Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
From window to window I would go in the middle of the night, now staring into a blank darkness out of which came, the only signs of its being, the raindrops that bespattered or the hailstones that berattled the panes; now gazing into the deeps of the blue vault, gold-bespangled with its worlds; or, again, into the mysteries of soft clouds, all gathered into an opal tent by the centre-clasp of the moon, thinking out her light over its shining and shadowy folds.
The upper air was black with staves, sticks, and umbrellas, mingled with the pallid hailstones of knobby fists. Yells, and groans, and hoots, and battle-cries blent in grotesque chorus, like one of Dvorák's weird diabolical movements. Mortlake stood impassive, with arms folded, making no further effort, and the battle raged round him as the water swirls round some steadfast rock.
It was a fine, clear morning, with scarcely wind enough to ruffle the glass-like surface of the water. During the first hour or two of this engagement the gunboats had an immense advantage; being propelled both by sails and oars, they were enabled to choose their own position. While the ship lay becalmed and unmanageable they poured grape and canister shot into her stern and bows like hailstones.
At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows. One of the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the concentrated and deadly fire of the assailants in doing so. Though the bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped unscathed. This repulse quite disheartened the Indians.
As for any influence from the public offices of religion, a contented soul may glide through them all for a long life, unstruck to the last, buoyant and evasive as a bee amongst hailstones. And now her cousin, unsolicited, was about to assume, if she should permit him, the unspiritual direction of her being, so that she need never be troubled from the quarter of the unknown. Mrs.
Mongan's men made a roof of their shields, and the hailstones battered on the shields so terribly that even under them they were afraid. They began to move away from the host looking for shelter, and when they had gone apart a little way they turned the edge of a small hill and a knoll of trees, and in the twinkling of an eye they were in fair weather.
They had a law, a covenant, a future, and a god; and as they passed into the lands of the well-beloved, leaving tombs and altars to mark their passage, they had battle-cries that frightened and hymns that exalted the heart. Above were the jealous eyes of Jehovah, and beyond was the resplendent to-morrow. They ravaged the land like hailstones.
Near the edge of the forest we came to a halt. Plainly it would be unwise to venture within range of the arboreal hailstones without protection, for though our pith-helmets were of the best quality they were, after all, but pith, and a cocoanut is a cocoanut, the world over.
"I bette you!" cried the former; "Mr. Ringfield, sir, the curé he don't know what to do with Miss Clairville. He'll never get her home, sure. He's no good with a horse my horse too I guess we better go after him, eh?" "Stay where you are!" shouted the doctor. "Farther along the forest begins again, and these hailstones are snapping off the branches as if they had been slashed with axes.
When these clouds met the world went dark for a space, and there fell from the sky a shower of hailstones, so large that each man wondered at their size, and so swift and heavy that the women and young people of the host screamed from the pain of the blows they received.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking