"Haggard, H Rider- Queen Sheba's Ring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haggard H. Rider)

that I should call again the next morning. With difficulty I persuaded
her at last to inform her master that an old Egyptian friend had
brought him something which he certainly would like to see.

Five minutes later I groped my way into Higgs's sitting-room, which
Mrs. Reid had contented herself with indicating from a lower floor. It
is a large room, running the whole width of the house, divided into
two by an arch, where once, in the Georgian days, there had been
folding doors. The place was in shadow, except for the firelight,
which shone upon a table laid ready for dinner, and upon an
extraordinary collection of antiquities, including a couple of mummies
with gold faces arranged in their coffins against the wall. At the far
end of the room, however, an electric lamp was alight in the bow-
window hanging over another table covered with books, and by it I saw
my host, whom I had not met for twenty years, although until I
vanished into the desert we frequently corresponded, and with him the
friend who had come to dinner.

First, I will describe Higgs, who, I may state, is admitted, even by
his enemies, to be one of the most learned antiquarians and greatest
masters of dead languages in Europe, though this no one would guess
from his appearance at the age of about forty-five. In build short and
stout, face round and high-coloured, hair and beard of a fiery red,
eyes, when they can be seen--for generally he wears a pair of large
blue spectacles--small and of an indefinite hue, but sharp as needles.
Dress so untidy, peculiar, and worn that it is said the police
invariably request him to move on, should he loiter in the streets at
night. Such was, and is, the outward seeming of my dearest friend,
Professor Ptolemy Higgs, and I only hope that he won't be offended
when he sees it set down in black and white.

That of his companion who was seated at the table, his chin resting on
his hand, listening to some erudite discourse with a rather distracted
air, was extraordinarily different, especially by contrast. A tall
well-made young man, rather thin, but broad-shouldered, and apparently
five or six and twenty years of age. Face clean-cut--so much so,
indeed, that the dark eyes alone relieved it from a suspicion of
hardness; hair short and straight, like the eyes, brown; expression
that of a man of thought and ability, and, when he smiled, singularly
pleasant. Such was, and is, Captain Oliver Orme, who, by the way, I
should explain, is only a captain of some volunteer engineers,
although, in fact, a very able soldier, as was proved in the South
African War, whence he had then but lately returned.

I ought to add also that he gave me the impression of a man not in
love with fortune, or rather of one with whom fortune was not in love;
indeed, his young face seemed distinctly sad. Perhaps it was this that
attracted me to him so much from the first moment that my eyes fell on
him--me with whom fortune had also been out of love for many years.