CHAPTER I. BEGINNING TO REMEMBER. Katie Clifford was a very bright child. She almost knew enough to keep out of fire and water, but not quite. She looked like other little girls, only so wise,—O, so very wise!—that you couldn't tell her any news about the earth, or the sun, moon, and stars, for she knew all about it "byfore." Her hair was soft and flying like corn-silk, and when the... more...

Chapter I. It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down... more...

Chapter 1: A Lost Father. "There is no saying, lad, no saying at all. All I know is that your father, the captain, was washed ashore at the same time as I was. As you have heard me say, I owed my life to him. I was pretty nigh gone when I caught sight of him, holding on to a spar. Spent as I was, I managed to give a shout loud enough to catch his ear. He looked round. I waved my hand and shouted,... more...

CHAPTER I. THREE YEARS AFTER. "This is the spot, Bessie," said Levi Fairfield, as he paused on the bank of the brook which flows into the bay near Mike's Point. "But what was the thing you made?" asked Bessie Watson, as she looked with interest at the place indicated, though she could not see anything very remarkable, or even strange. "It was a young saw-mill," laughed... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Stand to, you rocket wash!" A harsh, bull-throated roar thundered over the platform of the monorail station at Space Academy and suddenly the lively chatter and laughter of more than a hundred boys was stilled. Tumbling out of the gleaming monorail cars, they froze to quick attention, their eyes turned to the main exit ramp. They saw a short, squat, heavily built man, wearing the... more...

Chapter One. The Squatter’s Clearing. The white-headed eagle, soaring above the spray of a Tennessean forest, looks down upon the clearing of the squatter. To the eye of the bird it is alone visible; and though but a spot in the midst of that immense green sea, it is conspicuous by the colour of the trees that stand over it. They stand, but grow not: the girdling ring around their stems has deprived... more...

I.—FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM . . . I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" at Richmond, one of the comfortablest, quietest, cheapest, neatest little inns in England, and a thousand times preferable, in my opinion, to the "Star and Garter," whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, with his hair curled, frightens you off the premises; and where, if you are bold... more...

PART I HISTORICAL CHAPTER I THE DEPARTURE 1493 Eight centuries of a gigantic struggle for supremacy between the Crescent and the Cross had devastated the fairest provinces of the Spanish Peninsula. Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings, had delivered the keys of Granada into the hands of Queen Isabel, the proud banner of the united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon floated triumphant from the walls of... more...

CHAPTER I. The Question at issue—An unexpected point of attack—Captain Semmes—The President's instructions—Creating a navy—From the old to the new—An important mission—Appointed to the Sumter—True character of the Confederate "pirate." The President of the American States in Confederation was gathering an army for the defence of Southern liberty. Where valour is a national... more...

Some of the dramatis personae Introduced—Retrospective Glances—Causes of Future Effects—Our Hero’s Early Life at Sea—A Pirate—A Terrible Fight and its Consequences—Buzzby’s Helm Lashed Amidships—A Whaling Cruise Begun. Nobody ever caught John Buzzby asleep by any chance whatever. No weasel was ever half so sensitive on that point as he was. Wherever he happened to be (and in the... more...