"11 - John Carter of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

fifteen feet.
A new monstrosity had come to life on Mars. Judging by the adjacent buildings,
the creature must have been a hundred and thirty feet tall!
The giant raised Carter high over his head and shook him; then he threw back his
face. Hideous, hollow laughter rumbled out of his pendulous lips revealing teeth
like small mountain crags.
He was dressed in an illy-fitting, baggy tunic that came down in loose folds
over his hips but which allowed his arms and legs to be free.
With his other hand he beat his mighty chest.
"I, Joog. I, Joog," he kept repeating as he continued to laugh and shake his
helpless victim. "I can kill! I can kill!"
Joog, the giant, commenced to walk. Carefully he stepped along the barren
streets, sometimes going around a building that was too high to step over.
Finally he stopped before a partially ruined palace. The ravages of time had
only dimmed its beauty. Huge masses of moss and vines trailed through the
masonry, hiding the shattered battlements. With a sudden thrust, Joog, the
giant, shoved John Carter through a high window in the palace tower.
When Carter felt the giants hold releasing upon him he relaxed completely. He
hit the stone floor in a long roll, protecting his head with his arms. As he lay
in the deep darkness of the place where he had fallen, the earthman listened
while he regained his breath.
No sound came to his ears for some time; then he began to hear the heavy
breathing of Joog outside his window. Once more Carter's earthly muscles,
reacting to the lesser gravity of Mars, sent him leaping twenty feet to the sill
of the narrow window. Here he clung and looked once again into the hairy,
hideous face of the giant.
"I, Joog. I, Joog," he mumbled. I can kill! I can kill!" The giant's breath
swept over Carter like a blast from a sulphur furnace. There would be no escape
from that window!
Once more he dropped down into his cell. This time he commenced a slow circuit
of the room, groping his way along the polished ersite slabs that formed the
wall. The cobblestone floor was thick with debris. Once, Carter heard the
sinister hiss of a Martian spider as he brushed its web.
How long he groped his way around the walls, there was no way of knowing. It
seemed hours. Then, suddenly, the deathly silence was shattered by a woman's
scream coming from somewhere in the building.
John Carter could feel his skin grow cold. Could that have been the voice of
Dejah Thoris?
Once again John Carter leaped toward the faint light that marked the window
ledge. Cautiously, he looked down. Joog lay on his back on the flagstones below,
breathing as though he were asleep, his great chest rising five feet with every
breath.
Quietly he started to edge his way along a ledge that ran from the window and
disappeared into the shadow of an adjoining tower. If he could make that shadow
without awakening Joog!
He had almost gained his objective when Joog growled hoarsely.
He had opened one great eye. Now he reached up and, grabbing Carter by the leg,
hurled him into the tower window again.
Wearily, the earthman crawled to the wall of his dark cell and there slumped
down against it. That scream haunted his memory. He was tormented by the thought