Again he came back cautiously, as it was the instinct in him to stalk wild game, crouching4 so close to the ground that almost his belly6 touched. He lifted and dropped his feet with the lithe7 softness of a cat, and from time to time glanced to right and to left as if in apprehension8 of some flank attack. A noisy outburst of boys’ laughter in the distance caused him to crouch5 suddenly down, his claws thrust into the ground for purchase, his muscles tense springs for the leap he knew not in what direction, from the danger he knew not what that might threaten him. Then he identified the noise, know that no harm impended9, and resumed his stealthy advance on the Irish terrier.
What might have happened there is no telling, for at that moment Bashti’s eyes chanced to rest on the golden puppy for the first time since the capture of the Arangi. In the rush of events Bashti had forgotten the puppy.
“What name that fella dog?” he cried out sharply, causing wild-dog to crouch down again and attracting Lenerengo’s attention.
She cringed in fear to the ground before the terrible old chief and quavered a recital10 of the facts. Her good-for-nothing boy Lamai had picked the dog from the water. It had been the cause of much trouble in her house. But now Lamai had gone to live with the youths, and she was carrying the dog to Agno’s house at Agno’s express command.
“What name that dog stop along you?” Bashti demanded directly of Agno.
“Me kai-kai along him,” came the answer. “Him fat fella dog. Him good fella dog kai-kai.”
Into Bashti’s alert old brain flashed an idea that had been long maturing.
“Him good fella dog too much,” he announced. “Better you eat ’m bush fella dog,” he advised, pointing at wild-dog.
Agno shook his head. “Bush fella dog no good kai-kai.”
“Bush fella dog no good too much,” was Bashti’s judgment11. “Bush fella dog too much fright. Plenty fella bush dog too much fright. White marster’s dog no fright. Bush dog no fight. White marster’s dog fight like hell. Bush dog run like hell. You look ’m eye belong you, you see.”
Bashti stepped over to Jerry and cut the cords that tied his legs. And Jerry, upon his feet in a surge, was for once in too great haste to pause to give thanks. He hurled12 himself after wild-dog, caught him in mid-flight, and rolled him over and over in a cloud of dust. Ever wild-dog strove to escape, and ever Jerry cornered him, rolled him, and bit him, while Bashti applauded and called on his head men to behold13.
By this time Jerry had become a raging little demon14. Fired by all his wrongs, from the bloody15 day on the Arangi and the loss of Skipper down to this latest tying of his legs, he was avenging16 himself on wild-dog for everything. The owner of wild-dog, a return boy, made the mistake of trying to kick Jerry away. Jerry was upon him in a flash scratching his calves17 with his teeth, in the suddenness of his onslaught getting between the black’s legs and tumbling him to the ground.
“What name!” Bashti cried in a rage at the offender18, who lay fear-stricken where he had fallen, trembling for what next words might fall from his chief’s lips.
But Bashti was already doubling with laughter at sight of wild-dog running for his life down the street with Jerry a hundred feet behind and tearing up the dust.
As they disappeared, Bashti expounded20 his idea. If men planted banana trees, it ran, what they would get would be bananas. If they planted yams, yams would be produced, not sweet potatoes or plantains, but yams, nothing but yams. The same with dogs. Since all black men’s dogs were cowards, all the breeding of all black men’s dogs would produce cowards. White men’s dogs were courageous22 fighters. When they were bred they produced courageous fighters. Very well, and to the conclusion, namely, here was a white man’s dog in their possession. The height of foolishness would be to eat it and to destroy for all time the courage that resided in it. The wise thing to do was to regard it as a seed dog, to keep it alive, so that in the coming generations of Somo dogs its courage would be repeated over and over and spread until all Somo dogs would be strong and brave.
Further, Bashti commanded his chief devil devil doctor to take charge of Jerry and guard him well. Also, he sent his word forth23 to all the tribe that Jerry was taboo24. No man, woman, or child was to throw spear or stone at him, strike him with club or tomahawk, or hurt him in any way.
* * * * *
Thenceforth, and until Jerry himself violated one of the greatest of taboos25, he had a happy time in Agno’s gloomy grass house. For Bashti, unlike most chiefs, ruled his devil devil doctors with an iron hand. Other chiefs, even Nau-hau of Langa-Langa, were ruled by their devil devil doctors. For that matter, the population of Somo believed that Bashti was so ruled. But the Somo folk did not know what went on behind the scenes, when Bashti, a sheer infidel, talked alone now with one doctor and now with another.
In these private talks he demonstrated that he knew their game as well as they did, and that he was no slave to the dark superstitions26 and gross impostures with which they kept the people in submission27. Also, he exposited the theory, as ancient as priests and rulers, that priests and rulers must work together in the orderly governance of the people. He was content that the people should believe that the gods, and the priests who were the mouth-pieces of the gods, had the last word, but he would have the priests know that in private the last word was his. Little as they believed in their trickery, he told them, he believed less.
He knew taboo, and the truth behind taboo. He explained his personal taboos, and how they came to be. Never must he eat clam-meat, he told Agno. It was so selected by himself because he did not like clam-meat. It was old Nino, high priest before Agno, with an ear open to the voice of the shark-god, who had so laid the taboo. But, he, Bashti, had privily28 commanded Nino to lay the taboo against clam-meat upon him, because he, Bashti, did not like clam-meat and had never liked clam-meat.
Still further, since he had lived longer than the oldest priest of them, his had been the appointing of every one of them. He knew them, had made them, had placed them, and they lived by his pleasure. And they would continue to take program from him, as they had always taken it, or else they would swiftly and suddenly pass. He had but to remind them of the passing of Kori, the devil devil doctor who had believed himself stronger than his chief, and who, for his mistake, had screamed in pain for a week ere what composed him had ceased to scream and for ever ceased to scream.
* * * * *
In Agno’s large grass house was little light and much mystery. There was no mystery there for Jerry, who merely knew things, or did not know things, and who never bothered about what he did not know. Dried heads and other cured and mouldy portions of human carcasses impressed him no more than the dried alligators30 and dried fish that contributed to the festooning of Agno’s dark abode31.
Jerry found himself well cared for. No children nor wives cluttered32 the devil devil doctor’s house. Several old women, a fly-flapping girl of eleven, and two young men who had graduated from the canoe house of the youths and who were studying priestcraft under the master, composed the household and waited upon Jerry. Food of the choicest was his. After Agno had eaten first-cut of pig, Jerry was served second. Even the two acolytes33 and the fly-flapping maid ate after him, leaving the debris34 for the several old women. And, unlike the mere29 bush dogs, who stole shelter from the rain under overhanging eaves, Jerry was given a dry place under the roof where the heads of bushmen and of forgotten sandalwood traders hung down from above in the midst of a dusty confusion of dried viscera of sharks, crocodile skulls36, and skeletons of Solomons rats that measured two-thirds of a yard in length from bone-tip of nose to bone-tip of tail.
A number of times, all freedom being his, Jerry stole away across the village to the house of Lumai. But never did he find Lamai, who, since Skipper, was the only human he had met that had placed a bid to his heart. Jerry never appeared openly, but from the thick fern of the brookside observed the house and scented37 out its occupants. No scent38 of Lamai did he ever obtain, and, after a time, he gave up his vain visits and accepted the devil devil doctor’s house as his home and the devil devil doctor as his master.
But he bore no love for this master. Agno, who had ruled by fear so long in his house of mystery, did not know love. Nor was affection any part of him, nor was geniality39. He had no sense of humour, and was as frostily cruel as an icicle. Next to Bashti he stood in power, and all his days had been embittered40 in that he was not first in power. He had no softness for Jerry. Because he feared Bashti he feared to harm Jerry.
The months passed, and Jerry got his firm, massive second teeth and increased in weight and size. He came as near to being spoiled as is possible for a dog. Himself taboo, he quickly learned to lord it over the Somo folk and to have his way and will in all matters. No one dared to dispute with him with stick or stone. Agno hated him—he knew that; but also he gleaned41 the knowledge that Agno feared him and would not dare to hurt him. But Agno was a chill-blooded philosopher and bided42 his time, being different from Jerry in that he possessed43 human prevision and could adjust his actions to remote ends.
From the edge of the lagoon44, into the waters of which, remembering the crocodile taboo he had learned on Meringe, he never ventured, Jerry ranged to the outlying bush villages of Bashti’s domain45. All made way for him. All fed him when he desired food. For the taboo was upon him, and he might unchidden invade their sleeping-mats or food calabashes. He might bully46 as he pleased, and be arrogant47 beyond decency48, and there was no one to say him nay49. Even had Bashti’s word gone forth that if Jerry were attacked by the full-grown bush dogs, it was the duty of the Somo folk to take his part and kick and stone and beat the bush dogs. And thus his own four-legged cousins came painfully to know that he was taboo.
And Jerry prospered50. Fat to stupidity he might well have become, had it not been for his high-strung nerves and his insatiable, eager curiosity. With the freedom of all Somo his, he was ever a-foot over it, learning its metes51 and bounds and the ways of the wild creatures that inhabited its swamps and forests and that did not acknowledge his taboo.
Many were his adventures. He fought two battles with the wood-rats that were almost of his size, and that, being mature and wild and cornered, fought him as he had never been fought before. The first he had killed, unaware52 that it was an old and feeble rat. The second, in prime of vigour53, had so punished him that he crawled back, weak and sick to the devil devil doctor’s house, where, for a week, under the dried emblems54 of death, he licked his wounds and slowly came back to life and health.
He stole upon the dugong and joyed to stampede that silly timid creature by sudden ferocious55 onslaughts which he knew himself to be all sound and fury, but which tickled56 him and made him laugh with the consciousness of playing a successful joke. He chased the unmigratory tropi-ducks from their shrewd-hidden nests, walked circumspectly57 among the crocodiles hauled out of water for slumber58, and crept under the jungle-roof and spied upon the snow-white saucy59 cockatoos, the fierce ospreys, the heavy-flighted buzzards, the lories and kingfishers, and the absurdly garrulous60 little pygmy parrots.
Thrice, beyond the boundaries of Somo, he encountered the little black bushmen who were more like ghosts than men, so noiseless and unperceivable were they, and who, guarding the wild-pig runways of the jungle, missed spearing him on the three memorable61 occasions. As the wood-rats had taught him discretion62, so did these two-legged lurkers in the jungle twilight63. He had not fought with them, although they tried to spear him. He quickly came to know that these were other folk than Somo folk, that his taboo did not extend to them, and that, even of a sort, they were two-legged gods who carried flying death in their hands that reached farther than their hands and bridged distance.
As he ran the jungle, so Jerry ran the village. No place was sacred to him. In the devil devil houses, where, before the face of mystery men and women crawled in fear and trembling, he walked stiff-legged and bristling64; for fresh heads were suspended there—heads his eyes and keen nostrils65 identified as those of once living blacks he had known on board the Arangi. In the biggest devil devil house he encountered the head of Borckman, and snarled67 at it, without receiving response, in recollection of the fight he had fought with the schnapps-addled mate on the deck of the Arangi.
Once, however, in Bashti’s house, he chanced upon all that remained on earth of Skipper. Bashti had lived very long, had lived most wisely and thought much, and was thoroughly68 aware that, having lived far beyond the span of man his own span was very short. And he was curious about it all—the meaning and purpose of life. He loved the world and life, into which he had been fortunately born, both as to constitution and to place, which latter, for him, had been the high place over hie priests and people. He was not afraid to die, but he wondered if he might live again. He discounted the silly views of the tricky69 priests, and he was very much alone in the chaos70 of the confusing problem.
For he had lived so long, and so luckily, that he had watched the waning71 to extinction72 of all the vigorous appetites and desires. He had known wives and children, and the keen-edge of youthful hunger. He had seen his children grow to manhood and womanhood and become fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers. But having known woman, and love, and fatherhood, and the belly-delights of eating, he had passed on beyond. Food? Scarcely did he know its meaning, so little did he eat. Hunger, that bit him like a spur when he was young and lusty, had long since ceased to stir and prod21 him. He ate out of a sense of necessity and duty, and cared little for what he ate, save for one thing: the eggs of the megapodes that were, in season, laid in his private, personal, strictly73 tabooed megapode laying-yard. Here was left to him his last lingering flesh thrill. As for the rest, he lived in his intellect, ruling his people, seeking out data from which to induce laws that would make his people stronger and rivet74 his people’s clinch75 upon life.
But he realized clearly the difference between that abstract thing, the tribe, and that most concrete of things, the individual. The tribe persisted. Its members passed. The tribe was a memory of the history and habits of all previous members, which the living members carried on until they passed and became history and memory in the intangible sum that was the tribe. He, as a member, soon or late, and late was very near, must pass. But pass to what? There was the rub. And so it was, on occasion, that he ordered all forth from his big grass house, and, alone with his problem, lowered from the roof-beams the matting-wrapped parcels of heads of men he had once seen live and who had passed into the mysterious nothingness of death.
Not as a miser76 had he collected these heads, and not as a miser counting his secret hoard77 did he ponder these heads, unwrapped, held in his two hands or lying on his knees. He wanted to know. He wanted to know what he guessed they might know, now that they had long since gone into the darkness that rounds the end of life.
Various were the heads Bashti thus interrogated—in his hands, on his knees, in his dim-lighted grasshouse, while the overhead sun blazed down and the fading south-east sighed through the palm-fronds and breadfruit branches. There was the head of a Japanese—the only one he had ever seen or heard of. Before he was born it had been taken by his father. Ill-cured it was, and battered78 and marred79 with ancientness and rough usage. Yet he studied its features, decided80 that it had once had two lips as live as his own and a mouth as vocal81 and hungry as his had often been in the past. Two eyes and a nose it had, a thatched crown of roof, and a pair of ears like to his own. Two legs and a body it must once have had, and desires and lusts82. Heats of wrath83 and of love, so he decided, had also been its once on a time when it never thought to die.
A head that amazed him much, whose history went back before his father’s and grandfather’s time, was the head of a Frenchman, although Bashti knew it not. Nor did he know it was the head of La Perouse, the doughty84 old navigator, who had left his bones, the bones of his crews, and the bones of his two frigates85, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, on the shores of the cannibal Solomons. Another head—for Bashti was a confirmed head-collector—went back two centuries before La Perouse to Alvaro de Mendana, the Spaniard. It was the head of one of Mendana’s armourers, lost in a beach scrimmage to one of Bashti’s remote ancestors.
Still another head, the history of which was vague, was a white woman’s head. What wife of what navigator there was no telling. But earrings86 of gold and emerald still clung to the withered87 ears, and the hair, two-thirds of a fathom88 long, a shimmering89 silk of golden floss, flowed from the scalp that covered what had once been the wit and will of her that Bashti reasoned had in her ancient time been quick with love in the arms of man.
Ordinary heads, of bushmen and salt-water men, and even of schnapps-drinking white men like Borckman, he relegated90 to the canoe houses and devil devil houses. For he was a connoisseur91 in the matter of heads. There was a strange head of a German that lured92 him much. Red-bearded it was, and red-haired, but even in dried death there was an ironness of feature and a massive brow that hinted to him of mastery of secrets beyond his ken19. No more than did he know it once had been a German, did he know it was a German professor’s head, an astronomer’s head, a head that in its time had carried within its content profound knowledge of the stars in the vasty heavens, of the way of star-directed ships upon the sea, and of the way of the earth on its starry93 course through space that was a myriad94 million times beyond the slight concept of space that he possessed.
Last of all, sharpest of bite in his thought, was the head of Van Horn. And it was the head of Van Horn that lay on his knees under his contemplation when Jerry, who possessed the freedom of Somo, trotted95 into Bashti’s grass house, scented and identified the mortal remnant of Skipper, wailed96 first in woe97 over it, then bristled98 into rage.
Bashti did not notice at first, for he was deep in interrogation of Van Horn’s head. Only short months before this head had been alive, he pondered, quick with wit, attached to a two-legged body that stood erect99 and that swaggered about, a loincloth and a belted automatic around its middle, more powerful, therefrom, than Bashti, but with less wit, for had not he, Bashti, with an ancient pistol, put darkness inside that skull35 where wit resided, and removed that skull from the soddenly100 relaxed framework of flesh and bone on which it had been supported to tread the earth and the deck of the Arangi?
What had become of that wit? Had that wit been all of the arrogant, upstanding Van Horn, and had it gone out as the flickering101 flame of a splinter of wood goes out when it is quite burnt to a powder-fluff of ash? Had all that made Van Horn passed like the flame of the splinter? Had he passed into the darkness for ever into which the beast passed, into which passed the speared crocodile, the hooked bonita, the netted mullet, the slain102 pig that was fat to eat? Was Van Horn’s darkness as the darkness of the blue-bottle fly that his fly-flapping maid smashed and disrupted in mid-flight of the air?—as the darkness into which passed the mosquito that knew the secret of flying, and that, despite its perfectness of flight, with almost an unthought action, he squashed with the flat of his hand against the back of his neck when it bit him?
What was true of this white man’s head, so recently alive and erectly103 dominant104, Bashti knew was true of himself. What had happened to this white man, after going through the dark gate of death, would happen to him. Wherefore he questioned the head, as if its dumb lips might speak to him from out of the mystery and tell him the meaning of life, and the meaning of death that inevitably105 laid life by the heels.
Jerry’s long-drawn howl of woe at sight and scent of all that was left of Skipper, roused Bashti from his reverie. He looked at the sturdy, golden-brown puppy, and immediately included it in his reverie. It was alive. It was like man. It knew hunger, and pain, anger and love. It had blood in its veins106, like man, that a thrust of a knife could make redly gush107 forth and denude108 it to death. Like the race of man it loved its kind, and birthed and breast-nourished its young. And passed. Ay, it passed; for many a dog, as well as a human, had he, Bashti, devoured109 in his hey-dey of appetite and youth, when he knew only motion and strength, and fed motion and strength out of the calabashes of feasting.
But from woe Jerry went on into anger. He stalked stiff-legged, with a snarl66 writhen on his lips, and with recurrent waves of hair-bristling along his back and up his shoulders and neck. And he stalked not the head of Skipper, where rested his love, but Bashti, who held the head on his knees. As the wild wolf in the upland pasture stalks the mare111 mother with her newly delivered colt, so Jerry stalked Bashti. And Bashti, who had never feared death all his long life and who had laughed a joke with his forefinger112 blown off by the bursting flint-lock pistol, smiled gleefully to himself, for his glee was intellectual and in admiration113 of this half-grown puppy whom he rapped on the nose with a short, hardwood stick and compelled to keep distance. No matter how often and fiercely Jerry rushed him, he met the rush with the stick, and chuckled114 aloud, understanding the puppy’s courage, marvelling115 at the stupidity of life that impelled117 him continually to thrust his nose to the hurt of the stick, and that drove him, by passion of remembrance of a dead man to dare the pain of the stick again and again.
This, too, was life, Bashti meditated118, as he deftly119 rapped the screaming puppy away from him. Four-legged life it was, young and silly and hot, heart-prompted, that was like any young man making love to his woman in the twilight, or like any young man fighting to the death with any other young man over a matter of passion, hurt pride, or thwarted120 desire. As much as in the dead head of Van Horn or of any man, he realized that in this live puppy might reside the clue to existence, the solution of the riddle121.
So he continued to rap Jerry on the nose away from him, and to marvel116 at the persistence122 of the vital something within him that impelled him to leap forward always to the stick that hurt him and made him recoil123. The valour and motion, the strength and the unreasoning of youth he knew it to be, and he admired it sadly, and envied it, willing to exchange for it all his lean grey wisdom if only he could find the way.
“Some dog, that dog, sure some dog,” he might have uttered in Van Horn’s fashion of speech. Instead, in bêche-de-mer, which was as habitual124 to him as his own Somo speech, he thought:
“My word, that fella dog no fright along me.”
But age wearied sooner of the play, and Bashti put an end to it by rapping Jerry heavily behind the ear and stretching him out stunned125. The spectacle of the puppy, so alive and raging the moment before, and, the moment after, lying as if dead, caught Bashti’s speculative126 fancy. The stick, with a single sharp rap of it, had effected the change. Where had gone the anger and wit of the puppy? Was that all it was, the flame of the splinter that could be quenched127 by any chance gust128 of air? One instant Jerry had raged and suffered, snarled and leaped, willed and directed his actions. The next instant he lay limp and crumpled129 in the little death of unconsciousness. In a brief space, Bashti knew, consciousness, sensation, motion, and direction would flow back into the wilted130 little carcass. But where, in the meanwhile, at the impact of the stick, had gone all the consciousness, and sensitiveness, and will?
Bashti sighed wearily, and wearily wrapped the heads in their grass-mat coverings—all but Van Horn’s; and hoisted131 them up in the air to hang from the roof-beams—to hang as he debated, long after he was dead and out if it, even as some of them had so hung from long before his father’s and his grandfather’s time. The head of Van Horn he left lying on the floor, while he stole out himself to peer in through a crack and see what next the puppy might do.
Jerry quivered at first, and in the matter of a minute struggled feebly to his feet where he stood swaying and dizzy; and thus Bashti, his eye to the crack, saw the miracle of life flow back through the channels of the inert132 body and stiffen133 the legs to upstanding, and saw consciousness, the mystery of mysteries, flood back inside the head of bone that was covered with hair, smoulder and glow in the opening eyes, and direct the lips to writhe110 away from the teeth and the throat to vibrate to the snarl that had been interrupted when the stick smashed him down into darkness.
And more Bashti saw. At first, Jerry looked about for his enemy, growling134 and bristling his neck hair. Next, in lieu of his enemy, he saw Skipper’s head, and crept to it and loved it, kissing with his tongue the hard cheeks, the closed lids of the eyes that his love could not open, the immobile lips that would not utter one of the love-words they had been used to utter to the little dog.
Next, in profound desolation, Jerry set down before Skipper’s head, pointed135 his nose toward the lofty ridge-pole, and howled mournfully and long. Finally, sick and subdued136, he crept out of the house and away to the house of his devil devil master, where, for the round of twenty-four hours, he waked and slept and dreamed centuries of nightmares.
For ever after in Somo, Jerry feared that grass house of Bashti. He was not in fear of Bashti. His fear was indescribable and unthinkable. In that house was the nothingness of what once was Skipper. It was the token of the ultimate catastrophe137 to life that was wrapped and twisted into every fibre of his heredity. One step advanced beyond this, Jerry’s uttermost, the folk of Somo, from the contemplation of death, had achieved concepts of the spirits of the dead still living in immaterial and supersensuous realms.
And thereafter Jerry hated Bashti intensely, as a lord of life who possessed and laid on his knees the nothingness of Skipper. Not that Jerry reasoned it out. All dim and vague it was, a sensation, an emotion, a feeling, an instinct, an intuition, name it mistily138 as one will in the misty139 nomenclature of speech wherein words cheat with the impression of definiteness and lie to the brain an understanding which the brain does not possess.
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1
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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3
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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4
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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5
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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6
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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7
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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8
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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impended
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| v.进行威胁，即将发生( impend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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12
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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13
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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15
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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16
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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17
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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19
ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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20
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
prod
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| vt.戳，刺；刺激，激励 | |
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22
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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23
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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24
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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25
taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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26
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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27
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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28
privily
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| adv.暗中，秘密地 | |
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29
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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30
alligators
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| n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
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31
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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32
cluttered
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| v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满… | |
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33
acolytes
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| n.助手( acolyte的名词复数 )；随从；新手；（天主教）侍祭 | |
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34
debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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35
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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36
skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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37
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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38
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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39
geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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40
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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42
bided
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| v.等待，停留( bide的过去式 )；居住；等待；面临 | |
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43
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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44
lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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45
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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46
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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47
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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48
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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49
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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50
prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
metes
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| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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53
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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54
emblems
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| n.象征，标记( emblem的名词复数 ) | |
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55
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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56
tickled
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| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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57
circumspectly
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| adv.慎重地，留心地 | |
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58
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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59
saucy
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| adj.无礼的；俊俏的；活泼的 | |
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60
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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61
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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62
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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63
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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64
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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65
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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66
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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67
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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68
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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69
tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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70
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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71
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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72
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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73
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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74
rivet
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| n.铆钉；vt.铆接，铆牢；集中(目光或注意力) | |
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75
clinch
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| v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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76
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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77
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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78
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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79
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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80
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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81
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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82
lusts
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| 贪求（lust的第三人称单数形式） | |
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83
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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84
doughty
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| adj.勇猛的，坚强的 | |
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85
frigates
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| n.快速军舰( frigate的名词复数 ) | |
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86
earrings
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| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
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87
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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88
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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89
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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90
relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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91
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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92
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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93
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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94
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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95
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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96
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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98
bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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99
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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100
soddenly
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| 浸透的； 无表情的； 呆头呆脑的 | |
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101
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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102
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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103
erectly
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| adv.直立地，垂直地 | |
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104
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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105
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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106
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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107
gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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108
denude
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| v.剥夺；使赤裸 | |
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109
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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110
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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111
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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112
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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113
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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114
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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116
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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117
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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119
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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120
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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121
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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122
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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123
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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124
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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125
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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126
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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127
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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128
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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129
crumpled
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| 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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130
wilted
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| （使）凋谢，枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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131
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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132
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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133
stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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134
growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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135
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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136
subdued
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| 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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137
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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138
mistily
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| adv.有雾地，朦胧地，不清楚地 | |
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139
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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