Across the Salt Seas: A Romance of the War of Succession

Tandy had timed our arrival in the bay with great exactness, since, soon after midday, both the queen's ships and ourselves had dropped anchor within it, the former saluting, an...

The wind shifted never a point, so that, ere sunset the next day, we were well down the river and nearing the mouth, while already ahead of us we could see the waves of the Nort...

Under the direction of the second bo'sun, the men who had all come into the ship with me had now gotten the battens off and had lifted the hatch hoods--for although it has taken...

Now I return to the beach at Viana, on which I stood after having quitted the fleet--yet still, ere I go on, I must put you in the way of knowing how it comes about that for com...

"You see," the Earl of Marlborough continued, while Ginkell and I stood on either side of him, "that neither your risks nor your difficulties will be light. To begin with, you m...

Another night had come--'twas already dark--and Juan and I sat on our horses in the cork wood, at the end of which we could hear the Minho swirling along beneath the ramshackle...

In a moment I, too, was off my horse--had tied it and the jennet's reins together--and had flung myself on the man--a big, brawny fellow who had one arm around Juan's body while...

And now I made my way below by the main hatch--for the after-companion was all burnt, so that there was no descent by that, I being intent on the men finding out--and setting to...

After that we met with no further trouble or interference, not even, so far as we knew, being passed by anything of more importance than a few small carrying craft similar to ou...

We were English gentlemen furnished with passports to enable us to travel through Spain--which might not be difficult, since there were likely to be as many English troops in th...

"What's to do now? That's the question," said Tandy, an hour later, as he and I sat in his little cabin abaft the mainmast, while, to hearten ourselves up, we sipped together a...

Not a month had elapsed ere I stood alone on the beach of Viana, which is in the province of Entre-Douro-é-Minho, in Portugal, and watched, with somewhat sad thoughts in my mind...

Looking back upon that great day--it was October 11--it seems to me that many of the events which happened must have been due to the mercy and goodness of God, so incredible wer...

All that night we rode, yet slowly, too, for the sake of the horses, and in the morning--which broke bright, clear and frosty, the sun sparkling and shining gaily amongst the le...

We had entered the forest five minutes later, and be very sure, we wasted no more time in waiting for those behind to come up, since, if 'twas us they followed, we might as well...

We were drawing very near to Lugo now, as the wintry morning gave signs of breaking; already the great spurs and cañons of the mountains that flanked the east side of the river...

Ere I had carried her to the _fonda_, Morales had disappeared, his afflicted follower with him--ere we reached the miserable room, in which she had passed the two nights that ha...

"His name is Carstairs? Humph!" Juan said to me when the last sound of the wheels had died away, and we no longer heard the rumbling of the great Berlin upon the stones of the r...

Still the days passed and I meditated on whether each as it came was to be my last. Wondered as every morning I watched the opening of the heavily clamped door, if, instead of m...

"She went," he continued, "and I thought that she was gone from me forever, since, filibuster as I was, as I say, my oath to my companions bound me to set her free upon payment...

The frost held beneath a piercing east wind which blew across the mountains that separated Portugal from Leon, so that now the snow was as hard as any road and there was no long...

That evening--or rather afternoon, when already the wintry night was at hand--Juan and I were in Lugo and once more making preparations to continue our journey--to go on west no...

I lay within a darkened cell in the prison which formed part of the ramparts of Lugo. Lay there, a man doomed to death; sentenced to be burnt at the stake, as a spy taken in a c...

It seemed not, however, as though this meeting were very likely to take place yet, since by the time we were off Cape St. Vincent--which was at early dawn of the second morning...

As I unbarred the door that gave directly from the miserable living-room of the house to the outside he came in, the snow upon the shoulders of the cape he wore--some flakes eve...

The days passed as I lay in my dungeon in the ramparts, and each morning when the jailer--who, I soon learned, was deaf and dumb--came with a loaf of bread and jar of water, I b...

The light increased as we advanced; the space it occupied grew larger; also it seemed to be entering at what I now judged to be the mouth, or exit, of some narrow, vaulted passa...

The early part of September, 1704, had been stormy and wet and very dismal, so that all in London feared that the great spectacle, which had been arranged with much pains and fo...

"Phew!" said the captain of _La Mouche Noire_, as he came up to me where I paced the deck by the after binacle. "Phew! It is a devil in its death agonies. What has the man seen...

A good snoring breeze was ripping us along parallel with the Portuguese coast a fortnight later, every rag of canvas being stretched aloft--foretop gallant royals, mizzentop gal...

One glance toward the _fonda_ fifty yards away was sufficient to show that mystery there was--as unintelligible to another as to Juana. And more than mystery!--that my presence...

As he scrambled through the window--as I let him down by his hands, so that, with the length of his arm and mine together, his feet were not more than a yard from the ground--I...