Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

DEAD, for a ducat, dead, roared Somm, as he shouldered his gun and rushed to the beach. Nothing had come within reach of shot all afternoon till, in the thickening twilight, a flash of broad wings in the distance awakened our camp. A wounded albatross, shouted both my companions, as they peered through the shuttling grey of the evening, and watched the south wind, still wild with the force of storm, shepherd some baffled creature of wings up towards our nestling-place. Some still stranger bird, I thought, as we seized our guns and ran to the edge of the cliff. The sudden descent of night checked further question; and as the winged thing gleamed along the face of the precipice, three shots echoed across the sound, and, in a lull of the fitful gusts, we heard a dull plunge in the water far below. It seemed but a few minutes till we met Somm in the rocky hollow that was the harbour for our boat; he had rowed out and back, and was leaning over some dark object that lay in the stern. Not a sign of feather or anything that gleamed was there about it. It was the form of a human being, apparently dead. We bore it up through the bush with the tender care that diggers are wont to give to the corpse of a comrade. Our burden was so light that we expected to look upon a thin, emaciated body. But, as we laid it in the flicker of our hut fire, we were amazed to see the rounded form and ruddy cheeks of the dead stranger. We stripped him of his wrapping,a strange muslin-like transparent toga,and searched for the gunshot wound. Except for one broad bruise, there was no mark on the body. And then it began to dawn upon us that this had nothing to do with the flashing wings, or our shots, that we were guiltless of human blood. It was a case of drowning, but not yet dead. And we set to work to draw the clogging water from his heart and lungs. Slowly the breath began to come and the blood to circulate. The bosom heaved and we felt ourselves in the presence of another and a stranger human soul. What he was, whence he came, whirled through our minds in silence. Faint and in need of rest he manifestly was. We poured some stimulant down his throat and laid him on one of our rude beds of manuka and fern. We saw him fall into a deep and healthy sleep. And dawn was already threatening the east with flickering light when we went into the open and drew a long, sweet breath. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 67575
Author: Sweven, Godfrey
Release Date: Mar 6, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Publication Date: 1901
Publisher Country: United States