United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was something so dainty and compact about it, and the bright blaze answered so speedily to the communicating touch, the black layers falling away from each other in rich, bituminous flakiness, and letting the fire-tongues through, that she looked on in the happy complacence with which idle or disabled persons always enjoy something that does itself, yet can be followed in the doing with a certain passive sense of participancy.
But in a little while the Hall-Sun awoke alone, and sat up with a sigh, and she remembered nothing concerning her sight of the flickering flame along the hall-roof, and the fire-tongues like strips of scarlet cloth blown by the wind, nor had she any memory of her words concerning the coming day.
Came a swift burst of flame; black, greasy smoke gushed from the stern, trailing on the high, cold air. Long fire-tongues, banners of incandescence, flailed away, roaring into space. Shouts burst, muffled, from below. A bell jangled madly. The crackle of pistol-fire punched dully through the rushing swiftness. With a curse the major whirled. Frowning, the Master turned and peered.
Up into the purple-velvet night whirled sparks and fire-tongues; red smoke spiraled on the vagrant desert breeze. "A signal-fire, Master!" whispered Rrisa. "It will be seen in far oases. If it burn two hours, that will mean an enemy with great plunder. Others of the Beni Harb will come; there will be gathering of the tribes. That fire must not burn, M'almé!" "Nor must the Beni Harb live!"
Outside it is plain and solemn as that of En- gaku-ji; but the interior offers a more extraordinary spectacle of faded splendour. In lieu of the black Shaka throned against a background of flamelets, is a colossal Jizo-Sama, with a nimbus of fire a single gilded circle large as a wagon-wheel, breaking into fire-tongues at three points.
Word Of The Day