Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London


I was alone on the poop, and the men were quite perplexed to find no
enemy in sight. As Bert Rhine went past, he half fetched up in his
stride, as if to knife me with the sheath knife, sharp-pointed, which
he carried in his right hand; then, and I know I correctly measured
the drift of his judgment, he unflatteringly dismissed me as
unimportant and ran on.


Right here I was impressed by the lack of clear-thinking on any of
their parts. So spontaneously had the ship's company exploded into
mutiny that it was dazed and confused even while it acted. For
instance, in the months since we left Baltimore there had never been
a moment, day or night, even when preventer tackles were rigged, that
a man had not stood at the wheel. So habituated were they to this,
that they were shocked into consternation at sight of the deserted
wheel. They paused for an instant to stare at it. Then Bert Rhine,
with a quick word and gesture, sent the Italian, Guido Bombini,
around the rear of the half-wheelhouse. The fact that he completed
the circuit was proof that nobody was there.

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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
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.