Unmarked6698
- Flag inappropriate
- Show review history
Immediately every stitch of canvas that the schooner carried was set, and bending to the pressure of the fine breeze that was now flashing from right abeam, gracing the multitudinous run of the surge with the various splendours of the morning's light; the three-masted American-built clipper Aurora thrashed through it in her pursuit of the black British frigate at a rate of sailing that within three hours brought her within speaking distance of the man-of-war. Anson was grinning as he came up. "Kind'a weak on the pins, eh?" he greeted, "Ma told me I was to come across here an' see you didn't get into no mischief." "But it is impossible, Lucy," said Captain Acton, "to make a hero out of such a fellow as this: a man who forges sealed orders supposed to be written by me! A rogue who not only steals my property, but kidnaps my daughter by a lie!".
453 people found this
review helpful
kez_ h (Kez_h)
- Flag inappropriate
- Show review history
"What about?"I tried logging in using my phone number and I
was supposed to get a verification code text,but didn't
get it. I clicked resend a couple time, tried the "call
me instead" option twice but didn't get a call
either. the trouble shooting had no info on if the call
me instead fails.There was
To my dying day I'll never forget that little house, away out on the hillside, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms, but they were clean and quiet, and a girl with the sweetest face I ever saw, lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride, and a tiny, tiny little bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red with embarrassment and anxiety.
658 people found this
review helpful
Conrad
"From whom was that letter? Who is the person that Miss Lucy has fled to help? It cannot possibly be my son, sir. If he had met with a serious accident, would the ship have sailed? But even if he had met with a serious accident and left the duty of going to sea with the mate, would he have sent to Miss Lucy? I am utterly beaten. I see nothing, and can conjecture nothing!" When Mr Lawrence had read this letter through, he was in the act of crushing it by one of those spasmodic motions of the hand which accompany a sudden violent gust of wrath, he met the eyes of the female in the bar fixed upon him; in her gloomy beer-flavoured recess, faintly luminous with hanging rows of highly-polished drinking pots, and a sideboard well within laden with metal vessels for drinking from and for holding drink, the landlady of "The Swan," for such was this decoration of the bar, had manifestly been studying his face whilst he read. She knew him very well, and she was also well acquainted with his habits. In a breath on meeting her eyes he changed his resolution, and folded up the letter into its original creases, giving her a smile which did not seem in the least[Pg 124] degree forced, and saying to her in his pleasantest manner, "Is the ordinary on?" and receiving her answer after she had darted a look at an invisible clock in her room, "In another three minutes, sir," he passed on and went upstairs. Captain Weaver was carrying out the instructions he had received at Old Harbour Town. He was chasing the Minorca. The recovery of Lucy had led to no change in those instructions. Though Captain Acton in his gratitude for the restoration of his child was willing to relinquish the pursuit and to leave the Minorca and the handsome piratical scoundrel who had sailed away with her and Lucy to their fate, he had not revealed his thoughts to Captain Weaver, nor to the Admiral, and the Aurora at this hour of daybreak on a day in June 1805, was steadily stemming in chase of the barque which she was to capture, Captain Weaver did not exactly know how. For the Aurora was unarmed, whilst the Minorca mounted four pieces of artillery, and was in command of a naturally desperate fighting and fearless spirit, one whose neck would certainly be broken by the hangman if he was taken: unless indeed his crew turned upon him, and backed their yards and stopped the ship, that her owner might come by his own, despite Mr Lawrence's levelled[Pg 390] pistol or any threats he might make use of in reference to the powder magazine. "But," Captain Weaver had thought to himself on several occasions, "time enough to know what's a-going to happen when we heave the Minorca into view or draw abreast of her, for who's to tell but that we are bound to miss her, in which case we shall receive her at Rio, providing her skipper hasn't got scent of us and shifted his hellum for another port, and then there can be no blazing away of carronades on one side and a trimming of sail to keep clear of shot on the other." "Do you think, my dear," said Captain Acton, "that the crew know they are being carried to Rio de Janeiro? I believe, sir," he continued, addressing the Admiral, "that in Mr Lawrence's letter that Mr Greyquill brought to us reference was made to certain sealed orders given by me to the captain of the ship to be opened and read to the crew in a position that was or was not named—I forget.".
298 people found this
review helpful