{"product_id":"2940014721530","title":"Voices in the Night","description":"Voices in the Night by Flora Annie Steel, author of: On the Face of the Waters, The Potter’s Thumb, From the Five Rivers, In the Permanent Way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCONTENTS \u003cbr\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003eChapter 1. The Totalisator\u003cbr\u003eChapter 2. The Kite-Flyers\u003cbr\u003eChapter 3. Cobwebs\u003cbr\u003eChapter 4. An Unforgotten Past\u003cbr\u003eChapter 5. Shark Lane\u003cbr\u003eChapter 6. The Money of Fools\u003cbr\u003eChapter 7. Crackers and Squibs\u003cbr\u003eChapter 8. The Temple of Viseshwar\u003cbr\u003eChapter 9. Uncertainties\u003cbr\u003eChapter 10. The Sinews of War\u003cbr\u003eChapter 11. The Spirit of Kings and Slaves\u003cbr\u003eChapter 12. A Mother’s Dirge\u003cbr\u003eChapter 13. A Valse à Deux Temps\u003cbr\u003eChapter 14. In the Toils\u003cbr\u003eChapter 15. The Râm Rucki\u003cbr\u003eChapter 16. The Prison of Life\u003cbr\u003eChapter 17. The Pen and the Sword\u003cbr\u003eChapter 18. The Freedom of Death\u003cbr\u003eChapter 19. On the Bed Rock\u003cbr\u003eChapter 20. The Old Wine\u003cbr\u003eChapter 21. Red Paint\u003cbr\u003eChapter 22. The Better Part\u003cbr\u003eChapter 23. A Memorable Occasion\u003cbr\u003eChapter 24. The Sovereignty of Air\u003cbr\u003eChapter 25. Secret Despatches\u003cbr\u003eChapter 26. Fair Odds\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe new year was already some hours old, but the world to which it had come was still dark. Dark with a curious obscurity, that was absolutely opaque yet faintly luminous, because of the white fog which lay on all things and hid them from the stars; for the sky above was clear, cold, almost frosty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was why the fog, born, not of cool vapour seeking for cloud life among the winds of heaven, but of hot smoke loving the warmth of dust and ashes, clung so closely to the earth; to its birthplace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was an acrid, bitter smoke, not even due to the dead hearthfires of a dead day, since they--like all else pertaining to the domestic life of India--give small outward sign of existence, but to the smouldering piles of litter and refuse which are lit every evening upon the outskirts of human habitation. Dull heaps with a minimum of fire, a maximum of smoke, where the humanity which has produced the litter, the refuse, gathers for gossip or for warmth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven in the fields beyond the multitude of men, where some long-limbed peasant, watching his hope of harvest, dozes by a solitary fire, this same smoke rises in a solid column, until--beaten down by the colder moister air above--it drifts sideways to spread like a vast cobweb over the dew-set carpet of green corn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it was small wonder if here, at Nushapore, with its fifty thousand and odd dwellers in cantonments, its two hundred and odd thousand dwellers in the town, the smoke fog hid earth from heaven; hid even the steady coming of day.\u003cbr\u003eFor it was close on dawn. The most silent, most restful hour of an Indian night, yet one still holding that vague sense of life and movement inseparable from an environment in which there is no set time for sleeping or waking; in which folk gossip all night, and sleep all day, should the humour so take them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had so seized on some one, apparently, this New Year’s night, for two voices rose, not in whispers, but monotone, from one of the verandahs in Government House--rose insistently, until, from within the closed doors, came a sharp though drowsy order for silence--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Chupra’o!’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe voices ceased; such orders, even when drowsy, must be obeyed, since they come from the master: at any rate, till he sleeps again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo the minutes slipped by. Upon the round rim of the level wheatfields beyond the smoke, the violet sky above the cobwebs faded to grey at the sun’s approach. The fog round Nushapore grew whiter, more luminous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen the voices began again; monotonous, insistent. Were they, in old-world fashion, beguiling the reality of darkness with legends of some heroic age of light? Were they, more modernly, making that reality darker by taking thought for the morrow, and discussing, say, the depreciation of the rupee? Or were they dreamers still,  (Continued...)","brand":"Denise Henry","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121281908976,"sku":"2940014721530","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014721530","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}