The Diamond Ship

I was in a situation of grave peril; but it would have been imprudent beyond measure to have admitted it. Possibly the accident of their advantage did not occur to the men, nor...

The Jew had written to me, I say, and I had answered his letter. In a few brief sentences, worthy of the man and his story, he put me upon my honour and recited the compact betw...

I shall carry you next to a scene in the Southern Atlantic, to a day in the month following my escape from the Azores. The morning is a brilliant morning of torrid heat and sple...

You should know that Santa Maria is an island of the Azores group standing at the extreme south-east of the Archipelago and being some thirty-eight square miles in extent. Its h...

It would have been at the Fancy Fair and Fête at Kensington Town Hall that my friend, Dr. Fabos, first met Miss Fordibras. Very well do I recollect that he paid the price of it...

Mr. Bob Sawyer, I believe, expressed his opinion upon a famous occasion that there was no medicine in all the world half so efficacious or so infallible as rum punch—to which ax...

There is much of which my log might speak to tell the history of the seven days which followed upon our resolution. We had pledged ourselves to harass the Diamond Ship by night...

I slept a little about midnight, being convinced that the night had written the last word of its story. The storm had not abated. A wild wind blew tempestuously from the south-e...

There was not a sound within the house, nor did an open window upon the landing admit any signal of alarm from the gardens. I could but hazard that the little Jap had crossed th...

Joan had spoken of a Bluebeard’s cupboard in my bedroom. This I opened the moment I went up to bed. It stood against the outer wall of the room, and plainly led to some apartmen...

We were nine days together at the Valley House without any word or sign from those without. The evil of this conspiracy I found almost less to be condemned than the childish fol...

What happened to me in that instant of fierce turmoil, of loud alarm, and a coward’s frenzy, I have no clear recollection whatever. It may have been that one of the men struck m...

I waited three years to meet a man with three fingers, and met him at last in a ball-room at Kensington. Such is the plain account of an event which must divert for the moment t...

The steamer, driving on rapidly to the westward, showed her hull very plainly when a quarter of an hour had passed, and was immediately named by Cain, the quartermaster, who was...

I am not one of those who touch the posts by Temple Bar with that rare delight which betrays the true-blue Londoner. Foreign scenes are ever a safer tonic to me than any fret an...

Our surmise that the rogues would agree presently among themselves and fall upon us for their common satisfaction was not supported by the facts. We breakfasted at our leisure a...

Ean, I remember, had come in from a little trip to Cambridge about five o’clock in the afternoon. We had tea together, and afterwards he called his servant, Okyada, to the study...

A French valet came to me when General Fordibras had gone, and offered both to send to the yacht for any luggage I might need, and also, if I wished it, to have the English doct...

It is a human experience, I believe, that men’s faculties often serve them best in moments of grave danger. In my own case, to be sure (but this may be a habit of the mind), I a...

Merry, our little cockney cook—the aproned humbug pretends to be a Frenchman—swore that night by the shade of Carême that if ever he made a _ragoût à la truffe à Perigord_ again...

I thought that I knew no one in Dieppe, but I was wrong, as you shall see; and I had scarcely set foot in the hotel when I ran against no other than Timothy McShanus, the journa...

The boat’s crew laid to their oars with a hearty will, directly I gave them the word; and we shot over the still waters almost with the speed of a steamer’s launch. It was a new...

I dined with McShanus at eight o’clock that night and played a little piquet with him afterwards. He had now been admitted to my confidence, and knew a good deal of that which I...

You are to imagine a still sea and a great four-masted sailing ship drifting upon it at the hazard of a summer breeze. The night is intensely dark, and the sky gives veins of ma...

I suppose that I slept a few hours at the dead of night; but certainly I was awake again shortly after the sun had risen, and upon the bridge with Larry, as curious a man as any...

I am to prove that there is a conspiracy of crime so well organised, so widespread, so amazing in its daring, that the police of all the civilised countries are at present unabl...

We rowed to the yacht without an instant’s delay and made known the good news to the crew. Their cheers must certainly have been heard by half the population of Villa do Porto....

I had given the name of _White Wings_ to my new turbine yacht, and this, I confess, provokes the merriment of mariners both ancient and youthful. We are painted a dirty grey, an...

I have been asked to write very shortly what I know of General Fordibras and of my brother’s mysterious departures from England in the summer of the year 1904. God grant that al...

I had been standing to spy out the low African coast, and had forgotten the very existence of Timothy McShanus until he spoke to me. Just, indeed, his question appeared to be. W...

Imagine a man some five feet six in height, weak and tottering upon crazy knees, and walking laboriously by the aid of a stick. A deep green shade habitually covered protruding...

I have it in my mind that it was just upon the stroke of one o’clock of the morning, or two bells in the middle watch, when this amazing message came to me. Larry and the Irishm...

So the desire of every man on board the _White Wings_ became that of making the port of Santa Maria without the loss of a single day. When our prudent Captain insisted that we m...