On Board His Vessel, However, Which
Carried Dollars, There Was, It Would Seem, A More Careful, Or More
Influential Captain, Who Was Able To Enforce His Determination That
One Man, At Least, Should Be Left On Board.
Nicolou's good nature
was with him so powerful an impulse, that he could not resist the
delight of volunteering to stay with the vessel whilst his comrades
went ashore.
His proposal was accepted, and the crew and captain
soon left him alone on the deck of his vessel. The sailors,
gathering together from their several ships, were amusing
themselves in the town, when suddenly there came down from betwixt
the mountains one of those sudden hurricanes which sometimes occur
in southern climes. Nicolou's vessel, together with four of the
craft which had been left unmanned, broke from her moorings, and
all five of the vessels were carried out seaward. The town is on a
salient point at the southern side of the bay, so that "that
Admiral" was close under the eyes of the inhabitants and the shore-
gone sailors when he gallantly drifted out at the head of his
little fleet. If Nicolou could not entirely control the manoeuvres
of the squadron, there was at least no human power to divide his
authority, and thus it was that he took rank as "Admiral." Nicolou
cut his cable, and thus for the time saved his vessel; for the rest
of the fleet under his command were quickly wrecked, whilst "the
Admiral" got away clear to the open sea. The violence of the
squall soon passed off, but Nicolou felt that his chance of one day
resigning his high duties as an admiral for the enjoyments of
private life on the steadfast shore mainly depended upon his
success in working the brig with his own hands, so after calling on
his namesake, the saint (not for the first time, I take it), he got
up some canvas, and took the helm: he became equal, he told us, to
a score of Nicolous, and the vessel, as he said, was "manned with
his terrors." For two days, it seems, he cruised at large, but at
last, either by his seamanship, or by the natural instinct of the
Greek mariners for finding land, he brought his craft close to an
unknown shore, that promised well for his purpose of running in the
vessel; and he was preparing to give her a good berth on the beach,
when he saw a gang of ferocious-looking fellows coming down to the
point for which he was making. Poor Nicolou was a perfectly
unlettered and untutored genius, and for that reason, perhaps, a
keen listener to tales of terror. His mind had been impressed with
some horrible legend of cannibalism, and he now did not doubt for a
moment that the men awaiting him on the beach were the monsters at
whom he had shuddered in the days of his childhood. The coast on
which Nicolou was running his vessel was somewhere, I fancy, at the
foot of the Anzairie Mountains, and the fellows who were preparing
to give him a reception were probably very rough specimens of
humanity.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 170
Words from 18257 to 18786
of 89094