"054 (B089) - Ost (The Magic Island) (1937-08) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"I swam for many, many hours. It must have dulled my mind, or something. A lot of details are faint. I can't tell exactly what the horror was."
"Think hard."
"I have. For days. But if anything, it all seems to grow more vague, like a bad dream. I told that to those psychowhatchacall'ems who examined me. They didn't seem to know what to think."
"That's too bad," muttered the visitor.
"It was something terrible, this horror," Ben Brasken said. "But I can't remember. I guess I am going bats maybe."
"Don't let 'em kid you!" snorted the other. "Listen, my boat sank one time and I was out in an open dory for three weeks without food and with only a little water, and I'm tellin' you for a long time I couldn't remember a thing that happened to me."
Ben Brasken grinned. "I'm sure glad to hear you say that. Everybody thinks I'm nuts."
"Forget it!" chuckled the one-eyed guest. "Look, what about that iron key you mentioned?"
"I used them to get in and out of Ost." Ben Brasken pinched his eyes shut and puckered his brows in deep thought. "Oh, damn the luck! I can't remember. It's all so hazy. Like if I was drunk the whole time. Only I wasn't. I never drink."
"You had two of them?"
"Oh, yes. One for each hand."
"But when you reached the ship, you only had one."
"Darn, that's right." Ben Brasken shut his eyes again. "Well, I must have lost the other one while I was swimming. It was pretty heavy."
"You swam and carried these two pieces of iron?"
"Oh, yes."
The visitor now arose, as if to depart. But the big, one-eyed fellow seemed to have become stiff while seated cross-legged on the edge of the pool. He staggered wildly, his legs not tracking. To keep from falling, he grabbed Ben Brasken's chair.
Ben Brasken, chair and all, toppled into the swimming pool.
BEN BRASKEN landed in the water with a splash. The pool was deep at this point, almost ten feet. The chair was of metal and sank. Ben Brasken also went down, but came to the top, splashing and gagging.
"Help!" he croaked.
Then he sank again.
The pool was very clear. Every move poor Ben Brasken made in his wild struggles could be seen plainly. He had both his eyes and mouth wide open, and big bubbles kept coming out of his mouth and nose.
He grabbed frantically, again and again, for the surface. He did manage to reach the top, but went down again. When he was momentarily on the surface, he emitted a piteous shriek.
Hospital attendants had by now reached the pool. Two of them sprang in. Ben Brasken grabbed them as a drowning man will, and there was quite a turmoil until every one was hauled out of the pool.
The big, dark, one-eyed sailor started walking away. "Hey, you!" an attendant said sharply. "I'm not sure, but it looked as if you pushed Brasken into the pool."
The one-eyed man said nothing, but walked faster.
The hospital attendants were accustomed to handling persons who did the unexpected. They pursued the big, dark visitor. A whistle blew. More attendants appeared. Burly fellows, strong men who knew how to control maniacs with the greatest of facility.
They closed in on the big, dark one. Two attendants reached for his arms. They reached confidently, for the big Cyclops was merely walking along. But they got a shock. Their hands got only empty air.
The one-dyed man had not dodged, apparently. They grabbed for him again. Once more, the incredible happened. The truth dawned on them. Their quarry was as fast as the proverbial greased lightning.
A wild mкlйe followed. Men rushed the dark visitor from all directions. He whipped about in a fashion that was astonishing. Reaching a door, he dodged through. A nurse cried out his location. When the attendants reached there, the fellow was gone. They looked about wildly for him.
A few moments later the dark, one-eyed mariner dropped from a window of the hospital and sauntered away, unobserved.
Back in the hospital grounds, attendants stood around Ben Brasken, who was little the worse for his immersion.
Ben Brasken's ducking had proved one thing: He could not swim a stroke.
Chapter IV. THE HIDING PLACE
THE big, dark sailor with the pigeon-egg eye next turned up in the vicinity of the steamship pier to which the ancient hooker Benny Boston was tied.
It was dusk when he arrived. There was only one gangplank down, and a sailor loafed at this to keep just anybody from wandering aboard, a precaution against sneak thieves.
The sailor applied a match to a cigarette, and it was dark enough for the match flame to blind him slightly. When he had accustomed his eyes by blinking, he discovered the Cyclops sailor in front of him.
"Hy'ah, captain," said the latter.
Around the water, every one calls every one else a captain, whether the title is warranted or not. Just as all elderly gentlemen are called colonel in Kentucky.
"Greetings," said the sailor.
"When you sailin'?" asked pigeon-egg-eyed man.
"Couple of days."
"Got a full crew?"
"Dunno. You better see the Old Man. Cap'n Smooth. He's not aboard to-night."
"Thanks, captain," said the one-eyed sailor. He walked away, and was swallowed in the darkness. He had gone in the direction of town.
His course did not take him toward town for any considerable distance, however. He doubled back and went directly to one of the big hawsers by which the Benny Boston was tied to the pier. He seemed to be the brother of a cat in his ability to get about in the dark.
Without seeming to exert his muscles in the least, he swung along the hawser. He passed the big conical tin rat guard through which the hawser ran, and went on.
The rat guard was turned so as to keep the rats on shore, but it would have been more appropriate the other way, rats being much more plentiful on the old steamer than on shore.
Once on deck, the prowler entered the holds. He showed an extraordinary familiarity with the interior of freight steamers of ancient vintage. He lighted his way with a flashlight, which emitted only a small streak of light.
He began searching the ship. A thorough job, he did; but he seemed little interested in the holds, passages and cabins which were used most frequently.
Nothing did he miss, which was unusual, because there were numerous crannies of the most remote kind. The prowler even raised a trapdoor and wormed down into the bilge, wading around in water which was incredibly smelly and coated with almost a quarter of an inch of grease and scum.