List, Ye Landsmen! A Romance of IncidentRussell, William Clark
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List, Ye Landsmen! A Romance of Incident
Russell, William Clark
English fiction -- 19th century; Sea stories
“How many tousand dollars vhas tdere in all?”
“Enough to stiffen you with sausage and to keep ye oozy with schnapps.”
We worked our way to the bottom case, and every case was chock-a-block,
as we say at sea--filled flush--and the dollars by the lantern light
resembled exquisitely wrought chain armor. I saw that every case was
securely nailed; the boxes were restowed. We then climbed out of the
lazarette, and Bol and the others went forward while I put on the hatch,
padlocked it, and withdrew the key.
I plunged my fire-red face in water, quickly shifted, and quitted the
cabin, tired, burning hot, but very well satisfied with the morning’s
work. Greaves was seated in a chair, and Miss Aurora walked the deck, in
the shadow of the little awning, pacing the planks abreast of him. Her
carriage, to use the old-fashioned word, had she been draped as the
beauties of her person demanded, would have been lofty yet flowing,
dignified yet easy and floating, graceful as the motions of a dancer who
swims from the dance into walking; but the barbaric cut of her gown
spoiled all. Never did I behold a woman’s dress so ridiculously shaped.
It was a grief to an English eye, for in my country the girls’ costumes
were just such as would have hit and sweetened by suggestion the form of
Miss Aurora. Well do I remember the English girls’ style of 1815; the
neckerchief with its peep of white breast, the girdle under the swelling
bosom, the fair up and down fall of drapery thence. Never do I recall
that costume, with its hat of chip or leghorn, without a fancy of the
smell of buttercups and daisies, the flavor of cream, the scent of a
milkmaid fresh from the udder.
I handed the key to Greaves. He put it in his pocket and gazed at me
inquiringly.
“It’s all right, sir, to the bottom dollar,” said I.
“Good!” he exclaimed.
“It is so much right,” said I, “that I am disposed to think there is
more money than the manifest represents.”
“There are five hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one hundred and
forty cases. I wish there may be more, but I suspect the entry was
correct. What did the men say?”
“Yan Bol was all a-rumble with questions. There will be much talk
forward.”
“There has been much talk aft,” he exclaimed, smiling. “Sailors are
human, and those fellows yonder are to pocket twelve hundred dollars
apiece besides their wages on this job. Let them talk. Let imagination
run away with them. Let the fiddle be jigging in their ears; let their
Polls be seated on their knees--in fancy. Keep their hearts willing, for
this bucket has to be whipped home.”
The lady Aurora looked and listened as she paced abreast of us. Her
eyes, full of light, often rested on me. Greaves ran his gaze slightly
over her figure, and, leaning back in his chair and looking away, that
she might not suspect he talked of her, said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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