The Firing Line

The Firing Line

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Firing Line, by Robert W.
Chambers This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Firing Line
Author: Robert W. Chambers
Release Date: April 19, 2005 [EBook #15654]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
FIRING LINE ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net.

[Illustration: "She faced him, white as death, looking at him blindly."]
THE
FIRING LINE
BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
AUTHOR OF "THE FIGHTING CHANCE," "THE YOUNGER SET,"
ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK, 1908

TO

MARGERY CHAMBERS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
--A SKIRMISH

CHAPTER II.
--A LANDING

CHAPTER III.
--AN ADVANCE

CHAPTER IV.
--RECONNAISSANCE

CHAPTER V.
--A FLANK MOVEMENT

CHAPTER VI.
--ARMISTICE

CHAPTER VII.
--A CHANGE OF BASE

CHAPTER VIII.
--MANOEUVERING

CHAPTER IX.
--THE INVASION

CHAPTER X.
--TERRA INCOGNITA

CHAPTER XI.
--PATHFINDERS

CHAPTER XII.
--THE ALLIED FORCES

CHAPTER XIII.
--THE SILENT PARTNERS

CHAPTER XIV.
--STRATEGY

CHAPTER XV.
--UNDER FIRE

CHAPTER XVI.
--AN ULTIMATUM

CHAPTER XVII.
--ECHOES

CHAPTER XVIII.
--PERIL

CHAPTER XIX.
--THE LINE OF BATTLE

CHAPTER XX.
--A NEW ENEMY

CHAPTER XXI.
--REINFORCEMENTS

CHAPTER XXII.
--THE ROLL CALL

CHAPTER XXIII.
--A CAPITULATION

CHAPTER XXIV.
--THE SCHOOL OF THE RECRUIT

CHAPTER XXV.
--A CONFERENCE

CHAPTER XXVI.
--SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

CHAPTER XXVII.
--MALCOURT LISTENS

CHAPTER XXVIII.
--HAMIL IS SILENT

CHAPTER XXIX.
--CALYPSO'S GIFT

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"She faced him, white as death, looking at him blindly"
"So he sat there and told her all about his commission"
"Never had he tasted such a heavenly banquet"
"Examining the pile of plans, reports, and blue-prints"
"She walked a few paces toward the house, halted, and looked back
audaciously"
"Then fell prone, head buried in her tumbled hair"
"'You can't go!' he said"
"And locked in his embrace, she lifted her lips to his"

CHAPTER I
A SKIRMISH
As the wind veered and grew cooler a ribbon of haze appeared above
the Gulf-stream.
Young Hamil, resting on his oars, gazed absently into the creeping mist.
Under it the ocean sparkled with subdued brilliancy; through it,
shoreward, green palms and palmettos turned silvery; and, as the fog
spread, the sea-pier, the vast white hotel, bathing-house, cottage,
pavilion, faded to phantoms tinted with rose and pearl.

Leaning there on his oars, he could still make out the distant sands
flecked with the colours of sunshades and bathing-skirts; the breeze
dried his hair and limbs, but his swimming-shirt and trunks still dripped
salt water.
Inshore a dory of the beach guard drifted along the outer line of
breakers beyond which the more adventurous bathers were diving from
an anchored raft. Still farther out moving dots indicated the progress of
hardier swimmers; one in particular, a girl capped with a brilliant red
kerchief, seemed to be already nearer to Hamil than to the shore.
It was all very new and interesting to him--the shore with its spectral
palms and giant caravansary, the misty, opalescent sea where a white
steam-yacht lay anchored north of him--the _Ariani_--from which he
had come, and on board of which the others were still doubtless
asleep--Portlaw, Malcourt, and Wayward. And at thought of the others
he yawned and moistened his lips, still feverish from last night's
unwisdom; and leaning forward on his oars, sat brooding, cradled by
the flowing motion of the sea.
The wind was still drawing into the north; he felt it, never strong, but
always a little cooler, in his hair and on his wet swimming-shirt. The
flat cloud along the Gulf-stream spread thickly coastward, and after a
little while the ghosts of things terrestrial disappeared.
All around him, now, blankness--save for the gray silhouette of the
Ariani. A colourless canopy surrounded him, centred by a tiny pool of
ocean. Overhead through the vanishing blue, hundreds of wild duck
were stringing out to sea; under his tent of fog the tarnished silver of
the water formed a floor smoothly unquiet.
Sounds from the land, hitherto unheard, now came strangely distinct;
the cries of bathers, laughter, the muffled shock of the surf, doubled
and redoubled along the sands; the barking of a dog at the water's edge.
Clear and near sounded the ship's bell on the _Ariani_; a moment's
rattle of block and tackle, a dull call, answered; and silence. Through
which, without a sound, swept a great bird with scarce a beat of its
spread wings; and behind it, another, and,