Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
Lord Thornaby smiled grimly on the rest of us, when he had nodded and dismissed the author like a hound from the leash. "It's a good thing we know something about our friend Parrington," said my lord. "He takes more kindly to all this than I do, I can tell you." "It's grist to his mill," said Raffles charitably. "Exactly! We shall have the whole thing in his next book."
"Two regiments," said Webster, more to himself than to the others. And then, turning to Harryman, he asked briskly: "When are the transports expected to arrive?" "The steamers with two regiments on board left 'Frisco on April 10th, therefore he counted the days on his fingers they should be here by now." "No, they were to go straight to Mindanao," said Parrington. "Straight to Mindanao?"
I had made up my mind about him, and that in a tithe of the time I take to make it up as a rule, when we heard my man in the dressing-room. He greeted us with an impudent shout; in a few moments the door was open, and there stood Parrington, flushed and dishevelled, with a gimlet in one hand and a wedge in the other. Within was a scene of eloquent disorder.
Ten minutes later the commander of the Danzig stepped on the bridge of the Mindoro, introduced himself to her commander, and asked for a pilot to take him through the mines in the roads. Parrington regarded him with astonishment. "Mines, my dear sir, mines? There are no mines here." The German stared at Parrington unbelievingly. "You have no mines?" "No," said Parrington.
But if Parrington was exonerated in my mind, so also was Raffles reinstated in the regard of those who had entertained a far graver and more dangerous hypothesis. It was a miracle of good luck, a coincidence among coincidences, which had white-washed him in their sight at the very moment when they were straining the expert eye to sift him through and through.
And for once I understood: the officious attitude of Parrington, without being seriously suspicious in itself, was admirably calculated to put a previously suspected person in a grateful shade. This literary adventurer had elbowed Raffles out of the limelight, and gratitude for the service was what I had detected in Raffles's voice. No need to say how grateful I felt myself.
"A trap into which we are rushing at full speed," continued Webster, laying stress on each word, though his thoughts seemed to be far in advance of what he was saying. Harryman nodded and twisted his mustache. "What did you say?" asked Parrington, jumping up and looking from Webster to Harryman, neither of whom, however, volunteered a reply. "We are stumbling into a trap?"
"A creature like that doesn't see or hear a thing." The colonel glared at Webster, and then noisily mixed his drink. Harryman and Parrington walked along the quay in silence, their steps resounding loudly in the stillness of the night.
Harryman could not sleep, and joined the officer on duty on the bridge, where the slight breeze which came from the mountains afforded a little coolness. On board the Mindoro Parrington had found orders to take the relief guard for the wireless telegraph station to Mariveles the next morning.
Parrington stood still. "Harryman," he said, repeating his former question, "do you believe there is danger " "I don't know, I really don't know," said Harryman nervously. Then, seizing Parrington's hands, he continued hurriedly, but in a low voice: "For days I have been living as if in a trance.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking