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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We could not suppose that so large a prison had been prepared for four men, and by each of the unoccupied ringbolts lay a pair of leg irons ready for use. Evidently Captain Edwards had reason to believe that he would soon take others of the Bounty’s company. That Christian and his party had returned was so improbable as not to be worth considering. The only remaining possibility was that the departure of the Resolution from Papara had been delayed, and that she was either captured or about to be. We were not long kept in doubt. Two days later, the grating over the roof scuttle was raised, and Morrison, Norman, and Ellison were brought down and chained beside us.

This was a meeting such as none of us had hoped for. Morrison and Norman had not yet recovered from their astonishment at being treated as pirates. Ellison was the same scatterbrained youngster he had always been. Excitement in any form was the breath of life to him, and to be considered a desperate character, chained up like a wild beast, was his conception of a lark. Fortunately he had no sense of the gravity of his situation, and we did nothing to remind him of it. Of all those who had taken part in the mutiny, he was the one I most hoped would escape capture.