"Arthur C. Doyle - The Poison Belt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

THE POISON BELT, by ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Digitized by Cardinalis Etext Press, C.E.K.
Posted to Wiretap in July 1993, as poison.dyl.

This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

THE POISON BELT
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
COPYRIGHT, 1913.

Being an account of another adventure of
Prof. George E. Challenger, Lord John
Roxton, Prof. Summerlee, and Mr. E. D.
Malone, the discoverers of "The Lost World"

Chapter I
THE BLURING OF LINES

It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events
are still clear in my mind, I should set them down with that
exactness of detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I
am overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact that it should be our
little group of the "Lost World"--Professor Challenger,
Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and myself--who have
passed through this amazing experience.

When, some years ago, I chronicled in the _Daily Gazette___ our
epoch-making journey in South America, I little thought that it
should ever fall to my lot to tell an even stranger personal
experience, one which is unique in all human annals and must
stand out in the records of history as a great peak among the
humble foothills which surround it. The event itself will always
be marvellous, but the circumstances that we four were together
at the time of this extraordinary episode came about in a most
natural and, indeed, inevitable fashion. I will explain the
events which led up to it as shortly and as clearly as I can,
though I am well aware that the fuller the detail upon such a
subject the more welcome it will be to the reader, for the
public curiosity has been and still is insatiable.

It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh of August--a date forever
memorable in the history of the world--that I went down to the
office of my paper and asked for three days' leave of absence
from Mr. McArdle, who still presided over our news department.