भूत का गेम

भूत का गेम It was not so singular that I should turn white and stand there as At last, sick and dizzy, he turned from the place and with raft and pole fought his way back to the shore. Never again, he told himself, would he try to fathom further what lay in Lost Man's Swamp. Weary and perspiring, he climbed the wooded upland. He turned and dipped into the willows, intending to take the shortest way home through the hardwoods. On top of the beech knoll he paused for a moment to let his eyes rest on the big house in the walnut grove. In some vague way his mind connected its owner with that dead waste of stinking marsh. Why, he wondered, had Hinter chosen this lonely spot on which to build his home? As he turned to strike across the neck of woods between him and the causeway the man about whom he had just been thinking stepped out from a clump of hazel-nut bushes directly in his path.,"It is very strange," said Captain Acton, "that that mis-shapen fellow made by Mr Lawrence the steward of the ship, should be employed to convey a letter to my daughter at so early an hour when there was very little likelihood of finding the young lady abroad.",Her native blush, which was one of the delightful features of her loveliness, had vanished: her face was colourless, and this uncommon pallor which one would have thought could only have visited her cheek in the day of dangerous sickness or in death, heightened the wonder, the depth, the power of her dark eyes, whilst those lids of her's which naturally drooped upon the loveliness they eclipsed in slumber, were raised till the vision she might have been said to pour in soft light upon her companion, looked unnatural and wild, the eyes of madness, the incommunicable gaze of any one sooner than the half-veiled, love-lighted sweetness of the orbs of Lucy Acton.,"Ah!" says Doatie, clasping her hands. "And——",The whole garden with its crooked old trees and newly planted young ones was overflowing with fruit: big and little pears, red apples, yellow apples, and oh! any quantity of plums—yellow plums bursting with ripeness, great juicy blue plums, and those sweet ones of a reddish purple color. Hurrah!，Bob was about to reply when an interruption stopped the words that were on the end of his tongue. A crackling noise in the bushes had been the only warning Feather-in-the-Wind had given of his approach. But his companion was what surprised Bob.，Elinor gave a start. "Well, I declare, if I didn't forget all about it!" she exclaimed. "We were so excited with the presents and all, that I never told you! It's going to be perfectly gorgeous. I know you'll be crazy over it."，"I have been all over the world, Mr. Alymer," parried Etwald, dexterously."Is it a long drive, Geoff?" she asks, presently, in a trembling tone, slipping her hand into his in the old fashion. "About six miles. I say, darling, keep up your spirits; if we don't like it, we can leave, you know. But"—alluding to her subdued voice—"don't be imagining evil."

"I am sorry to say," said the Admiral, sinking into a chair, "that I have brought no news.","I do not propose to go armed," said Captain Acton. "Such armament as the Aurora of three hundred and ninety tons[Pg 229] could carry, and not perhaps without injury to her speed, would prove of little good against an enemy to whom we could only show our heels, whilst as to the Minorca if we overhauled her we should hail her to back her topsail, and if she declined we should hold her in sight.","Then tell me if you see her," and the Admiral watched him with such an expression of face as he might have looked with at a falling barometer in seas distinguished for cyclones and typhoons.,"And he left no address behind?" questioned Mr. Johnston.,At last he was about to get up and go home when he saw a figure dodging from shadow to shadow and making up the hill in the general direction of his position.,"Never mind explaining, Mr. Alymer. I can guess your objection. I am too old, too plain, too poor for this charming young lady. You, on the contrary, are young, passing well off, and handsome--all the gifts of fortune are on your side. Decidedly," added the doctor, "you hold the best hand. Well, we shall see who will win this game--as we may call it.",Bob jumped to his feet and began pulling the trigger of his revolver as fast as his fingers would work. Then, yelling, he followed Ted and the Apache in the rush down the hillside.,“Is it anything to worry about when a horse breathes?” scoffed Gunnar Olsen. “He breathed like a bellows when I rode, but yet I took only eight minutes and four seconds.”,"A great deal. I should. I have heard of almost nothing else since my arrival in England," replies he, slowly.,“I’m chored from mornin’ till night, an’ arfter I go to sleep I do some more chorin’ jist to keep my hand in.” Moses was in a distinctly peevish mood.,"But, Daddy," the girl would laugh, "we love each other. We are happy and real happiness is worth more than money, isn't it, dear?",Lou started to count the money. Billy sat back, watching her. "Yes, sir," he mused, "it certainly takes a good woman to steady a man." For ten glorious minutes he built air castles and dreamed dreams..