"Haggard, H Rider- The Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haggard H. Rider)

labourer is worthy of his hire.' Well, my hire is under two hundred a
year, and eight of us must live--or starve--on it. And I have worked,
ay, until my health is broken. A labourer indeed! I am a very hodman,
a spiritual Sisyphus. And now I must go back to carry my load and roll
my stone again and again among those hopeless savages till I die of it
--till I die of it!"

"At least it is a noble life and death!" exclaimed Owen, a sudden fire
of enthusiasm burning in his dark eyes.

"Yes, viewed from a distance. Were you asked to leave this living of
two thousand a year--I see that is what they put it at in Crockford--
with its English comforts and easy work, that /you/ might lead that
life and attain that death, then you would think differently. But why
should I bore you with such talk? Thank Heaven that your lines are
cast in pleasant places. Yes, please, I will take one more glass; it
does me good."

"Tell me some more about that tribe you were speaking of in your
sermon, the 'Sons of Fire' I think you called them," said Owen, as he
passed him the decanter.

So, with an eloquence induced by the generous wine and a quickened
imagination, the Deputation told him--told him many strange things and
terrible. For this people was an awful people: vigorous in mind and
body, and warriors from generation to generation, but superstition-
ridden and cruel. They lived in the far interior, some months' journey
by boat and ox-waggon from the coast, and of white men and their ways
they knew but little.

"How many of them are there?" asked Owen.

"Who can say?" he answered. "Nearly half-a-million, perhaps; at least
they pretend that they can put sixty thousand men under arms."

"And did they treat you badly when you first visited them?"

"Not at first. They received us civilly enough; and on a given day we
were requested to explain to the king and the Council of Wizards the
religion which we came to teach. All that day we explained and all the
next--or rather my friend did, for I knew very little of the language
--and they listened with great interest. At last the chief of the
wizards and the first prophet to the king rose to question us. He was
named Hokosa, a tall, thin man, with a spiritual face and terrible
calm eyes.

"'You speak well, son of a White Man,' he said, 'but let us pass from
words to deeds. You tell us that this God of yours, whom you desire
that we should take as our God, so that you may become His chief
prophets in the land, was a wizard such as we are, though grater than