"Herbert George Wells. When the Sleeper Wakes" - читать интересную книгу автора

After a space he grew calm. He sat up, his hands hanging over his knees in
almost precisely the same attitude in which Isbister had found him on the
cliff at Pentargen. His attention was attracted by a thick domineering
voice, the footsteps of an advancing personage. "What are you doing? Why
was I not warned? Surely you could tell? Someone will suffer for this. The
man must be kept quiet. Are the doorways closed? All the doorways? He must
be kept perfectly quiet. He must not be told. Has he been told anything?"

The man with the fair beard made some inaudible remark, and Graham looking
over his shoulder saw approaching a very short, fat, and thickset beardless
man, with aquiline nose and heavy neck and chin. Very thick black and
slightly sloping eyebrows that almost met over his nose and overhung deep
grey eyes, gave his face an oddly formidable expression. He scowled
momentarily at Graham and then his regard returned to the man with the
flaxen beard. "These others," he said in a voice of extreme irritation.
"You had better go."

"Go? " said the red-bearded man.

"Certainly-go now. But see the doorways are closed as you go."

The two men addressed turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at
Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked
straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then
came a strange thing; a long strip of this apparently solid wall rolled up
with a snap, hung over the two retreating men and fell again, and
immediately Graham was alone with the new comer and the purple-robed man
with the flaxen beard.

For a space the thickset man took not the slightest notice of Graham, but
proceeded to interrogate the other-obviously his subordinate-upon the
treatment of their charge. He spoke clearly, but in phrases only partially
intelligible to Graham. The awakening seemed not only a matter of surprise
but of consternation and annoyance to him. He was evidently profoundly
excited.

"You must not confuse his mind by telling him things," he repeated again
and again. "You must not confuse his mind."

His questions answered, he turned quickly and eyed the awakened sleeper
with an ambiguous expression.

"Feel queer? " he asked.

"Very."

"The world, what you see of it, seems strange to you? "

"I suppose I have to live in it, strange as it seems."