"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The Mad King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

horse, man and roadster went over into the ravine.

A moment before a tall young man with a reddish-brown
beard had stood at the turn of the road listening intently to
the sound of the hurrying hoof beats and the purring of the
racing motor car approaching from the distance. In his eyes
lurked the look of the hunted. For a moment he stood in
evident indecision, but just before the runaway horse and
the pursuing machine came into view he slipped over the
edge of the road to slink into the underbrush far down
toward the bottom of the ravine.

When Barney pushed the girl from the running board she
fell heavily to the road, rolling over several times, but in an
instant she scrambled to her feet, hardly the worse for the
tumble other than a few scratches.

Quickly she ran to the edge of the embankment, a look of
immense relief coming to her soft, brown eyes as she saw
her rescuer scrambling up the precipitous side of the ravine
toward her.

"You are not killed?" she cried in German. "It is a miracle!"

"Not even bruised," reassured Barney. "But you? You
must have had a nasty fall."

"I am not hurt at all," she replied. "But for you I should
be lying dead, or terribly maimed down there at the bottom
of that awful ravine at this very moment. It's awful." She
drew her shoulders upward in a little shudder of horror.
"But how did you escape? Even now I can scarce believe
it possible."

"I'm quite sure I don't know how I did escape," said
Barney, clambering over the rim of the road to her side.
"That I had nothing to do with it I am positive. It was just
luck. I simply dropped out onto that bush down there."

They were standing side by side, now peering down into
the ravine where the car was visible, bottom side up against
a tree, near the base of the declivity. The horse's head
could be seen protruding from beneath the wreckage.

"I'd better go down and put him out of his misery," said
Barney, "if he is not already dead."

"I think he is quite dead," said the girl. "I have not seen
him move."