"George A. Stewart - Earth Abides" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart George A)

Rounding the curve, he left the sound of barking behind. But the sight of
the dog had been another evidence of normality. Ish began to whistle
contentedly. It was ten miles now until he came to the first town, a little


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place called Hutsonville.

*Consider the case of Captain Maclear's rat. This interesting rodent
inhabited Christmas Island, a small bit of tropical verdure some two
hundred miles south of Java. The species was first described for science in
1887, the skull being noted as large and strongly built, with beaded
supra-orbital edges and the anterior edge of the zygomatic plate projecting
forward conspicuously. *

*A naturalist observed the rats as populating the island "in swarms, "
feeding upon fruit and young shoots. To the rats the island was as a whole
world, an earthly paradise. The observer noted: "They seem to breed all the
year round." Yet such was the luxuriance of the tropical growth that the
rats had not attained such numbers as to provide competition among members
of the species. The individual rats were extremely well nourished, and even
unduly fat. *

*In 1903 some new disease sprang up. Because of their crowding and also
probably because of the softened condition of the individuals, the rats
proved universally susceptible, and soon were dying by thousands. In spite
of great numbers, in spite of an abundant supply of food, in spite of a
very rapid breeding rate, the species is extinct. *

He came over the rise, and saw Hutsonville a mile away. Just as he started
to slide down the grade, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of
something which turned him inwardly cold. Automatically he tramped hard on
the brake. He walked back, scarcely believing that he had really seen it.
Just there at the side of the road, in full view, lay the body of a fully
clothed man; ants were crawling over the face. The body must have lain
there a day or two at least. Why had it not been seen? He did not look
closely or long, obviously the thing to do was to get into Hutsonville, and
tell the Coroner as soon as possible. He hurried back to the car.

Yet as he started again, he had a deep feeling inside him somewhere,
strangely, that this was not a case for the Coroner, and that possibly
there would even be no Coroner. He had seen no one at the Johnson's or at
the power-house, and he had not met a single car on the road. The only
things that seemed real from all the old life had been the light burning at
the power-house and the quiet hum of the great generators at their work.

Then, as he came to the first houses, he suddenly breathed more easily, for
there on a vacant lot a hen was quietly scratching in the dust, a