"Dunsany, Lord - Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

edge of the water, and his great horns swept out sideways
from his head, and at the ends curved upwards, and were four
strides in width from tip to tip. And he had not seen
Athelvok, for the great bull was on the far side of the
little pool, and Athelvok could not creep round to him for
fear of meeting the wind (for the gariachs, who can see
little in the dark forests, rely on hearing and smell). But
he devised swiftly in his mind while the bull stood there
with head erect just twenty strides from him across the
water. And the bull sniffed the wind cautiously and
listened, then lowered its great head down to the pool and
drank. At that instant Athelvok leapt into the water and
shot forward through its weedy depths among the stems of the
strange flowers that floated upon broad leaves on the
surface. And Athelvok kept his spear out straight before
him, and the fingers of his left hand he held rigid and
straight, not pointing upwards, and so did not come to the
surface, but was carried onward by the strength of his
spring and passed unentangled through the stems of the
flowers. When Athelvok jumped into the water the bull must
have thrown his head up, startled at the splash, then he
would have listened and have sniffed the air, and neither
hearing nor scenting any danger he must have remained rigid
for some moments, for it was in that attitude that Athelvok
found him as he emerged breathless at his feet. And,
striking at once, Athelvok drove the spear into his throat
before the head and the terrible horns came down. But
Athelvok had clung to one of the great horns, and had been
carried at terrible speed through the rhododendron bushes
until the gariach fell, but rose at once again, and died
standing up, still struggling, drowned in its own blood.
But to Hilnaric listening it was as though one of the
heroes of old time had come back again in the full glory of
his legendary youth.
And long time they went up and down the terraces, saying
those things which were said before and since, and which
lips shall be made to say again. And above them stood
Poltarnees beholding the Sea.
And the day came when Athelvok should go. And Hilnaric
said to him:
"Will you not indeed most surely come back again, having
just looked over the summit of Poltarnees?"
Athelvok answered: "I will indeed come back, for thy
voice is more beautiful than the hymn of the priests when
they chant and praise the Sea, and though many tributary
seas ran down into Oriathon and he and all the others poured
their beauty into one pool below me, yet would I return
swearing that thou wert fairer than they."
And Hilnaric answered:
"The wisdom of my heart tells me, or old knowledge or