Pugh

“ Pugh is not an advertising sorceress, but practises all her magic slily, and generally under a promise of secresy, which is exacted lest the fame of her fortune-telling should come to the ears of certain respectable families, who employ her as a nurse. She is much resorted to by a number of young persons of both sexes, and has considerable notoriety among the low and ignorant classes as a practiser of the black art. ”

“ Pugh, that we are going to see strange things before very long. What would you say if I told you that the Germans had broken through the French lines and were headed for Paris?”
“I’d say,” said Pugh, “that I don’t wondah a damn bit. Them damn Frogs is always asleep. They’re too pretty to kill a mosquito.”
Fosbrook, taking hold of Hicks’s shoulder-strap and holding it grimly, set his mouth with firmness, and, with a full pause between each word, said: “William, I mean it. There’s going to be hell to pay in a few days.” ”

“ It was not badly done—not at all. The more closely I looked into the thing, the more clearly I saw that the cameo, for a cameo, was quite a work of art. In my collection it would look uncommonly well. The woman’s head was beautiful; the face was perfectly exquisite. I slipped the ring on to my little finger to study the effect.
As I did so I was just turning into the Edgware Road. As I reached the corner I was seized with a sudden spasm of pain; it was like a sudden constriction of the heart, or, better, an acute attack of heartburn. ”

“ The instant his back was towards me I replaced the ring in my waistcoat pocket.
The cabman drove me home. Directly I reached Randolph Crescent I stumbled upstairs to my bedroom; I went straight to bed. That scoundrel Bob was out, as usual, so I had to undress myself. A pretty job I found it! That heartburn—I had never been subject to heartburn, but if that was not heartburn I did not know what it was—had never for one instant ceased since it had first begun. Every vein in my body seemed to be throbbing at once. ”

“ If the animals attempted to leave the corner, the birds on the ground would hop about and flap their great ugly wings to drive them back, until the poor things were almost paralysed with fear. After keeping the horses in the corner for fully ten minutes, the buzzards overhead drew near, and those on the ground gave a peculiar screech, then, like a flash of lightning, down swooped a number of them and alighted on the heads and necks of the terrified animals, and for a few minutes we could not distinguish the beasts from the buzzards, there was nothing but feathers to be seen. ”

“ Then, saddling his horse and one for the wounded girl, they set off on their twelve mile ride to Newcastle.
You can imagine what that ride was like to Miss Warner, up hill and down dale as fast as the horses could go, the great gash in her leg was very agony of pain. It required endurance, nerve, and pluck—qualities our colonial bush-reared maidens are in no way deficient in. Her father, too, had a very good reason for letting her ride on horseback. Snake poison, as is well known, causes sleepiness, which, if succumbed to, knows no waking. ”

“ You hear him, Brasher, you hear him say that that was more than it was worth? But though he says it, he has sufficient knowledge, even in the midst of his wallowing ignorance, to be aware that it is of priceless value. But his knowledge goes no further. He does not know, what I, the true connoisseur, perceived at once, that in the hands of an ignorant man the ring would deal death and danger. ”

“ What an idiot that man is! He drew a chair to the bedside. He sat down on it. He crossed his hands upon the handle of his stick, and leaned his chin upon his hands. He stared at me, like an owl.
“Tress, do you remember, yesterday, when I was showing you my cabinet of rings, noticing a cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, of sixteenth century Italian workmanship?”
Now I knew why he had come. Up to that moment I had forgotten all about the ring, and the odd coincidence that I had found it in my waistcoat pocket. ”

“ The river was teeming with life—there were barges and wherries, dark-sailed colliers, swarming along under full sail, ships in tow like ourselves, bound either up or down, huge metal ships gliding to their homes in the docks after days of strenuous passage through the great ocean or floating majestically past us to the far west or east. ”

“ I did not like to blast his career, to charge him with an act of perfidy—that is, unless the evidence against him was undeniable, and—and until my mind was settled. I myself still was feeling queer. So I sent him out of the room.
“Go away; and, if you must die, die decently, without making all that noise!” ”

“ We were too far off to distinguish any human beings. God alone knew their sufferings and heard their prayers, He alone saw that fight with death, and while we looked, our hearts wrung with a sense of our helplessness, without a moment’s warning, the ill-fated vessel disappeared, and the night was black as before. ”

“ Many people went to Sydney, and from thence to Brisbane, and then tramped the rest of the way, many lost their lives in the attempt, some were killed by the blacks, some got drowned in crossing the rushing swollen rivers, many died of hunger and thirst crossing the waterless tracks beneath the terrible fiery sun that shone down so pitilessly from a cloudless sky, for in that arid track there was no shelter, no shadow of a great rock, no trees to give a moment’s respite to the travellers in that weary land. ”

“ I have since watched an English crew gamble day by day and night by night for weeks together, and never an angry word from the loser, but not so with these men, they were like perfect demons while playing, their eyes gleamed with the gambling fever, fairly starting out of their heads, one hand meanwhile played with the sheath knife in their belt, and the moment a man began to lose he at once accused the others of cheating, and the end was a fight. They cannot stand a losing game. ”

“ There is no place in the world that tries the ability, courage, and nerve of a seaman like running the Easting down. Captain Scobie was an old veteran in the trade, and he paced up and down the poop like a wild beast in a cage, while the winds were baffling about. No one dare go near him, he was so irritable, his eyes were never off the western horizon; he was just hungering for the westerlies, to see what his new ship would do. The light, fitful easterly airs only irritated him. The great sails were flapping themselves against the masts, and then bulging out to every movement of the ship. ”

“ A seamen’s strike at that time was rarely, if ever, organized for the benefit of the seamen, but for, and by a lazy disreputable gang of crimps and boarding-house keepers, and they were the only ones who reaped any benefit from it. It was a sight to make one’s blood boil; all around the shipping offices and along the line of docks these scoundrels would parade on the watch to prevent any poor sailor from going on board a ship and many a one, half starved with cold and hunger, was beaten and half killed by these wretches for trying to get on board a ship to get away from it all. ”

“ The exiles rarely left the deck, but would pace to and fro for hours, so anxious and fearful were they of recapture. All day long they would scan the horizon, their lips muttering the thoughts that would not be kept back, thoughts of home and loved ones. Surely fate would not be so hard as to let them be captured again, and be taken back to that living death. No, they would never be captured alive, no never again. ”

“ There is no more beautiful sight than to see them flying overhead for then the pure white of their under pinions is exposed and glistens like snow in the sun, spreading themselves out in the shape of a triangle, with one bird leading in front. ”

“ To the right of the boat landing, a road led up the cliffs that fronted the harbour. Right on the top of the cliffs there stood three famous drinking saloons, well known among South American traders as the “Fore,” “Main,” and “Mizzen Tops,” low, rough, disreputable places, the resort of crimps, the vilest of women and thieves, and many a sailor was drugged, then robbed and shanghaied from these dens of evil. ”

“ In the year 1746 what is known as the great earthquake took place, which demolished three-fourths of the city of Lima, and the town of Callao sank twenty-five fathoms below the sea. Three thousand seven hundred people are said to have perished, and the coast line was entirely changed. On the night of that awful catastrophe, an aged fisherman, San Lorenzo by name, went out in his boat with his nets and lines to follow his usual vocation. ”

“ Looking at it, and thinking of the centuries that have passed since the days of Pizarro and his robber crew, it was not difficult, as the old chief sat beside me telling me their legends, to picture them in their pride and glory when Peru was a great nation, and to see once more that chamber filled with proud chiefs, met to do homage to their ruler, sitting so calm and stately in the great chair, as they passed before him to their seats and to assist him by their counsel in the government of their country. ”

“ The Almighty never sends a storm without first warning his children of its coming—look at that,” he continued, pointing to the sunset, it was a showering of gold under the raven black wing of a cloud, and the rolling sea was black and golden underneath that rain of splendour. ”

“ I was getting tired of the sight of bricks and mortar, and the dirty streets of Liverpool, I missed the regular life on board ship, the sweet pure air of the ocean, the rolling restless ocean, I was tired of the noise and bustle, and wanted to get away from it all. The longing to see other lands, to cross other oceans grew stronger each day, life to me at that time meant only one thing, to see all there was to be seen, all that was worth seeing, to verify all that I had read about India, China, Japan, Africa, Australia and numberless other places. ”

“ One night when about a hundred miles off the South Island of New Zealand, the gale suddenly died away, and it fell dead calm, with a high sea, such as I had not seen, running. The ship wallowed and rolled unmercifully until every bone in our bodies ached with tumbling about. The officers were afraid of the masts coming down with a crash. ”

“ As there were no more shocks, in about ten minutes the people in the streets and Plaza ceased to call on Santa Maria, rushed back to the remaining saloons, called for the fiddlers, and went on dancing as though nothing had happened, and yet within half a mile of them, fifty human beings at least had been hurled into eternity without a moment’s warning. ”

“ We left the port at sunrise. The weather was fine, one of those lovely tropical days when the sky blends its prismatic hues and the easterly breeze, as it whistles through the shrouds, brings new life and energy into one’s veins. The sea all around was covered with silver-crested waves and as the little “Pelew” cut her way through the sparkling waters she sent them like showers of jewels along her painted sides. What a joy it was to me to be once more on the ocean, to feel once more the motion of the vessel beneath my feet, and to quaff the salt breeze that was like the wine of life. ”

“ On all sides are the peaks covered with snow, rising to about two-thousand feet above your head. Here you see a remarkable feature of the terraced cultivation of the old Incas’ days, before Pizarro and his crew robbed them of their glory and power. Up the steep mountain side, from base to summit, is a perfect network of small embankments or terraces, running this way and that way, until the mountain looks like one great chessboard. ”

“ In the field over which the buzzards were hovering, there were two young horses and a mule. They seemed to scent danger, for they were rushing about like mad things, neighing, snorting and kicking, terrified at something we could not understand, but we were not kept long in suspense or doubt. The animals gathered in one corner of the field as if for mutual protection, with their heads in a corner and their tails towards us, stamping their feet all the time as though in great fear, and making a peculiar neighing noise. ”

“ When daylight came again our case seemed worse than ever, the real state of the damage became more apparent. Old bronzed sailors, who had spent their whole lives at sea battling with the ocean in all her moods, turned fairly white when they looked around, and heard the despairing cry of the women and children huddled together aft. Strong men, and we had some strong men amongst the crew, flung themselves down on the deck, utterly exhausted, rolling about as the ship laboured in the heavy seas, even the ship herself seemed to give up struggling. ”

“ One night, while running through the south-east trade winds, the weather was very unsettled and squally, and a hard-looking squall rose up to windward. Mr. Menzies saw it, and called out to stand by the royal and top-gallant halliards. The watch were in the forecastle playing cards, and did not hear him. The man on the look-out heard the mate, and stamped his feet on the deck, but the watch were too intent on their game, and either did not, or would not hear him. ”

“ The track was just a spongy quagmire, into which we and the horses sank knee deep and could hardly pull our feet out again so great was the suction. And every now and then the poor beasts would look pitifully at us, as they bravely tried to get along. ”