The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dick Leslie's Luck, by Harry Collingwood

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Title: Dick Leslie's Luck
A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: Harold Piffard

Release Date: January 27, 2009 [EBook #27909]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK LESLIE'S LUCK ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Dick Leslie's Luck, by Harry Collingwood.

CHAPTER ONE.

A MARITIME DISASTER.

The night was as dark as the inside of a cow! Mr Pryce, the chief mate
of the full-rigged sailing ship _Golden Fleece_--outward-bound to
Melbourne--was responsible for this picturesque assertion; and one had
only to glance for a moment into the obscurity that surrounded the ship
to acknowledge the truth of it.

For, to begin with, it was four bells in the first watch--that is to
say, ten o'clock p.m.; then it also happened to be the date of the new
moon; and, finally, the ship was just then enveloped in a fog so dense
that, standing against the bulwarks on one side of the deck, it was
impossible to see across to the opposite rail. It was Mr Pryce's
watch; but the skipper--Captain Rainhill--was also on deck; and together
the pair assiduously promenaded the poop, to and fro, pausing for a
moment to listen and peer anxiously into the thickness to windward every
time that they reached the break of the poop at one end of their walk,
and the stern grating at the other.

Now, a dark and foggy night at sea is an anxious time for a skipper; but
the anxiety is multiplied tenfold when, as in the present case, the
skipper is responsible not only for the safety of a valuable ship and
cargo, but also for many human lives. For the _Golden Fleece_ was a
magnificent clipper ship of two thousand eight hundred tons register,
quite new--this being her maiden voyage, while she carried a cargo,
consisting chiefly of machinery, valued at close upon one hundred
thousand pounds sterling; and there were thirty-six passengers in her
cuddy, together with one hundred and thirty emigrants--mostly men--in
the 'tween decks. And there was also, of course, her crew.

For a reason that will s