"ArkCovenantPart1" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacClure Victor)

The Ark of the Covenant
by Victor MacClure


"We landed with a grinding shudder, then keeled over sideways as if we'd never
right. I had quite made up my mind we were going to crash over on our back to
the sea below."



Here is, perhaps, the greatest air story that has yet been written. The editor,
who has personally read, as near as is humanly possible, every important air
story of a scientific nature, has still to find a single one that excels '"The
Ark of the Covenant."
Here is a real story of the air that bristles with adventure, good science,
tremendous suspense, and excellent construction. The author is always a step
ahead of you and you are never permitted to guess in advance just what is in
store for you. There is nothing contained in the story that could not come true
at the present or the near future. It is one of these stories that grows upon
you as time goes on, a story that you will wish to recommend to your friends for
a long time to come.
As extraordinary as the story is, the author himself--who by the way is
Scotch--comes pretty near matching it.
He was wounded in 1915 during the World War in Gallipoli by a bullet which
lodged near his heart, and, strange to say, it remains there to this day,
without in the least interfering with the author's literary career.
Sketch of the author, Victor MacClure



CHAPTER ONE
The Coming of the Mystery
A HAND was laid on my shoulder. I woke up. My father stood by my bedside, with
that in his look which drove sleepiness out of me and brought me quickly to my
feet beside him.
"What's the matter, dad ?"
"The bank, son," he said, quietly--"the bank has been robbed. How soon do you
think you could land me at the Battery?"
It was all I could do to refrain from spluttering out a string of questions. Had
it not been for the grimness of the old man's expression, I should have thought
then that he was walking in his sleep. But there was no mistaking that he was
clean awake and in deadly earnest.
What I did was to put a hand under the pillow for my watch. I said nothing. I
was not going to be beaten in coolness by my own father, but I did some quick
thinking. My roadster was in the garage, so the five miles between the house and
my hangar on the beach was a small detail. I had to decide at once if I should
risk taking the old man across Long Island on the only machine I had ready for
the air that chilly morning. This was an ancient seaplane, built in 1928, and
now held together by pieces of string and tin tacks. In a series of experiments