Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
He hummed a little under his breath and any one who was music wise would have known that he was just a half-beat behind her all the way. When she had finished he sighed deeply, ecstatically. He bent his lean frame over the counter and, despite his swart colouring, seemed to glitter upon her his eyes, his teeth, his very finger-nails. "Something led me here. I never come up on Tuesdays.
Two of the men who were quarreling drew pistols, but the swart leader struck them aside, and spoke to them so fiercely that they put back their weapons, and, a minute later, Robert saw them drinking together in friendship. The storm did not break. The wind blew, and, now and then, drops of rain fell, but it did not seem able to get beyond the stage of thunder and lightning.
This full-blooded, jovial creature, with her swart moustache, represented the only Parisian success of three provincial lives, and, in her good-nature, had permitted her decayed townswomen at as low a rent as was compatible with prudence to shelter themselves under her roof and as near it as possible.
Louder and louder clashed the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew the strain, till the blood of the desert race could no longer resist the martial delirium, and the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a thousand scimetars were bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook the hall and awoke me, to find it broad daylight, and the room tingling with the electric music of the "Turkish Reveille."
An officer, as he spoke, entered the apartment. He was a man between thirty-nine and forty years of age, of medium height but a very well proportioned figure; with an intellectual and animated physiognomy; his beard black, and his hair turning gray, as often happens when people have found life either too gay or too sad, more especially when they happen to be of swart complexion.
It was a swart, wild-looking horse that he beheld, with eyes that flamed like carbuncles, while a couple of bodies, evidently snatched from the branches, were laid across his back. A glance at the trees, too, showed Bouchier that they had been considerably lightened of their hideous spoil. Seeing this, Bouchier dashed forward.
A sorry sight they were, for three of their horses were lame, so that the riders were obliged to walk and lead them, and the men themselves had been so bruised with the spear-shafts that they seemed more dead than alive. Swart Piet rode last of all, and just then he turned, and looking towards the peak shook his fist as though threatening it, and cursed aloud in Dutch and Kaffir.
The cramoisy velvets and yellow satin doublets of the court, the gold-brocaded mantles of priests and princes are often but vulgar drapery of little historic worth. Such costumes thrown around the swart figures of hard-working artisans, for literary and artistic purposes, have a real significance, and are worthy of a closer examination.
Then by degrees they discovered the whole story, for the woman pointed out to them the man who had guarded the entrance to the kloof, at whom Zinti had fired, and under fear of death this man confessed all he knew, which was that Suzanne, Sihamba and Zinti had escaped northward upon their horses, followed by Swart Piet and his band.
Let the reader imagine a figure dressed in a deep-yellow shirt reaching barely to the knees, the legs naked; a belt of scarlet wampum about the loins, and a crimson and dark-blue shawl twisted turban-fashion round the head; with locks of black coarse hair streaming from under this, and falling loose over the neck or face: fancy one half of such a figure lighted up by a very strong blaze, marking the nimble tread, the swart cold features, sparkling eye, and outstretched muscular arms of the red-man, the other half, meantime, being in the blackest possible shadow: whilst following close behind, just perceptible through wreaths of thick smoke, moved the heads of the leading horses; and, over all, flashed at frequent intervals red vivid lightning; one moment breaking forth in a wide sheet, as though an overcharged cloud had burst at once asunder; the next, descending in zigzag lines, or darting through amongst the tall pines and cypress trees; whilst the quick patter of the horses' hoofs were for a time heard loudly rattling over the loose hollow planks, and then again drowned wholly by the crash of near thunder.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking