"A. E. Merritt - Dwellers In The Mirage - v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

embers of the fire toward Jim. His voice halted me.

"All right, Leif. I hear it."

The wind sighed and died, and with it died the hum-
ming aftertones of the anvil stroke. Before we could
speak, the wind arose. It bore the after-hum of the anvil
strokeЧfaint and far away. And again the wind died,
and with it the sound.

"An anvil, Leif!"

"Listen!"

A stronger gust swayed the spruces. It carried a
distant chanting; voices of many women and men sing-
ing a strange, minor theme. The chant ended on a
wailing chord, archaic, dissonant.

There was a long roll of drums, rising in a swift cres-
cendo, ending abruptly. After it a thin and clamorous
confusion.

It was smothered by a low, sustained rumbling, like
thunder, muted by miles. In it defiance, challenge.

We waited, listening. The spruces were motionless.
The wind did not return.

"Queer sort of sounds, Jim." I tried to speak casually,
He sat up. A stick flared up in the dying fire. Its
light etched his face against the darknessЧthin, and
brown and hawk-profiled. He did not look at me.

"Every feathered forefather for the last twenty
centuries is awake and shouting! Better call me Tsantawu, Leif.
Tsi' Tsa'lagiЧI am a Cherokee! Right
nowЧall Indian."

He smiled, but still he did not look at me, and I was
glad of that.

"It was an anvil," I said. "A hell of a big anvil.
And hundreds of people singing . . . and how could
that be in this wilderness . . , they didn't sound
like Indians. . . ."

"The drums weren't Indian." He squatted by the
fire, staring into it. "When they turned loose, something
played a pizzicato with icicles up and down my back."