"Andre Norton - The Opal-Eyed Fan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

The Opal-Eyed Fan
By Andre Norton
Version 1.0
Though Lost Lady Key does not exist, features of two coastal islands and one key are combined to furnish its
checkered history. On Sanibel a mysterious race built a city of canals and mounds composed of shells and rammed
earth, as well as shell-paved roads. These un-known people are rumored to have been exterminated by an uneasy
combination of Spaniards and imported Seminoles, leaving only evidences of a civilization somehow linked with that of
the Mayans of South America.
Captiva, Sanibel's twin island, is supposed to have served as a prison for women taken during the pirate raids
of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
But Indian Key provided the house with its escape route through the sea turtle pens, its master who re-fused
to acknowledge the power of Key West, and its doctor who pioneered in growing tropical fruits in Florida. An Indian
massacre in the middle 1800s brought an abrupt end to this small empire—the fabu-lous house (known for its luxury,
up and down the coast) was burned. A pall fell over the site and no at-tempt was made to rebuild or reuse the land.


1
The room was dusky dark, but it was quiet. Where was the wind—that threatening, screaming wind which had
engulfed the whole world, whipped the sea moun-tain high?
Persis Rooke turned her head slightly, though she did not yet open her eyes. Here was no musty odor
un-derlaid with the stench of bilges. Rather, a faintly spicy fragrance. Her mind seemed as sluggish as her body, and
the latter bore painful bruises that made her wince as she shifted position a little.
She stretched out her hands. Under them was the smoothness of linen. Was this a dream? She did not want
to open her eyes and find herself once more wedged into the narrow ship's bunk. She lay still, grateful for the silence,
the feel of the linen, and tried to remember as she slowly, at last, opened her eyes.
This was—a room! Not the tiny stifling cabin into which she had barely been able to squeeze herself and her
belongings. She lay on a real bed—she must be in a house—on land!
A drapery of netting hung about the bed, making the rest of the room dim and misty looking in the morning
light. Solemnly, as she had sometimes done as a child, she gave the skin on her right wrist a sharp pinch. The resulting
pain was reassuring. She was awake. Now Persis braced herself up on the wide ex-panse of the bed to look around. Her
head whirled a little and she fought that giddiness stoutly.
She must remember— She had been on a ship, there had been a grating crash as the Arrow had brought bow
up on a reef. Then—
The wrecker!
Persis shook her head in spite of the giddiness that it caused. She felt the warmth of the returning outrage.
That—that pirate! The one who had loomed out of the storm to where she clung to a rail, had shouted some
incomprehensible words at her, and then carried her, in spite of her screams and her attempts to fight free, to toss her
down into the small boat below, her hair streaming about her, the protests battered out of her by the wind along with
the air from her lungs. She had been so angry at his high-handedness that she had al-most lost her fear. But after she
was in the boat—
Persis shut her eyes again. No, it was very queer. She thought she would never, never forget that pi-rate's
face, his treatment of her as if she were a bale of goods. But later—there was just nothing.
Uncle Augustin!
What had happened to Uncle Augustin?
Persis, now thoroughly aroused, slid to the edge of the bed, hooked fingers in the netting, and jerked it along
until she could find an opening in it. That sense of duty long drilled into her was completely awake. She hardly
glanced about the shadowy room where only an edging of light showed around the massively shuttered windows. She
must find her uncle. He had been only a feeble shadow of himself before the storm. Perhaps—
She looked around a little wildly; she simply could not go charging out of this room wearing only her night
rail. And that, she noted now, was not one of her own fine lawn ones, but a garment too big and of coar-ser stuff.