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

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Their features were extremely pointed, and their eyes were small, but of a piercing brilliance. From the middle of the forehead, grew a tusk or horn, about ten inches long. For some time Alan puzzled over the strange horn, but its use was demonstrated to him only too soon. It was a weapon of offence. One of the women suddenly rose, and began an unintelligible tirade against her companion. The man did his best to pacify her, but it was useless, and suddenly she bent down, and with a viciousness Alan could hardly realize, thrust her tusk into the man’s face, and with a wild shriek dived into the water and swam away. The man was left with a gaping wound on his cheek, from which flowed a sickly, purply-white fluid. With hoarse chuckles, the remaining three swam off, leaving the man alone. Alan watched him intently. Diving to the bottom of the river, the creature stayed there an incredibly long time, and then reappeared with a bunch of purple water weeds in his hand. He laid a handful of these weeds on his wound, to which they adhered by a secretion of their own, and the man swam away also, leaving Alan more alone than before.