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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I was glad to hear Mr. Bligh remark: “That will do very well, carpenter.”

It was high praise, coming from him; but Purcell would not have been Purcell had he not replied: “Begging your pardon, sir, it won’t do well, but I can make no better with what we’ve got here.”

At noon, on the ninth, we were sixty-four miles farther on our way. All of this day we saw neither fish nor bird.

Toward the middle of the afternoon, Nelson broke a silence that seemed to have lasted for hours. “I am constrained to speak, Mr. Bligh,” he said, with a faint smile. “This sea is so vast and so quiet that I am inclined to doubt its reality and our own as well.”

“That’s a strange fancy, sir,” Bligh replied; “but the sea is real enough; I can promise you that.”

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I remember Captain Bligh saying to Fryer, about noon on May the twelfth: “I think we’ve seen the worst of it.”

“I am sure of it, sir,” Fryer replied, but he believed no more than Bligh in the truth of the statement. It had fallen calm about half an hour before, but the sea, as viewed from the launch, was an awe-inspiring sight. Fryer had just relieved Bligh at the tiller, which he had held continuously for eighteen hours.