"06 - Master Mind of Mars, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

having been chosen as the medium through which Earthmen shall become better
acquainted with the manners and customs of Barsoom, against the time that they
shall pass through space as easily as John Carter, and visit the scenes that he
has described to them through you, as have I.
Your sincere friend,
ULYSSES PAXTON,
Late Captain, ЦЦth Inf., U.S. Army.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD
I MUST have closed my eyes involuntarily during the transition for when I opened
them I was lying flat on my back gazing up into a brilliant, sun-lit sky, while
standing a few feet from me and looking down upon me with the most mystified
expression was as strange a looking individual as my eyes ever had rested upon.
He appeared to be quite an old man, for he was wrinkled and withered beyond
description. His limbs were emaciated; his ribs showed distinctly beneath his
shrunken hide; his cranium was large and well developed, which, in conjunction
with his wasted limbs and torso, lent him the appearance of top heaviness, as
though he had a head beyond all proportion to his body, which was, I am sure,
really not the case.
As he stared down upon me through enormous, many lensed spectacles I found the
opportunity to examine him as minutely in return. He was, perhaps, five feet
five in height, though doubtless he had been taller in youth, since he was
somewhat bent; he was naked except for some rather plain and well-worn leather
harness which supported his weapons and pocket pouches, and one great ornament a
collar, jewel studded, that he wore around his scraggy neck Ц such a collar as a
dowager empress of pork or real estate might barter her soul for, if she had
one. His skin was red, his scant locks grey. As he looked at me his puzzled
expression increased in intensity, he grasped his chin between the thumb and
fingers of his left hand and slowly raising his right hand he scratched his head
most deliberately. Then he spoke to me, but in a language I did not understand.
At his first words I sat up and shook my head. Then I looked about me. I was
seated upon a crimson sward within a high walled enclosure, at least two, and
possibly three, sides of which were formed by the outer walls of a structure
that in some respects resembled more closely a feudal castle of Europe than any
familiar form of architecture that comes to my mind. The faчade presented to my
view was ornately carved and of most irregular design, the roof line being so
broken as to almost suggest a ruin, and yet the whole seemed harmonious and not
without beauty. Within the enclosure grew a number of trees and shrubs, all
weirdly strange and all, or almost all, profusely flowering. About them wound
walks of coloured pebbles among which scintillated what appeared to be rare and
beautiful gems, so lovely were the strange, unearthly rays that leaped and
played in the sunshine.
The old man spoke again, peremptorily this time, as though repeating a command
that had been ignored, but again I shook my head. Then he laid a hand upon one
of his two swords, but as he drew the weapon I leaped to my feet, with such
remarkable results that I cannot even now say which of us was the more
surprised. I must have sailed ten feet into the air and back about twenty feet
from where I had been sitting; then I was sure that I was upon Mars (not that I
had for one instant doubted it), for the effects of the lesser gravity, the
colour of the sward and the skin-hue of the red Martians I had seen described in
the manuscripts of John Carter, those marvellous and as yet unappreciated