ADVENTURE books online

Reading books adventure Nowadays a big variety of genres are exist. In our electronic library you can choose any book that suits your mood, request and purpose. This website is full of free ebooks. Reading online is very popular and become mainstream. This website can provoke you to be smarter than anyone. You can read between work breaks, in public transport, in cafes over a cup of coffee and cheesecake.
No matter where, but it’s important to read books in our elibrary , without registration.



Today let's analyze the genre adventure. Genre adventure is a reference book for adults and children. But it serve for adults and children in different purposes. If a boy or girl presents himself as a brave and courageous hero, doing noble deeds, then an adult with pleasure can be a little distracted from their daily worries.


A great interest to the reader is the adventure of a historical nature. For example, question: «Who discovered America?»
Today there are quite interesting descriptions of the adventures of Portuguese sailors, who visited this continent 20 years before Columbus.




It should be noted the different quality of literary works created in the genre of adventure. There is an understandable interest of generations of people in the classic adventure. At the same time, new works, which are created by contemporary authors, make classic works in the adventure genre quite worthy competition.
The close attention of readers to the genre of adventure is explained by the very essence of man, which involves constant movement, striving for something new, struggle and achievement of success. Adventure genre is very excited
Heroes of adventure books are always strong and brave. And we, off course, want to be like them. Unfortunately, book life is very different from real life.But that doesn't stop us from loving books even more.

Read books online » Adventure » Ayesha by H. Rider Haggard (e novels to read online .TXT) 📖

Book online «Ayesha by H. Rider Haggard (e novels to read online .TXT) 📖». Author H. Rider Haggard



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she might learn how much I knew, although the “death-hounds had bayed,” whatever that might mean. Well, up to the present I was safe, and for the rest I must take my chance. Moreover it was necessary to be cautious, and, if need were, to feign ignorance. So, dismissing the matter of my own fate from my mind, I fell to considering the scene which I had witnessed and what might be its purport.

Was our quest at an end? Was this woman Ayesha? Leo had so dreamed, but he was still delirious, therefore here was little on which to lean. What seemed more to the point was that she herself evidently appeared to think that there existed some tie between her and this sick man. Why had she embraced him? I was sure that she could be no wanton, nor indeed would any woman indulge for its own sake in such folly with a stranger who hung between life and death. What she had done was done because irresistible impulse, born of knowledge, or at least of memories, drove her on, though mayhap the knowledge was imperfect and the memories were undefined. Who save Ayesha could have known anything of Leo in the past? None who lived upon the earth to-day.

And yet, why not, if what Kou-en the abbot and tens of millions of his fellow-worshippers believed were true? If the souls of human beings were in fact strictly limited in number, and became the tenants of an endless succession of physical bodies which they change from time to time as we change our worn-out garments, why should not others have known him? For instance that daughter of the Pharaohs who “caused him through love to break the vows that he had vowed” knew a certain Kallikrates, a priest of “Isis whom the gods cherish and the demons obey;” even Amenartas, the mistress of magic.

Oh! now a light seemed to break upon me, a wonderful light. What if Amenartas and this Khania, this woman with royalty stamped on every feature, should be the same? Would not that “magic of my own people that I have” of which she wrote upon the Sherd, enable her to pierce the darkness of the Past and recognize the priest whom she had bewitched to love her, snatching him out of the very hand of the goddess? What if it were not Ayesha, but Amenartas re-incarnate who ruled this hidden land and once more sought to make the man she loved break through his vows? If so, knowing the evil that must come, I shook even at its shadow. The truth must be learned, but how?

Whilst I wondered the door opened, and the sardonic, inscrutable-old-faced man, whom this Khania had called Magician, and who called the Khania, niece, entered and stood before me.





CHAPTER VII THE FIRST ORDEAL

The shaman advanced to my side and asked me courteously how I fared.

I answered, “Better. Far better, oh, my host—but how are you named?”

“Simbri,” he answered, “and, as I told you by the water, my title is Hereditary Guardian of the Gate. By profession I am the royal Physician in this land.”

“Did you say physician or magician?” I asked carelessly, as though I had not caught the word. He gave me a curious look.

“I said physician, and it is well for you and your companion that I have some skill in my art. Otherwise I think, perhaps, you would not have been alive to-day, O my guest—but how are you named?”

“Holly,” I said.

“O my guest, Holly.”

“Had it not been for the foresight that brought you and the lady Khania to the edge of yonder darksome river, certainly we should not have been alive, venerable Simbri, a foresight that seems to me to savour of magic in such a lonely place. That is why I thought you might have described yourself as a magician, though it is true that you may have been but fishing in those waters.”

“Certainly I was fishing, stranger Holly—for men, and I caught two.”

“Fishing by chance, host Simbri?”

“Nay, by design, guest Holly. My trade of physician includes the study of future events, for I am the chief of the Shamans or Seers of this land, and, having been warned of your coming quite recently, I awaited your arrival.”

“Indeed, that is strange, most courteous also. So here physician and magician mean the same.”

“You say it,” he answered with a grave bow; “but tell me, if you will, how did you find your way to a land whither visitors do not wander?”

“Oh!” I answered, “perhaps we are but travellers, or perhaps we also have studied—medicine.”

“I think that you must have studied it deeply, since otherwise you would not have lived to cross those mountains in search of—now, what did you seek? Your companion, I think, spoke of a queen—yonder, on the banks of the torrent.”

“Did he? Did he, indeed? Well, that is strange since he seems to have found one, for surely that royal-looking lady, named Khania, who sprang into the stream and saved us, must be a queen.”

“A queen she is, and a great one, for in our land Khania means queen, though how, friend Holly, a man who has lain senseless can have learned this, I do not know. Nor do I know how you come to speak our language.”

“That is simple, for the tongue you talk is very ancient, and as it chances in my own country it has been my lot to study and to teach it. It is Greek, but although it is still spoken in the world, how it reached these mountains I cannot say.”

“I will tell you,” he answered. “Many generations ago a great conqueror born of the nation that spoke this tongue fought his way through the country to the south of us. He was driven back, but a general of his of another race advanced and crossed the mountains, and overcame the people of this land, bringing with him his master’s language and his own worship. Here he established his dynasty, and here it remains, for being ringed in with deserts and with pathless mountain snows, we hold no converse with the outer world.”

“Yes, I know something of that story; the conqueror was named Alexander, was he not?” I asked.

“He was so named, and the name of the general was Rassen, a native of a country called Egypt, or so our records tell us. His descendants hold the throne to this day, and the Khania is of his blood.”

“Was the goddess whom he worshipped called Isis?”

“Nay,” he answered, “she was called Hes.”

“Which,” I interrupted, “is but another title for Isis. Tell me, is her worship continued here? I ask because it is now dead in Egypt, which was its home.”

“There is a temple on the Mountain yonder,” he replied indifferently, “and in it are priests and priestesses who practise some ancient cult. But the real god of this people now, as long before the day of Rassen their conqueror, is the fire that dwells in this same Mountain, which from time to time breaks out and slays them.”

“And does a goddess dwell in the fire?” I asked.

Again he searched my face with his cold eyes, then answered—“Stranger Holly, I know nothing of any goddess. That Mountain is sacred, and to seek to learn its secrets is to die. Why do you ask such questions?”

“Only because I am curious in the matter of old religions, and seeing the symbol of Life upon yonder peak, came hither to study yours, of which indeed a tradition still remains among the learned.”

“Then abandon that study, friend Holly, for the road to it runs through the paws of the death-hounds, and the spears of savages. Nor indeed is there anything to learn.”

“And what, Physician, are the death-hounds?”

“Certain dogs to which, according to our ancient custom, all offenders against the law or the will of the Khan, are cast to be torn to pieces.”

“The will of the Khan! Has this Khania of yours a husband then?”

“Aye,” he answered, “her cousin, who was the ruler of half the land. Now they and the land are one. But you have talked enough; I am here to say that your food is ready,” and he turned to leave the room.

“One more question, friend Simbri. How came I to this chamber, and where is my companion?”

“You were borne hither in your sleep, and see, the change has bettered you. Do you remember nothing?”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” I answered earnestly. “But what of my friend?”

“He also is better. The Khania Atene nurses him.”

“Atene?” I said. “That is an old Egyptian name. It means the Disk of the Sun, and a woman who bore it thousands of years ago was famous for her beauty.”

“Well, and is not my niece Atene beautiful?”

“How can I tell, O uncle of the Khania,” I answered wearily, “who have scarcely seen her?”

Then he departed, and presently his yellow-faced, silent servants brought me my food.

Later in the morning the door opened again, and through it, unattended, came the Khania Atene, who shut and bolted it behind her. This action did not reassure me, still, rising in my bed, I saluted her as best I could, although at heart I was afraid. She seemed to read my doubts for she said—“Lie down, and have no fear. At present you will come by no harm from me. Now, tell me what is the man called Leo to you? Your son? Nay, it cannot be, since—forgive me—light is not born of darkness.”

“I have always thought that it was so born, Khania. Yet you are right; he is but my adopted son, and a man whom I love.”

“Say, what seek you here?” she asked.

“We seek, Khania, whatsoever Fate shall bring us on yonder Mountain, that which is crowned with flame.”

Her face paled at the words, but she answered in a steady voice—“Then there you will find nothing but doom, if indeed you do not find it before you reach its slopes, which are guarded by savage men. Yonder is the College of Hes, and to violate its Sanctuary is death to any man, death in the ever-burning fire.”

“And who rules this college, Khania—a priestess?”

“Yes, a priestess, whose face I have never seen, for she is so old that she veils herself from curious eyes.”

“Ah! she veils herself, does she?” I answered, as the blood went thrilling through my veins, I who remembered another who also was so old that she veiled herself from curious eyes. “Well, veiled or unveiled, we would visit her, trusting to find that we are welcome.”

“That you shall not do,” she said, “for it is unlawful, and I will not have your blood upon my hands.”

“Which is the stronger,” I asked of her, “you, Khania, or this priestess of the Mountain?”

“I am the stronger, Holly, for so you are named, are you not? Look you, at my need I can summon sixty thousand men in war, while she has naught but her priests and the fierce, untrained tribes.”

“The sword is not the only power in the world,” I answered. “Tell me, now, does this priestess ever visit the country of Kaloon?”

“Never, never, for by the ancient pact, made after the last great struggle long centuries ago between the College and the people of the Plain, it was decreed and sworn to that should she set her foot across the river, this means war to the end between us, and rule for the victor over both. Likewise, save when unguarded they bear their dead to burial, or for some such high purpose, no Khan or Khania of Kaloon ascends the Mountain.”

“Which then is the true master—the Khan of Kaloon or the head of the College of Hes?” I asked again.

“In matters spiritual, the priestess of Hes, who is our Oracle and the voice of Heaven. In matters temporal, the Khan of Kaloon.”

“The Khan. Ah! you are married, lady, are you not?”

“Aye,” she answered, her face flushing. “And I will tell you

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