On this noose Bard cast a curious eye. To cityfolk a piece of rope is a
harmless thing with which one may make a trunk secure or on occasion
construct a clothes line on the roof of the apartment building, or in
the kitchen on rainy Mondays.
To a sailor the rope is nothing and everything at once. Give a seaman
even a piece of string and he will amuse himself all evening making
lashings and knots. A piece of rope calls up in his mind the stout lines
which hold the masts steady and the yards true in the gale, the
comfortable cable which moors the ship at the end of the dreary voyage,
and a thousand things between.
To the Westerner a rope is a different thing. It is not so much a useful
material as a weapon. An Italian, fighting man to man, would choose a
knife; a Westerner would take in preference that same harmless piece of
rope. In his hands it takes on life, it gains a strange and sinister
quality. One instant it lies passive, or slowly whirled in a careless
circle--the next its noose darts out like the head of a striking cobra,
the coil falls and fastens, and then it draws tighter and tighter,
remorselessly as a boa constrictor, paralyzing life.
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