hor at Rook Island,
and Guest was in my cabin telling me the story of the hurricane--of how
he had lost the two boats within an hour--one being carried away
when the brigantine was all but thrown over on her beam ends, and the
other--the longboat--swept away with everything else on deck--guns,
deck-houses, bulwarks and all.

"How we escaped smashing into some reef or another I don't know," said
Guest; "but the strangest thing about it all is that Yorke's cutter,
manned by native seamen, managed to stick so close to the _Fray Bentos_;
for when I, running before the hurricane, with my decks swept with
tremendous seas, suddenly ran into smooth water, brought to in fifteen
fathoms, and dropped anchor, there was the _Francesca_ cheek by jowl,
alongside of me."

"Kanaka sailors' eyesight," I said. "Napoleon never lost sight of the
brigantine for a moment! And, talking about eyesight, how is Yorke's
eye?"

"Bad, bad, my boy. It is destroyed entirely, and he is now on board
here, in my cabin. He has been asking for you. Do you feel strong enough
to get up and see him?"

I rose at once, and went into Guest's cabin. Yorke was lying in the
skipper's bunk, and as I entered he extended both hands to me, and
smiled cheerfully, though his left eye was covered with a bandage, and
his brave, square-set face was white and drawn.

"How are you, Drake, my boy? We had a narrow squeak, didn't we, from the
niggers? And here is Captain Guest worrying and tormenting himself that
he could not fire a gun to scare them off."

I held his big, right hand between my own, and pressed it gently, for
there was something in his one remaining eye that told me the end of all
was near.

"Goodbye, dear lad.... Goodbye, Captain Guest. _I_ know what is the
matter with me--erysipelas--and erysipelas to a big, fat man like me
means death... and if you would put a bullet through my head now you
would do me a good turn... But here, Guest, and you, Drake... your
hands. I'll be dead by to-morrow morning, and want to say goodbye, and
wish good luck to you both, before I begin babbling silly twaddle about
things that are of no account now... of no account now... not worth
speaking about now. But the South Seas are a rotten sort of a place,
anyway."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorke The Adventurer, by Louis Becke

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKE THE ADVENTURER ***

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