United States or Papua New Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


"He won't spit on your decks, anyway," I broke in boldly. Captain Selover's hairy face bristled about the mouth. This I subsequently discovered was symptom of a grin. "You saw that, eh?" he trebled. "Aren't you afraid he'll bring down the police and delay your sailing?" I asked. He grinned again, with a cunning twinkle in his eye. "You needn't worry. There ain't goin' to be any police.

We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, under Captain Selover's directions, we commenced the task of lightening the ship. He detailed the Nigger and Perdosa for special duty. "I'll just see to your shore quarters," he squeaked. "You empty her." All day long we rowed back and forth from the ship to the cove, landing the contents of the hold.

"There was a trouble last year in the Ishigaki Jima Islands where a poacher beat off the Oyama. It was a desperate fight." Captain Selover's eye lit up. "I've commanded a black brigantine, name of The Petrel," he admitted simply. "She was a brigantine aloft, but alow she had much the same lines as the Laughing Lass." He whirled on his heel to roll to one of the covered yacht's cannon.

He ought to have left it to me. What is this craft? Have you ever sailed on her before?" "No." "Have any of the crew?" I replied that I believed all of them were Selover's men. He threw the cigarette butt into the sea and turned back. "Well, I wish you joy of your double wages," he mocked. So he knew that, after all! How much more of his ignorance was pretended I had no means of guessing.

"Por Dios, eet is too mooch work!" sighed Perdosa once. "Why don't you kick to the Old Man, then?" sneered Thrackles. The silence that followed, and the sullenness with which Perdosa readdressed himself to his work, was significant enough of Captain Selover's past relations with the men. And how we did clean her!

Mumble surprised for an answer. "Well, I'll tell you, you swab! It's just two fathom from where you stand. Just two fathom! How long would it take you to walk there? How long? Just about six seconds! There and back! You " I won't bother with all the epithets, although by now I know Captain Selover's vocabulary fairly well. "And you couldn't take six seconds off to spit over the side!

Nothing but some sods to pull away, to make that hole large enough, and then Abe Selover's curly head popped out, and the rest of him followed, grimy and dirty, but in a great fever of excitement and fun. After him climbed the other boys, one by one. "Mr. Hamburger, did you see where that woodchuck went to?" "De vootshuck? I don't know him.