"Catapult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like bristles, and his great tail struck the door-casing resounding whacks, as he lashed it from side to side. Only a moment he stood there, and then the great striped body hurtled through the air as if shot from a catapult, and covering a good twenty feet in the spring it landed fair on Bombay, one of the largest tigers in the group. The aim was a true one and the sound of breaking bone mingled with a scream of pain from his victim, as Bombay sank ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... photograph of it is published in 'The Graphic.' Those who come to look at it in its glass case think it is a bunch of grapes, or possibly a monkey: those who see its photograph say that it is more probably an irregular catapult-stone or a ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the partridges which Middleton is going to send over in the next ten minutes," he said, "you could shoot anything of the sort that comes along in East Africa, with a catapult. If you will stand just a few paces there to the left, Henry, Terniloff by the gate, Stillwell up by the left-hand corner, Mangan next, Eddy next, and I shall be just beyond towards the oak clump. Will ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... called his wife to his assistance, who is usually very strong, and with blue eyes; especially when, swelling her neck, gnashing her teeth, and brandishing her sallow arms of enormous size, she begins to strike blows mingled with kicks, as if they were so many missiles sent from the string of a catapult. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... these encounters 'slugs,' and, if the truth be told, they were, one and all, very fond of a 'slug.' To carefully search the hedges for a handy stick, and then cut a ferocious knob out of the root end with your pocket-knife; above all, to cast leaden bullets and march forth with them and a catapult—these things were dear to the heart of a ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... Mummy first drew up its right knee so as to bring it nearly in contact with the abdomen, and then, straightening the limb with inconceivable force, bestowed a kick upon Doctor Ponnonner, which had the effect of discharging that gentleman, like an arrow from a catapult, through a window into the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... seemed able to keep his eye on the ball, and the way he sent it flying through the air was a caution. Diogenes and Simple Simon had both had their second stroke and Solomon drove off. His ball sailed straight ahead like a missile from a catapult, flew in a bee-line for Diogenes, struck him at the base of his brain, continued on through, and landed on the edge of ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... sees a bird in the air it draws in its breath so strongly that it draws the birds into its mouth too. Marcus Regulus, the consul of the Roman army was attacked, with his army, by such an animal and almost defeated. And this animal, being killed by a catapult, measured 123 feet, that is 64 1/2 braccia and its head was high above all the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... the mob. There was a rush forward. Billie was on the lower step. His long leg lifted, the toe caught Yankie on the point of the chin, and the rustler went back head first into the crowd as though he had been shot from a catapult. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... all the way to school, while Lucy insisted on sliding along all the gutters and dragging Harry after her. She bought a catapult at the toy-shop and a pennyworth of tintacks at the oil-shop, both on credit, and as Lucy had never asked for credit ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... instant of the discovery, Fred concentrated all his energies in one effort, and bounded forward like a catapult. The distance was precisely what it should have been, and, as he threw out his hands, he struck the Indian squarely in the back with the whole momentum of the body. In fact, the daring boy nearly overdid the matter. He not only came near driving the Apache ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... it, slaughtered the inhabitants without mercy, and captured the unfortunate prince Vinayaka Deva.[41] The Sultan "commanded a pile of wood to be lighted before the citadel, and putting Nagdeo in an engine (catapult), had him shot from the walls into the flames, in which he was consumed." After a few days' rest the Sultan retired, but was followed and harassed by large bodies of Hindus and completely routed. Only 1500 men returned to Kulbarga, and the Sultan himself received a severe wound ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... usual after him. They journeyed until they came to a baron's fortified place, which was completely surrounded by a massive, strong, and high wall. The castle, being extraordinarily well protected, feared no assault of catapult or storming-machine; but outside the walls the ground was so completely cleared that not a single hut or dwelling remained standing. You will learn the cause of this a little later, when the time comes. My lord Yvain made his way directly toward the fortified ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... game of chance called "pitch and toss," of which I have something to say in another chapter, gambling with a penny pack of cards, playing tip-cat, kicking a football, made of old newspapers maybe, playing cricket, throwing stones, using a catapult, bathing in a canal, and a hundred similar things are all deemed worthy of imprisonment, if committed by the youngsters of ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... they searched the middle distance he seemed like a young angel. How was the watcher to know that the thought behind that far-off gaze was simply a speculation as to whether the bird on the cedar tree was or was not within range of his catapult? Certainly Maud had no such suspicion. She worked hopefully day by day to rouse Albert to an appreciation of the nobler ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... words came like a shot from a catapult. Enid's face grew colder. Bell drew a long tube of discoloured paper carefully tied round a ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... windows command the flat plain as far as the horizon. How easy to imagine the warning blast of the warder's trumpet as he caught sight of a distant enemy, and the wall springing into life at the sound. Armed men buckling on their harness would swarm up ladders to the battlements, the catapult groan and squeak as its lever was forced backward, and at the sharp word of command the first flight ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... at this same siege, there were brought to him two iron cuirasses from Cyprus, weighing each of them no more than forty pounds, and Zoilus, who had forged them, to show the excellence of their temper, desired that one of them might be tried with a catapult missile, shot out of one of the engines at no greater distance than six and twenty paces; and, upon the experiment, it was found, that though the dart exactly hit the cuirass, yet it made no greater impression than such a slight scratch as might be made with the point of a style or graver. Demetrius ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... man may be ignorant, as men in speaking say a thing escaped them unawares; or as Aeschylus did with respect to the Mysteries, that he was not aware that it was unlawful to speak of them; or as in the case of that catapult accident the other day the man said he discharged it merely to display its operation. Or a person might suppose a son to be an enemy, as Merope did; or that the spear really pointed was rounded off; or ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... was right. He must jump overboard and take his chance in the river, for it was too late now to slow down and put his motor in reverse. In the impending crash that was only a matter of seconds, The Laird would undoubtedly catapult from the stern sheets into the water—and if he should drift in under the logs, knew the river would eventually give up his body somewhere out in the Bight of Tyee. On the other hand, should he be thrown out on the boom he would stand an equal chance of being seriously injured by ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the night began to race by Tristram's ears as his horse leapt forward. The motion became easier, but the pace was terrifying to a desperate degree; for it seemed that he sat upon nothing, but was being whirled through the air as from a catapult at the heels of his father, who pounded furiously through the darkness a dozen yards ahead. For three minutes at least he felt at every stride an extreme uncertainty as to his chances of realighting in the saddle. It reminded him of cup-and-ball, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... unforeseen happened. Buck stepped in the hole of a prairie dog and went down. Over his head flew the rider like a stone from a catapult. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... old man was upon his feet. His thick arm shot out like a catapult; and his great fist, meeting Diego squarely upon the temple, felled him ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... rang for Mr. Tasker and instructed him to take away the tea-things; to sweep the hearth; and to alter the position of two pictures. By the time all this was accomplished she had regained her wonted calm and was airing some rather strong views on the subject of two little boys who lived with a catapult next door but one. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... "Astro, get the jet boats ready to blast off immediately. Roger, send this message. 'Am coming aboard. Stand by to receive me on your number-one starboard jet-boat catapult deck, signed, ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... Joel, the three brothers, and the school-master, who were standing in the road. Instinctively, Chad swung on in spite of the roar of laughter and astonishment that greeted him and, as Tom banged the gate, the ram swerved and Chad shot off sidewise as from a catapult and dropped, a most unheroic little knight, in the mire. That ended Chad's chivalry in the hills, for in the roars of laughter that greeted him, Chad recognized Caleb Hazel's as the loudest. If HE laughed, chivalry could never thrive there, and Chad gave it ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of the stroke was fatal to him; the ball went at first bound right into Compton's hands, who instantly flung it back, like a catapult, at Wright's wicket. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... the guns and walked toward the jet-boat catapult deck. Tom returned to the radar bridge and stood ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... back. Stillson gained two yards and Dean, who had reserved his captain for the final efforts, then gave the signal that called upon the full-back to carry the ball. Neil went into the line as if he had been hurled from a catapult. He dove into the opening that Tom Curwood, with a last burst of desperate strength, had made, took three steps and was astride the goal line. Norris made the tackle, but he was an instant too late; the big captain of the Ridgley ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... monkey leaped out of a tree top just as I stepped from behind a bush, and he saw me instantly. For a full half minute he hung suspended by one arm, his round head thrust forward staring intently; then launching himself into the air as though shot from a catapult he caught a branch twenty feet away, swung to another, and literally flew through the tree tops. Without a sound save the swish of the branches and splash after splash in the leaves, the entire herd followed him down the hill. It was out of range for the shotgun and my wife ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, "The race ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... sifting them. There were two pocket-handkerchiefs of fine texture, and exceedingly dirty, as if they had been there for months (the one she used she carried in the bosom of her dress or up her sleeve), a ball of string, a catapult and some swan shot, a silver pen, a pencil holder, part of an old song book, a pocket book, some tin tacks, a knife with several blades and scissors, etc.; also a silver fruit knife, two coloured pencils, indiarubber, and a scrap of dirty paper wrapped round ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... overstepped—fouling the put—and sent the shot away at a tangent. Fosgill had turned his head to speak to the measurer and never saw his danger. Tanner let out a shout of warning, and others echoed it. But it was Patsy who acted. He threw himself like a little catapult at Fosgill and sent him staggering across the turf. Then Patsy and the shot went ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Clair had secured apartments, and in the bustle of getting in the packets, exploring the rooms, exclaiming at the beautiful view from the balcony, and Bertie's sudden discovery that it was a glorious place to test the powers of a pea-shooter or catapult, he forgot all about Uncle Clair's words and Aunt Amy's sorrowful smile; and even Eddie thawed a little, and agreed that a beautiful full-rigged ship, with the bright sun shining on her snow-white sails, was a pretty-enough picture ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... enough to enjoy what's coming," whispered Margaret to Crane, and they slipped into the pool and turned around to watch. Seaton and Dorothy, both strong swimmers, locked arms and laughed as they were encircled by the green phalanx and swept out to the end of a dock-like structure and upon a catapult. ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... into his apartment where they fought and squeaked and scurried all night long. But Richard's experiences in France had robbed him of any particular fear of rats. If anything he welcomed their appearance and devoted the short periods when the light was on to shooting at them with a catapult fashioned from the elastic of a sock suspender and a piece of angle iron detached from the underside of a broken armchair. For ammunition he used a few bits of anthracite coal which he found in the sitting room grate. Altogether he accounted for seventeen before the servants arrived ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... speed. Suddenly he dropped the lazy stroke, and it seemed as though he were imbued with new life. His arms and legs worked together with the precision of a machine and he shot through the water like a catapult. ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... answered, taking up a bundle from the desk at which he had been sitting. 'Five are from money-lenders offering to finance your next attempt. There are thirty-three requests for autographs, twenty-two requests for interviews, one very pressing from "The Catapult," another from "The Moon"—Society papers, I believe; ten invitations to dinner, six to luncheon; an offer from a well-known lecturing agency to run you in the United States; an application from a publisher for a series of articles entitled "How I ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... not too overcome by his recent operation to accept promptly the presents his brothers offered, and did so with a sweetly wan and patient smile which kindled a noble rivalry in the matter of gifts. Patsey, now very repentant, brought his catapult, Bugsey his alleys, his loveliest "pure," and the recumbent lamb set in a ball of clear glass; Tommy surrendered his pair of knobbies. Their mother, watching the procession leaving the gate, was moved almost to tears by these expressions ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... the decisive moment had arrived, for, suddenly placing his head between his fore legs, so that his long, powerful horns pointed straight at his opponent's body, he hurled himself violently forward, like a bolt shot from a catapult; the sharp, bayonet-like horns buried themselves deeply in the grey-spotted, blood-smeared body; and as a prolonged yell of agony rent the air the antelope turned a complete somersault over his antagonist and staggered to his feet, bewildered but unhurt, the force ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... can have a catapult if you like," said Hector, with lordly disdain. "It doesn't matter to me, and it certainly won't matter to any one or anything else. You'll never hit anything—girls never do. They can't throw a ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... down!" O'Neil ordered. He set his back against the opposite wall, then launched himself like a catapult. The patrolman followed suit, but although the panels strained and ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... this way, Ned," said Jack excitedly, and gathering a half-dozen or so smaller stones in his right hand, he hurled them catapult fashion right at the advancing heads, with the result that the two reptiles turned sharply, and went off at full speed in beneath the abundant growth of plants, while at the end of a few minutes the missiles thrown in their ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... herself carried along with such velocity that the breath left her body, her knees gave way and she fell down in a limp little bundle. Julia Crosby instantly let go her hand and the impetus of the rush shot her like a catapult far over the ice into the midst of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... that he could no longer endure the strain, the dragging sensation ceased. Like a stone from a catapult Jack was projected up again to the surface of the sea. The sky, the ocean, everything burned red as flame as he regained the blessed air and sucked it in ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... 'Zoologist' for 1874 as having been killed at Cobo on the 28th of September of that year. This seems rather an early date. When I was in Guernsey in November, 1875, I saw a few flocks of Snow Buntings, and one—a young bird of the year—which had been killed by a boy with a catapult, was brought into Couch's shop about the same time, and I have one killed at St. Martin's, Guernsey, in November, 1878; and Captain Hubbach writes me word that he shot three out of a flock of five ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... profound and general was the attention excited throughout Christendom by these extensive operations, and so new and astonishing were many of the inventions and machines employed—most of them now as familiar as gunpowder or as antiquated as a catapult—that contemporaries have been most bountiful in their records for the benefit of posterity, feeling sure of a gratitude which perhaps has not been rendered ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the matter of composition, its dramatically graded light-and-shade was masterly. From the outer obscurity, shot forward as from a catapult by the pushing crowd, we were projected through a narrow portal into a dimly lighted passage more or less obstructed by fallen blocks of stone; and thence onward, suddenly, into the vast interior glaring with electric lamps: and in the abrupt culmination of light ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... leaden gloomy look—there was a swell also, and the ship rolled so much from side to side, that, as I looked up and saw the mastheads forming arches in the sky, I could not help fancying that I should be sent off when I got up there like a stone from a sling, or an ancient catapult, right into the water. The idea made me hold on very tight, let me tell you; yet, as it would never do to give it up, on I went with my teeth pretty closely clenched, and my eyes fixed on the top, which seemed to grow farther and farther away ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... sank—the Captain too Jumped overboard, and dropped from view Like stone from catapult; And when he reached the Merman's lair, He certainly was welcomed there, But, ah! with ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Mike, as he rode at the chief with the force of a catapult. Down went the Spaniard, horse and all; and before he could disentangle himself, Mike was upon him, his knee ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... like this and you boys, unless I miss my guess, ought to be able to put old Chester on the gridiron map where she belongs. Now let's go back to the tackle job again, and the dummy. Some of you, I'm sorry to say, try to hurl yourselves through the air like a catapult, when the rules of the game say plainly that a tackle is only fair and square so long as one foot remains in contact with ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... we class the historians who indulge in poetical phraseology? 'The catapult rocked responsive,' they say; 'Loud thundered the breach'; or, somewhere else in this delectable history, 'Thus Edessa was girdled with clash of arms, and all was din and turmoil,' or, 'The general pondered in his heart how to attack the wall.' Only he fills up the interstices with such ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... and he suddenly felt himself doing a somersault, waking up the wagoner by tumbling on top of him above the straw, whither he had hurled as from a catapult by the sudden stoppage of the gig in its mad career; and when he came to himself he saw that the fragments of the vehicle lay scattered about under the front of the wagon, against which it had been violently impelled, the bay cantering ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... of a thousand conflicts—and the exultation. For the glory of such moments it is well worth dying. One minute flying through the air—the old catapult tackle—and the next a crashing of bone and sinew. We rolled over, head on, and across the floor. Curses and execrations; the deep ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... sudden fierce bellow he raised his heavy poker in both hands, and plunged into the thick of the conflict. There was no stopping him now. His rush was irresistible. He bore down upon the foe like a human catapult. ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... footlights the beset man darted, and like a desperate swimmer plunging from a foundering bark into a stormy sea he leaped far out and projected himself, a living catapult, along the middle aisle. He struck the tall yellow woman as the irresistible force strikes the supposedly immovable object of the scientists' age-old riddle, but on his side was impetus and on hers surprise. She was bowled ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... let's go gently and attend to things one by one: after I've attended to this, then I'll attend to that: I'll train my catapult on the old fellow for the two hundred first. If I shatter the tower and outworks with the said catapult, the next minute I'll plunge straight through the gate into the ancient and time-worn town; in case I capture it, you two can carry off gold to your lady friends by the basketful, and ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... could locate the Hun machine from which that bomb had been shot downward like a projectile from a catapult, passing through a tube with a forward slant in the bottom of the big ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... was actually got into use, and did a certain amount of damage to the Boche trenches, but naturally produced considerable retaliation. Further efforts to fire rifle grenades met with some success, whilst a "Gamage" catapult introduced to throw bombs provided, at any rate, a little amusement. In patrolling considerable progress was made. Second Lieut. A. Hacking did some very daring work at "Peckham Corner," and near Petit Bois; ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... to drive the birds into a panic. This he did by flying furiously around the room, feathers rustling, and squawking as loud as he could. He usually managed to fly just over the head of each bird, and as he came like a catapult, every one flew before him, so that in a minute the room was full of birds flying madly about, trying to get out of his way. This gave ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... band of strangers would not endure one of them, aided in his brawl by his powerful and blue-eyed wife, especially when with swollen neck and gnashing teeth, poising her huge white arms, she begins, joining kicks to blows, to put forth her fists like stones from a catapult. Most of their voices are terrific and threatening, as well when they are quiet as when they are angry. All ages are thought fit for war. They are a nation very fond of wine, and invent many drinks resembling ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... himself as he fell. The water turned him over but he caught the edge of the box. His loose purple "jumper" of cotton and silk ballooned at the back as he swung by one hand in the on-rushing water, thick and yellow with sand, filled with the grinding boulders that came down as, though shot from a catapult, drowning completely his, agonized cry ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... rugged, blond good looks. There were other bridge-builders in the world, certainly, but it was always Alexander's picture that the Sunday Supplement men wanted, because he looked as a tamer of rivers ought to look. Under his tumbled sandy hair his head seemed as hard and powerful as a catapult, and his shoulders looked strong enough in themselves to support a span of any one of his ten great bridges that cut the ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... of Socotra is entitled to a salute of fourteen popguns and one catapult. Before approaching the throne of the Duke of the Djibouti one is required to take lessons from the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... could reach the door out came his cousin, as if fired by a catapult. His eyes were staring and his face ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... by terror. Her huge legs bore her huge body, a tragicomic spectacle, across the street to her open door. She had hardly vanished, flinging it to behind her, when Demon broke from his mistress, and going at the door as if launched from a catapult, burst ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... we treated you as foes." Like Archbishop Manning, Dr. Newman is reminded "of the sword wreathed in myrtle;" but Dr. Pusey, he says, has improved on the ancient device,—"Excuse me, you discharge your olive-branch as if from a catapult." ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... watched these missiles as they rushed by her, once or twice so close that the wind they made stirred her hair. The sight fascinated her and took her mind from her own sufferings. She could see the soldiers working at the levers and pulleys till the strings of the catapult or the boards of the balista were drawn to their places. Then the darts or the stones were set in the groove prepared to receive it, a cord was pulled and the missile sped upon its way, making an angry humming noise as it clove the air. At first it ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... an exclamation of genuine wrath. For, with astonishing swiftness, the big hand had flown to the hip of the ragged trousers, had plucked a short-bladed fishing knife from its sheath, and had hurled it, dexterously, with the strength of a catapult, straight at his ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... something of the inert helplessness of the lesser animal, crouching, as if fascinated by the cruel, claw-armed tyrant, waiting to make its spring. And he knew that at any moment this beast might come at him as if discharged from a catapult. But all the same the brain grew more and more acute in its endeavours to find him a way of escape. If he had only had a short bayonet fixed at the end of his gun, that he might hold it ready with the butt upon the ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... over three coloured marbles in disgust. For them he had bartered away a catapult, and now his heart was ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... coincidence, no doubt, but I saw That Boy put his hand in his pocket and pull out his popgun, and begin loading it. It cannot be that our Scheherezade, who looks so quiet and proper at the table, can make use of That Boy and his catapult to control the course of conversation and change it to suit herself! She certainly looks innocent enough; but what does a blush prove, and what does its absence prove, on one of these innocent faces? There is nothing in all this world that can lie and ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sunset, and came, I think, from a bird smaller than the Australian minah, and of a greenish yellowish hue, larger, but similar to the members of the feathered tribe known to young city 'knights of the catapult' as greenies. It was while returning to camp from fishing that I noticed this bird, which appeared of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... bachelor, he would go into society; if he were in a fair way to be a Royalist poet with a pension and the Cross of the Legion of Honor, he would be an optimist, and journalism offers starting-points by the hundred. Journalism is the giant catapult set in motion by pigmy hatreds. Have you any wish to marry after this? Vernou has none of the milk of human kindness in him, it is all turned to gall; and he is emphatically the Journalist, a tiger with two hands that tears everything to pieces, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... of "A" Company and invited the bombers to try their hand. Now the bombers had received their first introduction to their precarious weapons only 24 hours previously, when they took over from the 7th H.L.I. a Garland mortar, a trench catapult and various crude jam-tin and canister bombs of sinister aspect. Selecting the catapult, which Lieut. Leith thought would be less dangerous to his team than the mortar, they aimed as best they could in the dark, applied ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Thy catapult, so sure of aim, In cold neglect, alas! reposes, And even "tip-cat's" cherished game No longer threatens eyes and noses; Thy tube of tin (projecting peas) At length has ceased from irritating; But how much worse than all of these ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... and, rending, made you free. There was charter, there was challenge; in a blast of breath I gave; You can be all things other; you cannot be a slave. You shall be tired and tolerant of fancies as they fade, But if men doubt the Charter, ye shall call on the Crusade— Trumpet and torch and catapult, cannon and bow and blade, Because it was My challenge to all the things ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... may have a rheumatic pain. None of these things matters to him on the way "in." He can bend his back quickly enough as he passes along. There are always a few bullets dropping near by. One will hit the mud somewhere around his feet. The boy nearest springs as from a catapult until he is close to the comrade ahead of him. No; he never springs back. If he did ... he would be the man ahead. He would be in front. Nuffin' doin'—the whole idea is to keep behind; there is no ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... man in his arms, he whirled him around until he could get sufficient impetus, and then threw him against the wall as if he had been fired from a catapult. If you have never witnessed the fury of genuine fright it is to be hoped you never will, for there is something hideous about it. The ruffian had hardly hit the wall before the negro was upon ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... yet it fell in little more than four months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great the science to reduce a place of such strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that it was carried to utmost perfection before the invention of gunpowder. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... one interjects a whiskyfied interruption into the Professor's speech, who at once in stentorian tones orders that the disturber of the harmony of the evening shall be summarily consigned to the lunatic asylum. I see him ejected with something like the force of a stone from a catapult and have no reasonable doubt that he will spend the night an inmate of "Craig Duncan." The speeches over bargaining recommences moistened by toddy, which fluid appears to exercise an appreciable softening ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... heavens had fallen in liquid fury upon the earth. It was as if ocean itself had been precipitated into an abyss. The slow but inexorable march of the mightiest glacier of the Alps, though comparable, was not equal to this in force. The whole of a Pyramid, shot from a colossal catapult, would not have been the petty charge of a pea shooter to it. Imagine Niagara, or a greater even than Niagara, falling upon an ordinary collection of brick ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... from him, sobbing wildly for the first time that long, horrible evening. Dundee, watching from the doorway of the lighted hall, saw the chauffeur open the rear door of the Dunlap limousine, saw Penny catapult herself into Lois Dunlap's ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... pack-horses. The equipment of a soldier on campaign included a large sword (tachi) and a small sword (katana or sashi-zoe) together with a quiver (yanagui or ebira); but in time of peace these were kept in store, the daily exercises being confined to the use of the spear, the catapult (ishi-yumi) and the bow, and to the practice of horsemanship. When several army corps were massed to the number of ten thousand or more, their staff consisted of a general (shogun), two lieutenant-generals (fuku-shogun), two army-inspectors (gunkan), ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... wall it will overtop it, and a drawbridge with grappling irons may be dropped upon the parapet. Elsewhere there is mining and countermining. From a safer distance the artillery of the time is hurling its formidable missiles. There is the "catapult," which shoots a giant arrow, sometimes tipped with material on fire, from a groove or half-tube to a distance of a quarter of a mile. The propelling force, in default of gunpowder or other explosive, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... was, in a measure, for something strange, he never bargained for what happened. It was as if he had been fired from some catapult of the ancient Romans. Through the air he hurtled, like some great flying animal, covering fifty feet ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... a catapult, he sprang to the door, whisked through it, banged it behind him, turned the key, and went racing down the corridor ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... as he raised his head, but it was a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me a shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet so tremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward as from a catapult. I struck the door of the state-room which had formerly been Mugridge's, splintering and smashing the panels with the impact of my body. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty dragging myself clear of the wrecked door, unaware of any hurt whatever. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the case during the battles in Northern France and Flanders, wherever the trenches approached one another within flinging distance. There also, on occasion, where the troops facing one another were further apart, and beyond reach of a throw by hand, an improvised catapult of the classic type has been devised by our men for slinging hand-bombs; utilising a metal spring bent back and held fast in a notch, to be released on the lighting of the fuse. An illustration of a catapult appeared in the "Illustrated ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various
... the Universe,' and 'Most Remarkable of Cameleopards!' Heavens! what a power of speed thou art displaying! What a capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince!—Bravo, Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard!—Glorious Antiochus!—He runs!—he leaps!—he flies! Like an arrow from a catapult he approaches the hippodrome! He leaps!—he shrieks!—he is there! This is well; for hadst thou, 'Glory of the East,' been half a second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is not a bear's cub in Epidaphne that would not have had a nibble at thy carcase. Let us be off—let ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... play, his jaws being momentarily helpless. His abdominal muscles were in splendid order. Like a lynx, Sourdough drew in and up his powerful hind quarters, and, as if they had been a missile launched from a catapult, slashed his two hind feet along Jan's belly, as a carpenter might rip a board down ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... a worm. It did not so much scrape the sky as soar into it, and when she timidly murmured the words "editorial offices" she was shot up to the top in an elevator as in a perpendicularly directed catapult. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... mean about his finicking ways, I do find a change," Ellen replied, "and a good job, too. He's playing with the other boys again and using those silly books to shoot at with a catapult, which to my mind is a sight more reasonable than poring over them all the time. I never did see a man," she continued, with a slow smile, "so taken aback as Mr. Denschem, when he came to take him to the museum yesterday. Little Alf wouldn't have nothing ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... description of the ballista and other engines of war in Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII. iv. The engine here described by Procopius is the catapult of earlier times; the ballista hurled stones, not arrows. See the Classical ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... again, in undress, with a jacket and cap of the police. He is licking his chops: "I met some pals and we've had a drink. You see, to-morrow one starts scratching again, and cleaning his old rags and his catapult. But my greatcoat!—going to be some job to filter that! It isn't a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... a clear sky, came a bolt of common-sense to Tim, and he realized he had been a fond and foolish jay. And that was why, when he had finished prep that evening, he exchanged a copy, bound in calf, of Victor the Valiant for two oranges and a catapult. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... sitting by the fire in the drawing-room, a room full of flowers and books, and lit by four long windows. Two of the windows looked on to the lawns, and the stone figures chipped by generations of catapult-owning boys; the other two looked across the river into the Hopetoun Woods. The curtains were not drawn though the lamps were lit, for Mrs. Hope liked to keep the river and the woods with her as long as light lasted, so the warm bright room looked warmer and brighter in contrast with the cold, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... one of the most miraculous feats ever beheld in the amphitheater. He did not dodge but ducked slightly, the wide-spread, taloned paws missing his head on each side. His arms shot out as the lion sprang, and, though the brute came at him through the air like a log-arrow from a catapult, his hands gripped each side of the wide-open mouth and his thumbs pushed the inner corners of the lips between the parted upper and lower cheek-teeth. Therefore to close his jaws on his victim the lion had to crush ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... cleared away from the great wooden catapult, leaving two of their number to discharge it. One in a scarlet cap bent over it, steadying the jagged rock which was balanced on the spoon-shaped end of the long wooden lever. The other held the loop of the rope which would release the catch and send the unwieldy missile hurtling through ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... threwest into the high priest's slaughtering-room, And by the child Despair born red therefrom As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram With spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam, Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb, Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb, Born to break down with catapult and ram Man's builded towers of promise, and with breath And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death: O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain, And by that child mismothered,—dog, by all Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal, ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... out of their tents by the noise, were filled with horror when they learned the imminent peril from which they had escaped. The mangled body of the Moor was taken by the people to the camp and thrown into the city from a catapult. The Gomeres gathered up the body with deep reverence as the remains of a saint; they washed and perfumed it and buried it with great honor and loud lamentations. In revenge of his death they slew ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... of the bow (dhanush). This weapon, as everything amongst the Hindus, had a divine origin: it was of three kinds—the common bow, the pellet or stone bow, and the crossbow or catapult. ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... of, but since his death no one has been able to get one of the apples. The tree hangs full nearly every year, but whenever any individual tries to get one, stones come in all directions as if from some secret infernal battery, or hidden catapult, and more than once have those making the attempts been struck. What is more strange, the tree stands in an open field, there being no shelter near from which tricks can be played without exposure. Jordan says that it seems odd to strangers ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... means of dissemination that allow large families to disperse quickly over the country, so that each member may have his place in the sun without injuring his neighbour; and these apparatus, these methods vie in ingenuity with the elm's samara, the dandelion-plume and the catapult of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the Sphinx's children: had they but died out with their need! Here and there a monk, fresh from his Desert-Laura, hurtles through the eclipse-light of history like the stone from a catapult,—rules a church with iron rods, organizes, denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity of a commission presumedly divine, while Greeks cringe, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... from me. For a short instant I was free; my impetuous attack seemed to have startled the enemy; I gathered myself up on my knees. But my advantage was not to last long. Another man, whom I had not seen, sprang suddenly on me like a bullet from a catapult. His fierce onset overthrew me; I was stretched on the ground again, on my back now, and my throat was clutched viciously in strong fingers. At the same moment my arms were again seized and pinned. ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... and amid a roar from the spectators the five athletes sprang ahead as though released from a catapult. Elbows pressed against their sides, heads up, they made a thrilling picture, and the crowd cheered wildly. At first they kept well together, but they were setting a fast pace, and soon one of the men ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... agility of a catapult of the mountain, began to climb the perpendicular leaden channel to which he had called our attention, and of course we had to follow him. It was perfectly marvellous to see the ease and grace with which he ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... of the ladder he stopped. From that spot he hurled his first rock. His was a young, powerful arm and the missile sped upward as if shot from a catapult. It struck the face of the cliff a short distance above the head of the climber and glanced off to go hurtling down among the ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... concentrated essence of the destructive principle. It's a lever I fitted into a concealed groove in the Atom Smasher unknown to Tode. This lever has a universal joint and connects with a hidden chamber, and when pulled will catapult the annihilated components of a small quantity of uranium in any direction we desire. The release of the slumbering energy of this uranium will produce an explosion of proportions beyond the wildest dreams of engineers—perhaps, one great enough ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... down this grassy walk, his head bent, his hands clasped behind his back; while behind his furrowed brow, who shall say what world-schemes were hatching? Is it the thought of Wolsey which makes him frown—or is he wondering where he left his catapult? Ah! who can tell us? Let us leave a veil of mystery over it ... for the sake of the ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... over beneath the open window. Then as if in one movement the great fellow ducked down, avoiding a blow struck at him with a knife, seized the uppermost of the two enemies by the waistbelt, flung him up to the full extent of his reach, and then turning himself as it were into a human catapult, he hurled the fellow at another of his companions and caught him just as he was climbing ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... of the prison grounds amongst little patches of highly-cultivated market gardens and clumps of palms, and these long pumps like the ancient catapult with bronze men sweating at them pulling down the long arm of the balanced yard to let the bucket down the well, then tipping the water out into gutters of mud to irrigate. They do it pretty much the same way up the Nile. The cottages have low mud walls, and are thatched with dried palm ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch |
