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

So we ate, Higgs largely, for his appetite was always excellent,
perhaps because he was then practically a teetotaller; Mr. Orme very
moderately, and I as becomes a person who has lived for months at a
time on dates--mainly of vegetables, which, with fruits, form my
principal diet--that is, if these are available, for at a pinch I can
exist on anything.

When the meal was finished and our glasses had been filled with port,
Higgs helped himself to water, lit the large meerschaum pipe he always
smokes, and pushed round the tobacco-jar which had once served as a
sepulchural urn for the heart of an old Egyptian.

"Now, Adams," he said when we also had filled our pipes, "tell us what
has brought you back from the Shades. In short, your story, man, your
story."

I drew the ring he had noticed off my hand, a thick band of rather
light-coloured gold of a size such as an ordinary woman might wear
upon her first or second finger, in which was set a splendid slab of
sapphire engraved with curious and archaic characters. Pointing to
these characters, I asked Higgs if he could read them.

"Read them? Of course," he answered, producing a magnifying glass.
"Can't you? No, I remember; you never were good at anything more than
fifty years old. Hullo! this is early Hebrew. Ah! I've got it," and he
read:

"'The gift of Solomon the ruler--no, the Great One--of Israel, Beloved
of Jah, to Maqueda of Sheba-land, Queen, Daughter of Kings, Child of
Wisdom, Beautiful.'

"That's the writing on your ring, Adams--a really magnificent thing.
'Queen of Sheba--Bath-Melachim, Daughter of Kings,' with our old
friend Solomon chucked in. Splendid, quite splendid!"--and he touched
the gold with his tongue, and tested it with his teeth. "Hum--where
did you get this intelligent fraud from, Adams?"

"Oh!" I answered, laughing, "the usual thing, of course. I bought it
from a donkey-boy in Cairo for about thirty shillings."

"Indeed," he replied suspiciously. "I should have thought the stone in
it was worth more than that, although, of course, it may be nothing
but glass. The engraving, too, is first-rate. Adams," he added with
severity, "you are trying to hoax us, but let me tell you what I
thought you knew by this time--that you can't take in Ptolemy Higgs.
This ring is a shameless swindle; but who did the Hebrew on it? He's a
good scholar, anyway."

"Don't know," I answered; "wasn't aware till now that it was Hebrew.
To tell you the truth, I thought it was old Egyptian. All I do know is