The Open Boat and Other Stories

ng to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule th

him, despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so har

universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact t

esire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to o

e word he feels that she says to him. Ther

n them in silence and according to his mind. There was seldom any expression upon their face

ered the correspondent's head. He had even forgotten that h

he Legion lay d

's nursing, there was d

eside him, and he too

ll never see my own

t. Myriads of his school-fellows had informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally ended by making him perfectly indifferent. He had never considered

merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet, meanwhile drinking tea

lood came between his fingers. In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square forms was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. The correspondent, plying the oars and dream

ently no nearer to the boat. Sometimes the boom of the surf rang in the correspondent's ears, and he turned the craft seaward then and rowed harder. Southward, some one had evidently built a watch-fire on the beach. It was too low and too far to be seen, but

. "Pretty long night," he observed to the correspondent. He l

that shark pl

He was a big fe

known you

dent spoke into the

nd gradual disentanglement.

said t

ife-belt he was deep in sleep, despite the fact that his teeth played all the popular airs. This sleep was so good to him that it wa

, Bil

y vanished, but the correspondent took

r the thunder of the surf. This plan enabled the oiler and the correspondent to get respite together. "We'll give those boys a chance to get into shape again," said the captain. They curled d

ve them a fresh soaking, but this had no power to break their repose. The ominous

he's drifted in pretty close. I guess one of you had better take her to se

er, and this steadied the chills out of him. "If I ever ge

was a short

illie, will y

said t