Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 21, 2025
Now that we were reunited, we held a council to determine what course we should pursue in the immediate future. Snider was still for setting out to sea and returning to Pan-America, but the better judgment of Delcarte and Taylor ridiculed the suggestion we should not have lived a fortnight. To remain in England, constantly menaced by wild beasts and men equally as wild, seemed about as bad.
"The launch!" cried Delcarte; and, indeed, it was the launch, floating down-river from above us. Where had it been? How had we passed it? And how were we to reach it now, should Snider and the girl discover us? "It's drifting," said Taylor. "I see no one in it." I was stripping off my clothes, and Delcarte soon followed my example. I told Taylor to remain on shore with the clothing and rifles.
Clothe you in a wolfskin, give you a knife and a spear, and set you down in the woods of Grabritin of what service would your civilization be to you?" Delcarte and Taylor smiled at her reply, but Thirty-six and Snider laughed uproariously. I was not surprised at Thirty-six, but I thought that Snider laughed louder than the occasion warranted.
I had hailed Taylor, and sent him across the river to take in Delcarte, that the two might join me and discuss my discovery and our future plans. While waiting for them, I stood looking out over the river, my back toward the woods that stretched away to the east behind me.
Straight as a torpedo it rushed for Delcarte, and, as Taylor and I stumbled on through the tall grass toward our unfortunate comrade, we saw the tiger rear upon him and crush him to the earth. Not a backward step had the noble Delcarte taken. Two hundred years of peace had not sapped the red blood from his courageous line.
When I had told Delcarte and Taylor that I intended searching for the girl, neither had demurred. "We had her wrong in our thoughts," said Delcarte, "and the least that we can do in expiation is to find and rescue her." We called her name aloud every few minutes as we motored up the river, but, though we returned all the way to our former camping place, we did not find her.
Instead of being received as a traitor to my country, I was acclaimed a hero. It was good to get back again, good to witness the kindly treatment that was accorded my dear Victory, and when I learned that Delcarte and Taylor had been found at the mouth of the Rhine and were already back in Pan-America my joy was unalloyed.
He drew aside the lion's skin that covered half of the Grabritin's breast, revealing a neat, round hole in Thirty-six's chest a hole that could have been made by no other weapon than a rifle. "Snider!" I exclaimed. Delcarte nodded. At about the same time the eyelids of the wounded man fluttered, and raised. He looked up at us, and very slowly the light of consciousness returned to his eyes.
The other prisoners worked harder than I did, and I owe my better treatment solely to the kindliness and discrimination of the old colonel. What had become of Victory, of Delcarte, of Taylor I could not know; nor did it seem likely that I should ever learn. I was most depressed.
"Another Felis tigris," said Taylor. "Or a dozen of them," supplemented Delcarte, and, even as he spoke, there leaped into sight, one after another, eight of the beasts, full grown magnificent specimens. At the sight of us, they came charging down like infuriated demons.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking