| This council was met to determine what should be done with the Spanish prisoners. | Совет собрался для решения дальнейшей судьбы испанских пленников. |
| Considering that Curacao now lay beyond their reach, as they were running short of water and provisions, and also that Pitt was hardly yet in case to undertake the navigation of the vessel, it had been decided that, going east of Hispaniola, and then sailing along its northern coast, they should make for Tortuga, that haven of the buccaneers, in which lawless port they had at least no danger of recapture to apprehend. | Всем было ясно, что они не смогут добраться до Кюрасао, так как запасы воды и продовольствия были уже на исходе, а Питт еще не мог приступить к своим штурманским обязанностям. Обсудив все это, они решили направиться к востоку от острова Гаити и, пройдя вдоль его северного побережья, добраться до острова Тортуга. Там, в порту, принадлежавшем французской ВестИндской компании, им по крайней мере не угрожала опасность захвата. |
| It was now a question whether they should convey the Spaniards thither with them, or turn them off in a boat to make the best of their way to the coast of Hispaniola, which was but ten miles off. | Сейчас возникал вопрос, должны ли они тащить с собой испанских пленников или же, посадив их в лодку, дать им возможность самим добираться до земли, находившейся всего лишь в десяти милях. |
| This was the course urged by Blood himself. | Именно это предлагал сделать Блад. |
| "There's nothing else to be done," he insisted. | - У нас нет иного выхода, - настойчиво доказывал он. |
| "In Tortuga they would be flayed alive." | - На Тортуге их сожгут живьем. |
| "Which is less than the swine deserve," growled Wolverstone. | - Эти свиньи заслуживают и худшего! - проворчал Волверстон. |
| "And you'll remember, Peter," put in Hagthorpe, "that boy's threat to you this morning. | - Вспомни, Питер, - вмешался Хагторп, - чем тебе сегодня угрожал мальчишка. |
| If he escapes, and carries word of all this to his uncle, the Admiral, the execution of that threat will become more than possible." It says much for Peter Blood that the argument should have left him unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which there is so much that tells against him, I cannot - since my story is in the nature of a brief for the defence - afford to slur a circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural instincts. |