"Alexander Kazantsev. The Destruction of Faena (ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

the water, having chosen the moment when a breaker had crashed on the shore
and was sliding back in a mass of hissing foam.
Ave wished he had been a sculptor. Everything he had heard about Mada
from his hunchbacked secretary Kutsi Merc was pale, inadequate and dull
compared with what he could see with his own eyes.
A fat, elderly Faetess, one of the roundheads, ran into the water and
wrapped the girl in a soft, fluffy sheet as she emerged.
Mada took no notice whatever of Ave, although from what her companion
had told her, she knew quite a lot about him. The nanny deftly put a folding
chair down on the sand and Mada sat on it, wrapping the sheet round her as
the ancients used to drape themselves in their robes.
Kutsi Merc noticed the impression that Mada had made on Ave, and he
hunched his back even more as he bent down to speak.
"Shall we show this to the local natives?"
And with a significant smile on his clever, evil face, he held a small,
smooth board out to Ave. Sitting on the sand and admiring Mada, Ave vaguely
replied:
"Well, I didn't realise we'd brought that with us!"
"The proud and beautiful Mada Jupi is here," said the secretary
encouragingly. Ave Mar stood up. Thanks to his impressive height, long,
strong neck and piercing eyes, he gave the impression of looking over the
heads of everybody else.
In obedience to his own impulse, as it seemed to him, he took the board
from Kutsi and walked boldly with it into the water.
Without taking her eyes off Kutsi, Mada's companion whispered into the
girl's ear:
"Look, Mada! The stranger from Danjab I was telling you about has taken
a board with him."
In spite of the breakwater, built to make swimming easier when the tide
was coming in, the waves were crashing violently onto the shore. Outside the
barrier, they were truly gigantic, rearing up their foaming crests one after
another as on the open sea.
"Where's he swimming to?" asked Mada's companion in alarm. "Shouldn't
we call the lifeguards?"
"He's a better swimmer than you think," commented Mada vaguely.
"But why's he taken that board? It's frightening to watch."
Even so, she couldn't take her eyes off him.
Ave swam as far as the breakwater and climbed over it. He had now
attracted the attention of many swimmers.
"Why did you decide he's that particular stranger?" asked Mada.
"Because of his companion. Roundheaded, like me; a hunchback into the
bargain, yet he's as proud as if he was strolling along the beach of Danjab.
I feel ashamed for our own people. Isn't anyone going to teach that show-off
how to swim?"
"No, I don't want to," said Mada, watching as the gigantic breakers
swept the foreign visitor up onto their crests.
And suddenly all the holidaymakers on the beach stirred in amazement.
The swimmer chose the moment when a particularly big wave lifted him up
on its crest, jumped to his feet and waved his arms, as if wanting to fly
like a bird. He did not take off, however, but simply kept his balance on