One of the fruits of Emancipation in the West Indian islands is the number of the ruins, either attached to the houses that remain or within a stone’s throw of them: ruined slaves’ quarters, ruined su...

One of the fruits of Emancipation in the West Indian islands is the number of the ruins, either attached to the houses that remain or within a stone’s throw of them: ruined slaves’ quarters, ruined su...

The stream which fed the bathing-hole ran into it down a gully through the bush which offered an enticing vista for exploring: but somehow the children did not often go up it very far. Every stone had...

This was, fairly typically, the life of an English family in Jamaica. Mostly these only stayed a few years. The Creoles⁠—families who had been in the West Indies for more than one generation⁠—graduall...

The next morning, Sunday, they went home. Emily was still so saturated in earthquake as to be dumb. She ate earthquake and slept earthquake: her fingers and legs were earthquake. With John it was poni...

All night the water poured through the house floor onto the people sheltering below: but (perhaps owing to the madeira) it did them no harm. Shortly after the second bout of blowing, however, the rain...

All night the water poured through the house floor onto the people sheltering below: but (perhaps owing to the madeira) it did them no harm. Shortly after the second bout of blowing, however, the rain...

On the journey back to Ferndale both father and mother were silent, actuated by that tug of jealousy against sympathy which a strong common emotion begets in familiar rather than passionate companions...

When they got home it was many days before they could bring themselves openly to mention the children. When some reference had to be made, they spoke round them, in an uncomfortable way, as if they ha...

The passage from Montego Bay to the Caymans, where the children had written their letters, is only a matter of a few hours: indeed, in clear weather one can look right across from Jamaica to the peak ...

The passage from Montego Bay to the Caymans, where the children had written their letters, is only a matter of a few hours: indeed, in clear weather one can look right across from Jamaica to the peak ...

Indeed, the whole manoeuvre was executed so quietly that Captain Marpole never even woke⁠—incredible though this will seem to a seaman. But then, Marpole had begun life as a successful coal-merchant. ...

You would have thought that supper on the schooner that night would have been a hilarious affair. But, somehow, it was manqué. A prize of such value had naturally put the crew in the best of humours: ...

Captain Jonsen set the little monkeyfied sailor, who had been so mortified earlier in the evening, to clear the schooner’s fore-hold. The warps and brooms and fenders it contained were all piled to on...

The children all slept late, and all woke at the same moment as if by clockwork. They sat up, and yawned uniformly, and stretched the stiffness out of their legs and backs (they were lying on solid wo...

The children all slept late, and all woke at the same moment as if by clockwork. They sat up, and yawned uniformly, and stretched the stiffness out of their legs and backs (they were lying on solid wo...

That night, after they had all gone to bed, they saw in a half-asleep state a lantern bobbing up and down in the open hatch. It was held by José, the little monkeyfied one (they had already decided he...

The children’s only enemy on board the schooner (which presently put to sea again, with them still on board) was the big white pig. (There was a little black fellow, too.) He was a pig with no decisio...

When Destiny knocks the first nail in the coffin of a tyrant, it is seldom long before she knocks the last. It was the very next morning that the schooner, in the lightest of airs, was sidling gently ...

The weeks passed in aimless wandering. For the children, the lapse of time acquired once more the texture of a dream: things ceased happening: every inch of the schooner was now as familiar to them as...

The weeks passed in aimless wandering. For the children, the lapse of time acquired once more the texture of a dream: things ceased happening: every inch of the schooner was now as familiar to them as...

But Emily was completely unaffected⁠—only glad that for the present they were all right by themselves. She was already beginning to feel the charge of the party a burden. It had automatically devolved...

That night in the Parliament of Beds there was raised at last a question which you may well be surprised had not been raised before. Emily had just reduced her family to silence by sheer ferocity, whe...

Edward often thought, as he strode scowling up and down the deck by himself, that this was exactly the life for him. What a lucky boy he was, to have tumbled into it by good fortune, instead of having...

Edward often thought, as he strode scowling up and down the deck by himself, that this was exactly the life for him. What a lucky boy he was, to have tumbled into it by good fortune, instead of having...

Pigs grow quickly, quicker even than children: and much though the latter altered in the first month on board, the little black porker (whose name by the by was Thunder) altered even more. He soon gre...

The contempt they already felt for Margaret, their complete lack of pity in her obvious illness and misery, had been in direct proportion to the childhood she had belied. This crime would have seemed ...

The contempt they already felt for Margaret, their complete lack of pity in her obvious illness and misery, had been in direct proportion to the childhood she had belied. This crime would have seemed ...

The reopening of the wound in her leg made it several days more before Emily was fit to be moved from the cabin. During this time she was much alone. Jonsen and Otto seldom came below, and when they d...

Otto was at the wheel (there was hardly one of the crew fit to steer). His lively mind was occupied with Santa Lucia, and his young lady there. Jonsen slipper-sloppered up and down his side of the dec...

When Emily returned to the fore-hold, her first act was one which greatly complicated life. As if there was not sea enough already outside the ship, she decreed that practically all the deck was sea a...

Captain Jonsen called suddenly to José to take the wheel, and went below for his telescope. Then, buttressing his hip against the rail, and extending the shade over the object-glass, he stared fixedly...

The darkness closed down with its sudden curtain on that minatory finger. Captain Jonsen remained on deck all night, whether it was his watch or not. It was a hot night, even for those latitudes: and ...

The darkness closed down with its sudden curtain on that minatory finger. Captain Jonsen remained on deck all night, whether it was his watch or not. It was a hot night, even for those latitudes: and ...

But the alarm of that night caused Jonsen at last to make up his mind. He altered his course: and as before he had designed it to avoid other shipping, now on the contrary it was calculated to run as ...

As they drew nearer, the children were all immensely interested: they had never before seen anything like this big, miraculous tub. The Dutch steamer, an old-fashioned craft, had not differed very mat...

From the deck of the schooner, Jonsen and Otto watched the children climb onto the steamer: watched their boat return, and the steamer get under way. So: it had all gone without a hitch. No one had su...

Emily grew quite a lot during the passage to England on the steamer: suddenly shot up, as children will at that age. But she did it without any gawkiness: instead, an actual increase of grace. Her leg...

Emily grew quite a lot during the passage to England on the steamer: suddenly shot up, as children will at that age. But she did it without any gawkiness: instead, an actual increase of grace. Her leg...

When the steamer took in her pilot, you may imagine that her news travelled ashore; and also, that it quickly reached the Times newspaper. Mr. and Mrs. Bas-Thornton, after the disaster, unable to bear...

The children passed the spring at the house their father had taken in Hammersmith Terrace, on the borders of Chiswick: but Captain Jonsen, Otto, and the crew passed it in Newgate. They were taken ther...

One day a cab came for the whole family, and they drove together right into London. The cab took them into the Temple: and then they had to walk through twisting passages and up some stairs. It was a ...

When the others had all gone, Mathias offered Thornton, whom he liked, a cigar: and the two sat together for a while over the fire. “Well,” said Thornton, “did the interview go as you had expected?” “...

Emily enjoyed the waxworks; even though she did not know that a waxwork of Captain Jonsen, his scowling face bloody and a knife in his hand, was already in contemplation. She got on well with Mr. Math...

Trials are quickly over, once they begin. It was no time before the judge had condemned these prisoners to death and was trying someone else with the same concentrated, benevolent, individual attentio...

It was a few days later that term began, and Mr. and Mrs. Thornton took Emily to her new school at Blackheath. While they remained to tea with the head mistress, Emily was introduced to her new playma...

The tiger-shark of the South Seas is of course a very different cattle. ↩...