"Thud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... took a long while, the frozen clods of earth fell with a scattering thud, the shadow of the hole deepened by imperceptible degrees. Once the labor stopped, the sack was lowered into the ragged grave; but the opening was too shallow, and the rise and fall of the ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... lithe, and active, he likewise possessed within him the white-hot flame of youth, and now, with a nameless fear to spurn him on, he ran as any healthy, frightened young animal would run. At the second turn Skinner had not passed him, but the thud of his feet was ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... was once more alive with the dances, and the dull thud of the Indian drum was continually in the air. The council had agreed that Antelope was entitled to wear a war-bonnet of eagles' feathers. He was accordingly summoned before the aboriginal parliament, and from the wise men of the tribe he ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... thud, thud, thud of many feet, and its clatter of vehicles, and its buzz of many voices, was a busy spot, and the pleasures were very cheap ones: and not here could I manage to get a glimpse ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... of it, he darted back and stabbed frantically at my heart. For my own part, I had hurled myself off the bed on the side opposite to him, and the blade grazed my side before ripping its way through blanket and sheet. An instant later I heard the thud of a heavy fall, and then almost simultaneously a second object struck the floor—something lighter but harder, which rolled under the bed. I will not horrify you with details, my friends. Suffice it that Papilette was one of the strongest swordsmen ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the grave was filled and the turf laid down, a trying quarter of an hour. Ah me! the thud of the spade on your mother's grave! None gave any sign of what he felt save Drumsheugh, whose sordid slough had slipped off from a tender heart, and Chalmers, who went behind a tombstone and sobbed aloud. Not even Posty ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... neither cried, screamed, turned deadly pale, clenched her fragile hands, bit her lips till the blood came, smashed a wine-glass, nor fell with a dull thud senseless to the floor. Nevertheless, she was extremely perturbed by this astounding revelation of Mr Bittenger's. Of course, dreams are nonsense. But still—The truth is, one tries to believe that dreams are nonsense, and up to a certain point one may succeed in believing. But it seemed to Vera ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... answered that I suited him, and that was enough. All this time they were doing something—I could not see what—to the corpse; sometimes they were too busy rifling the dead body, I believe, to talk; again they let it fall with a heavy, resistless thud, and took to quarrelling. They taunted my husband with angry vehemence, enraged at his scoffing and scornful replies, his mocking laughter. Yes, holding up his poor dead victim, the better to strip him of ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former incomplete attire of ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Everything was against him, for a heavy rain was falling, and there was no chance of Bryda coming out for a Sunday walk. But he went boldly up the steps before Mr Lambert's house and gave a heavy thud on the ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... The wind tore the sails to shreds. The sailors cast the anchor. With a thud it went into the sea, and for a moment held ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... a Georgie Cohan, gettin' red, white and blue by turns, and he pawed the air, gaspin' for breath like a fat piano mover. Before he can get set for a comeback, they's a loud crash outside the door, followed by the well known dull thud. In another minute Kid Scanlan walks in, draggin' somethin' after him by the ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... am hit!" groaned the ex-counterfeiter, and fell in a heap on the head of Sid Jeffers. Then the hatch came into place with a thud and in a twinkling ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... dropped into the greasewood beside the trail with a heavy metallic thud that augured a neat profit for the man ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... him quaver breathlessly, "I have the proof—the undeniable proof! They were intelligent beings. They did not die of disease. They were exterminated in war! They were ... but see for yourself!" There was a thud as he dropped something on the polished table top between the commissioner and Colonel Thayer. "That was dug up just now—among ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... inch one. Then a wad was put in, and a shell with one of the knotted ropes fastened to it dropped in the top. The rope had been coiled in a tub so as to run out easily. The gunner applied the match. There was a dull report, and every man held his breath to listen. There was a thud high up on the cliff and then ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... lay Cuchulain,[FN104] and slept, when a cry rang out; And in fear he heard from the north-land come ringing that terrible shout: He fell, as he woke from his slumber, with the thud of a weight, to the ground, From his couch on that side of the castle that the rising sun first found. He left his arms in the castle, as the lawns round its walls he sought, But his wife, who followed behind him, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... weakness of your chin and the appetite of your mouth suggest to me that you are not over scrupulous with the women who are in your charge. I guess rather than know that you have been turned down with a dull, sickening thud by a decent girl, and in your mortification you are attempting to invent a charge which has no substance and ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... For there was a thud and a faint crash repeated again and again, and though I could not see, I felt certain that the fire had attracted some deer-like creature, which had gone bounding off, till all was silent again, when I crept back, letting the canvas fall behind me, feeling ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... Stop there," thundered "Poker" John, and Jacky heard a thud as of a fist falling upon the table. "You've taken the unwarrantable liberty of poking your nose into my affairs, and, because of our old acquaintance, I have allowed it. But now let me tell you this is no d——d business of yours. There's no ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the ground out of Stonor's reach. Then, springing to his feet with incredible swiftness, he cut for the water's edge. But Mary stuck out her leg in his path and he came to earth with a thud. Stonor secured him. Clare from where she sat looked up ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... answer to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... they ceased, and a third time she struck the marble with her spear. Then the noises arose all about and around the very spot where we stood, and the clang of the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud of their ponderous hoofs flying over the earth made, as it were, a wind in my ears, so that it seemed as though a furious battle were raging all around us. But I could see nothing. Only the sounds increased, and became so violent that they awoke me, and even after waking I still seemed to ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... returned, however, when the creature attempted to climb up by his own ladder. Seven or eight times it made the attempt, while the boy watched in breathless anxiety, but each time it slipped when half-way up, and fell with a soft heavy thud on the ice below, which caused it to gasp and cough. Then it sat down on its haunches and gazed ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... wound and take two reeling steps forward; you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, and finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you kick out once or twice; your clinched hand comes down with a thud on the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... sixth sense, and watched and criticised with rapture, wanted to learn, and pouted at being told that it was not fit for a woman. Among those stacks of paper in the dusty loft, with the stamp and thud of the press close at hand, it was possible to forget, in creating sounds and longing to fulfil the dream of the spirit, that Alda was exacting and trying, Wilmet blind to the annoyances she caused, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... crying, with her fingers in her ears and her cap over her eye. She said she had been putting the hot water bottle to Aunt Selina's back, and it had been too hot. Just then something hit against the door with a soft thud, fell to the floor and burst, for a trickle of hot water came ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... say?" he cried, bringing the chair down with a remorseful thud. "'I'd work myself to skin and bone but I'd go through ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... strip off his clothes. His teeth were chattering. "Well, at last," he muttered, "I shall have some peace!" He threw himself on the bed, drawing the coverings up over his head.... Presently a thud shook the house. "He has slipped from his seat," said Suvaroff aloud. "It is all over!" And he drew the bedclothes higher and went ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his lips as a deep low hum—a Psalm tune sung by hundreds of manly voices—ascended to his ears, to the accompaniment of the heavy thud of horsehoofs, and from the London Road, between the bridge and the Royalist horsemen, there emerged a compact body of troopers, in steel caps and corslets. Forming in ranks of three abreast, they charged over the bridge, and speedily cleared off the Royalists ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had left me I was on the upper deck and looking out to sea. I saw all at once the wash of a torpedo, indicated by a snake-like churn of the surface of the water. It may have been about thirty feet away. And then came a thud." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... shimmering and dancing in the afternoon sun. In the field next to the camp an ancient Belgian was ploughing, his two big Walloon horses guided by a single cord, while from behind the farm there came the soft thud-thud of a football. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... sprightly hare On the bonny slopes o' Windsor lea, But oh, it's ill to bear the thud And pitching ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... for him. The smith was quite twenty yards distant, but, gathering himself together, he flung out his arm, and with all his might threw the iron bar at the retreating sentry. The missile sped true; over and over it twisted in the air, and, catching the soldier with a horrid thud in the ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... immediate duties elsewhere stampeded out of the mess. Overhead there was a thud of feet and ropes ends and the shrilling of pipes as the watch fell in. A Midshipman thrust his head inside the door of the Wardroom. "Boat's alongside, sir!" ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... and waist, and skirt, and shoes, subduing the snowy white with the amber of the peach, and the purple of the raspberry, as he ate the forbidden fruit. Then I watched him glide into the drawing room. There was a crash and a thud in there, which quickly brought his frightened mother to the scene, only to find the young rascal standing there catching his breath, while streams of cold ink trickled down his drenched bosom. And as he wiped his inky face, which grew blacker with every wipe, the remainder of the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... and from the tiny open space at the window caught glimpses of the passing pageant—of the royal coaches, of the maids of honor, of Josephine in gorgeous attire, of the snow-white poodle snuggled close in the Empress's arms. Then she told how she heard a heavy thud by the kitchen fire, which made her rush back, only to discover that the head cook had fallen to the ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... crowd, for they were swappin' hails right and left, and she was makin' dates for the next ground and lofty number, I expect; when all of a sudden they're stopped by someone, there's a brief but breezy little argument, and I hears a soft thud that listens like a short arm jab bein' nestled up against a jawbone. And there's Pimple Face doin' a back flip that ain't in his repertoire ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... winged ones rise Large and more large upon our straining eyes, Till with a sweep, while every nerve is tense, The chattering covey hurtles o'er the fence; The double crack of every lifted gun, The dinting thud of birds whose course is done— These sounds, delightful to his listening ear, He heeds no longer, for he cannot hear. None stauncher, till the drive was done, defied Temptation, rooted to his master's side; None swifter, when his master gave the word, Leapt on his course ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... room; the sound Of eager voices in discourse; the clang Of "sweet bells jangled"; thud of steel-clad feet That beat swift music on the frozen ground— All blent together in my brain, and rang A medley of strange noises, incomplete, And full of discords. Then out on the night Streamed from this open vestibule, a light That lit ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... upon the redoubt which had been located under counsel of Gridley, Prescott, Knowlton, and other officers, the dull thud of the pickaxe and the grating of shovels were the only sounds that disturbed the pervading silence, except as the sentries' "All's well!" from Copp's Hill and from the warships, relieved anxiety ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... flashes. Swish—clash! they sounded behind her; then a sickening jar, as Rothgar's terrible axe fell. A yell of agony rent the air. Swish—clash! the blows came faster; her ear could no longer separate them. The thud of the falling axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster, heavier and heavier,—they blended into a discordant roar that closed around her like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar's great charger followed the King; and here and ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... and steel; and as soon as they had comfortably bestowed Sandy and me on our horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smoke shot out through the bars of my helmet, all those people broke for the woods, and Sandy went over backwards and struck the ground with a dull thud. They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons they had heard so much about from knights and other professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade those people to venture back within explaining distance. Then I told them that this was only a bit of enchantment which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... three minutes to push up the lower sash. He managed to open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork: then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash, it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that rushed ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... up with a nervous movement. The crystal, left to itself, rolled off the table to the floor, and fell with a thud unbroken on the soft carpet. And I could hear the intake ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... the blows of the kettledrum-sticks. An abrupt silence prepares for a fierce thunderous clamor from the tympani and the great drum (beaten with the sticks of the side-drum). This subsides to a single thud of a kettledrum; there is another eloquent silence; the English horn returns to its first plaint; but grief has died of very exercise, and the work ends in a coda that establishes a major harmony and leaves the hearer with a ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... have struck the ground with a "dull thud," but for an unexpected buffer in the shape of one of his brother warriors, who happened to be standing directly under. As a consequence, the sprawling figure came down on the head and shoulders of the astounded Comanche, who collapsed with a feeling ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... the ground with a thud, and Hippy Wingate toppled over against Elfreda Briggs and sank down, uttering ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... looked out of the window; below, in the race, there was a jam of logs, and the air was keen with the pungent smell of sawdust and new boards. The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint quiver through the planks under his feet. "The mill will net a good profit this year," he said to himself, absently. "'Thalia can have pretty nearly anything she wants." And even as he said it ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... signal that I'll see them in hell before I bate a knot, why—you watched it yourselves—they struck me in the fo'castle, and there's two of my dead men below now; but they shall swing"—and he brought his fist upon the table with a mighty thud—"they shall swing, if there's only one rope ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... lead, fired first, but succeeded only in wounding the bear. Pain was now added to the savagery of hunger, and the infuriated monster rushed upon Phillips. Dave leaped back, but his foot slipped on a bit of ice, and he went down with a thud, his rifle flying from ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... and cheering and shouting. It was from the pirate sloop. The pirates were rushing about upon her decks. They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... violently upon it. He saw the chandeler swaying to and fro, as if a thousand lights were dancing before his eyes; saw the other guests staggering and falling. Statuettes, bric-a-brac, and articles of furniture came crashing down; part of the ceiling fell with a thud, raising a stifling dust, which, choking the shrieking voices, rendered more distinct the grinding sound, as walls of solid masonry drew apart, gaped, and closed under ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... avoiding his rushes as well as I might. Time and again our weapons crashed together, now above my head, now to right, or left, sometimes rattling in quick succession, sometimes with pauses between strokes, pauses filled in with the sound of heavy breathing and the ceaseless thud of feet upon the sward. I was already bruised in half-a-dozen places, my right hand and arm felt numb, and with a shooting pain in the shoulder, that grew more acute with every movement; my breath also was beginning to labor. Yet still Black George ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... rigid straightway. "I am not one to take back an offer," he stated loftily. His voice was weighted to a heavier guttural, and in the deep staccatos harshly chopped off, and each falling with a thud, there was a quality so ominous and deadly that even Jacqueline had her doubts. But she would not admit them, to herself least of all. "And I, Monsieur Ney," she said, "have decided to accept," though she had not really, until that ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of the great guns, the screaming of the carronade slides, the rattle of musketry, the groans of the dying, the shouts of his victorious sailors, the crash of the main-mast as it fell upon the bulwarks. Then the swift sissing ripple of water, the thud of the Araminta as she struck, and the cold chill of the seas as she went down. How cold was the sea—ah, how it chilled every nerve and tissue of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the blow so far that he escaped the full weight of the falling iron, which struck the floor endwise with a heavy thud. But before he could get beyond its reach the massive bar tipped over, falling in such way as to strike him in the side of the head, and felling ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... Austin when he was two years old, joined in the general protest. But Austin, disdaining to argue the point with any one of them, had already hobbled out of the room, and before they were well aware of it had begun to essay the descent perilous. Ominous bumps were heard, and then a dull thud as of a body falling. But a bend in the wall had caught the body, and the explorer was none the worse. Then Aunt Charlotte, rushing back into the bedroom, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the room, no one knew where he was. A party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the ballroom, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor, as the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off in ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... a saw—my heart made such a loud thud against my side I thought stars! she wanted "an ounce o' snuff," and that article was kept in a glass jar in plain sight on the other side of the store. There was a movement in that direction, and I recovered ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... for this voyage?" He spoke deliberate, grammatical English—he despised the American rendering of the language—but there was an indescribably foreign quality in his voice,—a something muted; and though he aspirated his "th's" with such conscientious thoroughness, there was always the thud of a "d" in them. Poppas stood before me in a short, tightly buttoned grey coat and cap, exactly the colour of his greyish skin and hair and waxed moustache; a monocle on a very wide black ribbon dangled over his chest. As to his age, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... rather than lose his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He cleared the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud of boots on the sod and the crash of branches behind him sent terror through the boy's frame, and he turned towards the creek that flowed sluggishly near by. He took great bounding strides, throwing ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... the floor level with a thud that shook the house, Mr. Gillie sneezed violently, a physiological phenomenon which curiously enough never failed to present itself when any extraordinary pressure was put upon his brain cells. Wiping his watery eyes ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... of men were supposed to be sleeping. They were not only not asleep but kept me awake by the roars of laughter which greeted the stories they were telling. However, I managed to doze off in time, and was rudely wakened early in the morning by the metallic thud of pineapples on the ground overhead. I was wondering what it meant when a man came down to the O.C.'s room, next to mine, and aroused him with the somewhat exciting news, "Major, the Germans are making an attack." It was not long before the Major was hurrying ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... their caps; then hundreds and hundreds of mounted fellows with needle-guns and sabres; then three regiments of infantry, marching in superb time. Every five hundred men had a drum corps and fifes playing in perfect unison. You could almost feel the ground shake with the steady thud of their march as they tramped on. The men looked dirty and tired, but were fat, and many of them were laughing. Looking down the road as far as possible, we could still see helmets, spikes, and guns all leaning exactly the same way, and glittering ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... thud resounded through the room; their eyes blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like drowning people, they fell to the floor. Then followed a prolonged and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with his fixed gaze the motions of the lion. Greatly irritated, the beast gave a mighty spring, uttering a terrible roar; the man, at the same moment, leaped aside, and the lion had barely touched the ground, when the club came down upon his head with a dull, shocking thud. The king of the desert rolled heavily under the stroke, and fell headlong, stunned and senseless, but ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... light was so dim and the room so crowded. The first thing that I saw when I scrambled to my feet was the fat dull face of the guard shining like a harvest moon, and presenting a mark for my fist as round and big as a punching-bag. I hit him once—and that was enough. Then I began to hear the measured thud of my brother's blows, the blows of a workman who knows how to ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Dickey full at him. He had no time to parry the shock, nor Macbeth to check the force with which Ben had sent him, and the consequence was that Richard and Macbeth fell almost directly on top of the struggling Othello with a thud that threatened to rend asunder each particular board of ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... were happening Columbus, sick at heart, was slowly plodding on the road to France. But he only went a little way on his long journey. For just as he was entering a narrow pass not far from Granada, where the mountains towered above him, he heard the thud of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... matter, studying, reading, praying, assuring himself from time to time that if any church were true this was the one, and that to enter it was probably his duty, now that Brownson's weight was likewise thrown into the scale and it went down with a warning thud, he thrilled through with apprehension. "I feel like throwing all up," he wrote in the diary on the day the letter reached him. "Some cannot rest. How much better would it have been could I have remained in quietness at my daily pursuits, and not ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... flew straight, descended, struck the beast, and started again into the air, doubled like a letter V. Quickly Photogen snatched the other, shot, cast his bow from him, and drew his knife. But the arrow was in the brute's chest, up to the feather; it tumbled heels over head with a great thud of its back on the earth, gave a groan, made a struggle or two, and ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... went the animal, struggling to get away from the remorseless grip. Then, when the water had reached its height, it shot the beast off to one side. Then the brute began to fall, twisting, turning, wiggling and struggling. Down it came with a thud that could be heard above ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... Then the Spaniard yelled like a devil, "Now look, Jim Barnet!—look!"— With that he jumped 'n' gripped her; She fought, but he broke her hold, Grabbed at the rope, 'n' missed it— Off of the bar they rolled, Clinched, 'n' Ide a screamin'; Thud!—they struck the ground; I turned all sick and dizzy, 'N' everything went round. How still it were for a second!— It seemed like an hour—'n' then The women was all a screechin', 'N' the ring was full ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... be an age to the terrified young woman crouching there in such utter fright, the vehicle stopped short with a sharp thud and a lurch forward that would have thrown Sally upon her face, had not her companion reached forward and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... moved to his horse's head and taken the bridle in her hand, and at once seemed to be lost in the gloom. But in a few moments he felt the muffled thud of his horse's hoof on the thick dust of the highway, and its still hot, impalpable powder rising ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... the night as you might rip linen, and fetched them to their feet. Taffy gained the porch first; and just at that moment a black shadow heaved itself on the churchyard wall and came hurling over with a thud—a clatter of dropping stones—then ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... neither of us spoke. The silence was broken by a thud, as if a flying squirrel had dropped from the roof to the balcony. A stick of wood fell apart in the grate, and the crow of the baby in the hooded cradle was answered by the ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... myself among the soaring columns of the palms, hung aloft with clusters of the great green nuts. Fallen palm fronds made a carpet for my feet—very pleasant after the rough and tangled way I had travelled, and now and again one of the cocoa nuts would fall down with a thud amid the green silence. One of these, which narrowly missed my head, suggested that here I had the opportunity of quenching very agreeably the thirst of which I had become suddenly aware. My claspknife soon made an opening through the tough shell, and, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... resting on another square block of iron embedded in the earth. This latter was the anvil. On the anvil the end of the white-hot bar was immediately laid. Another signal was given, and down came the "five-carts-of-coals weight" with a thud that shook the very earth, caused the bar partially to flatten as if it had been a bit of putty, and sent a brilliant shower of sparks over the whole place. Mrs Marrot clapped both hands on her face, and capped the event with a scream. As for Bob, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... sight of a figure crossing the road and entering the building he had just left. The colonel gave him time, and then retraced his steps. He took off his boots in the vestibule and went upstairs quietly. He was half-way up when he heard the soft thud of his own door closing, and grinned again. He gave the intruder time to get inside before he too inserted his key, and turning it without a sound, came into the darkened hall. There was a light in his room, and he heard the ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... out on the sill, he dropped from sight, the boys hearing him land with a thud on the turf below. It was no great leap, though the fall must have jarred him considerably, for the boys heard him grunt, and then ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... saint—or villain—enough to keep her dangling till sunset; but then, at latest, I shall have to cut her down; and woe to any Viking who happens to lie about loose and unattached, when she falls to earth with a dull thud." ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... parents would make him pay for it with his life. So he went off to a blacksmith and bought sharp knives and tied them on to the trunk of the palm tree: and when the Rakhas came back and tried to climb the tree, he was so badly cut by the knives, that he fell down to the ground with a thud and lay there groaning. Then the monkey cautiously descended and the Rakhas begged him to cure his wounds; the monkey answered that he would cure him if he gave him complete outfits for the children. The Rakhas said that ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... he announced in louder tones, "I'm going to let loose this six-shooter down that shaft. I should advise you gentlemen to retire to the tunnel." He peered down again intently. A sudden clatter and thud behind him startled him. He looked around. Bennington had fallen at full length across the stones, and his rifle, falling, had clashed against ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... thongs that bound them being held by a man standing close in his rear. Thus disposed, he received a tremendous flogging from a whip with a fearful heavy leathern lash, which made me think of the Russian knout. The blows fell with a thud that made my nerves shiver, and the back of the sufferer was covered with blood, which was thrown here and there by the ensanguined instrument of torture as it whistled through the air. He took his punishment, however, to use the language of the P.R., like a man, and though his body seemed to ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... Came a thud, and I was half buried under the bale of our possessions, and for a space everything was still. Then I could hear Cavor puffing and grunting, and the snapping of a shutter in its sash. I made an effort, thrust back our blanket-wrapped luggage, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... full minute (so long did it take the stone to fall that depth) we heard a muffled, distant, crunching thud—and then immediately after, a great hissing of escaping air. The Doctor, his face tense with anxiety, sat down in the throne again still watching the blue water of ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... unmanageable grip. They heard him give a kind of frenzied cry of passion, saw him raise his hands, heard a hurried scuffle at the foot of the stairs, where the Clancys, both alarmed, drew back towards their room. And then the rattle of an arm against a rail, a slither, a bumping, and a low thud. Dad, overbalancing in his rage, had pitched and fallen headlong down the stairs. Mrs. Minto and Sally set up a thin screaming. The gas flickered and burned steadily again. A shriek came from Mrs. Clancy. It was repeated. Mr. Minto lay quite still in a confused ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... the lad stepped to the side of the fallen man. Swinging his axe quickly, he struck at the taut bond of hemp. A shower of sparks followed the ringing thud of the ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... us." Gerrard spoke bitterly, but Colonel Antony brought his fist down upon the table with a resounding thud. ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... crash, a dull, explosive sound, and a puff of smoke leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the pavement with a revolting thud. The man's arm strikes a bystander as he darts down. The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror. The faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces. One ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... opposing tufts came nearer, and now and then a dark form straightened and advanced to another shelter, or was hidden from sight by a bubble of fleecy white that burst from his shoulder. Close at the heels of the fleeing men the spiteful spurts followed fast, till they died out in the thud of smitten logs and the crashing ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... of wood in the fire-place burned in two and fell with a soft thud on the ashes; a lean hound crept stealthily to the boy's side and thrust a cold muzzle against his ragged jacket; in the cupboard a mouse rustled over the rude dishes and among the scanty ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... oath rang out from the duke, and with a loud thud he threw himself against the door. At the same moment I heard a window above my head open, and a voice cried: "What's the matter?" and I heard a man's hasty footsteps. I grasped my sword. If De Gautet came my way, the Six would ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... a voice. There followed a scuffle, a creaking of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously, walking backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That same twist transformed my path into a real country road—a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its business, never once stopping to flirt with the ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... nearer, dropping from a canter to a quick trot that ended in a clattering walk on the stones of the yard. Through the open window Dot heard the heavy thud of a man's feet as he jumped to ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... runners, pursuer and pursued, had passed clean through them where they stood, and already with a thud the boards below had received first one, then the other. Yet they had seen absolutely nothing—not a hand, or arm, or face, or even a shred ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... room. Muller and Bill Sanderson were ahead of me, trying to separate Hal Lomax and Grundy, and not doing so well. Lomax brought up a haymaker as I arrived, and started to shout something. But Grundy was out of Muller's grasp, and up, swinging a wrench. It connected with a dull thud, and Lomax ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... strikes you funny, Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three, To think o' me once as sweet as honey; Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me! Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill, I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still, Eh, how their fists went—thud! crack! thud! None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em; Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em— Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood; Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... see in the shadow the gleam of the negro's white eyes, and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the drum, and was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the sabres, and the heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket over his head, and held ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... had set her biscuits down with a sharp thud, reckless of results. A sharp, metallic tinkle sounded at the closet where Sara had struck the edge of her tray against a shelf. The sound seemed to loosen the paralyzed tongues, and everybody began talking and exclaiming at once. Clear and shrill above the ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hairy paws let go their grip and the squirming body sink limply. Before it could touch the bottom-boards, a tremendous kick in the ribs from Ricardo's foot shifted it forward out of sight, whence came the noise of a heavy thud, a clatter of spars, and a pitiful grunt. Ricardo stooped to look ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... led her out of the passage across a stretch of open ground, and over to a shed. Another soldier opened the door, and before Lucia quite got her breath, she heard the key turn in a lock and the thud, thud of the men's boots ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... torpor, was the first to hear the faint thud of hoofs in the loose sand of the roadway. He grew instantly alert, raising himself on his elbow and gazing with fear-wide eyes ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... had his license endorsed for harbouring queer characters, feared a riot, and came outside the counter; but Jude, in his sudden flash of reason, had turned in disgust and left the scene, the door slamming with a dull thud behind him. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... and, by the sounds, he was not sober. She heard a loud creak, and then a thud, as if he had clutched at the banisters and fallen; she heard muttering, too, and the noise of boots dropped. Swiftly the thought went through her: 'If he were quite drunk, he would not have taken them off at all;—nor if he were quite sober. Does he know I'm back?' Then ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that morning, which was bad luck, as I heard Fitz-Jones click his gate behind me and thud after me in his snow-boots. Fitz-Jones and I had a little disagreement, not long ago, about the sole possession of a servant-maid. Since then there has been a coolness. Curiously enough, the hideous frost that raged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... dust. She kept her eyes on his receding shape, watched it disappear in dark turns, then emerge into faintly illumined stretches. It moved steadily, without quickening of gait, a lonely shadow that they followed through the unknown to hope. Her glance hung to it, her ear strained for the thud of his pony's feet, sight and sound of him came to her like a promise of help. He was the one strong human thing in this place of remote skies and ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... on one side, and near it was hitched a horse, pawing the ground with a hoof that bore a new shoe. On the anvil was a brilliant, yellow-red loop of iron, that was not quite yet a new shoe, and it was sending out bright sparks as a hammer fell upon it—"thud, thud, thud," and a clatter. Over the anvil leaned a tall, muscular, dark-haired, grimy man. His face wore a disturbed and anxious look, and it was covered with charcoal dust. There was altogether too much charcoal along ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard |
