Search -
Greensea Island; A Mystery of the Essex Coast
Greensea Island A Mystery of the Essex Coast Author:Victor Bridges General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1922 Original Publisher: Putnam Subjects: Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Literary Collections / General Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a bla... more »ck and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER FOUR I Am a pretty good swimmer as people go, but when one is fully clothed and three parts dazed, a sudden plunge into a dirty dock is apt to prove a trifle disconcerting. I went under completely, and, although I struck out at once with the blind instinct of self-preservation, it was several moments before I managed to struggle back to the surface. Fortunately for me my hat had come off in the fall, and, treading water with frantic energy, I was able to take a hasty survey of my position. Everything was more or less hidden by the mist, but a few yards away I could just make out the black face of the dock wall rising up dimly through the gloom. If I hadn't been hampered by a sopping overcoat I could have covered the distance in two or three strokes. As it was, that cursed garment clung round my legs with a persistency that nearly finished off my career for good and all. Twice I was dragged under again entirely, and it was in a very exhausted state that I at last reached out a hand and grabbed hold of a slimy iron ring that was sticking out of the wall a foot or so above my head. I was so utterly done that I could not have gone another foot. I just clung to this support, shaking the water out of my eyes, and gulping down mouthfuls of fresh air into my half-choked lungs. For all I knew the gentleman who had shoved me in might still be standing on the pa...« less