Любимые повести на английском / Best Short Novels

Clear against the sky a broken, white-haired man was slowly descending the steep slope, followed by two gigantic and emotionless negroes, who carried a burden between them which still flashed and glittered in the sun. Half-way down two other figures joined them – John could see that they were Mrs. Washington and her son, upon whose arm she leaned. The aviators had clambered from their machines to the sweeping lawn in front of the château, and with rifles in hand were starting up the diamond mountain in skirmishing formation.

But the little group of five which had formed farther up and was engrossing all the watchers’ attention had stopped upon a ledge of rock. The negroes stooped and pulled up what appeared to be a trap-door in the side of the mountain. Into this they all disappeared, the white-haired man first, then his wife and son, finally the two negroes, the glittering tips of whose jeweled head-dresses caught the sun for a moment before the trap-door descended and engulfed them all.

Kismine clutched John’s arm.

‘Oh,’ she cried wildly, ‘where are they going? What are they going to do?’

‘It must be some underground way of escape.’

A little scream from the two girls interrupted his sentence.

‘Don’t you see?’ sobbed Kismine hysterically. ‘The mountain is wired!’

Even as she spoke John put up his hands to shield his sight. Before their eyes the whole surface of the mountain had changed suddenly to a dazzling burning yellow, which showed up through the jacket of turf as light shows through a human hand. For a moment the intolerable glow continued, and then like an extinguished filament it disappeared, revealing a black waste from which blue smoke arose slowly, carrying off with it what remained of vegetation and of human flesh. Of the aviators there was left neither blood, nor bone – they were consumed as completely as the five souls who had gone inside.

Simultaneously, and with an immense concussion, the château literally threw itself into the air, bursting into flaming fragments as it rose, and then tumbling back upon itself in a smoking pile that lay projecting half into the water of the lake. There was no fire – what smoke there was drifted off mingling with the sunshine, and for a few minutes longer a powdery dust of marble drifted from the great featureless pile that had once been the house of jewels. There was no more sound and the three people were alone in the valley.

XI

At sunset John and his two companions reached the high cliff which had marked the boundaries of the Washingtons’ dominion, and looking back found the valley tranquil and lovely in the dusk. They sat down to finish the food which Jasmine had brought with her in a basket.

‘There!’ she said, as she spread the table-cloth and put the sandwiches in a neat pile upon it. ‘Don’t they look tempting? I always think that food tastes better outdoors.’

‘With that remark,’ remarked Kismine, ‘Jasmine enters the middle class.’

‘Now,’ said John eagerly, ‘turn out your pocket and let’s see what jewels you brought along. If you made a good selection we three ought to live comfortably all the rest of our lives.’

Obediently Kismine put her hand in her pocket and tossed two handfuls of glittering stones before him.

‘Not so bad,’ cried John, enthusiastically. ‘They aren’t very big, but – Hello!’ His expression changed as he held one of them up to the declining sun. ‘Why, these aren’t diamonds! There’s something the matter!’

‘By golly!’[48 - By golly! – Ну и ну! (восклицание удивления)] exclaimed Kismine, with a startled look. ‘What an idiot I am!’

‘Why, these are rhinestones![49 - Rhinestones – разновидность горного хрусталя; камни, имитирующие бриллианты.]’ cried John.

‘I know.’ She broke into a laugh. ‘I opened the wrong drawer. They belonged on the dress of a girl who visited Jasmine. I got her to give them to me in exchange for diamonds. I’d never seen anything but precious stones before.’

‘And this is what you brought?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ She fingered the brilliants wistfully. ‘I think I like these better. I’m a little tired of diamonds.’

‘Very well,’ said John gloomily. ‘We’ll have to live in Hades. And you will grow old telling incredulous women that you got the wrong drawer. Unfortunately your father’s bank-books were consumed with him.’

‘Well, what’s the matter with Hades?’

‘If I come home with a wife at my age my father is just as liable as not to cut me off with a hot coal,[50 - To cut me off with a hot coal – лишить наследства, оставить мало или совсем ничего (идиома).] as they say down there.’

Jasmine spoke up.

‘I love washing,’ she said quietly. ‘I have always washed my own handkerchiefs. I’ll take in laundry and support you both.’

‘Do they have washwomen in Hades?’ asked Kismine innocently.