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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I had long since chosen such a seat for myself, high above the still water and at a distance of about a cable’s length from the beach. Frequently in the late afternoon I spent an hour or two alone at this place, listening to the rustling of the trees high overhead, and watching the small speckled fresh-water fish as they rose for their evening meal of flies. In my fancy I had named this spot Withycombe, after our home in England, for indeed there were moments when the place seemed English to the core, when I fancied myself in the warm summer twilight at home, watching the trout rise in one of our West Country streams.

To Withycombe, then, I repaired for my morning bath. I threw off the light mantle of Indian cloth from my shoulders and girded up the kilt about my waist. Next moment I slipped into the deep clear water and swam leisurely downstream, drifting with the gentle flow of the current. High in a tree overhead a bird was singing—an omaomao, whose song is sweeter than that of our English nightingale.