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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Presently we discerned, to the southwest, the dim outlines of high land, but in the moisture-laden air we could not be sure whether or no it was a part of Timor. Seeing no break between it and the coast we were following, Bligh concluded that it must be a distant headland of the island; therefore we stood toward it, and several hours passed before we discovered that it was a separate island—the island of Roti, as we afterward learned.

Shortly after Mr. Bligh had altered our course to return to the coast we had left, I lost all knowledge of what went on. The sun had been extremely hot, and we had no protection from its rays. It may be that I suffered a slight stroke, and this, combined with my other miseries, had proven too much for me. At any rate, I sank into a stupor which left me a dim consciousness of misery and of little else. Now and then I heard the confused murmur of voices, and I vaguely remember having been roused from frightful dreams, when I thought I was struggling alone in the sea and upon the point of drowning, to find that I was still in the launch, being raised up to escape the water that came over the side. I was, indeed, far gone, powerless to do aught for myself. Then followed a period of complete darkness, when I was nothing but an inert mass of skin and bones; and my next recollection was of someone repeatedly calling my name. Try as I would, I could not rouse myself sufficiently to reply. I heard Bligh’s voice: “Give him the whole of it, Mr. Nelson. He’ll come round.”