SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2492, 19 June 1915, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION.

ALLAN OUARTERMAIN REDIVIVUS. Sir Rider Haggard has resurrected his famous old African hunter once again, and made him the narrator of and chief figure in an excellent story entitled "The Holy Flower" (Ward Lock, and Co.; per Whitcombe and Tombs). The story takes its title from a giant orchid which is worshipped as a god by a savage and cannibal African tribe, the Pongos. The chief is heard of and sought after by a young Englishman, who enlists Quartermain's services as guide, and the adventures of the pair, who are acoompanied by a splentfid old Zulu (a warrior and witch doctor), a faithful old Hottentot, Hans, of whom I seem to recall memories from some of the author's earlier novels, and a black servant, Sammy, the cook, who is the son of a native Christian preacher. Sammy, who is an arrant coward, provides the comic relief in tho astounding experiences which befall the party. Arrived in the Pongo country the adventurers are reinforced by a rr.ysterious American doctor-missteh-ary, Father John, who saves the lives of the travellers, and who is destined to discover, in the two mysterious "White Queens" who guard the sacred flower, his long-lost wife and daughter, stolen years before by Arab slave dealors. Before the sacred orchid is won tfie travellers have to encounter and vanquish a giant ape-man, who has an unpleasant trick of (snapping off the arms and legs of those who dare venture on tho island where the Holy Flower is kept, and an equally formidable and far more cunning enemy in a toad-man, whom the novelist has invested with occult powers of a peculiarly sinister nature. As in Sir Eider Haggard's earlier "Quartermain" stories; there are some terrific combats and some marvellous rifle shooting liy our old friend Maczuhmahn, hut eventually all the adventurers emerge from tho wilderness safe and sound, except the giant Zulu, who meets his death with al! the courage and fatalism of his race. The orchid, alas, is lost in a lake, hut the young English collector finds consolation in a human flower, the missionary's pretty daughter. "The Holy Flower" is really an admirable story, of its kind, and prpvea that in

both . his powers .of imagination and in his general ability as a story-teller Sir Rider Haggard still holds his own. MARJORY MALLORY. For a first novel, Ivan Hodgkinson's "Marjory Mallory" (Fisher Unwin's "First Novel Library").) is a most oreditable effort. It is the story of a petted and pampered girl, abnormally self-conscious. and selfish, who marries a well-meaning but somewhat stolid baronet. This gentleman bores tho heroine to such an extent that she deliberately tnkes a lover: Sir John discovers the intrigue, but refuses to free his erring spouse by divorcing her, and when at last, her husband's death gives the lady her freedom, sho finds, greatly to her disgust, that her lovor (a priggish journalist, wlio poses as a great authority on foreign politics) prefers to remain single. "No one understands," she moans (on tho last page), in a little choked voice, "I am not proud; lam not proud 1 All I want is someone to love mo!" "Mr. Victor Dawnay 1" said a servant, throwing open tho door. Mr. Dawnay is a gentleman, who had loved the lad quite a long time, and it may be assumed that ho could "understand." ■ Few readers of the story, however, will, I think, envy him. The stoiy is well written, the dialogue being bright and the narrative generally flowing ea-sily.