Explore "Red O'Shaughnessy" by J.H.M. Abbott on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
RED O'SHAUGHNESSY ran as he had never run before, plunging through the dense bush like an elephant blundering hastily across a jungle. It suddenly occurred to him that he might climb a tree and hide himself in the branches, and he paused at the foot of a slender eucalyptus, up which he thought he might be capable of shinning. But, not far behind, he could hear the armed seaman also crashing a way through the thicket in his wake, and gave up the idea. He ran on, with only one purpose in mind--to get away from that detestable Yankee whaler and her fiendish chief officer, to say nothing of the redoubtable master mariner who commanded her.
Suddenly he came into an open glade in the forest, where there was no undergrowth, and congratulated himself, until the thought came to him that he would be an easy target for the sailor's musket. The ground began to rise here to the crest of a low ridge, and he made up his mind that the only safe thing to do was to get over the summit and put the thickness of the hill between himself and his determined pursuer. So he redoubled his efforts, stumbled pantingly up to the crest, and flung himself down on the other side--into the midst of a score of naked savages.