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A little satire upon the travelling English seems, by the way, to be as agreeable at Copenhagen as at Paris. Our Danish friends are quite welcome to it; we only wish for their sakes that, in the present instance, it had been a little more lively and pungent. Our Hans Andersen is too weak in the wrist, has not arm strong enough "to crack the satyric thong."
The oddity of the situation so tickled us that we had to collapse from laughter. But a warning shout brought us to our feet. Mr. Mobilised Lion Tamer was bearing down upon us waving his whip. He lashed out. We saw it coming and dodged. By the time the thong struck the road we were brushing up dense clouds of dust, singing, whistling, and roaring the words, "Britons never shall be slaves!"
Then sitting on the horse's neck, he fixes a strong bridle, without a bit, to the lower jaw: this he does by passing a narrow thong through the eye-holes at the end of the reins, and several times round both jaw and tongue. The two front legs are now tied closely together with a strong leathern thong, fastened by a slip-knot.
Then the Cossack commander called his men around, and giving time with his cowhide thong, led them through some of the most weird Cossack war songs it is possible to imagine. The difference in our mentality was never so well illustrated as in the songs of the two people.
Five of the six trees bore oblong bundles, wrapped in comforters and blankets, and bound with buckskin to the branches near the trunk, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, too high for coyotes, too tight for vultures. But what caught our attention as we dropped into the gully was one of the bundles that had slipped from its fastenings and was hanging by a thong.
Whitson drew his knife, and cut the thong with which Langley was vainly struggling, and then the two men, pale as death, looked silently at each other with starting eyes. Whitson re-loaded his revolver, and then made a sort of torch out of dry reeds; a pile of which lay close at hand.
The clamp caught, and the string hung dangling downwards. Mounting again upon my comrade's shoulders, I grasped the thong high up to test its hold. It was secure; and, cautioning Raoul to hold fast lest the hook might be detached by my vibration, I climbed up and seized hold of the beam. By this I was enabled to squeeze myself through the roof.
From this time, which was nine o'clock, till past midnight fresh cargoes were continually arriving, the principal part being brought in by the dogs, and the rest by the men, who, tying the thong which held it round their waist, dragged in each his separate portion.
They had already guessed the object of this movement, and sat silently awaiting the result. On the rock which they had left, the rope still bound fast passed around one of the angles, in such a way that, from the point where Basil stood, it offered a fair mark. It was at this Basil was aiming. His object was to cut the thong with his bullet.
His sufferings, however, seemed to engage little of the thoughts of his conductors; who, leaving the buffalo road, and striking into the pathless forest, pushed onward at a rapid pace, compelling him to keep up with them; and it was not until he had twice fainted from pain and exhaustion, that, after some discussion, they thought fit to loosen the thong, which they afterwards removed altogether.
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