The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dragon's blood, by Henry Milner Rideout

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Title: Dragon's blood

Author: Henry Milner Rideout

Release Date: November 27, 2003 [EBook #10321]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAGON'S BLOOD ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders

DRAGON'S BLOOD

by

HENRY MILNER RIDEOUT

with illustrations by HAROLD M. BRETT

1909

To
CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND,
15 Hollis Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Cope,

Mr. Peachey Carnehan, when he returned from Kafiristan, in bad shape but
with a king's head in a bag, exclaimed to the man in the newspaper
office, "And you've been sitting there ever since!" There is only a pig
in the following poke; and yet in giving you the string to cut and the
bag to open, I feel something of Peachey's wonder to think of you,
across all this distance and change, as still sitting in your great
chair by the green lamp, while past a dim background of books moves the
procession of youth. Many of us, growing older in various places,
remember well your friendship, and are glad that you are there, urging
our successors to look backward into good books, and forward into life.

Yours ever truly,
H. M. R.
_Sausalito, California_.

CONTENTS

I. A LADY AND A GRIFFIN
II. THE PIED PIPER
III. UNDER FIRE
IV. THE SWORD-PEN
V. IN TOWN
VI. THE PAGODA
VII. IPHIGENIA
VIII. THE HOT NIGHT
IX. PASSAGE AT ARMS
X. THREE PORTALS
XI. WHITE LOTUS
XII. THE WAR BOARD
XIII. THE SPARE MAN
XIV. OFF DUTY
XV. KAU FAI
XVI. THE GUNWALE
XVII. LAMP OF HEAVEN
XVIII. SIEGE
XIX. BROTHER MOLES
XX. THE HAKKA BOAT
XXI. THE DRAGON'S SHADOW

ILLUSTRATIONS

_"Good-by! A pleasant voyage"_ ... Frontispiece

_Rudolph was aware of crowded bodies, of yellow faces grinning_

_He let the inverted cup dangle from his hands_

_He went leaping from sight over the crest_

CHAPTER I

A LADY AND A GRIFFIN

It was "about first-drink time," as the captain of the Tsuen-Chau, bound
for Shanghai and Japan ports, observed to his friend