"Stealthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the circle of our firelight, depended absolutely motionless from its stem. The insects had ceased their shrilling; the night birds their chirping; the animals, great and small, their callings or their stealthy rustling to and fro. Of the world of sound there remained only the crackling of our fires, the tiny singing of the blood in our ears, and that far-off portentous roar. Our simple dispositions were made. Trenches had been dug around the tents; the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... morning, December 11, 1688, James II., King of England, rose noiselessly from his bed, passed with stealthy steps from his palace, entered a carriage in waiting, and was driven rapidly to the bank of the Thames, where he stepped into a boat, and was rowed swiftly down the stream. As the boat shot past the old palace of Lambeth, he flung into the river the Great Seal of England, used in stamping all ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... days and nights alike there. He scarce left it save to go abroad, or perchance to have a few hours' sleep in his bed. But the treasure is buried somewhere nigh at hand down in those cellars, though the spot I know not. And he fears to leave it night or day, lest some stealthy hand filch away the ill-gotten gain. Men thought he had the secret whereby all might be changed to gold, and indeed he would ofttimes bring pure gold out from the crucibles over his fire; but he had cast in first, unknown to those who so greedily watched him, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Piazza, down Liberty Street, across the road behind me, and into the wood. Some were in uniform, others dressed in common clothes; one or two I recognized as members of Johnny Carr's missing band. The strong contrast between the prevailing revelry and the stealthy, cautious air of these passers-by would alone have suggested that they were bent on business; putting two and two together I had not the least doubt that they were the President's adherents making their way down to the water's edge to receive their chief. So he was coming; the letter had ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... gingerly than Phillis had done, and ransacked every likely hiding-place of papers or valuables, going through the operation with a rapid dexterity that astounded the old woman's weak mind, and made her ashamed of her own clumsiness. Anticipating the final stealthy look in her direction, the heavy lids fell once again, and were not raised until the rusty bolt passed gratingly into the socket, and she felt that the place was deserted by all save herself and the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... spoke Dick was keenly watching the faces of the various persons present, and he noted with something of a thrill that four or five of the chiefs seemed to exchange stealthy glances of meaning with each other, and also, despite their assumption of indifference, to exhibit signs of inward perturbation. But it was no part of his policy to show that he had observed these things; he therefore ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... sight might at any moment meet the gaze. Then there was the uncanny silence of the place, the kind of silence that caused an involuntary movement on tiptoe and the holding of the breath for fear of breaking it, yet which was broken at recent intervals by stealthy, unaccountable rustlings, or sudden, violent commotions beginning close at hand and gradually dying away in the distance. These strange, sudden, unaccountable sounds, caused in all probability by a boa-constrictor, a buck, or some other creature startled into quick ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... round the Wheelers night after night for a glimpse of the girl for whom he was enduring all these hardships, but without success. He became a prey to nervousness and, unable to endure the suspense any longer, determined to pay a stealthy visit to Wapping and ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... and the hunted! the lithe supple sinewy creature crawling with belly almost touching the ground and stealthy steps that made no sound on the sand of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that already. The house was full now of stealthy sounds and moving shadows descending the great staircase. De Marigny, carrying Rosette, led the way across the garden behind the house, towards the river that cut the countryside in half. The stillness of the night was broken ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... silent forest thick about him Bobby realized that he was no longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose stone struck by a foot might have warned him. He went slower, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. He saw no one, but that idea of stealthy pursuit persisted. Undoubtedly it was the detective, Howells, who followed him, hoping, perhaps, that he would make some mad ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... hill, no tinted bay but accosts the senses, confusing one with another, mingling all the emotions in a single cup, persuading man that he knows good from evil as little as though he lived still in Eden. From such stealthy influences the man of rigid convictions is often in more danger than the man of no convictions at all, for rigid convictions rather often indicate inexperience and imperfect observation; experience, therefore—especially emotional experience—sometimes ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Awakened by some strange consciousness of stealthy movement about the house, she called Belle by name, thinking possibly the girl might be ill and seeking medicine. There was sound of more movement, but no reply. Mrs. Blake's girlhood had been spent on the frontier. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... I ever get back? How would he? I called angrily after him now, and he wouldn't answer me. I called him a fool, a coward; I stamped the ledge like a child—but Grayson kept on, foot after hand, with stealthy caution, and the purple cluster nodding down at him made my head whirl. I had to lie down to keep from tumbling from the ledge; and there on my side, gripping a pine bush, I lay looking up at him. He was close to the flowers now, and just before he took the last upward step he turned and ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... succulent grass of the coulee, their two masters scarcely exchanging a word. Murphy, after satisfying his appetite, rested flat upon his back, one arm flung over his eyes to protect them from the sun. For a considerable time Hampton supposed him asleep, until he accidentally caught the stealthy glance which followed his slightest movement, and instantly realized that the old weasel was alert. Murphy had been beaten, yet evidently remained unconquered, biding his chance with savage stoicism, and the other watched him warily even ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... groaned a little. The small home-like sounds only accentuated the enormous silence without. Suddenly in the midst of them a real sound fell upon her ear—very low, but different, not like the fragmentary inadvertent murmur of the hut; a small, purposeful, stealthy, sound, aware of itself. She listened, as she had listened before, without moving. It was not louder than the whittling of a mouse behind the wainscot, hardly louder than the scraping of a mole's thin hand in the soil. It continued. Then it stopped. It was only her foolish fancy after ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... voice behind them, and three stealthy figures bounded out from a tangle of shrubbery. Betty, Madeline and Mary Brooks had come down the hill by the back path and, making a detour to leave Rachel at the gate nearest her "little white house round the corner," had discovered ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... He sat up listening, still a little dazed with sleep, but nothing disturbed the silence of the wooden building, and it was a moment or two before the moan of the wind forced itself on his perceptions. Then, he thought he heard the trampling of a horse and stealthy footsteps in the mire below, and, springing from his bed, ran to the window. The night was dark, but he could dimly see a few shadowy figures moving towards the house. In another minute he slipped into part of his clothing and hastening into Grant's ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... stooping gait like a giant worn out with labor; he was in clerical dress, but his soft felt hat was in his hand, and the grand powerful head with its heavy dead-brown hair and pale face were distinctly visible under the shadow of the ivy. He did not more at the sound of the stealthy footstep or at the light shadow that fell across him, though the girl crept so close that he could have touched her with his right hand; but on Catharine's reappearance she shrunk back with a gesture of mingled ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Durward's return, and as she well knew how much he would disapprove of it, she resolved not to tell him, secretly hoping 'Lena would keep her own counsel. "Base creature!" said she, "to give my husband her likeness—but he shall never see it again;" and with stealthy step she advanced toward the secret drawer, which she again opened, and taking from it both daguerreotype and ringlet, locked it, replacing the key in the pocket where she found it. Then seizing the long, bright curl, she hurled it into the glowing grate, shuddering as she did so, and ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... pasturing was over for the time, the ram and the little ewe lay down in the shade of a steep rock, comfortably chewing their cud, while the lamb slept at its mother's side. The ram, deeply contented, did not observe two gray-brown, stealthy forms creeping along the slope, from bush to rock, and from stump to hillock. But the ewe, ever on the watch, presently caught sight of them, and sprang to her feet with a snort of terror. She knew well enough ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... life's mighty forest, but the wronger and the wronged meet somewhere amid its shadowy glades. Surely life's wooded maze might afford a hiding place to those who fly from armed memories—but God's rangers tread its every glen with stealthy step and the foliage of every thicket gleams with the armour of His detective host. A chance meeting, a foundling acquaintance, a stray newspaper, an undestroyed letter, a resurgent memory, a neglected photograph, or, as here, a tell-tale ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... honest friendship, which the Captain might be proud to own, glad to show the world that in these days of decadence he could still point to a friend. It was only some business alliance, underhand and stealthy; a social conspiracy, that must needs be conducted ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... microscope, and busied himself for hours together with it. The servants, too, took to him, though he made fun of them; they felt, all the same, that he was one of themselves, not a master. Dunyasha was always ready to giggle with him, and used to cast significant and stealthy glances at him when she skipped by like a rabbit; Piotr, a man vain and stupid to the last degree, for ever wearing an affected frown on his brow, a man whose whole merit consisted in the fact that he looked civil, could spell out a page of reading, and was ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Noiseless, with stealthy steps, they hurried onward, threading the narrow pass between the dusky hills, until they reached a dark and filthy lane which turning at right angles led to the broad thoroughfare of the more showy, though by no means less ill-famed Suburra. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, where ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... most strikingly illustrated when, after a few years' absence, we return to the scenes of our youth. We plunged into the current of the world, buoyant and vigorous; our thoughts have been occupied every hour, and we have not noticed the stealthy shadow of time. But we come back to that early spot, and look around. Lo! The companions of our youth have grown into dignified men,—the active and influential citizens of ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... than a fight, he argued, and so he led the girl toward the doorway that she had indicated. Within the room all was dark, but the daimio moved as one accustomed to the place, and as he moved through the blackness the girl at his side felt with stealthy fingers at the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... forth, and so will I. Sorry sight! to view Jabaster, with a stealthy step, skulk like a thing dishonoured! Oh! may the purpose consecrate the ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... speaks a stealthy footfall breaks the quiet, and a man's voice says low and guardedly, yet distinct enough for ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... again. His movements were deliberate, but not stealthy. He spoke softly to the creature on the floor—his voice lower than the usual pitch, yet sinking often deeper still. The words were mere nothings, but they carried the man's purpose of kindness—carried it steadily, tirelessly. The great beast tried to rise as he ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... upon this primitive little burgh; nothing disturbed this awful silence, excepting now and then the bark of some profligate night-walking dog, or the serenade of some romantic cat. It is true, Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them; but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps echoing along the quiet streets. He thought also at one time that he saw a tall figure skulking after them—stopping ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Time with stealthy tread Lays the rich garden waste, The woodland berry ripe and red Fails ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... course I washed my hands of the Jook, for I was too much exasperated to be even civil to him. Kitty was as bright and good-natured as ever, ready to enjoy all the little pleasures that came in her way, though now and then I fancied that I detected a stealthy, wistful look ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... lighted, in short, upon a subterranean chapel; and here, in a shrine of gold and silver, lay embalmed the body of a former Archbishop of Milan—San Carlo Borromeo. Through the glass-lid of the coffin you could see the half-rotten corpse,—for the skill of the embalmer had been no match for the stealthy advances of decay,—tricked out in its gorgeous vestments, with the ring glittering on its finger, and the mitre pressing upon its fleshless skull. San Carlo Borromeo is the patron saint of Milan; and hence ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... then the snow creaked under stealthy footsteps and a shadow stole past the window. Antkowa seized a piece of wood and stood by the door which was flung wide open; a small boy of ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... which his guest had witnessed and might spread abroad on his return to Bombay. No, he was really terrified. He interspersed his words with sudden unexpected silences, during which he sat all ears and his face strained to listen, as though he expected to surprise some stealthy movement. But Thresk accounted for it by that decanter on the sideboard, in which the level of the whisky had been so noticeably lowered that evening. He was wrong however, for Ballantyne sprang to ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... any longer. They thought it wicked to smoke cigarettes. My poor aunt—when she smelt cigarette-smoke in my bed-room! Oh, her face! I had to sneak away, behind the shrubbery at the end of the garden, for stealthy whiffs. And it was impossible to get French tobacco. At last I took the bull by the horns, and fled. It will have been a terrible shock for them. But better one good blow than endless little ones; better a lump-sum than ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... and curly maids, Who deftly ply your pails and spades, All you who sturdily take your stand On your pebble-buttressed forts of sand, And thence defy With a fearless eye And a burst of rollicking high-pitched laughter The stealthy trickling waves that lap you And the crested breakers that tumble after To souse and batter you, sting and sap you— All you roll-about rackety little folk, Down-again, up-again, not-a-bit brittle folk, Attend, attend, ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... David in the stealthy arrival of the train and in her mysterious passengers that, until they confronted him, he did not note the equally stealthy approach of three men. Of these one was the little man from the tug. With him was a fat, red-faced Irish-American He wore no coat and his shirt-sleeves ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... romance which we may still study, of a mystery which is of our own time. Even to this little hidden nook, even to this quiet bower of Nature's building, that vigilant and indestructible Papal religion, which defies alike hidden conspiracy and open persecution, has stretched its stealthy and far-spreading influence. Even in this remote corner of the remote west of England, among the homely cottages of a few Cornish peasants, the imperial Christianity of Rome has set up its sanctuary in triumph—a sanctuary not thrown open to dazzle and ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... am dying, O my masters! by my fitful flame ye sleep; My purple plumes of glory droop forlorn. Grey ashes choke and cloak me, and above the pines there creep The stealthy silver moccasins of morn. There comes a countless army, it's the Legion of the Light; It tramps in gleaming triumph round the world; And before its jewelled lances all the shadows of the night Back in to abysmal darknesses ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... information to hand, he had formed in his mind an odd kind of anthropomorphic image of the germ. He pictured it as a squat, thick-set man of repellent aspect and stealthy movements, who sneaked up on you when you were not looking and did unpleasant things to you, selecting as the time for his attacks those nights when you had allowed your attention to ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... butterfly myself, but not so wise, For they were twain, and I was only one. Ah me! how pitiful to be alone. My brown birds told me much, but in mine ear They never whispered this—I learned it here: The soft wood sounds, the rustlings in the breeze, Are but the stealthy kisses of the trees. Each flower and fern in this enchanted wood Leans to her fellow, and is understood; The eglantine, in loftier station set, Stoops down to woo the maidly violet. In gracile pairs the very lilies grow: None is companionless except Pierrot. Music, more music! how its echoes ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... happens, what she awaited did not appear at the time and place she herself had set. There fell at the western end of the gallery a shadow—a tall shadow, but she did not see it. She did not hear the footfall, not stealthy, but quite silent, with which the tall owner of the shadow came toward her ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... select a seat from which I could keep watch both up and down the ravine, convinced that our time of trial was not far away. In consequence of this chosen vantage of position I was the first to note those stealthy nude figures silently stealing from rock to rock, like so many flitting shadows, making their way down toward our position from the north. How they attained entrance to the gorge I could not conjecture; my eyes first detected their movement when their leaders stole noiselessly ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the Netherlands showed plainly enough that the extermination of heretics was the only policy of which his narrow mind could conceive as pleasing in the sight of heaven. The character of Catharine—stealthy, deceitful, regardless of principle—was equally well understood. Between such a queen and the trusted minister of such a prince, a secret conference like that of Bayonne could not be otherwise than highly suspicious. It is not strange that the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... by side on the back seat, the old lady and the young girl remained silent, but this did not prevent them from casting stealthy glances at each other, and striving to distinguish one another's features whenever the vehicle passed in front of some brilliantly lighted shop. They had never met before, and their anxiety to become acquainted was intense, for they each felt that the other would exert a decisive influence upon her ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... perspective; putting down his dim luminary he could still wander on without it, pass into other rooms and, only knowing it was there behind him in case of need, see his way about, visually project for his purpose a comparative clearness. It made him feel, this acquired faculty, like some monstrous stealthy cat; he wondered if he would have glared at these moments with large shining yellow eyes, and what it mightn't verily be, for the poor hard-pressed alter ego, to be confronted ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... considerable bulk, which gave one of my learned friends, who was the first to take him in hand, the opportunity of saying, that he was a "witness of great weight," a remark which caused much laughter—even the Chairman of the Committee, a somewhat austere person, indulging in a stealthy smile at the ingenious sally. Such waggish flashes as this, I need scarcely say, were most welcome, and afforded, when they came, a pleasant relief to the necessary dryness that characterised, perforce, the proceedings. As the hands of the clock progressed, waiters carried into the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... lulled, and for once the house was utterly quiet—so quiet that the stillness became oppressive. Meanwhile the young girl sat in her bower of luxury, softly humming a favorite air, and very happy in thoughts of her approaching marriage. While deep in her smiling reverie, a stealthy footstep distinctly ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... O the stealthy miss," Still bantered they, alas for me, "To keep a wedding close as this . . ." ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... apprise the half-conscious guardian of the ominous house that he was obeying her orders, and vanished in the rear darkness. The dead hush of sleep now reigned over the place. So it seemed, but the stealthy Pepillo was wide awake. He remained motionless, breathless, hidden in the gloom of the second cabin. At length he reappeared, took up the candle, stood awhile listening, then moved cautiously to the edge of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... a hasty, yet stealthy step along the hall to the door, yet the girl had no presentiment of evil. The warm, brooding, fragrant darkness of the night was not ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was Charles Nutter's face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the fascination lasted—while you might count one, two, three, deliberately—that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she did. The light glimmered ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... blindness of his passion all his fine keenness was cast to the wind, his all-observing watchfulness was smothered in the cloud of anger that oppressed his brain. He never saw the sign that madame made to her son, never so much as noticed Marius's stealthy ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... sat bolt upright in bed. The sound she heard now was a new one, and one that caused her flesh to tingle. It was the sound of a stealthy hand upon her door. The knob turned noiselessly, the hinges gave a faint whine, and there on the threshold stood a white-robed figure, ghastly and spectral in the pallid light that fell upon it from the cloud-freed moon outside. Miss Blake did not utter a sound ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... him whenever he chanced to meet him on the hills. One afternoon Martha saw him and the master walking towards Fern's Hollow, where the fencing-in of the green and of the coppice behind the hut were being finished rapidly; and she crept with stealthy steps under the hedge of the garden, until she came within earshot of them; but they were just moving on, and all she heard of the conversation were these words, from the lord of the manor: 'You shall have it at any rate you fix, Wyley—at a peppercorn ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... with about a dozen young men was having a good time of it when Vandeloup and Meddlechip drove up. After dismissing the cab and looking up and down the street to see that no policeman was in sight, Vandeloup knocked at the door in a peculiar manner, and it was immediately opened in a stealthy kind of way. Gaston gave his name, whereupon they were allowed to enter, and the door was closed after them in the same quiet manner, all of which was very distasteful to Mr Meddlechip, who, being a public man and a prominent citizen, felt that he was breaking the ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... again the jungle was perceptibly darker. Stealthy rustlings in the shadows grew louder with the setting sun. Branches snapped unaccountably in the trees overhead and every now and then leaves or a twig fell softly to the ground, close to where he lay. Reaching into his jacket, Alan fingered his pocket blaster. He pulled it out ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... ventured to move, and then to pursue his way with a greater caution than before. Now he passed other sleeping forms, and even stepped over one whom he could not otherwise avoid. Finally, after more than an hour of intense anxiety and stealthy movement, only advancing by inches, and with frequent motionless pauses, he discovered the place of which he was in search. It was the mouth of the mine that the Indians had spent two days and nights in excavating. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Pygmalion's hands, a monster of guilt unparalleled. Between these madness came; the unnatural brother, blind with lust of gold, and reckless of his sister's love, lays Sychaeus low before the altars with stealthy unsuspected weapon; and for long he hid the deed, and by many a crafty pretence cheated her love-sickness with hollow hope. But in slumber came the very ghost of her unburied husband; lifting up a face pale in wonderful wise, he exposed the merciless altars and [356-387]his breast stabbed through ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... sign that he had understood and that he would call her. And when he found himself alone with Aunt Dide he returned to his pictures quietly. This lasted for a quarter of an hour amid the profound silence of the asylum, broken only at intervals by some prison sound—a stealthy step, the jingling of a bunch of keys, and occasionally a loud cry, immediately silenced. But the boy must have been tired by the excessive heat of the day, for sleep gradually stole over him. Soon his head, fair as a lily, drooped, and as if weighed down by the too ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... a hermitage are naturally shy and reserved; but for all that, She did look towards me, though she quick withdrew Her stealthy glances when she met my gaze; She smiled upon me sweetly, but disguised With maiden grace the secret of her smiles. Coy love was half unveiled; then, sudden checked By modesty, left half ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... view, to which another member of the family invited me. Then I saw my mother wrapped up in 'The Master of Ballantrae' and muttering the music to herself, nodding her head in approval, and taking a stealthy glance at the foot of each page before she began at the top. Nevertheless she had an ear for the door, for when I bounced in she had been too clever for me; there was no book to be seen, only an apron on ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... by-play. It seemed to me so unaccountable, considering that the two men had never met before, that I resolved to watch them. I soon observed that Makarooroo's mirth was forced, that he was in fact acting a part, and I noticed once or twice that he also cast an occasional stealthy and piercing glance at the Portuguese. It afterwards turned out that both men had been acting the same part, and that each had suspected ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... that it had not overtaken me, for it would have undoubtedly seized me, under such circumstances, with as little ceremony as it would the deer, and have as quickly disposed of me. In the excitement of the chase I should probably not have heard its stealthy approach, and I shuddered as I thought of the narrow escape I had had. Still, I was not quite certain that I was safe. I watched anxiously for what was going to occur. The poor deer did not attempt ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... does—the one secret; the other palpable and open. The former, which, as I explained in my last sermon, are sins hidden, not from others, but from the doer, may fairly be likened to the pestilence that stalks slaying in the dark, or to the stealthy, gliding serpent, which strikes and poisons before the naked foot is aware. The other resembles the 'destruction that wasteth at noonday,' or the lion with its roar and its spring, as, disclosed from its covert, it leaps ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it not be disturbed. Music from the ball-room reaches me, and a delicate oriental perfume fills the air. Calburt Young, handsome, silent, with a look of earnest appeal on his face, looks down into mine. Not the man, but his manner, the situation, the music, the stealthy, intoxicating odor of perfume and flowers, the sway of each tropical leaf, the distant gayety, all surcharge my soul; gratify to the fullest extent my sensuous nature—my love of the picturesque and the luxurious. The temptation ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... that he had not been mistaken. He had not been back in the inner office for more than a quarter of an hour when there came from without the sound of stealthy movements. The handle of the door began—to revolve slowly and quietly. The next moment three figures ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels. Ironlike brigades would appear in the rear. They were all going to be sacrificed. The generals were stupids. The enemy would presently swallow the whole command. He glared about him, expecting to see the stealthy approach ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dressing gown fell away from his throat and showed the knotting of the great cords that ran down into his shoulders, and his dark eyes glittered under their heavy, black brows, while his mouth was twisted and white. Then, as I looked, something happened. A stealthy padding of feet came around the house from the garden and up the back steps, under the budding rose vine that was climbing through the trellis as if to clutch at the light, and a huge figure loomed up from out ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... them a great deal of trouble. The states on the banks of the Euphrates had found them awkward neighbours; was this the moment chosen by the Pukudu, the Eutu, the Gambulu, and a dozen other Aramaean tribes, for a stealthy march across the frontier of Elam, between Durilu and the coast? The tribes from which, soon after, the Kaldi nation was formed, were marauding round Eridu, Uru, and Larsa, and may have already begun to lay the foundations of their supremacy ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... profusely where it had been severely grazed by a sharp edge of rock in our headlong flight, and the white garments of all three of us were soiled and torn. But our halt was not of long duration, for suddenly we heard whispers and the sound of stealthy footsteps in the darkness. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... lawyers. As a powerful and eloquent discussion of circumstantial evidence, in all its phases, it scarcely has a parallel; quotations from it have found their way into all languages. How startling his description of the stealthy tread of the assassin upon his victim! We seem to stand in the very presence ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... open but shuttered window, there was a stealthy stirring of animals in the dark, a gliding of ghostly ducks, a breathing of sheep and camels. And sometimes the wild braying of a donkey or the yelp of a dog tore ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... said that the citizen armies of the North had returned from saving the republic from open foes, to find that it had been stolen from them by more stealthy but far more dangerous enemies whom they had left at home. While they had been putting down caste rule based on race at the South, class rule based on wealth had been set up at the North, to be in time extended over South ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the outlaws would attack our premises until some time after the moon was risen, because it would be too dangerous to cross the flooded valleys in the darkness of the night. And, but for this consideration, I must have striven harder against the stealthy approach of slumber. But even so, it was very foolish to abandon watch, especially in such as I, who sleep like any dormouse. Moreover, I had chosen the very worst place in the world for such employment, with a goodly chance of awaking in a ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... Stealthy as a cat, nearly as swiftly, Simon rushed from his room and out of the house by the front door. His plan was to circle the building, taking advantage of every shadow, and get as close to his enemy as he could before revealing himself. Suppose ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... and clenched 'his hands together. By the time Mr. Chase came into the room he was able to greet him with a stealthy wink. Mr. Chase, with a humorous twist of ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... tuft, which is carried, with long, sinuous leaps, to the unseen nest. Indeed, man himself is graceful in his unconscious and direct employments: the poise of a fisherman, for instance, the play of his arm, the cast of his line or net,—these take the eye as do the stealthy movements of the hunter, the fine attitudes of the wood-chopper, the grasp of the sailor on the helm. A haystack and a boat are always picturesque objects, and so are the men who are at work to build or ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... in the embrace of love with which it held Bill. Obviously he had taken the line of least resistance to perdition. He had forgotten the world of men; in reality he was no longer of it. Bill read the truth—a familiar truth in the North—in his crafty, stealthy, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Statutes regularo. Stave, in krevi. Stay (to remain) resti. Stay (to stop) haltigi. Stay (a support) subteno. Steadfast konstanta. Steady nesxancelebla. Steak steko, bifsteko. Steal sxteli. Stealth, by kasxe, sekrete. Stealthy kasxa, sekreta. Steam vaporo. Steamboat vaporsxipo. Steam-engine vapormasxino. Steed cxevalo. Steel sxtalo. Steelyard pesilo, pesmasxino. Steep kruta. Steep trempi. Steeple pregxeja ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... on his errand of mercy, and soon had the timid little old maid in the more congenial atmosphere of the parlor, where little by little, though in a very stealthy and underhand way, the talk grew more general, and the restraint slackened more and more, until sewing and reading were both forgotten and the fun became fast and furious, culminating in the sudden appearance of Jake Dexter dressed up as an ancient ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so plainly. Ralph ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... overwhelming recollections swam before his eyes as he neared the place; there, from the gate, he could see the fated balcony which had tempted and facilitated his stealthy exit on that wretched night when he had broken his ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... her magic had caused the likeness of a monkey to come from the juggler's vase. Only now it was Abi who emerged from the vase, a terrible Abi, with a red sword in his hand, and Pharaoh's crown upon his head. He leapt from the mouth of the vase, he devoured her with his greedy eyes, with stealthy steps he came to seize her, and she could not stir an inch, something held her fast ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... With swift stealthy tread, Johnston was moving through the dense forests of the wild region to the south. His army had been rapidly recruited to approximately forty thousand effective men. Beauregard had been detached from the East ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... a sound of stealthy footsteps in the room at this moment, and the old duke glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, while Diavolo bent to one side to peer round the chair his grandfather was sitting in, which was between him ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... disadvantage under which they labored was that due to the tangled, almost impenetrable nature of the chaparral that surrounded the camp, and the facilities which it afforded the enemy for concealment and stealthy approach. The gunboats shelled the woods from time to time, drove the hidden Spaniards back, and silenced their fire; but as soon as night fell they would creep silently up through the bushes until they were so near to the camp that the pickets of the marines could ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... their track the vulture follows, flapping, croaking, through the air, And the terrible hyena, plunderer of tombs, is there; Follows them the stealthy panther—Cape-town's folds have known him well; Them their monarch's dreadful pathway, blood and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... mellow moonlight evening a cyclist was riding along a lonely road in the northern part of Mashonaland. As he rode, enjoying the somber beauty of the African evening, he suddenly became conscious of a soft, stealthy, heavy tread on the road behind him. It seemed like the jog trot of some heavy, cushion-footed animal following him. Turning round, he was scared very badly to find himself looking into the glaring eyes of a large lion. The puzzled animal acted very strangely, now raising his ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... o'er one half the world (a)Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecat's offerings: and wither'd murther, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With (b)Tarquin's ravishing sides tow'rds his design Moves like a ghost.—Thou sound and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about; And (c)take the present horror ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... son, when he saw the fair Lucretia, was smitten with lustful passion; and a few days after he came again to Collatia, and Lucretia entertained him hospitably as her husband's cousin and friend. But at midnight he arose and came with stealthy steps to her bedside: and holding a sword in his right hand, and laying his left hand upon her breast, he bade her yield to his wicked desires; for if not, he would slay her and lay one of her slaves beside her, and would declare that he had taken them in adultery. So for shame she consented ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the night I was awakened by a noise that frightened me. All was still, but instantly there flashed through my mind tales of murdered travelers, and I was almost paralyzed with fear when again I heard that stealthy, sliding noise, just like Carlota Juanita's old slippers. The fire had burned down, but just then the moon came from behind a cloud and shone through the window upon Carlota Juanita, who was asleep with her mouth open. I could also see a pine bough which was ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... gold round her legs, and her loose dress is of gay-coloured striped cotton of delicate texture. She is alive, but faint and weak; and, by her dim eye and short-coming breath, death seems to be approaching with stealthy strides to claim her as his own. Still, the soul is struggling to triumph over the weakness of the flesh. With an anxious gaze she looks beneath the awning, for there is something there which claims her constant solicitude. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... by inch, dragging its limbs forward with the slow, stealthy movement of its kind when stalking their prey on land. The horrified watchers saw that the terrible snout with its protruding fangs was barely a yard from Mrs. Norton's feet. Raymond's hands holding the glasses to his eyes trembled violently. The Resident shook as with the palsy; ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... thinking so much of the unpaid bronze-smith as of divers weightier debts. On the evening in question he had ordered Bias, the sly Thracian, out of the room; with his own hands had barred the door and closed the lattice; then with stealthy step thrust back the scarlet wall tapestry to disclose a small door let into the plaster. A key made the door open into a cupboard, out of which Democrates drew a brass-bound box of no great size, which he carried gingerly to a table and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... beyond; and here beheld a low-arched doorway whence steps led upward,—a narrow stair, gloomy and winding, whose velvet blackness was stabbed here and there by moonlight, flooding through some deep-set arrow-slit. Up he went, and up, pausing once with breath in check, fancying he heard the stealthy sound of one who climbed behind him in the black void below; thus stayed he a moment, with eyes that strove to pierce the gloom, and with naked dagger clenched to smite, yet heard nought, save the faint whisper of his own mail, and the soft tap of his long scabbard against the wall; wherefore ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... off! Thou understand'st not this. Never shall it be said of me, I parcelled My native land away, dismembered Germany, Betrayed it to a foreigner, in order To come with stealthy tread, and filch away 45 My own share of the plunder—Never! never!— No foreign power shall strike root in the empire, And least of all, these Goths! these hunger-wolves! Who send such envious, hot and greedy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sing. The shell of the little building dilated with the melody; the sashes of the windows pulsated, the two ejected linnets joined in timidly from their coign of vantage in the belfry outside, and the limp vines above the porch swayed like her curls. Once she thought she heard stealthy footsteps without; once she was almost certain she felt the brushing of somebody outside against the thin walls of the chapel, and once she stopped to glance quickly at the window with a strange instinct that some one was looking at her. But she ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he came in sight of their fire. He would, in such case, return, and report what he had seen to his companions. These, supposing the white men had encamped for the night, would keep aloof until very late, when all should be asleep. They would, then, according to Indian tactics, make their stealthy approaches, and place themselves in ambush around, preparatory to their attack, at ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... He heard the stealthy feet of things Whose shapes he could not see, A flutter as of evil wings, The fall of a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... gathered in at the corners like a rat's; and, as if to add to the rat-resemblance, its small, white teeth seemed borrowed from the jaws of that animal. There was a stately precision in his manner, and a stealthy softness in his tread, that would have impressed a stranger unfavorably; but I knew him. We had been boys together, and he loved me as he loved his own son. How well he loved him, the reader will learn, if he follows the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this I can say nothing, good or bad. A certain number of the thralls, many of them wild negritos from the west, have taken to the bush, harbour there in a state partly bestial, or creep into the back quarters of the town to do a day's stealthy labour under the nose of their proprietors. Twelve were arrested one morning in my own boys' kitchen. Farther in the bush, huts, small patches of cultivation, and smoking ovens, have been found by hunters. There are still three runaways in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I really was by this mysterious, and, all things considered, even terrible interpellation. It was not until the silence had again returned, and the faint rustling of the frosty breeze among the crisp weeds crept toward me like the stealthy approach of some unearthly influence, that I felt a superstitious terror gradually inspire me, which hurried me at an accelerated pace from the place. A few minutes, and I heard the friendly voice of my charioteer hallooing to me from the summit ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... underneath was posted the guard of four. Behind them twinkled many camp-fires on a distant plain, before them wound a road ploughed by the passage of an army, strewn with the relics of a rout. On the right, a sluggish river glided, like a serpent, stealthy, sinuous, and dark, into a seemingly impervious jungle; on the left, a Southern swamp filled the air with malarial damps, swarms of noisome life, and discordant sounds that robbed the hour of its repose. The men were friends as well as comrades, for though gathered from the four quarters of the ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... expressionless face and relit his pipe, which had gone out during these few moments of intense listening. Graveling reached out his hand and took a cigar from a box which had been placed upon the table. Henneford and his neighbour exchanged glances, which culminated in a stealthy wink. Alone at the table David Ross sat like a figure of stone, his mouth a little open, something of the light in ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
