"Dunsany, Lord - collection - Tales of Three Hemispheres" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

evil house. It grew so dark that he decided to move and make his way to the
window in spite of the stillness and though the house was dark. He rose and
while standing arrested by pains that cramped his limbs, he heard the door
swing open on the far side of the house. He had just time to hide behind the
trunk of a pine when the three grim men approached him and the woman hobbled
behind. Right to the ominous clump of trees they came as though they loved
their blackness, passed through within a yard or two of the postman and
squatted down on their haunches in a ring in the hollow behind the trees.
They lit a fire in the hollow and laid a kid on the fire and by the light of
it Amuel saw brought forth from an untanned pouch the letter that came from
China. The elder opened it with his gristly hand and intoning words that
Amuel did not know, drew out from it a green powder and sprinkled it on the
fire. At once a flame arose and a wonderful savour, the flames rose higher
and flickered turning the trees all green; and Amuel saw the gods coming to
snuff the savour. While the three grim men prostrated themselves by their
fire, and the horrible woman that was the spouse of one, he saw the gods
coming gauntly over the wold, beheld the gods of Old England hungrily
snuffing the savour, Odin, Balder, and Thor, the gods of the ancient people,
beheld them eye to eye clear and close in the twilight, and the office of
postman fell vacant in Otford-under-the-Wold.




Tales of Three Hemispheres -- Chapter




THE PRAYER OF BOOB AHEERA
IN THE HARBOUR, between the liner and the palms, as the huge ship's
passengers came up from dinner, at moonrise, each in his canoe, Ali Kareeb
Ahash and Boob Aheera passed within knife thrust.
So urgent was the purpose of Ali Kareeb Ahash that he did not lean over as
his enemy slid by, did not tarry then to settle that long account; but that
Boob Aheera made no attempt to reach him was a source of wonder to Ali. He
pondered it till the liner's electric lights shone far away behind him with
one blaze and the canoe was near to his destination, and pondered it in
vain, for all that the eastern subtlety of his mind was able to tell him
clearly was that it was not like Boob Aheera to pass him like that.
That Boob Aheera could have dared to lay such a cause as his before the
Diamond Idol Ali had not conceived, yet as he drew near to the golden shrine
in the palms, that none that come by the great ships ever found, he began to
see more clearly in his mind that this was where Boob had gone on that hot
night. And when he beached his canoe his fears departed, giving place to the
resignation with which he always viewed Destiny; for there on the white sea
sand were the tracks of another canoe, the edges all fresh and ragged. Boob
Aheera had been before him. Ali did not blame himself for being late, the
thing had been planned before the beginning of time, by gods that knew their
business; only his hate of Boob Aheera increased, his enemy against whom he