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Inside are several stories of square halls finely vaulted with massive octagonal vaults; below, the windows are little more than slits, but on one floor there are larger two-light pointed openings. Far finer and larger has been the castle of Leiria, some fifty miles south of Coimbra: it or the keep was begun by Dom Diniz in 1324.
Its wooden floors are gone, its windows are mere slits, and like the rest of the castle it owes its distinctive appearance to the battlements which crown the whole building, and whose merlons are plain blocks of stone brought to a sharp point at the top.
Godfrey was so warmly clad that he felt the cold but little. His eyes, however, suffered from the glare of the snow, and he at once adopted spectacles, which were made for him by the Ostjaks. They were the shape of goggles, and made of skin with the hair on, narrow slits being cut in them, these slits being partly covered with the hair, and so shielding the eyes from the glare of the snow.
But whether he was silently performing his duties on deck, or sitting on the hatchway smoking his opium, his vigilant eyes from their long, narrow slits kept watch. For thirteen days the sun sparkled on the blue waters of the Pacific, and favoring breezes gave every promise of landing the East India in port with the fastest record of the season.
I looked to see the mate's face soften to some sort of approval. On the contrary, his blue eyes contracted to narrow slits, the snarl of his voice was communicated to his lips, so that he seemed like a dog about to bite. But the three fellows. They were small men, all; and young men, anywhere between twenty-five and thirty.
'That's the woman that I married on the 7th; and that's the man I married her to! said he, pointing to Sigglesfield, who seemed to turn twice as small, and his ferret eyes no better than button-hole slits. 'That! said our parson; 'why, that's Mr. Sigglesfield, the solicitor from Lewes. 'Then the lady opposite is Mrs. Sigglesfield, that's all, said the parson from London.
Perhaps I shall get the credit also at some distant day when I permit my zealous historian to lay out his foolscap once more eh, Watson? Well, now, let us see where this rat has been lurking." A lath-and-plaster partition had been run across the passage six feet from the end, with a door cunningly concealed in it. It was lit within by slits under the eaves.
Most of them were packed with dirty, wind blown leaves from the trees nearby, so tightly packed by the furious rains that beat against the rock that he had difficulty in removing the substance. Higher up they appeared to be quite clean and free from obstruction. He scraped the leaves out of five or six of the slits, one after the other, as he climbed a short distance up the wall.
The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of it the walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard chamber, with iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls and central pillar; the beautiful little chapel, with its finely-ornamented arches; the little chambers in the thickness of the walls; the well, 94 feet deep, sunk through the solid masonry into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in the walls; the stones in the roof scored with frequent bolts from the besiegers' crossbows, one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall opposite one of the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour all these breathe of the days when the Red King's castle took its part in the doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they lived and fought.
Bobby thought he had joined Rawlins and Robinson in the library. The only daylight entered the hall through narrow slits of windows on either side of the front door. Bobby, watching these, was, even with the problems night brought to him now, glad when they grew paler. Paredes, who had been smoking cigarette after cigarette, arose and brought his card table.
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