Fiction Books

Prologue. “You were astonished when I refused your piece of gold, Nkose. But were you to offer me your waggon loaded up with just such shining gold pieces, even that would not coax this broad spear out of my possession.” (Nkose: literally “chief”—a title of civility which the innate courtesy of the Zulu moves him to bestow upon the stranger. In this connection it corresponds to “sir.”)... more...

CHAPTER IWILLIAM GOES TO THE PICTURES It all began with William’s aunt, who was in a good temper that morning, and gave him a shilling for posting a letter for her and carrying her parcels from the grocer’s. “Buy some sweets or go to the Pictures,” she said carelessly, as she gave it to him. William walked slowly down the road, gazing thoughtfully at the coin. After deep... more...

THE COMING OF "JAP HERRON" On the afternoon of the second Thursday in March, 1916, I responded to an invitation to the regular meeting of a small psychical research society. There was to be a lecture on cosmic relations, and the hostess for the afternoon, whom I had met twice socially, thought I might be interested, my name having appeared in connection with a recently detailed series of... more...

COUSIN RUPERT GAINS A RECRUIT It has not happened to many men, as I think, to have fallen into the hands of as cruel and bloodthirsty a monster as ever defiled God’s earth, and to have escaped to tell the tale. Yet it is of this that I have come to write; and of all the hardships and perils which I went through from the time I fled from my father’s house to seek for treasure in the East Indies; and... more...

CHAPTER I A CASTLE AMONG THE CRAGS Like the Israelites of old, mankind is prone to worship false gods, and persistently sets up the brazen image of a sham hero, as its idol. I should like to write the history of the world, if for no other reason than to assist several well-established heroes down from their pedestals. Great Charlemagne might come to earth's level, his patriarchal, flowing beard... more...

THE SITUATION To the casual Londoner who lounged, intolerant and impatient, at the blacksmith's door while a horse was shod, or a cracked spoke mended, Great Keynes seemed but a poor backwater of a place, compared with the rush of the Brighton road eight miles to the east from which he had turned off, or the whirling cauldron of London City, twenty miles to the north, towards which he was... more...

THE HERETIC. It is now about three centuries since Richard Chancellor, pilot-major of the fleet which, under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, and by the advice of Sebastian Cabot, set out to discover a north-east passage to China, carried his ship, the Edward Bonaventura, into Archangel. The rest of the fleet put into a haven on the coast of Lapland, where all their crews, with the gallant... more...

Nowhere could the idea of peace be more serenely, more majestically, expressed. The lofty purple mountains limited the horizon, and in their multitude and imposing symmetry bespoke the vast intentions of beneficent creation. The valley, glooming low, harbored all the shadows. The air was still, the sky as pellucid as crystal, and where a crag projected boldly from the forests, the growths of balsam fir... more...

THE DINGY HOUSE.   London is like a large company, where it is necessary for the master or mistress of the house to introduce a great many people to each other. Everybody in that overgrown metropolis has things within a few doors of his residence, which, if they were suddenly described to him, he would hear of with deep interest or extreme astonishment. There is a plain back street near the Haymarket,... more...

A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR. As I glance across my table, I am somewhat distracted by the spectacle of a venerable head whose crown occasionally appears beyond, at about its level. The apparition of a very small hand—whose fingers are bunchy and have the appearance of being slightly webbed—which is frequently lifted above the table in a vain and impotent attempt to reach the inkstand, always affects me as... more...