"BretHarte-LegendsAndTales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harte Bret)

chimes. The old man uttered a cry of alarm. The stranger sharply
demanded the cause. "The bells! did you not hear them?" gasped
Padre Vicentio. "Tush! tush!" answered the stranger, "thy fall
hath set triple bob-majors ringing in thine ears. Come on!"

The Padre was only too glad to accept the explanation conveyed in
this discourteous answer. But he was destined for another singular
experience. When they had reached the summit of the eminence now
known as Russian Hill, an exclamation again burst from the Padre.
The stranger turned to his companion with an impatient gesture; but
the Padre heeded him not. The view that burst upon his sight was
such as might well have engrossed the attention of a more
enthusiastic temperament. The fog had not yet reached the hill,
and the long valleys and hillsides of the embarcadero below were
glittering with the light of a populous city. "Look!" said the
Padre, stretching his hand over the spreading landscape. "Look,
dost thou not see the stately squares and brilliantly lighted
avenues of a mighty metropolis. Dost thou not see, as it were,
another firmament below?"

"Avast heaving, reverend man, and quit this folly," said the
strange; dragging the bewildered Padre after him. "Behold rather
the stars knocked out of thy hollow noddle by the fall thou hast
had. Prithee, get over thy visions and rhapsodies, for the time is
wearing apace."

The Padre humbly followed without another word. Descending the
hill toward the north, the stranger leading the way, in a few
moments the Padre detected the wash of waves, and presently his
feet struck the firmer sand of the beach. Here the stranger
paused, and the Padre perceived a boat lying in readiness hard by.
As he stepped into the stern sheets, in obedience to the command of
his companion, he noticed that the rowers seemed to partake of the
misty incorporeal texture of his companion, a similarity that
became the more distressing when he perceived also that their oars
in pulling together made no noise. The stranger, assuming the
helm, guided the boat on quietly, while the fog, settling over the
face of the water and closing around them, seemed to interpose a
muffled wall between themselves and the rude jarring of the outer
world. As they pushed further into this penetralia, the Padre
listened anxiously for the sound of creaking blocks and the
rattling of cordage, but no vibration broke the veiled stillness or
disturbed the warm breath of the fleecy fog. Only one incident
occurred to break the monotony of their mysterious journey. A one-
eyed rower, who sat in front of the Padre, catching the devout
father's eye, immediately grinned such a ghastly smile, and winked
his remaining eye with such diabolical intensity of meaning that
the Padre was constrained to utter a pious ejaculation, which had
the disastrous effect of causing the marine Cocles to "catch a
crab," throwing his heels in the air and his head into the bottom