Chapter One. The New Boy. “Hi! Blacky! Here—hold hard. D’you hear, Snowball?” The last peremptorily. He thus addressed, paused, turned, and eyed somewhat doubtfully, not without a tinge of apprehension, the group of boys who thus hailed him. “What’s your name?” pursued the latter, “Caesar, Pompey, Snowball—what?” “Or Uncle Tom?” came another suggestion.... more...

Chapter One. The Opening of the Compact. “You will look after him, won’t you?” “Certainly. You can rely upon me absolutely.” Thus two men on the deck of a ship. One was silver-haired, elderly, spare and very refined looking. The other, of medium height, broadly built, and middle-aged, was, in his way, of striking appearance. His strong face, lined and sun-tanned, was half hidden in a full, iron-grey beard, and... more...

Chapter One. A Voyage of Discovery. I had not a friend in the world. My own fault? No doubt. It is usually said so, at any rate, so of course must be true. For I, Kenrick Holt, who do this tale unfold, am not by nature and temperament an expansive animal, rather the reverse, being constitutionally reticent; and, is it not written that the world takes you at your own valuation? Still, I had managed to muddle on through life somehow, and gain a... more...

"Now where the very mischief is Doppersdorp?" He who thus uttered his thoughts aloud looked up from the sheet of paper in his hand, and gazed forth over the blue waters of Algoa Bay. Over the vessels riding at their anchorage his gaze wandered, over the stately hulls of two or three large mail steamships similar to that upon whose deck he then stood; over the tall, tapering masts and web-like rigging of numerous sailing craft; over the flotilla... more...

“Where I come in.” “White dogs!” “Ha! Calves of Matyana, the least of the Great One’s cattle.” “Pups of Tyingoza, the white man’s dog! Au!” “Sweepings of the Abe Sutu!” “Amakafula!” (Kafirs.) Such were but few of the opprobrious phrases, rolled forth alternately, in the clear sonorous Zulu, from alternate sides of the river, which flowed laughing and... more...

Prologue. A weight had fallen from him—the weight of a lifetime; the galling, hopeless, demoralising weight which had paralysed his energies, sterilised his brain, and, in the case of a subject less clear-sighted, would have brought him down to drink or suicide, possibly both. And now it had fallen from him. The man on the mountain top looked around, and as he did so, something of buoyancy that he had not known for years, came over his... more...

Chapter One. The Sheep-Stealers. The sun flamed down from a cloudless sky upon the green and gold of the wide valley, hot and sensuous in the early afternoon. The joyous piping of sheeny spreeuws mingled with the crowing of cock koorhans concealed amid the grass, or noisily taking to flight to fuss up half a dozen others in the process. Mingled, too, with all this, came the swirl of the red, turgid river, whose high-banked, willow-fringed bed... more...