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The Boy Slaves. Майн Рид
Читать онлайн.Название The Boy Slaves
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isbn 4057664626684
Автор произведения Майн Рид
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
Chapter Two.
Types of the Triple Kingdom.
Near the tip of this tongue, almost within “licking” distance, on an evening in the month of June, 18—, a group of the kind last alluded to—three or four castaways upon a spar—might have been seen by any eye that chanced to be near.
Fortunately for them, there was none sufficiently approximate to make out the character of that dark speck, slowly approaching the white sandspit, like any other drift carried upon the landward current of the sea.
It was just possible for a person standing upon the summit of one of the sand “dunes” that, like white billows, rolled off into the interior of the continent, it was just possible for a person thus placed to have distinguished the aforesaid speck without the aid of a glass; though with one it would have required a prolonged and careful observation to have discovered its character.
The sandspit was full three miles in length. The hills stood back from the shore another. Four miles was sufficient to screen the castaways from the observation of any one who might be straying along the coast.
For the individuals themselves it appeared very improbable that there could be any one observing them. As far as eye could reach—east, north, and south, there was nothing save white sand. To the west, nothing but the blue water. No eye could be upon them, save that of the Creator. Of his creatures, tame or wild, savage or civilised, there seemed not one within a circuit of miles: for within that circuit there was nothing visible that could afford subsistence either to man or animal, bird or beast. In the white substratum of sand, gently shelving far under the sea, there was not a sufficiency of organic matter to have afforded food for fish—even for the lower organisms of mollusca. Undoubtedly were these castaways alone; as much so as if their locality had been the centre of the Atlantic, instead of its coast!
We are privileged to approach them near enough to comprehend their character, and learn the cause that has thus isolated them so far from the regions of animated life.
There are four of them, astride a spar; which also carries a sail, partially reefed around it, and partially permitted to drag loosely through the water.
At a glance a sailor could have told that the spar on which they are supported is a topsail-yard, which has been detached from its masts in such a violent manner as to unloose some of the reefs that had held the sail—partially releasing the canvas. But it needed not a sailor to tell why this had been done. A ship has foundered somewhere near coast. There has been a gale two days before. The spar in question, with those supported upon it, is but a fragment of the wreck. There might have been other fragments, other of the crew escaped, or escaping in like manner, but there are no others in sight. The castaways slowly drifting towards the sandspit are alone. They have no companions on the ocean, no spectators on its shore.
As already stated, there are four of them. Three are strangely alike, at least, in the particulars of size, shape, and costume. In age, too, there is no great difference. All three are boys: the eldest not over eighteen, the youngest certainly not a year his junior.
In the physiognomy of the three there is similitude enough to declare them of one nation, though dissimilarity sufficient to prove a distinct provinciality both in countenance and character. Their dresses of dark blue cloth, cut pea-jacket shape, and besprinkled with buttons of burnished yellow, their cloth caps of like colour, encircled by bands of gold lace, their collars, embroidered with the crown and anchor, declare them, all three, to be officers in the service of that great maritime Government that has so long held undisputed possession of the sea—midshipmen of the British navy. Rather should we say, had been. They have lost this proud position, along with the frigate to which they had been attached; and they now only share authority upon a dismasted spar, over which they are exerting some control, since with their bodies bent downwards, and their hands beating the water, they are propelling it in the direction of the sandspit.
In the countenances of the three castaways thus introduced, I have admitted a dissimilitude something more than casual; something more, even, than what might be termed provincial. Each presented a type that could have been referred to that wider distinction known as a nationality.
The three “middies” astride of that topsail-yard were, of course, castaways from the same ship, in the service of the same Government, though each was of a different nationality from