Dragon Raja

Dragon Raja CHAPTER XIII “It will have to be awfully thick, won’t it, to be able to hold the water?”,Here she waited in the shadow of the fluttering violet arc light, with her eyes fastened to the silent, insensible windows. Ten minutes that seemed ten eternities went lagging by. Tears of disappointment rose to Patricia's eyes and she shivered as the gusts of west wind flung the drops from the saturated trees in a silver shower across the darkened panes.,"Liar!" says Geoffrey between his teeth, his eyes fixed with deadly hatred upon his cousin. "Liar—and thief!" He goes a few steps nearer him, and then waits.,His mind was full of his son as he sat this[Pg 53] day at his dinner, which was put every afternoon punctually at half-past one upon the table whether Mr Lawrence was at home or whether he was not. The window at which the Admiral was wont of a pleasant evening to sit with his pipe was open; the room was small, with a low ceiling, but one should say a very dream of comfort to a nautical man. Its walls were embellished with pictures of sea-fights, of frigates engaging forts, of encounters between line-of-battle ships. A handsome telescope, a gift for some deed of valour, lay in brackets over the small, richly-carved sideboard.,The Leighton house was a big dark pile at the end of the street and the only light visible was in the back room where Patricia knew the struggle against death and disease was being fought out. She paused for a long look and then she ran lightly up the steps and put a shrinking finger on the bell.，"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.，"Well, there's the Proctors, five families of 'em an' every last one of 'em a brother to the other."，To-day his mother’s words had left a pang. He would soon be a man and have to “think for himself.” Yes, and work, too. “Gee whiz! It’ll be tough not to play any more,” he exclaimed under his breath as he bowled along the tree-lined road that led to the Prettyman farm."And now a last word, Mona. When you come down to dinner to-night (and take care you are a little late), be gay, merry, wild with spirits, anything but depressed, whatever it may cost you. And if in the drawing-room, later on, Lady Rodney should chance to drop her handkerchief, or that eternal knitting, do not stoop to pick it up. If her spectacles are on a distant table, forget to see them. A nature such as hers could not understand a nature such as yours. The more anxious you may seem to please, the more determined she will be not to be pleased."

“Would you like to hear it again?” asked Johnny, radiant.,"It took me all of half an hour to get her quieted, an' then I made to show her what nice berries we got from our back ridge. 'Jest hold your apron, Mrs. Scraff, an' I'll give you a glimpse of what we're goin' to top our supper off with,' I says, strivin' to get the poor soul's mind off herself.,"By Mrs. Dallas!",“Ugh! boy!” said Tellef.,The simple query confounds him more than might a more elaborate one put by a clever worldling. Why indeed?,"'You think you got all of 'em, Bill?" Scraff called.,“Yes, can do,” stated the Indian, and as they had approached the upper camp during their talk, he made a swift move of the hand in farewell and slipped swiftly into the shadows.,After breakfast Captain Acton and Lucy walked the deck, whilst the Admiral, with his big pipe, seated himself right aft all alone, for this little ship was steered by a wheel in front of the deck-house; he sat puffing out clouds of tobacco with his eyes fixed upon the glimmering phantoms of the British Fleet, which hovered in the north-east quarter in a few dim, waning gleams; and the moods of his mind[Pg 407] were faithfully reproduced in his jolly, honest, well-bred, kindly face.,‘twine,,In some strokes of this character he might have indeed believed that she was merely acting, but other features had impressed him to such a degree that, though he was determined—not yet, perhaps—to accept the suspicion, or the persuasion of his own opinion, he, behind the darkest curtains of his heart, felt a fear that his stratagem would force her reason from her brain, that she would go mad when she clearly understood that the ship was bound to Rio to be feloniously sold there, when she realised that she had been ruthlessly torn from her father, from her home, and all that she loved, and that her name must ever bear the stain, happen what might, of Mr Lawrence's ignoble feat of abduction.,"I am sure of it, and what's more," added Jen, nodding, "it is my opinion that he knows who killed Maurice, if indeed he did not do it himself.",It is true the castle was crowded with visitors; the former apartments of Madame de Menon were the only ones unoccupied, and these were in magnificent preparation for the pleasure of the marchioness, who was unaccustomed to sacrifice her own wishes to the comfort of those around her. She therefore treated lightly the subject, which, seriously attended to, would have endangered her new plan of delight..