Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
page 43 of 217 (19%)
page 43 of 217 (19%)
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him, waving a knotted rope, walked, after the manner of an
executioner, a boy who yawned and nodded between the blows he dealt. The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted a little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the miserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness, and slashed away with the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey. At last the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke little Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side on the main-hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to their berths. CHAPTER III It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish - the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the fo'c'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day - soft, mild, and clear; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs. More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas |
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