United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They consisted of the Sapphire's late second and third lieutenants, one midshipman, nine marines, and sixteen seamen; one midshipman, three marines, and two seamen having died of fever during the time that they had been in Matadi's hands.
I had given this matter a great deal of careful consideration during our passage, and had at length determined upon the course of action that seemed to promise the most successful results; and it was in accordance with this determination that I anchored in Banana Creek instead of proceeding forthwith up the river to the spot named by Mendouca as the scene of the captivity of the Sapphire's boats' crews.
Down the sides of the low hills, the polychrome grain waved beneath the touch of the breeze like a moving sea. Many and vast were the flat-lands; they were wide vistas of color: there were fields that were scarlet with the pomp of poppies, others tinged to the yellow of a Celestial by the feathery mustard; and still others blue as a sapphire's heart from the dye of millions of bluets.
But for such careful forethought on my part, the Sapphire's two boats would never have fallen into my power." "The Sapphire's boats?" I exclaimed. "Surely you do not mean to tell me that you are responsible for the massacre of those two boats' crews?" "No, not the massacre of them, certainly, but their capture," answered Mendouca, with a smile of gratified pride.
And now, tell me everything you know with regard to the fate of the crews of the Sapphire's boats." "The Sapphire's boats?" ejaculated the now thoroughly terrified wretch. "I swear to Gad, sar, dat I had not'ing to do vid dat! I know not'ing about dem; not'ing whatever!
But mark! what glory is this which begins to burn upon the crest of the snowy Alps? First there comes a flood of rosy light, and then a deep bright crimson, like the ruby's flash or the sapphire's blaze, and then a circlet of flaming peaks studs the horizon. It looks as if a great conflagration were about to begin. But suddenly the light fades, and piles of cold, pale white rise above you.
"Eh?" he said, "and what about that honor of yours? What shall we say about it, now that the sapphire's gone and no longer in our way?" She was breathing quick to keep from crying. "I told you that day at the restaurant." "Yes, yes; you told me why you kept the sapphire from me, but" he hung fire, then fetched it out with an effort "why did you take it in the first place?"
He had grown suddenly paler; his eyes were dancing, fastened upon her breast. His long hands closed and opened. She looked down, arrested at the sight of her hand clenched just where her breath was shortest, over the sapphire's hiding-place. He smiled. How easily she had betrayed herself!
On the third day out, the captain of the Mercedes whom I had shot in self-defence in his own cabin, it will be remembered died of his wound, solemnly declaring with his last breath that he was absolutely innocent of any complicity in the destruction of the Sapphire's two boats with their crews, or in the disappearance of the Wasp.
And I may tell you that, up to the present, no charge has been made against you in connection with the disappearance of the Sapphire's boats; you have therefore nothing to fear from us just now on that score. Now, will you tell us what you know about those unfortunate missing men?"
Word Of The Day