Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER NINETEEN THE LONE SUEVIVOK SLEEP lay heavy and sweet upon Dick Colton that night. Not even the excitement of the prospective man-hunt--for the juggler was to be rounded up on the morrow--could overcome his healthy weariness. The intense and tragic events amid which his life had moved for a fortnight had been a cure for his insomnia as effectual as unexpected. Now when he slept, he slept; great guns could not wake him. In fact, at this particular midnight of September's last day great guns did not wake him, for the intermittent booming of cannonade for some fifteen minutes had left his happy dreams undisturbed. Not so with the others. Helga was stirring below; the Ravendens were moving about in their respective rooms. Everard was delivering a passionate rhapsody to an elusive match-box, and Mrs. Johnston was addressing the familiar argument regarding the preventive merits of rubber boots to her exasperated husband. Into the submerged consciousness of Dick Colton drifted scraps and fragments of eager talk. "Wreck ashore. . . . Graveyard Point again. . . . Won't need the lanterns. . . . Drat the rubber boots! . . . All go together." Then said the wizard of dreams, who mismanages such things, to Dick Colton: "It was all a phantasy, the imaginings of a moment. The crowded wonders in which you have taken part never happened. There have been no murders; there has been no juggler, no kite-flyer, no mystery. Haynes is alive; you can hear him moving about. You are back where you belong, at the night of the shipwreck, and I have befooled you well with an empty panorama." "And Dolly?" cried the unhappy dreamer in such a pang of protest that he came broad awake at once. The wizard fled. From below, the magic of Helga's voice rang out, ...