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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“Stop aboard? With rogues and pirates? Never, sir! I shall follow my commander.”

At this moment Churchill, who was everywhere about the decks, caught sight of us.

“What are you about there, Purcell? Damn your blood! You’d steal our tools, would you?”

“Your tools, you scoundrel? They’re mine, and they go where I go!”

“You shan’t take a nail from the ship if I have my way,” Churchill replied. He then called out to Christian, and there was another argument, not only with respect to the tool chest, but as to the carpenter himself. Christian was partly in the mind to keep him on the vessel, knowing his value as a craftsman, but all the others urged against it. Purcell had a violent temper and was regarded by the men as a tyrant second only to Bligh.

“He’s a damned old villain, sir!”

“Keep the carpenter’s mates, Mr. Christian. They’re the men for us.”

“Make him go in the boat!”

“Make me go, you pirates?” he cried. “I’d like to see the man who’ll stop me!”

Unfortunately, Purcell was as thick-headed as he was fearless, and he now so far forgot the interests of Bligh’s party as to boast of what we would do as soon as we should be clear of the mutineers.