Odnośniki
- Indeks
- 0415159105.Routledge.H.G.Wells.Apr.1997
- Herbert George Wells Wojna ĹwiatĂłw
- 045. Ferrarella Marie Pełnia szczęÂścia
- Beth Williamson The Perfect Score 2 W
- Buffa Dudley W. Joseph Antonelli 01 ObrośÂca
- A. Maclean Komandosi z Nawarony
- C Howard Robert Conan i synowie Boga NiedśĹźwiedzia
- Vonnegut, Kurt Breakfast Of Champions v1.0
- Inferno
- Bolesna tajemnica Schulze Dallas
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- shakyor.htw.pl
Confound it! swore Cossar, where s everything got to? He strode a step towards the black
shadows on the hillside that masked the holes and stood staring. Then he swore again. If they
have dragged him in -!
So they hung for a space tossing each other the fragments of thoughts. Bensington s glasses
flashed like diamonds as he looked from one to the other. The men s faces changed from cold
clearness to mysterious obscurity as they turned them to or from the moon. Every one spoke,
no one completed a sentence. Then abruptly Cossar chose his line. He flapped limbs this way
and that and expelled orders in pellets. It was obvious he wanted lamps. Every one except
Cossar was moving towards the house.
You re going into the holes? asked Redwood.
Obviously, said Cossar.
He made it clear once more that the lamps of the cart and trolley were to be got and brought to
him.
Bensington, grasping this, started off along the path by the well. He glanced over his shoulder,
and saw Cossar s gigantic figure standing out as if he were regarding the holes pensively. At
the sight Bensington halted for a moment and half turned. They were all leaving Cossar -!
Cossar was able to take care of himself, of course!
Suddenly Bensington saw something that made him shout a windless HI! In a second three
rats had projected themselves from the dark tangle of the creeper towards Cossar. For three
seconds Cossar stood unaware of them, and then he had become the most active thing in the
world. He didn t fire his gun. Apparently he had no time to aim, or to think of aiming; he ducked
a leaping rat, Bensington saw, and then smashed at the back of its head with the butt of his
gun. The monster gave one leap and fell over itself.
Cossar s form went right down out of sight among the reedy grass, and then he rose again,
running towards another of the rats and whirling his gun overhead. A faint shout came to
Bensington s ears, and then he perceived the remaining two rats bolting divergently, and
Cossar in pursuit towards the holes.
The whole thing was an affair of misty shadows; all three fighting monsters were exaggerated
and made unreal by the delusive clearness of the light. At moments Cossar was colossal, at
moments invisible. The rats flashed athwart the eye in sudden unexpected leaps, or ran with a
movement of the feet so swift, they seemed to run on wheels. It was all over in half a minute.
No one saw it but Bensington. He could hear the others behind him still receding towards the
house. He shouted something inarticulate and then ran back towards Cossar, while the rats
vanished. He came up to him outside the holes. In the moonlight the distribution of shadows
that constituted Cossar s visage intimated calm. Hullo, said Cossar, back already? Where s
the lamps? They re all back now in their holes. One I broke the neck of as it ran past me ...
See? There! And he pointed a gaunt finger.
Bensington was too astonished for conversation ...
The lamps seemed an interminable time in coming. At last they appeared, first one unwinking
luminous eye, preceded by a swaying yellow glare, and then, winking now and then, and then
shining out again, two others. About them came little figures with little voices, and then
enormous shadows. This group made as it were a spot of inflammation upon the gigantic
dreamland of moonshine.
Flack, said the voices. Flack.
An illuminating sentence floated up. Locked himself in the attic.
Cossar was continually more wonderful. He produced great handfuls of cotton wool and stuffed
them in his ears Bensington wondered why. Then he loaded his gun with a quarter charge
of powder. Who else could have thought of that? Wonderland culminated with the
disappearance of Cossar s twin realms of boot sole up the central hole.
Cossar was on all fours with two guns, one trailing on each side from a string under his chin,
and his most trusted assistant, a little dark man with a grave face, was to go in stooping behind
him, holding a lantern over his head. Everything had been made as sane and obvious and
proper as a lunatic s dream. The wool, it seems, was on account of the concussion of the rifle;
the man had some too. Obviously! So long as the rats turned tail on Cossar no harm could
come to him, and directly they headed for him he would see their eyes and fire between them.
Since they would have to come down the cylinder of the hole, Cossar could hardly fail to hit
them. It was, Cossar insisted, the obvious method, a little tedious perhaps, but absolutely
certain. As the assistant stooped to enter, Bensington saw that the end of a ball of twine had
been tied to the tail of his coat. By this he was to draw in the rope if it should be needed to
drag out the bodies of the rats.
Bensington perceived that the object he held in his hand was Cossar s silk hat.
How had it got there?
It would be something to remember him by, anyhow.
At each of the adjacent holes stood a little group with a lantern on the ground shining up the
hole, and with one man kneeling and aiming at the round void before him, waiting for anything
that might emerge.
There was an interminable suspense.
Then they heard Cossar s first shot, like an explosion in a mine.... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]