Adrian Conrad withdrew his feet from the table and consulted his watch. Benny, his cook, a large fair-haired Norwegian, pushed through from the kitchen with an armful of dishes and gravely arranged them on the oilcloth-covered table in preparation for tomorrow's breakfast. Then, with a cough--his nightly farewell--he disappeared.
Conrad, still examining his watch, heard him depart by the back door, drawing it carefully behind him, and tramp in his heavy dragging way round the shack1 to the path leading down to the camp. Alone, the foreman rose and pulled out a drawer, frowning critically into it.
The task of selecting his evening tie was interrupted by a subdued2 grunt3 from the doorway4. The ruddy face of Benny, the silent, was poking5 through, alive with excitement.
At the same instant Conrad became aware of the source of the Norwegian's agitation6. From the camp below broke the distant clamour of altercation7, the full-mouthed curses of excited foreigners building up a structure of more strenuous8 argument. In four strides the foreman was at the door.
Conrad's shack was strategically situated9. Half-way up the sloping path between camp and trestle, it overlooked the former unobtrusively. From his door he had his men under his eye, with all the advantages of a not too distant isolation10.
The scene of the commotion11 was apparent enough, a small excited group of men, probably the participators in one of the games of chance always in progress in the evenings in the open space between the camp and the water. Far more industriously12 the bohunk gambled his pay away in the evening than he earned it by day. And always overhung the contractors13 this peril15 of a camp quarrel.
Almost before Conrad had seized the spirit of the incident, it was swelled16 by the accession of other disputants. Five seconds' thoughtful scrutiny17 warned him that to attempt to quell18 it without assistance was taking an unjustifiable risk. Small groups were rising angrily everywhere about the river bottom, and crowding to the fringes of the altercation. Alone, he might fail, and it were better then not to have tried. By the time he could reach the scene half the camp would probably be involved.
For he saw at a glance that this was no personal squabble but one of the infrequent but always impending19 race feuds21.
He jerked his head about to see if Torrance knew. But the shack door up at the trestle was empty; Torrance and Tressa would be in the kitchen cleaning up. Thereupon Conrad set off at a run up the sloping path, watching intermittently22 the angry scene below.
A hundred yards from the grade he put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Torrance came instantly to the door. He saw the fight, saw Conrad's beckoning23 hand, and, without hat or coat, dashed out to the grade. But even as he leaped the rails his mood altered: pulling up, he strolled leisurely24 on down the path.
Conrad was intent on the waxing conflict. Group by group it was extending. He realised the wisdom of the instinct that had sent him for help--if the affray had not already passed control. There were only the two of them to count on. Koppy, whose duty it was to forestall26 such conflicts, was nowhere in sight; and anyway Conrad had learned not to trust the Pole. Casting hasty eyes upward toward the underforeman's shack topping the promontory27 overlooking the camp, he fancied a dim movement in the darkness of the interior. Unless his eyes deceived him, Koppy was out of the reckoning in case of need. Irritated, Conrad swung about impatiently. Torrance was sauntering downward, filling his pipe.
"Here," the foreman called sharply, "we must stop that, and quick."
"It's only a fight," drawled Torrance.
Conrad's face darkened with disgust. "Don't cut your own throat. You don't seem to have heard of where these fights sometimes lead--Swanson's, for instance, and Tillman's, to mention only last year's. You'd be in a fine mess with one of those on your hands in late July, wouldn't you?"
"Let it go for a couple of minutes longer, Adrian," pleaded Torrance. "They're just getting into it. I see a knife out."
"And that's what we must forestall. Or it'll end only when the Italians and the Hungarians have cleaned out the Swedes and the Poles, or vice28 versa. There's not a second to waste."
He had hold of Torrance's arm and was forcing him to run.
"I know you're right, Adrian," panted Torrance, "but I don't want to."
As they neared the camp, running now at top speed, Conrad saw Koppy emerge fussily29 from his shack above the camp and come leaping down--too late, of course, to be of much service.
The fight had grown to alarming proportions. Originating in a mere30 normal act of cheating at cards, naturally resented by a huge Swede who had been losing steadily31 to a one-eyed Italian, it had passed swiftly into the realms of the smouldering feud20 between the races. And the first blow had excited the onlookers32 to take vociferous33 sides; the first weapon had roused their lingering instincts of antagonism34; and the first drop of blood had driven a dozen of them headlong into the melee35. Before Conrad and Torrance arrived, knives and knife-ended knuckle-dusters and clubs were swinging.
The most disgusting feature of the shrieking36, struggling mass was the presence on its outskirts37 of sneaking39 villains40 intent only on their personal enemies.
One of these had just plunged41 his knife into an unsuspecting arm when Torrance caught sight of him. It fired his blood to a blind fury. With a lunge he planted his heavy boot on the brute42's forehead, and the fellow crumpled43 up and lay record to an honest man's anger. Thereafter Torrance knew only that he was enjoying himself, as fist and boot struck snarling44 face or struggling body. Followed a few minutes of more careful fighting, as the roused bohunks began to retaliate45; and then a sense of personal danger not to be countered by any amount of exertion46.
As he threw himself into the fight he glowed with the satisfaction of knowing that every face before him belonged to an enemy. Normally slinking cowards before authority, the bohunks were now inflamed47 beyond anything but brute force. Curses too deep and furious to express more than their tone--the cries of the wounded--the panting of laboured breathing--Torrance roared into it, striking right and left.
At the last moment Conrad turned aside. He had an idea that the impression on the warring elements would be increased by separate attacks. From another angle, therefore, silently and recklessly he fought his way into the mob. He had no thought of defence--merely slugged, trusting to the surprise and speed of his attack to protect him.
Five convulsed faces had fallen before the fury of Torrance's assault before there was resistance. The first threatening arm he seized in relentless49 clutch, flinging back over his head the knife it held. Then a Hungarian, saved from a swinging club by Torrance's quick blow, recognised only another foe50 and lunged with a knife. The contractor14 kicked him out of the fray25 and went on.
In the meantime Conrad was realising his mistake in dividing forces. The mob was quieting a little, it was true, but it was the comparative calm only of discovering new foes51. Torrance, ten yards away, was battling like a madman, but now advance was hopelessly blocked by weight of numbers and concentrated resistance. Two dozen bohunks, lost now to any ordinary sense of peril, were bent52 on paying off old scores. Conrad began seriously to fight his way over to Torrance.
Across the crowd he could see Koppy making headway at last, and he vaguely53 wondered why. A face loomed54 before him, and he struck into it viciously. It dropped away, but a shooting pain across his scalp warned him that he was cut; a moving spot of warm moisture on the back of his neck located a small stream of blood.
The maddest fury of the fight seemed to have waned55, yet Conrad knew that the danger to him and Torrance had increased. Italian and Hungarian, Pole and Swede, had forgotten their race feud in the greater hatred56 of their bosses. The noise, so hideous57 and snarling when they arrived, was stilled in unity58 of purpose.
Many had retired59, some to nurse their wounds, others not yet blind enough to custom to ignore authority. Those who remained knew what they were doing. Murder was in their eyes.
Through a temporary opening in his own group Conrad caught Torrance's eye, anxious and a little uncertain. The foreman made a peremptory60 movement of his head urging retreat--for Torrance. If one of them could get away for a rifle! At that instant he ducked to avoid a side attack, and Torrance saw the blood on his neck. With a bellow61 the contractor charged through.
"Back to back!" he shouted, and lashed62 out sideways with one foot at a fresh onset63 against the tiring foreman. Conrad smiled. He was feeling the strain--had been for minutes--but Torrance's arrival lent him fresh strength. Back to back they continued the losing struggle.
A gleam of light darted64 on Conrad's right, and he knew he could not avoid it. But suddenly the knife dropped, and the one who had wielded65 it grabbed his wrist with the other hand. The foreman dare not look to see what had happened, but he was aware of a sudden thinning in the crowd of spectators.
A lumbering66 Pole, his club knocked away by an unexpected blow from Torrance, leaped furiously on the contractor. The latter turned his back to receive the shock, at the same time ducking forward. The Pole's legs shot into the air before Conrad's eyes--a shriek--and a sudden stain of blood on the pant leg. Yet no one had touched the place where the blood gushed67.
The scene was changing curiously68. A score of men still fought to reach their prey69, blind and deaf to everything but their own passions; but the great crowd that had made the threat of disaster so ominous70 had disappeared. One of the mad group about them, teeth bared, was creeping closer to Torrance, a long stiletto held aloft. But as it jerked back to strike, the hand that held it opened nervelessly, and a spurt71 of blood covered the fingers.
Many pairs of eyes had been on that stiletto, and when it dropped, bloody72 and useless, a sudden silence fell. In the midst of it a rifle snapped from the trees behind the camp. An Italian, into whose bloodshot eyes a sudden sense of fear was crowding, grabbed his ear and howled. A thin stream of blood trickled73 down his wrist.
Not another blow was struck. It was not the casualties, not alone the sound of the rifle, but rather the uncanny mystery of the hidden marksman and his aim. Almost before the two hard-pressed men dare look about them, the river bottom was empty of life, save for themselves and Koppy, and two or three delayed by the nature of their wounds.
"Right again, Adrian," puffed74 Torrance, picking at the torn sleeve of his shirt and feeling himself over gingerly. "I thought they'd got you when I saw that scratch. Here, let's look at it."
But even as he reached to Conrad's shoulder his interest faded before the marvel75 of their succour, and he turned to run his eye in a puzzled way along the thin trees of the slope behind the camp.
"By hickory! The horse-thief again! There ain't two can shoot like that." He noticed Koppy staring angrily in the same direction. "It sure ain't one of your gang, Koppy. That would be one too many."
"No bohunk--no bohunk!" assented76 the Pole, and there was that in his voice boded77 ill for proof to the contrary. "No bohunk . . . maybe. . . . I don't think."
Tressa came running round the nearest shack, rifle in one hand and a small automatic in the other. She saw the blood on Adrian's collar and made straight for him. For a moment her father frowned jealously.
"A man brings a daughter into the world," he sulked, "frets78 and stews79 and labours over her until she's old enough--to fall in love with some young fellow who never had a moment's worry about her."
"And so it has been since ribs80 ceased to become women," grinned Conrad. "It's only another beauty mark, Tressa. It's stopped bleeding already." He turned angrily on Koppy. "You saw this fight from the first--"
"I come as soon as I see," protested the Pole indignantly.
"You lie! You wanted to see it get beyond us. You thought they'd do for us, didn't you?"
"Heaven only knows," muttered Conrad. "But you saw we had 'em licked."
"Don't be an ass," chided Torrance, his eyes still on the trees. "We can lick four hundred and ninety-five of them, but it was that fellow in there did for the extra five. Find him for me, Koppy, and I'll put him in your place and kick you to hell."
"If Koppy find him, you no need," replied the Pole, the expression of his face clearing away the ambiguity83 of his words. "I find him."
As if in challenge, the unseen rifle replied. Koppy leaped aside, stooping to examine a long slit84 in the side of his high boots.
Torrance chuckled86 delightedly. "A dandy eye for beauty, that chap has. He seems to like us; I'd hate to have him shooting the boots off me like that."
He started for home, but bethought himself.
"Get the wounded rounded up, Koppy. Nobody dead. Just as well. Funerals are a nuisance. Can't see why a bohunk can't sneak38 off into the bush and die without any bother. If there's more than one speeder load to lug48 that seventy-five miles to the hospital, there'll be the devil to pay. You and the cooks have your hands full bandaging the rest of the evening, I guess. Come up in an hour and report."
"In your prayers to-night, Tressa, you might put in a word for a mysterious stranger with an eye like an eagle. I think we're going to need him a lot before this job's finished."
点击收听单词发音
1 shack | |
adj.简陋的小屋,窝棚 | |
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2 subdued | |
adj. 屈服的,柔和的,减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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3 grunt | |
v.嘟哝;作呼噜声;n.呼噜声,嘟哝 | |
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4 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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5 poking | |
n. 刺,戳,袋 vt. 拨开,刺,戳 vi. 戳,刺,捅,搜索,伸出,行动散慢 | |
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6 agitation | |
n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
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7 altercation | |
n.争吵,争论 | |
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8 strenuous | |
adj.奋发的,使劲的;紧张的;热烈的,狂热的 | |
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9 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
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10 isolation | |
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
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11 commotion | |
n.骚动,动乱 | |
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12 industriously | |
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13 contractors | |
n.(建筑、监造中的)承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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14 contractor | |
n.订约人,承包人,收缩肌 | |
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15 peril | |
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物 | |
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16 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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17 scrutiny | |
n.详细检查,仔细观察 | |
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18 quell | |
v.压制,平息,减轻 | |
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19 impending | |
a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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20 feud | |
n.长期不和;世仇;v.长期争斗;世代结仇 | |
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21 feuds | |
n.长期不和,世仇( feud的名词复数 ) | |
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22 intermittently | |
adv.间歇地;断断续续 | |
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23 beckoning | |
adj.引诱人的,令人心动的v.(用头或手的动作)示意,召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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24 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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25 fray | |
v.争吵;打斗;磨损,磨破;n.吵架;打斗 | |
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26 forestall | |
vt.抢在…之前采取行动;预先阻止 | |
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27 promontory | |
n.海角;岬 | |
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28 vice | |
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的 | |
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29 fussily | |
adv.无事空扰地,大惊小怪地,小题大做地 | |
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30 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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31 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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32 onlookers | |
n.旁观者,观看者( onlooker的名词复数 ) | |
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33 vociferous | |
adj.喧哗的,大叫大嚷的 | |
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34 antagonism | |
n.对抗,敌对,对立 | |
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35 melee | |
n.混战;混战的人群 | |
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36 shrieking | |
v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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37 outskirts | |
n.郊外,郊区 | |
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38 sneak | |
vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝);偷偷摸摸做;n.潜行;adj.暗中进行 | |
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39 sneaking | |
a.秘密的,不公开的 | |
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40 villains | |
n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 );罪犯;(小说、戏剧等中的)反面人物;淘气鬼 | |
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41 plunged | |
v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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42 brute | |
n.野兽,兽性 | |
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43 crumpled | |
adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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44 snarling | |
v.(指狗)吠,嗥叫, (人)咆哮( snarl的现在分词 );咆哮着说,厉声地说 | |
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45 retaliate | |
v.报复,反击 | |
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46 exertion | |
n.尽力,努力 | |
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47 inflamed | |
adj.发炎的,红肿的v.(使)变红,发怒,过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48 lug | |
n.柄,突出部,螺帽;(英)耳朵;(俚)笨蛋;vt.拖,拉,用力拖动 | |
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49 relentless | |
adj.残酷的,不留情的,无怜悯心的 | |
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50 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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51 foes | |
敌人,仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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52 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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53 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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54 loomed | |
v.隐约出现,阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 );隐约出现,阴森地逼近 | |
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55 waned | |
v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 );(月)亏;变小;变暗淡 | |
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56 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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57 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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58 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
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59 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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60 peremptory | |
adj.紧急的,专横的,断然的 | |
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61 bellow | |
v.吼叫,怒吼;大声发出,大声喝道 | |
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62 lashed | |
adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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63 onset | |
n.进攻,袭击,开始,突然开始 | |
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64 darted | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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65 wielded | |
手持着使用(武器、工具等)( wield的过去式和过去分词 ); 具有; 运用(权力); 施加(影响) | |
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66 lumbering | |
n.采伐林木 | |
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67 gushed | |
v.喷,涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 );滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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68 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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69 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
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70 ominous | |
adj.不祥的,不吉的,预兆的,预示的 | |
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71 spurt | |
v.喷出;突然进发;突然兴隆 | |
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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 trickled | |
v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 );淌;使)慢慢走;缓慢移动 | |
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74 puffed | |
adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧 | |
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75 marvel | |
vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异;n.令人惊异的事 | |
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76 assented | |
同意,赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77 boded | |
v.预示,预告,预言( bode的过去式和过去分词 );等待,停留( bide的过去分词 );居住;(过去式用bided)等待 | |
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78 frets | |
基质间片; 品丝(吉他等指板上定音的)( fret的名词复数 ) | |
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79 stews | |
n.炖煮的菜肴( stew的名词复数 );烦恼,焦虑v.炖( stew的第三人称单数 );煨;思考;担忧 | |
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80 ribs | |
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
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81 enquired | |
打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 ); 询问; 问问题; 查问 | |
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82 eyebrows | |
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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83 ambiguity | |
n.模棱两可;意义不明确 | |
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84 slit | |
n.狭长的切口;裂缝;vt.切开,撕裂 | |
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85 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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86 chuckled | |
轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87 toiled | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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