Status Updates From Winds of Chance

"Ah, sweet soul," sighed he, bowing his head, "can there ever be friendship 'twixt such men as Japhet and I? Can such trespass as mine ever be forgiven?" 'Oh, surely!' said I. 'If it be truly repented...and death so very nigh.' (While each and every character does something wrong or foolish, I like how some of them change for the better)

Japhet was still asleep; I or any other might have disarmed him. Seeing him thus unconscious of me, and all else, I moved nearer to gaze down on him. Then I saw the sly wretch was awake after all, for his lips curved to their quirkish smile and he murmured, eyes fast shut the while: "Buss me, lass, buss me and be done." (Lol, poor Ursula is forever tormented by his teasing)

Oh, Japhet! Must you be a brute just when Ursula finally stops being a brat? That piratical streak in you. She may forgive you, but it'll take more for me.

"Japhet," said I suddenly, whereat he as suddenly turned to look at me. "Well, Ursula?" 'Why are you such a hatefully cruel man? So relentlessly vindictive?' "Some day you shall hear-mayhap." 'And why not now?' "You are still too much the useless, prideful fine lady." 'I am what God made me.' "And your own idle vanities, madam, God givith us possibilities, circumstances and ourselves mold and shape 'em."

"Sink me!" he exclaimed. "Tis to be hoped ye can cook better than build a fire! How a-plague shall this kindle, think ye?" When he had got his fire going he demanded I should cook supper, I vowed I could not and folding my hands in my lap sat me down. "Cannot or will not?" he demanded. "Both!" I retorted; whereupon he stared up at the moon, fell a whistling and set about the business himself.

"No! I'll bide where I am." 'He will have light and air in the great cabin-Mr. Barnabas-' "But I shall have peace and quiet here,' quoth the Captain, excessive peevish,"no fine-lady airs or shrewish tongue-" 'The poor creature shows a little feverish,' said I, setting the tips of my fingers to his scowling brow,'let him be borne well lapped in blankets.'

"Ursula, why will you seem baser than you are.- such peevish, light, selfish creature? Let us suppose death should take us today; well-we die in right good cause; better so than in the hunting field or fevered of a surfeit." While he spoke the great cannon on the lower decks and it awoke in me such horror that I turned on the Captain reviling him so bitterly that he gave back before me like one amazed.

"Oh, sir, is this not a wicked pirate ship?" 'She is called the Joyful Deliverance. See yonder at the main our flag o' deliverance, bold to God's wind.' Now, looking where he pointed, I saw a broad red flag that bore for its symbol a great black hammer crossed by a broken shackle bolt very plain to see. 'Yon is the Hammer o' Mercy striking asunder the Fetters o' Slavery. 'Tis the symbol of freedom.'

"Mrs. Deborah," says he, unbuttoning his waistcoat, "since your lady is minded to watch over my balmy slumber, bide you too, lest she be tempted to tickle my defenseless ribs with her knife."

"You ha' seen but six of us and these friends and comrades endeared to me by bitter adversity, and someone them, moreover, of prouder birth than your prideful self." 'Rogues and villains all!' cried I. 'Ay, and villainous as their looks!' "Their looks?" he repeated bitterly. "Ay, and small wonder for, most dainty ma'm, these be men like those you read of in the Scriptures that have come out of great tribulation."

"Beware, Captain, I am no poor country lass to be thus brutally abducted with impunity." 'True!" he nodded. "You are a lady of vasty possessions; also you have red hair. But then, I am a man of scant possessions and very desperate fortune-' "And shall answer for this outrage, sir, so sure as there is law in England." 'But then, England is fading on our lee, ma'm- the broad seas lie before us.'

"D'ye not see what this means? This wicked ship and us on't, beset by desperate, lawless men, murdering villains... sailing us away heaven knoweth where. And you can do know more than clasp they foolish hands and cry Ooh!" 'Nay, but Mis' Ursula, what should a poor body do?' "Do?" quoth I, flashing scornful eyes at her. "You should be nigh dead with horror and shrinking shame."

"Hast a wife too, Barnabas, I think?" questioned the Captain. "I had, comrade, but she's wed again." 'Art sure, man?' says the Captain, laying hand on the speaker's broad shoulder. "Beyond doubt comrade... Well, why not? We ha' come back out of hell to find we are dead and forgot-eh, Japhet?" 'Ay,' he nodded; 'we be dead men all."

Slowly the moon rose, very large and even brighter, until she swam in majesty like the pale queen that she is; and looking on her so familiar gentle face she seemed, as it were, some kind friend watching over me, though her tender radiance made our captors look more villainous than ever; they talked but rarely, going thus with little noise and by desolate ways like the fugitive wretches and gallow birds they were.

"Lud, ma'm, what-what now?" she faltered. "You...me...everything!" cried I. "How can you eat-how dare you eat, and with death and worse all about us? Yet you so munch and munch and my poor sick heart ready to burst."

My Favorite chapter is chap 12. The banter between the Hero & heroine had me grinning and smirking. I love it when Ursula thinks she has the upper hand. Captain Japhet is strange, he has an unknown past and is bent on avenging it.The language is hard to understand it's old English with Lots of, 'Twas's, Ay's, : "Never heard o' the rogue"; "Doth he so, begad?" and "Aft there!" Quite confusing but still entertaining.