Read "The League of the Leopard" by Harold Bindloss online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was a sunny afternoon when the little West Coast mailboat's engines ceased their throbbing off the mole of Santa Cruz, Teneriffe. Clear skies had hung over her as she rolled northward in no great hurry, and the fresh breezes which curl the sparkling sea between Morocco and the fever coast had brought new life to her sickly passengers. Dane felt his heart grow lighter as each league of deep blue water rolled astern, and the shadow of the dark land had almost fallen from him when the Canaries rose out of the sea. He had youth on his side, besides a comparatively clean conscience and a sound constitution; and a little chest consigned by him to a British bank was locked in the steamer's specie room. Though he would gladly have flung its contents into the sea to undo the past, regrets were futile. So, with a courage which sprang rather from humility than pride, he had determined to ask Lilian Chatterton to either share his struggles or await his prosperity.
The long black mole slid past, the bows forged more slowly through the crystal brine, and the harbor opened up. Even before the yellow flag fluttered aloft, boats by the dozen shot out from the lava steps, and Dane eagerly scanned the faces of their occupants. They were fruit peddlers, shipping and coaling clerks, and he sighed with disappointment as he next swept his eyes along the mole. Nobody among the loungers there raised a hat or a handkerchief.