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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“Aye,” said Purcell sourly. “And the leader of ’em will go free. He’ll never be found.”

“Say you so?” Bligh replied with a harsh laugh. “You should know me better than that, Mr. Purcell. I pray I may be sent in search of him! There’s not an island in the Pacific, charted or not, where he can escape me! No, by God! Not a sandy cay in the midst of desolation where I cannot track him down! And well he knows it!”

“Where do you think he might go, sir?” asked Fryer.

“We will speak no more of this matter, Mr. Fryer,” Bligh replied, and there was an end to any discussion of the mutineers for many a day. Bligh felt keenly the humiliation of losing his ship, and although he rarely mentioned the Bounty, well we knew that the thought of her was always present in his mind.

That same afternoon he gave us an account of what he knew of the coastal lands of New Holland and New Guinea.

“This information is for you in particular, Mr. Fryer, and for Mr. Elphinstone,” he said. “Should anything happen to me it will devolve upon you to navigate those waters, and you must know what I can tell you of the course to follow. That ocean is but little known; my knowledge of it I had from Captain Cook, when I was master of the Resolution, on his third voyage. Our task then was largely concerned with exploration in the Northern Hemisphere; but we had much time on our hands at sea, and Captain Cook was kind enough to inform his officers of his earlier explorations in the western Pacific, and of his passage through what he named ‘Endeavour Straits.’ I listened with interest, but I little thought I should ever have use for the information he gave us. Which only goes to show, young man,” he added, turning to Hayward, “that knowledge of the sea never comes amiss to a seaman. Remember that. You never know when you may have occasion to use it.”