"029 (B012) - The Quest of Qui (1935-07) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The gist of it was that Johnny was thoroughly convinced that the Viking dragon ship was genuine, and that it had been built many centuries ago and repaired more recently. Furthermore, certain markings, coats of arms, in effect, discernible on the craft proved it had belonged to the fleet of one certain ancient Viking freebooter, "Tarnjen," by name.



Tarnjen, stated Johnny, had been the bad boy of his day, so bad indeed that he had been chased out of Viking land with a number of ships and what loot he had amassed, which was probably considerable. A year or two later, Tarnjen had returned with only one ship, a vastly humiliated soul. His other ships and men had been taken by the Qui. Just who the Qui were, historians did not seem certain. Some history tomes suggested that Qui was a name Tarnjen had given to some savage tribe on some remote continent.



Whoever or whatever Qui was, they had taken most of Tarnjen's men and ships, all of his loot, and sent him back, thoroughly broken. Qui, then, was a mystery.



Such was the gist of Johnny's recital.



This was the beginning of the mystery of Qui, a mystery from which amazing things came.





JOHNNY RETURNED to New York, but he was still interested; and since Doc Savage was still out of town, overseeing the construction of a charity hospital somewhere, and since there was no excitement brewing. Johnny had nothing to do but dabble with the mystery of Qui and the Viking dragon ship and the vanished yacht, Sea Scream, which still had not been found.



The raid of the Vikings was unusual news. It went far and wide. Reports came in. A liner captain had seen the dragon ship off Cape Cod, he reported. A fisherman claimed he had seen such a vessel in the Nova Scotia fog.



Johnny digested those two reports. They intrigued him. It seemed the dragon ship had come down from the north, had met the Sea Scream, and the freebooters had traded their craft for a more modern one which did not depend on the wind.



The upshot of it was that, some days later, Johnny was alone in a plane flying along the Labrador coast. Johnny had many accomplishments besides big words. Flying was one of them. Doc Savage had taught him, and Doc had an amazing faculty of transferring some of his own skill to those whom he instructed.



It was late afternoon. A snow blanket was beneath Johnny's plane. To the right lay a jagged, rock-fanged shore line. This was a wilderness, primeval, cold, unpopulated. A fishing village, passed hours ago, had been the last sign of human habitation on the bleak Labrador coast.



Johnny peered overside often. He used binoculars. His ship cruised along a bare five hundred feet above the white terrain.



An ice floe out at sea held his attention for a time, mainly because of its ominous aspect, and also because there was a school of seals on its edge. Natural life always interested Johnny.