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

He ran toward the light. Fighting the things where he could see them would be a
lot easier than stumbling around in a dark corridor.
Carter entered the room and in the dim light came face to face with the creature
whose eyes he had seen ahead of him in the tunnel. It was a species of the huge
three-legged Martian rat!
Its yellow fangs were bared hideously in a vicious snarl, as it backed slowly
away from Carter to the far end of the small room.
Now behind him came the other rat, and together the two beasts started to close
in upon the earthman.
Carter smiled grimly as he gripped his sword.
"I am the proverbial cornered rat now," he muttered as he swung his blade at the
nearest creature.
It ducked the blow and scurried toward him.
But the earthman's sword was ready. The charging rat lunged full upon the
waiting sword-point.
The momentum of the beast carried Carter back five feet; but he still retained a
hold on his sword, the point of which had plunged through the animal's single
shoulder and pierced its wild heart.
When Carter had jerked free his sword and turned to meet his other antagonist an
exclamation of dismay escaped his lips.
The room was half filled with rats!
The creatures had entered through another opening and had formed a circle around
him, waiting to attack.
For half an hour, Carter battled furiously for his life in the lonely dungeon
beneath the palace in the ancient city of Korvas.
The carcasses of the dead rats were piled high around him, but still they came
and eventually they overpowered him by their very numbers.
John Carter went down by a terrific blow to his head from a snake-like tail.
He was half stunned, but he still clung tenaciously to his sword as he felt
himself seized by the arms and dragged away into the darkness of an adjoining
tunnel.
Four
THE CITY OF RATS
JOHN CARTER RECOVERED FULLY when he was dragged through a pool of muddy water.
He heard the rats greedily drinking, saw their green eyes gleaming in the
darkness. The smell of freshly dug earth reached his nostrils and he realized
that he was in a burrow far under the subterranean vaults of the palace.
Several rats on either side of him had hold of his arms by their forepaws as
they dragged him along. It was very uncomfortable, and he wondered how much
longer the journey would last.
Nor had he long to wait. The strange company finally came out into a huge
underground cavern. Light from the outside filtered down through various
openings in the ceiling above, its rays reflecting on thousands of gleaming
stalactites of red sand stone. Massive stalagmites, huge sedimentary formations
of grotesque shape, rose up from the floor of the cavern.
Among these formations on the floor were numerous domeshaped mud huts.
As Carter was dragged by, he stared at a hut that several rats were
constructing, The framework was composed of white sticks of various shapes
plastered with mud from an underground stream bed. The white sticks were very
irregular in length and size. One of the rats stopped work to gnaw at a stick.