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Then he scrambled down to the ledge without much difficulty, reaching it, but just in time, for now the razor blade of the ice had cut half through the rope, and very soon the swinging of the senseless weight beneath must complete its work.

In his dream he had been standing in the midst of a dry and barren plain: barren as a threshing-floor, it did not produce a single blade of grass. Displeased at the desert aspect of the place, he was just going to seek other and more fruitful regions, when Atossa appeared, and, without seeing him, ran towards a spring which welled up through the arid soil as if by enchantment.

His mouth was half open, as if he were about to yell or swear. Then suddenly his right hand fell upon the hilt of his cutlass, and the great blade flashed in the air. He gave one bound towards Bonnet, and in the same second the cutlass came down like a stroke of lightning.

He took the ivory horn in one hand, and Durandal in the other, and went up a little hill that lies toward Spain. He sat down beneath a pine tree where were four great blocks of marble. He looked at the blade Durandal. "Ha, Durandal," he said, "how bright and white thou art! Thou shinest and flamest against the sun! Many countries have I conquered with thee, and now for thee I have great grief.

And the great king, in spite of his prowess was outnumbered heavily and would, within seconds, be cut down by the Saracen horde! Without hesitation, Sir Robert plunged his horse toward the surrounded monarch, his great blade cutting a path before him.

Only the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing the single vast mass of purple like the blade of a golden sword. "There's a ship!" said Blix in a low tone. A four-master was dropping quietly through the Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with lights red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort at the Gate.

The bright glare in our faces bewildered our gloom-accustomed eyes; I could not see what I was about, and rammed my point against my Spaniard's hilt, snapping my blade. The sudden impact sent him stumbling back a pace, and M. Étienne, who, with the quick eye of the born fencer, saw everything, cried to me, "Here!" I darted back into the doorway beside him.

Nature, in these climes, chooses her vocalists from more humble performers than in Europe. A small frog, of the genus Hyla, sits on a blade of grass about an inch above the surface of the water, and sends forth a pleasing chirp: when several are together they sing in harmony on different notes. I had some difficulty in catching a specimen of this frog.

With these words he advanced towards the king, who, with the strength of rage, sprang upon him and struck him so mighty a blow on the helm as to make him totter on his feet and nearly fall. But the blow had a serious ending, for Arthur's sword broke at the cross, the blade falling into the blood-stained grass, and only the hilt and pommel remaining in his hand.

The corners of this wonderful apartment were decked with all sorts of flags and weapons, and in the middle of the painted ceiling was suspended a huge bird with the spread wings of an eagle and the head of an owl, that held in its curved talons a superb girandole formed of a hundred extended swords, each bare blade having at its point a bright lamp in the shape of a star, while the clustered hilts composed the centre.