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They are the beams, the uprights and the roofing of the building.

They saw that if the scaffolds were only high enough, the meat might be easily hung so as to be out of reach of the hyenas. The only question was, how to place the cross-poles a little higher. In the darkness they could not obtain a new set of uprights, and therein lay the difficulty. How were they to get over it?

It consists of two short uprights driven into the ground one on either side of the path. These are bound together at the tops with two crosspieces. Near the lower ends of these uprights is a loose crosspiece, the trigger, which the fowl in passing knocks down, thus freeing the short upright, marked C, in fig. 1.

Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery, the formidable hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder, without uttering a word, seized the ends of the two uprights with his powerful hands, raised them, pushed them out from the wall, balanced the long and pliant ladder, loaded with vagabonds from top to bottom for a moment, in the midst of shrieks of anguish, then suddenly, with superhuman force, hurled this cluster of men backward into the Place.

Hans had the credit of suggesting a way; and that was to take out some of the uprights, splice them to the others, with the forked ends uppermost, and then rest the horizontal poles on the upper forks. That would give a scaffold tall enough to hang the meat beyond the reach of either jackals or hyenas. Hans' suggestion was at once adopted.

And then a thought flashed in his mind. He crept forth on hands and knees to the brink of the pit, and felt above him in the air. The rail had been fast to a pair of uprights; it had only broken from the one, and still depended from the other. The count set it back again as he had found it, so that the place meant death to the first comer, and groped out of the catacomb like a sick man.

These trifling drawbacks, however, in nowise detracted from the hospitality offered. The dining-room was a large apartment furnished with leaves, the uprights of cocoa-nut tree, the walls and roof of pandanus leaf. Beneath the heaps of leaves, fresh and sweet-scented, was the earth.

I spoke but now of lines of correspondence between the shining lights that are the life of the sky at night. Let me illustrate my meaning. Observe the lamps about us. The five on the uprights. Between them, in the air, two stars of interwoven form are drawn. Take the lamps as determining points, and use thy fancy a moment."

Finally, when every one began to fear that the Torpedo Company had entirely forgotten their contract, a wagon, similar to the one owned by Bob, drove up with the long tin tubes on the uprights, and the box evidently stored with the dangerous liquid. In an instant the moonlighters were changed boys.

This kitchen-tent had a few rough, heavy planks for floor, and a stove at one end, with the pipe up through the canvas, and the ridge pole and uprights studded with nails, whereon hung cups, jugs, pans, and tins. Two tables stood under the slanting roof, with rows of nails beneath to hold irons and everything else with a handle.