Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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"Run 'em up, boys!" said Murray, and the men threw their weight on the tackles and ran the guns out.

"Ready to open fire, sir!" said Murray, lifting his hat to his captain.

"She's beyond cannon shot yet," replied Peabody, looking over the grey-flecked sea, with the wind howling round his ears. The two-decker was clearly in sight now, all the same, leaping and plunging over the mad sea. "Mr. Hubbard, hoist the colours, if you please."

The flag went up to the peak and streamed forward in the wind, its eighteen stripes rippling wildly. There had been a discussion about that, too, with the Commodore; an Act of Congress had given the flag fifteen stars and stripes, and yet--as Peabody had seen with his own eyes--the flag that flew over the Hall of Congress bore no more than thirteen, while the Commodore had maintained that there should be a star and a stripe for every state in the union, as Congress had also laid down. It was the Commodore who had decided upon eighteen stripes and stars in the end--Peabody would have preferred the fifteen under which he had sailed into Tripoli harbour. He wondered if the two-decker would ever be able to get near enough to count them for herself.