Within the Tides: Tales |
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arms ashore asked Bamtz boat breath bungalow Byrne cabin Captain Harry chair Chinaman Cloete's coxswain cried Cuba dark Davidson dead deck devil door Dunbar Editor eyes face faint feeling fellow felt Frenchman George George Dunbar ghost girl hair hammock hands head hear heard heart homunculus Kalashes knew lady Laughing Anne lazarette life-boat light lips lived look Luiz Malata Malay mean mind Miss Moorsom mule murmured muttered mysterious never Niclaus night nouard oilskins old Dunster once Pearler perhaps poor prau Professor Moorsom Renouard round Sagamore says Cloete schooner seemed señor ship silence Sissie sitting smile sort sound speak Stafford staring stood suddenly talk tell terrace There's thing thought told tone Tottenham Court Road turned voice waiting walked What's whispered Willie witches woman words
Popular passages
Page 126 - He's gone bathing and got drowned," cried the Editor in dismay. "I doubt it, sir. If he had been drowned anywhere within a mile from the shore the body would have been washed out on the reefs. And our boats have found nothing so far." Nothing was ever found — and Renouard's disappearance remained in the main inexplicable. For to whom could it have occurred that a man would set out calmly to swim beyond the confines of life — with a steady stroke — his eyes fixed on a star?, Next evening, from...
Page 185 - But it would have been too much trouble to cook it for the consumption of magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak — just as it was told to me — but unfortunately robbed of the striking effect of the narrator; the most imposing old ruffian that ever followed the unromantie trade of master stevedore in the port of London.
Page 44 - HE WENT on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if suspended, in the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with the ashy gleam of the vast anchorage. He tried to keep his thoughts as sober, as reasonable, as measured as his words had been, lest they should get away from him and cause some sort of moral disaster. What he was afraid of in the coming night was sleeplessness and the endless strain of that wearisome task. It had to be faced however. He lay on his back, sighing profoundly in the...
Page 45 - At last the lamp went out, and he stumbled against some object which, when he stooped for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift. The sickly white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue. Its marble hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its lips the chisel had left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss Moorsom.
Page 91 - Renouard set his direction by a big star that, dipping on the horizon, seemed to look curiously in his face. On this swim back he felt the mournful fatigue of all that length of the traversed road, which brought him no nearer to his desire. It was as if his love had sapped the invisible supports of his strength. There came a moment when it seemed to him that he must have swum beyond the confines of life. He had a sensation of eternity close at hand, demanding no effort — offering its peace.
Page 68 - ... coming on. But many of the windows were not lighted that evening. It was dark over there. She appeared to him luminous in her clear dress, a figure without shape, a face without features, awaiting his approach, till he got quite near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged a few insignificant words. Gradually she came out like a magic painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing mysteriously on the dark background. Something imperceptible in the lines of her attitude, in the modulations...
Page 113 - No, you are merely of the topmost layer, disdainful and superior, the mere pure froth and bubble on the inscrutable depths which some day will toss you out of existence. But you are you! You are you! You are the eternal love itself—only, O Divinity, it isn't your body, it is your soul that is made of foam.
Page 193 - Spaniards, guerilleros or secret juntas of the province. Something of the sort. All this can be only inferred from the preserved scraps of his conscientious writing. Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a member of the ship's company, having the rating of the captain's coxswain. He was known on board as Cuba Tom; not because he was Cuban however; he was indeed the best type of a genuine British tar of that time, and a man-of-war's man for years. He came by the name on account of...
Page 52 - ... exhausted, broken, shaken up, as though he had been put to the most exquisite torture. When he saw her approaching he always had a moment of hallucination. She was a misty and fair creature, fitted for invisible music, for the shadows of love, for the murmurs of waters. After a time (he could not always be staring at the ground) he would summon up all his resolution and look at her. There was a sparkle in the clear obscurity of her eyes; and when she turned them on him they seemed to give a new...
Page 211 - In one of these pauses borne in the wind faintly, as if from very far away, he heard a sound of knocking, just knocking on wood. He noticed that the wind had lulled suddenly. His heart started beating tumultuously because in himself he carried the impression of the desert solitudes he had been traversing for the last six hours — the oppressive sense of an uninhabited world. When he raised his head a gleam of light, illusory as it often happens in dense darkness, swam before his eyes. While he peered,...