Dick Sands, the Boy Captain quotes

His complexion was dark, but his beaming blue eyes attested, with scarcely room for doubt, his Anglo-Saxon origin, and his countenance betokened energy and intelligence. The profession that he had adopted seemed to have equipped him betimes for fighting the battle of life.

Misquoted often as Virgil’s are the words

but the true reading is

and, slight as the difference may seem, it is very significant.

It is upon the confident rather than the rash, the daring rather than the bold, that Fortune sheds her smiles; the bold man often acts without thinking, whilst the daring always thinks before he acts.

And Dick Sands was truly courageous; he was one of the daring.

“I should rather say infest,” interrupted the captain.

“Easy enough to see, sir,” replied Benedict, stopping short with amazement, “that you are not an entomologist!”

“I fear I must plead guilty to your accusation,” said the captain good-humouredly.

Dingo evidently has no acquaintance with any other letters except the two S V; and some circumstance which we can never guess has made him familiar with them.”

“What a pity he cannot talk!” exclaimed the apprentice; “we should know why it is that he always shows his teeth at Negoro.”

“And tremendous teeth they are!” observed the captain, as Dingo at that moment opened his mouth, and made a display of his formidable fangs.

indeed the chief wonder was that he did not speak.

“Perhaps he can,” suggested Bolton, the helmsman, “and likely enough some fine day we shall have him coming to ask about our bearings, and to inquire which way the wind lies.”

“Ah! why not?” assented another sailor; “parrots talk, and magpies talk; why shouldn’t a dog? For my part, I should guess it must be easier to speak with a mouth than with a beak.”

But, however void of traffic was the surface of the sea, to none but an unintelligent mind could it appear monotonous or barren of interest.

The poetry of the ocean breathes forth in its minute and almost imperceptible changes.

A marine plant, a tuft of seaweed lightly furrowing the water, a drifting spar with its unknown history, may afford unlimited scope for the imagination;

“What a big fellow!” said Jack, catching the excitement of his elders.

“Ah, Jack, my boy,” chuckled the captain, “the whale little thinks who are watching him enjoy his breakfast!”

“Yes,” said the boatswain; “a dozen such gentlemen as that would freight a craft twice the size of ours; but this one, if only we can get him, will go a good way towards filling our empty barrels.”

… men skilfully propelled the boat along the outline of the water tinged by the crustacea, so that while the starboard oars still dipped in the green and limpid sea, the larboard were in the deep-dyed waves, and seemed as though they were dripping with blood.

“Wine on this side, water on that,” said one of the sailors jocosely.

“But neither of them fit to drink,” rejoined the captain sharply; “so just hold your tongue!”

“From me,” promptly rejoined the apprentice.

“From you! from a boy of fifteen?”

“Yes, from me,” repeated Dick, in a firm and resolute voice, looking at the man until he recoiled under his gaze. “From me.”

“From you! from a boy of fifteen?”

“Yes, from me,” repeated Dick, in a firm and resolute voice, looking at the man until he recoiled under his gaze. “From me.”

Mrs. Weldon had heard what passed.

Roused from his accustomed doggedness, the man seemed to make a threatening movement. Quick as lightning, Dick Sands drew a revolver from his pocket.

“Negoro, one act, one word of insubordination, and I blow out your brains!”

Negoro had no time to reply; before he could speak he was bowed down towards the deck by an irresistible weight. Hercules had grasped him by the shoulder.

“But now, Dick, you must really take some rest; you may perhaps not know how much you require it; but it is absolutely necessary.”

“Rest!” the boy repeated; “rest! I want no rest. I have only done my duty, and it will be time enough for me to concern myself about my own rest, when I have seen my passengers in a place of safety.”

“You have acquitted yourself like a man,” said Mrs. Weldon; “and you may be assured that my husband, like myself, will never forget the services you have rendered me.

The boy’s brow knitted itself together in resolution, and he said deliberately—

“I should run the ship aground.”

“However,” Dick continued, “there is no reason to apprehend this. The weather has mended and is likely to mend. And why should we fear about finding a pilot? Let us hope all will be well.”

The “slave-trade” is an expression that ought never to have found its way into any human language.

After being long practised at a large profit by such European nations as had possessions beyond the seas, this abominable traffic has now for many years been ostensibly forbidden;

whilst the males and females measure four fifths of an inch. There is another curious species, called sirafoos, which are about half an inch long, and have pincers instead of mandibles, and heads larger than their bodies, like sharks.

In fact, if sharks and sirafoos were placed in competition, I should be inclined to back the sharks.

”

At that moment, just in the fever of his agony, he felt a light breath upon his forehead; a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gentle voice murmured in his ear—

“My poor boy, I know everything. God will help us! His will be done!”

The tattooing is effected by means of a blue substance inserted into incisions previously made in the skin. Every child is tattooed in precisely the same pattern as his father before him, and thus it may always be ascertained to what family he belongs.

Instead of carrying his armorial bearings upon his plate or upon the panels of his carriage, the African magnate wears them emblazoned on his own bosom!

The garments that were usually worn were simply aprons of antelope-skins descending to the knees, but occasionally a short petticoat might be seen made of woven grass and dyed with bright colours.

Alvez and the other traders advanced to meet him with the most exaggerated gestures of reverence, all of which he received as his rightful homage.

He was a man of fifty years of age, but might easily have passed for eighty. He looked like an old, decrepit monkey.

On his head was a kind of tiara, adorned with leopards’ claws dyed red, and tufts of greyish-white hair; this was the usual crown of the sovereigns of Kazonndé. From his waist hung two skirts of koodoo-hide, stiff as blacksmiths’ aprons, and embroidered with pearls.

Amidst the staggering, half-tipsy crowd of ministers, officers, and magicians that composed Moené Loonga’s suite, there was hardly a man to be seen who had not lost either an eye, an ear, or hand, or nose.

Death and mutilation were the only two punishments practised in Kazonndé, and the slightest offence involved the instant amputation of some member of the body.

The loss of the ear was considered the severest penalty, as it prevented the possibility of wearing earrings!

The weapons carried by the soldiers consisted of wooden bows adorned with fringes and provided with a spare bowstring, knives filed into the shape of serpents’ tongues, long, broad lances, and shields of palm wood, ornamented with arabesques.

In the matter of uniform, the royal army had no demands to make upon the royal treasury.

Amongst the attendants of the king there was a considerable number of sorcerers and musicians.

On the 3rd of November, only eleven days after his return to Ujiji, some gunshots were heard within half a mile of the lake. The doctor went out to ascertain whence they proceeded, and had not gone far before a white man stood before him.

“You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” said the stranger, raising his cap.

“Yes, sir, I am Dr. Livingstone, and am happy to see you,” answered the doctor, smiling kindly.

Mosquitos abounded in swarms, and the worthy naturalist was so covered by their stings as to be hardly recognizable; but when Mrs. Weldon remonstrated with him for exposing himself so unnecessarily, he merely scratched the irritated places on his skin, and said—

“It is their instinct, you know; it is their instinct.”

On the 17th of June an adventure happened to him which was attended with unexpected consequences. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning.

… was out of breath, and scratching his hands against the brushwood and the foliage till they bled, he had the mortification of feeling the insect dash past his ear with what might be a defiant buzz, and finding that it was out of sight forever.

“Ungrateful hexapod!” he cried in dismay, “I intended to honour you with the best place in my collection.”

He knew not what to do, and could not reconcile himself to the loss; he reproached himself for not having secured the manticora at the first;

“And who would have thought it was you, Hercules, that carried us away?” said the child; “I did not know you a bit; you were so dreadfully ugly.”

“I was a sort of a devil, you know, Master Jack,” Hercules answered; “and the devil is not particularly handsome;”

and he began rubbing his chest vigorously to get rid of the white pattern with which he had adorned it.

“No, no, Hercules, that won’t do,” cried Jack; “besides, look, Dingo is shaking his head; he is telling you he didn’t do it.”

“Dingo must not tell tales, Master Jack,” said Hercules, laughing.

But, nevertheless, although the brave fellow’s modesty prompted him to conceal it, it was clear that he had accomplished a daring feat, of which few would have ventured to incur the risk.