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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“There’s this must be said, Alex,” remarked McCoy apologetically, “we’re three months from Tahiti, and it’s nigh three weeks we’ve spent looking for this Pitcairn’s Island! How does he know there’s such a place?”

“Damn your eyes! D’ye think Mr. Christian’d be such a fool as to search for a place that wasn’t there? I’ll warrant he’ll find it before the week’s out.”

“And if he don’t, what then?” Martin asked.

“Ask him yourself, Isaac. I reckon he’ll tell ’ee fast enough.”

The conversation was interrupted by a hail from aloft, where the lookout stood on the fore-topmast crosstrees.

“Aye, man, what d’ye see?” roared Smith.

“Birds. A cloud of ’em, dead ahead.”

Pacing the afterdeck with Maimiti, Christian halted at the words.

“Run down and fetch my spyglass,” he said to the girl.

A moment later he was climbing the ratlines, telescope in hand. One of the native men had preceded him aloft. His trained eyes made out the distant birds at a glance and then swept the horizon north and south. “Terns,” he said, as Christian lowered his glass. “There are albacore yonder. The land will be close.”