The Fire Trumpet: A Romance of the Cape Frontier

Tired of gazing at the prisoner, and realising, moreover, that there was not much fun to be got out of one who took matters so coolly, the women and children ceased to crowd rou...

Christmas has come and gone, bringing with it, contrary to expectation, peace instead of a sword. The dreaded outbreak, by some inexplicable turn of events, has been averted, an...

"Now I mention it! That's good. Of course it was all piety, pure and simple, that trundled such a hardened reprobate as your redoubtable self into church on Sunday evening; an i...

Who among us has not uttered the mournful word? Not merely in airy, hollow fashion, when passing out of a drawing-room door, but in dire sadness, as we look our last upon the fa...

The morning after the hunt was gloomy and dispiriting, for the weather had undergone a complete change daring the night, and now, instead of blue sky and a sunny landscape, a de...

"Phew-w!" whistled Hicks, staring in consternation at the scene before him. Then he added in a determined voice: "But I'm going straight over that bridge or down the river, one...

George Payne and his newly-found friend--a veritable friend in need upon this occasion even as on a former one--kept on their way, winding along the picturesque heights overlook...

The long dining-room is in a blaze of light, such as it has not sparkled with for some considerable time, and only then on rare and special occasions such as the present one. Th...

For two days "Claverton's Levy" has continued its march farther and further into the disturbed country, meeting, as yet, with no opposition. Now and again, far away on a hill-to...

Claverton looked sharply at the speaker. The voice seemed familiar to him, but the features less so. And then, the other had addressed him by the name given him by the natives a...

When a man knows that the first light of dawn will see him led forth to a lingering death by torture, he is not likely to pass a very tranquil night, be he never so courageous o...

It was early when Claverton awoke on the following morning; but, early as it was, the occupant of the other bed had disappeared. He had "shaken down" in Hicks' room, and the two...

A cheerful wood fire is crackling and sparkling in the grate, throwing out tremulous shadows upon the plain, massive furniture and polished floor, ever and anon lighting up the...

It is night. Night, that is to say, for all practical purposes, though strict chronological accuracy might compel us to define it as morning; for nearly three hours have elapsed...

Meanwhile at the seat of war, events were developing. Several weeks had now gone by, during which the rebellion had spread. With the insane fatuity which was luring these people...

He had taken her at her word, then, even as she had besought him to do, and had left her, wearied of her weakness and vacillation; had left her in bitter anger that she should h...

Great was the astonishment in camp when the man who had been given up as hopelessly missing, and whom everybody by this time had come to think of as dead, turned up safe and sou...

One of the most blissful delusions, and unaccountable withal, under which a man desperately in love invariably labours, is the profound unconsciousness of his state wherewith he...

It is early morning, and a party of mounted men, consisting of our friends of the previous day and their genial host, is riding along the high ground away from Jim Brathwaite's...

To a night of anguish--anguish so poignant that she sometimes feared for her very reason--succeeded days of dull and hopeless apathy. Her whole being, body and soul alike, seeme...

"After all, this is a glorious sort of life!" exclaimed Hicks, striking his hatchet into a thorn-stump and standing upright, in all the elation of his health and strength, to ga...

A dry, scorching wind is whirling the pungent red dust-clouds along the streets of King Williamstown, and early though it be, not much more than nine o'clock, life is at the mom...

The place is the drawing-room of an hotel in Grahamstown; the time, rather early in the morning; and the first of the two speakers, a tall, beautiful girl, who has just finished...

But the drooping boughs of the old pear-tree afford no shade now to those two persons seated on the rustic bench beneath--being leafless. For it is mid-winter; yet the sky is a...

It is a well-known rule that savage races go under before the encroachments of white civilisation. The case of the native tribes in Southern Africa is a notable exception. Far f...

Ride we behind the horseman who is picking his way down a stony path through the ever present bush, making for yon thatched building down there in the hollow. A low, rough shant...

Claverton bends down again to examine the horse's leg, and the light of the stable-lantern reveals an expression of the most intense and hopeless disgust upon his face. The stab...

The speaker is Mr Brathwaite; the scene the wash-pool. A long line of fleecy backs is moving over the _veldt_, propelled by the shouts of three or four Kafirs, whose naked bodie...

One round, black speck high up yonder on the stony hillside. There he sits--the large old baboon; wary sentinel that he is, keeping jealous watch over the safety of the nimble t...

For the ground echoes a low rumble, drawing nearer every moment. It is the trample of many hoofs, and Jeffreys and his swart companion fix their attention upon a troop of cattle...

The camp was pitched on an open flat, well situated for defensive purposes, and commanding a wide open sweep of half a mile on the most closed-in side. In the event of attack up...

When he felt his horse's feet slipping from beneath him over the brink, Claverton expected nothing less than instant death. Yet in that terrible moment the whole picture was imp...

The clouds were parting and revealing patches of blue through their rifts as Claverton reached home, and with the returning sunshine his spirits revived. It was going to be a lo...

Only one little word of four letters, and yet to Lilian Strange it seems just all the difference between death and life; and the great spidery characters in which that one littl...

If there is one quality in this world which its fortunate possessor is to be envied the enjoyment of, it is that of absolute _insouciance_. I don't mean the spurious article kno...

They buried poor Jack Armitage in the afternoon, and all turned out to render the last honours to their departed comrade. Brathwaite's Horse, with arms reversed, formed the prin...

"Idiot! Don't you see that the poor devil can't move an inch further to save his wretched life. Leave him alone. You're the greatest brute even in this bestial land?"

"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," is a good and safe maxim in other senses than the theological, for it goes to the very root of human nature.

On the same day that these events are occurring on the far Kaffrarian border, two men are seated together in a dingy office just out of Chancery Lane. One is a solicitor, eviden...

After that last heart-breaking farewell, Claverton tried to walk quickly away, but in vain. Several times he paused to listen. Once he turned and retraced his steps a few yards,...

The air was warm and balmy, for the time of the southern winter was past, and on this September day not even the lightest of feathery clouds flecked the sky above the sunny plai...

"Far too much. It isn't particularly good veldt; sheep don't do well there, and the place is nearly all bush. And then there's that stony hill right over the river, about one-fi...

And what of her to whom this long, weary period had been so many years and so many months of terrible self-reproach? To her, though Time had brought no solace, it had brought a...

"Well, you'll have a fine day for your ride. Hicks, leave a buck or two up at Jim's in case I should be coming over. I suppose you'll all be back the day after to-morrow. Good-b...

They rode merrily along, or rather two of them did, for ever and anon Allen's steed would drop behind, and its sorry pace wax slower and slower, till at length, taking advantage...

The silence of desolation. The river, plashing on its sandy bars, makes faint, tuneful murmur. At intervals the wild weird hoot of an owl, high up on the wooded hillside, breaks...

With weapons cocked and ready, and keeping a sharp look-out ahead, our two friends stole quietly and warily along the shadow of the quince hedge. Meanwhile the canine clamour in...

Payne had removed his household to Grahamstown, as being further from the seat of hostilities, and a very agreeable change to our party was the city of the old settlers, nestlin...

There is menace as well as wrath in the tones of the speaker as he confronts the individual addressed, who is calmly squatting on the ground between two pails containing water j...

Who are these two men seated together in the verandah, as the afterglow fades on the distant head of the Great Winterberg, at the close of this radiant spring day? One has evide...

"It's a good thing sometimes that they are vicious," said Naylor. "It keeps the niggers from going into the enclosures and stealing the eggs, and even plucking the birds. They a...

He to whom this announcement was made could not repress a start of surprise. The only other occupant of the room paused and laid down the document from which he had been reading...

Marshall's prediction was verified. Claverton and his host returned to Fountain's Gap at desk; but without the lost stock. They had spoored the animals down to a drift of the Ke...

Once where Amatola mountains rise up purple to the snow, Where the forests hide the fountains, And green pastures sleep below-- Sweeter far than song of battle, On the breezes o...