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The wheels, however, were good, and so were its axletrees, and I knew that it would enable us to reach the mines with a little patching. The most cruel part of the proceedings was the chaining of a yoke of oxen to huge trees and allowing them to die a lingering, terrible death. The villains were not prompted to the deed by hunger, for their bodies remained untouched, burned to a crisp, apparently.
"Very silly indeed," replied her governess; "but we must remember that the poor ignorant girl knows no better. The wood of the European elm is stronger than ours; it is hard and fine-grained, and brownish in color, and is much used in the building of ships, for hubs of wheels, axletrees and many other purposes. In France the leaves and shoots are used to feed cattle.
"Mike, you villain!" ejaculated the lady, as they ran down into a ditch, and she sprang to one side to keep the carriage from going over. But ere she had time for anything further, one of the axletrees snapped asunder, and to proceed further in their present condition was impossible.
When the caravan approached Santa Fe, the freight of three wagons was transferred to one, and the empty vehicles destroyed by fire; while to avoid paying the export duty on gold and silver, they had large false axletrees to some of the wagons, in which the money was concealed, and the examining officer of the customs, perfectly unconscious of the artifice, passed them.
At the deepest part there was a step of two feet between two axletrees of different height; and the boards of the higher stage, except one, had broken from their fastenings. As the men passed over, several were thrown from their treacherous platform into the rushing stream, until at length they refused to trust themselves except to the centre plank.
In the wake of the princes followed the chariots, the Egyptian cavalry, twenty thousand in number, each drawn by two horses and holding three men. They advanced ten in a line, the axletrees perilously near together, but never coming in contact with each other, so great was the address of the drivers.
Larry, to demonstrate the truth of his favourite axiom, drove off at such a furious rate over great stones left in the middle of the road by carmen, who had been driving in the gudgeons of their axletrees to hinder them from lacing , that Lord Colambre thought life and limb in imminent danger; and feeling that, at all events, the jolting and bumping was past endurance, he had recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain: at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linchpin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to escape without fractured bones.
So Harry made arrangements with Dick Ford and John Walker, who were not regularly hired to any one that winter, to cut and haul his wood for him, on shares. John Walker had a wagon, which was merely a set of wheels, with a board floor laid on the axletrees, and the use of this he contributed in consideration of a little larger share in the profits.
Each base had brasen wheels attached, with brasen axletrees, and brackets which stretched from the four upper corners of the bases to the outward rim of the laver. All the furnishings were also made by Hiram, such as pots, basons, shovels; probably also the golden altar, and table, with the seven-branched lamp stands, of which there were ten, of beautiful construction and ornamentation.
A magnificent and lofty car, formed of blue enamel with golden wheels, and axletrees of turquoises and brilliants, and drawn by twelve snow-white and sacred horses, four abreast; in the car Alroy and Schirene. Five thousand of the Sacred Guard closed the procession. Amid the exclamations of the people, this gorgeous procession crossed the plain, and moved around the mighty circus.
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