VictoryA story of rescue and violent tragedy set in the Malayan archipelago, 'Victory' combines high adventure with a sensitive portrayal of three drifters. |
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Page xii
... chairs , all alone in the loud buzzing of flies to which his immobility and his cadaverous aspect gave a most gruesome significance . Our invasion must have displeased him because he got off the chairs brusquely and walked out leaving ...
... chairs , all alone in the loud buzzing of flies to which his immobility and his cadaverous aspect gave a most gruesome significance . Our invasion must have displeased him because he got off the chairs brusquely and walked out leaving ...
Page 32
... chairs and tables ? " Davidson asked with unconcealed astonishment . Heyst did mean that . " My poor father died in London . It has been all stored there ever since , " he explained . " For all these years ? " exclaimed Davidson ...
... chairs and tables ? " Davidson asked with unconcealed astonishment . Heyst did mean that . " My poor father died in London . It has been all stored there ever since , " he explained . " For all these years ? " exclaimed Davidson ...
Page 35
... chairs and tables . Solitude , shade , and gloomy silence and a faint , treacherous breeze which came from under the trees and quite unexpectedly caused the melting Davidson to shiver slightly — the little shiver of the tropics which in ...
... chairs and tables . Solitude , shade , and gloomy silence and a faint , treacherous breeze which came from under the trees and quite unexpectedly caused the melting Davidson to shiver slightly — the little shiver of the tropics which in ...
Page 45
... chairs , the ping of a smitten bell . Customers were turn- ing up . up . Mrs. Schomberg was begging Davidson hurriedly , but without looking at him , to say nothing to any one , when on a half - uttered word her nervous whisper was cut ...
... chairs , the ping of a smitten bell . Customers were turn- ing up . up . Mrs. Schomberg was begging Davidson hurriedly , but without looking at him , to say nothing to any one , when on a half - uttered word her nervous whisper was cut ...
Page 59
... chair near him , and with no more than a mutter " This is something of yours " -he rammed it swiftly into a recess in the counter , at her feet . There ! The rest was her affair . And just in time , too . Schomberg turned up , yawning ...
... chair near him , and with no more than a mutter " This is something of yours " -he rammed it swiftly into a recess in the counter , at her feet . There ! The rest was her affair . And just in time , too . Schomberg turned up , yawning ...
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Common terms and phrases
ain't Alfuro arms asked believe boat breath brig bungalow chair cheroot chimæras Chinaman clairvoyance course dark Davidson door doorway eyes face faint feeling fellow felt frightened gaze gentleman gharry girl glance gleam gone governor gunwale hand hanging head hear heard Heyst hotel-keeper island Java Sea jetty Jones knew Lena light lips looked Malay Martin matter mean mind Morrison moustaches moved movement murmured mysterious never night Number once paused Pedro perhaps physiognomy quiet raised Ricardo round Samburan sarong sauceboat Schom Schomberg schooner seemed shadow shoulders side sight silence smile sort sound Sourabaya speak stare stood strange suddenly surprised Swede table d'hôte talk tell Tesmans There's thing thought tion told tone Tropical Belt Coal turned understand verandah voice walked Wang watched wharf What's whispered woman wonder words Zangiacomo
Popular passages
Page xv - The poor man has left a young daughter." Who was to look after her I don't know, but I saw the devoted Martin taking the trunks ashore with great care just before I landed myself. I would perhaps have tracked the ways of that man of immense sincerity for a little while, but I had some of my own very pressing business to attend to, which in the end got mixed up with an earthquake and so I had no time to give to Ricardo. The reader need not be told that I have not forgotten him, though. My contact...
Page 197 - Funny position, wasn't it? The boredom came later, when we lived together on board his ship. I had, in a moment of inadvertence, created for myself a tie. How to define it precisely I don't know. One gets attached in a way to people one has done something for. But is that friendship? I am not sure what it was. I only know that he who forms a tie is lost. The germ of corruption has entered into his soul.
Page 3 - THERE is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. It is the reason, I believe, why some people allude to coal as "black diamonds." Both these commodities represent wealth; but coal is a much less portable form of property. There is, from that point of view, a deplorable lack of concentration in coal. Now, if a coalmine could be put into one's waistcoat pocket — but it can't!
Page 165 - Are we likely to be seen on our way?" "No, unless by native craft," said Schomberg. Ricardo nodded, satisfied. Both these white men looked on native life as a mere play of shadows. A play of shadows the dominant race could walk through unaffected and disregarded in the pursuit of its incomprehensible aims and needs.
Page 72 - At last they steadied in contact, but by that time, say some fifteen minutes from the moment when they sat down, the "interval" came to an end. So much for their eyes. As to the conversation, it had been perfectly insignificant, because naturally they had nothing to say to each other. Heyst had been interested by the girl's physiognomy. Its expression was neither simple nor yet very clear. It was not distinguished — that could not be expected — but the features had more fineness than those of...
Page 104 - Latin races; and though his eyes strayed about irresolutely, yet his swollen, angry features awakened in the miserable woman over whom he had been tyrannising for years a fear for his precious carcass, since the poor creature had nothing else but that to hold on to in the world. She knew him well; but she did not know him altogether. The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage. And, timid in her corner, she ventured to...
Page 89 - Three years of such companionship at that plastic and impressionable age were bound to leave in the boy a profound mistrust of life. The young man learned to reflect, which is a destructive process, a reckoning of the cost.
Page 114 - Pedro, at any rate, was just a simple, straightforward brute, if a murderous one. There was no mystery about him, nothing uncanny, no suggestion of a stealthy, deliberate wild-cat turned into a man, or of an insolent spectre on leave from Hades, endowed with skin and bones and a subtle power of terror.
Page 397 - The very sting of death was in her hands; the venom of the viper in her paradise, extracted, safe in her possession — and the viper's head all but lying under her heel.
Page 31 - Hermit. This was the latest of the more or less witty labels applied to Heyst during his aimless pilgrimage in this section of the tropical belt, where the inane clacking of Schomberg's tongue vexed our ears. But apparently Heyst was not a hermit by temperament. The sight of his kind was not invincibly odious to him. We must believe this, since for some reason or other he did come out from his retreat for a while. Perhaps it was only to see whether there were any letters for him at the Tesmans. I...