Torchbearer

“ But more exciting still is the fishing by torch-light on the dark moonless nights, when a torch made of dried weeds is carried in one hand, and the spear in the other, ready to strike the unwary fish, attracted by the glare. Small fish are caught with a different sort of spear, consisting of six or eight metal rods lashed to a long stick; when this is dexterously plunged into a shoal, some fish are pretty sure to be pinched and held firm.
Very often large parties go together to the reef, each bearing a flaming torch, and sometimes they fish for eels in the rivers in the same way. ”

“ Saturating the mule's hide—which was long and shaggy—well with turpentine and tar, all but his head and neck, which we wrapped in a wet sheet, we led him to the mouth of the lane and applied a torch.
Quicker than lightning the fire spread over the body of the devoted animal. With a scream of terror and anguish it darted off up the lane in the direction of the camp, whilst we mounted, with our long mantles floating behind us, yelling like incarnate fiends, sounding our horns, and, our many torches flashing like meteors through the night, pressed on after it in hot and close pursuit. ”

“ Travers began to walk toward the featureless black mass of the stockade. When after a few steps she looked back over her shoulder, the lagoon, the beach, the canoe, the men she had just left had become already invisible. She was alone bearing up a blazing torch on an earth that was a dumb shadow shifting under her feet. At last she reached firmer ground and the dark length of the palisade untouched as yet by the light of the torch seemed to her immense, intimidating. ”

“ Torches should be made of dry pine-knots, and carried in some shallow vessel. The common frying-pan, with a long handle, is best for the purpose. Link-torches, unless of the best pitch-pine (Pinus resinosa) , do not burn with sufficient brightness to stultify the pigeons. They will flutter off before the hunter can get his long pole within reach, whereas with a very brilliant light, he may approach almost near enough to lay his hands upon them. As there were no pitch-pine-trees in the neighbourhood, nor any good torch-wood, we were forced to give up the idea of a night-hunt. ”

“ And minute by minute the angry light crept higher up the sky and assumed new forms, clouds and streamers, for it was a mighty redlit pall of dust that was ever higher and nearer to the rushing terrapin.
Torcred glanced sidelong at the girl beside him. Her face was even whiter under the harsh light of sunset, her eyes closed beneath long lashes. Watching that smooth, tragic face, Torcred realized again how young she was; he shook his head somberly. The air-people were a strange race, who sent their young females on missions fit only for grown men. The terrapins were far more sensible. ”

“ So, with a little electric torch in one hand and the other held out blindly before me, I crept into the darkness that was, presumably, Vining’s entrance hall.
After a moment I heard the front door close softly behind me, and then I ventured to use the torch.
Have you ever gone into a strange house and tried to make out the lay of the land with a pocket torch? The torch shows up only one tiny spot at a time, and when you have swept it all over one article of furniture and made out its general dimensions, you have forgotten everything else! ”

“ To scare and vex the Papists, the church bells began to clash out as early as three o'clock on the morning of that dangerous day. At dusk the procession of several thousand half-crazed torch-bearers started from Moorgate, along Bishopsgate Street, and down Houndsditch and Aldgate (passing Shaftesbury's house imagine the roar of the monster mob, the wave of torches, and the fiery fountains of squibs at that point!) , then through Leadenhall Street and Cornhill, by the Royal Exchange, along Cheapside and on to Temple Bar, where the bonfire awaited the puppets. ”

“ After a little while in the intense silence of the forest she ventured to touch the switch of her torch, very cautiously.
In the faint, pale lustre she saw a tiny rivulet flowing westward from a spring, and, beside it, in the mud, imprints of a man's feet.
The tracks were small, narrow, slimmer than imprints made by any man she could think of. Under the glimmer of her torch they seemed quite fresh; contours were still sharp, some ready to crumble, and water stood in the heels. ”

“ There are no words but the lilt up and down of the boys' tenor voices.
Then, as if they had finished the task of gathering up the wreaths and sweeping the petals, they stand in groups of two before the pillars where the torches have been placed. They lift the torches from the brackets. They hold them aloft between them, one torch to each two boys. Their figures are cut against the curtain like the simple, triangular design on the base of a vase or frieze—the boys' heads on a level, the torches above them. ”

“ He kept her back and edged towards the trap-door, testing the soundness of the floor inch by inch as he advanced. It was not until he had thus satisfied himself about the safety of the footing right up to the edge of the opening that he would allow her to approach it.
They knelt down and turned the light of the torch into the gap. It shot down far into the blackness till it lost itself in space. Higher up they could see that the shaft was circular and lined with green, slimy brick. ”

“ CHAPTER IX. HUNTING BY TORCH LIGHT—AN INCOMPETENT JUDGE—A NEW SOUND IN THE FOREST—OLD SANGAMO'S DONKEY. Spalding and Martin went out upon the lake after dark, with one of the boats, to hunt by torch light. This is done by placing a lighted torch, or a lamp upon a standard, placed upright in the bow of the boat, and so high that a man seated or lying upon the bottom of the craft, will have his head below it. He must himself be in someway shaded from the light, which must be cast forward so that both the hunter and the boatman will be in the shadow. ”

“ The turpentine in this species of torch (which is generally dug from out the turf-bogs) makes it blaze and sparkle readily, so that it is often used in the Highlands in lieu of candles. On this occasion such a torch illuminated the wild and anxious features of a female, pale, thin, and rather above the usual size, whose soiled and ragged dress, though aided by a plaid or tartan screen, barely served the purposes of decency, and certainly not those of comfort. ”

“ They say that such is the antipathy of this reptile to fire, that when fires are made in the clearing away of woods, they rush into it, scattering it with their tails till it is extinguished, even becoming half roasted in the attempt; and that when an individual is passing at night with a torch, they pass and repass him, lashing him with their tales till he drop it, and the snake is immediately found closely coiled round the extinguished torch. ”

“ Lying still in a hollow of the sand, its gray paint blending with the drab earth to make it almost invisible from the air—and its radar alarms, no doubt, keeping watch for any moving threat. Encased in armor almost to the ground, over the great treads, and its three rounded turrets astare with guns.
At first glimpse Torcred jerked his head back like the extinct land reptile whose namesake he was. His palms grew sweaty and his insides quivered. If he had been alone, he might have slid quietly down the slope and stolen away, leaving his T-beam behind him. ”

“ The torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still carry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us. A little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul crosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus and Asia Minor, passes over the blue Ægean to answer the call from Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady blaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer reaches his goal in Rome. ”

“ ISABELLA’S CHRONICLE. CHAPTER VII.
THE TORCH. I did not know what had happened. I did not see the walls fall down. It was very dark, and some one held my arm. Then I saw the flare of a torch.
I could hear no voice in the commotion, but it was upon Roy Lee’s face that the light of the torch fell. I saw his steel blue eyes in quick search for the cave look swiftly around.
Above our heads the tunnel walls were roofed with trees laid crosswise. These were coated with ice; long icicles depended like white swords, gleaming above our heads.
When the torch expired we should die in darkness! ”

“ Mr Tarbox proposed going out to search for them with torches. Roger Trew and Potto Jumbo agreed to accompany him. A supply of dammar torches was soon manufactured, and each carrying a bundle on his back, with one in one hand and a gun in the other, they sallied forth. As long as they could find their way, there would be less danger moving through the forest at night with torches than in the day-time, as savage beasts and snakes avoid the light, and only harmless moths and bats fly against it. ”

“ Such snatches of superstition are still to be heard amidst the gossip of a north-country smithy.
Each black-fisher brought his own spear and torch, both more or less home-made. The spears were in many cases “gully-knives,” fastened to staves with twine and resin, called “rozet.” The torches were very rough-and-ready things—rope and tar, or even rotten roots dug from broken trees—in fact, anything that would flare. The black-fishers seldom journeyed far from home, confining themselves to the rivers within a radius of three or four miles. ”

“ The corpse lay long and white and horrid under the [26] beating moon and the flare of torch. As the acolytes reached the ground the rest of the company rushed simultaneously forward, and with a hideous yell flung their torches at the pyre. There was the hiss of tar, the leap of one great flame, an angry crackling. A moment more and the forest would be more vividly alight than it had ever been at noonday. Clive, feeling as uncomfortable as an eavesdropper, but too fascinated to retreat, stepped behind a large redwood. ”

“ I ran until I reached the edge of the crowd, and stood for a minute or two staring and listening. The fellows were surging wildly up and down and across the Yard with torches in their hands, cheering and singing. Whenever enough men got together, they would lower their torches and charge the whole length of the Yard—amid a howl of resentment—like a company of lancers. Then by the time they had turned to plough back again, another group would have formed, which usually met the first one half-way with a terrible roar and a clash of tin torches,—a drench of kerosene and a burst of flame. ”

“ Royall appeared, and quickly the girls fell into line behind her. First, the four Guardians; then two Torch Bearers, each holding aloft in her right hand a lighted lantern. Flaming torches would have been more picturesque, but also more dangerous in the woods, and all risk of fire must be avoided. After the Torch Bearers came the Fire Makers, and last of all the Wood Gatherers, with Katie the cook wearing a gorgeous robe that some of the girls had embroidered for her. Katie’s unfailing good nature had made her a general favourite in camp. ”

“ Then there were the jemadar and his peons or chupprassies, who formed a body-guard; the palkee-bearers, who cost thirty rupees a month; the mussalchees, now degenerated to a race of scullions, but once, as their name denotes, torch-bearers, who ran swiftly, "at the rate of full eight miles an hour," with blazing torches before their masters' carriages, to light them safely on their way. ”

“ But, if he switched on, there would be a moment when the thing would see him before he could see the thing—and such moments are not helpful. There only remained his torch; and on the Ancre, on one occasion, he had saved his life by judicious use. The man behind one of those useful implements is in blackness far more impenetrable than the blackest night, for the man in front is dazzled. He can only shoot at the torch: therefore, hold it to one side and in front of you.... ”

“ I lighted another torch, and stuck it between some stones by my side, so that I might have a steadier light than the fire afforded, the flickering flames from which very much confused the objects in the further recesses of the galleries, and would have prevented me getting a steady shot at my enemies. Then I knelt down with my rifle presented, ready to take a steady shot at the bears, should they show signs of intending to attack me. ”

“ We have four torches left. Only when we hear the sound of rapids dare we light one of them."
He emphasized his words by putting out the torch that was burning, and instantly they were plunged in total darkness.
This marked the commencement of a period in which all trace of time was lost. Huddled together on the few remaining rugs, they drifted on and on with the current, alternately asleep and awake.
At certain intervals a torch was lit for a few moments while they ate the pitiful scraps of food that Guy distributed with rigorous impartiality. ”

“ As he slowed to a more moderate pace under cover of the farther dunes, Torcred turned, still grinning, to the bird-girl. "That," he commented, "was the dangerous part."
She shivered slightly. "I was afraid," she admitted candidly.
"That's hardly as simple as attacking a mere crawling terrapin from the air, eh?"
The girl turned her face away. "That was necessary, terrapin ... I passed my fledgling examination only two days ago; it was my second flight beyond the safety zone. The novice must defeat some machine of prey in single combat, before he is accepted." ”