"Detonation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crest where I stood, the whole landscape about me was illuminated with the fierce glare of the bursting shells, while the ground on which I stood quivered with the thunderous detonation of the artillery. ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... Marne begin,— and the line they were observing was the Iles-les-Villenoy, in the river right at the west of us. When I first saw the exercises, there were half a dozen lovely red and green lights hanging motionless in the sky. I could hear the heavy detonation of the cannon or gun, or whatever they use to throw them, and then see the long arc of light like a chain of gold, which marked the course of the fusee, until it burst into color at the end. I wrapped myself up, took my field-glasses, and stayed out an hour watching the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... This we invested in flour, tea, strong boots, and other indispensables. We possessed an old gun a double-barreled fowling-piece that had once been a flint-lock. The spring driving one hammer was too weak to discharge a percussion cap, that of the other was just strong enough to cause detonation on an average twice out of three attempts. We could get no bullet mould the gun being of an unusual caliber so we used to chop off chunks of lead and roll them between flat stones until the requisite degrees of size ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... dull, brutish detonation. The swimmer, swung high on the bosom of a great swell, saw a vast sheet of fire ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... nothing but the explosion of the bomb at the Centralia station could have betrayed the plot. It is true that the distant mountains had sent the echoes of the detonation far and wide, but a single shot didn't have much significance at a time like this when our country resounded with the thunder of cannon day in ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... attributed to flashes below the horizon whose light only is seen by us. Globe or ball lightning takes the form of globes of fire, sometimes visible for ten seconds, descending from the clouds. On reaching the earth they sometimes rebound, and sometimes explode with a loud detonation. No adequate explanation ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... of the thunder was uninterrupted. Now and then a vivid zig-zag flash gored the intense darkness with its baleful blue death-light, followed by a crash, appalling as if the battlements of heaven had been shattered. Once the whole air seemed ablaze, and the simultaneous shock of the detonation was so violent, that Beryl involuntarily sank on her knees, and hid her eyes on a chair. The rain fell in torrents, that added a solemn sullen swell to the diapason of the thunder fugue, and by degrees a delicious coolness crept into ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... rusty rails. To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... idea—that of getting near one another. They called out, "Bell!" "Simpson!" "This way, doctor!" "Where are you, captain?" But no answers were heard; the vapour did not conduct sound. They all fired as a sign of rallying. But if the sound of the voice appeared too weak, the detonation of the firearms was too strong, for it was echoed in all directions, and produced a confused rumble without appreciable direction. Each acted then according to his instincts. Hatteras stopped, folded his arms, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... down, nose first. Those in the starboard boats saw her stand on end for full five minutes, screws spinning, before a muffled detonation blew the bowels out of her and sucked her down ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... upon the ice. The two men were almost lifted from their feet. Not far away they heard the tumultuous crash of the rising waves. As they were lashing the blubber to Ootah's sledge, a resounding detonation vibrated through the ice under him—the field on which they stood slowly but unmistakably ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... and Tom, their ears rang with the noise until they felt as though surely their ear-drums had been ruptured by the force of that awesome detonation. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... word seemed to have the explosive force of nitroglycerine. Its detonation rang through the room and left them all silent, as though their ears were stunned and their tongues paralyzed. Alec was the first to see that some event far out of the common had reduced his cousin, Count Julius Marulitch, almost to a state ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... one torpedo was fired at the Lusitania, which hit her starboard side below the captain's bridge. The detonation of the torpedo was followed immediately by a further explosion of extremely strong effect. The ship quickly listed to starboard and began ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... steel-bound door for the coming detonation. The sound of it smote him like a blow on the chest, followed by a rush of air and a ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... explosion is about 25 yds., but the local effect is intense, and hence on light structures in a confined space the destruction is complete. The shell is only of use against thin plates; against modern armour it is ineffective. When detonation has not been complete, as sometimes happens with small shells, the smoke is yellowish and the pieces of the exploded shell are as large as when a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... once more attempted to land. But two natives whom they had previously endeavoured to propitiate by throwing them nails, glassware, and other trifles, made such menacing demonstrations, that they were obliged to fire over their heads. At first they seemed stunned by the detonation, but as they found that they were not wounded, they commenced hostilities by throwing stones and javelins. A volley of bullets struck the oldest in his legs. The unfortunate native rushed at once to one of the cabins, but returned with a shield ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... not disputed their passage; it maintained the silence and the immobility of marble; nothing but the snarl of the surging flood re-echoed from its face. But with the suddenness of a rifle-shot there came a detonation, louder, sharper than any blast of powder. The Norwegian cursed; the helmsman dropped his eyes to the white face ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... bespatter our tents and dugouts with lumps of earth. One of the men of the 88th Field Ambulance, just in front of us, got wounded. They began again with heavier shells—Jack Johnsons—about 5 a.m. to-day, seven falling near us, and as we lay underground we could feel the earth shake with every detonation. Last night was the first time they ever gave us such a visit. They are chary of using their big guns after dark in case they ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... lay back and roared with laughter over his great triumph. C. and R! Poof! He would send Stolz' nephew to prison, and then roll a bomb along Wall Street whose detonation would startle the financial world clean out of its orbit! Stolz had failed to notice that Ames's schemes had so signally worked out that C. and R. was practically in his hands now! The defeated railroad magnate at length backed out of the Ames office purple ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... bullets hissed over his head. The battle had begun! Another hour and the Mormon kingdom would be at the mercy of the avenging host from the mainland—and Marion would be his own for ever! He heard again the deep rumble of a heavy gun and from its sullen detonation he knew that it was fired from a ship at sea. A nearer crash of returning fire turned him into a deserted street down which he ran wildly, on past the last houses of the town, until he came to the foot of a hill up which he climbed more slowly, ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... understand that he is expected now to do his duty.' In he went again, and planted another candle about a yard in front of the last one. Then he stopped and fired a shot from the revolver that we carried in turn for the otters, and the sound of the detonation seemed to echo in a muffled fashion from the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the strange craft quivered, tottered, and fell over on its side, and the next instant was enveloped in a blinding sheet of flame that brought with it a dull detonation and a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... therefore no man's property. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide for moccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. There was a deafening, clattering report, unlike the smart detonation of a rifle. The little red cow fell on her knees, with a cough and a wild clamour of the bell, then rolled over in the shallow, shimmering water. With a whoop of exultation, the Indian thrust ashore; and, as he did so, the black yearling, taught terror at last by the report and by the human ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and nitrate of soda with greater rapidity than before, by slightly elevating the spout, the effect was to blow up the pot on the top into the air to a height of upwards of seventy feet, accompanied by a loud detonation. With this the coroner and jury became convinced that whether or not the premises in Hillgate contained gunpowder, they contained elements as certainly explosive, and perhaps ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... was racing back again, running as madly as if a troop of demons was after him. A flash cleft the darkness; a deep detonation thundered and echoed against the hills; the building against which Hetty leaned shook as if an earthquake had seized it, and Thursday Smith was thrown flat on his face and rolled almost to the terrified girl's feet, where he lay motionless. Only the building saved her from ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... lioness, with a frightful howl of agony, rolled down the steps, overturning Joe in her fall. The poor fellow imagined that he could already feel the enormous paws of the savage beast in his flesh, when a second detonation resounded in the narrow passage, and Dr. Ferguson appeared at the opening above with his gun in hand, and still smoking ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... with the utmost coolness, a coolness which in the circumstances was nothing less than heroism, uncoupled his engine, and leaving the trucks to their fate, steamed back to the town. Before he could reach his destination, however, the shock of an awful detonation greeted his ears. The Boers had again fired on the trucks, believing them to be full of passengers, and, as a natural ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... ye have th' belly-ache!" cried this tall man, and, without more warning, there was a tremendous flash and detonation, a mighty flying of the clear waters just under the bows of the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... impossible, I tell you! What you are inventing now is impossible!... You forget that a shot from a gun, a shot from so powerful a weapon, makes a noise. Why, deuce take it, the detonation must be heard!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... detonation was merging into the uproar. It came from the ships, Thurston knew, where anti-aircraft guns poured a rain of shells into the sky. About the invaders they bloomed into clusters of smoke balls. The globes shot a thousand feet into the air. Again the shells found ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... screaming towards us. It hurtled overhead and fell behind us with muffled detonation in Sailly-au-Bois. Several more screamed over us as we went along, and it was peculiar to hear the shells of both sides echoing backwards and forwards in the sky at ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... bulkheads. At the same instant arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, that of Sir John Malyoe, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "You villains! You damned villains!" and with that the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the close space of the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... accompanied the descent of the Rowton siderite, and it is on record that a loud explosion took place when the meteorite fell at Ensisheim. In this we have a characteristic feature of the phenomenon. Nearly all the descents of meteorites that have been observed seem to have been ushered in by a detonation. We do not, however, assert that this is quite an invariable feature; and it is also the case that meteors often detonate without throwing down any solid fragments that have been collected. The violence associated with the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... The detonation dazed her; then, as he flung the rifle into the water, she caught him by neck and belt and flung ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... aide-de-camp's horse outside the cottage could be heard. Then, like the grating of a coffee mill in a distant kitchen when one is just waking out of a sound sleep, they heard the faint, smothered whir of machinery, a sharper metallic ring of steel against steel followed by a gigantic detonation which shook the ground upon which the cottage stood and overthrew every glass upon the table. With a roar like the fall of a skyscraper the first shell hurled itself into the night. Half terrified the officers gripped their ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... forward to take the glass which was all but slipping from his hand, when Lakalatcha flamed with redoubled fury. It was as if the mountain had suddenly bared its fiery heart to the heavens, and a muffled detonation ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... sky is alive with thunderclaps. Each detonation reveals together a shaft of red falling fire in what is left of the night, and a column of smoke in what has dawned of the day. Up there—so high and so far that they are heard unseen—a flight of dreadful birds goes circling up with strong and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... dependent on the direction of the wind. In gas projectiles such as shells, hand grenades, and trench mortar bombs, a part or the whole of the explosive charge is replaced by a liquid which is converted into gas by the explosion. The explosive force and noise of detonation of these projectiles is less than that of the ordinary kind, and a large number of them are usually discharged into a comparatively small space. After the explosion, the irritant chemicals form a small gas cloud, though some may sink to the ground and remain active ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... and distorted whirl burst upward in a huge geyser of annihilation, came a detonation that ripped, stunned, shattered; that sent both the defenders staggering backward ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... about the third week in February that a Conference war was declared in Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Baltimore. In the ears of Mr. Gunterson the triple detonation rang terribly, like the very voice of doom, and it was with the desperation of hopelessness that he addressed himself to the solution of this ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space, Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds, Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force Of sudden from the cloud;—and these do make The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth The detonation which attacks our ears More tardily than aught which comes along Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place— As know thou mayst—at times when clouds are dense And one upon the other piled aloft With wonderful ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... copper cap upon a strip of fuse, and, lighting the latter, retired expeditiously towards the river. Standing behind a big cedar, he watched the train of blue vapour and thin red sparks creep on through the dusk until a blaze of yellow flame leapt up, and a stunning detonation rolled across the woods. The hillsides took up the sound, and flung it from one to another in great reverberations, while the pines, quivering in all their sprays, shook drops of water down. Alton stood still and listened, silent and intent, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... with Planchet into the boat, and five minutes after they were on board. It was time; for they had scarcely sailed half a league, when d'Artagnan saw a flash and heard a detonation. It was the cannon which announced the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a fresh detonation, "You dare—and you think I'm going to ask you whom I shall fall in love with? Fish? What do you call those other shrimps who don't think of anything but drinking and sport, whether they attend to business or not?—their fathers make them, anyhow. And you ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... cannon were thundering—so close that it seemed each hilltop would bring them into view, and as the detonation puffed across the landscape, one even fancied one could feel the concussion in one's ear. Up from a field ahead of us an aeroplane rose and, in a wide spiral, went climbing up the sky, now almost cleared, and presently disappeared in the north. Then, after satisfying a sentry that our papers ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... to you he does occasionally, he errs through perverseness, not through unwariness. His language often settles into clear and most beautiful prose, often takes an imperfect and incoherent shape of poetry, and often, cloud against cloud, bursts with a vehement detonation in the air. Diogenes was hated both by the vulgar and the philosophers. By the philosophers, because he exposed their ignorance, ridiculed their jealousies, and rebuked their pride: by the vulgar, because they never can endure a man apparently of their own class who avoids ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... all the great double petards of the Saint-Jean, the discharge of twenty arquebuses on supports, the detonation of that famous serpentine of the Tower of Billy, which, during the siege of Paris, on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of September, 1465, killed seven Burgundians at one blow, the explosion of all the powder stored at the gate of the Temple, would have rent his ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... that of having toys—such as imitation musical instruments, crackers which make an unpleasant detonation, imitations of negro minstrels, balloons, flags, and pasteboard lobsters, toads, and insects—presented to each lady. These articles are neither tasteful nor amusing, and have "no excuse for being" except that they afford an opportunity for ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... to a stop. The building in which the show was being held shook as though a violent thunderclap had rocked the earth. This loud detonation that broke upon their hearing, however, was only too familiar to all those army aviators. They understood ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature's mighty artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and were seeking to destroy man and ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... past that door? Really, the deathlike stillness on the other side was more mysterious than would have been the detonation of some ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... lightly played with by babes and sucklings. The sand-box tree of the West Indies has large round fruits, containing seeds about as big as an English horsebean; and the capsule explodes, when ripe, with a detonation like a pistol, scattering its contents with as much violence as a shot from an air-gun. It is dangerous to go too near these natural batteries during the shooting season. A blow in the eye from one would blind a man instantly. I well remember the very first night I spent in ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... permit himself also to be examined, when there was heard from below the detonation of one of the Kaiser's big mortars; and pulling away from the Doctor, he called an excited ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... beginning to break when a terrible detonation shook all Dorfield. Houses rocked, windows rattled, a sudden wind swept over the town and then a glare that was not a presage of the coming sun lit ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... fire. The fatal touch is given. The detonation of the blast goes shrieking up to heaven. The mansions of bonanza kings are tottering to their doom; That swirling tide of fiery fate halts at the gaping tomb. Beyond the cataclysm's brink, the multitude, too dazed to think, Behold ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... appeared from somewhere inland, followed at a few seconds' interval by a heavy detonation, exactly like the ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... all danger: they should continue to be the property of the parents, and should be produced only when they are wanted. No great apparatus is necessary for showing children the first simple operations in chemistry: such as evaporation, crystalization, calcination, detonation, effervescence, and saturation. Water and fire, salt and sugar, lime and vinegar, are not very difficult to be procured; and a wine-glass is to be found in every house. The difference between an acid and alkali should be early ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... destruction so thickly and starkly outlined, under perfect control; unaffected by the hideous distortion of all ether-borne signals. Through a pirate screen it went, and under the terrific blast of its detonation one entire panel of the stricken battleship vanished, crumpled and broken. It should have been out, cold—but, to the amazement of the observers, it kept on fighting with scarcely lessened power! Three more of the frightful space-bombs had to be exploded ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... works differently from any other," he explained. "When the charge is fired there is not instantly a detonation and a bursting. The powder burns slowly and generates an immense amount of gas. It is this gas, accumulating in the cracks and crevices of the rock, that I hope will burst and disintegrate it. Of course, an explosion eventually follows, as you ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... apartigi. Detachment (milit.) tacxmento. Detail detalo. Details (minutes) detaleto. Detain malhelpi, deteni. Detect eltrovi. Deter malhelpi. Deteriorate difekti. Determine decidi. Determination decideco. Determined decida. Detest malami. Dethrone detroni. Detonation eksplodbruo. Detract kalumnii. Detriment malprofito, perdo. Detrimental malhelpa. Devastate dezertigi, ruinigi. Develope vastigi. Development vastigo. Deviate malrektigxi. Deviation malrektigxo. Device devizo. Devil ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the infernal machine sped. A sickening pause—then a deafening detonation, followed by another and another, cut the stillness, and the earth beneath was aflame with light as the high explosives and shells stored in the concealed ammunition depot were set off. Nothing escaped destruction; flesh and blood, mortar and brick went skyward ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... slowing down under ordinary air, when all at once there was a dull deafening roar, and then for me—oblivion. I was only stunned and when I regained consciousness looked around and saw the men slowly regaining their feet. Redway was not killed, but the shock and concussion of the detonation of the dynamite made him lose his speech and he was bleeding profusely at the nose and ears. The cowcatcher, headlight and forward trucks of the engine were blown to smithereens, but fortunately the boiler ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the side of the hearth where a few pieces of green wood smoked without burning, they started at each of the distant reports of the cannon. At each detonation that shook the window-panes, Mme. Favoral thought that it was, perhaps, the one that had ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... with a bang. A fainter detonation announced the whirlwind passage through the outer office. Footsteps ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... February 22, 1831, a violent detonation was suddenly heard in the coal mine of Bois-Monzil, belonging to M. Robinot. The waters from the old works rushed impetuously along the new galleries. "The waters, the waters!" such was the cry that resounded ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation from within. This was followed by a monstrous hissing and simmering as from a kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the same time from every chink of door and window spirted an ill- smelling vapour. The cat disappeared with a cry. Within the lodging-house feet pounded on the stairs; the door ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... from the enemy support line, as observers state that they saw a sheet of flame run along this line, followed by a loud explosion. The bombs, which emitted a trail of sparks, were seen in the air in large numbers and made a loud whirring noise. They burst with a large detonation, producing a thick, white cloud. The discharge was followed immediately by a bombardment with H.E. shrapnel and gas shell, and a raid was attempted south of Givenchy. We learn that so strong was the gas discipline ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... scaling ladders, got down to the ledge; and from this point they and Oldham slung themselves down to the bed of the stream, by the same means. A few sappers had followed, when a box of dynamite exploded with a violent detonation, and the rest of the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... in the buildings. Turpentine vapor united with chlorine gas may not produce explosion, but by spreading flames almost instantly throughout the burning buildings, such burnings have practically equaled, if not excelled, explosions, which may sometimes be fire-extinguishers. In such cases detonation may be prevented by there being ample space to receive the suddenly ignited vapor, lessening the tension of it, but carrying the flames much more rapidly than otherwise to inflammable materials at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the War Office and to find their way to my department. For some reason or other they always presented themselves after dinner—like the coffee. The first arrival was a young cavalry officer, knocked off his horse in the preliminary encounters by what had evidently been the detonation of a well-pitched-up high-explosive, and who was still suffering from a touch of what we now know as shell-shock. He proved to be the very embodiment of effective military training, because, although ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... struggling as of men's bodies being tossed about, striking violently against the partitions and bulkheads. At the same instant arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, and that Sir John Malyoe's, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "You villains! You damned villains!" and with the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the close space ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... and it outlined it as clearly as a figure on the moving picture screen. Then suddenly there came a flash, followed by a dull detonation, and a black cloud appeared, spreading into a flower of death near the cigar, and at the edge of the black beam. The cheers grew frantic. The anti-aircraft battery in the White House grounds had grasped the situation, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... plunging he had reached the river bank. The tranquil silver surface quivered and glittered before him. He saw what he knew he would see, the black target of a man's head above it, making for the Bar. He took deliberate aim and fired. There was no echo to that sharp detonation; a distant dog barked, there was a slight whisper in the trees beside him, that was all! But the head of the man was no longer visible, and the liquid silver filmed over again, without ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
