claimed
Moses asked embarrassing questions
An encounter with Charles Lamb
I cut that picture from its frame
When we left Cordova
I had been a broker in Pompeii
Solomon and the Jinns
"Go tell the queen"
She gave me her hand, and I shook it heartily
Asking all sorts of questions
And roughly told me
She turned her head
"How like!"
I proceeded to dig a hole
"Why are you not in the army?"
Nebuchadnezzar and the gardener
Petrarch and Laura
The crouching African fixed her eyes
upon him
THE VIZIER OF THE
TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER
I
I was on a French steamer bound from Havre to New York, when I had a
peculiar experience in the way of a shipwreck. On a dark and foggy
night, when we were about three days out, our vessel collided with
a derelict--a great, heavy, helpless mass, as dull and colorless
as the darkness in which she was enveloped. We struck her almost
head on, and her stump of a bowsprit was driven into our port bow
with such tremendous violence that a great hole--nobody knew of what
dimensions--was made in our vessel.
The collision occurred about two hours before daylight, and the frightened
passengers who crowded the upper deck were soon informed by the officers
that it would be necessary to take to the boats, for the vessel was
rapidly settling by the head.
Now, of course, all was hurry and confusion. The captain endeavored
to assure his passengers that there were boats enough to carry every
soul on board, and that there was time enough for them to embark
quietly and in order. But as the French people did not understand him
when he spoke in English, and as the Americans did not readily comprehend
what he said in French, his exhortations were of little avail. With such
of their possessions as they could carry, the people crowded into the
boats as soon as they were ready, and sometimes before they were ready;
and while there was not exactly a panic on board, each man seemed to be
inspired with the idea that his safety, and that of his family, if he had
one, depended upon precipitate individual action.
I was a young man, traveling alone, and while I was as anxious as any
one to be saved from the sinking vessel, I was not a coward, and I
could not thrust myself into a boat when there were women and children
behind me who had not yet been provided with places. There were men
who did this, and several times I felt inclined to knock one of the
poltroons over
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