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The strips of meat were dried in the sun, and afterwards pounded in a mortar and mixed with an equal quantity of bison fat. Fish "pemmican" was sun-dried fish ground to powder. A favourite dish among the northern Indians was blood mixed with the half-digested food found in the stomach of a deer, boiled up with a sufficient quantity of water to make it of the consistency of pease porridge.
He drew quick, short breaths as if economizing the air that was so soon to fail him; he tugged at his bonds till the veins rose on his forehead, but the silk held and the confines of the prison permitted him no room for struggle; then he leaned forward, to press with all his might upon the bricks before him; he grunted, he sweated with the agony of his exertions, but not a brick was stirred, not a crack was made in the mortar that gripped them tighter every instant.
Some recollection made him smile as he was going down the steps: it was that of a stout man lying at the bottom, shaken in every bone, yet sound as a grape ensconced in jelly. As he touched the bottom he heard a little noise as of some small substance falling, but seeing a piece of old mortar dislodged, he did not turn round to examine the place.
What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack? I can pound a toad in a mortar, and make broth of it, and stir the broth with a dead man's hand. Sprinkle it on thine enemy while he sleeps, and he will turn into a black viper, and his own mother will slay him. With a wheel I can draw the Moon from heaven, and in a crystal I can show thee Death. What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack?
The bricks of the pier are covered with green, like a wall-painting to the surface of the stream, mosses along the lines of the mortar, and among the moss little plants what are these? In the dry sunlit lane I look up to the top of the great wall about some domain, where the green figs look over upright on their stalks; there are dry plants on the coping what are these?
Further, in using river or sea-sand, the addition of a third part composed of burnt brick, pounded up and sifted, will make your mortar of a better composition to use. The reason why lime makes a solid structure on being combined with water and sand seems to be this: that rocks, like all other bodies, are composed of the four elements.
The little force under his command was much reduced in numbers, and so worn out by constant exertion and loss of sleep that men frequently fell asleep while under arms under the heaviest fire. The besiegers were not idle in other directions. Several mortar vessels moved close in shore and threw shells into the town, while the batteries poured in red hot shot.
The dim light revealed no change in the wall formation, the same irregular expanse of rubble set in solid mortar, hardened by a century of exposure to the dry atmosphere. Then to an idle, listless blow there came a hollow, wooden sound, that caused the heart to leap into the throat.
When the song was finished the meal was also concluded, and the men returned to their labours on the rock; some to continue their work with the picks at the hard stone of the foundation-pit, others to perform miscellaneous jobs about the rock, such as mixing the mortar and removing debris, while James Dove and his fast friend Ruby Brand mounted to their airy "cot" on the beacon, from which in a short time began to proceed the volumes of smoke and the clanging sounds that had formerly arisen from "Smith's Ledge."
He pressed them over his eyes. These strange words persisted in piling themselves solidly between him and his desire. They formed a barrier stronger than walls of brick or mortar. Unprotected, defenceless, unguarded, uncared for, this girl who had rocked his child and Celia's in her arms, who had held him close to the warmth of her young bosom.
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