Viking

Viking always focuses on providing a fair and transparent betting environment, with an independent monitoring and inspection system, ensuring every game is fair.⭐️ "You're a pair of plotters," cried Erie, "and being a weak, helpless girl I suppose I'll have to agree with you and submissively roast those birds to suit your taste.",He became conscious that the droning hum of teachers and classes had given place to hushed calm; that all eyes were turned upon him, standing there in the aisle and staring at this picture of absolute perfection. With an effort he drew his eyes away and stumbled forward to his place in elass.,Eastward the leaden clouds opened to let an arrow of orange light pierce the damp mists of dawn; then the fissure closed again and tardy daylight disclosed only a dun-colored waste of cowering rushes and tossing water. Far out in the bay a great flock of ducks arose, the beat of their wings growing up above the boom of the wind, stood black against the lowering skies an instant, then swept like a gigantic shadow close down above the curling water. Here and there detached fragments of the flock grew up and drifted shoreward. A flock of widgeon, gleaming snow-white against the clouds as they swerved in toward the decoys, were joined by a pair of kingly canvasbacks. Swiftly they approached, twisted aside just out of range, and then turned and came in with wings set against the wind.,"Mr Lawrence paints the voyage to the West Indies in very tempting colours," answered Lucy.,"That's one on you, Tom," laughed the man named Jack. "Quit roasting the kid. We'd have been mired yet if it hadn't been for him."，The girl felt her companion's hand tighten spasmodically on hers. She glanced up to find him staring, wide-eyed at the bird.，"Then let me tell you there are countless Naval officers afloat who would reckon themselves in Paradise if they had such quarters as these to live in. Look at the Saucy! The well of a cod smack is more comfortable than her sleeping places. Take a corvette or gun-brig stationed on the West Coast of Africa, or kept cruising along the West Indian shores; the heat strikes through the plank and a man sleeps in a furnace; cockroaches in numbers thick as ropes blacken the beams, rats ferocious with thirst are found drowned in the hook pot of cold tea you want to drink. Everything simmers, the paint even below, if there is any paint to be found, bubbles, and you are fed on scalding pea soup and beef blue with brine, the very sight of which raises a craziness of thirst which you slake by rum, for[Pg 103] the cooling of which you might offer your year's pay for a piece of ice. Now, these are airy quarters. An admiral might well be content with such a living-room."，"Why, there he is now," she cried, glancing through the window. "Maurice isn't with him, though. I know that old punt as far as I can see it. I must get the potatoes and bacon on; he'll be hungry as a bear."Now, a boy may make up his mind to die a hero, but no boy cares to be ushered out by gibes and "I-told-you-so's." Billy promptly adopted new tactics. "This ain't my suit, Ma," he said.

The night came down in a heavy shadow that was not lightened by its burden of stars. The foam of the sea looked as spectral as the faint astral splashes in the velvet deeps on high through which sailed many visionary shapes of cloud. A little time before it fell dark, and when the soft, moist crimson of the sun that was set yet lurked in the west, the steward Paul went aft with lanterns for the cabins occupied by the Captain, the mate, and Miss Lucy Acton. The great cabin, or living-room, was already lighted by two lanterns which swung from hooks on either side the skylight fore-and-aft. The lanterns Paul bore were small, of iron frames fitted with glass, and in them was consumed a mesh which was fed with oil.,And clapping her hands as though she was in the box of a theatre ravished by some transcendently fine performance, she once more delivered herself of the maniac laugh which had curdled Paul's blood and which though ringing from lips, though proceeding from a face hidden from him, seemed to strike[Pg 286] Mr Lawrence as nothing which she had spoken had, and save but for the swaying of the ship he stood as motionless as a statue facing another statue whose back was turned to him.,Mr Eagle did not keep him long waiting, and when that surly, awkward seaman arrived Mr Lawrence went below and found Mr Thomas Pledge in the act of leaving the table and the cabin, with his jaw still working in mastication. It was clear that Mr Pledge had no intention of keeping his seat, even though he had not entirely swallowed his last mouthful, when Mr Lawrence hove in sight.,"The spirit of her mother came to her aid," said the Admiral, who had heard much of the genius of Kitty O'Hara.,Mr Greyquill shrugged his shoulders.,The teacher followed his host, gingerly rubbing the knuckles which had been left blue by the farmer's strong grip.,"What excuse did Mr Lawrence make to the men for sending you into another ship?",Landon did not reply. He simply pressed the girl's cold hand. Hinter caught the look of suffering in her eyes as she arose and passed into the outer room. When she returned she carried a heavy, wicker-bound can.,"Well, Gee whitticker!" he exclaimed. "Who do you s'pose had the nerve to take it?","Afraid, sister!" echoed Captain Acton. "Your question reminds me of a story of Lord Howe: a lieutenant having reported the ship on fire returned, and said that his lordship need not feel afraid as the fire was out. 'Afraid!' exclaimed Howe, 'How does a man feel when he is afraid? I need not ask how he looks!'","'Tis a pity he cannot command his appetites," said Miss Acton. "How would my heart bleed if he were my son! Poor, dear Sir William! with what Christian fortitude has he resigned himself to the wretchedness of seeing his son out of the Navy, and squandering his precious time in drinking with Lieutenant Tupman.",It might be thought that the first person[Pg 420] in the group this gentleman's eyes fastened upon was Lucy. She would be held to appeal in her sweetness, colour, freshness, and youth to a sailor as a nosegay of lovely flowers to a lover of flowers who for months has lived forlorn in a desert of sand. But instead of looking at Lucy, the lieutenant stared at the Admiral with a very great deal of visible speculation in the screwed-up cock of his eye, till his face relaxed with these words: "Pray, sir, did you ever hear of Billy Lawrence?".