"Firing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long story short, madam," began Mr. Hahn after a pause, during which Mother Uberta had been bristling silently while firing defiant glances at the two strangers, "I am the proprietor of a great establishment in Berlin—the 'Haute Noblesse'—you may ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... rubbed his eyes, and looked all about. Through my glass I could see Meeko blinking and twitching under the dark eave, trying to control his anger. Little Thief ventured to a branch a few feet away from his refuge, and Big Thief, unable to hold himself a moment longer, rushed out, firing a volley of direful threats ahead of him. In a flash Little Thief was back in his knot hole and the comedy began ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... writing a book as I said I should, there we all were from half-past twelve to nearly two o'clock, when we decided to have dinner and leave the servants to finish it. It came on to the table at last, was very rich and rather good. The boys spent the afternoon in the woods firing off crackers. M. went visiting and papa took me to drive, it being a delightful afternoon. The boys have a few Roman candles which they are going to send off as soon ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the field-hands, men, women, and children, waving sticks, blowing horns, and firing off guns, to frighten the invaders away. Fires are lighted by night to scare them, for the birds travel both night and day. The Bobolinks do not stop for all this noise, though of course a great many are shot, ending their lives inside a pot-pie, or being ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... abiding in the ring gradually overtakes him; how, faithful in faithfulness, he wounds the thing he most loves, out of love; becomes enveloped in the shadow and cloud of guilt, and, rising out of it more brilliantly than the sun, ultimately goes down, firing the whole heavens with his burning glow and purging the world of the curse,—all this is seen by the god whose sovereign spear was broken in the contest with the freest man, and who lost his power through him, rejoicing greatly over his own defeat: ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... less carefully selected materials are used, or quite thick vessels are made, various grades of stoneware are produced. The inferior grades are glazed by throwing a quantity of common salt into the kiln towards the end of the first firing. In the form of vapor the salt attacks the surface of the baked ware and forms an easily fusible sodium silicate upon it, which constitutes ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... leaders flashing for a few seconds, and then, unable to face the bristling wall of bayonets, their courage gave way, and they fled helter-skelter for safety towards the neighbouring woods. The English pursued them for some distance, firing as they advanced, and halting only to give sufficient time to reload. If they advanced too far, as the fort was yet unsubdued, there was a risk of a sally being made from it and the boats being destroyed. The commodore, carried away by his ardour, had already gone farther ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... their guns, fired volley after volley into the cave's mouth. But Maximus and his wife crouched with the dog behind the ledge of rock at the entrance, and remained there in perfect safety. In a few minutes the Indians ceased firing, and one of their number cautiously approached the cave, supposing, no doubt, that the fusillade must have wounded if it had not killed those within; but the instant he passed the entrance, knife in hand, he was caught in the powerful ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... had as little heed as of an infant's, being left alone, with the remnant of his men which the Cyclop had not devoured, gave manifest proof how far manly wisdom excels brutish force. He chose a stake from among the wood which the Cyclop had piled up for firing, in length and thickness like a mast, which he sharpened and hardened in the fire, and selected four men, and instructed them what they should do with this stake, and made ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... into execution the next morning. In this they kept their word. They brought sixty-six guns to bear upon the town; and fired on it for three hours. Not a shot was returned. A canoe then went off to offer terms of accommodation. The parties however not agreeing, the firing recommenced; more damage was done; and the natives were forced into submission. There were no certain accounts of their loss. Report said that fifty were killed; but some were seen lying badly wounded, and others in the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... long and deadly aim. The glowing eyes offered a splendid target and he knew he must not miss. A report rang out, followed almost instantaneously by a piteous, half-human shriek of pain; then came the sound of a body falling, and the eyes had vanished. After firing Nick swung round to the figure beyond the fire. It loomed vast in the yellow light and was reared to its full height not ten yards away. A low, snarling growl came from it, and the sound was dreadful in its suppressed ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... want of a little pocket-money such as fell to the lot of his more fortunate schoolfellows. He had to contend with numerous discomforts, more especially in the winter months, when the supplies both of firing and food were inadequate, and one dark November day we find him sitting down, chilled and hungry, to pen the following appeal to his ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... Larry Holiday now heard as the car sped over the smooth, frost hardened roads which the open winter had left unusually snowless and clean. Geoffrey Annersley had been going his careless, happy go lucky way as an Oxford undergraduate when the sudden firing of a far off shot had startled the world and made war the one inevitable fact. The young man had enlisted promptly and had been in practically continuous service of one sort or another ever since. He ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the thickness of the Paper or Pastboard, that holds the Powder, needs to make the outside thereof even with the rest of the Wedge. This Wedge must have an Hole drilled through the longest side of it, to be filled with priming Powder, for firing of the Powder in the Cartridge; which needs have no more, than half a pound of Powder, though upon occasion a greater quantity may be used, as shall ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... do anything worse than shoot, I shan't come to much grief," he said, with a laugh. "Master Haines is not as wise a man as I have supposed him to be if he thinks it is possible to bring his game down by firing at random, for ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... firing had commenced, the approach of the privateer was in some degree checked. The guns fired from the stern of the Estelle assisted her velocity through the water; while, on the contrary, the privateer, being obliged to yaw from her ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... example could not be quoted in favor of "coercion." It is not believed that Mr. Davis had the slightest authority for this aspersion upon the memory of Jackson. It seems rather to have been a disingenuous and unwarranted statement of the kind so plentifully used at the time for the purpose of "firing the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... for, though we threw out to them pieces of iron and other things, they refused to come to parley, and used every possible means to wound one of our men and get him into their power; we were accordingly compelled to frighten them by firing one or two shots at them, by which one of the blacks was hit in the breast and carried to the pinnace by our men, upon which all the others retired to the hills or dunes; in their wretched huts on the beach we found nothing but a square-cut assagay, ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... with great rapidity between the combatants. The firing calming the light wind which had been blowing, the two ships were soon shrouded in a canopy of smoke. The English crew redoubled their efforts. Several had been struck, yet two only ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... over-study of those two years proved too much for Henry Arden's health. It was not hard study alone; he stinted himself in food, in firing as well; he exacted every possible exertion from his mind, and systematically neglected his body. The examinations were brilliantly passed; he was ordained; he received a "call" to Little Upshire, the village nearest to North Tolland; there was a pretty wedding in the ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... whose guns usually do more execution than those of any other authority, seventeen men were killed by this wonderful shot. See Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 16.] The firing now took better effect, and by one volley a whole file of the royal infantry was swept off, and though others quickly stepped in to fill up the ranks, the men, impatient of their sufferings, loudly called ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... at about that time Americans were not very popular. There seemed to be a feeling everywhere that we should have been on the firing line. This feeling developed the fashion of polite jeering to a point that made life abroad uncomfortable until Johnny Poe fell fighting in the ranks of the Black Watch on the plains of Flanders. In the dull monotony ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... carried on that two pretty young people had never went and got engaged before." Sister Tobias was never coldly grammatical in speech. "But the child was happy, poor dear, in hearing even strangers praise him; and when the firing stopped and we were on our way home, she begged us to turn out of it and call in at the Convent, where he'd begged her to meet him, if only for a minute, not having seen her since ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... deck themselves out in their gold and silver brocaded vests and pantaloons. During these seven days there is general rejoicing, and the Arabs spend most of this time in the village street, racing, firing guns, or engaging in sham battles between the different camps, during which one carries the green, or sacred banner, which is supposed to render the bearer invulnerable. The battle ends by the standard-bearer being fired at by all parties, and falling, but quickly rising ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... fired a shot into the landing wall, and threw open the passage window. It was smartly conceived, but, of course, took some little time, which had to be accounted for. Crosland could only say that he could not tell how long a time elapsed between the firing and the arrival of Poulton. Everything had to be thought of before Helen Crosland rushed out ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... now, what it was a pretty hard thing for one of his indomitable temperament to realize, that things were out of his hands, that he could go no farther. North or south or east or west, he could go no farther. Capture or firing squad or starvation and death from exhaustion, he could go no farther. His name would not be sent home on the casualty lists, any more than Archer's would, but they had tried, and done their bit as ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... left he saw a group of the mainlanders running along the beach toward the conflict. If he could only intercept them—and bring them into the rear! Like the wind he sped to cut them off, shouting and firing ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... knot-hole; and, as the morning air blew directly towards the house, she could overhear a good deal of the conversation. A grave sneer overcast the dark, severe gravity of her face, as she listened, and heard them divide out the ground, discuss the rival merits of the dogs, give orders about firing, and the treatment of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... moment the four in the carriage lost sight of the two on horseback. Soon after the separation they heard firing, but what the result was, they knew not. They were fearful, however, that their companions had ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... La Vendee continue their successes. The Piedmontese still unsuccessful, losing their camp and stores at La Magdeleine. The national vengeance is at length glutted with the blood of the inhabitants of Lyons; between 2 and 3000 persons have been massacred by tying them together, and firing upon them with case-shot; and the sabre finished those whose wounds were not mortal. Fort-Louis surrenders to the allies. 200 persons are guillotined at Strasbourg for hesitating to pay their proportion of a sum ordered to be raised in that city within 24 ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... were away all this time. After hearing the firing for a moment, the stout Major's wife bethought her of her friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possible to console, Amelia. The idea that she had that helpless and gentle creature to protect, gave additional strength to the natural courage ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... government, had even an elementary grasp of the important elements of the world mineral situation. The mobilizing of this information under high pressure, through the cooperation of government and private agencies, was an interesting and important feature in the complex activities back of the firing line. It is vastly to the credit of the men interested in the mineral industry in this country, and presumably also in other countries, that almost without exception they contributed their bits of ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... of breastwork right round the steps—up from the passage that was blocked by the stone door—it came into my head that I could there set up a kind of battery and run from one to the other of them, firing—that is, if the worst came to the worst and the passage were forced. So, having plenty of powder and shot and the wrappings of the lace packages making excellent wads, I set about loading all the muskets. I knew that Agnes Anne would be afraid of what I ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... soon congregating on deck, many of them buckling on their swords and examining the locks of their pistols by the light of the binnacle lamp. Various opinions were offered. Some thought that Captain Winslow ought to begin the battle by firing a broadside into the stranger; but he declined the proposal, and suggested that it would be better to ascertain first whether she ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... readiness for each gun, were opposed to the 1174 in the Russian fortress. It only remained to utilise this terrific force, and at last orders were given for the commencement of what was known as the third bombardment. After nearly two days' incessant firing the French stormed the Mamelon and two advance redoubts. These were successfully carried and held, at the same time that the English stormed a position called the Quarries, close under the formidable Redan. Of this bombardment Gordon gives in one of ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... another hour, or put his shoulder to the wheel of his own accord, and so, having a good employer, and not one minded to take advantage of him, was rewarded in many ways. Iden did not reduce his wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter, and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce, or apples, and various other things from ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... Missourians surrounded it, and, sticking their rifles into every hole and crack, poured in a deadly fire, killing, some reports say eighteen, and some thirty-one, of the Mormons. The only persons in the town who escaped found shelter in the woods. The Missourians did not lose a man. When the firing ceased, they still showed no mercy, shooting a small boy in the leg after dragging him out from under the bellows, and hacking to death with a corn cutter an old man while he begged for his life. Dead and wounded were thrown into a well, and some of the wounded, taken out by rescuers from ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... He shook his head, with rather a grim smile. "Told you once I worked in a pottery. Supposing the clay of a piece wasn't mixed right, it wasn't the dish's fault if it cracked in the firing. Just the same, it got heaved ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... the Foulon that night, and orders had been given to the French posts on the north shore above Quebec to make no noise. The arrival of the convoy was vital, for the army was pressed for food. Montcalm was therefore anxious for its fate when at break of day he heard firing from the French cannon at Samos, above Quebec. Had the provisions then been taken by the English? Near his camp all now seemed quiet. He gave orders for the troops to rest, drank some cups of tea with his aide-de-camp Johnstone, a Scotch Jacobite, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... heard little or nothing of the noise of the riot, though she had been alarmed at her nephew's absence, and an officious neighbour had run in to tell her first that the prentice lads were up and sacking the houses of the strangers, and next that the Tower was firing on them, and the Lord Mayor's guard and the gentlemen of the Inns of Court were up in arms to put them down. She said several times, "Poor soul!" and "Yea, it were a shame to leave her to the old Dutchkin," but with true Flemish deliberation she continued her household arrangements, and insisted ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... In firing us to local patriotism by the example of provincial cities, the enthusiast does not allow sufficiently for the size of London. It swallows us all up; there are twenty provincial cities in its maw: it is not a city, but a province. We cannot rouse ourselves to an interest in ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... rootlets, for it will accept no substitutes. A wheat stalk in France before the war had placed at its feet nitrates from Chile, phosphates from Florida and potash from Germany. All these were shut off by the firing line ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... and was on the point of firing when the wildcat—for such it had proved to be—dropped out of sight and leaped to a branch on the other ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... furious and sudden, and the crew seem to have been either unarmed or too panic-stricken to use their weapons. Both ships at once opened a hot fire on the canoes, but hit nobody. It was not until next day, when twenty-two canoes put out to attack them, that the Dutch marksmen after much more firing succeeded in hitting a native. On his fall the canoes retired. Satisfied with this Tasman took no vengeance and sailed away further into the strait. Fierce north-westerly gales checked for days his northward progress. The strait, it may be mentioned, is still ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... into the house without disturbing my mother and the servants, I passed along that same road where, as a crippled child, I had hobbled on that, bright afternoon when love was first revealed to me. Ah, what a different love was this which was firing my blood, and making dizzy my brain! That child-love had softened my heart in its deep distress, and widened my soul. This new and mighty passion in whose grasp I was, this irresistible power that had seized ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... "Trooper Priddell" he was of no account. As a piece of fast-decaying carrion he would be the centre of a piece of elaborate ceremonial! His troop would parade in full dress and (save for a firing-party of twelve who would carry carbines) without arms. A special black horse would be decked out with a pall of black velvet and black plumes. Across this horse the spurred jackboots of the dead ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... monde!" It is very singular, that the Doctor should have frightened a French nobleman of Burgundy, by shaking his cane at him, and even made him assist in the most servile offices; and in the next town, terrify all the common people, by only firing a blunderbuss ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... ship of 300 Ton called the Whido, with 18 guns mounted, and fifty men, bound from Jamaica to London, laden with Sugar, Indico, Jesuits bark and some silver and gold, and having given chase thre daies took him without any other resistance than his firing two chase guns at the Sloop, and came to an anchor at Long Island.[9] Bellamy's crew and Williams's consisted then of 120 men. They gave the Ship taken from Captain Richards to Captain Prince, and ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... to Ushant, where we perceived a fleet of small vessels, called chasse-marees (coasting luggers), laden with wine, coming round; and as we did not know of any batteries thereabouts, we ran in to attempt a capture. We cut off three of them, but just as we had compelled them, by firing broadsides into them, to lower their sails, a battery, which our commander did not know anything of, opened fire upon us, and before we could get out of range, which we did as soon as we could, one shot came in on deck, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... these presses built against the stone." The laird opened them as he spoke. "You see—blank space!" He moved toward a corner. "This structure is my ancient furnace of which I spoke. I still keep it fuel-filled for firing." As he spoke ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... necessary for working the plant leaves an available amount of steam raised by the gas from one ton of fuel of 5.1 tons, equal to 75 per cent. of the steam that we can obtain from the same fuel by hand firing. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... carry in their train great consequences. The firing of a gun in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, Macaulay tells us, started the Seven Years' War which set the world in conflagration, causing men to fight each other on every shore of the seven seas and giving new masters ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... retorted Barnstable, firing his pistol at the advancing enemy; "leave not a man of them to ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 9th he (Colonel Laurie) told us that we had to make a charge at a place called Neuve Chapelle. We were marched to the firing line that night, and our Colonel had a very nice meal ready for us before we ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... carefully laid plans: he had intended giving Collins and the two record clerks a half-holiday, so that Gryson might come and go unnoticed. Also, he had meant to make a definite appointment with Blenkinsop and the representative of the United Press, to the end that there might be no delay in the firing of the mine. Lastly, Gryson must be shielded and gotten out of the city in safety; so much the traitor had a right to demand if he should risk his liberty and his life by returning with ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... two gentlemen, came in. The elder of the two men was short and rather stout, with hair that had once been red, but was now sandy, keen, deep-set eyes, and a shrewd, rather pleasant face. Miss Harman addressed him as Uncle Jasper, and they continued firing gay badinage at one another for a moment without perceiving Mrs. Home's presence. The younger man was tall and square-shouldered, with a rather rugged face of some power. He might have been about thirty. He entered the room by Miss Harman's ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... close to the camp. Some of the Boers were anxious to get them into the laager, small as it was, or at least as many of them as it would hold. I argued strongly against this, pointing out that the brutes would probably be seized with panic as soon as the firing began, and trample the defenders of the laager under foot. As an alternative plan I suggested that some of the native servants should drive the herd along the valley of the river till they reached a friendly tribe or some other place of safety. Of course, if the Zulus saw them they would ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... Welsh coal, which evolves but little smoke, and is therefore more favorable for the success of a smokeless furnace; but in the manufacturing districts, where the coal is more bituminous, it is found that smoke may be almost wholly prevented by careful firing and by the use of a ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... came to me. The things I saw I had to see. Couldn't get away from them. I've been with the British, serving in the R.A.M.C. Been hospital steward, stretcher bearer, ambulance driver. I've been sixteen months at the front, and all the time on the firing-line. I was in the retreat from Mons, with French on the Marne, at Ypres, all through the winter fighting along the Canal, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and, just lately, in Servia. I've seen more of this war than any soldier. Because, sometimes, they ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... through all the stores. Everything was given to them, and they got everything they could wish for and took us up the hill towards their camp. We had only gone but a short distance from the house when we heard the reports of guns, but thought they were firing in the air to frighten us; but they had shot Quinn, Dill and Gilchrist, whom I did not see fall. Mr. and Mrs. Delaney were a short distance ahead of my husband, I having my husband's arm. Mr. Williscraft, an old grey-headed ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... commanded the Provincials and Indians. General Prideaux conducted the expedition and planned the mode of attack; but on the 19th of July, while walking in his trenches, he was killed by the carelessness of his own gunner in firing a cannon. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... the crowd. In about half a minute, off they all went, in a most beautiful confusion; there were silver stars and golden stars, blue lights and Catherine-wheels, mines and bombs, Grecian-fires and Roman-candles, Chinese-trees, rockets and illuminated mottoes, all firing away, cracking, popping, and fizzing, at the same time. It was unanimously agreed that it was a great improvement upon the intended show. The man to whom the gardens belonged ran out of a booth, where he had been drinking beer at his ease, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... constitute the grain-crops. The uncultivated land interspersed with the yellow fields of harvest, is reserved for peat—the poor man's fuel and his wealth. For, were it not for the inexhaustible abundance of this cheap and accessible firing, he could hardly inhabit this region. It would seem strange to an American, who had not realised the difference of the two climates, to see fields full of reapers on the very threshold of October, as I saw them on this last ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... battle of Gettysburg, when Frederick County was occupied by the Union troops, many of the officers dined at Needwood. A little later, although over forty miles away, we knew that a great battle was in progress, as we distinctly heard the steady firing of heavy artillery. The news of the great Union victory finally reached us and I listened in silent sympathy to the rejoicing of the Unionists and heard the lamentations of the sympathizers with ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... France has adopted the Kropatochek magazine rifle, Germany the Manser rifle, Austria the Mannlicher magazine rifle, Italy the Bertoldo magazine rifle, Russia the Berdan breechloader, Turkey the American rifle. The magazine guns seem to have almost unlimited capacities—firing 30 to 50 shots per minute which are fatal at a mile distance. The only mitigation of these horrors is that of a German chemist's invention—an ansthetic bullet which is claimed to produce complete ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... in range, but Prescott and his officers, leaping upon the parapet of the redoubt, kicked up the muzzles of the guns. If the men would but obey him, Prescott told them, not a British soldier would get within the redoubt. At the rail fence the men were likewise prevented from firing, Putnam threatening to cut down any who disobeyed. They were ordered not to shoot until the regulars passed a stake which Stark set up for a mark. Many familiar sayings were passed among the provincials: "Wait till you see the whites of their eyes! Aim at the crossing ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... loss, and then the English army was landed without opposition. Shanghai is situated sixteen miles up the Woosung River, and while part of the force proceeded up the river another marched overland. Both columns arrived together, and the disheartened Chinese evacuated Shanghai after firing one or two random shots. No attempt was made to retain Shanghai, and the expedition re-embarked, and proceeded to attack Chankiang or Chinkiangfoo, a town on the southern bank of the Yangtsekiang, and at ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... counsel. On March 18 (Anjou's birthday) an untoward event occurred, which threatened to have most disastrous consequences. As Orange was leaving the dinner-table, a young Biscayan, Juan Jaureguy by name, attempted his assassination, by firing a pistol at him. The ball entered the head by the right ear and passed through the palate. Jaureguy was instantly killed and it was afterwards found that he had, for the sake of the reward, been instigated to the deed by his master, a merchant named Caspar Anastro. Anjou, who ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... from the mill to the dumps, that one instantly compares to the conveyors and winding gear of a coal mine. Beneath the conveyors are great ragged mounds of short logs cut into sections for the paper pulp trade, and jumbled heaps of shorter sections that are to serve as the winter firing for whole districts; these have the contours of coal dumps, while fed from chutes are hillocks of golden sawdust as big and as conspicuous as the ash and slag mounds of the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... are not even Frenchmen, made prisoners! Why on earth were they not shot?" And when he heard that Voights Rhetz having experienced some resistance from the inhabitants of the open town of Tours, had shelled it into submission, Bismarck waxed wrath because the General had ceased firing when the white flag went up. "I would have gone on," said he, "throwing shells into the town till they sent me out 400 hostages." The simple truth is that in spite of his long pedigree and good blood Bismarck was not quite a gentleman in ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... strength of armored ships is the firing pin's frail spark, More sure than the helm of the mighty fleet are my rudders to their mark, The faint foam fades from the bright screw blades—and I strike from ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the cold at any season of the year. I used to make myself a new dress every year when the birds came; but by the time that they returned, I had little left of my last year's suit, the fragments of which might be found among the rocky and steep parts of the ravine where we used to collect firing. ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... delivered to the militia at Chincopague. Captain Barry reported to the owners that "the commanders in our little fleet are very complaisant and obliging to each other." That the "Harlem" had fourteen four-pounders and eighty-five men. The guns and other things were thrown overboard without firing a shot. The Captain, with ten men, went off in a whale-boat, "but," reported Captain Barry, "we have reason to think, is since overset." The prisoners were taken out, a prize crew put on board, the "Harlem" sent to Philadelphia and the men landed at Sinipaxan, Virginia, ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... resting-place over the door of the cabin, he saw, to his horror, an Indian in his war-paint, just stooping to seize the child. Taking quick aim at a medal on the breast of the savage, he fired, and the Indian fell dead. The little boy, thus released, ran to the house, where Mordecai, firing through the loopholes, kept the Indians at bay until help arrived ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... red and saffron, through black smoke: the Texan's gun flashed down and up and back, as a man snaps his fingers against the frost; he tossed his empty gun through the sunlight to the bed under the juniper tree and spread out his hands. Bill was still firing—one shot—two! ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... the guns could not be depressed sufficiently to reach them. They believed the fort as good as won, and with cheers of exultation pressed on to the final assault. But at the corners of the forts quick-firing guns were stationed, and these and the infantry lining the parapets mowed them down as surely as the ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... unit in the thick of the dirtiest, dampest and most depressing part, read PATRICK MACGILL'S The Red Horizon (JENKINS). Here we meet the author of The Children of the Dead End and The Rat Pit as Rifleman 3008 of the London Irish, involved in the grim routine of the firing line—reliefs, diggings and repairs, sentry-go's, stand-to's, reserves, working and covering parties, billets; and so da capo. With a rare artistic intuition, instead of diffusing his effects in a riot of general impressions, he has confined himself to a record of the doings ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... significance whatever. The front pages teem with caricatures of the judge upon the bench, of the individual jurors with exaggerated heads upon impossible bodies, of the lawyers ranting and bellowing, juxtaposed with sketches of the defendant praying beside his prison cot or firing the fatal shot in obedience to a message borne by ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... told of many of their adventures, both while in camp in France and during the time they had been on the firing line. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... was not an American, neither was he an Englishman. He was a little bit of a man, of a swarthy complexion, and did not weigh perhaps more than an hundred pounds by the scale. During the firing, our little man stood upon the taffrail, swung his sword, d—d the English, and praised his own men. He had been long enough in the United States to acquire property and information, and credit enough to command a schooner of four guns and ninety men. The crew considered him ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... down into the butts under my charge who ought to be especially grateful to Providence on this account, for I cannot induce him to make use of the red "Cease Fire!" flag before he ascends from the safety-pit; even when he does, he drags it out behind him so that the first thing those on the firing-point see is himself, and the second thing is the flag. I think he must have been an ammunition-monger in private life and mixed with bullets in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... simply because it is known that he may one day have to deal forth death to an enemy, or take his own doom, according to the chances of combat. I need say little about the field-days and reviews which have caused so many martially-minded young men to take the shilling. The crash of the small-arm firing, the wild galloping of hasty aides-de-camp, the measured movement of serried lines, the rapid flight of flocks of bedizened staff-officers, all make up a very exciting and confusing picture, and many a youngster has fancied that war must be a glorious game. Let us leave the picturesque and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... this situation, her countenance had almost completed the duke's disgust, when her horse, desirous of keeping pace with the others, set off in a gallop, notwithstanding her greatest efforts to prevent it; and her endeavours to hold him in, firing his mettle, he at length set off at full speed, as if he was running a race ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... we heard a shot, followed by a regular medley of dull booms. The men were in their saddles and gone in less time than it takes to tell it. The firing had ceased save for a few sharp reports from the revolvers, like a coyote's spiteful snapping. The pounding of the horse's hoofs grew fainter, and soon all was still. I kept my ears strained for the slightest sound. The cook and the boss, the only men up, hurried ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... face showed no lightening of its gloom as he spoke, but there was a firing up of the black eyes, and the woman with the knitting felt that—for whatever reason—he was purposely ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... things to happen was being fed as fast as a rapid-firing gun in full action. I found waiting very irksome but there was a cooking class, a mother's meeting, two sets of composition papers to be corrected and various household duties that stubbornly refused to adjust ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... comprehend my opinion of you, by slapping you in the face, wherever I met you. I hope that you will spare me such a disagreeable alternative by consenting to pose for a few moments before my sword or pistol, as you please. Allow me to entreat you not to exhibit any grandeur of soul, by firing in the air, it would not produce the slightest effect upon me, for I should kill you like a dog. Your presence upon the earth annoys me, and I do not labor for morality in ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... firing up with renewed enthusiasm, "this work is the Heims Kringla of Snorre Turlleson, the most famous Icelandic author of the twelfth century! It is the chronicle of the Norwegian ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... nervous lest I should depart without his lines, which he extended towards me, written on the back of one of his visiting-cards. I was just then being told by the agitated traveller that he had only been firing into the air because it was Easter, and that this was his invariable custom at midnight on Easter-Eve. The explanation was so satisfactory that everyone welcomed my suggestion that he should sail and that they should send his revolver on to him by parcel post. They all ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the distant guns, as she had in Passy where there was no noisy traffic to take their place. There is a certain amount of morbidity in all highly strung imaginative minds, and although she had developed no love for Big Bertha nor for the sound of high firing guns attacking avions in the middle of the night, there had been something in that steady boom of cannon whose glare stained the horizon that had thrilled ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... it falls until he has picked it up; for this, once lost sight of, owing to the sameness in the appearance of the reeds, is seldom found again. In this manner the boat moves steadily through and over the reeds, the birds flushing and falling, the gunner loading and firing, while the boatman is pushing and picking up. The sport continues till an hour or two after high-water, when the shallowness of the water, and the strength and weight of the floating reeds, and also the backwardness of the game to spring ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... day's excursion, some were lounging, and all were merry. But, seeing as soon as seen, they ran with all speed to their guns, that were leaned against the trees hard by, and, without more ado, began firing in so brisk and earnest a manner, that left the Virginians no choice but to return it, which they did with spirit. About the same time, the Half King and his warriors came down to the bottom of the hill on the opposite side of the hollow, and, screening themselves behind a bit ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... memory linked with, and stands for, the opening of the war. The fort was not a large military structure. The number of men defending it was not great. But the events connected with it were great. It stood as the representative of great principles and facts. The firing on it marked an epoch in the same sense as Caesar's crossing the Rubicon. It is vitally connected with events that precede ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... measurements are from memory, excepting the diameter of muzzle, which I took on the spot.) There were no trunnions to this singular old gun, but it may have been lashed to some lever which could be raised or depressed, and it was evidently intended for firing into shipping from the fort walls, to command the harbour at a short range. It had been cast with concentric rings, which I examined carefully, as at first I imagined they had been wrought-iron shrunk on to the casting: this was not the case, but the extra thickness of metal at ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the sound of firing, followed by yells from the natives on shore, and then we saw the recruiter-boat push out with a seemingly diminished crew. The mate's boat pulled quickly up, took her in tow, and presently brought her alongside, all her own crew being more or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conversational brilliancy, which had been somewhat damped during the past twelvemonth, and, at one of Delphine Gay's dinners, where he met Hugo and Lamartine, he replied to Jove's heavy artillery with a raking fire from his own quick-firing guns. Lamartine was enchanted. Balzac must go to the Chamber was his verdict. But Balzac, at present, was content to correspond with his Eve and to occupy himself with the restoration of the pictures she was helping him to buy. One of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... effect, but Mr. Darnel's second wounded the young squire in the flank; nevertheless, having a pistol in reserve, he desired his antagonist to ask his life. The other, instead of submitting, drew his sword, and Mr. Greaves, firing his piece into the air, followed his example. The contest then became very hot, though of short continuance. Darnel being disarmed at the first onset, our young squire gave him back the sword, which he was base enough to use a second time against ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... thrilling moment, Dave and Roger side by side, Phil at their heels, and Sid Todd further back, firing another shot or two, "just for fun," in ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... the details of to-day; consequently I may have missed a great many interesting happenings alongside of me which I would have wanted to note under other circumstances. One gets into a strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and noticing things in a normal way. This accounts, perhaps, for some blank spaces in my memory. Besides, I went out completely resigned to my fate, ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... far on the wing of a great offensive, and had been almost annihilated. The few survivors had dug themselves in, and held on till that bitter Tuesday faded into darkness and night. When relief came, one man was left alive. He was wounded in four places, but he was still loading and firing, and he wept when they picked him up and carried him away for first aid. That solitary hero, absolutely the only survivor of our local regiment, was Lieutenant Roger ...
— The Comrade In White • W. H. Leathem
... she felt Sir Lancelot's arm around Her waist, upon her cheek his breath like dew. While through his fingers timidly he wound Her shining locks; and, haply, when he brushed Her ivory skin, Guenevra nearly swound: For where he touched, the quivering surface blushed, Firing her blood with most contagious heat, Till brow, cheek, neck, and bosom, all were flushed. Each heart was listening to the other beat. As twin-born lilies on one golden stalk, Drooping with Summer, in warm languor meet, So met their faces. Down the forest walk Sir Lancelot looked—he ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... arose also, and climbing one of the many precipitous paths, answered the challenge of sentinel and outpost and went on slow-footed as one heavy in thought, yet with eyes quick to heed how thick was the underbrush hereabouts with dead wood and bracken apt to firing. Before him rose an upland crowned by a belt of mighty forest trees and beyond, a road, or rather track, that dipped and wound away into the haze of evening. Presently, as he walked beneath this leafy twilight, he heard the luring sound of running water, and turning thither, laid him down where ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... from the crowd, then it was silent, while that tongue of flame leaped a second time from the mouth of a cannon. Harry saw the water spring up, a spire of white foam, near the steamer, and a moment later a third shot clipped the water close by. He did not know whether the gunners were firing directly at the vessel or merely meant to warn her that she came nearer at her peril, but in any event, the effect was the same. South Carolina with her cannon was warning a foreign ship, the ship of an enemy, to ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... odious. He would rather give a present to himself than to the girl who loved him. Nevertheless, when her father is ruined he marries her, and he fights bravely at Waterloo, and is killed. "No more firing was heard at Brussels. The pursuit rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field and the city,—and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... forcible dilatation of the Eustachian canal; a thorn or twig of a tree accidentally thrust into the head; picking the ear with a toothpick. In time of battle soldiers sometimes have their tympanums ruptured by the concussion caused by the firing of cannon. Dalby mentions an instance of an officer who was discharged for deafness acquired in this manner during the Crimean War. He was standing beside a mortar which, unexpectedly to him, was fired, causing rupture of the tympanic ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... I was at the start!' laughed his uncle. 'When B.-P. told the townsmen they'd got to lend a hand, I was like a good few more. I thought I'd pick up what was wanted in no time. But I found that a useful man in the firing-line isn't made in a hurry. What a time he had with some of us fellows, who scarcely knew which end of a rifle to put to the shoulder!' And Mr. Elliott chuckled at ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... him some notion of the design. It was a representation of a fair, with peasants and artisans in an orgy of enjoyment, drunk and absurd in their modern dress, whirling ridiculously in roundabouts, gaping at shows, kissing and staggering and rolling in knots, swinging in swing-boats, and firing down shooting galleries, a frenzy ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... been mentioned that Indians, arriving singly or in squads, to report at Hamilton's headquarters, were in the habit of firing their guns before entering the town or the fort, not only as a signal of their approach, but in order to rid their weapons of their charges preliminary to cleaning them before setting out upon another scalp-hunting ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... preparations they depart peaceably, well and good," remarked Travilla. "But if they insist on forcing an entrance, we shall feel no scruples about firing ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... town, where there were many other vessels. Seeing the two vessels in pursuit of the ship Lorenzo sent a galley after them, and the three began to clear the shore with their shot of many Moors who flocked thither to defend their ships. Supposing from the noise of firing that his assistance was necessary, Lorenzo made all possible haste up the river; but before his arrival the others had taken all the vessels in the harbour, and had burnt a house on shore full of valuable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... doubtless this that renders the direction of aim so exact; but when the subject of tickled faces is considered, we shall see that it does not insure complete accuracy, any more than that exists in volley firing, which with inferior shots is more telling than independent firing, and yet ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... company at that time, the Vezey they called themselves, though Wheezy would have been the better name. Such a box of tricks I do believe was never put upon a chassis before or since. It took two of us to start the engine in the morning, and the same number to persuade her to leave off firing at night. The works manager, Mr. Nathan, whose Christian name was Abraham, said that she'd done eighty miles an hour with him easily; but the only time I got her over fifty she broke her differential by way of an argument, and nothing but a soft place in a hayfield saved me from ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... obliged to hurry away at half-past four in order to see the Naval Brigade at exercise, under the command of Captain Hixson. A very interesting sight it proved to be. Their drilling and marching past were admirable, as were also their volley and file firing; while the rapidity with which they formed into rallying squares to resist cavalry was really marvellous. Towards the close of the proceedings it was growing dusk, and the bright-coloured tongues of flame from the rifles showed sharply against the dark blue sky. Tom presented the medals to ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... tutor[FN560] took him in hand and taught him polite letters and he became a reader and a writer and well versed in all knowledge before he reached his tenth year. Then his adopted father appointed for him a horse that he might learn cavalarice and the shooting of shafts and firing of bullets at the butt,[FN561] and then brought for him a complete rider that he might teach him all his art and when he came to the age of fourteen he became a doughty knight and a prow. Now one chance day of the days the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... immense surprise, once the Matabele had swarmed over the laager, and were upon us in their thousands, I had no time to be frightened. The absolute necessity for keeping cool, for loading and reloading, for aiming and firing, for beating them off at close quarters—all this so occupied one's mind, and still more one's hands, that one couldn't find room for any personal terrors. "They are breaking over there!" "They will overpower us ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... contest between the cavalryman and natives, he says: "But alas! in war, as in finance and love, victory does not always smile upon the most deserving. She usually favors the numerically stronger side; that is, unless the less numerous party is armed with quick firing guns, dumdum bullet, and other harmless weapons that Europeans think it criminal to employ against one another, but cheerfully use to Christianize and civilize the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... sometimes the other, sometimes it jerked from side to side like a crazy thing, but always with the rapidity of light, always in a smother of spray and foam. The decided spat, spat, spat of the reversing blows from the caulked boots sounded like picket firing. I could not make out the different leads, feints, parries, and counters of this strange method of boxing, nor could I distinguish to whose initiative the various evolutions of that log could be described. But I retain still a vivid mental picture ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... the aged Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, who claimed the privilege of firing the first gun upon Sumter; but he did not think so a little while afterward, when he was preparing to hang himself because he saw that his dreams of Southern independence could ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... their opponents the throne of the tyrant or the liberty of the people may be dependent. Nations, companies, and individuals have expended years of time and millions of money in testing every conceivable contrivance which offered a hope of improvement in precision, force, facility of loading or firing, or any of the minute details which contribute to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... sea-shore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens, palisades; scrapes together some vestige of shelter there (five thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that first night, 11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow commences firing with what artillery he has. Much outfired by the Turks inside;—his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper flotilla come soon. July 12th, all day the firing continues, and all night; Turks extremely furious: about an hour before daybreak, we notice ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... had resolved to make a determined stand. As the foe came on, he sent out his men in small parties from the works to annoy them and retard their advance. The Indians attacked the invaders after the manner of bush-fighters, firing and then seeking cover while they reloaded their muskets. The conflict that ensued was desperate beyond description. Every bit of cover—bush, tree, or boulder—held its man. With dogged valour the savages ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... private, especially if it is something that reflects unfavorably on his character. But the reason should always be given to the employee himself. He may not listen, and most of the men who have had experience in hiring and firing say that he will not, but that is his own responsibility. The employer has no right to let him go without letting him know why. And the employee should listen—it may not be his fault but he should check up honestly with himself and find out. The same thing that lost him this place may lose ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... her a horse saddled for her, which she mounted with her usual skill; then the little troop, which, composed of about twenty persons, was escorting the future destiny of Scotland, keeping away from the village of Kinross, to which the castle firing had doubtless given the alarm, took at a gallop the road to Seyton's castle, where was already a garrison large enough to defend the queen from a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Glossin—"not that I would wish any personal harm to him—if—if—if we can do without. Now, he is liable to be seized upon by justice, both as bearing the same name with your lieutenant, who was engaged in that affair at Woodbourne, and for firing at young Hazlewood with intent to kill ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... retorted, "Shouldn't wonder, but has it ever struck you, Dr. Lane, that a little more horse sense is the real need of the university professor?" He declared, grimly, as he finally drew his car to a snorting stop at the university that he would have to try some other method than "firing his soul," as Ernestine had bade him do. "In the first place," he figured it out, "he has no soul, and if he had, I wouldn't be the one to fire it with anything but rage." But the doctor was not worrying much about results. He thought he had a little ammunition in reserve which assured ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... days in aseptic periostitis, followed by hot fomentations to hurry resorption of fluids. Massage should then be given with camphor ointment, mercurial ointment, soap liniment, or Lugol's solution. In the chronic form point firing or a biniodid-of-mercury blister will be ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... of domestic oeconomy which I shall mention is fuel, or wood for firing, which I buy for eleven sols (a little more than six-pence halfpenny) a quintal, consisting of one hundred and fifty pound Nice weight. The best, which is of oak, comes from Sardinia. The common sort is olive, which being cut with the sap in it, ought ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... distributed, and a picked number of the freshest of the men, i.e. those who had had no night duty, went out doggedly against the enemy, with trailing steps and gray, tired-out faces. The crackle of their lively firing aroused the French from sleep, and perhaps from dreams of conquest and fame, put them to confusion, and drove them back toward Dijon. The Germans followed, this time without shouting, and as the fog gradually dispersed, they saw the first skirmishers of the batteries on Talant and Fontaine, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... no paupers to whom the gift of wood fuel might prove acceptable, in spite of peat? We have in England abundance of wood, yet our own poor are distressed for it, glad to pick up sticks for firing, and often steal it from fences, &c. in their necessity, and the gift of wood is to them a charity, as well as that of coals. Why should aught that could he made of use, be wantonly destroyed? It is contrary to Scripture; it is in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... and I remember that the men at the head of our bureau of yards and docks said that they were not worth a sixpence for war purposes; that a single broadside would blow them to pieces; that they could not stand the fire of their own guns; but newspapers in the cities that were subsidized commenced firing on the Secretary of the Navy, and he succumbed and took the ships. That was the way they ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... they rushed through the gates. As he ran, he heard horrible cries, but the darkness hindered him from seeing the dying Affghans rolling in the dust, only he felt their soft bodies as he hastily passed over them. He heard his fellow-soldiers shouting and firing on every side. Some fell close beside him, and others were wounded, and carried off on the shoulders of their comrades, screaming ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... overboard and push behind; William Black's theory that motion could be obtained by employing trained sturgeon to haul the boat; and Martin Stotesbury's plea that propulsion could be given by placing a cannon upon the poop-deck and firing it over the stern, so that the recoil would shove the boat along,—are wonderful evidences of what the human mind can do when it exerts itself, but they are not as useful as they ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... until I had scarcely a rag an inch square on my back, or anywhere else, and my skin was tom in pieces by the prickly bushes and spear grass. The sound of firing now ceased entirely, although there was still loud shouting ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... firing the valley grew quiet. The embers of the two aeroplanes glowed like the eyes of some monster crouching in the grass. The chateau stood dark and silent, beautiful without light as it had been beautiful in the sun, while the woody rattles of Nemesis filled ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... enemy, under shelter of the land, which informed him daily of the enemy's position and doings. They reported that he had quietly stationed himself, and that every evening he placed his guard on deck with drums and flags, and firing of musketry. The corsair's forces could be estimated from that and it could be seen that the larger and better contingent was aboard the flagship, which was a good and swift ship. The auditor also took the precaution not to let any champan or ship leave the bay, in order not to give the corsair ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... you feel then?" he asked, when Bathurst described how the guard rushed in through the gate firing, "for it is the noise, and not the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... under twenty; but I believe the English youth had scarcely attained his nineteenth year. What I am about to relate will cause your flesh to creep. It was determined by the seconds, as one must necessarily fall, from firing at so short a distance, that only one pistol should be loaded with ball: the other having nothing but powder:—and that, as the Frenchman had challenged, he was to have the choice of the pistols. They parted. The seconds prepared the pistols according to agreement, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Hare was remarkably well, for an invalid. He won golden praise from August at the rifle practice, and he began to take lessons in the quick drawing and rapid firing of a Colt revolver. Naab was wonderfully proficient in the use of both firearms; and his skill in drawing the smaller weapon, in which his movement was quicker than the eye, astonished Hare. "My lad," said August, "it doesn't follow because I'm a ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired horses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the horizon. What ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... to fire off muskets, well loaded with powder and nothing else, when the signal was given. Everything moved on according to programme. The boys detailed to shake down the apples were in the trees, when, all at once, the firing of musketry commenced. The boys dropped from the trees and scattered in every direction. Some of them were caught in the pea vines of Mr. Howe's garden, but most of them, with great labor, climbed over the high ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... oppressors!" repeated Basilio in a low tone. The youth was stupefied. He gazed at the jeweler with eyes in which terror was reflected, he felt his limbs turn cold, while a thousand confused ideas whirled about in his mind. He saw the streets running blood, he heard the firing, he found himself among the dead and wounded, and by the peculiar force of his inclinations fancied himself in an operator's blouse, cutting off legs and ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... wish to smell gunpowder?" ejaculated Rob, firing a pistol immediately under his nose, whilst the ball perforated the earth a few ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... your lost friend," said the Indians laughing; "he says, 'Sagh-a-ya'" (how do you do)? And while berg after berg was being born with thundering uproar, Tyeen said, "Your friend has klosh tumtum (good heart). Hear! Like the other big-hearted one he is firing his ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... say! Do you mean, sir, that we'd give it up to a lot of Chinks and bare-legged Bhuttias without firing a shot?" ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... failure as far as the Khan and the Khant were concerned. The fairy godmother expected that as soon as the loudest firing began, the girl, whichever it was, would scream, and so they would know which was which. But the Khan and Khant's father had been a famous warrior, and he had been in the habit of taking his children to battle with him from their earliest years, partly because his wife ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... no little triumph. She had really learned the basic concept of good shooting,—to throw the whole force of the nervous system into the second firing. It was the same precept that makes toward all achievement. The fact that she had grasped it so quickly was a guaranty of her own metal. She felt something of that satisfaction that strong men feel when they prove, for their own ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall |
