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

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“The expedition had sailed, and had come to some secure sanctuary as they had desired. Now they sent back this small company to advise their fellows left in bondage of the same, that they too might leave their own land, over-run by the Spaniards, and come also to safety and a sure dwelling-place. And the more we thought on this, the more the truth of it came home to our minds.

“Now this I write in the glorious year of our Lord, one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight, when the Lord hath, by the destruction of the Spanish oppressor, so signally shown His favour to His children who hope in Him. The news of which final deliverance hath come to us long months after by chance of our meeting Captain Bostock of Bristol, who saileth in the Guinea and West India Trade. Ten years have I and my comrades, Da Suhares and Captain Fowler, sought wearily for this people, and naught hath come to us in reward. Yet have we gotten to ourselves sufficient of this world’s goods, in that we have taken more than one of his Catholic Majesty’s treasure galleons, and three years agone five of his pearling fleet which we fell upon when they were storm-sundered from their fellows. Rich are we therefore in possessions, but not yet in knowledge, and the madness of the quest hath bitten into the souls of all of us. Not an island, not a bay, not a single river’s mouth, have we missed for nigh two thousand weary miles, but unavailingly. And now I draw into years, but I cannot rest from it.