39.Nothing to worry about

     The rough road across the plain soon became so bad that we tried to get bruce to drive back to the village we had come from. Even though the road was littered with boulders and pitted with holes,bruce was not in the least perturbed.glancing at his map ,he informed us that the next village was a mere twenty miles away. It was not that bruce always underestimated diffculties.he simply had no sense of danger at all. No matter what the conditions were,he believed that a car should be driven as fast as it could possibly go.

As we bumped over the dusty track ,we swerved to avoid large blulders .the wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car.we felt sure that sooner or later a stone would rip a hole in our petrol tank or damage the engine.because of this ,we kept looking back,wondering if we were leaving a trail of oil and petrol behind us.

     What a relief it was when the boulders suddenly disappeared,giving way to a stretch of plain where the only obstacles were clumps of bushes.but there was worse to come .just ahead of us there was a huge fissure.in response to renewed pleadings,bruce stooped .though we all got out to examine the fissure,he remained in the car. We informed him that the fissure extended for fifty yards and was two feet wide and four feet deep .even this had no effect bruce engaged crack as he followed its zigzag course.before we had time to worry about what might happen, we were back on the plain again,.bruce consulted the map once more and told us that the village was now only fifteen miles away.our next obstacle was a shallow pool of water about half a mile across. Bruce charged at it .but in the middle ,the car came to a grinding halt.a yellow light on the dashboard flashed angrily and bruce cheerfully announced that there was n oil in the engine!

    穿过原野的那条崎岖公路，很快就变得非常糟糕了，所以我们想叫bruce把车开回到我们原来出发的村庄。尽管马路上遍地乱石，坑坑洼洼，bruce却毫不慌张.他看了一下地图告诉我们,下一个村庄仅仅只有二十英里了,并非bruce总是过低估计困难,而是他丝毫没有危险感,不管情况如何,他认为只要汽车能开多快就应开多快.

    我们在尘土飞扬的道路上颠簸而行的同时,还得东躲西闪地避开大石块.车轮扬起的石块,在车身下撞击着,似有不祥之兆.我们相信,早晚石头要把油箱砸个洞,或者把发动机损坏.为此,我们不停地向后张望,怀疑是否留下了机油或汽油的痕迹.

    令人甚感慰藉的是大石块突然消失了,随之而来的是一片平原,这里除了一簇簇灌木丛外,别无障碍.但是更糟糕的事情还在前头.就是我们前面,有一条巨大的地缝.bruce同意了我们的反复恳求,将车停了下来.虽然我们都下了车去查看裂沟,他却留在车里.我们告诉他裂沟长五十码,宽两英尺,深四英尺,就连这个情况他也处之泰然.bruce换上了低速档，却以惊人的速度开着，他使两只前轮保持在地缝两边，沿着其弯弯曲曲的路线前进。我们还未来得及担心可能发生的事情，车子又回到了平原。bruce又查阅了地图，告诉我们现在离那村庄只有十五英里了。我们的下一个障碍是一个约半英里宽的浅水塘，bruce向它冲去，但是到了塘中央，车轮恼人地停止了。仪表板上的一盏黄灯好象发怒似地闪烁着，bruce高兴地向大家宣布，发动机里没有汽油了！