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For perhaps two minutes, or it might have been a little longer, these last two ghostly lanterns swayed and lengthened and contracted with the wild plungings of the little craft.
These last words came from a young man who evidently had authority over the servants, and spoke calmly but firmly, at the same time patting and soothing the terror-stricken animal, which, though still trembling in every limb, had ceased its frantic plungings. "William," continued the same speaker, addressing the coachman, "keep her still, if you can, till we have got my father and aunt out."
There was also one father with three daughters in anxious control, a father of the old school scarcely half broken in, reluctant, rebellious and consciously and conscientiously "reet Staffordshire." The daughters were all alert to suppress the possible plungings, the undesirable humorous impulses of this almost feral guest. They nipped his very gestures in the bud.
Then there were cries as of fierce gambols, or of pursuit and capture, of hunter and victim; and at times, in the midst of profound stillness, came huge plungings, with accompanying splashings, which I thought were made by alligators, but which Captain Murray thinks were more likely the riot of elephants disturbed while drinking.
With the shortening of the rope the compelling power of the man's will forced itself into the brute mind, and, bending to that will, the wild leaps and plungings took on a vague suggestion of obedience a going WITH the rope, not against it; that was all. An erratic going, perhaps, but enough to tell that the horse had acknowledged a master.
"Then prithee mind the little beast for me while I take my life in my hands and make what success I may toward mounting the big one." Then followed a confusion of kicks, cuffs, tramplings and plungings, accompanied by a thunderous intermingling of volleyed curses, and finally a bitter apostrophe to the mule, which must have broken its spirit, for hostilities seemed to cease from that moment.
Another mile passed in discomforting plungings. The trail had become all but impassable for the staggering horses; yet the leading buckboard held on doggedly. There were places where both drivers had to get out and lead; bad bits where all save the president descended to walk. But through the worst as well as the best, Mr. Colbrith clung to his seat like a man determined to ride.
They straddled across the benches and barged at each other in single tourneys and jousts, riding their hobby-horses with violent rearings and plungings and bruising one another without grievous hurt and with yells of laughter. Glasses broke, crockery crashed upon the polished boards. One boy danced the Highland fling on the tables, others were waltzing down the corridors.
To destroy the Plumie ship within twice that would endanger the Niccola and leave nothing of the Plumie to examine afterward. The Plumie ship must have seen the rocket flares, but it continued to dance, coming nearer and ever nearer in seemingly heedless and purposeless plungings and spinnings in star-speckled space. But suddenly there were racing, rushing trails of swirling vapor.
He knew that the Indians choke them with the noose round the neck until they fall down exhausted and covered with foam, when they creep up, fix the hobbles and the line in the lower jaw, and then loosen the lasso to let the horse breathe, and resume its plungings till it is almost subdued, when they gradually draw near and breathe into its nostrils.
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