The Violence Of The
Squall Soon Passed Off, But Nicolou Felt That His Chance Of One Day
Resigning His High
Duties as an admiral for the enjoyments of
private life on the steadfast shore mainly depended upon his
success in
Working the brig with his own hands, so after calling on
his namesake, the saint (not for the first time, I take it), he got
up some canvas, and took the helm: he became equal, he told us, to
a score of Nicolous, and the vessel, as he said, was "manned with
his terrors." For two days, it seems, he cruised at large, but at
last, either by his seamanship, or by the natural instinct of the
Greek mariners for finding land, he brought his craft close to an
unknown shore, that promised well for his purpose of running in the
vessel; and he was preparing to give her a good berth on the beach,
when he saw a gang of ferocious-looking fellows coming down to the
point for which he was making. Poor Nicolou was a perfectly
unlettered and untutored genius, and for that reason, perhaps, a
keen listener to tales of terror. His mind had been impressed with
some horrible legend of cannibalism, and he now did not doubt for a
moment that the men awaiting him on the beach were the monsters at
whom he had shuddered in the days of his childhood. The coast on
which Nicolou was running his vessel was somewhere, I fancy, at the
foot of the Anzairie Mountains, and the fellows who were preparing
to give him a reception were probably very rough specimens of
humanity.
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