Stolen Souls

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Le Queux William. Stolen Souls

Chapter One. The Soul of Princess Tchikhatzoff

Chapter Two. The Golden Hand

Chapter Three. The Masked Circe

Chapter Four. The Man with the Fatal Finger

Chapter Five. Santina

Chapter Six. The Woman with a Blemish

Chapter Seven. The Sylph of the Terror

Chapter Eight. One Woman’s Sin

Chapter Nine. Vogue La Galère!

Chapter Ten. Fortune’s Fool

Chapter Eleven. Death-Kisses

Chapter Twelve. The City in the Sky

Chapter Thirteen. The Blood-Red Band

Chapter Fourteen. A Child of the Sun

Отрывок из книги

From my seat in the porch of the Fonda de Ezcurra I gazed upon the beautiful Bay of Zurriola, with its twinkling lights, crowded with a thousand fantastic shadows; I heard the creak of the row-locks and the plashing of oars, and the laughter of girls; and in the deep gloom not far away the faint music of violins and mandolines trembled in the air. So still was the night that the regular throbbing of paddle-wheels from a steamboat not yet visible formed a rumbling undertone to all the other sounds, and the summer moon bathed all things in its mystic light, throwing far out over the water into the Bay of Biscay a bright, shining pathway.

Across this path boats glided from time to time; on the asphalte walk at the edge of the beach fair flirtatious little dames in graceful mantillas passed to and fro, and as I lit a cigarette, I dreamed and dwelt upon the future.

.....

Little did the President of the Council dream that the list he had read out had been carefully noted by an eavesdropping journalist, and that even while his colleagues were congratulating each other upon the amicable solution of the crisis, the correspondent was busy preparing a list of the new Cabinet, which would be published in London in the morning, and known throughout England many hours before it became public in Spain.

Congratulating myself upon my good fortune, I finished my dispatch, waited until all the politicians had left the President’s room, and then descended to the table d’hôte. Opposite me sat Señor Romero y Robledo, the new Minister of Justice, but in reply to my carefully-veiled inquiries he gave no sign that a Cabinet had been formed. The decision was, I knew, a profound secret until the Queen had given her assent. While idling over dessert, with just an hour to catch my train to Bayonne, the waitress handed me a note, stating that a man-servant awaited a reply.

.....