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

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“No need whatever.”

“Fielding,” said he, looking and speaking very gravely, “you have greatly occupied my thoughts since you returned to consciousness yesterday, and since I discovered that you were not a half-hanged pirate or smuggler, but a gentleman and an English sailor after my own heart. I mean to tell you a very curious story, and when I have told you that story I intend to make a proposal to you. You shall hear what errand this brig is bound on. You shall learn to what part of the world I am carrying her, and I believe you will say that you have never heard of a more romantic nor of a more promising undertaking.”

He opened the door of his berth and looked out. Van Laar was seated at the table, eating his breakfast. Greaves closed the door and seated himself on his bed.

“Last year,” said he, “I was in command of a small vessel named the Hero. It matters not how it happened that I came to be at the Philippines. There I took in a small lading for Guayaquil. When about sixty leagues to the south’ard of the Galapagos Islands we made land, and hove into view an island of which no mention was made in any of the charts of those seas which I possessed. There was nothing in that. There is much land yet to be discovered in that ocean. I have no faith in any of the charts of the Western American seaboard, and trust to nothing but a good lookout. We hove this island into view, and I steered for it with a leadsman in the chains on either hand. I hoped to be of some humble service to the navigator by obtaining the correct bearings of the island; but I had no mind to delay my voyage by sounding, saving only for the security of my own ship.