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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“No use his trying them jumping-jack tricks on you, sir!” he said.

“You’ve Mr. Ledward to thank,” said, Bligh. “We’ve towed so long without luck, that I’ll be bound no other man would have noticed it!”

Peckover was gazing down longingly at the bulging side of the fish, and Bligh went on: “Aye, divide him up—guts, liver, and all.”

Peckover knelt beside the fish, muttering to himself as he laid out imaginary lines of division, and then changed his mind. At last he began to cut. The people watched this operation with an eagerness which might have been laughable under happier circumstances. Only Elphinstone, at the tiller, had preserved an attitude of indifference throughout the affair, gazing vacantly at the compass and up at the horizon from time to time.

Under Bligh’s direction, the gunner divided the fish into thirty-six shares, each of about half a pound. Eighteen of these were now distributed by our method of “Who shall have this?” A fine steak fell to me; the captain got the liver and about two ounces of flesh. Lebogue shook his head feebly when his share was offered him, and whispered: “I’m past eatin’, lad.”