"Spike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shade. Among the white-ant hillocks shot upwards here and there euphorbias, with boughs like the arms of a candle-stick. In the sky vultures soared, and lower there flew from acacia to acacia birds of the raven species with black and white plumage. The grass was yellow and, in spike, looked like ripe rye. But, nevertheless, that dry jungle obviously supplied food for a great number of animals, for several times each day the travelers met considerable herds of antelopes, hartbeests, and particularly zebras. The heat ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... kind of silly fumbles. Now, what you need is formation—see? Must have some sort of formation for advance. Must keep in touch. For two men a tandem is right. For three men, what you want is a spike-team—middle man crawls ahead, other men follow on each side just near enough to touch his left heel with right hand and right heel with left hand—a triangle, see? Keep touching once every thirty seconds. If you miss it, leader crawls back, side men crawl ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... the crew used a special handspike quite different from the garrison handspike. It was a long, round staff, with an iron handle bolted to its head (fig. 33a). The trail transom of the carriage held two eyebolts, into which the foot of the spike was inserted. A lug fitted into an offset in the larger eyebolt so that the spike could not twist. With the handspike socketed in the eyebolts, lifting the trail and laying ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... the significant moment some other bloom has reached its perfect hour. One can never fix the precise moment when the rosy tint the field has from the wild almond passes into the inspiring blue of lupines. One notices here and there a spike of bloom, and a day later the whole field royal and ruffling lightly to the wind. Part of the charm of the lupine is the continual stir of its plumes to airs not suspected otherwhere. Go and stand by any crown of bloom and the tall stalks do but rock a little as for drowsiness, ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... it made him grim, and to his sense of humor that such things could be came the smile. A prince in the New World and in the Nineteenth Century!—Now here was as incongruous a juxtaposition as a bull in a crockery shop. And the result?—A people robbed of their dignity as men; a spike among the cogs, and the machinery everywhere grinding discordantly. For the pilfered people, however, the matter could be righted, and Driscoll felt his vague wrath as one with theirs. Together they would drive the bull from ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... remain there; every prospect of security depended on my joining the crew, but it was not in my power to desert my position. I could hear the hurrying feet of the watch tramping across the deck in response to LeVere's orders; the heavy pounding of a marling-spike on the forecastle hatch, as Haines called for all hands. I was aware that men were already mounting the ratlines, and laying out on the upper yards to make sail, while the capstan bars began rattling. Yet ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... moment to the limbo of forgotten tribulations. Reliance on relieving expeditions was considered foolish; all our thoughts and energies were centred in a desire to stay the slaughter of the innocents, and thus in a manner to spike the enemy's guns. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... around on the pile of rails a good deal. They afforded anything but a comfortable resting place. Finally he seemed to decide that he would change his seat. He edged along with the apparent intention of reaching a heap of spike kegs. He never, however, took his eye away from Ralph. Ike, too, held his weapon at a continual menace, and gave his captive no chance to act against him ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... from the beginning of their journey till they are surrendered to the saw-mills. Each wears shoes the soles of which are thickly studded with iron brads an inch long; and each carries a long pole called a "pick-pole," which has a strong sharp-pointed iron spike in the end. This they drive into the wood, and it supports and steadies them as they spring from ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... soldiers called him. Invariably he spent some part of his day among his beloved peasants, and daily he recited with them public prayers. Often at night he and they together went up to the teeth of the Russian batteries on expeditions to spike the cannon. His inseparable companion, Niemcewicz, who slept with him in his tent till the-end came, describes how the silence of these nights was broken hideously by the wild, shrill cry of the reapers, by the sudden roar of ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... of all whom they could master, and then, cutting off their heads, carried them away with them. They sang and danced when the enemy were likely to see them. They carried also a spear of about fifteen cubits in length, having one spike.[34] They stayed in their villages till the Greeks had passed by, when they pursued and perpetually harassed them. They had their dwellings in strong places, in which they had also laid up their provisions, so that the Greeks could get nothing from that country, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... yell of agony as the spike, by the force of his weight and speed, was driven home ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... spike of grass could be seen and the soil, a loose red sand, was in most places covered with a scrub like a thick-set hedge of Eucalyptus dumosa. Many a tree was ascended by Burnett, but nothing was to be seen on any side different to what we found where we were. We travelled from an early hour in ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... here a hammer. I will drop it to the floor. Listen. Is the noise very loud? Here I have a heavy railroad spike. Hear the noise this makes as it is dropped. And now I shall drop this large nail. The noise that made is not nearly as loud as the noise occasioned by the falling hammer. Here is a small nail. You will have to listen ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... I received a message from Teppahoo to acquaint me the heifer was brought to Matavai. I immediately went on shore and found that he had been as good as his word. The purchase money was paid, which consisted of a shirt, a hatchet, a spike nail, a knife, a pair of scissors, a gimlet, and file; to which was added a small quantity of loaf-sugar. Teppahoo appeared well pleased with his bargain; and I sent the heifer to Poeeno's residence near which was plenty ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... hear of any of these "ostreiras," which, if they exist, must reflect the Sambaquis of the opposite Brazilian shore. The house was guarded by three wooden figures, "clouterly carved," and powdered with ochre or red wood; two of them, representing warriors in studded coatings of spike nails, with a looking-glass fixed in the stomach, raised their hands as if to stab each other. These figures are sometimes found large as life: according to the agents, the spikes are driven in before the wars begin, and every ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to himself when the fat Hindoo had gone, "then the sooner the British quarrel with both of them the better. Howrah alone I can dispose of easily enough, and there is yet time before rebellion starts for the British to spike the guns of the other two. By the time that is ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... deceased otherwise might find its way back to the old home." [305] At Athens the right hand of a person who had taken his own life was struck off and buried apart from the rest of the body, evidently in order to make him harmless after death. [306] Similarly, in England suicides were buried with a spike through the chest to prevent their spirits from rising, and at cross-roads, so that the ghost might not be able to find its way home. This fear appears to have partly underlain the idea that suicide was a crime or ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... was upon his knees, and with his knife-blade was digging around a plant, as if to raise it by the roots. It was a small herbaceous plant, with erect simple stem, oblong lanceolate leaves, and a terminal spike of not very conspicuous white flowers. Though I knew it not then, it was the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... pronounced a single word, but his face had grown pale for a moment. Letting go of his hand-spike, he ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... spring back and mercifully hurl afar from our cruel, sinful world the suffering flesh held to earth by the enormous spike piercing the feet. Dislocated, almost ripped out of their sockets, the arms of the Christ seemed trammelled by the knotty cords of the straining muscles. The laboured tendons of the armpits seemed ready to snap. The fingers, wide apart, were contorted in an arrested ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... much afraid for Minucianus, lest he should light upon the Germans now they were in their fury, that he went and spike to every one of the soldiers, and prayed them to take care of his preservation, and made himself great inquiry about him, lest he should have been slain. And for Clement, he let Minucianus go when he was brought to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... latter weakness gave Mr. Hamlin a new idea. He put up the penknife with which he had been paring his nails while wondering why his hands had become so thin, and awaited events. She presently turned, approached the buckeyes, plucked a spike of the blossoms with great girlish lightness, and then apparently discovering Mr. Hamlin, started in deep concern and said with somewhat stentorian politeness: "I BEG your pardon—didn't know I ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... dog. "Urrrr!" he snarled, "if I only had you three down on the level with my bay'net fixed. Draw a big breath, sir. Up yer comes. Now, then, you hold fast with yer right. Hook it round my neck, and don't get the spike o' my 'elmet in your eye.—Now, then, my lad; ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... doing the amiable to the lively Julia, although we never could persuade him to confess his penchant; and, on this occasion, he had attached himself to their immediate sleigh. Provided, like the Canadians, with poles terminated by an iron hook at one end and a spike at the other, we made our way after their fashion, but in quicker time than they possibly could, harnessed as they were in the sledges. With the aid of these poles, we cleared, with facility, chasms of from ten to twelve feet, and, alighting on our moccasined feet, seldom incurred much risk ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... spike of iron, Gainest, readiest, Gar, cause, Gart, compelled, Gentily, like a gentleman, Gerfalcon, a fine hawk, Germane, closely allied, Gest, deed, story, Gisarm, halberd, battle-axe, Glaive, sword, Glasting, barking, Glatisant, barking, yelping, Gobbets, lumps, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... orb shot, sparkling, from the east Unseen before), for these, largest and least, Were fold-lamps, lighted nightly: and ye knew Far differing glory in the night's dark blue Suddenly lit with rose, and pierced with spike Of golden spear-beam. Oh, a dream, belike! Some far-fetched vision, new to peasant's sleep, Of paradise stripped bare!—But, why thus keep Secrets for them? This bar, which doth enclose Better and nobler souls, why burst for those Who supped on the parched pulse, and lapped the stream, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... horse rose in the middle of the water with one single spike in him, and the ring ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... gave me two staves to propel myself with. At the end of each was an iron spike, and above it a guard of wicker-work, about ten inches in diameter, to prevent the stick from sinking deeper. "These staves," he added, "are very useful when the snow is soft and the skees do not glide easily. ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... a near relative of the foregoing, H. psycodes, but far less fortunate in its attributes of beauty, its long scattered spike of greenish-white flowers being so inconspicuous in its sedgy haunt as often to conceal the fact of its frequency. Its individual flower is shown enlarged at Fig. 12—the lip here cut with a lacerated fringe (H. lacera). The pollen-pouches approach ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... he'd rather not come in, as long as we have company. He says he isn't dressed for dinner; left his spike-tail in the city." ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... count for anything, if they get a signed confession out of her. Now we both know she is innocent. I'm willing to do what I can to help you. Turn about is fair play. If you want to send me out there, I'll try to spike their guns. Maybe I can get there in time to put fresh heart in the girl. She's safe if she doesn't go to pieces and say something she oughtn't ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... closing the door behind him. The terrified boy did as he was told immediately he found himself on land, and the giant, quick to observe his flight, dashed after him into the boathouse. Now Loki had cunningly placed a sharp spike in such a position that the great head of the giant ran full tilt against it, and he sank to the ground with a groan, whereupon Loki, seeing him helpless, cut off one of his legs. Imagine the god's dismay, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the saddle off Pard and hung it up by a stirrup on the rusty spike where she kept it, with the bridle hung over the stirrup, and the saddle blanket folded over the horn. She groped in the manger and decided that there was hay enough to last him till morning, and went out and closed the door. Her shadow fell clean cut upon the rough ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... came silently back, sliding into the soft dusk of that room almost like a wraith. He bore a silver tray with a hook-nosed coffee-pot of chased metal. The cover of this coffee-pot rose into a tall, minaret-like spike. On the tray stood also a small cup having no handle; a dish of dates; a few wafers made of the Arabian cereal called temmin; and a little ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... the proper method of celebrating the Sayang ceremony. [160] A little later the pig is removed from the balaua, and its throat is cut, first with a metal blade, but the deep, mortal thrust is made with a bamboo spike. The animal is then singed, but its blood is carefully saved for future use (Plate XXXIII). While all this is taking place, the men in the balaua drink basi and sing dalengs in which they praise the liberality of their hosts, tell of the importance of the family, and express hope ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... fleas, children, goats and votes to keep Sorenson and his gang in control. They've set out to bust this company, or tire it out till it throws up the sponge. They've spiked Magney, and they'll try to spike you next, and every manager who comes. That's plain talk I'm giving you, Mr. Weir, but it's fact; and if it doesn't sound nice to your ears, you can have my resignation ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... of old Caleb's barn had been cleared for that day, and through the afternoon the fiddles whined there, alternating with the twang of banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an' wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down an' ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the best-informed and most agreeable men I ever conversed with. Indeed for six months of the year they keep company with the most distinguished travellers of Europe. With these guides, each of us armed with a long pole with an iron spike, such as my uncle described to me ages ago, and which I never expected to wield, we came down La Flegere, which we mounted on mules. In talking to an old woman who brought us strawberries, I was surprised to hear ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... is passed and during drier weather, cultivation is carried on for a different purpose, namely, to conserve moisture by making a thin dust mulch of soil over the surface. This is best accomplished by shallow-going implements of which the spike-tooth harrow, the acme harrow, or a light wheel cultivator are best. As the season and the amount of rainfall vary, so must tillage operations be varied. In an early dry season begin with the lighter implements earlier. In a late wet season keep the digging tools at work later. As soon as ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... British force advanced they saw the Afghans gathering in strength on either side, and before they had gone five miles they were compelled to spike and abandon two six-pounders, the horses not having sufficient strength to drag them. They were now in possession of only two guns and very ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... loose lips and the straggling, unkempt beard, was a blank; and the worst wreck of the three which promptly followed the introduction of the new rules, was noted in his reports with the calm indifference with which he might have jotted down the breakage of a section foreman's spike-maul. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... for him when an old deer spoke to him and called him "young Spike Horn." About that time the forest folk had begun to speak of him as a "yearling." But there was something about "Spike Horn" that sounded much ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... so thin and delicate that he had to wrap them up carefully in a paper, and put them into his waistcoat pocket, in order to get them home safely. The children found several other curiosities besides shells. They collected pebbles, and specimens of sand, of different colors. Mary found an old iron spike, perhaps part of a vessel, with the sand and gravel concreted around it. It looked like stone growing upon iron. Rollo also found a small piece of wood, battered and worn by the long-continued action of the waves, and ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... drooping spikes about 1 inch long and 1/2 inch in diameter; dark purplish-red, oblong, sweet and edible; apparently a simple fruit but really made up of the thickened calyx lobes of the spike. ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... said the prince. "I know there are guards in every gallery, bolts to every door, cannon and soldiery at every barrier. How will you overcome the sentries—spike the guns? How will you break through ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Spike had been received on board the sloop-of-war, sent into her sick bay, and put under the care of the surgeon and his assistants. From the first, these gentlemen pronounced the hurt mortal. The wounded man was insensible most of the time, until the ship had beat up and gone into ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... reluctance—for I have always admired Ned Hanlon's pluck—that the national game never received so severe a set-back as it did during the last Baltimore series here. The effort to spike players, the constant flow of profanity and vulgarity, the incessant and idiotic abuse of an umpire, all combined to make the Baltimore club—that local people have been led to believe was made of a crowd of earnest, honest players—thoroughly despised ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... to see," Pierce's voice came apologetically after a pause in which some background noise sounding like a crash came over the televiewer speaker. "It started swinging around when I came in sight, so I just rammed it with that pretty ornamental nose spike. I'm backing off now with ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... energy. "It is as clear to me as sunshine,—were there any in the sky,—that the greatest possible stumbling-blocks in the path of human happiness and improvement are these heaps of bricks and stones, consolidated with mortar, or hewn timber, fastened together with spike-nails, which men painfully contrive for their own torment, and call them house and home! The soul needs air; a wide sweep and frequent change of it. Morbid influences, in a thousand-fold variety, gather about hearths, and pollute the life of households. There is no such ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... creamy folds of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured clusters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the theatre, and beside them lay several perfumed envelopes with elaborate monograms. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the fort on the hill," Ralph said, as he watched the flags run up on the signal-staff on the summit of Spike Island; "and they are answering down below there at the station in front ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... hearing me whistle airs, and procured me a Tibetan Jews'-harp,* [This instrument (which is common in Tibet) is identical with the European, except that the tongue is produced behind the bow, in a strong steel spike, by which the instrument is held firmer to the mouth.] with which, and coarse tobacco, which I smoked out of a Tibetan brass pipe, I wiled away the dark evenings, whilst my cheerful companion amused himself ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... ye oil of blossoms get? Take it from my Julia's sweat: Oil of lilies and of spike? From her moisture take the like. Let her breathe, or let her blow, All rich ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... them, and breaking their ranks they fled wildly through the streets. Some succeeded in reaching the gate by which they had entered, but only to find that their escape was cut off in this direction; for one of the Plataeans had closed the gate, using the spike of his javelin to secure the bolt. Others lost their way in the narrow and muddy streets, and wandered up and down until they were slain by the Plataeans. A few contrived to escape by an unguarded postern-gate, having cut through the bolt with an axe given them by a woman. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... impression of a stranger when observing the conduct of a mahout or driver is sympathy for the animal, which is governed through the severe authority of the iron spike. This instrument is about twenty inches long, and resembles somewhat an old-fashioned boat-hook, being a sharp spike at the extremity beyond the keen-pointed hook; it can thus be used either to drive the elephant forward by digging the point into its head, or to pull it back ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... in his way; but he is a man who has risen too fast, as other men rise too slowly. Nothing in him; no substance, madam; I knew him as a youngster, and I could have tossed him on a marling-spike. And instead of feeding well, Sir, he quite wore himself away. To my firm knowledge, he would scarcely turn the scale upon a good Frenchman of half of the peas. Every man should work his own way up, unless his father did it for him. In my time we had fifty men ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... them was a rim of jade with a flower-pattern running round it—only the leaves were emeralds, and the blossoms were rubies sunk in the cool, green stone. The rest of the handle was a shaft of pure ivory, while the point—the spike and hook—was gold-inlaid steel with pictures of elephant-catching; and the pictures attracted Mowgli, who saw that they had something to do with his friend ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... I would do that!—I should crawl somehow as far as the city to have one look at your poor dear head sticking on a spike, and then I should creep down a side street, and lay my head on ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... him, and Matt turned about and said, "Hello, Caryl!" and yielded him a sort of absent-minded hand, while he kept his face turned smilingly upon the men. Some were holding the rails in position, and another was driving in the spike that was to rivet the plate to the sleeper. He struck it with exquisite accuracy from a wide, free-handed rhythmical swing of ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... avoid it. He fell at once where he stood, but attempted to rise again, when I gave him another prick which settled his business. He fell back heavily against the counter with a groan. One of the heads above was shaken off its spike by the concussion and struck him on the shoulder as he lay. His eyes, opening and shutting convulsively, seemed to gaze upon the ghastly object. He groaned again, and in a few moments was dead. I bent over him with the lantern, ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... which it belongs." How land-lubbers would be able to understand the marine technicalities Mr. RUSSELL introduces into his stories without explanations such as this, it would be difficult to say. But with such assistance, a studding-sail-boom becomes as easy of identification as a marling-spike lashed to a forecastle spinaker-boom, close hauled aport under trysails, blowing out like flags from the grips of clew-lines and leech-lines towards the close of a second dog-watch! Shiver LINDLEY MURRAY'S timbers! but what can be finer than a bulkhead battened down with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... higher until it seemed to broaden out at the base; and then with a quickening of the pulse Frank realized that what he saw was the spike of ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... in a bunch of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... lesser, pitch or glue it over: Then take one Pound of Powder, eight ounces of Roch-alom, four ounces of live Sulphur, two ounces of Camphire, Linseed-oyl, and that of Petrolum, each an Ounce and half, an ounce of Oyl of Spike, with two ounces of Colophonium bruis'd and well mixed together, and stuff the Ball hard with it, with a Stick pitch or glue it over again, binding it with Marline on Pitch, on that leave two Vents or ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... many a merry squeeze. I am highly delighted with Mr. Allan's etchings. "Woo'd and married and a'", is admirable! The grouping is beyond all praise. The expression of the figures, conformable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely faultless perfection. I next admire "Turnim-spike". What I like least is, "Jenny said to Jockey". Besides the female being in her appearance quite a virago, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn! I sincerely sympathise with him! Happy am I to think that he yet has a well-grounded ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... enemy was fighting an exceptionally fierce rearguard action. A terrible shell fire was directed against our artillery under General Findley, temporarily situated in a valley by the village of Prise. It seemed a matter of moments when we should have to spike our guns and General Findley ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... Mr Mackay with deep meaning, swinging round on his heel, all alert in an instant; and taking hold of a short bar of iron pointed at the end, lying near, which Tim Rooney told me afterwards was what is called a "marling-spike," he proceeded to rap with it vigorously against the side of the companion hatchway, shouting out at the same time so that he could be heard all over the ship: "Tumble up, all you idlers and stowaways and everybody! Below there—all ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... These cheat themselves, and seem to go to sea! Their galley launch'd, its rate of sailing fast, Th' Equator soon, and soon the Poles they've past, And here they come to anchorage at last! These, tightly stirrupt on a wooden horse, Ride at a ring—and spike it, as they course. Thus with the aid that ships and horses give, Life passes on; 'tis labour, but they live.— And some lead "bouledogues" to the water's edge, There hunt, a l'Anglais, rats amidst the sedge; And some ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... She spike quite calmly, even cheerfully now, thinking out her plans, ready for the worst if need be; she would show no more weakness, she would prove herself worthy of him, who was about to give his life for the sake of ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the designer had managed to give rudely in the figure of a Zouave in a fierce attitude; and the other was thrust toward Russia, a huge colossus with Calmuck dress, and features. The most conspicuous thing in the giant's dress was a helmet with a spike projecting from the top, much too large for the head of the wearer, and therefore falling over his eyes until they were almost blinded by it. The style of the helmet was that of the usual head-dress of the Prussian soldier. The caricature ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... (daedalus) attacks and honeycombs it; and riddled as it may occasionally be, still, if spike or nail finds substance enough to hold, or sufficient solidity to resist crushing, then, for many purposes, even such lumber is practically as good as the soundest timber; because when the tree dies the fungus dies, and thenceforth will absorb ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... glass o' grog for you that would float a marline-spike. See if that don't warm the cockles of your ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... carefully round a spike of coral and landed on the reef, and with a shellful of rum and cocoa-nut lemonade mixed half and half, he took his perch on a high ledge of coral from whence a view of the sea and the coral strand ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... mainslacks, and splice your marline-spike. Where are you coming to?" cried Peeler, the coastguardsman—for such, we need hardly say, was the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... commanded by the steward, but the duties of his unpleasant office left him but little time for directing an invasion. Well, we got within reach of England when the wind began to blow, and before I could hitch myself up with a marling-spike, every man Jack of us was ready for Davy ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... the catapult. The crew released it. And a shower of spikes tore the invading ranks apart. Odin saw a white-skinned warrior go to his knees and scream as he tried to pull a six-inch spike from his eye. ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... is a small shrine and in it a golden eagle, which is found in all the legions that are on the register, and it never moves from the winter-quarters except the whole army goes forth on some errand. One man carries it on a long shaft, which ends in a sharp spike for the purpose of setting it firmly in the ground. Now of these so-called eagles one was unwilling to join him in his passage of the Euphrates at that time, but stuck fast in the earth as if planted until many took their places around ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... diagnose the case your way, Mr. Smith; that's a blamed sight better lard than I thought Muggins & Co. were making." And you'd have driven a spike right through that fellow's little joke and have nailed down his order hard and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... embellishment. The Busycon was almost universally employed as a vessel by the tribes of the Atlantic drainage of North America. Usually it was trimmed down and excavated until only about three-fourths of the outer wall of the shell remained. At one end was the long spike-like base which served as a handle, and at the other the flat conical apex, with its very pronounced spiral line or ridge expanding from the center to the circumference, as seen in Fig. 475 a. This vessel was often copied in clay, as many good examples now in our museums testify. ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... every man a proved and seasoned fighter; so will we, being smitten thus, forthwith smite back, and smite where the enemy will least expect. We'll march overland on Carthagena—I know it well—fall on 'em in the dead hush o' night, surprise their fort, spike their guns and down to the harbour for a ship. Here's our vessel a wreck—we'll have one of theirs in place. So, comrades all, who's for Carthagena along with me; who's for a Spanish ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... opportunity to take them by surprise, of which he did not fail to avail himself. Climbing over the shoulders of the tallest of his men, he crept silently through one of the embrasures and was instantly followed by the rest. Their first care was to make fast the door of the guard-room, and their next to spike the cannon, thirty-six in number. Having effected this without bloodshed, they proceeded to join the detachment which had been sent to the north; and finding that a false alarm had deterred them from executing their orders, Jones instantly ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... worn out, they will have almost lost the knowledge of their own. A stone-hatchet is, at present, as rare a thing amongst them, as an iron one was eight years ago; and a chisel of bone or stone is not to be seen. Spike-nails have supplied the place of these last, and they are weak enough to fancy that they have got an inexhaustible store of them; for these were not now at all sought after. Sometimes, however, nails much smaller than a spike would still be taken ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... with long, snakelike bodies, and ten reptilian legs apiece, terminating in fins which acted as wings. The bodies were of bright blue, the legs and fins were yellow. They were flying, without haste, but in a somewhat ominous fashion, straight toward them. He could make out a long, thin spike projecting from each of ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... always be driven home straight and at right angles with the face of the ties. When the foreman in charge of the track-laying work sees a spiker, when the spike is nearly home, strike the spike head laterally, which is done to make it lie snugly to the rail, he should at once check such imperfect work and put the man who does it at other work. The foreman in charge of gang of spikers should be experienced in this branch of the work, and by weeding out ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... it was brought Mr. Sparling snatched it from the hands of the tentman. Raising the pole, assisted by the boss canvasman, he was able to reach the loop. The iron spike in the end of the pole was thrust through the loop, and by exerting considerable pressure they were able to force the loop ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... this unfortunate fellow was in a very tight place. A great spike of aloe had run through the back of his skin waist-belt, though without piercing his flesh, in such a fashion that it was impossible for him to move, while within six feet of him the injured buffalo bull, ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... source of the decidedly opposite views which they took of the subject. Mr. Pitt, about to surrender the possession of power to his rival, had a very intelligible interest in reducing the value of the transfer, and (as a retreating army spike the guns they leave behind) rendering the engines of Prerogative as useless as possible to his successor. Mr. Fox, too, had as natural a motive to oppose such a design; and, aware that the chief aim of these restrictive measures was to entail upon the Whig ministry ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... the cider mill, and, with the agent in the seat, started off on its rounds. In this field corn had been raised the year before, and it would be planted in oats this year, so the plow was omitted and the double disk and spike-toothed harrow used. Bob and his grandfather stood for a half hour watching it work, then Bob went to the barn and got out the team and began plowing the garden, which adjoined the field in which the ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... we glided into the still basin of Cove. How I remember every white-walled cottage, and the beetling cliffs, and that bold headland beside which the valley opens, with its dark-green woods, and then Spike Island. And what a stir is yonder, early as it is; the men-of-war tenders seem alive with people, while still the little village is sunk in slumber, not a smoke-wreath rising from its silent hearths. Every plash of the oars in the calm water as I neared the land, every ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... through which they had peered out into No Man's Land, the slits in them half covered by the flap so as just to give a man room to peep through them. There was the machine-gun platform, with a long, empty belt still lying on it. There was the periscope standing on its spike, which had been stuck into the trench wall. It looked out straight across No Man's Land, but both mirrors ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it. And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a secret: it is this: Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your dead bait for a Pike; and then cast it into a likely place; and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water, and so up the stream; and it is more than likely that you have ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... if she had just scored a goal in a hockey match. You understand she had not committed suicide. Her heart had just stopped. I saw her, with the long lashes on the cheeks, with the smile about the lips, with the flowers all about her. The stem of a white lily rested in her hand so that the spike of flowers was upon her shoulder. She looked like a bride in the sunlight of the mortuary candles that were all about her, and the white coifs of the two nuns that knelt at her feet with their faces hidden might have been two swans that were to bear her away to kissing-kindness land, or wherever ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... five feet long, are used to kill the larger animals. The arrows are made of a yellow reed without joint or knot. A piece of hard wood is inserted into the end, and in this a square hole is made, tightly bound round with cotton to keep it from splitting. Into this square hole a spike is fitted, and dipped in the poison, while at the butt-end a couple of feathers are fastened to steady it in its flight. The hunter carries a number of these poisoned spikes. As the spike easily breaks off, or slips out when the animal is wounded, he recovers ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... appeared to subsist on fish and fern roots. They were evidently poorer than those seen previously, and their canoes are described as "mean and almost without ornament." They soon understood the value of iron, and readily took spike nails when trading, and greatly preferred "Kersey and Broadcloth to the Otaheite cloth, which show'd them to be a more sensible people than many ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... two horses, for the trip to Heath Falls. The neighbor-woman hesitated; but when Hannah threw in the two pewter candlesticks, which came from her mother's family, she could resist no longer. In her own family they had only spike-iron candlesticks, and it was her one chance of acquiring a pair of fine ones. So she wheedled her husband into agreeing to the bargain; and there was Hannah ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... him, impaled upon the horribly sharp stake formed by fining down a good-sized tree and planting it in the bottom, a hideously wolfish-looking hyaena, which, less fortunate than himself, had fallen upon the sharp spike, which had gone completely through the wretched animal's body, leaving it writhing, snarling, and clawing the air with its paws in its vain ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... army reaching out to cut off their retreat, and this dreadful thing about to tear the insides out of their fort with four-hundred-pound shot at quarter-mile range, there was nothing for them to do but consult their own safety, which they did with such haste that they did not spike a gun, or destroy a ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... of mud six feet broad to one of thirty. The only pleasant reminiscence which I have about it was the finding in flower a beautiful parasite, undescribed by Griesbach; {192} a 'wild pine' with a branching spike of crimson flowers, purple tipped, which shone in the darkness of the bush like a great bunch of rosebuds ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... I'll tell yer. If I was to tell yer, 'Ere, Bill, give me that 'andspike,' that wouldn't be a hanthem;' but was I to say, 'Bill, Bill, giv, giv, give me, give me that, Bill, give me, give me that hand, handspike, hand, handspike, spike, spike, spike, ah-men, ahmen. Bill, givemethat-handspike, spike, ahmen!' why, that would ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... Most of the materials, however, were carried clear away: one of the large couples was caught on the bedpost marked d, and held fast by the iron spike; while the end of it hung over our heads: had the beam fallen an inch on either side of the bedpost, it must necessarily have crushed us. The walls did not go with the roof; and we remained for half an hour, alternately praying ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... placed in the form of a square, upon each other, as high as they wish to have the house; the ends of these timbers are let into each other, about a foot from the ends, half of one into half of the other. The whole structure is thus made, without a nail or a spike. The ceiling and roof do not exhibit much finer work, except among the most careful people, who have the ceiling planked and a glass window. The doors are wide enough, but very low, so that you have to stoop in entering. These houses are quite tight and warm; but the chimney is placed in a corner. ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... it were between the fort and the river; but presently when one of Hamilton's cannon spoke, M. Roussillon saw the yellow spike of flame from its muzzle leap directly toward the church, and he thought it best to make a wide detour to avoid going between the firing lines. Once or twice he heard the whine of a stray bullet high overhead. Before he had ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... but is sometimes found in a sitting position, as in graves recently discovered on Lord Wantage's estate, Berks. Coffins of hollowed trunks of trees were occasionally used, but these were not common. If the dead man was a warrior, his weapons were buried with him, and we find the head and spike of his spear, heads of javelins, a long iron broad-sword, a long knife, occasionally an axe, and over his breast the iron boss of his shield, the wooden part of which has of ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... command of the 9th Lancers on Cleland being disabled, to make a second charge, which he executed with the utmost gallantry,[11] but to no purpose; and in the meanwhile Smyth-Windham had given the order to unhook and spike ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts |
