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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One might easily have imagined, from the simple, earnest manner of the old fellow, that he had just sat down to a table spread with all the good things of life, and that he considered such largess far beyond his deserts.

The afternoon continued fine, with the same gentle breeze carrying us smoothly in the direction we would go. At midday Bligh took our position. By our log we had sailed sixty-two miles since noon of the seventh, the smallest day’s run we had yet made; but we were content that it should be so, for we had comfort from the sun’s warmth and rest from the weary work of bailing.

We had sailed five hundred miles from Tofoa, nearly one-seventh of the distance to Timor; an average better than eighty miles per day. That number, somehow, encouraged us; we made much of it, passed it about in talk. Five hundred miles seemed a vast distance; but we were careful to avoid speaking of the more than three thousand miles that lay ahead.

On this day Mr. Bligh performed an act of heroism in having himself shaved by Smith, his servant. There was neither soap nor water to soften his beard. He sat on the floor in the stern sheets, his head held between Peckover’s knees, while Smith crouched beside him cutting through the dry hair, stopping every moment to strop his razor. The task required the better part of an hour; and none of us, seeing Bligh’s sufferings, was tempted to follow his example.