Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London


What impressed me particularly was the mental and muscular
superiority of these two officers. Despite their age--the mate
sixty-nine and the second mate at least fifty--their minds and their
bodies had acted with the swiftness and accuracy of steel springs.
They were potent. They were iron. They were perceivers, willers,
and doers. They were as of another species compared with the sailors
under them. While the latter, witnesses of the happening and
directly on the spot, had been crying out in befuddled helplessness,
and with slow wits and slower bodies been climbing upon the rail, the
second mate had descended the steep ladder from the poop, covered two
hundred feet of deck, sprung upon the rail, grasped the instant need
of the situation, and cast the coil of line into the water.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.