United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To this note, which was despatched by a Boer who had been detained at Van Oudtshoorn, I received no reply. At Hind's store we were informed that the force in our front had increased during the forenoon to about 800 men, of whom a large number were entrenched on the hillside.
This design has ceased to be thought extravagant, since Professor Hind's explorations have proved the existence of a fertile belt across the continent, through British territory, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains; along which, if speedily and wisely opened up, must travel the commerce of China and Japan, as well as the gold of Columbia.
'Did you not, O monster of impiety, mimicked Hind in the preacher's own voice, 'pervert for your own advantage the words of the Psalmist, who said, "Bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron"? Moreover, was it not Solomon who wrote: "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry"? And is not my soul hungry for gold and the Regicides' discomfiture? Peters was still fumbling after texts when the final argument: 'Deliver thy money, or I will send thee out of the world! frightened him into submission, and thirty broad pieces were Hind's reward.
They had been down to the hind's cottage, gossiping with his wife. About nine o'clock Mrs. Minards came back in the car, driven by her husband, and soon after all the household retired to bed. It must have been three or four hours later that Paul heard what he thought were mysterious noises and stealthy footsteps downstairs.
To Hind's command of 'Stand and deliver! duly enforced with a loaded pistol, the ineffable Peters replied with ox-eye sanctimoniously upturned: 'Thou shalt not steal; let him that stole, steal no more, adding thereto other variations of the eighth commandment.
A few rounds were then fired in their direction. Had Colonel White, in the first instance, opened fire with his Maxims on the Boers, whom he surprised watering their horses close to Hind's store, considerable loss would have been inflicted; but this was not our object, for with the exception of the small skirmish on the previous night, the Boers had not as yet molested the column, whose sole aim was to reach Johannesburg if possible without fighting.
On leaving the hind's cottage on the Border, I hasted to the north-west, because in that quarter I perceived the highest and wildest hills before me. As I crossed the mountains above Hawick, I exchanged clothes with a poor homely shepherd, whom I found lying on a hill-side, singing to himself some woeful love ditty.
Some, in consequence of the badness of the solder used, bursting from the expansive force of the charge before they left the raft, and setting fire to others Captain Hind's raft being blown up from this cause, thus rendering it useless, besides severely burning him and thirteen men: others took a wrong direction in consequence of the sticks not having been formed of proper wood, whilst the greater portion would not ignite at all from a cause which was only discovered when too late.
When within two miles of Hind's store, the column was delayed by extensive wire-fencing, which ran for one and a half miles on either side of the road, and practically constituted a defile. While the column was halted and the wire being cut, the country for some distance on both sides was carefully scouted.
So she made ready and mounted her litter, when Al-Hajjaj with his suite came up to Hind's door and as she mounted and her damsels and eunuchs rode around her, he dismounted and took the halter of her camel and led it along, barefooted, whilst she and her damsels and tirewomen laughed and jeered at him and made mock of him.
Word Of The Day