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

divided into five small portions, each served on a chip of wood,
and having a deliciously mysterious flavor of gunpowder and smoke,
was soon over. It was necessary after this that the pirates should
at once seek repose after a day of adventure, which they did for
the space of forty seconds in singularly impossible attitudes and
far too aggressive snoring. Indeed, Master Hickory's almost
upright pose, with tightly folded arms and darkly frowning brows,
was felt to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer period. The
brief interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to look around
her in her usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and
uttered a cry. In the excitement of the descent she had quite
overlooked her doll, and was now regarding it with round-eyed
horror.

"Lady Mary's hair's gone!" she cried, convulsively grasping the
Pirate Hickory's legs.

Hickory at once recognized the battered doll under the aristocratic
title which Polly had long ago bestowed upon it. He stared at the
bald and battered head.

"Ha! ha!" he said hoarsely; "skelped by Injins!"

For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginative
Polly. But it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.

"Lady Maley's pigtail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big
quartz stone allee same Polly; me go fetchee."

"No!" quickly shrieked the others. The prospect of being left in
the proximity of Wan Lee's evil spirit, without Wan Lee's
exorcising power, was anything but reassuring. "No, don't go!"
Even Polly (dropping a maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary)
protested against this breaking up of the little circle. "Go to
bed!" she said authoritatively, "and sleep till morning."

Thus admonished, the Pirates again retired. This time effectively;
for, worn by actual fatigue or soothed by the delicious coolness of
the cave, they gradually, one by one, succumbed to real slumber.
Polly, withheld from joining them by official and maternal
responsibility, sat and blinked at them affectionately.

Gradually she, too, felt herself yielding to the fascination and
mystery of the place and the solitude that encompassed her. Beyond
the pleasant shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of
mountain and valley through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from
the depths below and occasionally hang before the cavern like a
veil. Long waves of spicy heat rolling up the mountain from the
valley brought her the smell of pine-trees and bay, and made the
landscape swim before her eyes. She could hear the far-off cry of