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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Morrison told me that he had seen Stewart go down. He had not been able to get clear of the ship as she foundered. A heavy spar had shot up from the broken water, and as it fell Stewart was struck on the head and sank instantly. Of all the events that had happened since the Bounty left England, excepting only my parting from my wife and little daughter, Stewart’s death was the one that cast the deepest gloom upon my spirit. A better companion and a truer friend, in good fortune and bad, never lived.

Captain Edwards ordered tents to be erected with the sails from the ship’s boats, one for the officers and one for the men. We prisoners were sent to the windward end of the sandbar, and, as there was no possibility of escape, we were not guarded in the daytime; but two sentinels were placed over us at night, lest ten of us should attack a ship’s company nearly ten times our strength. Nor were we permitted to speak to anyone save each other. During our five months’ confinement in the frigate, our bodies, which had become inured to tropical sunlight at the time of our capture, had bleached, and were almost as white as that of any counting-house clerk in London. Most of us were stark naked, and our skin was soon terribly blistered by the sun. We begged to be allowed to erect a shelter for ourselves with one of the sails not in use, but Edwards was so lacking in humanity as to refuse this request. Our only recourse was to wet the burning sand at the water’s edge and bury ourselves in it up to the neck.