Excerpt from The Gold BrickBut what could they do -a handful of men against thousands on thousands of brutalized blacks, swarming in that doomed city. It was terrible to remain, but mad ness to go. The captain ground his teeth and Clenched his hands in the agony of this restraint. Every cry that reached the ship pierced him like a sword, every fresh gleam of light quivering across the waters seemed to lure him to the rescue.Oh, my God! My God! I cannot bear this! He cried, as a group of wooden buildings near the shore burst into a volume of fire, and one appalling shriek told that scores on scores of human beings were engulphed in the ¿ames that danced and leaped and shed ¿oods of fiery gold far out on the harbor. Neither my owners nor my Maker could wish me to stand still now.Going up to the group of sailors, he called out, All hands to work, my boys! Lower the boats. Such of you as want to help the poor wretches they are murdering yonder, come with me.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.