FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138  
139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   >>   >|  
join me at Smyrna, as I'm bound to start at once now that I have filled-up the vacancies amongst my crew. Charley Onslow, remain aft with me. All hands up anchor, and make sail!" In a short time the men working together with a will, and the new hands specially distinguishing themselves for their activity in so marked a manner as to call forth the approval of the generally grumbling Mr Tompkins--although, perhaps, he praised them because Tom and Charley had suspected them--the _Muscadine_ had her anchor at the catheads; and, her topsails having been dropped long before, was sailing gaily out of Beyrout harbour, under the influence of the land-breeze that sprang up towards the afternoon, blowing briskly off shore. When she had got a good offing, and the mountains of Lebanon began to sink below the horizon in the distance as she bowled along merrily on her north-western course, a long way to the southward of Cyprus, bearing up direct for the Archipelago, a keen observer on board might have noticed something that looked strange, at all events on the face of it. No sooner had the shades of evening begun to fall than a long low suspicious-looking vessel crept out from the lee of the land, and followed right in the track of the _Muscadine_, as if in chase of the English ship. It was a swift-sailing lateen-rigged felucca, one of those crafts that are common enough in Eastern waters, especially in the Levant. She spread a tremendous amount of canvas; and leaping through the sea with the pace of a dolphin, came up with the doomed merchantman hand over hand. STORY TWO, CHAPTER THREE. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. The _Muscadine_ when she left England had a crew of some twenty hands, or with the captain, and first and second mates, and our friends Tom and Charley, twenty-five men altogether--a very fair average, as the proportion of the seamen usually borne in merchant ships is at the rate of about three to every hundred tons of the vessel's burthen. Through the illness, however, of the fust officer, Mr Wilson, an amiable man and a thorough sailor, whom everybody liked--quite the reverse of the odious Tompkins, Tom's and Charley's special bete-noir-- and a large number of the seamen, whom they were forced to leave behind in hospital at Beyrout, the complement of the ship was much reduced, and her crew now mustered, officers and men, but twenty in number, of which total twelve were Englishmen who had originally belo
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138  
139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Charley
 

Muscadine

 

twenty

 

Tompkins

 

number

 
anchor
 
sailing
 

seamen

 
vessel
 

Beyrout


friends

 

FRIENDS

 
COUNCIL
 

captain

 
England
 

common

 
Eastern
 
waters
 

Levant

 

crafts


lateen

 

rigged

 

felucca

 

spread

 

doomed

 

merchantman

 

dolphin

 

amount

 

tremendous

 

canvas


leaping

 
CHAPTER
 

forced

 

reverse

 

odious

 
special
 

hospital

 
complement
 

Englishmen

 
twelve

originally
 

reduced

 
mustered
 
officers
 

sailor

 

merchant

 
average
 

proportion

 
English
 

hundred