At first he had protested against the extravagance of the entertainment. But his protests had been laughed aside with good-humoured scorn. His hostess knew a gentleman when she saw one, he was assured, and knew how a gentleman should be entertained. Unsuspicious of the designs upon him, he never dreamed that the heavy debt he was incurring was one of the coils employed by this cunning huntress in which to bind him. -from "Chapter 1: The Hostess of the Paul's Head" Often spoken of in the same breath as Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexandre Dumas, Rafael Sabatini wrote thrilling tales of swashbuckling derring-do that were tremendous bestsellers in his day and have delighted generations of readers since. This 1922 novel, set in Reformation-era England, follows the misfortunes and misadventures of Randal Holles, a former soldier adrift without a war to fight... though the one threatening to erupt with Holland may be his grim salvation. Replete with intrigue, kidnapping, regicide, and plague, this is a captivating must-read for fans of adventure fiction. Novelist RAFAEL SABATINI (1875-1950) was born in Italy but traveled extensively throughout Europe as a child and eventually settled in England. His best-known works are The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), and Captain Blood (1922).