Pirate Latitudes. Michael Crichton
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Название: Pirate Latitudes
Автор: Michael Crichton
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007346103
isbn:
“Then we must carry a quantity of rats with us.”
“I believe as much,” the Jew said. “Now I have a further surprise, something you did not request. Perhaps you cannot find a use for it, though it seems to me a most admirable device.” He paused. “You have heard of the French weapon which is called the grenadoe?”
“No,” Hunter shook his head. “A poisoned fruit?” Grenadoe was the French word for pomegranate, and poisoning was lately very popular in the Court of Louis.
“In a sense,” the Jew said, with a slight smile. “It is so called because of the seeds within the pomegranate fruit. I have heard this device exists, but was dangerous to manufacture. Yet I have done so. The trick is the proportion of saltpeter. Let me show you.”
The Jew held up an empty, small-necked glass bottle. As Hunter watched, the Jew poured in a handful of birdshot and a few fragments of metal. While he worked, the Jew said, “I do not wish you to think ill of me. Do you know of the Complicidad Grande?”
“Only a little.”
“It began with my son,” the Jew said, grimacing as he prepared the grenadoe. “In August of the year 1639, my son had long renounced the faith of a Jew. He lived in Lima, in Peru, in New Spain. His family prospered. He had enemies.
“He was arrested on the eleventh of August”—the Jew poured more shot into the glass—“and charged with being a secret Jew. It was said he would not make a sale on a Saturday, and also that he would not eat bacon for his breakfast. He was branded a Judaiser. He was tortured. His bare feet were locked into red-hot iron shoes and his flesh sizzled. He confessed.” The Jew packed the glass with powder, and sealed it with dripping wax.
“He was imprisoned for six months,” he continued. “In 1640, in January, eleven men were burned at the stake. Seven were alive. One of them was my son. Cazalla was the garrison commander who supervised the execution of the auto. My son’s property was seized. His wife and children…disappeared.”
The Jew glanced briefly at Hunter and wiped away the tears in his eyes. “I do not grieve,” he said. “But perhaps you will understand this.” He raised the grenadoe, and inserted a short fuse.
“You had best take cover behind those bushes,” the Jew said. Hunter hid, and watched as the Jew set the bottle on a rock, lit the fuse, and ran madly to join him. Both men watched the bottle.
“What is to happen?” Hunter said.
“Watch,” the Jew said, smiling for the first time.
A moment later, the bottle exploded. Flying glass and metal blasted out in all directions. Hunter and the Jew ducked to the ground, hearing the fragments tear through the foliage above them.
When Hunter raised his head again, he was pale. “Good God,” he said.
“Not a gentleman’s apparatus,” the Jew said. “It causes little damage to anything more solid than flesh.”
Hunter looked at the Jew curiously.
“The Don has earned such attentions,” the Jew said. “What is your opinion of the grenadoe?”
Hunter paused. His every instinct rebelled against a weapon so inhumane. Yet he was taking sixty men to capture a treasure galleon in an enemy stronghold: sixty men against a fortress with three hundred soldiers and the crew ashore, making another two or three hundred.
“Build me a dozen,” he said. “Box them for the voyage, and tell no one. They shall be our secret.”
The Jew smiled.
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