looking anywhere but at me.
"We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I stopped whistling to say. "The stones are very sharp."
I stopped abruptly99, for at that moment he turned round and met my eye squarely. I knew just as well as he did how impossible my explanation was. There were no stones, to begin with.
"And then there's this to explain too," he added quietly, handing me the paddle and pointing to the blade.
A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I took and examined it. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped, as though someone had sand-papered it with care, making it so thin that the first vigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow.
"One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing," I said feebly, "or—or it has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown against it by the wind, perhaps."
"Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you can explain everything."
"The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled," I called out after him, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything he showed me.
"I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before disappearing among the willow bushes.
Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think my first thoughts took the form of "One of us must have done this thing, and it certainly was not I." But my second thought decided100 how impossible it was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either of us had done it. That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a suggestion not to be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed the explanation that this imperturbable101 and densely102 practical nature had suddenly become insane and was busied with insane purposes.
Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear actively103 alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his mind—that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he did not speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto unmentionable events—waiting, in a word, for a climax104 that he expected, and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind intuitively—I hardly knew how.
I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows formed in the sand I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a tea-cup to a large bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters105, just as it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water. The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable106; and, after all, it was conceivable that a sharp point had caught it when we landed. The examination I made of the shore did not assist this theory, but all the same I clung to it with that diminishing portion of my intelligence which I called my "reason." An explanation of some kind was an absolute necessity, just as some working explanation of the universe is necessary—however absurd—to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems of life. The simile107 seemed to me at the time an exact parallel.
I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at the work, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could not be safe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention casually108 to the hollows in the sand.
"Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But you can explain them, no doubt!"
"Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation109. "Have you never watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl everything into a circle? This sand's loose enough to yield, that's all."
He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched him surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He seemed, too, to be always listening attentively110 to something I could not hear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he kept turning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and out across the water where it was visible through the openings among the willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held it there for several minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, and I asked no questions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the skill and address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the work, for there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the changed aspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed that, my imagination could no longer be held a sufficient explanation of it.
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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corroboration
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| n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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utterly
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serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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contortions
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| n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 ) | |
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nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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hue
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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33
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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39
outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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41
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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43
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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44
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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45
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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46
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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48
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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50
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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51
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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appreciably
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| adv.相当大地 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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counteract
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| vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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buffeted
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| 反复敲打( buffet的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续猛击； 打来打去； 推来搡去 | |
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pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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corroborated
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| v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的过去式 ) | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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evaporation
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| n.蒸发，消失 | |
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abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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79
jot
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| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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81
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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82
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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83
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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84
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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85
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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86
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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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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88
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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89
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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91
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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95
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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96
foundered
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| v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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98
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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99
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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100
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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101
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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102
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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103
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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104
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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105
craters
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| n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等 | |
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106
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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107
simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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108
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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109
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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