"WillisGeorgeEmerson-TheSmokyGod" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Willis George)

to come again. Although at the time I thought nothing of it, I remember now that
he made a peculiar remark as I extended my hand in leave-taking. "You will come
again?" he asked. "Yes, you will come again some day. I am sure you will; and I
shall show you my library and tell you many things of which you have never
dreamed, things so wonderful that it may be you will not believe me."
I laughingly assured him that I would not only come again, but would be ready to
believe whatever he might choose to tell me of his travels and adventures.
In the days that followed I became well acquainted with Olaf Jansen, and, little
by little, he told me his story, so marvelous, that its very daring challenges
reason and belief. The old Norseman always expressed himself with so much
earnestness and sincerity that I became enthralled by his strange narrations.
Then came the messenger's call that night, and within the hour I was at Olaf
Jansen's bungalow.
He was very impatient at the long wait, although after being summoned I had come
immediately to his bedside.
"I must hasten," he exclaimed, while yet he held my hand in greeting. "I have
much to tell you that you know not, and I will trust no one but you. I fully
realize," he went on hurriedly, "that I shall not survive the night. The time
has come to join my fathers in the great sleep."
I adjusted the pillows to make him more comfortable, and assured him I was glad
to be able to serve him in any way possible, for I was beginning to realize the
seriousness of his condition.
The lateness of the hour, the stillness of the surroundings, the uncanny feeling
of being alone with the dying man, together with his weird story, all combined
to make my heart beat fast and loud with a feeling for which I have no name.
Indeed, there were many times that night by the old Norseman's couch, and there
have been many times since, when a sensation rather than a conviction took
possession of my very soul, and I seemed not only to believe in, but actually
see, the strange lands, the strange people and the strange world of which he
told, and to hear the mighty orchestral chorus of a thousand lusty voices.
For over two hours he seemed endowed with almost superhuman strength, talking
rapidly, and to all appearances, rationally. Finally he gave into my hands
certain data, drawings and crude maps. "These," said he in conclusion, "I leave
in your hands. If I can have your promise to give them to the world, I shall die
happy, because I desire that people may know the truth, for then all mystery
concerning the frozen Northland will be explained. There is no chance of your
suffering the fate I suffered. They will not put you in irons, nor confine you
in a mad-house, because you are not telling your own story, but mine, and I,
thanks to the gods, Odin and Thor, will be in my grave, and so beyond the reach
of disbelievers who would persecute."
Without a thought of the farreaching results the promise entailed, or foreseeing
the many sleepless nights which the obligation has since brought me, I gave my
hand and with it a pledge to discharge faithfully his dying wish.
As the sun rose over the peaks of the San Jacinto, far to the eastward, the
spirit of Olaf Jansen, the navigator, the explorer and worshiper of Odin and
Thor, the man whose experiences and travels, as related, are without a parallel
in all the world's history, passed away, and I was left alone with the dead.
And now, after having paid the last sad rites to this strange man from the
Lofoden Islands, and the still farther "Northward Ho!", the courageous explorer
of frozen regions, who in his declining years (after he had passed the