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

654 страница из 953

“There are more?” he asked quietly. “Who are they? Let them speak up.”

“I’m one, sir,” Elphinstone replied in a hollow voice; “and I’ll ask you to believe I’m speaking for others more than myself.”

“We are in a pitiful state, sir,” Fryer put in. “A night of rest on shore might be the means of preserving the lives of some of us. There’s sure to be food on so rich an island.”

“There’s coconut trees, sir,” Lenkletter put in eagerly. “Look yonder, halfway up the slope.”

A clump of coconut palms could, in fact, be seen, raising their plumed tops above the forests that covered the steep hillsides. Bligh looked from us to the land, and back again; presently he shook his head.

“Lads, we dare not risk it,” he said. “You cannot suppose that I do not feel for your sufferings, since I share them with you. God knows I should be glad to rest here; but the danger is too great. We must not!”

“There’s no Indians here, sir,” said Purcell. “That’s plain to be seen.”

Bligh controlled himself with difficulty. “At the moment there are none,” he replied; “but we have seen the smoke of many fires, and we were well within view as we passed the bay on the northern side. Make no mistake, we have been seen; and I will say this, which may cool your desire to go ashore: Captain Cook told me that the savages of the New Hebrides are cannibals of the fiercest sort. These islands must be a part of the same group.”