"Bierce, Ambrose - The Damned Thing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bierce Ambrose)

"If you have done insulting me, sir," said Harker, as soon as he and the officer
were left alone with the dead man, "I suppose I am at liberty to go?"
"Yes,"
Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the door latch. The habit
of his profession was strong in himЧ stronger than his sense of personal
dignity. He turned about and said:
"The book that you have thereЧ I recognize it as Morgan's diary. You seemed
greatly interested in it; you read in it while I was testifying. May I see it?
The public would likeЧ"
"The book will cut no figure in this matter," replied the official, slipping it
into his coat pocket; "all the entries in it were made before the writer's
death."
As Harker passed out of the house the jury reentered and stood about the table,
on which the now covered corpse showed under the sheet with sharp definition.
The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced from his breast pocket a
pencil and scrap of paper, and wrote rather laboriously the following verdict,
which with various degrees of effort all signed:
"We, the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands of a
mountain lion, but some of us thinks, all the same, they had fits."
IV
In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries having,
possibly, a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest upon his body the
book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought it not worth while to
confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned can not be
ascertained; the upper part of the leaf is torn away; the part of the entry
remaining is as follows:
"...would run in a half circle, keeping his head turned always toward the centre
and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last he ran away into the
brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gone mad, but on
returning to the house found no other alteration in his manner than what was
obviously due to fear of punishment.
"Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impress some olfactory centre with images
of the thing emitting them?...
"Sept. 2.Ч Looking at the stars last night as they rose above the crest of the
ridge east of the house, I observed them successively disappearЧ from left to
right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at the same time, but
along the entire length of the ridge all that were within a degree or two of the
crest were blotted out. It was as if something had passed along between me and
them; but I could not see it, and the stars were not thick enough to define its
outline. Ugh! I don't like this...."
Several weeks' entries are missing, three leaves being torn from the book.
"Sept. 27.Ч It has been about here againЧ I find evidences of its presence every
day. I watched again all of last night in the same cover, gun in hand,
double-charged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints were there, as
before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not sleepЧ indeed, I hardly sleep at
all. It is terrible, insupportable! If these amazing experiences are real I
shall go mad; if they are fanciful I am mad already.
"Oct. 3.Ч I shall not goЧ it shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my
land. God hates a coward....
"Oct. 5.Ч I can stand it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few weeks