"Coiling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his spear into the flank of the horse, and the arms of the hidden enemy clashed with a loud noise. Just then two snakes of great size, sent by Athena, rose from the sea, and sprang upon Laocoon and his two sons, and, coiling around them, bit them to death. The Trojans, in great fear at the sight, took this as a sign from the gods that the horse was sacred and that they must protect it, and they moved it at once into their city, breaking down a part of their wall to ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... to their tent, which kept it out pretty well, but the leafy bowers, it was soon found, formed but a very imperfect protection. The men, however, wearied with their day's exertion, were glad to get within, and coiling themselves up on the rough boughs which served as couches, most of them were soon fast asleep. Harry had Willy and Peter Patch as his companions; Captain Twopenny and the Doctor took charge of poor Holt. Willy could not help ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... him on the occurrences of the preceding day. But no! he approached the table on which the medicines stood, looked at the watch, took up one of the phials and a cup, measured the draught, drop by drop, then he turned and looked round him stealthily, and then he drew from his breast a pale blue, coiling serpent, which he threw into the cup, and held it to the patient's lips, who drank, and instantly felt, a numbness creep over his frame which ended in death. Edward fancied that he was dead; he saw the coffin brought, but the terror lest he should be buried alive, made ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... first pair is a rhythmic energetic movement, almost a stamping, with the carrier dancing with closed eyes. The gatherer merely walks behind, and is an alertly busy man. The writer has seen as many as five snakes on the ground at once, some of them coiling and rattling, others darting into the surrounding crowd with lightning rapidity, but never has she seen one escape the gatherer, and just once has she seen a snake come near to making its escape. This was during the ceremony at Hotavilla last summer ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... was coiling away a top-gallant-brace, directly in front of Mrs. Budd and Rose, and, at hearing this account of the wonderful equipment of The Rose In Bloom, he suddenly looked up, with a lurking expression about his eye that the niece very well comprehended, while he exclaimed, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... she was Granddaughter of that Kaiser Albert II. who "got Three Crowns in one year, and died the next;" whose posterity have ever since,—up to the lips in trouble with their confused competitive accompaniments, Hunniades, Corvinus, George Podiebrad and others, not to speak of dragon Turks coiling ever closer round you on the frontier,—been Kings of Hungary and Bohemia; TWO of the crowns (the HERITABLE two) which were got by Kaiser Albert in that memorable year. He got them, as the reader may remember, by having the daughter of Kaiser ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... would seem to them to have reached the highest ideal. The same people admire an old French garden, with its clipped yew-trees, forming artificial walls and towers and pyramids, far more than the giant yews which, like large serpents, clasp the soil with their coiling roofs, and overshadow with their dark green branches the white chalk cliffs of the Thames. But those French gardens, unless they are constantly clipped and prevented from growing, soon fall into decay. As in nature, so in society, uniformity ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... tree's topmost bough was a sparrow's nest, and in it eight tender nestlings, over which the mother bird spread her wings. Pitifully did the little ones cheep as the snake swallowed them all, and pitifully cried the mother as she fluttered over her nestlings. But of her, too, did the snake lay hold, coiling himself round her and crushing her life out. Then did the god who sent this sign show us that a sign from the gods in truth it was, for he turned the snake into stone. And Chalcas, our soothsayer, told us then the meaning of the sign. 'Nine years,' said he—for nine ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... the anchor is to-morrow); he would be able to guide his course by the sun, and would come all right. He resolved to spend the night in a tree near his fire for fear of wild beasts, and selected a fine branching cedar for his dormitory. Laying his gun securely in one of the forks, and coiling himself up as snugly as possible, where four boughs radiated from the trunk, about twenty feet from the ground, he settled himself to sleep as in an arm-chair, with the great hushing silence of the forest around him. Unusual as his ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... ceremony of apportioning the staterooms, getting into deck hats, and the other preliminaries, while the boat was steaming down the harbour. Isabelle stayed on deck and made friends with the captain and the sailors. It was fun to watch them padding about so swiftly, coiling ropes, and doing their tasks ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... whole island was stricken with panic, by extraordinary signs in the heavens, of huge serpents coiling themselves through the stars, of fiery bolts flying like shuttles from one side of the horizon to the other, or shooting downward directly to the earth. These atmospheric wonders were accompanied by thunder and lightning so loud and so prolonged that ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the Keeper writhed and flicked a tangle of tentacles; serpentine, whiplike. Silvery white, they were dyed with the scarlet and orange flaming of the surface now hidden from my eyes; reflected those sullen and angry gleamings. Vermiceous, coiling, they seemed to drop from every inch of ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... any of us. Mr. Ames is the type of man who is slowly turning our Republican form of government into a despotism of wealth. He boasts that his power is already greater than a czar's. You bow before it; and so the awful monster of privilege goes on unhampered, coiling its slimy tentacles about our national resources, our public utilities, and natural wealth. I—I can't see how you, the head of this great nation, can stand trembling by and see him do it. It is to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... one side, the winds of prosperity and health, on the other, of ruin and sickness. Understand that, once, deeply,—any who have ever known the weariness of vain desires, the pitiful, unconquerable, coiling and recoiling famine and thirst of heart,—and you will know what was in the sound of the Harpy Celaeno's shriek from her rock; and why, in the seventh circle of the "Inferno," the Harpies make their nests in the warped branches of the trees that ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... coiffure was almost a proud and careful-looking thing. It proclaimed, alas, that the scrubwoman, despite the sensible employment of her time, was not entirely free from the vanities of her sex. The deliberate coiling and arranging of her stringy black hair must have taken a good fifteen minutes regularly out of ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... innocence. Could it be that Denis—Denis even—Ah, no! She remembered what he had been to poor Arthur; she understood, now, the vague allusions to what he had tried to do for his brother. He had seen Arthur down there, in that coiling blackness, and had leaned over and tried to drag him out. But Arthur was too deep down, and his arms were interlocked with other arms—they had dragged each other deeper, poor souls, like drowning people who fight together ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... up to his middle in mud and water. He seized the prickly branches coiling about and above him; he gasped in prayerful pleading, the home teaching still strong in him; but there was no answer, save the crooning night-birds and the croaking frogs. Slimy things touched his torn flesh; whirring birds shot past him, disturbed ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a paralysis; the difficulty of vivisection underground; the desperate coiling of the victim: all these things tell me that the Cetonia-grub, as regards its nervous system, must possess a structure peculiar to itself. The whole of the ganglia must be concentrated in a limited area in the first segments, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Ancient Evil," drew somewhat to her and held it out from her on the palm of her hand. Behold, it glowed in the dusk of the chamber as a live ember glows among the ashes of the hearth. Red it glowed and green, and white, and livid blue, and its shape, as it lay upon her hand, was the shape of a coiling snake, cut, as it were, ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... finished his task of coiling up a rope of wet cowhide, and then, producing a dirty pipe, he took a live ember from the fire and placed it on the bowl. He sucked slowly at the pipe-stem, and soon puffed out a great cloud of smoke. Sitting on a log, he deliberately surveyed ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... coiling on for years; We have reasoned, we have threatened, We have begged almost with tears: Now, away, away with Union, Since on our Southern soil The only union left us Is ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... was quiet, innocent, and fresh in the depth of the wood, at the edge of the hollow—and the outer heat penetrated hither only by an infinite coiling as of a scaly serpent impotent at last and ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... etcetera; Barret anxiously scanning the columns of a newspaper; Quin and the skipper making each other's acquaintance with much of the suspicion observable in two bull-dogs who meet accidentally; the boy in the fore part of the vessel coiling ropes; and the remainder of ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... most of all,—a bronzed arm with a wide silver bracelet at the wrist, the hand clutching and waving before him heavy strands of long, yellow hair with a gory patch at the end,—living hair that writhed and undulated to catch the light, coiling about the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... determined finally to confide in him. Although still very weak, Burke was now convalescent, and was sitting alone by the poop-rail gazing upon the coast of Spain with eager eyes, when Geoffrey, under the pretext of coiling down a rope, approached him. The young man ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... that day with the officers, for there was much to be seen after in coiling down ropes, washing the decks, and in getting everything neatly in ship-shape. As they passed the Middle Sunk the second mate touched Jack on ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... Bobs?" for the girl was sitting, staring dejectedly, her chin cupped in her palms, her lips quivering. Nonplussed, I stooped over the suitcase and rope, coiling up the one, putting it in the other—this first bit of tangible, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... from beneath its leaves, with self-determined motion, not to be expressed by a numerical law, pausing, progressing, seeking, this way and that, its pasture?—what have we here? Irritability and a tissue. Lo! it shrinks back as the heel of the philosopher has touched it, coiling and writhing itself—what is this? Sensation and a nerve. Does the nerve feel? you inconsiderately ask, or is there some sentient being, other than the nerve, in which sensation resides? A smile of derision plays on the lip of the philosopher. There is sensation—you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... of wethers and neat The maidens are driven with blood on their feet; For yet 'twixt the Burg-gate and battle half-won The dust-driven highway creeps uphill and on, And the smoke of the beacons goes coiling aloft, While the gathering horn ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... quite so scrupulously tidy now as in the old days. At one time while whittling the Noah's ark animals she had worn gloves. She never wore them now. She still took pride in neatly combing and coiling her wonderful black hair, but as the days passed she found it more and more comfortable to work in her blue flannel wrapper. Whittlings and chips accumulated under the window where she did her work, and she was at no great pains to clear the air of the room ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... of note Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks!—and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Not uninformed with phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane;—a pillared shade, Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pinal umbrage tinged Perennially—beneath ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... brushing and coiling up her thick black hair—a favourite task, because it seemed to renew the days of her daughter's girlhood—Janet told how she came to send for Mr. Tryan, how she had remembered their meeting at Sally Martin's in the autumn, and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... swiftly circling a central core. For a second I thought I could see through the roof, and the stars swarmed before me. It was as though I was at the vortex of a high whirlwind of dancing, shining specks of light. Then that sensation was gone, and there were two faint coiling spirals of yellow ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... of the vessels could not be discerned. There was no doubt, however, of their being on the right course. Not a word was spoken. The men scarcely dared to breathe as they pulled on, so anxious were they to avoid discovery. Like a snake coiling its way among the grass, the line of boats advanced steadily up the harbour. The fort was passed. Deane thought he could hear the footsteps of the sentry as he passed up and down; but as yet they were not seen or heard. Probably not dreaming of an enemy approaching ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... to hold themselves ready for any emergency, after the bustle of which preparations the schooner subsided again into silence and darkness, the men for the most part "pricking for a soft plank" on deck, and coiling themselves away thereon in preference to seeking repose in the stifling forecastle. As for Gowland and myself, we paced the deck contemplatively together until about ten o'clock, discussing the chances of getting away on the morrow, and ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Denham. That plane swept forward and hovered above the ornithopter. The two flying things seemed almost fastened together, so closely did their pilots maintain that same speed and course. A snaky rope went coiling down into the lower ship's cockpit. A burly figure began to climb it hand over hand. A second figure followed. A third figure, in the drab clothing that distinguished Jacaro's men from all others, wrapped the ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the watch on deck's "turning-to" at day-break and washing down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This, together with filling the "scuttled butt" with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells, (half after seven,) when all hands get breakfast. At eight, the day's work begins, and lasts until sun-down, with the exception of an hour ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... more than once by wild threats of swimming the Gouliot, which is a foolhardy feat even for a man, for the dark passage is rarely free from coiling undercurrents, which play with a man as though he were no more than a piece of seaweed, and try even a strong swimmer's nerve and strength. And when she spoke so, the boy took her sharply to task, and ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... ten minutes the pedestal of the statue was seen to become slightly blurred, as though an intervening mist were rising from the ground. This slowly developed into a visible cloud, coiling hither and thither, and constantly changing shape. The professor half rose, and held his glasses with one hand further forward on the bridge of ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... will lap and scratch As I swallow it down; And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire, Coiling and twisting in my belly. His snortings will rise to my head, And I shall be hot, and laugh, Forgetting that I have ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... blast. Flakes torn by the fury of the gale were stiffened by the bitter wind into powdered ice that stung horse and rider. Casting away the useless carbine, and pressing his horse to the limit of her strength and endurance, the unyielding pursuer rode in great coiling circles into the storm, to cut in, if possible, ahead of its victims, firing shot upon shot from his revolver, and putting his ear intently against the wind for the ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... He m-m-m-meant business all r-right, an' hed f-f-forty rounds b-b-buckled on him. H-here goes, Mike," and Brown grasped the warped handle of the windlass and began to grind slowly, coiling the heavy rope, layer upon layer, around the straining drum. He brought the huge ore-bucket to the surface, dumped its load of rock over the edge of the shaft-hole, and had permitted it to run down swiftly to the waiting ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... red cutting into the general verdant carpet of treetops. Another chain of heights and then open land, swales of tall grass already burnt yellow by the steady sun. There was a river here, a crazy, twisted stream coiling nearly back ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... Let us repose for the time in the outer chamber." Whereupon they entered the shop and seating themselves upon a couch resumed their occupations, the barber fanning himself while he smoked, his wife gumming her hair and coiling it into the semblance of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... their progress and their vicissitudes; but underneath them all, unnoted, it may be, or treated to a superficial and perhaps supercilious glance, yet mainspring and regulator of all, runs an iron thread, true thread of Fate, coiling around the limbs of man, and impeding all progress, till he shall have untwisted its Gordian knot, but bidding him forward from strength to strength with each successive release. No romance of court or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... was brought in Queen Berengere did not look at her, nor make any response to her deep reverence; but bade her fetch a mirror from the table. In this she looked at herself steadily for some time, smoothing and coiling back her hair, arranging her neck-covering so as to show something of her bosom, and so on. She sent Jehane for boxes of unguent, her colour-boxes, brush for the eyebrows, powder for the face. Finally she had brought to her a little crown of diamonds, and set it ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... of Baptism, is here represented, holding a child on his arm, and standing in water up to his knees. The water, being treated in a very conventional way, coiling about the lower limbs, is so suggestive of tiers of flat discs, that it has won for this statue the popular name of "the pancake man," for he certainly looks as if he had taken up his position in the midst of a pile of pancakes, into ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... by enchantment into a serpent. Sir Lybius (one of Arthur's knights) slew the enchantress, and the serpent, coiling about his neck, kissed him; whereupon the spell was broken, the serpent became a lovely princess, and Sir Lybius made her his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... was nearer than either of them dreamed. At that very moment the soft thud of the closing housedoor sounded through the house. It brought her sharply to her feet, and loose from his coiling arms, with quickened breath and blanching face. A moment she hung there, tense, then sped to the door of the room, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... the floor he pulled upon one end of the lariat until he had drawn it free of the bedpost above, when it fell into his waiting hands. Coiling it carefully Billy placed it around his neck and under one arm. Billy, acting as a professional, was a careful and methodical man. He always saw that every little detail was properly attended to before he went on to the next phase of his endeavors. Because ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... formed no real opposition to Jack's purpose. Five minutes of maneuvering to get close, and Jack had twisted his fingers in the taffy-colored mane; he went up, and landed fairly in the middle of Solano's rounded back and began swiftly coiling the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... fitted she was to enter into action. Her crew was a new one, never exercised at the guns, and had been mustered to quarters only three times. On the gun-deck lay great piles of cumbrous cables, from the coiling of which the men had been summoned by the call to quarters. On the after-deck were piles of furniture, trunks, and some temporary pantries. What little semblance of order there was, was due to the efforts of one ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... tempests' waves from rocks in rage rebound; The foe thus meet the men of Izdubar, While o'er the field fly the fierce gods of war. Dark Nin-a-zu[7] her torch holds in her hand. With her fierce screams directs the gory brand; And Mam-mit[8] urges her with furious hand, And coiling dragons[9] poison all the land With their black folds and pestilential breath, In fierce delight thus ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... extreme development of the American type of apes. Their tails are endowed with the most wonderful degree of flexibility. They are always in motion—except when the animal is perfectly at rest—coiling and uncoiling themselves, like the trunks of elephants, seeking to grasp, apparently, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... or paste beads attained great celebrity as amulets under the name of serpents' eggs; it was believed that serpents, coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated them from their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws. If a man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his cloak before it touched the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... crackling of rifle fire in the darkness, and the sharp "phit" of bullets hitting the mud all around. Think of that as your portion each night and every night. When you have finished this job, the rest you get consists of coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out. Night after night, week after week, month after month, this job is done by thousands. As one sits in a brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm theatre, having just come from a cosy and luxurious restaurant, just think of some ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... the son of Thestor, a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says, "Rejoice, Pelasgians, we shall conquer. Troy will fall, but the continuance of our toil will be long;" and he allots the nine birds to the years of the war. {The serpent}, just as he is, coiling around the green branches in the tree, becomes a stone, and, under the form of a serpent, retains ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... I must not, till the earth gives up her dead. You tremble, because only one more link can be added to the chain that is coiling about my neck, and that link is the testimony of the man whose name you expect to bear. Miss Gordon"—she stooped closer, and whispered slowly: "Do not upbraid your lover; be tender, cling to him; and afford me the consolation of knowing that the unfortunate woman you befriended, and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... bitumen, and to make lime the Arabs stack up alternate stones and blocks of bitumen, setting fire to the pile. The effect of these kilns with their great columns of heavy, black smoke, writhing and coiling up into the still sky, ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... exactly what he craved, and he ate it rapidly in a curious mounting excitement. With the coffee he fingered the diminutive glass of golden brandy and a long dark roll of oily tobacco. He lighted this carefully and flooded his head with the coiling bluish smoke. Rosalie was smoking a cigarette—a habit in women which he noisily denounced. She extinguished it in an ash tray, but his anger lingered, an unreasoning exasperation that constricted his throat. Sharply aware of the sultriness ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... word. He told me he was writing; and, at home, Sat down with heart absorbed and absent look. I was offended, and upbraided him. I knew he had a secret, and that from The center of its closely coiling folds A cunning serpent's head, with forked tongue, Swayed with a double story—one for me, And one for whom I knew not—whom he knew. His words, which wandered first as carelessly As the free footsteps of a boy, were trained To the stern paces of a sentinel Guarding a prison door, ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... them. So we tried to turn out of our path into a tangle of bushes; and there, instead of one, we found four snakes. We turned on the other side, and there were two more. In short, everywhere we looked, the dry leaves were rustling and coiling with them; and we were in despair. In vain we said that they were harmless as kittens, and tried to persuade ourselves that their little bright eyes were pretty, and that their serpentine movements were in the exact line of beauty: for the life of us, we could not help ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... verified, as soon as the morning breaks, by the appearance of Siegfried and Mime. The latter is acting as guide, and eagerly points out the mighty dragon's lair. But even then the youth still refuses to tremble, and when Mime describes Fafnir's fiery breath, coiling tail, and impenetrable hide, he good-naturedly declares he will save his most telling blow until the monster's side is exposed, and he can plunge Nothung deep into his ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... is, or if you don't your atlas will tell you, that it is away up in the north of Ireland, where, situated on the shores of the Lough Foyle, coiling its streets round the slopes of a hill till on the very summit they culminate in the cross-crowned tower of St. Columb's Cathedral, it lies in the midst of a beautiful country just like a cameo fallen ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... and the naval blockade which must slowly have strangled the Confederacy. He was aware that public impatience might not allow a rigid adherence to his policy, and in fact, when his view was made public before Bull Run, "Scott's Anaconda," coiling itself round the Confederacy, was the subject of general derision. The view of the Northern public and of the influential men in Congress was in favour of speedy and, as it was hoped, decisive action, and this was understood as involving, whatever ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... and sprang towards it, coiling it as he took it up. Lucien could throw a lasso almost as well as Basil himself; and that was equal to a Mexican "vaquero" or a "gaucho" of the Pampas. He ran nearly under the limb, twirled the lasso around his head, and launched ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... "For, when thou with a hero art striving, as fearful as thou, and as strong, Who like thee in his wars is victorious, who all of thy feats can perform, As brave, and as great, and as glorious, as tireless as thou in a storm, Then, in shape of an eel round thee coiling, thy feet at the Ford I will bind, And thou, in such contest when toiling, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... shoulders, not thinking the matter worth further argument, and at that moment the Bee woke up shivering, drew the red snake from her head-dress and coiling it about her throat wrapped herself ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... contents of the kettle, and seeing that it was full, Will climbed up the steep ladder again; and was soon working away, coiling down the ropes with the other lad, while the crew hoisted sails and got the boat ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... his fist Like a twisted snake; Coiling itself, preparing to raise its head, Above the long grasses of ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher
... smugglers leaped down upon the lugger; the gaskets were cast off the sails, a few ropes were flung clear. I saw one or two men coiling away the lines which had lashed us to the rocks. The dapper man waved his hands and skipped ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... pinto pony, off a little way, coiling his rope in readiness as he did so. Then, wheeling quickly, and with a wild, inspiring "Yip-yippi!" the young rancher came riding fast toward a low, broad stump the two other lads had, more or less ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... as not to startle the boy, who rose again, crouched, and looked wildly at us, as the rope which had been simply passed through the iron shackles began to run through a link till the end was drawn out, and run over the ground to where Morgan stood grumbling and coiling up ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... and not far beneath him, a ghostly violet haze was spreading through the fog, and the fog itself was coiling back from it until it formed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... was the old man of being washed overboard that he actually fastened one end of a small line to his waistbands, and coiling the rest about him, made use of it as occasion required. When engaged outside, he unwound the cord, and secured one end to a ringbolt in the deck; so that if a chance sea washed him off his feet, it could ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... lay down to sleep before dawn, but his rest was disturbed by wonderfully varied dreams, some beautiful, some hideous. He sprang up with a shriek, for a dream showed him the white snake coiling round his breast and suffocating him. But he thought no more of this horrible picture, and firmly resolved to release the princess from the bonds of enchantment, even if he himself should perish. Nevertheless his heart failed him more and more as ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... breath. The Doctor was at the wheel steering the boat which was now leaping and plunging gently through the waves. (I had expected to feel seasick at first but was delighted to find that I didn't.) Bumpo had been told off to go downstairs and prepare dinner for us. Chee-Chee was coiling up ropes in the stern and laying them in neat piles. My work was fastening down the things on the deck so that nothing could roll about if the weather should grow rough when we got further from the ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... of unhewn rock, round, as near as might be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich variety of fern and moss and lichen. The fern was in its winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide; but moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it. Overhead there was no ceiling but the sky itself, flaked with little clouds of April ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... blue-bells and sea-pinks at their feet drooped suddenly wan and colourless, as though stricken with mortal sickness, and wept sad tears. They stood bewildered, while the pallid folds grew thicker and thicker, lit from above with a strange spectral glare, and coiling about them like the trailing garments of an army of ghosts. From the unseen abysses all round came the growl and wash of wave on rock and shingle, from the cliff above Pegane came the frightened bleat of a lamb, and an invisible ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the deck. I asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man looked at me in surly amazement, ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it made,' as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, 'unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier.' Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. Davie and his mother were constantly ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... guide's face, and gave him a look of sympathy as he saw how it was wrinkled and drawn with trouble; but nothing more was said, and he went on coiling up the rope as they passed along the dark chasm, only stopping to untie the knot as they reached the main rift and began the descent ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... moved slowly, slowly, at a snail's pace; the wheels sank into the snow; the entire body of the coach creaked and groaned; the horses slipped, puffed, steamed, and the coachman's long whip cracked incessantly, flying hither and thither, coiling up, then flinging out its length like a slender serpent, as it lashed some rounded flank, which instantly grew tense as ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to the rear. They could see ahead of them the long dark line, coiling farther into the woods, but they could also see to right and left towers of smoke rising in the clear morning sunlight. These, they knew, came from burning houses, and they knew, also, that the valley would be ravaged from end to end and from side ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... brace round. This finished, it is broad daylight, and the men set to work to coil up preparatory to washing decks—not that this would seem very necessary. Certainly there is no hose wanted this morning, and a general kind of tidying up and coiling down ropes ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... exclaimed, coiling his skin-rope. The next instant there came a loud thwack, which told that the boy's shaft had found its mark. Instantly there was a hoarse bellow and then a wild splashing in the water. Bruce was at the top of a pressure ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... "Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather, Megissogwon, the Magician, Manito of Wealth and Wampum, Guarded by his fiery serpents, Guarded by the black pitch-water. You can see his fiery serpents, The Kenabeek, the great serpents, Coiling, playing in the water; You can see the black pitch-water Stretching far away beyond them, To the purple ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying-pan. Before she had returned Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other two ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Barrant found himself looking into an empty hall. Half-way down a pair of curtains stirred slightly and parted suddenly, revealing a narrower passage which led to the door of the kitchen. The curtains streamed horizontally, twisting and coiling like snakes. Barrant stepped quickly inside and closed the door. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Keskarrah followed a different plan; he stripped himself to the skin, and having toasted his body for a short time over the embers of the fire, he crept under his deer-skin and rags, previously spread out as smoothly as possible, and coiling himself up in a circular form, fell asleep instantly. This custom of undressing to the skin even when lying in the open air is common to all the Indian tribes. The thermometer at sunset stood at ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... mountain's heart into the light. They ran a short course under the sun, then back Into a pit they plunged, once more as black As at their birth; and I stood thinking there How white, had the day shone on them, they were, Heaving and coiling. So by the roar and hiss And by the mighty motion of the abyss I was bemused, that I forgot my friend And neither saw nor sought him till the end, When I awoke from waters unto men Saying: "I shall be ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... perhaps six hundred feet in circumference was a lake of liquid fire! The molten lava twisted and writhed as though a thousand serpents were coiling and uncoiling. A vapor rose from the fiery mass that glowed with a hideous radiance in all the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... little man talked, Mildred saw and felt behind the mask the thoughts, the longings of his physical infatuation for her coiling and uncoiling and reaching tremulously out toward her like unclean, horrible tentacles. She was drawn as far as could be back into her chair, and her soul ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... had taken quarters and were coiling in their bunks When we shore the six-tooth wethers from the plain. And if the sheep get harder, then a few more men will funk, Unless we get another fall ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... for if the eternal recurrence be truth, then must the great drama of the Redemption be repeated. Then will our foes be convinced of Christianity and its reality. But shall we be conscious in that far-off time of our anterior existence? Ah! hideous, coiling doubt. What a demon is this Nietzsche to set whirring in the brains of poor, suffering humanity such torturing questions! Better, far better for the world to live and not to think. Thought is a disease, a morbid secretion of the brain-cells. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... When he lifted his head Dougal and the others had joined him, and the whole company of the Die-Hards was assembled on a patch of grass which was concealed from the landward view by a thicket of hazels. Another, whom he recognized as Heritage, was coiling up the rope. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... 'Autobiography' (volume i.) that he was led to take up the subject of climbing plants by reading Dr. Gray's paper, "Note on the Coiling of the Tendrils of Plants." ('Proc. Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences,' 1858.) This essay seems to have been read in 1862, but I am only able to guess at the date of the letter in which he asks for a reference to it, so that ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... peculiar interest, as we had determined to 'catch an elephant.' The Moormen were all full of excitement and preparation. These men were well practised in this sport, and they were soon busied in examining and coiling their hide ropes for ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... sinking, as if drawn downward by an invisible hand. He opened his eyes. The waves lapped musically above his head; a tawny glory was all about him, a luminous expanse in which he saw strangely formed creatures moving, darting, rising, falling, coiling, uncoiling. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and loose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on currents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the rowers, but had been busily drawing in and coiling a line close beside us during those first terrific plunges of the boat after she had taken the water. But now he turned hurriedly to where we sat, and without a word seized me roughly by the arm and drew ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... man's anguish went up unto God: "Lord, take away pain— The shadow that darkens the world thou hast made, The close-coiling chain That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs On the wings that would soar— Lord, take away pain from the world thou hast made, That it love thee ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... happenings of no ultimate value whatsoever; that an Oriental dance and pantomime given in New York by "society" women, led by Mrs. Waldorf Astor, where a rich young woman reaped astonishment and admiration by coiling a live boa constrictor around her neck, was one of the great events of the day, because the newspapers devoted two columns to it, whereas scarcely any mention was made of armies of men being out ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... the bed, was coiling her glorious hair; the open dress revealed the massive throat and ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... people; they are not easily daunted—a few difficulties only seem to make them more eager to get on; and he felt ashamed the next moment, as he told me, of giving up. So he finds out a large thick cedar-tree for his bed, climbs up, and coiling himself among the branches like a bear, he was ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... slight contraction at both corners of the mouth gave her face a half-mirthful look; but her forehead, full in the upper and lateral portions, seemed almost too severely intellectual for the other features. She possessed a wealth of luxuriant black hair, which she had a quaint method of coiling around her head in a single massive braid, singularly contrasting with the alabaster whiteness of the delicate temples upon which it rested. She was very happy at the home she occupied, which was often enlivened by the joyous ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... few moments we saw the covers lifted from the boats and the crews allotted to them standing by and coiling up the ropes which were to lower them by the pulley blocks into ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... ship was plowing along before the wind with not a rag set except the foretopmast-staysail and jib. Amidships was a man coiling up ropes, at the wheel was another man, and pacing the top of the after-house was Captain Williams, red-bearded, red-eyed, and truculent of gesture and expression. These three bore marks of hard usage, bruises, black eyes, swollen noses, and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... if not quite so resentful. As the two moved past the silent Wilder, each dropped a distant salute, and then our adventurer found himself the sole occupant of the quarter-deck. While his crew were busied in coiling ropes, and clearing the decks, their young Commander leaned his head on the taffrail, (that part of the vessel which the good relict of the Rear-Admiral had so strangely confounded with a very different object in the other end of the ship), remaining for many minutes in an attitude of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... it, but for a while pays no attention to it, though it keeps ding-dinging insistently. His eyes are bent on the sea; yet not in the direction of Saaron, where, if they sought carefully, they might detect a trace of smoke coiling up from the fold of the hills which hides Eli Tregarthen's farm; but westward, towards the main, whence the steamer will arrive before nightfall. She is not due for hours, yet the Commandant's ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... near, a spark that towered and hovered overhead, and burst into coiling volumes of lurid smoke with a moving heart of flame. Light broke on a neighbouring hill that had been unseen and forgotten; the hill was crowned with fantastic trees that danced, and a wavering tower. From our own valley below there came a vicious tearing that gave me ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... to be always gliding downward, the same spray dashing over the stones, the same eddy coiling at the edge of the pool. Send your fly in under those cedar branches, where the water swirls around by that old log. Now draw it up toward the foam. There is a sudden gleam of dull gold in the white water. You strike too soon. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... see!" declared the lad, reaching for the lasso and coiling it neatly. "We came out here just ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of the steamer were very busy. They were overhauling and coiling down what looked like a long rubber hose. An officer, a young man in a smart uniform, was directing the work. When the boat was near the steamer, the officer hailed and asked in German what boat it was. Kalliope was rowing vigorously. Before ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... varieties of cereus, cactus, and echinocactus. Altogether unlike is the bottom-land bordering upon the river. There the vegetation is lush and luxuriant, showing a growth of large forest timber—the trees set thickly, and matted with many parasites, that look like cables coiling around and keeping them together. These timbered tracts are not continuous, but show stretches of open between,—here little glades filled with flowers, there grand meadows overgrown with grass—so tall that the horseman riding through it has ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... eligible place of stay. But how much better it was to hang in the cold wind upon the pier, to go down with Bob Bain among the roots of the staging, to be all day in a boat coiling a wet rope and shouting orders - not always very wise - than to be warm and dry, and dull, and dead-alive, in the most comfortable office. And Wick itself had in those days a note of originality. It may have still, but I misdoubt it much. The old minister of Keiss ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cannot be! The wire must be coiling itself up somewhere. It is incredible! The lead cannot ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... water, and slept all day, proceeding in this way for a long distance till they reached the vicinity of the village to be attacked. When they were pursued and much pressed, at times they would throw themselves into a bush or under a prickly pear plant, coiling themselves up so carefully that the chances were their pursuers would pass them unnoticed. If they intended to attack a treasure party they would wait at some convenient spot on the road and sally out when it came abreast of them, first girding up their ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... two negroes. The Libyan was a man of gigantic stature, with great suppleness of limb and a pair of piercing black eyes. In his hand he held a wind-instrument resembling a modern clarionet, and a number of snakes, known in Egypt to be poisonous, lay coiling themselves over his breast ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
