The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blue Lights, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Blue Lights
Hot Work in the Soudan

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21719]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE LIGHTS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

BLUE LIGHTS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN.

THE FALSE STEP.

There is a dividing ridge in the great northern wilderness of America,
whereon lies a lakelet of not more than twenty yards in diameter. It is
of crystal clearness and profound depth, and on the still evenings of
the Indian summer its surface forms a perfect mirror, which might serve
as a toilet-glass for a Redskin princess.

We have stood by the side of that lakelet and failed to note the
slightest symptom of motion in it, yet somewhere in its centre there was
going on a constant and mysterious division of watery particles, and
those of them which glided imperceptibly to the right flowed southward
to the Atlantic, while those that trembled to the left found a
resting-place by the frozen shores of Hudson's Bay.

As it is with the flow and final exit of those waters, so is it,
sometimes, if not always, with the spirit and destiny of man.

Miles Milton, our hero, at the age of nineteen, stood at the dividing
ridge of his life. If the oscillating spirit, trembling between right
and wrong, had decided to lean to the right, what might have been his
fate no one can tell. He paused on the balance a short time, then he
leaned over to the left, and what his fate was it is the purpose of this
volume to disclose. At the outset, we may remark that it was not
unmixed good. Neither was it unmitigated evil.

Miles had a strong body, a strong will, and a somewhat passionate
temper: a compound which is closely allied to dynamite!

His father, unfortunately, was composed of much the same materials. The
consequences were sometimes explosive. It might have profited the son
much had he studied the Scripture lesson, "Children, obey your parents
in the Lord." Not less might it have benefited the father to have
pondered the words, "