United States or Uganda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed to meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms I have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and curling grey mustachios.
It consisted of a house with one room downstairs and one room upstairs. Its boarding was of the kind that runs up and down with battening strips at the cracks. Any one familiar with prairie architecture would see at once that the owner, having a house to build, had gone straightway to work and erected a herder's shack on a residential scale and put some windows in it.
One might have imagined that he was taking in all possible sails; close reefing the others; battening down the hatches; and preparing to run before a storm; and yet his demeanor did not indicate that he expected any violent commotion of the elements. On the contrary, his friends and acquaintances thought him particularly blithe and gay. He told them he was going to be married.
Quickly battening down the prisoners, I had the sails spread, the windlass going, and the anchor apeak quickly, and we soon were moving down upon the schooner, which was now all confusion, commands ringing out on the quiet air. But when, laying alongside, we gave her a dose, and then another, from all our swivels at once, sweeping her decks, the timid fellows cried quarter, and we boarded her.
What other use has she for dependencies, except as a source of revenue wrung by torture from the misery of slaves, and incidentally as a battening ground for her savage war dogs? Here the detestable Weyler is said to have accumulated a fortune of several millions of dollars in three years more than twenty times the whole amount of his salary!
Next moment I heard the sailors battening the hatch with hurried blows, and when this was done to their satisfaction, heard their feet also as they ran into shelter. Another instant and we were all lying in a heap on the cabin floor with poor Tommy on top of us. The cyclone had struck the ship!
Ha! what are all those carrion fowls congregated there for? Are they battening on some dead carcase? O, hope hope! there is the smell of food upon the wind: up, man, up battle with those birds, drive them away, hew down that fierce white eagle with your axe; what right have they to precious food, when man, their monarch, starves?
Accustomed to battening on the hopes of humanity, accustomed to taking stock in human degradation, and declaring dividends upon enforced ignorance and crime, existing only while every canon of the common law is annulled, and every precept of morals and civilization set at nought, could it be expected to pause just when, or rather just because, it had apparently found the richest possible prey?
Évariste was firmly convinced of one thing, what they had to strike at in the pitiful creature was the two dread monsters that were battening on the fatherland, revolt and defeat. What a to-do to discover if this particular soldier was innocent or guilty!
The water poured in through a long crack in one end, nearly as fast as we could bail it out. But by battening with our provision sack, we managed to keep it afloat until we had accomplished the round trip to the lake first mentioned, by making several portages over log jambs, shoals and rapids.
Word Of The Day