Читать книгу Jewel sowers. A novel онлайн

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“Here’s one with pictures; look at it.”

He took down from a shelf a heavy and ponderous volume of the Book of Divine Inspiration, as written and compiled in the planet Lucifram, and carried it without the least apparent effort to the table.

“Now come and look at the pictures. I’ll show you a few, and then you can take it away with you and look at the rest.”

He opened it at the first page—the frontispiece. It was a picture of the Golden Serpent, so lifelike that its appearance was most startling. The book, likewise, must have possessed the property of magnifying all contained in it, for suddenly the head and coils and tails seemed to enlarge to the same gigantic size as that within the temple.

“I don’t like it. Don’t show me any more of that book,” Rosalie said.

“But why?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered, almost whispering. “It’s the Serpent. I don’t like it.”

“But you are the young lady who was kissing its head, and throwing your arms around it.”

“Yes, I know. That was because I did not understand.”