[Beauchamp’s Career by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link book
Beauchamp’s Career

CHAPTER VIII
11/19

How can we put back ?' said Renee.
'You hear, Francois; we are on the open sea,' Roland addressed the valet.
'Monsieur has cut loose his communications with land,' Francois responded, and bowed from the landing.
Nevil hastened to make this a true report; but they had to wait for tide as well as breeze, and pilot through intricate mud-channels before they could see the outside of the Lido, and meanwhile the sun lay like a golden altarplatter on mud-banks made bare by the ebb, and curled in drowsy yellow links along the currents.

All they could do was to push off and hang loose, bumping to right and left in the midst of volleys and countervolleys of fishy Venetian, Chioggian, and Dalmatian, quite as strong as anything ever heard down the Canalaggio.

The representatives of these dialects trotted the decks and hung their bodies half over the sides of the vessels to deliver fire, flashed eyes and snapped fingers, not a whit less fierce than hostile crews in the old wars hurling an interchange of stink-pots, and then resumed the trot, apparently in search of fresh ammunition.

An Austrian sentinel looked on passively, and a police inspector peeringly.

They were used to it.


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