Then there was a confused babel of voices, to which I did not listen.

Menmen were everywhere; men in various uniforms, men who spoke various tongues in a confusing babel, yet they all seemed intent upon one purpose, the import of which Kan Wong could but vaguely guess.

And, in a while, Beltane rose and Sir Pertolepe also, and side by side they stepped forth of the leaves out into the road, where, on the outskirts of the village, pikemen and men-at-arms, archer and knight, were halted in a surging throng, while above the jostling confusion rose the hoarse babel of their voices.

No longer a road-house on the incandescent road to dawn, there is something hangdog about its very waiters, moving through the easy maze of half-filled tables; an orchestra, sheepish of its accomplishment, can lift even a muted melody above the light babel of light diners.

To-night there was a cheerful clatter of spoons and forks and a loud babel of voices, and Joel found himself hugely enjoying the novelty of eating in the presence of more than a hundred and fifty other lads.

The fire-eaters seized the pretext to charge him with all manner of "abolition" intentions, and by violent debate and the utterance of threats of disunion made the House a parliamentary and almost a revolutionary babel for nearly two months.

Now as he yet lay beside the brook hearkening to its pretty babel, he was aware of another sound drawing nearerthe slow plodding of a horse's hoofs upon the road below; and glancing whence it came he beheld a solitary knight whose mail gleamed 'neath a rich surcoat and whose shield flamed red with sunset.

The fire-eaters seized the pretext to charge him with all manner of "abolition" intentions, and by violent debate and the utterance of threats of disunion made the House a parliamentary and almost a revolutionary babel for nearly two months.