Share and Share Alike Page #2

"Share and Share Alike" by Robert Barr is a comedic novel that explores themes of friendship, competition, and the intricacies of human relationships. The story revolves around a group of characters navigates the challenges of sharing resources and personal ambitions, often leading to humorous and poignant situations. With Barr's sharp wit and keen observations, the book delves into the dynamics of trust and collaboration, highlighting how sharing can both strengthen and complicate bonds.

• Travel

								

although they made the pulling of it easy, they seemed to creak with
appalling loudness. He realised the fearful weight of the trunk as he
lifted the end of it up on the rail. He balanced it there for a moment,
and glanced sharply around him, but there was nothing to alarm him. In
spite of his natural coolness, he felt a strange, haunting dread of
some undefinable disaster, a dread which had been completely absent
from him at the time he committed the murder. He shoved off the trunk
before he had quite intended to do so, and the next instant he nearly
bit through his tongue to suppress a groan of agony. There passed half
a dozen moments of supreme pain and fear before he realised what had
happened. His wrist had caught in the strap handle of the trunk, and
his shoulder was dislocated. His right arm was stretched taut and
helpless, like a rope holding up the frightful and ever-increasing
weight that hung between him and the sea. His breast was pressed
against the rail and his left hand gripped the iron stanchion to keep
himself from going over. He felt that his feet were slipping, and he
set his teeth and gripped the iron with a grasp that was itself like
iron. He hoped the trunk would slip from his useless wrist, but it
rested against the side of the vessel, and the longer it hung the more
it pressed the hard strap handle into his nerveless flesh. He had
realised from the first that he dare not cry for help, and his breath
came hard through his clenched teeth as the weight grew heavier and
heavier. Then, with his eyes strained by the fearful pressure, and
perhaps dazzled by the glittering phosphorescence running so swiftly by
the side of the steamer far below, he seemed to see from out the trunk
something in the form and semblance of his dead friend quivering like
summer heat below him. Sometimes it was the shimmering phosphorescence,
then again it was the wraith hovering over the trunk. Hardlock, in
spite of his agony, wondered which it really was; but he wondered no
longer when it spoke to him.

“Old Friend,” it said, “you remember our compact when we left England.
It was to be share and share alike, my boy—share and share alike. I
have had my share. Come!”

Then on the still night air came the belated cry for help, but it was
after the foot had slipped and the hand had been wrenched from the iron
stanchion.
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