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Captain Acton and the Admiral walked a few hundred paces in silence, each lost in thought. Very abruptly the Admiral stopped, obliging his companion to halt. The wharves were old platforms black with tar or pitch, and at the back of them were three warehouses for the accommodation of such merchandise as this Old Harbour received or sent afloat. Perched midway on the slope that was terminated by the brow of the cliff where the windmill this morning was peacefully revolving its vans, was Old Harbour Town, a romantic grouping of little grey houses full of sparkling lozenge windows backed by a church spire, the whole looking in the distance like a toy that could be put into a box and set out according to taste upon a table by a child. "It is you, my dear Dick, and old companion, mess-mate and friend, with whom I have enjoyed many a jaunt to which I could never[Pg 213] recur without passionately lamenting the days that are no more, who will help me in this desperate undertaking. I propose to navigate the vessel, not to Kingston, Jamaica, to which port she ought to be bound, but to the port in which you live, Rio de Janeiro. By a ruse which must prove successful, I think, I shall inveigle Miss Lucy Acton on board, and everything being ready, shall make sail immediately after she is carefully confined in my cabin. I have had a cabin set apart for my own use, which I represented to Captain Acton was to serve as a sick-bay. This drama has been well rehearsed. When far out at sea the crew will be summoned aft. I shall read some pretended sealed orders from Captain Acton, requiring me to carry the ship to Rio de Janeiro, and to sell her, if possible, after discharging the mate and crew, who will receive from Captain Acton, on application, treble the amount of their wages they would have got for sailing the vessel to Kingston. I shall also take care to destroy the ship's papers. And my story will be that I was overhauled by an American cruiser, who sent an officer on board. He examined the box of papers and took it away to show to his Captain, as he considered them unsatisfactory. The cruiser then braced her main top-sail yard to the wind and sailed away with the box of papers. On my arrival, we will consult together as to the safest course to be adopted for the sale of the ship and cargo, by which time I have no doubt the lady will have agreed to marry me either for love,[Pg 214] or because she has been placed in a situation which must render marriage imperative to her in the name of honour. With the money which I shall make, thanks to you, through this business, I will pay off all my debts in England, and Lucy Acton being my wife, or promising me her hand, I may count with absolute certainty upon the forgiveness of her father, who is not likely to abandon his only child for a behaviour that was no fault of hers, and the rest must be left to time..
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The frenzied cries of the child were distinctly audible in the kitchen where sat Mrs. Mifsud and Mrs. Wopp, the latter busily engaged in mending a pile of socks. Both ladies sprang to their feet and hurried through the open door towards the garden, Mrs. Wopp still wearing a half-darned sock on her left hand and scattering others as she ran. They were followed by Betty, who had been filling her watering-can from the rain-barrel and had also heard the cries of the frightened child.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
“Flash and Tom wouldn’t touch meat left on the table alone with them for a day,” Edith said as she replenished the plate, shook and folded away the paper, and called her cats.
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"Canin'? Me? Whatfer?" "'No ghost kin harm where lies this charm,'" chuckled Maurice. "Missus Scraff—you know what a fidgety fly-off-the-handle she is, an' how she suffers from the asthma—well, she'd come over an' was stayin' to supper. I sent that Willium out on the back ridge to gather some wild thimble-berries fer dessert. He comes in just as I had the table all set, that wicked old coon he's made a pet of at his heels an' that devil-eyed crow, Croaker, on his shoulder. Afore I could get hold of the broom, he put the covered pail on the table an' went out ag'in. The coon follered him, but that crow jumped right onto the table an' grabbed a piece of cake. I made a dash at him an' he flopped to Missus Scraff's shoulder. She was chewin' a piece of slippery-ellum bark fer her asthma, an' when his claws gripped her shoulder she shrieked an' like to 'a' choked to death on it. "Supposin' I said the snake killed the hawk?".
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