The chauffeur1 stopped short at a word from Gerson. “Pull up by the wayside,” directed the General, “and try and look like engine trouble.”
He got out. “We will walk to the top of the hill. The fellow standing2 there against the sky is our scout3. And over beyond is Cayme.”
The Lord Paramount4 obeyed in silence.
They were perhaps a couple of hundred yards from the crest5. The sun was setting, a white blaze, which rimmed6 the line of the hill with iridescence7. For an instant the Lord Paramount glanced back at the bleakness8 of the Cornish landscape, coldly golden, and then turned to the ascent9.
“We shall see very little until this damned sun is down,” said Gerson. “But there is no hurry now.”
“An air scout,” said the Lord Paramount.
“Theirs. They keep it circling. And they have another out to sea. But the water is opaque10 enough, I hope, to hide our submarines. And besides, they keep pretty far out.”
“We have submarines?”
“Five. Six we had. But one is lost. All the coast has been played hokey with. The sea bed’s coming up. God knows how they’ve done it, but they’ve raised scores of square miles. Heaved it up somehow. Our submarine must have hit a lump or barrier — which ought not to have been there. They’ve just made all this Lyonesse of theirs out of nothing — to save paying decent prices to decent landowners. They bore down through it and take out minerals — minerals we’d give our eyes to get — that were hidden under the bottom of the sea.”
The Lord Paramount regarded the huge boss of stone to the right of them with a puzzled expression.
“I seem to remember this road — that rock that sticks up there and the way the road turns round it.”
“It goes to Penzance. Or it did.”
“That old disused tin mine we passed, that too seems familiar. Something odd about the double shaft11. . . . I’ve never seen this coast since I was a young man. Then I tramped it with a knapsack. By Land’s End and along here and so on to Tintagel.”
“You’ll find it changed in a moment.”
The Lord Paramount made no answer.
“Now. We’re getting into view. Stroll easily. That fellow up there may be watching us. The evening’s as still and clear as crystal. No mist. Not a cloud. We could do with a little obscurity to-night.”
“Why have we no aeroplanes up?”
Something like contempt sounded in Gerson’s voice. “Because we want to take your friends out there by surprise.”
The Lord Paramount felt again that sense of insufficiency that had been troubling him so frequently during the last few days. He had asked a silly question. More and more was Gerson with his lucid12 technical capacity taking control of things. There was nothing more to be said, and in silence the Lord Paramount surveyed the view that had opened out before them. Gerson was still in control.
“We had better sit down on this bank among the heather. Don’t stand still and stare. It won’t do to seem even to be watching them.”
The land was changed indeed.
Cayme was unlike any town, any factory, any normal place that Mr. Parham had ever seen. For it was Mr. Parham’s eye that now regarded it. It sat up against the incandescent14 sky, broad, black, squat15, like some monstrous16 new development of the battleship. It was a low, long battleship magnified by ten. Against the light it had no form nor detail, only a hard, long shape. Its vast shadow veiled a wedge of unassimilable detail, that might be a wilderness17 of streams and rich pools, in gloom and mystery. The land came out to this place, shining where it caught the light, or cut into blunt denticulations by long shadows, alternated triangles of darkness, wherever there was a rock or ridge18 to impede19 the light.
“But this was sea,” said Mr. Parham.
“This was sea.”
“And away there is still Land’s End.”
“Only it isn’t Land’s End any more. This runs right out.”
“I came along here I suppose somewhere — hard now to say exactly where — and I had Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur in my knapsack. And I— I was a young man then — I looked across at the sunset — a great clear sunset like this one — and I dreamt of the lost cities and palaces of Lyonesse until almost I could see them, like a mirage20, glittering under the sun.”
“And Lyonesse is here, and it hasn’t got any cities or palaces or knights21. And it doesn’t glitter. And instead of King Arthur and his Table Round, you’ve got a crew of Camelford’s men, brewing22 God knows what treason. . . . I wish I knew. . . . I wish I knew.”
Gerson sat in silence for a space, and then he talked again, almost as much to himself as to Mr. Parham.
“There they’ve got the stuff. They’ve got it; they’ve got everything. If we can wrench23 that place out of their hands suddenly — we have it all. I have men who can work it all right, given the stuff. Then we shall have poison gas to scare the world stiff. . . . And we’ll scare them. . . . But swift and sure like the pounce24 of a cat — we must get them down before they can lift a finger. They’ll blow the place to smithereens before they let us have it. Camelford has said as much. God knows what chemists are coming to! They didn’t dare say ‘No’ to a soldier in the last Great War.”
“These coasts have changed,” said Mr. Parham, “and the world has changed. And it seems to me tonight as if God himself had changed to something strange and dreadful.”
They sat in silence. The sun which had been a white blaze had sunk down until it touched the high line of the silhouette26 of Cayme, and its blinding glory had become only a blazing red disk.
“Tell me,” said Mr. Parham. “What are our plans?”
Gerson glanced sideways to be sure the scout was out of earshot.
“We have all the Gas L the Empire could produce before these fellows collared the material. Just about enough for this job and no more. Further on some of it lies along the road, disguised as barrels of tar13. Down in the village there, which used to be a fishing village and which now grows vegetables, keeps cows, and takes in washing for Cayme, it is piled up as barrels of beer. We have cases and cylinders27 hidden among the rocks.”
“But where are our men?”
“At Bodmin, at Penzance, waiting for the dark with bicycles, and, oh!— there’s a good lot about here, though you don’t see them, hidden in ditches since last night, lying under heaps of dry heather, down in that wood we passed. Waiting for a noiseless rocket at one o’clock to-night. Each one ready for his job. Behind that first line is Burchell with men in every town from Plymouth to Exeter, all hanging about unobtrusively, ready to follow up. What a man he is! What energy! Like a boy, an immense clever boy. He wouldn’t let this happen without him. Would there were more like him!”
“And at one o’clock?”
“Quietly we shift the gas into the great ditch they have round that place, see our masks are adjusted, and let it loose.”
“Which means?”
“They’ll wriggle28 a bit — blast ’em!”
“And then?”
“No more of them. And at dawn we go in with our gas masks on — and take possession. Like digging out a wasp’s nest.”
“Suppose the gas doesn’t work instantly — and they blow up in spite of us?”
“Then, my Lord Paramount, we are done. We’ll go back to find London selling us, and selling the Union Jack29 with us, to anyone who cares to buy. We’ll go back to find patriotism30 over and dead from China to Peru. We’ll go back to find lords and dictators, ten a penny. Or — if we respect ourselves — we won’t go back. But I think we can trust Gas L.”
Never had the Lord Paramount felt so utterly31 Mr. Parham. He looked about him at that evening, and it was a golden dome32 of warmth and stillness in which it was very good to be alive, and far off he heard some late lambs bleating33 and crying to the deep answers of their mothers.
“It’s quite possible the book of history will close with a bang,” said Gerson; “quite possible. About one o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ve done what we can. We’ve stuck like men to our own ideas. But for instance, Gas L is faintly visible, a thin blue-gray vapour. At night it may get past them — but if they see it before they sniff34 it . . . Or if they have an anti-gas . . .”
The General left the rest to Mr. Parham’s imagination.
“Does he keep up all night?” asked Mr. Parham indicating the slowly circling plane by a movement of his head.
“There are reliefs. For all we know, we are spotted35 now. For all we know, every bit of our little scheme is known. For all we know, we’re trying to kill a sleeping tiger with a pea shooter, and all we shall do is to wake it up.”
A long silence. The ever broadening and ever reddening dome of the sun seemed to be pouring its molten substance slowly and steadily36 into the mysterious black receptacle of Cayme.
“How still it is!” whispered Mr. Parham.
“That’s the damned thing about them,” said Gerson, betraying a certain irritability37. “STILL! They never give a sign. These scientific men, these ‘moderns,’ as they call themselves, have never made a declaration or offered a deal a proper-minded man could consider. Only vague criticisms and pointless pacifism. Science has slipped out of our hands when we weren’t looking. It used to be subservient38 enough. Years ago we ought to have forbidden scientific study or scientific knowledge except to men under military discipline, and we ought to have put scientific discoverers under the Official Secrets Act. Then we should have had them under control. And perhaps their damned progress wouldn’t have gone on so fast. They’d have mumbled39 their rotten theories in a corner, and we could have treated them as a joke. And if we’d been more nippy about the traders and the money lenders we could have kept them trading respectfully, as they used to do. But we let the scientific men and the industrialists40 and the bankers all run about and get notions just as they pleased, and here they are, out of control, a gang of cosmopolitan41 conspirators42 with the mask off, actually intercepting43 munitions44 that are vital to the Empire and treating for peace with enemy countries on their own account. It’s kind of symbolical45, sir, that we are here, conducting military operations by stealth, as it were — with even our uniforms planned to be invisible. . . . War ashamed of itself! . . . THEIR doing!”
And suddenly Gerson gave way to an outburst of the obscene, unmeaning blasphemies46 dear to simple souls the whole world over. He consigned47 men of science to the most unnatural48 experiences and the most unseemly behaviour. He raged against the vanity of intelligence and the vileness49 of mental presumption50.
The last acutely bright red line of the sun’s disk vanished abruptly51 from above the black crest of Cayme as though someone had suddenly thought of it and drawn52 it into the building. Minute cirrus clouds that had hitherto been invisible revealed themselves as faint streaks53 of gold in the sky and slowly faded again. Mr. Parham remained sitting very still. General Gerson turned to the waiting scout with directions for him to get the rugs and hamper54 out of the car and send it on to Penzance. He and the Lord Paramount would wait here among the stones until it was time to begin the attack.
It seemed to Mr. Parham that the time passed very quickly before the attack began. An intense blue evening with a westward55 glow deepened through twilight56 into a starry57 night, which had fewest stars and a brighter edge to the northwest. He supped from the hamper and lay under a rock while Gerson, imitating and answering the sounds of improbable birds, made mysterious visits along the ridge and athwart the moor58. Then when darkness came they started off, after much whispering and creeping about, blundering down the long slopes towards the erstwhile cliffs that marked the boundary of the old land and the new. Then a crawling forward with great circumspection59 and every possible precaution against noise. Then abruptly the startling discovery that he was not alone with Gerson, but one of a numerous line of furtive60 figures and groups, dimly visible against the sky line, some of them free-handed and some bearing burthens.
Gerson handed Mr. Parham a gas mask. “Don’t make any mistakes with it,” he said. “It’s Gas L. Get the edge SUCKING against your face.”
An interval61 of waiting in which one heard one’s heart beating, and then the noiseless rocket like a meteor across the sky. Another interval for which there was no measure, and then the stealthy release of the Gas L.
The Gas L was plainly visible; it was as if it had a sort of gray luminosity. It crept along the ground and then rose slowly like swans’ necks, like snakes, like the letter S, or like the top of a manuscript L, craning forward and down again towards the looming62 masses, now close at hand, of the mysteries of Cayme. It reached them and seemed to feel its way up their steep sides and slowly, slowly reached the crest of the walls and poured over. . . .
“At dawn we go in,” said Gerson, his voice made Lilliputian by his mask. “At dawn we go in.”
Mr. Parham shivered and made no reply.
He felt cramp63 for a time, he was tickled64 and worried by his mask about his ears, and perhaps he slept, for at any rate, the hours again passed very quickly, and almost abruptly the scene was warm with the sunrise. Seen closely and with the light of morning on them, the walls of Cayme were revealed as a hard greenish substance with a surface like dulled metal, and they rose, slanting65 backwards66 out of this ditch without any windows or loopholes, towards the sky. The ditch was unexpectedly deep; it made one a little giddy to come upon it suddenly, and in it there was no water at all and no bottom visible, but very far down something cloudy, a sort of heavy yellowish smoke that writhed67 and curled about and did not rise. One had to move cautiously and peer because of the difficulty of seeing in a gas mask. One saw in a series of clipped pictures. The attack was lined out all along the edge of the ditch, a series of slouching cynocephali with snouted white heads who turned about with cautious and noiseless movements and nosed and made gestures one to the other. Everyone carried a rifle or a revolver in his hand.
For a time the line was like a slack string along the edge of the ditch, uncertain of its next step. Then some common impulse had turned them all to the left, and they were following the edge of the ditch in Indian file as if to seek some point at which to cross it. The wall bent68 away presently, and rounding the bend, Mr. Parham came into view of a narrow drawbridge of open metalwork, about the end of which a number of the assailants had halted in a cluster.
Leadership he realized was needed.
He found himself with Gerson at the foot of the drawbridge and the others standing as if awaiting a decision. At the far end of that slender strip of open ironwork was an open doorway69 without a door. It gave into the darkness of an unlit passage. The nothingness in that passage was extraordinary. Not a living thing was to be seen and not a sound broke the immense silence of Cayme. Mr. Parham wished that the word “mouse-trap” had not come into his head.
“Well?” came faintly from within Gerson’s mask.
“If they are dead it is all right for us,” said Mr. Parham. “But if they are not dead, then it does not matter what we do, for even here we are completely in their power. One rifleman up there could pick us off one by one.”
“Why did they leave that door open?” asked Gerson.
“I don’t know. But I feel I have to go in.”
“All or nothing,” said Gerson.
He turned and gestured for six men to accompany them.
Mr. Parham in a state that was neither abject70 nor arrogant71, a new Mr. Parham, puzzled and filled with wonder and dread25, crossed the little bridge. He entered the passage. Gerson paused behind him to scrutinize72 the frame of the doorway. He made a comment that was inaudible. He looked up and dodged73 suddenly.
A door guided by grooves74 fell swiftly, stopped short with a metallic75 impact, and cut them off from the daylight and all support.
Gerson swore and tried to shove it up again. Mr. Parham saw the thing happen without astonishment76 and remained quite still. They were not in darkness. A few small electric lamps seemed to have been switched on by the falling door.
收听单词发音 |
1
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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rimmed
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| adj.有边缘的，有框的v.沿…边缘滚动；给…镶边 | |
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iridescence
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| n.彩虹色；放光彩；晕色；晕彩 | |
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bleakness
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| adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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impede
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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pounce
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| n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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27
cylinders
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| n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物 | |
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28
wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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bleating
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| v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说 | |
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34
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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35
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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irritability
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| n.易怒 | |
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subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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39
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
industrialists
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| n.工业家，实业家( industrialist的名词复数 ) | |
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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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conspirators
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| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
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43
intercepting
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| 截取（技术），截接 | |
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44
munitions
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| n.军火，弹药；v.供应…军需品 | |
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45
symbolical
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| a.象征性的 | |
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46
blasphemies
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| n.对上帝的亵渎，亵渎的言词[行为]( blasphemy的名词复数 )；侮慢的言词（或行为） | |
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47
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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48
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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49
vileness
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| n.讨厌，卑劣 | |
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50
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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51
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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52
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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53
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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54
hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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55
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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56
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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57
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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58
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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circumspection
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| n.细心，慎重 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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61
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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62
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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63
cramp
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| n.痉挛；[pl.](腹)绞痛；vt.限制，束缚 | |
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64
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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65
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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66
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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67
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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69
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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70
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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71
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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72
scrutinize
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| n.详细检查，细读 | |
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73
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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74
grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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75
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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76
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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