Blue Lights, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Blue Lights Hot Work in the Soudan

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21719]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE LIGHTS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

BLUE LIGHTS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN.

THE FALSE STEP.

There is a dividing ridge in the great northern wilderness of America, whereon lies a lakelet of not more than twenty yards in diameter. It is of crystal clearness and profound depth, and on the still evenings of the Indian summer its surface forms a perfect mirror, which might serve as a toilet-glass for a Redskin princess.

We have stood by the side of that lakelet and failed to note the slightest symptom of motion in it, yet somewhere in its centre there was going on a constant and mysterious division of watery particles, and those of them which glided imperceptibly to the right flowed southward to the Atlantic, while those that trembled to the left found a resting-place by the frozen shores of Hudson's Bay.

As it is with the flow and final exit of those waters, so is it, sometimes, if not always, with the spirit and destiny of man.

Miles Mil

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