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

interrupted softly, and dropping to his knees unloosed the

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dagger strapped to his wrist as he wormed his way across the
courtyard flints. In all the country round about Jerusalem
there was no hand more skillful with the knife than that of
Joachim, the cut-purse. Softly as the cat that stalks a mouse
he crept across the stones, paused and bore his weight on one
hand while he drew the other back... a single quick thrust
underneath the shoulder-blade, slanting downward to the
heart, then the gurgling, blood-gagged cry, the helpless
thrashing of the limbs, the fight for breath, and - perhaps the
sleeping gladiator had a wallet stuffed with gold, or even
copper. They were well paid, these fighting mastiffs from
Herod's kennels. The firelight glinted on the plunging knife,
and on the golden bracelet clasped about the Northman's
arm."Ho! little brother of a rat, would you bite a sleeping
man?" the giant's bell-like voice boomed, "And one who
never did thee any harm? For shame!" White lines sprang into
prominence against the sun-gilt skin, his mighty muscles
tightened, and a yelp of pain came from Joachim as the knife
dropped from his unnerved fingers and a crackling like the
breaking of a willow twig told where his wrist bones snapped
beneath the Northling's grip.
"Have mercy, mighty one," Joachim begged. "I
thought -"
"Aye, that thou didst, thou niddering craven!" came the
answer. "Thou thought me sleeping, and like the thief thou art
were minded to have my purse and life at once. Now get thee

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gone from out my sight, thou and those hangdog friends of
thine, before I crush that puny neck between my fingers."
He spread his hands, great well-shaped, white-skinned
hands trained in the wrestler's art and in the wielding of the
sword, and the strong white fingers twitched as though
already they felt yielding flesh and snapping bone between
them. With a frightened skirking, as though they were in truth
the rats the Northman named them, the three conspirators
slunk out, Joachim the cut-purse nursing his broken right
wrist in the crook of his left arm, his two companions close
beside him as they sought to gain the exit of the courtyard
before the giant Norseman reconsidered and repented of his
mercy.