Caine

“ Caine flew the ship.
"It's romantic, isn't it?" the woman said, from behind Caine. "The most valuable gem in the world, deep in the Venusian jungle, protected by the long, long cats, and my sweet Charles is going to get it for me. Bless you, Charles. You are an extraordinary husband. I hope the cats don't get you."
Caine heard the words, but his brain was too slow and thick with the drug to understand the sharpness of her words. He only moved the controls, feeling the gun Fairchild held against him. ”

“ Her voice was a high-pitched sound with no change of tone in it. "We'll never get out."
"Why don't you dance for us?" Caine said, blinking with the brightness of his suggestion.
"Move, Caine," the man said, prodding Caine's back. "She'll dance when I give her the gem."
Caine crawled slowly out of the cabin. The undercarriage had been smashed, and the cabin was level with the ground. It was like going into a sea of vapor when he got out of the ship.
How long? he thought, looking at his splintered arm. How long would the drug hang onto his brain? This was not himself. ”

“ Fairchild," Caine said briskly. "I'll get some blankets and sleep out here."
"Aren't there animals?"
"Not around here," Caine said. "I'll make a fire. If you want something to eat I'll get it out of the cabin for you."
"No, thank you, Mr. Caine," the woman said, sitting down in her chair. "I'll just enjoy the rest of my drink, if you don't mind."
"It's up to you," Caine said shortly. He was very careful to keep his eyes away from her. You handled a woman like that best, he knew, by keeping your eyes away from her.
He gathered wood from beneath the wet outer layer of the jungle floor. ”

“ It was full of that spirit of life and gayety which has been such a marked feature of Mr. Caine's work in the past, and was written with all of that fine, manly vigor that Mr. Caine puts into his every word. Sunshiny, I should call it, if I were seeking for the one word which summed up the virtues of "The Inebriate Santa Claus." One glowed as one perused it with the warmth of the whole thing, especially in such passages as this, for instance:
"His downward trip through the chimney of Marston Hall gave him confidence in himself. ”

“ Caine is yearly adding."—Public Opinion.
"A wonderfully strong study of character; a powerful analysis of those elements which go to make up the strength and weakness of a man, which are at fierce warfare within the same breast; contending against each other, as it were, the one to raise him to fame and power, the other to drag him down to degradation and shame. Never in the whole range of literature have we seen the struggle between these forces for supremacy over the man more powerfully, more realistically delineated than Mr. Caine pictures it."—Boston Home Journal. ”

“ His tall figure stooped, there was a cloud on his strong brow, and a slow fire in his bloodshot eyes, and his red hair, long as a woman's, hung in disordered masses down his worn cheeks to his shoulders. The Bishop, a venerable prelate of great age, looked at him and thought, "That man's heart is dead within him."
The spokesman of the Court was a middle-aged man, who was short, had little piercing eyes, a square brush of iron-gray hair that stood erect across the top of his corded forehead, and a crisp, clear utterance, like the crackle of a horse's hoofs on the frost. ”

“ The more one reads and reflects on this passage and on the hundred similar gems of description which can be found in any of his novels, the more wonderful and absolute appears his mastery over that unctuous, fatuous, idiotic, pseudo-poetic 'high-falutin' which is the despair of his rivals in popular bathetical pathos.
Now let us see how Mr. Caine's men and women live and move and have their being in the enchanted realms of his art. Almost any passage taken at random will do. Here is one:
'That same day the poor black boy bade farewell to Israel and Naomi. ”

“ The Archdeacon was there that day, and when the intruder had been evicted by blind Kerry, who came in hot pursuit of him, he shook his head and looked as solemn and as wise as his little russet face would admit, and said:
"Ah, my Lord, you'll kill that child with kindness. May you never heap up for yourself a bad harvest!" ”

“ When he saw Philip, he came up to him with a terrible smile on his fierce black face, and, pointing to the house, he cried above the babel of voices, the roar of the thunder, and crackle of the fire, “An unclean spirit lived in it, sir. It has been tormenting me these ten years.”
He seemed to listen and to hear something. “That's it roaring,” he cried, and then he laughed with wild delight.
“Compose yourself, Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, and he tried to take him by the arm.
But Cæsar broke away, blew a terrific blast on his ram's horn, and went striding round the house again. ”

“ Lord keep him from the gallows and hell-fire! Oh, it's a refreshing saison. It was God spaking to me by Providence when I tould you to put money on that mortgage. What's the Scripture saying, 'For brass I bring thee goold'? Turn him out, sir, turn him out.”
“Didn't you tell me that ould Ballawhaine had a polatic stroke?” said Pete.
“I did; but he's a big man; let him pay his way,” said Cæsar. ”

“ What's it sayin'—'Black as is the raven, he'll get a partner;' but Bill, poor chap, he must be for makin' a raven out of a dove."
"God won't be hard on the masther. No, no, God'll never be hard on a good heart because it keeps company with a bad head."
"It'll be Bill, poor chap, that'll have to stand for it when the big days comes," said Davy Cain.
"No, not that anyway. Still, for sure, it's every herring must hang by his own gill. Aw, yes, man," said Tommy Tear.
"Poor Masther Christian," said Quilleash, "I remember him since he was a baby in his mother's arms—and a fine lady, too. ”

“ The sound was repeated, but louder, clearer, shriller than before. There could be no mistaking it now. It was Nature's eternal signal that out of the womb of silence a living soul had been born into the world.
"It's over," said my father.
"Glory be to God and all the Saints!" said Father Dan.
"That'll beat 'em," cried my father, and he leapt to his feet and laughed.
Going to the door of the room, he flung it open. The servants in the hall were now whispering eagerly, and one of them, the gardener, Tom Dug, commonly called Tommy the Mate, stepped out and asked if he ought to ring the big bell. ”

“ He talked in a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate Kate's fault and to excuse her to Philip.
“It's no use thinking hard of anybody, is it, sir?” he said. “We can't crawl into another person's soul, as the saying is.” ”

“ Though no sound of oars could reach her, she could now see the clear outline of a boat scudding through the lighter patch of water just inside the castle's shadow. It was Danny! God bless and keep him on earth and in heaven! How the lad rowed! Light as the dip of a feather, and swift as the eagle flies! Bravely, Danny, bravely!
The clock in the tower of the old church in the Market-place was striking. How the bell echoed on this lonely height!—six, seven, eight, nine! Nine o'clock? Then the merchantman ought to be near at hand. Mona strained her eyes into the darkness. She could see nothing. ”

“ With visions of a Moorish prison before my eyes I dared not raise my hand. One weapon alone could I, in my own cowardice, employ against them—bribes, bribes, bribes. Such was the sole instrument with which I combated their laziness, their duplicity, and their deceit.
Father, I was a pitiful sight in my weakness and my impatience. We had not gone far out of Fez when I observed that the man Larby was at the heels of our company. This alarmed me, and I called to my guide.
"Alee," I said, "who is that evil-looking fellow?"
Alee threw up both hands in amazement. "Evil-looking fellow!" he cried. ”

“ Christian now realized that death encircled him on every side. To remain in this pit was death; to be lifted out of it was death no less surely. To escape was hopeless. He looked up at the sky. It was a small square patch of leaden gray against the impenetrable blackness of his prison walls.
Standing on the ledge of rock, and steadying himself with one hand, he lifted the other stealthily upward to feel the sides of the shaft. They were of rock and were precipitous, but had rugged projecting pieces on which it was possible to lay hold. ”

“ The other man—barely thirty, yet already old, having missed his youth, his thin cheeks pallid as linen, his eyes burning with a somber light—alone in the world, desolate, apart—walking with an uncertain step and a tremor of the whole frame, which seemed to lurch for poise and balance, yet swinging his arms with the sweep of the melody, and smiling a forced smile through his hard and whitened lips. ”

“ Great doings yonder, they're telling me. Battles, sir, great battles.”
Ross elevated his eyebrows. “Have you heard of them then?” he asked.
“Aw, heard enough,” said Cæsar, “meetings, and conferences, and conventions, and I don't know what.”
“Oh, oh, I see,” said Ross, with a look at Kate.
“They're doing without hell in England now-a-days—that's a quare thing, sir. Conditional immorality they're calling it—the singlerest thing I know. Taking hell away drops the tailboard out of a man's religion, eh?”
The time for closing came, and Philip had waited in vain. ”

“ Nobody there to spake of, neither; only myself and the tenants mostly.”
“Where was Ross?”
“Gone, sir, without waiting to see his foolish ould father pushed under the sod. Well, there was not much to wait for neither. The young man has been a besom of fire and burnt up everything. Not so much left as would buy a rope to hang him. And Ballawhaine is mine, sir; mine in a way of spak-ing—my son-in-law's, anyway—and he has given me the right to have and to hould it. Aw, a Sabbath time, sir; a Sabbath time. I made up my mind to have it the night the man struck me in my own house in Sulby. ”

“ She was no longer a restless gleam of sunlight, a reckless spirit of joy, but a weak, patient, blind maiden, conscious of her great infirmity, humbled by it, and thinking shame of it.
One afternoon, deserting the swing in the patio, she went out with the children into the fields. The day was hot, and they wandered far down the banks and dry bed of the Marteel. And as they ran and raced, the little black people plucked the wild flowers, and called to the cattle and the sheep and the dogs, and whistled to the linnets that whistled to their young. ”

“ With a proud lift of his white head my father pointed out the beauties of his new possession, while my intended husband, with his monocle to his eye, looked on with a certain condescension, and answered with a languid humour that narrowly bordered on contempt.
"Oak, sir, solid oak," said my father, rapping with his knuckles on the tall, dark, heavy wainscoting.
"As old as our hearts and as hard as our heads, I suppose," said Lord Raa.
"Harder than some, sir," said my father.
"Exactly," said Lord Raa in his slow drawl, and then there was general laughter. ”

“ She was ill, very ill, but she was also worse than ill. I must let her escape from our engagement. It had been the joy and the charm of her life, but now it was the terror and torment of her existence. She must break it, I must go back to London, we must never think of each other again. God forgive her and pity her; God be good to me and keep me and preserve me.
Such a letter could have but one effect. I snatched up my hat, and turned my face towards Clousedale Hall. While going through the village I walked briskly, but on reaching the lanes I set off to run. ”

“ A knife and fork, Nancy. We're no people for knife and fork to a herring, sir. And a plate for Mr. Christian, woman; a gentleman usually likes a plate. Now ate, sir, ate and welcome—but where's your friend, though?”
“Pete! oh! he's not far off.” Saying this, Philip interrupted his laughter to distribute sage winks between Nancy Joe and Grannie.
Cæsar looked around with a potato half peeled in his fingers. “And the girl—where's Kate?” he asked.
“She's not far off neither,” said Philip, still winking vigorously. “But don't trouble about them, Mr. Cregeen. They'll want no supper. ”

“ Alee, the guide, was at my right side settling my lumbering foot in my stirrup. I felt him touch the sheath of my knife, and then I remembered that it must be empty.
"Sidi has lost his dagger," he said. "Look!"
The Consul, who had been on my left, wheeled round by the horse's head, glanced at the useless sheath that was stuck in the belt of my jacket, and then looked back into my stupid face.
"Sidi is ill," he said quietly; "ride quickly, my men, lose no time, get him out of the country without delay!" ”

“ Don Camillo was waiting with horses for his party, and they mounted immediately. The horse for Roma was a quiet bay mare with limpid eyes. General Potter helped her to the saddle, and she went cantering through the long lush grass.
"What has your charming young charge been doing with herself, Princess?" said the American. "She was always beautiful, but to-day she's lovely."
"She's like Undine after she had found her soul," said the Englishman.
The little Princess laughed. "Love and a cough cannot be hidden, gentlemen," she whispered, with a look toward David Rossi. ”