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

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“Well?”

“Well I felt so ill after the journey that the rest seems all hazy. I know I participated in some of their vile religious ceremonies. I was forced into the belly of Mzata—”

“Is that the idol?”

“Yes. I remember the heat was overpowering. Then before I realized anything else, Kaweeka came and rescued me. She carried me here, and—well, old chap, the rest isn’t pleasant. The woman is a fiend. Down here there is no one for her to allure, and as I believe I was the first white man to get here alive, she gave me the benefit of her powerful wiles. She admitted me into a kind of harem, in which I am”—he laughed bitterly—“her chief husband.”

“My God,” said Alan hoarsely, “You have married her, Desmond?”

Desmond nodded. “I suppose that’s what it is—but I don’t understand much of what she says. At any rate I was taken to the temple and after a long ceremony, she came forward and acknowledged me before the congregation. Time after time I’ve been within an ace of killing myself, for the situation is unbearable. But she has spies everywhere and every chance has been taken from me.”