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The texture of the waistcoat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the chest, protecting it from the great pressure of the water, and leaving the lungs free to act; the sleeves ended in gloves, which in no way restrained the movement of the hands.

"If I had only dared to tell them more plainly! But they would have marked me if I had, and it is as much as my life is worth to speak. Why does not our King put an end to these roving bands who keep us all in a state of terror and make us slaves?"

The garrison was hardly one thousand strong; the trained bands of burghers amounted to twelve hundred more; while between three and four thousand peasants; who had taken refuge within the city walls, did excellent service as sappers and miners. Parma, on the other hand, had appeared before the walls with twenty thousand men; to which number he received constant reinforcements.

His first impulse was to raise his hands to his aching head, but he could not do this on account of two iron bands that held his wrists to a stanchion. His legs, too, he next became vaguely aware, were fastened by a similar contrivance to the deck.

They divided into four bands; three of these wheeled round to opposite sides of the fort, the fourth, which was as large as the other three together, advanced towards the entrance. The Saxons all took the posts previously assigned to them on the walls. Edmund strengthened the force on the side where the gate was by posting there in addition the whole of his band.

Now the Station wherein all these things happened was, though not a little one, off the line of rail, and suffered through want of attention. There were no gardens or bands or amusements worth speaking of, and it was nearly a day's journey to come into Lahore for a dance. People were grateful for small things to interest them.

Numerous hints were on this thrown out, that it was yet early, and that we should be disturbed by the bands of music, one of which was playing at the inn door, another in a gentleman's house hard by; but we would not attend to them.

The streets were full of flowers and gay with flying flags; bells were ringing and bands of music playing; and at the earliest dawn the levee was black with a dense crowd of excited men.

A line of an old song, which had been a favourite of my father's, sang itself in my ears: There's an eye that ever weeps and a fair face will be fain When I ride through Annan Water wi' my bonny bands again! We were standing by the crumbling rails of what had once been the farm sheepfold. I looked at Archie and he smiled back at me, for he saw that my face had changed.

In the walled garden below strange lights of dawn played, red, green and amber, like a crop of flowers. The railway lines beyond the garden wall disappeared in fiery bands north and south, lights flashed down from the sky above and winked in the black and polished river; at the limit of the white plain beyond, a window caught the sun and turned its burning-glass upon the snow.