Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. Sergeant David Wilkes, of the First (Royal) Regiment of Foot—third battalion, B Company—came trudging with a small fatigue party down the sandy slopes of Mount Olia, on the summit of which they had been toiling all day, helping the artillerymen to drag an extra 24-pounder into battery. They had brought it into position just half an hour ago, and already it had opened fire along with... more...

CHAPTER I     Man is his own star; and the soul that can    Render an honest and a perfect man    Commands all light, all influence, all fate,    Nothing to him falls early, or too late.    Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,     Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.                           BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Minks—Herbert... more...

Chapter I The hush of the court, which had been broken when the foreman of the jury returned their verdict, was intensified as the Judge, with a quick glance over his pince-nez at the tall prisoner, marshalled his papers with the precision and method which old men display in tense moments such as these. He gathered them together, white paper and blue and buff and stacked them in a neat heap on a tiny... more...

REMARKS. The author of this tragedy, to whose vigorous mind the English are indebted for their choicest moral works, came into the world with a frame so weak, that he was christened immediately on his birth, in consequence of the symptoms he gave of a speedy dissolution. The hand which reared him did a more than ordinary service to the age in which he lived, and to succeeding generations.... more...

CHAPTER I. SINGING SAL. On a certain golden afternoon in August, when the sea was as still and radiant as the vaulted blue overhead, and when the earth was lying so hushed and silent that you would have thought it was listening for the chirp of the small birds among the gorse, a young girl of about seventeen or so was walking over the downs that undulate, wave on wave, from Newhaven all along the coast... more...

PREFACE America since the days of Captain John Smith has been the land of hope for multitudes in Europe. In many an humble home, perhaps in some English village, or an Ulster farm, or in the Rhine valley, one might find a family assembled for the reading of a letter from son, or brother, or friend, who had made the great venture of going to the New World. "Land is abundant here and cheap," the... more...

CHAPTER ONE “THE WHISPERING VOICE” In the greatest city of the modern world, in the Metropolis of Guilt and Guile—where Alias and Alibi ride in gum-shod limousines while Mary Smith of the pure heart walks the pavements with broken shoes—there is a mansion so rich and so rare that it stands alone. Turret and tower, green-bronze roof, Cararra-marbled portico and iron-grilled gates brought from... more...

I was sitting in a birch grove in autumn, near the middle of September. It had been drizzling ever since morning; occasionally the sun shone warmly;—the weather was changeable. Now the sky was overcast with watery white clouds, now it suddenly cleared up for an instant, and then the bright, soft azure, like a beautiful eye, appeared from beyond the dispersed clouds. I was sitting looking about me and... more...

BILL'S PAPER CHASE Sailormen 'ave their faults, said the night watchman, frankly. I'm not denying of it. I used to 'ave myself when I was at sea, but being close with their money is a fault as can seldom be brought ag'in 'em. I saved some money once—two golden sovereigns, owing to a 'ole in my pocket. Before I got another ship I slept two nights on a doorstep and... more...

The man on the metal plate was vanishing. "And that, gentlemen," said the Secretary of War, "is the situation. Arvania has stolen the Ziegler plans and formulae. With their acquisition it becomes the most powerful nation on earth. The Ziegler plans are at present in the Arvanian Embassy, but they will be smuggled out of the country soon. Within a month of their landing in Arvania, war will... more...