"Muzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you,' said Sir George. He was sorely tempted to put the muzzle of a pistol to the other's head and risk all. But he fancied that he knew his man, and that in this way only could he be effectually cowed; ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... object pressed upon him while in Port Mahon, and he succeeded, by his personal enthusiasm, in arousing Erskine's interest in the matter; but the latter was loaded to the muzzle with objections. "Sir James," said Nelson to Troubridge, with the amusing professional prejudice they both entertained, "enters upon the difficulty of the undertaking in a true soldier way." "I am just come from Sir James," he wrote to Hamilton ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... days before shot with it a green-headed parrot at a distance of two yards. The distance was not great, to be sure, but it was enough for his purpose—intending, as he did, to meet his foe, when the moment of action should come, in close conflict, and thrust the muzzle of his weapon down the said foe's throat before condescending to draw ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the doctor called the second squad to wheel towards it. The dominie, on the left of the first, saw what was going on below. Revolvers were emptied and clubs brought into requisition. He could not load his old muzzle-loading piece to save his life, but he knew single stick. Two men were tackling the brave old colonel, while a third lay wounded at his horse's feet. The dominie sped down to the road like a chamois, and threw himself upon the man on the colonel's right, the dissipated farmer. He heard a shot, felt ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... of the clearing the blue rangers were running, stooping, slinking forward, and increasing in numbers every second. In a few minutes not a stump near the edge of the bush but had a muzzle pointing out from beside it. Soon not one but four great, solid masses of redcoats were showing through the trees, less than a quarter of a mile away. Presently they all formed up correctly, and stood quite still ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... that he was peering into the muzzle of a double-barrelled gun, probably loaded with buck-shot. The ranchman was pointing it directly at his head, with both triggers cocked. Brown saw he was in earnest, and asked if that was the charter. The ranchman ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... crisp and new. Even fingers that were clumsy and trembling found little difficulty in making a spill of it and inserting it (this with less ease) into the muzzle of the rifle. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the barrel of the gun Little mischief could be done; But on that sad morn a whim Suddenly seized hold of him; 'Twas the lunatic desire To observe how shot-guns fire; So he boldly took his stand Where the barrel ended, and, All agog to solve the puzzle, Poked his napper up the muzzle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... his head back in agony, heaved toward them, ridden by a naked yellow infant in a nest-like saddle of green fodder. Scenting with fright the disgusting presence of white aliens, the sleep-walking monster shied, opened his eyes, and lowered his blue muzzle as if to charge. There was a ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... commanded Solomon, as he screwed the muzzle of the weapon up against the lad's head. "Uf you do, you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... old boy," said Ned, patting the glossy muzzle of his faithful comrade. "This is no time for feasting and banqueting. We are hunting Mexicans, you and I, and after that business is over we may consider ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... scratching and another piece dropped and broke on the floor. Now he knew a living agency was at work. Job growled. Ambrose clutched his muzzle. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Harry and his men then, with much labor, lowered a four-pounder carronade down the forehatch, and wheeled it to within a few feet of the bulkhead which divided that portion where the prisoners had been confined from the after part. The gun was loaded to the muzzle with grape, and discharged, tearing a hole through the bulkhead and killing and wounding many within. Then the officer in ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may count upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... distinguish him, as merely the head was above water, and this was concealed by the deep shadow thrown by the high grass. Thinking that he would die, I went to bed; but before this I took the precaution to arrange a white paper sight upon the muzzle of my rifle, without which, night shooting ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... larger stream. Again the boy whistled, and a black pony came trotting out of the brush, the bridle hanging from the saddle horn. "Tramp and I can make it all right, can't we old fellow?" said the boy, patting the glossy neck, as the little horse rubbed a soft muzzle ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... the direction of the stables, but his malady was not so distressing that he failed to hear a groan and a snarling curse from Henson. Enid fled back along the track, where she found Bell standing patiently with a dog's muzzle close to either knee. His face was white and shining, otherwise he showed no signs of fear. Enid laid a hand on the head of either dog, and they rolled like great cats at her ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... had disappeared round the base of El Palomar, he continued to gaze. Eventually he was brought out of his reverie when a cur dog belonging to one of the teamsters on the grading gang thrust a cold muzzle into his hand. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... meets, simply because its rapid motion is the vehicle by which the energy of the gunpowder is transferred from the gun to where the blow is to be struck. Had the cannon been directed vertically upwards, then the projectile, leaving the muzzle with the same initial velocity as before, would soar up and up, with gradually abating speed, until at last it reached a turning-point, the elevation of which would depend upon the initial velocity. Poised for a moment at the summit, the cannon-ball may then be likened to the clock-weight, for ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... from the mouth of Captain Asher; he was choking to death. In the same second that she heard it Olive thrust the muzzle of the pistol against the side of the man's head and ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... Francis, and, I must confess it, my dear dog Flora, who had never left me. Francis told me, that she had tried to defend me, and flew at the savages; but one of them took my apron, tore it, and tied it over her mouth like a muzzle, bound her legs, and then threw her into the canoe, where the poor creature lay at my feet, moaning piteously. She arrived with us in this island, but I have not seen her since; I have often inquired of Parabery, but he could not tell me what had ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... our lines above the cannons' roar: 'Advance, and take those colors'[C]—Adown the slope Like Bengal tigers springing at the hounds, We sprang and met them at the border wall: Muzzle to muzzle—steel to steel—we met, And fought like Romans and like Romans fell. Even as a cyclone, growling thunder, roars Down through a dusky forest, and its path Is strown with broken and uprooted pines Promiscuous piled in broad and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... increased your quota of sedation, and when that didn't help you looked for a real escape. It was always available to you if you searched long enough; waiting at the tip of a knife, in the coil of a rope, the muzzle of a gun. You could find it at the very bottom of a bottle of pills or at the very bottom of the courtyard outside your window. Harry recalled looking for it there ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... not rush out immediately; instead, they waited to be sure that their victim did not rise. Then they came rapidly from their concealment, and bent over him. It was soon apparent that he was not dead. One of the men put the muzzle of his gun to the back of Tarzan's head to finish him, but another waved him aside. "If we bring him alive the reward is to be greater," explained the latter. So they bound his hands and feet, and, picking him up, placed him on the shoulders of four of their number. Then the march was resumed toward ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... alone over the fire in the twilight, in a somewhat forlorn mood, when the door was pushed ajar, and the muzzle of a gun entered, causing her to start up in alarm, scarcely diminished by the sight of an exultant visage, though the words were, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... began to waver; it stopped, then began a retreat on the run, followed by the bullets of the machine gunners. Mattia was yelling and whooping as he pumped away with his weapon, elevating its muzzle a little from time to time that he might be sure to reach the ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... went away, and several hours later I found a letter he had shoved under the table-cloth. I read it, and rushed out and hitched up a horse and drove like mad to my brother-in-law's, but I got there too late, the poor boy had taken a shot-gun to his room, and put the muzzle into his mouth, and set off the trigger with his foot. In the letter he told me what was the matter—he had got into trouble with a woman of the town, and had caught syphilis. He had gone away and tried to get cured, but had fallen into the ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... fortress belonging to the United States. Its ball carried with it the hatreds, the rages of thirty years, shaped and cooled in the mould of malignant deliberation. Its wad was the charter of our national existence. Its muzzle was pointed at the stone which bore the symbol of our national sovereignty. As the echoes of its thunder died away, the telegraph clicked one word through every office of the land. That word ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... tamer of wild beasts, and these wild beasts are his passions. To draw their teeth and claws, to muzzle and tame them, to turn them into servants and domestic animals, fuming, perhaps, but submissive—in this ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... narrow couch with Jenny on his lap. I took off for him, not wasting a good chance when he was handicapped. But I hadn't counted on Jenny. She was up, and her head banged into my stomach before I knew she was coming. I felt the wind knocked out, but I got her out of my way—to look up into the muzzle of ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... to lose countenance, when up jumped Sneezer to my relief out of the boat, with an old cocked hat lashed on his head, a marine's jacket buttoned round his body, and his coalblack muzzle bedaubed with pipe—clay, regularly monkeyfied, the momentary handiwork of some wicked little reefers, while a small pipe sung out quietly, as if not intended to reach the quarterdeck, although it did ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... prompt work. At the same time he lifted the carbine from the ground, he cocked the weapon. At that moment the open jaws of the aroused jaguar were thrust into his face, and the hot breath of the wild creature fanned his cheek. The next instant he ran the muzzle of the firearm into the maddened brute's throat ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... and charge backward and forward among the bushes, but, not finding any of the party, he at length returned to the plain, where the dead were lying. He first approached the cow, and then the calf, and then repeatedly passed from one to the other, placing his broad muzzle to their bodies, and uttering his grunting roar, apparently in a more plaintive strain ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... Indians loved him. They'd never touch him; but when the Rebellion broke out, 'twas Wandering Spirit went dancing mad for revenge from one end o' the Reserve t' th' other! When the massacre came, the officer had tripped the little Indian fellow to his face an' was pointin' the old muzzle loader at the back o' his head to blow out his brains, when along comes the MacDonald man an' kicks the gun from the bully's hand! Little Wandering Spirit up an' he pours that muzzle loader into the officer's ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... when Tartarin came home from hunting on Sunday evenings, with his cap on the muzzle of his gun, and his fustian shooting-jacket belted in tightly, the sturdy river-lightermen would respectfully bob, and blinking towards the huge biceps swelling out his arms, would mutter among one another ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... to see Del Pinzo himself bearing down on him astride of a powerful black horse. The Greaser was yelling and waving his gun, from the muzzle of ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... It was a lion with his four limbs fastened to a cross like a criminal. His huge muzzle fell upon his breast, and his two fore-paws, half-hidden beneath the abundance of his mane, were spread out wide like the wings of a bird. His ribs stood severally out beneath his distended skin; his hind legs, which were nailed against each other, were raised somewhat, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... during the process, it rolled about in a way which sorely tried the bear's patience. At length it came to rest against the trunk of a tree, with which solid backing Mokwa was enabled to thrust in his muzzle far enough to lap up the ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... the gun. They were mounted on ten-inch howitzer carriages, which answered the purpose admirably. The shells used were generally strapped to wooden bottoms; but they were more than once employed without any precaution, except that of putting them in the gun with the fusees towards the muzzle. The hot shot were heated in the engine fires, and were brought on deck by two men in a machine resembling a double coal-box, which was easily tilted up at the muzzle of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... was carefully circulated by my friends the insurance companies by way of offsetting the effects of my revelations of their jugglery of the people's funds. Later I showed up the fellow so vigorously that John D. Rockefeller ordered Mr. Rogers to muzzle him in his own paper, whereupon arrangements were made with a New York weekly to act as the sewer-conduit for the lies and abuse this thug was warranted to ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... their arrogance, their venality, and their shameful disregard of the Constitution. In short, he seemed bent on imposing a tyrannical yoke, hard to be endured, and to punish unlawfully those who resisted it, or even murmured against it. He would shackle the press, and muzzle the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... American mechanical genius; invented a method of converting muzzle-loading rifles into breech-loading; died unrewarded ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... keeps on growing—that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous—since our catastrophe—and I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go, but it did no good—she is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... house were over-crowded, ill-smelling and unsanitary. In these ramshackle affairs the loggers were packed like sardines. The bunks were arranged tier over tier and nearly always without mattresses. They were uniformly vermin-infested and sometimes of the "muzzle-loading" variety. No blankets were furnished, each logger being compelled to supply his own. There were no facilities for bathing or the washing and drying of sweaty clothing. Lighting and ventilation ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... thus had everything gone to wreck, had I not given instant orders to Gog and Magog to sally forth. They plunged into the water, and swimming on each side, got at length right before the animal, and then seized the reins. Thus they continued swimming on each side, like tritons, holding the muzzle of Sphinx, while I, sallying forth astride upon the creature's back, steered forward on our voyage to the Cape of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... shoulders. Then he turned to the trail in front, and her face, as it had been when he first saw her and as it was now, came back to his memory. Once, toward midnight, he drew up till they reached him, her horse's muzzle nosing soft against his pony's flank. He could see the gleam of her eyes, fastened on him, wide ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... friend P. [Protopopoff] are to continue his destructive activities. He must muzzle the Press more closely, hold up all food, and continue provocative work in all quarters. It is only by producing extreme suffering that you can bring about an uprising for peace. Code now ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... article on "Rifled Guns" in the "Atlantic Monthly" for October, 1859, has the following passage: "No breech-loading gun is so trustworthy in its execution as a muzzle-loader; for, in spite of all precautions, the bullets will go out irregularly. We have cut out too many balls of Sharpe's rifle from the target, which had entered sidewise, not to be certain on this point; and we know of no other breech-loader so little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... waters he had discovered. He did not give his preceptor time to answer the difficult question, but laid his hand upon his arm and whispered that he was to look between two rocks, for a jackal was there, slinking away—turning his pointed muzzle to us now and then. To see he isn't followed, Azariah added: and the observation endeared him so to Joseph that the boy walked for a moment pensively in the path they were following. It turned into the forest, and they had not gone ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... the front, our lad so leal, and the works were almost won, A moment more and our flags had swung o'er the muzzle of murderous gun; But a raking fire swept the van, and he fell 'mid the wounded and slain, With his wee wan face turned up to Him who feeleth His ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... party to the German gun. Number One had been killed by a shot from Angus's revolver. Number Two had adopted Hindenburg tactics, and was no more to be seen. Angus himself was lying, stone dead, a yard from the muzzle of the gun which he, single-handed, had put out ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... candle or bamboo, who would do precious little while another is about to shoot at them. There is a world of difference between looking in a bull's-eye, and looking in the eye of man. A pistol, too, looks far less innocent, regarded through the medium of a yawning muzzle, than the rounded and neatly-polished butt. The huge mouth seems to dilate as you look upon it. You already begin to fancy you behold the leaden mass—the three-ounce bullet—issuing from its stronghold, like a relentless baron of the middle ages, going forth under his grim archway, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... run to aid him. It was comparatively simple, therefore, to spring high in the air, and he struck fairly and squarely behind the saddle of the man in the linen coat. When he landed his revolver was in his hand and the muzzle jabbed into the back ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... in moments of stress and trial, even in times of tragedy, the most commonplace thoughts will intrude themselves and the mind separate itself from the immediate events. As Merode put the cold muzzle of the revolver to Ailsa's temple and she ought, one would have supposed, to have been deaf and blind to all things but the horror of her position, one of these strange mental lapses occurred, and her ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of his hand, measuring the quantity with his eye—for it was an evidence of a hunter's skill to be able to get the proper quantity for the ball. Then he put the charge into the barrel. Placing a little greased linsey rag, about half an inch square, over the muzzle, he laid a small lead bullet on it, and with the ramrod began to push the ball into ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... and he glanced up at the light. But the muzzle of the gun was level with the light! A wrong move and he knew the thing would be over even ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... course some nation may, in secret, be making a bigger gun than any I have ever heard of. As far as I know, however, the largest one ever made for the United States was a sixteen-inch rifled cannon—that is, it was sixteen inches across at the muzzle, and I forget just how long. It weighed many tons, however, and it now lies, or did a few years ago, in a ditch at the Sandy Hook proving grounds. It was ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... than to climbing. Their diet includes practically everything eatable they can capture or kill. The typical representative of the genus is the yellow baboon (P. cynocephalus, or babuin), distinguished by its small size and grooved muzzle, and ranging from Abyssinia to the Zambezi. The above-mentioned anubis baboon, P. anubis (with the subspecies neumanni, pruinosus, heuglini and doguera), ranging from Egypt all through tropical Africa, together with P. sphinx, P. olivaceus, the Abyssinian P. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... just as it had done in America. Such articles are no doubt far more effective than open, undisguised assaults could possibly be, for the cleverness of the evasion gives additional zest to the attack. The Press is a hard dog to muzzle, and, like dogs in general, only vicious when muzzled. The Japanese will soon find it safer to "let Truth and Error grapple" in the full face of day, for they ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... leaned forward. The muzzle of his revolver was very bright, and he held it in fingers which were firm ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... look-out. It was early in the evening—the poor slave came along, when the ambush rushed upon him, and ordered him to surrender. He refused, and kept them off with his club. They still pressed upon him with their guns presented to his breast. Without seeming to be daunted, he caught hold of the muzzle of one of the guns, and came near getting possession of it. At length, retreating to a fence on one side of the road, he sprang over into a corn-field, and started to run in one of the rows. One of the young men stepped ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the wild spectre-looking stranger, whom I had lost sight of during the last few minutes. A ball had struck him, and he fell heavily to the ground, his rifle, which had just been discharged, and was still smoking from muzzle and touchhole, clutched convulsively in both hands; his features distorted, his eyes rolling frightfully. There was something in the expression of his face at that moment which brought back to me, in vivid colouring, one of the earliest and most striking incidents ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... you'd never catch me" and she patted the chestnut mare, who turned her blowing muzzle with contemptuous humour towards Shelton's steed, while her flanks heaved ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... new, the best that we know Was that performed by JOSEPH AGOSTINO, The gunsmith who, by burglars often vext, A week or two since plotted for the next By planting cunningly a wide-bored fusil, With buck-shot loaded half-way to the muzzle, Right opposite the window to which came The nightly thief, to ply his little game; And to the trigger hitching so a string, That when the burglar bold was entering The charge went off, and, crashing through the shutter, Relieved the rascal of his bread and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... cried the Colonel, rather suddenly. "This is what we are come to now. Here's a brat of six begins taking notes against his own father; and he improves on the Scotch poet—he doesn't print 'em. No, he accumulates them cannily until he is twenty, but never says a word. He loads his gun up to the muzzle, and waits, as the years roll on, with his linstock in his hand, and one fine day at breakfast he fires his treble charge of ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... statue, the committee wrote out to her at Rome as one who would naturally feel an interest in getting something fit and economical for them. She accepted the trust with zeal and pleasure; but she overruled their simple notion of an American volunteer at rest, with his hands folded on the muzzle of his gun, as intolerably hackneyed and commonplace. Her conscience, she said, would not let her add another recruit to the regiment of stone soldiers standing about in that posture on the tops of pedestals all over the country; and so, instead of going to an Italian statuary with ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... growing weak he made no haste. He came to dense clumps of bushes, and plowing his way through them, he saw a dark opening under some trees thrown down by an old hurricane. Having some vague idea that it might be the lair of a wild animal, he thrust the muzzle of his rifle into the darkness. It touched a soft substance. There was a growl, and a black form shot out almost into his face. Henry sprang aside, and in an instant all his powers and faculties returned. He had stirred up a black bear, and before the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... great solemn eyes, and a soft, warm nose. The very sight gave the boy courage, and at his next whistle the old horse carefully picked his way down the bank, and reaching down his long neck, felt Jacky's shoulder with his velvety muzzle. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... the sand proved that only one sampan had been beached. Thence he found nothing of special interest until he came upon the chief's gun, lying close to the trees on the north side. It was a very ornamental weapon, a muzzle-loader. The stock was inlaid with gold and ivory, and the piece had evidently been looted from some mandarin's junk surprised and sacked in a ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner) lent me his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that it was only half-cock, and I wrapped a napkin round the dog-head, for it was raining. Not being well acquaint with guns, I kept the muzzle aye away from me; as it is every man's duty not to throw his ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... king, and which happened to be the same M. de Rosny had given me. I took it, marvelling impatiently at the careful manner in which he handled it; but in a moment I understood for I found it loaded to the muzzle with gold-pieces, of which two or three fell and rolled upon the floor. Much moved by this substantial mark of the king's gratitude, I was nevertheless for pocketing them in haste; but the Marquis, to satisfy a ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... over to where one of Bellairs' guns was being run forward into place again and Colonel Carter followed him. There was blood dripping from the muzzle of it. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... it would be at the muzzle end of the rocket tube, and the fuel would burn forward at so many inches per second. The refractory lining would resist the rocket blast for a certain time and then crumble away. Crumbling, the refractory ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... was set on fire and was soon burnt to the ground. The whole detachment now moved up the hill, and the Americans, secure behind their entrenchments reserved their fire till the British troops were almost close to the muzzle of their guns. They then opened a terrible discharge of cannon and musketry, and their volleys were so rapid and skilfully directed that the British troops recoiled, and many fled to the boats which had conveyed them, over the river. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... they were all held tight in Belding's arms. Then he ran to Blanco Diablo. For once the great horse was gentle, quiet, glad. He remembered this kindest of masters and reached for him with warm, wet muzzle. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... full to the muzzle. Shouldn't wonder if she'd bust." Each soldier took his position. A tremendous volley of cannon shots suddenly rained on the fort. It seemed as if the British had fired every gun at the same instant. A profound silence ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... queer-gamm'd smutty Muns Was once my fav'rite man, Though rugged-muzzle tink'ring Tom For me left maw-mouth'd Nan: Though padding Jack and diving Ned, [1] With blink-ey'd buzzing Sam, [2] Have made me drunk with hot, and stood [3] The racket for a dram; Though Scamp the ballad-singing kid, Call'd me his darling frow, [4] I've tip'd them all ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... many types of bayonets. The first was what they called a 'Plug,' because it was made to fit into the muzzle of a flint, or match-lock. Then there was the socket bayonet, the ring bayonet and an improved weapon invented by an English officer named Chillingworth which met with much favor in the armies of Europe. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... a South and East African carnivorous mammal (Proteles cristatus), in general appearance like a small striped hyena, but with a more pointed muzzle, sharpe ears, and a long erectile mane down the middle line of the neck and back. It is of nocturnal and burrowing habits, and feeds on decomposed animal ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he held out the jug to the donor of the birds, who only nodded, and said, as if he had gone off again, "Drink;" and propping the gun up against the crippled cart, he took off his rough jacket and hung it over the muzzle. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... a shout and made for Bullard, only to be brought up short by a shining muzzle almost ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... on towards me. I had barely time to grasp a revolver when he was close up to me. Already I felt his hot breath in my face; his huge claws had hold of my limbs; he was trying to clasp me round the body: his muzzle, with its sharp teeth, touched on my shoulder. Poor Obed, who was standing behind me, unable to render me assistance, literally shrieked with fear, not for himself, but for me. In another moment I felt that I must ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... have owned all the clouds that passed over it. If a rabbit ran from Smith's land to Brown's land, it belonged to Brown, as if it were his pet dog. The logical answer to this would be simple: Any one stung on Brown's land ought to be able to prosecute Brown for keeping a dangerous wasp without a muzzle. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... thinking that they were poisonous: they are of the bigness of a kid, and in length an ell and a half: their feet are long and thick, and armed with big claws: they have a hard skin, and are of various colors: they have the muzzle and face of a serpent: and from their snouts there rises a crest like a saw which extends along the middle of the back as far as the tip of the tail: in fine we deemed them to be serpents and venomous, and (nevertheless, those ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... stood for almost a minute perfectly motionless, like a statue cast in bronze, his head turned from me, listening for any suspicious sound. Then, with a swift and easy movement, he laid his arms and shield noiselessly upon the rocks, and, dropping on all fours beside a pool, he dipped his muzzle down and drank just like an animal. I could hear the thirsty sucking of his lips from where I lay. He drank and drank as though he never meant to stop, and when at last his frame could hold no more, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... persons, this allowance is increased. In 1888 the coal thus given by the company amounted to 598,550 quintals, representing a money value of 359,150 francs. This is not only a practical application of the Scriptural injunction 'not to muzzle the ox which treadeth out the grain;' it is a practical contribution to the solution of the great 'question' which M. Doumer in his Report tells us the 'true Republic' has been for ten years making believe to ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... he still tugged at the mouth of his refractory mount, Frank saw the smoke shoot out from the muzzle of the gun as the ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... or Canis australiensis. I never saw one nearer than from twenty to thirty yards, and was unable to procure a specimen. Its colour is the same as that of the Australian dog, in parts however having a blackish tinge. The muzzle is narrow, long, thin, and tapers much, resembling that of a greyhound, whilst in general form it approaches the English lurcher. Some of the party who went to Timor stated it to resemble precisely the Malay dog common to that island, and considered it ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... female coyote lowered her head, drew a test sniff of a new scent. She recognized that as part of the proper way of life. She yapped once at her mate, but he was absorbed in his night song, his muzzle pointed moonward as ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... go by the wayside; go up in smoke, end in smoke &c. (fail) 732. render powerless &c. adj.; deprive of power; disable, disenable[obs3]; disarm, incapacitate, disqualify, unfit, invalidate, deaden, cramp, tie the hands; double up, prostrate, paralyze, muzzle, cripple, becripple[obs3], maim, lame, hamstring, draw the teeth of; throttle, strangle, garrotte, garrote; ratten[obs3], silence, sprain, clip the wings of, put hors de combat[Fr], spike the guns; take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... fat and lazy! She's been in the fields ever since you left. Not a bridle on her. Many times have I seen her poke her black muzzle over the fence and look down the lane. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... beating them off in any way we can," replied the middy, as his friends all called him from that time. "I have the gun pointing to a certain object on the river, which Captain Carboneer's steamer must pass. He can't help putting his craft where the muzzle of this piece will cover it; and if we pull the lock-string at that instant, the shot will knock his steamer all to pieces, and spill ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... its wild instincts. A weakness in that thong, a slip of the collar, and Wolf would have bounded joyously into the forests to seek for ever the packs of his fathers. Now the babeesh rope was taut, Wolf's muzzle was turned half to the sky, his ears were alert, half-sounding ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... found himself abruptly face to back with what appeared at first glance to be an enormously broad and bow-legged dwarf, with a bald head and a black tail coat, which, in an attitude of savage curiosity, was gazing through a gigantic instrument, whose muzzle projected from an open window into a spacious area. So great was the Prophet's surprise, so supreme the shock to his whole nervous system occasioned by this unexpected encounter, that he did not utter a cry. His amazement carried him into that terrible region which lies beyond ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... unanimous, unstable mob-mind for the one of them who would make the first action that would precipitate all of them into a common action. Sheldon looked for this one, for such was the one to fear. Directly beneath him he caught sight of the muzzle of a rifle, barely projecting between two black bodies, that was slowly elevating toward him. It was held at the hip by a man in ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... The muzzle of the detector began to swing back and forth slowly and precisely, covering the valley inch by inch. He heard their whispered consultations drifting up from below, though he couldn't make out ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... Lord was upon him. If, instead of fearing, you will trust in the Lord to put his Spirit upon you when there is need of it, you may overcome Satan as easily as Samson did the lion. Daniel was thrown into the lions' den, but they did not eat him. God put a muzzle on them, not a literal muzzle, but something still more effectual, and they could ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... dust, His holy master had implored, in true Assurance he was heard, he downward thrust A heap of stones. O what things may he do That in the Saviour wholly puts his trust! The stones beyond the use of nature grew; Which rolling to the sandy plain below, Next, neck and muzzle, legs and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... traces till they saw Shorty begin to undo the sled-lashings and Smoke attack the dead spruce with an ax; whereupon the animals dropped in the snow and curled into balls, the bush of each tail curved to cover four padded feet and an ice-rimmed muzzle. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... fingers in a row; replying to the observation that the animals were very greedy, by stretching his arms to heaven, showing the empty troughs, lifting ends of wood, tearing up tufts of grass which he carried to his lips, grunting as if he had his muzzle full. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... suddenly, for von Schalckenberg's hand was on his collar, and von Schalckenberg's pistol-barrel was making its presence uncomfortably felt as the muzzle pressed coldly against his scalp just behind the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... proper only, the little 'Chrysothrix' (Fig. 16) differs very widely from the Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does; while the Baboons ('Cynocephalus', Fig. 16) exaggerate the gross proportions of the muzzle of the great Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and human by comparison with theirs. The difference between the Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater than it appears at first sight; for the great facial mass of the former is largely due to a downward development of ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... country, and the source of all our domesticated breeds as well as of the few wild ones that remain, such as the Chillingham breed, which is small, white, with the inside of the ear red, and a brownish muzzle. Some, however, assert they are merely the descendants of a domesticated breed run wild, which have reverted somewhat to the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... couple of days with a single net. Our dogs were fed on this fish, which appeared to be much larger than the European species. In the spring-time the Kolyma settler can revel in game, for swans, geese, duck and snipe abound, although weapons here are very primitive and the muzzle-loader prevails. Elk and Polar bear are occasionally shot in the winter, but the former have become scarce, and the latter only ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... appearance was so unusual that a group of townsfolk had already assembled round him, staring with open mouth at his horse and himself. A battered gun with an extremely long barrel was fastened by the stock to his stirrup, while the muzzle stuck up into the air behind him. At each holster was a large dangling black bag, and a gaily coloured red-slashed blanket was rolled up at the back of his saddle. His horse, a strong-limbed dapple-gray, all shiny with sweat above, and all caked with mud beneath, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ball into it, and then a third and a fourth, and now shouting to let the men know the brute was wounded and dying, I ran on deck, and putting the muzzle of the gun to the creature's glazing eye, fired, and this did its business, for just one spasm ran through it, and then the terrible, muscular ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... low and involuntarily, he managed to roll over so that he fell on his back. He saw the form, a patch of irregular blackness in the darkness around him and knew it for a body. He got to his feet glancing around, not knowing what this meant. He bent over the form, keeping the furnace beam's muzzle only a few inches from it, but too far back to be grabbed suddenly. He couldn't see the man's clothing very plainly but he could tell it was a patrolman's uniform. Nelson reached down to feel for a heartbeat and drew his hand away sticky with what he knew must be blood. ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... Netherlands were to be, in reality, a republic, of which Anjou was to be a kind of Italian or Frisian podesta. "The Duke is not to act according to his pleasure," said one of the negotiators, in a private letter to Count John; "we shall take care to provide a good muzzle for him." How conscientiously the "muzzle" was prepared, will appear from the articles by which the states soon afterwards accepted the new sovereign. How basely he contrived to slip the muzzle—in what cruel and cowardly fashion he bathed his fangs in the blood of the flock committed to him, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... leaning heavily upon a hand that rested flat on the table, in the other he likewise held a revolver, which he had apparently drawn in self-defense, at the crisis of Mulready's frenzy. Its muzzle was deflected. He looked Kirkwood over with a cool gray eye, the color gradually returning to his fat, clean-shaven cheeks, replacing the pardonable pallor ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... solved the problem by adopting the "gaining twist," in which the grooves start from the breech nearly parallel to the axis of the barrel, and gradually increase the spiral, until, at the muzzle, it has the pitch of one revolution in three to four; the pitch being greater as the bore is less. This gives, as a result, safety from stripping, and a rapid revolution at the exit, with comparatively little friction and shallow groove-marks on the ball,—accomplishing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... alarm he quietly summoned his men, with their rifles, into one corner of the enclosure. Then in his usual soft voice he directed each man to take deliberate aim at some one of the prominent chiefs. He himself presented the muzzle of his rifle within a few yards of the head of the leader of the now astonished and affrighted party. This was all the work of a moment. Then calmly he said to the leader, "leave this fort instantly or you are dead men." A moment of hesitation on their part, a word of parleying ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... whipped out a revolver and leveled it at the running man with the child in his arms. Mead had been looking at the ground, choosing his course, and then had glanced at Paul's face for a moment. When he raised his eyes again he saw the shining muzzle of a revolver pointed at his breast and above it the savage, revengeful, triumphant face ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... jutted into the slanting sunshine, and the pulseless air of declining day was suddenly set to stir and throb by the crackle of encircling musketry. And then was seen the wisdom of the veteran's defence. Few of the hostiles, as yet, had other than old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles, and few that they owned were effective over six hundred yards. By stationing his better shots in rifle pits well forward from the buildings on every side, Archer easily held the foe at a distance so long as they dare not "rush" his outposts. ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... down at the muzzle of his sixshooter from which a slim curl of gray smoke spiralled lazily upward. Then his eyes veered to the man he had shot and to the man's sixshooter lying on the edge of the sidewalk. It, too, like his own gun, was thinly smoking at the muzzle. The burly youth put a hand to ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... the scent of the piece of loaf to the mule's nostrils, and the temptation was too great to resist. At any rate it stretched out its neck and extended its muzzle, so that head and neck were nearly in a straight line, and uttered a shrill, squealing whinny, which was answered at once by the donkey with a sonorous trumpeting bray, as the lesser animal came cantering up with tail and ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... knows fear," he said, as he leaned his hands upon the muzzle of the rifle he still carried, and stood there, proud and defiant, like a bronze statue, he was so motionless ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... right in the face of my chief antagonist, who fell with a cry of terror. Looking in the direction from which this dangerous assailant had come, I perceived another in the air, and saw that not a moment was to be lost. Dropping my gun with the muzzle between my feet, and holding it so far as I could with my numbed left hand—releasing also my guide, but throwing him to the ground as I released him—I drew my sword; and but just in time, with the same motion with which I drew it, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... our ranks, especially in Missouri division. Surgeon recommends 385 eighty-pounders be loaded to the muzzle, first with blank cartridges,—to wit, Frank Pierce and Stephen A. Douglas, Free-Soil sermons, Fern Leaves, Hot Corn, together with all the fancy literature of the day,—and cause the same to be fired upon the disputed territory; this would ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... that would be considered difficult going even in Canada. At the end of twenty minutes my every garment was not wringing but dripping wet, so that when I carried my rifle over my arm water ran down the barrel and off the muzzle in a steady stream. After a bit of this my knees began to weaken; and it became a question of saving energy, of getting along somehow, and of leaving the actual hunting to Memba Sasa and the guide. If they had shown me a sable, I very ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... hand could descend upon him. The other was slower and Ellhorn had him by the arm before he could thrust his hand into his pocket for his revolver. Herrera's knife slid into position against his wrist and Tuttle's revolver clicked. The Mexican looked dauntlessly into its black muzzle, but saw that his companion was submitting, and that both were covered by the guns of ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... him!" a new voice commanded harshly, and Casey obeyed. His captor shifted the gun muzzle to the back of Casey's neck and poked the gasping, bearded old ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... was he willing to allow. He waxed eloquent in its behalf. His enthusiasm took to itself wings and made a great display of ecclesiastical zeal beautiful to behold. "The Sabbath," quoth the teacher who endeavored to muzzle the students of Lane Seminary on the subject of slavery, whose ultimate extinction his prophetic soul quiescently committed to the operation of two centuries; "the Sabbath," quoth he, "is the great sun of the moral world." Out upon you, said Garrison, the LORD GOD is the great ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke |
