Читать книгу Mutiny on the Bounty. Historical Novel онлайн

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Young was a man grown. He flushed at the captain’s words, but touched his hat respectfully and summoned his men at once. The party did not return till the following forenoon, having been nearly twenty-four hours without food. Skinner was with them this time; he had wandered off in search of another honey tree and become lost in the thick bush.

Bligh paced the quarter-deck angrily as the boat approached. By nature a man who brooded over grudges till they were magnified out of all proportion to reality, the captain was ready to explode the moment Young set foot on deck.

“Come aft, Mr. Young!” he called harshly. “I’m going to teach you to attend to your duty, instead of skylarking about the woods. Mr. Morrison!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Come aft here and seize up Mr. Young on that gun yonder! You’re to give him a dozen with a rope’s end.”

Young was an officer of the ship and rated as a gentleman, a proud, fearless man of gentle birth. Though Bligh was within his powers as captain, the public flogging of such a man was almost without precedent in the Service. Morrison’s jaw dropped at the order, which he obeyed with such evidence of reluctance that Bligh shouted at him threateningly, “Look alive, Mr. Morrison! I’ve my eye on you!”