Dick Sand by Jules Verne, Fiction, Fantasy & Magic

THE TEENAGED CAPTAIN

The sailors knew that they were lost. All rose, giving a terrible cry, which was perhaps heard on the Pilgrim. A terrible blow from the monster's tail had just struck the whale-boat underneath. The boat, thrown into the air with irresistible violence, fell back, broken in three pieces, in the midst of waves furiously lashed by the whale's bounds. Young Dick Sand has just been a sailor on the Pilgrim, a whaler on a Pacific Ocean hunt between South America and New Zealand. But the captain and the rest of the crew have been killed trying to harpoon a whale. Now fifteen year old Dick was captain! Nor was this to be a simple voyage to safety, even as he tries to train castaways from another shipwreck Tom, Actéon, Austin, Bat, Nan and even Dingo the dog to help him with the vessel. For the cook, Negoro, has other plans for the crew and passengers of the Pilgrim. Trick the boat to a course to Angola -- and sell Dick and all the others into slavery!