"David Eddings - The Dreamers 01 - The Elder gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

building ships to carry their wealth back to the Land of Trog. They were
large ships, wide of beam and deep of hull, and they tended to wallow
rather than sail. Maag vessels were narrow and swift. Moreover, the
wealthy Trogites tended to be miserly, so they neglected to hire warriors
to guard their treasure ships.
The Maags more or less abandoned fishing at that point. The Trogites
winnowed gold from the rivers of Shaan, hauled it down to the coast, and
put it aboard their wallowing treasure ships. Then the treasure ships
sailed out to the northern sea, where the Maags waited for them.
Sorgan Hook-Beak had received an extensive education from Captain
Big-Nose in the fine art of relieving Trogite treasure ships of all that
excess weight. As a young man heтАЩd squandered away his earnings in
revelry, naturally; young sailors are enthusiastic revelers. But after a few
seasons, Sorgan realized that the captainтАЩs share of the shipтАЩs earnings
was much, much larger than the share of an ordinary seaman. So he began
to religiously set aside half of all his earnings, and he had soon saved
enough to be able to buy his own ship, the Seagull.
The Seagull was not particularly seaworthy when Sorgan bought her
from the crusty old pirate heтАЩd happened to meet in a seaside tavern in the
Maag port of Weros. Her sails were ragged, and she leaked quite
noticeably. She was about the best Sorgan could afford at that time,
though. Had the old man who owned her been completely sober during
their negotiations, heтАЩd have probably held out for more money. But his
purse had just come up empty, and Sorgan had shrewdly delayed making
his final offer until the poor old fellowтАЩs tongue had been hanging out. He
also shook his purse frequently while they were haggling, pretending that
it was nothing more than an absent-minded habit.
The musical jingle of money played no small part in the tipsy old
manтАЩs acceptance of SorganтАЩs final offer.
After heтАЩd bought the Seagull, Sorgan had persuaded two of his former
shipmates, Ox and Kryda Ham-Hand, to join him as first and second
mates. Their rank hadnтАЩt meant all that much just then, though. What
Sorgan had really needed at that point had been their help in making the
Seagull more seaworthy.
It had taken the three of them more than a year to finish the repairs,
largely because theyтАЩd frequently run out of money. Whenever that had
happened, theyтАЩd had to suspend operations and take to the streets near
the waterfront in search of drunk sailors whose purses still had a few
coins left in them.
Eventually, the Seagull had been restored, and then the three had been
obliged to haunt the waterfront again - to find a crew.
The Seagull was a full-sized Maag longship, a hundred and ten feet
long and twenty-five feet wide at the beam, so she needed a full-sized
crew. Sorgan had done his best to keep the size of his crew down to a
minimum, but eighty men had been about as low as he could go. HeтАЩd
given a bit of thought to reducing the number of oarsmen, but Ox and
Ham-Hand had protested violently, pointing out that fewer oarsmen
would mean slower speed, and a faster ship would bring in more money.
And so it was that now the Seagull roamed the waters of the Northern
Sea, looking for targets of opportunity.