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Updated: June 21, 2025
Thus do the amorous insects declare their flame and win the consent of the hesitating fair. The attitude of the couple now tells us the use of a certain organic detail peculiar to the Clythra. In several species, though not in all, the males' fore-legs are of inordinate length. What is the object of these extravagant arms, these curious grappling-irons out of all proportion to the insect's size?
Here and there a lantern made an orange blur against the black. Some of the men held coils of rope with light grappling-irons spliced to the free ends. Others had home-made boat-hooks, the poles of which were fully ten feet long. They heard the dull boom of a gun to seaward. "She bes closer in!" exclaimed Pat Lynch. "Aye, closer in nor when I first heared her.
The lieutenant sprang below, just at the moment that Captain Olding ordered the crew of the corvette to return on board and the grappling-irons to be cast loose. "We must chase the pirate and punish him for his audacity," he exclaimed. It was some time, however, before the order could be obeyed and the corvette got clear of the merchantman. Gerald had remained on board.
This suited my plans to a nicety; so we filled upon the schooner and followed the ship closely, luffing up for her lee quarter as we did so; and so well had everything worked with us that I believe none of the Frenchmen had the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong until we had actually run them aboard and thrown our grappling-irons.
When it arrives at the end of the quay, which was bedecked as for a holiday, the furtive little shadow pauses at the steps leading down to the bank. Almost immediately there are shouts and excitement all along the quay: "Quick a boat grappling-irons!" Boatmen and policemen come running from all sides. A boat puts off from the shore with a lantern in the bow.
An hour or so later, a morbidly expectant group gathered on the river-bank. Redmond, luckily, had reached the detachment just prior to the coroner's departure, and that gentleman now comprised one of a party. Slavin had hitched his team to a cotton-wood clump nearby, and was now busily rigging the double set of three-pronged grappling-irons.
Grappling-irons were hove aboard her and the next instant the Frenchmen, in overpowering numbers, rushed like a torrent along her decks. The chief anxiety of Captain Courtney when he ascertained that the approaching ship was an enemy, was to secure the escape of the prize.
Nobody had dared to put his signature to it; verbal instructions only were given. Three detachments of soldiers, furnished with scaling-ladders, ropes and grappling-irons, surrounded the Quirinal. At half-past ten, the sentinel who kept guard on the tower of the Quirinal disappeared. The signal was immediately given. With varying success the small battalions introduced themselves into the palace.
Then Skallagrim cut loose the grappling-irons with his axe, and that not too soon, for, scarcely had they pushed clear with great toil when the long warship slipped from the rock and foundered, taking many dead and wounded men with her. Now Ospakar and some of his people stood safe upon the rocks, and Eric called to him in mockery, bidding him come aboard the Gudruda.
They took along a good crew, several bold elephant-hunters, an author to write their adventures, an artist to sketch the Huggermuggers, Little Jacket's six comrades, grappling-irons, nets, ropes, harpoons, cutlasses, pistols, guns, the two young elephants, the lion, the giraffe, the monkeys, and the parrots.
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