"Dunsany, Lord - collection - A Dreamer's Tales- And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

head up, startled at the splash, then he would have listened and have
sniffed the air, and neither hearing nor scenting any danger he must have
remained rigid for some moments, for it was in that attitude that Athelvok
found him as he emerged breathless at his feet. And, striking at once,
Athelvok drove the spear into his throat before the head and the terrible
horns came down. But Athelvok had clung to one of the great horns, and had
been carried at terrible speed through the rhododendron bushes until the
gariach fell, but rose at once again, and died standing up, still
struggling, drowned in its own blood.
But to Hilnaric listening it was as though one of the heroes of old time had
come back again in the full glory of his legendary youth.
And long time they went up and down the terraces, saying those things which
were said before and since, and which lips shall yet be made to say again.
And above them stood Poltarnees beholding the Sea.
And the day came when Athelvok should go. And Hilnaric said to him:
"Will you not indeed most surely come back again, having just looked over
the summit of Poltarnees?"
Athelvok answered: "I will indeed come back, for thy voice is more beautiful
than the hymn of the priests when they chant and praise the Sea, and though
many tributary seas ran down into Oriathon and he and all the others poured
their beauty into one pool below me, yet would I return swearing that thou
were fairer than they."
And Hilnaric answered:
"The wisdom of my heart tells me, or old knowledge or prophecy, or some
strange lore, that I shall never hear thy voice again. And for this I give
thee my forgiveness."
But he, repeating the oath that he had sworn, set out, looking often
backwards until the slope became to step and his face was set to the rock.
It was in the morning that he started, and he climbed all the day with
little rest, where every foot-hole was smooth with many feet. Before he
reached the top the sun disappeared from him, and darker and darker grew the
Inner Lands. Then he pushed on so as to see before dark whatever thing
Poltarnees had to show. The dusk was deep over the Inner Lands, and the
lights of cities twinkled through the sea-mist when he came to Poltarnees's
summit, and the sun before him was not yet gone from the sky.
And there below him was the old wrinkled Sea, smiling and murmuring song.
And he nursed little ships with gleaming sails, and in his hands were old
regretted wrecks, and mast all studded over with golden nails that he had
rent in anger out of beautiful galleons. And the glory of the sun was among
the surges as they brought driftwood out of isles of spice, tossing their
golden heads. And the grey currents crept away to the south like
companionless serpents that love something afar with a restless, deadly
love. And the whole plain of water glittering with late sunlight, and the
surges and the currents and the white sails of ships were all together like
the face of a strange new god that has looked at a man for the first time in
the eves at the moment of his death; and Athelvok, looking on the wonderful
Sea, knew why it was that the dead never return, for there is something that
the dead feel and know, and the living would never understand even though
the dead should come and speak to them about it. And there was the Sea
smiling at him, glad with the glory of the sun. And there was a haven there