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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“Your shoulders! Bare your shoulders before you set foot there!”

Knowing scarcely a dozen words of the native tongue, Mills shook him off and was about to proceed when McCoy called out anxiously: “Are ye horn-mad, John? Bare yer shoulders, he says. It’s their kirk, mon! Would ye enter a kirk wi’ a covered head?”

Mills gave a harsh laugh. “Kirk, ye call it? It’s a bloody heathen temple, that’s what it is! I’ll have a look, and I’ll peel my shirt for no Indian!”

Before he had mounted three steps Minarii seized him by the arm and threw him to the ground so fiercely that he lay half stunned.

“Ye fool!” McCoy exclaimed. “Ye’ve slashed a het haggis now!”

Minarii stood over the prostrate Englishman threateningly, his eyes blazing with anger. The faces of the other native men expressed the horror they felt at this act of desecration. Fortunately for Mills, McCoy, who spoke the native tongue with considerable fluency, was able to smooth matters over.

“Let your anger cool, Minarii,” he said, rapidly. “You are in the right, but this man meant no harm. He is ignorant, that is all.”