The Queen Versus Billy, and Other Stories

It was the _Sandfly_, Captain Toombs, that brought the news to Sydney and intercepted her Majesty’s third-class cruiser _Stingaree_, as she lay in Man-of-War Cove, with her boat...

The officers were not a whit behind their captain. Billy’s artless ways and boundless good humour had won the whole ward-room to his side; and his grim determination to die, at...

We rose at no stated hour in the morning, the sun being our only clock, and, as we read it, a very uncertain one. Hinton and I bathed in the lagoon, where he taught me daily how...

I never grudged a penny of what it cost me to leave Yap, though I was stuck for three months’ rent by the cormorant who said he owned my house, besides having to pay an extortio...

“To me it all seemed the most frightful madness. I was bewildered to see bright eyes pursuing studies which I knew myself to be so wearisome, taking joy where I had found only v...

“My dizziness, my bewilderment, were the sensations of a moment, and in a trice I was myself again. The wound was nothing--a nicely calculated stroke through the fleshy part of...

The next day, from a rocky cliff above his house, de Charruel saw the yacht hoist her white sails and steal out to sea. He watched her as long as she remained in sight, and when...

He was crossing the _malae_, or common, of Polapola, when the sight of the chief’s house put a new thought into his head. It was Tangaloa’s house, and he could see the chief him...

More than once, as time passed, he turned over in his mind the possibility of calling at the Protestant mission. But no young girl could have shown more timidity than Father Zos...

He passed a troubled night; he felt he had made a mean capitulation, and, try as he would, he was unable to gloss the matter to his conscience. He was stung by the conviction of...

“This is foolish talk,” said Tuisunga. “Do we not need Zosimus to talk for us in Apia? Do we not know the ways of whites, and their disdain and pride? Who will speak to the Germ...

Frenchy shrugged his shoulders. “Old Tom Ryegate’s there,” he said. “He’ll do ze thing quick enough if I make it worth his while. They say, too, that he’s in with the Samoan pas...

Supper-time came, and Babcock and I had the table to ourselves; he was very garrulous and tiresome, and I suspect he had been nipping on the sly, for he giggled a lot, and somet...

“Then Nehemiah asked him in a trembling voice (for horror of the devil was upon them all) how dared he serve the Evil One for the sake of a few dollars this month and that, thus...

“When Patsy had read it to an end, he uttered a great, mocking laugh, and struck the paper with his club, so that the whole house shook, and old Ta’a came tumbling out like a sc...

That night he slept but little. He tossed on his hot bed, and whether he lay on this side or on that, the same question dinned in his ears without cessation. He was tortured by...

“We couldn’t, if we would,” cried the lay brother. “You might as well try and hide the island as to keep them out. When I was a boy I was in the Kattabelong gold rush with my fa...

To do more was impossible. His only thought now was to escape; to climb up into the fresher air above; to save himself while there was yet time. That unmoving, silent thing in t...

Amatua went almost crazy at the sight of what lay strewn on the beach that morning. He ran hither and thither, picking up one thing and then throwing it away for another he like...