Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
"For Drake and Devon!" shouted a Plymouth tar, and his comrades had hurrahed at his words. "Ay, remember the skipper's name!" Sir John had replied; "defeat and Drake don't go together!" These shouted words, and the promptness of the round shot from the ship, had really equal effects in scattering the foe.
Through the darkness, as the squall spent itself, came the slatting of the half-lowered mainsail, the shrill voices of the boat's crew, a curse of Borckman's, and, dominating all, Skipper's voice, shouting: "Grab the leech, you fella boys! Hang on! Drag down strong fella! Come in mainsheet two blocks! Jump, damn you, jump!"
It was grey, harsh, easterly weather, the swell ran pretty high, and out in the open there were "skipper's daughters," when I found myself at last on the diver's platform, twenty pounds of lead upon each foot and my whole person swollen with ply and ply of woollen underclothing.
The vessel reached across the narrow channel and went in stays quite close to the tree-clad northern shore of the lagoon thus at once exhibiting her own exceedingly shallow-draught of water and her skipper's intimate knowledge of the locality just as the barque in turn hove in sight.
He shivered, looking at the skipper's stalwart figure, and wondered whether, if the sailor but had the power of speech, he might not tell him something of his boy, whether he met death's dark face calmly and fearlessly, and whether he sent a message to those whom he saw on the shore and could not call to. This thought gave him fresh anguish.
It was the poorest of chances, but Robert could think of no other. She started on receiving it, but regarding the skipper's significant gestures put it quietly away. She looked anything but happy, for her illness had deprived her of courage, and probably roused her conscience.
He afterwards went aft to the skipper's cabin, bringing forwards from thence a stout piece of cord, with the ends frayed into lashes like those of a whip, which had evidently seen a good deal of service.
O'Malley," cried the skipper's well-known voice, "come down below and join us in a parting glass; that's the Lisbon light to leeward, and before two hours we drop our anchor in the Tagus." Of my travelling companions I have already told my readers something.
I got the glass, and hurrying on deck with it, placed it in the skipper's hands. The men were by this time lying out on the yards, shaking a couple of reefs out of the topsails, and loosing the courses.
Pelle was properly ashamed. "Well, what's going on there? What's the news?" So Pelle had to tell it all on the stairs; how there was a Swedish timber ship whose skipper's wife was taken with childbirth out at sea, and how the cook had to deliver her; of a Russian vessel which had run into port with a mutiny on board; and anything else that might have happened. To-day there were only these boots.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking