H. Rider Haggard

En Hija de la tempestad, Rider Haggard continúa el intenso relato de las guerras zulúes, presentándonos a la malvada y fascinante Mameena, una especie de Elena de Troya zulú con -al decir del mismo autor- amplia base historica, un relato que describe el sangriento conflicto entre los principes Cetewayo y Umbelazi por la sucesion del trono de Zuluandia.

To the learned man, ugly of form and face but sound at heart, Holly by name, a citizen of a northern land whom at times I think that once I knew as Noot the Holy, that philosopher who was my master in a past which seems far to him and is forgot, but to me is but as yesterday, to this Holly, I say, I, who on earth am named Ayesha, daughter of Yarab the Arab chief, but who have many other titles here and elsewhere, have told certain stories of my past days and the part I played in them.

This title is part of an inexpensive range of classics in the "Penguin Popular Classics" series.

Leo Vincey y su profesor Holly descubren un cofre que encierra un misterio: un mensaje de venganza escrito por la princesa Amenartas para que sus descendientes (Vincey es uno de ellos) venguen la muerte de Calicrates, su esposo, a manos de la bella Ayesha, quien se decidio a matarlo por amor, ya que habia sido rechazada por el. Ayesha descubrio la Fuente de la Vida, una enorme pira donde se consigue la inmortalidad entrando en sus llamas. Alli espera paciente en el paso de los siglos la llegada de Calicrates.

Contiene casi todo lo que una historia de aventuras debe tener. Tres hombres parten en una emocionante expedición a través del Africa desconocida en busca de un tesoro. Se enfrentan a una desesperada lucha por la supervivencia en un despiadado y abrasador desierto. Una vez los viajeros alcanzan el reino desconocido de los Kukuanas, sus aventuras se multiplican. Se encuentran asimismo en conflicto con el infame Twala, el jefe tuerto de los Kukuanas, aaayudado por la temida vieja bruja Gagool. Ellos son aterrorizados testigos de una caceria de brujas sedientas de sangre y casi son asesinados por ellos mismos.Finalmente hay una gran batalla entre las fuerzas de Twala y los guerreros de su adversario Ignosi.

El autor nos traslada (como en las Minas del Rey Salomón) a un territorio africano donde las aventuras de los protagonistas se suceden vertiginosamente, asegurando al lector momentos inolvidables. Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) esta considerado como uno de los principales maestros de la novela de aventuras moderna. En sus novelas supo combinar como pocos elementos de fantasia con detalles de excelente realismo y pinceladas esotericas que dotan a sus novelas de un ambiente y una magia muy especiales.

The Adventures of an English nobleman and his two fellow travelers crossing the African continent in search of the main characters brother, who disappeared while in search of the treasures of King So

There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe. It rises as clearly before my mind at this moment as though it had happened but yesterday.It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I, Ludwig Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at Cambridge, grinding away at some mathematical work, I forget what. I was to go up for my fellowship within a week, and was expected by my tutor and my college generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung my book down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and filled it. There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass at the back of it; and as I was in the act of lighting the pipe I caught sight of my own countenance in the glass, and paused to reflect. The lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers, forcing me to drop it; but still I stood and stared at myself in the glass, and reflected."Well," I said aloud, at last, "it is to be hoped that I shall be able to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly never do anything by the help of the outside."

December 23I have just buried my boy, my poor handsome boy of whom I was so proud, and my heart is broken. It is very hard having only one son to lose him thus, but Gods will be done. Who am I that I should complain? The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some lateit does not matter when, in the end, it crushes us all. We do not prostrate ourselves before it like the poor Indians; we fly hither and thitherwe cry for mercy; but it is of no use, the black Fate thunders on and in its season reduces us to powder.Poor Harry to go so soon! just when his life was opening to him. He was doing so well at the hospital, he had passed his last examination with honours, and I was proud of them, much prouder than he was, I think. And then he must needs go to that smallpox hospital. He wrote to me that he was not afraid of smallpox and wanted to gain the experience; and now the disease has killed him, and I, old and grey and withered, am left to mourn over him, without a chick or child to comfort me. I might have saved him, tooI have money enough for both of us, and much more than enoughKing Solomons Mines provided me with that; but I said, "No, let the boy earn his living, let him labour that he may enjoy rest." But the rest has come to him before the labour. Oh, my boy, my boy!I am like the man in the Bible who laid up much goods and builded barnsgoods for my boy and barns for him to store them in; and now his soul has been required of him, and I am left desolate. I would that it had been my soul and not my boys!

The January afternoon was passing into night, the air was cold and still, so still that not a single twig of the naked beech-trees stirred; on the grass of the meadows lay a thin white rime, half frost, half snow; the firs stood out blackly against a steel-hued sky, and over the tallest of them hung a single star. Past these bordering firs there ran a road, on which, in this evening of the opening of our story, a young man stood irresolute, glancing now to the right and now to the left.To his right were two stately gates of iron fantastically wrought, supported by stone pillars on whose summits stood griffins of black marble embracing coats of arms, and banners inscribed with the device Per ardua ad astra. Beyond these gates ran a broad carriage drive, lined on either side by a double row of such oaks as England alone can produce under the most favourable circumstances of soil, aided by the nurturing hand of man and three or four centuries of time.

It was on his fourteenth birthday that Keith Burton discovered the Great Terror, though he did not know it by that name until some days afterward. He knew only, to his surprise and distress, that the "Treasure Island," given to him by his father for a birthday present, was printed in type so blurred and poor that he could scarcely read it.He said nothing, of course. In fact he shut the book very hastily, with a quick, sidewise look, lest his father should see and notice the imperfection of his gift.Poor father! He would feel so bad after he had taken all that pains and spent all that moneyand for something not absolutely necessary, too! And then to get cheated like that. For, of course, he had been cheatedsuch horrid print that nobody could read.But it was only a day or two later that Keith found some more horrid print. This time it was in his fathers weekly journal that came every Saturday morning. He found it again that night in a magazine, and yet again the next day in the Sunday newspaper.Then, before he had evolved a satisfactory explanation in his own mind of this phenomenon, he heard Susan Betts talking with Mrs. McGuire over the back-yard fence.Susan Betts began the conversation. But that was nothing strange:Susan Betts always began the conversation.