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Scroggie's mouth fell open in surprise. "I didn't try to kill any coon," he denied. "I saw one but it wasn't me that clubbed it; it was a tall, sandy-haired feller with a squint eye. I asked him what he was tryin' to do and he told me to dry up and mind my own business. I had to give him a lickin'. He went off blubberin'; said if I wasn't too scared to stick around he'd send a feller over who would fix me. So I stayed." Mr Lawrence seemed to read the man's thoughts. Unscrupulous as was this Naval gentleman, he was an extremely clever fellow. Preserving a severe austerity of countenance, a demeanour upon which the word discipline was writ large, he exclaimed: "It is not my intention to ask you if Mr Eagle has broken his faith with me and communicated to you the confidence I imparted to him this morning. You are, sir, by virtue of your rank aboard the ship free of this cabin, and it is therefore desirable that I should trust you. The lady in yonder berth is Miss Lucy Acton, who consented to elope with me, providing it should be understood by all on board that she was being kidnapped or stolen from her home. That this should appear, it was arranged between us that she should be locked up as though she were a prisoner, and then in a day or two I should enlarge her, and she would go amongst the crew and speak of my cunning and stratagem, and her desperate lot in being torn from her father's home. All which would in due course reach her father's ears, and mollify his wrath at her giving me her hand in the existing state of my fortunes, and preserve to her the fortune she must inherit as Captain Acton's[Pg 279] only child. Now, sir," continued Mr Lawrence in his frowning, imperious way, "this is submitted to you in confidence, and it is manifestly my wish that some of the crew should credit her story that they may give the evidence we desire when they are called upon to tell what they know!" He had been told what had happened, and presented himself equipped with wool, lint, and bandages. He speedily discovered that the pistol had been discharged at the place where Mr Lawrence supposed his heart to beat. The unfortunate man imagined that the heart is on the left side of the body, whereas it is nearly in the middle, and is well protected by the breast-bone and ribs, so well indeed that only a small portion is unprotected. The bullet[Pg 441] had passed clean through the chest and left lung, and come out just below the left blade-bone of the shoulder. The surgeon, on removing Mr Lawrence's shirt and vest, found the bullet, which had not pierced the vest. The wounds of entrance and of exit were easily seen, and the former was bleeding freely..
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“Great Scott, boy! We’ll have to hurry. We must get up there before the fire gets down. Do you know the shortest way?”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
Artful Bess! Billy had treated it all as a huge joke; but now May Nell’s depression, the unfamiliar sound of his right name, the dim room with its shadows and half-suffocating odors,—all conspired to send a sober Billy into the circle of lurid light that came from the two lamps gleaming on either side of dark Bess like angry eyes.
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Conrad
"I believe Mr Eagle is a very respectable man, though illiterate like most of them in the lower walks of the Merchant Service," said Captain Acton. "This sort of people come on board through the hawse pipe, but at a pinch their knowledge which is uncommonly practical, is sometimes vastly useful. They are acquainted with manœuvres which would often put their betters to their trumps.[Pg 111] They know all about rigging, its straining point, have little tricks above the average seamanship for heavy weather, are learned in the pumps and their gear, and indeed know ships not only with the familiarity of a master-rigger, but of a master builder. One of these men I believe is Eagle, and I think, sir, you will find him all that I tell you he is, though like most of his class he is of a somewhat sour and sullen nature, and quick to grumble. I'll go home with you, sister. Admiral, can we give you a lift?" "You say Stanhope? Why, man alive! I've been looking high and low for you. What do you think of that, Doctor, I've found him at last!" Mrs. Wilson stood, the picture of amazement. "Have you gone stark and ravin' crazy, Anson?" she asked sternly. Then, anger mastering her, she reached for the broom standing in the corner. Anson promptly made his escape, but as he passed the open window, he gazed wildly in at his mother and cried again: "Don't you have nuthin' to do with that gold, Ma. If you do we'll all get burnt up in our beds, er get clawed to tatters!" In the course of a few weeks the Admiral arrived at his little cottage. He was without his son, of whom no news could be obtained. Gossip had ceased to flow when the Minorca[Pg 452] returned, and the tongues of her crew once again opened the flood-gate of talk. But what could they declare that should convict Mr Lawrence of piracy? They said that the Minorca had sailed under secret instructions from Captain Acton which, Mr Lawrence had gathered, imported the sale of the barque at a place named. These instructions were never read to the crew, because she was overhauled by the frigate and the Aurora before the defined parallels of latitude and longitude had been reached. Captain Acton never denied that he had given secret instructions to Mr Lawrence. There was therefore no case against the Admiral's son. And from the statements made by the crew, confirmed by Mr Eagle and Mr Pledge, it was generally held by the honest gossips of Old Harbour Town that between you and them and the bedpost, Miss Lucy Acton had eloped with Mr Lawrence, had so acted as to persuade the crew that she had been abducted, and had been recaptured by her father, whose sole motive in pursuing the barque was to regain his child..
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