The Portal of Dreams

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Charles Buck. The Portal of Dreams

CHAPTER I. A VISION UPON A WARNING

CHAPTER II. PURSUING A WILL-O'-THE-WISP

CHAPTER III. I EMBARK ON A FOOL'S ERRAND

CHAPTER IV. SOME PASSAGES FROM A DIARY

CHAPTER V. PREMONITIONS BECOME REALITIES

CHAPTER VI. THE END OF THE "WASTREL"

CHAPTER VII. IN STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES

CHAPTER VIII. NATURE INDULGES IN SATIRE

CHAPTER IX. A PORTRAIT AND A TEMPLE

CHAPTER X. I SEEK ORCHIDS

CHAPTER XI. I FIND MYSELF A DEMI-GOD

CHAPTER XII. PORT AND STARBOARD LIGHTS

CHAPTER XIII. ENTER THE INFANTRYMAN

CHAPTER XIV. THE "ASH-TRASH LADY"

CHAPTER XV. TWO DISCOVERIES

CHAPTER XVI. AN INTERVIEW AND A CRISIS

CHAPTER XVII. WE GO TO THE MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER XVIII. A CHAT WITH A DICTATOR

CHAPTER XIX. A VOLLEY FROM THE LAUREL

CHAPTER XX. A CAVALCADE FROM THE LAUREL

CHAPTER XXI. I GO WALKING AND MEET ENEMIES

CHAPTER XXII. I FAIL TO RETURN HOME

CHAPTER XXIII. THE OFFER OF PAROLE

CHAPTER XXIV. MY DAY IN COURT

CHAPTER XXV. BEING LAUGHED AT

CHAPTER XXVI. HOW IT ENDED – AND BEGAN

Отрывок из книги

Aunt Sarah and the girls were much annoyed and their annoyance did not grow less when, after a half-hour of diagnosis, the chauffeur emerged, grease-stained and exhausted from under the car, shaking his head. He frankly admitted that his worm's eye view had failed to enlighten him as to the trouble. Aunt Sarah turned upon me eyes mirroring a faith sufficient to move even stalled motor cars.

"I am sure, my dear," she said, sweetly, "your mechanical aptitude can find a remedy for this difficulty."

.....

I thought it the part of wisdom to refrain from mentioning until the actual moment of their departure that my own way lay in an opposite direction. But when I had seen them settled in their first-class compartments and the accommodating guard had reassured me by locking them in, I turned with a sigh of contentment and fled back to Monte Carlo. I had been absent only a few days, but I returned to a dusty and desolate town. Perhaps the numbers of gamblers and pleasure-seekers had not actually diminished. Perhaps they had even increased, but a day's search satisfied me that the unknown lady had gone, and for me the town was empty.

What idiosyncrasy drove me to the Holy Land, I cannot say, unless it was that after my exhausting term of cathedral inspection I felt a desire to have a look at that temple which, except for the Taj Mahal, has always appealed to me as the world's most beautiful place of worship – the Mosque of Omar.

.....