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Fusillade   Listen
noun
Fusillade  n.  (Mil.) A simultaneous discharge of firearms.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fusillade" Quotes from Famous Books



... talk; there was scarcely time to think. The road, the landscape, the very world, became a dizzying blur that destroyed all distinct sense of sight. In the rush of the air, and the rapid-fire fusillade from the motor, all sense ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... There was no fight left in Lip-lip, and he ran away shamelessly, his victim hot on his heels and worrying him all the way back to his own tepee. Here the squaws came to his aid, and White Fang, transformed into a raging demon, was finally driven off only by a fusillade of stones. ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... this fusillade in detail. "You know, aunt, dressmakers bring us their failures, and we, by our hints, get them made ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... dust which, filling our ears and irritating our eyes, made us sneeze and cough continuously, we beat a hasty retreat, entirely forgetting the duck we had come to seek. Not until we had got clear of the fusillade directed against us by the fungi, did we stop in our flight, when, clearing the dust from our eyes, and shaking it off from our heads and clothes, Lejoillie burst into a fit ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... not come among us dripping with human blood, showing us your fangs, and expect from us anything except a fusillade. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... concerning its making and its form. The paragraph in question, though, perhaps, neither the preacher nor his adviser suspected the truth, was only powerful because it formed the climax of all that had gone before. It was the final assault following upon processes of sapping and mining, bombardment and fusillade. The appeal must commence with the first word of the sermon. The very introduction must be persuasive. The motif of the whole composition must be the wooing note. Obviously this note will need to be struck in many keys. The appeal will ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... cattle. With these the party started to return, but were fired on by six Boers from a neighbouring donga or ditch. Major Chichester then ordered forward part of his troop with the prisoners in charge, while he and the rest of his men held the enemy at bay. A brisk fusillade ensued, in which five of the enemy's ponies were killed, and several of the Boers were shot. The party returned to camp safely, after having accomplished the object of their expedition in ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... were unlocked by the patrol and the panic-stricken throng tumbled through them and scattered like sheep behind the high, sheltering walls. Once more the massive gates were closed and the bolts thrown down, just in time to avoid a fusillade of bullets from the outside. It was all over in a minute. A hundred throats emitted shouts of rage, curses and threats, and then, as if by magic, the forest ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... the impetuous youth raised his gun and fired, wounding one of the men who had climbed the gate and was preparing to leap down into the court-yard. Imprecations broke forth anew and the combat began. Nothing could be heard but a vigorous fusillade, accompanied by the shouts of the besiegers and the besieged. These last were so few in number that they dare not dispatch one of their little company to Remoulins for aid. Besides, they were not sure that the band now ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... fusillade was almost innocuous, it harassed the troops, keeping them on the alert all night. And when, with the first streaks of dawn, the dreary march began, all traces of the foe had disappeared. All the morning dragged along, till fatigue ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... enclosure, for it was all exposed to their aim; but on the other hand they had the shelter of the stockade now, and from the further side of it they kept up a fierce fire upon the windows. Half-a-dozen of the censitaires returned the fusillade, while the leaders consulted as to what had best ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... there were six! He counted them as they came swiftly out from the shelter of the rocks to the level of the plain. He was about to fire when he thought of Joanne and Marie. They were still behind him, crouching upon the ground. To fire from where he stood would draw a fusillade of bullets in their direction, and with another warning cry to Joanne, he sped twenty paces to one side so that they would not be within range. Not until then did ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... instant; Bradley with his Lewiston, Costigan with a heavy automatic pistol whose bullets were explosive shells of tremendous power. But the man in gray, surrounded by an impenetrable wall of force, only smiled at the fusillade, tolerantly and maddeningly. Costigan leaped fiercely, only to be hurled backward as he struck that unyielding, invisible wall. A vicious beam snapped him back into place, the weapons were snatched away, and all three captives were held in ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... you later,' he cried, and was off, persuading the enormous beast under him to describe a semicircle in the narrow street backing, forcing forward, and backing again, to the accompaniment of the continuous fusillade. At length he got away, drew up within two feet of an electric tram that slid bumping down the main street, and vanished round the corner. A little ragged boy passed, crying, 'Signal, extra,' and Mr ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... of gunshot wounds. Even the women recalled terrible scenes. Mrs. Cutter recounted to an interested group how she had seen a claim jumped in Placer County in 1851, when three men were shot, falling in a fusillade of rifle shots, and expiring later upon the floor of her kitchen while she looked on. Mrs. Dyke had been in a stage hold-up, when the shotgun messenger was murdered. Stories by the hundreds went the round of the company. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... the environmental phase of salvation and to undertake this broader task in addition to the "cure of souls" may be to expose the minister to the cross-fire of economic sharp-shooters and a fusillade of sociological field guns. Besides, some of the supporters of the church will object and many will assert that the minister cannot qualify to speak with first-rate intelligence and authority upon ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... returning, shattered and bleeding at every pore. The enemy had suddenly come to their senses after the stunning blow. From the forts and redoubts crowning every surrounding hill issued the thunder. Cannon glared, shell crashed, musketry rolled in long fusillade, on three sides of the devoted Confederates. Huddled in the trenches they were torn to pieces by a tempest of shell ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... the most prominent and terrifying, probably still showed on their faces the theatrical cicatrices of their university duels. They were the soldiers who carried books in their knapsacks, and after the fusillade of a lot of country folk, or the sacking and burning of a hamlet, devoted themselves to reading the poets and philosophers by the glare of the blaze which they had kindled. They were bloated with science as with the puffiness of a toad, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... I now dashed away in pursuit of animals that had been scattered by the fusillade, and fired right and left at all ranges between two and ten hundred yards, but without any other effect than that of driving up the dust under two or three of them, and causing many of their astounding leaps. Soon the rest of the party were scattered so far on the plain as to ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne

... old man! we'll bring the boat," and leaving the pilot to keep up a fusillade at the monster with the carbines, we darted back. I shall never forget the efforts we made to launch the boat, but she was immovable, and every moment the tide was rising, the little ripples expending themselves in bubbly foam against the thirsty sand. We strained, we ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... I will," Rufus answered, angrily. "I will call up the household, lay hands on the rascal, back him to the wall, and bang a fusillade into him." ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... immobility gave me the measure of her courage, and the silence was so profoundly pellucid that the flutter of the flames that we were nearing began to come loud out of the blur of the glow. Then I heard the very crackling of the wood, like a fusillade from a great distance. Even then Castro did not deign ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... Cuban farmer. When the revolution broke out, young Rodriguez joined the insurgents, leaving his father and mother and two sisters at the farm. He was taken by the Spanish, was tried by a military court for bearing arms against the government, and sentenced to be shot by a fusillade some morning before sunrise. His execution took place a half mile distant from the city, on the great plain that stretches from the forts out to the hills, beyond which Rodriguez ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... the floor, just below the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front, waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary tied securely ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... were only the opening events of the day's programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other, and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick, acrid smoke—the kind always made by black powder—was arising through the open companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... too gentle hand on her shoulder. A little group of lesser officials stood, comic-opera fashion, in the background. And then Emma McChesney's New York training came to her aid. She ignored the voluble interpreter. She remained coolly unruffled by the fusillade of Portuguese. Quietly she opened her hand bag and plunged her fingers deep, deep therein. Her blue eyes gazed confidingly up into the Brazilian's snapping black ones, and as she withdrew her hand from the depths of her purse, there passed from her white fingers to his brown ones that ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... of shooting pheasants than the orthodox one, which begins with smoking a cigarette on a comfortable shooting-seat, and ends with a wild and furious fusillade, using three guns as fast as you can. So thought the farmer's son, who took the chance to test his new American .22-bore repeating-rifle, now that all the keepers were well out of the way. And he had come mighty close to bagging the old cock-bird, too. "As near as made no odds," he ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... heard nothing of what passed outside, were astonished to behold Athanasius Vaya and his troop appearing on the top of the wall. They did not long remain in doubt. Ali gave the signal by a pistol-shot, and a general fusillade followed. Terrible cries echoed from the court; the prisoners, terrified, wounded, crowded one upon another for shelter. Some ran frantically hither and thither in this enclosure with no shelter and no exit, until they ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... ranks, and their horses trampling on the dead bodies of their comrades. They reached the gorge. The peasants, sure of their prey, now forgot all prudence, and showed themselves. The Cossacks, with cries of rage, answered their fusillade. The scene ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... place was occupied as a fort by the retreating forces, so that the situation of the few non-combatants who remained was extremely critical. They were exposed to the fire of their friends, the national troops, from without, while enraged men were threatening their lives within. So hot was the fusillade that, going into the great dome after the battle, the astronomer could imagine all the constellations of the sky depicted by the bullet-holes. When retreat became inevitable, the Communists tried to set the building ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... experience how little of mercy or even of justice they may expect from the enemy, and, patriotism or the love of independence aside, it is better for them to die in the field than to risk the other alternative; a lingering life in an African penal settlement or the fusillade against the east wall of Cabanas prison. In an island with a soil so rich and productive as is that of Cuba there will always be roots and fruits for the insurgents to live upon, and with the cattle that they have hidden away in the laurel or on the mountains they can keep their troops in rations ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... the following morning artillery had been brought up, and the Pass and the enemy's position on the adjacent crestline were commanded. These on June 8 were carried by an infantry movement in echelon with loss of two men killed. Spitz Kop offered no resistance. A fusillade broke out on Inkweloane, but Dundonald's brigade soon quenched it by a determined ascent up alpine slopes to the crestline As at Helpmakaar the enemy set fire to the grass and passed away ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... heard, during this cruel night, the sound of the cannonade and fusillade from the direction of Borisow. Napoleon and Victor were in great anxiety; the latter thought that the measure taken, i.e., the sacrifice of his best division, of 4 thousand men who would have been of great value, had been unjustifiable, because ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... rocks,—here, through foam and spray and the roar of the angry torrent, a fleet of birch canoes came dancing like dry leaves on the froth of some riotous brook. They bore a band of Hurons first at the rendezvous. As they drew near the landing, all the fur-traders' boats blazed out a clattering fusillade, which was designed to bid them welcome, but in fact terrified many of them to such a degree that they scarcely dared to come ashore. Nor were they reassured by the bearing of the disorderly crowd, who, in jealous competition for their beaver-skins, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... a fusillade. He was more than surprised; he was vaguely alarmed. Wade had said nothing about having placed one of the C.L.S. detectives at Sparrow Lake and the knowledge that such a course had been deemed ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... a ranger, circle headlong over his tumbling horse. He turned to the front again, and, understanding what would follow, whipped and spurred furiously. Suddenly the answer came. The desert awoke in a fusillade of shots, and Jim saw Glover, who once more was in the lead, drift out of his saddle, slip down much as a child descends from its high-chair, and fall to earth in a crumpled heap. He swerved and dashed alongside. For an instant he drew rein and studied the still face. Then he lifted his eyes, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... Then followed a fusillade of questions—the length of her stay, her graduation from college in June, her likelihood of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... had little stomach for fighting to-day. Sniping has gone on, of course, and occasionally a regular fusillade, but to us the day on the whole has been peaceful. From 5 a.m. we have been very busy among the Australian wounded, these being the principal sufferers in yesterday's fight, owing, it is said, to their charging with the bayonet at ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... face of threatening heavens. Several villages of gypsies are camped on the banks of the Maritza, just outside the limits of Tatar Bazardjik; a crowd of bronzed, half-naked youngsters wantonly favor me with a fusillade of stones as I ride past, and several gaunt, hungry-looking curs follow me for some distance with much threatening clamor. The dogs in the Orient seem to be pretty much all of one breed, genuine mongrel, possessing nothing of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... fusillade, there is but little left of them. Those not instantly shot down retreat in the darkness, skulking of! among the pecan trees. It is altogether an affair of firearms: and for once the bowie—the Texan's trusted weapon—has no part in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... escaped from Tom Turner's trumpet, and drowned the final notes of the aerial concert. It did not interrupt the terrestrial fusillade. At last a shell exploded a few feet below the "Albatross," and then she mounted into the inaccessible regions ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... time the passengers—who, when the train pulled to a sudden stop that was followed by a fusillade of shots, believed it had been halted by bandits—had recovered from their confusion and were pouring out of the coaches, swarming toward the locomotive. A stout woman, whose short hair straggling to her bare shoulders indicated that she had been preparing to retire, screamed and fainted into the ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... shown her a vision of herself as she was. It seemed that she could never lift her eyes. But suddenly, into the crying of the wind, a shot broke sharply; then another and another, till the sobbing wail was lost in a crackling fusillade. ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... might have been the sound of a fusillade of rifles, and with it mingled another sound as ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... still guarding the launch, waiting with impatience for some one to bring him his dinner. He was relieved to note that from the direction of Miramar there was no sound of fighting. In the lower part of the city he could hear a brisk fusillade, but, except from the custom-house, the firing had more the sound of street fighting than of an organized attack. From this, he judged the assault on the artillery barracks had not yet begun. He flashed his electric torch on his watch, and it showed half past seven. There was ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... the parlor, the sufferer firing a gatling fusillade of blessings after him. Mrs. Moriarty continued the bombardment, as she escorted him to the door ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... breastworks, firing at twenty paces, sometimes his pistols, sometimes a musket, which he discharged, cast aside, and picked up again reloaded. At each discharge a man fell. The third time he made this round General Hatry honored him with a fusillade. He disappeared in the flame and smoke, and Roland saw him go down, he and his horse, as if annihilated. Ten or a dozen Republicans sprang from the ranks and met as many Chouans; the struggle was terrible, hand to hand, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... fears were in no way allayed, and as though to bolster their courage by warlike actions, they began to fire rapidly at the barred gates of the village, although no enemy was in sight. Tarzan took advantage of the deafening roar of this fusillade to fire ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... gradually becoming tremendous, the guns tuning up by batteries. There was, however, as yet, no platoon firing distinguishable through the sustained crackle of the fusillade; columns of dust, hanging above fields and woodlands, marked the courses of every northern road where wagons and troops were already moving west and south; the fog from the cannon turned the rising sun to ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... the cabin, falling over each other and swearing awfully. The shot Davidson let off down the skylight had hit no one; but he ran to the edge of the cabin-top and at once opened fire at the dark shapes rushing about the deck. These shots were returned, and a rapid fusillade burst out, reports and flashes, Davidson dodging behind a ventilator and pulling the trigger till his revolver clicked, and then throwing it down to take the other in his ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... took up the fusillade. Yells and howls and screams arose. Men fled. Something came crashing to the mouth of the Tube. Smithers' voice again, with purring note in it: "Get down there. I'll hold 'em off." Then single deliberately spaced shots, while something came stumbling, fumbling, ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... their saddles and took refuge under their wagons, others seized their arms and joined the soldiers in a sharp fire upon the charging and yelling warriors, with the usual effect of compelling them to veer and wheel and scamper away, still keeping up a lively fusillade of their own. One mule team and wagon went tearing off full tilt across the prairie pursued by a score of jeering, laughing, and exultant braves, and was finally "rounded up" and captured by them a mile away to the west; and Hatton had promptly availed himself ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... very plainly that a false step might be fatal in the brutal whirl of waters, which came rushing in from afar with dizzy speed and broke against the insurmountable obstacle, and in receding dashed against other waves which followed them. From this cause proceeded the perpetual fusillade of waters which rushed into the crevasse ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... time uselessly. His bullet struck squarely, but the shock of its impact was apparently nullified by the protective blue film. He emptied his gun in a last crashing fusillade, but without effect of any kind upon the film-guarded nuclei ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells

... the best place to make a defence. Professor James was killed while crossing a bridge near the legation. That night we were fired on from all sides, and for eight weeks we were exposed to a daily fusillade from an enemy that counted more on reducing us by starvation than on carrying our defences ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... provided Mr. Tubbs with ammunition for a perfect fusillade of wit. He warned Mr. Shaw that hereafter he might expect Neptune to have a grudge against him for having robbed the sea-god of his beauteous prey. I said I thought most likely it was not Neptune that was robbed but sharks, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... had told me that such a thing was possible when I left her at the lodge I should have denounced him with many words. I could see that Fred had not been enjoying himself, and while Mrs. Faulkner and Nina were discussing loudly what they should do next, he told me that he had been asked a perfect fusillade of questions none of which he could answer. "How old is that fig-tree in your garden?" he asked thoughtlessly, and Mrs. Faulkner's attention was ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... crosses where they rise The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed The cannon thunders, and at night he lies At peace beneath the eternal fusillade.... ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... horses were off-saddled and fed, the "dixies" were unearthed from off the pack-saddles and everything pointed to an early mug of tea and a much-needed rest. Unfortunately, the fates decreed otherwise, for just as the water was "on the boil" a terrific fusillade of rifle-fire broke out, seemingly from all sides. Previously to this, there had been intermittent shelling just to the north of the village, and on the commencement of the rifle-fire this increased in intensity until things ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... quietly descending into a little valley traversed by deep ravines a sharp fusillade made them halt suddenly, killing twenty of their men, and a company of sharpshooters, suddenly emerging from a little wood as large as your hand, darted forward with bayonets at the end of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... first at reveille, and first In all the varied duties of the day. His rough-hewn comrades, bred to boisterous ways, Jeered at the slender youth with maiden hands, Nicknamed him 'Nel,' and for a month or more Kept up a fusillade of jokes and jeers. Their jokes and jeers he heard but heeded not, Or heeding did a kindly act for him That jeered him loudest; so the hardy men Came to look up to Paul as one above The level of their rough and roistering ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... disappeared from view. Small parties of his infantry meanwhile had dribbled forward, considerably helped by old systems of trenches which extended down into the low ground. Our men were ready, however, and met them with a heavy fusillade whenever they ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... The sound had seemed to come from across the passage. She hurried to the door and opened it. As she did so, from behind the door of the apartment opposite there came a perfect fusillade of crashes, each seeming to her strained hearing louder and more appalling than ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... we learned what had happened in those first wild moments. All the tows had almost reached the beach, when a party of Turks intrenched almost on the shore opened up a terrible fusillade from rifles and also from a Maxim. Fortunately most of the bullets went high, but, nevertheless, many men were hit as they sat huddled together 40 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... African who owns a gun, be he revolted soldier or mere peaceful farmer, never lets that weapon go far away from his hand, for fear that his neighbor should send him away into the land of shadows in order to possess it. And so a fusillade was soon commenced. But the launch, armed with her fine rampart of logs, bore it unflinchingly, and steamed up within a hundred yards of the thick of them, and just held there in her place, with her wheel gently flapping against the stream, and opened a vicious ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... the Miami on a raft, their horses swimming after them; and were met on landing by a crowd of warriors, who, after smoking with them, escorted them to the neighboring town, where they were greeted by a fusillade of welcome. "We entered with English colors before us, and were kindly received by their king, who invited us into his own house and set our colors upon the top of it; then all the white men and traders that were there came and welcomed us." This "king" was Old Britain, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... of the onset, When bayonet and Highlanders' blade Sank crushed where the trenches were flashing In the roll of the long fusillade. Repulsed! O how sadly at night-fall The remnant was gathered and told! In silence they thought of the wounded, And mourned the ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... thankless task. First of all there was the usual ceremony of "cosseting" and drying tears. Then with a pin I had to mend the rent in Mamie's frock. Then I had to kiss both of Gladys's elbows to make them well, and finally I had to stand a fusillade of chaff and jeers from the Philosophers, which made life a heavier burden that ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... The fusillade commenced, and all the Indians that could run stampeded. The only American killed was Lennon, a half brother of Ammi White, my Indian agent at ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... he drew the line. No army of servants, always in evidence, would he tolerate, either; no highly ornamented human bric-a-brac decorating halls and corners; no exotic pheasants hustled into covert and out again; no fusillade at the wretched, frightened, bewildered aliens dumped by the thousand into unfamiliar cover and driven toward the guns by ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... moment its skirts were outlined by a circle of fire, and a violent fusillade rang out. Bullets whistled in all directions, and behind me I heard the heavy sound of men and horses falling on the hard ground. In my troop a horse without a rider broke away and came galloping towards me. What did ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... Perhaps only cautious of getting into a general action for what was intrinsically nothing? Second, that two regiments of Infantry, whom Winterfeld detached double-quick to seize a couple of villages (Leopoldshayn, Hermsdorf) on his right, and therefrom fusillade Nadasti on flank, found the villages already occupied by thousands of Croats, with regular foot and cannon-batteries, and could in nowise seize them. This was a great reverse of advantage. Third, that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... witness, now all possible peril for her was passed, suddenly became mad with fear. She ran into her cabin and scrouged behind the headboard of a bed. When at length she timorously withdrew from hiding and came trembling forth, already persons out of the neighborhood, drawn by the sounds of the fusillade, were hurrying up. They seemed to spring, as it were, out of the ground. Into the mill these newcomers carried the two Tatums, Jess being stone-dead and Harve still senseless, with a leg dangling where the bones were snapped below the knee, and a great cut in his scalp; and they laid ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... seen. This was what they meant; this was the meaning of the carriage, the alley and the back door of the prison; all my part in the business had been kept secret. I wondered what in the world Hallie could have thought of my behavior last night, but I was greatly relieved to think of the fusillade of questions I had escaped. I managed to get out something about father's having heard ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... 1835, Mr. Adams again presented two petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but without giving rise to much excitement. The fusillade was, however, getting too thick and fast to be endured longer with indifference by the impatient Southerners. At the next session of Congress they concluded to try to stop it, and their ingenious scheme was to make Congress shot-proof, so to speak, against such missiles. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... is one of the inventions for which we must look to the future. It is something, meanwhile, that, with the extinction of feudalism and the concretion of the detached provinces with which it had macadamized Christendom, the ceaseless fusillade of little wars, which played like a lambent flame of mephitic gas over the surface of each country, has come to an end. The petty sovereignties which made up Germany, France and Italy have been within a few generations absorbed into three masses—so many police districts which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... There was a terrific fusillade for half an hour or so; his work was respectable, and, satisfied, she led him proudly back to the house and, curling up on the leather divan in the library, invited him to sit ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... Royal Street is no place for a weakling, for the shouts and carousels of the roisterers will strike fear into the bravest ones. Yet amid the cries and yells, the deafening blow of horns and tin whistles, and the really dangerous fusillade of fireworks, a little figure hurried along, one hand clutching tightly the battered hat that the rude merry-makers had torn off, the other grasping under the thin black ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... flickering with flashes where the bulk of the insurgent infantry began firing in retreat; the marines' fusillade broke out from Paradise village; rifle after rifle cracked along the river-bank. Suddenly the deep report of a cannon came echoing landward from the sea; a shell, with lighted fuse trailing sparks, flew over us with a rushing whistle ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... began, and we went into action at once, as did the whole line of infantry. A tremendous fusillade of shells and bullets is now being poured upon the position in front, and chiefly on the central conical kopje. My waggon is halted, waiting to go up. The sun is just getting strength, warming our numbed feet, and spiriting away ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... July was observed by Boston negroes for many years to commemorate the introduction of measures to abolish the slave trade. It was derisively called Bobalition Day, and the orderly convention of black men was greeted with a fusillade of rotten fruit and eggs and much jesting abuse. It was at one of these Bobalition-Day celebrations that this complimentary toast was seriously given and recorded in honor of the newly elected governor: "Governor Brooks—May the mantelpiece ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... grape-shot from the two largest pieces, all reached pell-mell a strip of land at the foot of the half-ruined ramparts. In the ardor of the rush, Cinq-Mars and Fontrailles, with the young Locmaria, forced their horses upon the rampart itself; but a brisk fusillade killed the three animals, which rolled ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... the bystanders, only to be drowned out by another, but fortunately more harmless, fusillade from the garage. ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... not reply. Nothing in the world could have induced him to speak at that moment, or to make any sound whatsoever that might betray his position to a dangerous maniac who might at any instant reload his pistol and resume the fusillade. Explanations, in his opinion, could be deferred until somebody had the presence of mind to switch on the lights. He flattened himself on the carpet and hoped for better things. His cheek touched the corpse beside him; but though he winced and shuddered ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... away, sick at heart, from the contemplation of this bitter tragedy, it is with a thrill of almost vindictive satisfaction that one remembers that less than eighteen months later the Luneta echoed once more to the sound of a mightier fusillade—the roar of the great guns with which the battle of Manila Bay ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... enemy. Thus, with the wall manned, and the remainder of his little party squatting on the stone floor of the gun-chamber ready to support their comrades, Henri and his men waited for perhaps half an hour, during which time the fusillade from the men of the 24th Brandenburg Regiment sent a hail of bullets in their direction. They thudded against the bags continuously, while often enough a missile would strike the concrete ceiling of the chamber, and, ricochetting from it, would mushroom ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... can cover a hostile argument with ridicule, and drive it out of the field with good-tempered laughter. But his method is not only that of raillery. He is remorselessly logical. He can pursue the logical sequence of his case, and set it forth with a fusillade of perfectly relevant and illuminating instances and analogies. He never loses his thread like Mr. Chesterton; he never wanders off into vague rhetoric like Mr. Wells. He chases his enemies and his subject until he has ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... the stillness of the night; it was answered at once by another closer in. More shots followed, gradually increasing to a fusillade as the scouts and pickets came running back. Men sprang up from the ground, but even as they did so another volley reached them, and three men dropped with a groan and lay still. The alarm sounded clear from the bugle and echoed ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... all around me whipped out their revolvers and commenced a rattling fusillade, the mark being the body of the man swinging ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... the folds of the red banner; she was indeed standing on tiptoes in order to see the troops, and nervous expectation made her nostrils quiver and her red lips part so as to show her white, eager, gleaming teeth. Silvere smiled at her. But he had scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers, who could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired their first volley. It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of wind was passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the bullets, fell ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... to be the key to their position. Distributing his men in such a way among the coppices on the river's bank that they could assail the foe to the greatest advantage without unnecessarily exposing themselves, Wallace commenced a steady fusillade on the King's foot-guards, who were attempting to storm the bridge. The Covenanters had only one cannon and about 300 men with which to meet the assault; but the gun was effectively handled, and the ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... What is this fusillade? Against whom is it directed? Against the Prussians? No! Against Frenchmen, against passers-by, against those who cry "Vive la Republique et vive l'Ordre." Men are falling dead or wounded, women flying, shops closing, amid the whistling of the bullets,—all ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... The fusillade stopped after a bit. I was all for getting out and away immediately. Bellinger wanted to wait a while. We argued for as much as five minutes, I should think, and then the lights having gone out, I took matters in my own hands and we went away from there. ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... going to the window exposed himself as a long silhouette against the office lights. Immediately the shouting became a steady yell, and a rattling fusillade of small missiles, corners of tobacco plugs, cigarette-boxes, and even pennies beat against the window. The sounds of the racket now began floating up the stairs as the folding ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... interrupted a voice at my back, accompanied by a pistol report. My horse jumped forward, followed by a fusillade of shots behind me, when the hireling deputies turned and plunged into the river. Tolleston had wheeled his horse, joining the retreat, and as I brought my six-shooter into action and was in the act of leveling on him, he reeled from the saddle, but clung to the neck of his ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... broken the tacit truce against a resort to arms. There was a sharp fusillade, followed by a scramble as the belligerents sought cover. The men who had been left outside now leaped over the barricade. The appearance of reenforcements either frightened Carey or the success of his shot had ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... seized them. All the world seemed to sway before Job's eyes. The mountains below, where the river bends, seemed a thing of life. His feet slipped on the narrow edge of a steep cliff he was crossing, the gravel beneath gave way, and Job found himself lying at the foot of a steep incline, while a whole fusillade of stones was flying past him. A moment, and it was ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... attackers of Davis were halted momentarily by a disconcerting fusillade from the rear. The "American devil" had come out into the open, and ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... not a tenth part of a second too soon. A fusillade of shots poured down. It seemed that men were firing from every door, window, and street corner. Bandy Walker fell as he started to run. Two bullets tore through his heart, one from each side. The big cowpuncher never ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... social more than economic. Len had been one of those good-natured, voluble, walrus-moustached men who make such poor providers. A carpenter by trade, he had always been a spasmodic worker and a steady talker. His high, hollow voice went on endlessly above the fusillade of hammers at work and the clatter of dishes at home. Politics, unions, world events, local happenings, neighbourhood gossip, all fed the endless stream of ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... to steal up alongside, though about a hundred yards still separated the combatants, and the firing became general on both sides. Indeed, so determined and persistent was the fusillade, that there was a continuous roar and rattle of sound; while the silvery sheen of the moonlit night was reddened by the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... ordered his command about like some old fire-eating colonel. His vigorous pursuit kept the enemy busy, but eventually they pulled him up in front of a roughly-made sangar. This was a strong detached post thrown out in front of the outpost line. The defenders gave his little army a fierce fusillade of blank. ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... express instantly returns; "Military execution on the instant; give them shriving if they want it; that done, fusillade them all." So poor Torrijos and his followers, the whole Fifty-six of them, Robert Boyd included, meet swift death in Malaga. In such manner rushes down the curtain on them and their affair; they vanish ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... 1st West India Regiment was again called upon to lead the way, and the men, embarking in the canoes, paddled out into the breakers. A continued and furious fusillade was at once opened by the concealed enemy upon the men, who were unable to reply, as their attention was entirely occupied in keeping the canoes from capsizing. Fortunately, the Appollonians fired wildly, and their powder was of bad quality; for, although almost every man of the detachment ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... second between his shot and an answering fusillade from outside. The panes in the other windows shattered and Hatch, gurgling incoherently behind his gag, kicked to roll himself behind the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... our supply of ammunition would hold out with such a fusillade kept up, but ventured upon no protest, for I was already groping my way through the darkness along the inner wall. Furniture lay overturned in every direction, and I experienced considerable difficulty in making progress through ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... aside and Collins' curly head thrust out of the window. Presently the head reappeared, simultaneously with the crack of a revolver, the first of a detonating fusillade. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... discover the clearing which marked the little green spot on top of the hill, where once had stood an old cabin. The base of the ruined chimney, with its immense fire-place, constituted the boys' "cave." They were close to it, now, and felt themselves to be in imminent danger of a sweeping fusillade. They had just crept up to the top of the ravine and were consulting, when some one immediately behind them, not twenty feet away, ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page

... prevent their use by the enemy, and the systematic looting of the country by the invaders, there seems to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the restaurants are filled to the doors nightly, there is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and in the various gardens, all of which have cabaret performances, the popular dancers are showered with silver and notes. In fact, a customary evening in Bucharest is not very far removed, in its gaiety and abandon, from a New Year's Eve ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... spirit they snugged everything on board the schooner and prepared to defy the storm. It came in the night, with a howl of blast and a fusillade of sleet like bird-shot. It stamped upon the throbbing sea and made tumult in water and air. At midnight they were wallowing with only a forestays'l that was iced to the hardness of boiler plate. But though the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day



Words linked to "Fusillade" :   fire, firing, volley, salvo, burst



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