Jim had sat silent, watching me, but now and again I had seen the Indian stoicism drop from his face. He leaned over and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Leif,” he said quietly, “how could I have known? For the first time, I saw you afraid — it hurt me. I did not know . . . .”
From Tsantawu, the Cherokee, this was much. “It’s all right, Indian. Snap back,” I said roughly. He sat for a while not speaking, throwing little twigs1 on the fire.
“What did you friend Barr say about it?” he asked abruptly2.
“He gave me hell,” I said. “He gave me hell with the tears streaming down his cheeks. He said that never had anyone betrayed science as I had since Judas kissed Christ. He was keen on mixed metaphors3 that got under your skin. That went deep under mine, for it was precisely4 what I was thinking of myself — not as to science but as to the girl. I had given her the kiss of Judas all right. Barr said that I had been handed the finest opportunity man ever had given him. I could have solved the whole mystery of the Gobi and its lost civilization. I had run away like a child from a bugaboo. I was not only atavistic in body, I was atavistic in brain. I was a blond savage5 cowering6 before my mumbo-jumbos. He said that if he had been given my chance he would have let himself be crucified to have learned the truth. He would have, too. He was not lying.”
“Admirably scientific,” said Jim. “But what did he say about what you saw?”
“That is was nothing but hypnotic suggestion by the old priest. I had seen what he had willed me to see — just as before, under his will, I had seen myself riding to the temple. The girl hadn’t dissolved. She had probably been standing7 in the wings laughing at me. But if everything that my ignorant mind had accepted as true had been true then my conduct was even more unforgivable. I should have remained, studied the phenomena8 and brought back the results for science to examine. What I had told him of the ritual of Khalk’ru was nothing but the second law of thermo-dynamics expressed in terms of anthropomorphism. Life was an intrusion upon Chaos9, using that word to describe the unformed, primal10 state of the universe. An invasion. An accident. In time all energy would be changed to static heat, impotent to give birth to any life whatsoever12. The dead universes would float lifelessly in the illimitable void. The void was eternal, life was not. Therefore the void would absorb it. Suns, worlds, gods, men, an things animate13, would return to the void. Go back to Chaos. Back to Nothingness. Back to Khalk’ru. Or if my atavistic brain preferred the term — back to the Kraken. He was bitter.”
“But the others saw the girl taken, you say. How did he explain that?”
“Oh, easily. That was mass hypnotism-like the Angels of Mons, the ghostly bowmen of Crecy and other collective hallucinations of the War. I had been a catalyzer. My likeness14 to the traditional ancient race, my completeness as a throwback, my mastery at Khalk’ru’s ritual, the faith the Uighurs had in me — all this had been the necessary element in bringing about the collective hallucination of the tentacle15. Obviously the priests had long been trying to make work a drug in which an essential chemical was lacking. I, for some reason, was the missing chemical — the catalyzer. That was all.” Again he sat thinking, breaking the little twigs.
“It’s a reasonable explanation. But you weren’t convinced?”
“No, I wasn’t convinced — I saw the girl’s face when the tentacle touched her.” He arose, stood staring toward the north.
“Leif,” he asked suddenly, “what did you do with the ring?”
I drew out the little buckskin pouch16, opened it and handed the ring to him. He examined it closely, returned it to me.
“Why did you keep it, Leif?”
“I’don’t know.” I slipped the ring over my thumb. “I Didn’t give it back to the old priest; he didn’t ask for it. Oh, hell — I’ll tell you why I kept it — for the same reason Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner18 had the albatross tied round his neck. So I couldn’t forget I’m a murderer.”
I put the ring back in the buckskin bag, and dropped it down my neck. Faintly from the north came a roll of drums. It did not seem to travel with the wind this time. It seemed to travel underground, and died out deep beneath us.
“Khalk’ru!” I said.
“Well. don’t let’s keep the old gentleman waiting,” said Jim cheerfully.
He busied himself with the packs, whistling. Suddenly he turned to me.
“Listen, Leif. Barr’s theories sound good to me. I’m not saying that if I’d been in your place I would have accepted them. Maybe you’re right. But I’m with Barr — until events, if-when-and-how they occur, prove him wrong.”
“Fine!” I said heartily19, and entirely20 without sarcasm21.
“May your optimism endure until we get back to New York — if-when-and-how.”
We shouldered the packs, and took up our rifles and started northward22.
It was not hard going, but it was an almost constant climb. The country sloped upward, sometimes at a breathtaking pitch. The forest, unusually thick and high for the latitude23, began to thin. It grew steadily24 cooler. After we had covered about fifteen miles we entered a region of sparse25 and stunted26 trees. Five miles ahead was a thousand-feet-high range of bare rocks. Beyond this range was a jumble27 of mountains four to five thousand feet higher, treeless, their peaks covered with snow and ice, and cut by numerous ravines which stood out glistening28 white like miniature glaciers29. Between us and the nearer range stretched a plain, all grown over with dwarfed31 thickets32 of wild roses, blueberries and squawbemes, and dressed in the brilliant reds and blues33 and greens of the brief Alaskan summer.
“If we camp at the base of those hills, we’ll be out of that wind,” said Jim. “It’s five o’clock. We ought to make it in an hour.”
We set off. Bursts of willow34 ptarmigans shot up around us from the berry thickets like brown rockets; golden plovers35 and curlews were whistling on all sides; within rifle shot a small herd36 of caribou37 was feeding, and the little brown cranes were stalking everywhere. No one could starve in that country, and after we had set up camp we dined very well.
There were no sounds that night — or if there were we slept too deeply to hear them.
The next morning we debated our trail. The low range stood directly in our path north. It continued, increasing in height, both east and west. It presented no great difficulties from where we were, at least so far as we could see. We determined38 to climb it, taking it leisurely39. It was more difficult than it had appeared; it took us two hours to wind our way to the top.
We tramped across the top toward a line of huge boulders40 that stretched like a wall before us. We squeezed between two of these, and drew hastily back. We were standing at the edge of a precipice41 that dropped hundreds of feet sheer to the floor of a singular valley. The jumble of snow-and-ice-mantled mountains clustered around it. At its far end, perhaps twenty miles away, was a pyramidal-shaped peak.
Down its centre, from tip to the floor of the valley, ran a glittering white streak42, without question a glacier30 filling a chasm43 which split the mountain as evenly as though it had been made by a single sword stroke. The valley was not wide, not more than five miles, I estimated, at its widest point. A long and narrow valley, its far end stoppered by the glacier-cleft giant, its sides the walls of the other mountains, dropping, except here and there where there had been falls of rock, as precipitously into it as the cliff under us.
But it was the floor of the valley itself that riveted44 our attention. It seemed nothing but a tremendous level field covered with rocky rubble45. At the far end, the glacier ran through this rubble for half the length of the valley. There was no trace of vegetation among the littered rocks. There was no hint of green upon the surrounding mountains; only the bare black cliffs with their ice and snow-filled gashes46. It was a valley of desolation.
“It’s cold here, Leif.” Jim shivered.
It was cold — a cold of a curious quality, a still and breathless cold. It seemed to press out upon us from the valley, as though to force us away.
“It’s going to be a job getting down there,” I said.
“And hard going when we do,” said Jim. “Where the hell did all those rocks come from, and what spread them out so flat?”
“Probably dropped by that glacier when it shrunk,” I said. “It looks like a terminal moraine. In fact this whole place looks as though it had been scooped47 out by the ice.”
“Hold on to my feet, Leif, I’ll take a look.” He lay on his belly48 and wriggled49 his body over the edge. In a minute or two I heard him call, and pulled him back.
“There’s a slide about a quarter of a mile over there to the left,” he said. “I couldn’t tell whether it goes all the way to the top. We’ll go see. Leif, how far down do you think that valley is?”
“Oh, a few hundred feet.”
“It’s all of a thousand if it’s an inch. The cliff goes down and down. I don’t understand what makes the bottom seem so much closer here. It’s a queer place, this.”
We picked up the packs and marched off behind the wall — like rim11 of boulders. In a little while we came across a big gouge50 in the top, running far back. Here frost and ice had bitten out the rock along some fault. The shattered debris51 ran down the middle of the gouge like giant stepping-stones clear to the floor of the valley.
“We’ll have to take the packs off to negotiate that,” said Jim. “What shall be do — leave them here while we explore, or drop them along with us as we go?”
“Take them with us. There must be an outlet52 off there at the base of the big mountain.”
We began the descent. I was scrambling53 over one of the rocks about a third of the way when I heard his sharp exclamation54.
Gone was the glacier that had thrust its white tongue in among the rubble. Gone was the rubble. Toward its .far end, the valley’s floor was covered with scores of pyramidal black stones, each marked down its centre with a streak of glistening white. They stood in ranks, spaced regularly, like the dolmens of the Druids. They marched half-down the valley. Here and there between them arose wisps of white steam, like smokes of sacrifices.
Between them and us, lapping at the black cliffs, was a blue and rippling55 lake! It filled the lower valley from side to side. It rippled56 over the edges of the shattered rocks still far below us.
Then something about the marshalled ranks of black stones struck me.
“Jim! Those pyramid-shaped rocks. Each and every one of them is a tiny duplicate of the mountain behind them! Even to the white streak!”
As I spoke57, the blue lake quivered. It flowed among the black pyramids, half-submerging them, quenching58 the sacrificial smokes. It covered the pyramids. Again it quivered. It was gone. Where the lake had been was once more the rubble-covered floor of the valley.
There had been an odd touch of legerdemain59 about the transformations60, like the swift work of a master magician. And it had been magic — of a kind. But I had watched nature perform that magic before.
“Hell t” I said. “It’s a mirage61 I”
Jim did not answer. He was staring at the valley with a singular expression.
“What’s the matter with you, Tsantawu? Listening to the ancestors again? It’s only a mirage.”
“Yes?” he said. “But which one? The lake — or the rocks?”
I studied the valley’s floor. It looked real enough. The theory of a glacial moraine accounted for its oddly level appearance — that and our height above it. When we reached it we would find that distribution of boulders uncomfortably uneven62 enough, I would swear.
“Why, the lake of coarse.”
“No,” he said, “I think the stones are the mirage.”
“Nonsense. There’s a layer of warm air down there. The stones radiate the sun’s heat. This cold air presses on it. It’s one of the conditions that produces mirages63, and it has just done it for us. That’s all.”
“No,” he said, “it isn’t all.”
He leaned against the rock.
“Leif, the ancestors had a few things more to say last night than I told you.”
“I know damned well they did.”
“They spoke of Ataga’hi. Does that mean anything to you.”
“Not a thing.”
“It didn’t to me — then. It does now. Ataga’hi was an enchanted64 lake, in the wildest part of the Great Smokies, westward65 from the headwaters of the Ocana-luftee. It was the medicine lake of the animals and birds. All the Cherokee knew it was there, though few had seen it. If a stray hunter came close, all he saw was a stony66 flat, without blade of grass, forbidding. But by prayer and fasting and an all-night vigil, he could sharpen his spiritual sight. He would then behold67 at daybreak a wide shallow sheet of purple water, fed by springs, spouting68 from the high cliffs around. And in the water all kinds of fish and reptiles69, flocks of ducks and geese and other birds flying about, and around the lake the tracks of animals. They came to Ataga’hi to be cured of wounds or sickness. The Great Spirit had placed an island in the middle of the lake. The wounded, the sick’ animals and birds swam to it. When they had reached it — the waters of Ataga’hi had cured them. They came up on its shores — whole once more. Over Ataga’hi ruled the peace of God. All creatures were friends.”
“Listen, Indian, are you trying to tell me this is your medicine lake?”
“I didn’t say that at all. I said the name of Ataga’hi kept coming into my mind. It was a place that appeared to be a stony flat, without blade of grass, forbidding. So does this place. But under that illusion was — a lake. We saw a lake. It’s a queer coincidence, that’s all. Perhaps the stony flat of Ataga’hi was a mirage —” He hesitated: “Well, if some other things the ancestors mentioned turn up, I’ll shift sides and take your version of that Gobi affair.”
“That lake was the mirage. I’m telling you.”
He shook his head, stubbornly.
“Maybe. But maybe what we see down there now is mirage, too. Maybe both are mirage. And if so, then, how deep is the real floor, and can we make our way over it?”
He stood staring silently at the valley. He shivered, and again I was aware of the curiously70 intense quality of the cold. I stooped and caught hold of my pack. My hands were numb71.
“Well, whatever it is — let’s find out.”
A quiver ran through the valley floor. Abruptly it became again the shimmering72 blue lake. And as abruptly turned again to nibbled73 rock.
But not before I had seemed to see within that lake of illusion — if illusion it were — a gigantic shadowy shape, huge black tentacles74 stretching out from a vast and nebulous body . . . a body which seemed to vanish back into immeasurable distances . . . vanishing into the void . . . as the Kraken of the Gobi cavern75 had seemed to vanish into the void . . . into that void which was — Khalk’ru!
We crept between, scrambled76 over and slid down the huge broken fragments. The further down we went, the more intense became the cold. It had a still and creeping quality that seeped77 into the marrow78. Sometimes we dropped the packs ahead of us, sometimes dragged them after us. And ever more savagely79 the cold bit into our bones.
By the frequent glimpses of the valley floor, I was more and more assured of its reality. Every mirage I had ever beheld80 — and in Mongolia I had seen many — had retreated, changed form, or vanished as I drew near. The valley floor did none of these things. It was true that the stones seemed to be squatter81 as we came closer; but I attributed that to the different angle of vision.
We were about a hundred feet above the end of the slide when I began to be less sure. The travelling had become peculiarly difficult. The slide had narrowed. At our left the rock was clean swept, stretching down to the valley as smoothly82 as though it had been brushed by some titantic broom. Probably an immense fragment had broken loose at this point, shattering into the boulders that lay heaped at its termination. We veered83 to the right, where there was a ridge17 of rocks, pushed to the side by that same besom of stone. Down this ridge we picked our way.
Because of my greater strength, I was carrying both our rifles, swung by a thong84 over my left shoulder. Also I was handling the heavier pack. We came upon an extremely awkward place. The stone upon which I was standing suddenly tipped beneath my weight. It threw me sideways. The pack slipped from my hands, toppled, and fell over on the smooth rock. Automatically I threw myself forward, catching85 at it. The thong holding the two rifles broke. They went slithering after the escaping pack.
It was one of those combinations of circumstances that makes one believe in a God of Mischance. The thing might have happened anywhere else on our journey without any result whatever. And even at that moment I didn’t think it mattered.
“Well,” I said, cheerfully, “that saves me carrying them. We can pick them up when we get to the bottom.”
“That is.” said Jim, “if there is a bottom.”
I cocked my eye down the slide. The rifles had caught up with the pack and the three were now moving fast.
“There they stop,” I said. They were almost on the rubble at the end.
“The hell they do,” said Jim. “There they go!”
I rubbed my eyes, and looked and looked again. The pack and the pushing rifles should have been checked by that barrier at the slide’s end. But they had not been. They had vanished.
1 twigs | |
细枝,嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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2 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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3 metaphors | |
隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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4 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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5 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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6 cowering | |
v.畏缩,抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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7 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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8 phenomena | |
n.现象 | |
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9 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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10 primal | |
adj.原始的;最重要的 | |
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11 rim | |
n.(圆物的)边,轮缘;边界 | |
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12 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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13 animate | |
v.赋于生命,鼓励;adj.有生命的,有生气的 | |
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14 likeness | |
n.相像,相似(之处) | |
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15 tentacle | |
n.触角,触须,触手 | |
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16 pouch | |
n.小袋,小包,囊状袋;vt.装...入袋中,用袋运输;vi.用袋送信件 | |
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17 ridge | |
n.山脊;鼻梁;分水岭 | |
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18 mariner | |
n.水手号不载人航天探测器,海员,航海者 | |
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19 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
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20 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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21 sarcasm | |
n.讥讽,讽刺,嘲弄,反话 (adj.sarcastic) | |
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22 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
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23 latitude | |
n.纬度,行动或言论的自由(范围),(pl.)地区 | |
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24 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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25 sparse | |
adj.稀疏的,稀稀落落的,薄的 | |
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26 stunted | |
adj.矮小的;发育迟缓的 | |
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27 jumble | |
vt.使混乱,混杂;n.混乱;杂乱的一堆 | |
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28 glistening | |
adj.闪耀的,反光的v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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29 glaciers | |
冰河,冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
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30 glacier | |
n.冰川,冰河 | |
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31 dwarfed | |
vt.(使)显得矮小(dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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32 thickets | |
n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 );丛状物 | |
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33 blues | |
n.抑郁,沮丧;布鲁斯音乐 | |
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34 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
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35 plovers | |
n.珩,珩科鸟(如凤头麦鸡)( plover的名词复数 ) | |
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36 herd | |
n.兽群,牧群;vt.使集中,把…赶在一起 | |
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37 caribou | |
n.北美驯鹿 | |
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38 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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39 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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40 boulders | |
n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 );巨砾;(受水或天气侵蚀而成的)巨石;漂砾 | |
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41 precipice | |
n.悬崖,危急的处境 | |
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42 streak | |
n.条理,斑纹,倾向,少许,痕迹;v.加条纹,变成条纹,奔驰,快速移动 | |
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43 chasm | |
n.深坑,断层,裂口,大分岐,利害冲突 | |
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44 riveted | |
铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 ); 把…固定住; 吸引; 引起某人的注意 | |
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45 rubble | |
n.(一堆)碎石,瓦砾 | |
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46 gashes | |
n.深长的切口(或伤口)( gash的名词复数 )v.划伤,割破( gash的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47 scooped | |
v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 );(敏捷地)抱起;抢先获得;用铲[勺]等挖(洞等) | |
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48 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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49 wriggled | |
v.扭动,蠕动,蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 );(使身体某一部位)扭动;耍滑不做,逃避(应做的事等) | |
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50 gouge | |
v.凿;挖出;n.半圆凿;凿孔;欺诈 | |
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51 debris | |
n.瓦砾堆,废墟,碎片 | |
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52 outlet | |
n.出口/路;销路;批发商店;通风口;发泄 | |
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53 scrambling | |
v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞 | |
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54 exclamation | |
n.感叹号,惊呼,惊叹词 | |
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55 rippling | |
起涟漪的,潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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56 rippled | |
使泛起涟漪(ripple的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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57 spoke | |
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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58 quenching | |
淬火,熄 | |
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59 legerdemain | |
n.戏法,诈术 | |
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60 transformations | |
n.变化( transformation的名词复数 );转换;转换;变换 | |
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61 mirage | |
n.海市蜃楼,幻景 | |
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62 uneven | |
adj.不平坦的,不规则的,不均匀的 | |
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63 mirages | |
n.海市蜃楼,幻景( mirage的名词复数 ) | |
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64 enchanted | |
adj. 被施魔法的,陶醉的,入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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65 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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66 stony | |
adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的 | |
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67 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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68 spouting | |
n.水落管系统v.(指液体)喷出( spout的现在分词 );滔滔不绝地讲;喋喋不休地说;喷水 | |
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69 reptiles | |
n.爬行动物,爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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70 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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71 numb | |
adj.麻木的,失去感觉的;v.使麻木 | |
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72 shimmering | |
v.闪闪发光,发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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73 nibbled | |
v.啃,一点一点地咬(吃)( nibble的过去式和过去分词 );啃出(洞),一点一点咬出(洞);慢慢减少;小口咬 | |
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74 tentacles | |
n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 );触角;触须;触毛 | |
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75 cavern | |
n.洞穴,大山洞 | |
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76 scrambled | |
v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞 | |
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77 seeped | |
v.(液体)渗( seep的过去式和过去分词 );渗透;渗出;漏出 | |
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78 marrow | |
n.骨髓;精华;活力 | |
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79 savagely | |
adv. 野蛮地,残酷地 | |
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80 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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81 squatter | |
n.擅自占地者 | |
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82 smoothly | |
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地 | |
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83 veered | |
v.(尤指交通工具)改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 );(指谈话内容、人的行为或观点)突然改变;(指风) (在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向)逐渐转向;风向顺时针转 | |
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84 thong | |
n.皮带;皮鞭;v.装皮带 | |
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85 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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