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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“By God, Stewart! I believe it can be done!”

“Must be done, rather! Morrison and I are Navy men, and we have our careers to think of. But there have been many times when I have longed to stay here.”

On the evening of the fifth of June we raised the highlands of Tahiti, far ahead and ghostly among the clouds, and on the following afternoon we sailed into Matavai Bay and dropped anchor close to Point Venus. Every man on board had been instructed what to tell the Indians of his acquaintance who might make inquiries: at Aitutaki we had fallen in with Captain Cook, Bligh’s father, who was forming an English settlement on that island. Bligh, Nelson, and others of the Bounty’s crew had been taken aboard Cook’s ship, and he had ordered the Bounty to leave the breadfruit plants with him, and return to Tahiti to trade for further stores and whatever livestock it might be possible to obtain. The ship was then to set sail in search of another island suitable for settlement.

The Indians flocked out to the ship—Teina, Hitihiti, and the other chiefs curious to know why we had returned so soon and what had become of the absent members of the ship’s company. The story invented by Christian satisfied them completely, and since he was popular—much more so than Bligh—the natives promised to furnish everything we desired, and the trading was friendly and brisk.