Fiction Books

As long as Marcella could remember, the old farm-house had lain in shadows, without and within. Behind it rose the great height of Ben Grief, with his gaunt face gashed here by glowering groups of conifers, there by burns that ran down to the River Nagar like tears down a wrinkled old face. Marcella had read in poetry books about burns that sang and laughing waters that clattered to the sea for all the... more...

CHAPTER I THE CHIEF CONSPIRATOR SECURES A PAL In a rear room of a quaint little house uptown, a great bronzed-faced man sat at a piano, a dead pipe between his teeth, and absently played the most difficult of Beethoven's sonatas. Though he played it divinely, the three men who sat smoking and talking in a near-by corner paid not the least attention to him. The player, it seemed, did not expect... more...

They had seen the fog rolling down the coast shortly after the Maggie had rounded Pilar Point at sunset and headed north. Captain Scraggs has been steamboating too many unprofitable years on San Francisco Bay, the Suisun and San Pablo sloughs and dogholes and the Sacramento River to be deceived as to the character of that fog, and he remarked as much to Mr. Gibney. "We'd better turn back to... more...

THE PROLOGUE. These two captives (pointing to PHILOCRATES and TYNDARUS), whom you see standing here, are standing here because—they are both [1] standing, and are not sitting. That I am saying this truly, you are my witnesses. The old man, who lives here (pointing to HEGIO's house), is Hegio—his father (pointing to TYNDARUS). But under what circumstances he is the slave of his own father, that... more...

TED and Hubert were proud of the commission and felt that much depended on them. Ted led the way, not merely because he was past fourteen and more than half a year older than his cousin, but because Hubert unconsciously yielded to the captaincy of a more venturesome and resolute spirit. Everything was ready for Christmas at home—mince pies, fruit cake, a fat turkey hanging out in the cold—and... more...

CHAPTER I ITEMS NOT IN THE MANIFEST "I think I shall enjoy this trip," purred Isobel Baring, nestling comfortably among the cushions of her deck chair. A steward was arranging tea for two at a small table. The Kansas, with placid hum of engines, was speeding evenly through an azure sea. "I agree with that opinion most heartily, though, to be sure, so much depends on the weather,"... more...

CAPTAIN MANSANA CHAPTER I I was on my way to Rome, and as I entered the train at Bologna, I bought some newspapers to read on my journey. An item of news from the capital, published in one of the Florence journals, immediately arrested my attention. It carried me back thirteen years, and brought to mind a former visit I had paid to Rome, and certain friends with whom I had lived in a little town in the... more...

A CAMP IN THE SNOW Winter in the upper heights of the Bear Tooth Range is a glittering desolation of snow with a flaming blue sky above. Nothing moves, nothing utters a sound, save the cony at the mouth of the spiral shaft, which sinks to his deeply buried den in the rocks. The peaks are like marble domes, set high in the pathway of the sun by day and thrust amid the stars by night. The firs seem... more...

CHAPTER I. A MUTINY. f you open your mouth again, I'll drive my fist down your throat!" The young man, or boy rather,—for he was not yet eighteen years old,—who made this very emphatic remark, was a stalwart, well-built youth, lithe of limb, elastic in movement, slender, straight, tall, with a rather thin face, upon which there was as yet no trace of coming beard, high cheek bones, and... more...

There is an hour or so before the train comes puffing round the curve of the Gulf from Cordelio, and you are gone down into the garden for a while because the mosquitoes become tiresome later, and the great shadows of the cypresses are vanishing as the sun sinks behind the purple islands beyond the headlands. You will stay there for a while among the roses and jasmine, and then you will come in and... more...