БИЛЕТ №18

3. Mind the text “The Shipwreck” by R. L. Stevensonand with the help of the questions describe the events in 10-15 sentences.

1.How did David find himself on a desert island?

2. Why did David choose a place on a hillside for his home?

3. What did the boy feel when the fishermen sailed past the islet without stopping?

4. Why did the third fisherman roar with laughter when he saw David?

David Balfour, a sixteen-year-old boy, was on board a brig bound for America. The brig met with a violent storm off the coast of Scotland. During the shipwreck that followed David was cast overboard. He couldn’t swim and, fortunately, he managed to get hold of a floating board. After a desperate struggle he was flung upon the shore..He spent the first night walking to and fro upon the beach for fear he might be frozen. At dawn he found out that he has been cast on a rocky island, cut off from the mainland by a strait. All his attempts to get across the strait end in failure.

He stood shivering in the rain, wet and bare foot, and wondered what to do till it occurred to him that shellfish, of which there were plenty on the island, might be good to eat. He ate them cold and raw; and they seemed to him delicious.

The second day David explored the entire island and chose a place on a hillside to be his home. he had a good reason for his choice: from there he could distinguish the top of a great ancient church and the roofs of houses on the mainland. It kept hope alive and saved him from the sense of horror he had when I was alone with the dead rocks and the rain, and the sea.

It seemed impossible that he should die on the shores of his own country and within view of men's houses. But the second day passed. he felt completely exhausted.

All of a sudden a boat with a pair of fishers came flying round the corner of the isle. He shouted out and ran along the shore from rock to rock, they had observed him, for they cried out something and laughed. He still cried and waved to them. But all was in vain.

On the fourth day there was the same boat with the same men as yesterday. But now there was a third man with them. The new man roared with laughter as he looked at me. Then he addressed me, speaking fast and waving his hand towards the mainland. David picked out the word "tide." He had a flash of hope! He meant when the tide is out..."Yes, yes," said he. "Tide."

When it had become a little stream of water, through which he dashed, splashing, not above his knees, and landed with a shout on the mainland.

A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on the isle which is only a tidal islet, and can be entered and left twice in every twenty-four hours.