"Lord Dunsany - The Gods Of The Mountain (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

Beggars as kings!

Slag:
Ay. You do not know my master.

Ulf: {to Agmar}
What do you bid us do?

Agmar:
You shall first come by the fine raiment in the manner
I have mentioned.

Ulf:
And what then, master?

Agmar:
Why, we shall go as gods.

Beggars:
As gods!

Agmar:
As gods. Know you the land through which I have lately
come in my wanderings? Marma, where the gods are
carved from green stone in the mountains. They sit all
seven of them against the hills. They sit there
motionless and travellers worship them.

Ulf:
Yes, yes, we know those gods. They are much reverenced
here, but they are drowsy and send us nothing
beautiful.

Agmar:
They are of green jade. They sit cross-legged with
their right elbows resting on their left hands, the
right forefinger pointed upward. We will come into the
city disguised, from the direction of Marma, and we
will claim to be these gods. We must be seven as they
are. And when we sit we must sit cross-legged as they
do, with the right hand uplifted.

Ulf:
This is a bad city in which to fall into the hands of
oppressors, for the judges lack amiability here as the
merchants lack benevolence, ever since the gods forgot
them.

Agmar:
In our ancient calling a man may sit at one street