United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Two piecee priest, all dressum white savvy? You mus' buyum coffin yo'self. Velly fine coffin, heap much silver, an' four-piecee horse. You catchum fireclacker one, five, seven hundled fireclacker, makeum big noise; an' loast pig, an' plenty lice an' China blandy. Heap fine funeral, costum fifteen hundled dollah. I be bury all same Mandarin all same Little Pete. You plomise, sure?"
"Four-piecee dlown," reiterated Charlie calmly. "One, thlee, five, nine, come asho'. Him other no come." "Where are the ones that came ashore?" asked Wilbur. Charlie waved a hand back into the night. "Him make um camp topside ole house." "That old whaling-camp," prompted Moran. Then to Wilbur: "You remember about a hundred yards north the creek?"
What wrecked her?" demanded Moran. The deserting Chinamen huddled around Charlie, drawing close, as if finding comfort in the feel of each other's elbows. "No can tell," answered Charlie. "Him shake, then lif' up all the same as we. Bime-by too much lif' up; him smash all to Four-piecee Chinamen dlown." "Drown! Did any of them drown?" exclaimed Moran.
You gib my money to Hop Sing Association, topside Ming Yen temple. You savvy Hop Sing? one Six Companies." "Yes, yes." "Tellum Hop Sing I want funeral four-piecee horse. You no flogettee horse?" he added apprehensively. "No, I'll not forget the horses Charlie. You shall have four." "Want six-piecee band musicians China music heap plenty gong. You no flogettee?
"Hello, hello!" cried the Captain, rolling from his hammock. "Turtle? Where-away?" "I tink-um 'bout quallah mile, mebbee, four-piecee tortle all-same weatha bow." "Turtle, hey? Down y'r wheel, Jim, haul y'r jib to win'ward," he commanded the man at the wheel; then to the men forward: "Get the dory overboard. Son, Charlie, and you, Wing, tumble in. Wake up now and see you stay so."
He drooped once more, only to rouse again at the end of a few minutes with: "First-chop coffin, plenty much silver"; and again, a little later and very feebly: "Six-piecee band music China music four-piecee gong four." "I promise you, Charlie," said Wilbur. "Now," answered Charlie "now I die."
Then the pictures began to thicken fast: the derelict bark "Lady Letty" rolling to her scuppers, abandoned and lonely; the "boy" in the wheel-box; Kitchell wrenching open the desk in the captain's stateroom; Captain Sternersen buried at sea, his false teeth upside down; the black fury of the squall, and Moran at the wheel; Moran lying at full length on the deck, getting the altitude of a star; Magdalena Bay; the shark-fishing; the mysterious lifting and shuddering of the schooner; the beach-combers' junk, with its staring red eyes; Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat and whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to beach the sinking schooner; the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and Moran had camped together on the beach; Hoang taken prisoner, and the hideous filing of his teeth; the beach-combers, silent and watchful behind their sand breastworks; the Chinaman he had killed twitching and hic-coughing at his feet; Moran turned Berserker, bursting down upon him through a haze of smoke; Charlie dying in the hammock aboard the schooner, ordering his funeral with its "four-piecee horse"; Coronado; the incongruous scene in the ballroom; and, last of all, Josie Herrick in white duck and kid shoes, giving her hand to Moran in her boots and belt, hatless as ever, her sleeves rolled up to above the elbows, her white, strong arm extended, her ruddy face, and pale, milk-blue eyes gravely observant, her heavy braids, yellow as ripening rye, hanging over her shoulder and breast.
Word Of The Day