Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF TECUICHPO.Tell me, ascribest thou influence to the stars? “Wo! wo! wo! to the imperial House of Tenochtitlan! Never saw I the heavens in so inauspicious an aspect. Dark portentous influences appear on every side. May the horoscope of the infant daughter of Montezuma never be fulfilled.” These were the awful words of the priestly astrologer of Tenochtitlan, uttered... more...

It seems unnecessary to say that my story began a long time ago, but I do not intend to be subtle. I am not clever and my lying is unpolished, almost amateurish. So I certainly could not be subtle, which requires both cleverness and an ability to tell the truth and a lie in the same breath. Let us turn back the clock a few ages. I was lying in the sun thinking of love. I understand that you human... more...

Chapter I THE MYSTERY OF THE RUG To judge of an Oriental rug rightly, it must be looked at from several points of view, or, at least, from two aspects; against the light and with the light. From the first standpoint, against the light of knowledge, speaking figuratively, there may be seen only a number of rude and awkward figures in crude colours scattered erratically on a dark or dingy-looking... more...

The Expedition. It was in the autumn of the year 1828, that an elderly and infirm gentleman was slowly pacing up and down in a large dining-room. He had apparently finished his dinner, although it was not yet five o’clock, and the descending sun shone bright and warm through the windows, which were level with the ground, and from which there was a view of a spacious park, highly ornamented with old... more...

"Suzy, Suzy, Suzy!" Whit Clayborne looked at the luminous face of the bulkhead clock for the hundredth time that day. Sweat started out on his forehead, and he gripped his face with a convulsed hand, moaning in helpless anguish. "Suzy, Suzy, Suzy!" The clock clicked impersonally in the darkness, and Whit moaned again. The cold. The darkness. The quiet. And the solitude. But there was... more...

"Our people will be arriving to visit us today," the robot said. "Shut up!" snapped Rod Rankin. He jumped, wiry and quick, out of the chair on his verandah and stared at a cloud of dust in the distance. "Our people—" the ten-foot, cylinder-bodied robot grated, when Rod Rankin interrupted him. "I don't care about your fool people," said Rankin. He squinted at the... more...

On the day before Christmas of the year 1832, my friend Wilfred, with his double-bass slung over his back, and I, with my violin under my arm, started to walk from the Black Forest to Heidelberg. It was unusually snowy weather; as far as we could see across the great, deserted plain, there was no trace of road nor path. The wind kept up its harsh aria with monotonous persistency, and Wilfred, with his... more...

INTRODUCTION. As the Commander-in-Chief of the American Naval Squadron blockading Santiago and the Cuban coast, the auxiliary cruiser "Yankee," manned by the New York Naval Reserves, came immediately under my observation, and it is a pleasure for me to speak of the spirit and efficiency shown by the officers and crew during their stay under my command. The young men forming the ship's... more...

CHAPTER I. So came the holiday week, wherein was to be done so much less than usual—and so much more. Mr. Linden's work, indeed, was like to double on all hands; for he was threatened with more tea-drinkings, dinners, suppers, and frolics, than the week would hold. How should he manage to give everybody a piece of him, and likewise present himself entire to the assembled boys when ever they... more...

CHAPTER I He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of old New York—he had heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a young New York, the mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack... more...