Ben Ames Williams

Black Pawl Ben Ames Williams

A well-formatted and easy to read edition of Black Pawl."SPIESS, a born lubber who would never learn the way of the sea, bungled his simple share of the task of getting the mate's boat away. Black Pawl, master of the schooner, was near by; and he cuffed the man. The buffet was good-natured enough, and Black Pawl laughed as he administered it. Nevertheless it knocked Spiess end over end. The man got up, grumbling; and Red Pawl, the captain's son and mate, said sharply to his father: "I'll handle my boat and my men, sir. Let them be."Black Pawl laughed again. "Fiddle, boy," he retorted. "If you knew your job, you'd have Spiess trained before this. He's been thirty months on your hands.""Keep your fists off my men," Red Pawl repeated sullenly; and Black Pawl frowned."Get your boat away," he ordered. "And stop your mouth."They had worked into the bay that morning, threading the intricate passages between the islands and the reefs with a familiarity that showed Black Pawl knew his way about. Not that the passage was difficult. There was always room, and to spare; but an ignorant man might well have taken a short way through blue water and piled up on a slumbering reef. Black Pawl was not ignorant, not ignorant where these waters were concerned. He had made this anchorage a full score of times, in his years upon the sea.