Ocean Tramps

“He wouldn’t speculate a bit in his business for fear of ruining himself, an’ his fear of what was going to happen in the future took all the pep and energy out of him. Worst of...

“‘Do you know what I’m thinking?’ says he. ‘I’m thinking this thing is my mascot, and I’ve been trying to get rid of my luck all this time. It got me free of that woman, for we...

“We’d come to the conclusion that ’Frisco was a bit too crowded for us, and we fixed to try for the Islands. Those days there was money out there. Why, in those days the guano d...

“There was a dog walking on the beach twenty yards off, and Tiaki cocking his eye at it took aim and let fly with the cracker, and there wasn’t any dog left after the thing had...

“‘He was,’ says the crab, and then he spun his story. He’d been walking along Alta Street three months ago when he saw three Chinks at a corner, an old boob in spectacles and tw...

“Charles would be brought by two warders to the house on the Sea Road after dark on the following day, the interview was to take place in a room with a single door and single wi...

However, we weren’t out to admire the view and we held on, at least Buck did, till we were near level, as far as I could make out, with Reeds and aiming for Red Rock, the wind h...

“She lay as trigg as if she was on the stocks, with scarcely a list and her bow pointing to the break in the reef. Her anchor was in the coral, and you could see the slack of th...

“The Chinks had all congregated down into the fo’c’sle to smoke their opium pipes, and Logan, he lit a cigar and sat down on deck in the light of the moon that had just risen up...

Did you ever hear of such a tomfool arrangement? For she could just as well have waited till he got to ’Frisco, and then she’d have had time to change her mind; that’s what Buck...

“Maybe what more you’ll be wanting is a mail boat to ’Frisco and a brass band to play us off. Isn’t Luck good enough to trust in? And look at the luck that’s brought us here. Wh...

Harman had counted up the sovereigns in the chamois leather bag—there were a hundred and twelve. In a private conference with Davis below, Keller taking the deck and the wheel,...

The breeze had almost fallen dead as they came in, nothing but the sea spoke, breaking on the rocks and lipping up the cliffs, where screw pines clung and the great datura trump...

“Well, as you ask me, I’ll tell you,” replied Bud. “She’s fell into it head first, and up to the heels of her boots, given me the whole show and location all but the name of the...

Schumways dropped down from the bridge and Sellers rose from the engine-room, wiping his hands with a piece of cotton waste; he had put on his coat and wore an old panama on his...

The beauty of a flower. The beauty of a tune. The beauty of the hour When dusk embraces June: Of all the beauties earthly The soul of man may clip, On earth there is no beauty L...

They were not fools enough to drink, and if they had been, the bar of the Café Continental, white-painted, cold, correct, served by a white-coated bar tender who could talk noth...

Outside they ran up the sail while astern Motul, with its hills and dark forests, lay like a cloud on the water, visible all night, dwindling to a speck in the dawn, destroyed u...

I went straight to the shipping office and, looking over the list of overdue ships, I found a notice that the steamship _Shanghai_, bound from London to Canton was eight weeks o...