Long Odds

When Desmond left him Ormsgill did not march directly east towards the interior, but headed northwards for several days. There were reasons which rendered the detour advisable,...

The month Ormsgill spent at Las Palmas was a time of some anxiety to Mrs. Ratcliffe. He had, as she complained to her brother, no sense of the responsibility that devolved upon...

The velvet dusk that crept up from the eastwards was held in check by the brightening flood of moonlight on the sea when Ormsgill leaned on the balustrade of the veranda outside...

A half moon had just sailed up above the shoulder of a hill, and its pale light streamed into the veranda of the little mission house which stood in a rift of the great scarp wh...

It was towards the middle of a sweltering afternoon when Commandant Dom Erminio roused himself to wakefulness as he lay in his Madeira chair on the veranda of Fort San Roque, wh...

Desmond was asleep when the men his comrade had left behind came in, but the negroes' sense of hearing was quicker than his, and when he rose drowsily to his feet there was alre...

Darkness had closed down suddenly on the forest, but it was hotter than ever in the primitively furnished general room of Lamartine's house, where the lamp further raised the al...

It was a thick black night when Desmond brought the _Palestrina_ into the Bahia, steaming at half-speed with the big smooth swell heaving in vast undulations behind her. The bli...

It was the following afternoon when Ormsgill stood on the wide veranda outside Mrs. Ratcliffe's room. That lady sat somewhat stiffly facing him in a big basket chair, while her...

There is a certain aldea, a little straggling village of flat-topped houses, among the black volcanic hills of Grand Canary which has like one or two others of its kind a good d...

It was getting late and the night was very hot, but Nares was still busy in his palm-thatched hut. The creed he taught was not regarded with any great favor by the authorities,...

The carriers had stopped in a deserted village one morning after a long and arduous march from the mission station, when Ormsgill, lying in the hot white sand, looked quietly at...

There was a chill in the air and the white mist crept in and out among the shadowy trunks when the foremost of the rebels went slipping and floundering down the side of a river...

"I don't know if you are comfortable on that case, but, as you see, I haven't another seat to offer you, and these bags are a trifle sticky," he said. "I understand that my jail...

Except for the two unsightly objects that lay in the soft moonlight, there was no sign of Herrero's boys when Ormsgill walked up the stairway with a rifle in his hand. A little...

Two months had slipped by since Ormsgill and his carefully chosen carriers had vanished into the steamy bush which climbs the slopes of the inland plateaux, when the _Palestrina...

It was an hour after midnight when the Headman sent for Ormsgill, who found him sitting with his overlord beside a little fire that burned redly in the thin mist. The night was...

The glare was almost intolerable when Ormsgill and his carriers walked into the space of trampled dust round which straggled the heavily thatched huts of the native village. The...

It was blowing hard, and the deluge which had blotted out the dingy daylight and beaten flat the white spouting along the hammered beach had just ceased suddenly when Desmond la...

It was a few days after the _Palestrina_ had sailed when Dom Clemente once more sat behind the pillars in a basket chair looking thoughtfully at his unlighted cigar. He could wh...

A thin crescent moon hung low in the western sky when they slipped out into the sleeping village, and shadowy huts and encircling forest were dimly distinguishable. The place wa...

There was silence in the village for almost a minute after Gavin vanished into the hut, and the men who had pursued him stood still, apparently irresolute. The entrance was dark...

The black troops were coming home again when they halted at a coffee-planter's fazienda within easy march of the coast to allow the rear guard to come up. They had met with no r...

A little breeze blew in between the slender pillars delightfully fresh and cool, and Dom Clemente Figuera, who had taken off his heavy kepi, lay in a cane chair with a smile in...

Fort San Roque stood, as Father Tiebout sometimes said, on the verge of extinction in the shadow of the debatable land, but its Commandant or Chefe, as he was usually termed, ha...

A small fire burned on the edge of the ravine, flinging out pale red flashes and an intolerable smoke, for the wood was green and wet. It had been raining heavily, and the whole...

Though it was, at least, as hot as it usually is at San Roque and the heavy, stagnant atmosphere made exertion of any kind impossible to a white man, Dom Erminio had not gone to...

Desmond's informant had, as it happened, been quite warranted in mentioning that Lister's proceedings had aroused the interest of the English colony in Las Palmas. He provided t...

A silver lamp burned on the little table where two diminutive cups of bitter coffee were set out, but its indifferent light was scarcely needed in the open-fronted upper room of...

Several hours had passed since Dom Clemente left Ormsgill's quarters when he sat with one of his staff under a lamp in a room of the fazienda. He had laid his kepi on the table,...

It was two weeks later when Ormsgill reached the Mission with his boys, footsore, ragged, and worn with travel. He had avoided Anita's hammock as far as possible on the way, and...

Forest and compound were wrapped in obscurity, and the night was almost insufferably hot, when Nares, who had arrived there during the afternoon, sat in a room of the Mission of...