Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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The boom of a cannon from the signal battery at the north point of Sydney Cove announced to the sleeping town that a prisoner had escaped. The tramp of feet and the flickering of lights from point to point told us that we must be away. As I had previously arranged, we made straight for my friend’s barque in Hospital Creek. He had promised a place of concealment in the hold; but, thinking the pursuit would be too hot for that, he put us in a dingy, and we rowed over to Pinchgut, a small islet a mile and a half from Sydney. This place was a mere rock, whose clefts Joe and I had often searched for oysters (which grew abundantly there) during our holiday rambles. It was occasionally used by the Government for drying powder, but the place was avoided by the townspeople, because upon the summit there stood a gibbet, on which a miscreant who had murdered a colonist in return for half a pint of rum had paid the penalty of his crime. The island was named Pinchgut by some irreclaimable convicts who had been put there on short commons as a punishment. Yet this place of sinister renown was sheeted with the fragrant gold of the feathery mimosa, and was garlanded with bright red creepers, as though nature mutely protested against the vileness of man.