Beadle's Dime Novels No. 94: The Mad Skipper — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

STEADY ! 47 flushed; his whole frame trembled. The presence of the young girl always affected him in this way; but now, in the midst of his joy, feelings of poignant anguish stabbed his heart like a knife, whenever “Lilian, turning, glanced over his head at the restless wake of the ship behind him. Ay, ay, he was so short that she could look straight over his head; and it was this that galled him; that made him almost rail at fortune for bringing him into the world. Had it blessed him with the average hight of man, she would not thus have overlooked him; his eye would occasionally have met hers, and he might have hoped / “Steady dere—where going to !” yelled the mate, as, while indulging these reflections, Joe allowed the vessel to fall off her course two-thirds of a point; “mind what you about !” “ Ay, ay,” answered the dwarf, and at the same moment every thing seemed to grow dark around him, for Lilian had just descended into the cabin. Soon, however, he heard the music of her voice and guitar, and glancing. through the cabin windows, he saw the fair girl seated upon a sofa in the state-room, by her father’s side. Not long was he thus entertained ; for the violence of the gale suddenly increasing, the din of wind and ocean drowned the music of the instru- ment and the tones of the singer. The clouds, lowering in dark volumes above the tall masts, added to the gathering shadows of night, which were only partially relieved by the phosphor-gleam of the waves. Tearing through the wild waters as if maddened by the lash of the tempest, the vessel was deluged fore and aft by the heavy seas now almost con- tinually breaking over her. Occasionally, uplifted by some tremendous wave, she would rise with every timber groaning and straining, and then plunging downward with a side lurch, would bury bows and windlass in the roaring, seething waters. “Clew up fore and mizzen topsails! lively dere, lively !” yelled the mate, as the sharp “snapping ” of the jib-boom was suddenly heard. “ Get in dem sails quick as can!” This was soon done, after which, the watch, with the excep- tion of Ben Williams and Frank Harland, who stationed them- selves in the foretop to keep a look-out, were ow to return ~ tv the shelter of the round-house. The two seamen aloft were obliged to cling firmly to the comiclbooks.conmn