Ralph D. Paine

“ The men from the boat halted on the staircase, and presently Walter heard the rumbling undertones of General Quesada. A door was opened, and the swarthy sailors from the Juan Lopez filed into the room. They closed around Walter as if intending to take him with them. He wanted to motion them away, to show them that he was an American, that he could take his medicine like a man, but, alas! the brave, boyish impulse came to naught. He could only stare stupidly at one and the other, as if beseeching them to reveal their purpose. ”

“ I am excited, Wilkins, and small wonder. After many heartbreaking failures and incredible effort, I have—I have—been able to apply the theories of musical vibration to the human whisker. For ages the winds of Heaven have been sweeping with wonderful melody through the whiskers of mankind, which has been deaf to the magic of their harmonies. ”

“ For Yale it was no longer a boat-race but a tragedy. Six lengths behind at the navy-yard, it seemed useless to endure the weary grind of two miles more. Ten thousand disgusted partisans, afloat and ashore, blamed it all to the Chinese coxswain who had thrown the race away. He himself knew better and also knew that he was to be the scapegoat.
Seven men, bitterly desperate and profoundly courageous, in the splendid folly of youth believing that theirs is an affair of life and death, are never beaten this side of the finish line. ”

“ This was Captain Dorland's last voyage, bound out from New York to Liverpool. Standing behind a canvas weather-screen, on a night quiet and luminous, he dwelt with thoughts that brought unhappiness. In youth he had greatly dreamed of love and bold adventure, and a fireside waiting to welcome him near the end of life's long road. The wife, now dead, had quenched the spark of romance before it was fairly alight and he had made the best of a bad bargain. A son lost at sea as mate of an overloaded tramp; a childless daughter who had married no more wisely than her father ”

“ There were times when Captain Kempton winced and sighed at the sight of the nodding, rusty funnels and shabby deck houses beside the weedy wharves, and the gaunt fabrics of abandoned schooners resting on the mud flats. He was a brooding, disappointed man, but the bright presence of his daughter saved his thoughts from bitterness.
At nineteen, Eudora Kempton viewed life as anything else than a finished chapter, and this nautical graveyard was less sad than romantic, a place for dreaming dreams adventurous or pensive. ”

“ Day was breaking when the crew of the schooner, a full muster roll, were helped into the station. The weary surf men gave their bunks to the rescued, and the black cook made strong coffee and corned-beef hash with incredible speed. Brainard fell on the floor like a dead man. But he could not sleep, for the night had been too crowded with racking events. His hurts and exhaustion were forgotten as the evening at the Coquina Beach Hotel came back to him, dimly at first, then focusing more sharply, as if he were recalling things far distant in time and place. ”

“ O'Shea was as delighted as a boy to learn that King Osmond was about to found an island kingdom. It was a more attractive revelation than if he had been discovered to be the inconsequential ruler of some effete little domain of Europe. And if one planned to set himself up in business as a sovereign it was proper to use all the pomp and trappings and ceremony that belonged with the game. O'Shea was heart and soul in sympathy with the dreams and plans of the gentle elderly eccentric who had the imagination to play the part with scrupulous attention to detail. ”

“ Captain Kempton was aware of it as soon as they went on board. It made him young at heart. Luckier than he, his daughter had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Eudora and her bold young seafarer possessed a treasure of greater value than all the doubloons ever buried, and they viewed the voyage as brilliantly successful; but their shipmates, less fortunate, were eager to wield their shovels anew where the bones of the poor lost lady of the bracelet had been covered by the shifting sand of centuries. ”

“ Three and a half years had passed since he sailed from Plymouth in the Speedwell with a mutinous crew of landlubbers and high hopes of glittering fortune. Almost every officer had died, including the sailing-master, the first lieutenant, the gunner, the armorer, and the carpenter, and of the original company, a hundred strong, no more than a dozen saw England again. Nothing more is known of the seafaring career of Captain Shelvocke, but he was no man to idle on a quay or loaf in a tap-room, and it is safe to say that he lived other stories that would be vastly entertaining. ”

“ The commotion was so startling that O'Shea bounded down from the bridge, and was confronted by a smooth-shaven, slender, elderly man, who flourished a false mustache and imperial in his fist as he indignantly cried:
"I say, this is all wrong, as sure as my name is Thompson! I never bargained with Mr. George Huntley to be kidnaped and taken to sea. I don't want to go, I tell you! These people tell me that this steamer is bound to some island or other thousands of miles from here. I stand on my rights as an Englishman! I demand that I be taken back to London at once!" ”

“ Just then the sinking sun shot a slanting dazzle across the pasture and the dash of vivid crimson on the wayfarer's chest gleamed like a sheet of flame.
"Good Heavens," I muttered. "It is the man's whiskers! Nothing so very rare about the pattern but that Titian red! I have tried to find that peculiar shade among the whiskers of three continents. I must have his portrait in color, even if I am compelled to kidnap him. God bless me, but his beard is priceless! ”

“ I have been a selfish, stupid, unfeeling woman."
"You are an angel and always were," devoutly exclaimed Captain Tredick. "It makes me blue to feel that you won't care to sail with me again, after that gale o' wind and the rumpus in the cabin."
"In all weather, fair and foul, if you will only ask me," was the wistful response.
"I'm perfectly delighted. You see, my dear, your only chance to get really acquainted with me was aboard my vessel."
"You are a very wonderful man afloat," was her final surrender. ”