Читать книгу List, Ye Landsmen!. A Romance of Incident онлайн

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“While the boat was gone I walked about the decks of the vessel, hardly knowing what I might stumble on in the shape of human remains, but there was nothing in that way. The boats were gone, the people had long ago cleared out. Small blame to them. Good thunder!” cried he, shuddering or counterfeiting a shudder; “who would willingly pass a night in such a cave as that? The boat came alongside with the lantern. We then lifted the hatches, and I went below. Life there was here, a hideous sort of life, too. Lean rats bigger than kittens, living skeletons horrible with famine. They shrieked, they squeaked, they fled in big shadows. There was not much cargo in the main hold, but cargo there was. I will tell you exactly the contents of the main hold of La Perfecta Casada,” he exclaimed, coming out of his bed, opening a drawer, and taking out a small book clasped by an elastic band. He read aloud.

“Five thousand serons of cocoa—”

“A minute,” said I. “Do I understand you to mean that you counted five thousand serons of cocoa while you looked into the hold of that ship, the hour being about two o’clock—I have been following you critically—and your own ship hove to close in with the land?”