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There was at that time in Ireland a small number of extreme patriots who rather admired Malcolmson because they thought he was going to fight against England, and despised Gorman because they knew he was not. These men had enrolled themselves in a semi-military organisation and called themselves the National Volunteers.
They loved him, too, if such a thing were possible, as Fra Diavolo was loved by his wild followers. His band was known as the "Dog-Soldiers"; a sort of a semi-military organization, consisting of the most daring, blood-thirsty young men of the tribe; and sometimes "squaw-men," that is, renegade white men married to squaws, attached themselves to his command of cut-throats.
Our path is barred at the outer gate of the caravanserai, however, by two men in semi-military uniforms, armed with swords and huge clubs; they chide the dervish for wanting to take me with him, and have evidently been placed at their post by the authorities. Soon a uniformed official comes in and tries to question me.
Only here and there was a roof or front suggestive of the Middle Ages, and they may have been in imitation; the others were stately and were classical, and the avenues became spacious. All at once, while the student was watching the semi-military constables approach, he heard an uproar toward the bridge.
As the girl backed clear there came into her vision a strange figure the straight, trim figure of a man who stood stiffly at attention, where her imperious words had caught him. He wore a uniform of semi-military style, leather leggings, a flannel shirt of butternut and a smart, tan, broad-brimmed hat. He, too, came in the range of the travelling guns and waited their pleasure.
I know of no great movement of blind forces so pregnant with mighty consequences. The Crusades were a semi-religious and a semi-military movement. They represent the passions and ideas of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its chivalry, its hatred of Mohammedanism, and its desire to possess the spots consecrated by the sufferings of our Lord.
Transparent lanterns adorned with big red characters held close to my face cause me to blink like a cat upon opening my wondering eyes. These lanterns are held by yameni-runners in semi-military garb, to light up my features for the inspection of an officer wearing a rakish Tartar hat with a brass button and a red horse-hair tassel.
But Cartoner was of a race of men who seem to combine with an infinite patience the readiness to take a heavy risk at a given moment. The telegraph office was quiet. The clerks were dignified and sedate behind their caging stiff and formal within their semi-military uniform. They knew nothing.
The report was favourable, giving us to understand that the Major had been much employed in the West Indies, where he still held a moderately lucrative, semi-military appointment, being then in England to settle certain long and vexatious accounts, as well as to take Emily, his only child, from school. He was expected to return to the old, or some other post, in the course of a few months.
A hurried footstep sounded near them, and a big man, in a semi-military costume, presented himself abruptly before them. His dark, coarse race was flushed with anger, and his manner insolent and aggressive. Not deigning to notice the presence of the surgeon, he addressed himself to the master of the transport. "Mr. Belton, I protest against the presence in the main cabin of a ruffianly convict.
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