"A. E. Merritt - Dwellers in the mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

them in which burned some substance that gave out a steady, dear white
light. I came close, and halted. My guide did not speak. Nor did these
others.

Suddenly, the light glinted upon the ring on my thumb.

The hooded man at the table's end stood up, gripping its edge with
trembling hands that were like withered claws. I heard him
whisper--"Dwayanu!"

The hood slipped back from his head. I saw an old, old face in which
were eyes almost as blue as my own, and they were filled with stark
wonder and avid hope. It touched me, for it was the look of a man long
lost to despair who sees a saviour appear.

Now the others arose, slipped back their hoods. They were old men, all
of them, but not so old as he who had whispered. Their eyes of
cold-blue-grey weighed me. The high priest, for that I so guessed him
and such he turned out to be, spoke again:

"They told me--but I could not believe! Will you come to me?"

I jumped on the dais and walked to him. He drew his old face close to
mine, searching my eyes. He touched my hair. He thrust his hand within
my shirt and laid it on my heart. He said:

"Let me see your hands."

I placed them, palms upward, on the table. He gave them the same minute
scrutiny as had the Uighur leader. The twelve others clustered round,
following his fingers as be pointed to this marking and to that. He
lifted from his neck a chain of golden links, drawing from beneath his


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robe a large, flat square of jade. He opened this. Within it was a
yellow stone, larger than that in my ring, but otherwise precisely
similar, the black octopus--or the Kraken--writhing from its depths.
Beside it was a small phial of jade and a small, lancet-like jade
knife. He took my right hand, and brought the wrist over the yellow
stone. He looked at me and at the others with eyes in which was agony.

"The last test." he whispered. "The blood!"

He nicked a vein of my wrist with the knife. Blood fell, slow drop by
drop upon the stone; I saw then that it was slightly concave. As the
blood dripped, it spread like a thin film from bottom to lip. The old
priest lifted the phial of jade, unstoppered it, and by what was