The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War

All the wood rangers have noticed, with reference to the immense virgin forests which still cover a considerable extent of the soil of the New World, that, to the man who attemp...

The night passed calm and peaceful. At the moment when the sun appeared on the horizon, saluted by the deafening concert of the birds, hidden beneath the foliage, Blue-fox, who...

The romancer has an incontestable advantage over the historian. Not being obliged to restrict himself to historical documents, he bases his work chiefly on tradition, and revels...

In the great work of creation, God indubitably most profoundly set the seal of his omnipotence in the heart of forests. The ocean, despite its immense extent, offers sailors onl...

As the opportunity offers itself, let us say a few words about the military organization of the United States of Mexico, an organization as singular as all the rest of the machi...

We will now return to Tranquil, whom we have too long neglected. The Canadian had left his friends two musket shots from the Texan encampment, intending, were it required, to ca...

Tranquil was too old and too crafty a wood ranger to let himself be surprised. With his eyes obstinately fixed on the spot whence the sound that had aroused him came, he tried t...

The meal did not take long; each of the guests, busied with secret thoughts, ate quietly and silently. Tranquil, though he did not dare ask any questions of Black-deer or Loyal...

We have said that night had fallen for some time past, and it was quite dark under covert. In the black sky a chaos of clouds, laden with the electric fluid, rolled heavily alon...

Though the report made by Quoniam was in every respect true, the Negro was ignorant of certain details of which we will now inform the reader, because these events are closely c...

We must now go back for some days, and return to the encampment of the hunters, whom we left in a most awkward position, watched by the vigilant eye of the Apaches, and compelle...

Europeans, accustomed to the gigantic wars of the Old World, in which enormous masses of two to three hundred thousand men on both sides come into collision on the battle field,...

While all this was going on, the hunters, as we mentioned before, resumed their journey, so soon as the Apaches disappeared. The night was clear, and the hunters marched in Indi...

On the same night, almost at the same hour, the Jaguar, seated on a modest oak equipal in his tent, with his elbow leaning on the table and his head on his hand, was reading, by...

The Colonel and the Major-domo went down to the Patio, where they found assembled the one hundred and fifty men selected for the execution of the surprise, which the Colonel pro...

More fortunate than dramatic authors, the romancers, being bound by no rules of time and place, can, at their pleasure, transport their action and characters from one country to...

While these events were occurring, the sun had set, and night almost immediately succeeded day. So soon as the Jaguar had closed the trap on his prisoners, he proceeded toward t...

The same day on which we resume our narrative, on the firing of the cannon from the fort that commands the entrance to the port of Galveston, to announce the setting of the sun,...

It was about four in the morning; the dawn was beginning to mark the horizon with wide white bands; on the extreme line of the water, a bright red reflection, the harbinger of s...

The damage sustained by the corvette was serious; the bowsprit is the key of the ship's rigging, its loss entailed that of the foremast, which the main-topmast, no longer stayed...

We will now return to the Jaguar, whom we left departing from the pulqueria, and proceeding at the head of his bold companions toward the fort of the Point. But, before going fu...

The Jaguar spoke truly when he said that the task the conspirators were about to undertake was rude. Swimming side by side, the Texans advanced in a straight line in the directi...

The expeditious way in which the Jaguar had gained the capture of the castle, by firing, without any previous summons, on the Commandant of the garrison and his officers, was, p...

Immediately on reaching his anchorage, Captain Johnson, after conversing for a moment privately with El Alferez, gave orders that Commandant Rodriguez and his officers should be...

In the meanwhile, Master Lovel made his men row vigorously, in order to reach land as soon as possible. But whatever desire he might have for haste, it was impossible for him to...