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Prester John by John Buchan (1875 - 1940)

This classic adventure novel by the author of Greenmantle and The Thirty-Nine Steps relates the first-person exploits of young David Crawfurd before the age of twenty. As a boy growing up on the coast of Scotland, minister's son Davie and two friends were pursued with murderous intent along the cliffs one night by John Laputa, a visiting black African preacher, whom they had witnessed performing un-Christian rites round a campfire on the beach. A few years later, when his father's death forces Davie to quit college and join the tribe of wandering Scots, our hero finds himself in South Africa, assistant shopkeeper in a seemingly sleepy back-veldt store. There he re-encounters Laputa, now charismatic leader of an incipient native uprising, secretly preaching the incendiary creed of "Africa for the Africans," and proclaiming himself heir to the mantle of Prester John, a legendary 15th-century Christian king of Ethiopia. Can young Davie possibly penetrate the megalomaniac's mountain stronghold, foil the insurrection, prevent a massacre of white settlers, and make off with the rebels' war-chest of gold and diamonds? It's going to take some doing - and not a little derring-do!

Prester John by John Buchan (1875 - 1940)

XXIII - My Uncle's Gift Is Many Times Multiplied

XXII - A Great Peril and a Great Salvation

XXI - I Climb the Crags a Second Time

XX - My Last Sight of the Reverend John Laputa

XIX - Arcoll's Shepherding

XVIII - How a Man May Sometimes Put His Trust in a Horse

XVII - A Deal and Its Consequences

XVI - Inanda's Kraal

XV - Morning in the Berg

XIV - I Carry the Collar of Prester John

XIII - The Drift of the Letaba

XII - Captain Arcoll Sends a Message

XI - The Cave of the Rooirand

X - I Go Treasure Hunting

IX - The Store at Umvelos'

VIII - I Fall in Again with the Reverend John Laputa

VII - Captain Arcoll Tells a Tale

VI - The Drums Beat at Sunset

V - Mr. Wardlaw Has a Premonition

IV - My Journey to the Winter-veld

III - Blaauwildebeestefontein

II - Furth! Fortune!

I - The Man on the Kirkcaple Shore