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Broken wires began to sputter ominously and fire out sparks. A smell of singed feathers and burning rubber filled the air. By the light of the sparks David saw the Phoenix staggering to its feet. He jumped to the bird's side, but the Phoenix waved him away with its wing. "Quick, my boy," it gasped. "We must make a strategic retreat! Meet me on the ledge in the morning. Ouch!"
We overtook some on the trail next day out of a notorious tent town known as Sheep Camp. Many of them were staggering blindly along, with heavy loads on their backs, some of them off the trail and groping for it with their feet. These we assisted or they would have fallen by the way."
Your assistance, sire, and within a month, whether I oppose Lambert to Monk, or Monk to Lambert, I shall have reconquered my paternal inheritance, without having cost my country a guinea, or my subjects a drop of blood, for they are now all drunk with revolutions, protectorates, and republics, and ask nothing better than to fall staggering to sleep in the arms of royalty.
No one answered his call, and no longer caring if it were the home of friend or foe, he opened the door, and staggering in he sank upon the hearth. As he looked about him he thought, "This is the home of some forest chief." A great fire burned in the rude fireplace, and, as he grew warm, being worn and weary, he sank into a heavy sleep.
And it stood alone in the darkening street, piercing the night with an unwinking stare like an evil spirit, offering its warm, comfortable bars to the passer-by, drawing men into its deadly embrace like a courtesan, to reject them afterwards babbling, reeling, staggering, to rouse the street with quarrels, or to snore in the gutters like swine.
Again she darts forward over the sea like an arrow from the bow. "Stand by to make sail!" "Out all reefs!" I could have carried sail to sink a man-of-war! and away the little ship went, playing leapfrog over the heavy seas, and staggering under her canvas, as if giddy with the same joyful excitement which made my own heart thump so loudly.
A despairing look replaced that transient gleam of hope, and, staggering back behind the tarpaulin, he once more flung his body prostrate upon the raft. Again they lay, side by side, in perfect silence, neither of them asleep, but both in a sort of stupor, produced by their unspoken despair. How long they lay in this half-unconscious condition, neither took note.
"But in exposing such a finished deception he has acted very much against his own interest, both by quickening the penetration of those whom he meant to impose upon, and by staggering their belief in miracles in general. Your highness' self is the best proof of the insufficiency of his plan, if indeed he ever had one."
He yielded not; adamantine to the seductive lure, he picked up his heels and ran. Those behind him, remarking with resentment the amazing fact that an intimate of the mews should run away from liquor, cursed and made after him, veering, staggering, howling like ravening animals. For all their burden of intoxication, they knew the ground by instinct and from long association. They gained on him.
The breeze was not steady; at one time the brig was staggering under her top-gallant sails, while we had our royals set; at another, we would have hands by the top-gallant sheets and topsail halyards, while she expanded every stitch of canvas. On the whole, however, in an hour we had neared about half a mile. Our men were all at their quarters, happy to be so soon at their old work.
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