To Perceval and Maisie Gibbon...

The last word of this novel was written on the 29th of May, 1914. And that last word was the single word of the title. Those were the times of peace. Now that the moment of publication approaches I ha...

On approaching the task of writing this Note for Victory the first thing I am conscious of is the actual nearness of the book, its nearness to me personally, to the vanished mood in which it was writt...

Calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire And airy tongues that syllable men’s names On sands and shores and desert wilderness. Comus...

There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. It is the reason, I believe, why some people allude to coal as “black diamonds.” Bo...

There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. It is the reason, I believe, why some people allude to coal as “black diamonds.” Bo...

It was about this time that Heyst became associated with Morrison on terms about which people were in doubt. Some said he was a partner, others said he was a sort of paying guest, but the real truth o...

Human nature being what it is, having a silly side to it as well as a mean side, there were not a few who pretended to be indignant on no better authority than a general propensity to believe every ev...

A few of us who were sufficiently interested went to Davidson for details. These were not many. He told us that he passed to the north of Samburan on purpose to see what was going on. At first, it loo...

Davidson happened to be two days late on his return trip; no great matter, certainly, but he made a point of going ashore at once, during the hottest hour of the afternoon, to look for Heyst. Schomber...

We said no more about Heyst on that occasion, and it so happened that I did not meet Davidson again for some three months. When we did come together, almost the first thing he said to me was: “I’ve se...

Some considerable time afterward⁠—we did not meet very often⁠—I asked Davidson how he had managed about the shawl and heard that he had tackled his mission in a direct way, and had found it easy enoug...

As we know, Heyst had gone to stay in Schomberg’s hotel in complete ignorance that his person was odious to that worthy. When he arrived, Zangiacomo’s Ladies’ Orchestra had been established there for ...

As we know, Heyst had gone to stay in Schomberg’s hotel in complete ignorance that his person was odious to that worthy. When he arrived, Zangiacomo’s Ladies’ Orchestra had been established there for ...

That was how it began. How it was that it ended as we know it did end, is not so easy to state precisely. It is very clear that Heyst was not indifferent, I won’t say to the girl, but to the girl’s fa...

For fifteen years Heyst had wandered, invariably courteous and unapproachable, and in return was generally considered a “queer chap.” He had started off on these travels of his after the death of his ...

The business was done by a guest who arrived one fine morning by mail-boat⁠—immediately from Celebes, having boarded her in Macassar, but generally, Schomberg understood, from up China Sea way; a wand...

Three weeks later, after putting his cashbox away in the safe which filled with its iron bulk a corner of their bedroom, Schomberg turned towards his wife, but without looking at her exactly, and said...

From that evening dated those mysterious but significant phenomena in Schomberg’s establishment which attracted Captain Davidson’s casual notice when he dropped in, placid yet astute, in order to retu...

“A common thief!” Schomberg bit his tongue just too late, and woke up completely as he saw Ricardo retract his lips in a catlike grin; but the companion of “plain Mr. Jones” didn’t alter his comfortab...

Schomberg felt desperation, that lamentable substitute for courage, ooze out of him. It was not so much the threat of death as the weirdly circumstantial manner of its declaration which affected him. ...

Tropical nature had been kind to the failure of the commercial enterprise. The desolation of the headquarters of the Tropical Belt Coal Company had been screened from the side of the sea; from the sid...

Tropical nature had been kind to the failure of the commercial enterprise. The desolation of the headquarters of the Tropical Belt Coal Company had been screened from the side of the sea; from the sid...

During his master’s absence at Sourabaya, Wang had busied himself with the ground immediately in front of the principal bungalow. Emerging from the fringe of grass growing across the shore end of the ...

That morning, as on all the others of the full tale of mornings since his return with the girl to Samburan, Heyst came out on the verandah and spread his elbows on the railing, in an easy attitude of ...

With her knees drawn up, Lena rested her elbows on them and held her head in both her hands. “Are you tired of sitting here?” Heyst asked. An almost imperceptible negative movement of the head was all...

When she opened her eyes at last and sat up, Heyst scrambled quickly to his feet and went to pick up her cork helmet, which had rolled a little way off. Meanwhile she busied herself in doing up her ha...

Heyst was astounded. Looking all round, as if to take the whole room to witness of this outrage, he became aware of Wang materialised in the doorway. The intrusion was as surprising as anything could ...

The explanation lay in the two simple facts that the light winds and strong currents of the Java Sea had drifted the boat about until they partly lost their bearings; and that by some extraordinary mi...

Heyst walked away slowly. There was still no light in his bungalow, and he thought that perhaps it was just as well. By this time he was much less perturbed. Wang had preceded him with the lantern, as...

That night the girl woke up, for the first time in her new experience, with the sensation of having been abandoned to her own devices. She woke up from a painful dream of separation brought about in a...

The observer was Martin Ricardo. To him life was not a matter of passive renunciation, but of a particularly active warfare. He was not mistrustful of it, he was not disgusted with it, still less was ...

Ricardo advanced prudently by short darts from one tree-trunk to another, more in the manner of a squirrel than a cat. The sun had risen some time before. Already the sparkle of open sea was encroachi...

Ricardo advanced prudently by short darts from one tree-trunk to another, more in the manner of a squirrel than a cat. The sun had risen some time before. Already the sparkle of open sea was encroachi...

The clock⁠—which once upon a time had measured the hours of philosophic meditation⁠—could not have ticked away more than five seconds when Wang materialised within the living-room. His concern primari...

To Ricardo the girl had been so unforeseen that he was unable to bring upon her the light of his critical faculties. Her smile appeared to him full of promise. He had not expected her to be what she w...

Heyst, seated at the table with his chin on his breast, raised his head at the faint rustle of Lena’s dress. He was startled by the dead pallor of her cheeks, by something lifeless in her eyes, which ...

Waking up suddenly, Lena looked, without raising her head from the pillow, at the room in which she was alone. She got up quickly, as if to counteract the awful sinking of her heart by the vigorous us...

As luck would have it, Ricardo was lounging alone on the verandah of the former countinghouse. He scented some new development at once, and ran down to meet the trotting, bear-like figure. The deep, g...

It was at this precise moment of their conversation that Heyst had intruded on Mr. Jones and his secretary with his warning about Wang, as he had related to Lena. When he left them, the two looked at ...

Meantime Heyst and Lena, walking rather fast, approached Wang’s hut. Asking the girl to wait, Heyst ascended the little ladder of bamboos giving access to the door. It was as he had expected. The smok...

Stumbling up the steps, as if suddenly exhausted, Lena entered the room and let herself fall on the nearest chair. Before following her, Heyst took a survey of the surroundings from the verandah. It w...

She passed by Heyst as if she had indeed been blinded by some secret, lurid, and consuming glare into which she was about to enter. The curtain of the bedroom door fell behind her into rigid folds. Ri...

Two candles were burning on the stand-up desk. Mr. Jones, tightly enfolded in an old but gorgeous blue silk dressing-gown, kept his elbows close against his sides and his hands deeply plunged into the...

On returning to the Heyst bungalow, rapid as if on wings, Ricardo found Lena waiting for him. She was dressed in black; and at once his uplifting exultation was replaced by an awed and quivering patie...

Mr. Jones, after firing his shot over Heyst’s shoulder, had thought it proper to dodge away. Like the spectre he was, he had noiselessly vanished from the verandah. Heyst stumbled into the room and lo...

“Yes, Excellency,” said Davidson in his placid voice; “there are more dead in this affair⁠—more white people, I mean⁠—than have been killed in many of the battles of the last Achin war.” Davidson was ...