“It isn’t every one who’s been a god,” said the sunburnt man. “But it’s happened to me — among other things.”
I intimated my sense of his condescension1.
“It don’t leave much for ambition, does it?” said the sunburnt man.
“I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy! how time flies! It’s twenty years ago. I doubt if you’ll remember anything of the Ocean Pioneer?”
The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read it. The Ocean Pioneer? “Something about gold dust,” I said vaguely2, “but the precise —”
“That’s it,” he said. “In a beastly little channel she hadn’t no business in-dodging pirates. It was before they’d put the kybosh on that business. And there’d been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was wrong. There’s places about by Soona where you fair have to follow the rocks about to see where they’re going next. Down she went in twenty fathoms3 before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one form or another.”
“Survivors?”
“Three.”
“I remember the case now,” I said. “There was something about salvage5 ——”
But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so extraordinarily6 horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly7. “Excuse me,” he said, “but — salvage!”
He leant over towards me. “I was in that job,” he said. “Tried to make myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I’ve got my feelings ——
“It ain’t all jam being a god,” said the sunburnt man, and for some time conversed8 by means of such pithy9 but unprogressive axioms. At last he took up his tale again.
“There was me,” said the sunburnt man, “and a seaman10 named Jacobs, and Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set the whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence. He was a wonderful hand at suggesting things. ‘There was forty thousand pounds,’ he said, ‘on that ship, and it’s for me to say just where she went down.’ It didn’t need much brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving dress — a second-hand11 one with a compressed air apparatus12 instead of pumping. He’d have done the diving too, if it hadn’t made him sick going down. And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart he’d cooked up, as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away.
“I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean and straightforward13, and what rough chaps call a ‘cert.’ And we used to speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who’d started two days before us, were getting on, until our sides fairly ached. We all messed together in the Sanderses’ cabin — it was a curious crew, all officers and no men — and there stood the diving-dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was something funny in the confounded thing’s great fat head and its stare, and he made us see it too. ‘Jimmy Goggles14,’ he used to call it, and talk to it like a Christian15. Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, and all the little Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed day all of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nasty mackintosheriness, he smelt16 as nice in his inside as a cask of rum. It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell you — little suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming.
“We weren’t going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, you know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where the Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks17 of ropy grey rock — lava18 rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay off about half a mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was a thundering row who should stop on board. And there she lay just as she had gone down, so that you could see the top of the masts that was still standing19 perfectly20 distinctly. The row ended in all coming in the boat. I went down in the diving-dress on Friday morning directly it was light.
“What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. It was a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People over here think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore and palm-trees and surf, bless ’em! This place, for instance, wasn’t a bit that way. Not common rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks like ironwork cinder21 heaps, with green slime below, and thorny22 shrubs23 and things just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm and clear, and showing you a kind of dirty gray-black shine, with huge flaring24 red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting25 things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption26. And the other way forest, too, and a kind of broken — what is it?— amby-theatre of black and rusty27 cinders28 rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay in the middle.
“The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn’t much colour about things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or down the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond a lump of rocks towards the line of the sea.
“Not a human being in sight,” he repeated, and paused.
“I don’t know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. I was in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. ‘Easy,’ says Always, ‘there’s her mast.’ And after I’d had just one squint29 over the gunwale, I caught up the bogey30, and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was all right, I shut the valve from the air-belt in order to help my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost — for we hadn’t a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and all of them staring down into water after me, as my head sank down into the weeds and blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the most cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a look-out at such a desolate31 place. It stunk32 of solitude33.
“Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. None of us were divers34. We’d had to muck about with the thing to get the way of it, and this was the first time I’d been deep. It feels damnable. Your ears hurt beastly. I don’t know if you’ve ever hurt yourself yawning or sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse. And a pain over the eyebrows35 here — splitting — and a feeling like influenza36 in the head. And it isn’t all heaven in your lungs and things. And going down feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can’t turn your head to see what’s above you, and you can’t get a fair squint at what’s happening to your feet without bending down something painful. And being deep it was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud that formed the bottom. It was like going down out of the dawn back into the night, so to speak.
“The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack37 I came with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm38 of flies from road stuff in summer-time. I turned on the compressed air again — for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in spite of the rum — and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down there, and that helped take off the stuffiness39 a bit.”
“When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind of reddy-coloured twilight40, on account of the streamers of seaweed that floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just a moony, deep green blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle. There wasn’t any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards I found two skeletons lying in the passengers’ cabins, where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the rail where I’d been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an old chap from Sydney used to flirt41 with a widow we had aboard. A comfortable couple they’d been, only a month ago, and now you couldn’t have got a meal for a baby crab42 off either of them.
“I’ve always had a bit of a philosophical43 turn, and I daresay I spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, a dab44 at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs45, I expect. I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something all knobs and spikes46. What do you think? Backbone47! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly48, and Always knew just where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box one end an inch or more.”
He broke off in his story. “I’ve lifted it,” he said, “as near as that! Forty thousand pounds’ worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted inside my helmet as a kind of cheer, and hurt my ears. I was getting confounded stuffy49 and tired by this time — I must have been down twenty-five minutes or more — and I thought this was good enough. I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical50 jump and went scuttling51 off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air accumulate to carry me up again — I noticed a kind of whacking52 from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar4, but I didn’t look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.
“And then something shot down by me — something heavy, and stood a-quiver in the planks53. I looked, and there was a long knife I’d seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he’s dropped it, and I was still calling him this kind of fool and that —— for it might have hurt me serious — when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight. Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack! I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful54. It was a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting about. I’d have thought it a big octopus55, or some such thing, if it hadn’t been for the boot. But octopuses56 don’t wear boots. It was all in a moment, of course.
“I felt myself sinking down again, and I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled free of me and shot down as I went up —”
He paused.
“I saw young Sanders’s face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what looked like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went clutching one another, and turning over, and both too far gone to leave go. And in another second my helmet came a whack, fit to split, against the niggers’ canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full.
“It was lively times I tell you? Overboard came Always with three spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking about me in the water. I couldn’t see much, but I saw the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment57 as you can well imagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer.
“Gummy, thinks I, here’s a fix! Niggers? At first I couldn’t see anything for it but Stifle58 below or Stabs above. I didn’t properly understand how much air there was to last me out, but I didn’t feel like standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully heady, quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We’d never reckoned with these beastly natives, filthy59 Papuan beasts. It wasn’t any good coming up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur of the moment, I clambered over the side of the brig and landed among the weeds, and set off through the darkness as fast as I could. I just stopped once and knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet and had a look up. It was a most extraordinary bright green-blue above, and the two canoes and the boat floating there very small and distant like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sick to squint up at it, and think what the pitching and swaying of the three meant.
“It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering about in that darkness — pressure something awful, like being buried in sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing as it seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, I found myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another squint to see if anything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I stopped with my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I was going, but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. Then out I dashed, like knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got my eyes out of the water, I saw I’d come up a kind of beach near the forest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden by a big hummucky heap of twisted lava. The born fool in me suggested a run for the woods. I didn’t take the helmet off, but I eased open one of the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water. You’d hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted.
“Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head in a copper60 knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes under water, you don’t break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy going to work. And half-way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, coming out in a gaping61, astonished sort of way to meet me.
“I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of London. I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as a turned turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands free, and waited for them. There wasn’t anything else for me to do.
“But they didn’t come on very much. I began to suspect why. ‘Jimmy Goggles,’ I says, ‘it’s your beauty does it.’ I was inclined to be a little lightheaded, I think, with all these dangers about and the change in the pressure of the blessed air. ‘Who’re ye staring at?’ I said, as if the savages63 could hear me. ‘What d’ye take me for? I’m hanged if I don’t give you something to stare at,’ I said, and with that I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air from the belt, until I was swelled64 out like a blown frog. Regular imposing65 it must have been. I’m blessed if they’d come on a step; and presently one and then another went down on their hands and knees. They didn’t know what to make of me, and they was doing the extra polite, which was very wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind to edge back seaward and cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A step back and they’d have been after me. And out of sheer desperation I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps, and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified66 manner. And inside of me I was singing as small as a tomtit.
“But there’s nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a difficulty,— I’ve found that before and since. People like ourselves, who’re up to diving dresses by the time we’re seven, can scarcely imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage62. One or two of these niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock their brains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn and silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber67. It was evident they took me for something immense.
“Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention between me and something out at; sea. ‘What’s the matter now?’ I said. I turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming round a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes. The sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some recognition, so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal manner. And then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again. At that time I was praying like mad, I remember, over and over again: ‘Lord help me through with it! Lord help me through with it!’ It’s only fools who know nothing of danger can afford to laugh at praying.”
“But these niggers weren’t going to let me walk through and away like that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of pressed me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to me they didn’t take me for a British citizen, whatever else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious to own up to the old country.
“You’d hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you’re familiar with savages, but these poor, misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity68 I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, ‘wow-wow,’ very long on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its side and sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving dresses ain’t much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they’re a sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting on their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their minds and were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so well, in spite of the weight on my shoulders and feet.
“But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might think when they came back. If they’d seen me in the boat before I went down, and without the helmet on — for they might have been spying and hiding since over night — they would very likely take a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew69 about that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.
“But they took it down — the whole blessed village took it down. At the cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You’d hardly think what it meant in that heat and stink70. I don’t think any of them dreamt of the man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue71! the heat! the beastly closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a stinking72 fire on a kind of lava slab73 there was before me, and brought in a lot of gory74 muck — the worst parts of what they were feasting on outside, the Beasts — and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a bit hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what with the smell of burnt-offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the stuff they’d got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced about me something disgraceful. It’s extraordinary the different ways different people have of showing respect. If I’d had a hatchet75 handy I’d have gone for the lot of them — they made me feel that wild. All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better to do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place got a bit too shadowy for their taste — all these here savages are afraid of the dark, you know — and I started a sort of ‘Moo’ noise, they built big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think things over, and feel just as bad as I liked. And Lord! I was sick.
“I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle76 on a pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. Come round just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps, beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, and young Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn’t go out of my mind. There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer, and how one might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away and come back for it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling77. I was afraid to ask by signs for food, for fear of behaving too human, and so there I sat and hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet, and I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I went out and got some stuff like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left of these I put away among the other offerings, just to give them a hint of my tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found me sitting up stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as they’d left me overnight. I’d got my back against the central pillar of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. And that’s how I became a god among the heathen — false god, no doubt, and blasphemous78, but one can’t always pick and choose.
“Now, I don’t want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but I must confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinary successful. I don’t say there’s anything in it, mind you. They won a battle with another tribe — I got a lot of offerings I didn’t want through it — they had wonderful fishing, and their crop of pourra was exceptional fine. And they counted the capture of the brig among the benefits I brought ’em. I must say I don’t think that was a poor record for a perfectly new hand. And, though perhaps you’d scarcely credit it, I was the tribal79 god of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four months . . .
“What else could I do, man? But I didn’t wear that diving-dress all the time. I made ’em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and a deuce of a time I had too, making them understand what it was I wanted them to do. That indeed was the great difficulty — making them understand my wishes. I couldn’t let myself down by talking their lingo80 badly, even if I’d been able to speak at all, and I couldn’t go flapping a lot of gestures at them. So I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them and hooted81 like one o’clock. Sometimes they did the things I wanted all right, and sometimes they did them all wrong. They was always very willing, certainly. All the while I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded business settled. Every night before the dawn I used to march out in full rig and go off to a place where I could see the channel in which the Ocean Pioneer lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried to walk out to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I didn’t get back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers out on the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexed82 and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they started rejoicing. Hanged if I like so much ceremony.
“And then came the missionary83. That missionary! What a Guy! Gummy! It was in the afternoon, and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on that old black stone of theirs, when he came. I heard a row outside and jabbering84, and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. ‘They worship stocks and stones,’ he said, and I knew what was up, in a flash. I had one of my windows out for comfort, and I sang out straight away on the spur of the moment. ‘Stocks and stones!’ I says. ‘You come inside,’ I says, ‘and I’ll punch your blooming Exeter Hall of a head.’
“There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them — a little sandy chap in specks85 and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him a bit of a heap at first. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘how’s the trade in scissors?’ for I don’t hold with missionaries86.
“I had a lark87 with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite outclassed by a man like me. He gasped88 out who was I, and I told him to read the inscription89 at my feet if he wanted to know. There wasn’t no inscription; why should there be? but down he goes to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious90 as any of them, more so by reason of his seeing missionary close to, took it for an act of worship and plumped down like a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn’t any more business to be done in my village after that journey, not by the likes of him.
“But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I’d had any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him into Co. I’ve no doubt he’d have come into Co. A child, with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving dress and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood, the salver’s ship from Starr Race, towing up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it in that stinking silly dress! Four months!”
The sunburnt man’s story degenerated91 again. “Think of it,” he said, when he emerged to linguistic92 purity once more. “Forty thousand pounds’ worth of gold.”
“Did the little missionary come back?” I asked.
“Oh yes! bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. But wasn’t — he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all — going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face, my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak93 of eight thousand pounds of gold — fifth share. But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it was him had driven their luck away.”
1 condescension | |
n.自以为高人一等,贬低(别人) | |
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2 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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3 fathoms | |
英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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4 oar | |
n.桨,橹,划手;v.划行 | |
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5 salvage | |
v.救助,营救,援救;n.救助,营救 | |
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6 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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7 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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8 conversed | |
v.交谈,谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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9 pithy | |
adj.(讲话或文章)简练的 | |
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10 seaman | |
n.海员,水手,水兵 | |
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11 second-hand | |
adj.用过的,旧的,二手的 | |
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12 apparatus | |
n.装置,器械;器具,设备 | |
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13 straightforward | |
adj.正直的,坦率的;易懂的,简单的 | |
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14 goggles | |
n.护目镜 | |
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15 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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16 smelt | |
v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼 | |
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17 chunks | |
厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 ); (某物)相当大的数量或部分 | |
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18 lava | |
n.熔岩,火山岩 | |
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19 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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20 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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21 cinder | |
n.余烬,矿渣 | |
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22 thorny | |
adj.多刺的,棘手的 | |
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23 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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24 flaring | |
a.火焰摇曳的,过份艳丽的 | |
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25 darting | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的现在分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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26 eruption | |
n.火山爆发;(战争等)爆发;(疾病等)发作 | |
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27 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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28 cinders | |
n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 );炭渣;煤渣路;煤渣跑道 | |
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29 squint | |
v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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30 bogey | |
n.令人谈之变色之物;妖怪,幽灵 | |
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31 desolate | |
adj.荒凉的,荒芜的;孤独的,凄凉的;v.使荒芜,使孤寂 | |
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32 stunk | |
v.散发出恶臭( stink的过去分词 );发臭味;名声臭;糟透 | |
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33 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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34 divers | |
adj.不同的;种种的 | |
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35 eyebrows | |
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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36 influenza | |
n.流行性感冒,流感 | |
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37 whack | |
v.敲击,重打,瓜分;n.重击,重打,尝试,一份 | |
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38 swarm | |
n.(昆虫)等一大群;vi.成群飞舞;蜂拥而入 | |
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39 stuffiness | |
n.不通风,闷热;不通气 | |
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40 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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41 flirt | |
v.调情,挑逗,调戏;n.调情者,卖俏者 | |
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42 crab | |
n.螃蟹,偏航,脾气乖戾的人,酸苹果;vi.捕蟹,偏航,发牢骚;vt.使偏航,发脾气 | |
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43 philosophical | |
adj.哲学家的,哲学上的,达观的 | |
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44 dab | |
v.轻触,轻拍,轻涂;n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
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45 crabs | |
n.蟹( crab的名词复数 );阴虱寄生病;蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46 spikes | |
n.穗( spike的名词复数 );跑鞋;(防滑)鞋钉;尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 );偷偷地给某人的饮料加入(更多)酒精( 或药物);把尖状物钉入;打乱某人的计划 | |
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47 backbone | |
n.脊骨,脊柱,骨干;刚毅,骨气 | |
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48 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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49 stuffy | |
adj.不透气的,闷热的 | |
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50 hysterical | |
adj.情绪异常激动的,歇斯底里般的 | |
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51 scuttling | |
n.船底穿孔,打开通海阀(沉船用)v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 );快跑,急走 | |
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52 whacking | |
adj.(用于强调)巨大的v.重击,使劲打( whack的现在分词 ) | |
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53 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
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54 frightful | |
adj.可怕的;讨厌的 | |
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55 octopus | |
n.章鱼 | |
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56 octopuses | |
章鱼( octopus的名词复数 ) | |
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57 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
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58 stifle | |
vt.使窒息;闷死;扼杀;抑止,阻止 | |
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59 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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60 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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61 gaping | |
adj.口的;张口的;敞口的;多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 );张开,张大 | |
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62 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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63 savages | |
未开化的人,野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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64 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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65 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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66 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
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67 plumber | |
n.(装修水管的)管子工 | |
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68 deity | |
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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69 stew | |
n.炖汤,焖,烦恼;v.炖汤,焖,忧虑 | |
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70 stink | |
vi.发出恶臭;糟透,招人厌恶;n.恶臭 | |
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71 fatigue | |
n.疲劳,劳累 | |
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72 stinking | |
adj.臭的,烂醉的,讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 );发臭味;名声臭;糟透 | |
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73 slab | |
n.平板,厚的切片;v.切成厚板,以平板盖上 | |
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74 gory | |
adj.流血的;残酷的 | |
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75 hatchet | |
n.短柄小斧;v.扼杀 | |
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76 beetle | |
n.甲虫,近视眼的人 | |
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77 rambling | |
adj.[建]凌乱的,杂乱的 | |
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78 blasphemous | |
adj.亵渎神明的,不敬神的 | |
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79 tribal | |
adj.部族的,种族的 | |
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80 lingo | |
n.语言不知所云,外国话,隐语 | |
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81 hooted | |
(使)作汽笛声响,作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
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83 missionary | |
adj.教会的,传教(士)的;n.传教士 | |
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84 jabbering | |
v.急切而含混不清地说( jabber的现在分词 );急促兴奋地说话;结结巴巴 | |
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85 specks | |
n.眼镜;斑点,微粒,污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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86 missionaries | |
n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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87 lark | |
n.云雀,百灵鸟;n.嬉戏,玩笑;vi.嬉戏 | |
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88 gasped | |
v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 );喘息;倒抽气;很想要 | |
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89 inscription | |
n.(尤指石块上的)刻印文字,铭文,碑文 | |
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90 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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91 degenerated | |
衰退,堕落,退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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92 linguistic | |
adj.语言的,语言学的 | |
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93 squeak | |
n.吱吱声,逃脱;v.(发出)吱吱叫,侥幸通过;(俚)告密 | |
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