Robert W. Chambers

“ There was still fire in the world; it flashed up at her touch and where she chose. A bow strung with the silk of her own hair, an arrow winged like a sea bird and tipped with shell, a line from the silver tendon of a deer, a hook of polished bone—these were the mysteries he learned, and learned them laughing, her silken head bent close to his.
The first night that the bow was wrought and the glossy string attuned, she stole into the moonlit forest to the brook; and there they stood, whispering, listening, and whispering, though neither understood the voice they loved. ”

“ As they sauntered on along the edge of Isla Water the lapwings rose into flight ahead. Once or twice the feathery whirr of brown grouse startled her. And once, on the edge of cultivated land, a partridge burst from the heather at her very feet—a "Frenchman" with his red legs and gay feathers brilliant in the sun.
Sun and shadow and white cloud, heath and moor and hedge and broad-tilled field alternated as they passed together along the edge of Isla Water and over the road to Isla—the enchanting river—interested in each other's conversation and in the loveliness of the sunny world about them. ”

“ There came a day late in April when, knee deep in palmetto scrub, the Dryad and Jones stood leaning upon their nets and scanning the wilderness for the swift-winged forest phantom they had sought so long. Ajax was on the wing; glimpse after glimpse they had of him, a pale shadow in the sun, a misty spot in the shadow, then nothing but miles of palmetto scrub and the pink stems of tall pines.
Suddenly an Ajax darted into the sunny glade where they stood, and a ragged, faded brother Ajax fluttered up from the ground and, Ajax-like, defied the living lightning. ”

“ Egerton's 20th Dragoons came out of a concealed valley on a trot, looking behind them, their rear squadron firing from the saddle in orderly retreat; the Zouaves, powder soiled, drenched in sweat, bloody, dishevelled, passed to the left of the battery and lay down.
Then, from far along the stretch of woods, arose a sound, incessant, high-pitched—a sustained treble cadence, nearer, nearer, louder, shriller, like the excited cry of a hunting pack, bursting into a paroxysm of hysterical chorus as a long line of gray men leaped from the wood's edge and swept headlong toward the guns. ”

“ Her mind was full of Murtagh Skeel, her heart of 362 Garry Barres, as she stood there in that blossoming solitude, listening to the robin and the fountain, while her eyes wandered across flower-bed, pool, and clipped greensward, and beyond the garden wall to the hill where three pines stood silver-green against the sky.
Little by little the thought of Murtagh Skeel faded from her mind; fuller and fuller grew her heart with confused emotions new to her—emotions too perplexing, too deep, too powerful, perhaps, for her to understand—or to know how to resist or to endure. ”

“ I called again, my tongue stiff with fright; but I called as one awaking from a dream—a horrid dream, for my nostrils quivered with the damp acrid odour, and I felt the crab-reptile clinging to my knee. Why had the night fallen so swiftly—and where was I—where?—stiff, chilled, torn, and bleeding, lying flung like a corpse over my own threshold, with Voyou licking my face and Barris stooping above me in the light of a lamp that flared and smoked in the night breeze like a torch. Faugh! ”

“ With a movement too swift for the eye to follow, his sword was out and glittering in his hand, and he sprang on Guild, beating at his guard, raining blows like lightning.
The girl had fallen against the table, one hand at her throat as though choking back the bursting cry of fright; her brain rang with the dissonance and metallic clamour; the flashing steel dazzled her. Two oak chairs fell crashing as Guild gave ground under the terrific onslaught; there was not a word spoken, not a sound except the infernal din of the sabres and the ceaseless shifting of armed heels on the floor. ”

“ Think of the exquisite bliss of drifting one's life through in mid-air—to sleep, balanced on light wings, upborne by invisible currents flowing under the stars—to sail dreamily through the long sunshine, to float under the moon!... And at last, I suppose, when its time has come, down it whirls out of the sky, stone dead!... There is something thrilling in such a death—something magnificent.... And in the exquisitely spiritual honeymoon, vague as the shadow of a rainbow, is the very essence and aroma of that impalpable Paradise we women prophesy in dreams!... ”