Khan's Wild Quest

Khan's Wild Quest regularly organizes betting training programs and seminars, helping players grasp the latest trends and develop their betting skills.⭐️ "Now, here's some news for you. The will has been found and Frank Stanhope is heir to the Scroggie forest-lands. But if there is oil here—and there is—both you and Pennsylvania Scroggie will be needed. I have no doubt but a satisfactory arrangement on a share producing plan can be made with the owner of the land. I'll see Pennsylvania Scroggie tonight and he'll do what I ask. I pulled him out of a rather tight hole and I guess he won't have forgotten. Come over to Stanhope's cottage in the morning. Now remember what the children and dogs expect of you, my friend; good-bye until tomorrow.","What you mean?" asked Anson suspiciously.,Billy turned upon him. "Say, Fatty, haven't I told you that this here charm protects everybody with me?" he asked cuttingly.,His lordship bowed: upon which the Admiral and Captain Acton paid him the homage of their hats in a well-accentuated flourish of courtesy, for not only was Lord Garlies a brave man and a fine seaman: he was the son of an earl and heir to a title which made a[Pg 426] claim that in its way was not less irresistible in 1805 than it may be found a hundred years later.,"Then the fellow," said Captain Acton, "is steward of the Minorca! This gentleman," said he, addressing the Admiral, "has exactly described the figure of a man who passed me in the cabin two or three days ago when I was talking to Mr Lawrence. Judging that he belonged to the ship, and being struck by his appearance, I asked Mr Lawrence who he was, and he answered that he was a poor devil whom he had shipped as a steward or captain's waiter out of pity, and he said something about having once paid a fine for[Pg 186] the man to rescue him from a term of imprisonment to which he would have been sentenced for some trifling offence."，"Of course the timber's worth a lot," sparred Billy.，"It's the chaff and small wheat the fannin' mill blows out from the good grain. Pa lets me have it fer my wild birds. I've got some partridge up on the hickory knoll, too. They're shyer than the quail, but I've got 'em so tame I kin call 'em and make 'em come to me."，Whilst they waited for Sir William the conversation turned upon his son."I will hire a vessel and chase him; I will pursue him, though he should lead me to the very gates of Hell. Oh, my precious God! I, who have ever striven to act my part well in the service of my country! I, who have ever struggled to live an honourable and a stainless life as a gentleman and a sailor! Why am I dishonoured and degraded by the possession of such a son?"

He walked to a bed of flowers at which an under-gardener was at work, and said to the man: "Have you good eyes?",Billy was still thinking of the only girl when he topped the farther ridge and descended into the valley where stood the haunted grove. He wondered what she would say when he told her the great news he had to tell her. He thought he knew. She would put her hand on his arm and say: "Billy, I'm glad." Well, he was on his way to hear her say it. As he entered a clump of cedars he saw her. She wore a cloak of crimson; her hat had slipped to her shoulders and her hair glowed softly through the shadowy half lights. She stood beside old man Scroggie's grave, a great bunch of golden-rod in her arms.,She was a little brig, and an immense but ragged British ensign fluttered at her trysail gaff-end. She had been painted black, but the fret of an ocean long kept, the hurl and whirl of prodigious seas which were like to founder her, the blistering heat of tropic suns,[Pg 352] the viewless fangs of the wind had so worn her sides that she was mottled with patches of different colour as though she was suffering from some distemper which ravaged vessels of her sort when the voyage was of great length. She rolled wearily, as though her old bones were worn out, and every time she hove her bilge to the eye she disclosed a very landed estate of weed, long, serpentine, trailing, like the huge eel-like growths which sway from black rocks in the white wash of breakers.,This led to a brief argument between Captain Acton and Sir William, who was making a prodigious breakfast off a large crab, which he affirmed was much more delicate eating than the lobster, as the shrimp is sweeter than the prawn, though people whom the actor Quin loved to deride were of a different opinion. He had begun with crab, and was now ploughing heartily through a dish of eggs and bacon, with a view to letting go his anchor in some savoury sausages. Captain Acton fed capriciously, as a man who thinks of his digestion more than his appetite.,"Where you goin' so fast, Maurice?" he accosted, his mouth full.,"And there's the Bellisle," said Captain Acton. "I was in her"—and he named the period to his daughter, whom he addressed, but who seemed to have no eyes for any ship but the Victory. Other ships, the two retired naval officers knew, were the Superb, Spencer, Swiftsure, and Leviathan.,Captain Acton was silent. He was astonished. He had never observed his daughter as Aunt Caroline did. He was wanting in feminine sagacity where the heart is concerned. He[Pg 385] saw that if his daughter was not in love with Mr Lawrence, she was dangerously near that passion; she seemed to him to have been transformed into a sweetheart by usage which would have made the heart of most young women fierce with hate and horror. She was under a spell which she thought to break by the practice of an inherited art, as miraculous in effect as it had been unsuspected in being, and she had left her kidnapper seemingly as enamoured of him as though his behaviour from the beginning had been strictly honourable and chivalrous, an additament to the passion which his gallant record, his lofty bearing, and his handsome looks had inspired in her.,"Who's her captain?","Walter Watland, sir," panted Fatty, glimpsing the light in the nick of time.,"That's Croaker," laughed Erie. "Billy won't be far behind him. I had better go out and explain things, Frank.","Well, the Yankee's discipline is taut, though not so taut as ours by the length of a log-line to a lead-line. You therefore understand the necessity of obeying orders?","Right ahead, sir.".