Masterpieces of
Adventure
In Four Volumes
Edited by
Nella Braddy
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
TO
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, PH.D.
EDITOR'S NOTE
In these volumes the word adventure has beenused in its broadest sense to cover not only strangehappenings in strange places but also love and lifeand death—all things that have to do with the greatadventure of living. Questions as to the fitness of astory were settled by examining the qualities of thenarrative as such rather than by reference to atechnical classification of short stories.
It is the inalienable right of the editor of a workof this kind to plead copyright difficulties inextenuation for whatever faults it may possess. We beg thereader to believe that this is why his favorite storywas omitted while one vastly inferior was included.
CONTENTS
I. THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST
Frank Norris
II. A NIGHTMARE OF THE DOLDRUMS
W. Clark Russell
III. THE KITE
Major-General E. D. Swinton, D.S.O.
IV. SUPERDIRIGIBLE "GAMMA-I"
Donn Byrne
V. THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER OF ASPINWALL
Henryk Sienkiewicz
VI. THE WRECK
Guy de Maupassant
VII. A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM
Edgar Allan Poe
MASTERPIECES OF ADVENTURE
Masterpieces of
Adventure
STORIES OF THE SEA AND SKY
FRANK NORRIS
Very much of this story must remain untold,for the reason that if it were definitely knownwhat business I had aboard the trampsteam-freighter Glarus, three hundred miles off theSouth American coast on a certain summer's day,some few years ago, I would very likely be obligedto answer a great many personal and direct questionsput by fussy and impertinent experts in maritimelaw—who are paid to be inquisitive. Also, I wouldget "Ally Bazan," Strokher and Hardenberg intotrouble.
Suppose on that certain summer's day, you hadasked of Lloyds's agency where the Glarus was, andwhat was her destination and cargo. You wouldhave been told that she was twenty days out fromCallao, bound North to San Francisco in ballast;that she had been spoken by the bark Medea andthe steamer Benevento; that she was reported tohave blown out a cylinder head, but beingmanageable was proceeding on her way under sail.
That is what Lloyds's would have answered.
If you know something of the ways of ships andwhat is expected of the