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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Whilst this conversation was taking place, other Indians were arriving, amongst them a chief whose rank appeared to be equal to, if not higher than, that of the first; he showed no deference to the older man, and we observed that the crowd of natives around us, immediately they saw him, opened a lane through their ranks so that he and his followers might approach. He was a man of about forty, of commanding presence. As he entered the open space where we stood, he glanced keenly from one to another of us. Then he walked up to Captain Bligh, but I noticed that he omitted, as the older chief had done, the ceremony of rubbing noses—a formal courtesy which had never been omitted heretofore, when we had the Bounty at our backs.

None of us could recollect having seen either of these chiefs at Annamooka. We learned that the name of the elder man was Macca-ackavow,—at least, that is as near as I can come to the sound of the name,—and the other was called Eefow. We gathered that both came from the island of Tongataboo. When Bligh informed them that we proposed to go to either that island or to Annamooka, Eefow offered to accompany us as soon as the wind and sea should moderate. Bligh invited them into the cavern, where he presented each with a knife and a shirt.