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"I am but now landed in Boulay Bay, and a militia-sentry discharged his matchlock at me as I ran down the lane under the battery. They are indifferent marksmen, my good compatriots, and their pieces make small impression compared with Cromwell's snaphaunces."
Sticking a sheet of paper into the portable, he began on the wheel locks, leaving spaces to insert the description of the stolen pistols, when recovered. When he had finished the wheel locks, he began on the snaphaunces, then did the miguelet-locks. He had begun on the true flintlocks when Walters, who had finished his own dinner, came up to help him.
For Admiral Blake hath been collecting his ships at Portsmouth, and our informant says that they were to sail to-day, eighty vessels of war. They carry a strong force of fantassins, pikemen, and arquebussiers, with the new snaphaunces devised in the low countries. Their commander is Major-General Haine, Prynne is there as commissioner, and, best of all, Michael Lempriere is on board!"
Gresham asked him how recently he had seen the Fleming collection. "About two years ago; right after I got back from Germany. You remember, we went there together, one evening in March." "Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything," Gresham said. "My God, Jeff! Twenty-five wheel locks! Ten snaphaunces.
The vertical row next to it seemed to be all snaphaunces, but among them Rand saw a pair of Turkish flintlocks. Not even good Turkish flintlocks; a pair of the sort of weapons hastily thrown together by native craftsmen or imported ready-made from Belgium for bazaar sale to gullible tourists.
"They're filling in for a pair of Lazarino Cominazo snaphaunces that Lane Fleming paid seven hundred for, back in the mid-thirties, and didn't pay a cent too much for, even then. Worth an easy thousand, now. Remember the pair of Cominazo flintlocks illustrated in Pollard's Short History of Firearms? These were even better, and snaphaunces." "Well, you go over the collection," Rand told them.
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