But it is perfectly true that this tower has been burnt down two or three times; and the family can't be called lucky, for more than two, I think, of the Admiral's near kin have perished by shipwreck; and one at least, to my own knowledge, on practically the same spot where Sir Peter threw the Spaniard overboard."
"Yes," groaned the Admiral; "by one of those brutal accidents on which are built all the lying mythologies of mankind, they were both shipwrecked. My father, coming up this coast out of the Atlantic, was washed up on these Cornish rocks.
On the matter of the
shipwreck he did not say much.
A boat was sent off to me, and in answer to the questions of the sailors as to how I came to be in such a plight, I replied that I had been
shipwrecked two days before, but had managed to scramble ashore with the bales which I pointed out to them.
Two months after, they learned from Bowen, commander of the Albemarle, that the debris of
shipwrecked vessels had been seen on the coasts of New Georgia.
there yet is man -- Man, the divinest of all things, whose heart Hath known the
shipwreck of a thousand hopes, Who bears a hundred wrinkled tragedies Upon the parchment of his brow, whose soul Strange cares have lined and interlined, until Beneath the burden of life his inmost self Bows down.
In the left hemisphere stretches the "Sea of Clouds," where human reason is so often
shipwrecked. Not far off lies the "Sea of Rains," fed by all the fever of existence.
I therefore told the officer, "that having been
shipwrecked on the coast of Balnibarbi, and cast on a rock, I was received up into Laputa, or the flying island (of which he had often heard), and was now endeavouring to get to Japan, whence I might find a convenience of returning to my own country." The officer said, "I must be confined till he could receive orders from court, for which he would write immediately, and hoped to receive an answer in a fortnight." I was carried to a convenient lodging with a sentry placed at the door; however, I had the liberty of a large garden, and was treated with humanity enough, being maintained all the time at the king's charge.
Well, my dear father, in the
shipwreck of life -- for life is an eternal
shipwreck of our hopes -- I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly alone, and consequently perfectly free."
With the full knowledge that there was neither food nor water on board, the pangs of hunger and thirst became immediately aggravated, and so on the first day of their tragic adventure real suffering commenced in grim earnest, and the full horrors of
shipwreck were upon them.
The
shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder.
"I did so, sir, for my sins," said I; "for it was by his means and the procurement of my uncle, that I was kidnapped within sight of this town, carried to sea, suffered
shipwreck and a hundred other hardships, and stand before you to-day in this poor accoutrement."
