Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 4, 2025
But Radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it. "Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with his gay banterings. "'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, one of ye, and let's have a taste.
With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam. "'What do you want of me? cried the captain. "'Where are you bound? and for what are you bound? demanded Steelkilt; 'no lies. "'I am bound to Tahiti for more men. "'Very good.
Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next trick at the helm would come round at two o'clock, in the morning of the third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his leisure, he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully in his watches below. "'What are you making there? said a shipmate. "'What do you think? what does it look like?
Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile.
"On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain presented a pistol.
"Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it was to no purpose.
"'A pretty scholar, laughed the Lakeman. 'Adios, Senor! and leaping into the sea, he swam back to his comrades. "Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination.
With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam. "'What do you want of me? cried the captain. "'Where are you bound? and for what are you bound? demanded Steelkilt; 'no lies. "'I am bound to Tahiti for more men. "'Very good.
He was in Radney the chief mate's watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted, against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances, Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge.
Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent helm nigh to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready dug to the seaman's hand that fatal hour was then to come; and in the fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in. "But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody deed he had planned.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking