Yorke The Adventurer, George Lewis Becke [top business books of all time txt] 📗

board, and placed in my berth, and long days passed ere I saw Yorke again.

When I did see him the brigantine was lying at anchor at Rook Island, and Guest was in my cabin telling me the story of the hurricane--of how he had lost the two boats within an hour--one being carried away when the brigantine was all but thrown over on her beam ends, and the other--the longboat--swept away with everything else on deck--guns, deck-houses, bulwarks and all.

"How we escaped smashing into some reef or another I don't know," said Guest; "but the strangest thing about it all is that Yorke's cutter, manned by native seamen, managed to stick so close to the _Fray Bentos_; for when I, running before the hurricane, with my decks swept with tremendous seas, suddenly ran into smooth water, brought to in fifteen fathoms, and dropped anchor, there was the _Francesca_ cheek by jowl, alongside of me."

"Kanaka sailors' eyesight," I said. "Napoleon never lost sight of the brigantine for a moment! And, talking about eyesight, how is Yorke's eye?"

"Bad, bad, my boy. It is destroyed entirely, and he is now on board here, in my cabin. He has been asking for you. Do you feel strong enough to get up and see him?"

I rose at once, and went into Guest's cabin. Yorke was lying in the skipper's bunk, and as I entered he extended both hands to me, and smiled cheerfully, though his left eye was covered with a bandage, and his brave, square-set face was white and drawn.

"How are you, Drake, my boy? We had a narrow squeak, didn't we, from the niggers? And here is Captain Guest worrying and tormenting himself that he could not fire a gun to scare them off."

I held his big, right hand between my own, and pressed it gently, for there was something in his one remaining eye that told me the end of all was near.

"Goodbye, dear lad.... Goodbye, Captain Guest. _I_ know what is the matter with me--erysipelas--and erysipelas to a big, fat man like me means death... and if you would put a bullet through my head now you would do me a good turn... But here, Guest, and you, Drake... your hands. I'll be dead by to-morrow morning, and want to say goodbye, and wish good luck to you both, before I begin babbling silly twaddle about things that are of no account now... of no account now... not worth speaking about now. But the South Seas are a rotten sort of a place, anyway."
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Publication Date: 08-12-2010

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