Читать книгу The Blue Lagoon & The Garden of God (Sequel) онлайн

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“Kape off me, you baste!” shouted Paddy. “Holy Mary, Mother of God! I’ll land you a kick wid me fut if yiz come nigh me. Em’leen! Em’leen! come betune us!”

He tripped, and over he went on the sand, the indefatigable Dick beating him with a little switch he had picked up to make him continue.

“I’m better now, but I’m near wore out,” said Mr Button, sitting up on the sand. “But, bedad, if I’m chased by any more things like them it’s into the say I’ll be dashin’. Dick, lend me your arum.”

He took Dick’s arm and wandered over to the shade of the trees. Here he threw himself down, and told the children to leave him to sleep. They recognised that the game was over and left him. And he slept for six hours on end; it was the first real sleep he had had for several days. When he awoke he was well, but very shaky.

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Mr Button saw no more rats, much to Dick’s disappointment. He was off the drink. At dawn next day he got up, refreshed by a second sleep, and wandered down to the edge of the lagoon. The opening in the reef faced the east, and the light of the dawn came rippling in with the flooding tide.