John C. Hutcheson

“ Raised on the top of a curling wave, the fragments of the broken bulwarks and stanchions had got entangled with the wreck of the fore-topgallant mast, some twenty yards or so to leeward of the ship; and, clinging to the mass, Frank could see the boy holding on with a grip of desperation and terror, drenched with his ducking and the surf that washed over him, and with his mouth wide open as if yelling for assistance—although never a sound reached those on board for the roar of a giant could not have been heard against the wind. ”

“ As I looked at her distant sails, which came in sight when we got atop of the billows, they seemed to be gliding further and further away each fresh time that I saw them, showing that there was no wind; so, knowing that a boat would have to pull all that distance against a heavy head sea in order to fetch us, I almost despaired of our being picked up.
No one but those who have undergone a similar experience, can imagine the utter loneliness that strikes upon the heart of a solitary swimmer, struggling in the middle of the ocean for dear life. ”

“ At first no doubt, the breakers!—how aptly named!—had begun their attack against the poor crippled thing’s hull by degrees, little billows leading the assault that could only leap half-way up the side of the stranded steamer, falling back with impotent mutterings in a passion of spray; then, as the tide rose, these were succeeded by bigger waves rolling in from the eastwards, which, swollen with pride and brimming with destruction, beat and blustered all about the vessel from cutwater to sternpost, seeking ingress through the timbers that they might fall upon her and devour her. ”

“ Like a thunderclap, sharp, sudden, and rolling through the air with a concussion that shook the very ground under our feet, a murderous volley belched forth from our square, mowing down the Arabs as with the swath of a mower’s scythe, the mass of on-rushing, howling, swarthy Somalis sinking down to the ground, overborne by the avalanche of shot and shell we hurled at them; for, the rifles of us men, the guns of Mr Shrapnell’s battery, the revolvers of the officers, and the Maxim, all spoke at once and together. ”

“ The Malays stood in a group at bay, and fought on desperately, like rats driven into a corner, their numbers being still but little inferior to those of their opponents. At this moment the woolly head of Snowball appeared above the fore-hold with a triumphant grin on his black face, all wet with perspiration; and in a second he leaped on the deck, carrying on his shoulder the body of the serang, who was knocked senseless by the tumble into the hold, although the darky’s head, accustomed to such rude shocks, was not one whit the worse. ”

“ The water was knee-deep on the lee side of the deck, whenever the ship heeled over to port under the pressure of her canvas, passing out of the scuppers like a mill-race on her rising again and righting on an even keel.
The more the gale blew, however, the better the old Candahar appeared to like it; racing along in grand style, and kicking up her heels to the Frenchman who was pretty soon hull down astern, the distance between us widening each instant all the more rapidly from the fact of our proceeding in opposite directions! ”

“ She looks as if she never felt it whilst she is bleeding to death inwardly. Look at the poor fainting wife and mother, who with a smile on her lips and death at heart, cheerfully gives her husband and starving children the last morsel of bread in the hovel, and says with a martyr-like dissimulation that she does not want it, she is not hungry. Bless you they are all deceivers, every one, from little miss in her teens, who flirts with her boy lovers, to old Joan of threescore, who still wheedles her venerable Darby! ”

“ There was a scent of new-mown hay in the air, and gangs of reapers were out in the fields getting in the harvest, the whirr of the threshing-machine, which the squire had lately brought down from London, making a hideous din in the meadows by the pond, where it had been set up; puffing and panting away as if its very existence were a trial, and scandalising the old-fashioned village folk—who did not believe in such new-fangled notions, and thought a judgment would come on those having to do with the machine, depriving, as it did, honest men who could wield the flail of a job! ”

“ She was racing along easily, and presented a perfect picture, with the sun bringing out her white clouds of canvas in stronger contrast against the clear blue sky overhead and tumbling ocean around, and making the glass of the skylight and bits of brass-work about on the deck gleam with a golden radiance as it slowly sank below the horizon, a great globe of fire like a molten mass of metal on our weather bow, the vessel keeping always on the same starboard tack, for she wore round as the wind shifted. ”

“ She does not interfere with me; and I have buried the feud of the past in Min’s grave. There my heart finds only room for love and grief, ebbing and flowing in unison; coupled with a hope, which becomes more and more assured, now that I have received her message, that we shall yet meet again in that promised land where there is no death and no parting, only a sweet forgetfulness of the ills of life, and a remembrance of all its joy—the happy land of which my dream foretold in the early days of our love. ”

“ The glaring tropical sun was blazing already high up in the heavens, whose bright blue vault was unflecked by a scrap of cloud to temper the solar rays, while a brisk breeze, blowing in from the south-west, gave a feeling of freshness to the air and raised a little wave of surf, that broke on the beach with a rippling splash far astern; the cooing of the doves in the distance chiming in musically with the lisp of the surge’s lullaby. ”

“ The surface fog, or mist, which had lately obscured the view, rising from the water immediately after the last gleams of the sunset had disappeared from the western sky, had now cleared away, giving place to the pale spectral light of night, an occasional star twinkling here and there in the dark vault overhead, like a sign-post in the immensity of space, making the wild billowy waste, through which we tore with all the power of wind and steam, seem all the wilder from contrast. ”

“ Marching in the darkness, he knew not whither, by the side of comrades in solid phalanx, Fritz found himself, when morning broke, at the rear of some other battalions that were concealed from the enemy behind a mass of brushwood and scattered forest trees. These grew on an elevated plateau from which a very good view could be obtained of the field of battle, the rising sun lighting up the whole landscape and displaying the beautiful details of the country around, so soon, alas! to be marred by the terrible havoc of battle, bringing fire and ruin and bloodshed in its train. ”

“ Above, the sky was of a dull leadenish hue, and there was nothing anywhere to be seen beyond sky and water save the poor Josephine tearing along through the chaotic maelstrom, labouring and groaning heavily as she rolled from side to side, dipping her yard-arms from time to time with each lurch, with the wind shrieking and whistling the most wonderful harp music through the rigging—nothing to be seen but the restless, roaring, heaving sea stretching away, like a boiling cauldron of soap-suds, to where the gloomy heavens met the angry horizon. ”

“ Out in the bay opposite the creek, the water was as smooth as glass, undisturbed by the slightest breath of wind so as to cause a ripple; and numbers of baby puffins and young penguins, their spruce little downy bodies clad in bright new coats of silky feathers, were scattered in groups over the mirror-like expanse, diving and coming up again in a moment in the centre of a series of expanding circles that gradually grew wider and wider in diameter, as when a stone is flung into a still pond, only to disappear the next minute. ”