Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 21, 2025
There was just time to run to the rescue of the baleen whales. The Nautilus proceeded to midwater. Conseil, Ned, and I sat in front of the lounge windows. Captain Nemo made his way to the helmsman's side to operate his submersible as an engine of destruction. Soon I felt the beats of our propeller getting faster, and we picked up speed.
Green struck him a blow that knocked him senseless, and then turned on the Captain, who called loudly for help. The sailors to a man rushed to his aid, while the Chinamen refused to mix in the white men's quarrel. Green was quickly overpowered and was thrown into chains in the steerage. There the Captain also put the boys who had openly taken the helmsman's part. The Hurricane.
The tribune, standing upon the helmsman's deck with the order of the duumvir open in his hand, spoke to the chief of the rowers. Called hortator. "What force hast thou?" "Of oarsmen, two hundred and fifty-two; ten supernumeraries. "Making reliefs of " "Eighty-four." "And thy habit?" "It has been to take off and put on every two hours." The tribune mused a moment.
And villages scattered along the banks of the Yann heard all that night in the helmsman's unknown tongue the little songs of cities that they knew not. I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I remembered why.
And I thought of the danger that had menaced us all alike outside Perdóndaris, a danger that, as things have happened, was very real. And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands.
While I was still speaking there came an answering flash from the brigantine, which at the same moment boldly ran up a black flag at her gaff-end; and ere the report had time to reach us, a nine-pound shot crashed fair into our bows, raking us fore and aft, and carrying off the top of our unfortunate helmsman's head as it flew out over our taffrail.
In a moment a terrifically lurid glare was cast over our decks. Up went the helmsman's gory head at the end of a boarding-pike, though he steered as steadily as before, while we all shook ours in our hands, and at the same moment gave vent to the most unearthly shrieks, and groans, and cries, our headless helmsman shrieking and shouting louder than any of us.
At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard from aft, "Man the mast-heads!" and all through the day, till after sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard "What d'ye see? sharp! sharp!"
But his limbs became numb, and when they laid him down on the shore of the lake he stayed moveless. Soon he grew cold. They dug a grave for Nauplius beside the lake, and in that desert land they set up his helmsman's oar in the middle of his tomb of heaped stones.
Three other shots followed the first, one of the balls passing through the boards of the pilot-house, above the helmsman's head; and he saw a splinter fly from a stanchion forward. Captain Pecklar waited for the fourth shot, and he had evidently noticed how many men had muskets in their hands, then he sprang out from his hiding-place, sighted the gun, and pulled the lock-string.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking