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During the long hours of the night which followed, Jay Gardiner dared not trust himself to sleep for a single instant, so great was his horror of the rodents that scampered in droves across the damp floor of the cellar in which he was a prisoner. He felt that his brain must soon give way, and that Jasper Wilde would have his desire he would soon be driven to insanity.

It took our lumbering train many days to reach Laredo, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles from Corpus Christi. Each march was but a repetition of the first day's journey, its monotony occasionally relieved, though, by the passage of immense flocks of ducks and geese, and the appearance at intervals of herds of deer, and sometimes droves of wild cattle, wild horses and mules.

Those who had leisure to go up to the bluffs often reported large droves in sight. Antelopes were also seen, but these occupied the higher ground, and it was very hard to get near enough to them to shoot successfully. Still we managed to get a good deal of game which was very acceptable as food.

The Spaniards had found immense droves of llamas under the care of their shepherds in the neighborhood of the baths, destined for the consumption of the Court. Many of them were now suffered to roam abroad among their native mountains; though Pizarro caused a considerable number to be reserved for the use of the army.

Now the cloud of dust he had seen was raised by two great droves of sheep coming along the same road in opposite directions, which, because of the dust, did not become visible until they drew near, but Don Quixote asserted so positively that they were armies that Sancho was led to believe it and say, "Well, and what are we to do, senor?"

"And at the same time they are pouring into our country in droves by way of the Mexican frontier," mumbled the American colonel, who was on his way back to his post, from his seat beside the captain. "That leaves only the islands of the Pacific, the Philippines, and perhaps Australia," continued the Shanghai merchant undisturbed.

The coarse vegetables would make an awful howl if the anarchists, whom they imagine they have gagged, should profit by the circumstance to infiltrate themselves in droves into the trade unions and spread their ideas there without any noise or blaring of trumpets."

The officers of the household scoured the country far and near to secure provisions and delicacies sufficient for the queen and her retinue. Game, droves of bullocks, sheep, hogs and great hampers of groceries filled the larders to overflowing. Near and remote neighbors and kinsmen embraced the opportunity to send contributions. No man knew when his own time might come and sympathized accordingly.

The banished Reformers, who had swarmed back in droves at the tidings of peace and good-will to all men, found themselves bitterly disappointed. They were exposed in the Walloon provinces to the persecutions of the Malcontents, in the Frisian regions to the still powerful coercion of the royal stadholders. Persecution begat counter-persecution.

Droves of pigs rambled about the valleys and on the hill-sides, but they were wild pigs. No man tended them. The bread-fruits, the cocoanuts, the bananas, the plantains, the plums, all were beautiful and fit for food, but no man owned them or used them, for, like many other spots in that sea of coral isles and savage men, the island was uninhabited.