The Project Gutenberg EBook of Won from the Waves, by W.H.G. Kingston

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Title: Won from the Waves

Author: W.H.G. Kingston

Illustrator: J.B. Greene

Release Date: November 24, 2007 [EBook #23602]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WON FROM THE WAVES ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Won from the Waves, by W.H.G. Kingston.

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This is a splendid book, one of Kingston's very best, written and
published at the very end of his life, and it will give you a very good
read.

Of course there are the usual swimming exercises, but there is just so
much more going on, that you will always be wanting to turn the next
page to see what happens.

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WON FROM THE WAVES, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.

CHAPTER ONE.

ON THE PIER.

It was a gloomy evening. A small group of fishermen were standing--at
the end of a rough wooden pier projecting out into the water and forming
the southern side of the mouth of a small river. A thick mist, which
drove in across the German Ocean, obscured the sky, and prevented any
object being seen beyond a few hundred fathoms from the shore, on which
the dark leaden-coloured waves broke lazily in with that sullen-sounding
roar which often betokens the approach of a heavy gale.

On the north side of the river was a wide extent of sandy ground, where
the vegetation consisted of stunted furze-bushes and salt-loving plants
with leaves of a dull pale green, growing among patches of coarse grass,
the roots of which assisted to keep the sand from being blown away by
the fierce wintry gales which blew across it. On the right hand of the
fishermen as they looked seaward, and beyond an intervening level space,
rose a line of high cliffs of light clay and sand extending far to the
southward, with a narrow beach at their base. Parallel with the river
was a green bank, on the sides of which were perched several cottages,
the materials composing them showing that they were the abodes of the
hardy men who gained their livelihood on the sa