
audiobook
by William Henry Giles Kingston
Chapter One.
Chapter Two.
Chapter Three.
Chapter Four.
Chapter Five.
Chapter Six.
Chapter Seven.
Chapter Eight.
Chapter Nine.
Chapter Ten.
A young midshipman finds himself aboard the modest schooner Dainty, drifting under a relentless Pacific sun while a stubborn calm keeps the sails limp. Alongside his brother Harry—a former naval lieutenant turned merchant—he watches the crew, both white sailors and native hands, labor over ropework and mats, all while the heat turns the deck into a scorching stage. The brothers’ attempt to bring a bit of relief by rigging an awning and coaxing Harry’s wife Mary and her sister Fanny onto deck adds a touch of domestic life to the otherwise isolated seascape.
The narrative captures the blend of youthful ambition, familial duty, and the quiet tension of a voyage that has already stretched three weeks from Brisbane. As the Dainty waits for a breeze, the characters’ backstories—Harry’s marriage after a family tragedy and the narrator’s restless yearning for the sea—hint at deeper journeys ahead, both across the ocean and within their own lives.
Language
en
Duration
~4 hours (233K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
Release date
2007-05-15
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1814–1880
Best known for lively sea stories and adventure tales, this Victorian writer helped shape generations of young readers' taste for travel, danger, and moral courage. His books drew on a life that stretched between London and Portugal, giving his fiction an outward-looking, international feel.
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