"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Proteus Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

At last she lay quite passive, keeping her fascinated gaze on his face.

But Carver received a shock as well. As her lids lifted, he started at the sight of the eyes behind them.
They were unexpected, despite the hint given by their ever-so-faint Oriental cast, for they flamed upon
him in a tawny hue. They were amber, almost golden, and wild as the eyes of a votary of Pan. She
watched the zoologist with the intentness of a captive bird, but not with a bird's timidity, for he saw her
hand fumbling for the pointed stick or wooden knife in the thong about her waist.

He proffered the canteen, and she shrank away from his extended hand. He shook the container, and at
the sound of gurgling liquid, she took it gingerly, tilted a trickle into her hand, and then, to Carver's
surprise, smelled it, her dainty nostrils flaring as widely as her diminutive, uptilted nose permitted. After a
moment she drank from her cupped palm, poured another trickle, and drank that. It did not occur to her,
apparently, to drink from the canteen.

Her mind cleared. She saw the two motionless bodies of the slain creatures, and murmured a low sound
of sorrow. When she moved as if to rise, her gashed knee pained her, and she turned her strange eyes on
Carver with a renewed expression of fear. She indicated the red streak of the injury.

"C'm on?" she said with a questioning inflection. Carver realized that the sound resembled English words
through accident only. "Where to?" He grinned.

She shook a puzzled head. "Bu-r-r-o-o-on!" she said "Zee-e-e!"

He understood that. It was her attempt to imitate the sound of his shot and the hum of the bullet. He
tapped the revolver. "Magic!" he said warningly. "Bad medicine. Better be good girl, see?" It was
obvious that she didn't understand. "Thumbi?" he tried. "You Maori?" No result save a long look from
slanting, golden eyes. "Well," he grunted, "Sprechen zie Deutsch, then? Or Kanaka? OrтАФwhat the
devil! That's all I knowтАФLatinum intelligisne?"

"C'm on?" she said faintly, her eyes on the gun. She rubbed the scratch on her leg and the bruise on her
temple, apparently ascribing both to the weapon.

"All right," Carver acceded grimly. He reflected that it could do no harm to impress the girl with his
powers. "I'll come on. Watch this!"

He leveled his weapon at the first target he sawтАФa dead branch that jutted from a drifted log at the end
of the coral spit. It was thick as his arm, but it must have been thoroughly rotted, for instead of stripping a
bit of bark as he expected, the heavy slug shattered the entire branch.

"O-o-oh!" gasped the girl, clapping her hands over her ears. Her eyes flickered sidewise at him; then she
scrambled wildly to her feet. She was in sheer panic.

"No, you don't!" he snapped. He caught her arm. "You stay right here!"

For a moment he was amazed at the lithe strength of her. Her free arm flashed upward with the wooden
dagger, and he caught that wrist as well. Her muscles were like tempered steel wires. She twisted
frantically; then, with sudden yielding, stood quietly in his grasp, as if she thought, "What use to struggle
with a god?"

He released her. "Sit down!" he growled.