"Edgar Allan Poe - The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Cask of Amontillado" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap
jingled as he strode.

"The pipe," said he.

"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work
which gleams from these cavern walls."

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy
orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

"Nitre?" he asked, at length.

"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"

"Ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh!
ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!"

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

"It is nothing," he said, at last.

"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health
is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are
happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no
matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be
responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi--"

"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not
kill me. I shall not die of a cough."

"True--true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of
alarming you unnecessarily--but you should use all proper caution.
A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps."

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a
long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to
me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."

"And I to your long life."

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.