United States or Tuvalu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The boats were hoisted up, and Paddy, having changed his wet Turkish costume for a dry midshipman's uniform, was sent for into the cabin to give an account of his adventures to Captain Lascelles. He, however, reserved a still more detailed account to give to his messmates in full conclave assembled in the midshipmen's berth. The only person on board who had not heard of Adair's arrival was Pigeon.
I ought to have been disarmed by the coincidence; but I recalled our initial conversation, about India and Hamilton and Mrs. Lascelles, and I could not consider it a coincidence at all. "You don't mean to tell me," said I, aping the surprise I might have felt, "that our friend wrote and gave Mrs. Lascelles away to you of his own accord?" But Quinby did not vouchsafe an answer.
"There's a bun-fight at the Bruces' to-night," Hal ran on, "with Llaney to play the violin, and Lascelles to sing quite an elaborate affair : so it is sure to be very boring ; but I suppose Alymer will be there, looking adorably beautiful, and all the women gazing at him. It will be entertaining to chaff him, anyhow." "Well, don't tell him you found nie weeping," with a little laugh.
The captain and several of the gun-room officers were on deck, when Pigeon made his hasty appearance, and hurried eagerly to the side. "What is the matter, Mr Pigeon?" asked Captain Lascelles. "The mail from Sicily! the mail from Sicily!" ejaculated Pigeon. "Has it gone? Am I too late to see it?"
At first he thought it might be a rock, then a dead whale. At length he felt convinced that it was a vessel, either capsized or with all her canvas lowered. He descended below, and reported the circumstance to Captain Lascelles. The ship was steered towards the object, and his last conjecture was found to be the right one.
"That will do," interrupted Courtenay enthusiastically. "By George, Lascelles, you are a trump! a genius! a a in fact I don't know what you are not, in the line of `superior attainments, as my schoolmaster used to say. And I what a consummate idiot I must have been not to think of it too! I say, old fellow, would you be so kind and obliging as to kick me hard once or twice. No?
As Bart thought over their position and its dangers, he grew troubled at heart about Maude, the sister and companion as she had always seemed to him, and somehow, much as he looked up to Dr Lascelles, who seemed to him the very height of knowledge, strength, and skill, it filled his mind with forebodings of the future as he wondered how they were to continue their expedition to the end without happening upon some terrible calamity.
Lascelles seemed to have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom heaved, and I was silenced by a single flash from her eyes.
If true, your poor aunt is without doubt long since dead; but your cousin is still alive, and there he stands!" pointing to Bob, who was in the waist leaning musingly over the lee rail. "Where?" asked Blanche, looking quite bewildered. "There," replied Evelin, again pointing to Bob. "If my supposition is correct, that lad Bob is your cousin, Miss Lascelles." "Impossible!" exclaimed Blanche.
Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with myself outside. Nobody did justice to Mrs. Lascelles; it was terribly hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest uppermost.
Word Of The Day