Kidnapped / Похищенный. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Have you had any meat?’

I said I could not look at it: and thereupon he gave me some brandy and water in a tin pannikin, and left me once more to myself.

The next time he came to see me I was lying betwixt sleep and waking. I ached in every limb, and the cords that bound me seemed to be of fire. I had suffered tortures of fear, now from the scurrying of the ship’s rats that sometimes pattered on my very face and from the dismal imaginings that haunt the bed of fever.

The glimmer of the lantern, as a trap opened, shone in like the heaven’s sunlight.

The man with the green eyes was the first to descend the ladder, and I noticed that he came somewhat unsteadily. He was followed by the captain. Neither said a word; but the first set to and examined me, and dressed my wound as before, while Hoseason looked me in my face with an odd, black look.

�Now, sir, you see for yourself,’ said the first: �a high fever, no appetite, no light, no meat: you see for yourself what that means. I want that boy taken out of this hole and put in the forecastle,’ said Riach.

�What ye may want, sir, is a matter of concern to nobody but yoursel’, returned the captain; �but I can tell ye that which is to be. Here he is; here he shall bide,’ he added, in a sharper note, and set one foot upon the ladder.

But Mr. Riach caught him by the sleeve.

�Admitting that you have been paid to do a murder —’ he began.

Hoseason turned upon him with a flash. �What’s that?’ he cried.

�What kind of talk is that?’

�It seems it is the talk that you can understand,’ said Mr. Riach, looking him steadily in the face.

�Mr. Riach, I have sailed with ye three cruises,’ replied the captain. �In all that time, sir, ye should have learned to know me: I’m a stiff man, and a dour man; but for what ye say the now – fie, fie! – it comes from a bad heart and a black conscience. If ye say the lad will die —’

�Ay, will he!’ said Mr. Riach.

�Well, sir, is not that enough?’ said Hoseason. �Flit him where ye please!’

Thereupon the captain ascended the ladder; and I, who had lain silent throughout this strange conversation, beheld Mr. Riach turn after him and bow as low as to his knees in what was plainly a spirit of derision. Even in my then state of sickness, I perceived two things: that the mate was touched with liquor and that (drunk or sober) he was like to prove a valuable friend.