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More "Coiled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... claimed that the fangs of the rattlers are secretly withdrawn before the creatures are handled, but this has been proved to be untrue. The most accepted theory is that the snakes are never permitted to coil, and cannot strike unless coiled, while the weird chanting and graceful undulating motions of the dancers in some manner "charms" or intoxicates the serpents, which are not aroused to antagonism. Occasionally, however, one of the Moki priests is bitten, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... them. She was simply dressed in a plain, white robe. Her arms and feet were bare, as was the custom in those days; and no rings or chains glittered about her hands and neck. For her only crown, long braids of soft brown hair were coiled about her head; and a tender smile lit up her noble face as she looked ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... cruelty of war, the pestilence that shakes its comet-sword over nations, and famine that peers with skeleton face through the corn-sheaves of plenty. Upon this theory of mere happiness no metaphysical subtlety can solve the fact of evil;—the coiled enigma constantly returns upon itself, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... dat when I got to be ten year old, I'd have a snake coiled up on my liver. Dat scared me mos' to death 'til I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers—lithe monsters, slippery and speckled, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... fellow," answered Drysdale, "he leaves a bad taste in one's mouth;" and he went to the table, took a pull at the tankard, and then threw himself down on the sofa again, as Jack jumped up and coiled himself round by his master's legs, keeping one half-open eye winking at him, and giving an occasional wag with the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... with the knife in a sod of turf or a potato; 3, 4, or 5 nails hammered in a circle into a piece of wood, to act as a socket; a hollow bone; an empty bottle; a strap with the end passed the wrong way through the buckle and coiled inside; and a bayonet stuck in the ground, are all used as makeshift candlesticks. "In bygone days the broad feet, or rather legs, of the swan, after being stretched and dried, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... feel those eyes upon her. All his strength and bigness, all his manhood, huge and unaware, seemed to lie deep in them like a monster coiled up under the sea. When he looked at her he seemed to lose that heavy dumbness, that inarticulate stupidity which occasionally stirred and vexed even her good disposition; his mouth might still be shut, but his eyes were fluent—they told ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... above the unmanliness engaged him so he failed to see the other severer and more lasting struggle inevitable if the Countess were indeed the being to whom he owed the highest earthly obligations—the struggle between natural affection and honor, as the latter lay coiled up in the ties ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... to these weapons, both had pistols stuck in their belts, and lazos hanging coiled from ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... time after he had rolled himself in his own blanket Philip lay awake, wondering at the strangeness of this thing that had happened to him. It was Her hair that he had seen shining this night under the old spruce, lustrous and soft, and coiled in its simple glory, as he had seen it last on the night when Chesbro had broken in on them at the ball. It was very easy for him to imagine that it had been Her face, with soul and heart and love added to its beauty. More than ever he knew what had been missing for ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... another Indian of the party who had come up took from his bag a small piece of white wood, which resembled a root, and passed it gently near the head of the cobra, which the latter immediately inclined close to the ground; he then lifted the snake without hesitation, and coiled it into a circle at the bottom of his basket. The root by which he professed to be enabled to perform this operation with safety he called the Naya-thalee Kalinga (the root of the snake-plant), protected by which he professed his ability ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... instance near Fort Towson, in Northern Texas, where a small child was left upon the earthen floor of a cabin while its mother was washing at a spring near by. She heard a cry of distress, and, on going to the cabin, what was her horror on seeing a rattlesnake coiled around the child's arm, and striking it repeatedly with its fangs. After killing the snake, she hurried to her nearest neighbor, procured a bottle of brandy, and returned as soon as possible; but the poison had already so operated upon the arm that it was as black as a ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... he coiled himself up by the side of his chum; and soon they were fast asleep. Paul woke up at daybreak, and having expressed a hope that he would see Stanley back in his place that day, returned without mishap to his dormitory. The light was only just stealing ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... reached the fiery serpents, The Kenabeek, the great serpents, Lying huge upon the water, Sparkling, rippling in the water, Lying coiled across the passage, With their blazing crests uplifted, Breathing fiery fogs and vapors, So that none ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... structures which have a spiral growth and are paired—one belonging to the right side of the animal, the other to the left, as, for instance, the spirally marked horns of antelopes and the more loosely coiled horns of sheep and cattle—one of the pair forms a right-handed and the other a left-handed spiral. They are "complementary"; one is the reflection, as in a mirror, of the other. Why the narwhal's tooth does not conform to this rule is ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... his impulse in granting the horse-thief permission to attend the races. Sight of Lucy's fair, sweet face might inflame this Cordts—this Kentuckian who had boasted of his love of horses and women. Behind Cordts hung the little dust-colored Sears, like a coiled snake, ready to strike. Bostil felt stir in him a long-dormant fire—a stealing along his veins, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... straight Greek nose, high and smooth forehead, and full red mouth, with firmly-closed lips. She had dark and piercing eyes, with heavy arched eyebrows above them, and her hair, of a bluish-black hue, was drawn smoothly over the forehead, and coiled in thick wreaths at the top of her small, finely-formed head. Altogether a striking-looking woman, but with an absence of animation about her face, which had a calm, serene expression, effectually hiding any thoughts that might be passing in her mind, and which resembled nothing ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... thing is for which she had such an aversion. An Indian servant, who, for some reason or other, has a deadly hatred for the whole family, substitutes a live reptile. Clementine appears at the window with the venomous creature coiled round her neck, screaming with wild terror. The spectators on the stage think that the snake is dead, and that she is only screaming from "nerves," but in reality she is being slowly strangled. I began screaming in a frantic, heartrending manner, and continued ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... had grown sodden before she remembered that it ought to be buttered. She wore the black skirt and blue blouse in which she had travelled, for she had neglected to unpack her own clothes in her eagerness to get out the things that Oliver and the children might need. Her hair had been hastily coiled around her head, without so much as a glance in the mirror, but the expression of unselfish goodness in her face lent a charm even to the careless fashion in which she had put on her clothes. She was one of those women whose beauty, being essentially virginal, belongs, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... me tew address the meetin', hey? I'm willin', only the laugh's ruther ag'inst me, ef I tell that story; expect you'll like it all the better fer that." Flint coiled up his long limbs, put his hands in his pockets, chewed meditatively for a moment, and then began, with ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... decided, with solemn reservation. With a multitude of apologies and thanks, the two young men, more considerate and courteous in their forward and backward fashion than many a fine gentleman of the time, clambered up, and coiled themselves into corners, leaving a respectful void between them and the original occupants of ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... some firing their guns off in the air, beating coiled lassos against the heaving sides of their steeds, spurring the frantic animals, shouting in Spanish, all of them dusty, sweaty and dirty—the band was at once ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... The ropes were coiled down, and we piped to dinner. The captain, who continued on deck, could not fail to hear the discontented expressions which occasionally were made use of on the lower deck. He made no observation, but occasionally looked over the side, to see whether the brig went through the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... enter; but let me just describe a curious print of the year 1837 which lies before me as I write. It is headed "The Contrast," and is divided into two panels. On your left hand is a young girl, simply dressed in mourning, with a pearl necklace and a gauzy shawl, and her hair coiled in plaits, something after the fashion of a crown. Under this portrait is "Victoria." On the other side of the picture is a hideous old man, with shaggy eyebrows and scowling gaze, wrapped in a military cloak with fur collar and black ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... they had breakfasted together for a number of years, was the most radiant girl he had ever looked upon. The simple costume was wonderfully effective. The white, full throat and the curves of the neck running to the shoulders were revealed by the low rolling collar, and the hair coiled low ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... were vain. Each time he tried he sank in, and at last, giving up to what was forced upon him as an impossibility, he coiled up ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... a coiled wire beater. They must be quite stiff when done. Add the sugar, a teaspoon at a time, while whisking. Or separate the yolks and whites, beating the yolks and sugar together and whisking the whites on a plate with a knife before adding to the yolks. Lastly, ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... spars, which appeared so light and elegant, are of unexpected dimensions. Her decks are of narrow fir planks, without the least spring or rise; her ropes are of Manilla hemp, neatly secured to copper belaying-pins, and coiled down on the deck, whose whiteness is well contrasted with the bright green paint of her bulwarks: her capstern and binnacles are cased in fluted mahogany, and ornamented with brass; metal stanchions protect the skylights, and the bright muskets are arranged ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... marked the presence in a host of its leader on a military expedition. On its field were the figures of tortoises, with snakes coiled round them. The falcon banners belonged to the commanders of the divisions of the host. They bore the figures ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... wound with No. 24 double cotton-covered magnet wire, the terminals being soldered to eyes formed of pieces of spring wire bent so as to form helical coils of two turns each, with the ends inserted in holes drilled in heads of the spools. These coiled wires answer a good purpose in making electrical connections. The magnet frame, B, consisting of the cores and the yoke formed integrally of a single soft gray iron casting, is adapted to receive the bobbins, A A, to form ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... poor old Matey of mine"—Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm, velvety, golden ball on the sofa. The First Mate uncoiled himself like a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow, stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again. "HE'll miss me when I start on the V'yage. I can't bear to think of leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before. If anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite and a ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Mooween seems to have a plan of action ready, which he applies without a question or an instant's hesitation. Make an unknown sound behind him as he plods along the shore, and he hurls himself headlong into the cover of the bushes, as if your voice had touched a button that released a coiled spring beneath him. Afterwards he may come back to find out what frightened him. Sit perfectly still, and he rises on his hind legs for a look and a long sniff to find out who you are. Jump at him with ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... worthy person or not; for my part, I should only regard him as one to be watched jealously and carefully avoided. There is something creepingly malignant in the look which shoots out from his glance, like that of the rattlesnake, when coiled and partially concealed in the brake. When I looked upon his eye, as it somewhat impertinently singled me out for observation, I almost felt disposed to lift my heel as if the venomous reptile were ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Mother, Holy Church, Sit like a painted harlot: round her limbs An oily snake had coiled, who smiled, and smiled, And lisped the name of Jesus—I'll not tell thee: I have seen more than man can see, and live: God, when He grants the tree of knowledge, bans The luckless seer from off the tree of life, Lest ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... the hut is on shore, the remainder half-way there. The ponies are picketed in a line on a convenient snow slope so that they cannot eat sand. Oates and Anton are sleeping ashore to watch over them. The dogs are tied to a long length of chain stretched on the sand; they are coiled up after a long day, looking fitter already. Meares and Demetri are sleeping in the green tent to look after them. A supply of food for ponies and dogs as well as for the men has been landed. Two motor sledges in good working order are safely ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... volcano into the valley beneath. Here they form great caverns and caves, overhung with creepers, and so blocked up at the entrance, that it is difficult to find the way into them. The effect of the alternate darkness and light, amid twisted creepers, some like gigantic snakes, others neatly coiled in true man-of-war fashion, is very striking and fantastic. Every crevice is full of ferns and orchids and curious plants, while moths and butterflies flit about in every direction. Imagine, if you can, scarlet butterflies gaily spotted, yellow butterflies ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... that moment Peter loomed gigantic to her. His gleaming eyes and strangely smiling face held her spellbound with a fascination greater even than that wicked, vibrating thing that coiled, black and evil, on the white of Tessa's frock could command. She knew that if none intervened, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... to Sioux and he lunged forward. Doug twisted his lariat. It coiled round one of the bull's hind legs. Doug brought ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... aperture where was a spring, for which a channel had been opened scarcely a foot or so wide, to enable it to run inside the wall. Winding round the steps, it skirted the buildings until it reached the front court, where it coiled and curved, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... serpent was sacred; figures of the coiled serpent were hung up in the house and worn as an amulet; similarly in historic times a figure of the agathodemon serpent was placed in a temple of Amenhotep III at Benha. In the first dynasty the serpent was figured in pottery, as a fender round the hearth. The hawk ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... the door and opened it; her hair was coiled for the night, her pretty figure outlined under a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... speaks by the side of the shepherds, not from above. His gentle encouragement 'Fear not!' not only soothes their present terror, but has a wider meaning. The dread of the Unseen, which lies coiled like a sleeping snake in all hearts, is utterly taken away by the Incarnation. All messages from that realm are thenceforward 'tidings of great joy,' and love and desire may pass into it, as all men shall one day pass, and both enterings may be peaceful ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... taste!" said M'Nicholl; "mine at present is certainly to turn in!" and suiting the action to the word, he coiled himself on the sofa, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing showed his slumber to be as tranquil ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... Flag was of the same date, 1775. It was a yellow flag with the representation of a rattlesnake coiled, ready to strike, in green, and the motto below ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... be here in a few minutes," she said, as going to a small overmantel she deftly re-coiled her hair, which had a way of becoming loose. "What a nuisance is a woman's hair, isn't it, Mr Gerrard? Now, Mr Forde, why don't you say it is her glory? Don't be shocked at me, Mr Gerrard, but the fact is I am short of hair-pins, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... of hair was coiled tightly and attractively around her head, and as it was lifted quite high at the back, her neck showed—sunburnt and gracefully erect. Elisaveta's face had a keen, almost exaggerated, expression of the mastery of will and intellect over the emotions. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... their frames and locked. The thing was inside. But it was almost a minute then before Gefty could control his shaking legs enough to start moving back towards the main deck. In the half-dark of the vault, it had looked like a big coiled cable lying next to the packing cases. Like Maulbow, it might have been battered around and knocked out during the recent disturbance; and when it recovered, it had found Gefty in the vault with it. But it might also have been awake all the while, waiting cunningly until ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... where I have seen it, grinning most dismally. It was an object of great awe and horror to the superstitious housemaids; and Scott used to amuse himself with their apprehensions. Sometimes, in changing his dress, he would leave his neck-cloth coiled round it like a turban, and none of the "lasses" dared to remove it. It was a matter of great wonder and speculation among them that the laird should have such an "awsome fancy ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... of a strange emotion—a conviction that something was watching her with a fixed gaze. She cast her eyes around, but saw nothing. She looked upward. From the tree immediately above her lap depended a snake, its tail coiled around a dead branch. The reptile hung straight, its eyes fixed like two rubies upon Helen's, as very slowly it let itself down by its uncoiling tail. Now its head was on a level with hers; in another moment it ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... pier at Peter Churchtown intently watching what was going on beneath him on the deck of the Pretty Ruth, where our friend Will was busy at work over a brown fishing-line contained in two baskets, in one of which, coiled round and round, was the line with a hook at every six feet distance, and each hook stuck in the edge of the basket; in the other the line was being carefully coiled; but as Will took a hook from the edge of one basket, he deftly baited it with a bit of curiously tough gelatinous-looking ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... chameleons which everywhere abound. He can apparently do no harm to the inhabitants, if he fails to benefit them. The other inmates are rattlesnakes, who, regardless of any objections which may be raised by the dogs, take possession of their holes, and when the sun shines lie coiled up at their sides, now and then erecting their treacherous heads and rattling an angry note of warning, should a thoughtless pup by any chance approach too near. The Indians suppose that all three creatures live on the most friendly footing; but as the rattlesnakes when ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. Infinite Wisdom has no right to make an instrument that will not finally pay a dividend. No God has a right to add to the agony of this universe, and yet around the angels of immortality Christianity has coiled this serpent of eternal pain. Upon love's breast the church has placed that asp, and yet people talk to me about ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... its own existence, baptized with ostentatious names of democracy, obsequious to the people for the sake of governing them; this nameless, lurking aristocracy, that ran in the blood of society like a rash not yet come to the skin; this political tapeworm, that produced nothing, but lay coiled in the body, feeding on its nutriment, and holding the whole structure to be but a servant set up to nourish it—this aristocracy of the plantation, with firm and deliberate resolve, brought on the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Indian medals, a serpent was represented, coiled round the trunk of a tree. Python, the Serpent Deity, was esteemed oracular; and the tripod at Delphi was a triple-headed ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of the Ilongot is peculiar and rather unlike that of any other Philippine people. The men are small, with long bodies and very short legs, weak, effeminate faces, occasionally bearded. The hair is worn long, but usually coiled upon the head and held by a rattan net. The color of the Ilongot is brown and a little lighter than that of Malayans exposed to the sun by life on the water or in the plain. Their head hair is sometimes nearly ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... his father hung at his left hip, his bow and his quiver of arrows were slung across his shoulders, while around his chest over one shoulder and beneath the opposite arm was coiled the long grass rope without which Tarzan would have felt quite as naked as would you should you be suddenly thrust upon a busy highway clad only in a union suit. A heavy war spear which he sometimes ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... her; but, looking up, she said she did not wish to be disturbed, and again coiled herself up in the chair, endeavouring to concentrate her thoughts upon her book. But all to no purpose. Ever and anon she would lift her big eyes from the printed page, sigh, and stare fixedly at the rose-coloured trellis pattern of the wall-paper opposite. Upon her there had fallen ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... in which, in his station on the flag-ship Alfred, he claimed the honor of being the foremost, on the approach of the commander-in-chief, Commodore Hopkins, to raise the new American flag. This was the old device of a rattle-snake coiled on a yellow ground, with the motto, Don't tread on me, which is yet partially retained in the seal ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... carry them over myself to show you that they are quite safe and harmless." And down he came, the black snake coiled round one arm, the tiger snake round the other, and the death adder on his shoulder, coiled towards his neck. He carried them over. When he had crossed the creek he picked up a big stone, and he threw it into the water, saying, "Now, you cowardly daens, ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... far right that Rossi was another man. Whatever had been tender and sweet in him was now hard and bitter. The train started for Rome, and the soldiers drew the straws out of their Tuscan cigars and smoked. Rossi coiled himself up in his corner and shut his eyes. Sometimes a sneer curled his lips, sometimes he ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... on the edge of a flat stone at the corner of the fireplace; Dave on another opposite; both gazing into the fire, which was almost out, and listening intently to the music; the dog, dripping wet, coiled at their feet, shivering; Mother sitting dreamily at the table, her palm pressed against her ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... marched in, her red hair parted on the side and coiled into a womanly coiffure, wearing a simple white organdie, she was just one of the hundred graduates who marched into the chapel. But later, as she stood alone on the platform and delivered her oration, "The Flowers of the Garden Spot," she ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... civilian fitter. They were both first-class men. The electric wires, as you know, are carried about the ship under the deck beams, where they are accessible for examination and repairs. They are coiled in cables from which wires are led to the switch room, and thence to all parts of the ship. There are thousands of wires, and no one who did not know intimately their purpose and disposition could venture to tamper with them, for great numbers are always ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... The girl had beautiful white teeth. Her red cheeks were redder than ever. Her dark hair coiled closely about her shapely head. And she had grown tall, too, the young man noticed, though she was ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... wound, the ends of which are secured by the slight brass clamps shown in the drawing. The barrel is supported by the bracket b, proceeding from the body of the indicator, and at the bottom of the barrel a watch spring is coiled with one end attached to the barrel and the other end to the bracket, so that when the barrel is drawn round by a string wound upon its lower end like a roller blind, the spring returns the barrel to its original ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... cod-line, and tied to them at distances of six feet were smaller lines three feet in length, with a hook attached to the end. Each dory had six trawls, each one eighteen hundred feet long. The trawls were neatly coiled in tubs made by sawing flour barrels in two, and as fast as they were baited with pieces of herring they were carefully coiled into another tub, that they might run out quickly without ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... went up at this, and the blushing tenderfoot pocketed his third bill for the most theatrical style of Mexican sombrero; it had a brass snake coiled round the crown for a hat-band, and a cow-puncher in good and regular standing would have preferred ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... corridor, gathered into groups, speaking excitedly and thoughtfully in hollow voices. Scarcely anybody stood alone; all faces bore evidence of a desire to speak, to ask, to listen. In the narrow white passageway the people coiled about in sinuous curves, like dust carried in circles before a powerful wind. Everybody seemed to be seeking something hard and firm ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... fancied the darkness full of horses' heads, and would not stir. Clare had to get out again, and search for a place to suit his fancy, which he found in an untenanted loose-box, with remains of litter. There Tommy coiled himself up, and was ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... enough almost for a double rope, I expect," said Bill, as he coiled it away ready to carry to the window at the opposite side ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... violets without their roots, And sorrel intermixed, Encircled by a wisp of straw Once coiled about their shoots, The law ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... lie about, some on the top, Some fallen half down on either side the hill, Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground. The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with green Patches of mildew and of ivy woven Over the sightless loopholes and the sides: And from the ivy deaf-coiled spiders dangle, Or scurry to catch food; and their fine webs Touch at your face wherever you may pass. The sun's light scorched upon it; and a fry Of insects in one spot quivered for ever, Out and in, in and out, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... Outwell on the 29th ult. A child, three years old, went to play in a donkey cart, in which a rope coiled and knotted had been placed to dry. The rope was doubled the greater part of the way; and, being knotted, was full of steps or meshes; in one of these the child got his head and unfortunately falling at the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... picture of distress. "How is Mrs. Lincoln?" inquired my mother. "Oh," said the President, "I have not seen her since seven o'clock this morning; Tad, how is your mother?" "She is pretty well," replied the little fellow, who was coiled up then in an arm chair, the same lad we had seen playing down in the entrance hall. We spent but a few moments with Mr. Lincoln, and when we came out my mother exclaimed: "Oh, what a cruelty to keep that man here! Did you ever see such a sad face ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... ketch now drifted into a patch of moonlight, the pirate officer spied the anchors with their cables coiled up. ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... came down toward the water, and took a boat that was waiting, already fitted out with a trawl coiled in two tubs, and some hand-lines and bait for rock-cod and haddock, and my friend joined them; they were going out for a night's fishing. I watched them hoist the little sprit-sail, and drift a little until they caught the wind, and then I looked again for Georgie, whose boat was like ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... his eye in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and there, coiled up behind a heap of barrels and boxes, and concealed by a sail-cloth which had been thrown over the goods to protect them from an expected ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... coated with moss; ferns and strange sea-weeds grew on the edge of the water; crabs clung below; lizards crept above; innumerable slimy things swam about, midway. The case stood on a long table. Near it, on another box, half a dozen snakes lay coiled into one indistinguishable mass. Under the table three monkey-like little creatures were dancing and chattering. A wee Scotch terrier ran about, sniffing at the guests' clothing. Before the fire of coals—for the day was chilly for June—was ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... feet in front of the frightened pony lay coiled a gigantic rattlesnake, its ugly head and tail raised and its rattles singing ominously. Two more steps and the pony would ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... tarnished, but he could see there were initials, which he could not make out, engraved on the back of the case. The ring, too, was of gold. It was one of the most gruesome ornaments Aldous had ever seen. It was in the form of a coiled and writhing serpent, wide enough to cover half of one's middle finger between the joints. Again the eyes of the two men met, and again Aldous observed that strange, stunned look in the old hunter's face. He turned and walked back toward the tent, MacDonald following him slowly, still ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... flesh, which will be seen in the following note found in his pocket-book: 'I have never loved evil for its own sake; no! nor ever sought pleasure for its own sake, but only as the means of escaping from pains that coiled around my mental powers as a serpent around the body and wings of an eagle! My sole sensuality was not ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... was there,—just enough to kill the dampness of the river's edge, and over it the old squaw of Akkomi bent, raking the dry sticks, until the flames fluttered upward and outlined the form of the chief, coiled on a pile of skins and blankets against ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... dismounted, and at the command the horse backed up and kept the rope tight while the man went up to the prostrate beast and cut its throat. As soon as it had ceased struggling, they loosened their ropes and coiled them up: they came to us and pointed to the dead heifer in a ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... formed the mysterious background of light: opaque, and yet in a state of incessant movement, as of some white raging fire, thinner and more deadly than any ordinary earthly element, that seemed to sicken and flicker in the blast of a furnace, and then rushed upwards, and coiled and rolled across the tunnel's mouth. Presently, as a puff of wind swept away part of the smoke, a miraculous tinge of rosy colour appeared, changing, as one caught it, into gold, and presently to a milky blue, then liquid green, and a thousand intermediate tints corresponding to the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... number of rattlesnakes which infested the rocks about the rapids and portages, and on which the men were in danger of treading. They were often found, too, in quantities about the encampments. In one place, a nest of them lay coiled together, basking in the sun. Several guns loaded with shot were discharged at them, and thirty-seven killed and wounded. To prevent any unwelcome visits from them in the night, tobacco was occasionally strewed around ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... was not, as in our climate, a struggle against climate mainly, but an internecine war from over population. Now and again we passed among vast stems of buttressed trees, sometimes enormous in girth; and from their far-away summits hung great bush- ropes, some as straight as plumb lines, others coiled round, and intertwined among each other, until one could fancy one was looking on some mighty battle between armies of gigantic serpents, that had been arrested at its height by some magic spell. All these bush- ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... might save my trowsers, and not hurt my knees; so then I turned to and prayed all day long, and kept the people awake, singing psalms all night. I knelt down and prayed on the quarter-deck, main-deck, and lower deck. I preached to the men in the tiers, when they coiled the cables, and groaned loud and deep when I heard an oath. The thing took—the admiral said I was the right sort, and he made a commander out of the greatest atheist in the ship. No sooner did I get hold of the sheepskin, than to the devil I ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his breath, and the blood ebbed from his lips, but he hurled aside the suggestion as though it were a coiled viper. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... completed, Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith. There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything, Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cart-wheel Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice, Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows, And as its panting ceased, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Alice Manisty was dressed in black lace and satin, and carried herself with stateliness. Her hair, black like her brother's, though with a fine line of grey here and there, was of enormous abundance, and she wore it heavily coiled round her head in a mode which gave particular relief to the fire and restlessness of the eyes which flashed beneath it. Beside her, Eleanor Burgoyne, though she too was rather tall than short, suffered a curious eclipse. The plaintive distinction that made the charm of Eleanor's expression ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as there seemed no chance of making a search on the bank that day, such was the fierceness of the wind, the two men drank again of the punch, spread their blankets before the fire, lay their hardy figures down, and were soon in a profound sleep. The woman, more watchful, coiled herself in a corner of the room on some ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... but the catch was obstinate, or rusty, and several ineffectual efforts were made, ere he succeeded in moving the spring. The once white velvet cushion, had darkened and turned very yellow, but time had robbed in no degree, the lustre of the magnificent sapphires coiled there; and the blue fires leaped out, as if rejoicing in the privilege of displaying their splendor. "This set of stones was intended as a gift to your mother, when she was graduated at boarding-school. The time fixed for the close of the session was only one month later ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... tears fell from her eyes on the face of the sleeping emperor. He started up, awakened by the falling tears, and said to her, I have had a strange dream. A violent shower came up from the direction of Saho and suddenly wet my face. And a small damask-colored snake coiled itself around my neck. What can such a dream betoken? Then the empress, conscience-stricken, confessed the conspiracy ...
— Japan • David Murray
... himself, then stood erect in a manner that reminded Democrates of some serpent that had just coiled ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... then round and full, and of a ruddy complexion, with bright blue eyes that beamed with gaiety, glee, and good-humour, the effect of the most exuberant animal spirits. His head was covered with a singular profusion of light-brown hair, which he was obliged to wear coiled up under his hat. On entering church on a Sunday (where he was all his life a regular attender) he used, on lifting his hat, to raise his right hand to assist a graceful shake of his head in laying back his long hair, which rolled ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... spirits, seated in a mystic gloom at the back of the hut, which is dimly lit by a lamp burning low. The hardest task of all is to drive away Sedna, and this is reserved for the most powerful enchanter. A rope is coiled on the floor of a large hut in such a way as to leave a small opening at the top, which represents the breathing hole of a seal. Two enchanters stand beside it, one of them grasping a spear as if he were watching a seal-hole in winter, the other holding the harpoon-line. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... were happy talking, and forgot how they thought differently on marriage. But always the difference lay there in the background, coiled up like a snake, ready to uncoil and seize them and make them quarrel and hurt one another. Always one was expecting the other at any moment to throw up the sponge and cry "Oh, have it your own way, since you won't have it ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... sure, is only the curtain-raiser to the pleasures to follow. This has been a physical and carnal pleasure. Now follow delights of the mind. In the great gloomy shed wafts and twists of thick steam are jetting upward, heavily coiled in the cold air. In the train you smoke two pipes and read the morning paper. Then you are set down at Haverford. It is like a fairyland of unbelief. Trees and shrubbery are crusted and sheathed in crystal, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the Hemenway southwestern archeological expedition, found a number of these structures and excavated some of them. From remains thus found he concluded that they were sun-temples, as he termed them, and that they were covered with a roof made of coiled strands of grass, after a manner analogous to that in which pueblo baskets are made. A somewhat similar class of structures was found by the writer on the upper Rio Verde, but these were probably ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... and attitude are a study. Coiled up into the smallest possible space, his chin almost resting on his knees, his hands close to his sides, firmly but lightly feeling the rudder, as a good horseman handles the mouth of a free-going hunter; if a coxswain ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... while she sped upstairs, ransacked Theodora's closet for a long skirt, and swiftly coiled her hair on the top of her head. Then demurely enough she presented herself to ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Culpeper, a famous band of frontiersmen, wearing green hunting-shirts and carrying knives and tomahawks. "Liberty or Death," Patrick Henry's stirring words, were on their breasts, and over their heads floated a significant banner. On it was a coiled rattlesnake, with the warning motto, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... hiss, a very fierce hiss. Johnny Chuck felt the hair on his neck rise as it always did when he heard that hiss, and he wasn't at all surprised, when he turned his head, to find Mr. Blacksnake close by. Mr. Blacksnake glided swiftly up to the old log and coiled himself in front of the opening. Then he raised his head and ran out his tongue in the most ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... Quaker collars and cuffs of muslin edged with lace, were even more immaculate than on week-days. She scorned a cap, and her features were so well cut that she looked well with the grey hair—wonderfully plentiful and wavy for one of her years,—simply parted and tidily coiled at the back. This costume or toilet, always fresh and never shabby, was invariably completed by a style of light house-boots, introduced to me as "lastings"; and there was an unimpaired vigour of intellect in their wearer good to contemplate ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... daughter stood in the sunlight by the window, tall, fragile, and exquisite, her features and outline not unlike her mother's, but frailer, softer, more delicate. The golden light struck one half of her high-bred, sensitive face, and glimmered upon her thickly-coiled flaxen hair, striking a pinkish tint from her closely-cut costume of fawn-coloured cloth with its dainty cinnamon ruchings. One little soft frill of chiffon nestled round her throat, from which the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... purpose which kept him from squandering time on the chase. Only once he halted, and that was when the cries and flutterings of a pair of excited thrushes caught his attention. He saw their nest in a low tree—and he saw a black snake, coiled in the branches, greedily swallowing the half-fledged nestlings. This was an opportunity which he could not afford to lose. He ran expertly up the tree, pounced upon the snake, and bit through its back bone just behind the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was seated on my accustomed stone, my attention was slightly diverted from the sea by the sight of a man descending the crag above me, in rather a perilous manner. With one end of a rope coiled round his body, and the other fastened to a stake driven into the summit of the rock, he let himself half-way down the terrible height. One foot now rested on a projecting point, one hand held the rope, and hanging thus midway in the air, he seemed busy searching in the crevices of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... the coiled rope over the heaviest branch of the cedar, drew it tight, and fastened it to the trunk of ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... half turned toward the fire a girl in white was lying fast asleep. It was Christine. Her dark hair was all gathered loosely back and coiled in a large knot low down against her fair throat, from which the white lace of her gown fell backward, leaving its beautiful pureness bare. There was a charming air of foreign taste and fashioning about the whole costume. Poor Christine! She had put it on obediently when Mrs. Murray had brought it ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... white cotton trousers. The cabin passengers are all Chinamen. The deck was packed with Chinese coolies on their way to seek wealth in the diggings at Perak. They were lean, yellow, and ugly, smoked a pipe of opium each at sundown, wore their pigtails coiled round their heads, and loose blue cotton trousers. We had slipped our cable at Singapore, because these coolies were clambering up over every part of the vessel, and defying all attempts to keep them out, so that "to cut and run" was our only chance. The owners do not allow any intoxicant to ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... of a long-handled steel hook. All that is necessary to do is to insert this under the snake and lift him off the ground. He is not only unable to escape, but he is unable to strike, for he cannot strike unless coiled so as to give himself support and leverage. The table on which the snakes are laid is fairly large and smooth, differing in no way from ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete "hurrah's nest,'' as the sailors say, "everything on top and nothing at hand.'' A large hawser had been coiled away on my chest; my hats, boots, mattress, and blankets had all fetched away and gone over to leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to find anything with, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... drawn, is no less subject to the laws of gravitation than that of a hedgehog. A snake that "darts" when it has nothing secure to hold on by, only overbalances itself. With half or two-thirds of the body firmly coiled against some rough object or surface, the head—of a poisonous snake at least—is indeed a deadly weapon of precision. This particular reptile, perhaps by some instinct, had now wriggled itself on to a large and ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... rapidly along the width of each board, and then as rapidly entered a mark in a note-book. The boards seemed to move fairly of their own volition, like a scutellate monster of many joints, crawling from the cars, across the dock, over the side of the ship and into the black hold where presumably it coiled. There were six ships; six, many-jointed monsters creeping to their appointed places under the urging of these their masters; six young men absorbed and busy at the tallying; six crews panoplied in leather guiding the monsters to their lairs. Here, too, the sun-warmed air arose sluggish ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... before God, and God will judge him, while you, duke, should they ask you for conjectures, answer what you please; should they again ask you about what you saw, then say that before we coiled a wild man in a net you saw nine corpses, besides the wounded, on this floor, and among them the bodies of Danveld, Brother Godfried, von Bracht and Hugues, and two noble youths.... God, give ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a moment he was on the fore deck, where the men made hasty way for him. There the long lines were coiled, ready for throwing to the shore folk on our wharf, both fore and aft. My father caught up one at his feet and stood ready, for now the boat was close on us, and I could see the white set face of her steersman ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... set free; and seeing my rope lying on the deck I coiled it up ready to take ashore with me, taking it aft to ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... open together; and as they are each nearly 3 in. across, and of good substance, they present an attractive appearance. The petals are of a deep straw-colour, with a reddish streak down the centre, and 11/2 in. long, with the apex notched or toothed. The stamens are spirally coiled round the stigma, which is club-shaped and white. This species is probably a native of Mexico, and was first flowered in England at Kew, in 1841. A cool, dry greenhouse suits it best; or it may be ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... over, now curl completely round into a kind of ball. This occurs early, and in the finest Gothic work, especially in cornices and other running mouldings: but it is a fatal symptom, a beginning of the intemperance of the later Gothic, and it was followed out with singular avidity; the ball of coiled leafage increasing in size and complexity, and at last becoming the principal feature of the work; the light striking on its vigorous projection, as in fig. 14. Nearly all the Renaissance Gothic of Venice depends upon these balls for effect, a late capital being generally composed ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... wide slavering mouth and beady eyes swayed there directly behind her. Pendant, it was, on a scaly and slimy length of undulating body that coiled high above in the matted growths of the jungle. As he watched, rooted to the spot, the great head drew back and poised, vibrating, ready ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... same stuff made up his dress. His vareuse, unbuttoned, showed his breast, brown and hairy; and a horrid cap with long hair covered, without concealing, a mass of red locks that a comb had never gone through. A long whip, the stock of which he held in his hand, was coiled about his left arm. He advanced to the counter and asked for a glass of brandy. He was a drayman named ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... either side the hill, Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground. The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with green Patches of mildew and of ivy woven Over the sightless loopholes and the sides: And from the ivy deaf-coiled spiders dangle, Or scurry to catch food; and their fine webs Touch at your face wherever you may pass. The sun's light scorched upon it; and a fry Of insects in one spot quivered for ever, Out and in, in and out, with glancing ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... it, and, moved by some undefined impulse, Richard came and stood by her side while she opened it. A perfume which he recognized arose from it as she lifted a fold of tissue-paper. Some strings of Oriental pearls of extraordinary size, and perfect in shape and color, were coiled underneath, with a coral necklace, whose pendant of amber had broken off and rolled into a corner. With them—he hardly restrained an exclamation, and his hand involuntarily sought his breast-pocket at sight of the handkerchief with a drop of fresh blood in one corner! ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... steams ahead. The cable is not wound round and round the drum as your silk is wound on its reel, but on the contrary never goes round more than six times, going off at one side as it comes on at the other, and going down into the hold of the Elba, to be coiled along in a big ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... two main varieties: BIVALVES and UNIVALVES. Bivalves have two valves, fitting together along a toothed hinge on one side, and kept closed by means of ADDUCTOR MUSCLES. Univalves have only one shell, usually coiled, but sometimes shaped like a cap or miniature volcano. Some marine univalves can seal themselves inside with an operculum, which covers the open end of the shell like a trap door. Although shells take on many different shapes, they are much alike inside. Each has a foot, a breathing ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company
... jumped as if he had been fired at. The barrister, coiled up like a boa-constrictor, glared at ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... their atoms are conceived to have the power of motion in the fourth dimension, it would be easy to understand why they differ. Certain snails present the same characteristics as these two forms of sugar. Some are coiled to the right and others to the left; and it is remarkable that, like dextrose and levulose, their juices are optically the reverse of each other when ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and sieves (Plate LVII) and the fish-traps shown in Fig. 13 conclude the list. No coiled baskets ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the exceeding hush, there was a strange and ghastly sound,—it was the howl of a dog! Helen started from her sleep. Percival's dog had followed her into her room; it had coiled itself, grateful for the kindness, at the foot of the bed. Now it was on the pillow, she felt its heart beat against her hand,—it was trembling; its hairs bristled up, and the howl changed into a shrill bark of terror and wrath. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the cargoes were insufficient. She had long lain idle when she was secured by the cable company and fitted out for the purpose of laying the cable, which was the first useful work which had been found for the great ship. The 2,300 miles of heavy cable was coiled into the hull and paying-out machinery was installed upon the decks. Huge quantities of coal and other ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... more, and the six-shooter he had levelled at Luck dropped from his nerveless hand like a coiled adder, Annie-Many-Ponies had struck. Like an avenging spirit she pulled the knife free and held it high over her head, facing Luck who stared up at her from below. He thought the look in her eyes was fear of him and of ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... and they were happy talking, and forgot how they thought differently on marriage. But always the difference lay there in the background, coiled up like a snake, ready to uncoil and seize them and make them quarrel and hurt one another. Always one was expecting the other at any moment to throw up the sponge and cry "Oh, have it your own ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... tzephoni; which, we find, lays eggs so similar to those of poultry, as to be mistaken and eaten for them. Labat farther relates that he crushed some eggs of a large serpent, and found several young in each egg; which were no sooner freed from the shell than they coiled themselves into the attitude of attack, and were ready to spring on whatever ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... foliage ashore; and the easterly breeze carrying to their eager nostrils the perfumes of land. Amid an excitement and joyful anticipation that it is exhilarating even to think about the cables were got up and served and coiled on deck, and the anchors, which some of them had thought would never grip the bottom again, unstopped and cleared. The leadsman of the Santa Maria, who has been finding no bottom with his forty-fathom line, suddenly gets a sounding; ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... She coiled up lazily in her soft plush great-chair and regarded him with languid eyes, and Rimrock never suspected that the words he had spoken would go straight to Stoddard that night. He forgot his rejection ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... at prayer, in green and white, kneeling at her faldstool like a painted lady on an altar tomb; he just saw the pure curve of her cheek, the coiled masses of her hair, which seemed to burn it. All the world with the lords thereof was at his feet, but this treasure which he had held and put away was denied him. By his own act she was denied. He had said Yea, when Nay had been the voice of heart and ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... part of the tropics there are tree-snakes that twist among boughs and shrubs, or lie coiled up on the dense masses of foliage. These are of many distinct groups, and comprise both venomous and harmless genera; but almost all of them are of a beautiful green colour, sometimes more or less adorned ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... had evidently arrived in the course of the last twenty-four hours; and there was not a single object of any value in the room. In one corner you beheld a collection of crushed and flattened cigars, coiled pocket-handkerchiefs, shirts which had been turned to do double duty, and cravats that had reached a third edition; while a sordid array of old boots stood gaping in another angle of the room among aged socks worn ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Other texts again refer to the difference of the two: 'Having entered into these three deities with this jva-self, let me differentiate names and forms.' We therefore consider all non-sentient things to be special forms or arrangements of Brahman, as the coils are of a coiled-up snake or a ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... had recovered its shock, and my eyes looked dizzily round, the charge of the beasts had swept by; and of all the wild tribes which had invaded the magical circle, the only lingerer was the brown Death-adder, coiled close by the spot where my head had rested. Beside the extinguished lamps which the hoofs had confusedly scattered, the fire, arrested by the water course, had consumed the grasses that fed it, and there the plains stretched black and desert as ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... comes, in reality, or in a man's conceptions or fancy, the contact of the supernatural, as it is called, with the natural, there is a shrinking, a sense of eerieness, an apprehension of vague possibilities of evil. The sleeping snake that is coiled in every soul stirs and begins to heave in its bulk, and wake, when the thought of a holy God comes into the heart. Now, I do not suppose that consciousness of sin is the whole explanation of that universal human feeling, but I am very sure it is an element in it, and I ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... slipped out of bed and flung on her orange-colored kimono and knelt down before the open window, her shining hair, so darkly brown that it was almost black, hanging gypsylike about her shoulders. (The greater portion of Sarah's hair was at rest upon the rosewood bureau top, coiled like a pale snake, and the remainder was done up on curlers in ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... from every pore, his knees shook, and his eyes, fixed on the snake by a fascination that controlled his will, felt bursting from their sockets. After preserving its attitude for a short time, the snake, as if taking Holden under its protection, coiled itself around his feet, and lay with its head resting on his shoe, looking into the fire. As the snake turned away its bright eyes the spell that bound the Indian was dissolved. An expression of the deepest awe overspread his countenance, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... went to the water-tap to turn off the hose he had been using. He disconnected it, coiled it and hung it up, and then picked up the water-bucket. Then, without warning, he hurled the water into the policeman's face, sprang forward, swinging the bucket by the bale, and hit the man on the head. Releasing his grip on the bucket, ...
— Flight From Tomorrow • Henry Beam Piper
... contrived, through which we descended by cramp-irons or spiral stairways. These pits again conducted us into other chambers, opening into other corridors, likewise decorated with painted sparrow-hawks, serpents coiled in circles, the symbols of the tau and pedum—prodigious works of art which no living eye can ever examine—interminable legends of granite which only the dead have time ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... into the ground, and then covering them with palm-leaves, and broad pieces of bark: The door is nothing but a large hole at one end, opposite to which the fire is made, as we perceived by the ashes. Under these houses, or sheds, they sleep, coiled up with their heels to their head; and in this position one of them will hold three or four persons. As we advanced northward, and the climate became warmer, we found these sheds still more slight: They were built, like the others, of twigs, and covered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... and a Newfoundland dog, came into the possession of the superintendent of the London fire brigade when he was but twelve months old. His first retreat was in the engine-house, where, on some old hose and sacking, he made himself as comfortable as he could, and coiled himself up, like the tubing on which he lay. Considering that he was thus placed in charge of the engine-house, he resented the first occasion on which a fire occurred at night. The fire bell rang, and the firemen crowded to the spot, prepared ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... fiercely coloured, with her tawny gold hair, sunburnt skin, and jade-green, far-seeing eyes, her coiled crimson handkerchief and blue-green gown. She was finely made, slim, and in contour hardly more than a child; and yet she seemed to him very mature, a practised hand, with very various knowledge deep in her eyes, and a wide acquaintance behind her quiet ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... boat, as soon as Smallbones had been turned out, had resumed her upright position, and one of the men when busy washing the decks, had made fast the gripe again, which he supposed had been cast off by accident when the ropes had been coiled up for washing, Smallbones not being at that time missed. When, therefore, the decks had been searched everywhere and the lad was discovered not to be in the ship, the suspicion was very great. No one had seen him go aft to sleep in the boat. The man who was at the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Senor Johnson it had become an old story. After the days of construction the days of accomplishment seemed to him lean. His men did the work and reaped the excitement. Senor Johnson never thought now of riding the wild horses, of swinging the rope coiled at his saddle horn, or of rounding ahead of the flying herds. His inspections were business inspections. The country was tame. The leather chaps with the silver conchas hung behind the door. The Colt's forty-five depended at the head of the bed. Senor Johnson rode in mufti. Of his cowboy ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... sortie, with such fury did they rush out to beat her back. But she struggled in somehow, and on across the howling waste of clifftop to a little hut of stone, which formed the covering of a well. There, as she expected, she found a rope coiled up, which was used to draw up water in an iron cup, to gratify the curiosity of visitors as much as to quench their thirst; for it was strange, indeed, to meet with fresh water there, the presence of which, no doubt, had caused the place to be chosen for a fastness ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... rice beneath our rooftree; but she is here. She was brought before me, a little peasant girl, dressed in faded blue trousers and a jacket that had been many times to the washing pool. Her black hair was coiled in the girlhood knot at the side of the head, and in it she had stuck a pumpkin blossom. She was such a pretty little country flower, and looked so helpless, I drew her to me and questioned her. She told me there were many within their compound wall: grandmother, father, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... through the barn-yard, if I find the old hens gone about their family affairs, I do not mind a meadow-lark's singing in the top of the elm-tree beside the pump. In these excursions the watch-dogs know me for a harmless person, and will not open their eyes as they lie coiled up in the sun before the gate. At all the places, I have the people keep bees, and, in the garden full of worthy pot-herbs, such idlers in the vegetable world as hollyhocks and larkspurs and four-o'clocks, near a great bed in which the asparagus has gone to sleep for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... seen Mrs. Beriah Dagon, an aunt of Mr. Lawrence Newt's? She was Cecilia Bunley, sister of Mary. When she was younger she used to go to the theatre with a little green snake coiled around her arm like a bracelet. It was the most lovely green—the softest color you ever saw; it had the brightest eyes, the most sinuous grace; it had a sort of fascination, but it filled you with fear; fortunately, it was harmless. But, Ellen, if it could ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... no change of dress, beyond laying aside her hat and jacket. One saw now that she had plenty of light brown hair, naturally crisp and easily lending itself to effective arrangement; it was coiled and plaited on the top of her head, and rippled airily above her temples. The eyebrows were darker of hue, and accentuated the most expressive part of her physiognomy, for when she smiled it was much more the eyes than the lips ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... the direction from which the sound proceeded, and there, coiled up behind a heap of barrels and boxes, and concealed by a sail-cloth which had been thrown over the goods to protect them from an expected ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... when he was roused by a sharp, shrill cry of the bird, of "Time to rise! time to rise!" accompanied by a violent flapping of the wings. So awakened, Charles looked around, wondering what had disturbed his feathered friend. The cause was soon plain—a deadly snake lay coiled up close to his bed, prepared to spring on the defenseless man. Just when he thought that all hope was at an end, the brave cockatoo sprang from his perch, seized the reptile by the neck, and held him tight till ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... into their frames and locked. The thing was inside. But it was almost a minute then before Gefty could control his shaking legs enough to start moving back towards the main deck. In the half-dark of the vault, it had looked like a big coiled cable lying next to the packing cases. Like Maulbow, it might have been battered around and knocked out during the recent disturbance; and when it recovered, it had found Gefty in the vault with it. But it might also have been awake all the ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... Scotland, was editor of the Virginia Gazette from March 1766 to December 1774. Shortly after this date he started a Gazette of his own, and in the issue of his paper for June 7, 1776, he printed the heraldic device of a shield, on which is a rattlesnake coiled, with supporters, dexter, a bear collared and chained, sinister, a stag. The crest is a woman's head crowned and the motto: Don't tread on me. Adam Boyd (1738-1803), colonial printer and preacher, purchased the printing ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black
... worked his way over the west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a coping stone into the ditch. He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order. All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheera, and Mang the Bat, flying to and fro, carried the news of the ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... chambers I had hitherto passed through, for it had still the look of habitation,—the armchair by the fireplace; the kneehole writing-table beside it; the sofa near the recess of a large bay-window, with book-prop and candlestick screwed to its back; maps, coiled in their cylinders, ranged under the cornice; low strong safes, skirting two sides of the room, and apparently intended to hold papers and title-deeds, seals carefully affixed to their jealous locks. Placed on the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the boat, however, which lay fore and aft, and I thought this might keep me afloat until some of the fleet should pick me up. To clear this gang-board, then, and get it into the water, was my first object. I ran forward to throw off the lazy-painter that was coiled on its end, and in doing this I caught the boat's painter in my hand, by accident. A pull satisfied me that it was all clear! Some one on board must have cast off this painter, and then lost his chance of getting into the boat by an accident. At all events, I was safe, and I now dared ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... supposed by Stempell since these two species are confined to the United States. Among the figures shown on Pl. 9, it is noteworthy that five of the rattlesnakes show no fangs. Some are spotted, but in a wholly arbitrary manner. Three are unmarked. One is shown coiled about the base of a tree (Pl. 9, fig. 5), another coiled ready to strike though the rattle is pictured trailing on the ground instead of being held erect in the center of the coil as usually is done (Pl. 9, fig. 9). A rattlesnake is shown held ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... privately terrified at rats, but she smothered her terror in her husband's presence and maintained a smiling front. They laid down poison for the rats, who died horribly in inaccessible places, making her wonder if they were not almost preferable alive. And then one night she discovered a small snake coiled in ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... mamma's room and peeped cautiously in. It was not very light in the room for the window shades had been pulled partly down to shut out the glare of the noonday sun, but sure enough, it could be seen very plainly that there was something on the bed—a half-coiled, bluish-green snake ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various
... twenty-foot, spring snake coiled inside the camera and ready to leap out like a jack-in-the-box when Dick squeezed the bulb. And there were others who knew and who urged Dick to get the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... aroused from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes, hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. The men fought desperately all night with shotguns and clubs. Life is scarcely worth the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... came to her; but, looking up, she said she did not wish to be disturbed, and again coiled herself up in the chair, endeavouring to concentrate her thoughts upon her book. But all to no purpose. Ever and anon she would lift her big eyes from the printed page, sigh, and stare fixedly at the rose-coloured trellis pattern of the wall-paper opposite. Upon her ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... heavy boat jerk off a little with the tremendous strain, but all at once the pole broke off short with a crack, Francois' heels made a flourish in the air, and then he disappeared head foremost into the foaming water, with my tobacco coiled round his neck! As we flew past the place, one of his arms appeared, and I made a grab at it, and caught him by the sleeve; but the effort upset myself and over I went too. Fortunately, however, one of my men caught me by the foot, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... fell deed, madness raged upon the minutes, now that it was done—all still, all calm, all quiet, Terror held the hour-glass of Time. There lay the corpse, motionless, though coiled and cramped in the attitude of struggling agony; and the murderer gazed upon his victim with a horror most intense. Fly! fly!—he dared not stop to think: fly! fly! any whither—as you are—wait for nothing; fly! thou caitiff, for thy life! So ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... wonderful night, and the blue band of clear sky was no wider than before. These people must have come into sight as I fell asleep, and awakened me almost at once. They waded breast-deep in the water, emerging, coming shoreward, a woman, with her hair coiled about her head, and in pursuit of her a man, graceful figures of black and silver, with a bright green surge flowing off from them, a pattering of flashing wavelets about them. He smote the water and splashed it toward her, she retaliated, ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... 2-1/2 inches below the right anterior superior iliac spine; the bullet traversed the groin superficially in the line of Poupart's ligament, emerged, and crossed both penis and scrotum. The trooper was in the saddle when struck, and the penis probably somewhat coiled up. Three wounds were found, one at the junction of the penis and scrotum which opened the urethra, a second one about 3/4 of an inch along the under surface of the penis, and a third on the left side of the base of the prepuce. A considerable ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... provider. Little Charley had already become much attached to "good Corporal Grimsby," who had given him such a nice supper—while the latter gentleman, having finished his meal, drew forth an antiquated pipe, having a Turk's head for the bowl and a coiled serpent for the stem, which having lighted, he proceeded to smoke with much gravity and thoughtfulness. Not a word did he utter, but smoked away in silence, until the clock struck ten; then pocketing his pipe, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... insect's body. Each of these three segments carries a pair of legs. In front of the thorax is the head on which the pair of long jointed feelers and the pair of large, sub-globular, compound eyes are the most prominent features. Below the head, however, may be seen, now coiled up like a watch-spring, now stretched out to draw the nectar from some scented blossom, the butterfly's sucking trunk or proboscis, situated between a pair of short hairy limbs or palps (fig. 2). These palps belong to the appendages of the hindmost segment of the head, appendages ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... which choked the stream and forced them to make their way through the inundated jungle that bordered it. As they pushed or dragged their canoes through the swamp, they saw with disgust and alarm a good number of snakes, coiled about twigs and boughs on the right and left, or sometimes over their heads. These were probably the deadly water-moccason, which in warm weather is accustomed to crawl out of its favorite element and bask itself in the sun, precisely ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... passed before Meir left the cottage, where the outcast Shmul accused himself, wailed and moaned in a voice that gradually became lower till it almost sank to a whisper. The ruddy glow from the street fell upon one corner of the dark entrance. There, coiled up between the goats, his head resting upon a projecting board, with the red light of the fire upon his face, slept Lejbele. Neither noise nor the glare of the fire, not even the lamentations of his unhappy ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... were made of glass, so that you could look through it to watch the intestine at work, it would appear to you like an enormous worm coiled up into a bundle, heaving and moving with all its rings at once. You never suspected there was such a movement within you; yet it has been going on there continually ever since you were born, and will not cease till you die. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked, something did strike the ground—something that coiled and hissed and rattled—a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx turned its head, snarling, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... that I had it. At all events, they did not know what to do for it. It did not pass. It grew worse. But I hid it, talking very little, never telling anybody how I felt. They said I was depressed and needed cheering up. All the while there was that black snake coiled around my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. But my body grew stronger every day. The wounds were all healed. I was walking around. In July the doctor-in-chief sent for me to his office. He said: 'You are cured, Pierre Duval, but you are not yet fit to fight. You ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... young, so almost fierce. She had dressed herself in white without frill or decoration, and the clinging folds of her gown draped her like a slender, chaste statue. She wore no jewels,—she had none, indeed,—and her dark coiled hair in no way disguised the shape of her fine head. The elaborate Polish contralto across from her, splendid as a mediaeval queen, threw Kate's simplicity into sharp contrast. Marna turned adoring eyes upon her; Mrs. Barsaloux, that inveterate encourager of genius, grieved ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... plaits, to the present time, when she tenderly fastened that same knapsack on to the shoulders of a younger sister; and when the plaits had for long been reclaimed from their vagrant freedom, and coiled close to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... beneath her broad waist-ribbon the flaps, drawn aside, gave a glimpse of a green petticoat, watered with yellow. Nothing could be more strangely bewitching than her delicate features seen under the shadow of her hair, coiled above her head with long pins thrust through it, while her chin and oblique eyes, small and sparkling, pictured to the life a young lady of Yeddo, strolling amidst the perfume of tea and benzoin. And she lingered there hesitatingly, with all the sickly languor ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... his foot upon the man who offers no oblations, as upon a coiled snake? When will Indra listen to our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... cable was coiled, and a length of the cable stretched like a snake across the field to where it ended in a swivel, made fast to the bottom of the riding car. It was not, strictly speaking, a riding car. It was a straight-up-and-down basket of tough, light wicker, no larger ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... in most towns though, I think, that wants boilin' down bad. Some day they'll do it, maybe; they'll have to when all the good country's stocked up. After Warrigal had his supper he went out again to see his horse, and then coiled himself up before the fire and wouldn't hardly ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... spelled, my neck was coiled, And I with their fury was glowing, When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled At a watery ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sprawling beneath the cutty. Tony and I snoozed under the mainsail, huddled up together for the sake of warmth, like animals in a nest. At intervals we got up to peep over the gunwale or to bale the boat out. Then with comic sighs we coiled down together again. It was bitterly cold in the small hours. We pooled our vitality, as it were, and shared and shared alike. When we finally awoke, about five in the morning, the wind had died down, the sky and moon were clouded, and ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... of warmth, and will remain coiled up for hours in any snug retreat where they can find this very necessary element of their existence. The following anecdote ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was still haunted by a lingering suspicion of the machine and its inventor; but this experiment went far to destroy it. Even if the motive power was derived from a coiled spring, or compressed air, or electricity, in the box, how was it possible to make it act without the resistance offered by the air? Magnetism was equally out of the question, since no conceivable arrangement of magnets could have brought about ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... and showed the two astonished men a carefully-coiled mass of black hair, wound round and round the back of the head. And into it he slipped his own long, thin fingers—to draw them out again with an exclamation which indicated satisfaction with his ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... gaze with dropped jaw at a spiral of smoke that coiled and twisted in the lee of the mizzenmast twenty ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... feasting on a beetle or spider held in the tiny paws. Sometimes in their great happiness they made a low, sweet chirping like a company of wrens conversing cheerily together. When climbing in their tree-branches it was interesting to see how the fine wiry tail was always coiled round the stem as the creature descended, so as to keep it from falling and ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... the eye of the storm. But as on every other attempt to turn or mill the drifting herd, new leaders forged to the front and threatened to carry the drift past the entrance to the pocket. The critical moment had arrived. Dismounting, with a coiled rope in hand, Dell rushed on the volunteer leaders, batting them over the heads, until they whirled into the angling column, awakened from their stupor and panic-stricken from the assault of a boy, who attacked with the ferocity of a fiend, hissing like an adder or crying ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... thought I'd get him a train this time. I told him Santa Claus was going to bring him something altogether new this time. Edwin, of course, believes in Santa Claus absolutely. Say, look at this locomotive, would you? It has a spring coiled ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... spring back as though he had received an electric shock. Only his quickness saved him from the living death held in the fangs of a rattlesnake that had evidently just crawled from the black muzzle of the gun. The snake instantly re-coiled to repeat its venomous stroke, and though Donald could easily have killed it as he had scores of its kind, the presence of this hideous and sole representative of life in that place of the dead so filled him with horror ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... want me tew address the meetin', hey? I'm willin', only the laugh's ruther ag'inst me, ef I tell that story; expect you'll like it all the better fer that." Flint coiled up his long limbs, put his hands in his pockets, chewed meditatively for a moment, and then ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... that pervarted they'll turn round an' eat their own aigs!" suggested the woodsman, spitting thoughtfully through the open window. The cat, coiled in the sun on a log outside, sprang up angrily, glared with green eyes at the offending window, and scurried away ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... it negatively, the least attractive. She is distinctly of the peasant class, gentle, amiable, and entirely unassuming. The Madonna in the Meadow is a maturer woman, more dignified, more beautiful. The smooth braids of her hair are coiled about the head, accentuating its lovely outline. The falling mantle reveals the finely modelled shoulders. The Madonna of the Goldfinch is a still higher type of loveliness, uniting with gentle dignity a certain delicate, high-bred grace, ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... I thought. I can see where your bootleg joyjuice is going to take a big jump in quality, if you have anyone here who can do some simple glassblowing. Though it might be easier to rig up a coiled bi-metallic strip. You're trying to boil off your various fractions, and unless you keep an even and controlled temperature you are going to have a mixed brew. The thing you want for your engines are the most volatile fractions, the liquids ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... shaking. He fancied the darkness full of horses' heads, and would not stir. Clare had to get out again, and search for a place to suit his fancy, which he found in an untenanted loose-box, with remains of litter. There Tommy coiled himself up, and was soon ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... the equipment, then went back and got the tripod. Rick screwed the camera into place with a few turns of the tripod nut. Scotty disconnected the power cord that led from the power pack to the camera and coiled it up. They could reconnect it when they needed it. Meanwhile, it would interfere with their progress. He slung the ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... he lowered himself the several feet to the bridge, where he stood, making final adjustments for the perilous traverse. On his back was his pack outfit. Around his neck, resting on his shoulders, he coiled the rope, one end of which was still fast to ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the Swamp began; the water gathered itself into bayous that went slinking, wolflike, between the trees, or rose like a wolf through the earth and stole it from under your very foot. It doubled into black lagoons to doze, and young snakes coiled on the lily-pads, so that when the sun warmed them you could hear the shi-shisi-ss like a wind rising. Also by night there would be greenish lights that followed the trails for a while and went out suddenly in whistling noises. Now and then in broad day the Swamp would fall asleep. There would ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... stem. Both are necessary for the perfection of the flower. The roots sink deep into Mother Earth, and draw nourishment and life, lifting matter upward, while the snake of passion becomes, under another aspect, the serpent of wisdom. Coiled around the stem of this life, it gives to the incarnated soul that wisdom which later blossoms in the Seraph ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... whose head rested on the top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, its body filled the whole valley of Luz, St. Sauveur, and G['e]dres, and its tail was coiled in the hollow below the cirque of Gavarnie. It fed once in three months, and supplied itself by making a very strong inspiration of its breath, whereupon every living thing around was drawn into its maw. It was ultimately killed by making a huge bonfire, and waking it from its torpor, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... in the arbor sat Sibyl Warrington reading. Her golden hair was coiled in close braids around her well-shaped head, her firm erect figure was arrayed in a simple dress of silver gray, and everything about her, from the neat little collar to the trim boot, pleased the eye unconsciously without attracting the attention. ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... serpent, shining with green and gold, twisted itself among the flowers in manifold involutions; and wheresoever the beautiful viper glided, the blossoms became crisped and blackened, as if fire had passed over them. With a sudden spring the venomous creature coiled itself about Eudora's form, and its poisoned tongue seemed just ready to glance into her heart; yet still the maiden laughed merrily, ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... which spills The Ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; And calm as cherished hate, its surface wears[qb] A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... - a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence. Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it. For ever hovering about this pier, with their hands in their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea, gazing through ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the horses near the tents to lade them, and the rain recommencing with great violence, continued throughout the day. An inmate of an alarming description took up its lodging in our tent during the last night, probably washed out of its hole by the rain: a large diamond snake was discovered coiled up among the flour bags, four or five ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... one's clothes were not mended, and she was grumbled at again. And sometimes a foraging party brought home liquor, and all who could got drunk to drive dull care away; and Hereward, forgetful of all her warnings, got more than was good for him likewise; and at night she coiled herself up in her furs, cold and contemptuous; and Hereward coiled himself up, guilty and defiant, and woke her again and again with startings and wild words in his sleep. And she felt that her beauty was gone, and that he saw it; and she fancied him (perhaps it was ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... himself out of the snow slush. A pain jumped in the left shoulder. He limped to the rope and coiled it. The ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... statue of the great goddess with head thrown back. The flame of the torch like a serpent of fire coiled and uncoiled like a living thing, and lit up the band of gold which circled her head, and shone on her ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... the dressing-bell when it clanged throughout the building, nor of the swish of the water as it was heaved into the tin bath in the bathroom, but sat on with the plaits of her hair coiled like snakes on each side of her, and the whiteness of her bare arms and shoulders shining in the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... never cared for him in that way at all, and never could, I felt that he was a very good friend and that his constancy demanded some return on my part—my friendship and sympathy at least; but now I shiver whenever he is near me, just as I would were I to find a snake coiled close beside me. I cannot ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... two faces," admitted Gwendolyn. She stared hard at the coiled braids on the back of Jane's head. The braids were pinned close together. No ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... continuously digests. He does not stop for a moment, his jaws are working the whole time; and Fabre has called attention to the fact that from the opposite extremity of the animal a continuous thread emerges without breaking, and becomes coiled up. ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... envious of her kind described as "heavenly." It was broad and wholesome and genuine. There was a flash of white, even teeth between warm red lips, a gleam of merriment in the half-closed eyes, a gay tilt to the bare, shapely head. Her dark hair was coiled neatly, and the ears were exposed. He liked her ears. He remembered them as he had seen them in the afternoon, fairly large, shapely and close to the head. No need for her to follow the prevailing fashion of the day! She had no reason to hide ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... George, you are a one—er, I must say! Born to it. You strike like an osprey. That's a fish—what?" They peered together into the net, where, coiled and massy, beaming rose and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... cause of her preparations, pressed her thin dress to her form and showed with sportive candour the fine modelling of bosom and limbs. Chiefly, however, I was attracted by the superb disdain in the poise of the head. It was a dark head, coiled heavily with black hair and set back in the hollow of the shoulders. Her face may be called dark too, the black eye-brows and olive skin being unrelieved by colour in the cheeks. Her whole expression was, you ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... back she had mastered the rebellious hair, and it lay shining and beautiful, braided and coiled about her shapely head. She was standing now, having shaken down and smoothed out the rumpled riding habit, and had made herself look quite fresh and lovely in spite ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
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