"A. E. Merritt - The Moon Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

spell of peace over the ocean, stilling even the Portuguese captain who stood
dreamily at the wheel, slowly swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the
sloop.
There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout draped lazily over the bow.

"Sail he b'long port side!"
Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel was a scant
mile away, and must have been visible long before the sleepy watcher had seen
her. She was a sloop about the size of the Suwarna, without power. All sails
set, even to a spinnaker she carried, she was making the best of the little
breeze. I tried to read her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the
hands of the man at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helmЧand then with equal
abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on it I read
Brunhilda.
I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel. He was crouching down over the spokes
in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked the vessel veered
again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman straighten up and bring the wheel
about with a vicious jerk.
He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious of us, and
then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to me that his was the
action of a man striving vainly against a weariness unutterable. I swept the
deck with my glasses. There was no other sign of life. I turned to find the
Portuguese staring intently and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated
from us by a scant half mile.
"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious English.
"The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the Br-rwun'ild. His name
Olaf Huldricksson, what you sayЧNorwegian. He is eithair veree sick or veree
tiredЧbut I do not undweerstand where is the crew and the starb'd boat is
goneЧЧ"
He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze failed and
the sails of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now nearly abreast and a
scant hundred yards away. The engine of the Suwarna died and the Tonga boys
leaped to one of the boats.
"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa. "What's a matter wit' you?"
The man at the wheel turned toward us. He was a giant; his shoulders enormous,
thick chested, strength in every line of him, he towered like a viking of old at
the rudder bar of his shark ship.
I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and never have I seen a
visage lined and marked as though by ages of unsleeping misery as was that of
Olaf Huldricksson!
The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting at the oars. The little
captain was dropping into it.
"Wait!" I cried. I ran into my cabin, grasped my emergency medical kit and
climbed down the rope ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars. We reached the
side and Da Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling from the stays and swung
ourselves on board. Da Costa approached Huldricksson softly.
"What's the matter, Olaf?" he beganЧand then was silent, looking down at the
wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes by thongs of
thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the thongs had bitten into
the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the outraged flesh, cutting so deeply