Читать книгу Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic онлайн

32 страница из 57

“Then the poor wretch raised his finger slowly and pointed towards us, and afterward held up his open hand many times, which we took to mean that he had been of a numerous company; making gesture also to our ship which swung, heaved to, some quarter of a mile away, he swept his hands abroad wildly towards the waste of waters, implying doubtless that his was one of a great fleet of vessels.

“As in a flash came to me then the tale which was at that time a by-word in the South Seas, of the great expedition of the natives which had set sail from the coasts of Southern Mexico, the which was witnessed by the Spanish forces advancing from the north, yet could in no way be prevented of them. Mayax is the name of the land whence they sailed, and the fiendish warfare of the Spaniards—ravishers of women and slaughterers of babes as they be—had so prevailed by terror upon these simple folk, that they had committed themselves to the deep to escape their villainies, and had vanished, forty sail or more, no man knew whither.