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

thereafter you may think me mad. Weak and humble as I am, I believe
myself to have received a Divine mission. I believe that I shall
execute it, or bring about its execution, but at the ultimate cost of
my own life. Still, in such a service two are better than one. If you
--can care enough--if you----"

But the lady had already turned away, and was murmuring her farewell
in accents that sounded like a sob. Love and faith after this sort
were not given to her.

Of all Owen's trials this was the sharpest. Of all his sacrifices this
was the most complete.



CHAPTER III

THE TEMPTATION

Two years have gone by all but a few months, and from the rectory in a
quiet English village we pass to a scene in Central, or South Central,
Africa.

On the brow of a grassy slope dotted over with mimosa thorns, and
close to a gushing stream of water, stands a house, or rather a hut,
built of green brick and thatched with grass. Behind this hut is a
fence of thorns, rough but strong, designed to protect all within it
from the attacks of lions and other beasts of prey. At present, save
for a solitary mule eating its provender by the wheel of a tented ox-
waggon, it is untenanted, for the cattle have not yet been kraaled for
the night. Presently Thomas Owen enters this enclosure by the back
door of the hut, and having attended to the mule, which whinnies at
the sight of him, goes to the gate and watches there till he sees his
native boys driving the cattle up the slope of the hill. At length
they arrive, and when he has counted them to make sure that none are
missing, and in a few kind words commended the herds for their
watchfulness, he walks to the front of the house and, seating himself
upon a wooden stool set under a mimosa tree that grows near the door,
he looks earnestly towards the west.

The man has changed somewhat since last we saw him. To begin with, he
has grown a beard, and although the hot African sun has bronzed it
into an appearance of health, his face is even thinner than it was,
and therein the great spiritual eyes shine still more strangely.

At the foot of the slope runs a wide river, just here broken into
rapids where the waters make an angry music. Beyond this river
stretches a vast plain bounded on the horizon by mountain ranges, each
line of them rising higher than the other till their topmost and more
distant peaks melt imperceptibly into the tender blue of the heavens.