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"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. Mr Lawrence's eye reposed upon Lucy's figure whilst his father was bidding the party farewell, whilst she walked away on Captain Acton's right, Aunt Caroline strutting and leaning with some affectation on her crutch-cane on his left, the three much saluted by the people who lingered on the wharf, as they went. The young fellow's eyes still reposed upon the girl even as the Admiral came stumping across the planks pounding them with his staff as he walked. "Miss Acton—Lucy—my Lucy: for my Lucy you have ever been in my heart since the day when I asked you to be my wife, and you know—but you must believe—that my adoration of you then has not waned by a single ray of its brilliance—nay, the flame is greater and purer and more glowing than it was in that hour in which you refused my hand, not because you could not love me, nor because you believed the half of what had been told you about me, but because I was in too great a hurry. I had not given you time to find me out and love me as I believe, as I am sure you now do. Oh, my Lucy, this act of seeming treason against you will be forgiven. Your heart will acknowledge[Pg 250] that violent as might seem the step I have taken, by no other could we have been brought together, and all the artifices and all the falsehoods I have been guilty of were, you will come to believe, the inspiration of such a love as few men ever felt for the women of their worship.".
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kez_ h (Kez_h)
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“Oh, no. I don’t want anything.”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
Putting aside for an hour the affairs of a work-a-day world, let us take our places around the convivial board, on the time-stained surface of which we may find in fancy the initials of so many boon companions of other days cut deep.
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Conrad
"Will you step into the deck-house, sir," said Captain Acton, "and learn our strange story, which shall not detain you long." Billy puckered up his lips, but his effort was a failure. "You try, Maurice," he said, "I can't jest keep the hole in my mouth steady long enough t' whistle." Mr Lawrence was exceedingly thoughtful. What opinion he was arriving at, whether he was beginning to think that the girl was really mad or that she was merely acting with extravagant absurdity in the hope of disgusting him, you could not have told by looking at his face. "Boy, you're a wonder!" Hinter cried. "But you took a terrible chance. Dexter!" he said to the other dog, "don't you want to be friends with this wild-animal tamer, too?".
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