"BretHarte-TheQueenOfThePirateIsle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harte Bret)

anywhere else, struck Master Hickory and threw him overboard,
whence, wildly swimming for his life and carrying Polly on his
back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in the closet. Here
the rescued party put up a tent made of a table-cloth providentially
snatched from the raging billows, and, from two o'clock until four,
passed six weeks on the island, supported only by a piece of candle,
a box of matches, and two peppermint lozenges. It was at this time
that it became necessary to account for Polly's existence among
them, and this was only effected by an alarming sacrifice of their
morality; Hickory and Wan Lee instantly became PIRATES, and at once
elected Polly as their Queen. The royal duties, which seemed to be
purely maternal, consisted in putting the Pirates to bed after a day
of rapine and bloodshed, and in feeding them with licorice water
through a quill in a small bottle. Limited as her functions were,
Polly performed them with inimitable gravity and unquestioned
sincerity. Even when her companions sometimes hesitated from actual
hunger or fatigue and forgot their guilty part, she never faltered.
It was her real existence; her other life of being washed, dressed,
and put to bed at certain hours by her mother was the ILLUSION.

Doubt and skepticism came at last,--and came from Wan Lee! Wan Lee
of all creatures! Wan Lee, whose silent, stolid, mechanical
performance of a pirate's duties--a perfect imitation like all his
household work--had been their one delight and fascination!

It was just after the exciting capture of a merchantman, with the
indiscriminate slaughter of all on board,--a spectacle on which the
round blue eyes of the plump Polly had gazed with royal and
maternal tolerance,--and they were burying the booty, two
tablespoons and a thimble, in the corner of the closet, when Wan
Lee stolidly rose.

"Melican boy pleenty foolee! Melican boy no Pilat!" said the
little Chinaman, substituting "l's" for "r's" after his usual
fashion.

"Wotcher say?" said Hickory, reddening with sudden confusion.

"Melican boy's papa heap lickee him--s'pose him leal Pilat,"
continued Wan Lee doggedly. "Melican boy Pilat INSIDE housee.
Chinee boy Pilat OUTSIDE housee. First chop Pilat."

Staggered by this humiliating statement, Hickory recovered himself
in character. "Ah! Ho!" he shrieked, dancing wildly on one leg,
"Mutiny and Splordinashun! 'Way with him to the yard-arm."

"Yald-alm--heap foolee! Alee same clothes-horse for washee
washee."

It was here necessary for the Pirate Queen to assert her authority,