Blown to Bits; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata

CHAPTER I.

THE PLAY COMMENCES.

Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so "microscopically" small that--but let us not anticipate.

About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes, coffee...