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Updated: June 20, 2025
Instead of cold marble porches, with close-locked doors and brass knockers, he sees the doors hospitably open; the worthy burgher smoking his pipe on the old-fashioned stoop in front, with his "vrouw" knitting beside him; and the cat and her kittens at their feet sleeping in the sunshine.
"Put your arms round me and give me a good hug, Patty! Love me hard, HARD, for, oh! I need it badly just now!" And the two girls clung together for a moment and then went into the house with hands close-locked and a kind of sad, desperate courage in their young hearts.
He was not dead, then, for he sighed, an awful sigh; it shook him like a light reed in the tempest, he shuddered from head to foot; he leaned towards her, as if about to faint, but never removed his close-locked hands from his eyes.... She had only clasped his arm before; as hand met hand, or touch thrilled touch, he shivered, his grasping fingers relaxed in their hold on each other, but closed on hers.... She waited long, she listened to his breathing, intermittent with tearless sobs.
Lanyard ran forward, rounded the well of the companionway, and pulled up. Now the nature of the thing was revealed. Blackly silhouetted against the square of the doorway two human figures were close-locked and struggling desperately, straining, resisting, thrusting, giving, recovering ... and all with never a sound more than the deadened thump of a shifting foot or the rasp of hard-won breathing.
And, as many rivermen had good reason to know, the normal man availed little against Roaring Dick's maniacal rushes. The men were close-locked, and tugging and straining for an advantage. Bob crouched lower and lower with a well-defined notion of getting a twist on his opponent. For an instant he partially freed one side. Like lightning Roaring Dick delivered a fierce straight kick at his groin.
The plan no doubt was the same old plan a quick and overwhelming torrent of shell fire, a sudden hurricane of high explosive on the forward trench, and then, before the supports could be hurried up and brought in any weight through the reeking, shaking inferno of the shell-smitten communication trenches, the surge forward of line upon line, wave upon wave, of close-locked infantry.
At that time the Khalifa and the Chasseur met in many a skirmish; hot, desperate struggles, where men fought horse to horse, hand to hand; midnight frays, when, in the heart of lonely ravines, Arab ambuscades fell on squadrons of French cavalry; terrible chases through the heat of torrid suns, when the glittering ranks of the charging troops swept down after the Bedouins' flight; fiery combats, when the desert sand and the smoke of musketry circled in clouds above the close-locked struggle, and the Leopard of France and the Lion of Sahara wrestled in a death-grip.
But no matter whether the lines moved forward or back, fast or slow, raggedly and unevenly, or in one long close-locked line, ever and always the shells soared over and burst beyond the line, just far enough barely to clear it if the fight were at close quarters; reaching out and on a hundred, two hundred, yards when the fighters drew apart for a moment; always clear of their own infantry, and as exactly as possible on the fighting line of the enemy, for such is the essence of 'close and accurate artillery support.
And now, on bush-girt slopes to right and left was bitter strife, a close-locked fray that burst suddenly asunder and swirled down till pursued and pursuer were lost amid that tangle of blooming thickets where it seemed the battle clamoured awhile, then roared away as the enemy broke and fled before the sudden furious onset of Atlamatzin's warriors.
Save that all things come easily to him even the most beautiful bride in Venice, raised from the ranks of the people to suit his whim!" Close-locked thoughts and open countenance. "Giustinian! She will be our daughter, and none need question her dignity and grace."
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