"Smith, Wilbur - Courtney - When the Lion Feeds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

grass around them moved with the wind: waist-high grass, soft dry grass
the colour of ripe wheat. Behind them and on each side the grassland
rolled away to the full range of the eye, but suddenly in front of them
was the escarpment. The land cascaded down into it, steeply at first
then gradually levelling out to become the Tugela flats. The Tugela
river was twenty miles away across the flats, but today there was a haze
in the air so they could not see that far. Beyond the river, stretched
far to the north and a hundred miles east to the sea, was Zululand. The
river was the border. The steep side of the escarpment was cut by
vertical gulleys and in the gulleys grew dense, olive-green bush.

Below them, two miles out on the flats, was the homestead of Theunis
Kraal. The house was a big one, Dutchgabled and smoothly thatched with
combed grass. There were horses in the small paddock: many horses, for
the twins, father was a wealthy man. Smoke from the cooking fires blued
the air over the servants quarters and the sound of someone chopping
wood carried faintly up to them.

Sean stopped on the rim of the escarpment and sat down in the grass. He
took hold of one of his grimy bare feet and twisted it up into his lap.
There was a hole in the ball of his heel from which he had pulled a
thorn earlier in the day and now it was plugged with dirt. Garrick sat
down next to him. Man, is that going to hurt when Ma puts iodine on itV
gloated Garrick. She'll have to use a needle to get the dirt out. I
bet you yell, I bet you yell your head off!

Sean ignored him. He picked a stalk of grass and started probing it
into the wound. Garrick watched with interest.

Twins could scarcely have been less alike. Sean was already taking on
the shape of a man: his shoulders were thickening, and there was hard
muscle forming in his puppy fat. His colouring was vivid: black hair,
skin brown from the sun, lips and cheeks that glowed with the fresh
young blood beneath their surface, and blue eyes, the dark indigo-blue
of cloud shadow on mountain lake.

Garrick was slim, with the wrists and ankles of a girl.

His hair was an undecided brown that grew wispy down the back of his
neck, his skin was freckled, his nose and the rims of his pale blue eyes
were pink with persistent hay fever. He was fast losing interest in
Sean's surgery. He reached across and fiddled with one of Tinker's
pendulous ears, and this broke the rhythm of the dog's panting; he
gulped twice and the saliva dripped from the end of his tongue. Garrick
lifted his head and looked down the slope.

A little below where they were sitting was the head of one of the bushy
gullies. Garrick caught his breath.

Sean, look there, next to the bush! His whisper trembled with