Adventure Books
13 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
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- 12 Oct 2024
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Hey Amazon Prime members! Why pay more for groceries when you can save big on thousands of items at Amazon Fresh? Shop Prime exclusive deals and save up to 50% on weekly grocery favorites. Plus save 10% on Amazon brands. Like our new brand Amazon Saver, 365 by Whole Foods Market, a plenty and more. Come back for new deals rotating every week. Don't miss out on savings. Shop Prime exclusive deals at Amazon Fresh. Select varieties. There's only one feeling like the traditions of baseball. From creating memories with your family, to the joy of being with fellow fans, the taste of your first hot dog of the season and the excitement of catching your first foul ball. Baseball brings communities together. And as your hometown bank, we support the hometown team. We're proud to be the official bank of the Colorado Rockies. Bank of Colorado, there's only one. Member FDIC. Chapter 13. The Loss of the Brig. It was already late at night and as dark as ever would be at that season of the year. And that is to say it was still pretty bright. When Hoe's season clapped his head into the roundhouse door. "Here," said he, "come out and see if you can pile it. Is this one of your tricks?" asked Alan. "Do I look like tricks?" cries the captain. "I have other things to think of. My brig's in danger." By the concerned look of his face and above all by the sharp tones in which he spoke of his brig, it was plain to both of us he was in deadly earnest. And so Alan and I, with no great fear of treachery, stepped on deck. Sky was clear, it blew hard, and it was bitter cold. A great deal of daylight lingered and the moon which was nearly full shone brightly. The brig was close hauled, so as to round the southwest corner of the island of Mull, the hills of which, and Benmore, above the mall with a wisp of mist upon the top of it, lay full upon the larber bow. Though it was no good point of sailing for the covenant, she tore through the seas at a great rate, pitching and straining, and pursued by the westerly swell. Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in, and I had begun to wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the captain. When the brig, rising suddenly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried to us to look. Away on the Lee Bow, a thing like a fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring. "What do you call that?" asked the captain, gloomily. "The sea breaken on a reef," said Alan, "and now you can where it is, and what better would you have?" "I," said Ho season, "if it was the only one." And sure enough, just as he spoke, there came a second fountain farther to the south. "There," said Ho season, "you see for yourself. If I had Kent of these reefs, if I had had a chart or if Shuan had been spared, it's not sixty guineas known, or six hundred, would have made me risk my brig in such a stone yard, and you, sir, that was to pilot us, have you never a word?" "I'm thinking," said Alan, "that these will be what they call the Torrin Rocks." "Are there many of them?" says the captain. "Truly, sir, I am no pilot," said Alan, "but it stinks in my mind there are ten miles of them." The captain looked at each other. "There is a way through them, I suppose," said the captain. "Doubtless," said Alan, "but where?" "But it somehow runs in my mind once more that it is clear under the land." "So," said Ho season, "we'll have to haul our wind then, Mr. Riesch. We'll have to come as near in about the end of mall as we can take her, sir, and even then we'll have the land to keep the wind off us, and that stoneyard on our lee. Well, we're in for it now, and may as well crack on." With that he gave an order to the Steersman and sent Riesch to the foretop. There were only five men on deck counting the officers, these being all that were fit, or at least both fit and willing, for their work. So as I said it fell to Mr. Riesch to go aloft, and he sat there looking out and hailing the deck with news of all he saw. "The sea to the south is thick," he cried, and then after a while. "It does seem clear in by the land." "Well, sir," said Ho season down, "we'll try your way of it, but I think I might as well trust to a blind fiddler. Pray God, you're right." "Pray God, I am," said Alan to me, "but where did I hear it?" "Well, well, it will be as it must." As we got nearer to the turn of the land, the reefs began to be sewn here and there on our very path. Mr. Riesch sometimes cried down to us to change the course. Sometimes indeed, none too soon, for one reef was so close on the brig's weather-board that when a sea burst upon it the lighter sprays fell upon her deck and wetted us like rain. That brightness of the night showed us these perils as clearly as by day, which was perhaps the more alarming. It showed me, too, the face of the captain as he stood by the steersman, now on one foot, now on the other, and sometimes blowing in his hands, but still listening and looking, and as steady as steel. Neither he nor Mr. Riesch had shown well in the fighting, but I saw they were brave in their own trade and admired them all the more because I found Allen very white. "Achon, David," says he, "this is nor the kind of death I fancy." "What, Allen?" I cried. "You're not afraid." "No," said he, wetting his lips, "but you'll allow yourself it's a cold ending." By this time, now and then shearing to one side or the other to avoid a reef, but still hugging the wind and the land, we had got round Iona and begun to come alongside Mole. The tide at the tail of the land ran very strong and threw the brig about. Whoo hands were put to the helm and hoses him himself would sometimes lend a help, and it was strange to see three strong men throw their weight upon the btiller, and it, like a living thing, struggle against and drive them back. This would have been the greater danger had not the sea been for some while free of obstacles. Mr. Reatch, besides, announced from the top that he saw Clearwater ahead. "You are right," said Hoseason to Allen. "You have saved the brig, sir." "I'll mine that when we come to Clear Accounts." And I believe he not only meant what he said, but he would have done it, so high a place to the Covenant hold in his affections. But this is matter only for conjecture, things having gone otherwise than he forecast. "Heep her away, a point," sings out Mr. Reatch, "rief to windward!" And just at the same time the tide caught the brig, and threw the wind out of her sails. She came to round into the wind like a top, and the next moment struck the reef with such a crunch as threw us all flat upon the deck, and came near to shake Mr. Reatch from his place upon the mast. I was on my feet in a minute. The reef on which we had struck was close in under the southwest end of Mo, off a little aisle they call Airade, which lay low and black upon the larberd. Sometimes the swell broke clean over us, sometimes it only ground the poor brig upon the reef, so that we could hear her beat herself to pieces. And what was the great noise of the sails, and the singing of the wind, and the flying of the spray in the moonlight, and the sense of danger? I think my head must have been partly turned, for I could scarcely understand the things I saw. Presently I observed Mr. Reatch and the seam and busy round the skiff, and still in the same blank ran over to assist them, and as soon as I set my hand to work my mind came clear again. It was no very easy task for the skiff lay amidships and was full of hamper, and the breaking of the heavier seas continually forced us to give over and hold on, but we all wrought like horses while we could. Meanwhile such of the wounded as could move came clamoring out of the force scuttle and began to help, while the rest that lay helpless in their bunks, harried me with screaming, and begging to be saved. The captain took no part. It seemed he was struck stupid. He stood holding by the shrouds, talking to himself and groaning out aloud whenever the ship hammered on the rock. His brig was like wife and child to him. He had looked on day by day at the mishandling of poor ransom, but when it came to the brig, he seemed to suffer along with her. All the time of our working at the boat, I remember only one other thing that I asked Alan, looking across at the shore, what country it was, and he answered, "It was the worst possible for him; it was a land of the Campbells." We had one of the wounded men told off to keep a watch upon the seas and cry us warning. Well, we had the boat about ready to be launched, when this man sang out pretty shrill, "But God's sake, hold on!" We knew by his tone that it was something more than ordinary, and sure enough there followed a sea so huge that it lifted the brig right up and canted her over on her beam. Whether the cry came too late or my hold was too weak, I know not, but at the sudden tilting of the ship I was cast clean over the bulwarks into the sea. I went down and drank my fill, and then came up and got a blink of the moon, and then down again. The say a man sinks a third time for good. I cannot be made like other folk then, for I would not like to write how often I went down, or how often I came up again. All the while I was being hurled along and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed whole, and the thing was so distracting to my wits that I was neither sorry nor afraid. Presently I found I was holding to a spar which helped me somewhat. And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to myself. It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was amazed to see how far I had traveled from the brig. I hailed her indeed, but it was plain she was already out of cry. She was still holding together, but whether or not they had yet launched the boat. It was too far off and too low down to see. While I was hailing the brig, I spied a tract of water lying between us where no great waves came, but which yet boiled white all over and bristled in the moon with rings and bubbles. Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side like the tail of a live serpent. Sometimes for a glimpse it would all disappear, then boil up again. What it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it, but I now know it must have been the roost or tide-raced which it carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me in the spare yard upon its landward margin. I now lay quite the calmed and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well of drowning. The shores of Herod were close in. I could see in the moonlight the dots of Heather in the sparkling of the mica in the rocks. "Well," thought I to myself, "if I cannot get as far as that it's strange." I had no skill of swimming, as in water being small in our neighborhood, but when I laid hold upon the yard with both arms and kicked out with both feet, I soon begun to find that I was moving. Hard work it was, and mortally slow, but in about an hour of kicking and splashing I had got well in between the points of a sandy bay surrounded by low hills. The sea was here quite quiet. There was no sound of any surf. The moon shone clear, and I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate. But it was dry land, and when it lasted grew so shallow that I could leave the yard and wait ashore upon my feet, I cannot tell if I was more tired or more grateful. Both at least I was, tired as I never was before that night, and grateful to God as I trust I have been often, though never with more cause. That's it for today's episode of the episode of the episode of the episode, and I'm going to tell you how to make sure you enjoy the episode, and don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more of the episode. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. Bye! I'll see you next time. Bye! Bye! See you next time. I'm looking forward to seeing you next time. Friends at Amazon Fresh, select varieties. There's only one feeling like the traditions of baseball. From creating memories with your family, to the joy of being with fellow fans, the taste of your first hot dog of the season, and the excitement of catching your first foul ball. Baseball brings communities together, and as your hometown bank, we support the hometown team. We're proud to be the official bank of the Colorado Rockies. Bank of Colorado, there's only one member FDIC.