Goree

“ The blacks too, who certainly know what hot countries are, find the heat excessive, and prefer living at St. Louis.
The Island of Goree may become of the greatest importance if the government should ever think proper to establish a powerful colony, from Cape Verd to the river Gambia; then this isle would be the bulwark of the settlements on the coast of Africa. But it will be objected that Goree is very small, and that great establishments can never be formed there ”

“ Missis Garvey says a fam’ly buryin’ groun’ is a sho’ sign of quality. She says ef we git the feud, thar’s somethin’ else ought to go with it. The names on them monyments is ‘Goree,’ but they can be changed to ourn by—”
“Go! Go!” screamed Goree, his face turning purple. He stretched out both hands toward the mountaineer, his fingers hooked and shaking. “Go, you ghoul! Even a Ch-Chinaman protects the g-graves of his ancestors—go!”
The squirrel hunter slouched out of the door to his carryall. ”

“ When the fog lifts the place is nothing but a scorching desert. I was to have gone up the river to inspect our military stations and their garrisons, but the only available boat was detained outside the bar across the mouth of the river, which was absolutely impassable. After waiting for it in vain for several days, I left St. Louis for Goree and Dakar.
At Goree I once more saw the pretty signares, a regularly enlisted company of mulatto women, which furnishes our officers, civil and military, with wives and housekeepers during their turn of colonial service. ”

“ On all sides there were none but unhappy men who gave themselves up to despair, and who sighed after their country: it was scarcely possible to find men enough for the duty of the camp. It is remarkable, that the crews of the vessels, which were in the roads of Goree, were hardly sensible of the influence of the bad season: it is true these crews were better fed, better clothed, and sheltered from the inclemency of the air; it is, besides, pretty certain, that this road is healthy, while the maladies of the country prevail on shore. ”

“ He proposed to take with him a small party, who being well armed and disciplined, might face almost any force which the natives could oppose to them. He determined with this force to proceed direct to Sego, to build there two boats forty feet long, and thence to sail downwards to the estuary of the Congo. Instructions were accordingly sent out to Goree, that he should be furnished liberally with men, and every thing else of which he might stand in need. ”

“ At Goree he proposes receiving on board the soldiers and Negroes formerly mentioned, and would then proceed to Fattatenda, five hundred miles up the Gambia; where, having first obtained permission from the King of Woolli, he would disembark with the troops, asses, &c. After having allowed time for refreshment, and the necessary arrangements being made, he would then proceed on his journey to the Niger. The route he intends pursuing would lead him through the kingdoms of Bondou, Kajaaga, Fooladoo, and Bambarra.
"In conducting an expedition of this nature through such an extent of country, Mr. ”

“ Rendel said. "There is something in it which matters a great deal." Gore felt a sudden grip at his heart. He said nothing. "Here it is," said Rendel, and he handed him the paper, folded so as to show the startling headings in big letters and the rough facsimile of the map. Gore looked at it. The whole thing swam before his eyes; he held it for a moment, trying desperately to think what he had better say, but he could find no anchorage anywhere.
"That is very surprising," he said finally. "As far as I can see, it's—it's a partition of Africa between England and Germany? Is that it? ”

“ Satisfied with his quick, darting inspection, Gore now came all the way down. At the foot of the ladder lay an elderly man in the oblivion of sleep. Gore's foot came down on the thin chest. With savage pleasure he bore down, so that the old man's startled squawk ended in a fit of coughing. Gore cuffed him aside roughly, growling:
"Old squiffer! Let that learn you to sleep out of the way!" He laughed coarsely when one of the prisoners, with the temerity of anonymity, started to boo, but received no support.
Carelessly Gore passed among the prisoners. ”

“ John Gore thought that my lord was dying, and even picked out a place in the garden where he would bring him when he was dead.
Yet it was not death with Stephen Gore, but a stupor that nature had brought upon him even as the winter fields lie inert and frost-crumbled under the sky. Fresh food and the warmth of the bed had a narcotic effect upon the man. ”

“ She was not a woman to let such a seed die for want of planting and watering. She asked Rendel to dinner to meet the Gores, she talked to Lady Gore about him, she it was who somehow arranged that he should go to call at Prince's Gate, and he finally grew into a habit of finding his way there with a frequency that surprised himself. Lady Gore subjugated him entirely by her sweet kindly welcome, and the interest with which she listened to him, until he found himself to his own astonishment telling her, as he sat by her sofa, of his hopes and fears and plans for the future. ”

“ Rendel said hurriedly, "tell me——"
"It is easy enough," said Gore, "for you to talk of faith and trust. You need not grudge my child's faith in me. I have nothing else left now." And as the two men looked at each other each in his soul had a vision of the gracious presence that had always been by Sir William's side: of one who would have believed in him, justified him, if the whole world had accused him. Rendel suddenly paused as he was going to speak.
"Life is very easy for you," Gore went on in a rapid, trembling voice. ”

“ John Gore had said little concerning his father, save the news of the Popish Plot, and my lord’s flight with many others who were concerned. He was believed to have found refuge in France, and yet at Thorn, not five miles from Furze Farm, a miserable, maimed thing dragged itself to and fro like an animal that has been crushed in the jaws of a steel trap.
A long splint, sand-bags, and six weeks in bed—such should have been Stephen Gore’s portion; but when a man with a broken thigh is alone in a ruin he must either crawl or starve by inches. ”

“ Yet so strange and mercurial a thing is temperament that Stephen Gore lay back upon his pillows when his son had gone with the drawn look of a man caught by some spasm of a faltering heart. He forgot for the moment to ring for Rogers, but sat staring straight before him, his hands moving amid the papers on the quilt. For my Lord Gore, like many a man embarked on crooked courses, was very human, as such men often are. ”

“ Gore was one of those gentle beings, who, like creeping plants, so closely, fondly cling round the objects of their tender affection, that existence itself appears wrapped up in theirs. Quiet, retiring, even to timidity, her husband and her children had formed her little world, and on earth she sought nothing beyond. ”

“ Sir William Gore, in the meantime, had got better. He had slowly thrown off the fever that had prostrated him, although he was not able to resume his ordinary life. He had demurred a little at first to the proposal that he should take up his abode at Cosmo Place, then, not unwillingly, had yielded. In his ordinary state of health he would have been alive to the proverbial drawbacks of a joint household, but in his present state of weakness and depression he felt he could not be alone, and in his secret heart it was almost a relief to be away from Prince's Gate, its memories and associations. ”

“ XVII John Gore rode for Yorkshire the next day, mounted on a good gray nag, with pistols in his holsters, and a servant with a blunderbuss, and a valise strapped on the saddle of a stout brown cob. Travellers had to take their chance of meeting rough gentry on the road, and many a nervous countryman, weighing sixteen stone, made out his will before he did so desperate a thing as travel forty miles. The sea-captain was not a man with jumpy nerves, and his thoughts went to and fro between rentals and harvestings and the ways of women as though he sat smoking at home in a padded chair. ”

“ My lord was not in the kitchen that morning, and John Gore, seeing that the stool was gone, guessed that his father was in the garden. Going out into the court he waved his cloak as a sign to Barbara, and passing on into the garden he found Stephen Gore sitting in the sunlight with his sword across his knees. He looked younger by years than he had looked for many weeks. His eyes had an alertness new to them, and he rose up to meet his son with the air of an aristocrat and a man. ”

“ The man was mere carrion, and John Gore sprang up the stairs, finding the lantern still burning, though the grease from the candle had guttered through upon the stones. He picked it up, and was about to push forward into the room when a black square in the flooring caught his eye. A flagstone had been turned upon its side against the wall, uncovering the mouth of some oubliette or pit, and for a moment he bent over it, trying to probe its depths, as though dreading lest that dear body should be lying broken in the darkness beneath. ”

“ And he had died on board John Gore’s ship, and they had buried him at sea, and often afterward at night the sea-captain had fancied that he still heard the man’s wild cry: “J’ai soif, mon Dieu! mon Dieu, j’ai soif!”
Now Stephen Gore had been a proud man, and a man of sentiment after his own ideals. He had had other things to torture and humiliate him besides anguish in the flesh. Proportionately as a man’s physical strength wanes, so the menace of spiritual suffering grows the more quick and poignant. ”

“ As Gore lunged past, Quirl struck him. It was a short, sharp, well-timed jab that would have knocked out an ordinary man. But Gore was by no means ordinary. The blow laid open his cheek against the jawbone, but Gore scarcely slowed as he swerved. With a bellow of rage, he came straight at Quirl, arms outstretched.
Philosophers have said that no matter how far the human race advances in the sciences, its fundamental reactions will still be atavistic. Gore could have dispatched Quirl in a second with his ray weapon, with perfect safety. Yet it is doubtful that the weapon even entered his mind. ”

“ For John Gore was more at home in an ingle-nook, with some little Yorkshire maid on his knee, than idling in his father’s painted salon with a score of somebodies trying to seem more splendid and more witty than either their estates or their brains could justify. ”

“ John Gore carried the child into the farm kitchen, and, laying him in a blanket almost upon the hearth-stone, rubbed and kneaded him till the skin began to redden. A loud sneeze was the first greeting that he gave them. His mother went down on her knees instantly and huddled him to her bosom, the blanket trailing across the brick floor.
“You be for terrifying me, you God-forsaken little rascal! Playing these tricks on us, with the good gentleman here wet to the skin and his stockings all mud! Won’t I smack ye when ye can bear a hand on a spot where a hand can’t do much harm!” ”

“ John Gore’s boat, half a mile ahead of my lord’s galley, disembarked first at the steps, so that the servants were able to clear the baggage into the house and help in preparing that most essential of all incidents—dinner. John Gore sent Sparkin off to the kitchen, and passed the time pacing the gravel walks, with the river before him and the air sweet with the perfumes of the herbs. The stateliness of the place, its repose and opulence, had a strong charm for the man after rough years of voyaging and the squalid loneliness of prison. ”

“ Gore's share must have been at least another 40,000l. The Medusa being in want of repair was then sent home, and at Gore's request was chosen by his godfather, the Marquis Cornwallis, to take him to India. On 21 Feb. 1805 Gore received the honour of knighthood, and sailed for Calcutta on 15 April. He returned to England early in the following year, and was shortly afterwards appointed to the Revenge of 74 guns, in which he was actively employed in the Bay of Biscay. ”

“ John Gore walked on in silence, his father humming a tune that sounded very much like a chant. For my Lord Stephen was a papist, though the conversion had not come till his maturer years, and whether it had been a question of conscience or of statecraft none but a Jesuit could have explained.
“Who was the man you were talking with by the Pool?”
“Grylls? A poor, willing kind of rogue who has learned to make himself of use. Small fry, Jack, to float in shallow streams. I have deeper waters for you, sir, with all your guns and tackle.” ”

“ Gore was actively engaged in writing and publishing. Her first printed work is said to have been a poem called 'The Two Broken Hearts,' which was followed in 1824 by her first novel, 'Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour.' In 1826 a work named 'Richelieu, or the Broken Heart,' an historical tale, was generally attributed to Mrs. Gore. Then came 'The Lettre de Cachet' in 1827. In 1831 she commenced her career as a dramatist by producing at the Haymarket Theatre, London, a five-act comedy called 'The School for Coquettes,' which had a brilliant run of thirty nights. ”

“ No one, I promise, will recognise you: every one will mistake you for Prince Dardavan, to whom Mistafor’s daughter Dogada is betrothed.”
“Good, very good,” said Goria, “if what you say prove true.” “It shall all come to pass as I have said,” replied the other. And thereupon the stranger desired Goria to go three steps backward and shut his eyes, and then open them again. On a sudden Goria saw before him a splendid palace of white marble, and in amazement, he exclaimed: “You are in truth the devil himself, and no man, to do such marvellous things!” ”