United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


I thought of a Scotch terrier at the sight of his shifty eyes in the glade between his tangled hair and beard. For one ignoble moment I felt ashamed of having been introduced as his friend in the presence of so much beauty in distress. But evidently Tripp meant to conduct the ceremonies, whatever they might be.

They paddled through the creek till it melted in the meadows; they poled their canoe along the channel which the grass concealed; they dragged it by hand under bushes which covered it, until the little glade opened to them and showed enough dry ground for a camp and several shallow streams winding around clumps of bushes, but always stretching out toward the west.

The birds themselves seem not more gay. On emerging from the shadow of the tall trees into the open glade effulgent with flowers, his gaiety seems to have reached its climax: it breaks forth in song; and for some minutes the forest re-echoes the well-known lay of "Woodman spare that tree." Whence this joyous humour? Why are those eyes sparkling with a scarce concealed triumph?

For a while they fought there in silence, then he said, breathing heavily, "A fox can't drown. Didn't you know that, little fool?" Her strength was ebbing. He forced her back to the glade and stood there holding her, his inflamed face a sneering, leering mask for the hot hell that her nearness and resistance had awakened in him.

It is worth an afternoon's ramble to come upon one of those trees, standing in an open glade of the forest, a pyramid of white or cream-colored blossoms. Before a leaf is on the tree, it clothes itself in this lovely livery, and at a little distance seems like a snowy cloud rather than a shrub.

She appeared so tired and worn that I left her at last in the little glade where we had found refuge, hoping she might fall asleep. I doubt if she did, although I dozed irregularly, my back against a tree, and it was already growing dusk when she came forth again from her retreat, and joined us in a hastily prepared meal.

Henry seized some of the bushes and held on for his life. How thankful he was now that he had given his promise to the chief, and that his hands were free! A shiver swept over him from head to foot. Any moment one of the trees might fall upon him, but he was near the center of the glade, the safest place, and he did not seek to move.

"Sir, you may wound your pretty hands in grasping me," replied the Count, in chill indifference. "Ah! You would threaten me with violence, vassal?" cried the other, retreating some paces farther as he spoke. "Beltrame!" he called again. "Are you never coming?" A voice answered him from the thicket, and with a clank of steel a half-dozen men flung themselves into the glade.

Was he planning to make a rush for the young woman at the very moment of the sacrifice, and boldly snatch her from her executioners? This would be utter folly, and it was hard to admit that Fogg was such a fool. Sir Francis consented, however, to remain to the end of this terrible drama. The guide led them to the rear of the glade, where they were able to observe the sleeping groups.

Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe oak shut out the view. Through the screen of alder and grape and willow and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of a cathedral window.