"Missile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which glass has for the missile of the juvenile thrower, the orchid-house, on the opposite side of the path from the pear-tree, drew the errant stone ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... approaching shell was heard; a messenger of death from a great German gun out at La Bassee. This gun was no stranger to us; he often (p. 190) played havoc with the Keep; it was he who blew in the wall a few nights before and killed the two Engineers. The missile he flung moved slowly and could not keep pace with its own sound. Five seconds before it arrived we could hear it coming, a slow, certain horror, sure of its mission and steady to its purpose. The big gun at La Bassee was ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... had resounded through the village. Hearing the fatal signal, the Indians, attending upon their masters, assailed them with whatever missile they could command. Some seized upon pikes and swords; others snatched up the pots in which meal was stewing at the fire, and beating the Spaniards about the head, bruised and scalded them at the same time. Some caught up plates, ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... minister that he flung a book at Tammas. The scene that followed was one that few Auld Licht manses can have witnessed. According to Tammas, the book had hardly reached the floor when the minister turned white. Tammas picked up the missile. It was a Bible. The two men looked at each other. Beneath the window Mr. Byars' children were prattling. His wife was moving about in the next room, little thinking what had happened. The minister held out his hand for the Bible, but Tammas shook his head, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... do you think of our way of dishing up potatoes in Kirk Street?" asked Zack in great triumph. "It's a little sudden when you're not used to it," stammered Valentine, ducking his head as each edible missile flew over him—"but it's free and easy—it's delightfully free and easy." "Ready there with your plates. The liver's a coming," cried Mat in a voice of martial command, suddenly showing his great red-hot perspiring face at the table, as he wheeled round from the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the presence, up stream, of Geirrod's daughter Gialp, and rightly suspecting that she was the cause of the storm, he picked up a huge boulder and flung it at her, muttering that the best place to dam a river was at its source. The missile had the desired effect, for the giantess fled, the waters abated, and Thor, exhausted but safe, pulled himself up on the opposite bank by a little shrub, the mountain-ash or sorb. This has since been ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... twenty yards another such gap yawned in the ground. And Chester, rising, hurled a missile from the bag ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... essay to taunt and provoke Dominora; yet not with the like result. Perceive you, Braid-Beard, that the trade-wind blows dead across this strait from Dominora, and not from Verdanna? Hence, when King Bello's men fling gibes and insults, every missile hits; but those of Verdanna are blown back in its teeth: her enemies jeering her again ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... chains of 30 atolls and 1,152 islands; Bikini and Enewetak are former US nuclear test sites; Kwajalein, the famous World War II battleground, is now used as a US missile test range ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... pleading for the defendant, was trying to impress upon the jury that the murder had been merely accidental, inasmuch as the merchant had thrown the missile only in sport, just to scare away the fellow who was assaulting him in his own house; but, strange to say, no mention was made at all of the note, though everybody knew perfectly well that the merchant had given it, and that it was a part of his trade to pass forged notes among ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... heaving a biscuit at the boy's head. It was fortunate that no heavy missile was in his hand. "Take that to ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... followed another with continuous reverberation, till all the air was filled with the roar of artillery. The other was more awful. The explosion was fearful. The smoke rose in form like a gigantic umbrella, and from its midst radiated every kind of murderous missile—shells were thrown and burst in all directions, muskets and every kind of arms fell like a shower around. Comparatively few were killed—many of the men were providentially out of the way. Until the revelations upon the trial of Wirz, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... squealing, their ferocity, their attempts to escape, and the bounds they gave from side to side struck the whole parsonage house community with a panic. The women screamed; the rector foamed; the squire hallooed; and the men seized bellows, poker, tongs, and every other weapon or missile that was at hand. The uproar was universal, and the Squire never before or after felt himself so great a hero! The death of the fox itself was unequal ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... They went up in readiness to shoot, but after the first sighting reports only a few miles offshore, that order was vehemently canceled—someone in charge must have had a grain of sense. The thing was not a plane, rocket or missile. It was ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn
... ships she took a station in reserve, and for a time remained there a quiet witness of the battle. The ships of Octavius advanced to the attack of those of Antony, and the men fought from deck to deck with spears, boarding-pikes, flaming darts, and every other destructive missile which the military art had then devised. Antony's ships had to contend against great disadvantages. They were not only outnumbered by those of Octavius, but were far surpassed by them in the efficiency with which they were manned and armed. Still, it was ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... overheard their voices; for, looking up to the window, with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapped her little hands, in the most extravagant ecstasy. Hester Prynne, likewise, had involuntarily looked up; and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence, till the child ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... S[)I]LI. These words mostly lengthen the i and make the usual shortenings, as 'missile', 'sessile', 'textile', 'volatile', but of course 'futile'. Exceptions which I cannot explain are ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... then, we are to exclude them from all possibility of injuring us as we march, we must get slingers as soon as possible and cavalry. I am told there are in the army some Rhodians, most of whom, they say, know how to sling, and their missile will reach even twice as far as the Persian slings (which, on account of their being loaded with stones as big as one's fist, have a comparatively short range; but the Rhodians are skilled in the use of leaden bullets (2)). Suppose, then, we investigate and 18 find out first of all who ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... arrows he left the natural curve of the feather at the nock, and while the rear binding started an inch or more from the butt of the arrow, the feather drooped over the nock. This gave a pretty effect and seemed to add to the steering qualities of the missile. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... but this drawback, that she had now got somewhat crazy in her fastenings, and made rather more water in a heavy sea than her one little pump could conveniently keep under. As the fitful gust struck her headlong, as if it had been some invisible missile hurled at us from off the hill-tops, she stooped her head lower and lower, like old stately Hardyknute under the blow of the "King of Norse," till at length the lee chain-plate rustled sharp through the foam; but, like a ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... we did in Kensington Gardens. An enormous dimple had been made by the impact of the projectile, which lay almost buried in the earth. Two or three trees, broken by its fall, sprawled on the turf. Among this debris was the missile; resembling nothing so much as a huge crinoline. At the moment we reached the spot P.C. A581 was ordering it off; and Henry Pearson, aged 28 (no fixed abode), and Martha Griffin, aged 54, of Maybury Tenements, were circulating among the crowd offering ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... a shell at that instant screamed over the ruin; the young girl raised her head with simple curiosity—not a particle of fear evidently—to watch the course of the missile; and, as the youth executed the like manoeuvre, they both became aware of my ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Vixen! Demmy, I'll not be set at naught by a beggar! Mrs. Condiment, leave the room, mum, and don't be sitting there listening to every word I have to say to my ward. Wool, be off with yourself, sir; what do you stand there gaping and staring for? Be off, or——" the old man looked around for a missile, but before he found one the room was evacuated except by himself ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... came before the gates another shower of arrows and spears descended upon them, and as before not a single missile touched their bodies. King Gos, who was upon the wall, was greatly amazed and somewhat worried, but he depended upon the strength of his gates and commanded his men to continue shooting until ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... gotten reports, sir, that some of Ravney's people have captured a half-dozen missile-launching sites around the city. His air-reconn tells him that that's the lot of them. I have an officer of one of the parties that participated. You ought to hear what he ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... bloody god, Othin's son. High above the fields (i.e. the surface of the earth) grew a mistletoe, slender and very beautiful. From a shaft (or 'stem') which appeared slender, came a dangerous sorrow-bringing missile (i.e. the shaft became a ... missile); Hodr proceeded to shoot. Soon was a brother of Balder born. He, Othin's son, proceeded to do battle when one day old. He did not wash his hands or comb his head before ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... representations, as well as modern experiments, leave little room for doubt that the sculptor has truthfully caught one of the rapidly changing positions which the exercise involved. Having passed the discus from his left hand to his right, the athlete has swung the missile as far back as possible. In the next instant he will hurl it forward, at the same time, of course, advancing his left foot and recovering his erect position. Thus Myron has preferred to the comparatively easy task of representing ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... to scale, are covered with armed men, who throng to the part of the wall against which the attack is to be directed, and stand there ready with spears, javelins, rocks, and every other conceivable missile, to hurl upon the heads of the besiegers ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... when the breathless stillness could no longer be borne, she cautiously stooped and raked her hand back and forth until it came in contact with a loose stone. She must force those silent antagonists to some sort of action so she tossed the missile outward and as it struck with a light clatter, a waiting pistol barked and Alexander's own roared back at the tiny spurt ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavoured to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash—he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. At the first movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway with the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. It struck the door, as he slammed it behind him, with force enough ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... Farallone, before Herrick turned and went unwillingly up the pier. From the crown of the beach, the figure-head confronted him with what seemed irony, her helmeted head tossed back, her formidable arm apparently hurling something, whether shell or missile, in the direction of the anchored schooner. She seemed a defiant deity from the island, coming forth to its threshold with a rush as of one about to fly, and perpetuated in that dashing attitude. Herrick looked up at her, where she towered above him head and shoulders, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as he might the head of the blatant beast to the same level, and loading it with a grenado. When the gunner had finished his task and lighted the fusee, Morgan rubbed his hands for joy. Retiring sharply, off went the missile with an explosion that shook the whole fabric. When the smoke was gone they perceived some trifling damage in an old court, where the bomb, striking about half-a-yard into the earth, burst as it rose, much abated of its violence; yet it shook down some ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... had ever left the lips of man. His hand rose and swung back of his shoulder and shot forward. The round missile sailed through the firelight and beyond it and sank into black shadows in the great cavern at Rocky Creek—a famous camping-place in the old time. Then a flash of white light and a roar that shook the hills! A blast of gravel and dust and debris shot upward and pelted down upon the earth. Bits ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Jim was grabbed by a dozen hefty pairs of hands and hoisted on to shoulders. One man took the big bag, and with remarkable skill flung it clean on the top of the waiting coach, much to Rob's disgust. The hurtling missile came down like a thunderbolt, and nearly ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... cried Betty when it was evident that their calls were not going to be heeded. With that she threw a stone at the nearest alligator. Her aim was exceptionally good. Betty admitted that herself, afterward, the missile falling on the broad and scaly back ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... The Wanderer's son from morning till night. "Never," said Monsieur Pet-airs with solemn desperation, "have I seen such an incorrigible child, a perfectly incorrigible child," and he shook his head and immediately dodged a missile which ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... and proceeded with his farewells, but as he was stooping down to kiss little five-year-old Kate Gould, something wet, cold, and sloppy came with great force on them both, almost knocking them down and bespattering them both with black drops. The missile proved to be a dripping sod pulled up from the duck-pond in the next field, and a glimpse might be caught of Elvira's scarlet legs disappearing over ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ceaseless flashing of the great guns, lighting up with a lurid glare the dense clouds of smoke that hang over the scene of battle; the roar of the artillery; the shriek of the shell as it leaves the cannon's mouth, slowly dying into a murmur and a dull explosion, as, with a flash of fire, the missile explodes far away,—combine to form a picture, that, despite the horrors of wounds and death, rouses the enthusiasm and admiration of the beholder. When viewed from the deck of one of an attacking fleet, the scene is even more impressive. At each discharge of the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Rama in which is shown how Rama by his prowess slew Ravana in battle. Here also is narrated the story of Savitri; then Karna's deprivation by Indra of his ear-rings; then the presentation to Karna by the gratified Indra of a Sakti (missile weapon) which had the virtue of killing only one person against whom it might be hurled; then the story called Aranya in which Dharma (the god of justice) gave advice to his son (Yudhishthira); in which, besides is recited how the Pandavas after having ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... battle-cry, leaped to her feet, hurled her chair, and reached for another; but one chair was enough. That fiercely but accurately-sped missile knocked the half-drawn pistol from Newman's hand and sent his body crashing to the floor, where Deston's second bullet made it certain that he would not ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... him take hold of the slender arrow close to my shoulder, and with one stroke cut cleanly through it close to the wing-feathers. Then, going behind me, he seized the other part and made me wince once more with pain, as with one quick, steady movement, he drew the missile right through. ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... shared, to an extent by windows, if windows possessed nervous systems. Nor must this probable apprehension on the part of cats and the like be thought mere superstition. Cats have superstitions, it is true; but certain actions inspired by the sight of a boy with a missile in his hand are better evidence of the workings of logic upon a practical nature than of faith ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand; for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files. In the meantime huge poles thrust out from the walls over the ships, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... impressive as a lively battery of three-inch rifles. Their reports did not threaten to shatter everything, but had a dull resonance, something like that produced by striking an empty barrel with a wooden maul. Their shells did not come at one in that wildly, ferocious way, with which a missile from a six-pounder convinces every fellow in a long line of battle that he is the identical one it is meant for, but they meandered over in a lazy, leisurely manner, as if time was no object and no person would feel put out at having to wait for them. Then, the idea of firing ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the water. It was clear they had given up all hope of standing by the ship; and presently they got the boat afloat, and slid down to her in hurried clusters by the davit falls, and then unhooked and rowed away from the steamer's side in a skelter of haste. Coals and any other missile that came handy were showered upon them by the Krooboys who manned the rail, to which they replied with a few vicious revolver shots; and then the boat drew ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... As his head dropped back upon the pillow something fell upon his chest with a little tap, and rolling off, rattled along the boards. He sprang up, caught a lantern from a hook, and flashed it upon the floor. There was the missile which had struck him—a little golden brooch. As he lifted it up and looked closer at it, a thrill passed through him. It had been his own, and he had given it to Amos Green upon the second day that he had met him, when they ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... They were to act, in a sense, as a sort of steering engine on the take-off and keep a useful function out in space. If a star photograph was to be made, it was essential that the Platform hold absolutely still while the exposure lasted. If a guided missile was to be launched, it must be started right, and the pilot gyros were needed. To turn to receive an arriving rocket ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... had spread through the city, and on the way back the troops were mobbed. They were pelted with every kind of missile and many were hurt, though none seriously; and it understates the truth to say that they were in no danger. They had their bayonets, and from time to time made thrusts at their assailants. At last, on the quays, at a place called Bachelor's Walk, ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... from a spoon. The baby monkey is closely wrapped in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early trussing of European children. Satire and wrath are curiously blended in a German manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the scribe introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome mouse who is eating the monk's cheese—a fine Camembert!—under his very nose. In the book which he is represented as transcribing, the artist has traced the words—"Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram, ut te Deus perdat." ("Wicked ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... maximum pre-set opening. In ten seconds the nose cone turned from cherry-red to white heat and began sloughing its outer ceramic coating. At slightly more than forty-three thousand miles an hour, the great missile cleaved out of atmosphere into the void of space, leaving a shock wave that cracked houses and shattered glass for fifty miles from ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... in thee; and hail with loudest shouts The auspicious era when deep-searching Art From out the hidden things in Nature's store Cull'd thy tremendous powers, and tutor'd Man To chain the unruly element of Fire At his controul, to wait his potent touch: To urge his missile bolts of sudden Death, And thunder terribly his vengeful wrath. Thy mighty engines and gigantic towers With frowning aspect awe the trembling World. Destruction, bursting from thy sudden blaze Hath taught the Birds to tremble at the sound; And Man himself, thy terror's boasted lord, Within the blacken'd ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... The missile flew from the mouth of the gun, and was seen to strike the surface so close to the dhow as to send the spray over her low bows. Still she held on her course. The gun was run ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... and she had predicted it. The party of Dunois marched on in safety, and Jeanne returned to Orleans, once more receiving on the breeze some words of abuse from the defenders of those battlements, which sent forth no more dangerous missile, and replying again with her summons, "Retournez de la par Dieu a Angleterre." The townsfolk watched her coming and going with an excitement impossible to describe; they walked by the side of her charger to the cathedral, which was the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... (PLA): comprises ground forces, Navy (including naval infantry and naval aviation), Air Force, and II Artillery Corps (strategic missile force), People's Armed Police Force (internal security troops, nominally a state security body but included by the Chinese as part of the "armed forces" and considered to be an ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... two turret-guns until I had got them into perfect condition, and gave the word. The crash that followed was terrific. One of the massive missiles went home, and stayed there, no amount of inducement availing to bring it out again to face the battle. The other, however, behaved as a British missile should, and exploded in the heart of the hostile fleet. The result was terrific. French, German and Russian Admirals by the thousand were destroyed, their scattered fragments literally darkening the face of the sun, and a mixed shower ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... time. In a book which I had read only a few days before our cold-dinner party a shop-woman, annoyed with an omnibus conductor, had thrown a superannuated orange at him. It had found its billet not on him but on a perfectly inoffensive spectator. The missile, said the writer, "'it a young copper full in the hyeball." I had enjoyed this when I read it, but now that Fate had arranged a precisely similar situation, with myself in the role of the young copper, the fun of the thing appealed ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... arm and leveled at Brand something that looked rather like an elongated, old-fashioned flashlight. Brand involuntarily ducked. The clear glass panel between them and the mob outside gave him a queasy feeling of being exposed to whatever missile might lurk in ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... filth which carries with it every known quality of pollution and several that are quite unknown. I don't remember being able to smell a Sudan storm, but this monstrous production stank worse than a by-election missile. The service of a British soldier on these special trips is not exactly a sinecure. The people at home who pay can be sure their money is well earned before Tommy gets it. The south wind sweeps up from Mongolia and Turkestan, and while it brings warmth to our frozen bones ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... world, there were places where things were not so tranquil. By this time there were already troops in motion in long trains of personnel-carrying trucks. There were mobile guided missile detachments moving at top speed across state lines and along the express highway systems. Every military plane in the coastal area was aloft, kept fueled by tanker planes to be ready for any sort of offensive or defensive action that might be ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... ordered to fire alternately, so that some of them might be always loaded: The soldiers carrying swords and bucklers were directed to use their points only, thrusting home through the bodies of the enemy, by which they were less exposed to missile weapons; and the cavalry were ordered to charge at half speed, levelling their lances at the eyes of the enemy, and charging clear through without halting to make thrusts. We had hardly marched ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... he seemed to be seeking some other missile. He perceived his hat on the chest of drawers, seized it, and ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... the orange, and, had it been a grape-shot or any other iron missile, its aim would have gone straight through the captain's body, just above his ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... on the ray!" Arcot commanded sharply, moving the ship to one side at the same time. Instantly, the guided missile turned and kept coming ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... heavy when the storm at length broke over our heads. I had just taken my place in the cavalry ranks when a shell from the enemy's guns whizzed over our heads with a long and spiteful shriek. One of the horses attached to a caisson was in the path of the fiery missile, and the next instant the animal's head was severed entirely from his neck. The deathly silence was now broken, and more shot and shell followed in quick succession, plowing through the startled air and falling with destructive force among the Union troops. This iron hail from the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... on the head gives them erectness of figure, even where physically disabled. I have seen a woman, with a brimming water-pail balanced on her head,—or perhaps a cup, saucer, and spoon,—stop suddenly, turn round, stoop to pick up a missile, rise again, fling it, light a pipe, and go through many evolutions with either hand or both, without spilling a drop. The pipe, by the way, gives an odd look to a well-dressed young girl on Sunday, but one often sees that spectacle. The passion for tobacco among our men continues quite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Sahwah, silhouetted against the sky on top of the diving tower. Picking up a big dry pine cone from the floor of the Crow's Nest, she took careful aim and sent it sailing downward in a swift, curving flight. The prickly missile hit Sahwah squarely in the back of the neck. She started violently and threw up her arms, while the spyglass fell into the water with a loud splash. Hinpoha laughed a ringing laugh when she beheld the effect of her handiwork. Sahwah turned around and saw Hinpoha perched in the Crow's Nest, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... undismayed by this little missile which had so nearly reached him: "that's me. And look here; this brown, dirty-looking broad streak here is intended for a railway; and that thing in my hand—not the right hand; I'll come ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... consent to listen to such a proposition as this, but when a wave, carrying on its crest a lump of ice about the size of a flour barrel, threw its burden on the deck of the vessel, raking it from stem to stern, the captain, who had barely been missed by the grating missile, agreed that in a vessel with such a low rail and of such defective naval principles, it would be better perhaps to sail under the water than on top of it, and so he went below, took off his pea-jacket with ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... information from popular writings, where the doctrines were very imperfectly laid down; so that some of his book is occupied in demolishing constructions of straw, unrecognisable by professed physicists except as caricatures at which they also might be willing to heave an occasional missile. ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... the moment that Death was aiming at him a missile of down, Hughes-Jones prayed: "Bad I've been. Don't let me fall into the Fiery Pool. Give me a brief while and a grand one I'll be for the religion." A shaft of fire came out of the mouth of the Lord and the shaft stood in the way of the missile, consuming it utterly; ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... few seconds with the back door and finally tore it completely from its hinges. He darted out into the yard, hurling the broken woodwork full at Brenchfield as the latter was swinging his lariat. Hanson followed his missile and, for a short space, it looked as if the Mayor's last moment had arrived. But numbers counted again and, fortunately for the big Swede, he could not be in two places at once. Royce Pederstone's rope landed deftly over his ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Mr. Talley, as he examined the missile. "I was sure that no mere ball of snow could break that heavy window. To put such a stone in a snowball was little less than criminal," he went on gravely. "If that had hit any one on the temple it would almost certainly ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... and a hundred years ago it was—he had gone to chase a deer. The deer fled into a cave. He followed with his hounds and his sword, his trumpet and his missile-ball. He went astray and fell asleep in the Cave. And when he wakened up, his hounds were heaps of dust beside him. He went into the world, and he found that his companions were dead for a hundred and a ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... giants; and enormous arrows, more than five feet long, with shafts nearly an inch in diameter. One has a crescent head about nine inches from horn to horn, the interior edge of the crescent being sharp as a knife. Such a missile would take off a man's head; and I can scarcely believe Akira's assurance that such ponderous arrows were shot from a bow by hand only. There is a specimen of the writing of Nichiren, the great Buddhist priest—gold characters on a ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... held in his hand a fragment of one which had just before exploded. "How well it took the groove!" he said, pointing out to me the signs on the iron that the rifled cannon from which it had come had given the missile in the discharge the proper twist. Wright's after-career is part of the war's history, always strenuous and constantly rising. The fame which attaches to the Sixth Corps is largely due to the leadership of Wright. If he fell short at Cedar Creek in 1864 it was a lapse ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... to terrestrial things, it is true, everyone can behold in the heavens. Corona, for example, is like a crown, or, as the Australian black fellows know, it is like a boomerang, and we can understand why they give it the name of that curious curved missile. The Milky Way, again, does resemble a path in the sky; our English ancestors called it Watling Street—the path of the Watlings, mythical giants—and Bushmen in Africa and Red Men in North America name it the 'ashen path,' or 'the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... inexorable sire, leaping from crag to crag below her. He paused abruptly when his fiery eye rested on the objects of his pursuit. Notching an arrow on the string of his tried and unerring bow, he raised his sinewy arms—but ere the missile was sent, Wun-nut-hay, the Beautiful, interposed her form between her father and his victim. In wild appealing tones she entreated her sire to spare the young chieftain, assuring him that they would leap together from the precipice rather than be separated. ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... action—two and three times. The greatest consternation naturally prevailed among the soldiers below, running in panic-stricken groups to escape from the blasting shower let loose over their heads. Indescribable confusion prevailed; frequent explosions were heard as some aerial missile found a piled-up accumulation of its own kind. By 11.30, an hour and a half after the squadron had set sail, the entire forest and the buildings it contained were in flames. The next morning a German aeroplane, "adorned ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... I said angrily. He gave me an utterly uncomprehending glance. This shaft had also gone wide of the mark, and he was not the man to bother about stray arrows. Upon my word, he was too unsuspecting; he was not fair game. I was glad that my missile had been thrown away,—that he had not even heard the twang ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... their complaints, and requests to change their location, Villalobos replied "that he came for the sole purpose of discovering the course of the voyage, and of making a settlement." "The offensive arms of the inhabitants of these islands are cutlasses and daggers; lances, javelins, and other missile weapons; bows and arrows, and culverins. They all, as a rule, possess poisonous herbs, and use them and other poisons in their wars. Their defensive arms are cotton corselets reaching to the feet and with sleeves; corselets made of wood and buffalo horn; and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... was round shaped and rather larger than a cricket ball. A black tube affair an inch or two long projected from it and emitted, when lit, a jet of hissing, spitting sparks. The bomb-thrower seized the missile quickly, stepped clear of the sheltering corner of the trench, threw the bomb, and jumped back under cover. A couple of bullets slapped into the wall of the trench, and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... allowed himself to be worshipped as a god, is about in its original condition, having been repaired in recent years. When Captain Cook attempted to seize the King as a prisoner, the natives naturally rallied to the King's defense. A stone or other missile ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... each place has its own independent commander; but the undersigned, moved by the considerations adverted to above, may be willing to stipulate that if the city should by capitulation be garrisoned by a part of his troops no missile shall be fired from within the city or from its bastions or walls upon the castle, unless the castle should previously fire upon the city. The undersigned has the honor to tender his distinguished opponent, his Excellency the general and commander in chief of Vera ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... regained possession of her chair and senses, when her first act of sanity was to hurl the bottle Thisbe had applied to her nostrils at the poor woman's head with such force, that, had she not dodged the missile, it must ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... are 'initgame', 'hottub', and 'report'. At times of international crisis, 'report' has hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to various news services and typing in summaries of the news, or in some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g., Scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... poured in upon Solomon through Harry's means did not purchase for her any new regard; he had never ill-treated her, in a material sense, but he had spoken ash-sticks, though he had used none. On the slightest quarrel, that "jail-bird friend of yours" had been thrown in her face, and the cowardly missile was still cast at her upon occasion. The birth of their child had not cemented their union. As he grew up his character showed itself as foreign to that of his father as was his personal appearance. He was slight in ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... of utter helplessness. I had no weapon with which I could reach my antagonist; no missile. He had his bow, and I saw him adjusting a second arrow ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... with indignation, exclaimed, "What harsher terms, Titus Quinctius, could you impose on me if I were vanquished?" With these words he retired hastily from the conference, and they were with difficulty restrained by the river which separated them from assaulting each other with missile weapons. On the following day many skirmishes took place between parties sallying from the outposts, in a plain sufficiently wide for the purpose. Afterwards the king's troops drew back into narrow and rocky places, whither the Romans, keenly eager for fighting, penetrated also. These had in ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... snapping and tearing at the weapon's shaft, and he saw, wonder of wonders, the naked giant who had hurled the missile charging upon the great beast, only a long knife ready to meet those ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... crying, to the chain, pulling himself up from the burning of the cone. Each missile Horrocks flung hit him. His clothes charred and glowed, and as he struggled the cone dropped, and a rush of hot, suffocating gas whooped out and burned round him in a swift ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... which was his special weapon, was a short strong spear or pike, with a shaft of cornel-wood, and an iron point. It was common for him to carry two such weapons, one of which he used as a missile, while he retained the other in order to employ it in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. It was a stout manageable weapon, and though no match for the longer and equally strong spear of the Macedonian cavalry, was preferred by Xenophon to the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... was the discovery that my rifle was bent at the grip and that the barrel was damaged in places. It was out of the question to dream of attempting to fire a bullet through it: there was no clear passage for the missile: the rifle would burst in my hands if ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... it. Such is my first wish. I also hope for him a misfortune at night. That returning all-fevered from horse practice, he may meet an Orestes,[259] mad with drink, who breaks open his head; that wishing to seize a stone, he, in the dark, may pick up a fresh stool, hurl his missile, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... it on, with spur and voice and hand, muttering, pleading with it incoherently, his own breath coughing in his throat, the muscles of his back cringing and rippling in momentary expectation of a flying missile that would burn and tear its way through them. But no bullet came. There was no sound behind him except, occasionally, the ring of hoofs. At other times silence engulfed him. For in the deep sand of the level the laboring ponies of pursued and pursuer made no noise. Masten could ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... some young men were contending at Mount Vernon in the exercise of pitching the bar. The Colonel looked on for a time, then grasping the missile in his master hand, he whirled the iron through the air, and it fell far beyond any of its former limits. "You see, young gentlemen," said the chief with a smile, "that my arm yet retains some portion of my early ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... concourse of breeders. For I agree with you, that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly, bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness, and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... men would try to toss pieces of gingerbread in. The elephants were always ready to do this when ordered, though their mouths, when they opened them, were so small that the people very seldom succeeded in aiming the missile so that it ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I don't understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. Put yourself down. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... this sort of missile, or the mode of dispatching it on its mischievous errand, their ignorance is not destined longer to continue. Almost as soon as Wilder has given utterance to the warning words, half a score of the savages can be seen springing ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the rashness of her conduct was illogically combined with a cold determination to escape its consequences. She could be as unscrupulous in fighting for herself as she was reckless in courting danger, and whatever came to her hand at such moments was likely to be used as a defensive missile. He did not, as yet, see clearly just what course she was likely to take, but his perplexity increased his apprehension, and with it the sense that, before leaving, he must speak again with Miss Bart. Whatever her share in the situation—and he had always honestly tried to resist judging ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... in the act of replacing the pot of lilies, when a blow from a short truncheon, skilfully flung, struck him on the neck and brought him to the ground. With him fell the lilies. He glared to the right and left, and grasped the broken flower-pot for a return missile; but no enemy was in view to test his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... plateau, got their rocket tubes into position to receive the advancing mass of the foe. Their position was critical in the extreme. Should the Abyssinians push forward they might be overwhelmed by numbers. Without thinking of that, however, they began blazing away with their rockets, every missile telling fearfully among the crowded ranks of Theodore's troops, who, brave as they were, appeared to be thrown into confusion. Tom looked round to see what support was coming. At first the thought flashed upon him that he and his companions must be annihilated by the overwhelming ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... this age are of warlike implements. Lance-heads, javelins, and arrow-heads have been found in abundance. It appears, from experiments ordered by the Emperor Napoleon III, that the javelins could only have been used as missile weapons, and that they were thrown, not by the hand merely grasping the shaft, but by means of a cord or thong, something after the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... such that, if you could suppose the company to be composed of Centaurs and Lapithae, or any other quarrelsome people, it would become necessary for the police to interfere. The potato of cities is a very dangerous missile; and, if thrown with an accurate aim by an angry hand, will fracture any known skull. In volume and consistency, it is very like a paving-stone; only that, I should say, the paving-stone had the advantage in point of tenderness. And upon this horrid ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... tent confident and happy. On the tower meantime Constantine and the Genoese beheld the smoke leap forth and curtain the gun, and right afterward they heard the huge ball go tearing past them, like an invisible meteor. Their eyes pursued the sound—where the missile fell they could not say—they heard a crash, as if a house midway the city had been struck—then they gazed at each other, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... his victim up, holding him overhead and sending the bravo, heels first, into the face of another scoundrel. The man, struck by this human missile, went to earth dazed, and with a broken jaw ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock |
