United States or Hungary ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding his craft. But being equally determined the other way, I cautiously laid the bow of the Chamois against the canoe's quarter, so as to present the smallest possible chance for a hostile entrance into our boat.
Looking up, he saw that they had struck the bank and come near capsizing. And he saw more than that; scarcely two yards away a pair of glowing eyes shone out at him. "For the sake of God, make haste," cried Spurling; "the brute's about to pounce." With a twist of the paddle he swung the canoe's head round, and with the help of Spurling drove her out.
So it was, helpless, suspended in the air by the nape of the neck, that he bawled and squalled and choked and coughed till the black, disgusted, flung him down roughly in the canoe's bottom. He scrambled to his feet and made two leaps: one upon the gunwale of the canoe; the next, despairing and hopeless, without consideration of self, for the rail of the Arangi.
Duppo seemed to have understood him, and turned the canoe's head away from the shore. The whole cliff above us was giving way. Down it came, crash succeeding crash, the water lashed into foam. The spot where the canoe of our savage pursuers had last been seen was now one mass of falling cliff and tangled forest. Trees were ahead of us, trees on every side.
I had a stable door taken off its tracks and rigged with the canoe's sail; and we put a case of champagne on board, and a tub of ice, and bread, and cold meat, and butter, and jam, and cigars, and cigarettes, and liquors, and a cocktail shaker, and a bottle of olives stuffed with red peppers, for Billoo, and two kinds of bitters, and everything else to eat or drink that anybody could think of, and some camp-chairs, and cards for bridge, and score-pads, and pencils, and a folding table.
Our comrades came running up as I flung myself into the struggle, and we quickly secured the toen. I believe Obed would have killed him. "Don't be a fool!" said I; "cannot you see that we now have a hostage for Margit?" I ought at the same time to have begged his pardon for my suspicions. As the reader already knows, Obed had a far keener ear than I, and it had warned him of the canoe's approach.
The big vibrating horn kept up its clamor, and a powerful searchlight in front dazzled the eyes. "Look out! Look out!" cried several. "Somebody'll be swamped!" exclaimed Ned. Hardly had he spoken than, as the big red boat dashed past in a smother of foam, there came a startled cry in girls' voices. "Look!" cried Tom. "That canoe's upset! Speed her up, Ned! We've got to get 'em!" "Where are they?"
When close enough to the large fish, which seemed to be utterly unconscious of the canoe's presence, Sam, taking the spear in both hands, plunged it well and true into the body of the great sturgeon, that up to that instant seemed to have been sound asleep. However, there was a great awakening when it felt that spear thrust.
The sky had again changed to a greenish hue. The waves every moment increased in height. "A hurricane is coming on," observed Domingos. "We cannot face it." We put the canoe's head towards the shore. "Paddle, my masters! paddle!" exclaimed Domingos. "We must reach the shore before the storm breaks with its full violence, or we may be lost!"
My uncle was seated half asleep with the heat, and his gun across his knees, waiting for an opportunity to shoot some large bird that would be good for food; I was dipping in my paddle from time to time so as to keep the canoe's head straight and away from the awkward snags that projected from the river here and there the remains of trees that had been washed out of the bank by some flood and I was thinking despondently about the loss of poor Tom.
Word Of The Day