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You recollect that after the ship struck, we three sprang over the bow into the sea; well, I noticed that the oar struck your head and gave you that cut on the brow, which nearly stunned you, so that you grasped Peterkin round the neck without knowing apparently what you were about. In doing so you pushed the telescope, which you clung to as if it had been your life, against Peterkin's mouth "
Seating herself upon the bench where she had been sleeping when Peterkin's voice aroused her, Jerrie untied the package, and then began to read, first slowly, as if weighing every word and sentence, then faster and faster, until at last it seemed that her burning eyes, from which the hot tears were streaming like rain, fairly leaped from page to page, taking in the contents at a glance, and comprehending everything.
When we went into the dining-room, the fascinating creature who sat next to him held her fan before her face, and so made a private interview of it between the rich Englishman and herself. With regard to the dinner, I shall only report that it justified Captain Peterkin's boast, in some degree at least. The wine was good, and the conversation became gay to the verge of indelicacy.
"Let him swallow it next time," said Jack, laughing at the melancholy expression of Peterkin's visage. "There he's again," cried Peterkin, his eyes flashing with excitement. "Look out! Now then! No! Yes! No! Why, the brute won't swallow it!" "Try to haul him up by the mouth, then," cried Jack. "Do it gently."
Peterkin's idea was not inappropriate, for, what with the sea roaring in white foam up to our very feet, and the spray flying in white sheets continually over our heads, and the water dripping heavily from the ledge above like a curtain in front of our cave, it did seem to us very much more like being below than above water.
The end of this speech was suddenly cut short by Jack tripping up Peterkin's heels and tumbling him into a mass of thick shrubs, where, finding himself comfortable, he lay still basking in the sunshine, while Jack and I examined the bread-tree.
Just at that moment I was attracted by the sight of a very small parrot, which Jack afterwards told me was called a paroquet. It was seated on a twig that overhung Peterkin's head, and I was speedily lost in admiration of its bright green plumage, which was mingled with other gay colours.
"They say if you are shot through the head you don't know what killed you, it's so quick. Think of that!" exclaimed Peterkin, huddling closer to Hugo and shivering. "Yes, very merciful," Hugo whispered, patting Peterkin's arm. "Sh-h-h! Silence, I tell you!" commanded Fracasse crossly. He was falling into a half doze at last.
He thought that he was dead, and found, as he had in the shell crater, that he was not. After the two explosions he heard groans that chilled his blood, and looked around to see living faces like chalk, with glassy, beady, protruding eyes, and a dozen men killed and eviscerated and mangled in bleeding confusion. But Hugo and Pilzer and those of Peterkin's immediate group were alive.
Jerrie Crawford! and Peterkin's big feet came down from the back of the chair on which they were resting, upsetting the chair and his brandy at the same time. 'Jerrie Crawford! I swow! A gal without a cent, or name either, though I used to have a sneakin' notion that I knew who she was, but I guess I didn't. 'Twould have come out afore now. What under heavens put her into your noddle?
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