United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But now, having penetrated into the inner shrine of this awe-inspiring organism, he naturally preferred to think of the secret autocratic powers, and of the almost uncanny insight of those to whom he was about to make appeal. Surely they would soon probe the mystery of John Dampier's disappearance. The door opened suddenly, and the Paris Prefect of Police walked into the room.
Hence our navigators proceeded for the Bashee Islands, hoping to procure at them such a supply of refreshment as would help to shorten their stay at Macao; but Captain Gore, being guided by the opinions of Commodore and Captain Wallis, as to the situation of these islands, which differ materially from Dampier's, they were foiled in their endeavours to find them, although, in the day time, the ships spread two or three leagues from each other, and in the night, when under an easy sail.
It ought not to be necessary to remind readers that Nelson's Victory, still afloat in Portsmouth harbour, was launched in 1765. The sailors were for the most part pressed men, but there was a notable difference between them and the seamen of Dampier's time.
The Senator was telling himself ruefully that though there was now ample evidence of the existence of John Dampier, there was not evidence at all as yet that the artist had ever been at the Hotel Saint Ange: still less that the young Englishwoman who had just now refused to accompany him into the studio was John Dampier's wife.
Senator Burton eagerly acknowledged to himself that here was confirmation as much confirmation as any reasonable man could expect of Mrs. Dampier's story. This respectable old woman was evidently expecting her master and his bride to-day of that there could now be no doubt. "I beg of you to enter," said Mere Bideau again. "Monsieur and madame may like to visit the studio?
He listened for a few moments to what his invisible subordinate had to say, and then again he spoke down the funnel, and with a certain pettish impatience. "The last entry is of no importance understand me no importance at all! The gentleman for whose benefit I require the dossier already knows of this Mr. Dampier's disappearance."
In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, of honest wonders the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's old chums I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed.
"Well," he said at last, "I am of course glad to know that everything, so far, goes to prove that Mrs. Dampier's account of herself is true." "That being so, don't you think the Hotel Saint Ange ought to be searched?" "Searched?" repeated Senator Burton slowly. "Searched for what?"
The young man had stayed quite a while at the studio, listening to Mere Bideau's garrulous confidences. Now and again he had asked her a question, forced thereto by some obscure but none the less intense desire to know what Nancy Dampier's husband was like. And the old woman had acknowledged, in answer to a word from him, that her master was not a good-tempered man.
Evelyn tells us that in 1698 Dampier was going abroad again by the King's commission, and this second voyage of the ex-buccaneer to the South Seas, although of small importance to geographers, is noteworthy, inasmuch as Dampier's was the first visit of a ship of the English royal navy to Australian seas.
Word Of The Day