"Manly Wade Wellman - Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wellman Manly Wade)

"Let us hope that I am not interrupting one of your brilliant scientific labors," said Holmes.
"Oh, it is virtually finished in rough draft." Chal-lenger flung down the pen. "A paper I am going
to read at the Vienna meeting, which will hold up to scorn some of the shabby claims of the Weissmanist
theory-mongers. Meanwhile, I am prepared to devote an hour or so to whatever problem may be
puzzling you."
"As you were able to help me so splendidly in the matter of the Matilda Briggs and the giant rat of
Sumatra."
"That was nothing, my dear Holmes, a mere scientific rationalization of a fortunately rare species. What
is it this time?"
Holmes produced the crystal and told of his ex-perience with it the night before. Challenger took the
object in his mighty paw and bent his tufted brows to look.
"There does seem to be some sort of inner illumina-tion," he nodded, frowning. "Will you pull the
curtains? I think darkness will help."
Holmes drew the heavy draperies, plunging the room into deep shadow, and returned to look over
Chal-lenger's mighty shoulder.
"It has the appearance of a translucent mist, working and rippling," said the professor. "Almost
liquescent in its aspect."
" 'Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn,' " said
Holmes under his breath.
"Eh?" The bearded face swung around. "What are you saying? What has that drivel to do with
the matter?"
"I was quoting a poem," said Holmes.
"Which strikes me as singularly lacking in merit."
Holmes smiled. "It is by John Keats."
"Indeed?" sniffed Challenger. "Well, I have never pretended to critical judgment in matters of that sort.
In any case, we have no seas here, but a terrain. Look, Holmes."
He had taken a dark cloth from a drawer and cradled the crystal in it. Again the soft radiance of the
mist had cleared, and they looked on the landscape which Holmes had seen the previous night.
It was like peering through the wrong end of a tele-scope, a view small but vivid. There was the great
stretch of ground, the distant red-brown bluffs and, be-low in the foreground, an assembly of rectangles
that seemed to be vast, flat roofs. Things moved there, and among the tufts of shrubbery on the sward
alongside. Straight ahead, in an ordered row, sprouted up a series of lean masts, each tipped with a glare
of radiance, like a bit of sunlit ice.
"Beautiful," said Holmes, enraptured despite himself. "Unearthly."
"Unearthly is an apt description of it," muttered Challenger. "No such scene exists in any land upon
earth that ever I heard report of."
The vista fogged over a moment, then cleared again. Now they were aware of what the moving things
were. On the ground they seemed to creep like gigantic beetles with glittering scales, while closer at
hand, on the roof, several small rounded objects moved here and there. Then, among the masts straight
ahead, a flying some-thing, like a moth or bat, appeared. It swooped close, and suddenly a face looked
from within the crystal.
Holmes had the impression of wide, round eyes staring deeply into his. Next moment it was gone, and
the whole vision with it. Only blue mist churned in the crystal.
"Did you see it, Holmes?" said Challenger, springing up to draw back the draperies.
"I did indeed. Here, I'll write down what I saw on this pad. You might do the same."
Holmes drew a chair to the table, sat down and wrote swiftly. Challenger snorted over his own
hurried scribbling. Both were silent for some moments, then exchanged pads. Each read the words the
other had put down.
"Then it was no illusion," said Challenger. "We saw substantially the same objects. Perhaps my
eye is more scientifically trained, better qualified to observe, but you have written down the rooftop and