Zone Turf

Zone Turf another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of ’em.” "I cannot believe that he made any excuses[Pg 375] at all. He is not a man," Lucy answered, with a faint smile which was certainly not unsuggestive of that sort of expression which the human face puts on when its wearer speaks with secret pride of another, "to make excuses for his conduct to the common sailors under him. Indeed, papa, I don't know which side would be more surprised: he, in excusing his actions to the sailors, or they, that he should condescend to explain. When I first went on deck after being kept in the cabin the scene I witnessed might have been on the stage of a theatre: the crew stood in a body in the fore-part of the ship; two men were a little in advance of them, and at one of these men Mr Lawrence had levelled a pistol. There he stood, pistol in hand, and the sailor, stubborn and defiant, never budged. I felt faint. I feared he would shoot and kill the man.","And why not this or any other drawer?" says Rodney, growing pale. Again jealousy, which is a demon, rises in his breast, and thrusts out all gentler feelings. Her allusion to Mr. Moore, most innocently spoken, and, later on, her reference to the students, have served to heighten within him angry suspicion.,"That's the way I usually do," assented Doris evenly. "But I'm going out of town on Saturday, and I have to turn it in before I leave tomorrow night. I'll stay home and work on it in the morning, so I shan't see you perhaps before I go.",Till all the landscape sinks into the shade.,He stood gazing on the door, and inwardly lamenting, when a low hollow sound was heard from beneath. Emilia and Julia seized his arm; and almost sinking with apprehension, listened in profound silence. A footstep was distinctly heard, as if passing through the apartment below, after which all was still. Ferdinand, fired by this confirmation of the late report, rushed on to the door, and again tried to burst his way, but it resisted all the efforts of his strength. The ladies now rejoiced in that circumstance which they so lately lamented; for the sounds had renewed their terror, and though the night passed without further disturbance, their fears were very little abated.，It was a horrible situation, for there seemed to be nothing that could be done. Probably the Mexican was desperate enough to sacrifice his life if he should be detected while laying his mine. He would set off the dynamite if he saw anything to disturb him. Therefore, to attack him openly seemed out of the question.，Something like a sigh escaped the man who listened to this edict. He took a lagging step or two forward.，Of this man, a toothless salt whose face was like an old potato, dark with the weather of[Pg 34] vanished days and covered with warts, an affecting story was told: it was evening, and the room was full of seafaring men, and this man, whose name was John Halliburton, sat at the table with a long clay pipe trembling in one hand and a glass of hot rum and water in reach of the other. Several songs had been sung by members of the company, and some one, by way of a joke, asked old John to oblige. To the amazement of everybody the old man put down his pipe, took off his hat, out of which he drew a large red handkerchief with which he polished his face, and then, fixing his lustreless eyes upon the man who had asked him to sing, broke into a song in a strange, quivering, fitful note, as though you should hear a drunken sailor singing in a vault. The assembly was hushed into deep stillness. It was certainly a most unparalleled circumstance for old John to sing. In the middle of the second verse, some old nautical ballad popular fifty years before, he stopped, put his handkerchief into his hat, and his hat upon his head, and resumed his pipe, gazing vacantly at the man who had asked him to sing."No, but there's somethin' I ought'a tell you, I guess," he answered. "I've jest come from old Swanson's boardin' house, at the foot. Mr. Maddoc an' the specialist doctor are goin' to leave there an' stay at teacher's, as you likely know?"

“I hope so,” Bob answered. “Won’t you?”,Jerry looked at the chief steadily and was about to reply when a yell came to their ears.,"'He or she,'" repeated Jen, slowly. "Dido I mentioned; but 'he!' who is 'he?'",“All right. I’m off!”,“It’s time Billy was at home,” he heard his mother say as he opened her room door; and he stumbled on more hurriedly, across the bridge—at last, the Fo’castle!,"Dearest Mona, I must interrupt you again. Are you very busy? No? Oh, then do come and look at the last bonnet Madame Verot has just sent. She says there will be nothing to equal it this season. But," in a heart-broken voice, "I cannot bring myself to think it becoming.","Why not? it just suits him: 'A little, round, fat, oily man of——'","Is dere poison in de hollow ob de needle?",Meanwhile Lucy Acton watched and waited on the quarterdeck of the Aurora. The hour was about half-past four. The breeze was sinking with the sun; it still blew with weight enough to keep the sails of the three ships steady. But the dance of the sea was growing languid, the rolling foam of the breaking head was wanting in brilliance of flash and friskiness of somersault; the blue of the deep was darkening, and spread in violet shot with light blue and purple gleams to the margin of[Pg 443] the reflected glory of the sun where the lines of light steeped into the richer colour.,She says it all quite simply, with a smile, and a quick blush that arises merely from the effort of having to explain, not from the explanation itself. There is not a touch of malice in her soft eyes or on her parted lips.,"Where do you dine, Walter?",Mr Lawrence, who was on deck at noon, wisely concluding that the then peculiar rig of the Minorca would challenge the attention and excite the suspicion of one or another of the convoying men-of-war, hoisted British colours, and as no observation of the sun[Pg 329] was deemed necessary when there hung plain in sight the famous promontory of the Lizard from which a departure was to be made, he overhung the rail gazing apparently with absorbed interest at the grand spectacle of ships which were making a more southerly course than he. Indeed he was so absorbed either by that "vision splendid" or by thinking of the mad pictures he had witnessed in the little berth from which he had lately emerged, that he failed to notice that some of the hands forward for whom the dinner-hour had arrived and who were hanging about the caboose, were staring at him with a degree of obstinacy which perhaps had he regarded it he would have deemed something more than strange, as they had a fine show to arrest and detain their gaze on the bow. One of the most steadfast of these starers was the man Mr Pledge familiarly styled Old Jim..