"Thud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stamped out the iron plates, and then another which, with a mighty thud, mashed them to the shape of the sitting-down portion of the American farmer. Then they were piled upon a truck, and it was Jurgis's task to wheel them to the room where the machines were "assembled." This was child's play for him, and he got a dollar and seventy-five cents a ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... 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 strike and where ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the top of the upright pine The snowlumps fall with a thud, Come from where the sunbeams shine To lie in the heart of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the road at a stile that led into the fields, and as Raymond, deep in thought, passed her without looking up, he saw something cast at his feet and for a moment stood still. With a soft thud his bunch of grapes fell ruined in the dust before him and, starting back, he looked at the stile and saw Sabina's mother gazing at him red-faced and furious. Neither spoke. The woman's countenance told her hatred and loathing; the man shrugged ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at his heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately in front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull, heavy thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy silence of the ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... slipping through and ran at us with his stick. My mother went first and escaped him. Then came my sister, then I, then my brother. My father was last of all. The man hit with his stick and it came down thud along side of me, just touching my fur. He hit again and broke the foreleg of my brother. Still we all managed to get through into the wood, except my father ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... sitting. Every little while I gave the men a rest, making them sit in the shelter of the underbrush. We had almost finished when the snipers somewhere on our left began to bang at us. I ordered the men to cover, and was just pointing out a likely place to young Hynes when I felt a dull thud in the left shoulder-blade and a sharp pain in my chest. Then came a drowsy, languid feeling, and I sank down first on my knees, then my head dropped over on my chest, and down I went like a Mohammedan saying his prayers. Connecting the hit in the back with the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... moment in one of the cleared paths. From the big low roofed drill enclosure a hundred yards away came the dull thud of galloping hoofs and the voice of Sergeant Moody thundering instructions to the rookies. Moody had a heart like flint and would have faced blazing cannon to perform his duty. He had grown old and ugly in the service and was as beauty-proof ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... von Ruhle sprang forward with the agility of a panther. The imitation Malacca cane descended with a dull thud upon the lad's head, and like a felled ox Vernon fell ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... sinking, and suddenly stopped. An instant later I heard through the telephone a muffled thud, as if his head had fallen ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she implored once more, extending her hands to secure her treasured book, "oh, uncle." In reply all I heard was a dull thud, and I saw Paula fall to the ground. Beside himself, my father had given her a tremendous blow on the head with ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... already landed on the further side of the wall when thud! thud! thud! other members of the flock came thumping down upon the ledge beside him. He moved aside a little way, because he didn't want to be ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... by it, she started out quite bravely; but she had taken but four steps when Tommy shouted, "Hold on fast, Polly! the hook's comin' out." Alas! the warning came too late. Before she could get hold of the beam securely, the hook came out, and with a cry of terror poor Polly fell with a dull thud to the floor. Her dress knocked over the candle as she fell, and in a second the hay that was scattered on the floor was in a blaze. All the boys except Tommy Briggs rushed screaming from the barn, but he, by straining every muscle, succeeded in dragging Polly out of the now blazing ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... glittering before his eyes. Jane gave a sob and covered her eyes. Jessie swayed as though she would fall, but she never took her eyes from the fallen man; her lips moved, but she said nothing; and her face was ghastly white. Jarvis heard the dull thud against Jack's head and knew that he was falling. Whirling swiftly, he stopped a savage blow that was aimed at the stricken man, and with a back-handed cut laid the ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... acacias the little girls in white upon their knees before the temporary vault into which Jeanne's remains had a moment before been lowered. Abbe Jouve, with outstretched hand, was giving the farewell benediction. She heard nothing but the dull thud with which the stone slab of the vault fell back into its place. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... 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
... see that Rand-Brown was racing up for the pass, and, as he reached the back, he sent the ball to him, waist-high. Then the back got to him, and he came down with a thud, with a vision, seen from the corner of his eye, of the ball bounding forward out of the wing three-quarter's hands into touch. Rand-Brown had bungled the pass in the old familiar way, and lost a ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap shot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which broke the shock) and the lion was ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... as the Yale Goliath poised himself for the effort. He crouched, and then the heavy iron sailed through the air and fell with a thud to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... One hand hung down, with a loose, loose bracelet jingling on the brittle brown wrist. And her poor little feet with the rotting shoes upon them moved delicately, as if they trod the impalpable air. Once her head struck, with a hollow thud, as we turned a corner. It was almost more than flesh and blood could bear,—like things you were afraid of when you were a child in the dark—the candles melting audibly, and walls, walls, pressing ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... seemed to him that the end had come. He was hurled by the explosion of the torpedo into the corridor and dashed against the wall. The outcries of the men were drowned by the muffled thud of the inrushing water. The light went out; the Kate began to ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... had been poured, as was supposed, the ill-gotten gain of all the pirates, from Captain Kidd down to the last outlaw of the ocean. Twenty-seven years the sound of the hammer and the drill and the thud of blasting-powder echoed through the leafy forests, and then all ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... left on to his enemy's ribs, slipping, away under Pete's arm when he endeavoured to return the blows. For a time Jim simply led the big man a dance round the ring, landing a stinging blow now and then, to add to Pete's discomfiture; but the latter got him cornered at last, and the thud, thud, thud of the blows stirred the crowd to enthusiasm once more. Pete got after Jim smartly when the latter broke ground, and landed his best blow, a heavy right swing on the temple that sent Done down, and left him ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... over the grave bathed in a cold perspiration, his heart throbbing violently, every new thud of the earth, as it sounded violently against the coffin, sending a cold chill of horror through every nerve. Already enough earth had been thrown to cover three-quarters of the lid, and at the foot it was heaped up some distance. He tried to frame some excuse to ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... covered some five miles of his journey, to no other sound than the occasional note of some bird, when his quick ears caught the thud of a horse's feet on the trail ahead, with now and then a sharp clatter as the animal slipped on the stones. Wade slowed his own horse down to a walk, and eased his Colt in its holster. He expected to meet some harmless wayfarer, but, under the circumstances, it was just as well to be ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... answer into the telephone to his Corporal, and once he flicked his lamp on an instant to glance at the watch on his wrist. Then he crouched still and silent again. The thumping of his heart nearly drowned the thud of the picks, he was shivering with excitement, and his mouth grew dry and leathery. He felt a desire to smoke, and had his case out and a cigarette in his lips when it occurred to him that, when ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... animal from the little of it that I saw, aimed for the spot among the grass which I pictured as being just behind the shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack of the rifle broke in upon the stillness of the night with startling effect. I heard the thud of the bullet, instantly followed by a savage snarl that ended in a moan, and as the smoke drifted away I caught a momentary glimpse of a great, tawny, black-spotted form writhing convulsively in the air from its death spring and then collapsing inertly where it fell. Jan and the Basuto, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... way, and found 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, seated ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... already in motion. Then the two sides close, and you can see nothing for minutes but a swaying crowd of boys, at one point violently agitated. That is where the ball is, and there are the keen players to be met, and the glory and the hard knocks to be got. You hear the dull thud, thud of the ball, and the shouts of "Off your side," "Down with him," "Put him over," "Bravo." This is what we call "a scrummage," gentlemen, and the first scrummage in a School-house match was no joke in the consulship ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... the news that the time for escape had come, for the perpetual clash of war, the rattling of arrows, the ponderous thud of heavy stones caused a din very alarming to a young girl; and although the room in which she sat, looking into the inner court of the castle, was not exposed to missiles, she trembled at the thought that brave men were being killed, and that at any moment a shot might strike Cuthbert, ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... regained his balance after being almost knocked over in this humiliating way, and the horrible, as it were, sodden, thud of the blow in the face had scarcely died away in the room when he seized Shatov by the shoulders with both hands, but at once, almost at the same instant, pulled both hands away and clasped them behind his back. He did not speak, but looked at Shatov, and turned as white as his shirt. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... instant a rifle cracked from Bill-Man's barricade, and there was a sharp spat and thud on the chest of Ounenk. He swayed backward and came forward again, a look of startled surprise on his face. He gasped, and his lips writhed in a grim smile. There was a shrinking together of the shoulders and a bending of the knees. He shook himself, as might a drowsing man, and straightened ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... following her. Once she drew rein, and listened to some bush sound. "Kangaroos," she murmured; it was only kangaroos. She crossed a dimmed little clearing where a farm had been, and entered a thick scrub of box and stringy-bark saplings. Suddenly with a heavy thud, thud, an "old man" kangaroo leapt the path in front, startling the girl fearfully, and went up the siding ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... watch. It lacked five minutes of eight. The preparations for an execution had been reduced almost to a formula. One minute in the cell, twenty seconds to the trap, forty seconds for the hangman to complete his arrangements: two minutes, and then the thud of the false floor. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... scene from modern drama. It announced itself as something "West-Endy," yet it was like nothing (I imagine) even in the remote Orient. And constantly the poor play of esprit had to be carried off by the distracting thud of some falling body or covered by the deadening clash of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... his arm, and heard a heavy thud at his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height and ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... grim-faced guard on each side, with a firm grip on my arms. I wondered what was happening to the lovely Zoorph, but I did not get a chance to look. I was thrown into a cell, and the heavy wooden door shut. The thud of a bar dropped in place punctuated the evening's experience with a ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... below," he warned softly, and with a loud thud the shutter fell into the alley below. Phil was waiting ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... each way. The little lanterns that burn in front of the houses were blown out by the wind, and when I peered out there was nothing but the inky darkness, the howling of the wind, the thrashing of the cocoanut trees, and the thud of falling nuts. From my side window I could see the native family next door to me all on their knees in front of an image of the Virgin, and once, in a lull, caught the sound ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... and handsome, rather than otherwise—mantling with an expression of the most perfect excellence of heart and temper, and overshadowed by a vast mass of brown hair, sprinkled pretty well with gray!—Down he plumped from the counter with a thud that made the whole floor shake, and with a hand outstretched, that might have done for a Goliah, out he ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... than either of them dreamed. At that very moment the soft thud of the closing housedoor sounded through the house. It brought her sharply to her feet, and loose from his coiling arms, with quickened breath and blanching face. A moment she hung there, tense, then sped to the door of the room, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... the chateau. The air was full of mingled sounds, as, for example, the singing of the soldiers in the distance, which sounds like the droning of bees far away and always heralds an advance of troops; the rhythmic shuffling of feet, the thud of horses' hoofs, the chugging of autos which carry the superior officers, and the heavy wheels of the gun carriages with their clanking chains. Their order, equipment and discipline are admirable ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... under his strong left arm, Thayer dashed into the embattled line of the helpless adversary. Hurling the foe right and left and biting the Claflin quarter-back in the neck, he emerged triumphant from the melee. Dodging the enemy's bewildered secondary defence, and upsetting the umpire with a dull thud, our hero dashed down the field. Line after line vanished behind his flying feet. Shod with the wings of Mercury, he sped on and on and still on toward the far-distant goal line. Cheers thundered from the encompassing ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... moorland. The carriages rocked and pitched like boats in a seaway, as they lumbered along, fifty abreast, scrambling and lurching over everything which came in their way. Sometimes, with a snap and a thud, one axle would come to the ground, whilst a wheel reeled off amidst the tussocks of heather, and roars of delight greeted the owners as they looked ruefully at the ruin. Then as the gorse clumps grew thinner, and the sward ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as if wondering at her feelings; and instantly the voice of the bearded man talking to her as one might talk to a child: "Oover, me darlin'; yu've a-been long enough o' that side. Wa-ay, my swate—yu let old Jack turn 'u, then!" Then came a scuffling in the straw, a thud, again that half-human sigh, and his voice: "Putt your 'ead to piller, that's my dandy gel. Old Jack wouldn' 'urt 'u; no more'n ef 'u was the queen!" Then only her quick breathing could be heard, and his cough and mutter, as he settled down once more ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... a howling dervish, grunting, snorting—unseeing, and almost unseen in a nimbus of dust, strap ends, and flying pine needles. His whirling undid him. We seized the rope, and just as the pack again slid under his feet we set shoulder to the rope and threw him. He came to earth with a thud, his legs whirling uselessly in the air. He resembled a beetle in molasses. We sat upon his ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... tree limb smashed into the ground at my feet, following the familiar whiz just overhead of a large gun missive, with its accompanying wind gust, and at the same moment something struck with a thud the tree from which the splinter had come. Glancing up, I noticed a shell lodged in a fork of the two main branches, that had stuck there without exploding. For a shell to explode, it is necessary ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... 'Thanase sees Bonaventure and the cure enter; mortification smites him; a smothered cry of rage bursts from his lips; he tries to hurl his antagonist from him; and just as the two friends reach out to lay hands upon the wrestling mass, it goes with a great thud to the ground. The crowd recoils and springs back again; then a cry of amazement and horror from all around, the arm of the under man lifted out over the back of the other, a downward flash of steel—another—and ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to interrupt him in his pleasurable pursuit; he fiddled on, regardless of all about him, as Nero is said to have done when his capital was in flames, and even left the window of his apartment open. Presently a whizzing noise, terminating in a thud above his head, arrested his attention. Upon his looking up he saw the mark of a bullet in the ceiling. Aroused to a sense of his danger, he closed the windows. Being about to put his Montagnana into its case, his astonishment may be imagined when he discovered a hole through the upper side, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... at the very moment when he felt that his nerves would bear the strain no longer, the spell was broken. Suddenly there came a long, hissing breath close beside him, and immediately afterward a terrific thud, as something—Frobisher could easily guess what—was driven with deadly force into the heap of blankets close ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... lippit like the smith o' Bonnykelly's wife." Mastering the situation he runs off to the smith's house, and sains the new mother and her babe. And he is only just in time, for hardly has he finished than a great thud is heard outside. On going out a piece of bog-fir is found,—the image the fairies intended to substitute for the smith's wife. In North German and Danish tales it is the husband who overhears the conspirators at work, and he often has ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... it described. There was such a raging, roaring clamor rising to the heavens in the distance, the confused uproar of other sounds was so violent, that in it she failed to distinguish the report of musketry. As she was turning the corner of a house there was a deadened thud close at her ear, succeeded by the sound of falling plaster, which brought her to a sudden halt; it was a bullet that had struck the facade. She was pale as death, and asked herself if her courage would ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... caller rush unannounced into your private rooms. Even among relatives and the most intimate friends, there is nothing to justify the unexpected arrival. Nothing so strikes terror to a woman's soul as the thud of trunks on the piazza and the crunch of wheels on the gravel, meaning ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... on she ran blindly, hearing nearer and nearer the thud of those pounding hoofs. Once she stumbled and almost fell. Then, dizzily she righted herself and plunged forward. She felt her strength quite gone when suddenly, close to her, she heard Jimmy's cheery call again. ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Dante's "Inferno." The momentarily quiet sea, too, had got up again, and was now covered with huge broken waves—raised aloft in pyramids one moment, and the next scooped out into yawning valleys, into which the vessel plunged, with a shock that made her timbers vibrate with the sledge-hammer thud of the bows meeting the billows full butt, the concussion causing columns of spray to be thrown up that came in over the cathead, drenching the fo'c's'le and pouring in a cascade into the waist, whence the broken water, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... she might the better hear his horse's hoofs on the flagged courtyard. She heard besides Esteban's voice speaking amiably and Shere's making amiable replies. The sharp hard clatter upon the stones softened into the duller thud upon the road; the voices became fainter and lost their character. Then one clear "good-night" rang out loudly, and was followed by the quick beats of a horse trotting. Christina slowly closed the window and turned her eyes upon the room. She saw the lamp upon the table ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... there motionless and clouded the eyepiece of his telescope. Then suddenly he saw a little black object shoot up into the air from the junction of two trenches near the German support line—an object which turned over and over in the air, and fell with a soft thud fifty yards to his right. A roar—and some sandbags and lumps of chalk flew in all directions, while fragments pattered down on Reginald out of ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... burning issue checkered career cool as a cucumber contracting parties crisp dollar bill crying need dark horse dastardly deed delicious refreshments departed this life devouring element doing as well as can be expected dull thud elegantly gowned entertained lavishly fatal noose few well-chosen words first number on the program floral offering foregone conclusion fought like a tiger gala attire goes without saying hard-earned coin head over heels hotly contested hurled into eternity ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... of evening air and the sound of water lapping against stone. A patch of faint light showed pale against the iron bars, and as Angela looked that way, a great grey rat leapt through the grating, and ran along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as he scuttled across them. Then came a thud on the sawdust-covered stones, and she knew that the loathsome thing was on the floor upon which she was standing. She lowered her light shudderingly, and, for the first time since she entered that house of dread, the young brave heart sank with the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... his arms wrought like piston-rods, his fists flew like flails; and such was the press round him that he struck no blow that failed to find a mark. The room rang with the sounds of the struggle, the shuffle, thud, and scrape of feet both booted and bare, the hoarse, harsh breathing of the combatants, their groans, their whispers, ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... dropping with a dull thud upon the cushioned divan. Then, having lain there listening awhile, he pressed the button of his torch, and, standing up, crept across the room in the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... play is stopped by a rough thud of basses and a fierce clang of chords. In the sharp blare of brass on the ascending phrase is almost lost the original motto in lowest basses. It is now heard in gradually quickened speed, while the rising phrase ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... swell was in truth lifting the vessel every few seconds and letting her down with a soft thud on the coral reef. It soon became evident to every one on board that the Walrus had not many hours to live—perhaps not many minutes—for the squall to which the Captain had referred was rapidly bearing down, and each successive thud became more violent than the previous one. Knowing ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... shoulders, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her thoughts wandering. Did she not hear the violins of her ball, which reached their ears in the intervals of silence, like bursts of savage irony, with the heavy thud of the dancers shaking the floors? An iron hand, falling upon her, aroused her abruptly from her torpor. Risler had taken her by the arm, and, leading her before his ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... even distracted attention from the Dervish army. The dome of the tomb rose tall and prominent above the mud houses of the city. A lyddite shell burst over it—a great flash, a white ball of smoke, and, after a pause, the dull thud of the distant explosion. Another followed. At the third shot, instead of the white smoke, there was a prodigious cloud of red dust, in which the whole tomb disappeared. When this cleared away we saw that, instead of being pointed, it was now ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Greatly to my relief, he then turned round and moved off, roaring furiously. Fearing that he might still pursue the zebra, which I hoped had escaped, and might, after making a circuit, come back to us, I raised my rifle and fired again. I fancied I could hear the thud of the bullet as it struck the lion behind the shoulder. Fearful were the roars he uttered; but defeated, he stalked off, evidently having had enough of the fight. Mango, who had been thoroughly ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... electric storm swept away into the distance the wind rose and howled about the house. Shutters slammed; chairs were over-turned on the porch; a brick fell with a thud from the top of the chimney to the roof; another fell down the chimney into the fireplace where its arrival was followed by a roar that seemed to shake the old ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... that lay in the direction of the nearest mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared in ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... the darker for those flashes of flame, that cut it like swords. It was very cold. I had left my blanket in the monastery, and no one was allowed to ascend, because there, of all places, the bullets flew thickest, crushing through the mat walls, and going into the teak posts with a thud. There was nothing we could do. The men, placed in due order about the camp, fired back at the flashes of the enemy's guns. That was all they had to fire at. It was not much guide. The officers went from picket to picket encouraging the men, but I had no duty; when fighting began ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... moments there was a sound of a scuffle at the back of the tent, followed by a thud and an exclamation from Burton; so they rushed out to see what had happened, the Doctor taking the lamp from the tent-pole ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... spoke there was a loud hullabaloo from Terence, echoed by the doctor. Over they both went head first, but the doctor's heels did not follow, for they had stuck fast in the mud, into which poor Terence's head plunged with a loud thud. The doctor heroically endeavoured to pull him out, but his own legs only stuck deeper and deeper. As the marine officer came up and passed by them, he began capering about and neighing in triumph, while Jack barbarously inquired ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... was so anxious to see what went on below, that he strained forward too far. With a scream, and the snap of broken boughs, he plunged forward, shot through the leafy-canopy, and landed with a sickening thud upon the ground! ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... said, after a time; and the cry rang out, to be followed by a dull thud as of footsteps, and a clink ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... First Loud-croaker wounded Lickman in the belly, right through the midriff. Down fell he on his face and soiled his soft fur in the dust: he fell with a thud and his armour clashed about him. Next Troglodyte shot at the son of Mudman, and drove the strong spear deep into his breast; so he fell, and black death seized him and his spirit flitted forth from his mouth. Then Beety struck Pot-visitor ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... jerking muzzle, and felt the butt jar upon his shoulder. Still, as is almost invariably the case with a man whose whole force of will is concentrated on holding the little sight on a living mark, he heard no detonation. He recognized, however, the unmistakable thud of the bullet smashing through soft flesh, and that ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... wound at a rapid pace for nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was Sunday, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... intensely warm in the Marlborough Steel Works. Outdoors the sun beat fiercely upon the heads of toiling men and horses while the heat waves danced with a dazzling shimmer along the brick pavements. Indoors there was the steady thud of the engine, and the great hammers clanked and the belts swept through the air with a deafening whirr, while the workmen drew blackened hands across their grimy foreheads and John Randolph gave a sigh of longing for the cool forest chambers of Hollywood, as he leaned over to exchange ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... turn red all over? Do you have creeps all down your back? And do you feel it just here?" The child clapped her yellow claw to Miss Quincey's heart. "You do, you do, Miss Quincey; I can see it go thump, I can feel it go thud!" ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... the shiny object descended, the dome vibrated beneath their feet. As long as the vibration remained they were safe, but when it felt like a thud—the ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... a sudden commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... neither of 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
... an expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... pitch was. The ball hung; he was much too soon; the ball sailed straight up into the air! Point and cover-point both ran for it. "Crampin!" yelled out Whitaker. Neither heard; they crashed into one another; the ball fell with a dull thud. The House gave ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... dangerous pitfalls rendering our footing so uncertain and treacherous that the wonder is that we ever succeeded in regaining the river trail alive. Time after time that night one could hear some poor unfortunate with his heavy pack on his back fall with a sickening thud upon the packed trail, in many cases being so stunned and exhausted that it was only by violent shaking and often by striking some of the others in the face that they could be sufficiently aroused and forced to continue ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... made his wish again, with a heart felt earnestness that was almost an ache. Oh, surely the day was not going to end in this cruel silence! Just then he heard the thud of a horse's hoofs on the wooden bridge, far down the road. Nearer and louder it came. Somebody was prancing by at last. He stood up, straining his eyes in his smiling eagerness to see. Nearer and nearer the ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... dodging 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 him senseless ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... a bad idea," declared Susan Atwell. "I sit near her, so I'll be the first one to hold out the olive branch. But if you hear something drop on the floor with a dull, sickening thud, you'll know that my particular variety of olive branch ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... to the floor with a thud of amazement that reverberated indignation. "Well upon my word!" gasped she. Then, recovering her book—and more—"Why what a kindly gentleman he must ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... as he was alone, Max went to the window and opened it, to admit the odour of the salt weed and the thud and rush of the water as it beat against the foot of the castle and whispered amongst the crags. The moon was just setting, and shedding a lurid yellow light across the sea, which heaved and gleamed, and threw up strange reflections from the black masses ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... fiercely, 'Stand up, harpoon! Up rose the harpooner, his eye like a hot coal now. The men saw nothing; they must pull fiercer than ever. The harpooner balanced his iron, swayed his body lightly, and the harpoon hissed from him. A soft thud—then a heaving of the water all round, a slap that sounded like a church tower falling flat upon an acre of boards, and drenched, and blinded, and half smothered us all in spray, and at the same moment away whirled the boat, dancing and kicking in the whale's foaming, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... he heard the sound of the feet of a horse galloping over a dry field—muffled, rapid thud approaching closer upon his right hand. Barney remained motionless. He was sure that the rider would not enter the wood which, with its low-hanging boughs and thick underbrush, ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... our furniture, chairs and chests and two rocking chairs for the mother and daughter. Here all of their leisure time, while on the move, was spent industriously applying their knitting needles, meanwhile singing to themselves to the accompaniment of the thud, thud of the oxen. ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... diving with a vigor, as if from a rocket airlock, hitting the dirt with a thud, scrambling up, opening and spreading the great bundle, attaching the air hose. Little Lester hopping in to help fit wire rigging, most of it still imaginary. A friendly dog coming over to sniff, with a look of ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... water beside them with a thud too great for that of a man. It was the stag leaping also for safety and he began to swim about, looking at the boys with great pathetic eyes, as if he would ask them what he ought to do next for his life. Apparently his ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... began to say that he 'jawed' too much and would not let them go to bed, little knowing how he used to try to prolong a conversation so that he might not be left alone with a horrible fear always ready to pounce upon him when night fell, and when only the thud of the engines playing some maddening tune broke ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... of seeing Storch crumple over, but he felt a thud shake the cluttered room to its foundations... He went over quietly and closed the open door. Then he put on his hat. Storch lay quite still and an ugly red pool was already luring flies to a crimson feast. The floor was covered with bits of shattered glass glistening ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Yorimasa's opportunity. Aiming about a foot to the right of where he saw the eye glare, he drew his yard-length shaft clear back to his shoulder, and let fly. A dull thud, a frightful howl, a heavy bump on the ground, and the writhing of some creature among the pebbles, told in a few seconds time that the shaft had struck flesh. The next instant Yorimasa's retainer rushed out with blazing ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... his daze and the two sprinted wildly for the path that led down the spur on which their camp was located. They had not made more than fifty yards when they heard a dull thud, and, turning, saw the great sphere resting on the ground with a slight rocking motion ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... metallic thud as they let down a burden, which I knew must be a sack of gold. I lay quiet for a minute, and then began to wriggle through the brush to get a glimpse of them, and, in case it proved to be the camp, learn what might be the most advantageous ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... circle and fling himself into the air—as it seemed to me, into the empty air. Then, even while holding my breath for dread of the crash he was bound to come upon the floor, I saw him strike with a dull thud against a solid body in mid-air, and the next instant he was wrestling with some ponderous thing that was absolutely invisible to me, and the room shook with ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... want the last sad rites launched into eternity last but not least doomed to disappointment at one fell swoop sadder but wiser did justice to a dinner a goodly number budding genius beggars description a dull thud silence broken only by wended their way abreast of the times trees stood like sentinels method in his madness sun-kissed meadows tired but happy hoping you are the same nipped in the bud the happy pair seething mass of humanity specimen ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... Biff! smack! thud! thump! The two frantic boys were hammering each other in the darkness of their room, while the listening ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... strangely because of this splendour of fulfilment, could make no instant answer. And she asked again, but using mine old love-name, and with a sureness in her far voice. And still I was so strangely dumb, and the blood to thud peculiar in mine ears; and this to pass; and speech ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... the rifle, and the figures that had loomed up seemed to melt away. But as soon as the rifle had flashed there was the fad, fad, fad of hurried steps, something whizzed in at the window, and with a dull thud a spear stuck in the floor of ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... it was all over, the heavy thud of a policeman's truncheon was heard, and a few minutes later, with Bob's help, the two men were led away to ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... 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 that must have made him ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... with my pencil, I heard chopping going on at the north end of the village, followed by a heavy thud, as if a tree had fallen. It appeared that after digging about the old hearth in the first dwelling visited without finding anything of consequence, the archaeological doctor called the steamer deck hands to one of the most interesting of the totems and directed ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... yell and the shrill laughter as she struggled wildly to force her way to him. And then for a moment there was a space and a man with bent body and clenched hands was rushing forward as if upon a football field, and there came a little sickening thud and then ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Mahones swung parallel to the quay wall, and then a derrick chain was hauled out and I heard the scrape of the big gangway as it drew along the gravel, and the thud of its iron-shod heel as it fell on deck and bridged the intervening two fathoms of water. But the black hull of the steamer blotted out all view of the people beyond it, and on the cutter I could learn nothing more of what was going ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... hastily, tossed the scrap of paper into the brimming waste-basket, and, yawning, raised her arms high above her head. The yawn ended, her arms relaxed, came down heavily, and landed her hands in her lap with a thud. It had been a whirlwind day. At that moment most of the lines in Emma McChesney's face ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... distinguish nothing ahead in the increasingly thick white fog. All I could hear was the sound of pickaxes on the ground and the thud of falling clods. The enemy had, no doubt, decided not to attack again and were digging new trenches. They no longer uttered their contemptuous guttural cries of "Cavalry! Cavalry!" They had learnt to their cost that these French cavalrymen, at the sight of ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... Friday night, and Saturday morning we commenced to cross over. About twelve o'clock we had crossed. No sooner had we crossed than an order came to double quick. General Forrest's cavalry had opened the battle. Even then the spent balls were falling amongst us with that peculiar thud so familiar to ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... swung along to the rhythmical thud of the drum, their voices were raised in a fearful chorus that must have made one think of the choirs of hell, and the song they sang was the song of Rouget de l'Isle, which all France had been singing these ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... heavy body was heard to strike the floor with a dull thud, and a strange voice said, "Who ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... were nothing to them. The trail might ring with the beat of their horses' hoofs, or only reply with the soft thud of a deep, sandy surface. They were not out to consider either their horses or themselves. Each knew that his journey was one of desperate emergency, and one of them, at least, cared nothing what might be his sacrifice, even if ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... fruit, but then didn't know how to get down, and called to PLANDOK for help. "Oh! get down anyway you like," said PLANDOK. "But I can't get down forwards and I can't get down backwards." "Then throw yourself down," said PLANDOK, and KELAP threw himself down and came to the ground with a great thud. The people in the house heard the sound and said," There's a durian falling." Then PLANDOK began to divide the fruit into heaps. "This is for me and that's for you," he kept calling out; and every time he put some more fruit to KELAP'S heap, he shouted louder than ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... 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 horribly ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... It sent a long vista of light through the blank and pulsating haze. The vibrations of the anvil were all but the only sounds on the air; the alternate thin clink of the smith's hand-hammer and the thick thud of the striker's sledge echoed in unseen recesses of the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... momentarily above the fence across the alley, behind the tormentor. Herbert's expression was implacably resentful, and so was the gesture with which he hurled an object at the comedian preoccupied with the opposite fence. This object, upon reaching its goal, as it did more with a splash than a thud, was revealed as a tomato, presumably in a useless state. The taunter screamed in astonishment, and after looking vainly for an assailant, began necessarily ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... children." She looked into the clear, calm eyes of the boy, and she knew she could trust him. They returned quietly to the schoolroom. The teacher had hardly taken her seat and closed the book she had held in her hand, when there was a loud crashing sound without, and a heavy thud against the outer door. ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... funereal, gentle. Kenny's eyes blurred. Sweat came coldly forth upon his forehead. At the first thud of earth he choked and turned away, the pain unbearable. Adam Craig had driven his nephew away . . . with a passion of self . . . and he had died with mercy at his bedside, not love. A passionate hunger ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... man of the enemy failed to skip aside quickly enough and the revolver crashed down on his head with a thud. That was the last of him. A second, thinking to take advantage of this action, slipped upon the giant from behind and leveled his revolver at Ivan's head. But once more Ivan was too quick for him, and, whirling suddenly, hurled his ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... 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 ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... till it was almost like a basket, with just a break in the front palings to sit into. It had a soft down cushion, covered with a damask patterned patch of wild and divaricating device; and its rockers were short, giving a jerk and thud if you leaned to and fro in it, like the trot an old nurse gives a child in an ordinary, four-legged, impracticable seat. All the better for that; the rockers were not in the way; and all Aunt Blin had wanted of it ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... almost in the very shadow of the great arch, and waited, smoothing his mare's neck. But for the invitation in his eyes, which were solemn, yet without a trace of fear, I had never dared that last hundred yards. For above the rush of waters I heard now a confused sound within the building—the thud and clanking of heavy machinery, and at intervals a human groan; and looking up I saw that the long friezes in bas-relief represented men and women tortured and torturing with all conceivable variety of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... going to hit hard. The way to keep from being hurt was to turn the vertical energy of his arrival into motion in another direction. As he swept down to the metal surface he started running, his legs pumping wildly in space. He hit with a bone-jarring thud, lost his footing and fell sideways, both hands cradling his helmet. He got to his feet instantly ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... my bed with my bleeding, aching head in my hands, an object of abject misery. Not a sound beyond the clanging of doors was to be heard, punctuated at frequent intervals by the dull thud of blows, as some hapless wretch was being clubbed, the shrieks and howls of prisoners, and the groans of those on the verge of insanity. It was just as if all the demons of the Nether Regions were at work worrying ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... length a shot aimed at me struck my horse in the face, just above the nostril, and passing up under the skin emerged near the eye, doing the horse only temporary harm, and letting me off scot-free, much to my satisfaction, as may be supposed. Captain Baker, lying on the ground near by, heard the thud of the ball as it struck the horse, and seeing me suddenly dismount, cried out, 'the Colonel is shot,' and sprang to my side, glad enough to find that the poor horse's face had been a shield to save my life. I was sorry that the animal could not ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... of meeting it, ducked and caught the other by his wrist. The fellow's sword went flying, and, at the same instant, Jack made a quick turn. As he did so, the pudgy man's rotund little body was seen to rise from the ground and describe an aerial semi-circle. He came crashing to the ground with a thud, his thick neck almost driven into his shoulders by the force of ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... reverberation proceeding from metal. We have already seen how readily the strings take up vibrations which are only pure when, as secondary vibrations, they arise by reversion from the sound-board. If vibration arises from imperfectly elastic wood, we hear a dull wooden thud; if it comes from metal, partials of the strings are re-enforced that should be left undeveloped, which give a false ring to the tone, and an after ring that blurs legato playing, and nullifies the staccato. I do not pose as the obstinate advocate of parallel stringing, although ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... I hear it, The thud of a poor feathered death, In the swelling throat I see The splintering of song— What demon then has worked in me To tease my brain to bitterness— In me who have loved bird and tree So ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... from the window-sill to the ground with a heavy thud, and did not move again. The ball had penetrated his brain, and he was the victim of his unscientific observations. But the lieutenant did not remove his gaze from the open window. It seemed very like slaughter to shoot down the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... There was a thud below him as the baffled cat fell back to earth, and then Tarzan of the Apes, drawing his dinner farther up to the safety of a higher limb, looked down with grinning face into the gleaming yellow eyes of the other wild beast that glared up at him from beneath, and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the dark bulk of the palki frightened him. Bose sat inside, huddled in a heap and breathless. The tiger, re-assured by the stillness of the object before him, ceased growling; and presently, the soft thud of his feet and his sniffing round the palki told the trembling man within that ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... at their baptism, which took place one cold bleak day in the margin of Seneca Lake. The horses which had brought the little company to the edge of the water, having been tied among the trees, made a constant rustling and trampling among the fallen leaves. The sharp rustle, the thud of the hoofs upon the ground, were sounds long connected in her mind with the crisis of her doubt, which then began. The maples stood above them, tall and leafless; the waters of the lake were leaden in hue and cold. Looking southward on either side of its long ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... was quite simple. While the Princess Petulant was sobbing on the nursery floor, something came through the open window and dropped with a thud just in front of her. This astonished her so much, that she stopped crying and looked up to see what it was. There stood a little pine dwarf, holding his hands ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... hold of the bottom of the bag with his fingers, turned it over and gave it a vigorous shake; and then sat staring wildly at the object that had fallen, with a thud, on the bearskin by his side. He was looking at a solid nugget of gold nearly as large as, and shaped very ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... complaints, incessant sounds, and low moanings. At times he thought he heard the halloaing of distant voices, at times it seemed as a whisper in his own ear. In the silence that followed each blast he fancied he could detect the creaking of the wagon, the dull thud of the oxen's hoofs, or broken fragments of speech, blown and scattered even as he strained his ears to listen by the next gust. This tension of the ear began to confuse his brain, as his eyes had been ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... resounded with the thunderous racket of heavy wings as the flock burst into flight, clattering away through leafy obscurity; but under the uproar of shot and clapping wings sounded the thud and splash of something heavy crashing earthward; and the Indian, springing from root to tussock, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... lays bare the lovely youth of the spring. The stream of the Meuse runs through this rich and comely village, which the echoes of the cannonade reach only as a dull thud, their meaning lost. ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... a simultaneous report, and the Count de Volaski leaped into the air and fell down, with a heavy thud, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... thud at the back of the room. Honey Hoke had fallen out of his chair. Now he lay on the floor, his legs drawn up and the back of his frowsy head resting against a rung of the chair in which still sat the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... strength of his mighty shoulders, back and loins into a mighty heave, and Freiderich von Bernstrum, giant though he was, went flying across the room, his head striking the floor with a terrible thud. ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... take a cheerful view, saying to herself that David might have needed more important papers, papers which he would not like everyone to know about, and had sent by special messenger to her to get them. Then her face would brighten and her step grow more brisk. But always would come the dull thud of possibility of something more serious. Her heart beat so fast sometimes that she was forced to lessen her speed to get her breath, for though she was going through town, and must necessarily walk somewhat ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... The whistled warning as the 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 to track ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... council of war, which overruled the plan for an immediate return to France. Presently a thud, followed by groans of mortal agony, was heard in the new commander's cabin. The door was burst open, and he was found dying from the thrust of his own sword. La Jonquiere, afterwards governor-general of Canada, thereupon succeeded d'Estournel. ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... with him as he sprang; something wrestled madly with him; something wrenched from beneath him; and in a clap he heard the thud of a body striking ground far below, and the slithering and splattering of some creature speeding furiously ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant |
