Ernest Bramah

“ I want to introduce rather a remarkable character to you—Max Carrados, whom you see approaching. You will notice that he is blind—quite blind; but so far from that crippling his interests in life or his energies, it has merely impelled him to develop those senses which in most of us lie half dormant and practically unused. Thus you will understand that while he may be at a disadvantage when you are at an advantage, he is at an advantage when you are at a disadvantage. The alert, slightly spoffish gentleman with the knowing look, who accompanies him, is his friend Carlyle. ”

“ As his tranquil, pleasant eyes ranged the room meanwhile it was hard to believe that the shutters of an impenetrable darkness lay between them and the world. They rested for a moment on the two accomplices who stood beyond the table, picked out Madame Dompierre lolling on the sofa on his right, and measured the proportions of the long, narrow room. They seemed to note the positions of the window at the one end and the door almost at the other, and even to take into account the single pendent electric light which up till then had been the sole illuminant.
“You prefer pencil?” asked Montmorency. ”

“ A new world to explore, new experiences, new powers awakening; strange new perceptions; life in the fourth dimension. But why do you beg my pardon, Louis?"
"I am an ex-solicitor, struck off in connexion with the falsifying of a trust account, Mr. Carrados," replied Carlyle, rising.
"Sit down, Louis," said Carrados suavely. His face, even his incredibly living eyes, beamed placid good-nature. "The chair on which you will sit, the roof above you, all the comfortable surroundings to which you have so amiably alluded, are the direct result of falsifying a trust account. ”

“ The name he bore was Sun and he was of the house of Kiau.
"Honourable greeting, minstrel," said Wong Pao, with dignified condescension. "Why do you persist in exercising your illustrious talent outside this person's insignificant abode?"
"Because," replied Sun modestly, "the benevolent mandarin who has just spoken had not then invited me inside. Now, however, he will be able to hear to greater advantage the very doubtful qualities of my entertainment."
With these words Kiau Sun struck the duck so proficiently that it emitted a life-like call, and prepared to raise his voice in a chant. ”

“ Bending under the weight of offerings which Lin Yi and his followers pressed upon him, together with many clearly set out desires for his future prosperity, and assured of their unalterable protection on all future occasions, Kai Lung again turned his face towards the lanterns of Knei Yang. Far down the side of the mountain they followed his footsteps, now by a rolling stone, now by a snapping branch of yellow pine. Once again they heard his voice, cheerfully repeating to himself; “Among the highest virtues of a pure existence——” But beyond that point the gentle forest breath bore him away. ”

“ From any other man of your party the proposal would have been an insult; from you it is an amiable mistake. You do not think that you can buy us with the bribe of office, but you think that there is no further party work for us to do: that Socialism in England to-day is dead. I tell you, Sir John Hampden, with the absolute conviction of an inspired truth, that it will triumph yet. You will not see it; I may not see it, but it is more likely that the hand of Time itself should fail than that the ideals to which we cling should cease to draw men on. ”

“ Yen Sung made a rapid calculation in his mind, converting the date into its equivalent in his own system of time. Twice, three times, he repeated the process in his anxiety, and then, as the unevadable fact was driven home to him, he leaned forward in trembling anxiety.
"You must not go forth to-day, lady Edith; you cannot go," he whispered fearfully. "It is a day of the blackest omen and the direst possibilities. It is the one day of an entire cycle of years when all the diverging lines of evil, from whatever cause arising, meet in one irresistible concentration. ”

“ If he has a sane object, what is it?”
“That I leave to you, Max,” retorted Mr Carlyle conclusively. “If he has a sane object, pray what is it?”
“For the sake of the argument I will tell you that in half-a-dozen words, Louis,” replied Carrados, with good-humoured tolerance. “If he is not mad in the sense which you have defined, the answer stares us in the face. His object is precisely that which he is achieving.” ”

“ By day the demon looks forth from three white eyes, which at night have a penetrating brilliance equal to the fiercest glances of the Sacred Dragon in anger. If any person incautiously stands in its way it utters a warning cry of intolerable rage, and should the presumptuous one neglect to escape to the roadside and there prostrate himself reverentially before it, it seizes him by the body part and contemptuously hurls him bruised and unrecognisable into the boundless space of the around. ”

“ What mystery was there here, Tulloch? What had those priests of Goa that made them so self confident?"
"This relic, you suggest?"
"Yes, I do. But, now, what is that relic? A monkey's or an ape-god's tooth, an iron-stained belemnite, the fragment of a pagan idol—you and I can smile at that. We are Christians. No matter how unorthodox, no matter how non-committal our attitude may have grown, there is upon us the unconscious and hereditary influence of century after century of blind and implicit faith. ”

“ Tung Fel was engaged with brush and ink when Yang Hu entered. Round him were many written parchments, some venerable with age, and a variety of other matters, among which might be clearly perceived weapons, and devices for reading the future. He greeted Yang with many tokens of dignified respect, and with an evidently restrained emotion led him towards the light of a hanging lantern, where he gazed into his face for a considerable period with every indication of exceptional concern. ”

“ An undefined mistrust of his own powers suddenly possessed him in the presence of this mystery. "How do you come to know of Nina Brun and Lord Seastoke?"
"You are a detective, Louis," replied Carrados. "How does one know these things? By using one's eyes and putting two and two together."
Carlyle groaned and flung out an arm petulantly.
"Is it all bunkum, Max? Do you really see all the time—though that doesn't go very far towards explaining it."
"Like Vidal, I see very well—at close quarters," replied Carrados, lightly running a forefinger along the inscription on the tetradrachm. ”

“ Salt had nothing more to offer them. His life was already a hostage to the honour of those whom he had allowed to pass. Others were pressing on to him with vengeance-laden cries. The terrible irresistible forward surge of a soulless mob, when individuality is merged into the dull brutishness of a trampling herd, was launched.
"Capt'n Stobalt!" cried a lusty voice at his shoulder.
Salt turned instinctively. A man in sailor's dress, with the guns and star of his grade upon his sleeve, had climbed along the arch of the railings with a sailor's resourcefulness, and had reached his ear. ”

“ A new and Heaven-sent confidence immediately took possession of Ling, and striking his sword against the wall with such irresistible force that the entire chamber trembled and the feeble-minded assassins shrank back in unrestrained terror, he leapt upon the table, grasping in one hand the open vessel.
“Behold the end, O most uninventive and slow-witted Chang-ch’un!” he cried in a dreadful and awe-compelling voice. “As a reward for your faithless and traitorous behaviour, learn how such avaricious-minded incompetence turns and fastens itself upon the vitals of those who beget it. ”

“ Behold I am stricken and out of place.”
“You are evil and your heart is fat with presumptuous pride!” exclaimed Wu Chi, releasing the cords of his hatred and anger so that they leapt out from his throat like the sudden spring of a tiger from a cave. “Evil in birth, grown under an evil star and now come to a full maturity. Go you shall, Weng Cho, and that on a straight journey forthwith or else bend your knees with an acquiescent face.” ”

“ Spinola continued to beam irrepressible benevolence.
"You are equally censorious, if more polite than Mr Crediton in expressing it, eh, my dear young friends?" he said.
"I thought that you were a genuine mathematician—I vouched for it," replied Sir Fergus with more regret than anything else. "And the extent of your achievement has been to contrive a vulgar imposture—in the guise of an ingenious inventor to swindle society by a sham automaton that doesn't even work."
"You thought that—you still think that?"
"What else is there to think? We have seen with our own eyes." ”

“ Ah, undiscriminating Kin Yen! are not the eyelashes of the person who is addressing you as threads of fine gold to junk’s cables when compared with those of the extremely commonplace female who is here pictured in the art of carrying a bucket? Can the most refined lack of vanity hide from you the fact that your own person is infinitely rounder than this of the evilly-intentioned-looking individual with the opium pipe? ”

“ Drishna."
"And how do you propose to prevent it?" asked Drishna, with cool assurance.
"It is very unpleasant being hanged on a dark winter morning; very cold, very friendless, very inhuman. The long trial, the solitude and the confinement, the thoughts of the long sleepless night before, the hangman and the pinioning and the noosing of the rope, are apt to prey on the imagination. Only a very stupid man can take hanging easily."
"What do you want me to do instead, Mr. Carrados?" asked Drishna shrewdly. ”