"Now thou art e unto a feast of death."　William Shakespeare Henry VI, Part I, Act 4, Scene 5.　　　　PART ONE　January 1812　　CHAPTER 1　　A pale horse seen a mile away at sunrise means the night is over. Sentries can relax, battalions stand down, because the moment for a surprise dawn attack has passed.　　But not on this day. A grey horse would hardly have been visible at a hundred paces, let alone a mile, and the dawn was shredded with dirty cannon smoke that melded with the snow-clouds. Only one living thing moved in the grey space between the British and French lines; a small, dark bird that hopped busily in the snow. Captain Richard Sharpe, huddled in his greatcoat, watched the bird and willed　

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARSTHE HOUSE BEHINDTHE CEDARSBY CHARLES W. CHESNUTT1- Page 2-THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARSIA STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINATime touches all things with destroying hand; and if he seem nowand then to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a briefmockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age, thedry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are places where...　

　　　In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.　　　It was a high place where he searched, a lifeless, wind-scoured place, a rough, forbidding shelf of black and splintered rock. Snow, driven by squalls of frigid air, streamed across the black rock in white powder, making shifting veils of white over layers of gray ancient ice that was almost as hard as the rock itself. Dawn was in the sky, but still hundreds of kilometers away, as distant as the tiny sawteeth of the horizon to the northwest. The snowfields and icefields along that far edge of the world were beginning to glow with a reflected pink.　　　Ignoring cold and wind, and mumbling to himself, the sea　

THE WITCH AND OTHER STORIESTHE WITCH ANDOTHER STORIESANTON CHEKHOV1- Page 2-THE WITCH AND OTHER STORIESTHE WITCHIT was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely Gykin, was lying inhis huge bed in the hut adjoining the church. He was not asleep, though itwas his habit to go to sleep at the same time as the hens. His coarse redhair peeped from under one end of the greasy patchwork quilt, made up ofcoloured rags, while his big unwashed feet stuck out from the other. Hewas listening. His hut adjoined the wall that encircled the church and the...　

Chronicles of the Canongateby Sir Walter ScottCONTENTS.Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate. Appendix to IntroductionThe Theatrical Fund Dinner. IntroductoryMr. Chrystal Croftangry. The Highland Widow. The Two Drovers. Notes.INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the pieces originally published under the NOMINIS UMBRA of The Author of Waverley; and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate, consisting (besides a biographical sketch of the 　

At the Back of the North Windby George MacDonaldCHAPTER ITHE HAY-LOFTI HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind.An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there,and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer,and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his.I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place.I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there.He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by anymeans at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew.For one side of the room was built only of boards, and the boards were...　

The Drums Of Jeopardyby Harold MacGrathCHAPTER IA fast train drew into Albany, on the New York Central, from theWest. It was three-thirty of a chill March morning in the firstyear of peace. A pall of fog lay over the world so heavy thatit beaded the face and hands and deposited a fairy diamond dustupon wool. The station lights had the visibility of stars, andlike the stars were without refulgence - a pale golden aureola,perhaps three feet in diameter, and beyond, nothing. The fewpassengers who alighted and the train itself had the same nebulosityof drab fish in a dim aquarium.Among the passengers to detrain was a man in a long black coat.The high collar was up. The man wore a derby ha　

LAHOMALAHOMAby John Breckenridge Ellis1- Page 2-LAHOMACHAPTER ITHE TOUCH OF A CHILD"I have given my word of honormy sacred oathnot to betray what Ihave discovered here."At these words from the prisoner, a shout arose in which oaths andmocking laughter mingled like the growling and snapping of hunger-maddened wolves."Then if I must die," Gledware cried, his voice, in its shrill excitement,...　

A History of Science, Volume 1by Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D.ASSISTED BYEDWARD H. WILLIAMS, M.D.IN FIVE VOLUMESVOLUME I.THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENCEBOOK I.CONTENTSCHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC SCIENCECHAPTER II. EGYPTIAN SCIENCECHAPTER III. SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIACHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALPHABETCHAPTER V. THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCIENCECHAPTER VI. THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALYCHAPTER VII. GREEK SCIENCE IN THE EARLY ATTIC PERIODCHAPTER VIII. POST-SOCRATIC SCIENCE AT ATHENSCHAPTER IX. GREEK SCIENCE OF THE ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTICPERIODCHAPTER X. SCIENCE OF THE ROMAN PERIODCHAPTER XI. A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT CLASSICAL SCIENCE...　

BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTSBEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTSH. H. MUNRO ("SAKI")1- Page 2-BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTSTHE SHE-WOLFLEONARD BILSITER was one of those people who have failed tofind this world attractive or interesting, and who have soughtcompensation in an "unseen world" of their own experience orimagination - or invention. Children do that sort of thing successfully,...　

THE VISION SPLENDIDTHE VISIONSPLENDIDWilliam MacLeod Raine1- Page 2-THE VISION SPLENDIDCHAPTER 1Of all the remote streams of influence that pour both before and afterbirth into the channel of our being, what an insignificant fewand theseonly the more obviousare traceable at all. We swim in a sea ofenvironment and heredity, are tossed hither and thither by we know notwhat cross currents of Fate, are tugged at by a thousand eddies of whichwe never dream. The sum of it all makes Life, of which we know so little...　

THE GOLDEN FLEECE AND THE HEROES WHO LIVED BEFORE ACHILLESTHE GOLDENFLEECE AND THEHEROES WHO LIVEDBEFORE ACHILLESBY PADRAIC COLUM1- Page 2-THE GOLDEN FLEECE AND THE HEROES WHO LIVED BEFORE ACHILLESPart I.The Voyage to ColchisI. The Youth JasonA man in the garb of a slave went up the side of that mountain that isall covered with forest, the Mountain Pelion. He carried in his arms a little...