It was a Type 300 S, the sports model with a disappearing hood-one of only half a dozen in England, he reflected. Left-hand drive. Probably bought in Germany. He had seen a few of them over there. One had hissed3 by him on the Munich Autobahn the year before when he was doing a solid -ninety in the Bentley. The body, too short and heavy to be graceful5, was painted white, with red leather upholstery. Garish6 for England, but Bond guessed that Drax had chosen white in honour of the famous Mercedes-Benz racing7 colours that had already swept the board again since the war at Le Mans and the Nurburgring.
Typical of Drax to buy a Mercedes. There was something ruthless and majestic8 about the cars, he decided9, remembering the years from 1934 to 1939 when they had completely dominated the Grand Prix scene, children of the famous Blitzen Benz that had captured the world's speed record at 142 m.p.h. back in 1911. Bond recalled some of their famous drivers, Caracciola, Lang, Seaman10, Brauchitsch, and the days when he had seen them drifting the fast sweeping11 bends of Tripoli at 190, or screaming along the tree-lined straight at Berne with the Auto4 unions on their tails.
And yet, Bond looked across at his supercharged Bentley, nearly twenty-five years older than Drax's car and still capable of beating too, and yet when Bentleys were racing, before Rolls had tamed them into sedate12 town carriages, they had whipped the blown SS-K's almost as they wished.
Bond had once dabbled13 on the fringe of the racing world and he was lost in his memories, hearing again the harsh scream of Garacciola's great white beast of a car as it howled past the grandstands at Le Mans, when Drax came out of the house followed by Gala Brand and Krebs.
"Fast car," said Drax, pleased with Bond's look of admiration14. He gestured towards the Bentley. "They used to be good in the old days," he added with a touch of patronage15. "Now they're only built for going to the theatre. Too well-mannered. Even the Continental16. Now then you, get in the back."
Krebs obediently climbed into the narrow back seat behind the driver. He sat sideways, his mackintosh up round his ears, his eyes fixed17 enigmatically on Bond.
Gala Brand, smart in a dark grey tailor-made and black beret and carrying a lightweight black raincoat and gloves, climbed into the right half of the divided front seat. The wide door closed with the rich double click of a Faberge box.
No sign passed between Bond and Gala. They had made their plans at a whispered meeting in his room before lunch-dinner in London at half-past seven and then back to the house in Bond's car. She sat demurely18, her hands in her lap and her eyes to the front, as Drax climbed in, pressed the starter, and pulled the gleaming lever on the steering19 wheel back into third. The car surged away with hardly a purr from the exhaust and Bond watched it disappear into the trees before he climbed into the Bentley and moved off in leisurely20 pursuit.
In the hastening Mercedes, Gala busied herself with her thoughts. The night had been uneventful and the morning had been devoted21 to clearing the launching site of everything that might possibly burn when the Moonraker was fired. Drax had not referred to the events of the previous day and there had been no change in his usual manner. She had prepared her last firing plan (Drax himself was to do it on the morrow) and as usual Walter had been sent for and through her spy-hole she had seen the figures being entered in Drax's black book.
It was a hot, sunny day and Drax was driving in his shirtsleeves. She glanced down and to the left at the top of the little book protruding22 from his hip-pocket. This drive might be her last chance. Since the evening before she had felt a different person. Perhaps Bond had aroused her competitive spirit, perhaps it was revulsion from playing the secretary too long, perhaps it was the shock of the cliff-fall and the zest23 of realizing after so many quiet months that she was playing a dangerous game. But now she felt the time had come to take risks. Discovery of the Moonraker's flight-plan was a routine affair and it would give her personal satisfaction to find out the secret of the black notebook. It would be easy.
Casually24 she laid her folded coat over the space between herself and Drax. At the same time she made a show of arranging herself comfortably, during the course of which she drew an inch or two nearer Drax and her hand came to rest in the folds of the coat between them. Then she settled her-self to wait.
Her chance came, as she had thought it might, in the congested traffic of Maidstone. Drax, intent, was trying to beat the traffic lights at the corner of King Street and Gabriel's Hill, but the line of traffic was too slow and he was checked behind a battered family saloon. Gala could see that when the lights changed he was determined25 to cut in front of the car in front and teach it a lesson. He was a brilliant driver, but a vindictive26 and impatient one who was always anxious for any car that held him up to be given something to remember.
As the lights went green he gave a blast on his triple horns, pulled out to the right at the intersection27, accelerated brutally28 and got by, shaking his head angrily at the driver of the saloon as he passed it.
In the middle of this harsh manoeuvre29 it was natural for Gala to allow herself to be thrown towards him. At the same time her left hand dived under the coat and her fingers touched, felt, and extracted the book in one flow of motion. Then the hand was back in the folds of the coat again and Drax, all his feeling in his feet and hands, was seeing nothing but the traffic ahead and the chances of getting across the zebra outside the Royal Star without hitting two women and a boy who were nearly halfway30 across it.
Now it was a question of facing Drax's growl31 of rage as with a maidenly32 but urgent voice she asked if she could possibly stop for a moment to powder her nose.
A garage would be dangerous. He might decide to fill up with petrol. And perhaps he also carried his money in his hip-pocket. But was there an hotel? Yes, she remembered, the Thomas Wyatt just outside Maidstone. And it had no petrol pumps. She started to fidget slightly. She pulled the coat back on to her lap. She cleared her throat.
"Oh, excuse me, Sir Hugo," she said in a strangled voice.
"Yes. .What is it?"
"I'm terribly sorry, Sir Hugo. But could you possibly stop for just a moment. I want, I mean, I'm terribly sorry but I'd like to powder my nose. It's terribly stupid of me. I'm so sorry."
"Christ," said Drax. "Why the hell didn't you… Oh, yes. Well, all right. Find a place." He grumbled33 on into his moustache, but brought the big car down into the fifties.
"There's a hotel just around this bend," said Gala nervously34. "Thank you so much, Sir Hugo. It was stupid of me. I won't be a moment. Yes, here it is."
The car swerved35 up to the front of the inn and stopped with a jerk. "Hurry up. Hurry up," said Drax as Gala, leaving the door of the car open, sped obediently across the gravel36, her coat with its precious secret held tightly in front of her body.
She locked the door of the lavatory37 and snatched open the notebook.
There they were, just as she had thought. On each page, under the date, the neat columns of figures, the atmospheric38 pressure, the wind velocity39, the temperature, just as she had recorded them from the Air Ministry40 figures. And at the foot of each page the estimated settings for the gyro compasses.
Gala frowned. At a glance she could see that they were entirely41 different from hers. Drax's figures simply bore no relation to hers whatsoever42.
She turned to the last completed page containing the figures for that day. Why, she was wrong by nearly ninety degrees on the estimated course. If the rocket were fired on her flight plan it would land somewhere in France, She looked wildly at her face in the mirror over the washbasin. How could she have gone so monstrously43 wrong? And why hadn't Drax ever told her? Why, she ran quickly through the book again, every day she had been ninety degrees out, firing the Moonraker at right angles to its true course. And yet she simply couldn't have made such a mistake. Did the Ministry know these secret figures? And why should they be secret?
Suddenly her bewilderment turned to fright. She must somehow get safely, quietly to London and tell somebody. Even though she might be called a fool and a meddler44.
Coldly she turned back several pages in the book, took her nail file out of the bag and, as neatly45 as she could, cut out a specimen46 page, rolled it up into a tight ball and stuffed it into the tip of a finger of one of her gloves.
She glanced at her face in the mirror. It was pale and she quickly rubbed her cheeks to bring back the colour. Then she put back the look of an apologetic secretary and hurried out and ran across the gravel to the car, clutching the notebook among the folds of her coat.
The engine of the Mercedes was turning over. Drax glowered47 at her impatiently as she scrambled48 back into her seat.
"Come on. Come on," he said, putting the car into third and taking his foot off the clutch so that she nearly caught her ankle in the heavy door. The tyres churned up the gravel as he accelerated out of the parking place and dry-skidded into the London road.
Gala was jerked back, but she remembered to let the coat with her guilty hand in its folds fall on the seat between her and the driver.
And now the book back into the hip-pocket.
She watched the speedometer hovering49 in the seventies as Drax flung the heavy car along the crown of the road.
She tried to remember her lessons. Distracting pressure on some other part of the body. Distracting the attention. Distraction50. The victim must not be at ease. His senses must be focused away. He must be unaware51 of the touch on his body. Anaesthetized by a stronger stimulus52.
Like now, for instance. Drax, bent2 forward over the wheel, was fighting for a chance to get past a sixty-foot RAF trailer, but the oncoming traffic was leaving no room on the crown of the road. There was a gap and Drax rammed53 the lever into second and took it, his horns braying54 imperiously.
Gala's hand reached to the left under the coat.
But another hand struck like a snake.
"Got you."
Krebs was leaning half over the back of the driving seat. His hand was crushing hers into the slippery cover of the notebook under the folds of the coat.
Gala sat frozen into black ice. With all her strength she wrenched55 at her hand. It was no good. Krebs had all his weight on it now.
Drax had got past the trailer and the road was empty.
Krebs said urgently in German, "Please stop the car, mein Kapitдn. Miss Brand is a spy."
Drax gave a startled glance to his right. What he saw was enough. He put his hand quickly down to his hip-pocket, and then, slowly, deliberately56, put it back on the wheel. The sharp turning to Mereworth was just coming up on his left. "Hold her," said Drax. He braked so that the tyres screamed, changed down and wrenched the car into the side-road. A few hundred yards down it he pulled the car into the side and stopped.
Drax looked up and down the road. It was empty. He reached over one gloved hand and wrenched Gala's face towards him.
"What is this?"
"I can explain it, Sir Hugo." Gala tried to bluff57 against the horror and desperation she knew was in her face. "It's a mistake. I didn't mean…"
Under cover of an angry shrug58 of the shoulders, her right hand moved softly behind her and the guilty pair of gloves were thrust behind the leather cushion.
"Sehen sie her, mein Kapitдn. I saw her edging up close to you. It seemed to me strange."
With his other hand Krebs had whipped the coat away and there were the bent white fingers of her left hand crushed into the cover of the notebook still a foot away from Drax's hip-pocket. "So."
The word was deadly cold and with a shivering finality. Drax let go her chin, but her horrified59 eyes remained locked into his.
A kind of frozen cruelty was showing through the jolly faзade of red skin and whiskers. It was a different man. The man behind the mask. The creature beneath the flat stone that Gala Brand had lifted.
Drax glanced again up and down the empty road. Then, looking carefully into the suddenly aware blue eyes, he drew the leather driving gauntlet off his left hand and with his right whipped her as hard as he could across the face with it.
Only a short cry was forced out of Gala's constricted60 throat, but tears of pain ran down her cheeks. Suddenly she began to fight like a mad woman.
With all her strength she heaved and fought against the two iron arms that held her. With her free right hand she tried to reach the face that leant over her hand and get at the eyes. But Krebs easily moved his head out of her reach and quietly increased the pressure across her throat, hissing61 murderously to himself as her nails tore strips of skin off the backs of his hands, but noting with a scientist's eye as her struggles became weaker.
Drax watched carefully, with one eye on the road, as Krebs brought her under control and then he started the car and drove cautiously on along the wooded road. He grunted62 with satisfaction as he came upon a cart-track into the woods and he turned up it and only stopped when he was well out of sight of the road.
Gala had just realized that there were no noise from the engine when she heard Drax say 'there'. A finger touched her skull63 behind the left ear. Krebs arm came away from her throat and she slumped64 gratefully forward, gasping65 for air. Then something crashed into the back of her head where the finger had touched it, and there was a flash of wonderfully releasing pain and blackness.
An hour later passers-by saw a white Mercedes draw up outside a small house at the Buckingham Palace end of Ebury Street and two kind gentlemen help a sick girl out and through the front door. Those who were near could see that the poor girl's face was very pale and that her eyes were shut and that the kind gentlemen almost had to carry her up the steps. The big gentleman with the red face and whiskers was heard to say quite distinctly to the other man that poor Mildred had promised she wouldn't go out until she was quite well again. Very sad.
Gala came to herself in a large top-floor room that seemed to be full of machinery66. She was tied very securely to a chair and apart from the searing pain in her head she could feel that her lips and cheek were bruised67 and swollen68.
Heavy curtains were drawn69 across the window and there was a musty smell in the room as if it was rarely used. There was dust on the few pieces of conventional furniture and only the chromium and ebonite dials on the machines looked clean and new. She thought that she was probably in hospital. She closed her eyes and wondered. It was not long before she remembered. She spent several minutes controlling herself and then she opened her eyes again.
Drax, his back to her, was watching the dials on a machine that looked like a very large radio set. There were three more similar machines in her line of sight and from one of them a thin steel aerial reached up to a rough hole that had been cut for it in the plaster of the ceiling. The room was brightly lit by several tall standard lamps, each of which held a naked high wattage bulb.
To her left there was a noise of tinkering and by swivelling her half-closed eyes in their sockets70, which made the pain in her head much worse, she saw the figure of Krebs bent over an electric generator71 on the floor. Beside it there was a small petrol engine and it was this that was giving trouble. Every now and then Krebs would grasp the starting-handle and crank it hard and a feeble stutter would come from the engine before he went back to his tinkering.
"You dam' fool," said Drax in German, "hurry up. I've got to go and see those bloody72 oafs at the Ministry."
"At once, mein Kapitдn," said Krebs dutifully. He seized the handle again. This time after two or three coughs the engine started up and began to purr.
"It won't make too much noise?" asked Drax.
"No, mein Kapitдn. The room has been soundproofed," answered Krebs. "Dr Walter assures me that nothing will be heard outside."
Gala closed her eyes and decided that her only hope was to feign73 unconscious for as long as possible. Did they intend to kill her? Here in this room? And what was all this machinery? It looked like wireless74, or perhaps radar75. That curved glass screen above Drax's head that had given an occasional flicker76 as Drax fiddled77 with the knobs below the dials.
Slowly her mind started to work again. Why, for instance, was Drax suddenly talking perfect German? And why did Krebs address him as Herr Kapitдn? And the figures in the black book. Why did they nearly kill her because she had seen them? What did they mean?
Ninety degrees, ninety degrees.
Lazily her mind turned the problem over.
Ninety degrees difference. Supposing her figures had been right all the time for the target eighty miles away in the North Sea. Just supposing she had been right. Then she wouldn't have been aiming the rocket into the middle of France after all. But Drax's figures. Ninety degrees to the left of her North Sea target? Somewhere in England presumably. Eighty miles from Dover. Yes, of course. That was it. Drax's figures. The firing plan in the little black book. They would drop the Moonraker just about in the middle of London.
But on London! On London!!
So one's heart really does go into one's throat. How extraordinary. Such a commonplace and yet there it is and it really does almost stop one breathing.
And now, let me see, so this is a radar homing device. How ingenious. The same as there would be on the raft in the North Sea. This would bring the rocket down within a hundred yards of Buckingham Palace. But would that matter with a warhead full of instruments?
It was probably the cruelty of Drax's blow across her face that settled it, but suddenly she knew that somehow it would be a real warhead, an atomic warhead, and that Drax was an enemy of England and that tomorrow at noon he was going to destroy London.
Gala made a last effort to understand.
Through this ceiling, through this chair, into the ground, The thin needle of the rocket. Dropping fast as light out of a clear sky. The crowds in the streets. The Palace. The nursemaids in the park. The birds in the trees. The great bloom of flame a mile wide. And then the mushroom cloud. And nothing left. Nothing. Nothing, Nothing.
"No. Oh, no!"
But the scream was only in her mind and Gala, her body a twisted black potato crisp amongst a million others, had already fainted.
点击收听单词发音
1 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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2 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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3 hissed | |
发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 ); 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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4 auto | |
n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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5 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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6 garish | |
adj.华丽而俗气的,华而不实的 | |
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7 racing | |
n.竞赛,赛马;adj.竞赛用的,赛马用的 | |
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8 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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9 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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10 seaman | |
n.海员,水手,水兵 | |
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11 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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12 sedate | |
adj.沉着的,镇静的,安静的 | |
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13 dabbled | |
v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 );涉足;浅尝;少量投资 | |
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14 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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15 patronage | |
n.赞助,支援,援助;光顾,捧场 | |
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16 continental | |
adj.大陆的,大陆性的,欧洲大陆的 | |
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17 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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18 demurely | |
adv.装成端庄地,认真地 | |
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19 steering | |
n.操舵装置 | |
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20 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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21 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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22 protruding | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的现在分词 );凸 | |
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23 zest | |
n.乐趣;滋味,风味;兴趣 | |
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24 casually | |
adv.漠不关心地,无动于衷地,不负责任地 | |
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25 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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26 vindictive | |
adj.有报仇心的,怀恨的,惩罚的 | |
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27 intersection | |
n.交集,十字路口,交叉点;[计算机] 交集 | |
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28 brutally | |
adv.残忍地,野蛮地,冷酷无情地 | |
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29 manoeuvre | |
n.策略,调动;v.用策略,调动 | |
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30 halfway | |
adj.中途的,不彻底的,部分的;adv.半路地,在中途,在半途 | |
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31 growl | |
v.(狗等)嗥叫,(炮等)轰鸣;n.嗥叫,轰鸣 | |
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32 maidenly | |
adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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33 grumbled | |
抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 发牢骚; 咕哝; 发哼声 | |
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34 nervously | |
adv.神情激动地,不安地 | |
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35 swerved | |
v.(使)改变方向,改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36 gravel | |
n.砂跞;砂砾层;结石 | |
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37 lavatory | |
n.盥洗室,厕所 | |
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38 atmospheric | |
adj.大气的,空气的;大气层的;大气所引起的 | |
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39 velocity | |
n.速度,速率 | |
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40 ministry | |
n.(政府的)部;牧师 | |
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41 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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42 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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43 monstrously | |
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44 meddler | |
n.爱管闲事的人,干涉者 | |
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45 neatly | |
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地 | |
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46 specimen | |
n.样本,标本 | |
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47 glowered | |
v.怒视( glower的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48 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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49 hovering | |
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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50 distraction | |
n.精神涣散,精神不集中,消遣,娱乐 | |
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51 unaware | |
a.不知道的,未意识到的 | |
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52 stimulus | |
n.刺激,刺激物,促进因素,引起兴奋的事物 | |
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53 rammed | |
v.夯实(土等)( ram的过去式和过去分词 );猛撞;猛压;反复灌输 | |
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54 braying | |
v.发出驴叫似的声音( bray的现在分词 );发嘟嘟声;粗声粗气地讲话(或大笑);猛击 | |
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55 wrenched | |
v.(猛力地)扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 );扭伤;使感到痛苦;使悲痛 | |
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56 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
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57 bluff | |
v.虚张声势,用假象骗人;n.虚张声势,欺骗 | |
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58 shrug | |
v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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59 horrified | |
a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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60 constricted | |
adj.抑制的,约束的 | |
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61 hissing | |
n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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62 grunted | |
(猪等)作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 ); (指人)发出类似的哼声; 咕哝着说 | |
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63 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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64 slumped | |
大幅度下降,暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 ); 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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65 gasping | |
adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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66 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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67 bruised | |
[医]青肿的,瘀紫的 | |
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68 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
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69 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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70 sockets | |
n.套接字,使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 );孔( socket的名词复数 );(电器上的)插口;托座;凹穴 | |
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71 generator | |
n.发电机,发生器 | |
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72 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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73 feign | |
vt.假装,佯作 | |
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74 wireless | |
adj.无线的;n.无线电 | |
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75 radar | |
n.雷达,无线电探测器 | |
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76 flicker | |
vi./n.闪烁,摇曳,闪现 | |
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77 fiddled | |
v.伪造( fiddle的过去式和过去分词 );篡改;骗取;修理或稍作改动 | |
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