Achmed Abdullah

“ Here, Wapping and the East India and Commercial and Victoria Docks spilled over with taverns and sailors' boarding-houses and ship-chandlers' and second hand stores where every last mildewy curio a sailor, for reasons only known to himself, packs in his dunnage, from Korean brass to broken bits of Yunan jade, from white Gulf corals to bundles of yellow Latakia tobacco leaves, can be bought. Too, men from all the corners of the globe ”

“ And, with a great jerk and heave, he freed himself, sending 'Enery crashing into Bill, Bill into the third man, jumped back, and reached in his inside pocket for the ancient blade.
He did it instinctively, unthinkingly. Hitherto, by the token of his English blood and training, by the token of an English gentleman's strange, wonderful, foolish prejudices, he had still been fighting according to the unwritten Anglo-Saxon rules, had still been playing the game, had refused to use fist or elbow or hit below the belt. ”

“ In which a russet-haired girl from New York comes into the tale and in which, furthermore, the blade flashes free, putting several low knaves to rout.
Like many others of Britain's leading families, the Wades of Dealle, though of “county” stock, were more intimately connected with the Orient than with the yellow Sussex wold where they had settled in the days of Hengist and Horsa.
Generation after generation, they had assisted at the clouting of England's imperial fortunes in India. ”

“ There was a glow in his heart. The world did not seem so black after all; and it was all because of a girl's hazel-brown eyes, because there was a sweet curve to her upper lip and a quick, whimsical lift at the corners. ”

“ Too, generation after generation, they had been born in India. Both Hector and his brother had first seen the light of day in some stinking, miasmic Central Indian cantonment, and they had never forgotten a word of the native dialect which their brown Behari nurse had taught them before they had learned a word of English. ”

“ There was, furthermore, an old tradition, its original cause lost in the mists of the past, by which every Wade of Dealle was given a thorough grounding in Persian, the language which is to the polite Moslem elements of India and Central Asia what French was to the European society of a generation earlier.
Thus India had always been home to them. Perhaps more than home. ”

“ A sickening smell of gin and sweat and rank tobacco rose to his nostrils. His temples throbbed. The roof of his mouth felt parched.
Grappling, straining, cursing, he fell to the ground, 'Enery on top of him. Bill booting him in the ribs, the third man dancing about, watching his chance for a knockout blow. He shot his fist to Hector's jaw, bending down; but the latter jerked his head back in the nick of time; and, the next second, with a sudden, hard bunching of muscles, he pinioned 'Enery's arms to his sides, spread his strong legs, and tried desperately to pull himself on top. ”

“ At one and the same time he was trying to land blow, to parry blow, to sidestep kicking feet and crashing elbows, and to gain the side of the man and the girl, and the odds were against him; a rough knuckle caught him on the left temple, an open palm hit the point of his chin, the man called 'Enery dodged within the very crook of Hector's powerful right arm, and grappled, the others closing in the next moment like hounds pulling down a stag. ”