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

contributions to the scientific literature of a world. There could be no doubt
of it, I stood upon the soil of the Red Planet, I had come to the world of my
dreams Ц to Barsoom.
So startled was the old man by my agility that he jumped a bit himself, though
doubtless involuntarily, but, however, with certain results. His spectacles
tumbled from his nose to the sward, and then it was that I discovered that the
pitiful old wretch was practically blind when deprived of these artificial aids
to vision, for he got to his knees and commenced to grope frantically for the
lost glasses, as though his very life depended upon finding them in the instant.
Possibly he thought that I might take advantage of his helplessness and slay
him. Though the spectacles were enormous and lay within a couple of feet of him
he could not find them, his hands, seemingly afflicted by that strange
perversity that sometimes confounds our simplest acts, passing all about the
lost object of their search, yet never once coming in contact with it.
As I stood watching his futile efforts and considering the advisability of
restoring to him the means that would enable him more readily to find my heart
with his sword point, I became aware that another had entered the enclosure.
Looking towards the building I saw a large red-man running rapidly towards the
little old man of the spectacles. The newcomer was quite naked, he carried a
club in one hand, and there was upon his face such an expression as
unquestionably boded ill for the helpless husk of humanity grovelling,
mole-like, for its lost spectacles.
My first impulse was to remain neutral in an affair that it seemed could not
possibly concern me and of which I had no slightest knowledge upon which to base
a predilection towards either of the parties involved; but a second glance at
the face of the club-bearer aroused a question as to whether it might not
concern me after all.
There was that in the expression upon the man's face that betokened either an
inherent savageness of disposition or a maniacal cast of mind which might turn
his evidently murderous attentions upon me after he had dispatched his elderly
victim, while, in outward appearance at least, the latter was a sane and
relatively harmless individual. It is true that his move to draw his sword
against me was not indicative of a friendly disposition towards me, but at
least, if there were any choice, he seemed the lesser of two evils.
He was still groping for his spectacles and the naked man was almost upon him as
I reached the decision to cast my lot upon the side of the old man. I was twenty
feet away, naked and unarmed, but to cover the distance with my Earthly muscles
required but an instant, and a naked sword lay by the old man's side where he
had discarded it the better to search for his spectacles. So it was that I faced
the attacker at the instant that he came within striking distance of his victim,
and the blow which had been intended for another was aimed at me. I side-stepped
it and then I learned that the greater agility of my Earthly muscles had its
disadvantages as well as its advantages, for, indeed, I had to learn to walk at
the very instant that I had to learn to fight with a new weapon against a maniac
armed with a bludgeon, or at least, so I assumed him to be and I think that it
is not strange that I should have done so, what with his frightful show of rage
and the terrible expression upon his face.
As I stumbled about endeavouring to accustom myself to the new conditions, I
found that instead of offering any serious opposition to my antagonist I was
hard put to it to escape death at his hands, so often did I stumble and fall