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Sailors of Kamchatka and eastern Siberia knew the sea-beaver well, for it had been found on the Asiatic side of the Pacific, and its pelt was regarded as priceless by Chinese and Tartar merchants. But where did this strange denizen of northern waters live? Only in rare seasons did the herds assemble on the rocky islets of Kamchatka and Japan. And when spring came, the sea-beaver disappeared.
Nestor aroused Diomede, whose night apparel was the pelt of a lion; he took his spear, and they came to the outposts, where the men were awake, and kept a keen watch on all movements among the Trojans. Nestor praised them, and the princes, taking Nestor's son, Thrasymedes, and Meriones with them, went out into the open in view of the Trojan camp, sat down, and held a consultation.
He will take upon him with oaths to pelt some tenderer man out of his company, and makes good sport at his conquest over the puritan fool. The Scripture supplies him for jests, and he reads it on purpose to be thus merry: he will prove you his sin out of the Bible, and then ask if you will not take that authority.
The armed Russian and Mordvinian foresters, our guides and protectors, were in the vanguard; and as Misha seemed peaceably disposed we relinquished all designs on his pelt, consoling ourselves with the reflection that it would not be good at this season of the year.
But before I go I send you this Easter egg, to show that I do not forget you. Keep it, I pray you; study well its inscriptions; and perhaps, after all, you will not pelt me with it at the finish. I have said, my Christian fellow citizens, that your Church appropriated an ancient Pagan festival the festival of spring.
"'Yes, I'll go, and I pulled my umbrella into shape, opened it with a flop, and stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the pelt of the driving rain. "We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the bridge by the side of the Canal of San Vio as far as the Caffe Calcina, and then out on the Zattero, which was being soused with the waves of the Giudecca breaking over the coping of its pavement.
Keep wild beasts from killing us in our sleep, and give us good hearts that we may not kill them in anger." His finger twisted involuntarily into the bullet-hole in the pelt, and he paused a moment. "Keep us from getting lost, O Bon Jésu." Again there was a pause, his eyes opened wide, and he said: "Do you think mother's lost, father?"
Just as the beaver led French voyagers westward from Quebec to the Rocky Mountains, south to Texas, north to the Athabasca, so the hunt of the sea-beaver led to the exploration of the North Pacific coast. "Sea-beaver" the Russians called the owner of the rare pelt. "Sea-otter" it was known to the English and American hunters.
And so they rode to Daphne full pelt, greatly to the anger of the too well dressed Antiochenes, who cursed them for the mud they splashed from wayside pools and for the dung and dust they kicked up into plucked and penciled faces. It was not yet dusk.
As once, long ago, Helen de Vallorbes could have danced and clapped her hands in naughty glee. For her hunting had prospered above her fondest hopes. She had much ado to stifle the laughter which bubbled up in her pretty throat. She was in the humour to pelt peacocks royally, had such pastime been possible.
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