The Golden Magnet

And so we journeyed on day after day, through heat and dust, and arid, stony lands; with my heart sinking lower and lower and the thought of home not being so very bad a place a...

The next moment I was on the trampled bank a little below where we had landed, to see in a moment that the little raft was being pushed off; for in cat-like silence our enemies...

And now it seemed as if our difficulties were at an end, for the passage to Kingston, Jamaica, was a pleasant one, and we took our berths from there in the mail, which landed us...

"Say, Mas'r Harry, you won't stop in this blessed place, will you?" said Tom, as, in the full light of day, we were, some hours after, busily helping in the town, extricating th...

It was the afternoon of a glorious day, and we were floating along in the broiling heat, now and then giving a dip with the paddles, so as to direct the canoe more towards the b...

"It do puzzle me, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, as we sat in the chains one bright, sunny day, when the storm was over, but a fine stiff breeze was helping the toiling engines to send...

It was with a feeling of thankfulness that can be well understood that we returned once more to the small cavern, to seek the rest and refreshment of which we were all so much i...

I saw Lilla but once alone, and then the encounter was not of my seeking. She came up to me, though, with a sweet, sad expression in her face and a trusting look in her eyes tha...

I would have given anything to have left my post just then, so as to have seen after the welfare of those who were anxiously awaiting the result of the attack; but I felt that s...

As soon as my uncle had recovered from his astonishment he took out and loaded a couple of brace of pistols, laying one pair ready to hand and placing the others in his pockets.

I have seen some villainous-looking countenances in my time, but none more abhorrent of aspect than was that of Pablo Garcia, as, distorted with rage, he started on seeing Lilla...

It was a wonderful change from the stormy, tossing Atlantic, with its bitter winds and chilling cold, to the calm transparency of the brilliantly-blue tropic waters, where every...

"Put half those about you in your different pockets, Tom," I said. And he did as he was bid, handling the little ingots as if they were so much lead. "And, Tom, I want your advi...

It was, indeed, a narrow escape, for the ball had ploughed one of his cheeks so that it bled profusely, and I could have freely returned the shot in the rage which I felt.

"Harry," said my uncle about sundown, "if I could do as I liked I should rest my cuts and bruises for a few days; but, as it is, I cannot give up. Now, look here, my lad--here,...

By the time we felt that we might very well make a start for home, we found out that though Lilla's advice had seemed so good, it would not do to act upon, and she laughingly ow...

Twopence was generally the extent of my supply of hard cash, so I used to get dreaming about gold, and to think that I had only to be wrecked upon some rocky shore to find the r...

Light--more light, but still not enough to tell of what our treasure was composed. If we had been at the mouth of the cave it would have been, possible, but where we were the da...

It was a hard trial sitting there motionless, wondering whether those eager, searching eyes could penetrate as far through the gloom as where we sat. It seemed they could not, a...

For quite a quarter of an hour we remained motionless--the watcher and the watched--Tom and I both well armed, and involuntarily our guns were pointed at the eyes; but the posit...

A fierce struggle ensued, during which, for a few moments, the Indian proved the stronger. Garcia's torch was extinguished, and the savage held him by clasping his arms tightly...

We were half numbed with the cold, but I found now that, in spite of our troubled dreams and its apparent brevity, our sleep must have continued for a long time, for our clothes...

My uncle was evidently very uneasy; but he said no more, merely proceeding with his business as usual, while with Tom I took trips here and there, making myself certainly now no...

The bright, flaring, spluttering blaze, glimmering and flashing upon the troubled waters and reflected from the roof; then, as it sank down, comparative darkness, for the two sc...

A couple of months soon glided away--a time of mingled misery and pleasure. At one time I was light-hearted and happy, at another low-spirited and depressed; for I could not see...

It was very hot, but I did not notice it as I walked slowly and thoughtfully on. The sun was kept from beating down upon me by the dense foliage, but there was a steamy heat ari...

The look I received from Lilla that evening was one which, while it reproached me, made my heart leap. But all the same, I did not respond to it: I dared not; and I sat there an...

I believe I lay in bed that night with my eyes wide open, seeing, as if in a waking dream, the whole of the eventful life I had pictured out for myself--a glorious career of adv...

It is one thing being possessed of a treasure and another knowing what to do with it. Here was I with the fortune, as my uncle called it, of a prince, found, as I had found it,...

As the shuddering feeling of what Tom had escaped passed off, we both thought it would be better to say nothing about it. We knew that he had acted foolishly; and I felt that I...

Captain Obadiah P. Perks came back at the end of an hour, when I had pretty well ripened my plans, and, retiring within the house, I left Tom to deal with him.

We were safe yet, and I felt quite hopeful as I thought of what an advantage we, as defenders, possessed in the darkness over an attacking party advancing light in hand.

Clear and bright was the sky, and wherever the rays of the sun penetrated it was for them to fall in a shower of golden arrows, and form tracery upon the green carpet beneath th...

"Now we can see what we're about, Mas'r Harry," said Tom cheerfully. "Look, there's the first peep of where the sun's coming, and if we'd been boxing the compass all night we co...

Daybreak in the Incas' realm on the far western shores, known to our fathers as the great wonderland--the great country discovered by adventurous mariners, and thought of, dream...

"Well, lad," said my uncle, when, refreshed by a pleasant bath and a glass or two of goodly wine with the meal spread for me, I sat with him in the shaded room, my aunt--a pleas...

I don't think many could have stood peering into that gloomy tunnel without feeling something like a tremor of dread. However, I mastered it at last, after asking myself the que...

Again the hope which animated our breasts chased away the sense of depression and fatigue, as, lighting our last candle to obtain a better light, we clambered as rapidly as we c...

That night I forgot all past perils as I dreamed of gold--swimming in it--rolling in it--for it seemed to possess all the qualities of quicksilver, and whenever I tried to hold...

Going out to one of the sheds across the yard I called together the Indians who were regularly employed as labourers on the farm, and told them that their master was wanted dire...

The sun was rising and sending his golden arrows darting through the thick mist which hung over the plantation, as I went out into the court-yard, to find all still and peaceful...

"Let me get a shot at him, Mas'r Harry!" cried Tom excitedly. "Hold up--don't go down, whatever you do. It's one of them great beasts--I know it is. There's thousands of 'em here."

I was obliged to acknowledge that it was more than we could expect to reach the cavern without being discovered, and that we ought to be well content to have gained a haven of s...

"Well, no, Mas'r Harry, I ain't afraid; but I am nearer to being so than ever I was in my life. 'Taint fear, only one of my knees will keep going shikery-shakery, and my teeth h...

Death, we are told, has been met by the brave-hearted again and again unflinchingly; but such a death as was now threatening me and the poor girl I was trying to save must have...

If anything, the descent was more laborious than the climbing up; but at last, tired out, we reached the vaulted chamber with its troubled lake and narrow sandy strip of shore--...

How long we lay in that stupor--more than sleep--I cannot tell; but I was awoke by Tom, and once more we slowly continued our journey, walking now though--for the absence of fre...

"Ah! there's some one about, Mas'r Harry, I'm 'fear'd," whispered Tom. "I wish we'd covered the stuff up again. What do you say to taking a light and going right in?"

I said at the end of the last chapter that it was like being in the nightmare of some horrible dream. I repeat that assertion; for as I recall my sensations I see again the horr...

"I believe he saw something," I replied, "but whether it was just as he described is another thing. There's plenty of room, though, in the sea for more than that, and perhaps pe...

"You old humbug, you!" I cried in my triumph, for I was getting over my troubles, "sneered and jeered and pooh-poohed it all, you did, Tom, and now it has you by the hip at last."

My excitement was intense; and all dripping as I was with the icy water, I leaped out on to the sand with the intention of climbing over the barrier out into the bright sunshiny...

Tom was inexhaustible in his schemes, and at the end of three days he had contrived the very thing we required, in a light little raft composed of a few bamboo wands confining t...