PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
Project Gutenberg Archive
Complete unabridged public-domain literary work from the Project Gutenberg archive.
Project Ashabi is being built as the home of original African comics, webtoons, graphic novels, and fiction.
This third-party Novel / Book title is temporary preview content. Step by step, third-party titles will be phased out and replaced exclusively by Ashabi Originals created by African writers and artists.
DEDICATED TO MY WIFE ALICE LUCILLE WREN
PART I. THE WELDING OF A SOUL CHAPTER I. The Snake and the Soul
PART II. THE SEARING OF A SOUL CHAPTER II. The Sword and the Snake CHAPTER III. The Snake Appears CHAPTER IV. The Sword and the Soul CHAPTER V. Lucille CHAPTER VI. The Snake’s “Myrmidon” CHAPTER VII. Love—and the Snake CHAPTER VIII. Troopers of the Queen CHAPTER IX. A Snake avenges a Haddock and Lucille behaves in an un-Smelliean Manner CHAPTER X. Much Ado about Almost Nothing—A Mere Trooper CHAPTER XI. More Myrmidons
PART III. THE SAVING OF A SOUL CHAPTER XII. Vultures and Luck—Good and Bad CHAPTER XIII. Found CHAPTER XIV. The Snake and the Sword Seven Years After EPILOGUE
When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the Queen’s Own (118th) Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to the bosom of his dying wife’s night-dress, in token of his recognition that she was the braver of the twain, he was not himself.
Afterwards he adjured the sole witness of this impulsive and emotional act, Major John Decies, never to mention his “damned theatrical folly” to any living soul, and to excuse him on the score of an ancient sword-cut on the head and two bad sun-strokes.
For the one thing in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, that Colonel de Warrenne feared, was breach of good form and stereotyped convention.
And the one thing he loved was the dying woman.
Arthur Conan Doyle
