"Resnick, Mike - Lucifer Jones 01 - Adventurers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

really _did_ have blackwater fever, he decided that it was time for
us to get moving again.
Now, there are a lot of ways for a newly-arrived American and
a newly-arrived Irishman to travel through Africa, but foot-
slogging ain't one of them. When we weren't pulling scorpions out
of our clothes and ticks off our skins, we spent most of our time
starving and getting rained on. For what was supposed to be a hot,
arid country, I never did see so much rain in all my life. It
ruined what was left of the maps, but since we had sold about
three hundred by that time, it didn't seem like such a great loss.
Besides, we soon figured out that Zulu gold mines weren't
real high on our itinerary, whereas a map to the nearest city
would have been a right welcome blessing.
I remember that one night just before our food was due to run
out I fell asleep next to an old termite mound. I was still
dreaming about an exceptionally nubile daughter of King Solomon,
or perhaps it was King David, when Burley kicked me in the ribs. I
took the Lord's name in vain a couple of times and tried to go
back to sleep, but then he kicked me again.
"Get on your feet, Saint Luke," he said. "We've got company."
I jumped up right quick at that, and peered off in the
direction he was looking. There were about twenty half-naked black
savages off in the distance, all of them carrying spears and
shields.
"Do you reckon they're cannibals, Brother Rourke?" I asked,
holding up a hand to shade my eyes from the morning sun.
"Too far away," said Rourke. "I can't see their teeth."
"What have their teeth got to do with it?"
"I read somewhere that all cannibals file their teeth," he
said.
I remembered some gossip I had heard about old Doc Peterson
back in Moline before they locked him away, and I knew _he_ sure
didn't file _his_ teeth, so I kind of discounted that theory. But
they were getting closer now, and most of them looked pretty full,
so I figured that it wasn't worth worrying about for the time
being.
"What do you think we ought to do?" asked Rourke. "Heal 'em
or convert 'em?"
"They don't look like they need much of either," I said, as
they approached to within a hundred yards. "I don't suppose you
know Zulu or Tswana?"
He shook his head. "They don't speak much of either back in
Dublin. How about beads? I'm told they go crazy for beads."
"Sounds reasonable, Brother Rourke," I said. "I didn't know
you had any."
"Me? Of course not. Don't you have any rosary beads in your
pockets?"
"Wrong religion," I replied.
The savages were about forty yards away now, and muttering
amongst themselves. They had slowed down a bit, but were still