Poacher

This is an engaging story - full of twisting plot and interesting characters. Classic Marryat!! Reads very fast; a pleasure. Was it murder or self defense? On a dark night a man seeks revenge, but his son is blamed for the deed and flees for his life. In a distant city he meets the one who would betray him (himself discredited in the home town for betrayal at the trial, and beaten by the father of the boy). Again the lad must vanish - leaving comfort and promise. Marryat at his best. Not a sea-story; however, several good yarns of shipboard doing! And we meet the unforgettable Alcibiades Ajax Boggs - a name Dickens would kill to have thought of. But wait! there's more - an altogether separate short story about French and Arab troops in dramatic desert clashes - and a pretty mystery woman with a temporary, curable disfigurement.