Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Fire-Tongue by Sax Rohmer (the best electronic book reader txt) 📖
- Author: Sax Rohmer
Book online «Fire-Tongue by Sax Rohmer (the best electronic book reader txt) 📖». Author Sax Rohmer
Nearer they drew to the quarry, and nearer. Once—twice—and again, the face of Ormuz Khan peered out of the window at the rear of the limousine.
They drew abreast; the road was deserted. And they passed slightly ahead.
Paul Harley glanced at the granite face of his companion with an apprehension he was unable to conceal. This was a cool madman who drove. What did he intend to do?
Inch by inch, Nicol Brinn edged the torpedo body nearer to the wheels of the racing limousine. The Oriental chauffeur drew in ever closer to the ditch bordering the roadside. He shouted hoarsely and was about to apply the brakes when the two cars touched!
A rending crash came—a hoarse scream—and the big limousine toppled over into the ditch.
Harley felt himself hurled through space.
“Shall I follow on to Lower Claybury, sir?” asked Inspector Wessex, excitedly.
Phil Abingdon’s message had come through nearly an hour before, and a party had been despatched in accordance with Brinn’s instructions. Wessex had returned to New Scotland Yard too late to take charge, and now, before the Assistant Commissioner had time to reply, a ‘phone buzzed.
“Yes?” said the Assistant Commissioner, taking up one of the several instruments: “What!”
Even this great man, so justly celebrated for his placid demeanour, was unable to conceal his amazement.
“Yes,” he added. “Let him come up!” He replaced the receiver and turning to Wessex: “Mr. Nicol Brinn is here!” he informed him.
“What’s that!” cried the inspector, quite startled out of his usual deferential manner.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Came a rap at the door.
“Come in,” said the Assistant Commissioner.
The door was thrown open and Nicol Brinn entered. One who knew him well would have said that he had aged ten years. Even to the eye of Wessex he looked an older man. He wore a shoddy suit and a rough tweed cap and his left arm was bandaged.
“Gentlemen,” he said, without other greeting, “I’m here to make a statement. I desire that a shorthand-writer attend to take it down.”
He dropped weakly into a chair which Wessex placed for him. The Assistant Commissioner, doubtless stimulated by the manner of his extraordinary visitor, who now extracted a cigar from the breast pocket of his ill-fitting jacket and nonchalantly lighted it, successfully resumed his well-known tired manner, and, pressing a bell:
“One shall attend, Mr. Brinn,” he said.
A knock came at the door and a sergeant entered.
“Send Ferris,” directed the Assistant Commissioner. “Quickly.”
Two minutes later a man came in carrying a note book and fountain pen. The Assistant Commissioner motioned him to a chair, and:
“Pray proceed, Mr. Brinn,” he said.
CHAPTER XXX. NICOL BRINN’S STORY OF THE CITY OF FIRE
“The statement which I have to make, gentlemen, will almost certainly appear incredible to you. However, when it has been transcribed I will sign it. And I am going to say here and now that there are points in the narrative which I am in a position to substantiate. What I can’t prove you must take my word for. But I warn you that the story is tough.
“I have a certain reputation for recklessness. I don’t say it may not be inherent; but if you care to look the matter up, you will find that the craziest phase of my life is that covering the last seven years. The reason why I have courted death during that period I am now about to explain.
“Although my father was no traveller, I think I was born with the wanderlust. I started to explore the world in my Harvard vacations, and when college days were over I set about the business whole-heartedly. Where I went and what I did, up to the time that my travels led me to India, is of no interest to you or to anybody else, because in India I found heaven and hell—a discovery enough to satisfy the most adventurous man alive.
“At this present time, gentlemen, I am not going to load you with geographical details. The exact spot at which my life ended, in a sense which I presently hope to make clear, can be located at leisure by the proper authorities, to whom I will supply a detailed map which I have in my possession. I am even prepared to guide the expedition, if the Indian Government considers an expedition necessary and cares to accept my services. It’s good enough for you to know that pig-sticking and tiger-hunting having begun to pall upon me somewhat, I broke away from Anglo-Indian hospitality, and headed up country, where the Himalayas beckoned. I had figured on crossing at a point where no man has crossed yet, but that project was interrupted, and I’m here to tell you why.
“Up there in the northwest provinces they told me I was crazy when I outlined, one night in a mess, of which I was a guest at the time, my scheme for heading northeast toward a tributary of the Ganges which would bring me to the neighbourhood of Khatmandu, right under the shadow of Everest.
“‘Once you leave Khatmandu,’ said the mess president, ‘you are outside the pale as far as British influence is concerned. I suppose you understand that?’
“I told him I quite understood it.
“‘You can’t reach Tibet that way,’ he said.
“‘Never mind, sir,’ I answered. ‘I can try, if I feel like it.’
“Three days later I set out. I am not superstitious, and if I take a long time to make a plan, once I’ve made it I generally stick to it. But right at the very beginning of my expedition I had a warning, if ever a man had one. The country through which my route lay is of very curious formation. If you can imagine a section of your own west country viewed through a giant magnifying glass, you have some sort of picture of the territory in which I found myself.
“Gigantic rocks stand up like monstrous tors, or towers, sometimes offering sheer precipices of many hundreds of feet in height. On those sides of these giant tors, however, which are less precipitous, miniature forests are sometimes found, and absolutely impassable jungles.
“Bordering an independent state, this territory is not at all well known, but I had secured as a guide a man named Vadi—or that was the name he gave me whom I knew to be a high-caste Brahmin of good family. He had been with me for some time, and I thought I could trust him. Therefore, once clear of British territory, I took him into my confidence respecting the real object of my journey.
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