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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To leave the ship under the eyes of the mutineers would be hard indeed; to set sail at once, in a fast and seaworthy canoe, watered and provisioned for a voyage across the open sea, would be harder still. Yet hardest of all was the thought of the alternative: “England—home, lost to us forever.”

As I stood by the gangway, deep in these disquieting reflections, Stewart touched my arm. “Look,” he said; “they are throwing the plants overboard!” Directed by Young, a line of men had formed on the ladderway, and they were beginning to pass the pots from hand to hand. A man by the rail, aft, pulled up each young plant by the roots and flung it overboard, while others emptied the earth into the sea and carried the pots to the fore-hatch. We carried more than a thousand young breadfruit trees, all in flourishing condition, and now the Bounty left a wake of their rich green foliage tossing on the blue swell. They had been gathered and cared for with infinite pains; to obtain them we had suffered hardships, braved unknown seas, and sailed more than twenty-seven thousand miles, in fair weather and foul. And now the plants, eagerly awaited in the West Indies, were going overboard like so much unwanted ballast.