THE SUBTLE KNIFE 精彩片段：
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE BELVEDERE-2
She tugged at his good arm, helping him, lifting him. He tried to respond, but he didnt have the
strength. He could only walk.
"All right," he said, "we cant get to the trees. Too far away. So well go to that temple place. If we shut the door, maybe we can hold them out for long enough to cut through after all."
Pantalaimon darted ahead, and Lyra gasped and called to him breathlessly, making him pause.
Will could almost see the bond between them, the daemon tugging and the girl responding. He stumbled through the thick grass with Lyra running ahead to see, and then back to help, and then ahead again, until they reached the stone pavement around the temple.
The door under the little portico was unlocked, and they ran inside to find themselves in a bare circular room with several statues of goddesses in niches around the wall. In the very center a spiral staircase of wrought iron led up through an opening to the floor above. There was no key to lock the door, so they clambered up the staircase and onto the floorboards of an upper level that was really a viewing place, where people could come to take the air and look out over the city; for there were no windows or walls, simply a series of open arches all the way around supporting the roof. In each archway a windowsill at waist height was broad enough to lean on, and below them the pantiled roof ran down in a gentle slope all around to the gutter.
As they looked out, they could see the forest behind, tanta-lizingly close; and the villa below them, and beyond that the open park, and then the red-brown roofs of the city, with the tower rising to the left. There were carrion crows wheeling in the air above the gray battlements, and Will felt a jolt of sickness as he realized what had drawn them there.
But there was no time to take in the view; first they had to deal with the children, who were racing up toward the temple, screaming with rage and excitement. The leading boy slowed down and held up his pistol and fired two or three wild shots toward the temple. Then they came on again, yelling:
"Thiefs!"
"Murderers!"
"We gonna kill you!"
"You got our knife!"
"You don come from here!"
"You gonna die!"