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 awoke shortly after dawn, feeling completely refreshed and very hungry. The bay was still in shadow, but the light was streaming up from behind the green hills enclosing it. Morrison was awake, but the rest of the prisoners, as well as the Pandora’s company, were sleeping as though they would never have done. Edwards let them have their sleep out, but as the men awakened they were sent out in small parties to search for food. A pleasanter refuge than this bay afforded could scarcely have been found, except for the fact that no food-bearing trees could be discovered, nor did those searching the shallows of the bay have any better success. Morrison and I proposed to the master-at-arms that the prisoners be permitted to forage for the ship’s company. The request was carried to Edwards, who granted it with great reluctance. To be indebted to a group of pirates and mutineers for benefits of any kind was opposed to all his ideas of fitness; but, his own men having failed to discover anything save a few sea snails, we were sent out, well guarded, to see what we could do.