"In the nick of time" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who was a relative of Marston, and who had come to the city fresh from college, just in the nick of time for the latter, felt, now that the excitement of his wild prank was over, a great deal more sober about the matter than he had expected to feel. Reason and reflection told him that he had no right to trifle with any one as he had trifled with Arabella Jones. ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... That did not count. For him, Maurice, the opportune moment simply did not exist; he was one of those people who are always inopportune, come and go as they will. He might have waited for days; he would never have caught Schwarz in the right mood, or in the nick of time. How he envied those fortunate mortals who always arrived at the right moment, and instinctively said the right thing! That talent had never been his. With ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... fact. You know that any shining object affects you in that way, if you are not careful. It is a very bright lamp, too. Instantaneous effect—bodies appear to move and you hear unearthly yells—you offer your soul for sale and I buy it, appearing in the nick of time? If your condition had lasted ten seconds longer you would have taken me for his majesty and lived, in imagination, through a dozen years or so of sulphurous purgatorial treatment under my personal supervision, to ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... it, and in the nick of time. The door of the shed was thrown violently open, and out plunged Jim, his hair on fire and his clothes singed and smoking. He brushed the sparks off himself as if they were flakes of snow. Quick as thought, he tore 'Liza's halter from its fastening, pulling out staple and ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... superadded. And although it cannot be said that Fielding disregards probability, he certainly strains it considerably. Money is conveniently lost and found; the naivest coincidences continually occur; people turn up in the nick of time at the exact spot required, and develop the most needful (but entirely casual) relations with the characters. Sometimes an episode is so inartistically introduced as to be almost clumsy. Towards the end of ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... saving process, mother. I've pretty often declared in my own mind that Dorette and you came along just in the nick of time to ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... finished just in the nick of time. Snow came down so thickly that had the falls occurred a few days earlier, the cases from which the place was constructed would have been effectually buried and the construction made ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... The officers in the regiment gave me a thrashing, but, bless them for it, let me go. And last year I was almost caught when I passed off French counterfeit notes for fifty roubles on Korovayev, but, thank God, Korovayev fell into the pond when he was drunk, and was drowned in the nick of time, and they didn't succeed in tracking me. Here, at Virginsky's, I proclaimed the freedom of the communistic wife. In June I was distributing manifestoes again in X district. They say they will make me do it again.... Pyotr Stepanovitch suddenly gave me to understand ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a mile east of Franklin. With him were Reily, whom he had picked up on the road below Franklin, Vincent who with the four guns of Cornay was still watching Grover, and Clack's Louisiana battalion, which had come in from New Iberia just in the nick of time. The plantation with the sugar-house, then belonging to McKerrall, is now known as Shaffer's. The grounds of Oak Lawn adjoin it toward the east and north, and along its western boundary stand Nerson's ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... hard-hearted nymphs, nymphs languishing for hard-hearted swains; sheep-cotes, rustic dances, junketings, anadems, and true-love knots; monsters invented for the perpetual menace of chastity; chastity undergoing the most surprising perils, but always saved in the nick of time, if not by an opportune shepherd, then by an equally opportune river-god or earthquake; episodes innumerable, branching off from the main stem of the narrative at the most critical point, and luxuriating in endless ramifications. Beauty, eluding unwelcome embraces, is never too hotly pressed to ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... followed beauty in and out of the kitchen. The number of old gentlemen who have married their cooks is really considerable. Younger gentlemen, whose god has been otherwhere, have married their housemaids. A Lord Viscount Townshend, who died in 1763 or thereabouts, did so in the nick of time, and left her fifty thousand pounds. Tom Coutts the banker, founder of the great house in the Strand, married his brother's nursemaid, and loved her faithfully for fifty years. She gave him three ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... returning quiet of Dick Benyon's conscience! Quisante made his preparations for going with his eyes all agleam, murmuring again and again, "She sends me; she shall see what I'm worth." For one of his great moments had come in the nick of time and done a work that he himself, low as he might now and again ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... with maternal emotion, she gave supplementary information as to how the treacherous animal had ambushed Dora as she was hunting for a strayed golf ball, and how Bertie had dashed to her rescue with a stable fork and driven the beast off in the nick of time. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... for the security of the lenders, who, as members of religious communities, could not seek redress at law, and, moreover, those "lucky hits" which were made by penniless Europeans in former times by pecuniary help "just in the nick of time" were no longer possible, for every known channel of lucrative transaction was in time taken up ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... head, inclined her own again slightly to the other men, and let the portiere close behind her. It had been as dramatic an entrance and exit as the two visitors had ever seen upon the stage. It was as if Aram had given a signal, and the only person who could help him had come in the nick of time to plead for him. Aram, stupid as he appeared to be, had evidently felt the effect his wife's appearance had made upon his judges. He still kept his eyes fixed upon the floor, but he said, and this time with more confidence ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... give part of her territory to the favoured Sung. In 630 Tsin induced Ts'in to join in an attack upon Cheng, the object being, of course, to revenge similar personal rudenesses; however, Cheng diplomacy was successful in inducing Ts'in to abandon Tsin in the nick of time: this was one of the very few cases in which Ts'in interfered, or was about to interfere, in "orthodox" affairs. In 592 Tsin sent a hunchback envoy to Ts'i; it so happened that at the same time Lu sent one who was lame, and Wei ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... not recover my control over myself until the clerk came back with the notes in his hand. He had just got to the bank in the nick of time. As the cash for my draft was handed to him over the counter, the clock struck five, and he heard the order ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... hopeless for the girls to try to catch the auto now. They were far behind it, but still Betty ran on. Several narrow escapes had Paul on that perilous journey, and then in the nick of time he was saved from what might ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... accident; and then of Jack Duane, and of his political career in the stockyards, and his downfall and subsequent failures. Marija listened with sympathy; it was easy to believe the tale of his late starvation, for his face showed it all. "You found me just in the nick of time," she said. "I'll stand by you—I'll help you till you ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... dear girl, if it had rested with me, we should both be lying in smithereens at the present moment, on the rocks below. She realised the drop just in the nick of time, and wheeled before ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... force were now between two fires. The frontal attack was within 200 yards. The rear attack, flushed with success, were hurrying impetuously forward. The defeat and consequent total destruction of the Kassala column appeared certain. But in the nick of time the Dervish frontal attack, which had been suffering heavily from the fire of the troops, wavered; and when the Arab battalion and the 16th Egyptians advanced upon them to complete their discomfiture, they broke and fled. Colonel Parsons at once endeavoured to meet the rear attack. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... conception or execution than these signs of gratitude. To judge by them the Virgin would make a dramatist of the first rank; there was not a picture in which the miraculous assistance came a moment too soon, never & hero of our ancient, pre-Edison melodramas appeared more exactly "in the nick of time." The famous portrait of the miraculous being herself, over the high altar, is dimly seen through thick glass. Inside the chapel under the blue and white dome pilgrims were dipping up the "blessed" water from the bubbling well and filling ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... a famous smuggler, with the awkwardness of a man of the people who long remains under the yoke of respect to a great lord, though he admits no barriers after he has once jumped them, and regards the aristocrat as an equal only, "this," he said, "and you have come in the nick of time to hear it. I am no speaker of gilded phrases, and I shall say things plainly. I commanded five hundred men during the late war. Since we have taken up arms again I have raised a thousand heads as hard as mine for the service of the king. It is now seven years that I have ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... two or three of the rabble behind her were in the act of poising themselves with great stones in their hands, and their muscles were stiffening for a cast when, just in the nick of time, the obstinate snap yielded, and with a ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... said Betty gleefully, noting with pride how splendid he looked in his uniform. "You don't seem at all glad to see us. Mrs. Watson," remembering her manners in the nick of time, "this is a friend of ours from Deepdale—Allen Washburn. He didn't know ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... was a prophecy of victory. Bradley ran up his Napoleons on the right in the nick of time, and, although only one of them could be brought to bear, it was enough; the grape raked the Confederate left, broke it, and the battle was over. In five minutes more their whole array was scattered, and the entire position open to galloping cavalry, seizing ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... in the nick of time. The whole thing was just being given up for lack of funds. Now I have told him he may spend what he pleases, so long as ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... him, had passed the meridian of his life; "he had," as he used to say himself, "given up battering," and had luckily a small annuity fallen to him by the demise of a considerate old aunt who had kindly popped off in the nick of time. And on this independence Tom had retired to spend all that remained to him of a merry life at a pleasant little sea-port town in the West of Ireland, celebrated for its card-parties and its oyster-clubs. These latter social meetings ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... Four eyes waxed brighter, and two pulses quicker; Ten minutes more of quiet talk unbroken, And heaven alone can tell what might be spoken! But it was not to be, for fates unequal Compelled—but this anticipates the sequel. Just in the nick of time, King Arthur rose From his sedate post-prandial repose, And called for lights. Along the shadowy aisles His pages' footsteps pattered o'er the tiles, Speeding to do his errand, and at once Four tapers flickered from each silver sconce. The scene was changed, the dreamer's ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... Reinforcements coming up in the nick of time had halted a retreat that was threatening to become a rout. The battle would probably be resumed on the morrow, but for the present both forces were resting ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... tinkling of fast-approaching horse-bells. We quickly put out the fires, hid our things, and hastened behind our bulwarks. I seized my rifle. Chanden Sing loaded the Martini. A Shoka, who was too far off to reach our fortified abode in time, screened himself behind some rocks. In the nick of time! Half a dozen soldiers, with matchlocks to which were attached red flags, were cantering gayly up the hillside only a few yards in front of us. They were undoubtedly searching for me. They looked in every direction, but fortunately never turned their eyes toward the ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... and two pennies left after paying her fare, but she supposed that would be enough to last her until she could go on board a vessel. Surely chance had favoured her in enabling her to reach the station in the nick of time to catch the train, and no doubt she would be equally fortunate when she reached Liverpool. Her fellow passengers were uninteresting, and she had no desire to talk to anyone and confide her affairs, so she amused herself with her own thoughts and plans for the future. At Preston ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... know what to make of it all, and don't now. Whether a telegram from the invalid mother did really come in the nick of time to save me, like Abraham's ram that caught in the bushes at the last minute; or whether this sudden dash to Scotland is a deep-dyed plot; or whether he isn't going, really, but means to stop and spy on me disguised as a chauffeur or a performing bear—or ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... anticipation of gaining the top of the Island and an easy descent. Instead of this I came to an impossible overhanging cliff of lava, and was forced to descend as I had come up. It was no easy task, and I was glad to get down with only one slip, when I brought myself up with my ice axe in the nick of time to prevent a fall over a cliff. This Island is very steep on all sides. There is only one known place of ascent; it will be interesting to try and ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... have shown that we can shed our blood too. It is in the nick of time, too, just at the crisis. I don't want to exaggerate; it is only a scratch—but it was so deliberate, and—and so dramatic. The poor devil could not have chosen a worse moment. People won't ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... certainly did seem to be a fate in the way young Mr. Wescott just happened up to camp in the nick of time to find our guardian and fall in love with her, worse luck," and Lucile vindictively kicked a stone from the path as though it were the meddling Mr. Wescott himself. "And then to think he should like Jim, a poor little country boy, well enough to take him along with him to the city, where ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... me without bruise or scratch. Only Yorick and I got tangled up with a herd of buffaloes on the Kajiar Road. In his fright, the little fool slipped half over the khud, and if a knight-errant had not fallen from heaven, in the nick of time, we should both be lying somewhere in the valley by now, 'spoiling ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... distinctly ruffled. Revolution was in the air. Sir Jasper sniffed the coming changes; and was tactician enough to avoid being engulfed in the threatened maelstrom by slipping back to England with his young charges in the nick of time. Others of his compatriots, not so fortunate or so discreet, found themselves clapped into ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... an ace of blazing away at you, but I happened to recognize your figure and step just in the nick of time." ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... aerial extinguisher," answered Tom, with justifiable pride in his voice. "This fire happened in the nick of time for me, Ned. I had a tin of my new combination in the car, not with any intention of using it, though. I intended to pour it in the new containers I am having made in Newmarket to see if it would corrode them, a thing I wish ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... recognize Sam Weller, making his first appearance in "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club"? And who has not revelled in the lively scene in the White Hart when Mr. Pickwick and his friends arrived in the nick of time to prevent the ancient but still sentimental Rachael from becoming Mrs. Jingle? It is not difficult to understand why that particular instalment of "Pickwick" was the turning-point of the book's fortunes. Prior to the advent of Sam in the courtyard of the ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... which did as well as any other way, we and the Spirit of Liberty got into a kingdom of Needles and Pins, and found them at war with a potentate who called in to his aid their old arch enemy Rust, and who would have got the better of them if the Spirit of Liberty had not in the nick of time transformed the leaders into Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine, Harlequina, and a whole family of Sprites, consisting of a remarkably stout father and three spineless sons. We all knew what was ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Evidently he had not had a talk all day, and felt he must expand and let himself out to somebody. I appeared in the nick of time, and came in for all his honey. He rose, went to a bookcase, ran his eye along a shelf, took down a volume, and began, in a low tone: "'Cooperation is the mighty lever upon which an effete society relies to extricate itself from its swaddling-clothes and take ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... medical man, just come in the nick of time. This gentleman here has been personating you for some reason or other, and the discovery caused the young lady to faint. Mysterious, ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... Benito not half to be trusted—Robson can't make out his accounts; and here am I such a wretch that I can hardly tell what two and two make; and here's Ward, the very fellow to come in and set all straight in the nick of time; and I can't ask him so much as to look at a paper for me, because I'm not to lay myself ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very seasonably; you are come in the Nick of Time; I was just now wishing for you; I am extreme glad of ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was one of the most successful writers of this school of exaggerated romance. Her novels, with their azure-eyed heroines, haunted castles, trapdoors, bandits, abductions, rescues in the nick of time, and a general medley of overwrought joys and horrors,[219] were immensely popular, not only with the crowd of novel readers, but also with men of unquestioned literary genius, like Scott ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... covered with bits of cardboard and little piles of pennies, ordinary brown ones, big white ones and a few little yellow ones. Well, in less time than it takes to cock your ears, that baby was shovelling pennies through the slit in my box and chuckling with joy. I stood it as long as I could, and then, in the nick of time, snatched a big white penny out of his paw and bolted off to the confectioner's. Imagine my astonishment when the girl actually refused to serve me! "Oh, Scottie," she cried, "there must be some mistake; I know your mistress wouldn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... accepted an important appointment abroad in connection with this craft—one which made a profound appeal to him. Despite the stormy outlook in the diplomatic world he felt convinced that he would be able to squeeze through in the nick of time. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... who is rather a taking adventurer, like Bothwell in "Old Mortality." Readers regret the necessity which kills Kennedy. The whole fortunes of Vanbeest Brown, his duel with the colonel, and his fortunate appearance in the nick of time, seem too rich in coincidences: still, as the Dormont case and the Ormiston case have shown, coincidences as unlooked for do occur. A fastidious critic has found fault with Brown's flageolet. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... if he warn't," he repeated, when the captain laughed when Seth mentioned his sensations at the time and detailed his thoughts, "fur he came just in the nick of time to grip holt o' me; and if he hadn't ben thaar I guess it 'ud a ben all sockdolagar with Seth, I does! He must have got what ye call a call, that he must! Guess you'd a thought him a angel, if you'd been ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... progress; and now she was aware of a disturbance in the water, little ominous whirlpools not caused by wind. Presently there emerged a long shadow, like a black expanse of rock:—unmistakably a mugger. And in that moment she felt exquisitely grateful to the hand that had seized her in the nick of time. The next—she wrung her own together ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... came to a meadow in which was a flock of fine fat geese, on which he smiled and said, "I come in the nick of time, you are sitting together quite beautifully, so that I can eat you up one after the other." The geese cackled with terror, sprang up, and began to wail and beg piteously for their lives. But the fox would listen to nothing, and said, "There is no mercy ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... Just in the nick of time the Regent surrendered the town to Duke Philip, not, we may be sure, without many regrets for having recently refused him Orleans. He realised that thus, by returning to its French allegiance, the chief city of the realm would ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... won't you please tell us how you happened to find us out and come to our rescue just in the nick of time? I should also very much like to know how you managed to tumble down that precipice unharmed, as well as how you produced those flashes of light that scared the savages so ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others were guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified to think how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been saved in the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church, a fortnight before, at which time and place she "got religion." The very next day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was fresh upon her and she was vain of her purified ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my way here," said Ben. "He told me I'd come just in the nick of time. I didn't know what he ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... of Hougomont. The Colonel, fowling-piece in hand, was watching the struggle, and seeing that Lord Saltoun was getting the worst of it awaited his opportunity when the big salmon's tail was in the air after a spring, and, firing in the nick of time, cut the fish's spine just above the tail, hardly marking it elsewhere. The Colonel occasionally fished the river with cross-lines, which are still legal although their use is now considered rather the "Whitechapel game." He resorted to the cross-lines, not in greed for fish ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... the person that's— (Turning round.) O Pamphilus, you are the very man I'm looking for. Well done, Charinus! both in the nick of time: I want you {both}. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... my fey," said the music-loving bishop, "here comes a harper in the nick of time, and now I care not how long they tarry. Ho! honest friend, are you come to play at ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... Punch which I had offered to him, which I have ever since kept, and which brought me and this short young man to Horncastle, and in eleven hours I drove that Punch one hundred and ten miles. I arrived at H . . . just in the nick of time. There was the ugly jail—the scaffold—and there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world. Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of the crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood up in my gig, took off my hat, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... his later years kept practically open house—"lashins of whisky and a good larder," and was besides notorious for his gallantries. Oscar's small portion, a little money and a small house with some land, came to him in the nick of time: he used the cash partly to pay some debts at Oxford, partly to defray the expenses of a trip to Greece. It was natural that Oscar Wilde, with his eager sponge-like receptivity, should receive the best academic education of his time, and should ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... much in her line," says Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, "but philanthropic manufacturers, (p. 111) liberal noblemen, and benevolent ladies in travelling carriages, do as well and appear in the nick of time to distribute rewards or to ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... pregnant reflection, as an elderly gentleman, playing golf on a rainy day, takes his spectacles from his nose, and wipes the water-drops away, before venturing the decisive stroke of the game. Nothing escapes him; every thing is done in the nick of time. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, charge to the right or the left, or straight before them, dash through the enemy's front, or scour the flanks, or sweep the rear, perambulate squares, and perforate encampments, just as if the serried ranks of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... of the things that needed attention, with a view to reproving Bridget when she came back to the fold. He burnt his fingers trying to straighten the stovepipe, smelt of the dish-cloths to see if they were greasy, rattled the pans and bethought himself of the eggs just in the nick of time. In some haste and embarrassment he removed the skillet from the fire just as Annie came out of the pantry with the bread ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... was surrounded by a palisade, and occupied by fifteen armed men, under Captain Convers, an officer of militia. On the ninth of June, two sloops and a sail-boat ran up the neighboring creek, bringing supplies and fourteen more men. The succor came in the nick of time. The sloops had scarcely anchored, when a number of cattle were seen running frightened and wounded from the woods. It was plain that an enemy was lurking there. All the families of the place now gathered within the palisades of Storer's house, thus increasing his force ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... he said, "there are many French planters in the province bitten with the three horrors" (he meant Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity), "I sent six to Havana; and if Monsieur Etienne de Bore had not, in the nick of time for him, discovered how to make sugar he would have gone, too. I had an idea that the Sieur de St. Gre and Mr. Temple might act as a bait to reveal the disease in some others. Ha, I am cleverer than you thought, Mr. Ritchie. You ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... His order came in the nick of time. All the pent-up spleen and hatred of Peigan Charley had culminated in an irresistible desire. He had seized a rifle from one of the camp Indians standing by, and had flung himself on the banked up defences. Even as his boss shouted, his eye was running over the sights, ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the sergeant, two or three dragoons were creeping under the wagon to fire from behind the wheels. I dropped a man standing at the horses' heads and then, in the nick of time and on second thoughts, made sure of the mare and hit her in the neck. She squealed, kicked, and plunged, and the other horse sharing her fears, they began to drag the wagon off. The sergeant and two or three men leaped at them and managed to quiet them, and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Ziffak his first knowledge of the mistake they had made, and, leaping into his canoe, he drove it across the stream with resistless speed, reaching the spot in the nick of time, and barely doing that, since he was forced to raise his voice while yet on the river, in order to ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... who was not a man. Lightfoot, wild with love and anxiety, had shot past Old Mok just as he laid down his bundle of arrows, and, when she saw her husband's peril, had leaped forward with arrow upon string and slain his latest assailant in the nick of time. Now, with arrow notched again and a face ablaze with murderous helpfulness, she hovered near, intent only upon sending a second shaft into the ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... door. "You owe him your life, my friend. You know he came with us that night, borrowed a horse and the burnous you wouldn't wear, and kept out of sight till the last minute. He was close behind you when we charged, lost you in the melee, and found you again just in the nick of time. I was cut off from you myself for the moment, but I saw you wounded, saw him break a way through to you and then saw you both go down. I thought you were done for. It was just then the tide turned in our favour and I managed to reach you, with no ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... handsome fellow who took Queensberry's insults for some time with cheerful contempt. Again and again he turned Queensberry's wrath aside with a fair word, but Queensberry went on working himself into a passion, and at last made a rush at him. Haseltine watched him coming and hit out in the nick of time; he caught Queensberry full in the face and literally knocked him heels over head. Queensberry got up in a sad mess: he had a swollen nose and black eye and his shirt was all stained with blood spread about by hasty wiping. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... company of cavalry. The colonel commanding the regiment we wanted to join didn't think he had any authority to accept us unless we would give up our independent organization, and as we were resolved we wouldn't do that, we began to think we would be obliged to fight on our own hook; but just in the nick of time we learned that the troops serving in Missouri, under Price and McCulloch, were mostly partisans, and that either of those commanders would be glad to accept us. So there is where we are going as ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... brawl with the Prussian soldiers:[Footnote: See Jean-Christophe—I, "Revolt."] she wrote to tell him that she was going to be married: she gave him news of his mother, and sent him a basket of apples and a piece of cake to eat in her honor. They came in the nick of time. That evening with Christophe was a fast, Ember Days, Lent: only the butt end of the sausage hanging by the window was left. Christophe compared himself to the anchorite saints fed by a crow among the rocks. But no doubt the crow ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... just as well if the rattlesnake coiled in his path at that moment had ended his existence, but the snake was indeed an honorable highwayman, and sounded a gentlemanly warning in the nick of time. Collins would have killed it for its pains, but killing had upset his nerves that day. So he left the reptile to try its fangs on a better man. Besides, he reflected that he could not consistently advocate capital punishment, and he sincerely hoped ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... something in old Zikali's tale of a wonderful white Queen who lived in a mountain fastness, since there was the mountain as he had drawn it on the ashes, and the servants of that Queen who, apparently, had knowledge of our coming, appeared in the nick of time to rescue us from one of the tightest fixes in ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... strong-armed bully, who kept on thrusting and driving the boy sideways as, lithe and agile, he avoided or parried every thrust. At last his fate seemed sealed, for his arm was growing weak and his defence being beaten down, when with a quick movement and just in the nick of time Leoni made a sudden dart forward and turned aside ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... goodness, I'm sorry to say, and while they walked in the lanes, they stood the perambulator alone in a field where there was a bull. The animal became enraged by the red blanket in the perambulator, and Heaven knows what might have happened if a gentleman had not been walking by in the nick of time, and rescued ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... about reached the end of the rope, so that this happy event came just in the nick of time. Frank hurriedly fastened that ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... more credible, though they are decidedly more tolerable. The daughters of Spanish Governors who carry on flirtations on the sea-shore with the captains of English men-of-war, who are carried off by pirates and rescued in the nick of time, whose papas not only consent to their marriage with the heretical object of their affections but send boxes full of gold doubloons, together with their blessing, are so much better than life that we need not quarrel when invited to meet any number of them. The sea adventures in Marryat ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... be all right if you could be sure the cannibals would be interrupted in the nick of time as his were," said Dan. "But ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I felt certain, was one of elopement and seduction; and, superstitious as usual, I was sure that my good genius had sent me in the nick of time to save her and care for her, and in short to snatch her from the hands ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... doubt that the brave dog would have, eventually, paid the penalty for its rashness—for the wolf had mauled it badly, and it was beginning to show signs of exhaustion through loss of blood—had not Savanich arrived in the nick of time. A couple of thrusts from his knife stretched the wolf on the ground, when, to his utmost horror, it suddenly metamorphosed into a hideous ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... pleased with the situation. As he read it, it struck him as possessing strong dramatic possibilities: Carroll was the struggling author on the verge of starvation: Marion, his sweetheart, flying to him gave him hope; and he was the good fairy arriving in the nick of time to set everything right and to make the young people happy and prosperous. He rather fancied himself in the part of the good fairy, and as he seated himself he bowed to them both in a manner which ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... account of their imprisonment—they took that almost as a matter of course—but because their master was being murdered in the tent. So the second chief snatched a torch from a servant, hastened to the tent, and arrived just in the nick of time. ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... said her father. "And we are to be fellow-passengers, so it was very lucky that we were there in the nick of time." ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... But in the nick of time the Liberal Administration fell, and Lord Salisbury's Cabinet reversed their decision. It is interesting, in reading the Blue Books on Indian questions, to watch the emotions of party principles, stirring beneath the uniform mask of ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... which are our Lady's merits. His holiness dwindled, and he might, perhaps, have sunk into voluptuousness and become little by little like those lukewarm souls which Heaven rejects had not succour come to him in the nick of time. ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... of time for Nell, as all things, indeed, in life seemed to befall in the nick of time for her. The impious huswives shook their heads and attributed it to the evil influence; the pious huswives asserted it was providential; Nell herself laughingly declared ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... better than any one that if there is an art in choosing the right moment for coming forward on the boards of the world, on those of the Court, in a drawing-room or on the stage, it is still more difficult to quit them in the nick of time. So during the first winter after the accession of Charles X., he redoubled his efforts, seconded by his three sons and his sons-in-law, to assemble in the rooms of his official residence the best matches which Paris and the various deputations from departments could offer. ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... and faced the mob with their pikes, and for a moment forced them to give back, the prisoners would have been rescued at the very door of the inn. As it was they were dragged in, and the gates were flung to and barred in the nick of time. Another moment, almost another second, and the mob had seized them. As it was, a hail of stones poured on the front of the inn, and amid the rising yells of the rabble there presently floated heavy and slow over the city the tolling of ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... simply didn't do that, that's all," Monty answered. "The bank manager told me he received it in the mission mail bag—from Ujiji, yes, but by way of Muanza, Tabora, and Dar es Salaam. It reached me in the nick of time. I must have been marching nearly parallel with you ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... and Cranze remained unvaryingly drunk. Cranze passed insults to casual strangers who came on board and did not know his little ways, and the casual strangers (after the custom of their happy country) tried to knife him, but were always knocked over in the nick of time, by some member of the Flamingo's crew. Hamilton said there was a special providence which looks after drunkards of Cranze's type, and declined to interfere; and Cranze said he refused to be chided by a qualified teetotaller, and mixed himself ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... tight fix," answered Dick, with a shiver. "You came in the nick of time, and I owe you a good deal ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... no great time, for they travelled day and night, they came to Bregla, and gained admittance to the fortress, but just as he got in he had to go out again, for the King of Leinster had been warned of Mongan's journey, and came back to his fortress in the nick of time. ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... I lay the whole crowd under a blanket suspicion, on general principles; and I'll say, furthermore, that I have particular reason to suspect Bunbury, the first footman, of having stolen the cuff-buttons, because he tried to steal a necktie from my room last week, and I only caught him in the nick of time, helping him out of the room with ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... own success in turning away his blade, but after I had guarded myself from three or four thrusts, I took to mind that offence is the best defence, and ventured a lunge, which he stopped with his dagger only in the nick of time to save his breast. His look of being almost caught gave me encouragement, making me realize I had received good enough lessons from my father and Blaise Tripault to enable me to practise with confidence. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... on the face of things that the arrival of those two active and stalwart civil servants would have been welcomed as happening just in the nick of time; yet it argues an alien ignorance to suppose such a view of the matter by any means possible. The men in invisible green tunics belonged completely to the category of pitaty-blights, rint-warnin's, fevers, and the like devastators of life, that dog a man more or less all through it, but ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... kissed her, but was still thinking of the unknown jockey, who, in the nick of time, had come from nowhere, materialized from nothing, to save the day for Frank by riding Queen Bess to victory. "I feel as if I must know his name," she said. "Madge, help me persuade the Colonel to tell us." She went to him and petted ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... tell me about it some time. Hank, you're on board just in the nick of time. I found out what the trouble was with the carriage of the gun and repaired it while you were amusing yourselves out there. Get in lively, now, there's work ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Constance, in the truest spirit of melodrama, and having long sought him in vain under the guidance of a quarta persona, of whom more presently, realises almost the whole of her fortune, except a small pittance, dashes it down before him in the nick of time, and saves him for ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... with death in the shape of a medic. Have you ever seen him?" The doctor, he meant. "He looks like an advertisement for an undertaker. I do believe he was trying to discover whether he could kill somebody by the power of suggestion, and he met L—— in the nick of time. You know how really sensitive he was. Well, that medic killed him, the same as you would kill a bird with a bullet. He said 'You're already dead,' and ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... They arrived in the nick of time. In his own car young Van Vorst and a bag of golf clubs were just drawing away from the house. Seeing the car climbing the steep driveway that for a half-mile led from his lodge to his front door, and seeing Jimmie standing in the tonneau brandishing a gun, the Judge hastily descended. ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... boys' aeroplanes struck the earth not far from the bank of the pond toward which Peggy was at that moment valiantly struggling, the two young aviators leaped out and set out at a run to the rescue. They reached the bank in the nick of time to pull out the two ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... Jack, in great joy, as the face of the faithful old negro showed itself at the doorway. "You came in the nick of time!" ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... proud pretence. And indeed the pride had gone out of Rachel at sight of him; a delicious sense of safety filled her heart instead. She was as one drowning, and here was a strong swimmer come to her rescue in the nick of time. What did it matter who or what he was? She felt that he was strong to save. Yet, as the nearly drowned do struggle with their saviours, so Rachel must ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... paper, one being held in each hand of the bull-fighter, who, standing 20 or 30 yds. from the bull, draws its attention to him by means of violent gestures. As the bull charges, the banderillero steps towards him, dexterously plants both darts in the beast's neck, and draws aside in the nick of time to avoid its horns. Four pairs of banderillas are planted in this way, rendering the bull mad with rage and pain. Should the animal prove of a cowardly nature and refuse to attack repeatedly, banderillas de fuego (fire) are used. These are furnished with fulminating ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Indian comes just in the nick of time. He is well acquainted with this part of the jungle, having lived here all his life, and he offers to guide us to a place where we can get mules to transport ourselves ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... was believed; and the Brethren's creditors, in a state of panic, pressed hard for their money. The little Church of the Brethren was now on the brink of ruin. At one moment Zinzendorf himself expected to be thrown into prison, and was only saved in the nick of time by the arrival of money from Germany. But the English Brethren now showed their manhood. The very men whom Zinzendorf was supposed to have robbed now rose in his defence. Instead of thanking Whitefield for defending them in their supposed distresses, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... was to come, Mary Jane got up early; dressed herself as quickly as possible and ran down the stairs. Just in the nick of time she was too, for Grandfather was ready to start to ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... congeries of persons as one can imagine, decides that the aforesaid flame of rebellion shall not only be forgotten as per bargain, but that—the loyal population, who flung their lives upon it and quenched it in the nick of time, shall pay the rebels their damages! Of this, I believe, on sadly conclusive evidence, there is no doubt whatever. Such, when you wash off the constitutional pigments, is the Death's-head that discloses itself. I can only say, if all the ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... that he had assumed the lead at last. Already the stables were lit up like a chandelier; there was a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In another minute we were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the high-road rang with the dying ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... him; and when Quonab's knife flashed out at last, it was only his recently established relations with the governor's son that saved him from some very sad results, for there were many loafers about. But burly Vandam appeared in the nick of time to halt the small mob with the warning: "Don't you know that's Mr. Van Cortlandt's guide?" With the governor and Vandam to back him, Quonab soon had the mob on his side, and the dock loafer's own friends pelted him with mud as he escaped. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... should be sacrificed as an expiatory offering for the whole country. So the people decked him with garlands like a victim and led him to the altar, where they were just about to sacrifice him when he was rescued either by his grandson Cytisorus, who arrived in the nick of time from Colchis, or by Hercules, who brought tidings that the king's son Phrixus was yet alive. Thus Athamas was saved, but afterward he went mad, and mistaking his son Learchus for a wild beast, shot him dead. Next he attempted the life of his remaining son Melicertes, but the child was rescued ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... arrived in the town only four days' full rations were available, and there were 800 sick and wounded in hospital, by far the larger proportion being down with dysentery and enteric fever. Truly it seemed that deliverance had come in the nick of time. "Thank God," Sir George White had said, "we have kept the flag flying." Thank God also that the brave defenders had been spared the worst horrors of a siege, and that help had not longer been withheld in their extremity. ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... the rescue!" shouted Mr. Blades as he dashed across the street; "come on, Pet! here we are in the thick of it, just in the nick of time!" and, closely followed by Charles Larkyns, Mr. Fosbrooke, Mr. Smalls, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Just in the nick of time a good-sized prahu came down the river, and on anchoring by the steamer her captain went on board, with a pitiful tale of how he had been treated ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... turning forward the narrower part of it. Bolli dealt him a blow with Footbiter, and cut off the tail-end of the shield, and clove An through the head down to the shoulder, and forthwith he gat his death. Then Lambi went in; he held his shield before him, and a drawn sword in his hand. In the nick of time Bolli pulled Footbiter out of the wound, whereat his shield veered aside so as to lay him open to attack. So Lambi made a thrust at him in the thigh, and a great wound that was. Bolli hewed in return, and struck Lambi's shoulder, and the sword ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... with the smoke and the fog, with the stifling, sulphureous air, with the tempestuous blasts, with the alternate extremes of heat and cold, and with the clamours, the lamentations, the agonies, and the howlings of the damned everywhere around him,—when, just in the nick of time, Beelzebub appeared to him again, and invited him once more to ascend the saddle, which he had occupied during his infernal journey. Here he fell asleep, and, when he awoke, found himself in his own bed in his ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... fellow," cried Will, with a laugh, slapping the native on the shoulder; "you have just come in the nick of time to take care of us all, for, besides having utterly lost ourselves, we are quite ignorant of forest ways in this region—no better ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... shoved onto us as a side-line. You listen to me! Batson Reeves was the man that lied to the girl I was engaged to thirty years ago, and broke us up and kept us apart till I came back here and licked him, and saved her just in the nick of time. What do you think of a ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... out for these here young ones," said Sam. "This one would have been roasted sure, if I hadn't a-happened along in the nick of time." ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... Then, in the nick of time, he made the acquaintance of a Mr William Arbuckle, a friend of his father-in-law, and a South African sheep farmer, home for a holiday; and this man strongly urged him to emigrate to South Africa and take up sheep farming. The idea powerfully appealed to my father ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... "You come in the nick of time," replied the Cardinal. "This is his last week. There is a great demand for the seats; but you will see to it, Mr. Wogan, that the box is in the ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... the girl out of her stupor of despair. With a cry she gathered herself together and jumped to her feet. He put forth a hand as if to catch her, and she leaped back. Her skirts swept the lamp on the floor and overturned it with a splintering crash. Instinctively she sprang away—in the nick of time. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... you mean by letting the fire burn so low?' he growled. 'I have only arrived in the nick of time.' And while the prince hastily threw a log on the stove and blew on the ashes to kindle a glow, his master gave him a severe box on the ear, and warned him that if ever it happened again it would fare ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... Gerry, on the famous "X.Y.Z. "mission to France. From this single year's employment he obtained nearly $20,000, which, says his biographer, "over and above his expenses," was "three times his annual earnings at the bar"; and the money came just in the nick of time to save the Fairfax investment, for Morris was now bankrupt and in jail. But not less important as a result of his services was the enhanced reputation which Marshall's correspondence with Talleyrand brought him. His return to Philadelphia was a popular triumph, and ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... and asked him if he would get some beer for us! And I reached for my purse, and for one wild moment I thought sure he had called my bluff and would really take my only nickel, my carfare home. I nearly fell over with suspense, but in the nick of time he went out, refusing my money. And I even taunted him, asked him if ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... seen her when they started. She was radiant—shaking hands with everybody— waving her handkerchief from the deck—distributing bows and smiles like an empress. If ever a woman got what she wanted just in the nick of time that woman did. She'll be Lady Trevenna ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... Holmes, with grave face and eyes that never flinched. "I think she would have fallen down the stairs, had she not been caught in the nick of time." ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... Suddenly one day the order of confiscation came from the Inquisitor-General. Only Coverdale's official position as representing the King saved his own life. As for the printed sheets on which so much depended, they seemed doomed. But in the nick of time a dealer appeared at the printing-house and purchased four great vats full of waste paper which he shipped to England—when it was found that the waste paper was those printed sheets. The presses and the printers were all loyal to ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... he was undiscovered, the likely lad made up his mind, as he should have done long before, to leave those colossal emeralds where they were and have nothing further to do with the lean, high house of the gnoles, but to quit this sinister wood in the nick of time and retire from business at once and buy a place in the country. Then he descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him though knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... happened that ninety Yankee seamen had been sent across country from New York by Captain Isaac Chauncey. These worthy tars had trudged the distance on foot, a matter of five hundred miles, with their canvas bags on their backs, and they rolled into port at noon, in the nick of time to serve Elliott's purpose. They were indubitably tired, but he gave them not a moment for rest. A ration of meat and bread and a stiff tot of grog, and they turned to and manned the boats which were to cut out the two ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... the failures which invariably followed John's interference in domestic concerns. As for Milly's housekeeping, it was an admitted absurdity. Millicent had lived of late solely for the opera, and John resented any preoccupation which detached the girls' interest from their home. When Ethel recovered in the nick of time to attend the final rehearsals, he grew sarcastic, and irrelevantly made cutting remarks about the letter from Paris which Ethel had never translated and which she thought he had forgotten. Finally he said he probably ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Nipmucks and their allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearly entire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siege in a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in the nick of time. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... refused to do, and they would doubtless have killed him, but for two men who dragged him from their clutches in the nick of time. These two men were the one-armed Joe and Edward Chester, just returned from the West Indies, whom the former had met by accident that day. They took the locksmith to his home, while the raging crowd brought furniture from neighboring houses and built a bonfire ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... unlikeliest place that ever was," said the messenger, polishing his horse's wet neck. "And I suppose that's what the woman thought when she slipped in there. If I hadn't happened by in the nick of time I wouldn't mistrusted. She didn't see me. She was goin' up the steps, with her back to the road, and the meetin'-house sets a considerable piece from the fence. They was all singin' loud enough to drown a horse's ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... directed against Spero's breast went off. When the smoke had cleared away, the boy stood there unharmed, while a man tumbled down at his feet. It was Bartolomeo! Taking advantage of the confusion, he ran away and came just in the nick of time to receive Benedetto's murderous bullet in ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... know where Burr himself is—in the Richmond jail. I understand that his friend, Mr. Merry, has gone yonder to visit him. Our country is degenerated to be no more than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. You come back just in the nick of time. You have saved this administration! You bring back success with you. If the issue of your expedition were anything else, I scarce know what would be my own case here. For myself, that would have mattered little; but as to this country for which I have planned ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... It was just in the nick of time, for two minutes later the savages would have been upon him. As it was, when they saw the giant moving off they paused for ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... streaming from his wounds, he was making a desperate stand. Three citizens who had run upon his knife, lay squirming at his feet; but the odds were too great. In another moment all would have been over with him had it not been for the Captain who chanced upon him in the nick of time. Snatching a club from one of his assailants and accompanying each blow with a volley of Spanish oaths, he rushed through the mob, scattering it in all directions. Whether it was the oaths or the Captain's exhibition ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... takes to tell it, a score or more of strong arms hurled one out to him, and he caught it in the nick of time. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... from the tree and dashed across the open, reaching the scene of the struggle just in the nick of time to strike up Diggle's weapon ere it sheathed itself in the Gujarati's side. Diggle turned with a startled oath, and seeing who his assailant was, he left his companion to take care of himself, and faced Desmond, a smile of anticipated ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... "you have come in the nick of time. There is madame overwhelming me with questions respecting the count; she insists upon it that I can tell her his birth, education, and parentage, where he came from, and whither he is going. Being no disciple of Cagliostro, I was wholly unable to do this; so, by way of getting out of the scrape, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... homewards across the Cumberland Mountains, and suffered terribly while making their way through the "desolate and voiceless solitudes"; mere wastes of cliffs, crags, caverns, and steep hillsides covered with pine, laurel, and underbrush. Twice they were literally starving and were saved in the nick of time by the killing, on the first occasion, of a big bull elk, on the next, of a small spike buck. At last, sun-scorched and rain-beaten, foot-sore and leg-weary, their thighs torn to pieces by the stout briars,[34] and their feet and hands blistered and scalded, they came out in Powell's ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... up the steps from the pump room. He was in the nick of time. A large locker in the main compartment gave him refuge just as Pauline and Summers reached ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Even if I'd not struck Jim, I'd meant to come, And have a prowl round the old gaol, and see How Michael throve: although I hadn't ettled To cross the doorstone—just to come and go, And not a soul the wiser. But it turns out I was fated to get here in the nick of time: It seems the old witch drew me here once more To serve her turn and save the happy home. I judged you'd lost your hold on me, Eliza: But, once a ghost has got a grip of you, It won't let go its clutch on your life until It's dragged you into the grave with it: even then ... Although my ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... by Red Dog after that warrior was raised to his feet, after Cranston's skirmishers had swept the field, after Davies thought the struggle at an end, and was unprepared for the stealthy blow. Nothing but Brannan's vigilance, and the warning cry which caused the lieutenant to turn in the nick of time, had saved his life. Red Dog in irons lay in the log guard-house. Thunder Hawk, on parole,—for White had dared the wrath of the bureau and refused to let McPhail have him,—walked the garrison at will. Mr. Davies, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... ruffian, you! That was one of the happiest nights of your life. You're always trying to make people think you're asleep, or timid. I can see, right now, that long knife of yours slip under my arm, and catch the big fellow in the stomach. He just coughed once, and crumpled up at my feet. In the nick of time, too, Jim, and I let the next one have it. The rest of them took to their heels, and you with your long pigsticker after them. No likee! Jim, you're a moon-faced old liar, and a disgrace to your ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... in the Romany camp. She employed her grandchild, Leonora, to open relations in a friendly way with Lavengro, and then to persuade him to eat of a "drabbed" of poisoned cake. Lavengro was grievously sick, but was saved in the nick of time by the appearance upon the scene of a Welsh preacher, Peter Williams, and his wife—two good souls who wandered over all Wales and the greater part of England, comforting the hearts of the people ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... orders in the nick of time. We are to go to Key West. I am to join the others on the ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... She rose in the nick of time and slipped away from him. But she didn't fly far. So Tommy followed. And he stole up very slyly; and once more, when he was quite near the old lady, ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... said they were; which means they were sailors belonging to the English warship. Of course the boat's crew that was waiting. But what brought them up; and how came they to arrive there and then, just in the nick of time to spoil our plans? That's a ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... captured next morning by a party of British dragoons, who carried him off to their camp at Princeton. The dragoons were very gleeful over this unexpected exploit, but really they could not have done the Americans a greater service than to rid them of such a worthless creature. The capture of Lee came in the nick of time, for it set free his men to go to the aid of Washington. Even after this force and that sent by Schuyler had reached the commander-in-chief, he found he had only 6000 ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske |
