DOWN the concrete stairway, The Shadow led the way, with guns bristling at his back.

Like the galleys (and unlike most of the merchantmen in the harbor), they carried both oars and masts, but their main armament was obviously the batteries of heavy guns bristling from their heavily built forecastles above their long-beaked rams.

Another pair of crew wagons were racing toward the pier, guns bristling from the open windows, reinforcements closing in to tip the scales.

Bolan saw guns bristling from the limo, dirty orange flame winking madly from the muzzles.

Wheeling, the cloaked fighter could hardly hope to beat the shots of three guns already bristling through the doorway.

General Dostum is widely popular here in Mazar-i-Sharif, the dusty city of two million people where he makes his headquarters, and not only among ethnic Uzbeks, many of whom take pride in the martial state he has created, with tank barrels and antiaircraft guns bristling from every mud-walled fort and hilltop.

The two university presidents eventually sat down, the very picture of civilized discourse, as the Israeli and Palestinian guards stood by with guns bristling.