But every link was present for the occasion. The schooner6, in a dead calm, was rolling over the huge, smooth seas, her boom sheets and tackles crashing to the hollow thunder of her great sails, when Simon Nishikanta put a bullet into the body of the little whale calf. By an almost miracle of chance, the shot killed the calf. It was equivalent to killing7 an elephant with a pea-rifle. Not at once did the calf die. It merely immediately ceased its gambols8 and for a while lay quivering on the surface of the ocean. The mother was beside it the moment after it was struck, and to those on board, looking almost directly down upon her, her dismay and alarm were very patent. She would nudge the calf with her huge shoulder, circle around and around it, then range up alongside and repeat her nudgings and shoulderings.
All on the Mary Turner, fore9 and aft, lined the rail and stared down apprehensively10 at the leviathan that was as long as the schooner.
“If she should do to us, sir, what that other one did to the Essex,” Dag Daughtry observed to the Ancient Mariner11.
“It would be no more than we deserve,” was the response. “It was uncalled-for—a wanton, cruel act.”
Michael, aware of the excitement overside but unable to see because of the rail, leaped on top of the cabin and at sight of the monster barked defiantly12. Every eye turned on him in startlement and fear, and Steward13 hushed him with a whispered command.
“This is the last time,” Grimshaw muttered in a low voice, tense with anger, to Nishikanta. “If ever again, on this voyage, you take a shot at a whale, I’ll wring14 your dirty neck for you. Get me. I mean it. I’ll choke your eye-balls out of you.”
The Jew smiled in a sickly way and whined15, “There ain’t nothing going to happen. I don’t believe that Essex ever was sunk by a whale.”
Urged on by its mother, the dying calf made spasmodic efforts to swim that were futile16 and caused it to veer17 and wallow from side to side.
In the course of circling about it, the mother accidentally brushed her shoulder under the port quarter of the Mary Turner, and the Mary Turner listed to starboard as her stern was lifted a yard or more. Nor was this unintentional, gentle impact all. The instant after her shoulder had touched, startled by the contact, she flailed18 out with her tail. The blow smote19 the rail just for’ard of the fore-shrouds20, splintering a gap through it as if it were no more than a cigar-box and cracking the covering board.
That was all, and an entire ship’s company stared down in silence and fear at a sea-monster grief-stricken over its dying progeny21.
Several times, in the course of an hour, during which the schooner and the two whales drifted farther and farther apart, the calf strove vainly to swim. Then it set up a great quivering, which culminated22 in a wild wallowing and lashing23 about of its tail.
“It is the death-flurry,” said the Ancient Mariner softly.
“By damn, it’s dead,” was Captain Doane’s comment five minutes later. “Who’d believe it? A rifle bullet! I wish to heaven we could get half an hour’s breeze of wind to get us out of this neighbourhood.”
“A close squeak,” said Grimshaw,
Captain Doane shook his head, as his anxious eyes cast aloft to the empty canvas and quested on over the sea in the hope of wind-ruffles on the water. But all was glassy calm, each great sea, of all the orderly procession of great seas, heaving up, round-topped and mountainous, like so much quicksilver.
“It’s all right,” Grimahaw encouraged. “There she goes now, beating it away from us.”
“Of course it’s all right, always was all right,” Nishikanta bragged25, as he wiped the sweat from his face and neck and looked with the others after the departing whale. “You’re a fine brave lot, you are, losing your goat to a fish.”
“I noticed your face was less yellow than usual,” Grimshaw sneered26. “It must have gone to your heart.”
Captain Doane breathed a great sigh. His relief was too strong to permit him to join in the squabbling.
“You’re yellow,” Grimshaw went on, “yellow clean through.” He nodded his head toward the Ancient Mariner. “Now there’s the real thing as a man. No yellow in him. He never batted an eye, and I reckon he knew more about the danger than you did. If I was to choose being wrecked28 on a desert island with him or you, I’d take him a thousand times first. If—”
But a cry from the sailors interrupted him.
“Merciful God!” Captain Doane breathed aloud.
The great cow whale had turned about, and, on the surface, was charging straight back at them. Such was her speed that a bore was raised by her nose like that which a Dreadnought or an Atlantic liner raises on the sea.
“Hold fast, all!” Captain Doane roared.
Every man braced29 himself for the shock. Henrik Gjertsen, the sailor at the wheel, spread his legs, crouched30 down, and stiffened31 his shoulders and arms to hand-grips on opposite spokes32 of the wheel. Several of the crew fled from the waist to the poop, and others of them sprang into the main-rigging. Daughtry, one hand on the rail, with his free arm clasped the Ancient Mariner around the waist.
All held. The whale struck the Mary Turner just aft of the fore-shroud. A score of things, which no eye could take in simultaneously34, happened. A sailor, in the main rigging, carried away a ratline in both hands, fell head-downward, and was clutched by an ankle and saved head-downward by a comrade, as the schooner cracked and shuddered35, uplifted on the port side, and was flung down on her starboard side till the ocean poured level over her rail. Michael, on the smooth roof of the cabin, slithered down the steep slope to starboard and disappeared, clawing and snarling38, into the runway. The port shrouds of the foremast carried away at the chain-plates, and the fore-topmast leaned over drunkenly to starboard.
“My word,” quoth the Ancient Mariner. “We certainly felt that.”
“Mr. Jackson,” Captain Doane commanded the mate, “will you sound the well.”
The mate obeyed, although he kept an anxious eye on the whale, which had gone off at a tangent and was smoking away to the eastward39.
Nishikanta nodded, as he wiped the sweat away, and muttered, “And I’m satisfied. I got all I want. I didn’t think a whale had it in it. I’ll never do it again.”
“Maybe you’ll never have the chance,” the captain retorted. “We’re not done with this one yet. The one that charged the Essex made charge after charge, and I guess whale nature hasn’t changed any in the last few years.”
“Dry as a bone, sir,” Mr. Jackson reported the result of his sounding.
“There she turns,” Daughtry called out.
Half a mile away, the whale circled about sharply and charged back.
“Stand from under for’ard there!” Captain Doane shouted to one of the sailors who had just emerged from the forecastle scuttle41, sea-bag in hand, and over whom the fore-topmast was swaying giddily.
“He’s packed for the get-away,” Daughtry murmured to the Ancient Mariner. “Like a rat leaving a ship.”
“We’re all rats,” was the reply. “I learned just that when I was a rat among the mangy rats of the poor-farm.”
By this time, all men on board had communicated to Michael their contagion42 of excitement and fear. Back on top of the cabin so that he might see, he snarled at the cow whale when the men seized fresh grips against the impending43 shock and when he saw her close at hand and oncoming.
The Mary Turner was struck aft of the mizzen shrouds. As she was hurled44 down to starboard, whither Michael was ignominiously45 flung, the crack of shattered timbers was plainly heard. Henrik Gjertsen, at the wheel, clutching the wheel with all his strength, was spun46 through the air as the wheel was spun by the fling of the rudder. He fetched up against Captain Doane, whose grip had been torn loose from the rail. Both men crumpled47 down on deck with the wind knocked out of them. Nishikanta leaned cursing against the side of the cabin, the nails of both hands torn off at the quick by the breaking of his grip on the rail.
While Daughtry was passing a turn of rope around the Ancient Mariner and the mizzen rigging and giving the turn to him to hold, Captain Doane crawled gasping48 to the rail and dragged himself erect49.
“That fetched her,” he whispered huskily to the mate, hand pressed to his side to control his pain. “Sound the well again, and keep on sounding.”
More of the sailors took advantage of the interval50 to rush for’ard under the toppling fore-topmast, dive into the forecastle, and hastily pack their sea-bags. As Ah Moy emerged from the steerage with his own rotund sea-bag, Daughtry dispatched Kwaque to pack the belongings51 of both of them.
“Dry as a bone, sir,” came the mate’s report.
“Keep on sounding, Mr. Jackson,” the captain ordered, his voice already stronger as he recovered from the shock of his collision with the helmsman. “Keep right on sounding. Here she comes again, and the schooner ain’t built that’d stand such hammering.”
By this time Daughtry had Michael tucked under one arm, his free arm ready to anticipate the next crash by swinging on to the rigging.
In making its circle to come back, the cow lost her bearings sufficiently52 to miss the stern of the Mary Turner by twenty feet. Nevertheless, the bore of her displacement53 lifted the schooner’s stern gently and made her dip her bow to the sea in a stately curtsey.
“If she’d a-hit . . . ” Captain Doane murmured and ceased.
“It’d a-ben good night,” Daughtry concluded for him. “She’s a-knocked our stern clean off of us, sir.”
Again wheeling, this time at no more than two hundred yards, the whale charged back, not completing her semi-circle sufficiently, so that she bore down upon the schooner’s bow from starboard. Her back hit the stem and seemed just barely to scrape the martingale, yet the Mary Turner sat down till the sea washed level with her stern-rail. Nor was this all. Martingale, bob-stays and all parted, as well as all starboard stays to the bowsprit, so that the bowsprit swung out to port at right angles and uplifted to the drag of the remaining topmast stays. The topmast anticked high in the air for a space, then crashed down to deck, permitting the bowsprit to dip into the sea, go clear with the butt55 of it of the forecastle head, and drag alongside.
Michael, in Steward’s arms, was snarling and growling58 intimidatingly59, not merely at the cow whale but at all the hostile and menacing universe that had thrown panic into the two-legged gods of his floating world.
“Just for that,” Daughtry snarled back, “I’ll let ’m sing. You made this mess, and if you lift a hand to my dog you’ll miss seeing the end of the mess you started, you dirty pawnbroker60, you.”
“Perfectly61 right, perfectly right,” the Ancient Mariner nodded approbation62. “Do you think, steward, you could get a width of canvas, or a blanket, or something soft and broad with which to replace this rope? It cuts me too sharply in the spot where my three ribs63 are missing.”
Daughtry thrust Michael into the old man’s arm.
“Hold him, sir,” the steward said. “If that pawnbroker makes a move against Killeny Boy, spit in his face, bite him, anything. I’ll be back in a jiffy, sir, before he can hurt you and before the whale can hit us again. And let Killeny Boy make all the noise he wants. One hair of him’s worth more than a world-full of skunks65 of money-lenders.”
Daughtry dashed into the cabin, came back with a pillow and three sheets, and, using the first as a pad and knotting the last together in swift weaver’s knots, he left the Ancient Mariner safe and soft and took Michael back into his own arms.
“She’s making water, sir,” the mate called. “Six inches—no, seven inches, sir.”
There was a rush of sailors across the wreckage66 of the fore-topmast to the forecastle to pack their bags.
“Swing out that starboard boat, Mr. Jackson,” the captain commanded, staring after the foaming67 course of the cow as she surged away for a fresh onslaught. “But don’t lower it. Hold it overside in the falls, or that damned fish’ll smash it. Just swing it out, ready and waiting, let the men get their bags, then stow food and water aboard of her.”
Lashings were cast off the boat and the falls attached, when the men fled to holding-vantage just ere the whale arrived. She struck the Mary Turner squarely amidships on the port beam, so that, from the poop, one saw, as well as heard, her long side bend and spring back like a limber fabric68. The starboard rail buried under the sea as the schooner heeled to the blow, and, as she righted with a violent lurch69, the water swashed across the deck to the knees of the sailors about the boat and spouted70 out of the port scuppers.
“Heave away!” Captain Doane ordered from the poop. “Up with her! Swing her out! Hold your turns! Make fast!”
The boat was outboard, its gunwale resting against the Mary Turner’s rail.
“I’m going after my tools,” Captain Doane announced, as he started for the cabin. Half into the scuttle, he paused to add with a sneer27 for Nishikanta’s benefit, “And for my one chronometer.”
“A foot and a half, and making,” the mate shouted aft to him.
“We’d better do some packing ourselves,” Grimshaw, following on the captain, said to Nishikanta.
“Steward,” Nishikanta said, “go below and pack my bedding. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Mr. Nishikanta, you can go to hell, sir, and all the rest as well,” was Daughtry’s quiet response, although in the same breath he was saying, respectfully and assuringly, to the Ancient Mariner: “You hold Killeny, sir. I’ll take care of your dunnage. Is there anything special you want to save, sir?”
Jackson joined the four men below, and as the five of them, in haste and trepidation72, packed articles of worth and comfort, the Mary Turner was struck again. Caught below without warning, all were flung fiercely to port and from Simon Nishikanta’s room came wailing73 curses of announcement of the hurt to his ribs against his bunk-rail. But this was drowned by a prodigious74 smashing and crashing on deck.
“Kindling wood—there won’t be anything else left of her,” Captain Doane commented in the ensuing calm, as he crept gingerly up the companionway with his chronometer cuddled on an even keel to his breast.
Placing it in the custody75 of a sailor, he returned below and was helped up with his sea-chest by the steward. In turn, he helped the steward up with the Ancient Mariner’s sea-chest. Next, aided by anxious sailors, he and Daughtry dropped into the lazarette through the cabin floor, and began breaking out and passing up a stream of supplies—cases of salmon76 and beef, of marmalade and biscuit, of butter and preserved milk, and of all sorts of the tinned, desiccated, evaporated, and condensed stuff that of modern times goes down to the sea in ships for the nourishment77 of men.
Daughtry and the captain emerged last from the cabin, and both stared upward for a moment at the gaps in the slender, sky-scraping top-hamper, where, only minutes before, the main- and mizzen-topmasts had been. A second moment they devoted78 to the wreckage of the same on deck—the mizzen-topmast, thrust through the spanker and supported vertically79 by the stout80 canvas, thrashing back and forth81 with each thrash of the sail, the main-topmast squarely across the ruined companionway to the steerage.
While the mother-whale expressing her bereavement82 in terms of violence and destruction, was withdrawing the necessary distance for another charge, all hands of the Mary Turner gathered about the starboard boat swung outboard ready for lowering. A respectable hill of case goods, water-kegs, and personal dunnage was piled on the deck alongside. A glance at this, and at the many men of fore and aft, demonstrated that it was to be a perilously83 overloaded84 boat.
“We want the sailors with us, at any rate—they can row,” said Simon Nishikanta.
“But do we want you?” Grimshaw queried85 gloomily. “You take up too much room, for your size, and you’re a beast anyway.”
“I guess I’ll be wanted,” the pawnbroker observed, as he jerked open his shirt, tearing out the four buttons in his impetuousness and showing a Colt’s .44 automatic, strapped86 in its holster against the bare skin of his side under his left arm, the butt of the weapon most readily accessible to any hasty dip of his right hand. “I guess I’ll be wanted. But just the same we can dispense87 with the undesirables88.”
“If you will have your will,” the wheat-farmer conceded sardonically90, although his big hand clenched91 involuntarily as if throttling92 a throat. “Besides, if we should run short of food you will prove desirable—for the quantity of you, I mean, and not otherwise. Now just who would you consider undesirable89?—the black nigger? He ain’t got a gun.”
But his pleasantries were cut short by the whale’s next attack—another smash at the stern that carried away the rudder and destroyed the steering93 gear.
“How much water?” Captain Doane queried of the mate.
“Three feet, sir—I just sounded,” came the answer. “I think, sir, it would be advisable to part-load the boat; then, right after the next time the whale hits us, lower away on the run, chuck the rest of the dunnage in, and ourselves, and get clear.”
Captain Doane nodded.
“It will be lively work,” he said. “Stand ready, all of you. Steward, you jump aboard first and I’ll pass the chronometer to you.”
Nishikanta bellicosely shouldered his vast bulk up to the captain, opened his shirt, and exposed his revolver.
“There’s too many for the boat,” he said, “and the steward’s one of ’em that don’t go along. Get that. Hold it in your head. The steward’s one of ’em that don’t go along.”
Captain Doane coolly surveyed the big automatic, while at the fore of his consciousness burned a vision of his flat buildings in San Francisco.
He shrugged94 his shoulders. “The boat would be overloaded, with all this truck, anyway. Go ahead, if you want to make it your party, but just bear in mind that I’m the navigator, and that, if you ever want to lay eyes on your string of pawnshops, you’d better see that gentle care is taken of me.—Steward!”
Daughtry stepped close.
“There won’t be room for you . . . and for one or two others, I’m sorry to say.”
“Glory be!” said Daughtry. “I was just fearin’ you’d be wantin’ me along, sir.—Kwaque, you take ’m my fella dunnage belong me, put ’m in other fella boat along other side.”
While Kwaque obeyed, the mate sounded the well for the last time, reporting three feet and a half, and the lighter95 freightage of the starboard boat was tossed in by the sailors.
A rangy, gangly, Scandinavian youth of a sailor, droop-shouldered, six feet six and slender as a lath, with pallid96 eyes of palest blue and skin and hair attuned97 to the same colour scheme, joined Kwaque in his work.
“Here, you Big John,” the mate interfered98. “This is your boat. You work here.”
The lanky99 one smiled in embarrassment100 as he haltingly explained: “I tank I lak go along cooky.”
“Sure, let him go, the more the easier,” Nishikanta took charge of the situation. “Anybody else?”
“Sure,” Dag Daughtry sneered to his face. “I reckon what’s left of the beer goes with my boat . . . unless you want to argue the matter.”
“Not for two billion cents would you risk a scrap54 with me, you money-sweater, you,” was Daughtry’s retort. “You’ve got their goats, but I’ve got your number. Not for two billion billion cents would you excite me into callin’ it right now.—Big John! Just carry that case of beer across, an’ that half case, and store in my boat.—Nishikanta, just start something, if you’ve got the nerve.”
Simon Nishikanta did not dare, nor did he know what to do; but he was saved from his perplexity by the shout:
“Here she comes!”
All rushed to holding-ground, and held, while the whale broke more timbers and the Mary Turner rolled sluggishly102 down and back again.
“Lower away! On the run! Lively!”
Captain Doane’s orders were swiftly obeyed. The starboard boat, fended104 off by sailors, rose and fell in the water alongside while the remainder of the dunnage and provisions showered into her.
“Might as well lend a hand, sir, seein’ you’re bent105 on leaving in such a hurry,” said Daughtry, taking the chronometer from Captain Doane’s hand and standing106 ready to pass it down to him as soon as he was in the boat.
“Come on, Greenleaf,” Grimshaw called up to the Ancient Mariner.
“No, thanking you very kindly107, sir,” came the reply. “I think there’ll be more room in the other boat.”
“We want the cook!” Nishikanta cried out from the stern sheets. “Come on, you yellow monkey! Jump in!”
Little old shrivelled Ah Moy debated. He visibly thought, although none knew the intrinsicness of his thinking as he stared at the gun of the fat pawnbroker and at the leprosy of Kwaque and Daughtry, and weighed the one against the other and tossed the light and heavy loads of the two boats into the balance.
“Me go other boat,” said Ah Moy, starting to drag his bag away across the deck.
“Cast off,” Captain Doane commanded.
Scraps109, the big Newfoundland puppy, who had played and pranced110 about through all the excitement, seeing so many of the Mary Turner’s humans in the boat alongside, sprang over the rail, low and close to the water, and landed sprawling111 on the mass of sea-bags and goods cases.
The boot rocked, and Nishikanta, his automatic in his hand, cried out:
“Back with him! Throw him on board!”
The sailors obeyed, and the astounded112 Scraps, after a brief flight through the air, found himself arriving on his back on the Mary Turner’s deck. At any rate, he took it for no more than a rough joke, and rolled about ecstatically, squirming vermicularly, in anticipation113 of what new delights of play were to be visited upon him. He reached out, with an enticing114 growl57 of good fellowship, for Michael, who was now free on deck, and received in return a forbidding and crusty snarl37.
“Guess we’ll have to add him to our collection, eh, sir?” Daughtry observed, sparing a moment to pat reassurance115 on the big puppy’s head and being rewarded with a caressing116 lick on his hand from the puppy’s blissful tongue.
No first-class ship’s steward can exist without possessing a more than average measure of executive ability. Dag Daughtry was a first-class ship’s steward. Placing the Ancient Mariner in a nook of safety, and setting Big John to unlashing the remaining boat and hooking on the falls, he sent Kwaque into the hold to fill kegs of water from the scant117 remnant of supply, and Ah Moy to clear out the food in the galley118.
The starboard boat, cluttered119 with men, provisions, and property and being rapidly rowed away from the danger centre, which was the Mary Turner, was scarcely a hundred yards away, when the whale, missing the schooner clean, turned at full speed and close range, churning the water, and all but collided with the boat. So near did she come that the rowers on the side next to her pulled in their oars120. The surge she raised, heeled the loaded boat gunwale under, so that a degree of water was shipped ere it righted. Nishikanta, automatic still in hand, standing up in the sternsheets by the comfortable seat he had selected for himself, was staggered by the lurch of the boat. In his instinctive121, spasmodic effort to maintain balance, he relaxed his clutch on the pistol, which fell into the sea.
“Ha-ah!” Daughtry girded. “What price Nishikanta? I got his number, and he’s lost you fellows’ goats. He’s your meat now. Easy meat? I should say! And when it comes to the eating, eat him first. Sure, he’s a skunk64, and will taste like one, but many’s the honest man that’s eaten skunk and pulled through a tight place. But you’d better soak ’im all night in salt water, first.”
Grimshaw, whose seat in the sternsheets was none of the best, grasped the situation simultaneously with Daughtry, and, with a quick upstanding, and hooking out-reach of hand, caught the fat pawnbroker around the back of the neck, and with anything but gentle suasion jerked him half into the air and flung him face downward on the bottom boards.
“Ha-ah!” said Daughtry across the hundred yards of ocean.
Next, and without hurry, Grimshaw took the more comfortable seat for himself.
“Want to come along?” he called to Daughtry.
“No, thank you, sir,” was the latter’s reply. “There’s too many of us, an’ we’ll make out better in the other boat.”
With some bailing122, and with others bending to the oars, the boat rowed frantically123 away, while Daughtry took Ah Moy with him down into the lazarette beneath the cabin floor and broke out and passed up more provisions.
It was when he was thus below that the cow grazed the schooner just for’ard of amidships on the port side, lashed124 out with her mighty125 tail as she sounded, and ripped clean away the chain plates and rail of the mizzen-shrouds. In the next roll of the huge, glassy sea, the mizzen-mast fell overside.
“My word, some whale,” Daughtry said to Ah Moy, as they emerged from the cabin companionway and gazed at this latest wreckage.
Ah Moy found need to get more food from the galley, when Daughtry, Kwaque, and Big John swung their weight on the falls, one at a time, and hoisted126 the port boat, one end at a time, over the rail and swung her out.
“We’ll wait till the next smash, then lower away, throw everything in, an’ get outa this,” the steward told the Ancient Mariner. “Lots of time. The schooner’ll sink no faster when she’s awash than she’s sinkin’ now.”
Even as he spoke33, the scuppers were nearly level with the ocean, and her rolling in the big sea was sluggish103.
“Hey!” he called with sudden forethought across the widening stretch of sea to Captain Doane. “What’s the course to the Marquesas? Right now? And how far away, sir?”
“Nor’-nor’-east-quarter-east!” came the faint reply. “Will fetch Nuka-Hiva! About two hundred miles! Haul on the south-east trade with a good full and you’ll make it!”
“Thank you, sir,” was the steward’s acknowledgment, ere he ran aft, disrupted the binnacle, and carried the steering compass back to the boat.
Almost, from the whale’s delay in renewing her charging, did they think she had given over. And while they waited and watched her rolling on the sea an eighth of a mile away, the Mary Turner steadily127 sank.
“We might almost chance it,” Daughtry was debating aloud to Big John, when a new voice entered the discussion.
“Devil be damned!” was the next, uttered in irritation129 and anger. “Devil be damned! Devil be damned!”
“Of course not,” was Daughtry’s judgment130, as he dashed across the deck, crawled through the confusion of the main-topmast and its many stays that blocked the way, and found the tiny, white morsel131 of life perched on a bunk-edge, ruffling132 its feathers, erecting133 and flattening134 its rosy108 crest135, and cursing in honest human speech the waywardness of the world and of ships and humans upon the sea.
The cockatoo stepped upon Daughtry’s inviting136 index finger, swiftly ascended137 his shirt sleeve, and, on his shoulder, claws sunk into the flimsy shirt fabric till they hurt the flesh beneath, leaned head to ear and uttered in gratitude138 and relief, and in self-identification: “Cocky. Cocky.”
“You son of a gun,” Daughtry crooned.
“Glory be!” Cooky replied, in tones so like Daughtry’s as to startle him.
“You son of a gun,” Daughtry repeated, cuddling his cheek and ear against the cockatoo’s feathered and crested139 head. “And some folks thinks it’s only folks that count in this world.”
Still the whale delayed, and, with the ocean washing their toes on the level deck, Daughtry ordered the boat lowered away. Ah Moy was eager in his haste to leap into the bow. Nor was Daughtry’s judgment correct that the little Chinaman’s haste was due to fear of the sinking ship. What Ah Moy sought was the place in the boat remotest from Kwaque and the steward.
Shoving clear, they roughly stored the supplies and dunnage out of the way of the thwarts140 and took their places, Ah Moy pulling bow-oar, next in order Big John and Kwaque, with Daughtry (Cocky still perched on his shoulder) at stroke. On top of the dunnage, in the sternsheets, Michael gazed wistfully at the Mary Turner and continued to snarl crustily at Scraps who idiotically wanted to start a romp141. The Ancient Mariner stood up at the steering sweep and gave the order, when all was ready, for the first dip of the oars.
A growl and a bristle142 from Michael warned them that the whale was not only coming but was close upon them. But it was not charging. Instead, it circled slowly about the schooner as if examining its antagonist143.
“I’ll bet it’s head’s sore from all that banging, an’ it’s beginnin’ to feel it,” Daughtry grinned, chiefly for the purpose of keeping his comrades unafraid.
Barely had they rowed a dozen strokes, when an exclamation144 from Big John led them to follow his gaze to the schooners145 forecastle-head, where the forecastle cat flashed across in pursuit of a big rat. Other rats they saw, evidently driven out of their lairs146 by the rising water.
“We just can’t leave that cat behind,” Daughtry soliloquized in suggestive tones.
“Certainly not,” the Ancient Mariner responded swinging his weight on the steering-sweep and heading the boat back.
Twice the whale gently rolled them in the course of its leisurely147 circling, ere they bent to their oars again and pulled away. Of them the whale seemed to take no notice. It was from the huge thing, the schooner, that death had been wreaked148 upon her calf; and it was upon the schooner that she vented149 the wrath150 of her grief.
Even as they pulled away, the whale turned and headed across the ocean. At a half-mile distance she curved about and charged back.
“With all that water in her, the schooner’ll have a real kick-back in her when she’s hit,” Daughtry said. “Lordy me, rest on your oars an’ watch.”
Delivered squarely amidships, it was the hardest blow the Mary Turner had received. Stays and splinters of rail flew in the air as she rolled so far over as to expose half her copper151 wet-glistening in the sun. As she righted sluggishly, the mainmast swayed drunkenly in the air but did not fall.
“A knock-out!” Daughtry cried, at sight of the whale flurrying the water with aimless, gigantic splashings. “It must a-smashed both of ’em.”
“Schooner he finish close up altogether,” Kwaque observed, as the Mary Turner’s rail disappeared.
Swiftly she sank, and no more than a matter of moments was it when the stump152 of her mainmast was gone. Remained only the whale, floating and floundering, on the surface of the sea.
“It’s nothing to brag24 about,” Daughtry delivered himself of the Mary Turner’s epitaph. “Nobody’d believe us. A stout little craft like that sunk, deliberately153 sunk, by an old cow-whale! No, sir. I never believed that old moss-back in Honolulu, when he claimed he was a survivor154 of the sinkin’ of the Essex, an’ no more will anybody believe me.”
“The pretty schooner, the pretty clever craft,” mourned the Ancient Mariner. “Never were there more dainty and lovable topmasts on a three-masted schooner, and never was there a three-masted schooner that worked like the witch she was to windward.”
Dag Daughtry, who had kept always footloose and never married, surveyed the boat-load of his responsibilities to which he was anchored—Kwaque, the Black Papuan monstrosity whom he had saved from the bellies155 of his fellows; Ah Moy, the little old sea-cook whose age was problematical only by decades; the Ancient Mariner, the dignified156, the beloved, and the respected; gangly Big John, the youthful Scandinavian with the inches of a giant and the mind of a child; Killeny Boy, the wonder of dogs; Scraps, the outrageously157 silly and fat-rolling puppy; Cocky, the white-feathered mite158 of life, imperious as a steel-blade and wheedlingly159 seductive as a charming child; and even the forecastle cat, the lithe36 and tawny160 slayer161 of rats, sheltering between the legs of Ah Moy. And the Marquesas were two hundred miles distant full-hauled on the tradewind which had ceased but which was as sure to live again as the morning sun in the sky.
The steward heaved a sigh, and whimsically shot into his mind the memory-picture in his nursery-book of the old woman who lived in a shoe. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and was dimly aware of the area of the numbness162 that bordered the centre that was sensationless between his eyebrows163, as he said:
“Well, children, rowing won’t fetch us to the Marquesas. We’ll need a stretch of wind for that. But it’s up to us, right now, to put a mile or so between us an’ that peevish164 old cow. Maybe she’ll revive, and maybe she won’t, but just the same I can’t help feelin’ leary about her.”
点击收听单词发音
1 grumbled | |
抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 发牢骚; 咕哝; 发哼声 | |
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2 chronometer | |
n.精密的计时器 | |
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3 porpoise | |
n.鼠海豚 | |
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4 calf | |
n.小牛,犊,幼仔,小牛皮 | |
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5 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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6 schooner | |
n.纵帆船 | |
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7 killing | |
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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8 gambols | |
v.蹦跳,跳跃,嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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9 fore | |
adv.在前面;adj.先前的;在前部的;n.前部 | |
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10 apprehensively | |
adv.担心地 | |
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11 mariner | |
n.水手号不载人航天探测器,海员,航海者 | |
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12 defiantly | |
adv.挑战地,大胆对抗地 | |
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13 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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14 wring | |
n.扭绞;v.拧,绞出,扭 | |
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15 whined | |
v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 );哀诉,诉怨 | |
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16 futile | |
adj.无效的,无用的,无希望的 | |
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17 veer | |
vt.转向,顺时针转,改变;n.转向 | |
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18 flailed | |
v.鞭打( flail的过去式和过去分词 );用连枷脱粒;(臂或腿)无法控制地乱动;扫雷坦克 | |
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19 smote | |
v.猛打,重击,打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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20 shrouds | |
n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 );寿衣;遮蔽物;覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 );保密 | |
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21 progeny | |
n.后代,子孙;结果 | |
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22 culminated | |
v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23 lashing | |
n.鞭打;痛斥;大量;许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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24 brag | |
v./n.吹牛,自夸;adj.第一流的 | |
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25 bragged | |
v.自夸,吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26 sneered | |
讥笑,冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27 sneer | |
v.轻蔑;嘲笑;n.嘲笑,讥讽的言语 | |
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28 wrecked | |
adj.失事的,遇难的 | |
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29 braced | |
adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 );撑牢;使自己站稳;振作起来 | |
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30 crouched | |
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
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32 spokes | |
n.(车轮的)辐条( spoke的名词复数 );轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 | |
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33 spoke | |
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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34 simultaneously | |
adv.同时发生地,同时进行地 | |
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35 shuddered | |
v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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36 lithe | |
adj.(指人、身体)柔软的,易弯的 | |
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37 snarl | |
v.吼叫,怒骂,纠缠,混乱;n.混乱,缠结,咆哮 | |
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38 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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39 eastward | |
adv.向东;adj.向东的;n.东方,东部 | |
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40 snarled | |
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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41 scuttle | |
v.急赶,疾走,逃避;n.天窗;舷窗 | |
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42 contagion | |
n.(通过接触的疾病)传染;蔓延 | |
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43 impending | |
a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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44 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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45 ignominiously | |
adv.耻辱地,屈辱地,丢脸地 | |
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46 spun | |
v.纺,杜撰,急转身 | |
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47 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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48 gasping | |
adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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49 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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50 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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51 belongings | |
n.私人物品,私人财物 | |
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52 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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53 displacement | |
n.移置,取代,位移,排水量 | |
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54 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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55 butt | |
n.笑柄;烟蒂;枪托;臀部;v.用头撞或顶 | |
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56 savagery | |
n.野性 | |
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57 growl | |
v.(狗等)嗥叫,(炮等)轰鸣;n.嗥叫,轰鸣 | |
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58 growling | |
n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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59 intimidatingly | |
吓人 | |
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60 pawnbroker | |
n.典当商,当铺老板 | |
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61 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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62 approbation | |
n.称赞;认可 | |
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63 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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64 skunk | |
n.臭鼬,黄鼠狼;v.使惨败,使得零分;烂醉如泥 | |
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65 skunks | |
n.臭鼬( skunk的名词复数 );臭鼬毛皮;卑鄙的人;可恶的人 | |
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66 wreckage | |
n.(失事飞机等的)残骸,破坏,毁坏 | |
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67 foaming | |
adj.布满泡沫的;发泡 | |
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68 fabric | |
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织 | |
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69 lurch | |
n.突然向前或旁边倒;v.蹒跚而行 | |
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70 spouted | |
adj.装有嘴的v.(指液体)喷出( spout的过去式和过去分词 );滔滔不绝地讲;喋喋不休地说;喷水 | |
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71 gauged | |
adj.校准的;标准的;量规的;量计的v.(用仪器)测量( gauge的过去式和过去分词 );估计;计量;划分 | |
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72 trepidation | |
n.惊恐,惶恐 | |
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73 wailing | |
v.哭叫,哀号( wail的现在分词 );沱 | |
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74 prodigious | |
adj.惊人的,奇妙的;异常的;巨大的;庞大的 | |
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75 custody | |
n.监护,照看,羁押,拘留 | |
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76 salmon | |
n.鲑,大马哈鱼,橙红色的 | |
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77 nourishment | |
n.食物,营养品;营养情况 | |
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78 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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79 vertically | |
adv.垂直地 | |
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81 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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82 bereavement | |
n.亲人丧亡,丧失亲人,丧亲之痛 | |
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83 perilously | |
adv.充满危险地,危机四伏地 | |
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84 overloaded | |
a.超载的,超负荷的 | |
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85 queried | |
v.质疑,对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 );询问 | |
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86 strapped | |
adj.用皮带捆住的,用皮带装饰的;身无分文的;缺钱;手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词);用皮带抽打;包扎;给…打绷带 | |
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87 dispense | |
vt.分配,分发;配(药),发(药);实施 | |
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88 undesirables | |
不受欢迎的人,不良分子( undesirable的名词复数 ) | |
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89 undesirable | |
adj.不受欢迎的,不良的,不合意的,讨厌的;n.不受欢迎的人,不良分子 | |
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90 sardonically | |
adv.讽刺地,冷嘲地 | |
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91 clenched | |
v.紧握,抓紧,咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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92 throttling | |
v.扼杀( throttle的现在分词 );勒死;使窒息;压制 | |
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93 steering | |
n.操舵装置 | |
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94 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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95 lighter | |
n.打火机,点火器;驳船;v.用驳船运送;light的比较级 | |
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96 pallid | |
adj.苍白的,呆板的 | |
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97 attuned | |
v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 );调音 | |
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98 interfered | |
v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 );调停;妨碍;干涉 | |
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99 lanky | |
adj.瘦长的 | |
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100 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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101 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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102 sluggishly | |
adv.懒惰地;缓慢地 | |
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103 sluggish | |
adj.懒惰的,迟钝的,无精打采的 | |
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104 fended | |
v.独立生活,照料自己( fend的过去式和过去分词 );挡开,避开 | |
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105 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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106 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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107 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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108 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
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109 scraps | |
油渣 | |
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110 pranced | |
v.(马)腾跃( prance的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111 sprawling | |
adj.蔓生的,不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 );蔓延;杂乱无序地拓展;四肢伸展坐着(或躺着) | |
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112 astounded | |
v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词);愕然;愕;惊讶 | |
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113 anticipation | |
n.预期,预料,期望 | |
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114 enticing | |
adj.迷人的;诱人的 | |
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115 reassurance | |
n.使放心,使消除疑虑 | |
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116 caressing | |
爱抚的,表现爱情的,亲切的 | |
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117 scant | |
adj.不充分的,不足的;v.减缩,限制,忽略 | |
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118 galley | |
n.(飞机或船上的)厨房单层甲板大帆船;军舰舰长用的大划艇; | |
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119 cluttered | |
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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120 oars | |
n.桨,橹( oar的名词复数 );划手v.划(行)( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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121 instinctive | |
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的 | |
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122 bailing | |
(凿井时用吊桶)排水 | |
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123 frantically | |
ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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124 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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125 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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126 hoisted | |
把…吊起,升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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127 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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128 plaintive | |
adj.可怜的,伤心的 | |
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129 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
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130 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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131 morsel | |
n.一口,一点点 | |
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132 ruffling | |
弄皱( ruffle的现在分词 ); 弄乱; 激怒; 扰乱 | |
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133 erecting | |
v.使直立,竖起( erect的现在分词 );建立 | |
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134 flattening | |
n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词 | |
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135 crest | |
n.顶点;饰章;羽冠;vt.达到顶点;vi.形成浪尖 | |
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136 inviting | |
adj.诱人的,引人注目的 | |
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137 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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138 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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139 crested | |
adj.有顶饰的,有纹章的,有冠毛的v.到达山顶(或浪峰)( crest的过去式和过去分词 );到达洪峰,达到顶点 | |
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140 thwarts | |
阻挠( thwart的第三人称单数 ); 使受挫折; 挫败; 横过 | |
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141 romp | |
n.欢闹;v.嬉闹玩笑 | |
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142 bristle | |
v.(毛发)直立,气势汹汹,发怒;n.硬毛发 | |
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143 antagonist | |
n.敌人,对抗者,对手 | |
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144 exclamation | |
n.感叹号,惊呼,惊叹词 | |
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145 schooners | |
n.(有两个以上桅杆的)纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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146 lairs | |
n.(野兽的)巢穴,窝( lair的名词复数 );(人的)藏身处 | |
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147 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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148 wreaked | |
诉诸(武力),施行(暴力),发(脾气)( wreak的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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149 vented | |
表达,发泄(感情,尤指愤怒)( vent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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151 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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152 stump | |
n.残株,烟蒂,讲演台;v.砍断,蹒跚而走 | |
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153 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
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154 survivor | |
n.生存者,残存者,幸存者 | |
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155 bellies | |
n.肚子( belly的名词复数 );腹部;(物体的)圆形或凸起部份;腹部…形的 | |
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156 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
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157 outrageously | |
凶残地; 肆无忌惮地; 令人不能容忍地; 不寻常地 | |
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158 mite | |
n.极小的东西;小铜币 | |
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159 wheedlingly | |
用甜言蜜语哄骗 | |
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160 tawny | |
adj.茶色的,黄褐色的;n.黄褐色 | |
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161 slayer | |
n. 杀人者,凶手 | |
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162 numbness | |
n.无感觉,麻木,惊呆 | |
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163 eyebrows | |
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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164 peevish | |
adj.易怒的,坏脾气的 | |
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