Besides an utter lack of fear, Dicky Donovan has the keenest desire to know all things, good or evil -- and he follows his curiosity wherever it leads. This is why Donovan -- twenty-five and no moustache, pink-cheeked and rosy-hearted, and "no white spots on his liver" -- heads straight, this particular night, to the house of the chief dancing-girl of Beni Hassan. From her he has learned to dance the dance of the Ghawazee. He has learned it so that, with his insatiable curiosity, he should be able to compare it with the Nautch dance of India, the Hula-Hula of the Sandwich Islanders, and the Siva of the Samoans. Half an hour later two dancing-girls issue from the house of the ghdzeeyeh, dressed in shintiydn and muslin tarah, anklets and bracelets, with gold coins about the forehead -- and one is Dicky Donovan!

Author Biography

Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker (1862 - 1932), known as Gilbert Parker, Canadian novelist and British politician, was born at Camden East, Addington, Ontario, the son of Captain J. Parker, R.A. The best of his novels are those in which he first took for his subject the history and life of the French Canadians and his permanent literary reputation rests on the fine quality, descriptive and dramatic, of his Canadian stories. Pierre and his People (1892) was followed by Mrs. Falchion (1893), The Trail of the Sword (1894), When Valmond came to Pontiac (1895), An Adventurer of Icy North (1895) and The Seats of the Mighty (1896, dramatized in 1897). The Seats of the Mighty was a historical novel depicting the English conquest of Quebec with James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm as two of the characters. The Lane that Had No Turning (1900), a collection of short stories set in the fictional Quebec town of Pontiac, contains some of his best work and is viewed by some as being in the tradition of such Gothic classics as Stoker's Dracula and James's The Turn of the Screw. In The Battle of the Strong (1898) he broke new ground, laying his scene in the Channel Islands. His chief later books were The Right of Way (1901), Donovan Pasha (1902), The Ladder of Swords (1904), The Weavers (1907), Northern Lights (1909) and The Judgment House (1913). Parker had three that made it into the top 10 on the annual list of bestselling novels in the United States, two of which were on it for two years in a row.