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

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He reflected, and then repeated:

“That is so.”

“There was a ship,” I continued, “called the Rainbow, that lay astern of you by some ten ships’-lengths.”

He gazed at me very earnestly, and looked as though he guessed what was coming.

“One morning,” said I, “a boat put off from the Raja. She hoisted sail and went away toward Cape Town. A burst of wind came down the mountain and capsized her, whereupon a boat belonging to the Rainbow made for the drowning people, picked them up, and put them aboard their own ship.”

He thrust his arm into the hammock and grasped my hand.

“You are Mr. Fielding. You were the second mate of the Rainbow. You it was who saved my life and the lives of the others. Strange that it should fall to my lot to save yours; and for me to suppose that you had been hanged! By Isten! but this is a little world. It is not astonishing that I should not have known you. You are something changed in the face; likewise you have been very nearly drowned. We shall be able to find out how many hours you lay washing about in the Channel. And add to this a very long spell of emaciating insensibility.”