The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harry Escombe, by Harry Collingwood

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Title: Harry Escombe
A Tale of Adventure in Peru

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: Victor Prout

Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #21066]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY ESCOMBE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Harry Escombe
A Tale of Adventure in Peru

By Harry Collingwood
________________________________________________________________________
Harry Escombe is a young apprentice in a civil engineer's office. The
firm has received a contract to survey and built a railway line in Peru.
Harry is chosen to go, and is informed that if he does well in the work
the future for him is pretty bright.

But there is a fly in the ointment. The man in charge of the project is
about as nasty as anyone can be: his character is beautifully depicted
throughout the book. He makes Harry do a piece of surveying in an
unnecessarily dangerous manner, as a result of which he falls down a
precipice from which he cannot be rescued, and is therefore written off
as dead.

But he was indeed rescued. He was taken to a house where he remained in
a coma for some time. Then he is thought to be a re-incarnation of The
Inca, and taken by Indians to their own city, where he is worshipped as
a god. This could be quite embarrassing if you found yourself in this
situation, as you'd be unable to perform miracles, and do the things a
deity might be expected to do. However, Harry managed rather well. But
eventually he manages to escape from the situation, and to return to his
home in England.
________________________________________________________________________
HARRY ESCOMBE
A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN PERU

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

CHAPTER ONE.

HOW THE ADVENTURE ORIGINATED.

The hour was noon, the month chill October; and the occupants--a round
dozen in number--of Sir Philip Swinburne's drawing office were more or
less busily pursuing their vocation of preparing drawings and tracings,
taking out quantities, preparing estimates, and, in short, executing the
several duties of a civil engineers' draughts