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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“Sir, may I speak?” asked Ellison.

“Certainly, my lad.”

“I was one of the mutineers, sir. I’d no hand in starting the trouble, but like all the rest of us I had no love for Captain Bligh, and I joined in when I was asked to. Is there any hope for me?”

Mr. Graham regarded him gravely for a moment.

“I prefer not to give an opinion on that,” he said. “Suppose we let the question be decided by the court-martial itself.”

“I’m not afraid of the truth, sir. If you think there’s no chance, I’d be obliged if you’d tell me so.”

But Mr. Graham would not commit himself. “Let me advise all of you not to prejudge your cases,” he said. “I have sat through many a court-martial, and, as in any civil court of law, one is not justified in forming an opinion as to a possible verdict until all the evidence is in. And so you see, young man,” he added, turning to Ellison, “how mistaken I should be in attempting to tell you what I think.”

The days dragged by with painful slowness. Before this time most of the men had received letters from their families. Some of them were many months old, but they were read none the less eagerly for that. With the exception of the letter received from my mother, at Tahiti, no news from families or friends had reached any of us during the more than four years we had been absent from home. Poor Coleman’s family lived in Portsmouth, but he was not permitted to see them. Of all the married members of the Bounty’s company, he was, I suspect, the only man who had remained faithful to his wife during our sojourn at Tahiti. To be prevented from seeing her and his children after all these years was a cruel blow.