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The opportunity was not a good one, nevertheless the energetic fellow managed to whisper, "The rope's cut! Lie still!" in the very act of falling. "Well done, Paddy," exclaimed several of the laughing men, as Flinders rose with a pretended look of discomfiture, and went towards the fire, exclaiming "Niver mind, boys, I'll have me supper now. Hi! who's bin an' stole it whin I was out on dooty?
He showed in his words and actions that he was unprincipled, a thorough reprobate, whose soul had been case-hardened in crime. This man ridiculed the illness of Smith; tried to rouse him from his berth in the half-deck; declared that he was "shamming Abraham," and threatened him with a rope's end unless he gave over skulking.
Allan threw down a rope's end, and the boat was drawn alongside. Scarcely able to move his gaunt limbs, Duncan clambered up the galley's side and fell upon the deck, moaning. From under his ragged plaid he drew a formidable sword and held it towards Allan without speaking a word. "The Thirsty Sword!" cried Allan in dread surprise as he took the weapon. "Alas! Kenric is most surely dead!"
"Can you fasten my horse where he may stand a little while, Sir, without taking him out?" "I guess I can," replied Philetus, with reasonable confidence, "if there's a rope's end some place." And forthwith he went back into the house to seek it; the gentleman patiently holding his horse meanwhile till he came out. "How is Mr. Hugh to-night?"
I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop.
"Why, my cock, that's very handsome of you, considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take advantage of your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!" he spluttered suddenly, "decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of yours " His eye fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably.
These reflections passed almost instantaneously through my mind they occupied only a few seconds just the interval that elapsed from the time I first stood to my feet till I recovered from the surprise I felt at being confronted by the Frenchman. It was a short pause, for the bully had again elevated the rope's end to come down with another thwack.
23rd. Up by four o'clock, and so to my office; but before I went out, calling, as I have of late done, for my boy's copybook, I found that he had not done his task; so I beat him, and then went up to fetch my rope's end, but before I got down the boy was gone. I searched the cellar with a candle, and from top to bottom could not find him high nor low.
Goaded to madness by the cruel misfortune that had tripped me when success was almost within my grasp, I tore frantically across the intervening space, and just beneath the rope's dangling end I put my earthly muscles to the supreme test. With a mighty, catlike bound I sprang upward toward that slender strand the only avenue which yet remained that could carry me to my vanishing love.
He would give a man a new jacket one day, and cut it to pieces on his back with a rope's end on the next. Yet it was not exactly inconsistency it was an eccentricity of character not natural, but created by the service. The graft was of a worse quality than the parent stock, and the fruit was a compound of the two.
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