"Question!"
What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second, I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in Enmore Park once more. In my aching head the one thought was throbbing1 that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable copy for the Gazette when I could obtain permission to use it. A taxicab was waiting at the end of the road, so I sprang into it and drove down to the office. McArdle was at his post as usual.
"Well," he cried, expectantly, "what may it run to? I'm thinking, young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he assaulted you."
"We had a little difference at first."
"What a man it is! What did you do?"
"Well, he became more reasonable and we had a chat. But I got nothing out of him--nothing for publication."
"I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, and that's for publication. We can't have this reign3 of terror, Mr. Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a leaderette on him to-morrow that will raise a blister4. Just give me the material and I will engage to brand the fellow for ever. Professor Munchausen--how's that for an inset headline? Sir John Mandeville redivivus--Cagliostro--all the imposters and bullies5 in history. I'll show him up for the fraud he is."
"I wouldn't do that, sir."
"Why not?"
"Because he is not a fraud at all."
"What!" roared McArdle. "You don't mean to say you really `elieve this stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?"
"Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any claims of that kind. But I do believe he has got something new."
"Then for Heaven's sake, man, write it up!"
"I'm longing6 to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on condition that I didn't." I condensed into a few sentences the Professor's narrative7. "That's how it stands."
McArdle looked deeply incredulous.
"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific meeting to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don't suppose any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may get a scoop8, if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight."
My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage9 Club with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me.
"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh."
"But the American poet?"
"He never existed."
"I saw his sketch-book."
"Challenger's sketch-book."
"You think he drew that animal?"
"Of course he did. Who else?"
"Well, then, the photographs?"
"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only saw a bird."
"A pterodactyl."
"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head."
"Well, then, the bones?"
"First one out of an Irish stew11. Second one vamped up for the occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone as easily as you can a photograph."
I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature12 in my acquiescence13. Then I had a sudden happy thought.
"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked.
Tarp Henry looked thoughtful.
"He is not a popular person, the genial14 Challenger," said he. "A lot of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden."
"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case."
"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for the evening."
When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged their little cargoes15 of white-bearded professors, while the dark stream of humbler pedestrians16, who crowded through the arched door-way, showed that the audience would be popular as well as scientific. Indeed, it became evident to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of the hall. Looking behind me, I could see rows of faces of the familiar medical student type. Apparently18 the great hospitals had each sent down their contingent19. The behavior of the audience at present was good-humored, but mischievous20. Scraps21 of popular songs were chorused with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude22 to a scientific lecture, and there was already a tendency to personal chaff23 which promised a jovial24 evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to the recipients25 of these dubious26 honors.
Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query27 of "Where DID you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed it, and concealed28 it furtively29 under his chair. When gouty Professor Wadley limped down to his seat there were general affectionate inquiries30 from all parts of the hall as to the exact state of his poor toe, which caused him obvious embarrassment31. The greatest demonstration32 of all, however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor Challenger, when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end of the front row of the platform. Such a yell of welcome broke forth33 when his black beard first protruded34 round the corner that I began to suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise35, and that this assemblage was there not merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had got rumored37 abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the proceedings38.
There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the demonstration of the students in this instance was not unwelcome to them. That greeting was, indeed, a frightful39 outburst of sound, the uproar40 of the carnivora cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the distance. There was an offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the main it struck me as mere36 riotous41 outcry, the noisy reception of one who amused and interested them, rather than of one they disliked or despised. Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a kindly42 man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly43 down his beard, and looked with drooping44 eyelids45 and supercilious46 eyes at the crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent10 had not yet died away when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the proceedings began.
Professor Murray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has the common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on earth people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life. Their methods are as reasonable as to try to pour some precious stuff from the spring to the reservoir through a non-conducting pipe, which could by the least effort be opened. Professor Murray made several profound remarks to his white tie and to the water-carafe upon the table, with a humorous, twinkling aside to the silver candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. Waldron, the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur47 of applause. He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was intelligible48 and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack49 of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly humorous process as treated by him.
It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, which, in language always clear and sometimes picturesque50, he unfolded before us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring51 through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification52, the cooling, the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played the inexplicable53 drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was discreetly54 vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic55 elements of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the whole, the wisest man was the least dogmatic upon the point. We could not--or at least we had not succeeded up to date in making organic life in our laboratories out of inorganic materials. The gulf56 between the dead and the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge. But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of Nature, which, working with great forces over long epochs, might well produce results which were impossible for us. There the matter must be left.
This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung through reptiles57 and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of everyone in the audience. ("No, no," from a sceptical student in the back row.) If the young gentleman in the red tie who cried "No, no," and who presumably claimed to have been hatched out of an egg, would wait upon him after the lecture, he would be glad to see such a curiosity. (Laughter.) It was strange to think that the climax58 of all the age-long process of Nature had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the process stopped? Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type--the be-all and end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, whatever virtues59 that gentleman might possess in private life, still the vast processes of the universe were not fully60 justified61 if they were to end entirely62 in his production. Evolution was not a spent force, but one still working, and even greater achievements were in store.
Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily63 with his interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the drying of the seas, the emergence64 of the sand-bank, the sluggish65, viscous66 life which lay upon their margins67, the overcrowded lagoons68, the tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth. "Hence, ladies and gentlemen," he added, "that frightful brood of saurians which still affright our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in the Solenhofen slates69, but which were fortunately extinct long before the first appearance of mankind upon this planet."
"Question!" boomed a voice from the platform.
Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor, as exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous70 to interrupt him. But this interjection appeared to him so absurd that he was at a loss how to deal with it. So looks the Shakespearean who is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer71 who is assailed72 by a flatearth fanatic73. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his voice, repeated slowly the words: "Which were extinct before the coming of man."
"Question!" boomed the voice once more.
Waldron looked with amazement74 along the line of professors upon the platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he were smiling in his sleep.
"I see!" said Waldron, with a shrug75. "It is my friend Professor Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a final explanation and no more need be said.
But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the lecturer took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him to some assertion as to extinct or prehistoric76 life which instantly brought the same bulls' bellow77 from the Professor. The audience began to anticipate it and to roar with delight when it came. The packed benches of students joined in, and every time Challenger's beard opened, before any sound could come forth, there was a yell of "Question!" from a hundred voices, and an answering counter cry of "Order!" and "Shame!" from as many more. Waldron, though a hardened lecturer and a strong man, became rattled78. He hesitated, stammered79, repeated himself, got snarled80 in a long sentence, and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles.
"This is really intolerable!" he cried, glaring across the platform. "I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and unmannerly interruptions."
There was a hush81 over the hall, the students rigid82 with delight at seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair.
"I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron," he said, "to cease to make assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact."
The words unloosed a tempest. "Shame! Shame!" "Give him a hearing!" "Put him out!" "Shove him off the platform!" "Fair play!" emerged from a general roar of amusement or execration83. The chairman was on his feet flapping both his hands and bleating84 excitedly. "Professor Challenger--personal--views-later," were the solid peaks above his clouds of inaudible mutter. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his beard, and relapsed into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering85 deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face.
At last the lecture came to an end--I am inclined to think that it was a premature one, as the peroration86 was hurried and disconnected. The thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was restless and expectant. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from the chairman, "rofessor Challenger rose and advanced to the edge of the platform. In the interests of my paper I took down his speech verbatim.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption from the back. "I beg pardon--Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children--I must apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this audience" (tumult, during which the Professor stood with one hand raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically, as if he were bestowing87 a pontifical88 blessing89 upon the crowd), "I have been selected to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them as they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished90 his object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron" (here he beamed and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be graded to the comprehension of an ignorant audience." (Ironical cheering.) "Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic91." (Angry gesture of protest from Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash the work which has been done by their indigent92 and unknown brethren. One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into the temple of science, far outweighs93 any second-hand94 exposition which passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. I put forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage95 Mr. Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte96 for the high priest." (At this point Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something severely97 to his water-carafe.) "But enough of this!" (Loud and prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. What is the particular point upon which I, as an original investigator98, have challenged our lecturer's accurac
y? It is upon the permanence of certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this subject as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing that because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal, therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous99 and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood to seek their haunts. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, monsters who would hunt down and devour100 our largest and fiercest mammals, still exist." (Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" "Question!") "How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited their secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them." (Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar17!") "Am I a liar?" (General hearty101 and noisy assent102.) "Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an inoffensive little person in spectacles, struggling violently, was held up among a group of students.) "Did you venture to call me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" shouted the accused, and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity103, I shall be glad to have a few words with him after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" (Again the inoffensive one plunging104 desperately105, was elevated high into the air.) "If I come down among you----" (General chorus of "Come, love, come!" which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while the chairman, standing106 up and waving both his arms, seemed to be conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, his nostrils107 dilated108, and his beard bristling109, was now in a proper Berserk mood.) "Every gr
eat discoverer has been met with the same incredulity--the sure brand of a generation of fools. When great facts are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You persecute110 the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I----" (Prolonged cheering and complete interruption.)
All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time, which give little notion of the absolute chaos111 to which the assembly had by this time been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend seniors seemed to have caught the prevailing112 spirit as badly as the students, and I saw white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate113 Professor. The whole great audience seethed114 and simmered like a boiling pot. The Professor took a step forward and raised both his hands. There was something so big and arresting and virile115 in the man that the clatter116 and shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. They hushed to hear it.
"I will not detain you," he said. "It is not worth it. Truth is truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men--and, I fear I must add, of their equally foolish seniors--cannot affect the matter. I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You dispute it." (Cheers.) "Then I put you to the test. Will you accredit117 one or more of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my statement in your name?"
Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy118, rose among the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered119 aspect of a theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor Challenger whether the results to which he had alluded120 in his remarks had been obtained during a journey to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years before.
Professor Challenger answered that they had.
Mr. Summerlee desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous explorers of established scientific repute.
Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a somewhat larger river; that Mr. Summerlee might be interested to know that with the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some fifty thousand miles of country were opened up, and that in so vast a space it was not impossible for one person to find what another had missed.
Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully appreciated the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, which lay in the fact that any assertion about the former could be tested, while about the latter it could not. He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would give the latitude121 and the longitude122 of the country in which prehistoric animals were to be found.
Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person?
Mr. Summerlee: "Yes, I will." (Great cheering.)
Professor Challenger: "Then I guarantee that I will place in your hands such material as will enable you to find your way. It is only right, however, since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my statement that I should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. Summerlee will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers?"
It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my dreams? But Gladys--was it not the very opportunity of which she spoke123? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. I was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, "Sit down, Malone! Don't make a public ass2 of yourself." At the same time I was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery124 hair, a few seats in front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard angry eyes, but I refused to give way.
"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again.
"Name! Name!" cried the audience.
"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness."
"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival.
"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation125."
"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, of course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it would certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon such an expedition."
"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these gentlemen be elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth of my statements."
And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided126, and I found myself borne away in the human current which swirled127 towards the door, with my mind half stunned128 by the vast new project which had risen so suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a moment of a rush of laughing students--down the pavement, and of an arm wielding129 a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them. Then, amid a mixture of groans130 and cheers, Professor Challenger's electric brougham slid from the curb131, and I found myself walking under the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and of wonder as to my future.
Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found myself looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest.
"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be companions--what? My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. Perhaps you would have the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things that I badly want to say to you."
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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blister
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bullies
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longing
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narrative
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scoop
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savage
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advent
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stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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premature
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acquiescence
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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cargoes
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pedestrians
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liar
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apparently
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contingent
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mischievous
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scraps
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prelude
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chaff
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jovial
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recipients
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dubious
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query
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concealed
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furtively
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inquiries
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embarrassment
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demonstration
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forth
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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rumored
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| adj.传说的，谣传的v.传闻( rumor的过去式和过去分词 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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41
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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42
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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45
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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48
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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49
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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50
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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51
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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52
solidification
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| 凝固 | |
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53
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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54
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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55
inorganic
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| adj.无生物的；无机的 | |
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56
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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57
reptiles
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| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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58
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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59
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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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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61
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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62
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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63
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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viscous
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| adj.粘滞的，粘性的 | |
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67
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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lagoons
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| n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 )；潟湖；（大湖或江河附近的）小而浅的淡水湖；温泉形成的池塘 | |
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69
slates
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| （旧时学生用以写字的）石板( slate的名词复数 )； 板岩； 石板瓦； 石板色 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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71
astronomer
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| n.天文学家 | |
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72
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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75
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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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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snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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81
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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82
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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83
execration
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| n.诅咒，念咒，憎恶 | |
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84
bleating
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| v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说 | |
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85
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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86
peroration
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| n.（演说等之）结论 | |
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87
bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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88
pontifical
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| adj.自以为是的，武断的 | |
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89
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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91
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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92
indigent
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的 | |
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93
outweighs
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的第三人称单数 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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94
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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95
disparage
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| v.贬抑，轻蔑 | |
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96
acolyte
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| n.助手，侍僧 | |
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97
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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98
investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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99
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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100
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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101
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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102
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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103
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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104
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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105
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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106
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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107
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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108
dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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110
persecute
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| vt.迫害，虐待；纠缠，骚扰 | |
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111
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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112
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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113
obdurate
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| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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114
seethed
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的过去式和过去分词 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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115
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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116
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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117
accredit
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| vt.归功于，认为 | |
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118
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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119
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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120
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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122
longitude
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| n.经线，经度 | |
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123
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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124
gingery
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| adj.姜味的 | |
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125
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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126
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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127
swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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128
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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129
wielding
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的现在分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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130
groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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131
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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