Terga

“ This characteristic is accompanied by the complete disappearance of the tergum of the 7th, either by fusion with that of the 8th or by excalation, and by the evanescence of the terga of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 11th and 13th pedigerous somites. The preantennal area of the head is not strongly reflexed inferiorly, and the eyes are large and compound. The maxillae are long and have a sensory organ, the palpognaths are long, spiny and composed of five segments, like the primitive Chilopod leg, and the toxicognaths have their basal segments disunited and independently movable. ”

“ This telson may enlarge, it may possibly even become internally and sternally developed as partially separate somites, and the tergum may remain without trace of somite formation, or, as appears to be the case in Limulus, the telson gives rise to a few well-marked somites (mesosoma and two others) and then enlarges without further trace of segmentation, whilst the chitinous integument which develops in increasing thickness on the terga as growth advances welds together the unsegmented telson and the somites in front of it, which were previously marked by separate tergal thickenings. ”

“ The Tergum, in rather small specimens is, if the upper imbedded portion be included, sub-triangular, with the growing surface oval, and between one third and one half of the length of the scutum; but in large specimens, the tergum becomes style-formed, lying parallel to the tergal margin of the scutum, with the growing surface proportionally much smaller, and not above one fifth of the length of the growing surface of the scutum. Hence we see some tendency in the tergum to become rudimentary, as it is in the next species. ”

“ When the valves are numerous, and they occasionally exceed [Pg 29] a hundred in number, they are arranged in whorls, with each valve generally so placed as to cover the interval between the two valves above. Of all the valves, the scuta are the most persistent; then come the terga, and then the carina; the rostrum and latera occur only in Scalpellum and Pollicipes, and in a rudimentary condition in Lithotrya, and, perhaps, in the fossil genus Loricula. The valves are formed sometimes of chitine (as in Ibla and Alepas) , but usually of shell, which varies from transparency to entire opacity. ”

“ After a moment's pause Mahomet spoke for him, explaining:
"A tergou is a woman's shadow which has power over a number of different djinns. One is most likely to come upon this shadow at a cross-roads or under a solitary tree; and, when one sees it, it strives to elude one by ascending upward into the sky or by diminishing to the size of a mouse. ”

“ If you prod him, he breaks forth in a moan that seems to express a lament over the painfulness of earthly affairs in general rather than resentment of your particular act. By-and-by his love of caloric may lure him back to the sunny side of the tree, but no incentives a tergo will accelerate his movements. His claws are a quarter of a foot long and rigidly tenacious, and, once unhooked, he forthwith transfers his attachment to your own person. ”

“ Except to Miss Wimple, the old maid, Rhodora had been of no importance at all in Trega for ten long years, and yet she had once given Trega society the liveliest year it had ever known. (I should tell you that Trega people never mentioned the Falls in connection with Trega. Trega was too old to admit any indebtedness to the Falls.)
Rhodora Pennington came to Trega with her invalid mother as the guest of her uncle, the Commandant at the Fort—for Trega was a garrison town. She was a beautiful girl. I do not mean a pretty girl: there were pretty girls in Trega—several of them. ”

“ He is looking towards the lower side of the moor, over the shoulder of which lies the sea, fringed with surf where it frets the black precipice of a headland. He is watching a bird that flies close to the stunted furze. The white of its plumage gleams as the sun catches it. Threading the sinuous lanes between the bushes, appearing at the distance almost like the shadow of the overhanging magpie, is the hunted game; and though Tregellas cannot hear the chattering of the bird, he knows that it is mobbing the fox whose mask is set in the direction of Deadman. ”

“ One day the man—Trejago his name was—came into Amir Nath's Gully on an aimless wandering; and, after he had passed the buffaloes, stumbled over a big heap of cattle food.
Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and heard a little laugh from behind the grated window. It was a pretty little laugh, and Trejago, knowing that, for all practical purposes, the old Arabian Nights are good guides, went forward to the window, and whispered that verse of “The Love Song of Har Dyal” which begins:
Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked Sun; or a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved? ”

“ Squire and Earthstopper must have known that “fighting Turk,” as he was called, could not last very long against the badger in that cramped, suffocating hole. “Look sharp and fetch Nell,” says Sir Bevil. “She should have been here”—and would have been, had he but given the word. The keeper has no difficulty in getting Turk to follow him across the mirky cave, but what a time he is, getting the terrier up to the dimly-lighted tunnel from which Shellal and the coachman have already withdrawn. Hurry man! What an age he is, making his way along the level! A child would crawl faster. ”

“ The colour also varies; specimens of T. porosa (Pl. 10, fig. 1 a to 1 f) being dark purple, or even inky black, white, pale pinkish-purple, and green: as far as I have seen, the pinkish varieties of T. porosa are confined to the eastern half of the world. Even the ridges and crests on the under side of the scutum vary in some degree; and the tergum in T. porosa varies considerably, and in some of the other species, slightly, in general shape: I believe that the tergum becomes narrow and elongated, when the shell is steeply conical, with the orifice of small diameter. ”

“ It is the rule of the Turk, it is the effect of his four hundred years of oppression, which makes Trebinje to differ alike from Tzetinje and from Cattaro. The dark, dingy, narrow, streets, the dim arches and vaults, the bazaar, with the Turk—more truly the renegade Slave—squatting in his shop, the gate with its Arabic inscription, the mosques with their minarets contrasting with the church with its disused campanile, all come home to us with a feeling not only of mere strangeness, but of something which is where it ought not to be. ”

“ Service is held in the church three times a year. The interior has been spoiled by that fiend the “restorer.” From the church you look over a wide, uninhabited valley to the giant mountain, and on turning round you see the river Terek, on the banks of which are the station and village; on either hand stretch dark cavernous-looking valleys. Beyond the Terek is the home of the Ingushes, a people who frequently carry off the cattle of their more settled neighbours, and give the small garrison of Kazbek some amusement in hunting them down. ”

“ Trevaskis is holding a tubbal in one hand and—yes, a furze-chopper in the other; picks and shovels are piled in front of the miners; Shellal is holding two buckets, no doubt containing water for the terriers; and, by all that’s good, it is a pair of badger-tongs that the Squire has just brought out of the house, his fingers fidgeting with the guard. In short, a more completely equipped party for an assault on a badger’s fortress and, judging by the laughter, a more merry one, it would be difficult to imagine. But the high spirits of Squire, farmer, and miner are not shared by the Earthstopper. ”

“ Trejago knew far too much about these things, as I have said. No Englishman should be able to translate object-letters. But Trejago spread all the trifles on the lid of his office-box and began to puzzle them out.
A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu widow all India over; because, when her husband dies, a woman's bracelets are broken on her wrists. Trejago saw the meaning of the little bit of the glass. ”

“ The Targui is coming. The woman says:
"Now I have trapped him for thee."
"Brava!" he cries, and addressing the Soufi: "Draw me some water that I may drink." He draws the water, and the Targui drinks. The woman says to him: "Kill him in the well. He is a good shot. Thou art not stronger than he is."
"No," he answered, "I do not want to soil a well of the tribes. I'll make him come up." The Soufi comes up till his shoulders appear. They seize him, hoist and bind him, and tie his feet together. Then they seize and kill his camel.
"Bring wood," says the Targui to the woman ”

“ THE TASKS OF TREGEAGLE The name of the demon Tregeagle is a household word in nearly every part of Cornwall. His wild spirit rages of nights along the rocky coasts, across the bleak moors and through the sheltered valleys. For Tregeagle is a Cornish "Wandering Jew"; his spirit can never rest, since in life he was the most evil man the Duchy ever knew. ”

“ Something horrible had happened, and the thought of what it must have been, comes upon Trejago in the night now and again, and keeps him company till the morning. One special feature of the case is that he does not know where lies the front of Durga Charan's house. It may open on to a courtyard common to two or more houses, or it may lie behind any one of the gates of Jitha Megji's bustee. Trejago cannot tell. He cannot get Bisesa—poor little Bisesa—back again. He has lost her in the City where each man's house is as guarded and as unknowable as the grave ”

“ It is a big place upon a cliff that juts out into the broad Tigris; tawny, like the desert out of which it rises, its great mosque standing clear above all, with that clean, new appearance that any strong building must possess in this clear, dry atmosphere. No trees adorn its streets, they are as desert as the plain outside. Only upon the opposite side are a few gardens, and the remains of a bridge of boats, which affords sufficient excuse for the Turks to take a toll from all who pass down the stream. ”

“ The Country of the Tekke Turkomans
In this direction the most powerful of the Turkoman tribes were the Tekkes of the Akhal oasis. Between their strongholds and the Caspian there was a desert nearly 150 miles wide, and then the ridge of the Kopet Dagh Mountains. The desert, which stretches from the northern shore of the Atrek River, is partly sandy waste, partly a tract of barren clayey land, baked hard by the sun; broken by cracks and crevices in the dry season, and like a half-flooded brickfield when it rains. The water of the river is scanty, and not good to drink. ”

“ Tregenna thought there was something of despair in his attitude, and in the wild gaze with which he looked about him, staring first at the gray sea, the edge of which was like a roll of white vapor, and then at the frowning cliff above him. He seemed to be listening for some voice, some footstep.
“Come,” said the lieutenant, in a cheery tone, “don’t lose thy spirit, boy; thou showedst enough and to spare but an hour since. Thy comrades are gone, ’tis true, and thou art left alone. ”

“ Tarkwa gives the impression of a busy, thriving centre; trains rush along the gully and the hills echo their shrill whistles, the roadways are thronged with people, and the stores set out their goods in that open fashion that is half-eastern, so that the hesitating buyer may hesitate no longer but buy the richest thing in sight. In all my travels I never saw such gorgeously arrayed mammies as here. The black ladies' cloths, their blouses, and the silken kerchiefs with which they covered their heads, all gave the impression of having been carefully studied, and my host assured me they had. ”

“ As his form comes well in view Tregellas fancies that his stride is perhaps not quite so easy as when he swung so lithely across the turf, and it may be he was shaken by those terrible leaps adown the jagged rocks where a whipper-in, a coastguard, and a truant schoolboy are at this moment attending to two crippled hounds. “Es eh failin’ a bit, do ee think, ’Gellas?” “Caan’t hardly tell,” said he, answering the question put to himself. And then the hounds heave in view. At what a pace they sweep over the waste, how silently they are running! ”

“ As one stands by its dark waters, looking away towards the bare granite-crowned hills and listening to the wind sighing among the reeds and rushes and the coarse grass, one can realize to the full the weird legends connected with it, and one can see in imagination the huge figure of Tregeagle bending over the pool, dipping out the water with his poor little limpet-shell.
The Tregeagle legends are still believed in. When people go out to Dozmare Pool, they do not mention Tregeagle’s name for fear that the Giant will suddenly appear and chase them over the moors! ”

“ His first home was amidst a clump of rushes bordering a lonely pool on the high ground between two of the Cornish heights. Even when maternal instinct is strongest, fear of detection kept doe and leveret apart during the day; but she never failed to suckle him at nightfall and before sunrise, on her way back from the feeding-ground on the lowland. From dawn to dusk the leveret lay in the snuggest of couches in the trough between the hills, and when not asleep would watch the reeds waving over the shallows, or the moor-hen, whose nest was on the opposite bank, swim on the open water. ”

“ By the pool Ronador leaped suddenly, his face quite colorless save where the flame of fever burned in his cheeks.
"That Voice!" he said, standing in curious attitude of listening. "You hear it, Tregar? Always—always it comes so in the quietest hours. Tell him! Tell him! Why should I tell him? What is he to me? I may not purchase relief at the price of any man's respect. Only Tregar knows. Hush!—In God's name, hush! Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill!" ”