Yule Logs: Longmans' Christmas Annual for 1898

It was a grand success. Every one said so; and moreover, every one who witnessed the experiment predicted that the _Mermaid_ would revolutionize naval warfare as completely as d...

The submarine boat _Mermaid_ was a cigar-shaped shell of aluminium bronze, extremely light and strong, about forty feet in length and eight in greatest diameter. On its upper si...

So intent were the lads upon their conversation, that they mistook another freight shed for the one beneath which the _Mermaid_ was hidden, and walked a few paces beside it befo...

The part of the city in which our lads found themselves was dark and deserted, save for an occasional soldier pacing a lonely beat and a few slouching figures that seemed trying...

Although amid the excitements of the night Carl and Carlos had not realised the flight of time, the hours of waiting passed by their companion in anxious suspense on board the _...

"Tom, my dear boy," said my father, Colonel Sir John Cotton, K.B., as he entered the breakfast room on the morning of the 18th September 1806, "I wish you many happy returns of...

sang, or rather shouted, Lieutenant Patrick Cantillon of the light company, as he burst into our quarters one hot afternoon, a few weeks subsequent to my adventure on the conven...

Before continuing my narrative, I will briefly state the position of El Hamet. From Lake Edko to the Nile is an isthmus about two and a half miles in extent, varying according t...

"Plain as I sees your honour," was the corporal's reply. "We all see it, sir; for the moon's so bright that it's just as clear as day. Sergeant Finnigan says as how he thinks it...

The night passed without any attack being attempted; though once, towards daybreak, we fancied that we heard the sound of marching men approaching our post from the direction of...

Hardly were we clear of the village when the Turkish horsemen came sweeping down into the plain, howling ferociously as they galloped here and there. From time to time they made...

While watching the movements and repelling the attacks of the Turkish horsemen, we had, I fear, given little thought to Macleod's division; but now we had a moment's breathing t...

And as if to bother them, though more likely to break their backs, Lance Penwith closed two with a sharp clap, rose from his seat at the table, and then, holding one flat in eac...

"I can't help it," said Lance to himself, after a weary sleepless night; "I don't feel as if I could go and tell tales. I'm not sure; and if I was wrong, and these men were puni...

A week had glided by, and fishing was in full progress below the cliff. Hezz and his people had enclosed a small shoal of mackerel in their seine, and at another time Lance woul...

A few moments elapsed, and then it was Lance who had turned quite cold. For his brain was wonderfully active now, as he seemed to grasp as facts that his cousin had not been wat...

Lance made his appearance at breakfast the next morning rather late, and as he entered the room, wondering whether his father knew of the events of the night, he saw at a glance...

The cliff and the little harbour beneath looked as beautiful as ever; but there was an element of sadness about the place whenever Lance went down to see Hezz, for he was pretty...

It was one bright spring morning after getting well on with his Latin reading with the vicar, that Lance thought he would go down to the cliff and see what luck Hezz had had wit...

I can tell you there was a pretty bustle around Paris that night when the news came of the downfall of the old Fox--the fox being none other than Cardinal Alberoni, who had just...

A week later, or, to be exact, six days, and the troop of Grey Musketeers, commanded by Captain the Vicomte de Pontgibaud--which was the one in which I rode as cornet--was makin...

At first she struggled a little, then all of a sudden she took a different tack, and exclaimed, "How dare you touch me, fellow. You--a common _mousquetaire_--to lay your hands o...

We were riding through one of the innumerable valleys which are formed by the spurs of the Pyrenees running almost from where the Pic du Midi rises up to the city of Toulouse; a...

You ask me to relate to you the most terrible adventure I ever experienced? Well, my whole life, from the time when, as a lad of fifteen, I first took to the sea, has been one o...

Our prize turned out to be the _Don Cristoval_--a craft notorious alike for her astounding sailing powers, for the insolent daring of her commander, and for the success with whi...

The prize crew necessary to man this second capture left me so very short-handed that, after due consideration, I decided to escort her to Sierra Leone in the schooner, which wo...

The Kruman who acted as pilot undoubtedly appeared--as St. Croix had asserted--to know the river thoroughly, for dark as the night was, he evinced no sign whatever of doubt or h...