"Spurt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saved his life, for as he spoke two pistol shots rang out simultaneously from the forward part of the hold. The bullets passed over his head. Raising himself on his elbow, Cleggett fired rapidly three times, aiming at the place where a spurt of ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... seen in the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... have seen us duck! And the flares continued rising and falling. We constantly heard the shells from the big guns screaming like express trains over our heads; and every now and then a machine-gun or a Lewis gun would spurt forth its bullets. We felt anything but comfortable! One man in C Company was carried away with very bad shell-shock—a 'Blighty' all right! None of us were sorry when 2 came. Major Brighten came along just before it was time to stop. ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... deafening in the confined space of the corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over my ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... north, Commander Peary had had the best of the going, for he had brought up the rear and had utilized the trail made by the preceding parties, and thus he had kept himself in the best of condition for the time when he made the spurt that brought him to the end of the race. From 87 deg. 48' north, he kept in the lead and did his work in such a way as to convince me that he was still as good a man as he had ever been. We marched and marched, falling ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... Rod! You've got to go! One more spurt and you'll have him! There you are over the line! On time! On railroad time! Three cheers for Railroad Blake, fellows! 'Rah, 'rah, 'rah, and a tigah! Good for you, Rod Blake! the cup is yours. It was the prettiest race ever seen on the Euston track, and 'Cider' got so badly left that he cut ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... dash and spurt and rally; with a swing and drive and rattle, Both the boats went flashing faster as they cleft the swelling stream; And the old familiar places, scenes of many a sacred battle, Just were seen for half a moment and went by them in ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... latter means nothing, though its presence may mean everything," said Holmes. "Unless the powder from a badly fitting cartridge happens to spurt backward, one may fire many shots without leaving a sign. I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt's body may now be removed. I suppose, Doctor, you have not recovered the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a spurt for that time," he said coolly, and began to walk slowly but steadily on. Only his face, which was white and set, and the convulsive grip of his hand on her arm, betrayed the effort. At the end of ten minutes she ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... His beard and his hair drip blood. He seats himself on the altar and laughs from thick lips. The black executioner raises his sword and whirls it above my head. Another moment and my head will roll down on the floor. Another moment and the red jet will spurt from my neck. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... power, what spurt of vitality it had taken to put him on his feet again in all the trappings of war. At all events, there he was, standing erect behind the rail, surprised to find the avenues so large, so silent, the window curtains down, and Paris as gloomy as ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... cried Gedge. "The sight of our lads below there seems to ha' woke me up. I'm ready to die game; but I want to make one spurt for life first." ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... came in a-slant, bounced shoulders against the opened door, caught their bearings and hell was out for noon. Buregarde caught the first with a slash at the throat; they went down in a mad whirl of dog and thug, paws, tail, arms, legs and a spurt of blood. The second flicked his pencil-ray at Peter, its capsule charge faded to a mere sting before it cut into him. The third aimed a kick at the struggling dog. Vanessa Lewis snatched a box from the bureau and ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith
... the dinner invitation arrives, strikes, and floats down the mists to the eerie catacombs of the Past. The hostess knows that the cook, with arms akimbo, is breathing rebellion, but tries to blot out the awful vision by an extra spurt ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... nearest thing to flying. The bucks with their twisted black horns and blackish brown coats and white underneath, the does cream-coloured and white, almost invisible against the soil in the glare of light. All spring into the air with their feet tucked up at the same spot, with a spurt of dust as if a bullet had struck the soil beneath their feet. You see poor sheep trying to do ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... leveled his newly-acquired weapon, and pressed on the knob. There was a sudden spurt of flame from the Venerian's body; then it crumpled, sagging, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... may achieve, never, ah, never shall I experience a thrill of triumph equal to that which made my blood dance when I saw a trickle—a goodly, rich red trickle!—of blood spurt ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... not our deficiency of dry docks left our ships very foul, they could have covered the distance well within four days. Ships steady at thirteen knots would have needed little over three; and it is sustained speed like this, not a spurt of eighteen knots for twelve hours, that is wanted. No one, however, need be at pains to dispute that circumstances alter cases; or that the promptness and executive ability of an enemy are very material circumstances. Similarly, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... no wit, and Babbitt fell into a great silence and devoted himself to the game of beating trolley cars to the corner: a spurt, a tail-chase, nervous speeding between the huge yellow side of the trolley and the jagged row of parked motors, shooting past just as the trolley stopped—a rare ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... true," answered Mencius, "that water will flow indifferently to the east or to the west. But it will not flow indifferently up or down; it can only flow down. The tendency of human nature is towards what is good, as that of water is to flow downwards. One may, indeed, by splashing water, make it spurt upwards, but that is forcing it against its true character. Even so, when a man becomes prone to what is evil it is because his Heaven-implanted nature has been ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... level patch of ground that lay on that side of the island, until they came in sight of the swampy land, covered with low but dense wood which bounded the lands of the Raturans. Dismay overwhelmed the pirate at first sight of it. Then hope rebounded into his soul, and he put on a spurt which carried him considerably ahead of his pursuer. He reached the edge of the swamp-land, and dashed into its dark recesses. He had barely entered it a few yards when he plunged into water up to the neck. The heavy root of a tree chanced to hang over him. ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... strove to thrust me to a distance. Yet all the time I kept saying persuasively: "You fool! Bring forth as quickly as you can!" and, as a matter of fact, was feeling so sorry for her that tears continued to spurt from my eyes as much as from hers, and my very heart contracted with pity. Also, never did I cease to feel that I ought to keep saying something; wherefore, I repeated, and again repeated: "Now then! Bring forth as ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... welling up from the wound and of a dark red colour it is venous blood, if it spurt up from the wound and be of a bright red colour it is arterial blood. What has to be done is to place a pressure on the vein or artery to prevent the ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... was a curious natural phenomenon. The sea, pouring into a narrow gully, forced air and water to spurt through an opening at certain intervals. First a low groaning noise was heard, which waxed louder and louder until—so Beata declared—it resembled the snoring of Father Neptune. Then suddenly a shower of spray spurted from ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... have been good: the days Racing in cutters for the comrade's praise. The day they led my cutter at the turn, Yet could not keep the lead, and dropped astern; The moment in the spurt when both boats' oars Dipped in each other's wash, and throats grew hoarse, And teeth ground into teeth, and both strokes quickened Lashing the sea, and gasps came, and hearts sickened, And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking stroke, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... the animal closes its front door by retracting until the disc presses immovably against the circumference of the tube, the retraction being so sudden that a frail spurt betrays the whereabouts of an otherwise secret dwelling-place. In the centre of the disc is the first segment, from which the frontal fringe is extended in the form of an array of keen bristles as a defensive weapon. With the lid at one end and the armed disc at the other the animal enjoys security ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... hadn't the money just then to quit his job of stage driving and go Indian stalking. It would take money,—a few hundred at least. Casey at that time lacked the price of a ticket to Round Butte. So he had to drive and dream, and his first spurt of saving grew half—hearted as the weeks passed; and then he lost all he had saved in a poker game because he wanted to win enough in one night to ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... marked out by the various animals that frequented it; and the mud-holes formed by the elephants grew deeper and more given to spurt out water as the great animals passed on till the edge of the river was reached, when they plunged in on to what now seemed to be firm, gravelly soil, with the clear stream pressing against their sides, till the smaller ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... him almost gone. Saltire and McNeil had worked over him until the sweat dripped from their faces, but he who has been kissed by the black mamba, deadliest of snakes, is lost beyond all human effort. The light was fast fading from his face, but, for a moment, a spurt of life leaped in his eyes. He held out his aims to the woman, and she fell weeping into them. Christine turned away and stared out at the darkness. Saltire had been writing; a sheet of paper upon which the ink was still wet lay upon the table, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... wrote glowingly of their doings. Adrian had put the book out of his head, was always in the best of spirits. He had completely recovered from the strain of work and was looking forward joyously to the final spurt in London and the achievement of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... a shot at it as anybody could have," said Tom, "and it wasn't over ten feet from me. I saw the blood spurt out from a hole in its neck, and it flung the horse away from it, broke the lariat, and went into the bushes. But do you think it ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... north continued their slow but persistent southward advance; the invasion rolled on, the Serbians retiring before them step by step. During the last week of the month Gallwitz came to the heights east of Banitzina, south of Jesenitza, and began storming them. Then followed another spurt of severe fighting and Livaditza and Zabari, on the Morava River, fell into their hands, after which they occupied the region south of Petrovatz. By the 28th they had gained Svilajnatz, beating down the Serbian resistance by sheer weight of men and guns, and by the last day of the month ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... odd foreshortening of the weapon and the crooked twist of the face behind it. With the first jerk of his horse's head his own gun had leaped to his shoulder—he was not conscious of having willed it to do so—and even as he pressed the trigger he beheld a jet of smoke spurt from the muzzle aimed at him. With the kick of his carbine he felt Bessie Belle give way—it seemed to Dave that he shot while she was sinking. The next instant his feet, still in the stirrups, were on the ground and his horse lay between them, motionless. That nervous fling of her head had saved ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... was beginning to show signs of fatigue, and we saw he could not make much fight when once the dogs got hold. The latter were in fierce excitement, having lost their prey so often. After a final spurt of half a mile they pulled him down, and ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... of old sought the hunter. Another glance showed him that pursuer had closed up half the distance between them, and, snatching one of the pistols from his belt, he fired. He knew that he had missed, as he saw the water spurt up beside the boat, but he thought that his bullet and the probability of more might delay the pursuit. Nevertheless the man came on as boldly and as fast as ever. If he fired a third time he could scarcely miss ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hour, passed; the pursuers were gaining mile by mile; the spurt of speed of the Colon was at an end. One of the great 13-inch shells of the Oregon, fired from four miles away, struck the water near the Colon. A second fell beyond her. An 8-inch shell from the Brooklyn pierced her above her armor-belt. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... in. Then Grant, seeing Hogan's coat was afire, looked out and saw flames dancing along the timbers, and a spark with a gust of smoke was sucked into the room by some eddy of the current outside. In a last spurt of terrible effort the hole in the wall was closed and plastered with mud and the men were ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... different trains that came sweeping up and down every few minutes; long luggage trains, pursuing their heavy way with a business-like solidity worthy of their great weight and respectability; short dapper trains, that seemed to take a spurt up the road as if to try their wind and condition; and occasionally a mysterious engine, squeaking, and hissing, and roaring, and then, with a succession of curious jumps and pantings, backing itself half a mile or so down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... raised his head for a view of the stockade and she could see his convulsive duck as a rifle ball tossed up a spurt of gravel round it. The man who had fired the shot went down as the sheriff drilled the spot where a faint haze ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... Evarts!" Tom cut in crisply. "I don't mind a little grumbling at the right time, and I often do a bit myself, but not when I'm as rushed as I am to-night. There's the dock ahead, men—-a little faster spurt now!" ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... long ceased to fear it. No one expected that grand old Mount Pelee, the slumbering (so it was thought) tranquil old hill, would ever spurt forth fire and death. This was entirely unlooked for. Mont Pelee was regarded by the natives as a sort of protector; they had an almost superstitious affection for it. From the outskirts of the city it rose gradually, its ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... who in that awful moment had seen his bright sword flash forth like Heaven's lightning, who had seen the monstrously mutilated body of the woman totter in their midst, and spurt blood on all the bystanders, who had seen the awe-inspiring figure of the headsman close to them all, him whom they had fancied dead and buried, him whom their own eyes had seen burnt to ashes—all these people stood ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... tree and walked to the edge of the drop. The others, too, were moving forward. After the shaman looked down he stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it at the motionless Red. There was a crack of sound. They all saw the tiny spurt of flame, a curl of smoke from the plate on the Red's chest. Not only the man, but ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... its usual "spurt" at the finish, and that club won eight out of nine games in October, after giving Chicago a close fight for second place, and came in a good third in the pennant race. New York was second in the October ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... Taylor goes on to say, "exists in all the trades and branches of labor investigated, from pick- and-shovel men all the way up the scale to machinists and other skilled workmen. The multiplied output was not the product of a spurt or a period of overexertion; it was simply what a good man could keep up for a long term of years without injury to his health, become happier, and ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... come upon me, also, with such discouragements as these: You are very hot for mercy, but I will cool you; this frame shall not last always: many have been as hot as you for a spurt, but I have quenched their zeal (and with this, such and such, who were fallen off, would be set before mine eyes). Then I should be afraid that I should do so too: But, thought I, I am glad this comes into my mind: well, I will watch, and take what ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... good, though, Master Syd, sir," said Strake, as they were together alone. "Lying down, and bein' helped, and strapped and lashed 's all very well, but the sight o' one's nat'ral enemy 'pears to spurt you up like, and if it had only been a month longer, strikes me as we should have had the lufftenant helping ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... tremendous spurt of strength the little burro pulled herself free from the tangle, dragging Choko along, too. The other horses soon calmed down again and ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... preferred the inventions of mechanics to the culture of mind and histrions to philosophers. He adds with vexation that Diophites of Locris passed down to posterity simply because he came one day to Thebes wearing around his body bladders filled with wine and milk, and so arranged that he could spurt at will one of these liquids in apparently drawing it from his mouth. What would Athenaeus say if he knew that it was through him alone that the name of this histrion had come down ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... inconceivably short space of time to its climax, and then drops immediately to nothing. Nervous energy may be said to be represented by an increased rapidity of emission. It is what the athlete would call a 'spurt.' ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... an official, as the girls made a last wild spurt, the whistle sounded, the guard jumped into the van, and, with a loud clanging of coupling-chains, the train started. They had missed ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... near. Neither of us said a word for a while as we saw spurt after spurt of dust kicked up a few yards in front ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... slippery seaweed. Experienced and cautious, he waited for a moment to make sure of his foothold, well knowing the dangers of slipping. Peril was nearer him than he knew. A roller came breaking in, sending a spurt of water right over the spot where he was standing. So precarious was his footing that he did not dare move away quickly. Trewavas had just shuffled his feet a few inches further on that slippery slope when a comber heaved its great ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... cheered. By a sudden spurt he increased his speed. He actually gained several feet on the buck. Then, not being able to see behind him, he made a natural error. Had he veered to the right, he would have circled toward Jerry, and given him a shot. Instead, ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... whole battalion at once opened fire on me; my cloak and my saddle were riddled, but I was not wounded nor was my mare. She continued her rapid course, and went through the three ranks of the battalion as easily as a snake through a hedge. But this last spurt had exhausted Lisette's strength; she had lost much blood, for one of the large veins in her thigh had been divided, and the poor animal collapsed suddenly and fell on one side, rolling me over ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... exclaimed, with a little spurt of laughter which was a relief to the tension of her feelings; 'the compliment, thank heaven, is all gone! I must be the dearest girl in the world to you—I can't help it, whatever my faults—if you do not happen to ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... coming back, he has seen one, given chase to it, leaving Francesca somewhere to wait for him. Well, tia, you know what an ostrich is to chase? Now lagging along as if you could easily throw the noose round its neck, then putting on a fresh spurt—'twould tempt any one to keep on after it. Uncle may have got tantalised in that very way, and galloped leagues upon leagues without thinking of it. To get back to Francesca, and then home, would take all the time that's passed yet. So don't ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... anxious to fight," he said in a low, steady voice. "You can, therefore, take that for a starter!" And hauling off with his right fist, he struck Dan Baxter fairly and squarely upon the nose, causing the blood to spurt and sending the bully to ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... himself; but he seemed to have the sure-footedness as well as the lightness of a deer. When Lynde reached the outskirts of the village, on the road by which he had entered, the agile ship-builder was more than halfway up the hill. Lynde made a fresh spurt here, and lost his hat; but he had no time to turn back for it. Every instant widened the space between the two runners, as one of them noticed with disgust. At the top of the ascent the man halted a moment to take breath, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... spurt of flame from the woodwork behind the stove, and Shad slammed the door to, and ran for ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... was working in the interests of Science and Truth. Fleeing was instinct. Gates didn't matter. They were took on the wing, and down the street I went with the preacher's hot breath on my neck. But I beat him. He tired after the first spurt and was soon left behind, so I could double ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Sundays with the rest of them; He too, amid his hoards of cigarettes, Is void of matches as he's full of veins. So here's a good match in a naughty world, And what to do with it I do not know, Save that somehow, when all the place is still, It shall explode and spurt and flame and burn Slowly away, not having thus achieved The lighting of a pipe or any act Of usefulness, but having spent itself In lonely grandeur as befits the last Of all the varied ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... immediately encouraged his friend Fix to help him. These two then put on all the speed they could, with the result that the others in the same team were excited by the sudden acceleration, and joined in the spurt. It made no difference how the driver tried to stop them; they went on just as furiously, until they reached the team that included the object of Lassesen's and Fix's endeavours. Then the two teams dashed into each other, and we had ninety-six dogs' legs to sort ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... a few days later, as a poor woman carrying a heavy basket passed him in the street, he said to the companion of his walk: "I have had the blood spurt out of my arm carrying bread when I was a baker. A lady asked me once for a hundred dollars to help her send her only son to college. I answered her that my mother had four children and got along without begging, and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... carelessly; let your head roll about as if it were uneasy on your neck, round your shoulders, and slouch your head forward. As to you Jules, your role should be impertinence. Put your cap on the wrong way; hold your nose in the air; pull your short hair down over your forehead, and let some of it spurt out through that hole in your cap. To be quite correct, you ought to address jeering remarks to every respectable man and woman you meet in the streets; but as you know nothing of Parisian slang, you must hold your tongue. See how thoroughly I have got myself up. ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... at the return to amity, and then fell silent, looking into the fire, watching the blue spurt of the flames, the feathery curls of ash ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... occurred during the day, although the political campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks before was now drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were getting ready for the final spurt ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... stories I could tell no less than the full truth, which was that the grass, after remaining patriotically dormant throughout the war except for the spurt northward to destroy the remnants of the invading host, had once more set out upon the march. The loss of color I had pointed out to Joe was less apparent each day of our stay as the old vividness revived with its renewed energy and the sweet music which ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... armour, in addition to protective decks. They are armed with two or four 9.2-inch 380-pounder guns, mounted in barbettes of thick armour, and with a number of 6-inch 100-pounders; a number of 12-pounders and 3-pounders are also carried. Some ships of this description can spurt up to 25 knots—not so long ago considered a high speed even for a torpedo ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... front, so we went to the seaward wall, whither the boats drew near. Now, Hugo himself sent forth the first stones, but the boats were yet too far, and the balls but struck the waves, and made them spurt up ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... I can help it! not if I can help it!" yelled the deacon, in reply, as, with something like a reinsman's skill, he lifted Jack to another spurt. "Go it, old boy!" he shouted, encouragingly, "go along with you, I say!" And the parson, also, carried away by the whirl of the moment, cried, "Go along, old boy! Go along with ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... himself, Henry put on another spurt, and while Dave was still four yards from the big rock came up alongside ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... whoof Thor started along the slope in a spurt that brought him up to Muskwa immediately, and with a sudden sweep of his right paw he sent the cub rolling a dozen feet behind him, a manner of speech that said plainly enough, "That's where you belong if ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... may have intended, he was never allowed to announce. An explosion shook the room, coming from the doorway, upon which Mr. Caryll had turned his shoulder; there was a spurt of flame, and Sir Richard collapsed forward onto the table, and slithered ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... hypothesis is not justified. The unfinished state of both commentaries, especially the one on the Talmud, shows that he worked on them at the same time. But they were not written without interruption, not "in one spurt," as the college athlete might say. Rashi worked at them intermittently, going back to them again and again. It is certain that so far as the Talmudic treatises are concerned, he did not exert himself to follow the order in which they occur. He may have taken them up ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened cables towed astern the captured piles of London Bridge. A great shout went up from the besiegers, and "now," says the chronicle, "as the armed troops stood thick upon the bridge, and there were likewise many heaps ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the reply of De Pean, as he suddenly reflected that it were best for himself also not to be seen watching his master too closely. He uttered a spurt of ill humor, and continued pulling the mane of his horse ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... must be clearly understood that in these experiments we were not trying to find the maximum work that a man could do on a short spurt or for a few days, but that our endeavor was to learn what really constituted a full day's work for a first-class man; the best day's work that a man could properly do, year in and year out, and still thrive under. These men were given all kinds of tasks, ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... hearts were being pulled out of their bodies, but they summoned up all their strength for a final spurt that carried them into the ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... danger, now floating in sunshine and fun! Wish I was a midshipman! Then how he changes, in describing the prize with an assorted cargo that they took, which contained all things from a needle to pianos, from the reckless spurt in which he speaks of the plundering, to where he tells of how the Captain, having died several days before, was brought on the Georgia while Maury read the service over the body and consigned it to ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... exams already. I've noticed that just about the middle of the term there always comes a 'discouragement stage' to anyone who is anxious to do well. The first energy with which one begins work has worn off, and as it is too soon for the final spurt, there comes a dull, flat time, when one worries and frets and gets down in the lowest depths of dumps. I spoke about it at home, and my father says every worker feels the same—artists when they are painting pictures, and authors when they are writing books. They have an idea, and set to ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... inquisitive necks up and exchanged repartees with the big Creusot. And so it was that the weary and dispirited British troops heard a crash which was louder and sharper than that of their field guns, and saw far away upon the distant hill a great spurt of smoke and flame to show where the shell had struck. Another and another and another—and then they were troubled no more. Captain Hedworth Lambton and his men had saved the situation. The masterful ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Boswell and Johnson, it is Boswell's magnificent scorn of reticence which has done the trick, like the spurt of acid, of which Browning speaks in one of his best similes. The final stroke of genius which has established the Life of Johnson so securely in the hearts of English readers, lies in the fact ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and handed over a little box of them. Lying flat on his back in the boat, the young man fished a cigarette out of his pocket, hurriedly, and stuck it between his lips. The next minute the spurt of a match cut the air. The two in the ship's boat caught a brief, flashing glimpse of him—thin white hands raised ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... only trying to tell me that she can't manage to spurt up on third speed any more," said he. "I shall put on the second, and you'll hear what a relief it gives ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "I followed him as far as Euston Road and then got my cabby to spurt up and pass him. He had had his mustache shaved off, and I feared you mightn't recognize him, and so let him ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... was quiet and peace in the United Kingdom, and in the world at large, when the honeymoon began for that august but simple-hearted pair of lovers, Victoria and Albert; or, as she would have preferred to write it, Albert and Victoria. The fiery little spurt of revolt in Canada, called rather ambitiously, "The Canadian Rebellion," had ended in smoke, and the outburst of Chartism, from the spontaneous combustion of sullen and long-smothered discontent among the working classes, had ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... north, just in time to see a tongue of red dart from a casemate port; then, as the bark of the gun came down the wind, a spurt of water lifted from the sea about a hundred ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... Cornish over Devonshire cream was her piece de resistance. Monkey need merely whisper—Miss Waghorn's acuteness of hearing was positively uncanny—'Devonshire cream is what I like,' to produce a spurt of explanation and defence that lasted a good ten minutes and must be listened to until the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... on the following Saturday, the day fixed for sales under legal authority. Lousteau was taking a walk, smoking cigars, and seeking ideas—for, in Paris, ideas are in the air, they smile on you from a street corner, they splash up with a spurt of mud from under the wheels of a cab! Thus loafing, he had been seeking ideas for articles, and subjects for novels for a month past, and had found nothing but friends who carried him off to dinner or to the play, and who ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... away from him—and then that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This "spurt" finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: "Well, I shall have to tear myself ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wildly as one sees in the Chinese drawings of the dragon rampant, and as I looked I saw one of them light on the poor man's eye, and actually tear through it and down his cheek, leaving a wide band of red where the blood seemed to spurt from every vein. ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... a spurt of Parliament for five days, but it was prorogued to-day. The next will be a terrible session from elections and petitions. The Oxfordshire(493) will be endless; the Appleby outrageous in expense. The former is a revival of downright Whiggism ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... did he hesitate; then his face settled into an expression not pleasant to look upon. He forgot that he was tired, that a grandstand full of howling maniacs was ahead of him. He thought only of the girl in pink—and made his spurt. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... a fresh penful of ink, squared his elbows, drew closer to the desk, and with a single swift spurt of the pen wrote the last line of his novel, dropping the pen upon the instant and pressing the blotter over the words as though setting a seal of ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... like a child's balloon, burst, and dissipated itself in a thin, trailing ribbon, which the wind caught and swept to nothing. At the same time something spatted into the trail ahead of him, sending up a little spurt of fine sand. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... deadly spite For what you speak and what you write,— Where, between satire and your wit, They feel themselves most sorely bit. Ah! can a dunce in church or state So overflow with froth and hate? And can a scribbling crew so spurt On Pope and ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... pulled up close to a rough, broken, blistered cone of spelter stuff between ten and twenty feet high. There was trouble in that place—moaning, splashing, gurgling, and the clank of machinery. A spurt of boiling water jumped into the air, and a ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... Bible which looked as heavy as an anvil. He though, if he could only drag that great burden away, the poor, old dying man would not breathe so heavily. He saw a young emigrant stabbed with a bowie-knife by a drunken comrade, and noted the spurt of life-blood that followed; he saw two young men try to kill their uncle, one holding him while the other snapped repeatedly an Allen revolver which failed to go off. Then there was the drunken ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and agile, and did not for an instant think that this heavy, clumsy creature could make any headway against her. She went up lightly and easily, but somehow the heavy, clumsy creature managed to keep abreast of her; was even gaining upon her, drawing up, up, above her head. Vivia put on a spurt, and passed Peggy, climbing very swiftly—for a moment; then the ache in her wrists compelled her to slacken her rate of speed, and the thickset figure came up, up, steadily and surely. Truth to tell, though Peggy Montfort was awkward, she was as strong as a steer. Her weight ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... devotion amounted to actual self-sacrifice, and he would anticipate the orders of the vet. with marvellous acuteness. Once only had he mal-treated a subordinate, a driver whom as a rule he particularly liked. He gave him a blow which caused the blood to spurt from both nose and mouth, because he had, when on stable duty, allowed Dornroeschen to get caught in her chain. Dornroeschen was Heppner's own riding-horse, and the ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... fender trying to get some warmth at the little fire extracted from Reb Shemuel's half-crown. December continued gray; the room was dim and a spurt of flame played on her pale earnest face. It was a face that never lost a certain ardency of color even at its palest: the hair was dark and abundant, the eyes were large and thoughtful, the nose slightly aquiline and the whole cast of the features ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... to recover, and so came back. In the meantime my elephant, with the two smaller ones, was moving off to the left, and with my small rifle I fired at its backbone, the only vulnerable spot visible. A spurt of dust rose, but the elephant did not stop. So, accompanied by Hassan and Sulimani, my two gunbearers, I started after the wounded elephant and the two younger ones. The big one was moving slowly, as though badly wounded. The wind ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon |
