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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We now had both sails up; they were drawing well, and the sea was so calm that we shipped no water. The sun went down, as it had risen, in a cloudless sky, and darkness came on swiftly. Presently the moon rose, flooding the lonely sea with a glory that transfigured our little boat and everyone in her. Purcell, with his dirty rags wound round his broken head, sat by the mast amidships, facing aft. He looked a noble, even an heroic figure, in that light. On the day of the mutiny, as we were rowing away from the Bounty, I wondered how long one small boat would hold two such men as Captain Bligh and himself before they would be at each other’s throats. There had long been a feud between them on the ship. Purcell had a high opinion of his ability as a carpenter, and considered himself a monarch in his own department. He was as bullheaded as Bligh himself, but he had the good sense to know his place and to realize that the captain of a ship was, after all, in a position of higher authority than the carpenter. Secretly, as I knew, he gloried in the fact that Bligh had lost his ship, and considered it a just punishment for his tyrannical behaviour; and yet there was no man more loyal to his commander. On the morning of the mutiny there had not been a moment’s hesitation in deciding where his duty lay. In the launch it interested me to observe his attitude toward Bligh, and Bligh’s toward him. They hated each other; but, in Purcell’s case at least, hatred was tempered by respect.