|
|
|
More "Thud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dull thud, a yell, and the succession of cries uttered by a dog in pain, generally known as "chy-ike." For, unable to vent his spleen upon his aggressor, Pete had turned upon his wretched dog, which was unfortunate enough to get between his master's legs, nearly sending him down as he backed ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... No one had a mind to speak, and the mournful soughing of the wind in the pine-trees seemed to check the words on every lip. The dull thud of hoofs in the soft road, the clang of steel bits and buckles, the snorting of the horses alone answered the wind, and also the monotonous creaking of the wheels ploughing ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... streamed through the open door. It sent a long vista of light through the blank and pulsating haze. The vibrations of the anvil were all but the only sounds on the air; the alternate thin clink of the smith's hand-hammer and the thick thud of the striker's sledge echoed in unseen ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... until I was only ten or fifteen feet off the ground that seemed to be moving out from under me. In another minute I should be above the water. I let everything go, and the Comet fell. There was a thud, a sound of scraping over the sand, a list to one side. I thought for an instant that the vessel was going to turn over, but with the weight of the reserve mercury in the fuel tanks it managed to right itself on a slope of ten ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... something crash through the window of the barn and fall with a dull, sickening thud on the outside. The neighbors came to see what it was that caused the noise. They found that I had done it in getting ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... The thud of fists in blows that started from the floor was new to these lean creatures that clawed and clung like cats. But they trampled on those who went down before the flyer's blows and stood upon them to spring at his head; they crowded ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... for the thud, thud, thud of the oarlocks of a small boat approaching our ship and the dismal howl of a solitary "husky" dog somewhere ashore. The captain had preceded me on deck, and in answer to my inquiries as to her identity said he did not know whether the stranger at anchor ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... what happened nobody quite knew. Down came the stones, rattling like an avalanche, and down with them came Miss Roberts, falling with a heavy thud upon a piece of rock below. It was so utterly sudden and unexpected that the girls stood for a moment in speechless consternation, then Hilda, Elspeth, and one or two others ran to the teacher's assistance. Miss Roberts lay at first as if she were almost stunned, then she tried to rise, and ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... The sound of battle continued until it became unendurable, and I was put into the ambulance by Tom and the driver, the former following with the horses. We took the route by which the troops had marched, the din of conflict increasing with every mile, the rattle of small arms mingling with the thud of guns. After weary hours of rough road, every jolt on which threatened to destroy my remaining vitality, we approached Cold Harbor and met numbers of wounded. Among these was General Elzey, with a dreadful wound in the head and face. His ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... the gauntlet, and trust to luck for some of us getting through. The Spaniards were well hidden, and could not be dislodged, unless, which was out of the question, we came to hand-grasps with them. So urging our jaded beasts to a spurt, we quickened the pace, while now and again a groan and a thud told that a ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... to hold it back is relentlessly thrown, and the bow of the sledge crashes on to the heel of the hindermost of those hauling ahead with a thud that means "pain." But the victim utters no sound, just smiles in answer to the anxious questioning ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... Physical action it must be, for his brain was a muddle of passion and hatred in which clear thoughts, schemes, plans, plots, were swallowed and lost. He wanted to come into physical contact with the men and things that were thwarting him; he wanted to feel the thud and jar of blows; to catch the hot breath of open antagonism; he yearned to feel the strain of muscles—this fighting in the dark with courts and laws and lawyers, according to rules and customs, filled him with a raging impotence that hurt him. And then, at the end of two weeks came ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... going out, half awake, to tramp round that paddock from fire to fire, from hour to hour, shouting and yelling. And how we used to long for daybreak! Whenever we sat down quietly together for a few minutes we would hear the dull THUD! THUD! THUD!—the ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... hit!" groaned the ex-counterfeiter, and fell in a heap on the head of Sid Jeffers. Then the hatch came into place with a thud and in a twinkling ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... once more alive with the dances, and the dull thud of the Indian drum was continually in the air. The council had agreed that Antelope was entitled to wear a war-bonnet of eagles' feathers. He was accordingly summoned before the aboriginal parliament, and from the wise men of the tribe he ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... close enough he hurled the stone at the wolves, and a dull thud, followed by a shrill, dog-like howl of pain, told him that he had countered on the rib plate of one of the nasty brutes. Then he let out a wild yell, and three of the wolves ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... matter which—do you turn red all over? Do you have creeps all down your back? And do you feel it just here?" The child clapped her yellow claw to Miss Quincey's heart. "You do, you do, Miss Quincey; I can see it go thump, I can feel it go thud!" ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... of footsteps or a rustle of skirts. Then a soft thud behind me gave me at once a start and a thrill. First I saw Sally's little brown hands on my shoulders. Then her head, with hair all shiny and flying and fragrant, came round over my shoulder, softly smoothing my cheek, until her sweet, saucy, ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... a concert at Dolmetsch's to a Tschaikowsky concert at the Queen's Hall. Tschaikowsky is a debauch, not so much passionate as feverish. The rushing of his violins, like the rushing of an army of large winged birds; the thud, snap, and tingle of his strange orchestra; the riotous image of Russian peasants leaping and hopping in their country dances, which his dance measures call up before one; those sweet solid harmonies in which (if I may quote the voluptuous ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... that?"—a sudden thud, as if something had fallen somewhere in the house; then silence, except for the loud beating of my heart, that threatened to suffocate me. "Nonsense," I said to myself, "I am foolishly nervous to-night. It is nothing here, or Bogie would bark;" so I tried again to sleep. ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... during the day and left it on the track, and it gave me a jump, I promise you. It looked like two corpses laid out naked. I finished the whisky and started up over the gap. All of a sudden a great 'old man' kangaroo went across the track with a thud-thud, and up the siding, and that startled me. Then the naked, white glistening trunk of a stringy-bark tree, where some one had stripped off a sheet of bark, started out from a bend in the track in a shaft of moonlight, and that gave me a jerk. I was pretty shaky ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... packed against his face and he thought his lungs would burst. But he was making progress. Now, he dared back off a trifle and take a long breath of air from the burrow he had made. Then a sound stirred him to renewed effort. It was the thud and jar of an impact. The tiger, having made his first leap, had missed. How many more times would he do this? The boy once more jamming his head against the snow renewed his swimming motions. Again he was obliged to pause for breath. Again the tiger ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... for a moment in one of the cleared paths. From the big low roofed drill enclosure a hundred yards away came the dull thud of galloping hoofs and the voice of Sergeant Moody thundering instructions to the rookies. Moody had a heart like flint and would have faced blazing cannon to perform his duty. He had grown old and ugly in the service ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... to occupy his mind, without dwelling on these slight external annoyances. He still tried to believe that his mother's release would be hastened by the independence which lay folded in his saddle-bags, and the thud of the wet leather against Roger's hide was a sound to cheer away any momentary foreboding. Then, Martha—dear, noble girl! She was his; it was but to wait, and waiting must be easy when the end was certain. He felt, moreover, that in spite of his unexplained ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... me!" shouted Tom, as he struck the creature, knocking it into the corner of the tent with a thud that told it must be completely stunned, if not killed. "But what's it all about, anyhow?" Tom asked. ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... nearer than either of them dreamed. At that very moment the soft thud of the closing housedoor sounded through the house. It brought her sharply to her feet, and loose from his coiling arms, with quickened breath and blanching face. A moment she hung there, tense, then sped to the door of the room, set it ajar ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... from the trees and scattered in every direction. Some of them were caught in the pea vines of Mr. Howe's garden, but most of them, with great labor, climbed over the high fence around the ground and dropped on the outside "with a thud," safe from powder! The dogs in the neighborhood lent their aid to the outcry, and everybody was convinced that ruffians ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... strain upon the bough, or whether the storm had cracked it in the night, or whether it had rotted away more than appeared on the surface, or whether it was all of these things together, certain it is the bough broke, and down came the keeper thud on the sward. The bough fell down with him, and as it fell it struck the gun, and the gun exploded, and although the dogs scampered aside when they heard the crack, they did not scamper so quick but one of them was shot dead, and the other two ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... notes, the passing of the hand in the air and the final gentle fall on the key, not in haste to get there, but with confidence of reaching the key in time. If you throw a stone up in the air it will presently fall back again with a sharp thud; a bird rising, hovers a moment and descends gently. This barcarolle is not at all easy; there is plenty of work in it for flexible hands; it is a study in pianissimo—in power ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... heed to those fellows!" he cried, as the ship quivered under the blow of a heavy sea, and they heard the thud of many tons of water breaking over the bows and fore hatch, while the defeated monster washed the tightly screwed ports with a venomous swish. "They cannot harm us now. Let us rather thank kindly Providence which provided Magellan's water-way; ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... mile around, without it being seen. The crashing of the antlers as they close, the roars of hate, the squeals of combat, the cracking of breaking branches as they charge and charge, and push and strive, and—sometimes the thud of a ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... stricken down in varying attitudes and with varying wounds; fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his side; or clinging to a doorpost with the changing face and the relaxing fingers of the death-agony. He heard the click of the trigger, the thud of the ball, the cry of the victim; he saw the blood flow. And this building up of circumstance was like a consecration of the man, till he seemed to walk in sacrificial fillets. Next he considered Davis, with his thick-fingered, coarse-grained, oat-bread ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... minutes to push up the lower sash. He managed to open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork: then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash, it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... she lifted her foot and with an aim which was not only deadly and unerring but remarkable, considering that she could not see her target, planted it in the pit of Wallie's stomach with such force that the muffled thud of it sounded like someone beating a carpet. The kick knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay on his back on a clump of cactus he was sure that he was ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... difficulty, and goes, bareheaded, into the sunshine. In a few moments she staggers back, and stumbles, with unseeing eyes, towards the inner room. She pauses a second at the door, and turns, as if to speak to EZRA; but goes in, without a word. Presently a soft thud is heard within: ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... for, swiftly and warily approaching; the infuriated red men seem to be planning revenge in a surprise attack. Like a wall of flashing steel the shields go up around the deck while the gangplank is quickly drawn in. Suddenly a shower of arrows fly toward the wall of shields, hitting them with a thud but seemingly doing no harm. Presently they flee in haste, thinking perhaps these are gods who cannot be harmed. Slowly the shields are lowered and Thorwald is shown to be in great distress. One sees he is in a death swoon, yet, he raises an arm and points toward the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... had stood on the verandah of Grainger's house in the early morning, watching Charteris and his troopers depart, and listening to the clang and thud of the five-and-twenty stampers of the new battery of the "Ever Victorious" pounding out the rich golden quartz, handsome, swarthy-faced Sub-Inspector Lamington ascended the steps and bade ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... forest folk sensed what was taking place,—that their gray monarch, the sovereign grizzly, was at the death-fight with some dreadful invader from the South. They heard the bear's fierce bawls, unimitatable by any other voice as he lashed down blow after blow; and they heard the thud and crunch of the axe against his body. Had this monarch of the trails found his ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... and slept, when a cry rang out; And in fear he heard from the north-land come ringing that terrible shout: He fell, as he woke from his slumber, with the thud of a weight, to the ground, From his couch on that side of the castle that the rising sun first found. He left his arms in the castle, as the lawns round its walls he sought, But his wife, who followed behind him, apparel and arms to him brought: Then he saw his harnessed chariot, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... scanned it hastily, tossed the scrap of paper into the brimming waste-basket, and, yawning, raised her arms high above her head. The yawn ended, her arms relaxed, came down heavily, and landed her hands in her lap with a thud. It had been a whirlwind day. At that moment most of the lines in Emma ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... gabions mended. The work would have been hard anywhere; on an August night in India it was exhausting. All the time that they were at work the bullets continued to fly thickly overhead, striking the wall of the house with a sharp crack, or burying themselves with a short thud in the earth. Round shot and shell at times crashed through the upper part of the house, which was uninhabited; while from the terraced roof, and from the battery in the corner of the garden, the crack of the defenders' ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... a "dull thud," as it may be called, and the stock crashed against the side of the beast's head, knocking him a couple of yards to the left, and almost at the feet of Fred Linden; but in point of fact the blow did no harm except to thwart the creature for a ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... his neck; an expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been severed ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... beast, and more snapping and snarling followed. The animal rolled clear over the fire, scattering the burning brands in all directions. Then it rolled among the horses. One steed after another kicked at it, and a flying hoof sent it against the tree with a thud. Then it ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... plank for the feet to rest upon, without which the bather would have a good chance of being washed away. The water boils noisily and violently on all sides and in all directions, coming down upon the subject's shoulders with a heavy thud, which calls to mind the tender years when something softer than a cane was used, and sends him forth like a fresh-boiled lobster. All this, with towels, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... the bow is stiff to bend. The arrow flies whistling among the "birds," touches one or two without bringing them down, rises high above the top of the pole, turns in the air, and comes down again to the ground with a thud. It is the duty of two or three boys to pick up the arrows, and bring them back to the shooters. The arrows are blunt, but to protect their heads these boys wear hats with thick flat crowns and very broad brims, which make them look like ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... sudden commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the place ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... grass. Presently the long black slope of spruce confronted him, with its edge like a dark wall. He entered the fragrant forest, where not a twig stirred nor a sound pervaded the silence. Upon the soft, matted earth the hoofs of the horses made no impression and scarcely a perceptible thud. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... what I felt in No. 3 when I slept there on March 1st. Well, it is rather difficult to describe! I never felt frightened out of my wits at nothing before, if it was nothing. I certainly saw no shadows or figures, and the only noise I heard was the thud twice, which sounded as if it came from the storey below. If I shut my eyes for a minute I felt as if I was struggling with something invisible (not indigestion, as I never have it!). I was so paralysed that I dare not call out to Miss Langton, ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... stormy one; the east wind, which had lain in a dead lull through the early hours of the evening, rose in all its strength at the turn of the tide. It came bounding like the distant thud of a cannon. It roared and rattled against the windows and casements of the Manor House, sounding a deep bass in the long chimneys and howling like souls in torment amid ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... he spoke there was a loud hullabaloo from Terence, echoed by the doctor. Over they both went head first, but the doctor's heels did not follow, for they had stuck fast in the mud, into which poor Terence's head plunged with a loud thud. The doctor heroically endeavoured to pull him out, but his own legs only stuck deeper and deeper. As the marine officer came up and passed by them, he began capering about and neighing in triumph, while Jack barbarously inquired ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... he had flung himself against the farther wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a terrible thud. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... white-flowering kind having a better reputation and being prized as a rarity. The large fleshy crimson flowers have this curious habit: they detach themselves bodily from the stem, when they begin to fade; and they fall with an audible thud. To old Japanese fancy the falling of these heavy red flowers was like the falling of human heads under the sword; and the dull sound of their dropping was said to be like the thud made by a severed head striking the ground. Nevertheless ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... was coming nearer and nearer, the thud of his horse's feet pounding hard on the turf. He seemed to be approaching from the direction in which ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... instant a rifle cracked from Bill-Man's barricade, and there was a sharp spat and thud on the chest of Ounenk. He swayed backward and came forward again, a look of startled surprise on his face. He gasped, and his lips writhed in a grim smile. There was a shrinking together of the shoulders and a bending of the knees. He shook himself, as might a drowsing man, and straightened ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... would have struck the ground with a "dull thud," but for an unexpected buffer in the shape of one of his brother warriors, who happened to be standing directly under. As a consequence, the sprawling figure came down on the head and shoulders of the astounded Comanche, who collapsed with a feeling that must have ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... moment there sounded the trampling of feet once more, and crash! the end of the log struck the door. This time the impact was so great the door could not withstand it, and down it came with a thud. At least a dozen forms could be seen through the opening, outlined ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... nostril, and passing up under the skin emerged near the eye, doing the horse only temporary harm, and letting me off scot-free, much to my satisfaction, as may be supposed. Captain Baker, lying on the ground near by, heard the thud of the ball as it struck the horse, and seeing me suddenly dismount, cried out, 'the Colonel is shot,' and sprang to my side, glad enough to find that the poor horse's face had been a shield to save my life. I was sorry that the animal ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... with twenty prongs. Then he went out of my sight for a minute as he passed around a little bay in the southwest corner, getting nearer and nearer to Billy. But I could still hear his steps distinctly—slosh, slosh, slosh—thud, thud, thud (the grunting had stopped)—closer came the sound, until it was directly behind the dense green branches of a fallen balsam-tree, not twenty feet away from Billy. Then suddenly the noise ceased. I could hear my own heart pounding at my ribs, but nothing else. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... battlements beside her flew into one, and the stones of the parapet between them stormed into the cistern. Had her presence been the attraction to that thunderbolt? Often after this, while she watched the engine below in the workshop, she would hear the dull thud of an iron ball against the body of the tower; but although it knocked the parapet into showers of stones, their artillery could not make the slightest impression ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... There's a piece of fence that looks climbable!" returned Beatrice, swinging herself up with elephantine grace, and dropping with a heavy thud on the other side. "Oh! good biz! We're ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... away below his right foot and almost plunged him into space. With a terrific effort he saved himself from that fate, and his senses, grown of a sudden to miraculous acuteness, heard the crumbled masonry he had released thud upon the patch of grass at the foot of the tower, apprising the enemy of his attempt. A wild commingling of commands and threats came up to him; the night seemed something vast beyond all former estimates, a swinging and ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the heavy thud when she struck the ground far below. They paused at the verge of the crag, and talked in eager, excited tones. They did not see the boy, as he sat cowering close to the ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... unfortunate wearer's hair along with it. While this was going on, the conflicting, but firmly united mass of combatants, who were all bundled, or rather locked together in close and deadly strife, was rolling heavily, sometimes one way, and sometimes another, sometimes ending with a thud against a partition, that made the whole house shake, sometimes with a ponderous lodgment against a door, which, unable to resist the shock, flew open, and landed the belligerents at their full length on the floor, where they ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... thundered against each other in the centre of the lists. The white knight's lance hit the shield of Sir Palomides full in the centre, and with the shock the pagan knight was lifted from his saddle, carried beyond his horse, and fell with a great thud to the ground, while his ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... a sea heavier than usual came on board, curling over the bow and falling with a heavy thud on the deck, but for the most part the Seabird breasted the waves easily; the bowsprit had been reefed in to its fullest, thereby adding to the lightness and buoyancy of the boat. Tom Virtue did not go ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... room, and Dave was about to follow, when he heard an unusually loud thud at the further end ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... himself for the swing, grasped the hooks, and then, with good momentum, landed in the hammock. There was a swish, a distinct thud, and young Potter rolled out upon the deck with a gasp of amazement. Turning as quickly as he could, he looked up and saw the hammock swinging in its proper place. It was physical labor for us to keep from howling with glee at the expression on his face. He glanced sheepishly ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... again, with a heart felt earnestness that was almost an ache. Oh, surely the day was not going to end in this cruel silence! Just then he heard the thud of a horse's hoofs on the wooden bridge, far down the road. Nearer and louder it came. Somebody was prancing by at last. He stood up, straining his eyes in his smiling eagerness to see. Nearer and nearer the hoof-beats ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... midst of his ruminations a sound broke upon his ear—a jarring note in the peaceful murmur of the woodland life. It was the thud of a ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... speech was broken by a shrill cry in the hall, and then the thud of naked feet on the stairway. "I want my boy—my boy!" wailed the hysterical ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... exquisite joy of the senses, and my soul lifts itself with them. It is beautiful even to watch a fine horse gallop, the long stride, the rush of the wind as he passes—my heart beats quicker to the thud of the hoofs, and I feel his strength. Gladly would I have the strength of the Tartar stallion roaming the wild steppe; that very strength, what vehemence of soul-thought would accompany it. But I should like it, too, for itself. ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... esteemed master lightly skipped across the gangway, marshalling a well-grown youth carrying a scythe; "we don't have many visitors here. One who looked in the other day slipped his foot, fell over, and we've never seen him since. Listening intently, watch in hand, we heard a slight thud, and have reason to believe he dropped on Jupiter. It was useful to us, seeing that, by use of a well-known formula, we were able to reckon our precise distance from that planet. For him, I fancy, it must have ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... uncle," she implored once more, extending her hands to secure her treasured book, "oh, uncle." In reply all I heard was a dull thud, and I saw Paula fall to the ground. Beside himself, my father had given her a tremendous blow on ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... and the appetite of your mouth suggest to me that you are not over scrupulous with the women who are in your charge. I guess rather than know that you have been turned down with a dull, sickening thud by a decent girl, and in your mortification you are attempting to invent a charge which has no substance ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... up went the animal, struggling to get away from the remorseless grip. Then, when the water had reached its height, it shot the beast off to one side. Then the brute began to fall, twisting, turning, wiggling and struggling. Down it came with a thud that could be heard above ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... Boxer safe inside the room, than Peter began hurriedly to close the shutter, when we heard the report of a gun, and a bullet with a loud thud struck it. Fortunately the wood was thick, or one of us might have been shot. Peter, quick as lightning, closed the shutter and ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... shook herself loose she made fair way. She champed and churned in a fussy manner, and the great steel crank in her middle began to thud in a terrifying manner. We had backed out, and were driving down the harbour at the rate of perhaps nine knots. Was the Sea Queen making more? It was impossible to judge at that distance. The yacht might have been a mile away, and if she were going as fast as we it would probably be impracticable ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... moment Jack swung his left. Creviss had struck at him and missed when he back-stepped, and coming on swiftly ran into Jack's fist with a thud that jarred him into a ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... off. While so occupied, he does not perceive that he has let something drop—something white that came out along with the kerchief. Replacing the piece of cambric he hurries on again, leaving it behind; on, on, till the dull thud of his footfall, and the crisp rustling of the stiff fan-like leaves, become both blended with the ordinary noises ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... way!" cried he; and while we ran off and hid behind convenient trees, Tom struck a match and lighted the fuse. The dull thud of an explosion shortly followed; but on walking back to the spot we were all greatly surprised to see that the rock had remained intact—it was as ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... d'Estournel, summoned a council of war, which overruled the plan for an immediate return to France. Presently a thud, followed by groans of mortal agony, was heard in the new commander's cabin. The door was burst open, and he was found dying from the thrust of his own sword. La Jonquiere, afterwards governor-general of Canada, thereupon succeeded d'Estournel. This commander, the third ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... a study, as, with compressed lips, and eyes that appeared to fairly flash fire, he bent so low in his saddle as to almost touch his horse's mane. On, on, we sped! Not a word was spoken—not a sound could be heard, save the dull, heavy thud of our horses' feet upon the soft turf ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... forward in silence. The night was closing fast, and a little fine snow was falling.... There was a sudden flash in the darkness to the right, a shot, and then a scattering volley. Guy Langley threw up his arms with a cry, and as the startled horse swerved across the road he fell with a dull thud on the snow. There was a moment of confusion, but the Sikhs, though careless, were good soldiers, and two or three of them dashed towards the low wall from which the shots had come. They were just in time to see four men running across a bit of broken ground towards a deep ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... voice, harsh and strident with passion, rose above the thud of the picks and the clang ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... before noticed the wave in it—but then, she had scarcely seen him with his hat off. How silky and soft it felt! And she had called him all sorts of mean names, and had wanted Whizzer to—she shuddered and turned sick at the memory of the thud when they struck the hard ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... shouting. It was from the pirate sloop. The pirates were rushing about upon her decks. They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... The men were crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the colonel, he had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into an orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a thud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something. Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs catching and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was a short one, and he brought up with a painful thud at the bottom of a deer pit—a covered trap which the natives dig to catch ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... all that a summer afternoon on the brown highlands can be, and the powerful touring car had swept them from mile to mile over the dun hills like an earth-skimming dragon whose wing-beat was the muffled, explosive thud of the motor. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... appeared to be an age to the terrified young woman crouching there in such utter fright, the vehicle stopped short with a sharp thud and a lurch forward that would have thrown Sally upon her face, had not her companion reached forward and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting to play with polo-balls. He carried out the battered thing into the veranda; and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter of small feet, and the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door to secure his treasure. But how had he managed to see ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... distinctly against his head and the weight of it fairly drove him into the floor. He fell with a limp thud on the boards. Silent, reeling and blind, staggered to and fro in the centre of the room. Morgan and Lee Haines reached Dan at the same ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... tempting the other to take liberties, and, towards the end of the round, to step in a shade too closely. It was but a shade. Wesley, watching his eye, caught an instant's warning, flung his head far back and sprang away—not quickly enough to avoid a thud on the ribs. It rattled him, but did no damage, and ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... propositions tentatively he heard the thud of footsteps descending the stairs from the dance hall, and governed by an uncontrollable impulse he leaped for concealment behind a pile of building material that was stacked handily upon the sidewalk almost at his elbow. He might possibly have driven himself to face a multitude ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon the still, ivory face, he stepped towards the sarcophagus. As he did so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed falling upon his outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... watch. It lacked five minutes of eight. The preparations for an execution had been reduced almost to a formula. One minute in the cell, twenty seconds to the trap, forty seconds for the hangman to complete his arrangements: two minutes, and then the thud of the false floor. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... If you have no care for yourself, it's your duty to think about me. You can at least try. I tell you you must try! Here, take a sip of brandy, and see if that won't put a bit of courage into you. Hallo!" as a burst of applause and the thud of a horse's hoofs down the passage to the stables came rolling in, "there's your wife's turn over at last; and there—listen! the ringmaster is announcing yours. Get up, man; ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... philosophical and Christian indifference to money. He mentally abandoned the twenty francs to their destiny and sought to concentrate his thoughts on the sacred text: Nemo potest duobus dominis servire. At the same moment he seemed to hear, between the hasty steps of the Moro, a heavy, dull thud from a greater distance, as of a door being broken open; then the bang of a chair knocked down in the kitchen; then still another distant noise. The Moro entered the sitting-room and violently closed the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... in answer to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with needle-guns and sabres; then three regiments of infantry, marching in superb time. Every five hundred men had a drum corps and fifes playing in perfect unison. You could almost feel the ground shake with the steady thud of their march as they tramped on. The men looked dirty and tired, but were fat, and many of them were laughing. Looking down the road as far as possible, we could still see helmets, spikes, and guns ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... swung it at the figure. A lamp had stood on the bar top. It was caught by the backward swing of the chair, overturned and quenched. The splintering of glass mingled its small sound with an ominous thud in the thick darkness. It was the end of all things; the falling of an impenetrable curtain over a horror half sensed, yet all ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... menacing. There was a muttering roar from the bleachers, hoarsely pleading, commanding—"Block-that-kick! Block-that-kick! BLOCK-THAT-KICK!" The kneeling quarter back opened his muddy hands; the muddied oval came sailing lazily into them.... There was the gentle thud of Gridley's toe against the leather, and then—unbelievably, unbearably, it was an accomplished fact, a finished thing. Gridley had executed his place kick. They were scored on. It stood there on the board, glaring white letters and ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... the treetops and the bees drone in the clover-blossoms. No; this silence was dead, chilling, terrible. The huge pine-trees now and then dropped a load of snow on the heads of the bold intruders, and it fell with a thud, followed by a noiseless, glittering drizzle. As far as their eyes could reach, the monotonous colonnade of brown tree-trunks, rising out of the white waste, extended in all directions. It reminded them of the enchanted forest in ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... then Hector gave another pull. The rope gave way at once. He flattened himself against the house, and the hook fell with a dull thud ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... Up ran Joel and Kingdon. The line blocked desperately. A streak of brown flew by, and a moment later Joel heard the thud as the full-back's shoe struck the ball. Then down the field he sped, through the great gap made by the Yates forwards. The Harwell ends were well under the kick and stood waiting grimly beside the Yates full-back as the ball settled to earth. As it thudded against his canvas jacket ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... He dropped beside her and gathered her up completely in his arms, with his own body between her and the fire. A moment later he thanked God for the protection of the bunk. He heard the ripping of a bullet through the saplings and caught distinctly the thud of it as the spent lead dropped to the floor. Celie's head was close on his breast, her eyes were on his face, her soft lips so near he could feel their breath. He kissed her, unbelieving even then that the end was near for her. It was monstrous—impossible. Lead was finding its way into ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... whether she might be truly Mirdath. And I, utter weak and shaken strangely because of this splendour of fulfilment, could make no instant answer. And she asked again, but using mine old love-name, and with a sureness in her far voice. And still I was so strangely dumb, and the blood to thud peculiar in mine ears; and this to pass; and speech ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... world for Behemoth to do but wildly leap under the hoofs for his life. This he did successfully. But on the other side he met the spectacled citizen full and fair, and down they went together with a thud. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... about to whisper this suggestion cautiously to Uncle Andy, when, from somewhere in the trees behind them, came a loud sound of scrambling, of claws scratching on bark, followed by a thud, a grunt, and a whining, and then the crash of some heavy creature careering through the underbrush. It paused within twenty or thirty paces of them in its noisy flight, but the bushes were so thick that they could not catch a glimpse ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... back before he was sure that the thud of Whiskey Bill's hoofs was almost at his heels. He called on the cowpony for a last spurt. The plucky little horse answered the call, gathered itself for the home stretch, for a moment held its advantage. Again Bob Hart's ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... moment when he felt that his nerves would bear the strain no longer, the spell was broken. Suddenly there came a long, hissing breath close beside him, and immediately afterward a terrific thud, as something—Frobisher could easily guess what—was driven with deadly force into the heap of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... supper, eaten in the darkness, and watched the sea for signs of the ships for half an hour, they started toward the boat. Then another shot came over the water, followed by two more, fired in quick succession. Ned joined them instantly, for, following the shots, the rattle of sailing gear and the thud-thud of boxes or boards on a ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... unpleasant ecstasy. All this goes on among the guests; the hosts keep a little apart, near a scaffolding, on which yams are attached. The men circle slowly round this altar, carrying decorated bamboos, with which they mark the measure, stamping them on the ground with a thud. They sing a monotonous tune, one man starting and the others joining in; the dance consists of slow, springy jumps from ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... finished eating, and were all six falling asleep as they sat round the table. Every now and then a forehead fell with a thud on the board, and the man, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a quick motion with my hand, even as I sprang forward in search of Peterson. The dull thud of the engine-room hatch, an instant later, assured me that Lafitte had performed the most important part of the work assigned to him. Forsooth, ere long, he had done all his work as laid out for him. It chanced that, as he sprang ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air. 'Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther; but he'll heu' his lad; und I mun tak' him—soa ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... even so short a distance on Earth would have meant instant death. Here, where gravitation's pull was but one-sixth that of Earth, he still struck on a rocky floor with a thud that made him sick for lack ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... heard him quaver breathlessly, "I have the proof—the undeniable proof! They were intelligent beings. They did not die of disease. They were exterminated in war! They were ... but see for yourself!" There was a thud as he dropped something on the polished table top between the commissioner and Colonel Thayer. "That was dug up just now—among ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... a gentle knock, and a man's shape began to climb at once up the brig's side with a kind of ponderous agility. It poised itself for a moment on the rail to say down into the boat—"Sheer off a little, boys," then jumped on deck with a thud, and said to Shaw who was coming aft: "Good evening ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... quick light that was smothered by a billow of smoke. Buregarde leaped into the cloud and disappeared. There was a hoarse shriek and the mad scrabble of dog-claws on the hard floor, the sound of a heavy thud, and the angry snarl of a dog with its teeth fastened into something soft. Then there was the fast patter of dog-feet and Buregarde came around the door on a dead run, sliding side-wise to carom off the opened door into safety just as a pencil-ray ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith
... be a bad idea," declared Susan Atwell. "I sit near her, so I'll be the first one to hold out the olive branch. But if you hear something drop on the floor with a dull, sickening thud, you'll know that my particular variety ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... cloud-vexed Himalayan heights, a sea-green wall of water sixty miles front and six miles high, and so, when the toy reality came suddenly into view—that beruiled little wet apron hanging out to dry—the shock was too much for me, and I fell with a dull thud. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... why, unless it be the result of friction retarding their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a continuous panorama was ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... ladies at the mission did their best for me, and I found it a great help to know the language, an attainment of which I am justifiably a little vain, for not everyone could translate at sight to "thud" the road or "shoot up" a Christmas party. Mr. JOHN FOX, Junr., has not placed his largest strawberries—and some of them are quite nice ones—at the top of the basket. His first story did not attract me as much as others ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... awoke, next morning, the engines were at work again, and their heavy thud, thud, was mingled with the swash of water, as the Bengali boys washed down decks, while a rattling of spars and creaking of cordage showed that sails were being ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... scarcely done this when he heard a thud at his elbow: it was made by the knife-like hoofs of the buck, who, rearing on his hind legs, gathered his two front ones close together and brought them down with such force that, had they fallen on the body of the lad, as was intended, they would ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... over amidst clouds of dust, a mighty noise, and enough blood to satisfy the early thirst of the beholders. Then the bull wrenched himself free; before the mountain visitor could scramble to his feet, he fixed him with his horns and tossed him on high. As the bear came down on his back with a thud and a snap which would have satisfied a bull less anxious to show what a bull could do, the victor rushed upon the corpse, kicked and stamped and bit until the blood spouted into his eyes, and pulp and dust ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... opened a small silken bag, that already bulged with her evening's gains, and added the winnings of the last coup. At the same moment, some one pressing from behind jolted her arm, and the bag fell with a little thud, its contents spilling out on the floor. Tony, engrossed in the play, failed to notice the mishap and went on staking, but the Englishman, apparently quite unconcerned as to the chances he might be missing, stooped at once and collected the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... rapidly nearer, dropping from a canter to a quick trot that ended in a clattering walk on the stones of the yard. Through the open window Dot heard the heavy thud of a man's feet as ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... have a picnic!" squealed Susie, giving such an eager little hop of anticipation that the cup she was drying flew out of her hand and half-way across the room, falling with a dull thud in a pan of bread sponge which Tabitha had ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... fired. The dull thud as the bullet entered the body of the gyal could be heard; but the creature, apparently not feeling his wound, came rushing with a loud bellow at the horsemen. Reginald delivered his fire, as he had been advised, but without stopping the bull; and then he and Burnett galloped off in opposite directions. ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... Once more she demanded the letters; he answered with a very peremptory negative. Then I heard a sound as of his chair being pulled up to his desk, followed by a brief silence. Then, all of a sudden, I heard another sound, half-cry, half-groan, and a sort of dull thud, as if something had fallen. A moment later, as I was wondering what had happened, and what to do, I heard the door which opens into the corridor close gently. And at that I pushed back the panel and ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... master lightly skipped across the gangway, marshalling a well-grown youth carrying a scythe; "we don't have many visitors here. One who looked in the other day slipped his foot, fell over, and we've never seen him since. Listening intently, watch in hand, we heard a slight thud, and have reason to believe he dropped on Jupiter. It was useful to us, seeing that, by use of a well-known formula, we were able to reckon our precise distance from that planet. For him, I fancy, it ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... sudden thud, as if something had fallen somewhere in the house; then silence, except for the loud beating of my heart, that threatened to suffocate me. "Nonsense," I said to myself, "I am foolishly nervous to-night. It is nothing here, ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... uttered when a most surprising thing happened. Something whizzed through the air, directly between the heads of the two boy hunters. It was a good-sized chunk of wood, and it struck a rock outside with a thud. ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... A violent thud resounded against the door. Someone had placed his shoulder against it. Henrietta clung to the table ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... of this splendour of fulfilment, could make no instant answer. And she asked again, but using mine old love-name, and with a sureness in her far voice. And still I was so strangely dumb, and the blood to thud peculiar in mine ears; and this to pass; and speech to ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... the rock and slipped the frog's skin into the earth beneath it. As she settled it in place, her pulses gave a startled leap, and she stood terror-stricken beside the stone. A thud of footsteps ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the place was ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... tension, he crouched there against the safe. Again and again his fingers rubbed over the rough carpet, and again the sweat beads oozed out upon his forehead with the strain—and then there came through the stillness a long-drawn intake of his breath. The handle swung the bolt with a low metallic thud—the safe was open. ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... mighty creak of the ladder, the swish of a heavy body through the air, an interrupted growl, and then a ripping thud. Swallow's chubby body shot squarely through the opening, accompanied by a trusty though somewhat sadly stretched vest, and the deed was done. A cry of delight came from the beam, a shout of pride and relief ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... died away as the Yale Goliath poised himself for the effort. He crouched, and then the heavy iron sailed through the air and fell with a thud to the ground. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... an instant, but she was already nearly at the bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant water and beds of decaying vegetation. The launch with a dull thud ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern flush with the water. The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank its whole length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... children. For a moment the child looked down at her mother's white face, so strangely still, and then, terrified, suddenly jumped to her feet and her mother's head fell back against the boards with a dull thud. The children huddled together, crying. A peasant whipped up the little horse, and the procession began to ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment! I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by these influences—first, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had a few hours ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... when I slept there on March 1st. Well, it is rather difficult to describe! I never felt frightened out of my wits at nothing before, if it was nothing. I certainly saw no shadows or figures, and the only noise I heard was the thud twice, which sounded as if it came from the storey below. If I shut my eyes for a minute I felt as if I was struggling with something invisible (not indigestion, as I never have it!). I was so paralysed that I dare not call out to Miss Langton, and lay awake from twelve to three ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... and when none responded he railed against all for cowards and sent the boomerang hissing defiance against the blue sky, to fall with mutter and thud at his feet. In his rage the little man became hysterical, and the more he scolded the less important, while the swaying spear emphasised increasing agitation, but brought him neither humility nor jibe, for the race does not intentionally ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... bedside and held her mother's dead hand in hers, as if she were lying ill instead of dead. Attracted by the lighted candles, a big, winged insect had entered through the open window and was flying about the room, dashing against the wall at every moment with a faint thud. It disturbed Jeanne, and she looked up to see where it was, but she could only see its shadow ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... breathless suspense. The thud of their horses' hoofs alone told me their nearness. My finger was on the trigger. I awaited the word. "Fire!" she said at last, in a calm, unflinching voice. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... nearly an hour, and Davy's eyelids were beginning to flutter drowsily, when they heard the slow thud of a horse's hoofs in the thick dust of the road. Betty stopped reading to listen, and Davy sat ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... report. All he knew was that the snarling face disappeared as quickly as it had come. The whole thing was an affair of seconds. Shot through the brain the tiger dropped back to the ground with a heavy thud and fell dead beside the staunch elephant which had never moved ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... himself upon his face and extending his hands above his head, as a whizzing sound was heard; then a dull thud or two and directly after there was a crash on the rocky side of the couloir a few feet above their heads, followed by a shower of slaty fragments which fell upon them, while a great fragment, which had become detached far above, glanced off, struck the other ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... his weight forcing her down into the smallest compass, his arms about her, his body forming a living shield against the flying bullets. Over them the big man stood, and the sustained roar of his gun was deafening. In an instant they heard the thud and felt the jar of lead in the thin boards against which they huddled. Again the report echoed above their heads, and they saw the slender man in the street drop his weapon and spin half round as though hit with some heavy hand. He uttered ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... spear. Then the noises arose all about and around the very spot where we stood, and the clang of the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud of their ponderous hoofs flying over the earth made, as it were, a wind in my ears, so that it seemed as though a furious battle were raging all around us. But I could see nothing. Only the sounds increased, and became so violent that they awoke me, and even after waking I still ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... yellow. Quick as thought, before the fingers could close over it again, he pretended to lose his balance, and, shooting out his foot as if to save himself, sent the yellow lump flying from the half-breed's palm. It shot into the air, fell with a thud, and rolled scintillating into the darkness across the boarded floor. Before he could be detained, Granger had sprung after it and held it in his hand. He faced round, ready to defend himself; ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... know a ghost can walk right through a door?" asked Laura, and Violet bounced in the bed and came down with a thud. ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... all too short, the signal came and she sprang up and poised herself mechanically. Again the waltz music struck up and Don Juan's hoofs fell with a soft thud upon the tan. The hurdles and gates had all been cleared successfully, and now she must dismount and let her steed go round alone while she ran across from the opposite side of the ring and vaulted from the ground to ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... corkscrew turn, across a tiny causeway where the moonlit water of an inlet lapped against the base of the road and the sea-breeze fanned us. A carriage, heading into the nearby town of St. Georges, passed us with the thud of horses' hoofs pounding on the hard smooth stone of the road. Under its jaunty canopy an American man reclined with a girl on each side of him. He waved us a jovial greeting as ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... The "thud" of the arrow, as it struck the door, had drawn the attention of the lion. Of course, none of them saw him, but his angry growl told them that it was so. He did not show himself, however, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like drowning people, they fell to the floor. Then followed a prolonged and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... noise which could be heard in the shanty was the low moan of the baby, as it lay in the cradle, while from the outside could be heard the heavy, uneven thud of advancing footsteps. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... wholehearted hospitality, its genuine friendship. Here again, too, we may see the cowboy at work and at play; hear the jingle of his big bell spurs, the swish of his rope, the creaking of his saddle gear, the thud of thousands of hoofs on the long, long trail winding from Texas to Montana; and know something of the life that attracted from the East some of its best young blood to a work that was necessary in the winning of the West. ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... implored once more, extending her hands to secure her treasured book, "oh, uncle." In reply all I heard was a dull thud, and I saw Paula fall to the ground. Beside himself, my father had given her a tremendous blow on the head with ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... was hanging up his overcoat with his back to William, and the front door was open. William wanted no second bidding. He darted out of the door and down the drive, but he was just in time to hear the thud of a falling body, and to hear a muttered curse as the Head of the House entered the dining-room feet first on a long slide of some white, ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... and nobody held up the stage-coach; still the young doctor and the school teacher and the ladies at the mission did their best for me, and I found it a great help to know the language, an attainment of which I am justifiably a little vain, for not everyone could translate at sight to "thud" the road or "shoot up" a Christmas party. Mr. JOHN FOX, Junr., has not placed his largest strawberries—and some of them are quite nice ones—at the top of the basket. His first story did not attract me as much as others further ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... he declared, "although we'll thud around on deck an' yell a couple o' times to make Scraggs think we're goin' to it. He figgers that by the time I've fought you an' Flaherty I won't be fit for combat with him, even if I lick you both; he's got it all figgered out that I'll wait a couple o' days before tacklin' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... exert strength to escape insult. She struggled violently when Brandt bent his head. Almost sick with fear, she had determined to call for help, when a violent wrench almost toppled her over. At the same instant her wrists were freed; she heard a fierce cry, a resounding blow, and then the sodden thud of a heavy body falling. Recovering her balance, she saw a tall figure beside her, and a man in the act of rising from ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... no steward should have set. Cecil pressed his knees closer and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the test; the surging roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his ear; he heard nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but that lean chestnut head beside him, the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop, and the black wall that reared in his face. Forest King had done so much, could he have stay and strength ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sharp chittering of an aroused squirrel, repeated in two shrill bursts. But his own ear close to the ground told him they were to expect company. There was the regular thud of horses' hoofs, the sound of mounts ridden in company and at an even pace. The only remaining question was whether it was a Union patrol and small enough for the four ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... sweating over stiff canvas and stiffer ropes. The thud of big wooden sledge hammers driving in the tent stakes. The rumble of heavy wagons, and a cloud of dust where they were being shoved into place by the ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... victim prepared himself for the swing, grasped the hooks, and then, with good momentum, landed in the hammock. There was a swish, a distinct thud, and young Potter rolled out upon the deck with a gasp of amazement. Turning as quickly as he could, he looked up and saw the hammock swinging in its proper place. It was physical labor for us to keep from howling with glee at the expression on his face. ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... a vigor, as if from a rocket airlock, hitting the dirt with a thud, scrambling up, opening and spreading the great bundle, attaching the air hose. Little Lester hopping in to help fit wire rigging, most of it still imaginary. A friendly dog coming over to sniff, with a look of mild ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... introduction, Sarah advanced fearlessly to greet the ram. To her surprise he came toward her with lowered head, and something in his wicked little eyes made her uneasy. The next thing she knew, she felt a terrific impact against her legs and down she went with a thud. She had presence enough of mind to roll over and she kept rolling, in a frantic instinct to get out of the way of that powerful head. Dizzy and shaken—for she had fallen heavily—she scrambled to her feet and began to run, the ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... devils, and immediately a hideous uproar is heard from the shed. It is really made by men in the shed with bamboo trumpets, but the women and children think it is the devils. Then the priest enters the shed with the boys, one at a time. A dull thud of chopping is heard, a fearful cry rings out, and a sword dripping with blood is thrust out through the roof. This is the token that the boy's head has been cut off, and that the devil has taken him away to the other world, whence he will return ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... second day of our journey the people on board celebrated a church feast, and the pilot, in his anxiety to do it well, got helplessly drunk. The result was that during that night I was thrown out of the top berth I occupied by a terrific thud. The steamer had run on the sandbank of an uninhabited island, and there she stuck fast—immovable. We were landed on the shore, and there had further time for reflection on the mutability of things. In the white sand there were distinct footprints of a large ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... indeed, and the funeral day was past; yet one duty remained to the heart-wrung mourners, not less poignant than the sight of the dead changed face, not less crushing than the thud of stones and clods on the coffin of one beloved. They took the great brown desk in which she used to keep her papers, and sorted and put in order all that they found in it. How appealing the sight of that hurried, casual writing of a hand now ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... decorations, gaudy tinsels, flowers fading in the heat and glare; saw, long after we had passed, the gleaming of the coloured lights, as they moved among the trees; heard for a mile and more along the road the sound of that heathen revelry; and every thud of the tom-tom was a thud upon one's heart. Our little girl was there, as ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... hundred thousand casualties somewhere else. We knew, at that rate, it couldn't possibly last until we got to the other side, but we prayed loudly that it would. In April we heard of the gassing of the first Canadians at Ypres. Then the casualty lists from that field arrived and hit Vancouver with a thud. Instantly a change came over the city. Before that day, war had been a romance, a thing far away about which to read and over which to wave flags. It was intangible, impersonal. It was the same attitude ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... made from some stout vine which encircles him. Arriving at the top he fixes his feet against the trunk, leans against the loop which holds him fast, and hacks away at the regime. It falls with a heavy thud and woe betide the human being or the animal it strikes. The natives will not cut fruit in rainy weather because many have slipped on the wet bark and fallen to ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... his boots. Inch by inch we dragged him out of them. The strain was terrific. Suddenly—much too suddenly—the tension broke. Harrison shot into the air and fell again with a dull thud in the Ooze beside his boots, while the rescue party collapsed head over heels into an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... to the lion's fore paws showed that the Russian had missed. The lion took no notice whatever of the fact that a bullet had just missed him, but crouched again for the emission of another roar, when the click of the hammer again sounded, immediately followed by the loud thud of the bullet, and the roar ended in a savage snarl as the great beast lurched forward on to his head, and with a single convulsive extension of his body lay quiet and still. At the same instant the thud of another bullet was heard, and the lioness was seen to twitch her head slightly, but ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... lies (far) to the East, Pit het by the Fire-queen Pele. Heaven's dawn is lifted askew, One edge tilts up, one down, in the sky; 5 The thud of the pick is heard in the ground. The question is asked by Wakea, What god's this a-digging? It is I, it is Pele, Who dug Mihau deep down till it burned, 10 Dug ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... and we struck the pile with a thud. And for my part, I had no sooner landed than I bounced to my feet with a shriek, for that cinder pile was about the hottest proposition it has ever ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... Columbus, sick at heart, was slowly plodding on the road to France. But he only went a little way on his long journey. For just as he was entering a narrow pass not far from Granada, where the mountains towered above him, he heard the thud of horses' hoofs. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... us, and past us, and I watched the prophet. His eyes were wide, his whole face expressing anguish. "Oh God, my Father!" he whispered, and seemed to quiver with each thud of the tramping feet on the pavement. After the storm had passed, he stood motionless, the pain still in his face "It is Rome! It ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... cool night air swept up the stairs, and Georgie saw the panel of light from the open drawing-room door diminish in width, and presently the door shut with a soft thud, leaving him in the dark. At that his desperation seemed pressed and concentrated into a moment of fictitious courage, for he unerringly reasoned that they had left the drawing-room window open, and that perhaps in a few moments now they would ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... twilight was rising in the east when she found herself again looking out upon the water, the stone still clutched tightly. She gazed at the river, then at the stone, and again at the river. The stone dropped with a thud at her feet. The savage in her had not abated in the least; only her body was terribly worn and wearied and the robe, muddied and torn, enveloped her like a veil of ice. Above her the lonely yellow sky; below her the sickly river; all about her silence which held a thousand menaces. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... such a sudden pull on all his legs that, with a huge thud Rataplan found himself lying on the ground. With one furious cry of rage he did his best to turn, displaying a flexibility of body and limb which was quite astonishing in so clumsy ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... again into security. The Captain's cries for help became weaker and weaker. And now Joco took his iron stake, which he always kept by him, opened the door, and at one bound was at the side of the wild beast. His voice sounded again like thunder, and the iron stick fell with a thud on the bear's back. Ibrahim had smelt blood. Beneath his paws a man's mangled body was writhing. The beast could hardly be made to let go his prey. In the light that came through the small window, Joco soon found ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... landed on the further side of the wall when thud! thud! thud! other members of the flock came thumping down upon the ledge beside him. He moved aside a little way, because he didn't want ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... back into bed. You can follow the contest with much exactitude, because every time the body is flung down upon the spring mattress, the bedstead, just above your head, makes a sort of jump; while every time the body succeeds in struggling out again, you are aware by the thud upon the floor. After a time the struggle wanes, or maybe the bed collapses; and you drift back into sleep. But the next moment, or what seems to be the next moment, you again open your eyes under the consciousness of a presence. ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... and fell sideways, and carried the whole affair over; and that the doctor sprang, as it were, instinctively. As the buggy came down, the receiver of the lamp smashed, and suddenly poured a flare of blazing oil, a thud of white flame, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... vessel. In spite of the shots which still fell around us, we kept steadily on our course, while occasionally I turned an uneasy glance over my shoulder to see how far we had got from the enemy. At length scarcely a shot reached us; a gentle thud every now and then showing us that those which did so had almost lost their power. I was able now to pay more attention to my young companion. I asked him ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... of pain followed the two shots—merely the thud of two heavy bodies. They were so thoroughly killed, they had no time ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a terrible thud. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... within a few feet of him. He wrenched his hand free, and with a mighty effort flung the stone. He saw it strike Shea fair on the forehead. In spite of the tumult around him, he fancied he heard the dull thud of its impact. He saw Shea fling up his hands and pitch forward. He saw Augusta Goold gather her skirts in her hand, and sweep them swiftly aside lest the man should fall on them. Then the crowd pressing towards the platform swept him off his feet, and he ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... refinement of barbarity. The punishment corresponded to the crime: the wretched man was broken on the wheel. The most complete and terrible silence prevailed in the multitude eager for ghastly emotions. Three times already had been heard the heavy thud of the instrument which broke the victim's limbs, and a loud cry escaped the sufferer which made all who heard it shudder with horror, One man only, who, in spite of all his efforts, could not get through the crowd and cross the square, remained unmoved, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... at once, and in a few moments she heard him whistling an accompaniment to the steady thud, thud of the axe as he swung ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... however, that most passengers forsake the deck and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of friends on shore arise, transfigured by the glow of love: the squeamishness and retching ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the middle of the night that Mrs. Bobbsey, who was sleeping with Flossie on one side of the aisle, heard a noise just outside her berth. It was as if something had fallen to the floor with a thud. She opened the curtains and looked out. Freddie and his father had gone to sleep in the berth just across from her, but now she saw a little white bundle lying on the carpeted floor ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... the yellow beech-leaves as they whispered of the time to go, and how they would drift down like little brown boats to the stream and glide away to the end. Now and then a nut would fall with a tiny crisp thud, and a squirrel would whisk from a limb overhead. They were very quiet, and let the beauty of the spot sink deep into their souls. Then at last Julia Cloud took up her Bible, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... his full height, fired his arrow, and quickly stooped again. His enemy was evidently on the watch for such an opening, for the two bowstrings twanged together, and while Estein's shaft struck something with a soft thud, the other hit the Viking hard on ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... "trying times"; and one moonlight night, when the Gray Goose was sound asleep upon one leg, the Green was rudely shaken under her by the thud of a horse's feet. "Ga, ga!" said she, putting down the other leg and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... stretches, slowing to catch breath, then running again,—thus the fork was finally reached. But no Lone Star or the thud of his feet greeted eyes ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... of as wild an over as ever was bowled at Lord's. A shocking thing to the off was sent skipping past point for four. "Tripe!" muttered Raffles to himself. A very good one went over the bails and thud into Garland's gloves like a round-shot. "Well bowled!" said Raffles with less reserve. Another delivery was merely ignored, both at the wicket and at my side, and then came a high full-pitch to leg which the batsman hit hard but very late. It was a hit that might have smashed the pavilion ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... darkness behind the gates there appeared the red glow of a brazier, there was a quick hissing sound, an awful double howl of pain and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air. The next moment the two men fell scrambling forward into the arena, and the iron gate closed behind them with a thud. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... hundred thousandth of an inch thick, yet they give forth oral sounds as creatures of flesh and blood. In fact every sound is produced harmoniously with the action on the screen. An iron ball is dropped and you hear its thud upon the floor, a plate is cracked and you can hear the cracking just the same as if the material plate were broken in your presence. An immaterial piano appears upon the screen and a fleshless performer ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... address the head of the barrel on which I stood fell in with a dull thud, and I found myself up to the neck in corned-beef brine. The boys set up a shout, some fellow kicked over the barrel, and they began to roll it around the camp with me ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... clouds of dust, a mighty noise, and enough blood to satisfy the early thirst of the beholders. Then the bull wrenched himself free; before the mountain visitor could scramble to his feet, he fixed him with his horns and tossed him on high. As the bear came down on his back with a thud and a snap which would have satisfied a bull less anxious to show what a bull could do, the victor rushed upon the corpse, kicked and stamped and bit until the blood spouted into his eyes, and pulp and ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... it seemed to him that the end had come. He was hurled by the explosion of the torpedo into the corridor and dashed against the wall. The outcries of the men were drowned by the muffled thud of the inrushing water. The light went out; the Kate began to rotate ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Peram, whose legs were six feet from the ground. He howled and yelled; but all were too busy to pay any attention to him, and at last his strength gave out, and he fell with a stunning thud upon the ground, where he lay gasping for breath, partially unconscious, but with no ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... bang, a scuffle, and then a dull thud; but the first to follow was only in time to see eight finger-tips clinging for a moment outside to the ledge of one of the narrow ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... falling, streamed through the open door. It sent a long vista of light through the blank and pulsating haze. The vibrations of the anvil were all but the only sounds on the air; the alternate thin clink of the smith's hand-hammer and the thick thud of the striker's sledge echoed in unseen recesses of the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... I did, too. A couple of days later, just about the time the bats begin to twitter, I heard the thud of feet on the grass, and a laugh. They thought they'd taken on an easy job—just walk into the house, and cop me at my supper. We let em up to within twenty yards. Then we let em have it, the three ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... red mud fell full on the front of my spotless white jacket, another struck in the water close by the side of the boat. The wounded crocodile had sprung into the air from his tail up, and dropped back into his wallow with a resounding thud. In another instant he was off the slippery bank and within the security of ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into the circle ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... slab and iron railing—jutted out from my window. I thought I saw a hand on the railing, another on the slab, then both together on the lower level for one instant before they disappeared. There was a dull yet springy thud on the grass below. Then no more noise but the distant thunder of the traffic, and the one that woke me, until the window next mine was ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... in fire, with trees that seemed to be dropping golden fruit, in which all the crowd of beautiful girls were lying on banks and under trees, and perched like splendid birds up in the air. Then the curtain came down with a thud, smothering up the fire, and hiding everything. The storm of music broke off with a crash, and the crowd began to shout and yell, and stamp their feet till the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... cylinder while the reverse action of drawing out the plunger is proceeded with. Directly the finger is drawn out of the glove—in other words, immediately the plunger is raised out of the cylinder—the latter drops down below with a heavy thud, still in ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... as I lay awake and tried to get to sleep the silence seemed unnaturally profound. The tick of the big clock down in the hall struck on the ear with almost a thud, and the light breeze outside moaned among the ventilators and played chromatic scales through the keyhole in a fashion quite disturbing. I wished that wind would shut up, and that the clock would run down. How was a fellow to get to sleep ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... thud upon the trail, and an old woman with stooping shoulders passed down the glen. As she bent over the spring and took her water supply, I heard the young man's voice in the distance, singing his song ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... of chains, the roar and crackle of fire, drunken songs and quick, gnashing chatter, weeping inconsolable, plaintive despairing prayers, and shouts of command, the dying gasp and the reckless whistle, the guffaw and the thud of the dance.... 'Kill them! Hang them! Drown them! rip them up! bravo! bravo! don't spare them!' could be heard distinctly; I could even hear the hurried breathing of men panting. And meanwhile all around, as far ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... her bed on the window ledge with a thud and mewed plaintively for admittance as he stood with one hand on the screen door, and fumbled in his pockets. Sinkers, spare hooks, a line with a nail at one end on which to string possible victims of his skill, "eats," ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... a sounding thud on the deck, followed by a sharp gasp, and the boy sat staring before him, considering, apparently, whether it were necessary or not to cry in order to relieve his feelings. Finding that it was not, he swallowed his heart with an effort, got ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... as thick through as a man's body. The tree was lifted a little off the ground by the broken boughs which took its weight, and with a single movement, so active is one in such necessities, I flung myself beneath it. As I did so, I heard the trunk of the elephant descend with a mighty thud on the back of my poor horse, and the next instant I was almost in darkness, for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... not produce the ringing sound it would have done in an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I sung out, "Stand clear, sir. By ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... out quite bravely; but she had taken but four steps when Tommy shouted, "Hold on fast, Polly! the hook's comin' out." Alas! the warning came too late. Before she could get hold of the beam securely, the hook came out, and with a cry of terror poor Polly fell with a dull thud to the floor. Her dress knocked over the candle as she fell, and in a second the hay that was scattered on the floor was in a blaze. All the boys except Tommy Briggs rushed screaming from the barn, but he, by straining every muscle, succeeded in dragging Polly out of the now blazing ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... down the stairs to Roman Alley, she heard some one stumble, and then the thud, thud, of ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... round to pull the bedstead out of the drip—and it was one of those solid, old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton—more or less. And then that drip-drop, drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went to pieces. You've no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night. It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing. What are you laughing ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ears. And there, too, embedded like jewels in a leather wall sparkled two little eyes. These eyes were fastened on the little boy. They seemed to shine in the dull wrinkled skin. Slowly the huge mass began to move. Slowly one heavy padded foot came up and then went down with a soft thud. Then came another soft thud and another and another. Suddenly the monstrous trunk waved, curled, lifted, stretched and stretched, until its soft pink end was thrust through the high iron fence and the little boy could look up into the fleshy yawning red mouth. The little boy drew back from ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... and though distracted at times by recollections of the Wenuses, I made good progress with my indictment. Suddenly I was conscious of a pale pink glow which suffused my writing-pad, and I heard a soft but unmistakable thud as of a pinguid body falling ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... whiskey that flouted the peace of the forest. And with all this the traffic returns of the Consolidated Company's railway leaped up, and Fisette, who was in charge of a dozen men stripping his find of roots and earth and moss, began to hear all round him, both near and far, the dull thud of blasting and the faint clink of hammer ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... quarter mile she had to go before she came to another; but here she found things altogether different and more interesting. As she came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl, a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, just beyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead of her in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe had got caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the left fore leg. He had heard ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... barrel, and curved with terrible speed and power, right alongside the cockpit. He passed us, and as the boat answered to the wheel and turned, almost at right angles, the swordfish sheered too, and he hit us a sounding thud somewhere foreward. Then he went under or around the bow and began to take line off the reel for the first time. I gave him up. The line caught all along the side of the boat. But it did not break, and kept whizzing off the reel. I heard the heavy splash of another jump. When we had turned ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at his heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately in front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull, heavy thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... became still more cyclonic. He had a left arm which seemed to open out in joints like a telescope. Several times when the Kid appeared well out of distance there was a thud as a brown glove ripped in over his guard and jerked his head back. But always he kept boring in, delivering an occasional right to the body with the pleased smile of an infant destroying a Noah's ark ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... was an enemy, opened fire, and their shot whizzed thickly about my ears. On I dashed; but a false step might have sent me and my horse into the abyss below, down which the stones clattered. Suddenly I heard a thud, such as a bullet produces when striking a substance; and feeling my gallant steed give a convulsive spring, I knew he was wounded. Still, he went on for nearly a hundred yards; then he began to stagger; and I had just time to clear my feet of the stirrups, and throw myself off ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... sun came the faint thud of hoofs as two riders came warily up to the water-hole. One dismounted and stooped over Winthrop. The other sat his horse, silent, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... which side one milked on—there was no doubt about it. The instant he touched her she lifted her foot and with an aim which was not only deadly and unerring but remarkable, considering that she could not see her target, planted it in the pit of Wallie's stomach with such force that the muffled thud of it sounded like someone beating a carpet. The kick knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay on his back on a clump of cactus he was sure that he was ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... a slow creaking of wheels and soft thud of hoofs on the grass-grown road called their attention to a short procession of wagons and horsemen, winding along towards the house. A long pine box was in the first wagon, and several families crowded into ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... was racing up for the pass, and, as he reached the back, he sent the ball to him, waist-high. Then the back got to him, and he came down with a thud, with a vision, seen from the corner of his eye, of the ball bounding forward out of the wing three-quarter's hands into touch. Rand-Brown had bungled the pass in the old familiar way, ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... push and thud and clank of his going. He swept a circle in front of the little house that was the factory office, as if he had prepared the setting for a great event; and Ebenezer, following in the long, bright path, stepped into the hall of ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... He stood motionless, staring with open mouth, the hatchet in his hand. The woman tore it out of his hand, swung it like lightning, the sharp edge cut the noose—and Mr. Tiralla fell on the floor with a dull thud. ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... return in a moment with the tea-pot; when Peter held out his cup, she poured into it plain boiling water. At that she set the tea-pot hastily upon the table, threw her gingham apron over her head, and plumped upon the floor with a thud that made the house shake. It frightened the cat into going through the window at a leap, taking with him all ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... a little bushy hillock just outside a village. But occasionally, it was difficult to say from which direction, came the sharp crackle of rifle-fire, and beyond, the far-off thud of cannon. The afternoon was wintry ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... thumped down the bottom of the ladder, and then let the top lean against the tree, a couple of apples were knocked off, to come down, one with a thud on the soft soil, the other to strike in the fork of the tree and bound to ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... had climbed on the cart, and peeping through a brick hole he could see that they had with some difficulty disengaged a very heavy stone. As we were turning our heads to watch the two lads fighting near our hiding-place, we heard the stone strike with a heavy thud upon the rotten ice below, and it was echoed by a groan of satisfaction ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... piece of potter's work, the magic ranks broke apart, and each gun fell to the ground with a heavy "thud," like an iron weight. ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... hurrah died on his lips as a deep low hum—a Psalm tune sung by hundreds of manly voices—ascended to his ears, to the accompaniment of the heavy thud of horsehoofs, and from the London Road, between the bridge and the Royalist horsemen, there emerged a compact body of troopers, in steel caps and corslets. Forming in ranks of three abreast, they charged over the bridge, and speedily cleared off the ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... toiled for centuries. He walked and struggled on as in a dream. A part of the dream was his arrival at Sheep Camp. He stumbled into a saloon, slid his shoulders out of the straps, and started to deposit the grip at his feet. But it slipped from his fingers and struck the floor with a heavy thud that was not unnoticed by two men who were just leaving. Churchill drank a glass of whiskey, told the barkeeper to call him in ten minutes, and sat down, his feet on the grip, ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... then I had not thrown quoits in my youth not to be able to surmount so small a difficulty. So I fastened a black cockade amid the blood-red of the roses, and, rising in my stirrups, threw them firmly and gently, and saw them rise in the air, top the window-sill, and fall with a slight thud upon the floor. I did not wait for more, but turned and rode away; but it seemed to me that as I gained the shadow of the forest and looked back I saw the faint suggestion of a girlish form standing at the open window. I looked once ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... the air, doubled like a letter V. Quickly Photogen snatched the other, shot, cast his bow from him, and drew his knife. But the arrow was in the brute's chest, up to the feather; it tumbled heels over head with a great thud of its back on the earth, gave a groan, made a struggle or two, and lay stretched ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... any shooting would mean a call for help, struck again, sending his groggy opponent flat, and unconscious. It was all the swift work of a minute, and there had been no noise to arouse alarm. Hobart had not even cried out; the only audible sounds being the sharp click of the door, and the dull thud of ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... help was on the way. The telephone instrument, for obvious convenience, had been equipped with an extension bell which rang simultaneously in O'Hagan's quarters. When Maitland was not at home the janitor-valet, so warned, would answer the calls. And now, in the still intervals, the heavy thud of unhurried feet could be heard upon the staircase. O'Hagan was coming to answer; and taking his time about it. It seemed an age before the rattle of pass-key in latch announced him; and another ere, all unconscious of the figure supine on the divan against ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... life, and are now but the specimens of the museum. The beauties of a brilliant night at sea, whether starlit or moonlit, the solemn, awe-inspiring gloom and silence of a clouded, threatening sky, as the steamer with dull thud moves at midnight over the waste of waters, these I need not describe; many there are that see them in these rambling days. These eternities of the heavens and the deep abide as before, are common to the steamer ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... floor with a thud that shook the house, and in this change of base I had the luck to come out uppermost. Then my courage rose as I found that I could hold my man. I feared a knife, but if he had one he had not drawn it, and I was ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... in the flash of a few breathless seconds. There was the dull thud of hoofs. A scared bay thoroughbred, coming from Godbury, galloping hell for leather, with a dishevelled boy in khaki on his back. The boy had lost his stirrups; he had lost his reins; he had lost his head. He hung half over the saddle and had a death grip on the horse's mane. And the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... road and entering the building he had just left. The colonel gave him time, and then retraced his steps. He took off his boots in the vestibule and went upstairs quietly. He was half-way up when he heard the soft thud of his own door closing, and grinned again. He gave the intruder time to get inside before he too inserted his key, and turning it without a sound, came into the darkened hall. There was a light in his room, and he heard the sound of a ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... written in an essay on Senancour during the days when the little white house was but a dream, and Irma had never come to me across the cleared space in front of Greyfriars Kirk amid the thud of mallets and the "chip" of trowels. But Irma taught me better things. She knew when to be silent. She understood, also, when speech would slacken the tension of the mind. As I sat writing by the soft glow of the lamp I could hear ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... that softness of tread, it was pleasant to be with her. But he began to feel anxiety because of the squalor of the district. This must be a mews, for there were sodden shreds of straw on the cobblestones, and surely that was the thud of sleeping horses' hooves that sounded like the blows of soft hammers on soft anvils behind the high wooden doors. If she lived near here she must be very poor. But without embarrassment she turned to him in the shadow of a brick wall surmounted by broken hoarding and pointed ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... against his leg. He pushed the little dog rather roughly away and stepped back to the arcade. The priest looked puzzled and slightly hurt. At this moment the soft thud of horse's hoofs was audible on the road and Domini came cantering back to the hotel. Her eyes were sparkling, her face was radiant. She bowed to the priest and reined up before the hotel door, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... town—which means every male of any age. The roar of the flames, the hissing of the steam, the crash of the timber, the shrieks of the foremen, the yells of applause or of sarcastic comment from the crowd, and the thud of the numerous pumps made a glorious row. Everybody, except the owners of the buildings, was hugely delighted, and when the fire was all over it was customary for the unfortunate owner further to increase the amount of his loss by dealing out liquid refreshments to everybody concerned. ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... she felt for the high comb Prosper had put into her hair. Then she stared around the gorgeous little room, snug from the world, so secret in its winter canyon. She heard Wen Ho's incessant pattering in the kitchen, the crunch and thud of Prosper's shoveling outside. It was suddenly a horrible nightmare, or less a nightmare than a dream, pleasant in the dreaming, but hideous to an awakened mind. She was awake. Isabella's story had thrown her mind, so abruptly dislocated, back to a time before the change, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... head and listened. Far away in the distance he seemed to hear the sound of trumpets, and the "thud," "thud" of horses' hoofs, as if a body of men were riding quickly ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... wall. She never opened the door again. As far as the Cheap Jack's wife could tell, the old woman seemed to be remonstrating and pleading; the gentleman spoke now and then. Then there was a lull, then a thud, then a short pause, and then the parlor-door was burst open, and the gentleman came flying towards the kitchen, and calling for the Cheap Jack's wife. The fact that the door was locked caused some delay, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... came the boom and thud of drums and dancing sticks, until the urge of them caused even Ellen's feet to beat time to the primitive music. She glanced at her sister. Jean's eyes were sparkling. Her lithe body was swaying and her hands moving in ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... and always the lane was our point of contact; but as the roan mare was taking me to the station one heavy, cloud-smeared day, I passed a dull-looking villa that the groom, or instinct, told me was Judkin's home. From beyond a hedge of ragged elder-bushes could be heard the thud, thud of a spade, with an occasional clink and pause, as if some one had picked out a stone and thrown it to a distance, and I knew that HE was doing nameless things to the roots of a pear tree. Near by him, I felt sure, would be lying a large ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... contact with the disabled craft. The two objects maintained contact for a few minutes, then began to separate. While this was going on, Jackson was taking photos. Just as they began to separate, there was a dull "thud" and the next second the UFO began to spew out sheets of very light metal from the hole in the center. As these were fluttering to the water, the UFO began to throw out a harder, rocklike material. Some of it landed on the beach of Maury Island. Jackson took his ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... goes up by mules or men or bicycles to the trenches. It is the only movement in the place, and I have spent hours watching men shift grub or ammunition or lending them a hand. All day one hears guns, a kind of thud at the stomach, and now and then one sees an aeroplane, very high and small. Just beyond this point there is a group of poplars which have been punished by a German shell. They are broken off and splintered ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... exclamations are mingled with yawns; and after numberless little incidents which according to the usage of each home vary this preface of the night, our friend flings himself into his own bed with a heavy thud. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... sensed what was taking place,—that their gray monarch, the sovereign grizzly, was at the death-fight with some dreadful invader from the South. They heard the bear's fierce bawls, unimitatable by any other voice as he lashed down blow after blow; and they heard the thud and crunch of the axe against his body. Had this monarch of the trails found his master ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... he may put in any minute." But there was again a long silence and state of suspense; the chase had turned another way. There were faint distant yaps. The fire burned low and fell together with a shower of sparks. The smaller boys began to grow chilly and sleepy, when there was a thud and rustle and snapping of twigs close at hand, then the gasp of a breathless dog. Two dim shapes rushed by; a shower of bark fell, and a dog began to sing at the foot of the great twisted pine not ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... the farther end of the loft, she tried to run over to another dark corner. Instead of that, the hay began to slip and slide under her and she went down, down, down, through a long dark box, and hit with a hard thud ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... Punishment" was not piped, every native on the island, some seventy or so all told, gathered round the cocoanut-tree to which the man was lashed, and at every stroke of the heavy yoke-lines they shuddered. One, a woman with a child sitting beside her, lay face to the ground, and as each cruel swish and thud fell on her ear ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... she ran blindly, hearing nearer and nearer the thud of those pounding hoofs. Once she stumbled and almost fell. Then, dizzily she righted herself and plunged forward. She felt her strength quite gone when suddenly, close to her, she heard Jimmy's cheery call again. The next minute she felt herself snatched off her feet ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... twice, thrice it gleamed, and those wrestlers fell apart, while from deep down in the gulf came the thud of ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... pit lies (far) to the East, Pit het by the Fire-queen Pele. Heaven's dawn is lifted askew, One edge tilts up, one down, in the sky; 5 The thud of the pick is heard in the ground. The question is asked by Wakea, What god's this a-digging? It is I, it is Pele, Who dug Mihau deep down till it burned, 10 Dug fire-pit ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... connected it with the fantasies which thronged my brain. I stood still, rooted to the spot, the blood curdling in my veins, my eyes straining in vain effort to pierce the darkness. Then there arose a roar not unlike that of an angry lion; the sound of a fierce struggle; the dull thud of a blow, and Cairnes's ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... was all over, the heavy thud of a policeman's truncheon was heard, and a few minutes later, with Bob's help, the two men were led away ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... before the child, who was laughing and trying to grasp them. Then she forgot them, and dropped them in the bottom of the boat, for something had struck the keel with a thud, and the water ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the swell was rapidly hurrying the ship to destruction. Two minutes later a mountain sea lifted the Porpoise high, and took her among the roaring surf. In another moment she struck the coral reef with a thud that shook her timbers from keel to bulwarks; then the ship fell over on her beam ends in the savage turmoil, her deck facing inshore. So sudden was the catastrophe that no one could fire a gun for help or for warning to ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... to push up the lower sash. He managed to open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork: then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash, it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that rushed below. Prompt upon this came a flutter and ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a walking race. At a certain point they stopped and changed to a sort of slow, swinging stamp, numbering not a quarter of the steps, but occupying about the same time. The moment the last echoing stamp had died away would come again the run or ripple of light, hurrying feet, and then again the thud of the heavier walking. It was certainly the same pair of boots, partly because (as has been said) there were no other boots about, and partly because they had a small but unmistakable creak in them. Father Brown had the kind of head that cannot help asking questions; ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... and the unhandy wretch for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy, though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however; and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to escape. With ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... of wood in the fire-place burned in two and fell with a soft thud on the ashes; a lean hound crept stealthily to the boy's side and thrust a cold muzzle against his ragged jacket; in the cupboard a mouse rustled over the rude dishes and among ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... with the thud of the trochee[9] falling in each instance in a different vowel; and still more on the continuous sequence of five stanzas, from Judex ergo to non sit cassus, in which not a word could be displaced or replaced by another without loss. The climax of verbal harmony, corresponding ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... thing a trapeze artist should do. Brain and hand at rehearsal one day lost co-ordination by the thousandth part of a second and Lackaday Mere, swinging from her feet upwards, missed the anticipated grip, and fell with a thud on the ground, breaking her spine. Whereupon Lackaday Pere went out and hanged himself from a cross-beam in an ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... will you?" said Steve. Neil joined Phil and for some minutes the Adventurer stole quietly along through the grey void with little sound save the slow working of the engine below deck and the lazy thud of the propeller. It was so quiet that when Perry suddenly worked the fog-horn Han almost fell over the wet rail on which he was sitting. It was Ossie who ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... else. We knew, at that rate, it couldn't possibly last until we got to the other side, but we prayed loudly that it would. In April we heard of the gassing of the first Canadians at Ypres. Then the casualty lists from that field arrived and hit Vancouver with a thud. Instantly a change came over the city. Before that day, war had been a romance, a thing far away about which to read and over which to wave flags. It was intangible, impersonal. It was the same attitude the States exhibited in the autumn of '17. Then suddenly it became real. This ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... And now Joco took his iron stake, which he always kept by him, opened the door, and at one bound was at the side of the wild beast. His voice sounded again like thunder, and the iron stick fell with a thud on the bear's back. Ibrahim had smelt blood. Beneath his paws a man's mangled body was writhing. The beast could hardly be made to let go his prey. In the light that came through the small window, Joco soon found the chain from ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... a time his heart beat violently; however, nobody else passed, nothing whatever stirred the grass. The only sounds that reached him were faint ones from the Bois de Boulogne, the ring of a bicyclist's bell, the thud of a horse's hoofs, the rumble of carriage wheels. And time went by, nine o'clock came, and then ten o'clock. Since the rain had ceased falling, Salvat had not suffered so much from the cold, for he was wearing a thick overcoat which little Mathis had given him. But, on the other hand, hunger ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to the rhythmical thud of the drum, their voices were raised in a fearful chorus that must have made one think of the choirs of hell, and the song they sang was the song of Rouget de l'Isle, which all France had been singing these ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... from under him and had swung it at the figure. A lamp had stood on the bar top. It was caught by the backward swing of the chair, overturned and quenched. The splintering of glass mingled its small sound with an ominous thud in the thick darkness. It was the end of all things; the falling of an impenetrable curtain over a horror half sensed, yet all the greater ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... in the direction of the nearest mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... wind blowing where wind never blew before since the beginning of the world, that with a terrible wailing howled itself to silence in the thousand recesses of the cave city. As it passed our lamps went out. Lastly, quite a minute later I should think, there was a thud, as though something of enormous weight had fallen on the surface of the ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... striking my repeater we found to our regret that this was a mistake. In the moonlight I could see columns of nasty brown cockroaches ascending the bedposts, crawling along the top of the curtains, dropping with a thud on to the bed, and then descending over the side to the ground. At last I could stand it no longer, and opening the curtains cautiously, I seized my slippers, knocked half-a-dozen brown beasts out of each, wrapped myself in ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... down his cheek in bright red streaks, rushed into the captain's cabin, broke open the closet beside the desk with a bayonet and seized the keys of the ammunition rooms. Now down the stairs and through the narrow openings in the bulkheads, where the thud of the hostile projectiles sounds more and more hollow, and here, at last, is the door of the shell-chamber containing the shells for the 8-inch guns in the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... arrest the edge of the cylinder while the reverse action of drawing out the plunger is proceeded with. Directly the finger is drawn out of the glove—in other words, immediately the plunger is raised out of the cylinder—the latter drops down below with a heavy thud, still ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... recovered to be capable of answering questions, she told a strange story. She had heard, so she said, a voice raised as though in anger, but had been unable to distinguish the words, and just afterwards a dull thud. She then walked quickly towards where these sounds had come from, and was just able to distinguish two men running away. This was all that ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... impossible to place her there securely, but she helped him bravely, scrambled somehow to the awkward seat, and stooped to drag him up behind. She had succeeded, by main force. The excited beast was plunging forward again to get away from the affrighting turmoil close to its heels, when a heavy thud shook the huge frame, the camel fell to its knees, lurched over on its side, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... making for the trees—exactly what Malbrouck desired. He deftly threw the rope round a sapling, but not too taut, lest the moose's horns should be injured. The plucky animal now turned on him. He sprang behind a tree, and at that instant he heard the thud of hoofs behind him. He turned to see a huge bull-moose bounding towards him. He was between two fires, and quite unarmed. Those hoofs had murder in them. But at the instant a rifle shot rang out, and he only caught ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... yell the powerful savage wrenched his arm free; in a last superhuman effort he swung his knife upward as Rod's blade sank to the hilt in his breast, and the blow fell with a sickening thud under Rod's arm. With a sharp cry the young hunter staggered to his feet, and the Indian's knife fell from him, red with blood. Making an effort to control himself he picked up the knife and loosed the ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... fall in the darkness. Only one thing saved us. Before we struck the ground, we managed to break the full force of our fall by grasping the roots and branches of some low-growing shrubs and bushes which we felt without seeing. We slipped then less rapidly from hold to hold, until, with a thud, we struck the earth. It seemed more like the earth ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... arter— Stood up, but how Ide shook, Then the Spaniard yelled like a devil, "Now look, Jim Barnet!—look!"— With that he jumped 'n' gripped her; She fought, but he broke her hold, Grabbed at the rope, 'n' missed it— Off of the bar they rolled, Clinched, 'n' Ide a screamin'; Thud!—they struck the ground; I turned all sick and dizzy, 'N' everything went round. How still it were for a second!— It seemed like an hour—'n' then The women was all a screechin', 'N' the ring was full of men. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... cowboy was frying pork over the stove of a little ranch near the Dakota line, when there was a quick thud of hoofs outside, and presently the Easterner entered with the letters ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former incomplete attire of red sashes and strings, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... run with it against the wind. They understood at once and as instantly obeyed. The wind had the same effect on the air-ship as it has on a kite when one runs with it, and the speed of the fall was checked. Man and air-ship landed with a thud that smashed almost everything but the man. The smart boys that had saved Santos-Dumont's life helped him pack what was left of "Santos-Dumont No. 1" into its basket, and a cab took inventor and ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... surmount so small a difficulty. So I fastened a black cockade amid the blood-red of the roses, and, rising in my stirrups, threw them firmly and gently, and saw them rise in the air, top the window-sill, and fall with a slight thud upon the floor. I did not wait for more, but turned and rode away; but it seemed to me that as I gained the shadow of the forest and looked back I saw the faint suggestion of a girlish form standing at the open window. I looked once again ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... hill, opposite the Stebbins' homestead, she crouched down to rest a moment. Once, she thought she heard a horse. It might have been, but if so, the animal had passed, for no longer could she hear the thud of hoofs upon the snow road. Then, something touched her, and she turned her eyes upward. There, in the sky, was a moon—Was it her moon, that pale riding thing, taking its way through the white clouds? How cold it looked, and how cold it was! She shivered, settled a little ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... files approaching. He thrust the muzzle of the rifle through the hole and fired at a row of brown legs, and then, with only a second between, he discharged another bullet at the same target. Cries of pain and rage arose, there was a thud as the heavy log was dropped to the ground, and Henry had time to send a third shot after the fleeing warriors as they ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the pick of the stables, wrapped in a cloud of steam, and that never failed to draw a crowd where it went, is no more. The rush and the swing of the long line, the crack of the driver's mighty whip and his warning shouts to "Jack" or "Pete" to pull and keep step, the steady chop-chop thud of the sand-shaker, will be seen and heard no more. In the place of the horse-plough has come the electric sweeper, a less showy but a good deal more ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... the aeroplanes went over the lines, and more than once there was a battle in mid-air above where Ned, Bob and Jerry were on duty. Once a Hun plane came down in flames, so near they could hear the thud ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... room, and every one ran. We found Betty in the hall outside the door, crying, with her fingers in her ears and her cap over her eye. She said she had been putting the hot water bottle to Aunt Selina's back, and it had been too hot. Just then something hit against the door with a soft thud, fell to the floor and burst, for a trickle of hot water came over ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... your hand upon her again if you dare!" cried Mr. Travilla, finishing the castigation by applying the toe of his boot to Arthur's nether parts with a force that sent him reeling some distance down the walk, to fall with a heavy thud ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... increased, until a big flock of huge birds passed over us in rapid flight north. There must have been thousands of them. Captain Burrows brought his shot-gun to his shoulder and fired. There were some wild screams in the air, and a bird came down to the ice with a loud thud. It looked very large a hundred feet away, but sight is very deceiving in this white country in the semi-darkness. We found it a species of duck, rather ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... over one another on the floor, wrestling desperately, but in silence. Gerrard durst not interfere, lest he should seize the wrong man, and he ventured only to say, "Here, Bob!" in a low voice during a pause in the fighting, for fear of betraying their presence to others. Suddenly a horrible thud, followed by a gasping "Ah-h-h!" from Charteris, proclaimed that the contest was over, and Gerrard was nearly knocked down by some one who cannoned into him backwards. A hand was on his throat in a moment, but when the fingers ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... darkness except when now and then illuminated by the flash of a bomb, shell, or gun. The simile could be pursued no further, for to those who had not yet been in action the noise going on seemed to indicate that some fierce fighting must be in progress. The dull but powerful thud of exploding hand bombs, the sharper crashing explosion of shell, the report of a discharging gun and the roar of its projectile, echoed and re-echoed, in its flight along one of the numerous ravines, induced belief that very little time must ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... at a rapid pace for nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was Sunday, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... spray from a sea struck the wall of the house. Captain Lynch looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. He put on a coat of pilot cloth, unhooked the barometer, and stowed it away in a capacious pocket. Again a sea struck the house, with a heavy thud, and the light building tilted, twisted, quarter around on its foundation, and sank down, its floor at an angle of ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton," I rebelled. "I was only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it's trickling all over me!" I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy thud on ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and the girls had the gondola to themselves. They were skirting the low shore of the Lido, fragrant with the breath of new-mown hay, vocal with the chirp of crickets and the dull, rhythmic thud of the waves upon the beach. The sky was overcast and the water was dark, save just ahead, where the gondola light cast a pale reflection, wavering softly from side to side, with the motion of the courtesying prow. The twin towers of San Servolo, its massive buildings and sparse ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap shot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great white teeth of his had met in my thigh—I ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... in the drawing room. She heard the bell, she heard the steps in the hall, and the emphatic thud of the supporting cane. She had risen from her chair and was leaning against the piano, pressing her left hand against the violent beating of her heart. The door opened and the Colonel entered, standing in the full light of the opposite window. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the spell-bound multitude in the streets, for in a moment more the fate of the doomed adventurers must be decided. Suddenly two human forms dropped from the loosened basket and struck with a fearful thud against the elevated railway, then rebounded to the street below a mass of mangled flesh. Death was instantaneous. With one impulse the throng surged about the bodies; but Dr. Gardner's eyes were still fixed upon the balloon, for as if relieved by the rapid lightening ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... down the breeze came the faintly echoed thud of many hoofs and the clinking jingle of sabers against the riders' thighs. Virgie turned back from the ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... Giles Peram, whose legs were six feet from the ground. He howled and yelled; but all were too busy to pay any attention to him, and at last his strength gave out, and he fell with a stunning thud upon the ground, where he lay gasping for breath, partially unconscious, but with ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Ajax kept on trying to drive a spear into Hector, but Hector was so skilful that he held his broad shoulders well under cover of his ox-hide shield, ever on the look-out for the whizzing of the arrows and the heavy thud of the spears. He well knew that the fortunes of the day had changed, but still stood his ground and tried ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... thoughtfully. They never saw her again. As for Estra, he came back in a moment carrying a small, white bundle, which stirred in his arms. He unhesitatingly handed the child to Billie. His mouth moved soundlessly as a muffled shriek arose from the other end of the corridor; there was a thud, a metallic crash, and a great roar of voices. The mob had broken in, and up, through the back of the house. The first of the attackers thrust his head and shoulders into ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... white as her pillows, her eyes big with terror. There was a soft thud against her door. The black ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it did not produce the ringing sound it would have done in an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I sung out, "Stand clear, sir. By Jupiter, the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... very moment when he felt that his nerves would bear the strain no longer, the spell was broken. Suddenly there came a long, hissing breath close beside him, and immediately afterward a terrific thud, as something—Frobisher could easily guess what—was driven with deadly force into the heap of blankets close ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... sky is hung with burning, fleecy clouds. No wind stirs. The still air ferments, and seems to boil. The earth lies in a stupor: no sound comes from it. The brain hums feverishly: all nature awaits the explosion of the gathering forces, the thud of the hammer which is slowly rising to fall back suddenly on the anvil of the clouds. Dark, warm shadows pass: a fiery wind rises through the body, the nerves quiver like leaves.... Then silence falls again. The sky ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... she, but deliberately, I raised the long barrel to line and touched the trigger. I heard the thud of the ball against the antelope's shoulder, and had no doubt that we should pick it up dead, for it disappeared, apparently end over end, at the moment of the shot. Springing into the saddle, I raced with my companion to the top of the ridge. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... of sickening thud seemed to drop through his mind down to the pit of his stomach as he tried to think it out. His eyes peered into the night watching every familiar landmark—there was the old pine where they always turned off to go fishing: and yes, they were turning away from Economy road. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... she had to go before she came to another; but here she found things altogether different and more interesting. As she came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl, a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, just beyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead of her in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe had got caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the left fore leg. He had heard the almost soundless approach ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... drawer of Law, and so on; and when I shut all these drawers, I can go to sleep." The doctor smiled incredulity blandly. "Doctor, I can show you this minute. Doctor, I shut all drawers"—even while saying this, Napoleon fell with a thud on his pillow. He was fast asleep. The man of science and medicine examined him in all ways, but Napoleon had fallen actually fast asleep. This is Concentration and Mind-Control. I don't admire men of Napoleon's selfish types. Their place ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... sat down with a thud and took off his hat as he gazed at this astonishing woman. She was giving him advice in a most superior manner; and yet she was only ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... whole plan will be advertised, you can depend on it. The infernal fool has been holding us up three months, demanding more knowledge—and he can't be trusted. There's only one thing to do, gentlemen! That!" He drove his fist into his palm with significant thud. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... corner. At night they lit great fires in the courtyard, and in the morning they all walked off to the woods. At first it was difficult to guess what they were doing. Soon, however, there was a distant echo as of someone drumming with his fingers on the table; at last the sound of the axe and the thud of falling trees was heard quite plainly. Fresh inroads on the wavy contour of the forest appeared continually; first crevices, then windows, then wide openings, and for the first time since the world was the world, the astonished sky looked into ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... perticklerize concernin' that there row: The whole thing seems a sort of blur as I recall it now— But I can still remember that there was a fearful thud, With the air chock full of arms and legs and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... the thunderous racket of heavy wings as the flock burst into flight, clattering away through leafy obscurity; but under the uproar of shot and clapping wings sounded the thud and splash of something heavy crashing earthward; and the Indian, springing from root to ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... hilltop with Rod close behind him, and from the opposite side of the lake there came a fusillade of half a dozen shots. Instinctively Rod dropped upon his face. And in that instant, as he lay in the snow, he heard the sickening thud of a bullet and a sharp sudden cry of pain from Mukoki. But the old warrior came up beside him and they passed into the ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... flinging himself upon his face and extending his hands above his head, as a whizzing sound was heard; then a dull thud or two and directly after there was a crash on the rocky side of the couloir a few feet above their heads, followed by a shower of slaty fragments which fell upon them, while a great fragment, which had become detached far above, glanced off, struck the other side of ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... but it was open and unimpeded by overhanging boughs. Indeed, the trees were the straight, slender pines in which the region abounded, and he gained on all of his pursuers except two, who, like himself, were superbly mounted. The thud of their horses' hoofs kept near, and he feared that he might soon come to some obstruction which would bring them to close quarters. Mayburn was giving signs of weariness, for his mettle had been sorely tried of late, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... winged ones rise Large and more large upon our straining eyes, Till with a sweep, while every nerve is tense, The chattering covey hurtles o'er the fence; The double crack of every lifted gun, The dinting thud of birds whose course is done— These sounds, delightful to his listening ear, He heeds no longer, for he cannot hear. None stauncher, till the drive was done, defied Temptation, rooted to his master's side; None swifter, when his master gave the word, Leapt on his course to track ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Chester seized the German officer by the knees before he could recover his balance and aim another thrust at him, and, with a quick heave, sent the officer spinning over his head. The German hit the ground with a thud, and as he was about to pick himself up an English trooper ended his fighting days with a thrust ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... however, and they look as if they had been set down there for a few months only; 'contract' seems written all over them, and very properly, for they are running on a Government order for small arms. There is no noise but an underhum of revolving shafts and the smothered thud of trip hammers. Ore dust blackens everything, and is scattered everywhere, so that the whole ground is a patchwork of black and gray; elsewhere there is snow, but here the snow is turned to the dingy color of the place. It is very quiet outside, being ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... railing with a startling thud. "I'll never break fast with ye again—never—never—never! Ye've blighted the greenest memory I ever had!" And with that she was gone, slamming the door after her by way ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... the shade of the great trees the fever of discontent left him, and, forgetting all except the happiness of being surrounded by the silent oaks, he penetrated deeper and deeper into the forest. The brushing of a branch against a tree, the thud of a falling nut, the dart of a squirrel, and the sight of a bushy tail disappearing round a limb—all these things which indicated that the little gray fellows were working in the tree-tops, and which would usually ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... two above and two below. And at times they all merged into a writhing confusion of fierce pantings and snortings as of wild beasts, but for the most part they fought in grim silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind through their swollen lips, the light thud of their feet on the trampled ground, and the grisly sound of fist on flesh. And they fought for love of Rachel Carre, which the one had not been able to win and the other had ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... him down from the soaring heights of imagination as it were with a thud. He strode forward and caught her ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... bed, but went out at once to make his report. He had questioned the boy—a dull boy, but he thought honest. Assuredly he had seen no lady on his way. His lies deceived Maulfry, who would have known better but for her proneness to think everybody a fool. Soon Isoult heard the thud of hoofs on the herbage; then Alice came running in to ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the pistol from its loose hold in his other hand. The box under his arm fell to the floor, and Dick was just being tossed to the other side of the room; she could hear him strike the cheval-glass with a dull thud. ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... let them go to bed, little knowing how he used to try to prolong a conversation so that he might not be left alone with a horrible fear always ready to pounce upon him when night fell, and when only the thud of the engines playing some ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... him. The smith was quite twenty yards distant, but, gathering himself together, he flung out his arm, and with all his might threw the iron bar at the retreating sentry. The missile sped true; over and over it twisted in the air, and, catching the soldier with a horrid thud in ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... clash of plates and cups on the impact of the kick, there was a sensible silence before the appalling crash and thud at the stair's foot. Amaryllis held back a scream, but ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... Off Fuzito a soft, dull thud was heard; but at this thud the steersman cried "Halt!" in a fright, to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... was bigger now, and I got down on all-fours in a channel not much bigger than a large sewer-pipe and found myself in total darkness. A minute later a heavy thud, followed by a cataract of loose sand, announced ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and, saying to May: "Now, brace yourself for a mighty push," she used the handle as a lever, gave a vigorous jerk, when away went bolt, window, Marie and all. Down she came with a thud, but, luckily, on a pile of sweeping cloths, which saved ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... speak this once and never again! Listen!" For a moment the quiet voice stopped, so that the gentle cracking of the burning logs could alone be heard above the heavy thud of the girl's heart, which to her ears sounded like thunder of the surf at dawn. "You are mine, mine, do you understand? You are no silly child, you knew what you were doing when you came with me, neither am I a man, for man ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... and Pounding Flat on the other, but they lent no life to the scene; they only haunted it. A stranger might have thought the field entirely deserted until he came on a coat and a billy at the foot of saplings amongst the holes, and heard, in the shallow ground underneath, the thud of a pick, which told of some fossicker below rooting out ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... regained his balance after being almost knocked over in this humiliating way, and the horrible, as it were, sodden, thud of the blow in the face had scarcely died away in the room when he seized Shatov by the shoulders with both hands, but at once, almost at the same instant, pulled both hands away and clasped them behind his back. He did not speak, but looked at Shatov, and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... yell, a scuffle, the rip and crash of rending bannisters, an instant's silence, then a heavy thud—and then Cleggy's voice from somewhere below in a choice and fervent ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... self-sown saplings had grown up, thicket-like with the entanglement of their young shoots. In the greenish light which filtered like tinted water through the foliage, in the deep silence of the mossy soil, one only heard the dull thud of the fruit as it ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... on. The wind tore the sails to shreds. The sailors cast the anchor. With a thud it went into the sea, and for a ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... spectators of a scientific adversary; and loudly now the gentleman was cheered. An undercurrent of warm feeling ran for the plucky little one at it hot again in spite of the strokes, and when he fetched his master a handsome thud across the shoulder, and the gentleman gave up and complimented him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... road he raced, sitting tight in the saddle with the reins hanging loose, catching rather than hearing on the air as it rushed past his ears the thud of the horses' hoofs galloping away ahead. Behind him the others rode, silent, the horses following the leader of their own instincts. Two miles farther on the faint sounds ahead ceased, and each one of the five knew that the fugitives had turned from the roadway into ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... than usual that morning, which was bad luck, as I heard Fitz-Jones click his gate behind me and thud after me in his snow-boots. Fitz-Jones and I had a little disagreement, not long ago, about the sole possession of a servant-maid. Since then there has been a coolness. Curiously enough, the hideous frost that raged at the moment (the thermometer stood at twenty-five degrees in the henhouse) seemed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... and their marksmanship was near perfection. They gradually developed a system of tactics of their own, foreign to the manuals. The first thing you were aware of in the provincial soldier was the puff of smoke from the muzzle of his weapon; almost simultaneously came the thud of his bullet in your breast, or crashing through your brain. He loaded his gun lying on his back beneath the ferns and shrubbery; he advanced or retreated invisibly, from tree to tree. Your only means of estimating ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... of Graustark sat agape. With his concluding words, Mr. Blithers deposited his clenched fist upon the table with a heavy thud, and, as if fascinated, every eye shifted from his face to the white knuckles of ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... nervous movement. The crystal, left to itself, rolled off the table to the floor, and fell with a thud unbroken on the soft carpet. And I could hear the intake ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... to the left, crossed the living-room, approached the window, and fell out, head first. There was something deeply impressive in the silence and swiftness of his action, something deliriously stimulating to the spectators in the thud of his small body on the unyielding wood. A long sigh of happiness was exhaled by the group of children. Certainly this was a new duty—a strange one, but worthy, no doubt, since it emanated from Fraulein, and beyond question interesting as a spectacle. Augustus ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... up the alley past her hiding-place, a shout, and the savage thud of blows. Very cautiously, as became one wise in the ways of life in that place, Cake peered around a barrel. She saw Red Dan, who sold papers in front of Jeer Dooley's place, thoroughly punishing another and much larger boy. The bigger boy ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... vision he saw the black horse start into a sharp gallop; saw the great dog sail across the fence first; saw the horse and rider shoot into the air against the stars; heard the click of hoofs against the top rail; heard the thud of hoofs on the near side of the fence, and then the horseman flashed about the corner of the barn and in an instant his hoofs were beating a far ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... dropped and extinguished in the dismal passage, a loss proclaimed by a suppressed groan passing along the line, and a louder exclamation from Walter, causing Sigbert to utter a sharp 'Hush!' enforced by a thud and tramp above, as if the rock were coming down on them, but which probably was the trampling of horses in the ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and seemed to stand still. Jim could not have locked more terrible if he were really a murderer. He opened his coat. Then he flung a black object upon the table and it fell with a soft, heavy, sodden thud. It was a leather belt ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... over the broad face of the moorland. The carriages rocked and pitched like boats in a seaway, as they lumbered along, fifty abreast, scrambling and lurching over everything which came in their way. Sometimes, with a snap and a thud, one axle would come to the ground, whilst a wheel reeled off amidst the tussocks of heather, and roars of delight greeted the owners as they looked ruefully at the ruin. Then as the gorse clumps grew thinner, and the sward more level, those on foot began ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stipulated conditions, and his arbitrary prorogation of the parliament at Edinburgh, a thing which the best and bravest of the Scottish monarchs had never before dared to do without the consent of the States then assembled, the thud and murmur of warlike preparation was renewed both on anvil and in hall. And when it was known that the King, fey and distempered with his own weak conceits and the instigations of cruel counsellors, had, as soon as he heard that the Covenanters were disbanded, renewed ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... thousand lights were dancing before his eyes; saw the other guests staggering and falling. Statuettes, bric-a-brac, and articles of furniture came crashing down; part of the ceiling fell with a thud, raising a stifling dust, which, choking the shrieking voices, rendered more distinct the grinding sound, as walls of solid masonry drew apart, gaped, and closed under ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... had immediate duties elsewhere stampeded out of the mess. Overhead there was a thud of feet and ropes ends and the shrilling of pipes as the watch fell in. A Midshipman thrust his head inside the door of the Wardroom. "Boat's alongside, sir!" he ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... swung smartly around the bend into the narrow wagon-road that stretched its aimless way through the scrubby bottom-lands and over the ridge to the open sweep of the plains beyond. Presently he urged the mare to a rhythmic lope, and all the while his ears were alert for the thud of galloping horses behind. It was not until he reached the table-land to the south that he drove the rowels into the flanks of the swift four-year-old and leaned forward in the saddle to meet the rush of the wind. Full well he knew that given the start of an hour no horse in the ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... rods, keeping time in a stately music as they advance; the continuous falling and crashing of the trees as other thousands of hands ply the axes along the lines, that creep, slowly, but visibly, on through the Forest that no foot had ever trodden—the thud of the multitudinous machines driving the piles in the marshy spaces; the whole innumerable sounds falling on the ear like the roaring of a great and ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... barely showing as he slowly moved on before. One of the two in the rear was dropped and extinguished in the dismal passage, a loss proclaimed by a suppressed groan passing along the line, and a louder exclamation from Walter, causing Sigbert to utter a sharp 'Hush!' enforced by a thud and tramp above, as if the rock were coming down on them, but which probably was the trampling of horses in the ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... muckle white sharp teeth girnin' and grundin'—and the lang rough tongue, and the yirnest slaver running outour the chaps o' the brute—and the cauld shiver—-minutes may be—and than the loup like lightning, and your back-bane broken wi' a thud, like a rotten rash—and then the creature begins to lick your face wi' his tongue, and sniffle and snort over owre you, and now a snap at your nose, and than a rive out o' your breast, and then a crunch at your knee—and you're a' the time quite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... had joined him there that I heard what had alarmed his quicker senses. There was a noise somewhere within the house. A door slammed in the distance. Then a confused, dull murmur broke itself into the measured thud of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching. They were in the passage outside the room. They paused at the door. The door opened. There was a sharp snick as the electric light was turned on. The door closed once more, and the pungent reek of a strong cigar was borne ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the gangway, marshalling a well-grown youth carrying a scythe; "we don't have many visitors here. One who looked in the other day slipped his foot, fell over, and we've never seen him since. Listening intently, watch in hand, we heard a slight thud, and have reason to believe he dropped on Jupiter. It was useful to us, seeing that, by use of a well-known formula, we were able to reckon our precise distance from that planet. For him, I fancy, it must have ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... no bites immediately; but as they sat there they heard a red squirrel chirr! up among the thick hemlocks, and presently caught the sound of a low thud on the ground, soon followed by another ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... the night were nothing to them. The trail might ring with the beat of their horses' hoofs, or only reply with the soft thud of a deep, sandy surface. They were not out to consider either their horses or themselves. Each knew that his journey was one of desperate emergency, and one of them, at least, cared nothing what might be his sacrifice, even if it ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... down rather than advances. If salmon are not in the humour harling presents the elements of monotony, and the wise plan seems to me not to think of the rods, nor look at them, nor wonder which will be first in action. Such were my thoughts, and I laid out a line of thought as a corrective. Thud, thud, go the oars, steadily nodding by the movement of the waves go the rod tops. Aye, hours of this would suggest a certain sameness, probably. And then came the startling moment that is so delicious, the jump of the flat pebble off the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... bow and loosed an arrow, almost, it seemed, at hazard. Yet that arrow pierced the leader of the flock, so that down it came in wide circles, and in a last struggle hovered for a moment over the group of men, then fell among them with a thud, the blood from its pierced breast bespattering Sir Edmund Acour and ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... size of the bunk, which I found to be narrow, and plainly at some distance from the deck, for I laid hold upon one of the rough beams above me. By its curvature I knew it to be a knee, and thus I came to the caulked sides of the vessel, and for the first time heard the rattling thud and swish of water on the far side of it. I had no sooner made this discovery, which drew from me an involuntary groan, when a ship's lanthorn was of a sudden thrust over me, and I perceived behind it a head covered with shaggy hair and beard, and beetling ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across the table. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... reflectively, staring out across the purple moor and lazily watching the western sky turn from glory to glory. Over his head the smoke of the sacrifice still curled and eddied upwards. Then a sudden sound sent him on to one elbow—the thud of ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... Then suddenly he ran forward and sprang into the air. Such an amazing jump Alan had never seen before. So high was it indeed that his head came level with that of the fetish, which he snatched with both hands tearing it from Asika's grasp. Coming to the ground again with a thud, he began to caper to and fro, kissing the ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... drumming of galloping hoofs, the check and pause of a leap, and then close at hand the thud of those same hoofs landing on the near side of the hedge. The rider slithered to the ground, patted the animal's neck, and turned forthwith towards the hut. Avery heard nought of his coming. She was crying like ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... be going," said I in a whisper, my heart thud-thudding at my vest, my mind sharing some of John Splendid's apprehension that we were intruders on some profound grief. And yet my hunger was a furious thing that belched red-hot at ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... endless chain have been passing on the highroad before the chateau. The air was full of mingled sounds, as, for example, the singing of the soldiers in the distance, which sounds like the droning of bees far away and always heralds an advance of troops; the rhythmic shuffling of feet, the thud of horses' hoofs, the chugging of autos which carry the superior officers, and the heavy wheels of the gun carriages with their clanking chains. Their order, equipment and discipline ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... hurry is good, Dagaeoga. The white man will not go into the forest with his ax at daybreak, unless the need of haste is great, but it is not a fort they build. Mingled with the fall of the axes I hear another note. It is a humming and a buzzing. It is heard in these forests much less often than the thud of the ax. Ah! I was in doubt at first, but I know it now! It is the sound made by a great saw as it eats into ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... batter, it was but natural that the enthusiastic youths should think of the Championship chances in terms of Thor. For one week, enthusiasm and excitement soared higher and higher, and then, to use a phrase of fiction, everything fell with a dull, sickening thud! ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... handing me two little spheres such as are used in the royal game. And I heard no more; for I received a blow—whether delivered by Mr. Swinburne or the ungrateful Theodormon I do not know, but I found myself falling down the gulf of oblivion, and suddenly, with a dull thud, I landed on the remains of Howlglass. The softness of his head had really preserved me from what might have been a severe shock, because the distance from Parnassus to Fleet Street, as you know, is considerable, and the escalade might have been more serious. I reached my ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... weaker. And now Joco took his iron stake, which he always kept by him, opened the door, and at one bound was at the side of the wild beast. His voice sounded again like thunder, and the iron stick fell with a thud on the bear's back. Ibrahim had smelt blood. Beneath his paws a man's mangled body was writhing. The beast could hardly be made to let go his prey. In the light that came through the small window, Joco soon found the chain from which not long before he had freed Ibrahim, and with a swift turn ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... Calmady had followed her and his mother into the red drawing-room, and it hurt her—though she had now, of necessity, witnessed it many times—it hurt, it still very shrewdly distressed her, to see him walk. As she heard the soft thud and shuffle of his onward progress, followed by the little clatter of the crutches as he laid them upon the floor beside his chair, the brightness died out of Honoria's face. She registered sharp annoyance against herself, for she had ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a song spurted and dropped and spurted again and shot up in the stillness, slender and clear, like a rod oft white water. The Belgian boys were singing the Marseillaise. On the deck their feet beat out the thud of the march. ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... impatient, for a strange pleasure filled his heart. The straining of the masts, the creaking of the boom, the singing of the ropes, the banging of the blocks as they put the vessel about, all fell in with the roaring of the wind above, the surge of the waves past her sides, and the thud with which every now and then one would strike her; while through it all Diamond could hear the gurgling, rippling, talking flow of the water against her planks, as she slipped through it, lying now on this side, now on that—like a subdued ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... ye grovelling down there for, ye drunken beast?" shouted the angry waiter, as he came down with a thud. "Why don't you walk on your ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... little of it that I saw, aimed for the spot among the grass which I pictured as being just behind the shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack of the rifle broke in upon the stillness of the night with startling effect. I heard the thud of the bullet, instantly followed by a savage snarl that ended in a moan, and as the smoke drifted away I caught a momentary glimpse of a great, tawny, black-spotted form writhing convulsively in the air from its death spring and then collapsing inertly ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... stationed on a little bushy hillock just outside a village. But occasionally, it was difficult to say from which direction, came the sharp crackle of rifle-fire, and beyond, the far-off thud of cannon. The ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... grew rigid straightway. "I am not one to take back an offer," he stated loftily. His voice was weighted to a heavier guttural, and in the deep staccatos harshly chopped off, and each falling with a thud, there was a quality so ominous and deadly that even Jacqueline had her doubts. But she would not admit them, to herself least of all. "And I, Monsieur Ney," she said, "have decided to accept," though she had not ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... more passed in breathless suspense. The thud of their horses' hoofs alone told me their nearness. My finger was on the trigger. I awaited the word. "Fire!" she said at last, in a calm, unflinching voice. "He is ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... praying, assuring himself from time to time that if any church were true this was the one, and that to enter it was probably his duty, now that Brownson's weight was likewise thrown into the scale and it went down with a warning thud, he thrilled through with apprehension. "I feel like throwing all up," he wrote in the diary on the day the letter reached him. "Some cannot rest. How much better would it have been could I have remained in quietness ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the two shots—merely the thud of two heavy bodies. They were so thoroughly killed, they had no ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... invented the line which was to conclude each verse: 'O Zinaida, Zinaida!' but could get no further with it. Meanwhile it was getting on towards dinner-time. I went down into the valley; a narrow sandy path winding through it led to the town. I walked along this path.... The dull thud of horses' hoofs resounded behind me. I looked round instinctively, stood still and took off my cap. I saw my father and Zinaida. They were riding side by side. My father was saying something to her, bending right over to her, his hand propped on the horses' neck, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... advertises the approach of the roaming Zepp. From constant practice, too, we have learnt, sitting in our drawing room or study, to distinguish the crash of the overturned nursery table upstairs from the duller, less resonant thud of baby's head as it strikes the floor. But can we positively state from the note of the blackbird at the bottom of the garden whether it has three, four or five eggs in its nest, or indeed if it is a house-holder at all? No, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... of the picnickers farther down the creek, the rustle of the yellow beech-leaves as they whispered of the time to go, and how they would drift down like little brown boats to the stream and glide away to the end. Now and then a nut would fall with a tiny crisp thud, and a squirrel would whisk from a limb overhead. They were very quiet, and let the beauty of the spot sink deep into their souls. Then at last Julia Cloud took up her Bible, and ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... our ears, louder than the vibrations of the hamlet bell, louder than the bird-notes and the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr, there rang the thud, thud of cruel blows ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... left, crossed the living-room, approached the window, and fell out, head first. There was something deeply impressive in the silence and swiftness of his action, something deliriously stimulating to the spectators in the thud of his small body on the unyielding wood. A long sigh of happiness was exhaled by the group of children. Certainly this was a new duty—a strange one, but worthy, no doubt, since it emanated from Fraulein, and beyond question interesting as a spectacle. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... night air swept up the stairs, and Georgie saw the panel of light from the open drawing-room door diminish in width, and presently the door shut with a soft thud, leaving him in the dark. At that his desperation seemed pressed and concentrated into a moment of fictitious courage, for he unerringly reasoned that they had left the drawing-room window open, and that perhaps in a few moments now they would have finished their meal and with bulging ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Pritchard's lover. It was because he, too, was dead, she supposed, and this snow was rounding above his grave. But before she made the natural application or drew the familiar comparison between his failure and her own, Elsie clapped the lid down on her thoughts with a thud. Turning resolutely to Miss Pritchard, she asked her, with strange intonation, if she thought the snow would ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... For there was a thud and a faint crash repeated again and again, and though I could not see, I felt certain that the fire had attracted some deer-like creature, which had gone bounding off, till all was silent again, when I crept back, letting the canvas fall behind me, feeling horribly conceited, and thinking what ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... the noise increased, until a big flock of huge birds passed over us in rapid flight north. There must have been thousands of them. Captain Burrows brought his shot-gun to his shoulder and fired. There were some wild screams in the air, and a bird came down to the ice with a loud thud. It looked very large a hundred feet away, but sight is very deceiving in this white country in the semi-darkness. We found it a species of duck, rather large and with ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the following Sunday before he could see Bryda. Everything was against him, for a heavy rain was falling, and there was no chance of Bryda coming out for a Sunday walk. But he went boldly up the steps before Mr Lambert's house and gave a heavy thud on the door ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... tackle. Before the diverted Gerard guessed his purpose, Corrie had hauled in the boat's bow by the running line attached and swung himself raging into the craft below. There was a choked oath, a sound of rending canvas, then the clatter and thud of ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... truly Mirdath. And I, utter weak and shaken strangely because of this splendour of fulfilment, could make no instant answer. And she asked again, but using mine old love-name, and with a sureness in her far voice. And still I was so strangely dumb, and the blood to thud peculiar in mine ears; and this to pass; and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... itself upon the closed barrier, appealing in eloquent indignation to the inexorable Cerberus, and then gazing, with face against the lattice, in imbecile despair at the receding boat. Simultaneous with the thud of the shutting gate is the clank of chains and the rattle of clamps and clogs, as of the striking off of fetters and handcuffs, an asthmatic jingle of a bell somewhere in the body of the boat, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... band-master's rods, keeping time in a stately music as they advance; the continuous falling and crashing of the trees as other thousands of hands ply the axes along the lines, that creep, slowly, but visibly, on through the Forest that no foot had ever trodden—the thud of the multitudinous machines driving the piles in the marshy spaces; the whole innumerable sounds falling on the ear like the roaring of a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table beside ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... clump of timber that lay in the direction of the nearest mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared in the moonlight not twenty paces from him. With an ejaculation of amazement ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... and, embedding itself in a stunted oak behind him, shook and quivered with the shock,—a Tonto arrow. Only an instant did he see it, photographed as by electricity upon the retina, when with a sharp stinging pang and whirring "whist" and thud a second arrow, better aimed, tore through the flesh and muscles just at the outer corner of his left eye, and glanced away down the hill. With one spring he gained the edge of the shelf, and shouted to the scouts to come ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... almost bare to the waist. Suddenly, Eric seemed to give, and Ospakar put out his foot to trip him. But Brighteyes was watching. He caught the foot in the crook of his left leg, and threw his weight forward on the chest of Blacktooth. Backward he went, falling with the thud of a tree on snow, and there he lay on the ground, and Eric ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... The tree was lifted a little off the ground by the broken boughs which took its weight, and with a single movement, so active is one in such necessities, I flung myself beneath it. As I did so, I heard the trunk of the elephant descend with a mighty thud on the back of my poor horse, and the next instant I was almost in darkness, for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there long. In ten seconds more the bull had wound his trunk about my dead nag's ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... Antiguo Mahones swung parallel to the quay wall, and then a derrick chain was hauled out and I heard the scrape of the big gangway as it drew along the gravel, and the thud of its iron-shod heel as it fell on deck and bridged the intervening two fathoms of water. But the black hull of the steamer blotted out all view of the people beyond it, and on the cutter I could learn nothing more of what was going on ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... at the very moment when he felt that his nerves would bear the strain no longer, the spell was broken. Suddenly there came a long, hissing breath close beside him, and immediately afterward a terrific thud, as something—Frobisher could easily guess what—was driven with deadly force into the heap of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... crackers. We also had our furniture, chairs and chests and two rocking chairs for the mother and daughter. Here all of their leisure time, while on the move, was spent industriously applying their knitting needles, meanwhile singing to themselves to the accompaniment of the thud, thud of the oxen. ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... moment it was something worse, and I resigned myself to the silent contemplation of as wild an over as ever was bowled at Lord's. A shocking thing to the off was sent skipping past point for four. "Tripe!" muttered Raffles to himself. A very good one went over the bails and thud into Garland's gloves like a round-shot. "Well bowled!" said Raffles with less reserve. Another delivery was merely ignored, both at the wicket and at my side, and then came a high full-pitch to leg which the batsman hit hard but very late. It was a hit that might have smashed the pavilion palings. ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... the drawing room. She heard the bell, she heard the steps in the hall, and the emphatic thud of the supporting cane. She had risen from her chair and was leaning against the piano, pressing her left hand against the violent beating of her heart. The door opened and the Colonel entered, standing in the full light of the opposite window. Laura was more in the shadow ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy, though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however; and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to escape. With three or four steps Phineas leaped ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... a bend in the track, and anxiously watched a gun-team take the sharp curve, which was also a sharp slope. The impression of superb, dangerous physical power was tremendous. The distended nostrils of horses, the gliding of their muscles under the glossy skin, the muffled thud of their hoofs in the loose soil, the grimacing of the men as they used spur and thong, the fierce straining of straps and chains, the creaking, the grinding, and finally the swaying of the 90-millimetre gun, coddled and polished, as it swung helplessly ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... occupied by Wren of the Sixth. That worthy hero, seated one afternoon over his books, was startled by a terrific noise, followed by a vibration, followed by the rattling of all his tumblers in the cupboard, followed by a dull, heavy thud over his head, which tempted him to believe either that an earthquake was in progress, or that one of the chimney-stacks had fallen on to the roof. When, however, the noise was repeated, and with it were blended laughter and shouts of "Now ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... not conscious of seeing Storch crumple over, but he felt a thud shake the cluttered room to its foundations... He went over quietly and closed the open door. Then he put on his hat. Storch lay quite still and an ugly red pool was already luring flies to a crimson feast. The floor was covered with bits of shattered glass glistening ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... small but heavy box thrown from the gutter landed directly on his head. Then another box came flying through the air, to strike between the three other Rovers. It was followed by a ball of soaking-wet and muddy newspapers which struck the show-window with a thud, sending some dirty drops of water into ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... the teams from Kirby's continued to bring lumber for the fence, and at intervals North heard the thud of the heavy planks as they were thrown from the wagons, or the voices of the drivers as they urged their horses up the steep grade from the street. Darkness came at last and with it unbroken quiet, ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... shoulder. The cattle were approaching on the trot, their great bodies swinging and jostling beneath that thicket of horns as the animals in the rear pushed and crowded against the leaders. The steady thud of their hoofs seemed to shake the ground rhythmically. Jilly could hear even when she couldn't see, and clung convulsively to Anjen with one arm while the other squeezed tight the chastened Huz. Chicken Little sent up a last ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... poised himself for a moment, and then, lashing out with his left hand, came home with a heavy thud on the place indicated. Dimsdale smiled ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... point of his spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap shot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great white teeth of his had ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... was the water ration, it enabled both the girl and Lennon to suck at lumps of raw bacon. They lay silently mouthing and chewing the greasy fat, their rifles ready and their ears alert for the slightest thud of approaching hoofs. But no sound broke the deathlike stillness of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... with a start. Something had flown in through the open midmost window, and fallen with a thud on the floor a few ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in that large, bare and dimly lighted room, with the wind shrieking in the chimney and the powerful limbs of some huge tree beating against the walls without, with a heavy thud inexpressibly mournful, I found to my surprise and something like dismay, that the sleepiness which had hitherto oppressed me, had in some unaccountable way entirely fled. In vain I contemplated the bed, comfortable ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... elderly lady, with a thud of feet softly shod, walked through the hall and stood at the library door regarding them benignantly. And then Jeff, with an outspoken sound of pleasure and surprise, got up and drew her in, and Choate smiled upon her as if she ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... There followed a scuffle, a creaking of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously, walking backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That same twist transformed my path into a real country road—a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... bigger now, and I got down on all-fours in a channel not much bigger than a large sewer-pipe and found myself in total darkness. A minute later a heavy thud, followed by a cataract of loose sand, announced the arrival ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... creature was Jeanne! He shut his eyes to the blue sky and pictured her as she stood in the light, on the ragged escarpment, with her garments beaten by wind and rain. And he remembered the weary thud, thud of railway and steamer, which had resolved itself, like the rhythmic tramp of feet that night, into the ceaseless ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... as night or reflecting slender rays from the polished watery surface. Distinctly Dantesque was the gulf between the huge mountain sides which threatened every moment to fall. One heard the click and thud of hammers, the wild chants of the borers, the slush of water. Being like gnomes and kobolds glided hither and thither—half naked figures muffled up by the mist. Here dark bodies, gleaming with beaded heat drops, hung in what seemed frightful positions; "they swung like ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... frying pork over the stove of a little ranch near the Dakota line, when there was a quick thud of hoofs outside, and presently the Easterner entered with ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... the fiddles, the thud of the dancing, and the peals of coarse laughter followed them from the stifling atmosphere within, and Glory felt ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... there was a thud under our feet and something came "ping" through the floor not six inches from my toe, and lodged in the ceiling. Aggie and I stood looking up. It had made a small round hole over our heads, and a little cloud of plaster ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... around us crumpled up at one blast, and then shot a thick brown cloud of dust, and out of the cloud a high central flame that leaped and spread. With the wailing of shells in the air, every few seconds, the thud and thunder of their impact, the scattering of the shattered metal, it was one of the hot, thorough bombardments of the war. It cleared the town of troops, after tearing their ranks. But it left wounded ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... tea-pot; when Peter held out his cup, she poured into it plain boiling water. At that she set the tea-pot hastily upon the table, threw her gingham apron over her head, and plumped upon the floor with a thud that made the house shake. It frightened the cat into going through the window at a leap, taking with him all the flowers planted ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air. 'Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther; but he'll heu' his lad; und I mun ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the act of opening the trunk, she could easily have hidden herself inside before the owners of the voices she heard had turned the corner. It must have given her a beautiful fright when someone sat down on the trunk with a thud! No wonder she had jumped, and made the big ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... following and drew back into the bushes. Then came the thud of a blow and the heavy fall of a man. The blow was so severe that not even a groan followed, and for a moment all was still. Then Chunk, like a shadow, glided forward and would have passed had not Miss ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... you are so mad and hot that the leaves on the trees curl up and turn yellow like late in the fall. Many a girl has acted just that way, and finally chewed off the line, and let the man fall with a dull thud, and after he has got over it he says to those who have watched the angling that she was not much account, anyway, but all the time he knows by the feeling of goneness inside of him that he lies like a Spaniard," and Uncle Ike tied a handkerchief over the tomato can to keep the worms ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... a dull, explosive sound, and a puff of smoke leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the pavement with a revolting thud. The man's arm strikes a bystander as he darts down. The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror. The faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... phrase. Can we even now talk of Christian muscularity? For my part I think an Eton lad or a Camford man is a sight for gods and fishes. The glory of his neck-tie is terrible. He saith among the cricket balls, Ha, ha, and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thud of the oars and the shouting. I suppose the voice of the people is the voice of God; but let a thing once become fashionable and the devil steps in and leads the dance. When Lady Somebody, or Sir John Nobody, gives away the prizes at the county athletic sports, amid the ringing cheers ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... his work at home, immediately under her fostering eye, and that in this way she should have a finger, so to speak, in the creative process; but for the present the sort of "art" they lived on was best done in an office, with the thud of steam presses beneath and the eager eye of the copy-reader at the door. So Milly was left to herself for long hours in her new little home, and Milly was lonely. The trouble obviously was that Milly had not enough to do to occupy her abundant energy and interest ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... company." Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon flashed on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a barren interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant, looking the centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs made itself felt as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and sabre, and now and again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with that majestic, sweet sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They were coming indubitably, the troop ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the corridor and gained her room in safety. It was an instant's work to throw off her cloak and compose herself rigidly under the single white sheet. But though she lay still her heart was beating to suffocation as she heard the creak and thud of a heavy step coming up the stairs. Then the door was opened in a stealthy way and Henson came in. He could see the outline of the white figure, and a sigh of satisfaction escaped him. A less suspicious ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... stretched its aimless way through the scrubby bottom-lands and over the ridge to the open sweep of the plains beyond. Presently he urged the mare to a rhythmic lope, and all the while his ears were alert for the thud of galloping horses behind. It was not until he reached the table-land to the south that he drove the rowels into the flanks of the swift four-year-old and leaned forward in the saddle to meet the rush of the wind. Full well he ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... ships swarmed out on every side like hornets; the atmosphere seemed full of them. I gave up all hope of escape, but Edmund was like a racer who hears the thud of hoofs behind him. He put on more and more speed until we were compelled to hang on to anything within reach in order to save ourselves from being blown off by the wind which we made, or whirled overboard on ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... embarrassing. ARPACHSHAD slowly relieved himself of the burden of the three sods, dropped them on the ground with a disproportionate thud, and, producing a large pocket-handkerchief, whose variegated and brilliant colours were, happily, dimmed by a month's use, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... when Dickens was writing that thundering and thrilling and highly unlikely scene in Nicholas Nickleby, the scene where Nicholas hopelessly denounces the atrocious Gride in his hour of grinning triumph, and a thud upon the floor above tells them that the heroine's tyrannical father has died just in time to set her free. That is the apotheosis of the pure heroic as Dickens found it, and as Dickens in some sense continued it. It may be that it ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... of martial music and from the tiny open space at the window caught glimpses of the passing pageant—of the royal coaches, of the maids of honor, of Josephine in gorgeous attire, of the snow-white poodle snuggled close in the Empress's arms. Then she told how she heard a heavy thud by the kitchen fire, which made her rush back, only to discover that the head cook had fallen to the ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... about, but made a very poor fight. Shiny-pate and two or three of his men would seize one of the kicking old fellows, and either push him or pull him to the edge of the rafters, whence he would fall with a dull thud on the floor, when he was generally too much stunned to make any more resistance, but even if he did he was soon overpowered, bitten, and dragged ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Quickly, for God's sake!" she cried. A smothered exclamation, a woman's quick voice, the heavy thud of feet striking the floor followed Betty's ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... our amazement lessened when we perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud. ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... the collar grew and the shorter became his breath the more he kicked and thrashed, until finally the collar broke, and the half-strangled bear fell to the ground with a great thud. Feeling that he had been cruelly treated and insulted, he picked himself up with a groan and a growl, and making for the woods, was not seen ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... the last, coming, too, after a longer interval. The skulls gave forth a formidable ring throughout the silent house. At last the two bodies, each quite rigid and as straight as an arrow, slowly bent over towards each other, the sticks came crashing down for the last time on to the two heads with a thud as of enormous mallets falling upon oaken beams, and the pair lay prone upon the ground. At that instant appeared in all its vividness the suggestion that the two artists had gradually driven into the imagination ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... two antagonists bobbed around the rolling ocean in this death grapple. Thus they sparred and clashed for four and a half hours, when, with a great splitting of sails and wreck of rigging, the mainmast of the Dragon trembled, wavered, and fell to leeward with a sickening thud. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... tested the flaccid neck by bending the head to one side and back sharply. He ended this inspection by letting the head fall back to the moist earth. It landed with a thud of finality. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... men a rest, making them sit in the shelter of the underbrush. We had almost finished when the snipers somewhere on our left began to bang at us. I ordered the men to cover, and was just pointing out a likely place to young Hynes when I felt a dull thud in the left shoulder-blade and a sharp pain in my chest. Then came a drowsy, languid feeling, and I sank down first on my knees, then my head dropped over on my chest, and down I went like a Mohammedan saying his prayers. Connecting the hit in the back with the pain ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... and fell with a soft thud to the ashes beneath. Burnaby was silent for a moment, staring at ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... against his knee, but the thud was instantly drowned by his quick, "Ach, Jimminy, I hit myself pretty hard that time! But I'll tell you about it, Eph. You heard of the fellows from the city who go around the country hunting up old relics, all old truck, and sell it again ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... me, Mrs. Klopton," I rebelled. "I was only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it's trickling all over me!" I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy thud on ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had apparently been waiting for the signal, retreated backward to the end of the car, still keeping the passengers covered. They flung rapidly two or three bullets through the roof, and under cover of the smoke slipped out into the night. A moment later came the thud of galloping horses, more shots, and, when the patter of hoofs had ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... fish, mostly dead, fell through. Others, with wide-opened mouths, were caught in the meshes. A fisherman now stepped under the dripping net, untied it at the bottom, and sprang quickly aside as the catch of fish fell with a thud into the pound. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... in the chimney as he spoke, and flung itself with the thud of a palpable body against the window-pane. Mr. Gillat heard it; he could not well do otherwise. "Still," he said, "it might ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the wind had recovered its breath. Then suddenly up leapt the hat, cannoned from a lamp-post on to the railings of the Queen Street Gardens, from them across the pavement into the gutter, and there, getting nicely on edge, careered like a hoop, with the thud of Heriot's footsteps ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... any minute." But there was again a long silence and state of suspense; the chase had turned another way. There were faint distant yaps. The fire burned low and fell together with a shower of sparks. The smaller boys began to grow chilly and sleepy, when there was a thud and rustle and snapping of twigs close at hand, then the gasp of a breathless dog. Two dim shapes rushed by; a shower of bark fell, and a dog began to sing at the foot of the great twisted ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... South Downs in the east of Sussex lies a wide tract of pleasant homely country which, during certain months of those years, was subject to a strange phenomenon. Listen on a still day when the clouds were low, or at night when the birds were all asleep, and you heard a faint, soft thud, so very faint that it was rather a convulsion of the air than an actual sound. Fancy might paint it as the tap of an enormous muffled drum beaten at a giant's funeral leagues and leagues away. It was not the roll of thunder. There was no crash, however distant, along the sky. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... tiger spring and have it over? Why does—but look, look, the brute has let go the branch and fallen down, down with a crash, and Archie hears the dull thud of ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... up before the child, who was laughing and trying to grasp them. Then she forgot them, and dropped them in the bottom of the boat, for something had struck the keel with a thud, and the water ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... west the six rose up and walked backward, still looking at me, until they passed my range of vision and I could only feel their eyes upon me. Then I heard the clatter of ponies' feet on the hard rock, the fainter stroke on the thin, sandy soil, the thud on the thickening sod. Thump, thump, thump, farther and farther and farther away. The west grew scarlet, deepened to purple and melted at last into the dull gray twilight that foreruns the darkness of night. One ray of pale gold shimmered far along toward the zenith and lost ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... the beast leaped straight at me, front hoofs pawing the air. I escaped as by a hair's breadth, one iron shoe fairly grazing my shoulder, but, with the same movement, I swung the clubbed musket. He had no time to dodge; there was a thud as it struck, a smothered cry, and the saddle was empty, a revolver flipping into the air, as the man went plunging over. I sprang to the horse's bit, the frightened animal dragging me nearly to the fence before I conquered him. But I dare not let go—once free he would join the troop horses, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... A moment later a thud from without, and the quick footsteps crunching on the snow told him that ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment he had flung himself against the farther wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a terrible thud. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... it farther than the young detective had ever imagined. May suddenly sprang on to his companion's shoulders, and raised himself to a level with the summit of the wall. An instant afterward a heavy thud might have been heard. He had let himself drop into the garden. The man in the slouch hat remained ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... his camp. He was on the edge of the cliff, so close that when he dislodged a fragment of rock it rolled over the brink, bounded once from the cliff's face, and after a lapse that grew to seconds struck with a distant thud among the timber at the foot of the precipice. Looking down through the binoculars it was as if he sat on the topmost bough of a tall tree in the immediate neighborhood of the cabin, although he was fully half a mile distant. He could see each ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of the steep promontory, the whole immensity of the surrounding height and depth came upon her in a terrifying flash of realisation. From below rose the reiterated boom of the baulked waves, each thud against the base of the great crag seeming to shake her whole being, while, whichever way she looked, menacing headlands towered stark and pitiless above the sea. She felt like a fly on the wall of some abysmal depth—only without the fly's powers ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... no answer, but rode on in silence. Night was now upon them, and all was still except the thud of the ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... men against the wall grew rigid. Out of the film of smoke long, vivid streams of fire flashed toward them, now right, now left, like the alternating steam of a locomotive's pistons. Smash, smash! Smash, smash! hit the bullets with regular thud. With the twelfth discharge the din ceased. Midway in the space between the heads of each pair of men against the wall was a round hole. No one ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... rifle cracked from Bill-Man's barricade, and there was a sharp spat and thud on the chest of Ounenk. He swayed backward and came forward again, a look of startled surprise on his face. He gasped, and his lips writhed in a grim smile. There was a shrinking together of the shoulders and a bending of the ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... nothing ahead in the increasingly thick white fog. All I could hear was the sound of pickaxes on the ground and the thud of falling clods. The enemy had, no doubt, decided not to attack again and were digging new trenches. They no longer uttered their contemptuous guttural cries of "Cavalry! Cavalry!" They had learnt to their cost that these French cavalrymen, at the sight of whom their own are so ready to turn back, ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... the ground with a "dull thud," but for an unexpected buffer in the shape of one of his brother warriors, who happened to be standing directly under. As a consequence, the sprawling figure came down on the head and shoulders of the astounded Comanche, ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... inside the fold, milking goats. All was quiet and peaceful. Not a bell was heard. The only sounds were the gentle rush of the river far below and an occasional soft thud from the cow house when a cow bumped her horns against the wall in getting up. The milkmaid was inside the cow house, milking the cows. Lisbeth's hands were still too small for that work, so it had been arranged that she should have ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com
|
|
|
