A summer afternoon was dwindling to night over a wild solitude among the borderlands of Northern India. The sun had already left the deep spacious valley, wherein, as the light waned, the greens changed to browns, the browns deepened to black, and the broad silver band that denoted a stream flowing along the bottom was dulled to the hue of lead. On the west, the harsh and rugged features of the mountains, towering to incalculable heights, were softened by the increasing shade; while the snowy summits, flushed by the declining rays, were scarcely distinguishable from the roseate clouds. Away...

Mesopotamia, "the land between the rivers," has been brought by Time's revolution once more into the foreground of the history of the world. The plains where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob tended their flocks and herds; where the hosts of Sennacherib, Shalmaneser and Alexander contended for "world-power" in their day; where the Arabs, heirs of ancient civilisations, reared a civilisation of their own until it fell under the blight of Turkish dominion: have become once more the battle-ground of opposing armies, the representatives of conflicting spirits and ideals.

The village of Polkerran lies snugly in a hollow between cliffs facing the Atlantic, at the head of a little bay that forms a natural harbour. The grey stone cottages rise from the sea-level in tiers, as in an amphitheatre, huddled together, with the narrowest and most tortuous of lanes between them. Through the midst a stream flows from the high ground behind, in summer a mere brook, in winter a swollen torrent that colours the sea far out with the soil it carries down.

I have not attempted in this story to give a full account of the career of Lord Clive. That has been done by my old friend, Mr. Henty, in "With Clive in India." It has always seemed to me that a single book provides too narrow a canvas for the display of a life so full and varied as Clive's, and that a work of fiction is bound to suffer, structurally and in detail, from the compression of the events of a lifetime within so restricted a space. I have therefore chosen two outstanding events in the history of India--the capture of Gheria and the battle of Plassey--and have made them the pivot of...

''Tis a matter of twenty-five years since I was in a fix like this 'ere, ' said the boatswain, ruminatively, turning a quid in his cheek. 'Ephraim, me lad, you can bear me out?' 'I can't rightly say as I can, Mr. Grinson, ' said Ephraim, in his husky voice, 'but I 'll try

The first time Jack Hardy met Mr. Nathaniel Gudgeon was also the occasion of his first visit to Luscombe. It happened in this way. "Good-by, my boy," said his father, as Jack clambered on to the roof of the coach at the White Hart, Southwark, "and be sure you don't forget your Cousin Bastable, or your mother will never forgive you." "All right, father. I'll take a look at him if I get a chance. I say, coachman, you'll let me have a drive?"

A belt of matted woodland. At the edge, three Belgian officers, in light uniform and white topee, lying prone, and peering cautiously out through glasses. Before them, a wide clearing, with a mud-walled town in the midst, and huge forest-trees beyond. Behind, a few score stalwart Bangala, strewn panting on the ground. Over all, the swarming sunlit haze of tropical Africa.

One hot sultry afternoon in June, the population of the little town of San Rosario in the Peruvian Andes was struck with sudden amazement at the sight of a motor-bicycle clattering its way through the main street with some risk to the dogs, poultry, and small boys who had been lazily disporting themselves there. It was not the bicycle itself that evoked their wonder: that was an object familiar enough.