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

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Now, what was I to do? I must certainly miss the ship if I hung about the woman and the body of her son. Even though I should set off at full speed for Deal beach, I might not immediately find a boatman. Yet hurry I must. I went up to the woman, almost loathing the humanity that forced me closer to the body, and exclaimed:

“Come away with me to Deal. You shall be housed if I can manage it; but you must rise and come with me at once, for I cannot stay.”

She was seated on the sand under the arm of the gibbet, and half of the body lay across her, with its head against her breast. One of her arms was around it. She caressed its face and, as I spoke, she put her lips to its forehead. There was no cap over the face. Doubtless a cap had been drawn over the unhappy wretch when he was first turned off, but when they hung a man in irons they removed his cap and sheathed the body in pitch to render it weatherproof. Pirates, however, and such seafaring sinners as this man, were mainly strung up in irons in their clothes; and this body was dressed, but he was without a hat.