"Harmlessly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rage, Sibley drew a pistol; but before he could aim correctly one of his companions struck up his hand and the bullet whizzed harmlessly over ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... force of the gases released from the powder and when it reaches its destination it is blown to pieces by the same force. This is the end of it if it is a shell of the old-fashioned sort, for the gases of combustion mingle harmlessly with the air of which they are normal constituents. But if it is a poison gas shell each molecule as it is released goes off straight into the air with a speed twice that of the cannon ball and carries death with it. A man may be ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... were prevailed upon to descend from the ramparts, and all awaited the arrival of the enemy. They came slowly, doing plenty of yelling, and firing their fusees at random. The bullets either buried themselves in the earth-works, or whistled harmlessly through the air. Not one ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... path in time to escape; but, as if fate had determined to interfere, the pointed flint impinged against a tiny branch protruding from the tree nearest the Pawnee, clipping off enough of the tender bark to leave a gleaming white spot, and glanced harmlessly beyond. ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... friends see their shot falling short of us, the firing ceases, and thus harmlessly ends the action which for a few moments threatened so much, teaching us the folly of too near approaches to land, or attempts to batter down, to which we have often been tempted, the earthworks daily erecting. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... difficulty I was turned round, to look for the outlet of the bullet; but it was still in my body, near the spine. At last it was cut out. They were going away—'The wound in the arm, doctor.' This, fortunately, was looked for in vain; the ball had merely caused a blue spot and had sunk harmlessly into the ground. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... area, and climbed on up the hill. Though evidently here the ferocity of the conflagration had passed, it had left its rear guard behind. Fallen trees still blazed; standing trees flamed like torches—but all harmlessly within the magic circle drawn by the desperate quick work of the rangers. They threaded their way cautiously among these isolated fires, watching lest some dead giant should fall across their path. The ground smoked under ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... suddenly appeared seemed to materialize from right out of the excavations. As they yelled they raised their weapons. The air was filled, for an instant, with what looked like long arrows. Most of them whistled harmlessly past the two scientists, but one hit the side of the station wagon, making a resounding thump and leaving a deep dent, while two buried themselves in the wood of the U-Haul-It and remained ...
— The Hohokam Dig • Theodore Pratt
... one man hung head downwards, and caught by the hands another who came flying through the air as if he belonged there. Once he missed the outstretched hands, and Norah gasped expecting to see him terribly hurt—instead of which he fell harmlessly into a big net thoughtfully spread for his reception, and rebounded like a tennis ball, kissing his hand gracefully to the audience, after which he again whirled through the air, and this time landed safely in the hands of the hanging man, who had all this while ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... which they frequent, they are not of a quarrelsome disposition, as the submarine meadows in which they pasture, yield plenty for them all. Like other species of amphibia, too, they have the power of living many months without food; so that they live harmlessly and peaceably together, notwithstanding that they seem to have no common bond of association, but merely assemble in the same places as if entirely by accident. England is mostly supplied with them from the West Indies, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... while. Her eyes were fixed as often on his face as on the breakers which threatened her life. The few words that she spoke were more likely to be confessions of love than of terror. Now and then, when a billow of unusual size had slipped harmlessly by, he gratefully and almost joyously drew her close to him, uttering a few syllables of cheer. She thanked him by sending all her affectionate heart through ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... instinctive. According to his own words she had even more to fear from Marteau than from this ruffian. The young officer instantly dropped to his knees and as he did so presented his pistol and fired. The knife whistled harmlessly over his head and buried itself in the wood paneling of the door. The bullet sped straight to its mark. The unfortunate blackguard collapsed on the floor at the feet of the girl, who ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... correctly judge the speed of the vessel he is about to attack before discharging a torpedo at her. If the estimated speed is too high the torpedo will, in all probability, pass ahead of the moving target, and if it is too low it will run harmlessly astern. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... sat in the verandah looking still over the blackened unlovely prospect, but now cheerfully and with hope; for the eastern sky was piled up range beyond range with the scarlet and purple splendour of cloud-land, and, as darkness gathered, we saw the lightning, not twinkling and glimmering harmlessly about the horizon, as it had been all the summer, but falling sheer in violet-coloured rivers behind the dark curtain of rain that hung from the black ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... should have dropped a charging gorilla. But for all the effect Gordon's shots had upon the Xoranian, his ammunition might as well have been pellets of paper. Arlok's glossy hide merely, glowed momentarily in tiny patches as the bullets struck and flattened harmlessly—and that was all. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... in another effort to beat him down before he could draw that weapon, but his metal club glanced harmlessly off the tentacles Zehru raised to shield his head. Then beyond Zehru Blake saw something that made him stop ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... No one dared to cut that timber. A story is told of a party from Upolu who once attempted it, and the consequence was that blood flowed from the tree and that the sacrilegious strangers all took ill and died. In later times the trees fell harmlessly under the axes of the villagers, and were very useful in building a house ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... were so harmlessly and pleasantly occupied, a great whacking of whips, blowing of horns, and whirring of wheels was heard in the street without. The wheels stopped at their hotel gate; Lady Walham started up; ran through the garden door, closing it behind ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this time at the man in the cave entrance. He jumped back, dropping his gun which exploded harmlessly. His hand was wounded. Quickly he drew back ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the clouds still hovered below them. They descended about noon, passing harmlessly through the vapor which had so long hidden the earth from them, and so came to within a thousand feet of the ground, where they swung along at fair ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... but they were too engrossed in their own trouble to be greatly impressed. One wing had barely escaped damage with the tilting of the machine, and the near-catastrophe chilled them both with the memory of a certain other forced landing which had not ended so harmlessly. They climbed down soberly and ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... instant too late, for even as his fingers tightened on the trigger the steel heel-plate descended in the center of his face, and I felt something crunch in under it. He staggered sideways, there was a crash as the rifle exploded harmlessly, and before he could recover I had him by the neck and hurled him half-choked through the door. I had the sense to slam it and slip the bolt home; then, while I stood panting, the Colonel prepared ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... 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 harmlessly to us. ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... him that he must bid adieu to hope. The palace was completely surrounded by the insurgents, who set up a fierce shout on observing him, and fired a volley of balls from many directions, all of which, however, passed harmlessly over his head. ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... looked harassed. A little later he joined the throng in the main hall, and watched the showers of rice fall harmlessly from the polished sides of Barbara's limousine as the bride and groom were whirled away from the brilliant entrance of ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... shot. The boat came alongside, and a bowman fastened his boathook at the side of the ship, and held it in place. At the same moment Boxie let drive his sixty-pound shot; but he ought to have waited an instant longer, for the missile dropped harmlessly into ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... he answered, with a composure that would not have served him for another sentence. He was more excited than I, for the "Gavin" fell harmlessly on him, while I had no sooner uttered it than there rushed through me the shame of being false to Margaret. It was the only time in my life that I for-got her in him, though he has ever stood next to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... men in many respects, but we think in none more than a heroic probity towards their principles, which were, after all, of no extravagant character, as was testified by their being permitted to triumph harmlessly in 1831-2. These men anticipated by forty years changes which were ultimately patronised by the great majority of the nation. They all throve professionally, but purely by the force of their talents ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... her involuntary participation in the affair of the letters with Madame de Montbazon. She could scarcely fail to be touched by the devotion of Coligny, who had shed his blood to avenge her of the outrage of that vindictive woman. For a moment, it is true, she had listened carelessly and harmlessly to the attention of the brave and intellectual Miossens. Still later she compromised herself somewhat with the Duke de Nemours; but the only man she truly loved with heart and soul was La Rochefoucauld. To him she devoted ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... that she saw clearly. In the pride of her mysticism, she had fancied herself above so commonplace a passion as love. It was a curious feature of lower humanity, which she might investigate and analyse harmlessly as a cold scientific spectator; and, in her mingled pride and purity, she used to indulge Lancelot in metaphysical disquisitions about love and beauty, like that first one in their walk home from Minchampstead, from which a less celestially ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... bank a very picture of distress. Of what use the rifle held half-raised in his hands? Its bullet, not bigger than a pea, would strike upon the skull of such a huge creature harmlessly, as a drop of hail or rain. Even could he strike it in the eye—surging through the water as it was, a thing so uncertain—that would not hinder it from the intent so near to accomplishment. The Irishman, with only fish-hooks ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... respective seas. Accompanied by maenadic bands of stenographers, and a music of typewriters deliriously clicking, they go about the world, catching all the butterflies, rubbing the bloom off all the plums, tunneling mountains, bridging seas, smoothing the facets off ideas so that they may be swallowed harmlessly like pills. With true Anglo-Saxon conceit we had thought that our own Mr. Wells was the most universal of these universal geniuses. He has so diligently brought science, ethics, sex, marriage, sociology, ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... hundred socialists made their way into Belgium, and used every effort to induce the people to join them, but in vain,—a few only, who like themselves, held extreme and impracticable views of democracy, made any insurrectionary movement; and the affair exploded as harmlessly as Smith O'Brien's abortive attempt at revolution in Ireland. Had any success, short of a complete revolution, attended the efforts of the French "sympathisers," the armed intervention of England might have been necessitated, and another long war with France have spread its terrors, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a simple etui, or dodu, that can be carried at the wrist or tied to the ankle. The order duly given, our housekeeper gives his address for the delivery of the peas, and then, as quietly and harmlessly as possible, returns to his apartment. His next office, and a most important one it is, is now ready to be performed. This ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... at the instant of feinting with his right, and Zeigler again let fly with his left straight from the shoulder. It was a vicious blow, and, had it landed, would have done damage; but a flirt of the head allowed it to glide harmlessly over the shoulder. At the instant of doing so, Tom cross-countered with a quickness and force that could not have been excelled. That is to say, as Zeigler's left glove was darting past Tom's left ear, and the momentum of the young man's body was ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... revolver was discharged as he toppled over backward, but the bullet sped harmlessly off into ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... live harmlessly, and near the brink Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place: Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink With eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace; And on the world and my Creator think: Whilst some men strive ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... they closed. Evading the strokes of his more bulky antagonist, the younger man's sword repeatedly sought the vulnerable part of the other's armor. The free baron's strength became exhausted; his blows rang harmlessly, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Sword-swallowing may be harmlessly imitated by the use of a fake sword with a telescopic blade, which slides into the handle. Vosin, the Paris manufacturer of magical apparatus, made swords of this type, but they were generally used in theatrical ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... would certainly have killed him if it had reached him, but at that instant a raven perched upon the giant's head, and, pecking with its strong beak and beating with its great wings so confused and blinded him that all his blows fell harmlessly upon the air, and Charming, rushing in, gave him several strokes with his sharp sword so that he fell to the ground. Whereupon Charming cut off his head before he knew anything about it, and the raven from a ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... catch the bullets that were coming through the roof? The balls had nearly spent their force when they came through, and they hung up a blanket, with thick folds, which stopped them entirely; and the girl, gathering them as they fell harmlessly upon the floor, put them into a ladle, melted them, and ran new bullets, which soon were whizzing through the air, and doing damage ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... years and more. A politician of secondary rank had been accused of bribery at Derby, and a band of tory friends thought the moment opportune to give him a banquet at the Carlton. Mr. Gladstone in another room was harmlessly reading the paper. Presently in came the revellers, began to use insulting language, and finally vowed that he ought to be pitched headlong out of the window into the Reform. Mr. Gladstone made some courteous reply, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... resistance to pressure from her on two or three occasions, she chose to nurse and be governed by the maxim for herself: Never propose a plan to him, if you want it adopted. That was her way of harmlessly solacing love's vindictiveness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... moment. He seemed to take hours placing the ball correctly. There was an absolute hush as he ran up; then a great sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment, burst from the touch-line. The ball rose hardly six feet from the ground, and sailed harmlessly towards the School House line. And then Turner made a mistake that he cursed himself for ever afterwards. All that was necessary to do was to let the ball bounce, and then touch down. But as the ball ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... of a rifle clicked clearly and the owner of the voice fired. The flash was clear against the night. From the right and left of the flash, and close to it, came other flashes. The bullets whined harmlessly above us. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... challenge of a huge stag and the warning crack of twigs and the thunder of hoofs as the brute charged. Still the wolf trotted quietly along, watching from the corners of his eyes till the stag was upon him, when he sprang lightly aside and let the rush go harmlessly by. Sitting on his tail he would watch the caribou closely—and who could tell what was passing behind those cunning eyes that glowed steadily like coals, unruffled as yet by the passing winds, but ready at a rough breath to break out in flames of fire? Again and again the stag would charge, ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... undisturbed composure of mere triflers, it is less wonderful that the votaries of learning and of taste, when absorbed in their several pursuits, should be able to check still more easily any growing apprehension, silencing it by the suggestion, that they are more than harmlessly, that they are meritoriously employed. "Surely the thanks of mankind are justly paid to those more refined spirits who, superior alike to the seductions of ease, and the temptations of avarice, devote their time and talents to the less gainful ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... be readily impressed. If his father had received his uncertainty with kindliness and had answered his hunger's demand for enlightenment with arguments and reasoning, the crisis probably would have passed harmlessly. His father had seen fit not to use diplomacy, but to assert autocratically the power of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Bonbright's individuality had thought to lift its head; it had been stamped back into its ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... on him, throwing his arms round his body, and striving to hurl him from the saddle; but Edward sat firm as a rock, and, touching his horse with his spur, caused it to bound forward, dragging the Count to the ground, where he lay, encumbered with his heavy armor; and Edward, after harmlessly ringing on the steel with his sword, forced him to surrender to an archer, as one unworthy to be reckoned a knight. A fight had, in the meantime, taken place between the attendants on either side, and so many of ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... fire continued until he had regained the clouds, and even then two or three more shells burst harmlessly somewhere ahead in the grey mist wall. He changed his direction sharply and roared along on a ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... too alert to be caught in that fashion. The moment he observed the action of the red men, he dropped his head behind the swell of earth, and the bullets clipped the grass and scattered the dirt harmlessly within a few inches of ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... care he surveyed the drawing-room; it appeared deserted but as he watched his tense nerves could see the shadows forming, taking furtive, crouching shape—and then dissolving harmlessly into a rug, a chair, or a stirring drapery. His eyes grown used to the dimness he identified the mantle upon the floor in which he had come and which he had extended to Aimee in that brief moment of fatuous triumph, and beyond it, across ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... himself, on their meeting, quite yearningly reach out to her—so decidedly, by the morning's end, and that of his scattered sombre stations, had he been sated with meaningless contacts, with the sense of people all about him intensely, though harmlessly, animated, yet at the same time raspingly indifferent. They would have, he and she at least, their common pang—through which fact, somehow, he should feel less stranded. It wasn't that he wanted to be pitied—he fairly didn't pity himself; he winced, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... known that she had always viewed her good-natured husband as the most willing and most natural butt for her caustic wit; she still was fond of aiming a shaft or two at him, and he was still equally ready to let the shaft glance harmlessly against the flawless shield of his own imperturbable good humour, but now, contrary to all precedent, to all usages and customs of London society, Marguerite seldom was seen at routs or at the opera without her husband; she accompanied him to ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... treacherous attack. Then he proceeded on his way, with swinging strides, without once turning his head. The Brother silently crept to the heap of stones, and waited till the old man was some distance off. Then, with both hands, and with mad violence, he again began flinging stones, but they fell harmlessly upon the dusty road. Jeanbernat did not condescend to notice them, but went his way, upright like a tree, through ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... that thou desertest me for strangers, who may destroy thee? Name of a name, hast thou no heart? They would steal thee from me—and above all, now! Well then, no! One shall see if such things are permitted! Vagabond!" And with this parting shot, which passed harmlessly over the head of the offender, and launched itself full at Madame Sergeot, the outraged epiciere flounced back into her own domain, where, turning, she threatened the empty air with ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... Hilary, "none of us is quite that. But did you ever really study—boxing?" At the last word Gibbs reeled under a blow in the face; his revolver, going off harmlessly, was snatched from him, Maxime's derringer missed also, and Gibbs swayed, bleeding and sightless, from Hilary's blows with the butt of the revolver. Presently down he lurched insensible, Hilary going half-way with him but recovering and turning to the aid of his friend. Maxime tore loose from his ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... crocodile of the Nile was ever greeted with greater enthusiasm; yet our sportsmen had very little respect for him, and his sleep was disturbed by a shower of bullets that spattered upon his hoary scales as harmlessly as rain. ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... inspection, the watchers saw what seemed to be a swarm of tiny gnats flying about the mighty plane. They appeared to be attacking the giant as vainly as gnats might attack an eagle, for they could not damage the giant machine. The flashing bombs burst in blasts of yellow flame as harmlessly as ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... and winced visibly, as if the blow she had aimed at him had, after glancing off harmlessly, returned to crush her. She touched Dorothy's proffered hand, murmured a few stammering phrases of vague compliment, rejoined her friends. Said Dorothy, when she and Norman were ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... sorry I was silly!" she exclaimed contritely, as the big wave passed harmlessly under the sailboat. Then the craft swung behind a projecting point of land and they were in calmer waters. Allen had let the sail come down on the run, and all danger of capsizing was over. The wind still blew in fitful gusts, however, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... or angry. At last the situation became unbearable and come what might he raised his eyes. To his amazement his father was sitting there quite serenely and so was everybody else, and the pause that seemed to him to stretch into hours had glided off as harmlessly and as naturally as other pauses. Apparently nobody was thinking about him, at least nobody but Bud. With a sigh of relief his tense muscles relaxed. He could trust Bud not to betray him. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the imagination of man—infinitely beyond it! But it is limited to his own august order. If it fell upon one of your race for only an instant, it would consume its object to ashes. No, we cannot love men, but we can be harmlessly indifferent to them; we can also like them, sometimes. I like you and the boys, I like Father Peter, and for your sakes I am doing all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and I saw a shudder of terror run over Desiree's face as she, too, recognized the black form below. At the same instant the spear darted forward from the hand of the Child of the Sun, but it landed harmlessly against the ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... rage waxed furious, despite his wetting, and he took his bow and his arrows and let fly one shaft after another at the worthy friar. But they rattled harmlessly off his steel buckler, while he laughed and minded them no more than if ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... irresponsible audacity—the irresponsibility of the vivacious young animal. It could not be possible that he was really touched with the placid frigidities of Miss Mannersley. I remembered his equally elastic gallantries with Miss Pinkey Smith, a blonde Western belle, from which both had harmlessly rebounded. As we walked on slowly I continued more persuasively: "Of course this is only your nonsense; but don't you see, Miss Mannersley thinks it all in earnest and really your nature?" I hesitated, for it suddenly struck ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... command to love go forth to those who had never seen a human being they could revere? Could his followers turn upon him and say, How can we love a creature so degraded, full of vile wants and contemptible passions, whose little life is most harmlessly spent when it is an empty round of eating and sleeping; a creature destined for the grave and for oblivion when his allotted term of fretfulness and folly has expired? Of this race Christ himself was a member, and to this day is it not the best answer to all blasphemers ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... I want to get this powder in a safe place. I'm a little nervous about it after that fire. You see if it had caught, when tightly packed in the boxes, there would have been a terrific explosion, though it does burn so harmlessly in the open air. Now let ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... thing, deep down in his heart was a terrible, a perfectly maddening uncertainty. He tried to crush it, and would not listen, for his intelligence told him clearly it was absurd; but it was stronger than intelligence, an incorporeal shape through which passed harmlessly the sword-cuts of his reason. It was a little devil curled up in his heart, muttering to all ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... rage at the taunts which the bushrangers hurled at him, raised his carbine, and if Fred had not struck up the barrel just as he did, the sheriff of Melbourne would have been spared the necessity of finding hemp for one robber. As it was, the ball whistled harmlessly over his head. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... once more, blanket-packs upon their backs and snow-shoes on their feet. Big Louie had joined the other two from the direction of the stables. There were words between them, for Steve saw the huge man's arm lift to strike Shayne to the ground, and then drop harmlessly back to his side. And Steve knew what that bit of pantomime meant. Big Louie had been to bid his team good-bye. There was a smudge of brown sugar across his coat, though the watcher was too far away to see that. But he ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... gallant bevy: fifteen or sixteen well grown birds, crowding and jostling one against the other. Tom Draw's gun, as I well believe, was at his shoulder when they rose; at least his first shot was discharged before they had flown half a rood, and of course harmlessly: the charge must have been driven through them like a single ball; his second barrel instantly succeeded, and down came two birds, caught in the act of crossing. I am myself a quick shot, too quick if anything, yet my first barrel was exploded a moment after Tom Draw's second; the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... caught unawares; apparently he more than half suspected something of the kind, and was on the watch. For an instant he watched the bubbles which marked the course of the missile, and then shouted an order to our helmsman; the Matsuma Maru swerved from her course, and the torpedo sped harmlessly past us, a hundred yards to port. I, too, had quite expected that the fiery Russian would not allow us to go scot-free if he could help it, therefore the moment that the destroyer swerved away from us I sprang off the forecastle and ran aft to the other ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... said Tom, "I did not say the ball killed the macaw, I said the macaw was killed; but that was in consequence of a splinter from an epaulement of the south-east angle of the fort which the shot struck and glanced off harmlessly—except for ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her? Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy? ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... attached to Willis. He was egotistic—just a little—but harmlessly so, and his senses were sound and his will was good; I had, too, abundant evidence of his liking for me. He was a strapping fellow, more than six feet tall and as strong as a bullock. So, while I fully understood ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... was cut short by the sudden discharge of the pewter mug, which, however, fell harmlessly on the panel of the closing door as the impertinent Corrie sped forth to ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a thunderstorm. So wrapped in cotton wool is a now-a-days Commander-in-Chief that this was the first musketry fire I could claim to have come under since the beginning of the war. To sit in a trench and hear flights of bullets flop into the sandbag parapet, or pass harmlessly overhead, is hardly to be under fire. An irregular stream of Irishmen were walking up the path along with us; one of them was hit just ahead of me. He caught it in the thigh and stretcher men whipped him off in a jiffy. At last we got to a spot some 2-1/2 miles from Suvla and had not yet been ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... politely just before he fired. Some say there was a second explosion, and I heard it myself, but it may have been a Boer gun which threw one round of shrapnel high over the hill, the bullets pattering down harmlessly, and only making a blue bruise when they hit. As soon as the sappers and gunners had made sure the gun was destroyed, the order to retire was given, and the line began climbing down in the darkness. The half company in support was ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... Remembering the message of their friend, the grass, they did not fear to remain, and soon saw that the grass had been right. The hunters aimed their arrows at them and shot, but every arrow flew through the air and fell harmlessly at their feet. All day this strange thing happened, and at last the hunters, tired and discouraged, went back to their camp at ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... up a stone from the roadside and aimed it at the slimy little body, but his throw erred, and the missile fell harmlessly into the wheat field beyond, startling a blackbird with scarlet marks, which soared suddenly above the bearded grain and vanished, with a tremulous cry and a flame of outstretched ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... brusquely, because her purpose and her point were supposed to be absolutely hidden from his thick and credulous understanding. It had taken him some time to make this clear to himself; passing from suspicion, through chagrin and overwounded feeling, to dull certainty that she, too, was using him, harmlessly enough from her standpoint, but how bitterly from ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... a perfect fusilade of pistol-shots upon the boy, but they flew harmlessly by him, and a number mounted and gave pursuit in ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... bore down on the Parish Prison like an avalanche, but the avalanche split harmlessly on the blank walls of the jail, and Remy Klock sent out a brief message: "You can't have Pierce, and you can't get in." Up to that time the mob had had no opposition, but Klock's answer chilled them considerably. There was no deep-seated desperation in the crowd after all, only, that wild lawlessness ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... contemplative hours in the sun before his door. For tourists he would braid rawhide reins and quirts, or make buckskin. The jays and woodpeckers and Douglas squirrels would become fond of him. So he would be gathered to his fathers, a gentle old man whose life had been spent harmlessly in the open. He had had his ideal to which blindly he reached; he had in his indirect way contributed the fruits of his labor to mankind; his recompenses he had chosen according to his desires. When you consider these things, you perforce have ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... of the tamed snakes belonging to the serpent-charmers of India and Africa, but it is seldom that the harmless serpents of civilized countries have been domesticated. But the common snake, sometimes called the garter-snake, which harmlessly shows its dark green and yellow colors among the grass and bushes, has been tamed and has shown quite a fair amount of respect and affection for ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... mountains. Overhead a number of summer clouds were winging their way from the west, casting on the earth those huge irregular shadows which sweep across it so swiftly, yet with such dignity; so rushingly, and yet so harmlessly. "The hills are sunny and bright enough, and all at once one of the shadows crosses them, and it is dark. Then in another moment ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... careless of possible results, light the twisted paper end of a stick of dynamite and watch the dynamite burn like wax in your fingers; it MAY go off and set your friends to work retrieving portions of your body. More likely, it will do nothing but burn harmlessly. ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... buffoonery, does not supply the most natural way of reviving the memory of departed genius. At the same time, they have their use, where they do not create their ridicule. On the Continent, life is idle; and the idlers are more harmlessly employed going to those pageants, than in the gin-shop. The finery and the foolery together also attract strangers, the idlers of other towns; it makes money, it makes conversation, it makes amusement, and it kills ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... should not go out with the upsetting of the lamp:—such are the arguments, sometimes little better than verbal ones, which pass this way and that around the death-bed of Socrates, as they still occur to men's minds. For himself, whichever way they tend, they come and go harmlessly, about an immovable personal conviction, which, as he says, "came to me apart from demonstration, with a sort of natural likelihood and fitness": (Moi gegonen aneu apodeixeos, meta eikotos tinos, kai euprepeias). The formula of probability could not ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... open air with comfort at that time of the year, and at that hour of the night, illustrated the beautiful climate of that latitude if nothing more, and every one was harmlessly entertained, for good-humour characterised the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the obstruction having been blown off by the dynamite, the center portion was not buoyant enough to support the weight of the Southern Cross, and went scraping and bumping beneath her to bob up harmlessly to the surface ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... it gave us time to pull further beyond reach. So that when the next volley came, it pattered harmlessly ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... headed in the right direction. He gave chase joyfully; for every mile covered in that fleet fashion meant an added chance for Patsy's life. Even the mosquitoes found themselves hopelessly out of the race and beat up harmlessly in the rear. So he galloped steadily upon the homeward trail; and a new discomfort forced itself upon his consciousness—the discomfort of swift riding while a sharp-cornered medicine-case of generous proportions thumped regularly against his leg. At first he did not mind it so much, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... was thrust around the frame and Scotty squeezed off a quick shot. The hammer clicked harmlessly. He was out of ammunition! He threw the pistol ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Tragoedie) the Greeks recognized all natural impulses, even those that are seemingly unworthy, and safeguarded them from working mischief by providing channels into which, on special days and in special rites, the surplus of wild energy might harmlessly flow. Plutarch, the last and most influential of the Greek moralists, well says, when advocating festivals (in his essay "On the Training of Children"), that "even in bows and harps we loosen their ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... patter of bare feet and the excited orders of the German section commanders announced that the men were aware of the loss of the machine gun. Musketry fire was opened upon the retiring raiders, but in the darkness the shots whizzed harmlessly overhead. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... no harm had been done thereby. In 1659 Sam Clarke, for "Hankering about on men's gates on Sabbath evening to draw company out to him," was reproved and warned not to "harden his neck" and be "wholly destrojed." Poor stiff-necked, lonely, "hankering" Sam! to be so harshly reproved for his harmlessly sociable intents. Perhaps he "hankered" after the Puritan maids, and if so, deserved his reproof and the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... screams of mirth. Chicken Little had stood about all she could that afternoon. Her face flamed with wrath, and, gathering up the struggling pig in her arms, she hurled it at Katy, as the only missile within reach. Piggy just missed Katy's head, tumbling harmlessly into the ooze. Chicken Little was instantly remorseful, not on ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... fruit flies; these won't be nearly as objectionable if the box is below the house. Then too, a vermicomposter can only exist in a complex ecology of soil animals. A few of these may exit the box and be harmlessly found about the kitchen. Ultra-fastidious housekeepers may find this objectionable. Basements also tend to maintain a cooler temperature in summer. However, it is less convenient to take the compost bucket down to the basement every ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... consort's crown, New set in heaven, and Pentheus' hall With ruthless ruin thundering down, And proud Lycurgus' funeral. Thou turn'st the rivers, thou the sea; Thou, on far summits, moist with wine, Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly Dost knot with living serpent-twine. Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack, Were clambering up Jove's citadel, Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back, In tooth and claw a lion fell. Who knew thy feats in dance ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... hits, it fell quite harmlessly; it was doubtful if Lorraine even heard it, half hidden there in the ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Allies' shells were continually manifest in the columns of smoke and dust that were signs of the damage they had wrought, a great number of the enemy's shots fell in the sea hundreds of yards from the bombarding ships, sending torrents of water towering harmlessly into ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... lovers of the Old Masters, and for the moral well-being of society, forbids me to be particular about the nature of my labors, or to go into dangerous detail on the subject of my first failures and my subsequent success. I may, however, harmlessly admit that my Rembrandt was to be of the small or cabinet size, and that, as there was a run on Burgomasters just then, my subject was naturally to be of the Burgomaster sort. Three parts of my picture consisted ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... stillness of the three-room Ford apartment on the 76th floor of Building 257, the television set had been left on. Once more the air was filled with the cries and grunts and crashes of the fray, coming harmlessly now from ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... at the air lock, and strong hands were pulling him over its edge, and it swung to, glowed red as a bolt of raw energy spent itself harmlessly against it. ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... the most spirited manner that she loved death a thousand times better than him. At these words he could not contain his rage, and, drawing his dagger, thrust fiercely at her head. But the lady's guardian angel turned the stroke and the weapon struck harmlessly against the wall. She fled from the room, closing the door behind her as she went; whereupon the Clerk rushed downstairs to the nursery where her child was quietly sleeping in its cradle, and, seeing no one beside it, stabbed the slumbering infant ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... fire, As the pane rattles and the cricket sings, I with the gray-haired sire May talk of vanished summer-times and springs, And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile The long, long hours— The happier for the snows that drift ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... B.J. dropped face down on the ice, and the boat passed harmlessly over him, the runner ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... yells of his pursuers thrilled upon the ear. They had opened fire, and their wide-aimed bullets went whizzing harmlessly into space. His wary eye could see that the Indians on his right front were making a wide circle, so as to meet him when close to the goal, and he was burdened with that helpless child, and could not make fight even for his ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... its continued fealty. I dare not risk it. Then do not, dearest Claud, O do not come here, at least for the present. Perhaps my dark forebodings, that our connection is not to be blessed for our future happiness, may be groundless. Perhaps the storm that now so darkly hangs over us may pass harmlessly away. Perhaps this painful and perplexing misunderstanding—as I trust in Heaven's mercy it only is—may yet be placed in a light which will admit of a full reconciliation between our respective families. But, till then, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... friendship followed upon the antic notion. No; for once he could not go to Mrs. Bowen. He recollected now the many pleasant talks they had had together, confidential in virtue of their old acquaintance, and harmlessly intimate in many things. He recalled how, when he was feeling dull from the Florentine air, she had told him to take a little quinine, and he had found immediate advantage in it. These memories did strike him as grotesque or ludicrous; he only felt their pathos. He was ashamed even to seem ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... of the turtle, and penetrates deep enough to stick, and detach itself from the shaft. This mode of shooting is necessary, else the jurara could not be killed by an arrow, because it never shows more than the tip of its snout above water, and any arrow hitting it in a direct course would glance harmlessly from its shell. A good bowman among the Indians will rarely miss shooting in this way,—long practice and native skill enabling him to guess within an inch of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... harmless; but the one on shore had reached the ford, and picking up one of the muskets of his companions, without threat or warning, fired. It was lucky for Tom that he was not a Tennessee sharpshooter, nor a Texas ranger, for the shot passed harmlessly over him. The soldier dropped the gun, and picked up the other, which he instantly discharged, and with better aim than before, for the ball struck the bateau, though not within four ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... must infallibly be choked by the intrusion of the milk into the wind-pipe. But there IS a special provision. The larynx is so elongated that it rises up into the posterior end of the nasal passage, and is thus enabled to give free entrance to the air for the lungs, while the milk passes harmlessly on each side of this elongated larynx, and so safely attains the gullet behind it." Mr. Mivart then asks how did natural selection remove in the adult kangaroo (and in most other mammals, on the assumption that they are descended from a marsupial form), "this at least perfectly innocent and ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... for instance, cared more to talk to a woman whose looks pleased them. They liked pretty girls, and pretty women. Interesting men cared to talk to them: they told them things they would never tell a plain woman. Rodney did. He liked attractive women. Sometimes he made love to them, prettily and harmlessly. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... put in the person called Fred Hicks, "why, Bart and I will just fix you up perfectly harmlessly in the back seat there, where you can't do any damage"—and he put his hand in his pocket, and brought out the end of an ugly-looking rope—"and then we'll take charge of this expedition and go on our way. You can take it or leave it as you please. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... for half the family." Peter wished she would turn the lightning upon Denzil, a conductor down whom it would run innocuously. He stooped down and picked up the pieces as carefully as if they were cuttings from the Koh-i-noor. Thus the lightning passed harmlessly over his ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... Town. Cannon and mortars belched forth their missiles with the rapidity of musketry, making an uproar as of a great battle. The English gunners made poor practice, however, and the projectiles falling within the city did almost no damage. Twenty-six cannon-balls dropped harmlessly in the garden of the Ursuline convent, and furnished new ammunition for the garrison. On the other hand, the decks of the attacking vessels were swept by fire from the cliffs. One shot carried away the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... degree, hurt by the Norwegian bear. On the contrary, it is well known that these animals have met children in their track, and, though at the time much oppressed by thirst and famine, have passed them harmlessly by. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... and recognized as its benefactors. The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointed lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive element may be drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often that the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new version of the Old ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... from the fort glanced harmlessly from her armor, she paid no attention to that attack, but resumed her fire ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... wilderness that he was there and still alive. The vitality of the enemy, however, concerned us more. Operations were started early; three shells presumably intended for the Sanatorium landed in Beaconsfield. The first two fell harmlessly, and the charm associated with the third was no less disappointing—to an outsider. The charm surrounding the life of Mr. Rhodes was more tangible; it appeared to extend to the roof that covered him. The greater part of the day was peaceful; but the Military ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... take Janet by force: but the President interfered, and said authoritatively to Lady Carse that she had better go: her time was not yet come. She must wait; and his advice was to wait patiently and harmlessly. ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... of them, the art of varying their games to make them pleasanter, without the least bit of constraint to transform them into work; for what games do they play in which I cannot find material for instruction for them? And even if I could not do so, so long as they are amusing themselves harmlessly and passing the time pleasantly, their progress in learning is not yet of such great importance. But if one must be teaching them this or that at every opportunity, it cannot be done ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... was asking questions of a private secretary, or telling the news of the day to a senior clerk. As he was now between seventy and eighty, and had been at the work for at least twenty years, most of those concerned had allowed themselves to think that he would ride his hobby harmlessly to the day of his parliamentary death. But the drop from a house corner will hollow a stone by its constancy, and Major Magruder at last persuaded the House to grant him a Committee of Inquiry. Then there came to be serious faces at the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... right, and keep from him his due, when yet it is in the power of his hand to help him. O! but Christ is harmless, harmless as a dove, he thinks no ill, intends no ill, doth no ill; but graciously, innocently, harmlessly, makes intercession for thee; nor will he be prevailed with to prejudice thy person, or to forbear to take up thy name into his lips, be thy infirmities, and weaknesses, and provocations never so many, if thou indeed comest to God by him. He is holy, and harmless, and so the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were blown down by the hurricane as it passed, and the "Albatross" flew over unhurt. She swept through a hail of ejected material, which was fortunately kept at bay by the centrifugal action of the suspensory screws. And she harmlessly passed over the crater while it was ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... found its target-seeking microwaves reflected by the ionized metal steam. It plunged into collision with that glowing stuff. It exploded. Two or three more exploded, like the first. Others burned harmlessly. ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Arnold swept like a black cloud across the sky, broke, and left everything as before. That such a base peril should have existed was alarming and hateful. That it should have been exploded harmlessly made all men give a deep sigh of relief. But neither the treason nor its discovery altered the current of events one jot. The summer had come and gone. The French had arrived, and no blow had been struck. There was nothing to show for the campaign but inaction, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... as the blaster beams of the battleship went harmlessly into space, continuing to follow the probability course plotted from the cruiser's last visible position and course by the battleship's robot ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... see that the guns are very carefully pointed and properly aimed; that there is no firing until correct sight can be obtained, as random firing is not only a waste of ammunition, but it encourages an enemy, when he sees shot and shell falling harmlessly about and ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... a glass case full of swords, and dirks, and daggers, and all sorts of instruments to kill people; and you would have been as glad as I was, had you seen them hanging up there so harmlessly, instead of making widows and orphans, on ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... order not to make his manoeuvres too marked, he often rode ahead of the carriage, when, by turning in his saddle, he could look back and fling his ardent glances in our direction. They not only overshot me, but glanced as harmlessly off Mrs. Jimmie's arrow-proof armour of complete unconsciousness as if they had hurtled aimlessly over her ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... looked steadily into the priest's eyes. There was something lurking in his gaze which would have caused many a brave man to lower his eyes, But there was a vein of fine metal in this priest's composition; and the vicomte's glance broke harmlessly. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... himself in the midst of these dire forebodings to rise suddenly and cross to the ghastly looking frame with the cords, the hinges, and the great broadaxe that lay harmlessly in the grooves at the top. For many minutes he stood and gazed at the axe, his flesh as cold as ice. Then he tested the cords. The axe dropped heavily to the block below. He smiled with cunning triumph at ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... without. In a corner, against the salt-house, by the light of a fire, a group is gathered round a blanket spread on the ground, with little piles of silver before them, over the always-absorbing monte; and other groups are very harmlessly singing. By midnight the music dies away and the dancing ceases, but the sombreros bend over the monte blanket and the silver clinks ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... Marchand, going at full speed, delivered her blow also at right angles on the port side, abreast the after end of the armored superstructure. As they swung round, both United States vessels fired such guns as would bear, but the shot glanced harmlessly from the armor; nor did the blow of the ships themselves produce any serious injury upon the enemy, although their own stems were crushed in for several feet above and below the water line. Upon them followed the Hartford, approaching, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... that contended in it were volcanoes. During unnumbered ages those gladiators struggled to surpass one another in destruction by pouring forth great floods of molten lava. Even now the force which animated them still shows itself in other forms, but harmlessly, much as a captive serpent hisses though its fangs are drawn. But the volcanoes give no sign of life. They are dead actors in a fearful tragedy performed here countless centuries before the advent of mankind, with this ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... to throw wands and stones at him, but even the lifeless objects were softened by the music, and fell harmlessly to the ground. Then the women raised a wild shout and made such a clamor with trumpets and cymbals, that the soft tones of the harp were drowned by the noise. Now at last the shots took effect, and in their fury the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... arrest his progress by some chance word or two, and at last so far to interest him that he got down and walked along at my side. I shall not shock you by recalling the little tender "nothings" that passed between us, nor dwell on the small mockeries of sentiment which we exchanged—I hope very harmlessly—but proceed at once to what I felt my object. He was profuse of his gratitude for what I had done for him with Walpole, and firmly believed that my intercession alone had saved him; and so I went on to say that ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Confederates. Suddenly she heard the click of a musket lock just beneath her, and, looking down, saw Perkins levelling a piece at Scoville. Quick as light she drew off her slipper and dashed it into the man's face as he fired. By reason of his disconcerted aim the bullet flew harmlessly by the Union officer, who gave a quick, stern glance toward his assailant, recognized him, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... them—streaking fire and smoke. But they never came to the deadly level to which Slade sought to throw them; for Shorty's guns were crashing at Slade's first movement, and the bullets from the outlaw's weapons thudded into the board floor, harmlessly, and Slade lurched forward—almost to Shorty's side—his guns loosening in his hands and falling, one after the other, to the floor. He grinned, with hideous satire, into Shorty's face as he tried, ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Grace was crouching in a shower of broken glass, which fell harmlessly on her back and the top of her head. David knocked off the jagged pieces at the lower end, and Grace climbed nimbly over ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... he saw the trapper stretched at full length on the ground. For an instant his heart stood still; but it was only for an instant, for Dick was on his feet again immediately, and Archie drew a long breath of relief when he saw the lasso, which he feared had settled around his friend's neck, glide harmlessly over his shoulder. The trapper, from force of long habit, was always on the watch for danger, and when he heard that whistling sound in the air, he did not stop to look for his enemy, but dropped like a flash to avoid the lasso; and when he arose to his feet his long rifle was leveled at a thicket ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... Mahtoree, who preceded his party some distance, had brought himself nearly in a line with the bark and the bee-hunter, who stood perfectly ready to execute his hostile threat. Bending his body low, the rifle was discharged, and the swift lead whizzed harmlessly past him, on its more distant errand. But the eye of the Teton chief was not less quick and certain than that of his enemy. He threw himself from his horse the moment preceding the report, and sunk into the water. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sergeant was sitting in the doorway of his dug-out, frying a strip of bacon over one rim of the brazier and making tea over the other. The bacon sizzled with an appetizing aroma and a bullet sizzled harmlessly overhead. Behind that wall of sandbags all were perfectly safe, unless a shell came. But who worries about shells? It is like worrying about being struck by lightning when clouds gather in ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Indian had indeed whizzed harmlessly by the head of Tim O'Rooney and when he fell to the bottom of the canoe it was for the purpose of preventing any more of their missiles passing ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... we cannot refrain from special praise of the book before us. Turning over its leaves is like a spring or summer ramble in the country. All creeping and flying things seem harmlessly swarming in vivid beauty of color over its pages. Such gorgeous moths we never saw before out of the flower-beds, and there are some butterflies and caterpillars reposing here and there between the leaves that must have slipped in and gone to sleep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... which looked forlorn, as the month was January. His face, despite its angularity of outline and its wanness, had that expression of complacency which often relieves from pathos the countenances of harmlessly demented people. His hair was gray, but his somewhat formidable looking moustache was still dark. He carried an unadorned walking-stick and under his left arm was what a journalistic eye immediately recognized as manuscript. From the man's aspect of extreme poverty, I deduced that ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... surprise. Mrs. Chinchilla looked on lazily and gravely. It had been a good while since she had had time or had felt young and gay enough to chase her tail, but she was very glad to see the kittens enjoy themselves harmlessly. ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... suited her, because it suggested bodily activity. She wore a plain, tight-fitting grey gown, a small straw hat of the brimless kind, and a white linen collar about her neck. Totty was nineteen; no girl in Lambeth relished life with so much determination, yet to all appearance so harmlessly. Her independence was complete; for five years she had been ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... them, and with clouds of horsemen hovering on the wings, The Romans had not yet learnt the best mode of fighting with elephants, namely, to leave lanes in their columns where these huge beasts might advance harmlessly; instead of which, the ranks were thrust and trampled down by the creatures' bulk, and they suffered a terrible defeat; Regulus himself was seized by the horsemen, and dragged into Carthage, where the victors feasted and rejoiced through half the night, and testified their thanks ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... weight, and landed squarely across the left foot of the pursuer. Dalton let out a fearful yell, while his revolver fell to the floor. There was a flash and a crashing explosion in that confined space; the weapon had been harmlessly discharged. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... life. In London, where these groups are better organised and yet more numerous, war is often waged between them, weapons are used and murder is not so very infrequent. Normally this instinct passes harmlessly over into associations for physical training, which furnishes a safe outlet for these instincts, until the reductives of maturer years have perfected ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... covered the path, I marked this for the place. The knave would need both his hands to hold up his nag over the stones, and, if I turned on him suddenly enough, he might either drop his gun or fire it harmlessly. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... to take notes of. He tickles the author's vanity by showing him off as he sits in his library unconsciously uttering the engaging items of self-portraiture which, as he well knows, are to be given to the public in next week's illustrated paper. The feathered end of his shaft titillates harmlessly enough, but too often the arrowhead is crusted with a poison worse than the Indian gets by mingling the wolf's gall with the rattlesnake's venom. No man is safe whose unguarded threshold the mischief-making questioner has crossed. The more unsuspecting, the more frank, the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... she repeated and the number of times she came to confession. But when we came to look over her personal effects in the drawers and boxes of the shop, there could be no doubt but that she had been thoroughly though harmlessly insane. We found I should think about one hundred and fifty boxes: from tiny little ones of pasteboard to large square ones of deal, full of rows and rows of white quilled ribbon, similar to the piece I had seen her working at on ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... coming at a frightful speed straight at him, and threatening to take a large scoop out of his stomach. He stretched up and back and away from it with a ridiculous wiggle, that was the more ridiculous when he saw the ball curve harmlessly over the plate and ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... a knoll, and making loopholes in its walls, began replying to us pretty sharply. We sent word to our faithful artillerists, who trained the gun upon the house. The first shell screamed over the roof, and burst harmlessly beyond. We suspended fire to watch the next. It crashed through the side; for an instant all was deathly still; we thought it had gone on through. Then came a roar and a crash; the clapboards flew off the roof, and smoke poured out; panic-stricken ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... nowhere beside the natives. I liked their fondness for their own so much that I never could feel the fine scorn for "trippers" which I believe all persons of condition ought to assume. Even when the trippers did not seem very intelligently interested in what they saw, they were harmlessly employed, for a scene of beauty, or of historic appeal, could not be desecrated by the courtships which are constantly going on all over England, especially at the ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... river bottom and the other end of which floated just beneath the surface where the prow of Malbihn's canoe ran upon it as he fired. The slight deviation of the boat's direction was sufficient to throw the muzzle of the rifle out of aim. The bullet whizzed harmlessly by Meriem's head and an instant later she had disappeared into the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and taking one of those little white stars she threw it towards Mr. Linden. It went in a graceful parabolic curve and fell harmlessly, like her ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner |
