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

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I looked again at the paragraph.

“Michael Greaves—Michael Greaves.” I seemed to know the name. I pondered, found I could get nothing out of memory, and turned my eye upon another part of the paper.

“Here is an account of the casting away of the William and Jane.”

“That’s the ship for whose murder her skipper is swinging on the sand hills,” said my uncle.

I read the story—an old-world story, not infrequently repeated since. Do not we know it, Jack? A ship mysteriously leaks; the carpenter sounds the well, and his eyes are damned by the captain for hinting at a started butt; all hands sweat at the pumps; the water gains; the mate thinks the leak is in the fore-peak, and the master, who is intoxicated, stutters with blasphemies that the mischief is in the after-hold; the people leave in the boats: the derelict washes ashore, and is found with four auger holes in her bottom; the master is collared and charged. At the trial the carpenter states that the master borrowed an auger from him and forgot to return it. Master is damned by the evidence of the mate and a number of seamen; is condemned to be hanged by the neck, and is turned off on the Deal sand hills protesting his innocence.