This early work by John Buchan was originally published in 1886 and we are now republishing it as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'Jim Newman s Yarn: Or, A Sight of the Sea Serpent' is a short story about a mysterious creature of the deep. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary...

"Bill " "Aye, aye, bo " "Guess this'll be a rum v'yage, mate." "Why, old shellback?" "'Cause I can't make out why we are wasting our time here, with the cargo all aboard and the wind fair." "Don't you fret yourself about that, Jem Backstay. The skipper knows what he's a-doing, and has got a heap o' 'sponsibility on them shoulders o' his'n-a fine ship and a valuable cargo to get home safe to old h'England with a short crew, and a lot o' murderin', blood-suckin' pirates all over the h'Indian seas " "Pirates, Bill "

"I want do d'an'ma " This sudden and unexpected exclamation, uttered as it was in a shrill little voice like that of a piping bullfinch, and coming from nowhere in particular, as far as he could make out, for he had fancied himself all alone on the platform, made the tall railway porter almost jump out of his skin, as he expressed it, startling him out of his seven senses.

"Jake " "Dat me, Mass' Tom." "Have you heard the gun fire yet?" "Golly, no, Mass' Tom." "Then you must go up the hill at once and see whether the mail steamer has been signalled or not. She ought to have been in sight by now; for, she's been expected since early this morning, and we're all anxious about the news from England." "All right, Mass' Tom, me go for see, suah." "Look alive then, Jake, and lose no more time in starting. Let me just see how quickly you can get up to the Battery and back again; and mind, Jake, if the packet should be in, you can saddle my pony when you return for me to...

"Sail-ho on the weather-bow " "What do you make it?" "Looks like a ship's mast, with the yard attached, and a man a-holding on to it and hailing us for help-leastways, that's what it seems to me " "Jerusalem On the weather-bow, you say? Can we forereach him on this tack?" "I reckon we can jist about do it, boss, if you put the helm up a bit kinder nearer the wind," drawled out the lookout from his post of observation in the main-top, where he had stopped a moment on catching sight of the object floating in the water ahead of the vessel, as he was coming down from aloft after restowing the...

We were cruising off Callao on the Pacific station when it all happened, and I daresay there are a good many others who will recollect all about it as well as myself. But to explain the matter properly I must go back a little in my dates; for, instead of Callao at the commencement of my yarn, you must read Calabar.

"Hullo, Dad " I cried out, stopping abruptly in front of the red granite coloured Reform Club, down the marble steps of which a queer-looking old gentleman was slowly descending. "Who is that funny old fellow there? He's just like that 'old clo'' man we saw at the corner of the street this morning, only that he hasn't got three hats on, one on top of another, the same as the other chap had "

It is strange what trifling events-little things apparently in themselves-seem to have the power of shaping our different destinies, and colouring, so to speak, the whole course of our subsequent life To illustrate this, I may state without exaggeration that, had it not been for Dr Hellyer's hat-taken in connection with the mischievous promptings of that madcap Tom Larkyns, my special chum at the time-it is more than probable that the grand climax which so abruptly brought my school-days to a close might have been averted; and, in that case, following out the argument, I should not have gone...

True, I talk of dreams; Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air; And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Il est naturel que nos idees les plus vives et les plus familieres se retracent pendant le sommeil. I had a most curious dream about Min that very night."

"Bob " The noise of the train, however, drowned Nellie's voice; besides which Master Bob was further prevented from hearing this appeal to him by reason of his head and shoulders being at that precise instant projected out of the window of the railway-carriage, in utter defiance of the Company's bye-laws to the contrary and of his sister's solicitous entreaties to the same effect-poor Nellie, fearing, in her feminine anxiety, that the door would fly open unexpectedly, from the pressure of Bob's person, and precipitate her brother as suddenly out on the line.