FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160  
161   162   >>  
"Perhaps that will satisfy you," snarled Bellingham, with hate and fear in his little grey eyes as he glanced back at his tormentor. "No; I must make a clean sweep of all your materials. We must have no more devil's tricks. In with all these leaves! They may have something to do with it." "And what now?" asked Bellingham, when the leaves also had been added to the blaze. "Now the roll of papyrus which you had on the table that night. It is in that drawer, I think." "No, no," shouted Bellingham. "Don't burn that! Why, man, you don't know what you do. It is unique; it contains wisdom which is nowhere else to be found." "Out with it!" "But look here, Smith, you can't really mean it. I'll share the knowledge with you. I'll teach you all that is in it. Or, stay, let me only copy it before you burn it!" Smith stepped forward and turned the key in the drawer. Taking out the yellow, curled roll of paper, he threw it into the fire, and pressed it down with his heel. Bellingham screamed, and grabbed at it; but Smith pushed him back and stood over it until it was reduced to a formless grey ash. "Now, Master B.," said he, "I think I have pretty well drawn your teeth. You'll hear from me again, if you return to your old tricks. And now good-morning, for I must go back to my studies." And such is the narrative of Abercrombie Smith as to the singular events which occurred in Old College, Oxford, in the spring of '84. As Bellingham left the university immediately afterwards, and was last heard of in the Soudan, there is no one who can contradict his statement. But the wisdom of men is small, and the ways of Nature are strange, and who shall put a bound to the dark things which may be found by those who seek for them? XI "DE PROFUNDIS" So long as the oceans are the ligaments which bind together the great broadcast British Empire, so long will there be a dash of romance in our minds. For the soul is swayed by the waters, as the waters are by the moon, and when the great highways of an empire are along such roads as these, so full of strange sights and sounds, with danger ever running like a hedge on either side of the course, it is a dull mind indeed which does not bear away with it some trace of such a passage. And now, Britain lies far beyond herself, for the three-mile limit of every seaboard is her frontier, which has been won by hammer and loom and pick rather than by arts of war. For it is wr
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160  
161   162   >>  



Top keywords:

Bellingham

 

waters

 

strange

 

wisdom

 
drawer
 
tricks
 

leaves

 

Empire

 

British

 

PROFUNDIS


ligaments

 

oceans

 

broadcast

 

romance

 

Soudan

 

immediately

 

university

 
spring
 

Oxford

 

contradict


statement
 
things
 

Nature

 

passage

 

Britain

 

seaboard

 

frontier

 
hammer
 

sights

 

sounds


danger

 
empire
 

swayed

 
highways
 

running

 

College

 
reduced
 
unique
 

shouted

 

knowledge


papyrus

 

glanced

 

tormentor

 

Perhaps

 

satisfy

 

snarled

 
materials
 

stepped

 
Master
 

pretty