"Coiled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 thrashing ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... 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 |
