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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He quickly roused me from my despairing mood, and I found myself talking with interest and enthusiasm of my Tahitian dictionary and grammar. I told him that my manuscripts had been saved from the wreck of the Pandora and were in the care of Dr. Hamilton, now on his way home with the rest of the Pandora’s survivors.

“Excellent, Byam! Excellent!” he said. “There is one gain, at least, from the voyage of the Bounty.” He had the faculty of entering with enthusiasm into another man’s work, and of making him feel that there was nothing more important. “I shall see Dr. Hamilton the moment he arrives in England. But enough of this for the present. Now I want your story of the mutiny—the whole of it—every detail.”

“You have heard Captain Bligh’s account, sir? You know how black the case against me appears to be?”

“I do,” he replied, gravely. “Captain Bligh is my good friend, but I know his faults of character as well as his virtues. His belief in your guilt is sincerely held; yet allow me to say that I have never for a moment doubted your innocence.”