"Breakneck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possible. He strode hastily into the hall, told the news to the old knight, a cousin of Count Thibaut's, who had charge of the castle for the time, and left him to order out the garrison. Five minutes later he was riding at a breakneck pace on his own fleet horse, to rouse the men who had so short a time since been guests of the Count, to the rescue of his ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... as he spoke, of sundry breakneck gallops and mahlstrom waltzes danced in gardens and saloons, the very existence whereof was ignored by or unknown to respectability; and then thought, "If I were safely planted on the other side of the world with her for my wife, it would cost me no more to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Feliciana, La., was an old acquaintance of Richards and myself, and an excellent specimen of a warm-hearted, impetuous, breakneck Kentuckian, with a share of earthquake in his composition that might be deemed large, even in Kentucky. He had come to Louisiana some eight years previously, a voyage of a thousand miles or more down the Cumberland River, the Ohio, and Mississippi, in a flat boat with half a dozen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... France, and Switzerland. His disregard of truth. His return to England, and desperate expedients to obtain a living. His literary drudgery. Character of his works. Introduced to Johnson. One of the original members of The Club. Removes from Breakneck Steps to the Temple. Story of the publication of the Vicar of Wakefield. His Traveller. His Dramas. His Deserted Village. His She Stoops to Conquer. His Histories. His arts of selection and condensation. His intimacy with the great talkers of the day. His conversational powers. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the Dominicans the Audiencia passed an ordinance requiring that the Bishop appoint ministers of one order to administer to the Chinese in their own language within thirty days. To meet the deadline the Augustinians began to study Chinese at breakneck speed, but when the Bishop came to Tondo to hear one of the friars, who was supposed to know the language, preach in it, there was some trouble as a result of which the Augustinian would not, or indeed could not, preach. Naturally, ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... at once, followed by little Wasp, and in a moment found themselves travelling at a breakneck pace, neither of them knowing where on ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... uncalculating^; heedless; careless &c (neglectful) 460; without ballast, heels over head, head over heels; giddy &c (inattentive) 458; wanton, reckless, wild, madcap; desperate, devil-may-care. hot-blooded, hotheaded, hotbrained^; headlong, headstrong; breakneck; foolhardy; harebrained; precipitate, impulsive. overconfident, overweening; venturesome, venturous; adventurous, Quixotic, fire eating, cavalier; janty^, jaunty, free and easy. off one's guard &c (inexpectant) 508 [Obs.]. Adv. post haste, a corps perdu [Fr.], hand over head, tete ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... feet in height, leads from Krogkleven to the level of the Tyri Fjord. There is no attempt here, nor indeed upon the most of the Norwegian roads we travelled, to mitigate, by well-arranged curves, the steepness of the hills. Straight down you go, no matter of how breakneck a character the declivity may be. There are no drags to the carrioles and country carts, and were not the native horses the toughest and surest-footed little animals in the world, this sort of travel would be trying to ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... cliff a boy, on whose jacket and cap the glitter of a little gold lace and his snow-white trousers proclaimed him to be that hero in embryo, a midshipman. Having looked about him for a few seconds, he began to descend the cliff at so seemingly breakneck a speed, that several of the ladies shrieked out to him to take care, and Mary Rymer turned somewhat pale and stood looking anxiously as the young sailor dropped from one point of rock to another, or slid down a steep incline, or swung ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... Christendom couldn't keep me in Dexter after four o'clock this afternoon. Good-by." And Crosby climbed into the hansom and was driven away at breakneck speed toward the station. ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... called. "Hurry!" And she spurred off at breakneck speed in pursuit, myself following, both of us now forgetting poesy, and quite become ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... ponderous hubs, and as no springs could survive the jolting of such a vehicle, the body of the cart is placed directly upon the huge axle. Then a couple of big mules are hitched up tandem and driven at breakneck speed. A runaway in an American farmer's wagon over a corduroy road but feebly suggests the miseries of travel in a Chinese cart. It may be good for a dyspeptic, but it is about the most uncomfortable conveyance that the ingenuity of man ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... and descried, galloping at the top of his speed, Black Bounce, and on his back was Phil Wentworth. Behind him at breakneck pace came six of the shearers—tall, brawny men, the very sight of whom ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... and broken. And, worse still, Blizzard was tired. He had been on the go for many hours. There was a limit even to the creamy-white horse's superb strength. It seemed hopeless. Southeast they tore at breakneck speed. Blizzard seemed to sense what was required of him. He ran like mad, clamping down on the bit, his muscles rippling under his glossy hide—a hide that was already ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... that we may note in the American novelist Cooper, whose best stories are tales of adventure in the forest or on the sea. Like him, Scott shows lack of care in the construction of sentences. Few of the most cultured people of to-day could, however, write at Scott's breakneck speed and make as few slips. Scott has far more ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... came, spreading to a bright autumn morning. The roads outside were dry and dusty. I meant, in a few hours, to make a breakneck dash out of Dresden, and to hide somewhere in the country. To attempt to escape by rail would be folly. But if either man was on the watch and invited himself to go for a ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... outfit completely. This was due not so much to his distance in the rear as to the fact that the wagon, having struck a bend in the trail, had turned from view. But he did not know that. Sounding a baby outcry of fear, he scurried ahead at breakneck speed, frantic heels tossing up tiny spurts of dust, head stretched forward—and thus soon caught up. After that he remained close beside his mother until the wagon, rocking down the mouth of the canyon, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... into the sere and withered leaf past redemption. And now that I have expiated myself—(probably to your more complete confusion!)—we'll have a short canter to blow away cobwebs. The road is rather less breakneck just here." ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... privacy of the fo'c'sle neither spoke. She was breathless, partly with indignation, partly with indefinable fear and partly with the breakneck speed at which he had rushed her along the deck. He sat down on the anchor; she stood before him, her back to the rail, which she gripped with her hands. Her first impulse was to shake him thoroughly. But she resisted it as ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... indignity of that blow, while Margaret leaned over and tried to explain and beg pardon for her offense. The second fence was crossed with a clean-cut leap, and only once in the next field did the horse stumble, but quickly recovered and went on at the same breakneck gait. The next fence, gallantly vaulted over, brought them to the side road, half a mile up which stood the doctor's house. Margaret saw the futility of attempting a reconciliation until the goal was won. There, with difficulty, the horse was stopped, and the girl struck ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... reached Dantzig that Napoleon was no longer with the army—that he had made over the parody of command of the phantom army to Murat, King of Naples—that he had passed like an evil spirit unknown through Poland, Prussia, Germany, travelling twelve hundred miles night and day at breakneck speed, alone, racing to ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... went flying from the horse's hoofs as the sheriff tore down the trail toward Melissy. He cut off at an angle and dashed through cactus and over rain-washed gullies at breakneck speed, pounding up the stiff slope to the summit. He dragged his pony to a halt, and leaped off at the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... attempt has been made in this instance to assemble only legends, for, doubtful as some historians profess to find them, certain occurrences, like the story of Captain Smith and Pocahontas, and the ride of General Putnam down Breakneck Stairs, are taught as history; while as to folk-lore, that of the Indian tribes and of the Southern negro is too copious to be recounted in this work. It will be noted that traditions do not thrive ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... spring, eluding the grasp of the officers, and plunged downstairs at a breakneck rate. Meanwhile Jack had snapped a pistol at one of the policemen, but it missed fire. By a return shot he was wounded in the shoulder, and his right arm hung useless. He broke into a volley ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... remaining who look upon opera as a sort of vocal acrobatics. They go once or twice to the Metropolitan, and feel defrauded of their money if the prima donna fails to come forward to the prompter's box to run up some breakneck scales, and, having arrived at the top, descend by means of a chain of trills or series of somersaults. Their interest in music is athletic (feats of skill), not aesthetic (artistic expression of emotions). Yet these people have the impudence to say that German opera is "stupid," ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... a new house at the end of Rankeillor Street, in a place where there was the greenness of fields every way about, except behind in the direction of the college. It was the very last house, and from my garret window I could see the top of Arthur's Seat and the little breakneck path feeling its way round the foot of the Salisbury Crags, afterwards to be widened into the "Radicals' Road." Southward all was green and whaup-haunted to the grey hip of Pentland, and we saw ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... that the magnificent body which he had always so greatly admired would be shattered and broken. The mental picture he drew further increased his terror, and he began to mutter incoherent blasphemies as he raced his horse at a breakneck pace toward ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and a ride back again. She covered between twenty and thirty miles in her little constitutionals, all about and about, between Kotgarh and Narkunda. This time she came back at full dusk, stepping down the breakneck descent into Kotgarh with something heavy in her arms. The Chaplain's wife was dozing in the drawing-room when Lispeth came in breathing hard and very exhausted with her burden. Lispeth put it down on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... across nine English spies, who fled as soon as they saw us. We galloped after them, trying to cut them off from the main body, which was at a little distance away from us, and would no doubt have overtaken them, but, riding at a breakneck speed over a mountain ridge, we found ourselves suddenly confronted with a strong English mounted corps, apparently engaged in drilling. We were only 500 paces away from them, and we jumped off our horses, and opened fire. But there were only a dozen of us, and the enemy soon began sending us ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... rocky crest above, she heard excited cries. Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of the pine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face looking over the edge ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... symbol of a submarine officer, which never leaves his hand. For the steel walls of his craft, the doors, and the companion-ladder all sweat oil, and at every touch the hands must be wiped dry. The doorways are narrow round holes. Through one of the holes aft the commander descends by a breakneck iron ladder into the black hole lit by electric glow-lamps. The air is heavy with the smell of oil, and to the unaccustomed longshoreman it is almost choking, though the hatches are off. The submarine man breathes this air as if it were the purest ozone. Here ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... I received several severe wounds on my hands and feet, and frequently fell down on the ground, when I trusted for support to the treacherous stem of a banana, which would break beneath my grasp. It was really a breakneck sort of excursion, which is very rarely made even by the officers, and certainly ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... the bare-back riding over rough ground at a mad pace was almost jolting his bones apart. A spy came back breathless with news for the hungry warriors that one of the white hunters had killed a deer, and the whole company lashed to a breakneck gallop that nearly finished Lewis, who could only cling for dear life to the Indian's waist. The poor wretches were so ravenous that they fell on the dead deer and devoured it raw. It was here that ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... growth of brush and scrub trees, towered so high above them that the atmosphere was damp and the long strip of sky was like a pale-blue banner. The trail was well worn, and there was nothing to impede their progress. The mustangs responded to the lifted bridle and ran at breakneck speed. They emerged at the end of half an hour. It was an abrupt sally, and the great level plain before them ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... the muzzle with his whip, and galloped off at a breakneck pace. Tihon Ivanitch bowed to me twice, once for himself and once for his companion, and again set off at a trot into ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... "Tis a pace will kill! Like Smuggler BILL and Exciseman GILL, In the Ingoldsby Legends, you ride a race On a perilous path, at a breakneck pace, In a mingled spirit of hate and fear, Too hot to heed, and too deaf to hear; With a fierce red eye on each other cast, And a rate of going that cannot last, On a road that leads, as such roads lead all, To a crumbling cliff, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... and remonstrance against the habits of lecturing in a colloquial tone, suitable to a knot of students gathered round his table, but not to a large audience—of running his words, especially technical terms, together—of pouring out new and unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed, were addressed to him—one by a "working man" of his Monday evening audience at Jermyn Street in 1855, the other, undated, by Mr. Jodrell, a frequenter of the Royal Institution, and afterwards ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... sight, galloping down the steep trail at breakneck speed, flinging down a small avalanche of shale with them. One of them caught sight of the girl, drew up so short that his horse slid to its haunches, and leaped from the saddle in ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... partnership, as I understood. Not a soul at Gethin has heard a whisper of Wheal Danes, or of your coming; they think I'm fast asleep at my own house, this instant. But it's been hard work lugging this cursed ladder up here in such a breakneck night as this, I can tell you, and I am glad enough ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Penryn a half-hour after sunset, as dusk was closing into night, and it may be that the sharp, frosty air had a hand in the cooling of his blood. For as he reached the river's eastern bank he slackened his breakneck pace, even as he slackened the angry galloping of his thoughts. The memory of that oath he had sworn three months ago to Rosamund smote him like a physical blow. It checked his purpose, and, reflecting this, his pace fell to an amble. He shivered to think how near ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the breakneck paths, the priests were illuminating the minarets with hundreds of ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... but what I've often wished I could see my way to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in the meeting ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... found it out long ago. That's why I've got Peasley forcing this old tub; she's doing ten knots, and that's a breakneck speed for her. Once we're through the Straits, I'll be satisfied. But meanwhile—" Emerson lowered his glasses with a sigh of fatigue, and in the soft twilight the girl saw that his face was lined and careworn. The yearning at her heart lent poignant sympathy to ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... at breakneck speed down the stretch, circle at the forest edge, and come tearing back. Silvermane was pulling the roan faster than he had ever gone in his life, but the dark Indian kept his graceful seat. The speed slackened on the second turn, and decreased as, mile after ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... former width, and the greater part of even this contracted channel was rendered unnavigable by a long bar of gravel and grass, over which an inch or so of water crawled sluggishly. The main channel—only half a dozen feet wide—headed abruptly to the right, and swept at breakneck speed in a perfect half circle under the outwardly projecting base of a steep and wooded hill. Here and there the bushes hung down to meet the madly tossing waves, and ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... descent of about two miles down to the township. It is scarcely needful to say that Dandy Jack considers it incumbent on him to make his entrance into Helensville with as much flourish and eclat as possible. Accordingly, we proceed along the downhill track at breakneck speed, and come clattering and shouting into the village, amid much bustle and excitement. We are finally halted in an open space before the hotel, which is evidently intended to represent a village green or public square, the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... precarious machinery? It is now the exception which breaks the rule to take the air in the streets without being startled by the unseemly spectacles of go-ahead citizens straddled upon such revolutionary contrivances, threading their way with breakneck velocity under the very noses of omnibus and other horses, and ringing the shrill welkin ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... the ground for the first time at the Pau school on February 17, 1915, in a three-cylinder Bleriot. But these were only short leaps, though sufficiently audacious ones. His monitor accused him of breakneck recklessness: "Too much confidence, madness, fantastical humor." That same evening he wrote describing his impressions to his father: "Before departure, a bit worried; in the air, wildly amusing. When the machine ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... The breakneck path had descended almost to the sea, and we were already within sound of its reverberations, when a cliff hove up suddenly on the landward hand, very rugged and broken, streaked with white lichen, laddered with green lianas, and pierced with the apertures of half a hundred ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the three horses bounded forward, over the fence of the Mexican's garden, and up the street at a breakneck gallop. They clattered across the acequia bridge and past Delarue's place, where Mead, eagerly sweeping the house with a sidewise glance, had a brief glimpse of a brightly lighted room. Instantly his memory went back, as it had done a thousand times, to that ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... entire length. Rooks are building—they fly and feed now in pairs; the rookery is alive with them. To the steeple the jackdaws have returned and fly round and round; now one holds his wings rigid and slides down at an angle of sixty degrees at a breakneck pace, as if about to dash himself in fragments on ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... fast that at first we did not know what had passed us till the dogs came tumbling after at breakneck speed. They were such old hands at the game that they gave their quarry a bad time of it for awhile, turning and doubling on his tracks till we were almost as excited and bewildered as the poor coon. Little Mary Ware just stood and wrung her hands, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... after that Rewa Gunga held his peace, while the carriage swayed at breakneck speed through the swarming streets. They had to drive slower in the Chandni Chowk, for the ancient Street of the Silversmiths that is now the mart of Delhi was ablaze with crude colors, and was thronged with more people than ever since '57. There were a thousand signs worth studying ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... resolved to make an impression, as it is termed, was dressed in the newest and most fashionable morning visit costume, drove up to the hall-door at that kind of breakneck pace with which your celebrated whips delight to astonish the multitude, and throwing the reins to a servant, desired, if he knew how to pace the horse up and down, to do so; otherwise to remember that he had ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... what the English have done," said Clara, pointing down the sheer rock. "It will be a long time before you and I go down Breakneck Stairs again to see the pretty images in the church ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... or leaped from their beds to run to the engine-house. Thence the hand-engines were dragged through the streets at a terrific rate of speed by hundreds of yelling men at the end of the ropes. The first engine at a fire obtained the place of honor; therefore every alarm was the signal for a breakneck race. Arrived at the scene of fire, the water-box of one engine was connected by hose with the reservoir of the next, and so water was relayed from engine to engine until it was thrown on the flames. The motive power of the pump was supplied by the crew of each engine. The men on either ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... nothing to his sister, but again urged the marquis to mount his horse. And the marquis, who was in a sad tumult of triumph and of woe, leaped up, and they rode out, and, turning their faces towards the forest, set spurs to their horses, and vanished at breakneck speed into the glades. And no sooner were they gone than the troopers of the king's guard clattered at a canter up to the end of the bridge, where the Princess Osra stood. But when their captain saw the princess, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... now, many of them, streaming south at breakneck speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down the street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men in overalls drawn up, ready, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Gun Hand Cart." Tomlinson had some most entertaining experiences in trying to get mules to pull these "handcarts," but the mules usually found it more interesting to try and turn round to see what extraordinary things on wheels they were now being insulted by being asked to pull, or in going off at breakneck speeds to try and get rid of them. These carts were never popular, and never a success, and gradually, by being carefully "left" by the roadside or some other convenient spots, ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... enough, but he failed to understand his companion's excitement. After all they were merely bent upon "roping" a stray horse. The girl galloped on at breakneck speed; the heavy black ringlets of hair were swept like an outspread fan from under the broad brim of her Stetson hat, her buckskin bodice ballooning in the wind as rider and horse charged along, utterly indifferent to the nature of the country they were traveling—indifferent ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Joseph Rodman Drake's fanciful poem, The Culprit Fay. Two M. farther we leave the Highlands through the "Golden Gate," where Storm King Mt. rises to a height of 1,340 ft. on the west side of the Hudson, and Breakneck Mt. to a height of 1,365 ft. on the other. Near Storm King a tunnel of the great new Catskill aqueduct, carrying water to N.Y.C., passes under the Hudson at a depth of 1,100 ft.—a depth made necessary to reach solid ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... I saw what at first sight (the day being on the wane and the wood gloomy) I took to be three men amusing themselves with a little cudgel-play. But a second glance showed me that something much more like murder than cudgel-play was going on; and shortening my Irish blackthorn, I rushed at breakneck ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... to fever-heat by the singular spectacle of an austere and distinguished-looking Englishman and a pretty, if somewhat disheveled, young girl dangling their feet from the end of a dilapidated wagon that was being driven at a breakneck speed toward ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... from the seventeen-year-old son of John Baker. He was on the road on horseback and noticed the water coming out of a cavity about five feet in diameter, and not waiting to see any more he put spurs to his horse and dashed for the town at breakneck speed. Some of the people of this place saw him coming at great speed, waving his hat, and knowing something was wrong at once gave the alarm, and grabbing their children started for the high parts. When he arrived almost ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... each principal town, chiefly as an escort to the governor of the province, their duties are performed by Chapars, an irregular force, equally dashing horsemen, and trained in like manner from early youth in those singular exercises and breakneck evolutions for which the Cossacks of the Caucasus have become so famous. Setting their horses at full gallop, they will stand on the saddle and fire all around at an imaginary enemy; or throw the body completely over to the right, with the left heel resting ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... down the Scots lost heart. They would have trusted to no Gaelic oaths, for men got no quarter in the west, but when Brian shouted at them in English they listened to him right willingly. A score broke away and galloped breakneck for the south again, and perhaps fifty had gone down; the rest gathered about the wagons stared at Brian and Cathbarr in superstitious awe as the two lowered bloody ax and ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... at breakneck speed, leaping from twelve to fifteen feet at a time. But the hunters were prepared for this, and in a few minutes the kangaroo ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... simultaneously: a space-suited figure, far out in the depths of interstellar space, caught up in a sudden flare of orange illumination. The strange figure seemed to whirl around, straighten up, and shoot at breakneck speed headlong for Jupiter. Behind it, and in a direct line with the winking flame in the Great Spot, another space denizen glowed luridly, startlingly, out of the blackness beyond, whirled, and shot down the ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... and, without waiting to know that I had heard him, he dashed off at breakneck speed, further into the bowels of the temple. As fast as he went, however, I was still beside him, urging him on to ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this opportunity, he at once put spurs to his steed, and dashed after the giraffes at a breakneck pace. The ground was very rocky, uneven, and full of holes and scrubby bushes. The long-necked creatures at once set off at a pace which tried Tom's steed, although a good one, to the utmost. There was a thick forest of makolani trees about a mile away to ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... more, and that next express Would thunder by her, and she, alas! Must stand there still and let it pass. Duty was duty, and hers was clear; God seemed far off, and no friend near. But the truest friend and the swiftest horse Must ride that ride on a breakneck course; And with truest horse and swiftest friend, To the fast express was the winning end! And as if one pang was needed more, There stood in the doorway, Nell Latore— Nell Latore, with her mocking face, Restless ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... captivity," carrying the ten-thousand dollar beauty, the acrobats whirling through space, James Robinson turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last and most ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his three charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of cynicism, the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in the night wood and dream ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... dozen yards there was a loud b-a-ah! from overhead, and the goat came bounding down from rock to rock in the most breakneck fashion; but it ended by leaping into their track, and ran up and butted its ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... valued little the life of their children. As I was sitting on the doorstep waiting for my dinner to be cooked, down came, galloping at a breakneck speed and riding bareback, a little child of eight, carrying slung under his arm a smaller child of one, the latter squealing terribly. They both landed safely at the door. Then there appeared one of the picturesque carts drawn by twelve ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... afraid of him, who admired him and who would be indifferent; and that is just as essential to success as to reckon on your friends. You never did that—you hadn't the time—it was all so dazzling and sudden with the war helping things along at breakneck speed. You will find that if you have an Achilles' heel it will be because you did not reckon on your enemies and are somewhat like a blindfolded man with money in your purse set down in a strange locality.... There. How does that sound ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... neighbour, another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk, a third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out its fellow's light, air, and sunshine; here, meeting the eye, breakneck alley, there aerial terrace, and on all sides architectural reminders of the Souvigny passed away, the Souvigny once so splendid and important, now reduced to nothingness, as is, politically speaking, the so-called House ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... breakneck riding, and they got a cart and some bedding and carried Ben to Anderson's, which was handiest, if not nearest, and there was more wild and reckless riding ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... Walk.... Scramble! Uncle Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, but with two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, the wet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down the weed-covered slopes in a very breakneck fashion. I rather felt for the bladderheads who refuse to go wrinkling ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... not three miles away. I was soon tearing along the road at breakneck speed. At an improvised field-hospital I met the doctor, who vainly tried to prepare me for the horrid spectacle I was ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... insurgents at Theriso, having lost our road in the dark, and most of the party taken prisoners. I and my veteran cavass, Hadji Houssein, broke through with a guest,—Colonel Borthwick, an English officer in the Turkish service,—escaping down a breakneck hillside in the dark to save him and his two orderlies from capture by the insurgents, a trifling thing for us who were known as the friends of the Cretans, but a serious matter possibly for Turkish soldiers in fez and uniform. We made a ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... my money for his new scheme. He did not succeed with me, but he found other "angels." He was now quite in his element in the American atmosphere of breathless enterprise and breakneck speed. When the violence of the crisis had quieted down building operations were resumed on a more natural basis. Men like Volodsky, with hosts of carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers—all Russian or Galician Jews—continued to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I listened to her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and enjoyed the novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave a scream, and ran into the house at breakneck speed. ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... on with a rush, this time with beams of orange light stabbing a way before them. When I told Jim of this he jumped to the controls and shot our ship down at breakneck speed. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Canada from Montreal to the West," said Roselle, continuing upon the breakneck course she seemed to have ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... has nothing whatever to hurry about. Just opposite my stump he stops his rush with marvelous suddenness; chatters, barks, scolds, tries to make me move; then goes on and out of sight at the same breakneck rush. A jay stops a moment in a young hickory above the fence to whistle his curiosity, just as if he had not seen it fifty times before. A curiosity to him never grows old. He does not scream now; it is his nesting time.—And ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I knew that Jonathan was not far off. Looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at breakneck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and after looking ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... river who were making semaphore signals to somebody on the Virginia side. Mosby ordered everybody to turn out as quickly as possible and went out to watch the signalmen with his field glasses. While he was watching, Dick Moran, a Mosby man who had billeted with friends down the road, arrived at a breakneck gallop from across the fields, shouting: "Mount your horses! ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... Town. This church was subsequently burned to the ground, and its very site was not certainly known until recent times. In the year 1867 some workmen were employed in laying water-pipes beneath the flight of stairs called "Breakneck Steps," leading from Mountain Hill to Little Champlain street. Under a grating at the foot of the steps they discovered the vaults of the old Recollet church, with the remains of the Father of New France enclosed. ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... with each other. A tiny spark from the engine would ignite a fresh spot, and before our car had passed it had begun its race with the others. The driver, who was a new hand, and ignorant of the road, dashed over it at a breakneck pace, the cars swaying from side to side like a ship in a storm. At Glyndon we took on a Pullman sleeping car, when there was a scramble for berths; a section containing two, an upper and lower, costing four ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... colonel closely. He had another purpose in making his breakneck ride. He didn't have a dollar in the Patapsco, and he knew the colonel had not; he, like himself, was too shrewd a man to be bitten twice by the same dog; but he had a large interest in Harry and would leave no stone unturned to bring ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and of the loud clattering sounds of his charger's hoofs, as he led him at a rapid walk across the outer cave. March even heard the general clatter of all his accoutrements, as he vaulted into the saddle at one bound, and went down that terrible rocky way at a breakneck gallop that would have caused him (March) in other circumstances to shudder. But he did not shudder. He was but faintly aware of these things. His intellect was overturned; his whole soul was captivated; his imagination, his ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... clutched her head in both hands, and ran at breakneck pace towards the open country, to her father. I followed her. Every one stared ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... owner is an assumption only—a piece of faith or impudence which fulfils itself. If some other animal were to induce the chamois to believe that it should at the least have feet with suckers to them, like a fly, before venturing in such breakneck places, or if by any means it could get to know how bad a foot it really has, there would soon be no more chamois. The chamois continues to exist through its absolute refusal to hear reason upon the matter. But the whole question is one of extreme intricacy; all we know ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... came upon Fleet Market, and traversing it, turned up a narrow street to the bottom of a long, steep flight of stone steps called Breakneck Stairs. These led to Green Arbor Court, and down them Goldsmith many a time risked his neck. When we entered the Court, I could not but smile to think in what out of the way corners Genius produces her bantlings. The Court I found to be a small square surrounded by tall, miserable houses, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the report of a pistol, a death groan interrupted the police master's words. The three horsemen bounded forward into the night. Forward at breakneck speed, but for the sand, that dreadful sand. This is the Rehberg, they know it by the sand in which the horses sink, from which they extricate themselves only to sink again. Yet what matters it if they do make rather slow progress? They will surely reach Spandow before daybreak, and Colonel von ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... At a breakneck pace, we stumbled over low bushes; we grazed big boulders; we rolled down the sides of steep ravines; but we kept him in sight all the time, dim and black against the starry sky; slowly, slowly—yes, yes!—we gained upon him. My pony led now. The mysterious white man rode and rode—head ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... only Calumet halted Blackleg, and then he spurred him down the river trail. One mile, two, three, he rode at a breakneck pace, and then suddenly he was out of the timber and facing a plain that stretched into an interminable distance. The trail lay straight and clear; there was no sign of a horse and rider on it. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... another, while the Secretary and the late Gogol scrambled into a third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who was pursuing the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase towards the north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence of more than common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme was in no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own cab shouting, "Stop thief!" until crowds ran along beside his cab, and policemen began to stop and ask questions. All this had its influence upon the President's cabman, who began to look dubious, and to slow ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... drive with perfect safety at a breakneck pace, for they all drive down on one side of the street and up on the other. Nor will an idvosjik hesitate to use his whip about the head and face of another idvosjik who dares to turn without ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... news of his downfall had been spread among the fast increasing throng of boys who scampered over the pavement in breakneck games of tag or made tops perform miraculous tricks as they waited for the school bell to ring. Not a few jeered at him. One or two little girls who were passing stuck out their tongues. Even Sid DuPree and Silvey and the rest of the "Tigers" ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... driving at a breakneck pace, the driver whipping up his horse, lashing it in a way that horrified Chester. The light little carriage rocked from side ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... service installed on this road between London and York would carry passengers the distance of one hundred and eighty-eight miles in the astonishingly short space of four days. This coach, of course, traveled by relays, and at what was then considered breakneck speed. Over this same highway it would now be an easy feat for a powerful car to cover the distance in three or four hours. The great North Road was originally constructed by the Romans to maintain the quickest ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... at every turn of the wheel. "Old Boreas" comes howling from the mountains of the north, and hustles me briskly along over ruts, holes, and bowlders, however, in a most reckless fashion, furnishing all the propelling power needful, and leaving me nothing to do but keep a sharp lookout for breakneck places immediately ahead. In Servia, the peasants, driving along the road in their wagons, upon observing me approaching them, being uncertain of the character of my vehicle and the amount of road-space I require, would ofttimes drive entirely off the road; and sometimes, when they failed ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... remained but to return to the lowest drudgery of literature. Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court, to which he had to climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder of flagstones called Breakneck Steps. The court and the ascent have long disappeared; but old Londoners will remember both. (A gentleman, who states that he has known the neighbourhood for thirty years, corrects this account, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... last Sister Hyacinthe was able to install herself with Elise Rouquet and Sophie Couteau in a large char-a-bancs, in which Ferrand and Sisters Saint-Francois and Claire des Anges were already seated. The drivers whipped up their spirited little horses, and the vehicles went off at a breakneck pace, amidst the shouts of those left behind, and the splashing ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... muntre Jagd, during their distribution among the church cantatas, Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt and Man singet mit Freuden vom Sieg. The fine bass aria, "Ein Fuerst ist seines Landes Pan," was obviously ill-proportioned, with its breakneck return to the tonic and its perfunctory close; and Bach's chief concern in adapting it for its place as the aria, "Du bist geboren mir zu Gute," in Also hat Gott, was to remedy this defect. On the other hand, the use ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... her new work and surroundings, it seemed to Rose, during the year after she gained entrance to the temple of her desire, that her life was standing still, while all things else were speeding by her at a breakneck pace. ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Motor is an audacious heroine who drove her mysterious car at breakneck speed. Her plea for assistance in an adventure promising more than a spice of danger could not of course be disregarded by any gallant fellow motorist. Mr. Paternoster's hero rose promptly to the occasion. Across France they tore and across the English Channel. There, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... a half hour later, and the women and children ran to the door of a house they were passing to see who it might be that was dashing by at such breakneck speed. The air came soft and cool to the riders half hidden in the shadows of the trees which bordered the road, though ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... literary critic, diplomatist, speaker, and writer on political subjects. We feel that he sometimes narrowly escaped being a genius, and that he might have crossed the boundary line into genius-land, if he had confined his attention to one department of literature and had been willing to write at less breakneck speed, taking time and thought to prune, revise, and suppress more of his productions. Not a few, however, think that Lowell, in spite of his defects, has left the impress of genius on some of his work. When his sonnet, Our Love is not a Fading Earthly Flower, was read to a cultured group, some ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... him with negotiations while a powerful Roman Catholic detachment should by another road reach Orleans unobserved.[76] But the danger coming to Andelot's knowledge, he succeeded in warning Conde; and the prince, with the main body of the Protestant horse, after a breakneck ride, threw himself, on the second of April, into the city, which now became the headquarters of the religion in the kingdom.[77] The inhabitants came out to meet him with every demonstration of joy, and received him between double lines of men, women, and children loudly ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... curtains, then between the pedestals of the bureau, but Stingaree was nowhere in the room, and the bedroom door was still locked. It was a second look behind the curtains that revealed an open window and the scratch of a boot upon the white enamel. It was no breakneck drop ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... began to realize that the horse was no longer going at quite such a breakneck speed, or else she was growing accustomed to the motion and getting her breath, she could not quite be sure which. But little by little she perceived that the mad flying had settled into a long lope. ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... of each stage was announced by the winding of a horn, and the driver was wont to swing his long lash with a flourish around the sweaty flanks of his leaders in a way to assure them that he meant business, then give his wheel horses an encouraging cut, and dash up before the famous hostelry at a breakneck speed that said to the small boys, Get out of the way! and caused the stock loafers, who always assembled on the piazza at the first blast of the horn, to envy the skill that could thus handle a whip, and guide, with apparent ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... done at Scotland Yard. However, he did not come, so I wired him to the latter place, left a short note for him also at the hotel, to be kept till called for, and started off in a cab (when I dared delay no longer) at breakneck ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... Rhymes and Travelling Laureate to the party—an office, however honourable, that is no sinecure since it obliges me to write rhymed eulogies or diatribes on Dolgelly, Tan-y-Bulch, Gyn-y-Coed, Llanrychwyn, and other Welsh hamlets whose names offer breakneck fences to ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... eyes were turned towards the headland towards which Stephen on her white Arab was galloping at breakneck speed. He was too good a horseman himself, and he knew her prowess on horseback too well to have any anxiety regarding such a rider at Stephen. It was not fear, then, that made his face so white, and his eyes to have such ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... It takes all turns for a circus: And it's just the change and chances of the ring Make the old game worth the candle: variety At all costs: hurly-burly, razzle-dazzle— Life, cowping creels through endless flaming hoops, A breakneck business, ending with a crash, If only in the big drum. The devil's to pay For what we have, or haven't; and I believe In ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... sudden up he started. "Imbecile! Insensate! I give you fifteen minutes to be on your way to the station. Miss the next train—and sink to the level of common men!" Shirts, socks—straps, locks; adieux, tips—horses, whips! Clatter through the Piazzetta Mondragone; down at breakneck speed to the Toledo; across the Piazza del Municipio; a good-bye to the public scriveners sitting at their little tables by the San Carlo; sharp round the corner, and along by the Porto Grande with ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... of exceedingly hilly country, and those who imagine that all the roads in Normandy are the flat and poplar bordered ones that are so often encountered, should travel along this wonderful switch-back. As far as Sourdeval there seems scarcely a yard of level ground—it is either a sudden ascent or a breakneck rush into a trough-like depression. You pass copices of firs and beautiful woods, although in saying beautiful it is in a limited sense, for one seldom finds the really rich woodlands that are so priceless an ornament ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... on, and the others followed. We had to get through a good many difficulties yet before we reached that point, but, compared with all the breakneck places we had already crossed, these were of a comparatively tame description. It was with a sigh of relief that we arrived at the plain that promised so well; its extent was not very great, but we were not very exacting either in ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... down the road now at breakneck speed, like that time when in my hurry to meet dad I had come to grief some two months previously. Our cavalcade went on at a sober respectable pace, reaching the town in about an hour and a half from ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... at breakneck speed, I opened the gates and saddled the steed; "Ride free!" I cried as we dashed along. Her sweet ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... father's questions he ran across the road and began to walk at breakneck speed down the hill. He hardly knew where he was walking. Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind. He strode down the hill amid the tumult of sudden-risen vapours of wounded pride and ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... Loeb, telephoned from North Creek, the end of the railroad, that he had had a locomotive there for hours with full steam up. So Roosevelt and the driver of his buckboard dashed on through the night, over the uncertain mountain road, dangerous even by daylight, at breakneck speed. Dawn was breaking when they came to North Creek. There, Loeb told him that President McKinley was dead. Then they steamed back to civilization as fast as possible, reached the main trunk line, and sped on to Buffalo without a moment's ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Petersburg to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened. By the autumn they were across the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. Here Brown ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... followed his friend, who flew down the hill at breakneck speed, in a rapid but more sober manner. The old couple looked up with some astonishment at a well-dressed city man tearing down the hill towards them like a schoolboy, but their astonishment turned to warmest gratitude, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... succeeded in getting away; for, as we had no horsemen to pursue with, even the wounded, except one, could not be overtaken. Hats, clothing, arms, and saddles were left scattered along the road in as complete a breakneck race for life as was ever seen. The result, if not great in the list of casualties, which were only reported at 10 or 15 by the enemy, was so demoralizing in its influence upon the hostile cavalry that they never again showed any enterprise in harassing our outposts, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... such a question, you for whom is pictured this devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming as she runs: "Susan! Kate! ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... king of the ring, and facile princeps in the Greek chorus. He could "talk horse" with any jockey in the land; yet who like him could utter tender poetry and deep philosophy? He had no rival in following the hounds, or scouring the country in breakneck races; and none so careered over every field of learning. He angled in brooks and books, and landed many a stout prize. He would pick up here and there a "fly in amber," and add it to his stores. He was the easy victor in every foot-race, and took the Newdigate prize for poetry, in 1806. He ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... being rather dull and devoid of interest, the best way to reach the outlying promontory is by one of the G.W.R. motors that make the regular journey. A stay of a short time is usually made at the Logan Rock, perched on the summit of a pile of crags. To reach it involves rather a breakneck scramble down and stiff climb up, and it is doubtful if the satisfaction of having done the feat is equal to the amount of fatigue involved. The stone rocks to a considerable degree, but less than it did before it was upset in 1824 by Lieutenant ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... might as soon have left me his heir as have left him. He starved in the parlour, and I starved in the kitchen; that was the principal difference in our positions; there was not much more than a flight of breakneck stairs between us. I never took to him in those times; I don't know that I ever took to him greatly at any time. He was an undecided, irresolute chap, who had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and motor-cars. The sun was traveling with extraordinary rapidity. It rose overhead, and as if by magic the streets were thronged with people. Every one seemed to be running at top-speed. The few teams they saw moved at a breakneck pace—backward! In spite of the suddenly topsyturvy state of affairs there ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... ships to ride the sea, and whose younger branches had captained and made fortunes out of far sea adventuring. So with the thoroughness of these same privateer shipbuilders, Louis precipitated himself down the steep breakneck cliff, catching the trunk of a pine here, or snatching at a birch and swinging right round it there to keep his speed from becoming a mere avalanche, till at last, breathed a little and with a scraped hand, ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... cold; but the others, which he had written in a more sentimental vein, had appeared unduly presumptuous. He finally sealed it and gave it to Pete, with terrific threats of personal violence in case of anything preventing its prompt delivery. While Pete was galloping off to Lexington at breakneck speed, the Colonel was wondering what the answer ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the paddle were no longer necessary to propel the craft at the breakneck pace. It sped like an arrow—straight toward the perilous ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... no thanks. I found my girl descending on the road Of breakneck coquetry, and barred her way. Either she leaps the bar, or she must back. That means she marries you, or says ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... into an ambulance and carried him, cursing and screaming, to the nearest field hospital. The journey was made in double-quick time, over rough Belgian roads. To save his life, he must reach the hospital without delay, and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed, it did not matter. That was understood. He was a deserter, and discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job, his life must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well enough to be stood up against a wall and shot. This is War. Things like this also happen ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Later on, when clothes were scarce and pockets past mending, I often made the unpleasant discovery that caused the fool, on his journey from the land of Kokanje, to cry to the King: 'We have ridden at such a breakneck pace, see, everything has slipped through this little hole!' Now I am obliged to write down my adventures without any notes, so dates, numbers, and names of places will occasionally be missing. It stands to reason that I—being an exile in a strange ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... and his followers approached the place where the pass ran out on to the plain, the Malay had been sent forward to gallop at breakneck speed down the path the fugitives must follow, and report any sign he could observe of their presence. He had heard the cry of the child, and suspected at once their presence in the deserted city. Now he sat watching the hollow ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... a queer voice that scared him. "Will I? Watch! I'm going over the cliff!" And before he could interfere she had turned and was riding breakneck for the end ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... run, his bare feet unconsciously seeking the smooth driveway of the home-piece, and following it at breakneck speed till it ended in the road below the mesa. There the rougher going hindered him somewhat, but not greatly, and he kept to the highway till it reached ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... far side of the field the scene had been arranged. It represented a hill road, over which the dispatch bearer must ride at breakneck speed. For picturesque purposes Hal wore a surgeon's field case, hanging over one shoulder by a strap. In actual war time his real dispatches would have been hidden somewhere in his clothing, his shoes, or what-not ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... answered, drying his eyes on his sleeve. "It's been betwixt and between the truth with her all my life. But if the time ever comes when I can serve ye—" He choked. "Ah!" he cried, "words are poor things! But ye'll see!" And with this he was gone at a breakneck run down the Swamp Hollow toward ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... to laugh at such trifles, but at night time it was a different matter. To tear through the darkness at a breakneck pace at the mercy of three wild, unbroken horses required some nerve, especially when lying under the koshma as helpless as a sardine in a soldered tin. For the first few days overflows were a constant menace, especially at night when sleep under the apron was out of the question, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... said Neil comfortingly, "I'll admit that the sight of Sandy's calves is enough to make anybody weep, but he'll fatten up next summer—here's Mother!"—and he ran up the lane at a breakneck pace. ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... not answer. He was sure the stage would be driven in pursuit at breakneck speed, and from the breathing of his horse he feared it could not long endure the contest. To be sure, Red Kimball and his men had no lawful excuse to offer the stage-driver for an attempt to stop them; but three men who had once been ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... long memory of a horse, Dollie recognized the track as a scene of bygone triumphs, and made straight for it. No rider urged her on as of old, no rivals were by her side; but Dollie of her own accord started around that course at a breakneck speed with a little girl clinging ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... seed de Ku Klux a comin', us would take an' run breakneck speed to de nearest wood. Dar we would stay till dey wuz plum out o' sight and you could not even hear de horses feet. Dem days wuz worse'n de war. Yes Lawd, dey wuz worse'n any war I ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... manipulated the tiny levers of a control board that was set in the smooth transparent wall. And the rushing light-forms outside became a blur at first, then a solid stream of cold liquid fire into which they plunged at breakneck speed. ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... of members for our congregation. Two, in widely differing directions, will serve as specimens of such excursions. In consideration of my new-chumishness, F—— selected a comparatively easy track for our first ride. And yet, "bad was the best," might surely be said of that breakneck path. What would an English horse, or an English lady say, to riding for miles over a slippery winding ledge on a rocky hill side, where a wall of solid mountain rose up perpendicularly on the right ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... lumbering barge was going down stream side on, about half-way between either bank, at the breakneck speed of a mile an hour. We had lost our boathook, and had nothing whatever to navigate our craft with. Worst of all, at the end of the long reach, coming to meet us, we could see another barge, towed by a horse, which could certainly never ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... walked for hours at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again. Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan |
