United States or Albania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The boats hastened back to the frigate; they had but few men hurt, except those mentioned in our narrative; but the wounds of Courtenay and of Prose were dangerous. The creeses of the pirates had been steeped in the juice of the pine-apple, which, when fresh applied, is considered as a deadly poison.
A fat ox, that had been promised, was turned loose among the spectators, pursued by fifty savages with their gleaming creeses, and hamstrung by a dexterous blow, which threw it bellowing to the earth in the height of its mad career, and tribes of lean curs commenced an indiscriminate engagement over the garbage.
How the pirates had managed to conceal their creeses was a wonder which no one could solve, though the seamen declared that they believed they had kept them hid away inside their throats, for they could not have had them anywhere else.
Of the Bedouins of Eastern Africa it is said that "no whirl-wind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a dozen savages with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be riding on the blast."
The streets were full of people of as diverse and bizarre a character as their dwellings: Yankees of every possible variety, native Californians in serapes and sombreros, Chilians, Sonorians, Kanakas from Hawaii, Chinese with long tails, Malays armed with everlasting creeses, and others, in their bearded and embrowned visages, it was impossible to recognize any especial nationality."
Men in rusty armor stand in the windows and menace the hurrying cars with raised, rusty iron gauntlets. Hauberks and helms, blunderbusses, Cromwellian breastplates, matchlocks, creeses, and the swords and daggers of an army of dead-and-gone gallants gleam dully in the ghostly light.
The house was crammed full of arms: a little cannon threatened us on the stairway, swords, claymores, creeses, falchions, scimitars, glaives, dirks, and yatagans were nailed on all the walls, and there were muskets of every sort and size, heavy arquebuses from the north and gas-pipe guns and Arab horsemen firelocks with polished stocks like the handle of a corkscrew, all inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl.
As there was no reason to doubt him, his offer was accepted. He merely requested time to equip himself for the expedition. He entered one of the houses, and soon returned with a couple of creeses stuck in his sash, and a sword by his side, and the whole party, embarking once more, proceeded on their voyage. Their volunteer pilot was a merry, talkative fellow.
"Take the same twelve men of the advance guard, Sergeant Overton," whispered Captain Freeman, after he had given directions regarding the carrying of the wounded so that they would be as well protected as possible from slashing by Moro swords or creeses during the attack about to be made. "With your men, Sergeant, gain the gate of the fort.
The white dresses of the Ternates were laid aside: with nothing on them but their belts, and scimitars, and creeses, and blue under-drawers, they silently crept up to the palisades, there deposited their fagots, and then again returned, again to perform the same journey.
Word Of The Day