"Sentry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... champions there have ever appeared popular tales demonstrating the human qualities of these giants; if Napoleon could conquer empires, tradition has never forgotten that he once pardoned a sentry he found asleep at his post. If Wellington won the battle of Waterloo by military genius, so popular hearsay has urged that he commanded the Guards to charge 'La Grande Armee' in cockney terms. Around the almost sacred ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... call of a trumpet echoing across the battlements of the palace denoted the hour for changing the sentry. "Sunset already!" said Von Glauben, walking to the window and throwing back the heavy curtain which partially shaded it, "And yonder is Prince Humphry's yacht on its ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... who had been sent to fire them, I wondered, for of them I saw nothing. Well, their journey would be long as they must wade the river. Perhaps they had not yet arrived, or perhaps they had miscarried. At least the fleet seemed very quiet. None were alarmed there and no sentry challenged. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... full. More straw, my Antoine, to shake over these top rows; then, off we will clatter, rumble, jolt, and rattle, a long row of us, out of the first town-gate, and out at the second town-gate, and past the empty sentry-box, and the little thin square bandbox of a guardhouse, where nobody seems to live: and away for Paris, by the paved road, lying, a straight, straight line, in the long, long avenue of trees. We can neither choose our road, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... scattered huts and tents on the ground where the grass, of a yellowish green, still showed. The front line of defence here was really no front line at all, but was merely held as in open warfare by outposts, sentry ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... doorway, barred against unauthorized intruder by the single soldier, standing beyond earshot upon the level of the parade, there came the prolonged cry of a sentry at the upper end of the garrison. Number Three had repeated, but Number Four was impatient, imperative, and the yell came again: "Corporal of the Guard, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... That Ben was on sentry duty was apparent from the eager looks that those below frequently cast up at him. At times, too, the general impatience sought relief in questions ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... the battalions constituting the National Guard took turns in sentry duty over the royal couple. They had received the rigid order to constantly watch the royal family, and not to leave them for a moment alone. Even the sleeping-room of the queen was not closed to the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... Charley Roy told them of an incident, which had occurred just before. A number of coolies had been embarked on board a troop-ship, when one of them, who had purchased a quantity of pepper, started up and threw it into the eyes of the sentry placed over him, then dashing past the guard, leaped overboard, swam to a boat which was in waiting, and succeeded in ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... The sinewy sentry shifted his gun and tramped off, his blue eyes marvelling at the unaccustomed sights of the great city, all the panoply of the civilization that he ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... most trying experiences of such breaks in the common routine was the task of presiding over field general courts-martial. Courts-martial under peace conditions are not without interest to a lawyer, but these in the field dealt wholly with grave charges, such as falling asleep while on sentry duty and other offences almost as dangerous and considerably more heinous morally. It was hard in many cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call of humanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved by the knowledge that a higher authority would give due ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... the people—those are the kids on Christmas Day looking out from a frozen sentry post on the 38th parallel in Korea or aboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. A million miles from home, but ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... quiet sunlit quadrangle, clean as a well-swept floor, the whitewashed walls and galleries of the barrack buildings beyond, the white and green palisade of officers' cottages on either side, and the glitter of a sentry's bayonet, were for a moment intolerable to him. Yet, by a kind of subtle irony, never before had the genius and spirit of the vocation he had chosen seemed to be as incarnate as in the scene before him. Seclusion, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... he would have let go till she had pulled him in. He was highly delighted when at last we went to his assistance and turned the turtle on her back. He still, however, seemed to consider it as his own especial property, and sat sentry over it, barking whenever it moved its flappers, as if he thought that it was going to get up and escape him. At length we had turned as many turtles as we would possibly require on board, or carry off; so we looked out for the ship, purposing at ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... 23.—House empty to-night. Even the fog keeps out; nothing more important under consideration than Army Vote, including expenditure of L5,632,700. "And precious little too," says Colonel LAURIE, doing sentry march in the Lobby. "Wages going up everywhere! labour of all classes but one paid on higher scale than it used to be; but TOMMY ATKINS and his Colonel getting just the same now as they did twenty years ago, when living was much cheaper. There ought to be a rise ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... once come across the contracted form Sentry [Footnote: On the development in meaning of this word, first occurring in the phrase "to take sentrie," i.e. refuge, see my Romance of Words, ch. vii.] (Daily Telegraph, Dec. 26, 1912), and then under circumstances which might make quotation actionable. Purvis is Mid. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the old silver watch he carried and looked at the time. It lacked five minutes of ten o'clock. The watch must have stopped. He held it to his ear and was surprised at the ticking. Was it possible that he had been on sentry duty only twelve minutes? To his highly strung nerves it ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... The sentry at the gate saluted and admitted him in silence; and in a few moments his form was lost in the solitude of groves, amidst which, at frequent openings, the spray of Arabian fountains glittered in the moonlight; while, above, rose the castled heights ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Maloney's swift acquiescence in the doctor's mood had something to do with it; for his quick obedience certainly impressed me a good deal. But, even without that slight evidence, it was clear that each recognised the gravity of the occasion, and understood that sleep was impossible and sentry duty was the order of ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... battalion, going later, had to find and relieve. While it was interesting from a military standpoint, I can scarcely hope to make it picturesque to you. Supposing an enemy ready to drop on us, we had to keep out of his sight while watching for him, and also to ferret out sentry posts which for the same reason had been pretty carefully hidden, and to which our directions were the vaguest. It was all done with thoroughness and care; we had the usual bogs to cross and brooks to jump; we found our men in hollows, thickets, and even in trees; and finally to our ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the tower in which Barbara was perched was a small projecting turret-room, standing on the top of a buttress, and had been, doubtless, used in the early ages, as a species of sentry-box, from which a soldier could command a view of the country and the coast. It was with feelings of extreme terror that she perceived Burrell and Roupall close beneath her, standing so as to be concealed from the observation of any passenger who might go to or from the dwelling. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... guard rode down. Jackson, one of the sentries, fired and ran back to give the alarm. He was overtaken, and received over a dozen sabre cuts; nevertheless he staggered on until he reached the bridge, and gave the signal. Walton, the other sentry, with equal resolution stood his ground and wounded several of his assailants, who, as they drew off, left him unhurt, although his cap, knapsack, belt, and musket were cut in over twenty places, ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... advance continued, and all felt sure that they must now have penetrated through the enemy's lines and be well in his rear. At last they heard a challenge of sentry. Then Stuart's voice shouted, "Charge!" and at full gallop they rode into the village at Catlet's Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, where General Pope had his headquarters. Another minute and they were in the midst of the enemy's ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... exclaimed, "and you know that Richard is to have no active part in the affair—that he will run no risk. They have assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers if any ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... to the day; Depart not thou, great God, away. Let not my sins, black as the night, Eclipse the lustre of thy light. Keep still in my horizon; for to me The sun makes not the day, but thee. Thou whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples sentry keep; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, Whose eyes are open while mine close. Let no dreams my head infest, But such as Jacob's temples blest. While I do rest, my soul advance: Make my sleep a holy trance: That I may, my rest being wrought, Awake into some holy thought, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... One who stood sentry on the citadel Descried the navy of the invading dame, And backwards rang the castle larum-bell, Whence speedy succours to the haven came. The artillery rained like storm, whose fury fell On all who would Rogero scathe and shame: ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... disturbance had been caused by the approach of one of the refugees, who demanded an audience with the commander, but who had quickly been satisfied by the explanation of the sentry, the officer again gave his attention to ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Kumran—should have anything to do with the child. So the little prince was carefully watched and guarded, rather to Foster-father's and Old Faithful's relief. Indeed, as time went on they almost forgot to watch themselves, being accustomed to see the sentry walking up and down before the entry to the narrow stairs that led up to the three rooms in the old bastion which were given them as lodgings. They were large, comfortable rooms, and the inner one was used by Foster-mother, Head-nurse ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... the British Museum in the days of Montague-house, shortly before the present building was erected, will remember a hairless stuffed giraffe, which stood at the top of the stairs, mounting sentry, as it were, over the principal door. This miserable skin was interesting, as being the remains of the first entire specimen recorded. Its history was as follows: The late Lady Strathmore sent to the Cape, to collect rare flowers ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of dynamite the street was very quiet. She could hear the measured tread of the sentry as he passed, a member of the Citizens' Patrol, like her brother. Suddenly she heard a shot, and extinguishing the candles hastily she peered out of a window from behind the curtains. The sentry was pounding on a door opposite with the butt of his rifle. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... famous night for me. I was sent off to Dammartin, and knew something would go wrong. It did. A sentry all but shot me. I nearly rode into an unguarded trench across the road, and when I started back with my receipt my bicycle would not fire. I found that the mechanic at Dammartin had filled my tank with water. It took me two hours, two lurid hours, to take that water ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... leaving Philadelphia, we passed a solitary sentry keeping guard over a short railroad bridge. It was the first evidence that we were approaching the perilous borders, the marches where the North and the South mingle their angry hosts, where the extremes of our ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... his purpose that half his men should sleep at their posts during the night, while the others watched, in order that they might be able to continue sentry duty for any length of time, and he also proposed that each one on guard should carry a lantern, that both he and any one who might meditate an attack, would know those in possession of the property were still on ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... and on duty the torment of the flying pests was acute. There was little danger of a sentry going to sleep without a head net and ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... one man's personal enmity, a merchant company's cupidity, and a great nation's lust of conquest! Iberville stole across the shore and up the hill with his handful of men. There was no sound from the fort; all were asleep. No musket-shot welcomed them, no cannon roared on the night; there was no sentry. What should people on the outposts of the world need of sentries, so long as there were walls to keep out wild animals! In a few moments Iberville and his companions were over the wall. Already the attack ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he intended to keep me. I believe he would have done it for the sake of the cornet; but before I had finished eating, up stepped a sentry escorting a man with my bombardon under his arm. I had left it, as you know, in the boat, and had heard no order given; but the boat I never saw again, and here was my bombardon. Hadji Hamid took it in both hands, felt it all over, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lamps. Something less than twilight, deepened here and there by shadow, filled the tunnel. By a niche intended for a sentry the attendants were standing helplessly around the body of a man who lay with head and shoulders propped against the wall. Narcissus and another, like knotted snakes, were writhing near by. There was a sound of choking. Pavonius Nasor was silent. He ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... Dick's arm and hurried him stumbling and tripping past a disgusted sentry who was used ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... out a massive stone archway where she must enter, and passing here, beside a stolid soldier in his sentry box, she came presently to a black iron door in front of which were waiting two yellow-and-black prison vans, windowless. In this prison door were four glass-covered observation holes, and through these Alice saw a guard within, who, as she lifted the black iron knocker, drew ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... had now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale, crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry was in such a position that their approach could be screened by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued their foot-sore journey until their legs ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... heaven be Thou his sentry. Guard him from the tempests wintry, Sheep and shepherd ever tending—such my prayer to heaven ascending, O hear my cry and guard my love. Loving Saviour, stay beside us; let Thy Holy Spirit guide us, Keep our feet from rock ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... he stabbed two young girls of ten and twelve years of age and wounded a woman in the side, a boy aged nine in the arm, a coachman (mortally) in the abdomen, and, besides another woman, a sailor and three soldiers; and arriving at his barracks, where he was stopped by the sentry, he plunged the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... enchantment. Mine is a humble English post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's highway. Such as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait for the conveyance of Prince Hussein's tapestry, or Malek the Weaver's flying sentry-box. Those who are contented to remain with me will be occasionally exposed to the dullness inseparable from heavy roads, steep hills, sloughs, and other terrestrial retardations; but, with tolerable horses and a civil driver (as the advertisements have ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the result of eating its fruit can be moralised on here, for on one side of it is the bazaar square, where whisky and beer and tobacco are sold, and on the other side is the telegraph office with the news of the war blazoned on the iron-studded door and an armed sentry ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... lion's head with a ring in its mouth, (still borrowed from the Greek,) we complete the embankment with a row of heads and rings, on a scale which enables them to produce, at the distance at which only they can be seen, the exact effect of a row of sentry-boxes. ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... hours I stepped along in fear and trembling. I peopled every dark corner with a sentry; I pictured every distant tree as covering watching soldiers. I wondered at the lack of challenge, till it dawned upon me that I was not in the fighting country. There was no war in these parts, so I tramped along at the side of the road till early morning, ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... where the day, breaking over the tree-tops and through the river mists, shone on scores upon scores of birds gathered to await it—curlews, sandpipers, gulls in rows like strings of jewels, here and there a heron standing sentry. The assembly paid no heed ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... away. The rifle-fire which has crackled all day on the ranges has long ceased. The spluttering of machine guns in the training camps vexes the ear no more. The heavy explosions of shell testing are over for another day. Save for the sharp challenge of a sentry here and there, and the distant shriek of a railway engine, there is almost unbroken silence for ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... the floor of the cabin, a watch was set outside, for the Indians might pounce upon them at any hour of the night or day. Those who had mounted guard during the earlier part of the evening went to their rest. Charlie, as he dropped off to sleep, heard the footsteps of the sentry outside and said to himself, half in jest, "The Wolf is ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... government than that of a French theatre. A soldier stands by from the moment you quit your carriage till you get into it; you are allowed no will of your own; if you wish to give directions to your servant, "Vite! Vite!" cries a whiskered sentry. Are you looking through the windows of the lobbies into the boxes for your party, you are ordered off by a gendarme. I saw one gentleman-like-looking man remonstrating; in a trice he was in durance vile. A Frenchman at his play must sit, stand, move, think, and speak as if he were on drill, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... twenty well-armed Johnnies into the old brig. The Englishmen— seven in all, and taken unprepared—were soon driven below and shut down—four in the cabin, two in the steerage, and one in the forecastle, this last being Abe Cummins. After a while the sentry over the hatchway called for him to come up and show where the leading ropes were, which he did at the point of a cutlass. And precious soon the Johnnies had altered the brig's course and stood away for the coast of France, the lugger keeping her ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... place d'armes, where groups of soldiers were standing and loitering about, the parapet wall of the fortress, whence I had hoped to see the day go down over the Rhine, the Moselle, and all the glorious region round their confluence. "Oh, do let me in," cried I in very emphatic English to the sentry, who gravely shook his head. "Where is your father?" quoth he in German, as I made imploring and impatient gestures, significant of my despair at the idea of having had that stupendous climb all for nothing. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... arch under which he had taken shelter, a kind of chance sentry-box, in which he had acted the watchman, and departed with slow steps. The day was declining, for his guard had been long. From time to time he turned his head and looked at the fearful wicket through which Gwynplaine had disappeared. His eyes were glassy and dull. He ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... monotonous tramp of the sentries, there suddenly rang out on the still air the sharp crack of a musket. The officer of the deck rushed to see what was the matter, and was shown a dark object floating near the ship, at which a sentry had fired. A boat was lowered and soon came back, bringing in it a sailor who had deserted from the "Madagascar," and reached the "Constitution" by swimming. Capt. Hull ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... ship by the main-chains, I was knocked back by the sentry's musket, and falling on the tholl-pin of the boat, it entered my back near the spine, inflicting a severe injury, which caused me many years of subsequent suffering. Immediately regaining my footing, I reascended the side, and, when on ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... of the cliff, and one of the sentries was stationed at the precise spot where the British would emerge on the summit. When those who were in the van of ascent had reached a point about half way up the acclevity, the sentry's attention was aroused by the noise of scrambling that was necessarily made by the British soldiers. Calling "Qui vive?" down the cliff, he was answered in French, and, suspecting nothing amiss, he proceeded on his rounds. ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... day, at four in the afternoon, the men war beginning to saddle their horses, when the sentry suddenly gave the cry of ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... would be no occasion for such precipitate action and they could wait for the pitch and iron. He was discussing this matter with some friends on a rainy day in 1517—the month and the date not being determinable now. The sentry attached to the governor's quarters, driven to the shelter of the {47} house by the storm, overheard a part of this harmless conversation. There is nothing so dangerous as a half-truth; it is worse than a whole lie. The soldier who had aforetime felt the weight of Balboa's heavy hand for some ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... "Post Six! Post Six!" With a single leap the Sergeant was across the sill, and dropped silently to the ground. Still blinded by the light he ran forward, jerking his revolver from the belt. As he passed the corner of the barracks the sentry fired again, the red flash cleaving the night in an instant's ghastly vividness. It revealed a woman shrinking against the yellow stone wall, lighted up her face, then plunged ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... but now a war-worn stranger Chance had quartered here, I rose up and descended to the yard. All was soundless, save the troopers' horses tossing at the manger, And the sentry keeping guard. ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... seeks the Britons' camp; He hears the rustling flag, And the armed sentry's tramp; And the starlight and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... was discharged. About the 10th of September, Laupepa was secretly in Apia at the American consulate with two companions. The German pickets were close set and visited by a strong patrol; and on his return, his party was observed and hailed and fired on by a sentry. They ran away on all fours in the dark, and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa grappled and flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body. The second sentry (like the first) fired after his assailants at random ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... got to the ingle-side, and, barring the door, saw that all was safe, it was now three in the morning; so we thought it by much the best way of managing, not to think of sleeping any more, but to be on the look- out—as we aye used to be when walking sentry in the volunteers—in case the flames should, by ony mischancy accident or other, happen to break out again. My wife blamed my hardihood muckle, and the rashness with which I had ventured at once to places where even masons and sclaters ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... bairn. God forgi'e my want o' faith. Rin awa' noo. I see the sentry's getting wearied. The ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... far with those two dear girls. A woman deceived as he has deceived them will never forgive him. They'd stand sentry at his cell-door sooner than let the poor Baron escape," he reflected commiserately, and sighed to think of the disastrous effect this mishap might have both upon his friend's diplomatic ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... and entered the first foreign port in which he had ever been, glancing up at the frowning Morro Castle at the entrance, close to which all vessels must pass, and seeing the great guns pointing at them from the embrasures in the old walls, the quaint turrets or sentry-boxes, painted in red and yellow, with the sentinels pacing up and down, with polished muskets and bayonets, and dressed in uniforms of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... neglected on the care-taking side, or to be transformed ruthlessly into a man-companion whose well-being may be brusquely ignored. And this young athlete in brown duck shooting-coat and service leggings, who was patiently doing a sentry-go beside her up and down the newly-laid track at the summit of Plug Pass, was quite a different person from the abashed apologist who had paid for her dinner in the dining-car on the night ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Colonel Milhaelovitch was the bread officer. He lived somewhere in the back of the big yellow schoolhouse at the end of the street. After tea we wandered drearily down to seek him, gained permission from a sentry, and clambered up some stone stairs. Jan saw an acquaintance from the Nish ministry, asked him a question, and was ushered ... straight into the Ministry of War. They seemed in a frightful stew about something, an air of disorder reigned everywhere, but somebody ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... I went, like a fool, and put the wather on the top, and showed him how, when a string was pulled, down it came —and he pretended not clearly to understand the thing, and at last he said, 'Sure it's not into that sentry-box you get?' says he. 'Oh yes,' said I, getting into it quite innocent; when, my dear, he slaps the door and fastens it on me, and pulls the string and souses me with the water, and I with my best suit of black on me. I roared and shouted inside while Misther Tom Loftus was screechin' ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... together, and yet the old citadel has not bent one inch to all that string of time. We ascended half-way outside up a ladder, and entered a small domed chamber. Then we climbed together on to the roof, which is half a covered sentry-house, half a balustraded lookout post. We could hear the rattle of the surf creaming away twelve hundred feet below, and could look down almost sheer into the many-hued blue water; and behind there were mountains rising steeply up into ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... on to look at Government House the place keeps its character: Government House is half a country house and half a country inn. One sentry tramps outside the door, and you pay your respects to the Governor ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... master, testified as much for his servant. But this testimony was not what the magistrates wanted: so they put a soldier on the stand who swore that Quack did come to the fort the day of the fire; that his wife lived there, and when he insisted on going in he (the sentry) knocked him down, but the officer of the guard passed him in. Lawyer Smith, "whose eloquence had disfranchised the Jews," was called upon to sum up. He thought too much favor had been shown the Negroes, in that they had been accorded a trial as if they were freemen; ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... being stopped by a sentry at "Dead Man's Curve," because the Boche was shelling the curve that night, and we had to stop until he "laid off," as the sentry told us. Between shells there was a great stillness on the white road that lay like ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... fortunately happened to be fairly flush. He expended the borrowed shilling on a cane and a packet of Breath Perfumers for himself, and for Christina a box of toffee which, being anhungered while on sentry duty the same night, he speedily devoured with more ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... Allan had taken their turn at standing sentry; but none of the other scouts were called upon, because the leader did not have the greatest of confidence in their ability to remain awake, not to mention hearing, and comprehending, any sounds that might arise, and ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... home by officers of the Spanish fleet—there came to the puzzled O'Reilly a report that in the dense blackness of that starless night a single boat sought to slip silently past beneath the deep shadows of the upper battery. Unhalting in response to a hail of the sentry, a volley was hastily fired toward its uncertain outline, and, in the flare of the guns, the officer of the guard noted the black figure of a man leap high into air, and disappear beneath the dark surface of the river. So it was ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... childhood, what a strange dissimilarity must there not have been in these pictures of the mind—when I beheld that old, grey, castled city, high throned above the firth, with the flag of Britain flying, and the red-coat sentry pacing over all; and the man in the next car to me would conjure up some junks and a pagoda and a fort of porcelain, and call it, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at sentry duty. But, even while dozing, he remained conscious of all that happened around him. A clock struck the hours with a low chime; and each time Perenna counted the strokes. Then came the life outside awakening, the rattle of the milk-carts, the whistle ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... hear it. That sentry has been made a hero of. I've frequently heard him mentioned in sermons as a person to be imitated. In reality he was the worst kind of ass; and I wouldn't like to think of your getting embalmed as he did, and being dug out afterwards by an antiquary with a chisel. For the matter of ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... many gables and buttresses, and backed by a darkling wood. An old man sate at the wicket on a stone bench in front of the great arched entrance to the house, over which the earl's hatchment was hanging. An old dog was crouched at the man's feet. Immediately above the ancient sentry at the gate was an open casement with some homely flowers in the window, from behind which good-humoured girls' faces were peeping. They were watching the young traveller dressed in black as he walked up gazing towards the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was war. Far up the railroad track "at the military crest" an outpost trench was dug in strict accordance with army book plans. The first night we had a casualty, a painful wound in a doughboy's leg from the rifle of a sentry who cried halt and fired at the same time. An officer and party on a handcar had been rattling in from a visit to the front outguard. All the surrounding ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... programme, which, if carried out, would guarantee him employment for the next week. On the way back to Galata we visit the tomb of Sulieman I, the most magnificent tomb in Stamboul. Here, before the coffins of Sulieman I., Sulieman II, and his brother Ahmed, are monster wax candles, that have stood sentry here for three hundred and fifty years; and the mosaic dome of the beautiful edifice is studded with what are popularly believed to be genuine diamonds, that twinkle down on the curiously gazing visitor like stars from a miniature heaven. The attendant tells the guide, in answer to an inquiry from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... close to her forehead. He could even feel her hair blow lightly against his face. But he remained rigid as a sentry—watchful and silent ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Dragon on thy tower Stands sentry to this hour, And Freedom so stands safe in Ghent! And the merrier bells now ring, And in the land's serene content Men shout "God save the King!" Until the skies are rent! So let it be; For a kingly king is he Who keeps his people free! Toll! Roland, toll! Ring out across the sea! No longer ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... A sentry brought his piece to support as we went by him, ascending the inclined artillery road, whence we presently came out upon the ramparts, with the vast sweep of star-set firmament above, and below us the city's twinkling lights on one side, and upon the other two ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... while he came to Madrid and to the palace of the King. Hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, the little Half-Chick skipped past the sentry at the gate, and hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, he crossed the court. But as he was passing the windows of the kitchen the Cook looked out and ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... with the force of "Manners" by Casa, and the "Courtier" by Castiglione. Then he knew the character of La Bruyere, and this gave the cue for the Spectator Club, with Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry and the Templar. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the lady's nose to go from red to pink (I think she had papier poudre in her handkerchief); and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with Miss Enid Biddell to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved me from sentry duty, I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details of next morning's start for Cairo; and at midnight, when I crawled to my room a shattered wreck, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... There will be a change of guards then. The new sentry will be favorable; he will run away with us, so as to ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your most usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t' gallant cross-trees. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... against the sky and cast dark shadows athwart the valley. Three-quarters of a mile away the white tents of Custer's camp looked like weird specters in the moonlight. Scarcely a sound was heard. A solemn stillness reigned, broken only by the tread of the single sentry, pacing his beat in front of headquarters. Inside, the staff and brigade escort were sleeping. Finally, a little before midnight, I turned in, telling the guard to awaken me at once, should there be firing in front, and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the faint hum of the helicopter. It was still circling, Tsoay reported from a higher check point, but those circles remained close over the plains area—the riders had already passed beyond the limits of that aerial sentry. ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... the starlight their white tents appear! Ride softly! ride slowly! the onset is near! More slowly! more softly! the sentry may hear! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... primal pulp of clay. War! always war! and no theatre of scarlet and gold and cavalry charges, but a rat's war of mud and cold and fleas and unutterable, nerve-dissolving fatigue. Not far off occasionally the rustle of clothes or the tinkle of an entrenching tool, as a sleeper turned over or the group sentry shifted arms on the parapet; and always in a lulling undertone the plash of rain on grass or wire, and the heavy breathing of tired men. For four years these nocturnal sounds of war had been familiar in the ears of Lawrence Hyde. He could hear them now, the river-murmur ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... better than you deserve. Those windows open on the porch, and there is a sentry there; the door leads to the rear of the house. I shall not even lock it, nor this. I leave you here upon your word of ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... Chaldeans and Jehoiakim's men fought valiantly. The passage was defended with extreme bravery and valor; but after a most desperate struggle, the Chaldeans proved successful in forcing an entrance. The sentry at the palace door was soon overcome, and a company of Chaldeans rushed into the royal mansion; and, after some search, they found the king. Without ceremony he was dragged from his hiding place, and ejected from ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... he bars his windows With iron 'gainst the mobs who break to fury, To see the Duke waylay democracy. The world's great conqueror's conqueror!—Eh bien! Grips England after Waterloo, but when The people see the duke for what he is: A blocker of reform, a Tory sentry, A spotless knight of ancient privilege, They up and stone him, by the very deed Stone him for wronging the democracy The Emperor erected with the sword. The world's great conqueror's conqueror—Oh, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... a strong-looking place?" asked Philippa. "I don't want William's Island especially, but I'm sure I couldn't get it if I did. Look at that sentry on the summit of the fort, right beside the flag. Doesn't he look as if he had stepped out of ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... our coachmen, and the cause Is much the same—the crowd, and pulling, hauling, With blasphemies enough to break their jaws, They make a never intermitted bawling. At home, our Bow-street gem'men keep the laws, And here a sentry stands within your calling; But for all that, there is a deal of swearing, And nauseous words past ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... leaping, lashing, and tumbling together in that confusion of troubled waters, which nautical men call a "cross-sea." A dreary, dismal night on Calais sands: faint moonshine struggling through a low driving scud, the harbour-lights quenched and blurred in mist. Such a night as bids the trim French sentry hug himself in his watch-coat, calmly cursing the weather, while he hums the chorus of a comic opera, driving his thoughts by force of contrast to the lustrous glow of the wine-shop, the sparkling eyes and gold ear-rings ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... He immediately hastened to the place indicated and there, sure enough, he saw the sentry stretched at full length across the cellar door. He angrily hastened to arouse him and seized the sleeper by the arm; but all his efforts were powerless to awake the fellow,—he might just ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... they, "we can defend ourselves; we had rather not have any!" And the Breslau Burghers have, accordingly, set to drill themselves; are bringing out old cannon in quantity; repairing breaches; very strict in sentry-work: "Perfectly able to defend our City,—so far as we see good!"—Tuesday last, December 13th (the very day Friedrich left Berlin), as this matter of the Garrison, long urged by the Ober-Amt, had at last been got agreed to by the Town-Rath, "on proviso of consulting the Incorporated ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hospital were brilliantly lighted up, and through them floated the strains of a piano and occasional bursts of laughter. Number One Ward, however, was quite empty except for my friend, Private McPhee, stalking majestically up and down as if on sentry go, wearing a "fit of the blues" several sizes too large for him and an expression which would, I believe, be described by kailyard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... ready answer. "Our objective isn't so very far distant and you know we can make a hundred miles an hour if necessary. I'd like to pick up a bit of my lost sleep while we wait, unless you object to standing sentry." ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... reached the castle, an exceedingly roomy and solid edifice built by the Danes, and far better fitted for the climate than our modern dwellings, in spite of our supposed advance in tropical hygiene. We entered by the sentry-guarded great gate into the courtyard; on the right hand were the rest of the guard; most of them asleep on their mats, but a few busy saying Dhikr, etc., towards Mecca, like the good Mohammedans these Haussas are, others ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to her mother's door as she dared, to hear if she were weeping, went to her own room. It adjoined Walter's, though the doors did not open into the same passage; and she shut that which closed in the long gallery, where her room and that of her sisters were, so that the Roundhead sentry might not be able to ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... walking or running, or at scouts' pace. Only one among them is supposed to be smuggling, and he wears tracking irons, so that the sentries walk up and down their beat (they may not run till after the "alarm"), waiting for the tracks of the smuggler. Directly a sentry sees the track, he gives the alarm signal to the reserve and starts himself to follow up the track as fast as he can. The reserves thereupon cooperate with him and try to catch the smuggler before he can reach the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... swing of their kilts, their even, unhurried step, the shoulders well back, and the elbows a shade outturned, the bonnets cocked to a precisely same angle on the upheld heads, all bespoke either an amazing ignorance of, or a bland indifference to, the bombardment. Their march was stopped by a sentry, who shouted to them and moved out from the pavement. Some sort of argument was going on as the officers approached, and in passing they heard the finish ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... about the quiet old place, and myself hunted up an office-room on one of the rambling streets that wandered beneath the trees. I was well toward the finish of my morning's work when I heard the voice of my sentry challenge, and caught an answering word of indignation in a woman's voice. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... ye would think," said Alan. "A bare hillside (ye see) is like all one road; if there's a sentry at one place, ye just go by another. And then the heather's a great help. And everywhere there are friends' houses and friends' byres and haystacks. And besides, when folk talk of a country covered with troops, it's but a kind of a byword at ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was being ushered into the House of Mysterious Shutters by Mrs. Cowles. Carl prowled down the street, a fine, new, long stick at his side, like a saber. He rounded the block, and waited back of the Cowles carriage-shed, doing sentry-go and planning the number of parrots and pieces of eight he would bring back from San Francisco. Then his father and mother would be sorry they'd talked about him ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Highlander; and to disarm suspicion he added, "Ne faites pas de bruit, ce sont les vivres." From a deserter, the English had learned that a convoy of provisions was expected down the river that night; and the officer's response deceived the sentry. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... without. To her immense relief she saw that the camp was apparently asleep. In the dim and flickering light of the dying fires she saw but a single sentry, and he was dozing upon his haunches at the opposite side of ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Insurgent attack, so long and so carefully planned for. We learn from the Insurgent records that the shot of the American sentry missed its mark. There was no reason why it should have provoked a hot return fire, but ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... right leg too," said Elaine, passing on to the next bed. "He was wounded on sentry duty. He'd been out since the beginning of the war, and had not had a scratch till then. And he'd been promised his leave the very next day. Hard luck, ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... a yell from the stabbed sentry, and the beggars were upon us. No time to think; the face of the hill swarmed with them. The gunners only fired one round before they were cut down, and the mine did not explode. It was a thick, dark night, and we were horribly outnumbered, but the orders were to hold on—we could send for ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... told. The result was communicated in the following manner to the British troops shut up in Jelalabad: 'At last, on the 13th of January, when the garrison were busy on the works, toiling with axe and shovel, with their arms piled and their accoutrements laid out close at hand, a sentry on the ramparts, looking out towards the Cabool road, saw a solitary white-faced horseman struggling on towards the fort. The word was passed; the tidings spread. Presently the ramparts were lined with officers, looking out, with throbbing hearts, through unsteady telescopes, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... ever convinced that somebody must have been hovering about the camp last night," he declared, "but it is no use alarming the others unnecessarily, and, after all, I may be mistaken. In any event, from now on, we will post ourselves on sentry duty at night so as not to be taken by surprise in the event of any malefactors ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... the future two soldiers should keep guard night and day before the frescoes, with orders to drive their lances through any one who should dare to come near. On this condition, Buffalmacco agreed to resume his task, and two soldiers were put on sentry close at hand. One evening, just as he was leaving the hall, his day's work finished, the soldiers saw the Lord Bishop's ape spring so nimbly into his place on the scaffold and seize the colour-tubes ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... John More. "Now is not that wonderful?" He leaned against the door as he had leaned many a time against sentry-box and barrack wall, and dwelt a little upon memory. "Is not that wonderful? The first time I saw her was at a wedding in Karnes, Lochow, and she was the handsomest woman in the room, and there were sixty ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... Voltaire. . . . I write in the best bedroom. The sun is off the corner window at the side of the house by a very little after twelve; and I can then throw the blinds open, and look up from my paper, at the sea, the mountains, the washed-out villas, the vineyards, at the blistering white hot fort with a sentry on the drawbridge standing in a bit of shadow no broader than his own musket, and at the sky, as often as I like. It is a very peaceful view, and yet a very cheerful one. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... that seemed almost transparent in the moonlight, closed the casement; and though the light lingered for some minutes ere it left the dark walls of the castle without other sign of life than the step of the sentry, Anne ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... uttered no plaint, and made no allusion to the irons (which had been removed); said the light kept all night in his room hurt his eyes a little, and, added to the noise made every two hours by relieving the sentry, prevented much sleep; but matters had changed for the better since the arrival of General Burton, who was all kindness, and strained his orders to the utmost in his behalf. I told him of my reception ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... of the Portuguese, when the seventeenth century was still in its infancy and when the settlement on the lower end of Manhattan Island was still called Nieuw Amsterdam. The capture of the fort by the Dutch in 1667 signalized the passing of Portuguese power in Asia. Pass the slovenly native sentry at the outer gate, cross the creaking drawbridge, and, were it not for the tropical vegetation and the oppressive heat, you might think yourself in the Low Countries instead of a few degrees below the Line, for the crenelated ramparts, the shaded, gravelled paths, the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell |
