United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We neither of us spoke, as we listened attentively, to hear the next moment the sound made by a ramrod in a gun-barrel, and we knew that Tom was safe. "They've gone from my window now, Mas'r Landell," whispered a voice at our elbow; "and they won't come back there, I think, seeing how hot it was. But, harken there, isn't that them trying somewhere else?" There was no mistaking the sound.
So I bided my time, confident he must make an opening for fit return if he kept up such furious attack, and thus, with retreat and advance, hack and guard, thrust and parry, we tramped up a wide bit of ground, while there was no sound of the struggle, except our hard breathing, with now and then a fierce curse from him as his flashing steel nicked on my gun-barrel, or flew off into thin air just as he thought to send its deadly point home.
He was some sixty years old, and had received a stroke with a gun-barrel, right down his forehead, which, even after healing, had left a gash more than an inch deep. From this he was denominated, "Gun-barrel," "Forked head," &c. He was at the same time very religious and very profane. His voice would first be heard singing hymns, and next cursing the Confederacy in no measured terms.
The bareness of the ground rendered any kind of ambush impossible, and the man who has reason to fear that at any moment he may see a gun-barrel thrust out of a thicket straight at his own chest, looks on a stretch of smooth ground, with nothing on it to intercept his view, as a kind of oasis.
We went there in carriages and wagons and on horseback, and as we shivered around a fire built by the Cossacks near an open work cabin, we had little appearance of a pleasure party. The first drive resulted in the death of two rabbits and the serious disability of a third. One halted within twenty steps of me and received the contents of my gun-barrel.
Bad loading makes it do its work anyhow." "I don't understand you," I said. "It's easy enough, sir. S'pose I take a charge of powder, and lay it loose on a stone. If I set light to it there's a puff and some smoke, and that's all, because it has plenty of room. But if I shut it up tight in a gun-barrel rammed down hard, it goes off with a loud bang, because it has to burst its way out.
Man-devouring batteries, abatis; battalions palisaded to the teeth, 'the pales strong as masts, and room only for a musket-barrel between; nay, they are 'furnished with a lath or cross-strap all along, for resting your gun-barrel on and taking aim: so careful is Daun. The ground itself is intricate, in parts impracticably steep; everywhere full of bushes, gnarls and impediments.
"Ebers," I called out at the top of my voice, "unless you obey my orders I'LL have you strung up by your own men. Open that door!" The fat, puzzled face peered once more cautiously over the menacing gun-barrel. "Is dot you, Captain?" "Yes, come out; the fight is all over." "No, vos it?" and he flung open the lower half of the door. "Veil, I vos not sorry. Have ve vipped dem already?"
Though I dared not shoot, I contrived to use the rifle as a club on the man who was trying to choke Dorgan from behind, and after a hard-breathing minute or two we had them both down, one of them half stunned by the blow on his head from the gun-barrel, and the other with an arm twisted and temporarily useless.
"Let's holloa, all the same." But, before we had drawn breath for the shout, there was a yell, a dull sound as of a stick striking a gun-barrel, then a crashing of the lower branches, cries, blows, and a loud voice calling to the poachers to give in. "Why, it's father got back," cried Polly Hopley. "Oh, Mr Lomax, go and help, or they'll kill him!"
Word Of The Day