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Her lips were moving, but her eyes remained closed, and I could not choose but look at her. And in a voice that seemed to come thin through distance of years she began a soft wailing chant; and, as I listened, vague memories came to me of a Celtic lullaby. And as she sang, she loosed with one hand her long black hair, till it fell coiling upon the stones.
John and Arthur took the first watch; Domingos coiling himself away in the stern of the canoe, and I in the bows; to be ready for service should we be required. Tired as I was, it was some time before I could manage to go to sleep. I lay looking up at the dark sky out of which thousands of bright stars shone forth and listening to the ripple of the water against the bows of the canoe.
So we tried to turn out of our path into a tangle of bushes; and there, instead of one, we found four snakes. We turned on the other side, and there were two more. In short, everywhere we looked, the dry leaves were rustling and coiling with them; and we were in despair.
As a rule the lower part of the trunks is branchless; stems rise up like tall pillars in long colonnades. But this does not mean that they are bare. Climbing ferns, lichens, pendant grasses, air-plants, and orchids drape the columns. Tough lianas swing in air: coiling roots overspread the ground.
It's a queer, old-fashioned town, and it's on an island; maybe you can guess it from that. Well, we run into the harbor and let go anchor. Jonadab crawled into the cabin to get some terbacker, and I was for'ard coiling the throat halyard. All at once I heard oars rattling, and I turned my head; what I see made me let out a yell like a siren whistle.
"Mind out, Buck Bradford!" "Have you had enough?" I demanded. "Yes, I have!" "O, well, if you are satisfied, I am, though you are not very good-natured about it. Next time you want to hit me over the head with the mail-bag, just remember that when I am awake I keep my eyes open," I replied, coiling up the lash of my whip.
As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub.
I cut no more than was necessary, and what with passing the long ropes under and around the booms and masts, of unreeving the halyards and sheets, of coiling down in the boat and uncoiling in order to pass through another knot in the bight, I was soon wet to the skin.
My father's back was towards us, and he was standing at some little distance so as not to startle the boy, who rose again, crouched, and looked wildly at us, as the rope which had been simply passed through the iron shackles began to run through a link till the end was drawn out, and run over the ground to where Morgan stood grumbling and coiling up the rope.
There is an old, wild ballad that tells of how a knight found, coiling round a tree in a dismal forest, a loathly dragon breathing out poison; and how, undeterred by its hideousness and foulness, he cast his arms round it and kissed it on the mouth. Three times he did it undisgusted, and at the third the shape changed into a fair lady, and he won his bride.
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