ADVENTURE books online

Reading books adventure Nowadays a big variety of genres are exist. In our electronic library you can choose any book that suits your mood, request and purpose. This website is full of free ebooks. Reading online is very popular and become mainstream. This website can provoke you to be smarter than anyone. You can read between work breaks, in public transport, in cafes over a cup of coffee and cheesecake.
No matter where, but it’s important to read books in our elibrary , without registration.



Today let's analyze the genre adventure. Genre adventure is a reference book for adults and children. But it serve for adults and children in different purposes. If a boy or girl presents himself as a brave and courageous hero, doing noble deeds, then an adult with pleasure can be a little distracted from their daily worries.


A great interest to the reader is the adventure of a historical nature. For example, question: «Who discovered America?»
Today there are quite interesting descriptions of the adventures of Portuguese sailors, who visited this continent 20 years before Columbus.




It should be noted the different quality of literary works created in the genre of adventure. There is an understandable interest of generations of people in the classic adventure. At the same time, new works, which are created by contemporary authors, make classic works in the adventure genre quite worthy competition.
The close attention of readers to the genre of adventure is explained by the very essence of man, which involves constant movement, striving for something new, struggle and achievement of success. Adventure genre is very excited
Heroes of adventure books are always strong and brave. And we, off course, want to be like them. Unfortunately, book life is very different from real life.But that doesn't stop us from loving books even more.

Read books online » Adventure » Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) 📖

Book online «Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) 📖». Author Rafael Sabatini



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that she loved me,

for yesterday I had sworn that Saint-Eustache’s story of my betrothal

was a lie. To-day she had had assurance of the truth from the very

woman to whom Lesperon’s faith was plighted, and I could imagine

something of her shame.

 

“Yesterday, monsieur,” she answered contemptuously, “you lied in

many things.”

 

“Nay, I spoke the truth in all. Oh, God in heaven, mademoiselle,”

I exclaimed in sudden passion, “will you not believe me? Will you

not accept my word for what I say, and have a little patience until

I shall have discharged such obligations as will permit me to

explain?”

 

“Explain?” quoth she, with withering disdain.

 

“There is a hideous misunderstanding in all this. I am the victim

of a miserable chain of circumstances. Oh, I can say no more!

These Marsacs I shall easily pacify. I am to meet Monsieur de

Marsac at Grenade on the day after tomorrow. In my pocket I have

a letter from this living sword-blade, in which he tells me that he

will give himself the pleasure of killing me then. Yet—”

 

“I hope he does, monsieur!” she cut in, with a fierceness before

which I fell dumb and left my sentence unfinished. “I shall pray

God that he may!” she added. “You deserve it as no man deserved it

yet!”

 

For a moment I stood stricken, indeed, by her words. Then, my

reason grasping the motive of that fierceness, a sudden joy pervaded

me. It was a fierceness breathing that hatred that is a part of

love, than which, it is true, no hatred can be more deadly. And yet

so eloquently did it tell me of those very feelings which she sought

jealously to conceal, that, moved by a sudden impulse, I stepped

close up to her.

 

“Roxalanne,” I said fervently, “you do not hope for it. What would

your life be if I were dead? Child, child, you love me even as I

love you.” I caught her suddenly to me with infinite tenderness,

with reverence almost. “Can you lend no ear to the voice of this

love? Can you not have faith in me a little? Can you not think

that if I were quite as unworthy as you make-believe to your very

self, this love could have no place?”

 

“It has no place!” she cried. “You lie - as in all things else.

I do not love you. I hate you. Dieu! How I hate you!”

 

She had lain in my arms until then, with upturned face and piteous,

frightened eyes - like a bird that feels itself within the toils of

a snake, yet whose horror is blent with a certain fascination. Now,

as she spoke, her will seemed to reassert itself, and she struggled

to break from me. But as her fierceness of hatred grew, so did my

fierceness of resolve gain strength, and I held her tightly.

 

“Why do you hate me?” I asked steadily. “Ask yourself, Roxalanne,

and tell me what answer your heart makes. Does it not answer that

indeed you do not hate me - that you love me?”

 

“Oh, God, to be so insulted!” she cried out. “Will you not release

me, miserable? Must I call for help? Oh, you shall suffer for

this! As there is a Heaven, you shall be punished!”

 

But in my passion I held her, despite entreaties, threats, and

struggles. I was brutal, if you will. Yet think of what was in

my soul at being so misjudged, at finding myself in this position,

and deal not over harshly with me. The courage to confess which I

had lacked for days, came to me then. I must tell her. Let the

result be what it might, it could not be worse than this, and this

I could endure no longer.

 

“Listen, Roxalanne!”

 

“I will not listen! Enough of insults have I heard already. Let

me go!”

 

“Nay, but you shall hear me. I am not Rene de Lesperon. Had these

Marsacs been less impetuous and foolish, had they waited to have

seen me this morning, they would have told you so.”

 

She paused for a second in her struggles to regard me. Then, with

a sudden contemptuous laugh, she renewed her efforts more vigorously

than before.

 

“What fresh lies do you offer me? Release me, I will hear no more!”

 

“As Heaven is my witness, I have told you the truth. I know how

wild a sound it has, and that is partly why I did not tell you

earlier. But your disdain I cannot suffer. That you should deem

me a liar in professing to love you—”

 

Her struggles were grown so frantic that I was forced to relax

my grip. But this I did with a suddenness that threw her out of

balance, and she was in danger of falling backwards. To save

herself, she caught at my doublet, which was torn open under the

strain.

 

We stood some few feet apart, and, white and palpitating in her

anger, she confronted me. Her eyes lashed me with their scorn, but

under my steady, unflinching gaze they fell at last. When next she

raised them there was a smile of quiet but unutterable contempt

upon her lips.

 

“Will you swear,” said she, “that you are not Rene de Lesperon?

That Mademoiselle de Marsac is not your betrothed?”

 

“Yes - by my every hope of Heaven!” I cried passionately.

 

She continued to survey me with that quiet smile of mocking scorn.

 

“I have heard it said,” quoth she, “that the greatest liars are ever

those that are readiest to take oath.” Then, with a sudden gasp of

loathing, “I think you have dropped something, monsieur,” said she,

pointing to the ground. And without waiting for more, she swung

round and left me.

 

Face upwards at my feet lay the miniature that poor Lesperon had

entrusted to me in his dying moments. It had dropped from my doublet

in the struggle, and I never doubted now but that the picture it

contained was that of Mademoiselle de Marsac.

CHAPTER IX

A NIGHT ALARM

 

I was returning that same afternoon from a long walk that I had

taken - for my mood was of that unenviable sort that impels a man

to be moving - when I found a travelling-chaise drawn up in the

quadrangle as if ready for a journey. As I mounted the steps of

the chateau I came face to face with mademoiselle, descending. I

drew aside that she might pass; and this she did with her chin in

the air, and her petticoat drawn to her that it might not touch me.

 

I would have spoken to her, but her eyes looked straight before her

with a glance that was too forbidding; besides which there was the

gaze of a half-dozen grooms upon us. So, bowing before her - the

plume of my doffed hat sweeping the ground - I let her go. Yet I

remained standing where she had passed me, and watched her enter

the coach. I looked after the vehicle as it wheeled round and

rattled out over the drawbridge, to raise a cloud of dust on the

white, dry road beyond.

 

In that hour I experienced a sense of desolation and a pain to which

I find it difficult to give expression. It seemed to me as if she

had gone out of my life for all time - as if no reparation that I

could ever make would suffice to win her back after what had passed

between us that morning. Already wounded in her pride by what

Mademoiselle de Marsac had told her of our relations, my behaviour

in the rose garden had completed the work of turning into hatred

the tender feelings that but yesterday she had all but confessed

for me. That she hated me now, I was well assured. My reflections

as I walked had borne it in upon me how rash, how mad had been my

desperate action, and with bitterness I realized that I had destroyed

the last chance of ever mending matters.

 

Not even the payment of my wager and my return in my true character

could avail me now. The payment of my wager, forsooth! Even that

lost what virtue it might have contained. Where was the heroism of

such an act? Had I not failed, indeed? And was not, therefore, the

payment of my wager become inevitable?

 

Fool! fool! Why had I not profited that gentle mood of hers when

we had drifted down the stream together? Why had I not told her

then of the whole business from its ugly inception down to the pass

to which things were come, adding that to repair the evil I was

going back to Paris to pay my wager, and that when that was done,

I would return to ask her to become my wife? That was the course

a man of sense would have adopted. He would have seen the dangers

that beset him in my false position, and would have been quick to

have forestalled them in the only manner possible.

 

Heigh-ho! It was done. The game was at an end, and I had bungled

my part of it like any fool. One task remained me - that of meeting

Marsac at Grenade and doing justice to the memory of poor Lesperon.

What might betide thereafter mattered little. I should be ruined

when I had settled with Chatellerault, and Marcel de Saint-Pol, de

Bardelys, that brilliant star in the firmament of the Court of

France, would suffer an abrupt eclipse, would be quenched for all

time. But this weighed little with me then. I had lost everything

that I might have valued - everything that might have brought fresh

zest to a jaded, satiated life.

 

Later that day I was told by the Vicomte that there was a rumour

current to the effect that the Marquis de Bardelys was dead. Idly

I inquired how the rumour had been spread, and he told me that a

riderless horse, which had been captured a few days ago by some

peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de Bardelys’s servants as

belonging to their master, and that as nothing had been seen or

heard of him for a fortnight, it was believed that he must have met

with some mischance. Not even that piece of information served to

arouse my interest. Let them believe me dead if they would. To

him that is suffering worse than death to be accounted dead is a

small matter.

 

The next day passed without incident. Mademoiselle’s absence

continued and I would have questioned the Vicomte concerning it,

but a not unnatural hesitancy beset me, and I refrained.

 

On the morrow I was to leave Lavedan, but there were no preparations

to be made, no packing to be done, for during my sojourn there I

had been indebted to the generous hospitality of the Vicomte for my

very apparel. We supped quietly together that night the Vicomte

and I - for the Vicomtesse was keeping her room.

 

I withdrew early to my chamber, and long I lay awake, revolving a

gloomy future in my mind. I had given no thought to what I should

do after having offered my explanation to Monsieur de Marsac on the

morrow, nor could I now bring myself to consider it with any degree

of interest. I would communicate with Chatellerault to inform him

that I accounted my wager lost. I would send him my note of hand,

making over to him my Picardy estates, and I would request him to

pay off and disband my servants both in Paris and at Bardelys.

 

As for myself, I did not know, and, as

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