The Beach of Dreams: A Romance

Prince Selm, a gentleman like his Highness of Monaco with a passion for the deep sea and its exploration. The Holy Roman Empire had given his great grandfather the title of prin...

When the girl came out she found that Raft had collected the things to be taken in one bundle tied up in a blanket. He had also set out breakfast. The remainder of the stores he...

When she lay down that night on the hard sand, with the sailcloth beneath her head, she could not sleep. The wretchedness of having to lie down fully dressed, of being unable to...

It was the wind. The Wooley, which is the fist of Kerguelen suddenly clenched and hitting out from the shoulder of the great islands now suddenly stormed about with foam and vei...

For a week after that day not a word was said about their departure for that problematical bay to the westward where ships put in, or where they might put in should they find th...

Lying as she was she could see nothing but the ribbed sides of the boat, the grey sky above, and a gull with domed wings and down-curved head, poised, as though suspended on the...

Déjeuner had been prepared for the party in a private room, a big room, for there were twelve guests all told, including not only Cléo's friends but the business men, and the fr...

Raft was still in the room where she had left him. As they passed through the hall where a number of people were seated about in basket chairs she felt every eye fixed upon her...

But the energy that had held her above defeat and had given her hope when things seemed hopeless was there, undestroyed, and when the turning point came she rallied swiftly. She...

He seemed more in search of shells and seaweed than of Bompard. Then, climbing down, she reached the lower ground and struck off inland. If she did not succeed in finding Bompar...

It took him three days to bring her back safe to life. It poured with rain during those three days but he managed to light little fires in one of the caves with seal blubber and...

One morning, brilliant, with the deceptive brilliancy of Kerguelen, a big man, rough and red-bearded and carrying a bundle slung over his shoulder, stood on the rocks that forme...

The thing itself startled her less than the fact that she had not seen it before. It was as though it had been put up whilst she sat to rest.

This same Raft whom the fo'c'sle could subdue to the surroundings, making him as faithful a part of the picture as the kerosene lamp, on the beach stood immense both in size and...

When they had re-settled themselves she rose to go, nodded to them and turned away towards the river. Then she looked back. The big bull was following her and the rest of the he...

The place was as populous as a town. That was the soul-satisfying fact which she absorbed as she sat with the bundle and axe beside her. To be lonely here one would have to be d...

She had been built on the Chu Kiang in the great Junk building yards that lie just below Canton and her bones had been put together by yellow men. Built to a European design Chi...

The _Albatross_, bound from Cape Town to Melbourne, had been blown out of her course and south of the Crozet Islands; she was now steering north-west, making towards Kerguelen,...

Next morning broke fine. She was awakened by voices quarrelling and came out to find a breezy and absolutely cloudless day, with the sea running smooth and the sunlight on the f...

The great beach of Kerguelen shews above tide mark long stretches where no sand is, only rock. Basalt planed and smoothed by the seas of countless ages, level as a ball-room flo...

A whole family of rabbits were disporting themselves close to her in a clear space between the bushes and as she sat up they darted off, a glimpse of their cotton white tails sh...

As she came out into the early morning light she could see boosts of spray all along the rocks, but by the time she had tidied things up and finished her breakfast these had van...

Left alone, Mademoiselle de Bromsart finished the all but completed piece of embroidery in her lap. It did not take her five minutes. Then she held up the work and reviewed it w...

"I will break thee." Across Kerguelen those words are written to be read by the soul of man. The rock, the rain, the wind and the sea, these, as instruments, would surely be suf...

The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the Lizard Point, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks the business began with a blow from the hills.

It took them till dusk to reach the foot of the western rise of ground; here they slept under a rock, continuing their way next morning, climbing till they reached the summit of...

Raft had found other things than arms and ammunition in the cabin, he had found a box containing nearly three thousand five hundred dollars, partly in American money and partly...

Towards dark the incoming tide began to hit the cliff base. Raft had taken the things from the bundle and had made her wrap herself in the blanket. "You ain't used to the weathe...

Raft had never seen a female swoon before. He thought for a moment that she had dropped dead and the shock of the business pulled him together like a douche of cold water. Then...

The fo'c'sle, lit by a teapot lamp, shewed the port watch in their bunks, snoring, all but Harbutt and Raft seated on a chest, Harbutt patching a pair of trousers, Raft smoking.

The boat tackle of the _Gaston de Paris_ was the latest patent arrangement for lowering boats in a hurry; every boat was provisioned, and the water casks left nothing to be desi...

And now, away at sea and leagues from the coast they were approaching, vast islands disclosed themselves suddenly through the sea haze, standing like giants waist deep in the oc...

It is not good to be alone. As the weeks passed she began to lose and forget the feeling of surety in rescue and at times, now, she found herself talking out loud, putting what...

It rained off and on for three days, but rain in Kerguelen is not the same as rain in England, just as rain at Windmere is not the same as rain at Birmingham. It does not depres...

That night Raft and the girl took it in turns again to keep watch on deck. They might just as well have gone below for all the trouble the crew could have given them. These gent...

She turned her face that way and stood for a moment with the faint breeze blowing her hair. Then she came running up the beach to the caves. In the men's cave she stood glancing...

As she lay, listening, through the black darkness and the singing of the sea came a faint sound as of something dragging itself along the sand at the cave entrance. She clutched...

VIII. THE AWAKENING 73 IX. THE WOOLEY 80 X. THE CROSS 94 XI. THE CACHE 103 XII. THE QUARREL 117 XIII. WHERE IS BOMPARD? 124 XIV. THE DEATH TRAPS 132 XV. THE STROKE 143 XVI. ALON...

XXVII. THE CORRIDOR 233 XXVIII. NIGHT 248 XXIX. THE SUMMIT 253 XXX. THE BAY 259 XXXI. THE SHIP 264 XXXII. THE OPIUM SMOKERS 272 XXXIII. MAINSAIL HAUL 277 XXXIV. THE CARCASSONNE 281