Charles Dickens

“ The joy of the women was beautiful; the joy of those women who had lost their own children, was quite sacred and divine; but the ecstasies of Captain Carton's boat's crew, when their pet was restored to her parents, were wonderful for the tenderness they showed in the midst of roughness. ”

“ Though she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she spoke them compassionately. I said nothing. It will appear to be another strange confession, that I paced to and fro, within call, all that night, a most unhappy man, reproaching myself all the night long. "You are as ignorant as any man alive; you are as obscure as any man alive; you are as poor as any man alive; you are no better than the mud under your foot." ”

“ Not only was this arbor, so to call it, neatly made of flowers, but it was ornamented in a singular way. Some of the men had taken the ribbons and buckles off their hats, and hung them among the flowers; others had made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs, and hung them there; others had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass and shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes with the flowers; so that altogether it was a very bright and lively object in the sunshine. ”

“ The barbarous pirates, scum of all nations, headed by such men as the hideous little Portuguese monkey and the one-eyed English convict with the gash across his face, that ought to have gashed his wicked head off? The worst men in the world picked out from the worst, to do the cruellest and most atrocious deeds that ever stained it? ”

“ But when we halted for the night, I found that Miss Maryon had spoken to Captain Carton concerning me. For, the captain came straight up to me, and says he, " My brave fellow, you have been Miss Maryon's bodyguard all along, and you shall remain so. Nobody shall supersede you in the distinction and pleasure of protecting that young lady." I thanked his honor in the fittest words I could find, and that night I was placed on my old post of watching the place where she slept. More than once in the night, I saw Captain Carton come out into the air, and stroll about there, to see that all was well. ”

“ The motion of the raft was usually so much the same, the scene was usually so much the same, the sound of the soft wash and ripple of the water was usually so much the same, that they were made drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one tune. Even on the grown people, who worked hard and felt anxiety, the same thing produced something of the same effect. Every day was so like the other that I soon lost count of the days myself, and had to ask Miss Maryon, for instance, whether this was the third or fourth? Miss Maryon had a pocket-book and pencil, and she kept the log ”

“ The rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him aboard again, I volunteered to be the man.
We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. ”

“ Commissioner Pordage, and what with the cries of Sergeant Drooce on the raft astern (which were sometimes more than Tom Packer could silence) , we often made our slow way down the river, anything but quietly. Yet that it was of great importance that no ears should be able to hear us from the woods on the banks, could not be doubted. ”

“ So much had happened in one night, and such great changes had been violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that we had gotten better used to uncertainty, in a little while, than I dare say most people do in the course of their lives. ”

“ Dickens, describes the prisoners (twenty-two women and children) taken into the interior by the pirate captain, who makes them the material guarantee for the precious metal and jewels left on the island; declaring that, if the latter be wrested by English ships from the pirates in charge, he will murder the captives. From their "Prison in the Woods," however (this being the title of the second chapter) , they escape by means of rafts down the river ”

“ These were English men in English boats—good blue-jackets and red-coats—marines that I knew myself, and sailors that knew our seamen! At the helm of the first boat. Captain Carton, eager and steady. At the helm of the second boat. Captain Maryon, brave and bold. At the helm of the third boat, an old seaman with determination carved into his watchful face, like the figure-head of a ship. Every man doubly and trebly armed from head to foot. P2very man lying to at his work, with a will that had fill his heart and soul in it. ”

“ Shot through the heart. Some of the people ran round to the spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face; but his face itself would never stir any more to the end of time.
"Leave him hanging to that tree," cried Captain Carton; his boat's crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. "But first into this wood, every man in his place. And boats! Out of gunshot!"
It was a quick change, well meant and well made,
THE PERIL OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS.
through it ended in disappointment. ”