United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Once a coral-red snake whipped away, hissing, but not quick enough to dodge a ball from Stern's revolver. Stern viewed the ugly, triangular head with apprehension. Well he knew that venom dwelt there, but he said nothing. The one and only chance of successfully transplanting the Folk must be to regions warm as these.
Then to Stern, his one unhurt man, "You heard what he said about distant firing. Did you hear it?" "Not I, sir, but I believe they did an' be damned to them!" And Stern's eyes never left the opposite cliff, though his ears were strained to catch the faintest sound from the lower cañon. It was there they last had seen the troop. It was from that direction help should come.
The building attracted Stern's attention by its unusual state of preservation. He burst in one of the rusted iron shutters and climbed through the window to see what might be inside. A moment later Beatrice heard a cry of astonishment and joy. "Great Heavens!" the man exclaimed, appearing at the window. "Come in! Come in see what I've found!"
Checking the descent, he drove forward on level wings, peering below with wide eyes, while far above him the remnants of the storm fled, routed, and let a shaft of pallid sunlight through. Stern's eye caught the light of that setting beam, which still reached that height, though all below, on earth, was dusk; and now he knew the west again and found his sense of direction.
Then, with the suddenness characteristic of all that drew near in the fog, the shore-lights grew rapidly bigger and more bright. The rowers lay back on their paddles at a sharp word of command from one of the oarsmen in Stern's boat. Came a grating, a sliding of keels on pebbles. The boat stopped. Others came up to land. From them men began clambering. The song died.
The copper bindings and the lock were still quite plainly to be seen, as the engineer held the torch close, though green and corroded with incredible age. One effort of Stern's powerful arms sufficed to tip the chest quite over. As it fell it burst. Down in a mass of pulverized, worm-eaten splinters it disintegrated.
And the penalty of refusal may be the boy's death " He shuddered profoundly, and with both wasted hands covered his face. For a moment madness sought to possess him. He felt a wild desire to shout imprecations, to rush out, fling himself against the cave-door of H'yemba and riddle it with bullets but presently calm returned again. For in Stern's nature lay nothing of hysteria.
The savage choked, gurgled, writhed; his face grew purple with stagnant blood. Then he leaped, dragging the engineer with him; they fell, rolled, twisted and Stern's hold was broken. A great shout rose as Kamrou struggled up and once more seized the American. He raised him like a child, and took a step, two, three, toward the infernal caldron in the rock floor.
Stern's journey, said, in an angry mood, "I have enough of your Bibles." Theodore also believed that by ill-using Mr. Stern he would please his "Gaffat children," therefore, immediately after Mr. Stern's imprisonment, he wrote to them saying, "I have chained your enemy and mine."
Even had his parched tongue been able to voice a sound, the howling tempest they themselves were creating as they fell, would have whipped the shout away and drowned it in the gloom. In Stern's ears roared a droning as of a billion hornets. He felt a vast, tremendous lassitude. Inside his head it seemed as though a huge, merciless pressure were grinding at his very brain.
Word Of The Day