The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ensign Knightley and Other Stories, by A. E.
W. Mason

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Title: Ensign Knightley and Other Stories

Author: A. E. W. Mason

Release Date: July 9, 2004 [eBook #12859]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER
STORIES***

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ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER STORIES

By

A. E. W. MASON

Author of "The Courtship of Morrice Buckler," "The Watchers,"
"Parson Kelly," etc.

1901

CONTENTS.

ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY
THE MAN OF WHEELS
MR. MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE
THE COWARD
THE DESERTER
THE CROSSED GLOVES
THE SHUTTERED HOUSE
KEEPER OF THE BISHOP
THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND"
HOW BARRINGTON RETURNED TO JOHANNESBURG
HATTERAS
THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE
A LIBERAL EDUCATION
THE TWENTY-KRONER STORY
THE FIFTH PICTURE

ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.

It was eleven o'clock at night when Surgeon Wyley of His Majesty's
ship _Bonetta_ washed his hands, drew on his coat, and walked from the
hospital up the narrow cobbled street of Tangier to the Main-Guard by
the Catherine Port. In the upper room of the Main-Guard he found
Major Shackleton of the Tangier Foot taking a hand at bassette with
Lieutenant Scrope of Trelawney's Regiment and young Captain Tessin of
the King's Battalion. There were three other officers in the room, and
to them Surgeon Wyley began to talk in a prosy, medical strain. Two of
his audience listened in an uninterested stolidity for just so long as
the remnant of manners, which still survived in Tangier, commanded,
and then strolling through the open window on to the balcony, lit
their pipes.

Overhead the stars blazed in the rich sky of Morocco; the
riding-lights of Admiral Herbert's fleet sprinkled the bay; and below
them rose the hum of an unquiet town. It was the night of May 13th,
1680, and the life of every Christian in Tangier hung in the balance.
The Moors had burst through the outposts to the west, and were now
entrenched beneath the walls. The Henrietta Redoubt had fallen that
day; to-morrow the little fort at Devil's Drop, built on the