The Crystal Sceptre: A Story of Adventure

It was a strange sensation to skim along that river through the dark, irregular walls of trees, for the sounds of the jungle came to us clearly and these were all we could hear....

The labour at the lake-shore, day after day, somewhat reduced the party-feeling brewing between the chief and our respective followers. He was with us often, but quite as freque...

When I suddenly sat erect, with a feeling that the battle was on and I too late to assume my part, it took me a second to realise what had aroused me from sleep. It was only lit...

The strength which had risen in my desperation, even against the shock to my system which had been given by the bite of the female monster, departed before I was out of the rive...

The figure, slight, beautifully erect, clothed in a skirt-like garment of skins, came nearer and nearer. I was so thoroughly intent on seeing why the arms were moved in those si...

Before I got home I had ample time in which to think. What a strange concatenation of events! The outlet discovered, deliverance almost assured me, and then to find the camp of...

At sunrise, when all the Links were actively awake, there appeared to be a strong inclination, on the part of many; to leave this new settlement and flee to the woods. The visit...

I must have swooned, for I knew no more of anything until I awoke, in a dazed condition, and found old Fatty bending down above me, while near at hand nearly all the beings of t...

Greatly relieved to have something to do—something which might be about to furnish a turning point in all this unnatural existence of mine in the wilds, I set off for the boat a...

Neither men nor apes, yet clearly creatures which were nearly the one and on the verge of being the other, these inhabitants of the place had evidently been observing my form, i...

It was nearly dark when at length I beached the boat and made the painter fast to a tree. The Links were in a state of great anxiety, fearing the dread lake had swallowed me dow...

Filled with strange sensations, thus to find myself in the midst of a company so extraordinary, I kept my appointed place in the march, looking about me in an effort to discover...

None of my Links fell dead at the sight of the goddess and myself, when at last we were “home,” but that was merely because they were too uncivilised to have any nerves. The poo...

No sooner had the demonstration ceased than I hastened up the rock-heap to the cave. I found the mouth of the place somewhat choked and hard to enter, but I forced my way over m...

The darkness had begun to descend before we reached the camp, plainly causing anxiety to the Links, who were hindered on the march by the burden of several dead members of the t...

Still breathing hard, from the effects of the duel, I reached the heap of stone, outside the cavern and hunted up my bundle of wood. I sat down on a rock to get my torches light...

In my haste to reach the clearing before that electrifying tom-tom melody should cease, I took no account of the distance between the edge of the wood and the place where I had...

As if the culmination of the electric discharge in that particular quarter had come with the bolt which struck so near myself, there was almost a complete cessation of pyrotechn...

Throughout the mass of Links in the cavern, the news of the unforeseen calamity spread with great rapidity. Some of the females set up a wailing; the “men” all chattered at once...

Our work of creating things of flint began that same day, although the afternoon was far advanced when we arrived. I was in a fever to complete our preparations against any futu...

It was not a difficult operation to bore some holes in the gunwale of my boat and to hammer in four stout pegs for row-locks, and then I put in a seat, constructed of thin bambo...

We set to work again in the afternoon, getting out a lot of material to be finished later. The following morning I won the regard of all—unless I except the fawning creature men...

Whether the fruit I had eaten produced a soporific effect, or whether I was physically exhausted by my recent experience in the balloon and the subsequent events, is more than I...

The males proceeded, this morning, to a rocky gulch, not far from the camp, where the soil was largely of gravel and bits of stuff which I thought indicated a chalk formation be...

The sun was ready to disappear by the time I reached the boat. Embarking as soon as I had cut a large quantity of leaves, I rowed until I was some distance out on the lake befor...

As long as we could see them, the Links continued to watch the boat departing. Even the goddess, who had conceived such a hatred and fear of the Blacks, felt that these simpler...

The lake was a shimmering mirror, dashed with endless splashes of colour, when my boat glided swiftly away in the sunshine of the early morning. From the jungles that fringed th...

It seemed as if I had been in the tree for an age when the sun finally sank behind the hill. For long the twilight had been dim in the jungle, and creepers and shadows made a pi...

Wholly unprepared as we were for this attack, and with the only clubs we had lying about in the grass, it seemed as if we should be overwhelmed in a moment and killed where we s...

When I finally fastened the tiger’s skull above my shelter, and girded my loins about with the skin, I was conscious of having attained a great respect among my primitive friend...

Had the Blacks known the country and human ways of cunning, they could still have cut across the neck of a loop in the river, and so have overtaken the boat, but this was beyond...

For half an hour the goddess was silent, sighing now and again, and crying a bit, as if deliverance had broken down some barrier to all her emotions, letting floods of pent up f...

The spot with the pile of rocks, where my cannon had been planted, bore ample testimony to the high explosive quality of my powder, for nothing was left in place and everything...

What I saw confused me for a moment. Three Links, taller than any except the chief of the tribe I had joined, were darting toward us with the wildest of gestures,—three Links as...

My indignation having produced a wholesome effect, I decided not to be placated readily by anything, and determined thereafter to maintain a certain strictness which should comp...

We held a mighty funeral-carnival. The heat made it necessary to rush this matter as much as possible. My Links took no little of the meat of the slaughtered elephants, but as s...

We found signs of wild animals in great number and variety, as we forced our trail through the jungle, but so considerable a concourse of creatures as ours was sure to frighten...

There were many expressions of relief on the part of our waiting friends when again the forward movement was commenced, in the right-hand tunnel. Those at the rear had become pa...

My preparations consisted merely of acquainting a score of the Links with my desire and of selecting six of the most suitable of our baskets for use in bringing the flints to ou...

In a time incredibly short I heard sounds growing fainter where the great brute stiffened out in the grass. The poison, I knew, had gotten in its work at last. When the final co...

There was a cloud over my heart; there was a pall of smoke and fumes drawing slowly off from the scene of devastation. It seemed as if the chasm in the hill-side were a ghastly...

We had lost all control of the wild balloon. It was driven ahead of the wind like a shred of rags, the car trailing behind at a fearful angle, for many of the ropes were broken...

In fifteen minutes after I settled myself in the tree, in a position of comparative ease, I fell into a deep and dreamless slumber. I had not intended to give up in any such man...

Nothing was fresher nor keener than I when again the sun touched the tips of the trees. Asleep one second as soundly as a hibernating squirrel, I was as sharply awake the next a...

The force of the bomb must have been tremendous. I believe it was hours before I regained consciousness. When at last I did revive, I was dizzy and deafened, the world about me...