Читать книгу Pitcairn's Island. Sea Adventure Novel онлайн

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They descended the steep ridge to the gentler slopes below and made their way slowly along, skirting the dense thickets of pandanus and rata trees, and crossing glades where the interlaced foliage, high overhead, cut off the faint light of the afterglow, making the darkness below almost that of night.

In one of these glades two others of the Bounty’s company had passed that afternoon. Scarcely had Christian and Young crossed it when a screen of thick fern at one side parted and Hutia glanced after the retreating figures. She was a handsome girl of nineteen with small, firm breasts and a thick braid of hair reaching to her knees. She stood poised as lightly as a fawn ready for flight, all but invisible in the shadows; then she turned to someone behind her.

“Christian!” she exclaimed in an awed voice. “Christian and Etuati!”

Williams was lying outstretched in the thick fern, his hands clasped behind his head.

“What if it was?” he replied gruffly. “Come, sit ye down here!” Seizing her by the wrist, he drew her to him fiercely. The girl pushed herself back, laughing softly. “Aué, Jack! You want too much, too fast. I go now. Tararu say, ‘Where Hutia?’ And Fasto say, ‘Where my man?’ ”