Fiction Books

HE WALKED AROUND THE HORSES BY H. BEAM PIPER Illustrated by Cartier This tale is based on an authenticated, documented fact. A man vanished—right out of this world. And where he went— In November 1809, an Englishman named Benjamin Bathurst vanished, inexplicably and utterly. He was en route to Hamburg from Vienna, where he had been serving as his government's envoy to the court of what... more...

CHAPTER I. WAITING AND WATCHING. The sea lay calm and still under a cloudless sky. The tide was out, and there was only a faint murmur like the whisper of gentle voices, as the little waves told to the sands that they were coming back soon, for the tide had turned. It was yet early morning, and the old town of Great Yarmouth was asleep. The fishing boats had been out all night, and were lying like so... more...

I "He ought to be here," said Lady Tranmore, as she turned away from the window. Mary Lyster laid down her work. It was a fine piece of church embroidery, which, seeing that it had been designed for her by no less a person than young Mr. Burne Jones himself, made her the envy of her pre-Raphaelite friends. "Yes, indeed. You made out there was a train about twelve." "Certainly. They... more...

CHAPTER I THE MAN AND THE HOUR The Secretary of State, although he sought to maintain an air of official reserve, showed that he was deeply impressed by what he had just heard. "Well, young man, you are certainly offering to undertake a pretty large contract." He smiled, and continued in a slightly rhetorical vein—the Secretary was above all things first, last, and always an orator. "In... more...

CHAPTER I The Encountering of Six within a Wood Only at one point along the straight earth-road leading from Loo-chow to Yu-ping was there any shade, a wood of stunted growth, and here Kai Lung cast himself down in refuge from the noontide sun and slept. When he woke it was with the sound of discreet laughter trickling through his dreams. He sat up and looked around. Across the glade two maidens stood... more...

PROEM In a shaft on the Gravel Pits, a man had been buried alive. At work in a deep wet hole, he had recklessly omitted to slab the walls of a drive; uprights and tailors yielded under the lateral pressure, and the rotten earth collapsed, bringing down the roof in its train. The digger fell forward on his face, his ribs jammed across his pick, his arms pinned to his sides, nose and mouth pressed into... more...

PHILIP HADDEN AND KING CETYWAYO At the date of our introduction to him, Philip Hadden was a transport-rider and trader in "the Zulu." Still on the right side of forty, in appearance he was singularly handsome; tall, dark, upright, with keen eyes, short-pointed beard, curling hair and clear-cut features. His life had been varied, and there were passages in it which he did not narrate even to his... more...

CHAPTER I Pirates of Space Apparently motionless to her passengers and crew, the Interplanetary liner Hyperion bored serenely onward through space at normal acceleration. In the railed-off sanctum in one corner of the control room a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and Captain Bradley frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the recorder--a message flashed to his desk from the... more...

The Fleet. Manx Bradley was an admiral—“admiral of the fleet”—though it must be admitted that his personal appearance did not suggest a position so exalted. With rough pilot coat and sou’-wester, scarred and tarred hands, easy, rolling gait, and boots from heel to hip, with inch-thick soles, like those of a dramatic buccaneer, he bore as little resemblance to the popular idea of a... more...

CHAPTER I YERBA BUENA It was 1845. Three quarters of a century had passed since young Francisco Garvez, as he rode beside Portola's chief of Scouts, glimpsed the mystic vision of a city rising from the sandy shores of San Francisco Bay. Garvez, so tradition held, had taken for his spouse an Indian maiden educated by the mission padres of far San Diego. For his service as soldado of old Spain he... more...