Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
Our canvas filled and the sloop got a bone in her teeth and walked away with it just as prettily as ever she had sailed in Bolderhead Harbor. "She's a beauty boat, lad," growled old Tom Anderly. "And she's taking us out o' range o' them carcasses Whew! they sartainly do begin to stink. I don't begredge the boys their job of cutting them whales up when they git at it."
I knew I had done some tall sailing since being swept out of Bolderhead Harbor. After having cooked and eaten a hearty breakfast, despite the blowing of the gale for dirty weather prevailed and rain swept down in torrents every hour or two I set about making such slight repairs as I could with the tools and materials I had at hand.
Being sure that the Wavecrest was safely moored to the body of the dead leviathan, I set about correcting the need which preyed upon me. I was thankful, indeed, that I had stocked my larder so well on that last day at Bolderhead. There was plenty of water, too.
Ham turned his head when I called to him in a low voice. "Watch what they do and where they go, Ham," I told him. "I want to see you when you come back." "Aye, aye, sir!" he returned in his sailorlike way; for in Bolderhead if you ask your direction of a man on the street he'll lay a course for you as though you were at sea.
Otherwise the idea that my father was roaming about the world instead of being peacefully asleep somewhere at the bottom of the sea off Bolderhead, would never have gained such a strong hold upon me. And my impulsiveness urged me to accept the story of this Professor Vose as related by Captain Tugg as something of vital importance to myself.
More than a year had passed since that September evening when my cousin, Paul Downes, and I had had our fateful quarrel on my bonnie sloop, the Wavecrest, as she beat slowly into the inlet at Bolderhead. I had roved far afield since that time, had seen strange lands, and strange peoples, and had endured hardship and hard work which after all was said and done hadn't belonged to me.
It had not crossed my mind at the time, but when I had slipped out to the Wavecrest that evening, giving my mother and the servants the impression that I had gone to my room as usual, I had done a very foolish if not wrong thing. The sloop might not be the only craft in Bolderhead Harbor to break away from moorings and go on an involuntary cruise.
The wind had died to just a breath, barely filling the canvas of the Wavecrest. We were slowly making the mouth of the inlet at Bolderhead after a day's fishing. Occasionally as the fitful breeze swooped down the sloop made a pretty little run, then she'd sulk, with the sail flapping, till another puff came.
At the speed she was traveling, however, I knew very well that we were already beyond the reefs and little islets that mask the entrance to Bolderhead Harbor. It was a veritable hurricane behind us. The wind was actually blowing so hard that the waves were scarcely of medium height. I had seen a mere afternoon squall kick up a heavier sea.
My rascally cousin had certainly set out on a career worthy of a pirate! He had run away from home and probably because he was afraid of punishment for his crimes and here in Buenos Ayres, so far from Bolderhead, had begun a new career of wrong-doing. "He certainly is a bad egg!" I thought. But it wasn't upon Paul Downes that my mind lingered long.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking