Mr. Fortescue: An Andean Romance

My gloomy forebodings were only too fully realized. Never was a more miserably monotonous journey. After riding for weeks, through sodden, sunless forests and trackless wastes w...

I had made up my mind to see Carmen, if he still lived; and finding at Chagres a schooner bound for La Guayra I took passages in her for myself and Ramon, all the more willingly...

"What is General Griscelli's game? Does he really mean to let me go, or is he merely playing with me as a cat plays with a mouse?" I asked Guzman, as we sat at supper.

"Exactly, I knew there was a good hiding-place hereabout, and that if we reached it before the troops came up we should be safe. If there be any more of them they will pass us i...

"Be good enough to rise and accompany us to San Felipe, señores," said the non-commissioned officer in command of the detachment, "and if you attempt to escape I shall blow your...

Shortly before sunset we arrived at our halting-place for the night and point of departure for the morrow--a hollow in the hills, hemmed in by high rocks, almost circular in sha...

Being naturally of a retiring disposition, and in no sense the hero of the tale which I am about to tell, I shall say no more concerning myself than is absolutely necessary. At...

Life was easy at Quipai, and we were free from care. On the other hand, we had so much to do that time sped swiftly, and though we were sometimes tired we were never weary. The...

I am in a beautiful garden, leaning against the body of the dead ostrich, a lovely girl is holding a cup of water to my parched lips, and an old man of benevolent aspect stands...

I was as helpless as a man in a strait waistcoat. When I tried to rise, my captors tautened the rope and dragged me along the ground. Resistance being futile, I resigned myself...

As the short sunset of the tropics had now merged into complete darkness, we crossed the _patio_ without being noticed; but near the gateway several soldiers of the guard were s...

"Oh, you have wakened up!" says somebody with a foreign accent, and a dark face bends over me. The light is dim and my sight weak, and but for his grizzled mustache I might have...

The morning after the battle of Salamanca (through which I passed unscathed) the regiment of dragoons to which I belonged (forming part of Anson's brigade), together with Bock's...

We have left behind us the _montaño_, with its verdant uplands and waving forests, its blooming valleys, flower-strewed savannas, and sunny waters, and are crawling painfully al...

The involuntary bath which saved our lives served also to restore our strength. When we entered it we were well-nigh spent; we went out of it free from any sense of fatigue, a r...

My curiosity was rather long in being gratified, and but for a very strange occurrence, which I shall presently describe, probably never would have been gratified. Even after I...

A smart gallop of a few minutes brought us near enough to see what was going on, though as we had to make a considerable _détour_ in order to avoid the Spaniards, we were just t...

When I awoke it was broad daylight, Yawl at the helm, the sloop bowling along at a great rate before a fresh breeze. But, to my utter surprise, there was no land in sight.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that the deciphering of Mr. Fortescue's notes and the writing of his memoirs were not done in a day. There were gaps to be filled up, obscure...

Only a moment ago the land had been folded in the mantle of darkness. Now, a flaming eye rises from the ground at some immeasurable distance, like an outburst of volcanic fire....

The cottage at Alta Vista had expanded little by little into a long, single storied flat-roofed house, shaded by palm-trees and set in a fair garden, which looked all the bright...

My captors conducted me to a dilapidated building near the Plaza Major, which did duty as a temporary jail, the principal prison of Caracas having been destroyed by the earthqua...

I put up at the Posado de los Generales (recommended by the commandant), and the day after my arrival I delivered the letters confided to me by Señor Moreño. This done, I felt s...

Besides Yawl and his helpers, we found on the beach about thirty men and women, the saved of two thousand. Among them was one of the priests ordained by the abbé. All had lived...

When the war came to an end my occupation was gone, for both circumstances and my own will compelled me to leave the army. My allowance could no longer be continued. At the best...

Though my wounds had not ceased their smarting nor my bones their aching my happiness was complete. The splendid prospect before me, the glittering peaks of the Cordillera, the...

Ten days after our flight from San Felipe we were on the banks of the Apure. We received a warm welcome from Carmen's friend, Señor Morillones, a Spanish creole of the antique t...

A quaint old Essex village of single-storied cottages, some ivy mantled, with dormer windows, thatched roofs, and miniature gardens, strewed with picturesque irregularity round...

Three days afterward Carmen, apprised by his wife of my arrival, returned to Caracas, and I became their guest, greatly to my satisfaction, for the duel with Griscelli, besides...

"You have been here a month, Monsieur Nigel, living in close intimacy with Angela and myself," said the abbé, as we sat on the veranda sipping our morning coffee. "You have mixe...

"That I have relentless enemies who seek my life. When I first told you of this you did not believe me. You thought I was the victim of an hallucination, else had I been more fr...

It was even worse than I feared. Reckoning neither on a longer voyage than five or six days nor on being so far from the coast that, in case of emergency, we could not obtain fr...

Early next morning I sent Gahra secretly up to the lake on the bastion for a jar of chalybeate water, which, after being colored with red earth and flavored with wild garlic, wa...

Five days after I had been wooed by the irresistible Mamcuna, and as I was beginning to fear that I should have to marry her first and run away afterward, I chanced to be riding...

"We seem always to be escaping, _amigo mio_," said Carmen, as we sat in the shade, eating our _tasajo_. "We got out of one scrape only to get into another. Your experience of th...

Now that I knew beyond a doubt what would be my fate unless I could escape before morning, I became decidedly anxious as to the outcome of my approaching interview with the ghos...