Книга только для ознакомления
. This worried Alan subconsciously, although he had expected something of the sort; he knew that both Hugh and Joe-Jim were careful captains who would not neglect to cover an approach. He would have worried more if he had not been able detect a reconnaissance which should have been present.
When he approached the rendezvous some twenty decks above the highest civilized level, he stopped and whistled. A whistle answered him. "It's Alan," he called out.
"Come up and show yourself?" Alan did so, without neglecting his usual caution. When be saw no one but his friends: Ertz, Hugh, Joe-Jim, and Bobo, be motioned for Narby to foflow him.
The sight of Joe-Jim and Bobo broke Narby's unsteady calm with a sudden feeling that he had been trapped. He snatched at his knife and backed clumsily down the stair then turned. Bobo's knife was out even faster. For a split moment the outcome hung balanced, ready to fall either way. But Joe-Jim slapped Bobo across the face, took his knife from him and let it clatter to the deck, then relieved him of his slingshot.
Narby was in full flight, with Hugh and Ertz calling vainly after him. "Fetch him, Bobo!" Jim commanded, "and do not hurt him." Bobo lumbered away.
He was back in fairly short order. "Run fast," be commented. He dropped Narby to the deck where the officer lay almost quiet while he fought to catch his breath. Bobo took Narby's knife from his own belt and tried it by shaving coarse black hairs from his left forearm
|
