Читать «Машина ужаса (Фантастические произведения)» онлайн - страница 324

“There must be a fire somewhere,” remarked Eike, flaming up again with the curiosity, which is so much part of a newspaper man.

“It’s there…” insisted Deriugin with growing alarm. “We are late! It’s there!”

His premonition did not deceive him. Their noses were soon assailed by a scorching sensation. Opposite the house in which Flinder lived, a large throng of people had assembled. From the garden, now and then, firemen were running to their engines; beyond the iron fence and between the trees, where the laboratory stood, tongues of flames danced and smoke rose and whirled, gradually being carried away into the street which was becoming enveloped in a thick and corrosive cloud.

In this hubbub, Eike immediately lost sight of Deriugin, so he decided to go around the burning house to the windy side to quietly view the scene of fire, from there. Suddenly, from the side of the laboratory came loud shrieks from the firemen and the crowds of curious people who had broken into the garden. Eike threw himself in the direction of the shrieks and almost collided with Deriugin, who ran up at demoniacal speed.

“Look out! It has broken out into the open! Look out, Eike!” he shouted, waving everybody away with his hands.

At that moment, a gust of wind wafted a cloud of smoke upon the two, and the editor saw a sphere of fire, about eighteen inches in diameter, quivering and tossing, borne by the wind, directly towards the dumbfounded spectators.

“Save yourselves!” shouted someone in the crowd. “It’s ball lightning!”

The crowd of people scattered in all directions. Eike remained on the spot, as if nailed to the ground, but only for a few fleeting seconds. Soon, he too, threw himself aside, as the flaming whirl, flying past and only a few feet away from him, breathed forth its sultry heat and blinded the eyes with its dazzling glitter. As it moved over the sand of the road, thousands of fiery sparks fell from it upon the earth and upon objects it met on its way.

Dazed and stunned, Eike fell down, stumbling over bumps. Lying there, his terror-filled eyes continued to follow the flight of the sphere.

He saw how the trees, with which the fiery sphere collided, caught fire; how a sudden gust of wind flung it upon a group of people that tried to cross its path; how a shower of fiery rays poured down upon them and, without having had a chance to even utter a cry, three of them dropped flat on the ground and remained motionless.

The last thing Eike succeeded in seeing was how the fiery globe reached the iron fence. A loud crackling was heard, as if a shock of lightning had passed between the iron bars and the fiery cloud, and in the next moment the sphere found itself on the outer side of the fence in which yawned a large opening, lined by tom and melted fragments of metal. The streets were filled with wild shoutings, stamping of feet, pealing of bells and loud cracklings.