"John Norman - Gor 02 - Outlaw of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

ceremoniously, bitterly, he poured a bit of it onto the table, where it


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splattered, partly soaking into a napkin. As he performed this gesture, he
uttered some formula in that strange tongue I had heard but once before -
when I had nearly perished at his hands. Somehow I had the feeling that he
was becoming dangerous. I was uneasy.

'What are you doing?' I asked.

'I am offering a libation,' he said. 'Ta-Sardar-Gor.'

'What does that mean?' I asked, my words fumbling a bit, blurred by the
liquor, made unsteady by my fear.

'It means,' laughed Cabot, a mithless laugh, ' - to the Priest-Kings of
Gor!'

He rose unsteadily. He seemed tall, strange, almost of another world in
that subdued light, in that quiet atmosphere of small, genial civilised
noises.

Then without warning, with a bitter laugh, at once a lament and a cry of
rage, he hurled the glass violently to the wall. It shattered into a
million sporadic gleaming fragments, shocking the place into a moment of
supreme silence. And in that sudden instant of startled, awe-struck
silence, I heard him clearly, intensely, repeat in a hoarse whisper that
strange phrase, 'Ta-Sardar-Gor!'

The bartender, a heavy, soft-faced man, waddled to the table. One of his
fat hands nervously clutched a short leather truncheon, weighted with shot.
The bartender jerked his thumb toward the door. He repeated the gesture.
Cabot towering over him seemed not to comprehend. The bartender lifted the
truncheon in a menacing gesture. Cabot simply took the weapon, seeming to
draw it easily from the startled grip of the fat man. He looked down into
the sweating, frightened fat face.

'You have lifted a weapon against me,' he said. 'My codes permit me to kill
you.'

The bartender and I watched with terror as Cabot's large firm hands twisted
the truncheon apart, splitting the stitching, much as I might have twisted
apart a roll of cardboard. Some of the shot dropped to the floor and rolled
under the tables.

'He's drunk,' I said to the bartender. I took Cabot firmly by the arm. He
didn't seem to be angry any longer, and I could see that he intended no one