"Smith, Wilbur - Shout At The Devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

"Have I ever let you down yet?" Flynn demanded aggressively, and a
drop of sweat fell from the tip of his nose onto his already damp
shirt.

"Ah!" El Keb repeated.

This scheme has a flair. It has the touch of greatness to it. This
scheme..." Flynn paused to find a suitable adjective, ".. . this
scheme is Napoleonic. It is Caesarian!"

"Ah!" El Keb said again, and refilled his tea cup. Lifting it
delicately between thumb and forefinger, he sipped before speaking. "It
is necessary only that I should risk the total destruction of a
sixty-foot dhow worth..." prudently he inflated the figure." .. two
thousand English pounds?"

"Against an almost certain recovery of twenty thousand, Flynn cut in
quickly, and El Keb smiled a little, almost dreamily.

"You'd put the profits so high? "he asked.

"That's the lowest figure. Good God, Kebby! There hasn't been a shot
fired in the Rufiji basin for twenty years. You know damn well it's
the Kaiser's private hunting reserve.

The Jumbo are so thick in there I could round them up and drive them in
like sheep." Involuntarily Flynn's right forefinger crooked and
twitched as though it were already curled a round a trigger.

"Madness hispered El Keb, with the gold gloat softening the shape of
his lips. "You'd sail into the Rufiji river from the sea, hoist the
Union Jack on one of the islands in the delta and fill the dhow with
German ivory. Madness."

"The Germans have formally annexed none of those islands. I'd be in
and out again before Berlin had sent their first cable to London. With
ten of my gun-boys hunting, we'd fill the dhow in two weeks."

"The Germans would have a gunboat there in a week.

They've got the Blacher lying at Dares Salaam under steam, heavy
cruiser with nine-inch guns."

"We'd be under protection of the British flag. They couldn't dare
touch us not on the high seas not with things the way they are now
between England and Germany."

"Mr. O'Flynn, I was led to believe you were a citizen of the United
States of America."