"John Norman - Gor 01- Tarnsman of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

I felt stupid trying to hike in the dark. I was asking for a broken leg or ankle, if not a neck.
Still, if I could put a mile or so between myself and the old camp, that should be sufficient to
give myself the margin of safety I needed-from what I didn't know. I might then wait until morning
and start off in the light, secure, confident. Moreover, it would be a simple matter to cover
one's tracks in the light. The important thing was not to be at the old camp.

I had made my way perilously through the darkness for perhaps twenty minutes when, to my horror,
my knapsack and bedroll seemed to burst into blue flame on my back. It was an instant's action to
hurl them from me, and I gazed, bewildered, awe-stricken, at what seemed to be a furious blue
combustion that lit the pines on all sides as if with acetylene flames. It was like staring into a
furnace. I knew that it was the envelope that had burst into flame, taking with it my knapsack and
bedroll. I shuddered, thinking of what might have happened if I had been carrying it in the pocket
of my coat.

Strangely enough, now that I think of it, I didn't run headlong from the spot, though I can't see


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why, and the thought did cross my mind that the bright, flarelike luminescence would reveal my
position, if it was of interest to anyone or anything. With a small flashlight I knelt beside the
flakes of my knapsack and bedroll. The stones on which they had fallen were blackened. There was
no trace of the envelope. It seemed to have been totally consumed. There was an unpleasant, acrid
odor in the air, some fumes of a sort that I was not familiar with.

The thought came to me that the ring, which I had dropped in my pocket, might similarly burst into
flame, but, unaccountably perhaps, I doubted it. There might be a point in someone's destroying
the letter, but presumably there would be little point or no point in destroying the ring. Why
should it have been sent if not to have been kept?

Besides, I had been warned about the letter-a warning I had foolishly neglected-but had been asked
to carry the ring. Whatever it was, father or no, that was the source of these frightening events,
it did not seem to wish me harm, but then, I thought, somewhat bitterly, floods and earthquakes
presumably wish no one harm either. Who knew the nature of the things or forces that were afoot
that night in the mountains, things and forces that might perhaps smash me, casually, as one
innocently steps on an insect without being aware of it or caring?

I still had the compass, and that constituted a firm link to reality. The silent but intense
explosion of the envelope into flames had caused me momentarily to become confused-that and the
sudden return to the darkness from the hideous glaring light of the disintegrating envelope. My
compass would get me out. With my flashlight I examined it. As the thin, sharp beam struck the
face of the compass, my heart stopped. The needle was spinning crazily, and oscillating backward
and forward, as if .the laws of nature had suddenly been abridged in its vicinity.

For the first time since I had opened the envelope, I began to lose my control. The compass had
been my anchor and trust. I had counted on it. Now it had gone crazy. There was a loud noise, but
I now think it must have been the sound of my own voice, a sudden frightened shriek for which I
shall always bear the shame.