Charade

“ So the charioteer, praying to his Gods, lashed the horses with his scourge, and they sprang forward madly among the foe. And as they rushed, the great bow rang and sang the swallow string—rung the bow and sung the string, and the lean shaft drank the blood of a leader of men. Again the string sang, again the shaft sped forth, and a barbarian king fell from his chariot as a diver plunges into the sea, and his teeth bit the sand.
“Dive deep, thou sea-thief!” cried the Wanderer, “thou mayest find treasures there! Drive on, thou charioteer, so should lions die while jackals watch.” ”

“ Horsemen he had none, neither before nor behind his chariot: as it seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. Behind his chariot went all the officers and principals of the companies of the city. He sat alone, upon cushions of a kind of excellent plush, blue; and under his foot curious carpets of silk of diverse colours, like the Persian, but far finer. He held up his bare hand as he went, as blessing the people, but in silence. The street was wonderfully well kept: so that there was never any army had their men stand in better battle-array than the people stood. ”

“ All at once they perceived flying towards them in the air two magnificent chariots, so glorious and brilliant that never, in the whole world, had anything appeared like them.
The first was drawn by twenty silver swans. In it sat a lady from the border of whose cloak hung fringes of pearls and jacinths. She alighted on the ground, close by the Princess, who, pale with astonishment, was watching the second chariot approaching. ”

“ To add to our newly-acquired sense of consideration and of high pedigree, the family chariot, after taking Miss Selby to Bath, came up post to London to be touched up at the coachbuilder’s, have the escutcheon altered so as to impale the Griffith coat instead of the Selby, and finally to convey us to our new abode, in preparation for which all its boxes came to be packed.
A chariot! You young ones have as little notion of one as of a British war-chariot armed with scythes. Yet people of a certain grade were as sure to keep their chariot as their silver tea-pot ”

“ He will feast thee all the days of thy stay, and when thou departest he will tie golden lotus flowers on the knot of hair on thy head, and to thy wife he will present necklaces of gold and pearl. He will give thee a chariot whose top is made of ivory, drawn by four milk-white steeds with flowing manes coloured red; and many elephants and well watered villages he will give thee. ”

“ Now see the glorious chariot of ivory inlaid with gold made ready by the gate of the Garden House, fronted with jewels glittering in the bright challenging sunbeams, spread with noble silks flowered with gold, and drawn by four equal-pacing stately horses, white as the ivory they drew, and harnessed with splendour,—their pride subdued to the pride of their master. And beside them stood Channa, the charioteer, a young man well born and noble in mind and person. ”

“ Forthwith the agile youth sprang into the chariot, stood erect and grasped the reins with delight, pouring out thanks to his reluctant parent. But the steeds soon perceived that the load they drew was lighter than usual; and as a ship without ballast is tossed hither and thither on the sea, the chariot, without its accustomed weight, was dashed about as if empty. The horses rushed headlong and left the travelled road. ”

“ A thousand chariots was the regular force which a great state could at the utmost bring into the field. Each chariot contained three mailed men;—the charioteer in the middle, a spearman on the right, and an archer on the left. Two spears rose aloft with vermilion tassels, and there were two bows, bound with green bands to frames in their cases. Attached to every chariot were seventy-two foot-soldiers and twenty-five followers, making with the three men in it, 100 in all; so that the whole force would amount to 100,000 men. ”

“ Charley had looked upon him with the pitying contempt of strong youth for weak youth. He considered that the stranger's hands were soft and effeminate, he disliked his little trimmed mustache, and especially the cool, mocking, appraising glance of his eyes. But as the day, and the night, and the day following wore away, Charley revised his opinion. The slender body possessed unexpected reserve, the long lean hands plied the tools unweariedly, the sensitive face had become drawn and tired, but the spirit behind the mocking eyes had not lost the flash of its defiance. ”

“ In the chariot there sat a tall stranger of a majestic aspect; his long black hair floated in the wind—fire flashed from his large black eyes, and a curl of ineffable scorn dwelt upon his lips. The look of the stranger was so sublime that he was awed, and trembled with fear when he gazed upon him. ”

“ To be patronized by the son of such a person poor Charley considered “a very fine thing.”
“Wasn’t Phillip Redgill one of the sparks of fashion? Did not fair dames (of doubtful virtue, perhaps) smile bewitchingly upon him? Was he not nodded to by this lord and that one? Could he not handle a sword with almost any man?” said Charley, and many others. “And was it not a ‘great thing,’ therefore, to be known to, and to be hand and glove with such a person when I am only a chief clerk in the India House, and nought to depend upon but my own advancement and old Sir Richard’s generosity?” ”

“ It is Charle' Charette who leads on the trail or breaks a road where there is none, and carries the heaviest pack of furs, and pulls men out of the water when they are drowning; it is Charle' Charette who can best endure fasting when the rations run low, and can hunt and bring in meat when other voyageurs lie exhausted about the camp-fire. I am no little lard-eater from Canada, brother to a man with a stomach having no lid. ”

“ Yet the other replied, "In this chariot, O charioteer, sitteth the lord over the kingdom of Kosala, the great king Mallika. Take thy carriage out of the way, and make room for the chariot of our king!"
Then the charioteer of the king of Benares thought, "They say then that he too is a king! What is now to be done?" After some consideration, he said to himself, "I know a way. I'll find out how old he is, and then I'll let the chariot of the younger be got out of the way, and so make room for the elder." ”

“ Come hither, Maruts, on your chariots charged with lightning, resounding with beautiful songs, stored with spears, and winged with horses! Fly to us like birds, with your best food, you mighty ones! They come gloriously on their red, or, it may be, on their tawny horses which hasten their chariots. He who holds the axe is brilliant like gold;—with the tire of the chariot they have struck the earth. On your bodies there are daggers for beauty; may they stir up our minds as they stir up the forests. ”

“ The chariot entered the avenue of sphinxes, at the end of which rose a giant pylon crowned with a cornice on which the symbolic globe displayed its wings; the lessening darkness allowed the priest's daughter to recognise the King's palace. Then despair filled her heart; she struggled, she strove to free herself from the embrace which held her close; she pressed her frail hands against the stony breast of the Pharaoh, stiffened out her arms, throwing herself back over the edge of the chariot. ”

“ The soldiers of the war-chariots were mostly the chiefs of the nation, and the flower of the British youth. Their chariots were of wicker, upon wooden wheels, with hooks and scythe blades of bronze attached to the axles, with which the charioteer mowed down the enemy. ”

“ The war chariots, armed with scythes at the hubs, were placed in the center of the army, with the reserve. In one of them were my mother and wife, the wife of Mikael, and our children. Some young lads, lightly armed, surrounded the chariots and were with difficulty holding back the great war-dogs, which, after the example of Deber-Trud, the man-eater, were howling and tugging at their leashes, already scenting battle and blood. Among the young men of the tribe who were in the array, were two who had taken the bond of friendship, like Julyan and Armel. ”

“ Under him shall a reaper be placed in the standing corn, who, while he is reaping, shall be oppressed by him. A charioteer of York shall appease them, and having banished his lord, shall mount upon the chariot which he shall drive. ”

“ As she leaned her head against a tree, and looked up to the sky, she observed, on one side, a beautiful golden chariot drawn by six great tufted hens, with a cock for coachman, and a fat chicken for postilion. In the chariot was a lady, so handsome—so handsome—that she resembled the sun. Her dress was embroidered all over with gold spangles and bars of silver. She saw also another chariot to which were harnessed six bats. A crow was the coachman, and a beetle the postilion. ”

“ The chariot itself, and all the accessories, such as the umbrella and the robes of the king and his attendants, are treated with great care but they do not unduly attract the eye of the spectator. We can enjoy, as a whole, the group formed by the figures in the chariot, and those who march beside and behind it. Its arrangement is clear and well balanced; there is no crowding, the spacing of the figures is well judged and the movement natural and suggestive. The king dominates the composition as he should, and his umbrella happily gathers the lines of the whole into a pyramid. ”

“ They leaped out of the bottomless hole, chariot and all; and there they were, tossing their black manes, flourishing their black tails, and curvetting with every one of their hoofs off the ground at once, close by the spot where Proserpina stood. In the chariot sat the figure of a man, richly dressed, with a crown on his head, all flaming with diamonds. ”

“ This chariot is freighted with abundance, both to eat and to drink; the young man overtakes several needy beggars, and invites them up into the chariot; he receives only poor people, not a single rich man. [401] But these poor men afterwards show their gratitude to the hero, and help him in other adventures imposed upon him by the Tzar, who hopes by this means to get rid of a son-in-law of such vulgar origin. ”

“ They were still quite confused with the pleasure of seeing each other, when the chariot arrived at King Peridor’s palace. He had had himself carried to a room on the roof, where his nurses thought that he would die at any moment. Directly the chariot drew within sight of the castle the beautiful bird took flight, and, making straight for the dying King, at once cured him of his sickness. ”

“ What a great age,” said my guardian. “What a great age, Charley!”
I cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half playfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully.
“And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?” said my guardian.
“Yes, sir,” returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect confidence, “since father died.”
“And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley,” said my guardian, turning his face away for a moment, “how do you live?” ”

“ I hear the creaking of a chariot with a beautiful silver yoke, the figure of a man with perfection (rises) from the wheels of the stout chariot; over Breg Row, over Braine they come (?) , over the highway beside the lower part of the Burg of the Trees; it (the chariot?) is triumphant for its victories.
It is a heroic (?) hound who drives it, it is a trusty charioteer who yokes it, it is a noble hawk who scourges his horses to the south: he is a stubborn hero, he is certain (to cause) heavy slaughter, it is well-known that not with indexterity (?) is the bringing of the battle to us. ”

“ But, when God gives a mission to a woman, He also gives her strength and grace to execute it.
The nine hundred iron chariots of the Canaanites could not save them. They fly! They fly—horse and horseman, chariot and charioteer, officers and troops—in one wild and terrific overthrow. Sisera, their leader, is so frightened in the conflict that he can not wait until his team turns around. He leaps from the chariot and starts, full run, for the mountains. ”

“ She heard the sound of a chariot rolling beneath the windows of her apartment, and the voices of several persons approaching. At the same moment the monkey Captain of the Guard, by the beak of his parrot Interpreter, announced the visit of some ladies. Beauty, from her windows, beheld the chariot that brought them. It was of an entirely novel description, and of matchless beauty. Four white stags, with horns and hoofs of gold, superbly caparisoned, drew this equipage, the singularity of which increased Beauty's desire to know who were the owners of it. ”

“ It was easy to fancy the admiration he must have inspired forty years ago among the wild people, in whose eyes physical strength and perfection were the great qualities of a man. In the cabin, while the cook squeezed limes for the first of many rum punches, Charley took off his tunic of white drill, and as he sat there in his singlet I saw that his arms and chest, like his face, were tanned to an indelible dull brown, and that patterns in tattooing ran from wrist to shoulder—greenish blue and barbaric. ”

“ He bores everybody to death with his locomotive as artlessly as grown people do with their hobbies.
Our Charley.
When the blaze of the wood-fire flickers up and down in our snug evening parlor, there dances upon the wall a little shadow, with a pug nose, a domestic household shadow—a busy shadow—a little restless specimen of perpetual motion, and the owner thereof is “our Charley.” Now we should not write about him and his ways, if he were strictly a peculiar and individual existence of our own home-circle; but it is not so. “Our Charley” exists in a thousand, nay, a million families ”

“ The driver of that ancient chariot was an awkward young fellow, possibly twenty-five years of age, with sharp knees, large, red hands, high cheek-bones, and abundant hair of a shade verging upon orange. ”