Fiction Books

Two years ago I was travelling by diligence in the Sahara Desert on the great caravan route, which starts from Beni-Mora and ends, they say, at Tombouctou. For fourteen hours each day we were on the road, and each evening about nine o'clock we stopped at a Bordj, or Travellers' House, ate a hasty meal, threw ourselves down on our gaudy Arab rugs, and slept heavily till the hour before dawn,... more...

CHAPTER I. ABOVE THE CLOUDS. “And can this be my own world? ’Tis all gold and snow, Save where scarlet waves are hurled Down yon gulf below.” “’Tis thy world, ’tis my world, City, mead, and shore, For he that hath his own world Hath many worlds more.” A boy, whom I knew very well, was once going through a meadow, which was full of buttercups. The nurse and his baby sister were with him;... more...

CHAPTER ONE THE HOUSE BY THE MARSH It was in fat Madame Fontaine's little café at Bar la Rose, that Norman village by the sea, that I announced my decision. It being market-day the café was noisy with peasants, and the crooked street without jammed with carts. Monsieur Torin, the butcher, opposite me, leaned back heavily from his glass of applejack and roared. Monsieur Pompanet, the blacksmith,... more...

CHAPTER IX The church bells were ringing for morning service as Mr. Vickers, who had been for a stroll with Mr. William Russell and a couple of ferrets, returned home to breakfast. Contrary to custom, the small front room and the kitchen were both empty, and breakfast, with the exception of a cold herring and the bitter remains of a pot of tea, had been cleared away. "I've known men afore... more...

FINDELKIND There was a little boy, a year or two ago, who lived under the shadow of Martinswand. Most people know, I should suppose, that the Martinswand is that mountain in the Oberinnthal, where, several centuries past, brave Kaiser Max lost his footing as he stalked the chamois, and fell upon a ledge of rock, and stayed there, in mortal peril, for thirty hours, till he was rescued by the strength... more...

I. THE CHOOSING OF THE MESSENGER There was trouble at Mandakan. You could not have guessed it from anything the eye could see. In front of the Residency two soldiers marched up and down sleepily, mechanically, between two ten-pounders marking the limit of their patrol; and an orderly stood at an open door, lazily shifting his eyes from the sentinels to the black guns, which gave out soft, quivering... more...

The country-week girl came up the lane with her head in the air, so Gideon, who was watching her from the crotch in the old sweet-apple tree, afterwards remarked to little Adoniram. After some hesitation Gideon dropped down at her feet. Aunt Esther had especially enjoined it upon him to be kind to the country-week girl. Aunt Esther would remember that he used to get under the bed when a girl came to... more...

CHAPTER I WHY NOT? Polly Street drove her little electric down Michigan Boulevard, with bitterness in her heart. It was a cold wet day in the early spring of 1920, and Chicago was doing her best to show her utter indifference to anyone’s opinion as to what spring weather ought to be. It was the sort of day when, if you had any ambition left after a dreary winter, you began to plot desperate things.... more...

WHO SHALL RULE THE WAVES?   A contest of a very remarkable kind is now going on, one which is pregnant with important results in respect to commerce, to naval architecture, to geographical discovery, to colonisation, to the spread of intelligence, to the improvement of industrial art, and to the balance of political power among nations. The nature of this contest cannot be better made intelligible... more...

There was Delaney's red-haired trio—Red Gilbat, left fielder; Reddy Clammer, right fielder, and Reddie Ray, center fielder, composing the most remarkable outfield ever developed in minor league baseball. It was Delaney's pride, as it was also his trouble. Red Gilbat was nutty—and his batting average was .371. Any student of baseball could weigh these two facts against each other and... more...