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

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“I was never hanged,” said I.

“No, no,” he said, “but all your babble was about gibbets and chains.”

“If it had not been for a gibbet and a man dangling from it in chains, in all human probability I should not now be here. I was delayed by an object of horrible misery, and the period of my humane loitering tallied to a second with the movements of a press-gang, or I should be on board my own ship, the Royal Brunswicker of which vessel I am mate. Where will she be now?” I considered awhile. “Say she got under weigh at two o’clock this morning—how is the wind, Captain Greaves?”

“It blows fresh, and is dead foul for the Royal Brunswicker if she be inward bound.”

“Then,” said I, “she may have brought up in the Downs again. I hope she has. I may be able to rejoin her before the wind shifts. In what part of the Channel are you?”

“Out of it, clear of the Scillies.”

“Out of the Channel?” I cried. “Do you sail by witchcraft? What time is it, pray?”

“A few minutes after eleven.”

“You were off Margate this morning at daybreak,” said I, “and now, at a few minutes after eleven o’clock, you are out of the Channel?”