Category: Historical Novels

The Crimson Tide: A Novel

On the 7th of November, 1917, the Premier of the Russian Revolutionary Government was a hunted fugitive, his ministers in prison, his troops scattered or dead. Three weeks later, the irresponsible Reds had begun their shameful career of treachery, counselled by a pallid, black...

Chapters

25. Chapter 25

As he left the taxi in front of the dirty brick archway and flight of steps leading to the hall, where he expected to find Palla, he noticed a small crowd of wrangling foreigner...

14. Chapter 14

There had been a row at the Red Flag Club--a matter of differing opinions between members--nothing sufficient to attract the police, but enough to break several heads, benches a...

9. Chapter 9

To occupy his mind there was, that day, not only the usual office routine, but some extra business most annoying to Sharrow. For Angelo Puma had turned up again, as shiny and bl...

19. Chapter 19

Vanya's concert had been enough of a success to attract the attention of genuine music-lovers and an impecunious impresario--an irresponsible promoter celebrated for rushing hea...

7. Chapter 7

Shotwell Junior had no plans--or admitted none, even to himself. He got into a bath and later into a dinner jacket, in an absent-minded way, and finally sauntered into the libra...

1. Chapter 1

On the 7th of November, 1917, the Premier of the Russian Revolutionary Government was a hunted fugitive, his ministers in prison, his troops scattered or dead. Three weeks later...

15. Chapter 15

"You betcha," replied Elmer Skidder. "That pious guy has got all kinds of it. Why, Alonzo D. Pawling can buy you and me like we were two subway tickets and then forget which poc...

12. Chapter 12

Few cavalry officers were in evidence, but there were plenty of spurs glittering everywhere--to keep their owners' heels from slipping off the desks, as the pleasantry of the mo...

21. Chapter 21

As a mischievous caricaturist, in the beginning, draws a fairly good portrait of his victim and then gradually habituates his public to a series of progressively exaggerated ext...

16. Chapter 16

"Probably he doesn't, but what's the difference? You're unhappy and he's the reason of it. And it isn't as though he were a cub any longer, either. He's old enough to know what...

5. Chapter 5

In touch with his unexciting business again, after many months of glorious absence, and seated once more at his abhorred yellow-oak desk, young Shotwell discovered it was anythi...

10. Chapter 10

There was still, for Palla, much shopping to do. The drawing room she decided to leave, for the present, caring as she did only for a few genuine and beautiful pieces to furnish...

8. Chapter 8

And Shotwell beheld the six-foot goddess for the first time--gazed with pleasurable awe upon this young super-creature with the sea-blue eyes and golden hair and a skin of roses...

11. Chapter 11

When Shotwell arrived, dinner had already been announced, and Palla and Ilse Westgard were in the unfurnished drawing-room, the former on a step-ladder, the latter holding that...

20. Chapter 20

The pale parody on that sacred date which once had symbolised the birth of Christ had come and gone; the ghastly year was nearing its own death--the bloodiest year, for all its...

13. Chapter 13

Palla's activities seemed to exhilarate her physically and mentally. Body and brain were now fully occupied; and, if the profit to her soul were dubious, nevertheless the restle...

3. Chapter 3

The dingy little Danish steamer _Elsinore_ passed in at dawn, her camouflage obscured by sea-salt, her few passengers still prostrated from the long battering administered by th...

6. Chapter 6

John Estridge, out of a job--as were a million odd others now arriving from France by every transport--met James Shotwell, Junior, one wintry day as the latter was leaving the r...

17. Chapter 17

"Jim," said his mother, "Miss Dumont called you on the telephone at an unusual hour last night. You had gone to your room, and on the chance that you were asleep I did not speak...

22. Chapter 22

She felt a trifle weak. In her ears there lingered a dull, confused sensation, like the echo of things still falling. Something had gone very wrong with the scheme of nature. Ev...

2. Chapter 2

They were a weary, half-starved and travel-stained quartette when the Red Guards stopped them for the last time in Russia and passed them through, warning them that the White Gu...

4. Chapter 4

But already there appeared to be no chance for that in the scheme of things. For the boche had begun to squeal for mercy; the frightened swine was squirting life-blood as he rus...

18. Chapter 18

It was rather late to do that now, but his pulses began to quicken again in the old, hopeless way; and he went to the telephone booth and called the number which seemed burnt in...

24. Chapter 24

"It does, dear. But it's something we can't help, unless we change radically. Because we don't stand the chance we once did. We never have been as attractive to men as the other...

23. Chapter 23

In the strange, springlike weather which prevailed during the last days of January, Vanya was buried under skies as fleecy blue as April's, and Marya Lanois went back to the stu...