Twixt Land & Sea_ Tales

im laugh. Nothing gives away more a man's secret disposition than the unguarded ring of his laugh. But, bless my soul! if we were to start at every evil guffaw like a hare at every so

not have been very splendid, was merely a naval officer forty years of age, of no particular connections or ability to boast of. He was commanding the Neptun, a little gunboat employed on dreary patrol duty up and

mbang, I suppose, that there was a pretty girl living there. Curiosity, I presume, caused him to go poking around that way, and then,

s in his black hair, and his unpleasant eyes were nearly black, too. He had a surly way of casting side glances without moving his head, which was set low on a short, round neck. A thick, round trunk in a dark undress jacket with gold shoulder-straps, was sustained by a straddly pair of thick,

belonged to him, before her went to the house. On the verandah he would take the best chair, and would stay

or Nielsen) would have gone for him with his bare fists. But these gold shoulder-straps-Dutch shoulder-straps at that-were enough to terrify the ol

und eyes. At first he cried out that the lieutenant was a good friend of his; a very good fellow. I went on staring at him pretty hard, so

e," I interrupted. "Geniality, after all, is

ctly. What Heemskirk might have expected or what he thought he could do, I don't know. For all I can tell, he might have imagined himself irresistible, or have taken Freya for what she was not, o

nd quietness with the Dutch autho

he did it simply, unaffectedly, and even good humouredly. No small effort that, because in Heemskirk's attentions there was an insolent touch of scorn, hard to put

ation. It was rather admiration she extorted by her competent serenity. It was only when Jasper and Heemskirk were together at the bungalow, as it happened now and then, that she felt t

rd you are

pass with a

and I could see real concern lurking in the quiet depths of her frank

understanding very well the nature of her anxie

s our joke to speak of Jasper abusively. "But I

rk like a blackbeetle al

tate poor papa would get into. Besides, I mean to be mistress of the dear brig an

ady them both a bit. I don't think Jasper will ever get sobered down till he has carried you off from this island. Y

e of her responsibility. She slipped away from me suddenly, because Heemskirk, with old Nelson in attendance at his elbow, was coming u

ne as if every soul in the world belonged to h

e could shy a hat from the verandah on to her scrupulously holystoned quarter-deck. Her brasses flashed like gold, her white body-paint had a sheen like a satin robe. The rake of her varnished spars and the big yards, squared to a hair, gave her a sort

. The commander of the Neptun gave me a dubious black look, and began to make himself at home, flinging his thick, cylindrical carcass into a rocking-chair, and unbuttoning his coat. Old Nelson sat down opposite him in a most unassuming manner, staring anxiousl

we passed by the gunboat lying black and still without a sound in her at the mouth of the glassy cove. But with tropical swiftness the sun had climbed twice its diameter above the horizon before we had rounded the reef and got abreast of the point. On the biggest boulder there stood Freya, all in white and, in her helmet, like a feminine and martial statue with a

aced, admirably self-contained, in his manner, because inconceivably happy under the eyes of his Freya; all three tall, fair, and blue-eyed in varied shades, and amongst them the swarthy, arrogant, bl

rom the dinner-table. I was fascinated by it for the rest of the evening, and I rememb