H. De Vere Stacpoole - "The Beach of Dreams"

George MacDonald - "Adela Cathcart"

Pierre Loti - "Les desenchantees"

Austin Dobson - "De Libris: Prose and Verse"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Tom Swift in the City of Gold

V >> Victor Appleton >> Tom Swift in the City of Gold




Behind them they could hear feet running, and several spears
clattered to the stone floor. Lights flickered behind them.

"If only the river bed is dry!" gasped Tom. "We may yet escape. But
if they've filled the channel--"

He did not dare think of what that would mean as he ran on, turning
occasionally to fire, for he and the others had again reloaded their
revolvers.




CHAPTER XXV

THE ESCAPE--CONCLUSION


The noise behind our friends increased. There were shouts of rage,
yells of anger at the escape of the prey. High above the other
voices were the shrill war-cries of the head-hunters--the savages
with their grewsome desires.

"Can--can we make it, Tom?" panted Ned.

They were almost at the river channel now, and in another instant
they had reached it.

By the feeble rays of Ned's electric torch they saw with relief that
it was empty, though they would have given much to see just a
trickle of water in it, for they were almost dead from thirst.

Together they climbed up the other side, and as yet their pursuers
had not reached the brink. For one moment Tom had a thought of
working the black knob, and flooding the channel, but he could not
doom even the head-hunters, much less the Fogers and Delazes, to
such a death as that would mean.

On ran Tom and his companions, but now they could glance back and
see the foremost of the other crowd dipping down into the dry
channel.

"The steps! The steps!" suddenly cried Ned, when they had run a long
distance, as a faint gleam of daylight beyond shewed the opening
beneath the stone altar. "We're safe now."

"Hardly, but a few minutes will tell," said Tom. "The balloon is in
shape for a quick rise, and then we'll leave this horrible place
behind."

"And all the gold, too," murmured Ned regretfully. "We've got some,"
said Mr. Damon, "and I wouldn't take a chance with those head-
hunters for all the gold in the underground city."

"Same here!" panted Tom. Then they were at the steps and ran up
them.

Out into the big auditorium they emerged, weak and faint, and toward
the hidden dirigible balloon they rushed.

"Quick!" cried Tom, as he climbed into the car, followed by Mr.
Damon and Eradicate. "Shove it right under the broken dome, Ned, and
I'll turn on the gas machine. It's partly inflated."

A moment later the balloon was right below the big opening. The blue
sky showed through it--a welcome sight to our friends. The hiss of
the gas was heard, and the bag distended still more.

"Hop in!" cried Tom. "She'll go up I guess."

"There they come!" shouted Ned, as he spoke the foremost of the
head-hunters emerged from the hole beneath the stone altar. He was
followed by Delazes.

"Stop them! Get them! Spear them!" cried the contractor. They
evidently thought our friends had all the gold from the underground
city.

Fortunately the temple was so large that the balloon was a good
distance from the hole leading to the tunnel, and before the
foremost of the head-hunters could reach it the dirigible began to
rise.

"If they throw their spears, and puncture the bag in many places
we're done for," murmured Tom. But evidently the savages did not
think of this, though Delazes screamed it at them.

Up went the balloon, and not a moment too soon, for one of the head-
hunters actually grabbed the edge of the car, and only let go when
he found himself being lifted off the temple floor.

Up and up it went and, as it was about to emerge from the broken
dome, Tom looked down and saw a curious sight.

Mr. Foger and Andy, who brought up in the rear of the pursuing and
attacking party, had just emerged from the hole by the great stone
altar when there suddenly spouted from the same opening a solid
column of water. A cry of wonder came from all as they saw the
strange sight. A veritable geyser was now spurting in the very
middle of the temple floor, and the head-hunters, the Mexicans and
the Fogers ran screaming to get out of the way.

"Look!" cried Ned. "What happened?"

"The underground river must be running the wrong way!" answered Tom,
as he prepared to set in motion the motor. "Either they accidentally
turned some hidden lever, or when they raised the stone door they
did it. The tunnel is flooded and--"

"Bless my match box! So is the underground city!" cried Mr. Damon.
"I guess we've seen the last of it and its gold. We were lucky to
escape with our lives, and these fellows might have been drowned
like rats in a trap, if they hadn't followed us. The underground
city will never be discovered again."

"And now for home!" cried Tom, when they had eaten and drunk
sparingly until they should get back their strength, and had seen to
their slight wounds.

"And our trip wasn't altogether a failure," said Mr. Damon. "We'd
have had more gold if the stone door hadn't trapped us. But I guess
we have enough as it is. I wonder how the Fogers ever found us?"

"They must have followed our trail, though how we'll never know and
they came up to where Delazes and his men were, joined forces with
them, and hunted about until they found the temple," remarked Tom.
"Then they saw the opening, went down, and found the stone door."

"But how did they get it open? and what were they doing with the
head-hunters, and why didn't the head-hunters attack them?" Ned
wanted to know.

"Well, I guess perhaps Delazes knew how to handle those head-
hunters," replied Tom. "They may be a sort of lost tribe of
Mexicans, and perhaps their ancestors centuries ago owned the city
of gold. At any rate I think some of them knew the secret of raising
the door." And later Tom learned in a roundabout way from the Fogers
that this was so. The father and son had after much hardship joined
forces with Delazes and he, by a promise of the heads of the party
of our friends, and much tobacco, had gained the head-hunters as
allies.

On and on sailed the balloon and our friends regained their strength
after partaking of the nourishing food. They looked at their store
of gold and found it larger than they had thought. Soon they left
far behind them the great plain of the ruined temple, which, had
they but known it was a lake now, for the underground river, perhaps
by some break in the underground mechanism that controlled it, or a
break in the channel, overflowed and covered temple, plain and
underground city with water many fathoms deep.

"Are we going all the way home in the balloon?" asked Ned on the
second day of their voyage in the air, when they had stopped to make
slight repairs.

"No, indeed," replied Tom. "As soon as we get to some city where we
can pack it up, and ship our gold without fear of being robbed, I'm
coming to earth, and go home in a steamer."

This plan was carried out; and a week later, with the gold safely
insured by an express company, and the balloon packed for
transportation, our friends went to a railroad station, and took a
train for Tampico, there to get a steamer for New York.

"Bless my top knot!" exclaimed Mr. Damon a few days after this, as
they were on the vessel. "I think for queer adventures this one of
ours in the city of gold, Tom, puts it all over the others we had."

"Oh, I don't know," answered the young inventor, "we certainly had
some strenuous times in the past, and I hope we'll have some more in
the future."

"The same here," agreed Ned.

And whether they did or not I will leave my readers to judge if they
peruse the next book in this series, which will be called, "Tom
Swift and His Air Glider; Or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure."

They arrived safely in Shopton in due course of time, and found Mr.
Swift well. They did not become millionaires, for they found, to
their regret that their gold was rather freely alloyed with baser
metals, so they did not have more than half the amount in pure solid
gold. But there was a small fortune in it for all of them.

In recognition of Mr. Illingway, the African missionary having put
Tom on the track of the gold, a large sum was sent to him, to help
him carry on his work of humanity.

Tom had many offers for the big golden head, but he would not sell
it, though he loaned it to a New York museum, where it attracted
much attention. There were many articles written about the
underground city of gold from the facts the young inventor
furnished.

Eventually the Fogers got home, but they did not say much about
their experiences, and Tom and his friends did not think it worth
while to prosecute them for the attack. As for Delazes, Tom never
saw nor heard from him again, not in all his reading could he find
any account of the head-hunters, who must have been a small, little
known tribe.

"And you really kept your promise, and brought me a golden image?"
asked Mary Nestor of Tom, when he called on her soon after reaching
home.

"Indeed I did, the two that I promised and a particularly fine one
that I picked up almost at the last minute," and Tom gave her the
valuable relics.

"And now tell me about it," she begged, when she had admired them,
and then sat down beside Tom: and there we will leave our hero for
the present, as he is in very good company, and I know he wouldn't
like to be disturbed.

THE END

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