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His head was thrown back, and his brows worked up and down tormentedly. His wide mouth remained open as his hymn was suddenly interrupted on the long-drawn note. From somewhere in the shimmering mists the note was taken up, and there drummed and rang and reverberated through the strait a windy, hoarse, and dismal bellow, alarming and sustained. A tremor rang through Bligh.
Arch'laus Spry, that had pulled his chin up level with the coping, ducked at the sight of him, and even my grandfather clucked down a little in the grave as he passed. "The very man!" said Spry, under his breath. "The wicked flee, whom no man pursueth," said my grandfather, looking after the man; but Bligh turned his head neither to the right hand nor to the left.
But I won't forget that you are hungry, and if there's roast duck about, Peter Bligh shall have a wing, I promise him." Well, they all sat up at this; and Peter Bligh, very solemnly crossing his fingers after the Italian fashion, swore, as seamen will, that we'd all go together, good luck or bad, the devil or the deep sea.
Captain Bligh was, upon his return to England, immediately promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and employed in active service; while the New South Wales Corps, which had certainly been long enough in the colony from which it drew its name, was ordered home, and the 73d regiment sent out to supply its place.
The officers and men being in the boat they only waited for me, of which the master at arms informed Christian, who then said: "Come, captain Bligh, your officers and men are now in the boat and you must go with them; if you attempt to make the least resistance you will instantly be put to death" and, without further ceremony, with a tribe of armed ruffians about me, I was forced over the side where they untied my hands.
"And I guess it isn't," roars Peter Bligh, half mad, like a true Irishman, at the thought of a fight. "It isn't Bob Williams, and be derned to you! Are you going ashore to Ken's Island or will you swim awhile? It's good water for bathing," says he, "and no charge for the machine. Aye," says he, "by the look of you cold water would not hurt your skins."
The natives beckoned from the shore with green boughs, inviting them to land; but Bligh would not trust the intentions of this little hideous negro race. Some other uninhabited islands served them as resting-places, and for recruiting their stores with fresh water and fruits.
If ever I meet him I shall quote poetry: 'He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel. It would about make him mad, captain!" "Aye," says Peter Bligh, "poetry is well enough, as my poor old father used to say; but poetry never reefed a to'gallon sail in a hurricane and isn't going to begin this night. It's thick heads you need, lad, and good, sound sense inside of 'em!
There were four with me in the boat, and Captain Nepeen was one of them. I had set Peter Bligh at the tiller, and Seth Barker and an American seaman to pull the oars. We spoke rare words, for even a whisper would carry across that night-bound sea. There were rifles in our hands; good hope at our hearts.
Bligh, at the time of his appointment to New South Wales, was in command of the Warrior, and in the interval between his second breadfruit voyage and the date of his governor's commission had been behaving in a manner worthy of one of Nelson's captains.
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