Honath the Pursemaker was hauled from the nets an hour before the rest of the prisoners, as befitted his role as the arch-doubter of them all. It was not yet dawn, but his captors led him in great bounds through the endless, musky-perfumed orchid gardens, small dark shapes with crooked legs, hunched shoulders, slim hairless tails carried, like his, in concentric spirals wound clockwise. Behind them... more...

ACT I A fine October morning in the north east suburbs of London, a vast district many miles away from the London of Mayfair and St. James's, much less known there than the Paris of the Rue de Rivoli and the Champs Elysees, and much less narrow, squalid, fetid and airless in its slums; strong in comfortable, prosperous middle class life; wide-streeted, myriad-populated; well-served with ugly iron... more...

CHAPTER I THE LONE FIGURE The night was bleak and cold. All through the melancholy, cheerless day, the first chill of autumn had been in the air. Toward evening the clouds had parted, showing a steel-colored sky in which the sun went down a great red ball, tinting the foliage across the river with a glow of crimson. A sun full of rich light but no heat. The air was heavy with the pungent fragrance of... more...

HADDON HALL. The locomotive facility with which the aid of our graphic department enables us to transport our readers, (for we have already sent them to Sydney,) is somewhat singular, not to say ludicrous; and would baffle the wand of Trismegistus, or the cap of Fortunatus himself. Thus, during the last six weeks we have journeyed from the Palace at Stockholm (No. 277) to that of Buckingham, in St.... more...

CHAPTER I "TIPPED OFF" BY WIG-WAGLIEUTENANT POPE, battalion adjutant of the first battalion of the Thirty-fourth United States Infantry, looked up from his office desk as the door swung open and a smart, trim-looking young corporal strode in.Pausing before the desk, the young corporal came to a precise, formal salute. Then, dropping his right hand to his side, the soldier stood at attention.... more...

THE MADNESS OF MAY I Billy Deering let himself into his father’s house near Radford Hills, Westchester County, and with a nod to Briggs, who came into the hall to take his hat and coat, began turning over the letters that lay on the table. “Mr. Hood has arrived, sir,” the servant announced. “I put him in the south guest-room.” Deering lifted his head with a jerk. “Hood—what Hood?”... more...

NOTES UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF HORACE WALPOLE I have the pleasure of inclosing to you (I believe) an unpublished letter of Horace Walpole's. It was found among the papers of the late William Parsons, one of the Della Cruscan poets. That it is genuine I have no doubt. The handwriting is precisely similar to a note sent with a copy of the Mysterious Mother to Mr. Parsons, in which Horace Walpole... more...

I The time was the year of grace 1779; the locality, Morristown, New Jersey. It was bitterly cold. A northeasterly wind had been stiffening the mud of the morning's thaw into a rigid record of that day's wayfaring on the Baskingridge road. The hoof-prints of cavalry, the deep ruts left by baggage-wagons, and the deeper channels worn by artillery, lay stark and cold in the waning light of an... more...

CHAPTER I. Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as a nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and made up his mind that she should rest.... more...

Prologue. Twilight was fast closing in upon the desolate site of the old Kambúla Camp, and the short, sharp thunderstorm which at the moment of outspanning had effectually drenched the scant supply of fuel, rendering that evening’s repast, of necessity, cold commons, had left in its wake a thin but steady downpour. Already the line of low hills hard by was indistinct in the growing gloom, and a... more...