The Warden of the Marches

“I dare say it is, but I won’t listen to a single word until you lie down in that chair and let me fan you. Now let us hear about it. You went to the Refugees’ Camp as usual, an...

Mabel was not far wrong in guessing that before she spoke to Fitz it had been decided he should take part in Daffadar Sultan Jān’s reconnaissance. Colonel Graham’s choice had fa...

He and Dick were standing in one of the gateway turrets as the day broke, and it was the sight of a long column of men marching into the town from the north-east that had called...

There was some grumbling when it became known that only half the garrison was to go to work on the defences at a time, the other half remaining under arms, but Colonel Graham kn...

“I suppose we may as well see what he has to say,” said the Colonel to Mr Burgrave, with whom he had been making final arrangements, and the two men climbed the steps to the eas...

After their disappointment with regard to the guns, the enemy made no further effort to take the fort by storm. They seemed quite content to substitute a blockade for a siege, b...

Three or four days later, Mrs Hardy marched up the steps of the Norths’ bungalow with a purposeful mien, and requested an interview with the Commissioner. Mr Burgrave had finish...

The days dragged slowly by in the beleaguered fort. The enemy’s extraordinary dislike of coming to close quarters, and the consequent absence of direct attacks, tried the endura...

“Go away; I hate you!” was the muffled reply. Mabel had thrown herself, dressed, upon her bed, and her face was buried in the pillow. She shook off Flora’s hand angrily from her...

“It has always seemed to me,” said Mr Burgrave, “that in this meeting between Paracelsus and Aprile, whose characteristics are so essentially feminine, the poet has typified for...

“What in the world do you mean by coming and telling me such a thing as that at this moment, sir?” demanded Mr Burgrave, whose habitual calmness was fast vanishing under the str...

“See what it is, Tara,” she called to her ayah, but the woman was crouching in a corner, her teeth chattering with terror. Seeing that she was too frightened to move, Mabel thre...

“Mab!” Mabel awoke from her uneasy slumbers to wonder where she was, and why Georgia was sitting there, her face silhouetted against the square of grey light that represented a...

“Awfully sorry, Mab, but I really can’t ride with you this morning. It’s bad enough when one of our wandering tribes comes in for a palaver, but to-day there are two of them, at...

Major North threw himself luxuriously into a long cane chair, and held out his hand for the bundle of envelopes and papers which his wife gave him. “Anything from Mab?” he asked.

“Why, Mrs North!” Disturbed in his task of supervising the proceedings of a nervous native assistant, whose mind was less occupied with his dispensing than with the bullets whic...

As soon as Dick awoke in the morning, his talk with Georgia recurred to his mind, and looking out of his dressing-room window, he called to Ismail Bakhsh, whom he saw in the com...

Hark! what was that? Mabel sprang up in bed, her heart beating furiously, her hands clammy with fear. There was the sound of horses’ feet, the rattling of bridles, on every side...

“Poor dear Laili!” sighed Mabel, patting the dust-begrimed neck of the little mare. There was no fear of Laili’s running away now, although she had spirit enough left to struggl...

“Now you look just like the prehistoric lady in the picture! Because there’s a dust-storm coming on. I meant to tell you before, but you rushed away from the breakfast-table so...

“How horrid you are, Dick! Any one would think it was my fault that all these things happen. How could I help one of the other horses’ kicking Majnûn as they were coming back fr...

“No, I didn’t know there was any report going about,” answered Georgia. She was driving Mabel to the club, and had stopped to speak to the station surgeon, a cheerful little sto...

It was the morning after Mabel’s arrival, and she had settled herself on the verandah with her work, a laudable pretence in which no one had ever seen her set a stitch. After Di...

“Have you heard the latest, Miss North?” asked Fitz Anstruther, as he escorted Mabel to the scene of action. The five men who were staying in the house had nearly come to blows...