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

within me and to dominate the whole tide of the Yann. It
may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not now
minutely recollect every detail of that morning's
occupations. Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to see
Perdondaris before we left in the morning, and being unable
to wake the captain, I went ashore alone. Certainly
Perdondaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a
wall of great strength and altitude, having in it hollow
ways for troops to walk in, and battlements along it all the
way, and fifteen strong towers on it in every mile, and
copper plaques low down where men could read them, telling
in all the languages of those parts of the earth -- one
language on each plaque -- the tale of how an army once
attacked Perdondaris and what befell that army. Then I
entered Perdondaris and found all the people dancing, clad
in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as they
danced. For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while
I slept, and the fires of death, they said, had danced over
Perdondaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping away large
and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills,
and had turned round snarling at them, shoving his gleaming
teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until
they rang as though they had been bronze. And often and
again they stopped in their merry dances and prayed to the
God they knew not, saying, "O, God that we know not, we
thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his hills." And
I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon
the marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and
breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands
towards the sky, and slaves were fanning him to keep away
the flies. And from the market-place I came to a silver
temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many
wonders in Perdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen
them all, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I
suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a while I paused
and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the
dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship,
and even as I ran I thought that I heard far off on the
hills behind me the tramp of the fearful beast by whom that
mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps even then looking
for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I felt
safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night
was rolling up from the East and North, and only the
pinnacles of the towers of Perdondaris still took the fallen
sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told him quietly
of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about
the gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know;
and I told him how the weight of the thing was such that it