Читать книгу The Saint of the Speedway онлайн

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Jim nodded as he laboured.

“It’s the biggest ‘strike’ ever made in the world,” he admitted in a tone that might well have been taken for one of grudging.

It was the northwest coast of Australia, the coast of that almost unexplored region which is one of the few remote territories of the world still retaining its fabulous atmosphere of romance.

It was on the shores of a wide, shallow bay where a small river abruptly opened out its land arms in welcome to the tropical ocean. Sun-scorched, fleshy vegetation grew densely almost to the water’s edge, keeping dank and fever-laden the suffocating atmosphere within its widespread bosom. Yet only was it this merciful shade that made life endurable to sensitive human creatures.

The sun was at its zenith, a furious disc of molten heat in a brazen sky. The sea at the river mouth lay dead flat under its burning rays, except for the ripple where some huge submarine creature disturbed its surface. Not a breath of air was stirring to relieve the suffocating atmosphere.