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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“You know your Bible, Mr. Ledward,” remarked Samuel, when we were out of earshot of the others. “Do you recollect the passage concerning Jeshurun who waxed fat, and kicked?”

“Aye; and it falls pat on Restoration Island!”

Samuel smiled. “Where would they be, where would we all be, without Captain Bligh? Yet they must murmur the moment their bellies are full! I’ve no patience with such men.”

“Nor I.” Glancing at the clerk’s formerly plump body, now reduced to little more than skin and bones, and clad in rags, I could not repress a smile.

“Though we kick,” I said, “none of us could be accused of waxing fat!”

Toward four o’clock we returned with what shellfish we had been able to secure, and found all in readiness to sail. We took our places in the launch, the grapnel was weighed, and we were getting sail on her, when about a score of Indians appeared on the opposite shore of the main, shouting loudly at us. The heads of many others were discernible above the ridge behind them; but, to our great content, they seemed to be unprovided with canoes. Owing to this fortunate circumstance, we were able to pass pretty close to them, with a fresh breeze at E.S.E. They carried long, slender lances in their right hands, and in their left hands some sort of weapon or implement of an oval shape and about two feet long.