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For many years the Bocchesi brought shiploads of stone to increase the size of the island, and still, on July 22 of each year, a stone-laden boat goes from Perasto to the rock. There are two festivals celebrated here, of which the more important is that of the Assumption, August 15. The other, the Birth of the Virgin, on September 8, is less so.
The stone-laden craft was obviously intended as a decoy, and but for the heavy gale that came on, the other two would have succeeded in reaching their destination." A few months later, Captain S entered Gibraltar Bay, and was boarded by the chief commissioner of the last enterprise, accompanied by a friend, who was introduced as being engaged in "our" trade.
That wild cry was heard even by the party who were waiting to make their horrid seizure, and for that party the stone-laden coffin was sent with a retinue of mourners through the old iron gate of the principal entrance, while the mortal remains were borne by a smaller party to the river inlet and placed on the raft.
We pass the lanes of the village, our heads almost on a level with the flat stone-laden roofs; our mules, with their long rolling pace, like the waves of the sea, give to their riders a facetious wag of the body that is quite striking. Now the village is passed, and see, a road banded with green ribands of turf. S.'s mule and guide pass on, and head the party. G. rides another mule.
Idly swinging his girdle around his head, one day, and letting go, he was surprised at the distance to which, with little effort, he could send the stone-laden pouch. Months of puzzled experimenting produced a sling at first with a thong of hide fast to each stone, later with the double thong and pouch that small boys and savages have not yet improved upon.
First the war-head, then the middle, then the tail and propeller of a fourteen-foot Whitehead torpedo swept away from them, two or three feet below the surface of the waves. A line of bubbles came to the surface, showing that the torpedo was headed, straight and clean, for the stone-laden scow over on the ocean. Then the torpedo, still under water, passed out of their range of view.
By dawn of the 21st more than 70,000 French had crossed, but at this critical interval the bridge again gave way, broken by the fireships and the stone-laden boats sent by the Austrians down the swift current. The struggle went on all day, the bridge being again built and again broken, and at night the French, cut off from their supply of ammunition, were forced to retreat.
Then the silence was broken by a wild yell of terror from the swarming Danes, and ere they could fly from the crowded towers and roadway where the bridge was steepest, the whole length of three spans bent and swayed towards us, and a wide gap sprang open across the roadway. Into that gap crumbled a great stone-laden tower, and men like bees from a shaken swarm.
At last the old man said: "My children, ye shall now come with me unto the Doom-ring of our folk, the Bears of the Southern Dales, and deliver to them your errand; and I beseech you to have pity upon your own bodies, as I have pity on them; on thine especially, Maiden, so fair and bright a creature as thou art; for so it is, that if ye deal us out light and lying words after the manner of dastards, ye shall miss the worship and glory of wending away amidst of the flames, a gift to the God and a hope to the people, and shall be passed by the rods of the folk, until ye faint and fail amongst them, and then shall ye be thrust down into the flow at the Dale's End, and a stone-laden hurdle cast upon you, that we may thenceforth forget your folly."
"All right, Billy," laughed Frank, and after the queer craft astern had been drawn up by the tow-line the young reporter jumped aboard. "Let out lots of rope," he cried, as the stone-laden contrivance bobbed about on the waves, "this is bully. A regular private yacht.
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