A Son of the Sea Author:Frank Thomas Bullen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III I Have often thought that people who read about terrible accidents, if they have feeling hearts, suffer as much as those who are the victims of su... more »ch calamities do at the first moment or two; because I have been in some, and my experience is that all my sensations have been numbed by the sudden shock. I have felt no pain and no fear. And this knowledge has helped me not to be afraid of meeting with another trouble of the same kind. I believe that many youngsters of quick imagination left alone in the dark suffer more acutely than ever they do in after years as sailors and soldiers, having really learned what fear is. Therefore, though you may shudder for Jemmy, just think for a moment how suddenly this calamity had come upon him while I am trying to tell you what it was. A huge steamship of the lowest type that carries cargo only, was steering right across the path of the Rosamund. Of course she had very few men to handle her, and the officer who should have been on the bridge looking out was in the paint- locker mixing paint. He thought that the man on the look-out would tell him if they were coming near a ship, but the look-out man thought that theofficer was sitting down behind the "dodger" or canvas screen on the bridge. And as it was broad daylight, the watchman slipped down below to fill his pipe. There he fell in with the only man on watch besides the helmsman in the wheel-house, and got into a whispered discussion which did not matter. The helmsman could not see out of the windows, which were all encrusted with salt, and did not care anyhow, as he was steering by the compass only. On board the Rosamund I have told you what everybody was doing except the second mate. He was asleep. Of course it was very bad of him, but he had walked until he could walk n...« less