"London, Jack - Adventure" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".

*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*





This etext was prepared by David Price, [email protected]
From the 1911 Thomas Nelson and Sons edition





ADVENTURE

by Jack London




CHAPTER I--SOMETHING TO BE DONE



He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-
headed, black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been
pierced and stretched until one had torn out, while the other
carried a circular block of carved wood three inches in diameter.
The torn ear had been pierced again, but this time not so
ambitiously, for the hole accommodated no more than a short clay
pipe. The man-horse was greasy and dirty, and naked save for an
exceedingly narrow and dirty loin-cloth; but the white man clung to
him closely and desperately. At times, from weakness, his head
drooped and rested on the woolly pate. At other times he lifted
his head and stared with swimming eyes at the cocoanut palms that
reeled and swung in the shimmering heat. He was clad in a thin
undershirt and a strip of cotton cloth, that wrapped about his
waist and descended to his knees. On his head was a battered
Stetson, known to the trade as a Baden-Powell. About his middle
was strapped a belt, which carried a large-calibred automatic
pistol and several spare clips, loaded and ready for quick work.

The rear was brought up by a black boy of fourteen or fifteen, who
carried medicine bottles, a pail of hot water, and various other
hospital appurtenances. They passed out of the compound through a
small wicker gate, and went on under the blazing sun, winding about
among new-planted cocoanuts that threw no shade. There was not a
breath of wind, and the superheated, stagnant air was heavy with