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In this last phrase, "All the rag-tag that can be picked up," we have the key to the situation; for though orders to press "no aged, diseased or infirm persons, nor boys," were sufficiently explicit, yet in order to swell the returns, and to appease in some degree the fleet's insatiable greed for men, the gangs raked in recruits with a lack of discrimination that for the better part of a century made that fleet the most gigantic collection of human freaks and derelicts under the sun.
"Nothin'!" he muttered with a fearful oath, as the president raked the purse into his coffers. The man rose and strode sullenly from the room, his fingers twitching nervously about the hilt of his bowie-knife; an action which the president observed, but heeded not, being prepared with a concealed revolver for whatever might occur.
She begged me to keep a good fire in our bedroom, and to have some tea ready for M. Benassis when he came in, for I am still sleeping in the little cot-bed in his room. I raked out the fire in the salon, and went upstairs to wait for my good friend. I looked at the letter, out of curiosity, before I laid it on the chimney-piece, and noticed the handwriting and the postmark.
Nellie was in despair at her failure and felt almost inclined to cry; but, Dick at the last moment, when the search was just about to be given up, raked out a perfect specimen from a hole in the rock-work beneath one of the buttresses that was nearly awash with the water a darksome dungeon, isolated from the vulgar herd of barnacles, and common but kindred anemones with which the stuck-up sea cucumber was too proud to associate.
Then it bulged and overflowed the full hole; whereupon he patted and hammered it into the customary mound and slapped upon it sundry pieces of sodden turf with gaping gashes between their edges. The surplus soil he removed in a wheelbarrow, the boards he also took away, then raked over the earth-smeared, bruised grass about the grave and so made an end of his work.
The greater streets divided the city into a number of small districts, the group of dwellings in each of which forming a separate stronghold. To cross these streets it was necessary to construct underground galleries, or build traverses, since a Spanish battery raked each street, and each house had to be fought for and taken separately.
Then he led the way out and Shefford followed. They were silent all the way back to camp. Nas Ta Bega sat in repose where they had left him, a thoughtful, somber figure. Shefford went directly to the Indian, and Joe tarried at the camp-fire, where he raked out some red embers and put one upon the bowl of his pipe. He puffed clouds of white smoke, then found a seat beside the others.
No one in the room recognized him, as he had not been in Cheyenne for several years. After losing two or three bets he threw down a fifty dollar bill and lost that also. Boulder quietly raked in the money. Bill placed a second fifty dollar note on another card, when Boulder informed him that the limit was twenty-five dollars. "You have just taken in a fifty dollar bill which I lost," said Bill.
She was beginning to realise that a declared understanding was less exciting than an incipient love affair; the thirst for fresh conquest was upon her, and in default of any more interesting prey, she determined to turn her attention to Mr Vanburgh, and raked her silly little head to devise schemes for subjection.
The daylight hours became sensibly abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy: faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
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