"Explode" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... principle," said the officer, nodding; "for when that heavy freight goes pounding past the station, it makes enough noise to drown almost any sort of sound. The windows rattle, and we always have to stop talking until the caboose gets past. And that was the time they chose to explode their juice, with an absolute certainty that no policeman's ear would hear a ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... God, you'll not introduce her to the king! I'll explode the whole affair, and Dunkirk may go to the devil before you shall introduce Betty ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... having a dream that stirred the least fibre of your being and facing the world in a demand for realization of it, and then finding what you coveted in the palm of your hand, as it were, you would know what is in my heart, and why expression of some kind is necessary to me just now, and why I'll explode if it is denied. It will lower the tension, if you will accept this as a matter of fact; as if you rather expected and liked it, if ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... explode after your pipe, sir," I replied in my best Shakespearian, "my cigarette won't do any harm. So ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... the division of its contents into small portions. In boilers using a water-leg construction, while the danger from explosion will be largely limited to the tubes, there is the danger, however, that such legs may explode due to the deterioration of their stays, and such an explosion might be almost as disastrous as that of a shell boiler. The headers in a Babcock & Wilcox boiler are practically free from any danger of explosion. Were such an explosion ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... They might all be decorated if that would make them more interesting, but even if they were quite unadorned they ought not to be ugly. If we could see them we shouldn't feel that we are surrounded by hidden mysteries liable at any time to explode or break loose upon us unawares. Those things that get out of order easily ought surely to be accessible. I don't believe there would have been half the trouble with plumbing, either in the way of danger to health or from dishonest and ignorant work, if it had not been the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... the benefit of sufferers from a fire—somewhere or other. In our day multitudes of people fall victims to all kinds of dreadful disasters, explosions of boilers, explosions of fire-damp, of everything that can explode, for the agents of destruction seem to be in a state of unnatural excitement as well as human beings. Never before, perhaps, have inanimate things seemed so much in accordance with the spirit of the times. Fred found a superb placard, the work of Cheret, ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... ahead, full speed;" and the Hartford and her consort steamed forward. As they passed between the buoys, the cases of the torpedoes were heard knocking against the bottom of the ship; but for some reason they failed to explode, and the Hartford went safely through the gates of Mobile Bay, passing the forts. Farragut's last and hardest battle was virtually won. After a delay which allowed the flagship to lead nearly a mile, the Brooklyn got her head round, and came in, closely followed by all the other ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... city. Therefore, as soon as it was light enough to make observations, Repeller No. 1 did not hesitate to discharge a motor-bomb into the harbour, a mile or more above where the first one had fallen. This was done in order to explode any torpedoes which might have been put into position since the discharge ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... volley of their shells came closer and closer. At this time my attention was attracted to the second piece, a few paces to our left, and I saw a shell plow into the ground under Lieutenant Brown's feet and explode. It tore a large hole, into which Brown sank, enveloped as he fell in smoke and dust. In an instant another shell burst at the trail of my gun, tearing the front half of Tom Williamson's shoe off, and wounding him sorely. A piece of it also broke James Ford's leg, besides cutting ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... invaluable manuscripts at an enormous price; and preparations were instantly made for performing one of the plays, called VORTIGERN. Soon after the acting of the play, the indiscretion of the lad caused the secret to explode; and, instantly, those who had declared that he had written as well as SHAKSPEARE, did every thing in their power to destroy him! The attorney drove him from his office; the father drove him from his house; and, in short, he was hunted down as if he had been a malefactor of the worst description. ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... another would burst and go up in flame. It was fourteen hours going off and the military officer ordered the girls to their billets until it should be over. It was like this: First a couple of shells would explode, then there would be a second's quiet and a keg of powder would flare; then some boxes of ammunition would go off; then some more shells. It was a terrible pandemonium of sound. Thirty miles away in Gondrecourt they saw the fire and ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... Italians Frenchmen, accounting them light headed fellows, the French scoff again at Italians, and at their several customs; Greeks have condemned all the world but themselves of barbarism, the world as much vilifies them now; we account Germans heavy, dull fellows, explode many of their fashions; they as contemptibly think of us; Spaniards laugh at all, and all again at them. So are we fools and ridiculous, absurd in our actions, carriages, diet, apparel, customs, and consultations; we [397] scoff and point one at another, when as in conclusion ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... nor spoke, and the question, like a bomb that fails to explode, produced no result after considerable effort and expense. The boy looked down again at the alarum clock he had been trying to mend, and turned the handle. It was too tightly wound to go. A stopped clock has the sulkiest face ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... at a time when the Delaware was filled with British shipping, that Bushnell set adrift upon its swift-flowing tide a number of small kegs, filled with gunpowder, and provided with percussion apparatus, so that contact with any object would explode them. The kegs were started on their voyage at night. But Bushnell had miscalculated the distance they had to travel; so that, instead of reaching the British fleet under cover of darkness, they arrived ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... gun," advised Tom, never turning his head from the window through which he was aiming. "That one may get choked, and explode ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... either is. History had no need to ask what either might be; all it needed to know was the admission of ignorance; the mere fact of multiplicity baffling science. Even as to the fact, science disputed, but radium happened to radiate something that seemed to explode the scientific magazine, bringing thought, for the time, to a standstill; though, in the line of thought-movement in history, radium was merely the next position, familiar and inexplicable since Zeno ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the boat an' began to push through the bushes, we went straight for the line of my musket, as I had expected; but by some unlucky chance it didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... of the game. He even took the precaution to partition off a tiny room for himself in the hay loft above Little Saxon's stall, where he spent the nights dozing and snatching up the ancient shot gun down the muzzle of which his enthusiastic fingers had rammed enough buck shot to explode the piece and blow himself as well as any unhappy intruder into that land from which there is ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... avalanche that would never fall. It was a nuisance, a stupidity, that kept Europe drilling and wasted enormous sums on unavoidable preparations; it hung up everything like a noisy argument in a drawing-room, but that human weakness and folly would ever let the mine actually explode he did not believe. He had been in France in 1911, he had seen how close things had come then to a conflict, and the fact that they had not come to a conflict had enormously strengthened his natural disposition to believe that at bottom ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... about it, Allan," the girl went on. "I know I shall have to tell somebody, or I shall simply explode. You will have to advise me about it, for I was never ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... lay here ready for it! The Protestants saw with consternation the Spaniards establishing themselves upon the Lower Rhine; with still greater anxiety did the Roman Catholics see the Hollanders bursting through the frontiers of the empire. It was in the west that the mine was expected to explode which had long been dug under the whole of Germany. To the west, apprehension and anxiety turned; but the spark which kindled the flame came unexpectedly from ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... the cage would fall perhaps hundreds of feet, and its occupants be killed. Then, he who descends knows that he is going into a series of subterranean caves where the gas escapes, that the slightest contact with a light will explode, burning, slaying, and destroying, and leaving behind the choke-damp, which is even more deadly in ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... the downfall of English ministries and Ulster. Born of Irish parents. First man to successfully explode dynamite in Parliament without being executed. Ambition: An Ulsterless Ireland, a Conservativeless England. Address: Close to the English ministry. Epitaph: The Bills Men ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... proof. This man says bishops are necessary and divinely appointed; the next man denies this totally. The Quaker denies what the disciple of Calvin or Knox believes, while the Universalist ignores what the latter professes; and now the Mormons, spiritual rappers, and Transcendentalists explode the Bible altogether. The Catholic church, with those countless millions of her children that constitute her body, has been reading the Bible and studying it these nineteen hundred years, and never yet, with all her learning, could find two opposite meanings to one single text; ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... Go without eating rather than do it. Your credit is still good; but it is being slowly undermined—and the indiscretion of a friend who chanced to say: "I think Valorsay is hard up," might fire the train, and then you'd explode.'" ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Joe and Blake worked in silence, making ready for their part in it. All about the boys, though they could neither see nor hear them, were Uncle Sam's men—soldiers, some of them—stationed near where, so rumor said, the attempt was to be made to explode the dynamite. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... tear to pieces an enemy's camp that lies in the open field. All this is accomplished by dropping shells composed partly of some elements not found in our world. These shells are made in such a way that they explode as soon as they touch any substance, and the concussion is much more terrible than is caused by our most powerful explosives. Because no ship could hold together under such destructive shells, the nations abandoned their navies ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... the world happened, Tom?" he yelled, for he had to use all his lung power to be heard above that racket. "Did it explode?" ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... judge of equality, or any other proportion, by the accurate and exact standard, viz. the enumeration of the minute indivisible parts, they both employ a standard, which is useless in practice, and actually establish the indivisibility of extension, which they endeavour to explode. Or if they employ, as is usual, the inaccurate standard, derived from a comparison of objects, upon their general appearance, corrected by measuring and juxtaposition; their first principles, though certain and infallible, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... mixed up with Cupids; to have, in his own words, "una copiosa quantita di Amorini." Albani supplied the Cardinal accordingly with Cupids in clusters: they hang in the sky like bunches of cherries; and leap out of the sea like flying fish; grow out of the earth in fairy rings; and explode out of the fire like squibs. No work whatsoever is done in any of the four elements, but by the Cardinal's Cupids. They are plowing the earth with their arrows; fishing in the sea with their bowstrings; driving the clouds with their breath; and fanning the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... fill a torpedo with Greek fire and poisonous and deadly missiles, attach it to a balloon, and then let it sail away over the hostile camp and explode at the right moment, when the time-fuse burned out. He intended to use this invention in the capture of St. Louis, exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it until the army of occupation would gladly capitulate. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the least. Look, you're quite a distance away, and even if it does explode and the books are scattered away, it can't hurt much to be hit by one of these volumes. There, I'm all ready ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... He heard the pistol explode and his face felt scorched, but he struck savagely, and something rattled upon the floor. The pistol had dropped and he was somewhat surprised to feel himself unhurt as he grappled with Daly. They reeled through the door and fell against the rails of the platform. Then he got a heavy ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... which woke up the sleeping disease. The disease was there, and if one thing had not awakened it some other would. And so, if the population of a great city have got into a socially diseased state, it matters little what shock may have caused it to explode. Politics may in one case, fanaticism in another, national hatred in a third, hunger in a fourth—perhaps even, as in Byzantium of old, no more important matter than the jealousy between the blue and the green ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... complained to Ucatella. She told Phoebe, and they bound his brows with a wet handkerchief, and advised him to keep in-doors. He sat down in the coolest part of the house, and held his head with his hands, for it seemed as if it would explode into two ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy, possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him: the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct with all the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... while the hubbub began to swell—and roared for drink. An old man, who served as drawer to these cavaliers, went out to obey the order; and when he was gone, those near the door swung across it a heavy bar. Wrath against the domineering intruder was gathering, and waited but the moment to explode. Jasper, turning round his bloodshot eyes; saw Cutts within a few chairs of him, seeking ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... floods after tea (Sotteville). There are four trains waiting here, and the C.S.'s have been skating on the floods. We move on at 1 o'clock to-night. No.— A.T. had a bomb dropped each side of their train at Bailleul, but they didn't explode. ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... freedom and humanity, into an engine of priestcraft and despotism, and to undermine the spirit of the English Constitution and the independence of the English character. The Editor and his friends systematically explode every principle of liberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn, resent every pretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strike at the root of all free inquiry or discussion, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... de Gloria, I could not persuade myself to go as far as the Plaza, to see the Iscariots explode. At a distance we listened to the hissing and crackling of the fireworks, the ringing of all the bells, and the thundering of artillery; and knew by the hum of busy voices, and the rolling of carriages, that the Holy Week was numbered ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... it wouldn't explode," the stranger said, chattily. "You see, I haven't derived that formula yet, so I couldn't make a real explosive. I could of course, materialize beside you, under your protective screen, and crush you in a vise. I could materialize ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... The clock will explode!" cried Shirley, desperately. Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had she torn the wire, as a man would have done, the dreaded ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... excitement. One of the searchers had drawn a watch-like contrivance from my waistcoat pocket. It was not a watch, because it had no dial or works, but something which was quite foreign to them. First they dropped it as if fearing it might explode. Then finding that the fall brought about no ill-effects they approached it warily, picked it up gingerly, and held it to their ears. It did not tick. Then they shook it, banged it on the desk, studied it closely with a wise, old-owlish look, ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... flame,—just as there happens to be smoke or no smoke emitted by the furnace. Boilers, therefore, operating upon this principle, speedily become leaky, and are much worn by oxidation, so that, if the pressure is considerable, they are liable to explode. It is very difficult to apportion the quantity of air admitted, to the varying wants of the fire; and as air may at some times be rushing in when there is no smoke to consume, a loss of heat, and an increased consumption of fuel may be the result of the arrangement; ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... out with a force great enough to resist this crushing weight of air. But if you were suddenly to go up above the earth's atmosphere, or if you were to stay down here and go into a room from which the air were to be pumped all at once, your body would explode like a torpedo. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... the German reserves forming up for an attack on us, and destroyed them in large numbers. Certainly, as Colonel Napier says, it is an awful war. However, I notice that a lot of German fuses do not explode their shells, which makes me think they have not got quite so good a supply of stuff as they try to make us believe! I want very much to go out, but, on the whole, I think it is safer to stay in at present. ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... minds. Though we have so spoken in accommodation with the views of others, the problem of the moral world is not, in reality, high and difficult in itself, like the great problem of the material universe. We repeat, it is simply to refute and explode the sophism of the atheist. Let this be blown away, and the darkness which seems to overhang the moral government of the world will disappear like the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... Frenchmen who were in the town held the English in check till the fugitives rallied; that Washington and his men then took to flight, and would have been pursued but for the loss of some barrels of gunpowder which chanced to explode during the action. Dumas adds that several large parties are now on the track of the enemy, and he hopes will cut them to pieces. He then asks for a supply of provisions and merchandise to replace those which the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... was found to be blocked; but a pound of powder well placed and provided with a slow match was left to explode, and as soon as the foul air had cleared away the place was found practicable, and the party descended to find enough cargo left to well ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... figured by the balsam, which especially symbolizes impatience by reason of the irritability of its seed-vessels, which fly at a touch and explode, sending ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... found themselves while carrying out an air attack upon Ferrijik junction. Smylie's machine was subjected to such heavy fire that it was disabled, and the airman was compelled to plane down after releasing all his bombs but one, which failed to explode. The moment he alighted he set fire to his machine. Presently Smylie saw his companion about to descend quite close to the burning machine. There was infinite danger from the bomb. It was a question of seconds ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... so that the two do not harmonize. Just like wind, water, thunder and lightning, which, when they meet in the bowels of the earth, must necessarily, as they are both to dissolve and are likewise unable to yield, clash and explode to the end that they may at length exhaust themselves. Hence it is that these spirits have also forcibly to diffuse themselves into the human race to find an outlet, so that they may then completely disperse, with the result that men and women are suddenly imbued with these ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of peace. If that is the nature of the Bashaw, and one's sole mode of fishing knowledge from him, why not? thinks M. de Voltaire. His patience with M. de Maupertuis, first and last, was very great. But we shall find it explode at length, a dozen years hence, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker. It lacked poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it wanted in manner it made up in fire and directness, giving an emotional and loyal audience abundant opportunity to explode into long-continued cheering. Thoughtful men who were not in any sense political partisans gave careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement. He brought the great struggle nearer home, and men listened ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... naval architect named DUNKIN claims to have constructed a new style of vessel, impervious to rams, shell, or shot." Now, then, where is our friend, Captain ERICSSON? The Captain has a torpedo which he is anxious to explode, near a strong vessel belonging to somebody else. He says it will blow up anything. DUNIN says nothing can blow up his vessel. A contest between these very positive inventors would be a positive luxury—to those who had nothing to risk. We bet on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... another only in differences of physical power and moral aim. Which was all perfectly true, and much truer than the cheap criticism which could not see beyond superficial differences, or the fossil theories of the old school. But Pre-Raphaelitism was an unstable compound, liable to explode upon the experimenter, and its component parts to return to their old antithesis of crude naturalism on the one hand, and affectation of piety or poetry or antiquarianism, on the other. And that their new champion did not then foresee. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... and the old man scratched his head in perplexity. "But everybody in this house seems about ready to explode with excitement. I never saw sich a happy bunch in all my life. Ye'd think that summer had been suddenly dumped down here, with all the birds singin', the bees hummin', and the flowers bloomin'. That's the only way ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... up to the brow of the hill to see the "fun," though we were warned that we were courting trouble in so doing. We could see columns of rebel infantry marching in ranks of four, just as we marched, en route, and as shell after shell from our guns would explode among them and scatter and kill we would cheer. We were enjoying ourselves hugely until presently some additional puffs of smoke appeared from their side, followed immediately by a series of very ugly hissing, whizzing sounds, and the dropping of shells amongst our troops which changed the whole ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... gasoline, and the fuel of the man-motor we call food. The two kinds of fuel do not taste or smell much alike; but they are alike in that they both have what we call energy, or power, stored up in them, and will, when set fire to, burn, or explode, and give off this power in the shape of heat, or explosions, which ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... struck dumb and rigid from head to foot. Sancho glanced at him and saw him with his head bent down upon his breast in manifest mortification; and Don Quixote glanced at Sancho and saw him with his cheeks puffed out and his mouth full of laughter, and evidently ready to explode with it, and in spite of his vexation he could not help laughing at the sight of him; and when Sancho saw his master begin he let go so heartily that he had to hold his sides with both hands to keep himself from ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... attempt to enter, they retreated for the purpose, we presumed, of obtaining additional assistance. What was now to be done? The master appeared obdurate, and we had gone too far to recede. Some proposed to drill a hole in the window seat, fill it with gunpowder, and explode it if any one attempted to enter. Others thought we had better prepare to set fire to the school sooner than surrender unconditionally. But the majority advised what was, perhaps, the most prudent resolution, to wait for another attack; and, if ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... shot forward, each to plunge into and explode inside one of the skeletons. When visibility was restored another wave of ships came forward to repeat the performance, but there was nothing left to fight. Every surviving skeleton had blinked out of ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the seeds. It is of a horn-color, about three and a half inches wide and two high, and looks like a little striped melon. The ripe fruit, on taking out one of the twelve woody cells which compose it, will explode with a noise like a pistol, each cell giving a double report. This sometimes takes place while the fruit is hanging on the tree, and sometimes when it stands upon the table filled with sand. To prevent this, it is prettily hooped ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... been enjoying the bath to the limit, and he had no desire whatever to give it up. Something hot and raging seemed to explode in his brain and it was as if a red glare, such as sometimes comes in the sunset, had fallen over all the stretch of river and jungle before his eyes. He squealed once, reared up with one lunge out of the bath—and charged. They ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... shall carry a ball of yarn dipped in turpentine, mixed with sulphur and other inflammable things. They shall also carry another ball, having but a thin coating of the yarn, and powder inside so as to explode. When the clock strikes two, we will say, each of them will smash the window of some store, light both balls, and put them in. I want the explosion of one ball to scare anyone who may be sleeping there half out of their senses, and make them rush out ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... to his big toe and hung it from his window. Luke had done the same. They were not permitted to explode alarm clocks and ruin the last sweets of sleep in either home. So they had agreed that the first to wake should rise and dress with stealth, slip down the dark stairs of his house, into the starlit street and over to the other's home and pull the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... other. Too late he ordered his helmsman to put the tiller hard over and swing the ship to larboard, as a preliminary to manoeuvring for a less impossible position of attack. At that very moment the Arabella seemed to explode as she swept by. Eighteen guns from each of her flanks emptied themselves at that point-blank range into the hulls of the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the Tower of London and other repositories of weapons of war in England and on the continent, he found several guns having the chambered breech, but all were so constructed as to be of little practical value, being far more liable to explode prematurely and destroy the man who should use them than the objects at which they might be aimed. Unwilling, however, to seem to claim that which had been previously invented, he read before the Institution ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... striding down the platform, thrusting his way through the crowd with no gentle elbow, hand on his gun, displeasure ready to explode from his mouth. The baggage-man asked advice on accepting the proffered box, with fare and a half ticket attached as in the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... explode a mine!" And at once the conversation was interrupted, as if a powerful and new curiosity had taken hold of ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... doubt. It was up the foothills a mile or two above, and just beside the valley in which were the picnickers. The men about the post were summoned, burros were loaded, and at 2 P.M. the whole rain-making force was far up the foothills unloading and preparing to fly gigantic kites and explode in the upper vaults of the atmosphere bombs and rockets and all sorts of things ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... time to avoid its horns. Four pairs of banderillas are planted in this way, rendering the bull mad with rage and pain. Should the animal prove of a cowardly nature and refuse to attack repeatedly, banderillas de fuego (fire) are used. These are furnished with fulminating crackers, which explode with terrific noise as the bull careers about the ring. During this division numerous manoeuvres are sometimes indulged in for the purpose of tiring the bull out, such as leaping between his horns, vaulting over his back with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... explode!" said Tommy excitedly to himself, alone in the great bare laboratory. "Steel itself would vaporize! It would wreck ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... with rage: he was about to explode. Lieutenant Servin approached: in a low voice ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... that the door opened at that moment to admit some more visitors, for she saw that Gillian might at any moment explode. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... promise you. Now we will take a little of this red phosphorus—ordinary phosphorus will not answer—and pour a little liquid air on it, stirring it gently, as you see. Now, if I should let that dry it would explode at the slightest touch; but we do not want that, and we wish to increase its power, so we add a little chloride of potassium; now watch it dry—see the color change to a light red-brown. There, if you should strike that or put fire ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... if a loaded gun were about to explode in his direction. He reached the door, his arms still held stiffly above his head, but, at the sight of the masked faces, one arm dropped to his side, and the other fell across his face. He slumped against the side of ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... to check out a cartridge," Jayjay said. "You don't fire it; you check each part separately. You check the brass case. It's all right; the tests show that it won't burst under firing pressure. You check the primer; the tests show that it will explode when hit by the gun's hammer. You check the powder; the tests show that the powder will burn nicely when the flame from the primer hits it. You check the bullet; the tests show that the slug will be expelled at the proper velocity when ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... attempts to destroy the French flotillas in their own harbours had failed, Lord Keith was directed to make an experiment with the catamaran flotilla. The catamaran's were copper vessels filled with combustibles, and so constructed as to explode at a given time by clock-work. They were to be fastened to the bows of the vessels by the aid of a small raft rowed by one man who, being up to the chin in water, was expected in the darkness of the night to escape ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... ready— Drums beating, and the Royal Neddy Valiantly braying in the van, To the old tune ""Eh, eh, Sire Ane!"[1]— Naught wanting, but some coup dramatic, To make French sentiment explode, Bring in, at once, the gout fanatic, And make the war "la derniere mode"— Instantly, at the Pavillon Marsan, Is held an Ultra consultation— What's to be done, to help the farce on? What stage-effect, what decoration, To make this ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the spectacled science student from the laboratory in Owens College; and when he asks you for a truly scientific history of Evolution, you put into his hand The Pilgrim's Progress. You—[Savvy and Haslam explode into shrieks of merriment]. What are ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... said Gazen to me, "I've got a new theory for the rising and sinking of the sun behind the cliffs at Womla—a theory that will simply explode Professor Possil, and shake the Royal Astronomical Society ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... hammer and drill! But the heart which is beating in unison With the steady stroke, e'er the shift is done, May be cold and forever still. Clink! Clink! Clink! He may reap the harvest of danger sowed, The hole which he drills he may never load, For the powder may e'en in his hand explode, To ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... he shouted, at the same time putting his gun to his shoulder and pulling the trigger. The hammer fell with a sharp "click" just as the door was snatched to with a bang. The cap had failed to explode, or the chicken-eating days of the individual in the hen-house would have ended then ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... the fire a few feet but didn't explode. Hetty went back to the milk pail and collecting less than a teaspoon full in the water dipper, walked to the fire. Standing as far back as she could and still reach over the flames, she carefully sprinkled a few drops of the liquid directly ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... interrogations." "Well then," proceeded my examiner, "how many sacraments are there?" To which I replied, "Two." "What are they?" said he. I answered, "Baptism and the Lord's Supper." "And so you would explode confirmation and marriage altogether?" said Oakum. "I thought this fellow was a rank Roman." The clerk, though he was bred under an attorney, could not refrain from blushing at this blunder, which he endeavoured to conceal, by observing, that these decoys would not do with ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... When there was great danger that these secreted goods would be discovered, the smugglers would so arrange a keg of powder with a loaded pistol pointing at it, with strings running to the shrubbery near by, so as to cause it to explode and kill the searchers should the bushes about be disturbed. One old smuggler once fixed things in this manner, but performed his task too well; for, on going to remove his property, he came very near blowing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... that Hydrogen mixed with Atmospheric air, in the proportion of two to five, will explode; but he does not mean to exhibit this peculiarity of Hydrogen. He shows us how the lime-light is obtained, and requests that the room may be darkened. Milburd and Layder, turn down the gas, ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... Adolescence for them, however, is more apt to be stormy and episodic, adjustment to the new world of people and things is much more difficult, wanderlust is acute. All an expression of cells keyed up, charged with energy that must flow somewhere or explode. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... operation that many hostile seaplanes, stirred up like a wasps' nest by our 'planes earlier in the morning, came out and started dropping bombs. None of them came very close to us,—the bombs, I mean,—but we saw a string of five fall and explode practically alongside one destroyer, and heard afterwards that there had been a free fight on her upper deck to secure as trophies the splinters which dropped on board. We were all using our A.-A. guns, and though we did not actually hit any of them so far as we could see, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... visiting ends and tackles, meeting him for the first time, had nearly laughed in his face, and prepared to slaughter him, only to discover, with alarm and horror which steadily increased from the first whistle to the last, that Standish could explode his muscles with such a burst of dynamic energy that his hundred and sixty pounds felt like two hundred and ten. It was equally discouraging to learn, from breathless experience, that when he was in his stride he was as unpursueable as a coyote; and that ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... Darian fleet now hurtled toward Weald. It was a fleet of thirty-seven giant ships. They carried such-and-such bombs in such-and-such quantities. Unless its orders were countermanded, it would deliver those bombs on Weald—set to explode. If Weald bombed Dara, the orders could not be withdrawn. So Weald could bomb Dara. It could destroy all life on the pariah planet. But Weald ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... torpedo, shot from a German U-boat, realize the terribly destructive force of this modern weapon of war, but many do not know that the depth bomb is even more destructive and must be handled with much greater care to be sure that it does not explode accidentally or prematurely. The bomb usually contains from 100 to 500 pounds of tri-nitro-toluol, or T.N.T., as it is usually called, the most powerful of all explosives. The explosion of a ship loaded with it in Halifax harbor, December 6, 1917, caused almost as great a loss of life and property ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... one. It is a new city, but the fire of 1812, from the ashes of which it has risen, has left impressions on the monuments. Step by step in the Kremlin and in the city proper are found souvenirs of the patriotic war. You enter the Kremlin which Napoleon tried to explode, and which has been restored, you visit there the church of the Annunciation, and you will be told that the French soldiers had stabled their horses on the pavement of agate; you visit the church of the Assumption ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... painfully hauled himself to his feet and staggered to the bulwarks to ascertain what had happened, and a sufficiently disheartening spectacle met his eyes. Several shots from the last volley had evidently penetrated the plating of the steam launch's boiler, causing it to explode, blowing the frail sides of the little craft asunder and killing nearly every man of her crew. The Englishman was just in time to see her disappear below the surface of the river in a great cloud of steam, and to hear the shrieks of her wounded and dying people ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Rod saw something suddenly explode on the road exactly where the forks came. He knew full well it must be that second shrapnel shell, and only for their sudden change of base, which the gunner had not calculated on, it must have burst so near Hanky Panky that he might have ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... liabilities at the time, and was yet fully prepared, notwithstanding, to meet all our possible ones. Up started, however, almost ere he had done speaking, a friend of the Justices, and made so angry a speech in their defence, that the meeting threatened to fall into two parties, and explode in a squabble. I rose in the extremity, and, though unhappily no orator, addressed my townsfolk in a few homely sentences. Cholera, I reminded them, was too evidently of neither party; and the magistrates were, I was sure, nearly as much frightened as we were. But they really could do ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... to be asked to sit in the inspector's office and smoke was a sensational breach of the usual code. But as he had distinctly heard the invitation to sit, and to smoke, Philip proceeded to do both, and waited in silence for the next mine to explode under his feet. And there was a certain ease in his manner of doing these things which would have assured most men that he was not unaccustomed to sitting ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... he will be in much greater danger there than he would be here," Cortez said, when these remarks were translated to him. "We are all in danger. We are sitting on a mine that may explode any minute. The young fellow is sharp witted, and with his knowledge of the language and the people can be trusted to ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... unusual size and brilliancy passed over the states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. It was first seen in the western part of Kansas, at an altitude of about sixty miles. In crossing the State of Missouri it began to explode, and this breaking up continued while passing Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, till it consisted of a large flock of brilliant balls chasing each other across the sky, the number being variously estimated at from twenty to one hundred. It was accompanied by terrific explosions, and was ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... The bomb-throwers will leave the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators. Fix bayonets and set one foot on the pegs and ladders ... all ready in seven minutes. Three mines will be exploded. Take and hold the craters.... Five minutes!... When the mines explode that is your signal. Bombers lead. Give them a leg up and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... although she was fond of sweets. Her rather heavy face, with no clearly cut outline in it, was not the typical face for passion; but she was capable of passion to an extraordinary degree, and what is more remarkable, it was not explosive passion, or rather it was not passion which she suffered to explode. I remember once when she was a little mite she was asked out somewhere to tea. She was dressed and ready, but it began to rain fast, and she was told she could not go. She besought, but it was in vain. We could not afford cabs, and there was no omnibus. Marie, finding all her entreaties ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... course, but the actual instrument has a compass of seven and a half miles. It can readily be carried by a heavy plane! One such plane in a flight from Suez to Port Said, could destroy all the shipping in the Canal and explode every grain of ammunition on either shore! Since I must leave England to-night, the model must be destroyed, and unfortunately a good collection of bacilli has ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... canvas, the chief suggested to Augustus that Ute Jack had climbed up; and when the bullets flew high, then Ute Jack was doubtless in a hole. Nor did Augustus contrive to drop a shell from the howitzer upon Ute Jack and explode him—a shrewd and deadly conception; the shells went beyond, except one, that ripped through the canvas, somewhat near the ground; and Augustus, dripping, turned at length, and saying, "It won't go down," stood vacantly wiping his white face. Then the two chiefs got his leave to stretch a rope ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... he was holding both her hands. It was a disgraceful exhibition. The young painter would evidently explode if he could not make use of his arms. She must die if she could not lay her head upon his breast. I must admit that he rose to the occasion; he hailed ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... sufferings, to the effect that he take vengeance for it even on thess that crucifies him afresh. The mother he brought on the stage as the embleme of mercy, crying imperiously, jure matris, I inhibite your justice, I explode your rigor, I discharge your severity. Let mercy alone triumph. Surely if this be not blasphemy I know not whats blasphemie. To make Christ only Justice fights diamettrally[129] wt the Aposle John, If any man hath sinned he has a Advocat with the father. Christ the righteous, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... different 'damps.' Take 'fire damp' or just plain 'gas' as the miners call it. That's really methane, marsh gas, the same stuff that makes the will-o'-the-wisp you can see dancing around over a marsh. It'll explode, all right, but there's got to be a lot of it around before much damage'll be done. 'Fire damp' is like a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... explode. Blaine saw the danger to other troops behind. It so happened that these troops were Sammies and Blaine, with a swoosh, swept down to within a dozen yards right over the heads of these men and the column ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... listened beautifully, except for cutting in once, as I told you he did. But now he had held in as long as it was in his nature to contain himself, and must have his say or go off in an apoplexy, or explode in some way.—I think you're right about the poets,—he said.—They are to common folks what repeaters are to ordinary watches. They carry music in their inside arrangements, but they want to be handled carefully or you put them out of order. And perhaps you must n't expect them to be quite ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... mournfully. "Yes, yes, but I used to think it is such men who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where they will explode, philosophy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... feet as one man! It was proposed to explode a barrel of gunpowder; but in consideration of the situation of the mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were discharged; for whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the fragments formed by the bursting of the parent mass would carry away within themselves the same forces and reactions which caused the original bursting, so that they themselves would be likely enough to explode at some time in ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... as a most fascinating, but a desperately reckless creature. It was funny, the way she told it, and it sent Jimmy off into a spasm of mirth. But she would almost rather have bitten her tongue out than to have caused Jimmy to explode in that wild bray of a laugh. He slapped his knee repeatedly, and doubled up as if he could laugh no longer, only to break out in a second bray, louder than the first. It made the gentlemen in the other end of the ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... committee-men; the fundamental law of England knowing no such constitution, abhorring such administrations: and that the Hon. Court would release your petitioner from the injurious effects of the said committee's act, and explode so pernicious a precedent." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... thing" to ride the high horse of vehement approval and burst into luminous showers of "Amens" and "Halleleujahs." Now and then a few worshippers of the ancient type drop in from some country place, and explode at intervals during the course of some impulsive prayer, or gleeful hymn, or highly enamelled sermon. You may occasionally at such a time, hear two or three in distant pews having a delightful time of it. At first they only stir gently, as if some on were mildly ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... projectile hurled into the air, and falling a quarter of a mile away from us, in the woods. I did not at once learn that this first shot killed two of the Maine men, and wounded two more. This was fired wide, but the numerous shots which followed were admirably aimed, and seldom failed to fall or explode close to our own ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and unearth the shells. The prisoners reported the owner of one of the neighboring houses to be the principal person who had engaged in planting these shells, and I therefore directed that some of them be carried and placed in the cellar of his house, arranged to explode if the enemy's column came that way, while he and his family were brought off as prisoners and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... and in the gloom of the Indian's eyes made Shefford curious about this stone. He bent over and grasped it as Joe had done. He braced himself and lifted with all his power, until a red blur obscured his sight and shooting stars seemed to explode in his head. But he could not ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... turned in their seats, and stared at one another in amazement. Most of my readers will probably have some practical knowledge of the small, round paper pellets known as "throw-downs," which explode when flung against anything; and it was difficult to imagine that any member of the select and decorous Melchester School Debating Society would cause an interruption by flinging such things about in the ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... what appeared to be the loss of the popular faith in himself, and the ridicule and abuse which had filled the columns of Freneau's paper that morning, that it was a relief to him to hear Hamilton explode. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Melrose and Corporal A.R. Kelly were amongst the first to attempt this and their example was quickly followed by others. It was a deadly dangerous game, for it was impossible to tell how long any fuse had still to burn and the grenade might explode at any moment, but though several men were killed and wounded in this way, the survivors persisted bravely and the Turkish advance was effectually checked. Their bombing slackened off gradually and it became possible to hold ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... my arm 'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load; And wishes me some dreadful harm, Hearing the merry corks explode. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... rampage; run wild, run amuck, run riot; break the peace; rush, tear; rush headlong, rush foremost; raise a storm, make a riot; rough house [Slang]; riot, storm; wreak, bear down, ride roughshod, out Herod, Herod; spread like wildfire (person). [shout or act in anger at something], explode, make a row, kick up a row; boil, boil over; fume, foam, come on like a lion, bluster, rage, roar, fly off the handle, go bananas, go ape, blow one's top, blow one's cool, flip one's lid, hit the ceiling, hit the roof; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that have been, or will be cast upon him (not only by malignant prelates, but even by the high fliers, or more corrupted part of the presbyterian persuasion) namely, on account of his firing at bishop Sharp; which, they think, is enough to explode, affront or bespatter all the faithful contendings of the true reformed and covenanted church of Scotland. But in this Mr. Mitchel stands in need of little or no vindication; for by this time the reader may ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... as feline and treacherous, and he had no association with them. Occasionally there would be heard a night concert in the shrubbery. Calvin would ask to have the door opened, and then you would hear a rush and a "pestzt," and the concert would explode, and Calvin would quietly come in and resume his seat on the hearth. There was no trace of anger in his manner, but he wouldn't have any of that about the house. He had the rare virtue of magnanimity. Although he had fixed notions ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... water, for it only makes more heat. He knew that dried alum and sugar suitably mixed would burst into flame if exposed to the air; that nitric acid and oil of turpentine would take fire if mixed; that flint struck by steel would start fire enough to explode a powder magazine; and that Elijah called down from heaven a kind of fire that burned twelve "barrels" of water as easily as ordinary water puts out ordinary fire. But he had none of these ways of lighting his candle ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... fire right on top of one of these pits, and this young officer saw it. He had no time to send for water, and if he delayed, at any moment the whole magazine might explode; one pit would communicate with another, and perhaps the whole city would be endangered; so without a second's hesitation he and his men sprang into the fire and literally trod it out with their feet, running the risk of an explosion by concussion, as well as by a spark of fire. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... phrases to Uma, spoken with deep concentration, had possessed sufficient hidden force to explode like bombs and produce definite, though injurious, effects. I understood, later, that the explosive vibratory power in speech could be wisely directed to free one's life from difficulties, and thus operate without ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... nearly all the mercury metal in the system was safely lodged on Earth, and saturated with power. Every major city had been equipped with great UV apparatus. And neutron guns in plenty waited on small ships just outside the atmosphere to explode harmlessly any atomic or gamma bombs Miran ships ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... returned grimly. "And it is partly forest covered, that morass. The guns have shattered the forest in places. But most of the huge shells which drop into the swamp never explode." ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... part with his amulet. He stood straight up in the bucket like a champagne-bottle in a cooler, and he could not have resented his predicament more if he had been set in crushed ice instead of warm water. Under the remorseless hands of Nicholas he began to splutter and choke, to fizz, and finally explode with astonishment and wrath. It was quite clear Nicholas was trying to drown him. He took the treatment so to heart, that he kept on howling dismally for some time after he was taken out, and dried, and linimented and dosed by Mac, whose ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... were now circling above, and the German batteries opened fire on them. It was a beautiful sight. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had not yet gone. We could not hear the shells explode, but we could see little feathery white clouds suddenly appear as if some giant invisible hand had just put them there—high up in the sky. Another appeared, and another. There were several dozen little white clouds vividly outlined ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of the heroic. At the age of forty-five Carlyle had not recognised Friedrich at all, for he does not figure in the "Hero as King." Napoleon takes his place, though Bonaparte was a "hero" only in the bad sense of hero which Carlyle was seeking to explode. It is well that, since he finished the French Revolution, Carlyle seems to have found out that Bonaparte "parted with Reality," and had become a charlatan, a sham. Still for all that, he remains "our last great man." Mazzini was present at the delivery of these lectures: and when he had listened ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... than any the Survey officer had aimed at him struck Shann. He was hurled against a rough wall with impetus enough to explode the air from his lungs, the ensuing pain so great that he feared his ribs had given under that thrust. Before his eyes fire lashed down the slit, searing him into temporary blindness. That flash was the last thing he remembered ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... ways. Some of the bigger ones have a small wireless equipment. Sometimes they drop bombs, that make a smoky patch in the air when they explode—they drop them right over the place the artillery wants to hit, and then the men with the guns get their instruments and figure out just ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... whirlpool of the furiously busy. Round and round they go; brains humming till they melt or explode. Of course, they can't bother ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... the last—might easily end up as a tragedy. No wonder their behaviour was constrained, no wonder they avoided one another. They were as men living over a powder magazine which the least spark would explode with ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Abraham's example of hospitality, and let us do all we can for this motherless lamb, or kid,—whichever she may prove. One thing more, and here-after I shall hold my peace. You need not live in chronic dread, lest the Guy Fawkes of female curiosity pry into, and explode your mystery; for I assure you, Peyton, I shall never directly or indirectly question the child, and until you voluntarily broach the subject I shall never mention it ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... one of their shells that lit on the deck of the Valley City, which fortunately did not explode. If the Valley City had been afloat, she would have silenced ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... Rik, who was never happier than when he could explode his feelings in action. "I'll go this moment to the port of London, find out the owners of the Fiery Queen, make particular inquiries about the Stampses, Shunkses, and Gibsons, visit Torture public-houses—though they're all that, more or less—and ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... string tight above the part, suck the wound, and caustic it as soon as you can. Or, for want of caustic, explode gunpowder in the wound; of else do what Mr. Mansfield Parkyns well suggests, i.e., cut away with a knife, and afterwards burn out with the end of your iron ramrod, heated as near a white heat as you can readily get it. The arteries lie deep, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... blows upon the badly ignited fuse of a bomb, and makes it explode in his face, is no more terrified than was Mahiette at the effect of that name, abruptly launched into the cell of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... At missionary gatherings held in England the statement is often made to-day that the first Englishman to go out as a foreign missionary was William Carey, the leader of the immortal "Serampore Three." It is time to explode that fiction. For some years before William Carey was heard of a number of English Moravian Brethren had gone out from these shores as foreign missionaries. In Antigua laboured Samuel Isles, Joseph Newby, and Samuel Watson; in Jamaica, George Caries and John Bowen; in St. Kitts and St. Croix, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... and the Duc de la Force, were astonished, could not utter a word. The sick man redoubled his instances. M. de la Force, recovering himself, found the thing so amusing, that he gave his blessing; and in fear lest he should explode, left the room, and came to us in the adjoining chamber, bursting with laughter, and scarcely able to relate what had happened ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Take 'fire damp' or just plain 'gas' as the miners call it. That's really methane, marsh gas, the same stuff that makes the will-o'-the-wisp you can see dancing around over a marsh. It'll explode, all right, but there's got to be a lot of it around before much damage'll be done. 'Fire damp' is like a rattlesnake, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... little protection. All the water round the gunboats was torn into foam by the projectiles. The bullets pattered against their sides, and, except where they were protected by steel plates, penetrated. One shell struck the Abu Klea on the water-line, and entered the magazine. Luckily it did not explode, the Dervishes having forgotten to set the fuse. Three shells struck the Metemma. On board the Tamai, which was leading, Commander Colville was severely wounded in the wrist; Armourer-Sergeant Richardson was killed at his Maxim gun, and on each boat some casualties occurred. So hot was ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... no sign of suffering and uttered no single word either of surprise or bitterness. He seemed to some of us in those days almost wanting in sensibility, almost inhuman in his serenity. Newspaper articles which made most of us either wince or explode with anger did nothing more to the subject of their vilification than to set him off laughing—a comfortable, soft-sounding, and enjoying laughter which brought a light into his face and gently shook his considerable shoulders. He loved to produce at those moments the encomiums pronounced ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... to the utmost nicety the time which he would probably need in getting through his business, and he had cut each of his fuses to such a length that the bombs should explode, as nearly as possible, at the same instant. If he received no check, and remained undiscovered, well and good; but if he were delayed at all after lighting the fuse, it would be very bad indeed for the Janequeo and ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... blast tubes to make sure they were clear. There were small single tubes on each side of the craft. A clogged one could explode and ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage |
