The Commodore Read Online Free PDF

thousands upon thousands of miles, 'I confide them entirely to you. And there are the little girls. Jemmy Ducks has a wife in the village, I believe?'
    'He had the equivalent, or at least he had when we sailed; and I do not suppose Sarah and Emily would know the odds. Anyhow, I shall see them stowed until you come back. You will be coming back, I collect?'
    'Certainly: I shall post down as soon as ever I can. I should be very sorry to see my Titicaca grebe decay.'
    'Schooner alongside, if you please, sir,' said Bonden, Jack's coxswain and a very old friend: Stephen had taught him to read.
    'And Jack, you will salute Diana most affectionately for me, I beg; and assure her that if I had my will...'
    'Come, sir, if you please,' said Tom Pullings. 'Schooner's alongside and we are fending off something cruel, in this ugly cross-sea.'
    They got him over safely, dry and uncrushed, though somewhat winded from having leapt, against all advice, as the schooner was on her lively rise. He had not been aboard her when she was the Berenice's tender, for although he did contemplate her from time to time with a certain mitigated interest, his own little green-painted skiff was infinitely more suitable for moving about, exploring the immediate surface of the ocean and the modest depths within reach of his net on 'those occasions when the ships were becalmed. Now he found her motion much brisker than that of the Surprise, six or seven times heavier, and he walked carefully aft to the larboard main shrouds, where he seemed to be in no man's way and where he was firmly supported by the aftermost pair. In the mean time the hands forward had flattened in the jib so that the Ringle's head paid off: a moment later the foresail and then the mainsail rose; the sheet came right aft and she leant over to leeward, moving faster and faster. Stephen clung on, strangely exhilarated; he meant to pluck out his handkerchief and wave to his friends, but before he could get at it with any safety they were racing past the Berenice, which really seemed to be standing still, though she had a respectable bow-wave and a fine spread of canvas.
    Heneage Dundas took off his hat and called out something, kind and cheerful no doubt but the wind bore it away: Stephen raised a hand in salute - a rash move, for the next moment he was dashed from his hold, coming up against the powerful Barret Bonden, who was at the tiller - the schooner had no wheel. Without allowing the Ringle to deviate from her course for an instant Bonden seized the Doctor with his left hand and passed him to Joe Plaice, who made him fast, though with a reasonable latitude of movement, to an eye-bolt on the transom.
    Here he collected himself and settled in moderate comfort quite soon, looking directly aft; and to his astonishment he saw that the Berenice and Surprise were already a great way off. The people on their forecastles were small, diminishing as he watched, individually unrecognizable apart from Awkward Davies with his red waistcoat. By now the Ringle had set her foretopsail (she was after all a topsail schooner) and with the breeze more than two points free - two points for her, since she could lie closer than five from the wind, whereas even that weatherly ship the Surprise, being square-rigged, could not do better than six, while the poor fat Berenice could barely manage seven, and that at the cost of immense leeway - she fairly tore along, a delight to all hands aboard.
    Presently the two ships were hull-down except on the top of the rise, white against the dark grey of the clouds. Stephen saw them go about, standing towards Ushant and growing smaller still, for unless the wind backed farther still, they,unlike the Ringle, were condemned to beat up, tack upon tack. He watched them with a strange medley of feelings: the Berenice as a kindly ship and one in which he had spent many a pleasant evening with Jack, Dundas and Kearney, the first lieutenant, playing keen but perfectly civil whist, or