Читать книгу Lieutenant Hornblower онлайн

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Not one of the dumbfounded trio could speak for a moment.

"Answer me!"

"Aye aye, sir" said Buckland.

"Aye aye, sir" said Bush and Roberts as the captain turned his eyes on them.

"Let there be no slackness in the execution of my orders" said the captain. "I shall have means of knowing if I am obeyed or not."

"Aye aye, sir" said Buckland.

The captain's sentence had condemned him, Bush, and Roberts to be roused and awakened every hour, day and night.

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It was pitch dark down here, absolutely dark, not the tiniest glimmer of light at all. Out over the sea was the moonless night, and here it was three decks down, below the level of the sea's surface--through the oaken skin of the ship could be heard the rush of the water alongside, and the impact of the waves over which the ship rode; the fabric of the ship grumbled to itself with the alternating stresses of the pitch and the roll. Bush hung on to the steep ladder in the darkness and felt for foothold; finding it, he stepped off among the water barrels, and, crouching low, he began to make his way aft through the solid blackness. A rat squeaked and scurried past him, but rats were only to be expected down here in the hold, and Bush went on feeling his way aft unshaken. Out of the blackness before him, through the multitudinous murmurings of the ship, came a slight hiss, and Bush halted and hissed in reply. He was not self-conscious about these conspiratorial goings on. All precautions were necessary, for this was something very dangerous that he was doing.