"Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bloodshed. The favorite amusement was cutting down hammocks. Dark forms might be seen on all fours making their way on the greasy and slippery deck in the direction of selected victims. The sharp blade of a knife would be drawn across the taut cord that supported the hammock. Then an uproar that awakened the entire steerage would take place. If the one who was cut down happened to be an Irishman, he would loudly challenge all the passengers to come up and fight him, not caring whether they came in ones or hundreds. His invitation ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... which is not to be found in routine duty along the yellow muddy streams that flowed through the territory claimed by King Cotton. The high, tapering masts, the yards squared and gracefully proportioned, the rigging taut, and with each rope in its place, of an ocean-frigate, are not seen in the squat, box-like gunboats that dashed by the batteries at Vicksburg, or hurled shot and shell at each other in the affair at Memphis. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... thought to be the thing, Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing; So I edvise the noomrous friends thet's in one boat with me To jest up killick, jam right down their hellum hard alee, Haul the sheets taut, an', layin' out upon the Suthun tack, Make fer the safest port they can, wich, I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... had got up that seemed to the boys tremendous. Dark as it was they could see in various directions tracts of white water where the waves broke wildly over the sands. The second anchor had been let go some time before. The two cables were as taut as iron bars, and the boat was pulling her bow under every sea. Joe Chambers dropped a lead line overboard ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... that Rutolo would adopt this plan. He stood on guard, bent like a taut bow, watching ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... strong solitary tree, she suddenly threw a noose over him, drew it fast and sprang far out over the precipice into the air. Even as she did so, he jumped behind the tree, and clasped it, else on the slippery place he would have gone over with her. The rope came taut, and presently he drew her up again to safety, and while she laughed at him and mocked him, he held her tight under his arm, and carried her to his lodge, where he let ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... crew laboured away at the capstan till the hawser was taut as a fiddle-string; not an inch would the ship budge. The master suggested that by heaving the guns and stores overboard she ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... a slant of silent leathers at its daring thus to utilise the device of the outermost seas and the most vehement storms. And side by side with these, the adventurers, are the skiffs and smacks of the fishermen, drilled in rows, brought bow up, taut on their anchors with their lug-sails down on their masts to make deck tents for shelter from sun or rain. With those sturdy black gabbarls and barques and those bronze fishers, the bay from the quay to the walls of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... Miss Timmins had abandoned and used it for a brace. With a rope tied to the handle of the plank door and drawn taut, it was held half open. Tom then climbed out upon and straddled the door and raised his arms to receive the girl when she lowered herself ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... was at hand, and Aziel saw a little wreath of smoke rise in the still air and bade his wretched servant close his eyes. Then came the end. Suddenly the taut rope, eaten through by the sun's fire, flew back and the cage with the soldier in it vanished from his sight, while, from far below, rose the sound of a heavy fall, and from the tomb of Baaltis rang the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... as if each nerve in my body were a string drawn suddenly taut, but I was gloomily conscious that the Celtic souls of Somerled and Barrie felt more than I was capable of feeling, a mysterious something which drew the two together at this instant. Physically, I stood between them, but I knew that ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... uneventful morning canter. He stood at the foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Gregoire rode up as if pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench that set it quivering in its taut limbs. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... emptying her house with leisurely revenge. Satisfied at length, he floated out his barrel, and followed with the line in his hand, to aid its direction if necessary. It struck the tree. With a yell of joy Angus laid hold of it, and hauling the line taut, and feeling it secure, committed himself at once to the water, holding by the barrel, and swimming with his legs, while Gibbie, away to the side with a hold of the rope, was swimming his hardest to draw him out of the current. But a weary man ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... rise he bestirred himself. His whip flicked the air without touching the horses, and he chirrupped encouragingly. The weary but willing creatures raised their drooping heads, their ribs expanded as they drew their "tugs" taut, and, at a slow, shuffling trot, they ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... his heaving chest. Beyond the baggageman he saw through the open door, as on a moving-picture screen, sunlit fields and sunlit woods whirling past. He began to bark at them eagerly, his eyes hungry, his tail beating against the taut chain an excited tattoo. The baggageman turned with ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... and for the hundredth time that night, Bill's icy self-control, his really marvelous command of his impulses, was sorely tried. His enemy actually was recumbent in the snow before him, while he, taut as a strung bow, was most exquisitely poised for the attack. Why fight? Why not swift delicious murder, and the gush of the loathed one's throat-blood between his fangs? Bill knew well why it must ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... breeze is blowing; but if the wind be light, then the difference between a well-thrown fly and the reverse is very apparent. After you have made a satisfactory cast, draw the line slowly to you by raising the point of the rod, taking care to keep the line as taut as possible. Also see that your bob-fly is tripping on the surface, as we consider that a well-managed "bob" is the most life-like of the whole lot. Do not fish with too long a line, unless, indeed, on ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... KITES NOT CONCLUSIVE AS TO PLANES.—This is instanced to show that while such a form is admirably adapted for kite purposes, where vertical curtains are always in line with the wind movement, and the structure is held taut by a cord, the lateral effect, when used on a machine which does not at all times move in line with the moving air current. A condition is thus set up which destroys the usefulness of the box ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... two Alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. He blundered below, lugged Adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... moved apart from Jacques. She stood alone with head erect and taut arms by her sides. She hesitated a moment, then came forward ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Dale and Saxe holding the rope taut, the middle was attached by similar knots to Dale's waist, and Melchior walked on, and on reaching his end ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... market-place he sits, his face the target for many eyes. The sombre crowd about him is motionless. Behind their faces no lamp burns; only their eyes glow faintly with a reflected light. For their eyes are on his face. It alone is alive, is vibrant, moving bronze under a sun of bronze. The taut skin, like polished metal, shines along his cheek and jaw. His eyes cut upward from a slender nose, and his quick mouth moves sharply ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... he dug, and he delved, with care and pain, And the veins in his forehead stood taut. At the end of an hour, when every bone cracked, He gathered up ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... he would slacken just a bit on the traces, and Tim would give that queer, shrill chirrup of his, adding, sympathetically: "Come, me bye, come ahn!" Then Chieftain would tighten the traces in an instant, giving his whole attention to the business of keeping them taut and of placing each iron-shod hoof just where ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... buggy, extending from the dashboard to just below the level of the driver's eyes. The lawyer clambered in behind it, the captain followed, the end of the reins was passed through a slit in the boot, Mr. Shattuck, after inquiring if they were "all taut," gave the command, "Gid-dap!" and horse and buggy moved around the corner of ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... men grabbed it, and made it fast. Then Tom had another difficult task—that of not allowing the rope to become taut, or the drag of the boat, and the uplift of the airship might have snapped it in twain. But he handled his delicate craft of the air as confidently as the captain of a big liner brings her skillfully to the deck ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... to me that we had but to get the true aim, and the rescue of those in the hulk would be but a matter of another day or two; for, having once gotten a line to the hulk, we should haul across a thin rope by its means, and with this a thicker one; after which we should set this up so taut as possible, and then bring the people in the hulk to the island by means of a seat and block which we should haul to and fro ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... over her unhatted face in a frame. Wayland looked at her and felt his masterdom going to those same winds; for the pace had painted her ivory cheeks, not rose color, but the deep flame of the wild flower. Some day, perhaps,—no matter; he set his teeth and screwed the whipcord muscles taut; for the moraine stones had begun to roll, and there was a zig-zag flash of lightning that sent fire balls sizzling over the rock. He braced her to the leap down the steep sliding moraine, and felt the frenzy of joy ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... dress ought to be cut all in one—'princess,' as the milliners call it—and so arranged in the skirt that there is no drapery which will catch in things, come unstitched, and look untidy; everything wants to be taut and trim, like tailor's work. But even the ladies' tailors will insist upon making a skirt and little jacket-bodice, instead of a dress in one piece. It is almost impossible to use the arms freely—to go out in a sailing-boat, for instance, and help in its ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... without a vestige of a weapon, maneuvered the schooner as Code had never in his life seen a vessel handled. At a word from the officer of the watch they jumped as one man. Every order was executed on the run, and all sails were swayed as flat and taut as boards. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... some at the top and some at the bottom of the plankway, were entirely out of my sight as yet, though I had a good view of their sliding-plane. But presently the ropes began to strain and creak, drawn taut—as our fishermen express it—either from the upper or the lower end, and I saw three barrels come sliding down—sliding, not rolling (you must understand), and not as a brewer delivers beer into a cellar. These passed ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... cable until it sags sufficiently to free the aerial passage-way between the cliffs. Then the aviator planes down, sweeps through the canyon, and alights on the plateau called Thusis's Garden. But now he must return; the cable must be lifted and stretched taut; and he must embark across the gulf in the little car which runs on grooved wheels to ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... power over the sewing-machine. When she brought the pile of hemmed sheets to her mother her heart swelled with joy in her own goodness. There was Mark Olivier's sister, who rejoiced in the movements of her body, the strain of the taut muscles throbbing on their own leash, the bound forwards, the push of the wind on her knees and breast, the hard feel of the ground under her padding feet. And there was Mary Olivier, the little girl of thirteen whom her mother and Aunt Bella ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Maid in Two Minds had no accommodation-ladder hung out . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I scrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainly by his collar and seat of his trousers. It was a job, too; and the first thing he did ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... crew is "setting-up'' rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and, after the rigging is bowsed well taut, the seizings and coverings be replaced, which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different parts of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without requiring a change in another. You cannot ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Old Joe seems to be smitten with a sudden frenzy. I have never seen anything like it. After a preliminary canter in the laughing line he suddenly makes taut his body; his eyes bulge from his head; his face becomes crimson and his nose blue; then, with his mouth open, while he hisses like a steam-saw and roars like a bull and sends the most extraordinary imitation of throat-cutting spluttering wetly from his distended lips, he ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... snapped, drew on the line a little harder, and swung an eel weighing half a pound or more to the bank, where he promptly put one foot on the eel and drew the line taut. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... slack, thus saving the two from being dashed against the face of the rock, by rushing backward. When the mast whipped to seaward they advanced to the edge of the cliff. Five others hauled on each of the lines whenever the hawser was nearly taut, and paid out and pulled in with the slackening and tightening of the larger rope. But even so, the sling in which the skipper and the girl hung was tossed about desperately, now dropped toward the boiling rocks, now twirled like a leaf in the gale, and next moment jerked aloft ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... trussed the other in the bridle reins. Out of a pillowcase folded hard he made a gag and tied it into the mouth of the man. Then he ran his hands over the straps; they were drawn taut. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... of a distant garden of sweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound was heard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and the whirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths. The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck, presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm and motionless as marble. The 11th day of December was now near its ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... youth was returning to my face as well as to the hidden processes of my body; and I can assure you that it excited me far more than the renewed functioning of my brain. The treatment induces flesh, and as I had been excessively thin, my skin, as flesh accumulated, grew taut and lines disappeared. My eyes, which had long been dull, had regained something of their old brilliancy under the renaissance of brain and blood, and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the playing of the average boy of fifteen—that nerve-destroying, uninspired scraping. There was nothing of this in the sounds that this boy called forth from the little wooden box and the stick with its taut lines of catgut. Whatever it was—the length of the thin, sensitive fingers, the turn of the wrist, the articulation of the forearm, the something in the brain, or all these combined—Theodore Brandeis possessed that which makes for greatness. You ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... his men to the dinghy, and they rowed him away through the fog. It was a touchy job, picking his way through that murk. He stood up, leaning forward holding to his taut tiller-ropes, and more by ears than his eyes directed his course. A few of the anchored craft, knowing that they were in the harbor roadway, clanged their bells lazily once in a while. Yacht tenders were making their rounds, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a moment before the crowd realized what was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le Rouge, ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... the indrawing of a great gust of air and his diaphragm swelled until his ribs were like taut bowstrings. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Boneas has come into Brisbille's, and he does it complacently, for he is not above mixing with the people of the neighborhood. Here, too, are Monsieur Pocard, and Crillon, new shaved, his polished skin taut and shiny, and several other people. Prominent among them one marks the wavering head of Monsieur Mielvaque, who, in his timidity and careful respect for custom, took his hat off as he crossed the threshold. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... round the pommel of his saddle, whirl at a right angle, and, with a whoop of pure, unadulterated joy, go by her at top speed, dragging the panther behind him. The loop had settled over the animal's body and been drawn taut around his loins. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of efficient fence. This makes it a favourite form of fencing for railroads and along highways. Finally, barbed wire composed of two wires twisted together, once firmly put in place, will retain its taut condition through many seasons without repair. The fact of the wire being twisted allows it to adapt itself to all ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... depart until Darnley had shown himself and assured them that all was well with the Queen and with himself. And what time Darnley gave them this reassurance from a window of her room, Mary herself stood pale and taut amid the brutal horde that on this alarm had violated the privacy of her chamber, while the ruffianly Red Douglas flashed his dagger before her eyes, swearing that if she made a sound they ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... were odd studies in suppressed shame and rage. The muscles were taut; their hands ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Paula nodded to the grooms to release the horses' heads, took the feel of the four mouths on her hands, and shortened and slipped the reins to adjustment of four horses into the collars and taut on the traces. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... his eyes up to the dome where he saw the canvas drawing taut. He knew that he had succeeded and ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... little, white-faced woman, who went so often to the door to look towards the road that entered the valley that she was no longer aware of what she did. He saw her wide eyes full of fear, the bow of the mouth strained taut with anxiety, her unconscious fear of him as one of the alien faction, and withal her concern for his comfort. Judith's control was far greater, but though she hid it skilfully, he knew the sorrow ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... After a clear daybreak the sun appeared splendidly above the peaks of the range. The great gulf burst into a glitter all around the boat; and in this glory of merciless solitude the silence appeared again before him, stretched taut like ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of the humans. He did not like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. But he never removed ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... steadily as they move, we cross the Scheldt. On our right the sharp bows and on our left the blunt sterns of the boats. Boat after boat pressed close, gunwale to gunwale, our roadway goes across their breasts. Their breasts are taut as the breasts of gymnasts under the tramping of the regiments. They vibrate like the breasts of living things as ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... dozed fitfully, waking out of uneasy sleep to lie staring, wide-eyed, into the dark, every nerve in her body taut, her mind abnormally active. She tried to accept things philosophically, but her philosophy failed. There was a hurt, the pain of which she could not ease by any mental process. Grief and anger by turns mastered her, and at daybreak she ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and stains can be removed much more easily before washing. Fruit stains are probably the most common and they will usually disappear if the stained portion is held taut over a basin and hot water poured over and ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... one, and in the belt thus formed was stuck a weapon of such quality as men have rarely carried since. It was a stone ax; an ax heavier than any battle-ax of mediaeval times, its haft a scant three feet in length, inclosing the ax through a split in the tough wood, all being held in place by a taut and hardened mass of knotted sinews. It was a fearful weapon, but one only to be wielded by such a man as this, one with arms almost as mighty as those ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... eye over the men's faces. "Let slip the tow rope," bawled Dick Goldsmith. "Up foresail," I shouted, and two minutes after we had sighted that mast we were dead before the wind, our storm foresail taut as a drum-skin, our boat's stem heading full for the broken seas and the lonely stranded vessel in the midst of them. It was well that there was something in front of us to keep our eyes that way, and that none of us thought of looking astern, or ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... stood on the edge of the beach and, borrowing a lantern, watched for his opportunity. Then suddenly he vanished. They looked after him. They could see nothing but the rope slipping past their feet, inch by inch. Sometimes it was stationary, sometimes it was drawn taut. The first great wave that came flung a yard or so of slack amongst them. Then, after the roar of its breaking had died away, they saw the rope suddenly tighten, and pass rapidly out, and the excitement began ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... furled the royals and staysails, two other boys the topgallant sails, and all the crew, except the master, the larger square sails. The yards were squared by the braces. The lower yards were made to correspond with the topsail yards by means of the lifts, every rope was hauled taut, and every coil round the belaying pin was made strictly uniform. Every end of a rope had to have what is called a cross-whipping to prevent the end from becoming a tassel. A well-worn, though authentic story, which bears on this, did service many times in ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... already, leaned her face on the back of the sofa, her eyes shining. Her cheeks were plump and rosy, tinted and warmed by her heart. The skin of her neck, taut and satiny, quivered. Half-blown and waiting, a little voluptuous because voluptuousness already emanated from her, she was like a ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... the unbearable nervous horror grew, and the inner tension, terrible and so taut that it seemed to be ready to snap every second, was beginning to turn into a sort of nightmare, which makes one shiver all over, which dims one's eyes with red mist, which banishes all fear of death and suffering and turns all that is human ...
— The Shield • Various
... and felt my perilous position, as he threatened to draw me again into the water, by his desperate struggles; but at last, with the strength and force of desperation, I managed to reach the painter of the boat, which fortunately being 'taut' from the ring, enabled me to raise myself and the youth out of the water, and we were both got into the boat, though in a most exhausted condition; indeed I had to be conveyed home. The boy soon recovered ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... the body and forcibly pushed forward by an assistant, while another person tightens up the slack in the rope until the affected leg is off the ground in front of the supporting leg. The rope is then drawn taut and the assistant grasps the tail and pulls the cow toward the affected side. The animal makes a lurch to keep from falling, contracts the muscles, and the patella slips into place with a sharp click, and the animal walks off as if nothing had happened. If the animal resists this method of handling, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... rickety complaints, moved slowly and painfully up on to the level out of the gutter. The dog rose with a long, weary, mangy sigh, but with a lazy sort of calculation, before his rope (which was short) grew taut—which was good judgment on his part, for his neck was sore; and his feet being tender, he felt his way carefully and painfully over the metal, as if he feared that at any step he might spring some ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... This is the automatic operation of the safety valve on the gas-bag directly by the air ballonets. If these ballonets empty owing to the pressure of the gas within the envelope, a rope system disposed within the balloon and connecting the ballonets and the gas-valve at the top is stretched taut, thereby opening the gas-valve. In this manner the gas-pressure becomes reduced until the ballonets are enabled to exercise their intended function. This is a ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... taut with tension. She lay quiet a few seconds, not even opening her eyes. There was cool sunlight on her eyelids, but she was indoors. There was a subdued murmur of sound somewhere; after a moment she knew it came from a news viewer turned low, in some adjoining room. But there didn't ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... Across it, running fore and aft, I stretched a heavy wire rope on which I had placed a big block for a traveller, and carrying the end of the rope forward to the capstan I fell to work with the hand-bars and got it strained so taut that it was like a bar of iron. Then to the traveller block I made fast my hoisting tackle—and so was able to swing up the heavy pieces from where they were stowed, and to run them along the taut rope until they were clear of the boat on either side, and then to let them down upon the deck: where ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... cabbage-leaves of ears. In one corner was the field-cooker. The cooks were busy making dixies of bully beef stew. Their clothes were dirty and greasy, so were their arms, bare from the shoulders almost, and taut with muscles. (p. 221) Through a path that wound amongst a medley of agricultural instruments, ploughs harrows and grubbers, the farmer's daughter came striding like a ploughman, two children hanging on to her apron ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... louder and louder, faster and faster; the strange pungent scent came again; and then I was thrust down under the weight, monstrous, insupportable; further and further down; and there came a sharp bright streak, like a blade severing the strands of a rope drawn taut and tense; another and another; one was left, ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... your breast is taut, and under each the shadow is sharp, and between the clenched muscles of your ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... repeated the Captain, as he lighted his pipe, "your sentiments does you credit. W'en a man's got his first love, d'ye see, an' finds as how she's all trim and ship-shape, and taut, and well ballasted, and all that sort o' thing, stick to her to the last, through thick and thin. That's wot I say, d'ye see? There's no two ways about it, for wot's right can't be wrong. If it can, show me how, and then I'll knock under, ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... moving shadow intermingled with points of fire that glowed steadily in two long rows up to the altar, where fell a single ray of golden sunshine. Helmet in hand, he moved slowly forward, every nerve strung taut with suspense. As his eyes grew accustomed to the curious half-light, he saw that the unreal shadows were men grouped on either side behind rows of torch-bearers. The red flare fell on their fixed, unmoved faces, and threw weird shadows backward ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... as a taut line they went, leaving behind them eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... watched the process. First the outer lines of the structure were woven across the edges of the opening and made fast at points around its imperfect circle. Then the weaver dropped to opposite points, unreeling his slender rope behind him and making it taut and fast. He was no slow and clumsy workman. He knew his task and rushed about, rapidly strengthening his structure with parallel lines, having a common center, until his silken floor was in place again and ready for the death dance of flies and bees ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Jimsy,—ever since I can remember? Before I can remember? He's part of everything that's ever happened to me. I can't imagine what things would be like without him. I won't imagine it!" Her eyes darkened and her mouth grew taut. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... and friends are certain little toy-boat builders, who bestow upon me from time to time boats fashioned by their knives; vessels which would not, it is true, encounter stormy seas, and therefore are not fitted for use, but which look taut and trim as they lie in the quiet harbour of bracket or slab amongst other choice ornaments. A rowing-boat, a yacht, a schooner, a man-of-war—all these varieties are somewhat commonplace. The construction of them requires skill and dexterity, I know, but you do not want a description ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... seat in the rear of the church and waited, nerves strung taut as if the ordeal were his, wishing the services would begin and yet dreading it. His eyes swept the gathering worshipers idly until they happened upon a familiar face across the church, a homely face set sternly ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... she called out, when the horse had stopped for want of breath; "I's going to stand on you, and you must be vedy good." She patted the animal on its head; then she scrambled to her feet, and, holding the reins taut, stood firm as an arrow, while the creature once more flew round the stage. When her ride was over she had won the applause ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... after, will come smiling around the nearest street corner. Or, if that is not wonderful enough, they will take an ordinary rope, whirl it around their head, toss it into the air, and it will stand upright, as if fastened to some invisible bar, so taut and firm that a heavy man ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... ride beside a train and cast her lasso over the stack of the locomotive. He saw her pony settle back on its haunches while the rope grew taut and the train was forced to a halt. He saw the passengers lined up by the wayside and forced to part with their valuables. Later, when the band returned to the ranche with their booty, he saw the dissolute brother, after the treasure ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... for instant action. Clinging to the rope with his left hand, he had wound a leg about it, leaving his right hand free for his long-sword which he had not sheathed. A downward cut clove the soft head of a kaldane, and another severed the taut rope beneath the panthan's feet. The girl heard a sudden renewal of the shrill whistling of her foes, and at the same time she realized that the craft was rising again. Slowly it drifted upward, out of reach of the enemy, and a moment later she saw the figure of Turan clamber ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... forward and dropped over the horns of the animal. The pony, with the perfect craft of long practice, swerved to one side with a rush. The dragging rope swung up against the running steer's legs, grew suddenly taut. Down went the steer's head, and next moment its feet were swept from under it as it went heavily to the ground. Man and horse were perfect in their team work. As the supple rider slid from the back of the pony it ran to the end of the rope ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... someone or some thing crouched on the divan behind Kerry as he lay stretched upon the matting-covered floor. His wrists, tied behind him, gave him great pain; and since his ankles were also fastened and the end of the rope drawn taut and attached to that binding his wrists, he was rendered absolutely helpless. For one of his fiery temperament this physical impotence was maddening, and because his own handkerchief had been tied tightly around his head so as to secure between his teeth a wooden stopper of considerable ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... who made me a slave to the intoxication of the thrilling suspense of sailing out amidst whistling winds, seething foam, immense surging waves round about, fallow driving clouds above, the tugging taut rope in one hand, the straining tiller in the other, the eye travelling from sail to horizon, from pennant to ocean, the boat trembling the while from the waves breaking against her bow, and amid this tumult weighing the chances for a safe homecoming, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... nose, you blind old mole! I am bent on to a bight of the whip falls," I answered, with a chuckle. "Keep the other end of the rope taut, old chap, and I'll be able to climb up back into the port without anybody being the wiser but ourselves, my hearty, and so we'll all escape going ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... pawed the snow impatiently, as he strained in his collar stretching the tow-line so taut that George feared it might snap. Equally unavailing were Queen's sudden leaps and frantic plunges. The more they struggled, the more firmly Baldy ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... struggle even more wearing he flung his other arm across the ledge, and for some time hung there, at the end of an almost taut rope, unable to overcome its resistance and pull himself in over the coping, stubbornly refusing ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... usual; and Dudley Wilbraham's conversation would bring any man back to his senses, even if he needed it worse than I did. I opened the shack door and went in,—and in the bare passage I jerked up taut. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... Quick as thought the lee braces are slacked off, and those on the weather side made taut. Still she is not checked. Strange, too, for the breeze is stiff. Anderson feels she is in the stream ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... stood still, looking after him. She was rather white, but she remained very erect and taut until the keeper had disappeared from view. Then the tense rigidity of her figure slackened, as a stretched wire slackens when the pull on it suddenly ceases, and she leaned helpless against the trunk of a tree, limp and shaking, every fine-strung nerve ajar with the strain of her recent encounter ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... for some sound which might indicate the whereabouts of the camp, she detected the noise of a body approaching through the underbrush. Whether man or beast she could but conjecture and so she stood with every nerve taut waiting the thing that floundered heavily toward her. She hoped it might be von Horn, but the hideous war cries which had apprised her of enemies at the encampment made her fear that fate might be directing the footsteps of one of ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... passenger, he was frightened out of his wits. Still we laughed, because we had heard nothing ourselves, and thought that it must only be fancy on their parts, particularly as the captain used to bowse his jib up pretty taut every night. Well, all went on very well; we arrived at the Rock, got our fresh provisions and vegetables, and then made sail again. The captain complained of no more noises, and Jim of no more eyes, and the ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... getting a bad name as an idler, and was fast losing his self-respect. And when that sheet-anchor is once lost, anything may happen to the ship; however gay its trim, however taut its sides, however delicate and beautiful the curve of its prow, it may drive before the gale, it may be dashed pitilessly among the iron rocks, or stranded hopelessly upon the harbour bar. A little more of this discipline, and a boy naturally noble-hearted and capable, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... open. The horses were plunging on the taut reins. The lady drew her skirts in at her side and nodded. Lewis stepped into the carriage. The horses shot forward ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... temperatures; that roused her. And after that came the clatter of early milk-wagons and the rose hues of dawn over the roofs. Twice in the night, once at supper and again toward dawn, she drank strong black coffee. But after a week or two her nerves were stretched taut as ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and the silk vest, but what struck me most, was the wearer, a slim youth, hardly out of his teens. In the distance, the New York pilot-boat, a build rendered famous by the achievements of the "America," at Cowes, lay on the water like a duck, with her canvas white as snow, and taut as a deal board. The perfect ease and nonchalance of the young pilot amused me immensely, and all went on smoothly enough till the shades of evening closed in upon us; at which time, entering the Narrows, the satin-vested youth felt himself quite nonplused, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... would not be safe, because one faced the absurd peril of losing one's head a little and forgetting the precautions one should never lose sight of where a woman was concerned—the precautions which provided for one's holding a good taut rein in one's ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... colours were; but I did, I confess. I had got a weight off my mind. The bay of Sorrento was very lovely to me that evening. After a good while, Christina turned to me again, and I could see that she was all taut and right now. She began with a compliment ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... sight the headland On the distant horizon's rim; We enter the dangerous waters With our vessels taut and trim; But often the cape in its grimness Will before us suddenly rise, Because of the clouds that have hid it Or the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... had her in his arms, holding her tight as one holds a hurt or frightened child. Mechanically he soothed her as she clung to him, that amazing self-control, which had upheld her for so long, snapping like a taut rope when the strain becomes too great. But all the while his eyes—wide, smoldering eyes, filled with a mingling of pity, of dread questioning and ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... Laurie painted on its stern, and Brownie has got the sail up and stands waiting with a smile to help his beloved "Miss Nell" into the old boat. Nell lays her hand upon his shoulder as of old, and steps in and takes the tiller; Drake makes taut the sheet, and the old boat glides away from the slip and sails ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... his muscles grew taut, for the other voice was that of Conscience and it shook with terrified unevenness and a tremulous faintness like the leaping and weakening of a fevered pulse. He could tell that she was talking guardedly with her lips close ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... but in the snug cabin of the sloop dry blankets and a dry bunk were mine; and we lay and smoked and yarned of old days, while overhead the wind screamed through the rigging and taut halyards drummed ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... once off their feet; just a slow, steady pull from the oars, and a taut enough halter to lean on in the tight places. But others rolled over like logs when the full force of the current struck them, threatening to drag the boat under, as it and the horse raced away down stream with the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... my arms to my sides, and put the end of the rope round Petrak's waist, so that I was about five feet behind him when it was taut. In this way we set out for the beach, with Petrak in the lead and Thirkle, carrying his bundle and smoking a cigar, treading on my heels, to ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... and the bull fiddle. They have a liaison with the umpah umps—the feet. Long ago they danced only to the umpah umps. There were no cadenzas, glissandos, arpeggios then. There was only the thumping of cedar wood on cedar wood, on ebony or taut deerskin. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Dick's muscles grew taut, like mighty whip-cords; his chest expanded with power; he girded his loins for a great effort, and it seemed as if he would make good his boast. Held in the grasp of those arms, tight as iron bands, the soldier staggered. Once more the other heaved ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... offering me his horse instead. As there was no time to waste, we changed horses like relay riders. I soon overtook the animal and made a successful cast, catching the bull by the front feet. I threw Tiburcio's horse, like a wheeler, back on his haunches, and, on bringing the rope taut, fetched Toro to his knees; but with the strain the half-inch manila rope snapped at the pommel like a twine string. Then we were at our wit's end, the bull lumbering away with the second rope noosed over one fore foot, and leaving my saddle far in the rear. But ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... blasts of the horn sound in rapid succession. Men and horses collect the last remnant of their strength. Every moment one fancies they must break down. The towing-rope, a three-inch cable, is as taut as a bow-string, and the iron bolt round which the rope is wound is burning hot with the friction. The captain stands by with a sharp ax in ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... a rude rocker, the seat formed of a taut-stretched piece of ox-hide, beside the fire, and took up her knitting. A sock for Leander it was—one of many of all sizes. She remembered the first that she had measured for the bare pink toes which he had brought there, forlorn candidates for the comfortable integuments in which they were presently ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... you in His image, yet I saw You stoop and seize a blind mole from the snare. Blind. Blind with terror ... Blind Your teeth gleamed bare behind the taut, white lips. The trapper's law knows neither hate nor love. You watched it paw, Frantic with lust of life, the yielding air And were amused. God's Image! Did you care, pitying one moment, see the swift hands claw For life and darkness, know and ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... third man; the master was on his knee, raising his gun for the last shot; but Gus Reeve was blind to all that had happened. He saw only the black stallion, the matchless prize of horseflesh. He tossed a loop in the taut rope to entangle a bind foot, but that slackening of the line gave Satan his instant's purchase, and a moment later he was on his feet, whirled, and two iron-hard hoofs crushed the whole framework of the man's chest like an egg-shell. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... myself were on duty till the next morning, and after the first bustle, which always takes place on board when settling down in harbor—(boats to lower, booms to swing out, running rigging to make taut)—we had nothing more to do but to look on. We said to one another: "Where are we in reality?—In the United States?—In some English Colony in Australia, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... glass, and held it steadily before him. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle, and, like his face, strung taut ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... examining forward and aft he called out, "All right, sir," and shoved the boat off to a little distance from the frigate. The yard and stay-tackles fell, at the next instant were overhauled down and hooked by the man in the boat. The boatswain's mate, in the gangway, piped "haul-taut," and the slack of the tackle was pulled in; then followed a long, steady blow of the call, piping "sway-away," and the boat, with all in her, rose from the water, and ascended as high as the hammock-cloths in the waist, when the stay-tackles took the strain, the yard-tackles "eased-off," and the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the bench-wall left the upper part of this water-proofing stretched taut across the curved top of the sand-wall, forming a chord of the arc. As the arch was built up, the top was gradually slackened so as to allow the concrete to press the mat back into place until the top of the sand-wall was reached, when the end was ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... strain drew on Carolyn June's arms till it seemed they would be pulled from the sockets. The rope cut cruelly into her body under her shoulders. She wanted to cry—to scream—to laugh. She did neither. She threw back her head and clung with all her strength to the rough lariat, stretched taut as ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... to it, that had been already passed over the stern of the tug, and the bight carried across the "towing-horse" and firmly fastened to the tug's fore-deck, while our end on reaching the forecastle of the Silver Queen was similarly secured inboard, Tim satisfying himself that it was taut by jumping ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... can lie, a bit of loose sail or cordage now and then flapping inconsistently in a breath of wind, which seemed to come out of the west for no other purpose, and to retire into the east afterward, its whole duty done. On board, men were moving about, hanging lanterns, making taut here, setting free there, all with an air of utter peace and repose such as is found only on placid waterways beneath a setting sun. Occasionally an oar dipped in the still water, a hint of action, modified, softened into repose. Along ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... craft, she was; a square-bilt, trim, well-ballasted craft, fore and aft; none of your sky-scraping, taut, Baltimore clipper, fair-weather, no-tonnage jigamarees! Betsy is a woman; her mother was just like her when I fell in with her, and it wasn't long afore I chartered her for a life's voyage. And the man who lets such a woman slip her cable and stand ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... man—and I observed he was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook too, like a taut rope—"Silver," says he, "you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it; and you've money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't; and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me you'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? Not you! As sure ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... abnormal nature, and of course it was, but when disease divides this world from another only by the thinnest veil, the mind has been known to see things with a clearness and vividness never before attained. With Chopin the strands of life were often taut to the breaking-point, but ere they snapped, their vibration gave forth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... on the mast, and it took all the men—and boys, too—to haul it taut. Even then it hung in a heavy curve from its own weight, and the cradle dragged through the crests of the waves when it went out empty. It was more under than above the water as they pulled it back again with the first of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a deep spring in her heart which overflowed in tears. The taut arms pressed him tightly. The words were sobbed out from a tightened young throat. The very passion in her, that abandonment which comes from the untutored, stirred all that was primeval in him, all the desperate longing in a soul newly born. His mouth covered hers again and again; it sought ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... diamonds; here and there a resinous pine, steeped in heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering curiosity. Caroline scowled ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... of his own being; he was aware of nothing but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain, at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of revelation. All else had vanished,—the scene round him, the sense of the invisible; there was but the point of space left, waiting for ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... thickly grew, With their heads so brown and furry; They were straight and slender too, Plenty strong enough he knew, And he sought them in a hurry. Such an arrow as he wrought— Almost passed a boy's believing. When he drew the bow-string taut, Out of sight and quick as thought Up it went, the blue ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... been laid along the ground by the newly planted cedar posts, it became necessary to stretch and fasten it. Here, too, young Jack proved himself a competent teacher. He showed Bob how to get a tremendous leverage with the curve on the back of an ordinary hammer by means of which the wire was held taut until the staples could be driven home. It was aggravating, nervous, painful work for one not accustomed to it. Bob's hands were soon cut and bleeding, no matter how gingerly he took hold of the treacherous wire. To all his comments, heated and ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... came. 'They surveyed me in,' was his frequent statement. And there he lived and carried on until Father grew up, married, and built this home. Grandfather registered his cattle brand as the Bowline. It is a bent bow with a taut string. Father carried the same brand, but folks began calling it the B-line and both ranches go by that name. And it's really one to the outsider. The difference in methods and in management is best illustrated by the fact that ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... with a start, as the dawn was showing gray through the chinks of his window curtains, with a vague, uneasy sense of something wrong, and lay listening, every nerve strained taut. From the adjoining room came the sound of Cavendish's breathing, but now it was more raucous, more like groan following groan. The Lieutenant-Governor strove in vain to put off the foreboding which lay heavy ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... minutes, returned, panting and perspiring, bearing a tape-measure, borrowed at the next farm-house. With all the solemnity of a sacred rite being performed, the youths waited, as Butch and Tug, holding the tape taut, carefully measured from the ground to the top of the barbed wire on the gate. Three times they did this, and then, with an expression of gladness on his honest countenance, Butch hugged the dazed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., while Tug Cardiff howled, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... then came forward with his old hand extended and trembling in a palsy of eagerness, and despite the turmoil of a few minutes before, such a taut silence prevailed that the asthmatic rustiness of the old man's breath was an audible wheezing ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the taut lasso with his left hand, and with the right he swung the other rope, catching the noose round Wildfire's nose. Then letting go of the first rope he hauled on the other, pulling the head of the stallion far down. Hand over hand Slone ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... the end of a lasso. The cowboy who had thrown it nimbly jumped down, and at that moment his horse began to rear and prance and suddenly to lower his head close to the ground and kick high. He ran round in a circle, the fallen steer on the taut lasso acting as a pivot. The cowboy loosed the rope from the steer, and then was dragged about on the grass. It was almost frightful for Madeline to see that cowboy go at his horse. But she recognized the mastery and skill. Then two horses ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... are and the island ahead is a stretch of roaring water dangerous enough looking. We have learned ere this, however, to sit tight and watch for events. The careless Indians have straightened into keen-eyed, responsible voyageurs, each muscle taut, every sense alert. Our boat goes first, one half-breed with huge pole braces himself as bowsman, the most able man takes the stern sweep, the others stand at the oars. Fifteen minutes of good head-work brings us to the island and we step out with relief. The ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... are in possession, our business is to hold taut and take in slack right along, never letting go for ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... was long. He had taken a turn or two around a limb before making his cast, and he now held the bear taut, with ease. The loose end ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... would mourn for her own daughter. I must touch up the horses a bit. I want to get home. I may not be able to go out again to-night. Last night I was up until dawn with Clara." Gordon touched the horses with a slight flicker of the whip. He held the lines taut as they sprang forward. His face was set ahead. James glancing at him had a realization of the awful loneliness of the other man by his side. He seemed to comprehend the vastness of the isolation of a grief which ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... in shining bronze come crying Into a silver sky, Piercing and jubilant is the shape of their flying, Their beaks are pointed with delight, Curved sharply with desire, The passionate direction of their flight, Clear and high, Stretches their bodies taut like humming wire. The cold wind blows into angry patterns the jet-bright Feathers of their wings, Their claws curl loosely, safely, about nothingness, They clasp no things. Direction and desire they possess By which in sharp, unswerving flight they hold Across an iron sea to the golden beach Whereon ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... By a trick of the firelight she seemed to have no body. The oval of the face and hair hung beside the fire with a dark vacuum for background. As if dazed by the glare, her green-blue eyes stared at the flames. Every muscle of her face was taut. There was something tragic in her thus staring—her age ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... a whimper floated to him. He grew rigid, every nerve taut. He dared not let himself believe it could be real. Of course he was imagining sounds. Presently, no doubt, he would hear voices. In this devil's caldron a man could ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... weather leech of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... struggling was the rod I held: I tugged and tugged: my efforts made me ache: 'How, with a line thus slight, this monster take?' Then gently, just to warn him he was caught, I twitched him once; then slacked and then made taut My line, for now he offered not to ran; A glance soon showed me all my task was done. 'Twas a gold fish, pure metal every inch That I had captured. I began to flinch: 'What if this beauty be the sea-king's joy, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... go flying away with him, jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... to depict the bestiality of that day; and if I had I would think it sin to write of it. The helm was lashed on the port tack, the haulyards set taut, and all hands down to the lad who was the cook's scullion proceeded to get drunk. I took the precaution to have a hanger at my side and to slip one of Cockle's pistols within the band of my breeches. I was in an ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reproach Ralph for his unfaithfulness, he made a circle of the field at a full, swinging gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... to the fore-top-mast staysail, or to some providential sea, the vessel did fall off, however, and presently she righted, coming up with great force, with a heavy roll to windward. The staysail helped us, I feel persuaded, as the stay had got taut in the wreck, and the wind had blown out the hanks. The brig's helm being hard up, as soon as she got way, the craft flew round like a top, coming up on the other tack, in spite of us, and throwing her nearly over again. She did not come fairly down, however, though I thought she was ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... little sorry for her, and also a bit rueful at his own plight. Things had gone wrong for him from the commencement of the evening. And this—well, the gage of battle had been flung in his face and he was no man to refuse the challenge. But his muscles were taut until the soft voice of Naomi broke ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... that Edith could adjust the rope about his neck. Then he stood upright while Hans drew the rope taut across the overhead branch. ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... mishap. At the Hellespont the Phoenicians had for co-partners the Egyptians only, and the two nations appear to have displayed an equal ability.[14297] Cables were passed from shore to shore, made taut by capstans and supported by an almost continuous line of boats; planks were then laid upon the cables, and covered with brushwood, while a thick layer of earth was placed upon the top. A solid causeway was ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... you are preparing may kill us," said Gleameil, in a low, taut voice, "but we shall ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... the probability of the skipper being able to fulfil his promise, when a howling squall swept through the taut rigging and between the masts of the ship, causing the whole fabric to vibrate with a barely perceptible tremor, while the swish and patter of heavy rain resounded upon the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... caught the ends of the iron and began to twist up on them. There was no result at first. He refreshed his hold and tried again. The sleeves of his shirt were seen to swell and then grow hard and taut with vast play of muscle beneath. His head bowed lower between his shoulders, and those shoulders trembled, and the muscles over them quivered like heat-waves rising of a spring morning. There was a creaking, now, and then the iron was seen to shiver and then bend, slowly, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... entering the sitting-room. He was not the bent, deferential old gardener, nor was he the Feller changed to youth as he thought of himself at the head of a battery. His features were hard-set, a fighting rage burning in his eyes, his sinews taut as if about to spring upon an adversary. When he recognized the intruders he turned limp, his head dropped, hiding his face with his hat brim, and he steadied himself by resting a hand on ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... the folded paper in his pocket, then hastened back to the line. Hal ran the submarine far enough back to leave the double line all but taut. Seizing the rope with both hands, Jack made his way swiftly up to ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... its breaking, there are four other ropes of the same material secured to the body of the anchor, to serve in case of accidents. There is no strain whatever in the meantime on these reserved ropes, which hang slack, and would only come taut and into play in case of the principal rope ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... remained poised for a fraction of time over the upturned face of the man lying in a position of disadvantage. Then it lunged downwards. And as it descended, a sound like the clipping of teeth came back to the taut strung senses of the onlookers. A sigh escaped from ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... it, Phil!" called Dave, but this warning was unnecessary, for the shipowner's son was already galloping across the field as rapidly as the nature of the ground permitted. The horse easily kept the lasso taut, thus worrying ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer |
