"Splintering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was sharply recalled from whatever her mind was dwelling upon by a sudden jar, due to the checking of the carriage, and simultaneously with it came the sound of crashing of glass and splintering of wood. So abrupt was the halt that Miss Durant was pitched forward, and as she put out her hand to save herself from being thrown into the bottom of the brougham, she caught a moment's glimpse of a ragged boy close beside her window, and heard, even above the hurly-burly of the ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... a ridge of earth swept bare and clean. The blackened lumber-yards were quite deserted in the deepening chill which was felt as soon as the sun set; the melting snow on the hot, charred planks had frozen into long icicles, and as she stopped to look at the ruin one snapped, and fell with a splintering crash. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... more magnificent rescue. The logs were rolling, falling, diving against the laden man. He climbed as over a treadmill, a treadmill whose speed was constantly increasing. And when he finally gained the top, it was as the gap closed splintering beneath him and the ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... crash. The billows broke in sheets of whipping spray. The decks swam with a river of waters. One gun wrenched loose, teetered to the roll, and pitched into the seething deep. Yard-arms came splintering to the deck. There was a roaring of waters over us, under us, round us—then M. de Radisson, Jean, and I went slithering forward like water-rats caught in a whirlpool. My feet struck against windlass chains. Jean saved himself from washing overboard by cannoning into ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... had cleared a hundred yards, and before the flag of truce was hauled down, there was a sharp, grinding report from one of the tops of the man-of-war, and a hail of bullets from a machine gun swept across the deck. Mazanoff heard a splintering of wood and glass, and a deep groan beside him. He looked round and saw the Professor clasp his hand to a great red wound in his breast, and fall in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... A rending, splintering sound told me damage had been done. I looked toward the captain's cabin ... and laughed heartily, for all my discomfort and dangerous escape ... for the whole side of the cabin had been stove in,—and, terrified, his eyes sticking out, in his dirty underclothes ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... continuous fire with her bow guns. The heavy reports crashed through the darkness, the sounds rolling sullenly away, and not every shot went wild. There was a tearing of sails, a splintering of spars, a shattering of wood, and now and then the fall of a man. Under the insistent and continuous urgence of the captain the men on the schooner replied with the Long Tom in her stern, and, when one of the shots swept the deck of the sloop, the fierce, dark sailors shouted ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Count preferring the latter, certain knights of his came forth and challenged the knights of St. Omer to fight them man to man. Whereon there was the usual splintering of lances and slipping up of horses, and hewing at heads and shoulders so well defended in mail that no one was much hurt. The archers and arbalisters, meanwhile, amused themselves with shooting at the castle walls, out of which ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... wood, wave after wave of motion seemed to spread until the fibres emitted a faint splintering sound. Then, suddenly, the heavy table rose slowly, the end on which Shiela's hands rested sinking; and fell back with ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... probability. The tournaments of humour which he is fond of introducing, although good in effect upon the stage, are not favourable for any keen wit. Such conflicts must be kept up by artifice, cannot flow from natural suggestion, and degenerate into a mere splintering of words. One cause of the absence of "salt" in his writings is that he was not of a censorious or cynical spirit; another was that his turn of mind was rather sentimental than gay. Shakespeare evidently knew there might be humour among men of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... preserved, for it will figure in the trial," said Holmes, as he handed the bag with its contents to the inspector. "It is now necessary that we should try to throw some light upon this third bullet, which has clearly, from the splintering of the wood, been fired from inside the room. I should like to see Mrs. King, the cook, again. You said, Mrs. King, that you were awakened by a LOUD explosion. When you said that, did you mean that it seemed to you to be louder ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... temper was already thoroughly undermined; by a last misfortune his hand closed on the hammer as he fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned and struck at the offending statue. There was a splintering crash. ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... stoically for the shot that would erase the Vulcan from the face of the sea. There came another splintering shock; the upper half of the foremast made a curious jump, and came down with its rigging and plunged overboard in the rushing water. The obstruction instantly choked down the tug's speed. Every man in the crew seized axe, saw, anything, and rushed forward in a fury of impatience, hacking, ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... him! he had laid up no other treasures. None in heaven; none in the hearts of his wife and children; none in his own mind. The staff upon which he had leaned was now a splintering reed, wounding as ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... burst from the English ship's side, followed by a dull roar, and, immediately after, by a loud crashing and splintering of the deck above our heads. Then came shrieks, groans, and loud cries of pain. The shot had swept the deck. Fathom by fathom the English ship overhauled us. Through our port-hole we could see her deck ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... was drowned in the clap of thunder which accompanied an awful flash of lightning. With both came a splintering crash, the tent seemed to rock, and for a moment its interior was vividly illuminated by the electric bolt. The lightning had struck near ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... startled exclamation and cowered behind the cart. The huge tree, groaning and its roots splintering, sagged down and, in an instant, the spot there the old lumberman had been, was completely covered by the interlacing branches of ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... vibrating in the deepest darkness; the clouds at night gave forth a most violent hailstorm; the terrible waves roared and piled themselves up into great fiery-looking mountains, the lightning flashed and quivered in the air, now and then splintering the top of a mast. With thunder on all sides and fearful in the expectation of the approaching storm, the soldiers sank down in silent resignation and the crew remained during the whole night on deck in anxious agitation and work. In the morning ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it had not begun and was ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... extraordinarily elusive faintness that was neither light nor colour in the liquid gloom, long after the sight had outrun the visibility of the range. At intervals I was startled by sounds, sometimes sullen, like a muffled subterranean explosion, sometimes sharp, like a quick splintering of an iron-hard substance. These noises, I presently gathered, were made by the ice stretching and cracking in fifty different directions. The mass was so vast and substantial you could not but think of it as ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... that, there was more help than could be made to avail, and the battens and wedges were in place in a trice. That this was no sooner accomplished than need be, we had immediate proof; for there came a rending of wood and a splintering of glass, and after that a strange yowling out in the dark, and the yowling rose above and drowned the continuous growling that filled the night. In a little, it died away, and in the brief silence that seemed to ensue, we heard a slobby fumbling at ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... yelling of the people on the marker's deck intensified. This was exactly what the hamari had foreseen. When the turn began five of the opposing vessels ran into each other. The boil and splash of water, breaking of oars, splintering of boatsides; the infuriate cries, oaths, and blind striving of the rowers, some intent on getting through at all hazards, some turned combatants, striking or parrying with their heavy oaken blades; the sound of blows on breaking ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... made the shock absolutely terrific. Everybody in the ship that was standing was thrown down headlong: the shaken rigging made a great rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went out: several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the funnel: there were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope, splintering sounds, loud cracks, the masthead lamp flew over the bows, and all the doors about the deck began to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded, hit the second time the very same spot like a battering-ram. This completed the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... too, saw the turnout and gazed after it. But he did not sigh. He puffed away at his pipe as if entirely satisfied with his lot. He was still watching the brougham when a surface-car came gliding swiftly around a curve. There was a smash of splintering wood and breaking glass. The car had struck the brougham a battering-ram blow, crushing a rear wheel and snapping the steel axle at ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... you are not too busy playing Sir Lancelot to fair dames in distress, or splintering lances with the doughty husbands of these same ladies, I pray you deign to allow your servant to feast her eyes upon her lord's face. Hopefully ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... nicks in his brass wheels. And I hope it is as honourable to give eyes to the blind as to slash them out of the head of those that see, and to show us how to value our time as it passes, as to fling it away in drinking, brawling, spear-splintering, and such-like unchristian doings. And you maun understand, that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but follows a liberal art, which approacheth almost to the act of creating a living being, seeing it may be said of a watch, as Claudius saith of the sphere ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... blows which I had noted before, and which had never ceased, culminated in a splintering crash. Dr. Fu-Manchu and his servant, who carried the apparently insensible detective, passed in under the arch, Fu-Manchu glancing back once along the passages. The lantern he extinguished, or concealed; and ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... listened at first, resting on his elbow, but after a minute or two he sat up. He heard the rushing of the rain, the crack of splintering boughs, the flowing of the rising river, and the gurgling of its waters as they lapped against the stone shelf. They would not enter it he knew, as he had observed that the highest marks of the ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... the window—the glass and framework were shivered to atoms, and in the current of air that rushed through the room, my light went out. Then there came a crackling, breaking sound from the branches of the old apple tree beneath my window; then a scraping on the bricks and window-ledge; then more splintering of glass and window-frame: the blind broke away at the top, and my toilet table was overturned—the looking-glass smashing to pieces on the floor, and I was conscious that someone had ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... out of golden youth, And some beheld the faces of old ghosts Look in upon the battle; and in the mist Was many a noble deed, many a base, And chance and craft and strength in single fights, And ever and anon with host to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battle-axes on shattered helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist: And shouts of heathen ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... the poor dolls, clinging together as they heard the splash of water, the shouting of men, the splintering of wood, and the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... beneath him; he made a vain clutch at the wall, his fingers sliding over the cold stones, then, with a sharp exclamation, down he pitched bodily into the garden beneath! A thousand thoughts flew through his brain like a cloud of flies, and then a leafy greenness seemed to strike up against him. A splintering crash sounded in his ears as the lattice top of the arbor broke under him, and with one final clutch at the empty air he fell heavily ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... for a dense mist hung above the trees. After an hour or two the firing slackened a little, and presently, with great caution, a little lamp, carefully shrouded with a blanket, was lit. A sudden burst of shots that came splintering into the posts beside us caused the lamp to be hurriedly put out; but presently it was lit again, and with infinite caution one man was dressed. At last a little very faint silver dawn came gleaming through the tree-tops—the most beautiful sight I ever saw—and the firing stopped. The ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... the awakening field With crash of hosts that clashed and reeled, Banner to banner, shield to shield, And spear to splintering spear-shaft, steeled As heart against high heart of man, As hope against high hope of knight To pluck the crest and crown of fight From war's clenched hand by storm's wild light, For ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... up; its walls were sufficient to screen them from the darts and arrows of the Indians, but mostly they depended upon their firearms, the sound of which struck dismay into the savages, especially when they saw the effect of the balls, splintering and rending the trees around them, and carrying havoc to such a distance. The Indians were thus kept in check for the present, and deterred from venturing from the forest; but the Spaniards, exhausted by constant watching and incessant alarms, anticipated all kinds of evil when their ammunition ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... the silence, like a knife rough and jagged. In a twinkling the lights went out. There was a scuffling, a struggling in the corridor, cries and shouting, the sound of wood splintering, the blows of an axe,—a rushing forward of heavy bodies and the trampling of feet. The doors burst open, and a cordon of police dashed over the wreckage, cursing, shouting—and then stopped on the threshold, staring in amazement and panting ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... shock. There was a moment of horrible grinding, crashing, and splintering, a mad surging of brown waters, and then the little showboat passed beneath the monster that had crushed out its life. It was gone as utterly as the flame of a candle is extinguished by a puff of wind, and the great river was its grave, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... of news from the outside world, if the following extract from a leading New York evening paper was some of the material of which the "atmosphere" on shore was composed:—"Stunned by the terrific impact, the dazed passengers rushed from their staterooms into the main saloon amid the crash of splintering steel, rending of plates and shattering of girders, while the boom of falling pinnacles of ice upon the broken deck of the great vessel added to the horror.... In a wild ungovernable mob they poured ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... seen anything like the Julia. She was an old, soft-pine-built ex-Puget Sound lumberman, literally tumbling to decay, aloft and below. Her splintering decks, to preserve them somewhat from the torrid sun, were covered over with old native mats, and her spars, from want of attention, were splitting open in great gaping cracks, and were as black as those of a collier. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... great splintering hummocks and hollows. Its wide cracks were solid with the accumulations of time, while lint and frayings, and bits of cloth and string, were fairly woven into its rough surface everywhere, and tenaciously held. It was lastingly greasy in the neighborhood of the table, as steadily ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... enormous iron hammer up and down. The pile had to be driven through several very thick strata of fagots and stones; yet at every blow from the heavy hammer it sunk into the ground, breaking, tearing, and splintering, while it entered the dyke more than a hand's length, as if it were merely a mud hole. Nevertheless, what with adjusting and driving the pile, the operation lasted almost an hour. I thought of the thousands that had been driven, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... had snapped in two. The mainyard no longer supported by the brace, and pressed by the whole power of the straining topsail, flew forward and upward till it was bent nearly double, when with a loud crash it parted in the slings, splintering the topsail into ribands ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... moment's work. The three went to work with a will. Blow after blow fell on the heavy door. It did not yield an inch. The lock also held firm, but the new casing was built in old and rotted wood. It gave, and with a dusty splintering the door toppled in, and the boys, springing over ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... painted. It is first "on the waters," which may possibly mean the Mediterranean, but more probably, "the waters that are above the firmament," and so depicts the clouds as gathering high in air. Then it comes down with a crash on the northern mountains, splintering the gnarled cedars, and making Lebanon rock with all its woods—leaping across the deep valley of Coelo-Syria, and smiting Hermon (for which Sirion is a Sidonian name), the crest of the Anti Lebanon, till it reels. Onward it sweeps—or rather, perhaps, it is all ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... a thump on the door. Lane made sure some one had found his axe. He did not care how much smashing the policemen did. All that concerned Lane then was how to avert discovery from the girls. It looked hopeless. Then, as there came sudden splintering blows on the door, Lane espied Swann's cigarettes and matches on the music box. Lane seldom smoked. But while the officers were breaking in the door, Lane leisurely lighted a cigarette; and when two of them came in ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... poor shooting for a monitor at a target like the Tennessee, and suggestive of considerable distance between the vessels; second, that eye-witnesses have affirmed that only one of the Manhattan's shot took effect, a solid shot that struck the ram on the port beam, crushing her armor and splintering the backing, but not entering the casemate, though leaving a clean hole through; third, that the effect of that one shot showed what the Manhattan might have accomplished had she taken as favorable a position as that chosen by the Chickasaw; fourth, that it is believed the report of a board of survey ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... with which to assail the door. The stout stool alone seemed available. Swinging this over his shoulder, hampered by the narrowness of space, he struck again and again, with all his strength, the upper panel splintering beneath the third crashing blow. He could see nothing, but felt with his fingers along the jagged ends of the shattered wood, and redoubled his efforts, striking wildly, but with effect, until suddenly the lock gave, and the door burst open. He was in the main cabin, which was ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... of splintering and crunching began everywhere. A cloud of soot spilled down the chimney and across the hearth. A furrow ploughed across the floor, lifting a splinter as long and even as if it had been grooved out ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... nothing! For Quimby, in a frenzy of unreasoning fear, had taken the chair from under him and had swung it at the figure. A lamp had stood on the bar top. It was caught by the backward swing of the chair, overturned and quenched. The splintering of glass mingled its small sound with an ominous thud in the thick darkness. It was the end of all things; the falling of an impenetrable curtain over a horror half sensed, yet all ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... at the phenomenon. There had been no sound, no whip of wind, nothing—yet all those trees had bent and crashed splintering to the ground. Their slavering lips open, the isuan weed forgotten, they stared: and then howling and shrieking they broke and went splashing off panic-stricken ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... forward, braced himself for the shove he directed against the wooden barrier, and the door swept splintering inward. Roger advanced first and a grim confusion touched him with cold horror. Taou Yuen was half seated and half lying across a table beside the bed; he couldn't see her face, but her body was utterly lax. Nettie Vollar, too, was in a dreadful waxen similitude of ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... her, the struggle would be short and soon over, for nothing would persuade her to go back in the boat with Hugh again. She raised her arm; and the sound of a shot was sent over the water, followed simultaneously with a sharp, splintering sound, as the little leaden missile tore its way along the ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... he came to town Benito saw a crowd of angry and excited men running down Montgomery street. Some of them brandished canes. "Down with Copperheads," they were shouting. Presently he heard a crash of glass, a cry of protest. Then a door gave with a splintering sound. The crowd rushed through, into the offices and print ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... within an hour, at the marine leg, but it was not serious. They heard a splintering sound, down in the dark, somewhere, and Pete, shouting to them to throw out the clutch, climbed out and down on the sleet-clad girders that framed the leg. An agile monkey might have been glad to return alive ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... his shoulder down near the lock. There was a cracking and splintering of wood, and the door suddenly flew open ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... that I was routed suddenly into wakefulness by a jar that almost pitched me out of my berth, and that an instant later there was a tremendous crash as though the whole deck above me was smashing to pieces, and with this a rattle of light woodwork splintering and the sharp tinkling of breaking glass. For a moment there was silence; and then I heard shouts and screams close by me in the cabin, and a little later a great trampling on deck, and then the screw stopped turning and there was a roar of ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... given a glance aloft, where she saw another craft, a small flapping affair like the surgeon's. It was just rising on a long slant so as to cross above her course. And at that very instant there came a sharp crack, followed by a splintering crash. The surgeon's flier ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... always afterward. Grim danger was threatening the Princess May on every side. Each moment Grenfell and his companions expected to feel the shock of collision and hear the fatal crunching and splintering of the vessel's timbers upon the rocks. All of Grenfell's experiences on the Sands of Dee and in the hills of Wales and out on the estuary came to his rescue. He did not lose his head for a moment. That would have been fatal. He had acquired courage and resourcefulness in ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... The splintering glass fell inward, and Larry pounded around the casement until it was all clear. The rectangular opening was fairly large. We could see a dim basement room of dilapidated furniture: a door opening into a back room; the girl; nearby, a white ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... be the most august in the world. Having once known what it was to be members of a grand and peaceful constellation, we shall not believe, without further proof, that the laws of our gravitation are to be abolished, and we flung forth into chaos, a hurlyburly of jostling and splintering stars, whenever Robert Toombs or Robert Rhett, or any other Bob of the secession kite, may give a flirt of self-importance. The first and greatest benefit of government is that it keeps the peace, that it insures every man his right, and not ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... in his place for some thirty seconds, while there was a sound of splintering glass as the bullet rushed out into the darkness above the river; ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... it would be more correct to say, to see to it that they did not miss their full share of the plunder. Roused to fresh efforts by the sight of the others, those on the spot fairly riddled the doors and windows of the house. The bullets were whizzing into the kitchen in every direction, splintering the furniture and sending the plaster flying from the walls until the room was filled with a fine, blinding, choking dust. It was impossible to hold out much longer. The final rush was sure to come in a very few minutes—and all would ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... the angry scarlet of Dirk's complexion provoked Barraclough's attack and before the poor man had recovered from his surprise a heavy lobster pot came smashing down over his face with agonising force, the splintering basket-work playing havoc with his features. Then he, too, experienced the unique sensation of gliding downward through space, a delight somewhat marred by the rudeness of ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... the spear, Straight through the flank its path to shear, But, splintering there, left the head buried deep; The shaft fell in three as it whirred ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... appeared. Splintering, gaping mouths that vomited out a horde of pallid animals. Jason heard their shriekings, shrill yet remote. He saw the needlelike teeth ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... A little splintering crash, the sound of a glass falling upon a stone floor in the next room, broke the stillness. Dalrymple's arms relaxed, and the two stood for one moment facing one another, pale, with fire in their eyes and hearts beating more loudly than before. Dalrymple ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... line. His mother reached for him, his father fought the wheel to avoid the crash. Jimmy Holden both heard and felt the sharp Bang! as the right front tire went. The steering wheel snapped through his father's hands by half a turn. There was a splintering crash as the car shattered its way through the retaining fence, then came a fleeting moment of breathless silence as if the entire universe had stopped still ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... a very deep and difficult spruit, the Jagd Spruit, which forms an ugly passage in times of peace, but which when crowded and choked with stampeding mules and splintering wagons, under their terrified conductors, soon became impassable. Here the head of the column was clubbed and the whole line came to a stand. Meanwhile the enemy, adopting their new tactics, came galloping in on the left flank and on the rear. The first attack was repelled by ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... soldiers passed from room to room beating the wainscoting with pike and musket-butts, splintering and smashing heedlessly. Presses were burst open and their contents scattered; chests were broken into and emptied, the searchers appropriating such objects as took their fancy, with true military cynicism. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... had tumbled out in an agitated stream, occupying but a few seconds. The panels were splintering in the door now, as the ax smashed a way through. Martinez had no need to look up Weir's number; and it was in a strain of terror and excitement that he ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... his way slowly towards the patch of light, barking his shins, stumbling and falling over the barrels and crates and finally, losing his footing at a critical moment, tumbled down upon a box marked "Cotton." There was a splintering crash and the very faint clink of metal. Dazed and bruised, he sat up and felt of himself—and found that he had lost ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... to save her, Dick saw the ground loom up before him. He heard the crash as the plane broke into splintering ruin ... he had a last vision of old Luke clutching his precious watch: then everything was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... With splintering of wood and clanging of metal, the iron bar was wrenched from its deck-fastenings and began to fly to and fro across the deck at the end of its tether, like a giant's slung-shot. It circled, it spun, it flung itself afar and returned in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... patience, the work had thus been finished to the degree required, there would often remain some little irregularities of surface, due, for example, to the presence of nodules and heterogeneous substances, which the sculptor had not ventured to attack, for fear of splintering away part of the surrounding surface. In order to remove these irregularities, another tool was employed; namely, a stone cut in the form of an axe. Applying the sharp edge of this instrument to the projecting nodule, the artist struck it with ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... the height of fifteen or twenty feet. Suddenly the plane swooped up as though Woods were trying to loop. For a second it tipped sidewise like a cat boat reeling over in the wind, and then there was the sound of splintering wood and tearing silk, and the plane crashed ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... Thursday," says Ted Billett longingly. "Two years at the Beaux Arts," and for an instant the splintering of lances stops, like the hush in a tournament when the marshal throws down the warder, at the shine ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... and made a bolt for the window, striking at the fastened grill. He heard the snapping of wooden bolts and the splintering of wood and out through the hole he climbed to a precipitous, head-long flight that fairly felt the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... snow defile, when the leading sleigh, in which rode Ruth and Alice, swerved to one side. There was a crashing sound, a splintering of wood, and the two forward horses ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... still raining, though not so hard. Soon we began to hear a peculiar noise, which seemed to come from behind the wagon. It was a breaking, splintering sort of noise, as if a board was being smashed and split up ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... died away when a loud banging on the front door reached even their ears, and after several repetitions new fear was given them by the crashing of wood and splintering of glass, which told that some one had broken in a shutter and window to effect an entrance. Once again footsteps on the stairs were heard, and a man rushed into the room underneath them and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... latter season they are subject to become weak and flaccid, and want support; for which purpose some gardeners have thought of splintering them up with birchen Twigs, which has seem'd of some service for the present, tho' the plants have very soon come to the same or a ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... be drackly-minute," came a straining voice from within; and the boy could hear the rending of torn boards, and the splintering of terrific hatchet-work. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... by a swift duck of his head; the other he caught dexterously on the chair-bottom. Then, over the heads of the crowd, another chair came hurtling with unexpected force and precision. It struck Buck's crude weapon squarely, splintering the legs and leaving him only the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... told amongst the rigging, the injury was repaired as if by magic. It was evident we had repeatedly hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter and, across her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, but it seemed to produce ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... lances steady, with pounding hooves that sent the turves a-flying, with gleaming helms and deadly lance-points a-twinkle; fast and ever faster they thundered down upon each other, till, with a sudden direful crash, they met in full career with a splintering of well-aimed lances, a lashing of wild hooves, a rearing of powerful horses, staggering and reeling beneath the shock. And now a thunderous cry went up, for the tall black horse, plunging and snorting, went ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... and blood could stand. Meanwhile the old Vindictive ran alongside the mole and dropped her eighteen special gangways bang against it. In a moment her forlorn hope—her whole crew was one great forlorn hope—swarmed on to the mole, over the splintering gangways, while her guns roared defiance at the huge German batteries. The ground swell made the Vindictive roll and racked her breaking gangways terribly. The storm of German shells and the hail of machine-gun ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... "Round 'em up, Russ Genesmere! It's getting late!" he yelled, and ran among the cattle, whirling his rope. They dodged weakly this way and that, and next he was on the white horse urging him after the cows, who ran in a circle. One struck the end of a log that stuck out from the fire, splintering the flames and embers, and Genesmere followed on the tottering horse through the sparks, swinging his rope and yelling in the full moon: "Round 'em up! round 'em up! Don't you want to make camp? All the rest of the herd's bedded down ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... holes in Calle Isabella 2^a at Mahon. They only had one hitch in their enterprise. During one of these bumps in the uneven street the door flew open, and the camera fell out on the cobble stones with a thud and a sound of splintering glass. ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... spoken when a third shot boomed. There was a splintering crash overhead followed by a sough and a thud as the maintopmast came hurtling to the deck and in its fall stretched a couple of men in death. Battle was joined, it seemed. Yet Captain Leigh ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... of tints. The blue sky above, and the green earth beneath, are in unison with a tone of coloring not unlike the brown of one of our own early winter landscapes. The travertine is also of a coarse grain and porous texture, not splintering into points and edges, but gradually corroding by natural decay. Stone of such a texture everywhere opens laps and nooks for the reception and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... rifle range. He spread his hands apart, clasping a blanket, looking like a great bird flapping its wings, and the ground in front flamed, the red flare splitting the gray gloom. The speeding bullets crashed through the leather of the coach, splintering the wood; the Mexican rolled to the floor, uttering one inhuman cry, and lay motionless; a great volume of black smoke wavered ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... putting the helm down, I ordered our steersman to fall flat on their faces behind some wood, and, at the same moment, did so myself. We had scarcely done so, when bang! bang! went their guns, and the shot came whizzing close over us, splintering the wood about us in all directions. Fortunately none of us were struck. "Now, mandarin, now! they are quite close enough," cried out my companions, who did not wish to have another broadside like the last. I, being of the same opinion, raised myself above the high stern ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... succession of heavy, splintering blows, echoing over the cove, announced that the pair imprisoned on the sloop had at last discovered some means of battering their ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... the second, being not more than one-fourth as large. Nor does it compare in fertility with either Hayti or Cuba. The former island is the centre of geological upheaval, and the great rounded masses, sustaining a soil of inexhaustible depth, run off from thence splintering into sharp ridges, which in Jamaica become veritable knife edges, sustaining a soil comparatively thin. The character of the island is that of a mountain mass, which, as the ancient watermark on the northern ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a scrambling, tearing noise in the region of the old apple-tree. For an instant a strange object outside darkened the window, there was a shriek, a splintering crash, and down from the apple boughs, breaking a window-pane in its head-long descent, and landing upon the veranda floor with a terrible bang, came the black-haired twin ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... the power of recuperation of youth, about the comparative harmlessness of the pointed, steelmantled rifle bullets which on account of their terrific percussion make small clean wounds and rarely cause splintering of the bone or blood poisoning. I remember saying that I had quite a medical knowledge and that it seemed to me that his son was not mortally wounded. But he knew better. He never said a word, only, a few minutes later, "He was my only hope"; and I can't express how ominous ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... a cracking of wood, a splintering, breaking sound, and the heavy truck, loaded with children, the Bobbsey twins among them, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging 68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result from such practice. The first piece of the kind was cast at the Carron Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in their possession a small model of this gun, with the inscription:—"Gift ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... silver spoons into my pocket; then took the unlucky book with the bank-notes and put it in the bosom of my dress. I was determined to defend the property confided to my care with my life. Just as I had secured the pocketbook I heard the door splintering, and rushed into the passage again with my heavy kitchen poker lifted in ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... work of a moment; it had to be. The inner room was so dark they had to feel their way about blindly, yet those splintering crashes on the outer door, interspersed by the shouts of the men, spurred both to hurried effort. Nor was there much to be done. The heavy bed was thrown upon its side, and hauled and pushed forward until it rested against ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... emerged from behind Capt. Boggs' cabin, which was adjacent to the block-house, and which hid the south wall from their view, they were two hundred feet from Wetzel. They heard the heavy thump of a log being rammed against the fence; then a splitting and splintering of one of the six-inch oak planks. Another and another smashing blow and the lower half of one of the planks fell inwards, leaving an aperture large enough to admit an Indian. The men dashed forward to the assistance of Wetzel, who stood by the hole with upraised axe. At the same ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go, breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail with all its hamper of blocks and cordage, which, half in and half out the boat, threatened to capsize and swamp her before it ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... and at the same moment a terrific crackling and splintering resounded from the shaft, and the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... open window she could smell the frost; she could hear it tingle. She put up her mouth above the bedclothes and drank down the clear, cold air. She thought with pleasure of the ice in her bath in the morning. It would break under her feet, splintering and tinkling like glass. If you kept on thinking about it ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... upper planking of the boat began to warp; here and there, cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened with brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the sharp, sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both to spring to our feet. Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift to secure the rebellious plank with ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... turned directly upon the entrance to the Great House, and Sir Gavan, with his handful of followers, waited on the threshold for the inevitable issue. Already the ponderous door of iron-banded oak was groaning and splintering under the hail of blows. And in the forefront, with a laugh upon his lips, hewed ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... outside, a fusillade of shots, the tinkle of breaking glass; against the pine boards at his side came the wicked thud of bullets, the splintering of wood as they tore through the partition and embedded themselves in the outside wall. He ducked low and ran to the rear door, swinging it open. Braman's body bothered him; he could not leave it there, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... at all—the music even had sunken to a sort of tremor of fear. They were for the moment hanging head downward from their separate bars, when across the stillness came the ominous sound of cracking, splintering wood; afterward it was known that the rung of a chair in an upper private box had broken, but then,—but then! the sound was close to ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... sharp crack as the occasional table, never designed by its maker to bear heavy weights, gave way in a splintering flurry of broken legs under the pressure of the master of the house: and Sally's mood underwent an abrupt change. There are few situations in life which do not hold equal potentialities for both tragedy and farce, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... immediately sent a second ball on the post betrayed by the smoke, but without any other result than that of splintering ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... pick detached a piece of rock which came crashing down on the floor of the level, splintering into great ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... lifted a tie and felt the hard, splintering wood, he wondered where it had come from, what kind of a tree it was, who had played in its shade, how surely birds had nested in it and animals had grazed beneath it. Between him and that square log of wood there was an affinity. Somehow his hold upon it linked him strangely ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... five stars And the opalescent hue Of the aureole brightness cast— Red, hardly red, and blue, scarce blue,— Round th' immaculate frosty moon, Splintering light in glacial spars, When November's loudening blast Sweeps heaven's floor till burnished More crystal than at August noon, So we fit radiance may cast Before his feet, around ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... came, their guns hurling shells at all the British vessels without favor. A shell struck squarely upon the bridge of the Canopus, killing an officer; and the splintering wood that flew about accounted for two more, making the ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... in terrible Euroclydon. Hark to the howling of the gale, and the splintering of the spars, and the starting of the timbers, and the breaking of the billow, clear across the hurricane deck. Down she goes! Into the life-boat! Quick! One boat! One shore! One oarsman! One salvation! ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... trying to make himself heard and he leaned forward to catch the fellow's words, when suddenly the impossible happened. The deck beneath his feet was jerked backward and he was flung to his knees. Simultaneously there came a crash, the sound of rending, splintering wood, and over the stern of the barge poured an icy deluge that all but swept father and daughter away. Rouletta screamed, then she called ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... both the tree and him headlong down into the river. After a moment of horrible uncertainty, the power of gravitation determined a direct and forward descent. Down went the huge fragment, which must have weighed at least twenty tons, rending and splintering in its precipitate course the trees and bushes which it encountered, and settling at length in the channel of the torrent, with a din equal to the discharge of a hundred pieces of artillery. The sound was re-echoed from bank to bank, from precipice ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... cross-bar, which gave me a small leverage. With a mighty effort I drove my right elbow and shoulder against the side-bar. It seemed to give slightly ... I summoned all my strength and tried again. There was a crack and then a splintering, the massive bar shuffled limply back, and my right arm was free to move laterally, though the cross-bar prevented ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... lively one; and the false brilliancy and gaiety drove him back upon himself and into his lair again, where for a while he remained meditating amid the sombre menace of looming canvases and the heavy futility of dull-gold hangings, and the mischievous malice of starlight splintering into a million incandescent rainbow rays through ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... mass of water dashed the "Black Eagle" down upon the "William Tell," in the midst of a cloud of boiling foam. To the dreadful crash of the two great bodies of wood and iron, which splintering against one another, instantly foundered, one loud cry was added—a cry of agony and death—the cry of a hundred human creatures swallowed up ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... there came a crashing, splintering sound. There was an exclamation from the officer, and, as he ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... sound, splintering! Then the instantaneous shock, the awful, stunning force of a frightful blow and a shipful of human beings were flung violently in all directions, many never to rise again. The Tempest Queen had struck! The last ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... with one that is known to be quite true, and a line with a fine pointed pencil made, or better, a scratch with the point of a small knife, guided by the true end of the perfect one. A fine toothed and sharp saw will remove the unnecessary wood. In doing so, precautions must be taken against splintering and spoiling the wood. To prevent this, a piece of waste wood, cut slightly out of the square, should be placed against the stop of the bench, so that when the ebony is placed against it, the sawing can be done flush with the ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... with his excited cry I had heard a loud splintering and sweeping of branches overhead; and now as we staggered into the shadows it seemed that one of the elms was reaching down to touch us! So, at least, the phenomenon presented itself to my mind in that fleeting moment while Smith, uttering his ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... we picked up the small steamer, and towing her to a Hudson Bay Company's Post we put her "on the hard," photographed the hole, with all the splintering on the outside, and had a proper survey of the hull made by the Company's shipwright. The unanimous verdict was "wilful murder." In the fall as her own best witness, we tried to tow her to St. John's, but in a ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... a sudden splintering crash, and Arcot jerked open the circuit in alarm. They were almost motionless again as the stars ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... gallant feats— There was winning of honour and losing of seats; There was hewing with falchions and splintering of staves— The victors won glory, the vanquish'd won graves. Oh, many a knight there fought bravely and well, Yet one was accounted his peers to excel, And 'twas he whose sole armour on body and breast Seem'd the weed of a damsel when ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing, all-imploring, and all-confiding look on ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... the smash of the drunken skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten timbers, the tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the crew like ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... the splintering of glass and a rending of woodwork, some oaths, and a sudden cry. The whirr of an engine filled his ears and seemed, as it were, on top of them. Then there was a crash all but at his side, and next instant a half-smothered groan and ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... Bromley hill rushing up towards him, and spun about and up as the aeroplane he had chased crashed among them. All its voices wove into a felt of yelling. The great fabric seemed to be standing on end for a second among the heeling and splintering vans, and then it flew to pieces. Huge splinters came flying through the air, its engines burst like shells. A hot rush of flame shot overhead into the ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells |
