भभूत का तत्सम

भभूत का तत्सम Typical Asia casino O'Dule transferred the potatoes from the frying pan to a cracked plate. He sat down at the table and ate his supper without so much as another word. The boys watched him, fear in their hearts that the eccentric old Irishman would refuse their request.,"A man falls sick of small-pox. What are you to do with him? You can't cure him, and you can't heave him overboard. But because one falls ill it surely does not follow that the others should go sick. Besides, we carry no surgeon, which was an additional incentive to my suggesting a sick-bay to Captain Acton.",Slowly the apron was lowered. Slowly the woman's hands dropped to Billy's shoulders and she gazed into his uplifted eyes. Then she did a thing which was quite characteristic of her. She bent and gave each of the wide grey eyes upraised to hers a resounding kiss. Then, roughly pushing him away, she reached for her shawl and hat hanging on the wall.,"Do you know the Minorca?",Wilson shook his head. "It's a new pipe," he ventured to say, "and," sniffing the bowl, "it ain't had nuthin' more deadly than dried mullen leaves in it so far. Ain't a great deal of harm in a boy smokin' mullen leaves, shorely, Mary."，"You kin?" Jim exclaimed. "Well, I'll be razzle-dazzled!"，"No," answered Hinter, resuming his seat, "I believe not. Some were disposed to think that the shoremen had a hand in the robbery but I don't think so."，"Well, and what do you think of the accommodation offered by the Minorca?"CHAPTER XXV MR. HINTER MAKES A CONFESSION

"You are placed in the most helpless situation a woman could find herself in: at sea, locked up in a cabin, and all the crew, who might otherwise have helped you, believing that you were running away with Mr Lawrence, and that your imprisonment and your representations and your madness were part of a programme preconcerted between[Pg 411] you and your lover. You realise the horrors and peril of your position, and by virtue of the mother's genius that came to your help, you decided upon a behaviour which you magnificently conducted. So much for the better part of you: but what remains? To be wooed—shall I say won?—it is necessary for your sweetheart to act the part of a scoundrel. He must steal my ship and kidnap my only child, and heap lie upon lie, and then, to be sure, he is a very pretty gentleman, a noble, gallant rogue, at root a man of a lordly soul, of a most chivalrous and fighting spirit to be made much of—in short, to fall desperately in love with.","Brought ut? Where is ut, thin?" Harry sat up straight, his little eyes flashing in fright.,He was Mr Walter Lawrence, a son of Admiral Lawrence, and down to a recent period a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was something over thirty years of age, but drink, dissipation, the hard life of the sea and some fever which had got into his blood and proved intermittent, had worked in his face like time, and he might have passed for any age between thirty-five and forty-five. Nevertheless he was an extremely handsome man, of the classic Greek type in lineament, but improved, at least to the British eye, by the Saxon colouring of hair, skin, and eyes. His teeth were extraordinarily white and good for a sailor who had lived on gun-room fare in times when the ship's biscuit was flint, and the peas which rolled about in the discoloured hot water called soup, fit only for loading a blunderbuss with to shoot men dead. His eyes told their tale of drink, but they were large and fine and spirited; his light brown hair, according to the fashion of[Pg 39] the age, was combed down his back and lay in a rope-shaped tail there. He wore a wide-brimmed round hat, and his attire, a little the worse for wear, consisted of a blue coat, white waistcoat, sage-green kerseymere breeches, and, needless to say, the cravat was high and full. He stood about six feet, his figure was extremely well proportioned, and in addition to these merits his carriage had the easy elegance which the flow of the billow and the heave of the deck infuse into all human figures not radically vile and deformed. His voice was soft, winning, and somewhat plaintive, and no man, whether on or off the stage, not even Incledon, sang a song with more exquisite feeling and sweeter sincerity of passion.,"Mary," he said, "what is it? What have I done?",Now, Tom was too sound a shipmate to betray John. He answered doggedly, as though Mr Lawrence as well as himself must be aware that he was trespassing on ground he had no right to tread: "We yarned of course together.[Pg 278] We've sailed together afore, and can always find something to talk about, sir.","And you made Mr Lawrence afraid of you?" said Sir William.,Scroggie stared. "I've heard of you," he said, "an' the feller who told me you could lick your weight in wildcats wasn't far wrong. You had me fooled, though," he laughed. "I swallowed what you said about nice boys not fightin', swallowed it whole. Oh, Moses!","The Army!" he cried. "Could you put a greater indignity upon a sailor than to compel him to shoulder a handspike and march up and down as though he were a soldier?","Yep, an' warm. We're sure to have a rough fall an' a humdinger of a winter.","A boat in trouble? Where is she?",In those times sailors lacked the addition of the harness cask and bread barge, to the bitter wooden beef and the coarse worm-eaten ship's biscuit which science and experience have contributed to the scurvy-making fare which seamen are obliged to eat. Yet a sort of provision was made to supplement the brine-hardened meat and the worms of the sailor's bread. The captain of a man-of-war, for instance, at sea, would breakfast on coffee, toast, potted beef and tongue, sliced à la Vauxhall. Whole legs of mutton were tinned.,"It is very strange," said Captain Acton, "that that mis-shapen fellow made by Mr Lawrence the steward of the ship, should be employed to convey a letter to my daughter at so early an hour when there was very little likelihood of finding the young lady abroad.".