Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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It was then about one o’clock, and with the exception of the watch there was no one on deck but Tinkler and myself. Mr. Peckover was standing at the rail on the opposite side of the deck. I could make out his form dimly in the starlight. Someone appeared at the after ladderway. It was Christian. After half a dozen turns up and down the deck, he observed me standing between the guns.

“Oh, it’s you, Byam?” He came and stood beside me, his elbows on the rail. I had not seen him since the affair of the afternoon.

At length he asked, “Did you know that he had invited me to sup with him? Why? Can you tell me that? After spitting on me, wiping his feet on me, he sent Samuel to ask me to eat at his table!”

“You didn’t go?”

“After what had happened? God in heaven, no!”

I had never before seen a man in a mood of such black despair. He seemed at the last extremity of endurance. I was glad to be there, to be of service as a confidant, for it was plain that he was in desperate need of unburdening himself. That Bligh should have asked him to supper was, in truth, all but incredible, after the events of the afternoon. I suggested that it might be taken as evidence of an unsuspected delicacy of conscience in Bligh, but I believed this no more than did Christian himself.