United States or Turkmenistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Not a thing, sir. We were blown out to sea, and I suppose the commodore passed us in the night." "H'm! Very likely. And you weathered that storm, did you? Learned your seamanship, eh?" "Picked up a little on board the Good Intent, sir. I was ship's boy aboard." "Mighty queer ship's boy!" said Mr. Johnson in an audible aside. "The Good Intent's a villainous interloper; how came you aboard of her?"
A kedge anchor, fastened to a stout hawser, was put on board, and as soon as it was sufficiently dark to make so comparatively small an object as a boat invisible to the hostile craft, she put off at right angles to the Good Intent's previous course, the hawser attached to the kedge being paid out as the boat drew away.
Two days ago 'twas at Chandernagore, where the Good Intent's been laid up for a matter a' weeks the captain he went an' forgot hisself, sir; clean forgot hisself, an' lifted his hand to Mr. Toley; ay, hit him, sir. Wunst it was, sir, on'y wunst; then 'twas Mr. Toley his turn. Ah, an' I warrant Captain Barker's in his bunk today.
A few sweeps of the paddle brought the boat close underneath the Good Intent's side, and a second rope enabled him to make fast. He swarmed up the rope, followed by one of the boatmen. The other, on the boat, began to fill a basket with melons, as if preparing to send them on board. At the same time Karim joined Hossain from the other side, so that there were now four of the party on deck.
After a short interval another puff came from the deck of the grab, and a round shot plunged into the sea a cable's length from the Good Intent's bows, the grab at the same time hauling her wind and preparing to alter her course in pursuit.
Let them, however, imagine a small and dirty cabin, into which no one is admitted save by the companion-door and a small sky-light that cannot be opened in rough weather let them imagine, if they can, the "villanous compound of smells," produced by confined air, the flavour of bilge water, agitated in the hold of the ship, and diffused through every creaking crevice, and pitch, and effluvia of rancid salt meat and broth, and the products of universal sea-sickness, altogether inevitable in such circumstances let them figure such a confined hole filled with human beings, crammed into smaller holes all around, called beds, or laid on shakedowns upon the floor, or stretched upon the lockers, in that state of despondency which overwhelming sickness induces; and they have a picture of the Good Intent's cabin and state-room during the voyage to which I refer.
He wiped away the blood imperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was not among his defects. Captain Barker's ire was now at white heat. Shouting an order to Bulger and the next man to make rapid practice with the two stern chasers, he prepared to fall off and bring the Good Intent's broadside to bear on the enemy. But the next shot was decisive.
Word Of The Day