Читать книгу In the Dwellings of the Wilderness онлайн | страница 1
Charlotte Bryson Taylor
In the Dwellings of the Wilderness
The Curse of an Egyptian Mummy (Horror & Supernatural Mystery)
e-artnow, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
EAN 4064066386405
Table of Contents
ssss1
ssss1
ssss1
ssss1
ssss1
ssss1
ssss1
ssss1
"There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."
Hamlet I. v.
To
My Mother
CHAPTER I
In the Dark Backward and Abysm of Time
ssss1
Deane came out of his tent, lighting a particularly unclean briar, and strolled over to where Merritt lay flat on his back, his hands behind his head, staring out over the desert into the painted sunset sky. Off to the right were the excavations, gaping like raw wounds in the monotone of brown desert sand; huge mounds of out-flung earth, monstrous and grotesque, deep pits and chasms with sloping ridges and embankments; in the great mound called by the Arabs the Mound of the Lost City, which overtopped and dominated all the rest, wide trenches, long and deep, cutting far into the hidden heart of it, by which men had ascended from and descended to what lay below. To the left were the small army of labourers, camped behind one of the smaller untapped mounds, intent upon their meagre supper of parched corn. The bluish smoke of a fire rose from behind a jutting breastwork of earth where Ibraheem, the overseer, was making the thick, fragrant coffee of his land. Already the loneliness of coming night was upon the earth; already the sun had dipped below the desert's rim, and the fierce colour of the sky was fading. Away to the east, behind the camps, far to the edge of the world, the shadow of darkness was racing with swift, silent strides.
Deane sat down beside Merritt's prostrate figure. He was tall, and deep-chested, and thin-flanked, with a certain gravity about him which made him appear older than his years. His eyes were brown and quiet, his hair a brownish red, remarkably stiff and wiry; about his mouth were faint lines of humour. Merritt, short and thin and tough as whit-leather, grey of hair and keen of face, moved a hand from beneath his head, tilted back the hat that hid his face, and looked up at Deane.