"The Wrecker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stevenson Robert Louis)

into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a
flying jib beyond the western islet. Two more
headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had
scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some
hundred tons, had luffed about the sentinel, and was
standing up the bay, close-hauled.

The sleeping city awakened by enchantment. Natives
appeared upon all sides, hailing each other with the
magic cry "Ehippy"--ship; the Queen stepped forth on
her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand that was a
miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant
broke from his domestic convicts and ran into the
residency for his glass; the harbour-master, who was
also the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill;
the seventeen brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's
mate, that make up the complement of the war-schooner,
crowded on the forward deck; and the various English,
Americans, Germans, Poles, Corsicans, and Scots--the
merchants and the clerks of Tai-o-hae--deserted their
places of business, and gathered, according to
invariable custom, on the road before the club.

So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are
the distances in Tai-o-hae, that they were already
exchanging guesses as to the nationality and business
of the strange vessel, before she had gone about upon
her second board towards the anchorage. A moment
after, English colours were broken out at the main
truck.

"I told you she was a Johnny Bull--knew it by her
headsails," said an evergreen old salt, still qualified
(if he could anywhere have found an owner unacquainted
with his story) to adorn another quarter-deck and lose
another ship.

"She has American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots
engineer of the gin-mill; "it's my belief she's a
yacht."

"That's it," said the old salt, "a yacht! look at her
davits, and the boat over the stern."

"A yacht in your eye!" said a Glasgow voice. "Look at
her red ensign! A yacht! not much she isn't!"

"You can close the store, anyway, Tom," observed a
gentlemanly German. "BON JOUR, MON PRINCE!" he
added, as a dark, intelligent native cantered by on a