text:
Rogues in the House/Chapter III

It was a reverberating clang of metal that roused Murilo. He groaned and struggled dazedly to a sitting position. About him all was silence and darkness, and for an instant he was sickened with the fear that he was blind. Then he remembered what had gone before, and his flesh crawled. By the sense of touch he found that he was lying on a floor of evenly joined stone slabs. Further groping discovered a wall of the same material. He rose and leaned against it, trying in vain to orient himself. That he was in some sort of a prison seemed certain, but where and how long he was unable to guess. He remembered dimly a clashing noise and wondered if it had been the iron door of his dungeon closing on him, or if it betokened the entrance of an executioner.

At this thought he shuddered profoundly and began to feel his way along the wall. Momentarily he expected to encounter the limits of his prison, but after a while he came to the conclusion that he was travelling down a corridor. He kept to the wall, fearful of pits or other traps, and was presently aware of something near him in the blackness. He could see nothing, but either his ears had caught a stealthy sound, or some subconscious sense warned him. He stopped short, his hair standing on end; as surely as he lived, he felt the presence of some living creature crouching in the darkness in front of him.

He thought his heart would stop when a voice hissed in a barbaric accent: “Murilo! Is it you?”

“Conan!” Limp from the reaction, the young nobleman groped in the darkness, and his hands encountered a pair of great naked shoulders.

“A good thing I recognized you,” grunted the barbarian. “I was about to stick you like a fattened pig.”

“Where are we, in Mitra's name?”

“In the pits under the Red Priest's house; but why—”

“What is the time?”

“Not long after midnight.”

Murilo shook his head, trying to assemble his scattered wits.

“What are you doing here?” demanded the Cimmerian.

“I came to kill Nabonidus. I heard they had changed the guard at your prison—”

“They did,” growled Conan. “I broke the new jailer's head and walked out. I would have been here hours agone, but I had some personal business to attend to. Well, shall we hunt for Nabonidus?”

Murilo shuddered. “Conan, we are in the house of the archfiend! I came seeking a human enemy; I found a hairy devil out of hell!”

Conan grunted uncertainly; fearless as a wounded tiger as far as human foes were concerned, he had all the superstitious dreads of the primitive.

“I gained access to the house,” whispered Murilo, as if the darkness were full of listening ears. “In the outer gardens I found Nabonidus' dog mauled to death. Within the house I came upon Joka, the servant. His neck had been broken. Then I saw Nabonidus himself seated in his chair, clad in his accustomed garb. At first I thought he, too, was dead. I stole up to stab him. He rose and faced me. God!” The memory of that horror struck the young nobleman momentarily speechless as he re-lived that awful instant.

“Conan,” he whispered, “it was no man that stood before me! In body and posture it was not unlike a man, but from the scarlet hood of the priest grinned a face of madness and nightmare! It was covered with black hair, from which small pig-like eyes glared redly; its nose was flat, with great flaring nostrils; its loose lips writhed back, disclosing huge yellow fangs, like the teeth of a dog. The hands that hung from the scarlet sleeves were misshapen and likewise covered with black hair. All this I saw in one glance, and then I was overcome with horror; my senses left me and I swooned.”

“What then?” muttered the Cimmerian uneasily.

“I recovered consciousness only a short time ago; the monster must have thrown me into these pits. Conan, I have suspected that Nabonidus was not wholly human! He is a demon — a were-thing! By day he moves among humanity in the guise of men, and by night he takes on his true aspect.”

“That's evident,” answered Conan. “Everyone knows there are men who take the form of wolves at will. But why did he kill his servants?”

“Who can delve the mind of a devil?” replied Murilo. “Our present interest is in getting out of this place. Human weapons cannot harm a were-man. How did you get in here?”

“Through the sewer. I reckoned on the gardens being guarded. The sewers connect with a tunnel that lets into these pits. I thought to find some door leading up into the house unbolted.”

“Then let us escape by the way you came!” exclaimed Murilo. “To the devil with it! Once out of this snake-den, we'll take our chances with the king's guardsmen and risk a flight from the city. Lead on!”

“Useless,” grunted the Cimmerian. “The way to the sewers is barred. As I entered the tunnel, an iron grille crashed down from the roof. If I had not moved quicker than a flash of lightning, its spearheads would have pinned me to the floor like a worm. When I tried to lift it, it wouldn't move. An elephant couldn't shake it. Nor could anything bigger than a rabbit squirm between the bars.”

Murilo cursed, an icy hand playing up and down his spine. He might have known Nabonidus would not leave any entrance into his house unguarded. Had Conan not possessed the steel-spring quickness of a wild thing, that falling portcullis would have skewered him. Doubtless his walking through the tunnel had sprung some hidden catch that released it from the roof. As it was, both were trapped living.

“There's but one thing to do,” said Murilo, sweating profusely. “That's to search for some other exit; doubtless they're all set with traps, but we have no other choice.”

The barbarian grunted agreement, and the companions began groping their way at random down the corridor. Even at that moment, something occurred to Murilo.

“How did you recognize me in this blackness?” he demanded.

“I smelled the perfume you put on your hair, when you came to my cell,” answered Conan. “I smelled it again a while ago, when I was crouching in the dark and preparing to rip you open.”

Murilo put a lock of his black hair to his nostrils; even so the scent was barely apparent to his civilized senses, and he realized how keen must be the organs of the barbarian.

Instinctively his hand went to his scabbard as they groped onward, and he cursed to find it empty. At that moment a faint glow became apparent ahead of them, and presently they came to a sharp bend in the corridor, about which the light filtered grayly. Together they peered around the corner, and Murilo, leaning against his companion, felt his huge frame stiffen. The young nobleman had also seen it — the body of a man, half naked, lying limply in the corridor beyond the bend, vaguely illumined by a radiance which seemed to emanate from a broad silver disk on the farther wall. A strange familiarity about the recumbent figure, which lay face down, stirred Murilo with inexplicable and monstrous conjectures. Motioning the Cimmerian to follow him, he stole forward and bent above the body. Overcoming a certain repugnance, he grasped it and turned it on its back. An incredulous oath escaped him; the Cimmerian grunted explosively.

“Nabonidus! The Red Priest!” ejaculated Murilo, his brain a dizzy vortex of whirling amazement. “Then who — what — ?”

The priest groaned and stirred. With catlike quickness Conan bent over him, poniard poised above his heart. Murilo caught his wrist.

“Wait! Don't kill him yet—”

“Why not?” demanded the Cimmerian. “He has cast off his were-guise, and sleeps. Will you awaken him to tear us to pieces?”

“No, wait!” urged Murilo, trying to collect his jumbled wits. “Look! He is not sleeping — see that great blue welt on his shaven temple? He has been knocked senseless. He may have been lying here for hours.”

“I thought you swore you saw him in beastly shape in the house above,” said Conan.

“I did! Or else — he's coming to! Keep back your blade, Conan; there is a mystery here even darker than I thought. I must have words with this priest, before we kill him.”

Nabonidus lifted a hand vaguely to his bruised temple, mumbled, and opened his eyes. For an instant they were blank and empty of intelligence; then life came back to them with a jerk, and he sat up, staring at the companions. Whatever terrific jolt had temporarily addled his razor-keen brain, it was functioning with its accustomed vigor again. His eyes shot swiftly about him, then came back to rest on Murilo's face.

“You honor my poor house, young sir,” he laughed coolly, glancing at the great figure that loomed behind the young nobleman's shoulder. “You have brought a bravo, I see. Was your sword not sufficient to sever the life of my humble self?”

“Enough of this,” impatiently returned Murilo. “How long have you lain here?”

“A peculiar question to put to a man just recovering consciousness,” answered the priest. “I do not know what time it now is. But it lacked an hour or so of midnight when I was set upon.”

“Then who is it that masquerades in your own gown in the house above?” demanded Murilo.

“That will be Thak,” answered Nabonidus, ruefully fingering his bruises. “Yes, that will be Thak. And in my own gown? The dog!”

Conan, who comprehended none of this, stirred restlessly, and growled something in his own tongue. Nabonidus glanced at him whimsically.

“Your bully's knife yearns for my heart, Murilo,” he said. “I thought you might be wise enough to take my warning and leave the city.”

“How was I to know that was to be granted me?” returned Murilo. “At any rate, my interests are here.”

“You are in good company with that cutthroat,” murmured Nabonidus. “I had suspected you for some time. That was why I caused that pallid court secretary to disappear. Before he died he told me many things, among others the name of the young nobleman who bribed him to filch state secrets, which the nobleman in turn sold to rival powers. Are you not ashamed of yourself, Murilo, you white-handed thief?”

“I have no more cause for shame than you, you vulture-hearted plunderer,” answered Murilo promptly. “You exploit a whole kingdom for your personal greed; and, under the guise of disinterested statesmanship, you swindle the king, beggar the rich, oppress the poor, and sacrifice the whole future of the nation for your ruthless ambition. You are no more than a fat hog with his snout in the trough. You are a greater thief than I am. This Cimmerian is the most honest man of the three of us, because he steals and murders openly.”

“Well, then, we are all rogues together,” agreed Nabonidus equably. “And what now? My life?”

“When I saw the ear of the secretary that had disappeared, I knew I was doomed,” said Murilo abruptly, “and I believed you would invoke the authority of the king. Was I right?”

“Quite so,” answered the priest. “A court secretary is easy to do away with, but you are a bit too prominent. I had intended telling the king a jest about you in the morning.”

“A jest that would have cost me my head,” muttered Murilo. “Then the king is unaware of my foreign enterprises?”

“As yet,” sighed Nabonidus. “And now, since I see your companion has his knife, I fear that jest will never be told.”

“You should know how to get out of these rat-dens,” said Murilo. “Suppose I agree to spare your life. Will you help us to escape, and swear to keep silent about my thievery?”

“When did a priest keep an oath?” complained Conan, comprehending the trend of the conversation. “Let me cut his throat; I want to see what color his blood is. They say in the Maze that his heart is black, so his blood must be black, too—”

“Be quiet,” whispered Murilo. “If he does not show us the way out of these pits, we may rot here. Well, Nabonidus, what do you say?”

“What does a wolf with his leg in the trap say?” laughed the priest. “I am in your power, and, if we are to escape, we must aid one another. I swear, if we survive this adventure, to forget all your shifty dealings. I swear by the soul of Mitra!”

“I am satisfied,” muttered Murilo. “Even the Red Priest would not break that oath. Now to get out of here. My friend here entered by way of the tunnel, but a grille fell behind him and blocked the way. Can you cause it to be lifted?”

“Not from these pits,” answered the priest. “The control lever is in the chamber above the tunnel. There is only one other way out of these pits, which I will show you. But tell me, how did you come here?”

Murilo told him in a few words, and Nabonidus nodded, rising stiffly. He limped down the corridor, which here widened into a sort of vast chamber, and approached the distant silver disk. As they advanced the light increased, though it never became anything but a dim shadowy radiance. Near the disk they saw a narrow stair leading upward.

“That is the other exit,” said Nabonidus. “And I strongly doubt if the door at the head is bolted. But I have an idea that he who would go through that door had better cut his own throat first. Look into the disk.”

What had seemed a silver plate was in reality a great mirror set in the wall. A confusing system of copperlike tubes jutted out from the wall above it, bending down toward it at right angles. Glancing into these tubes, Murilo saw a bewildering array of smaller mirrors. He turned his attention to the larger mirror in the wall, and ejaculated in amazement. Peering over his shoulder, Conan grunted.

They seemed to be looking through a broad window into a well-lighted chamber. There were broad mirrors on the walls, with velvet hangings between; there were silken couches, chairs of ebony and ivory, and curtained doorways leading off from the chamber. And before one doorway which was not curtained, sat a bulky black object that contrasted grotesquely with the richness of the chamber.

Murilo felt his blood freeze again as he looked at the horror which seemed to be staring directly into his eyes. Involuntarily he recoiled from the mirror, while Conan thrust his head truculently forward, till his jaws almost touched the surface, growling some threat or defiance in his own barbaric tongue.

“In Mitra's name, Nabonidus,” gasped Murilo, shaken, “what is it?”

“That is Thak,” answered the priest, caressing his temple. “Some would call him an ape, but he is almost as different from a real ape as he is different from a real man. His people dwell far to the east, in the mountains that fringe the eastern frontiers of Zamora. There are not many of them; but, if they are not exterminated, I believe they will become human beings in perhaps a hundred thousand years. They are in the formative stage; they are neither apes, as their remote ancestors were, nor men, as their remote descendants may be. They dwell in the high crags of well-nigh inaccessible mountains, knowing nothing of fire or the making of shelter or garments, or the use of weapons. Yet they have a language of a sort, consisting mainly of grunts and clicks.

“I took Thak when he was a cub, and he learned what I taught him much more swiftly and thoroughly than any true animal could have done. He was at once bodyguard and servant. But I forgot that being partly a man, he could not be submerged into a mere shadow of myself, like a true animal. Apparently his semi-brain retained impressions of hate, resentment, and some sort of bestial ambition of its own.

“At any rate, he struck when I least expected it. Last night he appeared to go suddenly mad. His actions had all the appearance of bestial insanity, yet I know that they must have been the result of long and careful planning.

“I heard a sound of fighting in the garden, and going to investigate — for I believed it was yourself, being dragged down by my watchdog — I saw Thak emerge from the shrubbery dripping with blood. Before I was aware of his intention, he sprang at me with an awful scream and struck me senseless. I remember no more, but can only surmise that, following some whim of his semi-human brain, he stripped me of my gown and cast me still living into the pits — for what reason, only the gods can guess. He must have killed the dog when he came from the garden, and after he struck me down, he evidently killed Joka, as you saw the man lying dead in the house. Joka would have come to my aid, even against Thak, who he always hated.”

Murilo stared in the mirror at the creature which sat with such monstrous patience before the closed door. He shuddered at the sight of the great black hands, thickly grown with hair that was almost furlike. The body was thick, broad, and stooped. The unnaturally wide shoulders had burst the scarlet gown, and on these shoulders Murilo noted the same thick growth of black hair. The face peering from the scarlet hood was utterly bestial, and yet Murilo realized that Nabonidus spoke truth when he said that Thak was not wholly a beast. There was something in the red murky eyes, something in the creature's clumsy posture, something in the whole appearance of the thing that set it apart from the truly animal. That monstrous body housed a brain and soul that were just budding awfully into something vaguely human. Murilo stood aghast as he recognized a faint and hideous kinship between his kind and that squatting monstrosity, and he was nauseated by a fleeting realization of the abysses of bellowing bestiality up through which humanity had painfully toiled.

“Surely he sees us,” muttered Conan. “Why does he not charge us? He could break this window with ease.”

Murilo realized that Conan supposed the mirror to be a window through which they were looking.

“He does not see us,” answered the priest. “We are looking into the chamber above us. That door that Thak is guarding is the one at the head of these stairs. It is simply an arrangement of mirrors. Do you see those mirrors on the walls? They transmit the reflection of the room into these tubes, down which other mirrors carry it to reflect it at last on an enlarged scale in this great mirror.”

Murilo realized that the priest must be centuries ahead of his generation, to perfect such an invention; but Conan put it down to witchcraft and troubled his head no more about it.

“I constructed these pits for a place of refuge as well as a dungeon,” the priest was saying. “There are times when I have taken refuge here and, through these mirrors, watched doom fall upon those who sought me with ill intent.”

“But why is Thak watching that door?” demanded Murilo.

“He must have heard the falling of the grating in the tunnel. It is connected with bells in the chambers above. He knows someone is in the pits, and he is waiting for him to come up the stairs. Oh, he has learned well the lessons I taught him. He has seen what happened to men who come through that door, when I tugged at the rope that hangs on yonder wall, and he waits to mimic me.”

“And while he waits, what are we to do?” demanded Murilo.

“There is naught we can do, except watch him. As long as he is in that chamber, we dare not ascend the stairs. He has the strength of a true gorilla and could easily tear us all to pieces. But he does not need to exert his muscles; if we open that door he has but to tug that rope, and blast us into eternity.”

“How?”

“I bargained to help you escape,” answered the priest; “not to betray my secrets.”

Murilo started to reply, then stiffened suddenly. A stealthy hand had parted the curtains of one of the doorways. Between them appeared a dark face whose glittering eyes fixed menacingly on the squat form in the scarlet robe.

“Petreus!” hissed Nabonidus. “Mitra, what a gathering of vultures this night is!”

The face remained framed between the parted curtains. Over the intruder's shoulder other faces peered — dark, thin faces, alight with sinister eagerness.

“What do they here?” muttered Murilo, unconsciously lowering his voice, although he knew they could not hear him.

“Why, what would Petreus and his ardent young nationalists be doing in the house of the Red Priest?” laughed Nabonidus. “Look how eagerly they glare at the figure they think is their arch-enemy. They have fallen into your error; it should be amusing to watch their expressions when they are disillusioned.”

Murilo did not reply. The whole affair had a distinctly unreal atmosphere. He felt as if he were watching the play of puppets, or as a disembodied ghost himself, impersonally viewing the actions of the living, his presence unseen and unsuspected.

He saw Petreus put his finger warningly to his lips, and nod to his fellow conspirators. The young nobleman could not tell if Thak was aware of the intruders. The ape-man's position had not changed, as he sat with his back toward the door through which the men were gliding.

“They had the same idea you had,” Nabonidus was muttering at his ear. “Only their reasons were patriotic rather than selfish. Easy to gain access to my house, now that the dog is dead. Oh, what a chance to rid myself of their menace once and for all! If I were sitting where Thak sits — a leap to the wall — a tug on that rope—”

Petreus had placed one foot lightly over the threshold of the chamber; his fellows were at his heels, their daggers glinting dully. Suddenly Thak rose and wheeled toward him. The unexpected horror of his appearance, where they had thought to behold the hated but familiar countenance of Nabonidus, wrought havoc with their nerves, as the same spectacle had wrought upon Murilo. With a shriek Petreus recoiled, carrying his companions backward with him. They stumbled and floundered over each other; and in that instant Thak, covering the distance in one prodigious, grotesque leap, caught and jerked powerfully at a thick velvet rope which hung near the doorway.

Instantly the curtains whipped back on either hand, leaving the door clear, and down across it something flashed with a peculiar silvery blur.

“He remembered!” Nabonidus was exulting. “The beast is half a man! He had seen the doom performed, and he remembered! Watch, now! Watch! Watch!”

Murilo saw that it was a panel of heavy glass that had fallen across the doorway. Through it he saw the pallid faces of the conspirators. Petreus, throwing out his hands as if to ward off a charge from Thak, encountered the transparent barrier, and from his gestures, said something to his companions. Now that the curtains were drawn back, the men in the pits could see all that took place in the chamber that contained the nationalists. Completely unnerved, these ran across the chamber toward the door by which they had apparently entered, only to halt suddenly, as if stopped by an invisible wall.

“The jerk of the rope sealed that chamber,” laughed Nabonidus. “It is simple; the glass panels work in grooves in the doorways. Jerking the rope trips the spring that holds them. They slide down and lock in place, and can only be worked from outside. The glass is unbreakable; a man with a mallet could not shatter it. Ah!”

The trapped men were in a hysteria of fright; they ran wildly from one door to another, beating vainly at the crystal walls, shaking their fists wildly at the implacable black shape which squatted outside. Then one threw back his head, glared upward, and began to scream, to judge from the working of his lips, while he pointed toward the ceiling.

“The fall of the panels released the clouds of doom,” said the Red Priest with a wild laugh. “The dust of the gray lotus, from the Swamps of the Dead, beyond the land of Khitai.”

In the middle of the ceiling hung a cluster of gold buds; these had opened like the petals of a great carven rose, and from them billowed a gray mist that swiftly filled the chamber. Instantly the scene changed from one of hysteria to one of madness and horror. The trapped men began to stagger; they ran in drunken circles. Froth dripped from their lips, which twisted as in awful laughter. Raging, they fell upon one another with daggers and teeth, slashing, tearing, slaying in a holocaust of madness. Murilo turned sick as he watched and was glad that he could not hear the screams and howls with which that doomed chamber must be ringing. Like pictures thrown on a screen, it was silent.

Outside the chamber of horror Thak was leaping up and down in brutish glee, tossing his long hairy arms on high. At Murilo's shoulder Nabonidus was laughing like a fiend.

“Ah, a good stroke, Petreus! That fairly disemboweled him! Now one for you, my patriotic friend! So! They are all down, and the living tear the flesh of the dead with their slavering teeth.”

Murilo shuddered. Behind him the Cimmerian swore softly in his uncouth tongue. Only death was to be seen in the chamber of the gray mist; torn, gashed, and mangled, the conspirators lay in a red heap, gaping mouths and blood-dabbled faces staring blankly upward through the slowly swirling eddies of gray.

Thak, stooping like a giant gnome, approached the wall where the rope hung, and gave it a peculiar sidewise pull.

“He is opening the farther door,” said Nabonidus. “By Mitra, he is more of a human than even I had guessed! See, the mist swirls out of the chamber and is dissipated. He waits, to be safe. Now he raises the other panel. He is cautious — he knows the doom of the gray lotus, which brings madness and death. By Mitra!”

Murilo jerked about at the electric quality of the exclamation.

“Our one chance!” exclaimed Nabonidus. “If he leaves the chamber above for a few minutes, we will risk a dash up those stairs.”

Suddenly tense, they watched the monster waddle through the doorway and vanish. With the lifting of the glass panel, the curtains had fallen again, hiding the chamber of death.

“We must chance it!” gasped Nabonidus, and Murilo saw perspiration break out on his face. “Perhaps he will be disposing of the bodies as he has seen me do. Quick! Follow me up those stairs!”

He ran toward the steps and up them with an agility that amazed Murilo. The young nobleman and the barbarian were close at his heels, and they heard his gusty sigh of relief as he threw open the door at the top of the stairs. They burst into the broad chamber they had seen mirrored below. Thak was nowhere to be seen.

“He's in that chamber with the corpses!” exclaimed Murilo. “Why not trap him there as he trapped them?”

“No, no!” gasped Nabonidus, an unaccustomed pallor tingeing his features. “We do not know that he is in there. He might emerge before we could reach the trap rope, anyway! Follow me into the corridor; I must reach my chamber and obtain weapons which will destroy him. This corridor is the only one opening from this chamber which is not set with a trap of some kind.”

They followed him swiftly through a curtained doorway opposite the door of the death chamber and came into a corridor, into which various chambers opened. With fumbling haste Nabonidus began to try the doors on each side. They were locked, as was the door at the other end of the corridor.

“My god!” The Red Priest leaned against the wall, his skin ashen. “The doors are locked, and Thak took my keys from me. We are trapped, after all.”

Murilo stared appalled to see the man in such a state of nerves, and Nabonidus pulled himself together with an effort.

“The beast has me in a panic,” he said. “If you had seen him tear men as I have seen — well, Mitra aid us, but we must fight him now with what the gods have given us. Come!”

He led them back to the curtained doorway, and peered into the great chamber in time to see Thak emerge from the opposite doorway. It was apparent that the beast-man had suspected something. His small, close-set ears twitched; he glared angrily about him and, approaching the nearest doorway, tore aside the curtains to look behind them.

Nabonidus drew back, shaking like a leaf. He gripped Conan's shoulder. “Man, do you dare pit your knife against his fangs?”

The Cimmerian's eyes blazed in answer.

“Quick!” the Red Priest whispered, thrusting him behind the curtains, close against the wall. “As he will find us soon enough, we will draw him to us. As he rushes past you, sink your blade in his back if you can. You, Murilo, show yourself to him and then flee up the corridor. Mitra knows, we have no chance with him in hand-to-hand combat, but we are doomed anyway when he finds us.”

Murilo felt his blood congeal in his veins, but he steeled himself and stepped outside the doorway. Instantly Thak, on the other side of the chamber, wheeled, glared, and charged with a thunderous roar. His scarlet hood had fallen back, revealing his black misshapen head; his black hands and red robe were splashed with a brighter red. He was like a crimson and black nightmare as he rushed across the chamber, fangs barred, his bowed legs hurtling his enormous body along at a terrifying gait.

Murilo turned and ran back into the corridor and, quick as he was, the shaggy horror was almost at his heels. Then as the monster rushed past the curtains, from among them catapulted a great form that struck full on the ape-man's shoulders, at the same instant driving the poniard into the brutish back. Thak screamed horribly as the impact knocked him off his feet, and the combatants hit the floor together. Instantly there began a whirl and thrash of limbs, the tearing and rending of a fiendish battle.

Murilo saw that the barbarian had locked his legs about the ape-man's torso and was striving to maintain his position on the monster's back while he butchered it with his poniard. Thak, on the other hand, was striving to dislodge his clinging foe, to drag him around within reach of the giant fangs that gaped for his flesh. In a whirlwind of blows and scarlet tatters they rolled along the corridor, revolving so swiftly that Murilo dared not use the chair he had caught up, lest he strike the Cimmerian. And he saw that in spite of the handicap of Conan's first hold, and the voluminous robe that lashed and wrapped about the ape-man's limbs and body, Thak's giant strength was swiftly prevailing. Inexorably he was dragging the Cimmerian around in front of him. The ape-man had taken punishment enough to have killed a dozen men. Conan's poniard had sunk again and again into his torso, shoulders, and bull-like neck; he was streaming blood from a score of wounds; but, unless the blade quickly reached some absolutely vital spot, Thak's inhuman vitality would survive to finish the Cimmerian and, after him, Conan's companions.

Conan was fighting like a wild beast himself, in silence except for his gasps of effort. The black talons of the monster and the awful grasp of those misshapen hands ripped and tore at him, the grinning jaws gaped for his throat. Then Murilo, seeing an opening, sprang and swung the chair with all his power, and with force enough to have brained a human being. The chair glanced from Thak's slanted black skull; but the stunned monster momentarily relaxed his rending grasp, and in that instant Conan, gasping and streaming blood, plunged forward and sank his poniard to the hilt in the ape-man's heart.

With a convulsive shudder, the beast-man started from the floor, then sank limply back. His fierce eyes set and glazed, his thick limbs quivered and became rigid.

Conan staggered dizzily up, shaking the sweat and blood out of his eyes. Blood dripped from his poniard and fingers, and trickled in rivulets down his thighs, arms, and breast. Murilo caught at him to support him, but the barbarian shook him off impatiently.

“When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die,” he mumbled, through mashed lips. “But I'd like a flagon of wine.”

Nabonidus was staring down at the still figure as if he could not believe his own eyes. Black, hairy, abhorrent, the monster lay, grotesque in the tatters of the scarlet robe; yet more human than bestial, even so, and possessed somehow of a vague and terrible pathos.

Even the Cimmerian sensed this, for he panted: “I have slain a man tonight, not a beast. I will count him among the chiefs whose souls I've sent into the dark, and my women will sing of him.”

Nabonidus stooped and picked up a bunch of keys on a golden chain. They had fallen from the ape-man's girdle during the battle. Motioning his companions to follow him, he led them to a chamber, unlocked the door, and led the way inside. It was illumined like the others. The Red Priest took a vessel of wine from a table and filled crystal beakers. As his companions drank thirstily, he murmured: “What a night! It is nearly dawn, now. What of you, my friends?”

“I'll dress Conan's hurts, if you will fetch me bandages and the like,” said Murilo, and Nabonidus nodded, and moved toward the door that led into the corridor. Something about his bowed head caused Murilo to watch him sharply. At the door the Red Priest wheeled suddenly. His face had undergone a transformation. His eyes gleamed with his old fire, his lips laughed soundlessly.

“Rogues together!” his voice rang with its accustomed mockery. “But not fools together. You are the fool, Murilo!”

“What do you mean?” The young nobleman started forward.

“Back!” Nabonidus' voice cracked like a whip. “Another step and I will blast you!”

Murilo's blood turned cold as he saw that the Red Priest's hand grasped a thick velvet rope, which hung among the curtains just outside the door.

“What treachery is this?” cried Murilo. “You swore—”

“I swore I would not tell the king a jest concerning you! I did not swear not to take matters into my own hands if I could. Do you think I would pass up such an opportunity? Under ordinary circumstances I would not dare to kill you myself, without sanction of the king, but now none will ever know. You will go into the acid vats along with Thak and the nationalist fools, and none will be the wiser. What a night this has been for me! If I have lost some valuable servants, I have nevertheless rid myself of various dangerous enemies. Stand back! I am over the threshold, and you cannot possibly reach me before I tug this cord and send you to Hell. Not the gray lotus, this time, but something just as effective. Nearly every chamber in my house is a trap. And so, Murilo, fool that you are—”

Too quickly for the sight to follow, Conan caught up a stool and hurled it. Nabonidus instinctively threw up his arm with a cry, but not in time. The missile crunched against his head, and the Red Priest swayed and fell facedown in a slowly widening pool of dark crimson.

“His blood was red, after all,” grunted Conan.

Murilo raked back his sweat-plastered hair with a shaky hand as he leaned against the table, weak from the reaction of relief.

“It is dawn,” he said. “Let us get out of here, before we fall afoul of some other doom. If we can climb the outer wall without being seen, we shall not be connected with this night's work. Let the police write their own explanation.”

He glanced at the body of the Red Priest where it lay etched in crimson, and shrugged his shoulders.

“He was the fool, after all; had he not paused to taunt us, he could have trapped us easily.”

“Well,” said the Cimmerian tranquilly, “he's travelled the road all rogues must walk at last. I'd like to loot the house, but I suppose we'd best go.”

As they emerged from the dimness of the dawn-whitened garden, Murilo said: “The Red Priest has gone into the dark, so my road is clear in the city, and I have nothing to fear. But what of you? There is still the matter of that priest in the Maze, and—”

“I'm tired of this city anyway,” grinned the Cimmerian. “You mentioned a horse waiting at the Rats' Den. I'm curious to see how fast that horse can carry me into another kingdom. There's many a highway I want to travel before I walk the road Nabonidus walked this night.”

title: Rogues in the House/Chapter III


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/439

Rh In the time of Robert Risborough, if the abbot was unworthy of his office, public opinion in the monastery was certainly against him, though the prior and canons were ob- liged to wait until he could be canonically deposed, and the credit of the house restored by a better appointment. It may fairly be supposed that Henry Honor, who was elected in Robert's place, was chosen because he up- held a higher standard of religious observance. It was probably during his long term of office that the Sloane chartulary was compiled, though it contains some entries of later date. It is a curious book, in which leases and royal writs are mixed up indiscriminately with scraps of general information of all kinds a table of the kings of England, the way to find Easter and to understand the signs of the weather ; lists of Christian virtues, deadly sins and colours for painting ; prescriptions for divers diseases containing such strange in- gredients as ' oil of black snails ' and ' marrow of horse bones,' with the exorcisms for the falling sickness and the fever ; the ten com- mandments in English and many rhymed adages and rules for the conduct of life gen- erally.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the discipline of the house became sadly lax, and the visitation of Atwater in 1518 reveals a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. The bishop noticed that licences to go into the town were much too readily granted to the canons. These he ordered to be restricted in future to cases of necessity. The refectory was to be repaired, and until it was ready the abbot must appoint some other place where the canons could eat together and hear the Rule read. The infirmary was to be put in order, and five at least among the canons must in future be priests. They were to have a proper place where they could receive their friends two or three times in the year. There was a monk from another house living here who was non utilis monasterio. Richard Gynger, a novice, was too prone to ease and gave neither his time nor his attention to heavenly things ; he must occupy himself laudably. There was want of care too even in the appointments of the conventual church. The bishop found it necessary to order a lamp to be alight continually before the Blessed Sacrament. The very servants of the mon- astery were insolent and abusive to the canons, and refused to attend to their needs.

In the lists of those who abjured and did penance in 1521 for heresy, Foxe names a canon of Missenden. It is by no means im- probable at such a time, when the monastery was in such complete disorder.

There was worse to come. The visitations of Longland in 1530 and 1531 revealed mis- chief of a still more serious kind. In 1530 it was complained that the abbot, John Fox, was wholly under the influence of a secular, John Compton, who cut down trees and did as he pleased with the goods of the monastery. The prior was remiss in correction, and did not set an example of regular attendance at the divine office. The buildings were all out of repair, and the house £60 in debt. The abbot had no book or rental to show his lands, and did not know what his possessions really were. The gate between the nave and choir of the conventual church was never closed, so that seculars could enter the choir at their will. No lessons from Holy Scripture were read in the refectory. One canon, John Sly- thurst, was accused by three or four of his brethren not merely of being ' verbose, of elate mind, and a sower of dissension,' but of the crime condemned beyond all others in Holy Scripture ; and the late abbot, William Honor, had shared his guilt.

It was a terrible indictment, and the bishop's commissary, Thomas Jackman, met it with stringent regulations. John Sly- thurst was to be kept apart from all the breth- ren, in the custody of the abbot and prior ; he was never to go out of his cell without a licence from the bishop, and no one was to be admitted to see him except those who came for the good of his soul. No boys were to be

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/439


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/440

Rh allowed in the dormitory or any part of the monastery on any account whatever : if the prior were to infringe this rule he was to be put on bread and water. For the rest, it seemed best to report the whole case to the bishop, and Longland was not the man to treat it lightly. In June 1531 he visited the house in person. More searching inquiries elicited from the abbot himself a more com- plete confession. He was evidently a man of feeble character, not a hardened sinner, but incapable of standing against any strong temp- tation. His sister was living in the monas- tery as brasiatrix, and he had dismissed her daughter from the house because of her evil conversation ; yet his own life had not been wholly pure. He owned also that he had squandered the goods of the monastery. Roger Palmer, the refectorar, who had piously complained of the want of lectures in Holy Scripture at the last visitation, was a very different character : not the victim of temp- tation, but one who deliberately broke his vows. He had been seen more than once at midnight coming out of a house in the village a in doublet and jerkin, with a sword by his side, and this he confessed to be true. The bishop ordered that the abbot should be suspended from his office until further notice, and the charge of the monastery was committed to John Otwell, afterwards abbot. Roger Palmer was to be kept under lock and key. The injunctions finally delivered to the whole convent were written in ' vulgar Eng- lish,' that the canons might have no excuse, and might not say they could not understand what was desired of them. The injunctions are of the usual nature and relate to the due observance of the rule of the order, particu- larly that a learned man in grammar should be appointed to teach the canons and young priests ; that the doors from the church into the quire and cloister and the door of the Lady Chapel be kept locked ; that no canon should have a key of the cloister door leading into the fields, and that the door only be opened at such times ' as the covent shalbe licensed to goo into the feldes to sport to- gydre ' ; that the buildings, especially the belfry, be repaired ; that they be more sparing in their board till the house be in a better state, and that the abbot should no more suffer his kinsfolk ' to hang upon the monasteryes charge as they have done ' ; whereas it was found at the late visitation that John Compton ' ruleth thabbot ' and ' cutteth down trees,' that he meddle not further till ' he doth use himself uprightly ' ; that the brethren are not to wear ' garded or welted hose or stuffed codpese or jerkyn or any other shorte or courtely fashioned garment,' and that Dom John Slithwise be committed to prison till ' ye knowe our further mynde.'

John Fox died some time between 1535 and 1538, and Otwell became abbot de jure as well as de facto, but he had little opportunity of reforming the house before its dissolution. He lived till 1552, and was married some time before that date ; so was Thomas Bernard, the kitchener, who had the vicarage of Little Missenden assigned to him by way of pension. Three other canons living in 1552 remained unmarried : Roger Palmer was one of them.

It may perhaps be considered a point of generosity in the king and his agents, that pensions were dealt out so impartially to guilty and innocent alike ; but it was a strangely undiscriminating zeal for reform which set John Slythurst free from penitential

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/440


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/227

Rh covered at Burnham, Great Missenden, Iver, Langley, Marlow, and Taplow.

From what has been said as to the termination of the palæolithic age in this country, it will be understood that there can have been no intimate relation between the people of the old stone age and those of the new stone age. By the beginning of the neolithic age the general appearance of the country had assumed practically the same shape, form, and condition it now possesses. Forests and woodlands were more abundant, but the main features of river and valley, moorland and hill, which characterise the England of the present day, had already received their forms.

Of the neolithic age, just as in the case of the palæolithic age, the most numerous and characteristic archaeological remains are implements, weapons, etc., formed of stone, usually flint. There is, however, this difference between the two groups : the earlier, or palæolithic work is boldly, broadly, and skilfully chipped, and this by means of a very few blows: the neolithic work, on the other hand, displays, it is true, a greater delicacy and elaboration of form, pointing to a somewhat extensive system of specialization of use, the implements being shaped by less vigorous and more numerous blows. Again, whilst the palæolithic implements never show a trace of shaping by grinding, the neolithic implements frequently do so, particularly in the case of those weapons or implements which approach a chisel- or axe-like form.

The neolithic people evidently belonged to a race entirely different and distinct from the palæolithic; and whilst an attempt has been made by some writers to demonstrate the existence of a transitional period, which they call mesolithic, connecting the palæolithic and neolithic periods, the theory is not generally accepted.

Although the most numerous relics of the neolithic age are stone implements, they are not by any means the only remains. Camps, hut- floors, and possibly roads or trackways still remain in some parts of England to testify to the civilization of the neolithic inhabitants.

At Hitcham, in Buckinghamshire, some circular hut-floors constructed partly below the level of the ground were discovered, and whilst the recorded account seems to suggest that they are of the bronze age, the general form of the floors is strikingly like that of neolithic floors elsewhere. The discovery of bronze-age pottery in and around them may point to a subsequent occupation in the bronze age on the site of neolithic huts.

In the neighbourhood of Hitcham and Taplow numerous neolithic implements, etc., have been discovered. These comprise flint axes, lance-heads, arrow-heads, scrapers, flakes, waste chips, etc. In the neighbourhood of Bledlow, which lies close to the Chiltern Hills, the writer has observed numerous flint flakes and scrapers, lying on the

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/227


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/228

Rh surface of the ploughed fields; and, indeed, there is reason to believe that they occur pretty generally throughout the county.

Sir John Evans mentions Pulpit Wood, near Princes Risborough, as a place where neolithic flakes and scrapers are abundant.

Two ground flint celts, or axes, have also been found in Buckinghamshire. One, a specimen made of cherty flint, measuring 7 inches in length, the whole surface of which had been smoothed by grinding, was found at Chalvey Grove, Eton Wick, and was exhibited by Mr. C. D. E. Fortnum, F.S.A., at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, in 1873. A fragment of another was found in connection with the Hitcham hut-floors already referred to as possibly of the neolithic age. Celts of chipped stone have been discovered at Hambleden and Great Marlow.

If the whole surface of the county were carefully examined it is probable that traces of neolithic man would be discovered in some abundance, and judging by what has been observed in neighbouring counties it would probably be found that the population was mainly distributed along the banks of the rivers and in other fertile situations.

The bronze age, which commences with the introduction of metal arms and tools into these islands, synchronizes with the appearance of the Goidels or Gaels, a branch of the great Celtic race, of which many traces remain in this country to the present time.

The substitution of metal for stone gave an immense advantage to the warrior, the hunter, and the husbandman; and it is certain that the beginning of the age of bronze marks the commencement of an important epoch in human civilization and advancement.

The clearest and most trustworthy information we possess as to the age of bronze in Britain is that which is derived from a careful and comparative study of hoards or secret underground deposits of implements, etc. Many such hoards have been found in England and elsewhere. M. Gabriel de Mortillet has shown that, generally speaking, they are capable of classification in the following way:

1. The treasured property of some individual, who may have buried his bronze possessions during troublous times and never recovered them.

2. The hoard of a trader in bronze, the objects being numerous and generally unused.

3. The hoard of a founder in bronze, the bronze articles consisting of old and broken implements, rough lumps of metal, and also new, unused implements.

Many useful deductions may be drawn from an examination of the contents of hoards of bronze, the following being some of the most obvious:

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/228


text: Talk:Beyond Lies the Wub

title: Talk:Beyond Lies the Wub


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/229

Rh (a) Bronze was a metal so much valued that implements and weapons formed of it were often hidden underground as a security against robbery.

(b) When bronze implements, etc., were worn out, or broken, or spoiled in the casting, the metal was preserved and melted down for fresh castings.

(c) There were men whose special trade or craft it was to cast objects in bronze.

(ad [sic]) Bronze objects after being cast were kept for some time before being finished off.

(e) Tin is never found separately from copper in bronze hoards, although lumps of practically pure copper are found; from which it may be concluded that tin was perhaps used in a powdered form, and therefore is not easily detected.

The bronze age antiquities of Buckinghamshire comprise a group of implements which must unquestionably be regarded as one of these hoards. At Lodge Hill, Waddesdon, five socketed celts, varying in length from 2½ inches to 2¾ inches, and of plain character, were found together in the year 1855. They were lithographed on a plate by Mr. Edward Stone. Probably this was the hoard of a dealer in bronze celts, and from the socketed form of the celts it is evident that the deposit belongs to the middle or latter part of the bronze age. It is now upwards of half a century since Mr. (now Sir John) Evans exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London a bronze sword found in 1851 in a field in the parish of Hawridge. It is two-edged, pointed, and measures 21 inches in length. The lower part exhibits perforations through which the studs or rivets pass fastening it to its handle. Mr. Evans remarked that "the present specimen differs in no material point from others already known, though the substitution of slots or longitudinal openings for the series of circular rivet-holes is not of frequent occurrence."

Some important discoveries of objects belonging to the bronze age were made near Wycombe Marsh in December 1888. Attention was first drawn to the matter by an accident. As a man was guiding his plough one of the horse's feet stepped into a hole, and on examination it was found that this hole was the interior of a large cinerary urn buried in the earth. The site of this discovery was known as Barrow Croft, and it is probable that the urn had once been covered by a sepulchral mound or barrow which had become levelled in the course of many years of cultivation of the soil.

Subsequent investigations of the deposit were superintended by Mr. John Parker, F.S.A., who contributed to the Society of Antiquaries

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/229


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/89

Rh As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse,

And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse.

"Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed,"

Knew you the rumpus which the Author raised;

"Nor even here your smiles would be represt,"

Knew you these lines—the badness of the best,

"Flame! fire! and flame!" (words borrowed from Lucretius. )

"Dread metaphors" which open wounds like issues!

"And sleeping pangs awake—and—— But away"—

(Confound me if I know what next to say).

Lo "Hope reviving re-expands her wings,"

And Master G— recites what Dr. Busby sings!—

"If mighty things with small we may compare,"

(Translated from the Grammar for the fair!)

Dramatic "spirit drives a conquering car,"

And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar."

"This spirit" "Wellington has shown in Spain,"

To furnish Melodrames for Drury Lane.

"Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story,"

And George and I will dramatise it for ye.

"In Arts and Sciences our Isle hath shone"

(This deep discovery is mine alone). Notes


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/88

56  A modest Monologue you here survey,

Hissed from the theatre the "other day," Notes


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Address, spoken at the Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre, Saturday, October 10, 1812

Variants Notes


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Parenthetical Address

Notes


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/26

Rh

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/26


text:
Page:Laws of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia.djvu/21

Rh equal to a son's share of his property] a portion of all that her children receive as is allotted to a son. She may then likewise marry the man of her choice.

138. If a man divorces his wife [because of her barrenness], who has born him no children, he shall give back to her the sum of the present from him to her at the wedding [the money he gave her for a wedding gift] and also the dowry which she brought him from her father's house.

139. In event a man marries a woman without presenting to her a marriage portion and subsequently there is a legal separation declared, he shall give to her 1 "mine" of money.

140. If he is a freedman [emancipated slave] he is to give to her ⅓ of a "mine" of money.

141. In event a man's legal wife shall depart from him after having been guilty of extravagance, and before her departure she is brought to court by her husband and the husband solicits a divorce, which is granted, she shall be permitted to depart and the husband shall not be compelled to compensate her. In event the husband does not desire to be divorced and desires to take another wife, the one deemed guilty of extravagance shall be compelled to remain in the house of her husband as a servant.

142. In event the wife quarrels with her husband and shall produce proof sustaining her justification and she is found to be blameless, she shall [be permitted] to return to the home of her father and in addition thereto receive compensation from her husband.

143. If she is adjudged to be guilty of having dissipated [her husband's property] and neglected her husband, she shall be thrown into the water.

144. If anyone [a man] takes a wife and his wife gives her husband a servant, and the servant has children by him, and the man then declares his intention of taking a side wife [concubine], he shall not be allowed so to do. He shall have no side wife [concubine].

145. If anyone [a man] takes a wife and she does not bear him any children, and he has the intention to take a side wife [concubine], if he takes a side wife and brings her into his house she shall not stand on the same footing with his wife.

146. If a man takes a wife and this one gives her husband a maid as wife, and she [the maid] bears him children, and then this maid tries to place herself on an equality with her mistress, because she has born children, her owner is not to sell her for money, but he is to pay her in silver and reckon her among the servants.

147. If she has not born children, then her master may sell her for money.

148. If any man shall marry a woman and she becomes sick (?) and he then marries another woman, he shall not cast out the sick wife, but shall keep her in his house and support [and protect] her so long as she lives.

149. In event the wife does not desire to live in the house of her husband he shall be compelled to return to her the dowry which she has brought from her father's house and she shall be permitted to take her departure.

150. If a man shall give to his wife a field, garden, house or other property and gives her written evidence of the conveyance and shall thereafter die, in event her sons lay no claim to the property [by way of hire for


text:
Page:Laws of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia.djvu/22

80 services] the widow shall be permitted to bestow upon the son of her choice the estate given her by her husband and is not bound by law to give to her other sons any part thereof.

151. In event a widow marries a second time and her second husband, prior to the marriage, had an estate, this estate shall be exempt from attachment by the creditors of the wife. The wife's estate shall likewise be exempt from attachment by creditors of the husband [provided it was acquired prior to her second marriage].

152. In event the [second] husband and wife jointly contract an indebtedness subsequent to the marriage they shall be jointly liable therefor.

153. If the wife of a man occasions her husband's death, because of her love for another man, she shall be deemed guilty of murder and put to death.

154. If anyone has carnal knowledge of his daughter, he is to be driven from the town.

155. If anyone betroths his son to a girl and the son associates with her [accepts her in marriage] and the father of the son is afterward convicted of having committed adultery with his son's wife, the father is to be bound and thrown into the water.

156. If anyone betroths his son to a girl and his son does not recognize her [accept her in marriage] and thereupon that one [the son's father] sleeps with her, he, the son's father, shall pay her ½ a "mine" of money and shall give back to her everything that she has brought along from her father's house. She may then marry the man of her choice.

157. If anyone sleeps with his mother after his father [has slept with her], then both the wife and son are to be burnt up.

158. If the son of any man is caught with the chief [first or legal wife] of his father, after his father has cohabited with her, if she has born children, he is to be driven out of his father's house.

159. If anyone brings personal property into the house of a proposed father-in-law [in payment to the father for his daughter] and thereafter refuses to marry the daughter, he shall forfeit such property as he has brought in payment for his wife to the father.

160. If anyone brings personal property into the house of his proposed father-in-law and the father-in-law receives the same and then refuses to permit that person to take his daughter from the house, the father of the daughter shall return the property he has received and upon the return thereof shall be discharged from his obligation to the suitor for his daughter.

161. Should anyone bring into the house of his proposed father-in-law and pay to him the grain demanded for his daughter and thereupon is slandered by a third person, whose desire it is to marry the daughter, and the father thereupon refuses to permit the one paying the grain to take his daughter, he, the slandered person, shall be entitled to receive back the grain he has paid to the father of the daughter and the party slandering him shall not be permitted to marry the daughter.

162. Anyone marrying a wife, who shall bear him sons and then die, will not be compelled to return to his wife's father her dowry. The dowry upon her death shall belong to her sons.

163. In event anyone marries a wife and she shall die without issue, the father of the wife shall return to the husband the grain treasure which has been paid him by the husband. The dowry shall revert to the wife's father.

164. In event the father fails to return the grain treasure paid for his


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/1


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/2


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/3


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/4


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/5


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/6


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/7


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/8


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/10


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/11


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/12


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/16


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/492


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/491


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/490


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/489


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/488


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/487


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/486


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/485


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/484


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/483


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/482


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/481


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/479


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/480


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/481


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/482


text:
Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/27

Rh

title: Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/27


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/483


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/484


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/8


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/9


text: Talk:The Gun

title: Talk:The Gun


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/10


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/16


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/1


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/2


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/3


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/4


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/5


text: Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/6


text:
Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/66

 40 Rain or shine, blow high, blow low, one of the Black Ball liners sailed from New York for Liverpool on the first and sixteenth of each month, and for many years these were the European mail days throughout the United States.

In 1821, Thomas Cope of Philadelphia started his line of packets between that port and Liverpool with the ships Lancaster, of 290 tons, and Tuscarora, of 379 tons, which were soon followed by larger vessels, among them some of the finest ships on the Atlantic.

The Red Star Line of Liverpool packets from New York was also established in 1821 with the Panther, Meteor, Hercules, and second Manhattan, and soon after, the Swallow Tail Line of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., came into existence with the Napoleon, Silas Richards, George, and York. Grinnell, Minturn & Co.'s London Line was established in 1823 with the Brighton, Columbia, Cortes, and Corinthian, of less than 500 tons each, and during this year John Griswold's London Line was also started with the Sovereign, President, Cambria, Hudson, and the second Ontario.

The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 gave a great impetus to commerce, causing New York to become the eastern gateway of the United States, and from that date to 1850 may be counted the glorious years of the Atlantic packet ships.

The Dramatic Line to Liverpool was started in 1836 with the Siddons, Shakespeare, Garrick, and Roscius, under the management of E. K. Collins. These vessels did not much exceed 700 tons, and when, in 1837, Isaac Webb & Co. built the Sheridan,

title: Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/66


text: Talk:The Defenders

title: Talk:The Defenders


text:
Page:Casey at the Bat.djvu/27

 Casey at the Bat pg 27.jpg

title: Page:Casey at the Bat.djvu/27


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/373

 {|

The objects here represented are all in the British Museum.By permission, from the British Museum Guide to the Early Iron Age.

 * }

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/373


text: Page:Casey at the Bat.djvu/28

title: Page:Casey at the Bat.djvu/28


text:
User talk:Theornamentalist/Archive 2008

Hello Theornamentalist, welcome to Wikisource! Thanks for your interest in the project; we hope you'll enjoy the community and your work here.

You'll find an (incomplete) index of our works listed at Works, although for very broad categories like poetry you may wish to look at the categories like Category:Poems instead.

Please take a glance at our help pages (especially Adding texts and Wikisource's style guide). Most questions and discussions about the community are in the Scriptorium.

The Community Portal lists tasks you can help with if you wish. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page! John Vandenberg (chat) 10:16, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Style issue
According to WS:STYLE, we usually give poems their own pages. In the future, could you give the poems in The Inn of Dreams their own pages? If you wish, I'll fix the ones you've already added. Psych less  05:37, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * What I meant was that each poem should not be in a subpage. For example, The Inn of Dreams/A Song Against Care should be moved to A Song Against Care. See North of Boston for a good example collection. Psych less  23:17, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Theornamentalist/Archive 2008


text:
User talk:Theornamentalist/Archive 2010

welcome
Hey, cheers for the upload of that bit of Milton. If you add a detail on the source, it's very helpful to the reader. Regards, Cygnis insignis (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

<poem> and gap
To help your formatting of that quirky work, you will find that <poem> will allow you to tighten your pages together and not have your leading spaces wiki-gobbled. gap allows you to specify the exact distance that you wish to extend. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:40, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You are quite entitled to promote the proofreading status of the works upon which you have been working. As you have read them and got them right, they should not be left with a Not Proofread (red) status. I have mark some as proofread (amber), and you can go back and validate (green) them; and those that I do not get to, you can mark as "proofread" and someone on a validate run can get to them down the track. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Page:The Bad Child's Book Of Beasts.djvu/54 hmm, that looks like my portrait. Nice picture. . BTW, if I thought that you knew, I wouldn't have popped over. We are here to please and to support as we can. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The mysterious Header toggle button
When proofreading in the Page: namespace and one has their toolbar turned on [ Gadgets, one will see the button button_category_plus.png, and clicking it toggles the header/footer on and off. In this space we put the relevant components for top and bottoms of pages by use of the template RunningHeader, so for example produces I personally have my header/footer set to open in the Page: namespace and I achieved this by activating that option in my Gadgets. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

File:BCBBCover.JPG
I had deleted this file presuming that it had been nominated, then when I double-checked, it hadn't been marked for deletion. Is it to be kept? — billinghurst  sDrewth  16:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Re:Page:Gertie's sun flower.djvu/9
Making the images smaller might help, but I don't know what that will do in the Mainspace article. --kathleen wright5 (talk) 02:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

title: User talk:Theornamentalist/Archive 2010