On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by … Read the rest
What was known of Captain Hagberd in the little seaport of Colebrook was not exactly in his favour. He did not belong to the place. He had come to settle there under circumstances not at all mysterious—he … Read the rest
THIS could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak–the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way … Read the rest
DODGING in from the rain-swept street, I exchanged a smile and a glance with Miss Blank in the bar of the Three Crows. This exchange was effected with ex- treme propriety. It is a shock to think … Read the rest
NAPOLEON I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great military emperor was not a swashbuckler, and had little respect for tradition.… Read the rest
We were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at a smart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side of the road; then at the foot of the steep ascent … Read the rest
MR. X came to me, preceded by a letter of intro- duction from a good friend of mine in Paris, spe- cifically to see my collection of Chinese bronzes and porcelain.
My friend in Paris is a … Read the rest
This tale, episode, experience–call it how you will–was related in the fifties of the last century by a man who, by his own confession, was sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad age–unless … Read the rest
The white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of the little house in the stern of the boat, said to the steersman–
“We will pass the night in Arsat’s clearing. It is late.”
The Malay … Read the rest
“And that be hanged for a silly yarn. The boatmen here in Westport have been telling this lie to the summer visitors for years. The sort that gets taken out for a row at a shilling a … Read the rest