"Dunsany, Lord - Idle Days On The Yann" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

every seven years came down from the peaks of Mloon, having
crossed by a pass that is known to them from some fantastic
land that lies beyond. And the people of Nen were all
outside their houses, and all stood wondering at their own
streets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had crowded
all the ways, and every one was doing some strange thing.
Some danced astounding dances that they had learned from the
desert wind, rapidly curving and swirling till the eye could
follow no longer. Others played upon instruments beautiful
wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had
taught them lost by night in the desert, that strange far
desert from which the Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen
nor in any part of the region of the Yann; even the horns
out of which some were made were of beasts that none had
seen along the river, for they were barbed at the tips. And
they sang, in the language of none, songs that seemed to be
akin to the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear
that haunts dark places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the
Wanderers told one another fearful tales, for though no one
in Nen knew ought of their language yet they could see the
fear on the listeners' faces, and as the tale wound on the
whites of their eyes showed vividly in terror as the eyes of
some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then the teller
of the tale would smile and stop, and another would tell his
story, and the teller of the first tale's lips would chatter
with fear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the
Wanderers would greet him as a brother, and the snake would
seem to give his greetings to them before he passed on
again. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes,
the giant lythra, came out of the jungle and all down the
street, the central street of Nen, and none of the Wanderers
moved away from him, but they all played sonorously on
drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and
the snake moved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for
if any one of them met with a child of Nen the two would
stare at each other in silence with large grave eyes; then
the Wanderers' child would slowly draw from his turban a
live fish or snake. And the children of Nen could do
nothing of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with
which they greet the night, that is answered by the wolves
on the heights of Mloon, but it was now time to raise the
anchor again that the captain might return from Bar-Wul-Yann
upon the landward tide. So we went on board and continued
down the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little, for we
were thinking of our parting, which should be for long, and
we watched instead the splendour of the westerning sun. For