The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant

The next evening our friend the captain found his fair audience by the taffrail increased to a round dozen, while several of the gentlemen passengers lounged near, and the chief...

"Well, one evening my sister Jane and I went to a race-ball at Epsom, where, of course, we saw all the 'beauty and fashion,' as they say, of the country round, with plenty of th...

"The captain was sitting with one foot upon the carronade in his outer-cabin, looking through the port at the heavy Indiaman, as she slued about and plunged in the blue surge, w...

"As soon as you near St Helena by a few miles, the trade-wind falls light, and making the rock, as you do from the South Atlantic, a good deal to leeward of the harbour, 'twould...

"Mr Newland (the first lieutenant) and I set out early in the day, accordingly, with a couple of the _Hebe's_ midshipmen, mounted on as many of the little island ponies, to go u...

We left the forecastle group of the _Gloucester_ disappointed by the abrupt departure of their story-teller, Old Jack, at so critical a thread of his yarn. As old Jacobs went af...

"Ah! Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastlemen to an old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the western Atlantic before the tr...

"Well, ma'am," continued our narrator, addressing himself, as usual, to his matronly relative in the chair, and with the accustomed catch-word, which was like the knotting toget...

"Well, ma'am," continued the naval man, on again resuming his narrative, "as I told you, the sudden hail of 'Land!' brought us all on deck in a twinkling, in the midst of my tic...

"The tide by this time was quite still, and the breeze sank almost at once, as we were shut in from the sea, when we were surprised to see the striped Portuguese flag, rise off...

"After all this, you may suppose one didn't weary so much, even of the calm. As soon as the decks were clear, most of us took tea on the poop, for fear of meeting the brigadier'...

"Well," continued the commander, his voice making use of the breeze as he stood aft of the group, "I could not have slept more than three or four hours on a stretch, when I was...

"With the evening we were once more running sharp on a wind up channel; and when she did get her own way in a good breeze, the schooner's qualities came out. 'Twas a perfect lux...

"When I went into the cuddy, more for relief's sake than to dine, the passengers were chattering and talking away round the tables, hot and choking though it was, in high glee b...

"Well, ma'am, the rest you may easily fancy. We made Madras Roads, and there I expected to lose sight of the Judge and his daughter again, as we did of most of the other passeng...

"Well, ma'am," resumed the commander, "I came to myself again at last, but when, how, or where, I really did not know, nor even what had been the matter with me; except that I l...

"After breakfast-time the breeze freshened again, and the ship had evidently perceived us, as well as the fact of our having hauled on a wind to make up with her course; for we...

"'No, Westwood,' said I, 'it can't be the right one--nor any of these, indeed!' And on looking at the chart, which was one not meant for anything but navigation in open water, w...

"The night was warm enough, however, in all conscience; and, if one had been fit to eye it calmly, a glorious scene to see was the sky that rose above our heads, glowing dark as...

"In about half-an-hour the faint glimmer of Jones's oar in the water showed how hard it was to find the schooner again; however, he managed to get aboard at last, by which time...

"It still blew a stiff breeze, but the waves rose with a length and a breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling hills of water, with green gleams about the c...

"You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of the _Gloucester_ to the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they me...

"Well then," began Captain Collins, leaning back against a stanchion of the quarter-rail, with folded arms, legs crossed, and his eyes fixed on the weather-leech of the mizzen-t...

"Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a side-wind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened since midnight with a pour of rain, t...

"I woke up in the tent perhaps an hour before midnight, as I judged on looking through the opening at the stars that shone in the dark sky through the north-east end of the vall...

"However, the Indiaman's officers and crew had work enough in managing her at present: after a sunset more like the putting out of him than anything else, with a flaring snuff a...

"The next morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, there was still a long sea running after us. However, by noon the sun came sifting through aloft, the breeze got warm, the d...

"More than once that night," resumed Captain Collins, "I woke up with a start, at thought of our late adventures in the river Nouries--fancying I was still waiting for the turn...

"Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our starboard-quarter in a golden blaze t...

"While I was listening, I had scarcely noticed, that within the last few minutes a light air had begun to play aloft among the higher canvas, a faint cat's-paw came ruffling her...

"The night came out of the dusk a fine starlight to seaward, beyond the reefs where the Indiaman lay, the high side of the island glooming back against the deep blue glistening...

"I could scarce believe it wasn't a dream still, when, having been called half-an-hour after daybreak, I first saw the change in the appearance of things all about us. The horiz...

describing him as warmly as possible; and suddenly Miss Hyde looked at him with a little turn of her pretty lip, and a twinkle in her eye, that sent the old gentleman fiddling a...