Yorke 02 - Admiral by Dudley Pope

Author:Dudley Pope
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-04-26T23:00:00+00:00

Spaniards to surrender two islands.

"I wonder if, even in old age, we could ever go back again to bobbins andaffaires. Supposing Ned and Thomas each made a fortune from buccaneering, and hung us with jewels and gave us fine clothes and splendid homes with dozens of servants. . .could you bear it?"

"For a year, perhaps,"Aureliasaid. "For six months I could look at the jewellery, finger the fine cloth, train the servants, plan a beautiful garden, furnish the house as I would want it, and for another six months live on the memories of Santiago, SantaCatalina,Portobelo and a dozen other raids.

"Then would beginlegrand ennui:an immense boredom. An immense boredom because Ihave the finest jewels, Ihave the finest clothes, Ihave a house everyone envies, Ihave threesplendid coaches, drawn by black, white, grey and brown—bay, do you call them?— horses. The excitement is ingetting; the boredom ishaving. Ned would grow as dull as a cabbage. I should grow as fat as a turnip. We should bore each other."

"My dear," Diana said, "you think too much. What was it that Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: 'Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek headed men and such as sleepo'nights.

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungrylook, he thinks too much, such men are dangerous.' Perhaps the same goes for women!"

"Lean and hungry?"Aureliarepeated in alarm. "You don't think1look 'lean and hungry' do you, Diana?"

The Englishwoman patted her own hips. "You are not as well nourished as I am — but no, you are not 'lean and hungry'. You don't look thekind who are dangerous! But don't think too much; accept things as they come!"

They stood back off the track as two more carts came thundering down the hill, the buccaneers pulling back on the shafts to slow them.

The first cart was under the command of a Dutchman who spoke enough English to understand Diana's question and imitate a man holding a pistol; the second cart was loaded with large wooden cylinders which were, the men toldAurelia,pipes of muskets, ten muskets in every cylinder.

The two women turned up a sidestreet and began walking uphill through the small town. Several houses had balconies running completely round the upper floor, the roof sloping well out to shade them. But the paint on the planking was peeling and on several houses the planks were dropping at one end or another, showing where termites were eating away round the nails and leaving the houses looking scarred and wounded.

Wooden shutters over the lower windows were obviously the favourite of termites and several, slewed on their hinges, gave houses the appearance of bespectacled old men winking lewdly at passers-by. On walls and under the eaves of most of the houses were stuck small balls of mud, looking like miniature nests of swifts. Diana pointed them out andAureliaexplained that they were made by wasps, and inside were small tubes in which they laid their eggs. The newly-hatched wasps broke their way out, but the nests remained.

Both women were startled when a frightened hen squawked away from under a bush.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.