"Roads by Seabury Quinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quinn Seabury)

from a disturbed anthill. Their frightened voices were high-
pitched as those of terrified children. "O God of Our Fathers,
wherefore hast Thou forsaken us?... The rocks are split in
twain!... The temple veil is ripped apart!... 'Tis said the
graves gape open and the sheeted dead come forth!"
"Siguna goes to drain her cup and Loki writhes beneath
the sting of serpent venom," Claus muttered as he dug his
heels into his horse's sides. It would not be comfortable in
that narrow street when the fury of the earthquake began to
shake the buildings down. A temblor retched the riven earth

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afresh, and an avalanche of broken tile and rubble slid into the
roadway, almost blocking it. Claus slid down from the saddle
and gave his horse a smart blow on the flank. "Go thou, good
beast, Thor see thee safely to thy stable," he bade, then took
shelter by the blank-walled houses, dashing forward a few
steps, then shrinking back again as spates of falling masonry
cataracted overhead and fell crashing on the cobbles of the
street."Ai-ai-ahee!" a woman's scream came knife-edged with
terror. "Help me, for the love of God! Save me, or I perish!
Have mercy, Master!"
The flicker of a lightning flash lit up the pitch-black night-
in-day that swamped the narrow way, and by its quivering
brightness Claus saw a woman's body lying in the roadway.
A timber from a broken house had fallen on her foot, pinning
her against the cobbles, and even as she screamed a fresh
convulsion of the earth shook down a barrow-load of broken
brick and tile, scattering brash and lime dust over her. A stone
fell clanging on his helmet as he rushed across the gloom-
choked street, and a fragment of broken parapet crashed
behind his heels as he leant to prize the timber off her ankle.
She lay as limp as a dead thing in his arms as he dashed back
to the shelter of a wall, and for a moment he thought he had
risked his life in rescuing one beyond the need of succor, but
as he laid her down upon the flagstones her great eyes came
open and her little hands crept up to clasp themselves about
his neck. "Art safe, my lord?" she asked.

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"Aye, for the nonce, but we tempt the gods by staying
here. Canst walk?"
"I'll try." She drew herself erect and took a step, but sank
down with a moan. "My foot - 'tis broken, I fear," she