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A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

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The David Balfour Adventures

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The David Balfour Adventures
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Author(s): Robert Louis Stevenson
Date Published: 2013/12
Page Count: 452
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-78282-258-5
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-78282-257-8

Two linked classics of adventure fiction

Robert Louis Stevenson was a writer of such outstanding talent that, despite being the author a comparatively small body of work, most of his novels—’Treasure Island,’ ‘The Black Arrow,’ ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ among them—have become enduring classics. Almost all have been filmed, serialised for television, produced as radio plays or have become stage productions. ‘Kidnapped’—the first book in this special Leonaur edition—is almost as well known as Stevenson’s wonderful tale of pirates and buried treasure. The story is set in Scotland after the events of 1745, when ‘the prince from over the water’ Charles Stewart gambled everything in an attempt to return the House of Stewart to the nation’s throne. Fighting with the highland clans he had some initial success, but at Culloden Moor came ruin in battle and the prince and many of his followers became fugitives in the heather hunted by the red coated soldiers of the English victors. A few years later young David Balfour, seeks to gain his rightful inheritance, but his plans go disastrously wrong, of course, and he is kidnapped until assistance comes from rakish, Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart—a dangerous man with a price on his head. David Balfour’s adventures continued in the less well known sequel to ‘Kidnapped,’ ‘Catriona,’ in which he, Alan and Catriona Drummond—the love of David’s life—experience more high adventure as they battle for justice and freedom. This special Leonaur edition includes both novels and is an ideal way for enthusiasts and new readers to enjoy David Balfour’s entire story in one good value volume.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

I do not know if I was what you call afraid; but my heart beat like a bird’s, both quick and little; and there was a dimness came before my eyes which I continually rubbed away, and which continually returned. As for hope, I had none; but only a darkness of despair and a sort of anger against all the world that made me long to sell my life as dear as I was able. I tried to pray, I remember, but that same hurry of my mind, like a man running, would not suffer me to think upon the words; and my chief wish was to have the thing begin and be done with it.
It came all of a sudden when it did, with a rush of feet and a roar, and then a shout from Alan, and a sound of blows and some one crying out as if hurt. I looked back over my shoulder, and saw Mr. Shuan in the doorway, crossing blades with Alan.
“That’s him that killed the boy!” I cried.
“Look to your window!” said Alan; and as I turned back to my place, I saw him pass his sword through the mate’s body.
It was none too soon for me to look to my own part; for my head was scarce back at the window, before five men, carrying a spare yard for a battering-ram, ran past me and took post to drive the door in. I had never fired with a pistol in my life, and not often with a gun; far less against a fellow-creature. But it was now or never; and just as they swang the yard, I cried out: “Take that!” and shot into their midst.
I must have hit one of them, for he sang out and gave back a step, and the rest stopped as if a little disconcerted. Before they had time to recover, I sent another ball over their heads; and at my third shot (which went as wide as the second) the whole party threw down the yard and ran for it.
Then I looked round again into the deck-house. The whole place was full of the smoke of my own firing, just as my ears seemed to be burst with the noise of the shots. But there was Alan, standing as before; only now his sword was running blood to the hilt, and himself so swelled with triumph and fallen into so fine an attitude, that he looked to be invincible. Right before him on the floor was Mr. Shuan, on his hands and knees; the blood was pouring from his mouth, and he was sinking slowly lower, with a terrible, white face; and just as I looked, some of those from behind caught hold of him by the heels and dragged him bodily out of the round-house. I believe he died as they were doing it.
“There’s one of your Whigs for ye!” cried Alan; and then turning to me, he asked if I had done much execution.
I told him I had winged one, and thought it was the captain.
“And I’ve settled two,” says he. “No, there’s not enough blood let; they’ll be back again. To your watch, David. This was but a dram before meat.”
I settled back to my place, re-charging the three pistols I had fired, and keeping watch with both eye and ear.
Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the deck, and that so loudly that I could hear a word or two above the washing of the seas.
“It was Shuan bauchled (bungled) it,” I heard one say.
And another answered him with a “Wheesht, man! He’s paid the piper.”
After that the voices fell again into the same muttering as before. Only now, one person spoke most of the time, as though laying down a plan, and first one and then another answered him briefly, like men taking orders. By this, I made sure they were coming on again, and told Alan.
“It’s what we have to pray for,” said he. “Unless we can give them a good distaste of us, and done with it, there’ll be nae sleep for either you or me. But this time, mind, they’ll be in earnest.”
By this, my pistols were ready, and there was nothing to do but listen and wait. While the brush lasted, I had not the time to think if I was frighted; but now, when all was still again, my mind ran upon nothing else. The thought of the sharp swords and the cold steel was strong in me; and presently, when I began to hear stealthy steps and a brushing of men’s clothes against the round-house wall, and knew they were taking their places in the dark, I could have found it in my mind to cry out aloud.
All this was upon Alan’s side; and I had begun to think my share of the fight was at an end, when I heard some one drop softly on the roof above me.
Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe, and that was the signal. A knot of them made one rush of it, cutlass in hand, against the door; and at the same moment, the glass of the skylight was dashed in a thousand pieces, and a man leaped through and landed on the floor. Before he got his feet, I had clapped a pistol to his back, and might have shot him, too; only at the touch of him (and him alive) my whole flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the trigger than I could have flown.
He had dropped his cutlass as he jumped, and when he felt the pistol, whipped straight round and laid hold of me, roaring out an oath; and at that either my courage came again, or I grew so much afraid as came to the same thing; for I gave a shriek and shot him in the midst of the body. He gave the most horrible, ugly groan and fell to the floor. The foot of a second fellow, whose legs were dangling through the skylight, struck me at the same time upon the head; and at that I snatched another pistol and shot this one through the thigh, so that he slipped through and tumbled in a lump on his companion’s body. There was no talk of missing, any more than there was time to aim; I clapped the muzzle to the very place and fired.
I might have stood and stared at them for long, but I heard Alan shout as if for help, and that brought me to my senses.
He had kept the door so long; but one of the seamen, while he was engaged with others, had run in under his guard and caught him about the body. Alan was dirking him with his left hand, but the fellow clung like a leech. Another had broken in and had his cutlass raised. The door was thronged with their faces. I thought we were lost, and catching up my cutlass, fell on them in flank.
But I had not time to be of help. The wrestler dropped at last; and Alan, leaping back to get his distance, ran upon the others like a bull, roaring as he went. They broke before him like water, turning, and running, and falling one against another in their haste. The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver into the huddle of our fleeing enemies; and at every flash there came the scream of a man hurt. I was still thinking we were lost, when lo! they were all gone, and Alan was driving them along the deck as a sheep-dog chases sheep.
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