|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 47
"Aooo-whoo-whupp!" went the siren. "Wingle-tingle-tink," went
the bell. "Graaa-ouch!" went the conch, while sea and
sky were all mired up in milky fog. Then Harvey felt that
he was near a moving body, and found himself looking up
and up at the wet edge of a cliff-like bow, leaping, it seemed,
directly over the schooner. A jaunty little feather of water curled in
front of it, and as it lifted it showed a long ladder of Roman
numerals-XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and so forth--on a
salmon-coloured gleaming side. It tilted forward and downward
with a heart-stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line of
brass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a jet of steam puffed in
Harvey's helplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared
along the rail of the 'We're Here', and the little schooner staggered
and shook in a rush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished
in the fog. Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he
heard a crack like a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in
his ear, a far-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've
sunk us!"
"Is it us?" he gasped.
"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look," said Dan,
running out a dory.
In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were
overside and away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped
clean across, drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory
came by, knocking on the 'We're Here's' side, as though she wished
to be taken in. Then followed something, face down, in a blue
jersey, but--it was not the whole of a man. Penn changed colour and
caught his breath with a click. Harvey pounded despairingly at the
bell, for he feared they might be sunk at any minute, and he
jumped at Dan's hail as the crew came back.
"The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean in
half--graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile
away. Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and--there
was his son, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen--" He
dropped his head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged
a gray-headed man aboard.
"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what
did you pick me up for?"
Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes
were wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew.
Then up and spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or
Rich or McVitty when Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was
changed on him from the face of a fool to the countenance of an
old, wise man, and he said in a strong voice: "The Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord! I was--I
am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him to me."
"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to
me! Pray back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of
fish. If you'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the
Provident an' worked fer her board, an' never known--an' never
known. Now I'll hev to tell her."
"There ain't nothin' to say," said Disko. "Better lie down a piece,
Jason Olley."
When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his
means of livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give
consolation.
"All Gloucester men, wasn't they?" said Tom Platt, fiddling
helplessly with a dory-becket.
"Oh, that don't make no odds," said Jason, wringing the wet from
his beard. "I'll be rowin' summer boarders araound East Gloucester
this fall." He rolled heavily to the rail, singing:
"Happy birds that sing and fly
Round thine altars, 0 Most High!"
"Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, as though he had a right
to give orders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of
a minute.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|