Bond leapt for the Bentley, blessing2 the impulse which had made him drive it over after dinner. With the choke full out, the engine answered at once to the starter and the roar drowned the faltering3 words of the commissionaire who jumped aside as the rear wheels whipped gravel4 at his piped trouser-legs.
As the car rocked to the left outside the gate, Bond ruefully longed for the front-wheel drive and low chassis5 of the Citroen. Then he went fast through the gears and settled himself for the pursuit, briefly6 savoring7 the echo of the huge exhaust as it came back at him from either side of the short main street through the town.
Soon he was out on the coast road, a broad highway through the sand-dunes which he knew from his morning's drive had an excellent surface and was well cat's-eyed on the bends. He pushed the revs8 up and up, hurrying the car to eighty then to ninety, his huge Marchal headlights boring a safe white tunnel, nearly half a mile long, between the walls of the night.
He knew the Citro?n must have come this way. He had heard the exhaust penetrate9 beyond the town, and a little dust still hung on the bends. He hoped soon to see the distant shaft10 of its headlights. The night was still and clear. Only out at sea there must be a light summer mist for at intervals11 he could hear the fog-horns lowing like iron cattle down the coast.
As he drove, whipping the car faster and faster through the night, with the other half of his mind he cursed Vesper, and M for having sent her on the job.
This was just what he had been afraid of. These blithering women who thought they could do a man's work. Why the hell couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men's work to the men. And now for this to happen to him, just when the job had come off so beautifully. For Vesper to fall for an old trick like that and get herself snatched and probably held to ranson like some bloody12 heroine in a strip cartoon. The silly bitch.
Bond boiled at the thought of the fix he was in.
Of course. The idea was a straight swop. The girl against his cheque for forty million. Well, he wouldn't play: wouldn't think of playing. She was in the Service and knew what she was up against. He wouldn't even ask M. This job was more important than her. It was just too bad. She was a fine girl, but he wasn't going to fall for this childish trick. No dice13. He would try and catch the Citro?n and shoot it out with them and if she got shot in the process, that was too bad too. He would have done his stuff - tried to rescue her before they got her off to some hideout - but if he didn't catch up with them he would get back to his hotel and go to sleep and say no more about it. The next morning he would ask Mathis what had happened to her and show him the note. If Le Chiffre put the touch on Bond for the money in exchange for the girl, Bond would do nothing and tell no one. The girl would just have to take it. If the commissionaire came along with the story of what he had seen, Bond would bluff14 it out by saying he had had a drunken row with the girl.
Bond's mind raged furiously on with the problem as he flung the great car down the coast road, automatically taking the curves and watching out for carts or cyclists on their way into Royale. On straight stretches the Amherst Villiers supercharger dug spurs into the Bentley's twenty-five horses and the engine sent a high-pitched scream of pain into the night. Then the revolutions mounted until he was past 110 and on to the 120 mph mark on the speedometer.
He knew he must be gaining fast. Loaded as she was the Citro?n could hardly better eighty even on this road. On an impulse he slowed down to seventy, turned on his fog-lights, and dowsed the twin Marchals. Sure enough, without the blinding curtain of his own lights, he could see the glow of another car a mile or two down the coasts
He felt under the dashboard and from a concealed15 holster took out a long-barrelled Colt Army Special .45, and laid it on the seat beside him. With this, if he was lucky with the surface of the road, he could hope to get their tyres or their petrol tank at anything up to a hundred yards.
Then he switched on the big lights again and screamed off in pursuit. He felt calm and at ease. The problem of Vesper's life was a problem no longer. His face in the blue light from the dashboard was grim but serene16.
*
Ahead in the Citro?n there were three men and the girl. Le Chiffre was driving, his big fluid body hunched17 forward, his hands light and delicate on the wheel. Beside him sat the squat18 man who had carried the stick in the Casino. In his left hand he grasped a thick lever which protruded19 beside him almost level with the floor. It might have been a lever to adjust the driving seat.
In the back seat was the tall thin gunman. He lay back relaxed, gazing at the ceiling, apparently20 uninterested in the wild speed of the car. His right hand lay caressingly21 on Vesper's left thigh22 which stretched out naked beside him.
Apart from her legs, which were naked to the hips23, Vesper was only a parcel. Her long black velvet24 skirt had been lifted over her arms and head and tied above her head with a piece of rope. Where her face was, a small gap had been torn in the velvet so that she could breathe. She was not bound in any other way and she lay quiet, her body moving sluggishly25 with the swaying of the car.
Le Chiffre was concentrating half on the road ahead and half on the onrushing glare of Bond's headlights in the driving-mirror. He seemed undisturbed when not more than a mile separated the hare from the hounds and he even brought the car down from eighty to sixty miles an hour. Now, as he swept round a bend he slowed down still further. A few hundred yards ahead a Michelin post showed where a small parochial road crossed with the highway.
'Attention,' he said sharply to the man beside him.
The man's hand tightened26 on the lever.
A hundred yards from the cross-roads he slowed to thirty. In the mirror Bond's great headlights were lighting27 up the bend.
Le Chiffre seemed to make up his mind.
'Allez.'
The man beside him pulled the lever sharply upwards28. The boot at the back of the car yawned open like a whale's mouth. There was a tinkling29 clatter30 on the road and then a rhythmic31 jangling as if the car was towing lengths of chain behind it.
'Coupez.'
The man depressed32 the lever sharply and the jangling stopped with a final clatter.
Le Chiffre glanced again in the mirror. Bond's car was just entering the bend. Le Chiffre made a racing33 change and threw the Citro?n left-handed down the narrow side-road, at the same time dowsing his lights.
He stopped the car with a jerk and all three men got swiftly out and doubled back under cover of a low hedge to the cross-roads, now fiercely illuminated34 by the lights of the Bentley. Each of them carried a revolver and the thin man also had what looked like a large black egg in his right hand.
The Bentley screamed down towards them like an express train.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
forgery
|
|
| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
faltering
|
|
| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
gravel
|
|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
chassis
|
|
| n.汽车等之底盘；（飞机的）起落架；炮底架 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
briefly
|
|
| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
savoring
|
|
| v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的现在分词 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
revs
|
|
| abbr.revolutions （复数）旋转，回转，转数n.发动机的旋转( rev的名词复数 )v.（使）加速( rev的第三人称单数 )；（数量、活动等）激增；（使发动机）快速旋转；（使）活跃起来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
penetrate
|
|
| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
shaft
|
|
| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
intervals
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
dice
|
|
| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
bluff
|
|
| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
concealed
|
|
| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
serene
|
|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
hunched
|
|
| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
squat
|
|
| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
protruded
|
|
| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
caressingly
|
|
| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
thigh
|
|
| n.大腿；股骨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
hips
|
|
| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
sluggishly
|
|
| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
tightened
|
|
| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
lighting
|
|
| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
tinkling
|
|
| n.丁当作响声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
clatter
|
|
| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
rhythmic
|
|
| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
depressed
|
|
| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
racing
|
|
| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
illuminated
|
|
| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |