United States or Curaçao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"We must get to the ship at once," said Tredgold, in an excited whisper. "The men!" Mr. Chalk, much startled, clapped his hands to his head and spoke of going back for his hat. "Never mind about your hat," said Stobell, impatiently; "we haven't got ours either." He took Mr. Chalk's other arm and started off at a rapid pace. "What is the matter?" inquired Mr. Chalk, looking from one to the other.
"I don't see how it could be done, "replied the captain, pondering; "a promise is a promise." Mr. Chalk's face fell. He moved his chair aside mechanically to make room for Mr. Tasker, who had entered with a tray and glasses, and sat staring at the floor. Then he raised his eyes and met a significant glance from Mr. Stobell.
Stobell pronounced the life to be more monotonous than that on board ship, and once, in a moment of severe depression, induced by five days' heavy rain, spoke affectionately of Mrs. Stobell. To Mr. Chalk's reminder that the rain had enabled them to replenish their water supply he made a churlish rejoinder.
He bared his inmost soul to his sympathetic listener, and then, affecting to think from a remark of Mr. Chalk's that he was going to relate the secret of the voyage, declined to hear it on the ground that he was only a rough sailorman and not to be trusted. Mr.
You see that black board; I will give you a lesson to-night upon that. Who's got a piece of chalk?" A negative shake of the head from all. To me: "Chalk's scarce in these diggings." To the boys: "What, nobody got a piece of chalk? That's unlucky; a piece of charcoal out of the stove will do as well." "No 'ar won't," roared out a boy with a very ragged coat. "They be both the same colour."
The captain smiled and shook his head; the other watched him narrowly. "You know of some treasure?" he said, with conviction. "Not what you could call sunken," said the captain, driven to bay. Mr. Chalk's pale-blue eyes opened to their fullest extent. "Ingots?" he queried. The other shook his head. "It's a secret," he remarked; "we won't talk about it."
The only other occupant of the room, a short, wiry man, with a close-shaven, hard-bitten face, sat smoking, with a glass of whisky before him, in a bay window at the end of the room, which looked out on the harbour. There was a maritime flavour about him which at once enlisted Mr. Chalk's sympathies and made him overlook the small, steely- grey eyes and large and somewhat brutal mouth.
"Have you any fault to find with me, gentlemen?" he demanded, turning on them with a frown. Tredgold and Chalk hastened to reassure him. "In the confusion the boat got adrift," said Brisket. "You've got their own word for it. Not that they didn't behave well for landsmen: Mr. Chalk's pluck was wonderful, and Mr. Tredgold was all right." Mr. Stobell turned a dull but ferocious eye upon him.
Chalk's horror smote the speaker heavily on the back. Mr. Stobell, clenching a fist the size of a leg of mutton, pushed his chair back and prepared to rise. "You're a trump," said Captain Brisket, in tones of unmistakable respect, "that's what you are. Lord, if I'd got the head for business you have I should be a man of fortune by now." Mr.
Miss Vickers, ignoring the remarks of one or two fathers of families who were volunteering information as to what they would do if she were their daughter, watched him out of sight and resumed her walk. She turned once or twice as though to make sure that she was not observed, and then, making her way in the direction of Mr. Chalk's house, approached it cautiously from the back. Mr.
Word Of The Day