"Leinster, Murray - Sidewise in Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

His wife did not reply. She had not seen. Wearily, she began to clean up after her lord and master's meal.
He went down the kitchen steps, staring and shaken. He moved toward this impossible apparition which covered his crops. It did not disappear as he neared it. He went within twenty feet of it and stopped, still staring, still unbelieving, beginning to entertain the monstrous supposition that he had gone insane.
Then, something moved in the jungle. A long, snaky neck, feet thick at its base and tapering to a mere sixteen inches behind a head the size of a barrel. The neck reached out the twenty feet to him. Cold eyes regarded him abstractedly. The mouth opened. Cyrus Harding screamed.
His wife raised her eyes. She looked through the open door and saw the jungle. She saw the jaws close upon her husband. She saw colossal, abstracted eyes half close as the something gulped; and partly choked, and swallowed. She saw a lump in the monstrous neck move from the relatively slender portion just behind the head to the feet thick section projecting from the jungle. She saw the head withdraw into the jungle and instantly be lost to sight.
Cyrus Harding's widow was very pale. She put on her hat and went out of the front door. She began to walk toward the house of the nearest neighbor. As she went, she said steadily to herself:
"It's come. I'm crazy. They'll have to put me in an asylum. But I won't have to stand him anymore. I won't have to stand him any more!"
It was noon of June 5, 1935. The cell door opened and a very grave, whiskered man in a curious gray uniform came in. He tapped the prisoner gently on the shoulder.
"I'm Dr. Holloway," he said encouragingly. "Suppose you tell me, suh, just what happened to you? I'm right sure it can all be straightened out.
The prisoner sputtered: "What-why--dammit," he protested, "I drove down from Louisville this morning. I had a dizzy spell and, well, I must have missed my road, because suddenly I noticed that everything around me was unfamiliar. And then a man in a gray uniform yelled at me, and a minute later he began to shoot, and the first thing I knew they'd arrested me for having the American flag painted on my car! I'm a traveling salesman for the Uncle Sam Candy Bar Co.! Dammit, it's funny when a man can't fly his own country's flag"
"In your own country, of course," assented the doctor comfortingly. "But you must know, sir, that we don't allow any flag but our own to be displayed here. You violated our laws, suh."
"Your laws!" The prisoner stared blankly. "What laws? Where in the United States is it ifiegal to fly the American flag?"
"Nowhere in the United States, suh." The doctor smiled. "You must have crossed our border unawares, suh. I will be frank, and admit that it was suspected you were insane. I see now that it was just a mistake."
"Border-United" The prisoner gasped. "I'm not in the United States? I'm not? Then where in hell am I?"
"Ten miles, sir, within the borders of the Confederacy," said the doctor, and laughed. "A queer mistake, sir, but theah was no intention of insult. You'll be released at once. Theah is enough tension between Washington and Richmond without another border incident to upset ouah hot-heads."
"Confederacy?" The prisoner choked. "You can't, you don't mean the Confederate States"
"Of co'se, sir. The Confederate States of North America. Why not?"
The prisoner gulped. "I-I've gone mad!" he stammered. "I must be mad! There was Gettysburg-there was-"
"Gettysburg? Oh, yes!" The doctor nodded indulgently. "We are very proud of ouah history, sir. You refer to the battle in the war of separation, when the fate of the Confederacy rested on ten minutes time. I have often wondered what would have been the result if Pickett's charge had been driven back. It was Pickett's charge that gained the day for us, sir. England recognized the Confederacy two days later, France in another week, and with unlimited credit abroad we won out. But it was a tight squeeze, suh!"
The prisoner gasped again. He stared out of the window. And opposite the jail stood an unquestionable courthouse. Upon the courthouse stood a flagpole. And spread gloriously in the breeze above a government building floated the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy!
It was night of June 5, 1935. The postmaster of North Centerville, Massachusetts, came out of his cubby-hole to listen to the narrative. The pot-bellied stove of the general store sent a comfortable if unnecessary glow about. The eyewitness chuckled.
"Yeah. They come around the cape, thirty or forty of 'em in a boat all o' sixty feet long with a crazy square sail drawin'. Round things on the gunnel like-like shields. And rowin like hell! They stopped when they saw the town and looked s'prised. Then they hailed us, talkin' some lingo that wasn't American. Ole Peterson, he near dropped his line, with a fish on it, too. Then he tried to talk back. They hadda lotta trouble understandin' him, or made out to. Then they turned around and rowed back. Actors or somethin', tryin' to play a joke. It fell flat, though. Maybe some of those rich folks up the coast pullin' it. Ho! Ho! Ole says they was talkin' a funny, old-fashioned Skowegian. They told him they was from Leifsholm, or somethin' like that, just up the coast. That they couldn't make out how our town got here. They'd never seen it before! Can y'imagine that? Ole says they were wikin's, and they called this place Winland, and says What's that?"
A sudden hubbub arose in the night. Screams. Cries. A shotgun boomed dully. The loafers in the general store crowded out on the porch. flames rose from half a dozen places on the water front. In their light could be seen a full dozen serpent ships, speeding for the shore, propelled by oars. From four of their number, already beached, dark figures had poured. Firelight glinted on swords, on shields. A woman screamed as a huge, yellow-maned man seized her. His brazen helmet and shield glittered. He was laughing. Then a figure in overalls hurtled toward the blond giant, an ax held threateningly.
The giant cut him down with an already dripping blade and roared. Men rushed to him and they plunged on to loot and burn. More of' the armored figures leaped to the sand from another beached ship. Another house roared flames skyward.



III



And at half past ten a.m. on the morning of June 5th, Professor Minott turned upon the party of students with a revolver in each hand. Gone was the appearance of an instructor whose most destructive possibility was a below-passing mark in mathematics. He had guns in his hands now, instead of chalk or pencil, and his eyes were glowing even as he smiled frostily. The four girls gasped. The young men, accustomed to seeing him only in a classroom, realized that he not only could use the weapons in his hands, but that he would. And suddenly they respected him as they would respect, say, a burglar or a prominent kidnaper or a gang leader. He was raised far above the level of a mere mathematics professor. He became instantly a leader, and, by virtue of his weapons, even a ruler.
"As you see," said Professor Minott evenly, "I have, anticipated the situation, in which we find ourselves. I am prepared for it, to a, certain extent. At any moment not only we, but the entire human race may be wiped out with a completeness of which you can form no idea. But there is also a chance of survival And I intend to make the most of my survival, if we do live."
He looked steadily from one to another of the students who had followed him to explore the extraordinary appearance of a sequoia forest north of Fredericksburg.
"I know what has happened," said Professor Minott. "I know also what is likely to happen. And I know what I intend to do about it. Any of you who are prepared to follow me, say so. Any of you who object, well, I can't have mutinies! I'll shoot him!"
"But professor," said Blake nervously, "we ought to get the girls home" "They will never go home," said Professor Minott calmly. "Neither will you, nor any of us. As soon as you're convinced that I'm quite ready to use these weapons, I'll tell you what's happened and what it means. I've been preparing for it for weeks."
Tall trees rose around the party. Giant trees. Magnificent trees. They towered two hundred and fifty feet into the air, and their air of venerable calm was at once the most convincing evidence of their actuality, and the most improbable of all the things which had happened in the neighborhood of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The little group of people sat their horses affrightedly beneath the monsters of the forest. Minott regarded them estimatingly these three young men and four girls, all students of Robinson College. Professor Minott was now no longer the faculty member in charge of a party of exploration, but a definitely ruthless leader.
At half past eight a.m. on June 5, 1935, the inhabitants of Fredericksburg had felt a curious, unanimous dizziness. It passed. The sun shone brightly. There seemed to be no noticeable change in any of the facts of everyday existence. But within an hour the sleepy little town was buzzing with excitement. The road to Washington-Route One on all road maps ceased abruptly some three miles north. A colossal, a gigantic forest had appeared magically to block the way.
Telegraphic communication with Washington had ceased. Even the Washington broadcasting stations were no longer on the air. The trees of the extraordinary forest were tall beyond the experience of any human being in town. They looked like the photographs of the giant sequoias on the Pacific Coast, but, well, the thing was simply impossible.
In an hour and a half, Professor Minott had organized a party of sightseers among the students. He seemed to pick his party with a queer definiteness of decision. Three young men and four girls. They would have piled into a rickety car owned by one of the boys, but Professor Minott negatived the idea.
"The road ends at the forest," he said, smiling. "I'd rather like to explore a magic forest. Suppose we ride horseback? I'll arrange for horses."
In ten minutes the horses appeared. The girls had vanished to get into riding breeches or knickers. They noted appreciatively on their return that besides the saddles, the horses had saddlebags slung in place. Again Professor Minott smiled.
"We're exploring," he said humorously. "We must dress the part.. Also, we'll probably want some lunch. And we can bring back specimens for the botanical lab to look over."
They rode forth; the girls thrilled, the young men pleased and excited, and all of them just a little bit disappointed at finding themselves passed by motor cars which whizzed by them as all Fredericksburg went to look at the improbable forest ahead.
There were cars by hundreds where the road abruptly ended. A crowd stared at the forest. Giant trees, their roots fixed firmly in the ground. Undergrowth, here and there. Over it all, an aspect of peace and utter serenity and permanence. The watching crowd hummed and buzzed with speculation, with talk. The thing they saw was impossible. It could not have happened. This forest could not possibly be real. They were regarding some sort of mirage.
But as the party of riders arrived, half a dozen men came out of the forest. They had dared to enter it. Now they returned, still incredulous of their own experience, bearing leaves and branches and one of them certain small berries unknown on the Atlantic coast.
A State police officer held up his hand as Professor Minott's party went toward the edge of the forest.
"Look here!" he said. "We've been hearin' funny noises in there. I'm stoppin' anybody else from goin' in until we know what's what."
Professor Minott nodded. "We'll be careful. I'm Professor Minott of Robinson College. We're going in after some botanical specimens. I have a revolver. We're all right."
He rode ahead. The State policeman, without definite orders for authority, shrugged his shoulders and bent his efforts to the prevention of other attempts to explore. In minutes, the eight horses and their riders were out of sight. That was now three hours past. For three hours, Professor Minott had led his charges, a little south of northeast. In that time they saw no dangerous animals. They saw some many familiar plants. They saw rabbits in quantity, and once a slinking gray form which Tom Hunter, who was majoring in zoology, declared was a wolf. There are no wolves in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, but neither are there sequoias. And the party had seen no signs of human life, though Fredericksburg lies in farming country which is thickly settled.
In three hours the horses must have covered between twelve and fifteen miles, even through the timber. It was just after sighting a shaggy beast which was unquestionably a woodland buffalo-extinct east of the Rockies as early as 1820-that young Blake protested uneasily against further travel.