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At length, after some fifteen minutes of exhausting labour on the one hand, opposed to stolid dogged resistance on the other, the monster reptile was dragged so close to the surface that the point of its snout was actually raised above the level or the water, and the whole of the gigantic body, right down to the extremity of the broad-ended tail, could be clearly seen hanging suspended vertically in the pellucid depths beneath the yacht, while swimming agitatedly round and round the suspended body could occasionally be seen the creature's mate, now plunging deep, as though, thoroughly terrified, it had at length determined to abandon so dangerous a neighbourhood, and anon returning with a swift rush to the surface, and furious dartings to and fro, as though meditating an attempt at the rescue of its companion.
I recall the moonshine upon their faces, the swift dartings of their faintly luminous blades, their strangely altering shadows on the snow as they moved, the steady attention of us who looked on, the moan of the wind among the trees upon the neighbouring heights, the sound of the men's tramping on the crusted snow, the clear clink of their weapons, sometimes the noise of their breathing.
Her kite-like ascent into the general, with the sudden drop on her choice morsel, switched his humour at the moment when he was respectfully considering that her dartings and gyrations had motive as mach as the flight of the swallow for food. They had meaning; and here was one of the great ladies of the land who thought for herself, and was thoughtful for the country.
Her agitation expressed itself again in little dartings to and fro. "I went begging to them, as you might say. I took all their snubs and oh! so fine some of them were! more delicate than the point of a needle! I took them because I could see just how I should pay them back. I needn't explain to you how that would be, because you couldn't understand.
Those two trips had accomplished much towards making it a pliable, live thing in the hands of one skilled to direct its snaky dartings here and there, wherever one willed it to go. Many trips it would require before the riata was perfect, and then "The señor is early at his prayers," observed a soft, mocking voice behind him. Jack dropped the riata and turned, his whole face smiling a welcome.
"Kedge bird wallaby. Be ticky-ticky, up a tree." "Be ticky-ticky?" said the boy, wonderingly. "Ess. Come 'long; be ticky-ticky. Buzz-zz-uzz," he went, with a wonderfully good imitation of the whirr of an insect's wings, while he made his hand describe the dartings to and fro.
It was through him the simple strategy of massing sheep upon a snowy evening, with its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy aides-de-champ, was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and that I never weary of recalling to mind: the shadow of the night darkening on the hills, inscrutable black blots of snow shower moving here and there like night already come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black dogs upon the snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, unearthly harpings of the wind along the moors; and for centre piece to all these features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his captain's eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker.
So came the great Archer, letting fly myriads of arrows of flakes of light in the stream near the camp. So came in slow, gliding majesty the Swan, with all the splendor of the Galaxy, like infinite unfoldings of white wings, in her wake. So came the Scorpio, with coil on coil of sidereal scintillations, and here and again the out-thrust dartings of a malign red star. And at last so came the morn.
One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird past my ears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I was intruding upon some one's privacy; and, following it with my eye, I soon saw the nest, which was in process of construction.
He was clothed in peculiarities." The pawn broker, thin, round-shouldered, with a great hook-nose and cavernous, bright eyes, spoke rapidly, without an accent, punctuating his sentences with thrusts and dartings and waves of his two hands. His fifty-five years had not lessened his vitality. "You see, Mr. Braceway, we pawn brokers, we have to observe our customers. We become judges of human nature.
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