"Coiling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decks and cleaning themselves, the watch below have fully enough to do to get all ready by five bells. It must be remembered, too, that they have had the morning watch to keep, since four o'clock, and the whole trouble of washing the upper decks, shaking out the reefs, stowing the hammocks, and coiling down the ropes; all easy matters of routine, it is true, but still sufficiently tiresome ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the more ornamental structures in Yucatan, we are told they were sometimes "adorned with elegant cornices and stucco designs of flowers and animals, which were often painted with brilliant colors. Prominent among these figures was the coiling serpent." After pointing out, by many citations, that the evidence always was that these houses were occupied by many families, Mr. Morgan concludes, "They were evidently joint tenement-houses of the aboriginal American model, each occupied ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... slumber. The Prince was rooted to the spot at the sight of the maiden, for she was wonderfully beautiful. But at that moment he became aware of a great serpent which, sliding along the wall, stretched out its head directly over the head of the maiden, coiling itself up in readiness to spring and strike her upon the brow, ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... was the perusal of his old friend Titus Livius, varied by occasionally scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it made,' as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, 'unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier.' Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... was coiling his rope, preparing to descend when a low chuckle caused him to pause in sudden surprise. Startled, the boy looked about him. He was alone as he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... school, to be followed in due time by Oxford and ordination, had been all previsioned and arranged, and she really had nothing to occupy her in the world but to eat and drink, and make a business of indolence, and go on weaving and coiling the nut-brown hair, merely keeping a home open for the son whenever he ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... their fear of her was their terror of that long serpent which, no matter how far it might dart through space, remained always in the woman's hand. They well knew its venomous bite, and as they slunk from side to side, their eyes were upon its coiling black tongue. ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... shoulders, not thinking the matter worth further argument, and at that moment the Bee woke up shivering, drew the red snake from her head-dress and coiling it about her throat wrapped herself again in ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... however, when we reached the Gouffre de Revaillon and descended into the ravine over roots of trees coiling upon the moss like snakes, some arching upward as if about to spring at the throat of those who disturbed the elfish solitude. At our coming there rose from the great rock such a multitude of jackdaws that for some seconds ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... on the deck of the steamer were very busy. They were overhauling and coiling down what looked like a long rubber hose. An officer, a young man in a smart uniform, was directing the work. When the boat was near the steamer, the officer hailed and asked in German what boat it was. Kalliope was rowing vigorously. Before any answer ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... sturdy muleteer, who stood in the innermost rank of the circle. "Was not this Greek, by your own showing, present at the martyrdom of the blessed saint Solomona?—was he not tried for his life at her grave, where he was discovered coiling like a serpent in the darkness?—is he not one of a race of idolaters, worshippers of images ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... which has crept over the whole structure, making what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip in the water, and the whole object is before you. The stream has a slow, still motion, with eddies, here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face, and there dimpling around some stone like the smiling cheek of a young maiden, but in no case suffering its demureness to break into a broad laugh of ripples. In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender shapes and brown wigs; in another ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... old man of being washed overboard that he actually fastened one end of a small line to his waistbands, and coiling the rest about him, made use of it as occasion required. When engaged outside, he unwound the cord, and secured one end to a ringbolt in the deck; so that if a chance sea washed him off his feet, it could do ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... coiling about the roots of every flower, or amid the leaves, waiting with undulating head and forked tongue to strike the uncautious hand. He shook off the drowsy influence of the scents and o'er-burdened air; the forms vanished. He remembered the child's words: "None can remain in safety ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... stone coping of the wall, there was a track laid down in a circle of a quarter of a mile. Switches linked it up with other lengths of track, a straight stretch down to a muddy cape of the Medway estuary, and a string of curves and loops coiling among the stone and iron factory sheds. The strange thing about it was that it was single—just one line of rail on sleepers tamped into the unstable "made" ground ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... and scratch As I swallow it down; And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire, Coiling and twisting in my belly. His snortings will rise to my head, And I shall be hot, and laugh, Forgetting that I have ever known ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... flowers. Hanging from the highest branches or swinging between the massive boles creepers of every kind rioted in bewildering confusion, a chaos of natural cordage, of festooned lianas thick as a liner's hawser, some twisting around each other, others coiling about the tree-trunks, biting deep into the bark or striving to strangle them in a cruel grip. Not even the elephants' weight and strength could burst through the stout network of these creepers in places. ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... up to her, coiling the slack of the rope as he advanced. Without bothering to tighten the reins, but watching closely the look in the maverick's big brown eyes and the nervous twitching of her ears, he laid one hand on the withers of the outlaw, with the other he grasped the horn of ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... Bludson took Ralph aft and introduced him to the second mate, Mr. Duff, a slim, active, pleasant looking young man of four and twenty, who was superintending the coiling of a spare cable in a cuddy hole beneath ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... upon the highest of all objects, upon the god Shiva himself, and how, since Love is dead, she sees no way to win him except by ascetic religion. The youth tries to dissuade Parvati by recounting all the dreadful legends that are current about Shiva: how he wears a coiling snake on his wrist, a bloody elephant-hide upon his back, how he dwells in a graveyard, how he rides upon an undignified bull, how poor he is and of unknown birth. Parvati's anger is awakened by this recital. She frowns and her lip quivers as she ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... off," the master comments, coiling the lash of the long whip with which he has stood beside the hurdle during Miss Nell's performance, "but you did not guard yourself against falling when you went up, and had you had some horses, you might have come down ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... upon the back of Stringer's hand. This was the prelude; then, with ever-increasing force, down came the rain in torrents, smearing out the fog from the atmosphere, as a painter, with a sponge, might wipe a color from his canvas. Long tails of yellow vapor, twining—twining—but always coiling downward, floated like snakes about them; and the oily waters of the Thames became pock-marked in the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... was nearer than either of them dreamed. At that very moment the soft thud of the closing housedoor sounded through the house. It brought her sharply to her feet, and loose from his coiling arms, with quickened breath and blanching face. A moment she hung there, tense, then sped to the door of the room, set it ajar ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... up to his middle in mud and water. He seized the prickly branches coiling about and above him; he gasped in prayerful pleading, the home teaching still strong in him; but there was no answer, save the crooning night-birds and the croaking frogs. Slimy things touched his torn flesh; whirring birds shot past him, disturbed in their ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... even a fraction of an inch. Desperately Blake sent his fists smashing into the gray face. The scale armor of Zehru's skull, fast weakening in the liquefying influence of the oxygen, gave way beneath that battering attack. He staggered, and his coiling tentacles relaxed slightly. ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... before him in her subdued, yet singular beauty. He looked with almost scientific closeness of observation into the diamond eyes; but that peculiar light which he knew so well was not there. She was the same in one sense as on that first day when he had seen her coiling and uncoiling her golden chain; yet how different in every aspect which revealed her state of mind and emotion! Something of tenderness there was, perhaps, in her tone towards him; she would not have sent for him, had she not felt more than an ordinary interest in him. But through the whole ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... held it out from her on the palm of her hand. Behold, it glowed in the dusk of the chamber as a live ember glows among the ashes of the hearth. Red it glowed and green, and white, and livid blue, and its shape, as it lay upon her hand, was the shape of a coiling snake, cut, as it were, in ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... greedy maw. All stood amazed. But {Calchas}, the son of Thestor, a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says, "Rejoice, Pelasgians, we shall conquer. Troy will fall, but the continuance of our toil will be long;" and he allots the nine birds to the years of the war. {The serpent}, just as he is, coiling around the green branches in the tree, becomes a stone, and, under the form of a serpent, retains ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... a 'goaded bull the German attempted to fling forward. But men-at-arms, in steel and leather, who had come up quietly behind him, seized him now. Impotent in their coiling arms, he was borne away to his doom, that thereby he might complete the reparation of his hideous offence, and deliver Sapphira from the bondage of a wedlock which Charles of Burgundy had never intended her ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... smiled and sat down slowly, and then sighed. Another sigh, and she proceeded to perform her toilet. When the small hands went up to the head with an action of decorously swinging the back hair up and coiling it into a loose knot, and when a spasmodic shake suggested it must be done over again, there was no doubt as to who was in charge. No one but the excellent Pakium, one of our earlier workers, ever did things ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... of a serpent coiling around his throat, and when he strove to grasp it the slimy thing glided away from his clutch. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... faint breeze had just begun to wrinkle in detached belts and patches the mirror-like blackness of the previous calm, in which the broad Firth had lain sleeping since day-break; and the sunlight danced on the new-raised wavelets; while a thin long wreath of blue mist, which seemed coiling its tail like a snake round the distant Inchkeith, was slowly raising the folds of its dragon-like neck and head from off the Scottish capital, dim in the distance, and unveiling fortalice, and tower, and spire, and the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... see!" declared the lad, reaching for the lasso and coiling it neatly. "We came out here just for the ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... tall girl was brought in Queen Berengere did not look at her, nor make any response to her deep reverence; but bade her fetch a mirror from the table. In this she looked at herself steadily for some time, smoothing and coiling back her hair, arranging her neck-covering so as to show something of her bosom, and so on. She sent Jehane for boxes of unguent, her colour-boxes, brush for the eyebrows, powder for the face. Finally she had ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... their prey all over before swallowing it, that it may slide the more easily down their ghastly throats. Their eye is cruel and stony, and possesses a peculiar property known as "fascination," which places their victims entirely at their mercy. They have also the power of coiling themselves up like a watch-spring and discharging themselves from a considerable distance at those whom they have doomed to death—a fact which is attested by such passages ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... less than eight varieties of it,—the most common being the dark gray, speckled with black—precisely the color that enables the creature to hide itself among the protruding roots of the trees, by simply coiling about them, and concealing its triangular head. Sometimes the snake is a clear bright yellow: then it is difficult to distinguish it from the bunch of bananas among which it conceals itself. Or the creature may be a dark yellow,—or ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the captain, "niver brok the word!" After paying this scarcely-deserved compliment he gave an order to a sailor who was coiling up ropes near him, and the man at once ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Robert P. Parrott. His cast-iron guns (fig. 13), many of which are seen today in the battlefield parks, are easily recognized by the heavy wrought-iron jacket reinforcing the breech. The jacket was made by coiling a bar over the mandrel in a spiral, then hammering the coils into a welded cylinder. The cylinder was bored and shrunk on the gun. Parrotts were founded in 10-, 20-, 30-, 60-, 100-, 200-, and 300-pounder calibers, one foundry ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... collection to him, of getting anything whatever through that complacent head of his, was so hopeless that I did not even consider it. There was only one thing to do, and perhaps I should have done it—I do not know, for he saw the menace coiling in my eye, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... occurrences of the preceding day. But no! he approached the table on which the medicines stood, looked at the watch, took up one of the phials and a cup, measured the draught, drop by drop, then he turned and looked round him stealthily, and then he drew from his breast a pale blue, coiling serpent, which he threw into the cup, and held it to the patient's lips, who drank, and instantly felt, a numbness creep over his frame which ended in death. Edward fancied that he was dead; he saw the coffin brought, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... as he pointed to a bust of white marble. 'What do you think of that?' It was a bust of a young woman coiling her hair-a graceful example of Italian sculpture. Mr. Clemens looked and ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... and they shivered with cold. Whenever the girl bought anything pretty, a bow or a pair of buttons, her parents confiscated the purchase and drank what they could get for it. She had nothing of her own, excepting her allowance of blows, before coiling herself up between the rags of a sheet, where she shivered under her little black skirt, which she stretched out by way of a blanket. No, that cursed life could not continue; she was not going to leave her skin in it. Her father had long since ceased to count for her; when a father gets drunk ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... and seized the handle of the bell wire and pulled it with all his might. The wire gave way somewhere above him and came coiling down upon his head. He threw it from him and turned again toward the opening of the shaft. Then the carriage did descend. It came down the shaft for the last time in its brief existence, came like ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... it cannot be! The wire must be coiling itself up somewhere. It is incredible! The lead cannot ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... the bateau now, and Stromberg, hastily coiling the light line, leaped into the bow. Then, just when it seemed possible the greener might make it, a huge log shot upward from the depths and fell with a crash squarely across the log ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... Are you sure of that?—sure, that the nothingness of the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the smoke of the torment that ascends for ever?[250] Will any answer that they are sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labour, whither they go?[251] ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... lady of), metamorphosed by enchantment into a serpent. Sir Lybius (one of Arthur's knights) slew the enchantress, and the serpent, coiling about his neck, kissed him; whereupon the spell was broken, the serpent became a lovely princess, and Sir Lybius made her his wife.—Libeaux ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... address in extricating himself from the water-butt—a common child-trap. He did not fear ghosts or thunder; instead of that, his early-developed landscape feeling showed itself in dread of foxglove dells and dark pools of water, in coiling roots of trees—things that to the average English fancy have no ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... its sensitive leafstalks hook themselves over any support they rub against; but the grapevine has gone a step farther, and by discarding an occasional flower cluster and prolonging the flower stalk into a coiling, forking tendril it moors itself to the thicket. We know that all tendrils are either transformed leaves, as in the case of the pea vine, where each branch of its tendril represents a modified leaflet; or they are transformed flower stalks or other organs. Occasionally ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... majority of the officers were with their quadrants and sextants ascertaining the latitude at noon. The decks were white and clean, the sweepers had just laid by their brooms, and the men were busy coiling down the ropes. It was a scene of cheerfulness, activity, and order, which tightened his heart after the four days of suffering, close air, and confinement, from which he had ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... restrains the water by coiling itself into a sac to hold up the rain and so prevent it from reaching the earth. In the various American codices this episode is depicted in as great a variety of forms as the Vedic poets of India described when they sang of the exploits of Indra. The ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... capital of Costa Rica. We paddled on all the afternoon with little change in the river. At eight we anchored for the night, and although it rained heavily again, I was better prepared for it, and, coiling myself up under an umbrella beneath the tarpaulin, managed to sleep ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... slow and golden; Eastward the moon climbed, honey-pale. O do you remember? while our eyes were holden, Close, close upon us,—the Golden Sail? Wind-swift she came,—thing of living flame, Sea-breathing Glory, to make the heart afraid! The ripples, fold on fold Of coiling gold, Trailing a thousand ways Her golden maze, Rocked in a golden tumult, every one, The gondolas, the ships .. Westward she made ..... A portent from the sky,—gone by, gone by, To golden, far ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... trail, he ascended the bank and worked along by the forest's edge, that so he might gain shelter. With every fresh puff of breath from the north, the coiling snakes of snow grew larger, writhing across the tree-tops and pouring tumultuously into the river-bed, where they rioted and fought till the day grew dark and it was difficult to see the next step. Respiration became painful, but Granger was determined not to halt, for this was ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the bed, was coiling her glorious hair; the open dress revealed the massive throat and ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... was Tamar. She glistened like the snow on Lebanon, and the redness of her was ruddier than a pomegranate, and her dancing was like the coiling of white serpents. When the dance was ended her attendants threw a veil of gauze over her and she lay among her cushions, half covered with flowers, at the feet ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke
... Santa shook from her shoulder something that we had not seen before—a rope lasso. She freed the loop of it, coiling the length in her left hand, and plunged into ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... appeared swimming from the island of Tenedos, and advanced towards the altar. The people fled; but Laocooen and his two sons fell victims to the monsters. The sons were first attacked, and then the father, who attempted to defend them, the serpents coiling themselves about him and his sons, while in his agony he endeavored to extricate them. They then hastened to the temple of Pallas, where, placing themselves at the foot of the goddess, they hid themselves under her shield. The people saw in this omen, Laocooen's ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... pulled upon one end of the lariat until he had drawn it free of the bedpost above, when it fell into his waiting hands. Coiling it carefully Billy placed it around his neck and under one arm. Billy, acting as a professional, was a careful and methodical man. He always saw that every little detail was properly attended to before he went on to the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound along the path we pursued. And ere long we came to a spacious grove, embowering an oval arbor. Here, we reclined at our ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... was coiling away a top-gallant-brace, directly in front of Mrs. Budd and Rose, and, at hearing this account of the wonderful equipment of The Rose In Bloom, he suddenly looked up, with a lurking expression about his eye that the niece very well comprehended, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... second day after the Cornish sailor came aboard, the weather having moderated and the ship making good progress, I was leaning over the port bulwarks moodily gazing at the sea, when I felt a touch on my hand. Looking round, I saw the Englishman engaged in coiling a rope close to me. He continued his task and spoke in ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... up and the subtle impetus recoiled, powerless to perform its function. He felt the necessity of clear, vigorous thought, but his dull brain would not work—the cold incubus upon it chilled it through and through; and all the time the malignantly beautiful reptile was partly coiling and uncoiling, the articulated ring giving a faint rattle, as if caused by the slight vibration of its body. After a while the serpent lay still, but never once was its eye removed from its victim. It was growing tired of dallying with its prey ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... he had expected, the last he had reason to look for, struck full and hard. He was blind then to the old men sneering at him there; his head seemed charged with coiling vapours; his heart, that had been dancing a second ago on the wave of passion, swamped and sank. He had no more to say; he passed them and left the room and went along the lobby to the stair-head, where he stood till the vapours had ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... the meanwhile vainly endeavored to pass the yawning gorges, bottomless swamps, and dense dark forests that lay between him and the snow-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. Entangled vines and trees of a luxuriant tropical vegetation, huge boas coiling in the branches, ready to spring upon their prey, screaming parrots, chattering and grimacing monkeys, mosquitoes, alligators, prowling savages,—amid such scenes as these he and his band had once more confronted famine and death in the absence ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... grouse at their insensate sport, Heard not the stealthy footstep of the fox; The gopher on his little earthwork stood, With folded arms, unconscious of the fate That wheeled in narrowing circles overhead, And the poor mouse, on heedless nibbling bent, Marked not the silent coiling of the snake. At length we heard a deep and solemn sound— Erupted moanings of the troubled earth Trembling beneath innumerable feet. A growing uproar blending in our ears, With noise tumultuous as ocean's surge, Of bellowings, fierce breath and battle shock, And ardor ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... struggling in it, I remember, and I thought to myself, how much more comfortably off I was than they; I was taking my ease on the nice open hill, cooled with the breezes, whilst they were in the nasty close bag, coiling about one another, and breaking their very hearts, all to no purpose; and I felt quite comfortable and happy in the thought, and little by little closed my eyes, and fell into the sweetest snooze that ever I was in in all ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... cheer went up from the crowd and everybody was talking at once. While over beside the big steer the cowboy mounted his pony and coiling his rope as he rode, joined the group of riders who lounged in their ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the Doctor, looking curiously at a couple of wheels that unwound unceasingly long strips of white paper. The paper passed through a small instrument, and came out covered with unintelligible signs, coiling itself in ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... one we had seen; the one at Ripley is said to have discharged no fewer than five at that time. These canisters smashed on striking the ground—they did not explode—and incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour, coiling and pouring upward in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud, a gaseous hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the surrounding country. And the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of its pungent wisps, was death to ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... came forward and gave out the competitors for the next contest, steer-roping and tying. Lanky Smith arose and, coiling his rope carefully, disappeared into the crowd. The fun was not so great in this, but when he returned to his outfit with the phenomenal time of six minutes and eight seconds for his string of ten steers, with twenty-two seconds for one of them, they gave him vociferous greeting. Three of his ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... old woman, with gray hair, and a queenly way of carrying the head? Have you any remembrance of a woman like that? Do you remember a hot, red fire, streams of water gushing over it, a ladder, a crowd, and great pipes coiling like a tangle of huge snakes along a street full of people? I do—and this no ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... day he watched the sunrise flood the distant plain with gold, While the River Nile beneath him, silvery coiling, sea-ward rolled. ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... behaved already like a grown-up person), were Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and by a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the watch on deck turning-to at daybreak, and washing-down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This, with filling the "scuttle butt" with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells (half after seven), when all hands get breakfast. At eight the day's work begins, and lasts until sundown, with the exception of an hour for dinner. The discipline of the ship requires ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... middle, held it doggedly still for one quarter of an hour, while the lesser snake did its very best to work its way out of the jaws, and also to fetter its captor by twirling itself over his head and coiling round his neck. This continued while Ophio, with his head and neck raised, remained motionless, and after the quarter of an hour commenced to work his jaws up towards the head of the ring snake, which, as more and more of its own body was free for action, twirled itself about, and at ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... Could it be that Denis—Denis even—Ah, no! She remembered what he had been to poor Arthur; she understood, now, the vague allusions to what he had tried to do for his brother. He had seen Arthur down there, in that coiling blackness, and had leaned over and tried to drag him out. But Arthur was too deep down, and his arms were interlocked with other arms—they had dragged each other deeper, poor souls, like drowning people who fight together in the ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... the opposite bank. Coiling up their line and jumping aboard, all hands poled her across. The bishop, gathering his cassock around his waist, was the first ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... is a flying ring of merry little creatures who seem quite demented with the very pleasure of living. One bounds into the air with a comic curvet, and comes down with a thud; the others copy him, and there is a wild maze of coiling bodies and gleaming white tails. But let the treacherous wind carry the scent of you down on the little rascals and you will see a change. An old fellow sits up like a kangaroo for an instant, looking extremely wise and vigilant; he drops ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... carried the bearded Council man and Denham. That plane swept forward and hovered above the ornithopter. The two flying things seemed almost fastened together, so closely did their pilots maintain that same speed and course. A snaky rope went coiling down into the lower ship's cockpit. A burly figure began to climb it hand over hand. A second figure followed. A third figure, in the drab clothing that distinguished Jacaro's men from all others, wrapped ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... was quiet, innocent, and fresh in the depth of the wood, at the edge of the hollow—and the outer heat penetrated hither only by an infinite coiling as of a scaly serpent impotent at last and deprived ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... patch we threaded, with many a glance over shoulder. But time was traveling faster. I marked her searching about nervously. Blue had already appeared above, the sun found us again and again, and the fog remnants went spinning and coiling, in last ghostly dance like ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the cable; for some of the watch had remained on deck, when the rest went below to pass up lines, and were now taking spasmodic, aimless jerks at the windlass. The mate drove his brown-skinned men to marvellous feats with coiling lines, determined to be ready with his part when the boat was ready. He had not heard Vandersee's report ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the Almighty!" thought he, peering keenly at such as he could see through the coiling, spiraling wreaths of mist that arose from the black water into the dun air. "Men! White men, too! Given such stock to work with—provided I get the chance—who shall say anything's impossible? If only there's some way out of this infernal hole, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... verified, as soon as the morning breaks, by the appearance of Siegfried and Mime. The latter is acting as guide, and eagerly points out the mighty dragon's lair. But even then the youth still refuses to tremble, and when Mime describes Fafnir's fiery breath, coiling tail, and impenetrable hide, he good-naturedly declares he will save his most telling blow until the monster's side is exposed, and he can plunge Nothung ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... terrace. It was, as he expected confidently that it would be, quite deserted on this side. Then he let go of the rope, and Major Warrener, who was watching it, saw that the strain was off it, pulled it up a foot to make sure, and then untied the knot. Dick pulled it gently at first, coiling it up as it came down, until at last it slid rapidly down. He caught it as well as he could, but he had little fear of so slight a noise being heard on the other side of the great dome; then he tied the rope to the parapet, lowered it ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... are reflected by the others; the leaves are all glistening emerald and they are sprinkled with pearls like drops of evening dew. The stems twine about like serpents, and they seem to the knight to move and turn about to show him all their magic splendor. Some of them, with coiling tendrils, like gold wire, sway toward him as if they would catch him and hold him, others dance and wave about on their stems and twinkle as the other stars do, up above the trees, as if they were laughing and mocking at him, and still others bow and bend away ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... reply appeared to be forthcoming from Moore. His silence compelled her to turn to him. The cowboy's face had subtly altered; it was darker with a tinge of red under the bronze; and his lower lip was released from his teeth, even as she looked. He had his eyes intent upon the lasso he was coiling. Suddenly he faced her and the dark fire of his eyes gave her ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... and here, the Herzog von Gottingen lay, with her bowsprit jammed into a coal shed and her decks, aforetime so white and clean, all bespattered with dirt, and encumbered with hawsers and cables. These latter coiling and uncoiling themselves here, there, and everywhere, like so many writhing sea-serpents, and, tripping you up suddenly just when you believed you had discovered a clear space on which you might stand ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the soldier, coiling it in his hand and then throwing it towards the barque. But the coil fell short of the mark, and another minute's ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... it was as though her knees were glass and the blow had broken them. Once in the chair, she waggled her head dolorously, and moaned out against upstart vulgarians who, without a name or a shilling, insinuated themselves like vipers into households of honor, and, coiling themselves upon the very hearthstones, dealt death to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Abolition Has been coiling on for years; We have reasoned, we have threatened, We have begged almost with tears: Now, away, away with Union, Since on our Southern soil The only union left us Is an ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... getting into deck hats, and the other preliminaries, while the boat was steaming down the harbour. Isabelle stayed on deck and made friends with the captain and the sailors. It was fun to watch them padding about so swiftly, coiling ropes, and doing their ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... been frozen over for a month, even above the bridge and the mills, where the current was swiftest. Long lines of sawdust, which had been coiling and whirling in the eddies, or stretching across the black seething water, were caught in the ice, or blown about with the powdered snow ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... a hundred minor pathways, the Long Trail lay like a vast rope connecting the cattle country of the South with that of the North. Lying loose or coiling, it ran for more than two thousand miles along the eastern ridge of the Rocky mountains, sometimes close in at their feet, again hundreds of miles away across the hard table-lands or the well-flowered prairies. It traversed in a fair line the vast land of Texas, curled ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... of perfection, and they may therefore be considered as the extreme development of the American type of apes. Their tails are endowed with the most wonderful degree of flexibility. They are always in motion—except when the animal is perfectly at rest—coiling and uncoiling themselves, like the trunks of elephants, seeking to grasp, apparently, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... and fails to understand. Then she forgets the change of place in new sensations of terror. For across the park something is coming, she knows not what; it will pass her by. She watches a brown and yellow serpent, cubits high. Cubits high. It rears aloft its tawny hide, scenting its prey. The great coiling body, the small head, small as a man's hand, the black beadlike eyes shine out upon the intoxicating blue of the sky. The narrow long head, the fixed black eyes are dull, inexorable desire, conscious of nothing beyond, and only dimly conscious of itself. Will the snake pass by the hiding girl? ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... this crumbling boundary, 85 Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the ploughboy's foot, Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; 90 In the ivy's paler blaze the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... remembered for the first time for some hour or two that the monster of whom they were talking was standing quietly among them. They had left him in the garden like a garden statue; there might have been a dolphin coiling round his legs, or a fountain pouring out of his mouth, for all the notice they had taken of Innocent Smith. He stood with his crest of blonde, blown hair thrust somewhat forward, his fresh-coloured, rather short-sighted ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... little hollow between two ledges, and overhung the place where Mr. Sharp had found foothold. As if its own wealth of berries were not enough, a bitter-sweet vine had sprung up in the same hollow, and coiling itself around the tree, deluged it with a shower of golden clusters that mingled upon the same branch with the bright ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... wait for the falling tide when all was done. And we did so, after a good meal, as well as we could, while the wains yet brought stones, and arrows and darts in sheaves to the bridge. But forward in our ships the men were coiling the great cables that should, we hoped, bring the bridge and stones alike down ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... down the trail, while Fairchild went to his work. And he sang as he dragged at the heavy hose, pulling it out of the shaft and coiling it at the entrance to the tunnel, as he put skids under the engines, and moved them, inch by inch, to the outer air. Work was before him, work which was progressing toward a goal that he had determined to seek, in spite of all obstacles. The mysterious offer which ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... relations with this churchyard would not only do credit to his own reputation, but would gratify the best friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and at least one other lady. To attain these proofs he had to step over the coiling, writhing bodies of a whole nest of rumors. When he seized by the throat the especial slander that he himself was the husband of the babe's mother, he found written on its crest the signature of John Kranich. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... trodden rattlesnake, but said the census was full of mistakes; but one part balanced another,—it was not worth while to correct them.' His whole life was an incessant warfare with the rapidly advancing spirit of slavery, that was coiling like a ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... conservation of energy, as the Greek philosophers predicted. It was known to them that a certain amount of power would produce only a certain amount of work—that is, the weight of a clock in descending or a spring in uncoiling returns theoretically the amount of work expended in raising or coiling it, and in no possible way can it do more. In practice, on account of friction, etc., we know it does less. This law, being invariable, of course limits us, as it did Archimedes and Pythagoras; we have simply utilized sources of power that their clumsy workmen allowed to escape. Of the four ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... resentment that formed no real opposition to Jack's purpose. Five minutes of maneuvering to get close, and Jack had twisted his fingers in the taffy-colored mane; he went up, and landed fairly in the middle of Solano's rounded back and began swiftly coiling the trailing riata. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... and, swept by the running water, was seen falling into the lee of the boulder on which the party now stood. A third time was heard the voice of Francois uttering one of his customary "hurrahs." The rope was now dragged up, and made ready for further use. Basil again took hold of it; and, after coiling it as before, succeeded in throwing the noose over the third rock, where it settled and held fast. The other end was tied as before, and all passed safely to the new station. Here, however, their labour ended. They found that from this point to the shore the river ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... his task of coiling up a rope of wet cowhide, and then, producing a dirty pipe, he took a live ember from the fire and placed it on the bowl. He sucked slowly at the pipe-stem, and soon puffed out a great cloud of smoke. Sitting on a log, he deliberately ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... furrows are produced numerous, small, pedicelled tubercles, quite similar to those of some species of worms or caterpillars; and these small tufts, in connection with the brownish-green color and peculiar coiling of the pods, make the resemblance nearly perfect, especially if seen from a short distance. The seeds are large, oblong, flattened at the ends, and of a yellowish color. A well-developed fruit will measure about three-eighths of an inch in diameter; and, when uncoiled, nearly an ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... a vicious stroke. An instant later the Navaho straightened up with his hand gripped about the snake's neck close behind the deadly triangular head. He gave no heed to its five-foot body writhing and coiling ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... the draught of his glance, not wine, * And his swaying gait swayed to sleep these eyne: 'Twas not grape juice grips me but grasp of Past * 'Twas not bowl o'erbowled me but gifts divine: His coiling curl-lets my soul ennetted * And his cruel will all my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... essential features, we may say that the path of the moon is a sort of spiral which winds round and round the earth, gradually getting larger, though with extreme slowness. Looking back we see this spiral gradually coiling in and in, until in a retrospect of millions of years, instead of its distance from the earth being 240,000 miles, it must have been much less. There was a time when the moon was only 200,000 miles away; there was a time ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... vast districts of farthest India, were but in part also practiced here—here, in the oldest and proudest center of European arts, where Leonardo da Vinci—master among masters—first discerned the laws of the coiling clouds and wandering streams, so that to this day his engineering remains unbettered by modern science; and yet in this center of all human achievements of genius no thought has been taken to receive with sacred art these ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... -r only the older form -"id:P"; the Latin has, so far as we know, only a single -s, but a double sign for -k (kappa -"id:k" and koppa -"id:q") and of the -r almost solely the more recent form -"id:R". The oldest Etruscan writing shows no knowledge of lines, and winds like the coiling of a snake; the more recent employs parallel broken-off lines from right to left: the Latin writing, as far as our monuments reach back, exhibits only the latter form of parallel lines, which originally perhaps may have run at pleasure from left to right or from right ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... more fully. His body, in the sleekly pliant buckskins, was lean and supple. As he twisted, stretching an arm to draw out the crumpled folds, the lines of his long back and powerful shoulders showed the sinuous grace of a cat. He relaxed into easeful full length, propped on an elbow, his red hair coiling against his neck. Susan stole a stealthy glance at him. As if she had spoken, he instantly raised his head and looked ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... her hair, coiling the strands about her head carelessly, and I watched the simple operation, all the life gone out of me, unable to decide what to do. It was useless to go back; almost equally useless to go forward. I had no information to take ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... still, touched by the new glory of light falling on me; it was a new world—new and familiar, yet disturbingly beautiful. I seemed to discover all sorts of secret charms that I had never seen in things I had seen a hundred times. The watch on deck were busy with brooms and buckets; a sailor, coiling a rope over a pin, paused in his work to point over the port-quarter, with a massive fore-arm like ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... renowned as one of the six great legislators produced by Egypt. A law concerning debt and the legal rates of interest, was attributed to him; he was also famed for the uprightness of his judgments, which were regarded as due to divine inspiration. Isis had bestowed on him a serpent, which, coiling itself round his head when he sat on the judgment-seat, covered him with its shadow, and admonished him not to forget for a moment the inflexible principles ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... alone— Harold unseen shall seek his side: Shall whisper in his ear a tone, So seeming sweet, he cannot chide. He cannot chide; although he feel, While listening to the magic verse, A serpent round his bosom steal, He still shall hug the coiling curse. Or if beneath Italian skies, The wanderer's feet delighted glide, Harold, in merry Juan's guise, Shall be his tutor and his guide. One living essence God hath poured In every heart—the love of sway— And though he may not ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while coiling the daughter's hair, "I am sure I have ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... snowy gale, The pink hands fluttered them out, and spread them on their knees. Who knew what gouts might drop, what filthy flakes of grease, Now that o'er every shoulder, through the coiling steam, Inhuman faces peered, with wolfish eyes a-gleam, And grey-faced vampire Lusts that whinneyed in each ear ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing calmly. He went near to her, and crouched down, coiling his blue neck. She glanced at him, but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird sat silent, seeming to sleep, and the woman also sat huddled and silent, seeming oblivious. Then once more there was a heavy step, and Alfred entered. He looked at his ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... stains from her face, and wiped it with his nice linen handkerchief, and her heart glowed at the remembrance of his kindness. Mingled with this glow there was the flush of shame, for she could not help starting at every sudden rustling sound, thinking the coiling snake ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the starboard side of the top boat deck; the time about 12.20. We watched the crew at work on the lifeboats, numbers 9, 11, 13, 15, some inside arranging the oars, some coiling ropes on the deck,—the ropes which ran through the pulleys to lower to the sea,—others with cranks fitted to the rocking arms of the davits. As we watched, the cranks were turned, the davits swung ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... never understand why I must not, till the earth gives up her dead. You tremble, because only one more link can be added to the chain that is coiling about my neck, and that link is the testimony of the man whose name you expect to bear. Miss Gordon"—she stooped closer, and whispered slowly: "Do not upbraid your lover; be tender, cling to him; and afford me the consolation of knowing that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... his limbs as he swam; he felt himself slowly sinking, as if drawn downward by an invisible hand. He opened his eyes. The waves lapped musically above his head; a tawny glory was all about him, a luminous expanse in which he saw strangely formed creatures moving, darting, rising, falling, coiling, uncoiling. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... from rocks in rage rebound; The foe thus meet the men of Izdubar, While o'er the field fly the fierce gods of war. Dark Nin-a-zu[7] her torch holds in her hand. With her fierce screams directs the gory brand; And Mam-mit[8] urges her with furious hand, And coiling dragons[9] poison all the land With their black folds and pestilential breath, In fierce delight thus ride the gods ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... of his thoughts, traveled out over the stern, which rose and sank with a ponderous, wallowing sound in the heaving ground swells, and he made out the weaving and coiling, the lustrous but dim windings ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... him with glowing eyes, while her father and Carson were busy coiling the rope. "How could you cut loose in that splendid way?" she cried. "It ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... together, like horses, two or three, moving slowly. The Swede, too, got a similar result, though expressing it differently, for he thought it was shaped and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top, and moving all over upon its surface—"coiling upon itself like smoke," ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... condition that you sacrifice your own life.' Sister Maddelena accepted the terms joyfully, wrote a last farewell to Michele, fastened the note to the rope, and with her own hands cut the rope and saw it fall coiling down to the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... guardians bright, And shield these dazzling phantoms from her sight! But no; days passed, matins and vespers rang, And still the quiet Nuns toiled, prayed, and sang, And never guessed the fatal, coiling net Which every day drew near, and nearer yet, Around their darling; for she went and came About her duties, outwardly the same. The same? ah, no! even when she knelt to pray, Some charmed dream kept ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... roared, with a voice like that of the north wind. "Hand me that life preserver!"—turning to the mate who stood near him. The mate obeyed, and coiling the long rope ready for a throw the captain waited, while the steamer drew nearer ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... them a field for study in human nature and, in their work, matter for poetry and art. For were not all three Fates to be seen at their eternal business here? Clotho attended the Spread Board; the can-minders coiling away the sliver, stood for Lachesis; while in the spinners, who cut the thread when the bobbin was full, Estelle found Atropos, the ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... knew him better than I did." Juli had a fidgety little way of coiling the links of the chain around her wrists ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... that work And clamped it all around the buckler's edge! The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire! The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole, Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew Erect above the concave of the shield: Loud rang the warrior's voice; inspired for war, He raves to slay, as doth a Bacchanal, His very glance a terror! of such wight Beware the onset! closing on the gates, He peals his vaunting and ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... yes, you swab," Lawson spoke up mockingly, at the same time cutting a sled-lashing and coiling it up with ominous care. "Judge ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... down to sleep before dawn, but his rest was disturbed by wonderfully varied dreams, some beautiful, some hideous. He sprang up with a shriek, for a dream showed him the white snake coiling round his breast and suffocating him. But he thought no more of this horrible picture, and firmly resolved to release the princess from the bonds of enchantment, even if he himself should perish. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... hold loosen as he was lifted from the ground; there were other arms flailing about him—living, coiling things that seemed to fight one with another for this prize. Abruptly, blindingly, the scene was vividly etched before him: the strange trees, the ferns, the writhing and darting serpent-arms! They were illumined ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... day with the officers, for there was much to be seen after in coiling down ropes, washing the decks, and in getting everything neatly in ship-shape. As they passed the Middle Sunk the second mate ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... Coiling the rope, he tried to throw it again into the crevice; but it had lost the knack of kinking. Many times he tried,—six hundred, says my informant,—and then sat down and reflected. "I have thrown this rope," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... horrors. Bowse observed the interest she took in all that was going forward, and, like a true sailor, felt as much gratified as if she was his own daughter, and under his especial protection. Jack, the cabin-boy, was coiling away a rope near him, and beckoning to him, he sent him down for a comfortable chair, which, on its appearance, he ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the eternal recurrence be truth, then must the great drama of the Redemption be repeated. Then will our foes be convinced of Christianity and its reality. But shall we be conscious in that far-off time of our anterior existence? Ah! hideous, coiling doubt. What a demon is this Nietzsche to set whirring in the brains of poor, suffering humanity such torturing questions! Better, far better for the world to live and not to think. Thought is a disease, a morbid ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... little else. Most of these were soiled from use, but there was among them a little clean, white apron, and this Mrs. Crawford put upon the child, after having washed her face and hands and brushed her wavy hair, which had a trick of coiling itself into soft, fluffy curls all over ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... their progress and their vicissitudes; but underneath them all, unnoted, it may be, or treated to a superficial and perhaps supercilious glance, yet mainspring and regulator of all, runs an iron thread, true thread of Fate, coiling around the limbs of man, and impeding all progress, till he shall have untwisted its Gordian knot, but bidding him forward from strength to strength with each successive release. No romance of court or camp surpasses the romance of the forge. A blacksmith at his anvil seems to us a respectable, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... round. This finished, it is broad daylight, and the men set to work to coil up preparatory to washing decks—not that this would seem very necessary. Certainly there is no hose wanted this morning, and a general kind of tidying up and coiling down ropes ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... asked at length, amazed at his own temerity, and because he knew instinctively the answer in advance. It rose through these layers of coiling memory in his soul. ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... lost no time in hauling in and coiling his jigger line, in adjusting his oars, and in pulling away toward the derelict with all the strength his strong arms and sinewy ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... westward, Spake these words to Hiawatha: "Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather, Megissogwon, the Magician, Manito of Wealth and Wampum, Guarded by his fiery serpents, Guarded by the black pitch-water. You can see his fiery serpents, The Kenabeek, the great serpents, Coiling, playing in the water; You can see the black pitch-water Stretching far away beyond them, To the purple clouds of sunset! "He it was who slew my father, By his wicked wiles and cunning, When he from the moon descended, When he came on earth to seek me. He, the mightiest of Magicians, Sends ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... must confess that till I saw the ponds and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison was somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a note of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is so large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves and flowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene by no means unworthy ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... an old, wild ballad that tells of how a knight found, coiling round a tree in a dismal forest, a loathly dragon breathing out poison; and how, undeterred by its hideousness and foulness, he cast his arms round it and kissed it on the mouth. Three times he did it undisgusted, and at ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... moorings are cast off—the wheels revolve—the bell rings—the engine squeals, and away speeds the steamer down the calm waters of Lake Ontario. Little children and inquisitive young ladies are knocked down or blackened in coiling the hawser, by "hands" who, being nothing but hands, evidently cannot say, "I beg your pardon, miss." There were children, who always will go where they ought not to go, running against people, and taking hold of their clothes with ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Like a twisted snake; Coiling itself, preparing to raise its head, Above the long grasses of ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher
... of man's anguish went up unto God: "Lord, take away pain— The shadow that darkens the world thou hast made, The close-coiling chain That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs On the wings that would soar— Lord, take away pain from the world thou hast made, That it love ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... flushed with pride, but he followed on the trail without a word and behind him came the whole regiment, implicit in its trust, and winding without noise like a great coiling ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and spanker, to get as much of the breeze as we could while it lasted, so that the vessel began to make fair progress through the water; and the hands under the superintendence of the two mates were then set to work coiling down ropes and getting in the slack of the sheets as well as making things ship-shape amidships, where the deck was still littered with a good deal of cargo that had not yet ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... certain glass or paste beads attained great celebrity as amulets under the name of serpents' eggs; it was believed that serpents, coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated them from their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws. If a man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his cloak before it touched the ground, he rode off on horseback with it at full speed, pursued by the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... for once; for it was always there, only growing deeper and wickeder when she spoke or laughed. He could not see her eyes, for they were turned away, but he knew quite well the color; he had settled that point when he looked up from coiling his rope the day she came. They were big, baffling, blue-brown eyes, the like of which he had never seen before in his life—and he had thought he had seen every color and every shade under the sun. Thinking of them and their wonderful deeps and shadows, ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... glimpse, inside the park, of an alley bordered with jasmine, pansies, and verbenas, among which the stocks held open their fresh plump purses, of a pink as fragrant and as faded as old Spanish leather, while on the gravel-path a long watering-pipe, painted green, coiling across the ground, poured, where its holes were, over the flowers whose perfume those holes inhaled, a vertical and prismatic fan of infinitesimal, rainbow-coloured drops. Suddenly I stood still, unable to move, as happens when ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... nude, and bearing in his hand the sacrificial knife. He was followed by an apparition still more strange and shocking: Madam Mendizabal, naked also, and carrying in both hands and raised to the level of her face, an open basket of wicker. It was filled with coiling snakes; and these, as she stood there with the uplifted basket, shot through the osier grating and curled about her arms. At the sight of this, the fervour of the crowd seemed to swell suddenly higher; ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... be always gliding downward, the same spray dashing over the stones, the same eddy coiling at the edge of the pool. Send your fly in under those cedar branches, where the water swirls around by that old log. Now draw it up toward the foam. There is a sudden gleam of dull gold in the white water. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... smugglers leaped down upon the lugger; the gaskets were cast off the sails, a few ropes were flung clear. I saw one or two men coiling away the lines which had lashed us to the rocks. The dapper man waved his hands and skipped ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield |
