"Queer thing," he added in a hurried sort of voice, as though he wanted to say something and get it over. "Queer thing. I mean, about that otter1 last night."
I had expected something so totally different that he caught me with surprise, and I looked up sharply.
"I don't mean that, of course," he interrupted. "I mean—do you think—did you think it really was an otter?"
"What else, in the name of Heaven, what else?"
"You know, I saw it before you did, and at first it seemed—so much bigger than an otter."
"The sunset as you looked up-stream magnified it, or something," I replied.
He looked at me absently a moment, as though his mind were busy with other thoughts.
"It had such extraordinary yellow eyes," he went on half to himself.
"That was the sun too," I laughed, a trifle boisterously5. "I suppose you'll wonder next if that fellow in the boat—"
I suddenly decided6 not to finish the sentence. He was in the act again of listening, turning his head to the wind, and something in the expression of his face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we went on with our caulking7. Apparently8 he had not noticed my unfinished sentence. Five minutes later, however, he looked at me across the canoe, the smoking pitch in his hand, his face exceedingly grave.
"I did rather wonder, if you want to know," he said slowly, "what that thing in the boat was. I remember thinking at the time it was not a man. The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly out of the water."
I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time there was impatience9, and a strain of anger too, in my feeling.
"Look here now," I cried, "this place is quite queer enough without going out of our way to imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat, and the man in it was an ordinary man, and they were both going down-stream as fast as they could lick. And that otter was an otter, so don't let's play the fool about it!"
He looked steadily10 at me with the same grave expression. He was not in the least annoyed. I took courage from his silence.
"And, for Heaven's sake," I went on, "don't keep pretending you hear things, because it only gives me the jumps, and there's nothing to hear but the river and this cursed old thundering wind."
"You fool!" he answered in a low, shocked voice, "you utter fool. That's just the way all victims talk. As if you didn't understand just as well as I do!" he sneered11 with scorn in his voice, and a sort of resignation. "The best thing you can do is to keep quiet and try to hold your mind as firm as possible. This feeble attempt at self-deception only makes the truth harder when you're forced to meet it."
My little effort was over, and I found nothing more to say, for I knew quite well his words were true, and that I was the fool, not he. Up to a certain stage in the adventure he kept ahead of me easily, and I think I felt annoyed to be out of it, to be thus proved less psychic12, less sensitive than himself to these extraordinary happenings, and half ignorant all the time of what was going on under my very nose. He knew from the very beginning, apparently. But at the moment I wholly missed the point of his words about the necessity of there being a victim, and that we ourselves were destined13 to satisfy the want. I dropped all pretence14 thenceforward, but thenceforward likewise my fear increased steadily to the climax15.
"But you're quite right about one thing," he added, before the subject passed, "and that is that we're wiser not to talk about it, or even to think about it, because what one thinks finds expression in words, and what one says, happens."
That afternoon, while the canoe dried and hardened, we spent trying to fish, testing the leak, collecting wood, and watching the enormous flood of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept near our shores sometimes, and we fished for them with long willow16 branches. The island grew perceptibly smaller as the banks were torn away with great gulps17 and splashes. The weather kept brilliantly fine till about four o'clock, and then for the first time for three days the wind showed signs of abating18. Clouds began to gather in the south-west, spreading thence slowly over the sky.
This lessening19 of the wind came as a great relief, for the incessant20 roaring, banging, and thundering had irritated our nerves. Yet the silence that came about five o'clock with its sudden cessation was in a manner quite as oppressive. The booming of the river had everything in its own way then; it filled the air with deep murmurs21, more musical than the wind noises, but infinitely22 more monotonous23. The wind held many notes, rising, falling always beating out some sort of great elemental tune24; whereas the river's song lay between three notes at most—dull pedal notes, that held a lugubrious25 quality foreign to the wind, and somehow seemed to me, in my then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the music of doom26.
It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal27 suddenly of bright sunlight took everything out of the landscape that made for cheerfulness; and since this particular landscape had already managed to convey the suggestion of something sinister28, the change of course was all the more unwelcome and noticeable. For me, I know, the darkening outlook became distinctly more alarming, and I found myself more than once calculating how soon after sunset the full moon would get up in the east, and whether the gathering29 clouds would greatly interfere30 with her lighting31 of the little island.
With this general hush32 of the wind—though it still indulged in occasional brief gusts—the river seemed to me to grow blacker, the willows33 to stand more densely34 together. The latter, too, kept up a sort of independent movement of their own, rustling35 among themselves when no wind stirred, and shaking oddly from the roots upwards36. When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate37 the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled38 about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant39 and hostile to us. The forces of the region drew nearer with the coming of night. They were focusing upon our island, and more particularly upon ourselves. For thus, somehow, in the terms of the imagination, did my really indescribable sensations in this extraordinary place present themselves.
I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and had thus recovered somewhat from the exhaustion40 of a disturbed night, but this only served apparently to render me more susceptible41 than before to the obsessing42 spell of the haunting. I fought against it, laughing at my feelings as absurd and childish, with very obvious physiological43 explanations, yet, in spite of every effort, they gained in strength upon me so that I dreaded45 the night as a child lost in a forest must dread44 the approach of darkness.
The canoe we had carefully covered with a waterproof46 sheet during the day, and the one remaining paddle had been securely tied by the Swede to the base of a tree, lest the wind should rob us of that too. From five o'clock onwards I busied myself with the stew47-pot and preparations for dinner, it being my turn to cook that night. We had potatoes, onions, bits of bacon fat to add flavor, and a general thick residue48 from former stews49 at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up into it the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of plums with sugar and a brew50 of strong tea with dried milk. A good pile of wood lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made my duties easy. My companion sat lazily watching me, dividing his attentions between cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice—an admitted privilege of the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable51 things had passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was not fully4 a third smaller than when we first landed.
The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice calling to me from the bank, where he had wandered away without my noticing. I ran up.
"Come and listen," he said, "and see what you make of it." He held his hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before.
We stood there, listening attentively53 together. At first I heard only the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a sound began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar54 sound—something like the humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated at regular intervals55, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting56 of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, repeating incessantly57 its muffled58 metallic59 note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened.
"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept this afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could never get near enough to see—to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, I could have sworn it was not outside at all, but within myself—you know—the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed to come."
I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I listened carefully, striving to associate it with any known familiar sound I could think of, but without success. It changed in the direction, too, coming nearer, and then sinking utterly60 away into remote distance. I cannot say that it was ominous61 in quality, because to me it seemed distinctly musical, yet I must admit it set going a distressing62 feeling that made me wish I had never heard it.
"The wind blowing in those sand-funnels," I said determined63 to find an explanation, "or the bushes rubbing together after the storm perhaps."
"It comes off the whole swamp," my friend answered. "It comes from everywhere at once." He ignored my explanations. "It comes from the willow bushes somehow—"
"But now the wind has dropped," I objected. "The willows can hardly make a noise by themselves, can they?"
His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it, and secondly64, because I knew intuitively it was true.
"It is because the wind has dropped we now hear it. It was drowned before.
It is the cry, I believe, of the—"
I dashed back to my fire, warned by the sound of bubbling that the stew was in danger, but determined at the same time to escape further conversation. I was resolute65, if possible, to avoid the exchanging of views. I dreaded, too, that he would begin about the gods, or the elemental forces, or something else disquieting66, and I wanted to keep myself well in hand for what might happen later. There was another night to be faced before we escaped from this distressing place, and there was no knowing yet what it might bring forth67.
"Come and cut up bread for the pot," I called to him, vigorously stirring the appetizing mixture. That stew-pot held sanity68 for us both, and the thought made me laugh.
He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the tree, fumbling69 in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the entire contents upon the ground-sheet at his feet.
"Hurry up!" I cried; "it's boiling."
The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled me. It was forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but mirthless.
"There's nothing here!" he shouted, holding his sides.
"Bread, I mean."
"It's gone. There is no bread. They've taken it!"
I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had contained lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf.
The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of my laughter also made me understand his. The stain of psychical70 pressure caused it—this explosion of unnatural71 laughter in both of us; it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary safety-valve. And with both of us it ceased quite suddenly.
"How criminally stupid of me!" I cried, still determined to be consistent and find an explanation. "I clean forgot to buy a loaf at Pressburg. That chattering72 woman put everything out of my head, and I must have left it lying on the counter or—"
"The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this morning," the Swede interrupted.
Why in the world need he draw attention to it? I thought angrily.
"There's enough for tomorrow," I said, stirring vigorously, "and we can get lots more at Komorn or Gran. In twenty-four hours we shall be miles from here."
"I hope so—to God," he muttered, putting the things back into the sack, "unless we're claimed first as victims for the sacrifice," he added with a foolish laugh. He dragged the sack into the tent, for safety's sake, I suppose, and I heard him mumbling73 to himself, but so indistinctly that it seemed quite natural for me to ignore his words.
Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and we ate it almost in silence, avoiding one another's eyes, and keeping the fire bright. Then we washed up and prepared for the night, and, once smoking, our minds unoccupied with any definite duties, the apprehension74 I had felt all day long became more and more acute. It was not then active fear, I think, but the very vagueness of its origin distressed75 me far more that if I had been able to ticket and face it squarely. The curious sound I have likened to the note of a gong became now almost incessant, and filled the stillness of the night with a faint, continuous ringing rather than a series of distinct notes. At one time it was behind and at another time in front of us. Sometimes I fancied it came from the bushes on our left, and then again from the clumps76 on our right. More often it hovered77 directly overhead like the whirring of wings. It was really everywhere at once, behind, in front, at our sides and over our heads, completely surrounding us. The sound really defies description. But nothing within my knowledge is like that ceaseless muffled humming rising off the deserted78 world of swamps and willows.
We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain growing every minute greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed to me that we did not know what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of preparation by way of defense79. We could anticipate nothing. My explanations made in the sunshine, moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish and wholly unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and more clear to us that some kind of plain talk with my companion was inevitable80, whether I liked it or not. After all, we had to spend the night together, and to sleep in the same tent side by side. I saw that I could not get along much longer without the support of his mind, and for that, of course, plain talk was imperative81. As long as possible, however, I postponed82 this little climax, and tried to ignore or laugh at the occasional sentences he flung into the emptiness.
Some of these sentences, moreover, were confoundedly disquieting to me, coming as they did to corroborate83 much that I felt myself; corroboration84, too—which made it so much more convincing—from a totally different point of view. He composed such curious sentences, and hurled85 them at me in such an inconsequential sort of way, as though his main line of thought was secret to himself, and these fragments were mere86 bits he found it impossible to digest. He got rid of them by uttering them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick.
"There are things about us, I'm sure, that make for disorder87, disintegration88, destruction, our destruction," he said once, while the fire blazed between us. "We've strayed out of a safe line somewhere."
And, another time, when the gong sounds had come nearer, ringing much louder than before, and directly over our heads, he said as though talking to himself:
"I don't think a gramophone would show any record of that. The sound doesn't come to me by the ears at all. The vibrations89 reach me in another manner altogether, and seem to be within me, which is precisely90 how a fourth dimensional sound might be supposed to make itself heard."
I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a little closer to the fire and peered about me into the darkness. The clouds were massed all over the sky, and no trace of moonlight came through. Very still, too, everything was, so that the river and the frogs had things all their own way.
"It has that about it," he went on, "which is utterly out of common experience. It is unknown. Only one thing describes it really; it is a non-human sound; I mean a sound outside humanity."
Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel91, he lay quiet for a time, but he had so admirably expressed my own feeling that it was a relief to have the thought out, and to have confined it by the limitation of words from dangerous wandering to and fro in the mind.
The solitude92 of that Danube camping-place, can I ever forget it? The feeling of being utterly alone on an empty planet! My thoughts ran incessantly upon cities and the haunts of men. I would have given my soul, as the saying is, for the "feel" of those Bavarian villages we had passed through by the score; for the normal, human commonplaces; peasants drinking beer, tables beneath the trees, hot sunshine, and a ruined castle on the rocks behind the red-roofed church. Even the tourists would have been welcome.
Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly fear. It was infinitely greater, stranger, and seemed to arise from some dim ancestral sense of terror more profoundly disturbing than anything I had known or dreamed of. We had "strayed," as the Swede put it, into some region or some set of conditions where the risks were great, yet unintelligible93 to us; where the frontiers of some unknown world lay close about us. It was a spot held by the dwellers94 in some outer space, a sort of peep-hole whence they could spy upon the earth, themselves unseen, a point where the veil between had worn a little thin. As the final result of too long a sojourn95 here, we should be carried over the border and deprived of what we called "our lives," yet by mental, not physical, processes. In that sense, as he said, we should be the victims of our adventure—a sacrifice.
It took us in different fashion, each according to the measure of his sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I translated it vaguely96 into a personification of the mightily97 disturbed elements, investing them with the horror of a deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our audacious intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw it into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass98 on some ancient shrine99, some place where the old gods still held sway, where the emotional forces of former worshippers still clung, and the ancestral portion of him yielded to the old pagan spell.
At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean by the winds from coarsening human influences, a place where spiritual agencies were within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since, have I been so attacked by indescribable suggestions of a "beyond region," of another scheme of life, another revolution not parallel to the human. And in the end our minds would succumb100 under the weight of the awful spell, and we should be drawn101 across the frontier into their world.
Small things testified to the amazing influence of the place, and now in the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted102 by the mind. The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to distort every indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying boatman making signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed of its natural character, and revealed in something of its other aspect—as it existed across the border to that other region. And this changed aspect I felt was now not merely to me, but to the race. The whole experience whose verge103 we touched was unknown to humanity at all. It was a new order of experience, and in the true sense of the word unearthly.
"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one's courage to zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my thoughts. "Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle, the canoe, the lessening food—"
"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted viciously.
"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."
He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called the "plain determination to provide a victim"; but, having now arranged my thoughts better, I recognized that this was simply the cry of his frightened soul against the knowledge that he was being attacked in a vital part, and that he would be somehow taken or destroyed. The situation called for a courage and calmness of reasoning that neither of us could compass, and I have never before been so clearly conscious of two persons in me—the one that explained everything, and the other that laughed at such foolish explanations, yet was horribly afraid.
Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down and the wood pile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish104 the stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff105 of wind set the willows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome sound a deep and depressing silence reigned106, broken only by the gurgling of the river and the humming in the air overhead.
We both missed, I think, the shouting company of the winds.
At length, at a moment when a stray puff prolonged itself as though the wind were about to rise again, I reached the point for me of saturation107, the point where it was absolutely necessary to find relief in plain speech, or else to betray myself by some hysterical108 extravagance that must have been far worse in its effect upon both of us. I kicked the fire into a blaze, and turned to my companion abruptly109. He looked up with a start.
"I can't disguise it any longer," I said; "I don't like this place, and the darkness, and the noises, and the awful feelings I get. There's something here that beats me utterly. I'm in a blue funk, and that's the plain truth. If the other shore was—different, I swear I'd be inclined to swim for it!"
The Swede's face turned very white beneath the deep tan of sun and wind. He stared straight at me and answered quietly, but his voice betrayed his huge excitement by its unnatural calmness. For the moment, at any rate, he was the strong man of the two. He was more phlegmatic110, for one thing.
"It's not a physical condition we can escape from by running away," he replied, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing some grave disease; "we must sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that could kill a herd111 of elephants in a second as easily as you or I could squash a fly. Our only chance is to keep perfectly112 still. Our insignificance113 perhaps may save us."
I put a dozen questions into my expression of face, but found no words. It was precisely like listening to an accurate description of a disease whose symptoms had puzzled me.
"I mean that so far, although aware of our disturbing presence, they have not found us—not 'located' us, as the Americans say," he went on. "They're blundering about like men hunting for a leak of gas. The paddle and canoe and provisions prove that. I think they feel us, but cannot actually see us. We must keep our minds quiet—it's our minds they feel. We must control our thoughts, or it's all up with us."
"Worse—by far," he said. "Death, according to one's belief, means either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but it involves no change of character. You don't suddenly alter just because the body's gone. But this means a radical115 alteration116, a complete change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution—far worse than death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have camped in a spot where their region touches ours, where the veil between has worn thin"—horrors! he was using my very own phrase, my actual words—"so that they are aware of our being in their neighborhood."
"But who are aware?" I asked.
I forgot the shaking of the willows in the windless calm, the humming overhead, everything except that I was waiting for an answer that I dreaded more than I can possibly explain.
He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning forward a little over the fire, an indefinable change in his face that made me avoid his eyes and look down upon the ground.
"All my life," he said, "I have been strangely, vividly117 conscious of another region—not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind—where great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities118 hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the soul, and not indirectly119 with more expressions of the soul—"
"I suggest just now—" I began, seeking to stop him, feeling as though I was face to face with a madman. But he instantly overbore me with his torrent120 that had to come.
"You think," he said, "it is the spirit of the elements, and I thought perhaps it was the old gods. But I tell you now it is—neither. These would be comprehensible entities121, for they have relations with men, depending upon them for worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who are now about us have absolutely nothing to do with mankind, and it is mere chance that their space happens just at this spot to touch our own."
The mere conception, which his words somehow made so convincing, as I listened to them there in the dark stillness of that lonely island, set me shaking a little all over. I found it impossible to control my movements.
"And what do you propose?" I began again.
"A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting them until we could get away," he went on, "just as the wolves stop to devour122 the dogs and give the sleigh another start. But—I see no chance of any other victim now."
I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eye was dreadful. Presently he continued.
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1
otter
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| n.水獭 | |
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otters
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| n.（水）獭( otter的名词复数 )；獭皮 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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7
caulking
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| n.堵缝；敛缝；捻缝；压紧v.堵（船的）缝( caulk的现在分词 )；泥…的缝；填塞；使不漏水 | |
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8
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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psychic
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| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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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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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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gulps
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| n.一大口（尤指液体）( gulp的名词复数 )v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的第三人称单数 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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abating
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| 减少( abate的现在分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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lugubrious
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| adj.悲哀的，忧郁的 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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32
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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33
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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34
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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35
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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36
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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37
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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38
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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39
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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40
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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41
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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42
obsessing
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| v.时刻困扰( obsess的现在分词 )；缠住；使痴迷；使迷恋 | |
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43
physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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44
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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45
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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46
waterproof
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| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
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47
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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48
residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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49
stews
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| n.炖煮的菜肴( stew的名词复数 )；烦恼，焦虑v.炖( stew的第三人称单数 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
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50
brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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51
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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52
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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53
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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54
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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55
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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56
hooting
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| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 )； 倒好儿； 倒彩 | |
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57
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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58
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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59
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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60
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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61
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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62
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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63
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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64
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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65
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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66
disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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67
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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68
sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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69
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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70
psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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71
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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72
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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73
mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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74
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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75
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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76
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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77
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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78
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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79
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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80
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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81
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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82
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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83
corroborate
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| v.支持，证实，确定 | |
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84
corroboration
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| n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据 | |
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85
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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86
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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87
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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88
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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89
vibrations
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| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
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90
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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91
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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92
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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93
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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94
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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95
sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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96
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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97
mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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98
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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99
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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100
succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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101
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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102
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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103
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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104
replenish
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| vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满 | |
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105
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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106
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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107
saturation
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| n.饱和(状态)；浸透 | |
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108
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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109
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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110
phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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111
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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112
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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113
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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114
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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116
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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117
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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118
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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119
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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120
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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121
entities
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| 实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 ) | |
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122
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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