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

expanses of snow. It felt warm to Graham's benurrled feet, and a faint eddy
of steam rose from it.

"Come on!" shouted his guide ten yards off, and, without waiting, ran
swiftly through the incandescent glare towards the iron supports of the
next range of wind-wheels. Graham, recovering from his astonishment,
followed as fast, convinced of his imminent capture.

In a score of seconds they were within a tracery of glare and black shadows
shot with moving bars beneath the monstrous wheels. Graham's conductor ran
on for some time, and suddenly darted sideways and vanished into a black
shadow in the corner of the foot of a huge support. In another moment
Graham was beside him.

They cowered panting and stared out.

The scene upon which Graham looked was very wild and strange. The snow had
now almost ceased; only a belated flake passed now and again across the
picture. But the broad stretch of level before them was a ghastly white,
broken only by gigantic masses and moving shapes and lengthy strips of
impenetrable darkness, vast ungainly Titans of shadow. All about them, huge
metallic structures, iron girders, inhumanly vast as it seemed to him,
interlaced, and the edges of wind-wheels, scarcely moving in the lull, I
passed in great shining curves steeper and steeper up into a luminous haze.
Wherever the snow-spangled light struck down, beams and girders, and
incessant bands running with a halting, indomitable resolution passed
upward and downward into the black. And with all that mighty activity, with
an omnipresent sense of motive and design, this snow-clad desolation of
mechanism seemed void of all human presence save themselves, seemed as
trackless and deserted and unfrequented by men as some inaccessible Alpine
snowfield.

"They will be chasing us," cried the leader. "We are scarcely halfway there
yet. Cold as it is we must hide here for a space-at least until it snows
more thickly again."

His teeth chattered in his head.

"Where are the markets? " asked Graham staring out. "Where are all the
people? "

The other made no answer.


"Look!" whispered Graham, crouched close, and became very still.

The snow had suddenly become thick again, and sliding with the whirling
eddies out of the black pit of the sky came something, vague and large and
very swift. It came down in a steep curve and swept round, wide wings
extended and a trail of white condensing steam behind it, rose with an easy