Читать книгу The Perfect World. A romance of strange people and strange places онлайн

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“Yes?”

“He’s blind.”

“Blind?”

Matt Harding could say no more, but sank down on to a chair and buried his head in his hands.

For a week Ezra lay delirious, and it was even longer than that before any one could get his story from him. When it came, it was disjointed and almost incoherent. After he and Luke Wilden had walked about a mile, he told them, they suddenly saw in the distance something that looked like a red hot wire on the horizon. Dancing and swaying it drew nearer to them, and fascinated they watched to see what it could possibly be.

Then suddenly, before they realized, it was upon them. It swooped down and coiled around Luke’s body, and carried him off into mid-air. As he tried to drag Luke from its clutches, the end of it, in curling around Luke still more firmly, struck him, and burnt and blinded him. He remembered no more; everything grew dim, and he fled down the long, straight road towards the village, instinct guiding him in place of his sight.

Every one heard the story incredulously, and it duly appeared in the London newspapers, and tended to make the “Marshfielden Mystery” as it was called, still more complicated and unfathomable.