He had put Stephen ashore in many and many a place, generally by night; and the anguish, even in a dead-calm sea, of watching his unsteady, lurching journey down the side, though helped by gravity and devoted hands, had added years to his apparent age: any innovation, however barbarous, was worth the relief of seeing him sitting there with his ( Read more... )

Some were racing, some were merely having fun, moving with wonderful ease and certainty. The midshipmen on the other hand - using the term in its widest sense from master's mate right down to first class volunteer: the 'young gentlemen' as a whole - kept to the starboard side, either on the quarterdeck itself, which was their right, or along the ( Read more... )

And then, just after seven, there we saw her - there she lay, the Droits de l'Homme, right in with the land, broadside up with the tremendous surf beating clean over her. Just there,' he said, pointing, deeply moved by the strength of his recollections, 'just there, beyond that tall pointed rock. At least six hundred dead, they say. I will not go ( Read more... )