The Blue Lagoon / Голубая лагуна. Генри де Вэр Стэкпул

Mr Button stood looking round him, an object struck his eye some three miles ahead. Objects rather, for they were the masts of a small ship rising from the water.

      He stared at this sight for twenty or thirty seconds without speaking, then he gave a wild “Hurroo!”

      “What is it, Paddy?” asked Dick.

      “Hurroo!” replied Mr Button. “Ship ahoy! ship ahoy! Are they aslape or dhramin’? The wind’ll take us up to her quicker than we’ll row.”

      He took the rudder; the breeze took the sail, and the boat moved ahead.

      “Is it daddy’s ship?” asked Dick, who was almost as excited as his friend.

      “I dinno; we’ll see when we fetch her.”

      “Shall we go on her, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline.

      “Ay will we, honey.”

      Emmeline bent down, and fetching her parcel from under the seat, held it in her lap.

      As they drew nearer, the outlines of the ship became more apparent. She was a small brig, with topmasts. It was apparent soon to the old sailor’s eye what was wrong with her.

      “She’s abandoned!” he muttered; “abandoned and done for[83]—just me luck!”

      “I can’t see any people on the ship,” cried Dick, who had crept forward to the bow. “Daddy’s not there.”

      When they were within twenty cable lengths[84] or so he unstepped the mast and took to the oars.

      The little brig floated very low on the water, and presented a mournful enough appearance. It was easy enough to see that she was a timber ship, and that she had flooded herself and been abandoned.

      Paddy lay on his oars within a few strokes of her. She was floating as quietly as though she were in the harbour of San Francisco. A few strokes brought them under the stern. The name of the ship was there in faded letters, also the port to which she belonged. “Shenandoah[85]. Martha’s Vineyard.”

      “There’s letters on her,” said Mr Button. “But I can’t make thim out. I’ve no larnin’.”

      “I can read them,” said Dick.

      “So c’n I,” murmured Emmeline.

      “S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H,” spelt Dick.

      “What’s that?” enquired Paddy.

      “I don’t know,” replied Dick, rather sadly.

      “There you are[86]!” cried the oarsman, pulling the boat round to the starboard side of the brig. “They pretend to teach letters to children in schools, picking their eyes out with book-reading[87], and here’s letters as big as my face and they can’t make head or tail of them[88]—be dashed to book-reading[89]!”

      The brig floated so low in the water that they were scarcely a foot above the level of the dinghy.

      Mr Button secured the boat[90], then, with Emmeline and her parcel in his arms or rather in one arm, he climbed the board and passed her over the rail on to the deck. Then it was Dick’s turn, and the children stood waiting while the old sailor brought the water, the biscuit, and the tinned stuff on board.

      It was a place to delight the heart of a boy, the deck of the Shenandoah. The place had a delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying wood, tar, and mystery. A bell was hung just forward of the foremast. In half a moment Dick was forward hammering at the bell with a pin he had picked from the deck.

      Mr Button shouted to him to stop; the sound of the bell got on his nerves.

      Dick dropped the pin and ran forward. He took Paddy’s hand, and the three went to the door of the deck-house[91]. The door was open, and they peeped in.

      The place had three windows on the starboard side, and through the windows the sun was shining. There was a table in the middle of the place. A seat was pushed away from the table as if some one had risen in a hurry. On the table lay the remains of a meal, a teapot, two teacups, two plates. On one of the plates rested a fork with a bit of bacon. Near the teapot stood an open tin of condensed milk. Some old salt[92] had just been in the act of putting milk in his tea when something had happened. Never did a lot of dead things speak so clearly as these things spoke.

      One could imagine it all up. The skipper, most likely, had finished his tea, and the mate was hard at work at his, when the leak had been discovered, or whatever had happened.

      One thing was evident, that since the abandonment of the brig she had experienced fine weather, or else the things would not have been left standing on the table.

      Mr Button and Dick entered the place, but Emmeline remained at the door. The charm of the old brig appealed to her almost as much as to Dick, but she was afraid to enter the gloomy deck-house, and afraid to remain alone outside; so she sat down on the deck. Then she placed the small bundle beside her, and hurriedly took the rag-doll from her pocket, propped it up against the door, and told it not to be afraid.

      There was not much to be found in the deck-house, but there were two small cabins, once inhabited by the skipper and his mate. Here there were great findings in the way of rubbish. Old clothes, old boots, an old top-hat, a telescope without a lens, a nautical almanac, a box of fish hooks. And in one corner – a coil of what seemed to be ten yards or so of black rope.

      “My God!” shouted Pat, seizing upon his treasure. It was pigtail[93]. A pipe full of it would make a hippopotamus vomit, yet old sailors chew it and smoke it with pleasure.

      “We’ll bring all the lot of the things out on deck, and see what’s worth keepin’ an’ what’s worth leavin’,” said Mr Button.

      “Em,” shouted Dick, as he appeared in the doorway, “see what I’ve got!”

      He put the top-head on his head. It went right down to his shoulders.

      Emmeline gave a shriek.

      “It smells funny[94],” said Dick, taking it off and applying his nose to the inside of it—“smells like an old hair brush. Here, you try it on.”

      Emmeline ran away as far as she could, till she reached the starboard side, where she sat, breathless and speechless and wide-eyed. She was always dumb when frightened, and this hat suddenly scared her. Besides, it was a black thing, and she hated black things—black cats, black horses; worst of all, black dogs.

      Meanwhile Mr Button was putting armful after armful of stuff on deck. When the heap was complete, he sat down beside it, and lit his pipe.

      He had searched neither for food or water as yet; happy with the treasure God had given him. And, indeed, if he had searched he would have found only half a sack of potatoes.

      They all sat round the pile.

      “Thim pair of brogues,” said the old man, holding a pair of old boots up for inspection like an auctioneer, “would cost half a dollar in any sayport in the world. Put them beside you, Dick, and stritch this pair of britches.”

      The trousers were stretched out, examined and approved of, and laid beside the boots.

      “Here’s a tiliscope wid wan eye shut,” said Mr Button, examining the broken telescope. “Stick it beside the brogues; it may come in handy[95] for somethin’. Here’s a book”—giving the nautical almanac to the boy. “Tell me what it says.”

      Dick examined the

83

брошена на произвол судьбы

84

Кабельтов – десятая часть морской мили, примерно 200 метров.

85

Шенандоа – национальный парк штата Виргиния.

86

Вот те на!

87

у детей от чтения глаза на лоб лезут

88

а они ничего не понимают

89

да пропади это чтение пропадом

90

пришвартовал лодку

91

Рубка – салон на верхней палубе.

92

морской волк

93

табак, свёрнутый трубочкой

94

У него странный запах

95

он может пригодиться