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The bullets of revolvers, unless striking a mortal point, disable a wounded man much less than the balls of heavier caliber. It was evidently useless to remove the Indian who was dying; all that could be done for him was to give him a little water, and to place a bundle of grass so as to raise his head. Half an hour later he was dead.
As the prisoners entered the square, which they had begun to cross in its whole breadth, I fired again and again. The bell banged twice, and the people began to buzz about. "Now," I thought, "I must let the old bell have it." By the time five more balls had struck the bell with a resounding din the whole square was in commotion. A miracle was evidently in progress or the campanile was bewitched.
"No exercise is more healthful than dancing," said Antonia, the mother, "and before his time balls were strictly forbidden. In spite of that he is hated for having expelled 'los padres de la compagnia de Jesus', and for his sumptuary regulations. But the poor bless his name, for all the money produced by the balls goes to them."
I suppose if one hits length balls on the middle stump over square leg's head one must run the risk of being bowled; and I didn't believe in sticking in and doing nothing. 'Get on or get out, and, well, I've got out." He laughed rather hysterically. Again silence. Slowly Jeffries got up. "Well, good-bye, you men." He shook hands.
That I knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workman how to make those tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not to be above a hundred feet long; twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper quantity of powder and balls, would batter down the walls of the strongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole metropolis if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute commands.
On the fighting line, when there was a lull, our backwoodsmen stood up behind their trees and cursed the enemy roundly, and often by these taunts persuaded the furious gunners to open their ports and fire their cannon. Woe be to him that showed an arm or a shoulder! Though a casement be lifted ever so warily, a dozen balls would fly into it.
He seemed to form the right flank of a line of sentinels posted to command the ferry. It was a time for quick and decisive action. Fontain had approached, pistol in hand, and as the man hailed he felled him with a bullet, then wheeled his horse and set out at full gallop up the stream. A shower of balls followed him, one of them striking his right hand and wounding all four of its fingers.
Pursued by the King of Naples, he was beating a retreat, when a ball reached one of the officers beside him, on which event the hetman was so much irritated against his magician that he had him flogged in presence of all his hordes, reproaching him most bitterly because he had not turned away the balls by his witchcraft.
"Because the balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little cases of glass. These glass cases are covered with a case of steel, and weighted with a pellet of lead; they are real Leyden bottles, into which the electricity is forced to a very high tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal, however strong it may be, falls dead.
Their favour increased; they could not be spared; Sir John would not hear of their going; and in spite of their numerous and long arranged engagements in Exeter, in spite of the absolute necessity of returning to fulfill them immediately, which was in full force at the end of every week, they were prevailed on to stay nearly two months at the park, and to assist in the due celebration of that festival which requires a more than ordinary share of private balls and large dinners to proclaim its importance.
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