"Trigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kept from flight by one or two considerations. Some have families who would be shocked, or even blamed, if the matter became public; others have a weakness at heart and recoil from the circumstances of death. That is, to some extent, my own experience. I cannot put a pistol to my head and draw the trigger; for something stronger than myself withholds the act; and although I loathe life, I have not strength enough in my body to take hold of death and be done with it. For such as I, and for all who desire to be out of the coil without posthumous scandal, the Suicide Club has been inaugurated. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of SS., between MR. J. GOUGH NICHOLS and ARMIGER, is, as Sir Lucius O'Trigger would say, "a mighty pretty quarrel as it stands;" but I have seen no mention by either writer of "the red sindon" for the chamber of Queen Philippa, "beaten throughout with the letter S in gold leaf:" or the throne of Henry V. powdered with the letter S, in an illuminated ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... the haythen blackguard. See here," added Mickey, in a stern voice, as he wheeled about and faced his young friend, "you told me you had your gun pinted at that spalpeen; now it's meself that wants to know why in blazes you did n't pull the trigger?" ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... They were in Germany together, she and the Pole, and he had locked her up in her room without food for many hours, and coming in suddenly he had pressed the muzzle of a pistol against her temple and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, it did not go off. 'It was a very near thing,' she said; 'the cartridge was indented, and I made up my mind that if things went any further, I should have to tell my husband.' 'But things can't go further than an indented cartridge,' I answered. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Elect's finger left the trigger of the auto-rifle and his lip drew in a little. "Quite so," he said curtly, and, turned to the door. "Slocum!" he shouted. "Come out of there. We can ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... his hand to touch the trigger, when he heard a voice call his name. It was a quick, desperate cry, and a figure tall and slender, enveloped in a dark storm cloak, rushed before him. The gun fell from his hands as he looked up to see Adelheid's face, white and ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... States, but these and the game have been pretty well extirpated since, except in some of the lower parts of the Transvaal. In the earlier days ammunition was costly and hard to procure, and the use had to be husbanded accordingly. It became thus a practice never to pull a trigger unless with intense aim and the certainty of an effective shot. A man would go out stalking for an hour or so with perhaps but one or two charges, and would rarely fail in bringing home the kind of game wanted—either a springbock, blesbock, or wildebeest (gnu). In hunting lions, ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... pay one." And yet was there great pretension to honor, but a man of honor of those days would in our time be considered a ruffian certainly, and probably a blackleg or a swindler. "It was a favorite boast of his (the first Lord Norbury) that he began life with fifty pounds, and a pair of hair-trigger pistols." "They served his purpose well.... The luck of the hair-triggers triumphed, and Toler not only became Chief Justice, but the founder of two peerages, and the testator of an enormous fortune. After his promotion, the code of honor became, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Lion, after having left Chater in the charge of two of their number. Then, having discussed what should be done with Chater, some one suggested that a gun should be loaded with two or three bullets, and after having tied a long string to the trigger, each member of the gang should take hold of the string together, and so become equally guilty of the poor man's death. But this idea was unwelcomed, as it was thought it would put Chater too quickly out of his sufferings. Meanwhile, Chater was visited at various times, to receive kicks and ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... I caught the glint of his pale green eye and fired. There came a snarl from behind the bush, and it was dashed to one side and the other, while round head and bared teeth and tawny body came crashing through. I pulled trigger again, and the report sounded muffled, and the smoke for an instant obscured the beast. All was white, when, like a breath, it passed, and I saw the rushing catamount not ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... occupied by a strong body of troops; and it was generally supposed that the enemy would not be admitted without a struggle. Indeed some swaggerers, who had, a few hours before, run from the breastwork at Oldbridge without drawing a trigger, now swore that they would lay the town in ashes rather than leave it to the Prince of Orange. But towards the evening Tyrconnel and Lauzun collected all their forces, and marched out of the city ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this here, Nancy," went on the signalman, who could no more refrain from pointing a moral when the chance presented itself, than a gun can help going off when the trigger is pulled; "nothin' good ever comes from breakin' laws. They wouldn't a-been made into laws if they wasn't fer our good, an' even when we don't see no reason in keepin' 'em, we ain't got no more right to break through than one ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... to flame, and then back to chalk again. He made a quick movement towards the telephone bell, stretching out a hand to reach it, but at the same moment Jones pulled the trigger and the wrist was shattered, splashing the wall behind ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... saying: 'Look at me and see what you've done. Hereafter, O boy! think before you pull the trigger.' It's a pity, but we must ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... I saw it gripped a revolver. He had me covered. His face was contorted with devilish triumph, and I knew he meant to kill. At last, at last my time had come. I saw his fingers twitching on the trigger, I gazed into the hollow horror of that barrel. My heart turned to ice. I could not breathe. Oh, for a respite, a moment—Ugh!... he pulled the trigger, and, at the same instant, Garry sprang ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... against the door set his nerves tingling afresh and made him tighten his grasp on the pistol. The steel was cold and slippery in his moist fingers. What an awful noise it would make when he pulled the trigger! If the door were to open how close he would be to the figure that came in! Yet he knew it was locked on the inside and could not possibly open. Again something brushed against the panel beside him and a second later the piece of crumpled paper fell from the keyhole to the floor, ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... it, Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... opinion. Such were my reflections as I turned to resume my interrupted crawl to safety. But in an instant I was still again—still, and crouching close under the wall, motionless as an insect that feigns death, holding my breath, my hand on the trigger. For the door of the cottage was flung open, and Constantine and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... Norbanus riding the horse that he himself had ridden that afternoon from Antioch to Daphne, followed on a mule by Cadmus, the slave who had brought the letter which had pulled the trigger that set the catapults of destiny in motion. Making a wide circuit, they helped Scylax ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... and like many of her companions she had slipped her name and address into one of these soon-discarded cap covers. As luck would have it, their package of "Havelocks," "housewives," needle-cases, mittens (with trigger finger duly provided for), ear-muffs, wristlets, knitted socks, and such things, worn by the "boys" their first winter in Virginia, but discarded for the regulation outfit thereafter, fell to the lot of the—th Massachusetts ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... courtesy of Claude Duval! Forgotten the lightning wit, the swift repartee of the incomparable Hind! No longer was the hightoby-gloak a 'gentleman' of the road; he was a butcher, if not a beggar, on horseback; a braggart without the courage to pull a trigger; a swashbuckler, oblivious of that ancient style which converted the misery of surrender into a privilege. Yet Harry Simms, the supreme adventurer of his age, was not without distinction; his lithe form and his hard-ridden horse were the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... that he sprang quickly round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... on their farms now flocked in great numbers to the forts, and every effort was made to strengthen the defences at all points. The men, including all the boys who were large enough to point a gun and pull a trigger, were organized into companies and assigned to port-holes, in order that each might know where to go to do his part of the fighting whenever the Indians should come. Even those of the women who knew how to shoot, insisted upon being provided with guns ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... shall not long enjoy your triumph. I have but one cartridge, but perchance it will be enough for you. [Pulls trigger, but finds ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... thought flashed through Bob's mind the big black side of the bear appeared not ten feet from the muzzle of his gun, and before the lad realized it he had pulled the trigger. ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... purse, which was bound with massive silver plate, opened and gave admittance to his hand. He made me remark, as if to break short the subject on which Bailie Jarvie had spoken, that a small steel pistol was concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with the secret, should tamper with the lock which secured his treasure. "This," ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... I had a deer under my trigger I let him go because he had a funny-shaped horn. Sure, it's the little things that run a ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... more Americans began arranging "booby traps" and dummy machine gun posts in the woods. These machine gun posts were prepared by fastening a bucket of water with a small hole punched in the bottom above another bucket which was tied to the trigger of a machine gun or rifle. The amount of water could be regulated so as to cause the gun to fire at regular intervals of from thirty minutes to an hour. Through the woods we strung concealed wires and sticks attached to hand grenades, the slightest touch of which would cause them to explode. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... breathless suspense. The thud of their horses' hoofs alone told me their nearness. My finger was on the trigger. I awaited the word. "Fire!" she said at last, in a calm, unflinching voice. "He is ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... a pistol, which some freak had caused her to conceal in her dress, she made it ready, and, with her finger on the trigger, aimed it at his heart. Like all villains of his caste, he was a coward, and trembled with quaking fear before the flashing eye and resolute look of the ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... called "touchiness"—a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, WITH A HAIR-TRIGGER. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old sensitiveness is becoming numb from want ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... "Bungler!" he cried. "Were you in my troop I would dip your trigger-finger in boiling oil to teach you to shoot! But you weary me, dogs. I must teach you a lesson, must I?" And he lifted a pistol and levelled it. The crowd did not know whether it was the one he had discharged or another, but they gave back with a sharp gasp. "I must teach ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... two years. Then, with a perfectly clear head, he laid down his pen and sighed, but his face was bright and tranquil. He picked up the revolver, cocked it, placed the muzzle against his temple, and without the tremor of a nerve he pressed the trigger. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... of her gesture that released the trigger of his indignation and made it leap out beyond control. There was in his mind the vision of those blood-baths of the Somme, where men had drowned in the putrescence and been flattened by shells like flies against a wall. They hadn't ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... transfixed for the moment than was the Wolf when a slight hissing noise caused him to turn his head, and he saw the dreaded Shawanoe in a kneeling position with his gun leveled at him, the finger on the trigger, and the bright eye glancing ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... justify the name. The tough man from the East who goes West to play the bad cowboy, is liable to find that he has been borrowing trouble. He finds out that an altercation is likely to bring him up facing the muzzle of a pistol in the hands of a man much more ready to pull the trigger off-hand than to waste time in preliminary talk. He soon learns the lesson of circumspection and, if he survives the process, his behavior is usually modified to fit his new surroundings. A tragic illustration of the results that may ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... 1st, The stoppers, D and I, retracted from their respective orifices by a single trigger, H h', and provided with two springs, G J, to insure the effective closure of both said ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... a time, she heard the door creak with a weight that seemed to be against it—after she saw it give; heard the lock break, and saw a man's form darken the opening as the door was flung wide—she pressed the trigger of the weapon ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Oswell's old gun with rhinoceros hide. All guns made for sport in wild countries and rough riding, should have steel instead of iron from the breech-socket, extending far back to within six inches of the shoulder-plate; the trigger-guard should likewise be steel, and should be carried back to an equal distance with the above rib; the steel should be of extra thickness, and screwed through to the upper piece; thus the two, being connected by screws above and below, no fall ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... at his belt, and his hand reached for it. But the range was already too far for any hope of accurate pistol fire. His hard eyes gazed along the short, black barrel. His steady finger pressed back against the trigger. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... meeting the widow, whom he had been sent to escort to the Confederate lines. But he treated his sister's jealous suspicions with a dash of scorn: "There was nothing of that kind, but if Cophetua would fool with a loaded gun, he must expect to be hurt. If ever there was a hair-trigger, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... turn. Instantly he raised his rifle, and pulled the trigger. The result was merely a snap. The gun had not been loaded. He snatched Kathlyn's rifle, but this, too, was useless. The brigands yelled exultantly and began to swarm up the ragged cliff. Bruce flung aside the gun and turned his attention to a boulder. Halfway up the chasm had a width which was ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... Ulus screamed "Nei bjorn," and hitting up the rifle barrel, brought my finger sufficiently hard on the hair trigger to cause explosion. The shot went Lord knows where. I swore, and when the echoes had finished bellowing, I heard the bear swearing too. Then I began to sweat, for it dawned upon me that I had been within an ace of deliberately ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... the cry deserves, it was then: to assume a rollicking air, to laugh with cool carelessness when there is nothing between you and death but the more or less strong pressure of a highwayman's finger on the trigger of a musket, is no easy task; but all this I accomplished, and once more got through the village with a whole skin indeed, but with the unalterable resolution to blow my brains out rather than again ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the exposure of the powder rendered it uncertain in damp weather; and the slowness of ignition; but this latter, to a sportsman who had known no other “arm of precision,” was little hindrance, and naturally, entered into his calculations whenever he pulled trigger. ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... seamy side of life—except, indeed, what they had learned in the war—well educated, brave, generous, sensitive to points of honor, and of engaging manners, these brothers were by all respected, by many loved and by some feared. For they had quick fingers upon the pistol-trigger withal, and would rather fight a duel than eat—nay, drink. Nor were they over-particular about the combat taking the form of a duel—almost any form was good enough. I made their acquaintance ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... remarked his comrade, "and the minute you cross that spot you come within his range. He'll put a bullet through you before you can level a rifle or press a trigger." ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... on the trigger, but he never fired again. Jack's powerful left hand seized his wrist and twisted the revolver from it Then, still grasping the wrist, the lad wheeled on his heel. The German left the spot where he had been standing ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was close at hand. I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger. The lock was shattered, the contents of the drawer were at my mercy. I snatched up a bundle of letters, about which a pink ribbon was wrapped. Startled by a noise behind me, immediately following the report of the pistol, I glanced ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... lines of thought Sir George was not, perhaps, conscious in his peril, yet, fetching back, he could trace them as they had worked. Seeking a solution by measures not violent, he had been given sore spears, whereon his finger tightened at the trigger, and he was a wound automaton; fixed, stern, a fate on feet, bearing down upon the chief in the shelter ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... opposite of what she really was. Now, you have tried twice within the last hour to murder me. For this I could have forgiven you. What you did to that young woman is, however, a more serious matter. I don't think anything less than pulling this trigger will ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... son, and scarcely had he spoken when the wolf was at Dave's very feet, glaring ferociously into the youth's face. Dave wanted to fire at the animal, but only a click of the hammer followed the pulling of the pistol's trigger. ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... persist in trying to take my life. But recollecting there were only two mutineers left, and that I had still six shots in the magazine of my rifle, and one already in the chamber, I stood ready with the hammer raised, and my finger on the trigger, confident that I ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... could less than his personal endeavors have supported the spirits of the men through a contest so long, so desperate, and so unequal. At his last attack, Buonaparte brought up 15,000 of his Guard, who had never drawn trigger during the day. It was upon their failure that his hopes ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... chest, with the bulkhead behind him and on both sides, he had kept the maddened crew at bay for several moments. The pistol, covering the only path of attack, made them wary of approaching too close. When, finally, a half-dozen jumped forward at once, he pulled the trigger only to find that the weapon had not been loaded. In desperation he grasped the muzzle in his hand and struck out fiercely with the heavy butt, beating off his assailants time after time. This was well enough at first, but the buccaneers, who cared much less for a broken crown than for a bullet ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... has a stout cord tied to it, and this is made in the shape of a noose. The bait is put in this, and bunny gets his leg caught in the loop, which tightens, so he tugs to get away. Then up goes the sapling, when the trigger is sprung, and the game hangs ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... awake and keenly alive to the significance of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman—seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Mr. Yens!" shouted the captain, a small, bristling Martian with graying, stiff hair. He snatched the neuro-pistol at his side, pointed it at Tolto, pressed the trigger. ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... time enough to blow him in two, and pulled on my trigger, not aimin' to hurt the old sooner, only to snap a bullet between his toes, but she wouldn't work. Old Jedlick he was so rattled at the sight of that gun in my hand he banged loose, slap through the winder into that box of plug back of the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... the men seized an arquebuse, and levelled it at the struggling form in the water. He pulled the trigger, but no sooner did the powder splutter in the pan than the gun burst in his hands, and a piece of the metal, entering his brain, laid him ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... white cord similar to the sort used by masons (in the building-trades). He groped his way along by it to the station of the next officer, who warned him of the deadly consequences of disobedience. Thence he made his way onward, holding to the Clue of Faith—until he touched a trigger of some sort, which let down upon him an avalanche of tinware and such light and noisy articles, which frightened him so that he started to run, and was dexterously tripped by the Deacon Militant and a spearman, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... went up to his shoulder. For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he pressed the trigger. He felt the jar of the butt, a little smoke blew in his eyes, and he could make out nothing on the crest of the ridge. It seemed impossible, however, that he had missed, and the next moment he ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... quiver in your own! Confess no more that when his blood was shed, And you so sympathetically bled, The bow that spanned the mutual cascade Was but the promise of a roaring trade In offices. Your fingering now the trigger Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger! Ad hominem this argumentum runs: Peace!—let us fire ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... examined was so light and so beautifully made that I returned to it again and again while the captain and my father were talking together. It had a long steel barrel with delicate engraving upon it, and a carved stock. I was admiring the spring of the trigger work when Captain Gordon asked me if ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... in a nervous grip. Had the trigger been against his finger at that moment it would doubtless have been snapped with some satisfaction, so the barrel had ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... out," Alexey Alexandrovitch went on to himself, and vividly picturing the night he would spend after the challenge, and the pistol aimed at him, he shuddered, and knew that he never would do it—"suppose I call him out. Suppose I am taught," he went on musing, "to shoot; I press the trigger," he said to himself, closing his eyes, "and it turns out I have killed him," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, and he shook his head as though to dispel such silly ideas. "What sense is there in murdering a man in order to define ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of the recreation. He had never killed but one bird in his life, and that, was an owl, of which he took the advantage of daylight and his stocking feet to knock off a tree in the deanery grounds, very early after his arrival. In his trials with John, he sometimes pulled trigger at the same moment with his companion; and as the bird generally fell, he thought he had an equal claim to the honor. He was fond of warring with crows and birds of the larger sort, and invariably went provided with small balls fitted to the bore of ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... that he was suspected of being in collusion with them. The ranch men held a meeting at which he was present and Roosevelt told him in very plain words their complaint against him and their suspicions. Though he was a hot-tempered man, and very quick on the trigger, he showed no willingness to shoot his bold young accuser; he knew, of course, that the ranchmen would have taken vengeance on him in a flash, but it is also possible that he recognized the truth of Roosevelt's accusation and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... wainscoted in oak to the chair-strip, and the walls above were hung with yellow leather stamped with black arabesques; but what struck the young man most was a match-lock pistol with its formidable trigger. This new and terrible weapon lay close ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... and took careful aim, with the last of his fourteen pistols. He pulled the trigger, but there was no report. Something had gone wrong with the priming. The bo's'n reached the boat, shoved off, and started to row for the ship. There was no other boat, and Pedro could only watch him. The old man rowed to 'The Angel of Death,' climbed aboard, and commenced, ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across his left arm, and keeping the forefinger of his right hand on the trigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act. "Who comes hither, among the beasts and dangers of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Behind her and snapping almost at her heels, came a howling pack of a half dozen wolves whose red, lolling tongues, white fangs and flaming eyes were distinctly visible from where he stood. Coolly raising his rifle he aimed at the leader and pulled the trigger. There was a quick flash, a sharp report, and the wolf leaped high in the air, plunged headlong, tumbled into the snow, and lay writhing ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... must obey their husbands—-there's Scripture warrant for it," said Foster; "and if you will dress yourself, and come with us patiently, there's no one shall lay finger on you while I can draw a pistol-trigger." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... together, molecule bonding itself to molecule, since the door had last been closed. Hubert Penrose came over with the jack-hammer, fitting a spear-point chisel into place. He set the chisel in the joint between the doors, braced the hammer against his hip, and squeezed the trigger-switch. The hammer banged briefly like the weapon it resembled, and the doors popped a few inches apart, then stuck. Enough dust had worked into the recesses into which it was supposed to slide to block ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... women seldom do—betrayed the fugitive. Calling to the soldiers, they pointed out the place I was in. All four came running, and in a moment were almost on top of me. I presented my revolver and snapped the trigger twice without exploding the cartridges; they were too close or too excited to use their muskets, but all four grappled with me, and naturally used me ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... a cannon sound so big. De Ku Kluckers 'peared ter hear it too, fer dey comed squar outen h'yer inter de big road. Den I opened up an' let her bark at 'em ez long ez I could see a shadder ter pull trigger on. Wonder ef I hurt enny on 'em. D'yer know, 'Gena, wuz ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting. Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and fled from ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... head had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the breath out of him. The young cowpuncher found himself the active center of a cyclone. His own revolver was gone. He grappled with a man, seizing him by the wrist to prevent the use of a long-barreled Colt's. The trigger fell, a bullet flying through ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... in front of the white man. She was a woman of my country and of noble blood. They are so! I heard her shriek of anguish and fear—and all stood still! The fields, the house, the earth, the sky stood still—while Matara leaped at her with uplifted arm. I pulled the trigger, saw a spark, heard nothing; the smoke drove back into my face, and then I could see Matara roll over head first and lie with stretched arms at her feet. Ha! A sure shot! The sunshine fell on my back colder than the running water. A sure ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... sequel her Majesty was also present during fine weather, in an exceptionally wet summer, at the first meeting of the National Rifle Association at Wimbledon, when the first shot was fired by the Queen, the rifle being so arranged that a touch to the trigger caused the bullseye to be hit, when the shooter scored ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... by tender mother or sister, and lamented over,—how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets? Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves. Even the veteran's satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle. There is some savage ecstasy, perhaps, when he sees his enemy fall, or when he sees his back; this last, indeed, a glorious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... there in its leather case, as it had done any time this five years, for a reserve protection against burglars, caught his eyes. He took it out of its case, examining the little weapon carefully, with his finger on the trigger, half cocking it, to see if it needed oil. It was a pretty little toy. Suddenly, as he held it there, leaning against the chiffonier, his thin white face with its deep black shadows under the eyes reflected by the high, narrow glass, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... told him just how that deer was standing, but Sile's guess-work was pretty good. He let his rifle-muzzle sink on a line with one of those antlers, and had lowered it a little too much when he pulled the trigger. The kicking of the rifle made the aim a good one, for the sharp report was answered by a great bound from the cover of the sumachs, and in an instant a mortally-wounded buck was dashing across the open, with ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... by-play took some time, but at last they were ready—one man armed with a pair of binoculars and the other with the American naval rifle—the Lee straight-pull, which fires the thinnest pin of a cartridge I have seen and has but a two-pound trigger pull. Even then nothing was done for perhaps another ten minutes, and in some cases for half an hour; it varied according to individual requirements. Then when the quarry was located by the man with the binoculars, and the man with the rifle had finished asking ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... hoofs sounded above the arroyo and the next instant several horsemen appeared. Without knowing just what he was doing Jimsy, who had a rifle in his hands, pulled the trigger. He was amazed to see the giant form of Red Bill totter and reel in the saddle, and fall with a crash to the ground. The next instant horror at the idea that he had killed the man seized on him. His hands shook so that he almost dropped ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... shriek and whirl, cutting to and fro with his terrible campilan, and before any one could prevent, he had felled two troopers. With a howl, Lewis plunged into their midst, pistol leveled, but before he could pull the trigger, the Moro buried the sword in his own ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... burst into a violent and deafening fusillade. Each man seemed full of blind rage, of an exasperated lust for destruction. I saw them take aim rapidly, press the trigger, and reload in feverish haste. I was deafened and bewildered by the terrible noise of the firing in the narrow confines of the trench. To our left, the machine-gun section of my friend F. kept up ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... fascination to the boy to see those glowing lumps of steel come out of the furnace and with the few strokes of the drop-hammer, fall a few seconds later, the shaped part of a rifle. Some of the machines were making receivers for the stock, the largest piece of metal, and other small parts like the trigger or the hammer, while still others were preparing the barrels ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... word three, he pulled the trigger. The report echoed from rock to rock, and the head and body of poor Pike fell forward, as far as the ropes that secured him to the tree ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... companion, the weapon with which the "Liberator" shot Mr. D'Esterre. It is a flint lock pistol of very large bore, and with stock reaching to the muzzle. One peculiarity about this pistol is worthy of note. Beneath the trigger guard a piece of steel extends curving downwards and outwards towards the muzzle, a convenient device, as I find, for steadying the weapon by aid of the second finger. On the stock is cut rudely a capital D., for D'Esterre. There are no other marks, although the pistols have a pedigree ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... Julien pressed the trigger, as if in obedience to that order, incorrect, but too natural to be even noticed. The weapon was discharged, and the three spectators at the window of the bedroom uttered three simultaneous exclamations on seeing Gorka's arm fall and his hand drop ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... said he, bending down to adjust some papers, 'is often the Miriam and Aaron of some Moses whose hands need holding up. Many a bullet that finds the heart of an enemy is sent, not by the hand that pulls the trigger, but by a softer hand miles away. Something, or rather some one, to work for, is an incentive to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... it!" cried Grubb! "pitch into him!" and drawing his trigger he accidentally knocked off the bird, while Spriggs discharged the contents of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... kill something; but nothing came before his gun. The birds had already migrated. Only a squirrel was climbing about the branches of a pine-tree, staring at him with brilliant eyes. He raised the gun and pulled the trigger; but the nimble little beast was already on the other side of the trunk when the shot hit the tree. But the ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... rather a hideous mask than a human countenance, she rushed upon me; placed the muzzle of the pistol on my very breast; and drew the trigger. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the trigger-pull, or filing the sights. In time he got to be a fairly accurate and very ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... you will never return home without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And so with every other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition is of the right kind—always pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so soon as you perceive a calm, touch her off, and the ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... intuition, and to allow the correct elevation and windage under the most diversified conditions, so that I very rarely made use of the sights on my rifle. Nor did I ever need to aim consciously; I just flung the weapon to my shoulder, keeping my eye meanwhile upon my mark, pressed the trigger at precisely the right instant, and—down dropped the quarry: I had in fact by long practice become a dead shot, and could scarcely remember when I had last failed to bring down what I aimed at. Nor did I fail now; as the bird rose ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Chandler squarely in his sights, Glaudot began to squeeze the trigger. But suddenly the trigger-housing-unit of the blaster became encumbered with tiny vines. There were hundreds of them writhing and crawling all over the weapon and getting in the sights too so Glaudot could no longer aim. By the ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... faint sound. It was only the crackling of a twig, yet it served to break the spell under which the beast stood, for in the wilderness the snap of a twig is one of the most ominous of sounds. The animal wheeled sharply just as the hunter pulled the trigger. There was the sharp crack of a rifle which woke the echoes and startled the wilderness into an added alertness, while the ball sped across the water, barely missing the form of the moose. Before the disappointed hunter could again ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... blinding solar light and the life-sustaining solar heat, should it be so difficult to believe that the sun's enormous electric energies find a way to us also? No doubt the impulse coming from the sun acts upon the earth after the manner of a touch upon a trigger, releasing energies which are already ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... match-lock in the lieu of this good flint-engine, which may be borne ten miles or more and never once go off, scarcely couldst thou seem more scared. I might point at thee muzzle on—just so as I do now—even for an hour or more, and like enough it would never shoot thee, unless I pulled the trigger hard, with a crock upon my finger; so you see; just so, Master ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... action. The bullet that kills the man, the explosion that makes it fly, the sparkles from the cap which produce the explosion, are not agents, all being equally passive; nor is it the finger operating upon the trigger that begins the motion; that also is a passive instrument; it is the mind giving to the finger direction and energy which is the mover in this business, and as such, is, properly speaking, the agent. But if we were super-naturally informed that the ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
... the channel. Jake did not know if this was significant or not, because the current eddied, but he imagined the fellow had seen him. Then Jim threw his gun to his shoulder and a red flash leaped from the muzzle. There was a splash, but next moment Jake saw a dark object overhead and pulled the trigger. The goose came down, whirling over with long neck hanging limp, until it struck the other bank, and Jake ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... of impatience. He fingered the trigger of his weapon, and then slowly raised it on a ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pressed trigger, a light sighing eased itself from the slim barrel. Something flicked through the leaves; and, almost on the instant, the phenomenon of the little phosphorescent spot repeated itself, though in a different place from the first one. Captain Alden's ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Nora, I will say nothing further. But the fact is, I have before had my suspicions as to the hand which pulled that trigger which sent the shot into the Squire's leg, and it would be an extremely graceful act on my part to have that person arrested, and would doubtless insure the agency for me. But I will say no more; only, please understand, under no circumstances, except ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... venture to inscribe our humble names among this galaxy of the good and great? Not so: and yet, to pacify the Huronite patriarch's thirst for autographs, we wrote signatures in his brown old book; and if that curious volume is still in existence, the names of Don Caesar de Bazan and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Bart., will be found closely linked together on a particular page with the circumflex ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... command, with muskets or carbines, to bring the butt to the ground, the piece vertical against the right side, trigger-guard to the front.—Open order and close order, are terms for keeping the fleet ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... limited experience of the sexual system in women would lead me to believe that the clitoris is the only peculiarly sensitive part of the female genitalia, coition giving no pleasure unless 'the trigger of love' is simultaneously manipulated, as can be done when intromission is effected a tergo; that the mind of a normally healthy maiden is altogether free from sexual excitement of a physical kind, and that little curiosity is felt about the precise modus operandi of conjugal intercourse; ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Dissipation was written in the ruddy complexion, the bloated flesh, and the bloodshot eye. The continual movement of the hand feeling along the whitewashed plank, or fingering, unconsciously, the trigger of the loaded rifle, testified, in a dumb way, to the derangement of the nervous system which had been surrendered to that most debasing of all passion, drink. He had sought the invigorating mountains, the safety of isolation, to do for him that which an abused and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... of death seemed to reign within: yet each one of the little garrison was at his post, looking out through a loophole, and covering one or another of the foe with his revolver, while with his finger upon the trigger, he only awaited the word of command to send the bullet ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... of course. Their father had been a soldier in the civil war, and in some way the rifle he carried, with his name and the date scratched on the trigger-plate, was sent to the boys by a comrade after his death. Dan, there, was handling it, supposing it unloaded as usual, when it went off and shot his brother, who was leaning over him, right through ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... enough for your pumping—and going down a thousand feet, it would run your engine for a year. Now, then, at the end of the year you could not expect to haul that weight up again. You would have a trigger arrangement which would detach it from the rope when it got to the bottom. Then you would wind up your rope,—a man could do that in a short time,—and you would attach another cylinder of lead, and that would run your engine for another year, minus a few days, ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... he raised his arbalest to his shoulder and was about to pull the trigger, when a large gray stork flapped heavily into view skimming over the brow of the hill, and then soaring up into the air to pass the valley. Its shrill and piercing cries drew all eyes upon it, and, as it came nearer, a dark ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sez they 'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly (Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he 'll hev to git up airly), Thet our nation 's bigger 'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger, An' thet it 's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger, Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 'em to pieces, An' thet idee 's thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases; Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can, I know thet "every man" don't mean a nigger or a Mexican; An' there 's another thing ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... I hadn't thought you'd keep yours open. You slept all night, sir, you and Mr. Dawes, while I rode alongside with finger on trigger every minute." ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... was showing his brother how the survivor might do, provided one of the guns should fail; (for they were determined upon going together;) but forgetting, perhaps, in the perturbation of the moment that the gun was cocked, when he touched trigger with the rod the gun fired, and he fell, and died in a few minutes—and was with George in the eternal world, where the slave is free from his master. But poor Isham was so terrified with this unexpected occurrence and so confounded by the awful contortions of his brother's face, that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... half a mile of us, and I thought we might now fairly commence operations. I carefully levelled the piece accordingly, and desiring Bob to sit well out of the line of fire and steer as steadily as possible, I watched the heave of the cutter, and pulled the trigger-line. ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... evidently holding a consultation as to what they should do to me. On they came nearer and nearer, uttering the most menacing growls. I had, I thought, but one chance—to knock over one of them with one barrel, and the other with the second. I pulled the trigger. The first barrel missed fire; the next did the same. In my agitation when last loading I had forgotten to put on the caps. I had no time even to remedy my neglect. I was completely at the mercy of the angry monsters. I had but one chance, it seemed, of my life left. Igniting another torch, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... market is the wasp gun. In theory it is something like a letter clip; you pull the trigger and the upper and lower plates snap together with a suddenness which would surprise any insect in between. The trouble will be to get him in the right place before firing. But I can see that a lot of fun can be ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... stern—sitting on the butt of the bowsprit, Ridgeway, washing her yellow face under the moon. I didn't make any bones about it this time. I put the bad end of that gun against the scar on her head and squeezed the trigger. It snicked on an empty shell. I tell you a fact; I was almost deafened by the report that ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1] ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... manner made Larry suspicious, and he glanced around hurriedly. As he did so there was a click of a trigger from behind ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... tied fast. Along the upper edge of the barrel a V-shaped channel was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, through this channel, at the trigger end, and a trigger made of heavy iron wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. 51, was hinged to the gun by a bolt which passed clear through the stock and through both eyes of the trigger. By using two nuts on the bolt, and tightening one against the other, they were prevented from working loose ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... while waiting for the Count's return, had so worked up his wrath that it was ready to explode on a hair-trigger touch; and, as evidently, his guest's extreme urbanity made it exceedingly difficult to carry ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... two later, sufficiently to prove this. The birds would wait and watch, all the while glancing from side to side, and dip, dip, dipping their bills in the water with infinite wary quickness of movement, and yet with an air of audacious unconcern; but the pull at the trigger seemed to touch some nerve in them, and by the same act you fired your shot at them and fired ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... shots must haven rained in on us in the next few minutes. How I wanted to crawl out to the trench under the wagons where our men were keeping up a steady but irregular fire! Each was shooting on his own whenever he saw a man to pull trigger on. But mother suspected me, for she made me crouch down and keep ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... my rifle; I scrutinized its every portion; it was in order. Then I leaned over the edge of the car and pointed it downward. I aimed it between his great, earnest eyes, into the very middle of his thoughtful and observant countenance. I pulled the trigger; the ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... from the trigger. The flame snapped off. Laboriously climbing out of the still smoking furrow left in the oaken table top was Greg Manning, not more than an ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... was the old woman of Brentford, and very funny. Sir Lucius Grafton, Harlequin; and Darrell, Grimaldi. The Prince, and the Count without knowing it, figured as watchmen. Squib whispered Annesley, that Sir Lucius O'Trigger might appear in character, but was prudent enough to ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... too, and fired his revolver at them. The shot went wild. He pressed the trigger again but with no result. Then, realizing that his weapon was empty, he hurled it at Bob, ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... thickening towards the butt, at which was a square chamber firmly welded to a socket for receiving the pole, formed the gun itself. Within the chamber aforesaid a nipple protruded from the base of the tube, and in line with it. The trigger was simply a flat bit of steel, like a piece of clock spring, which was held down by the hooked end of a steel rod long enough to stick out beyond the muzzle of the gun three or four inches, and held in position ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... between fields, and stood again upon a hillock of Peckham Rye, and saw the morning break in beauty and in wonder over London. The vision gained from the foolish and romantic days of his boyhood, steadied his finger upon the trigger after ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... line should a tangle occur, but keeping his hands free to attend to the coils of rope. To Colin the seconds were as years while the old whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... mountains, a thing born of peaks and crags, vibrant with the breath of the clouds. Selecting a spot which he must touch in the next flying leap, I waited until his body darkened the sights and then pulled the trigger. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... North Atlantic a torpedo sped across her bows and she knew her chance had come. Instantly her alarm signals, quietly given, brought all hands to action stations, some in deck-houses, others in hen-coops, but each with his finger on the trigger or his hand on a ready spare shell. Presently the submarine broke surface and fired a shot across the Q ship's bow. On this the well-trained crew ran about in panic, while the captain screeched at them and waved his arms about like mad. Then the submarine came up within three cables (ten ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... August 1494; it was composed of lances, archers, cross-bow men, Swiss mercenaries, and arquebusiers. These last used a kind of hand-gun which had only been in common use for about twenty years, since the battle of Morat. The arquebus had a contrivance, suggested by the trigger of the cross-bow, to convey at once the burning match to the trigger. Before that the match had been held in the hand in using the hand-gun as well as the hand-cannon. Many of these arquebusiers were on horseback. Besides a number of small pieces ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... and swung the gun into line with the Centaurian's hideous face. He pulled the trigger—but there was no response. The rusty old firearm ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... leveled the automatic's muzzle at the hole in the idol's eye, sighted carefully, and squeezed the trigger. And as the explosion boomed through the vast chamber outside, he veered the gun in a different aim ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... command! We and the creatures on the Plumie ship are in a very serious fix. One of them apparently means to come on board. There will be no hostility, no sneering, no threatening gestures! This is a parley! You will be careful. But you will not be trigger-happy!" ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... almost beat him off his horse. He lost his whinyard, and the rein; But, laying fast hold of the mane, Preserv'd his seat; and as a goose 525 In death contracts his talons close, So did the Knight, and with one claw The trigger of his pistol draw. The gun went off: and as it was Still fatal to stout HUDIBRAS, 530 In all his feats of arms, when least He dreamt of it, to prosper best, So now he far'd: the shot, let fly At random 'mong the enemy, Pierc'd TALGOL's gaberdine, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Honest Dr. Johnson's opinion of this method of proceeding is well known. 'Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward; a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality, a coward because he had no resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death.' This is strong language, but it is not wholly undeserved. There is something inexpressibly mean in a man countenancing the persecution of his fellow creatures for heterodoxy, while ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... He yawned and lay down. "There's nothing else to be done. I can't go back to St. Petersburg, to prison," he thought. A kind of pleasant heaviness spread all over his body. .. He threw away his cap, took up the revolver, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... already springing back upon him as he swung the pistol into line with one of the jelly-masses. He barely pressed the trigger before the charging brutes knocked him ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... a machine gun at my ear. The monstrous arm released the victims, and waved in agony, breaking the thick, clammy branches of the vegetation, and the vast head disappeared. Edmund had fired all the ten shots in his automatic pistol with a single pressure of the double trigger and an unvarying aim, directed, no doubt, at one ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... fingers through the aperture and blocked the trigger of the gong. Then Roger pushed the door ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... carefully seen to my sights long before, for I knew how much would probably depend on my first shot. It surely seemed as if fortune was with me that day, as at last I had a fair chance at the game I had come so far to seek. Aiming with the greatest care for the lungs and heart, I slowly pressed the trigger. The bear gave a deep, angry growl, and bit for the wound,[4] which told me my bullet was well placed; but she kept her feet and made a dash for the thicket. I was well above, and so commanded a fairly clear view as she crashed ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... revolver lay on the divan, and very eagerly she drew it out, feeling it in the darkness, curling her finger about the trigger. Never in her life had she fired a shot, for her most formidable weapon had been the bows and arrows of the Children's Archery Contest of the English Club, but she felt in herself now that highstrung tensity which at all cost ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... imprint of the Austrian's hand, uttered a cry of rage, and leaped forward. His move was so unexpected that the man with the revolver did not fire, and when at last he had again brought his revolver to bear, he feared to press the trigger lest he might hit his friend ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... a sailor, who four days previous, had stood erect—a pillar of life—with an arm like a royal-mast and a thigh like a windlass. But the slightest conceivable finger-touch of a bit of crooked trigger had eventuated in stretching him out, more helpless than an hour-old babe, with a blasted thigh, utterly drained of its brawn. And who was it that now stood over him like a superior being, and, as if clothed himself with the attributes of immortality, indifferently discoursed of carving ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... every one hurrying to the front, and dreading above all things to be left in the rear. The Europeans were the only efficient men left, the Hindostanees having suffered so severely from the frost in their hands and feet, that few could hold a musket, much less pull a trigger. The enemy had occupied the rocks above the gorge, and thence poured a destructive fire upon the column as it slowly advanced. Fresh numbers fell at every volley. The sepoys, unable to use their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... a moment followed, when I heard the words "one," "two," "three," in tolerably rapid succession, and, at the utterance of the last, I pulled trigger. My antagonist had done so at the first. His eye was fixed upon mine with deliberate malignity—THAT I clearly saw—but it did not affect my shot. This, I purposely threw away. The skill of my enemy did not correspondend (sic) with his evident desires. I was hurt, but very slightly. His bullet ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Bastin, "but all of a sudden my arm and hand are quite well again. I suppose it must have been 'pins and needles' or something of that sort which made me throw away the pistol and pull the trigger when I didn't mean to ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... paw. General Rice,[19] when giving an account of the seizure of Cornet Elliot, mentions that he had a narrow escape from a blow of the tigress's paw, which he guarded off with his uplifted rifle. The stock of the rifle was marked with the claws, while the trigger and guard were knocked completely flat on one side, so that the gun was useless until repaired. There is no doubt, then, that the tiger can, and does sometimes, use his paw with deadly effect, though I have little doubt that he prefers to ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... should take alarm, the bull likewise appeared on the edge of the glade, and stood with outstretched head, scratching his throat against a young tree, which shook violently. I aimed low, behind his shoulder, and pulled trigger. At the crack of the rifle all the bison, without the momentary halt of terror-struck surprise so common among game, turned and raced off at headlong speed. The fringe of young pines beyond and below the glade cracked ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... inches long and ten inches in diameter, and divided into two separate apartments, one for air, the other for powder. Through the centre of each torpedo, running longitudinally, there was an iron bar placed, extending beyond each end. On the upper end there was a spring trigger, which was held by a light iron cross bar, ingeniously attached to the longitudinal bar, so arranged that from the lightest touch it would fall off, letting the trigger fall on the upper part of the torpedo, striking a percussion cap immediately ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten |
