By Right of Conquest w/ Direct link technology (A Romantic Adventure)
They were not really sailors, for in their long experience on the high seas they had never reefed a sail or hauled on a rope. Only too often they never got so much as a glimpse of God's blue sky or the immense stretches of tumbling, foaming ocean. They were the galley-slaves of modern seagoing--the stokers, the men with oily skin and heat-bleared eyes, who toil naked in the bowels of the giant steamship, each crew doing its "watch" of four hours in a dark pit at the bottom of the huge vessel, deprived of air and sunlight, firemen and trimmers working feverishly in a maddening temperature of 140 degrees and over, thrusting and pulling with rod and rake in the insatiable maw of the raging furnace. The hot blasts scorch the men's faces and blister their skins, yet they are compelled to keep up the furious pace. They must never slacken, for on their muscles and their nerves depend the speed of the ship and the prestige of the line. So they shovel faster and faster, tirelessly, endlessly, the flying coal-dust settling on their sweating faces and bare bodies until they lose semblance to anything human and recall those lurid pictures of the Inferno in which Satan's imps, armed with pitch-forks, thrust back shrieking sinners, condemned to everlasting torment, who are struggling to escape from the bottomless pit. That the luxurious liner may break a record and retain the patronage of the millionaire passengers reclining indolently on the promenade-decks above, the unknown, unseen slaves in the hellish regions below must shovel, shovel, shovel, always faster, faster until at last nature gives way. Exhausted by fatigue, overcome by the killing heat, the man falls headlong. They pick him up and carry him on deck, where the pure air may or may not revive him. Perhaps he is already dead. His filthy, almost unearthly appearance chills the sympathies of the fastidious cabin passengers. Who is he? What's happened? "Only a stoker!" yawns some one, and all go unconcernedly down to dinner.
1113638380
By Right of Conquest w/ Direct link technology (A Romantic Adventure)
They were not really sailors, for in their long experience on the high seas they had never reefed a sail or hauled on a rope. Only too often they never got so much as a glimpse of God's blue sky or the immense stretches of tumbling, foaming ocean. They were the galley-slaves of modern seagoing--the stokers, the men with oily skin and heat-bleared eyes, who toil naked in the bowels of the giant steamship, each crew doing its "watch" of four hours in a dark pit at the bottom of the huge vessel, deprived of air and sunlight, firemen and trimmers working feverishly in a maddening temperature of 140 degrees and over, thrusting and pulling with rod and rake in the insatiable maw of the raging furnace. The hot blasts scorch the men's faces and blister their skins, yet they are compelled to keep up the furious pace. They must never slacken, for on their muscles and their nerves depend the speed of the ship and the prestige of the line. So they shovel faster and faster, tirelessly, endlessly, the flying coal-dust settling on their sweating faces and bare bodies until they lose semblance to anything human and recall those lurid pictures of the Inferno in which Satan's imps, armed with pitch-forks, thrust back shrieking sinners, condemned to everlasting torment, who are struggling to escape from the bottomless pit. That the luxurious liner may break a record and retain the patronage of the millionaire passengers reclining indolently on the promenade-decks above, the unknown, unseen slaves in the hellish regions below must shovel, shovel, shovel, always faster, faster until at last nature gives way. Exhausted by fatigue, overcome by the killing heat, the man falls headlong. They pick him up and carry him on deck, where the pure air may or may not revive him. Perhaps he is already dead. His filthy, almost unearthly appearance chills the sympathies of the fastidious cabin passengers. Who is he? What's happened? "Only a stoker!" yawns some one, and all go unconcernedly down to dinner.
0.99
In Stock
5
1
By Right of Conquest w/ Direct link technology (A Romantic Adventure)
By Right of Conquest w/ Direct link technology (A Romantic Adventure)
eBook
$0.99
Related collections and offers
0.99
In Stock
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940012997036 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Century Books |
| Publication date: | 09/07/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 156 KB |
From the B&N Reads Blog