"Swam" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have it, we had four muskets left dry—they being slung round us in bandoliers—and the greater part of our powder unspoiled. We met the foe with a volley which disposed of three and sank the canoe. The survivors swam for it, and I dare say reached shore. A second canoe put off, and from the bows of it the rascally toen (cause of all this misfortune, as we deemed) hailed Obed and offered to let us go in peace and even restore Margit if ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... joyous alacrity. In another instant the whistle shrieked, and the escape-valve hissed ten times more furiously than before. Up went the Eskimo—three feet or more—as if in convulsions, and away went Eemerk to the stern, over which he dived, swam to the floe, leaped on his sledge, cracked his whip, and made for home on the wings of terror. Doubtless an evil ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... Simms tribe of outcasts, and Newton was subconsciously impressed by the fact that never for a moment did Raymond's plans fail to include the elevation with him of Calista and Jinnie and Buddy and Pap and Mam. It was taken for granted that the Simmses sank or swam together, whether their antagonists were poverty and ignorance, or their ancient foes, the Hobdays. Newton ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... now slowly entered into the lofty arch of dawn and melted from brown to purpleblack. The upper sky swam with violet; and in a moment each stray cloud-feather was edged with rose, and then suffused. It seemed that the heights fronted East to eye the interflooding of colours, and it was imaginable that all turned to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a little boat fastened to the willows at the edge of the black pool. After the spread, Hollanden navigated various parties around to where they could hear the great hollow roar of the falls beating against the sheer rocks. Stanley swam after sticks at the request of ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... uncertain. Sometimes the action was to be placed in the eighteenth century, with tall silver urns and spindled-legged tables, and breast-waisted dresses; sometimes in the struggle of the Roses, when barons swam rivers in full armour after a bloody bout; sometimes in the Civil War, when Vandyke drew the arched eyebrow and taper hand, and when the shadow of death was ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... make all things ready, and they waited until the waters rose up to the highlands of Phthia and floated away the ark of Deukalion. The fishes swam amidst the old elm groves, and twined amongst the gnarled boughs of the oaks, while on the face of the waters were tossed the bodies of men, and Deukalion looked on the dead faces of stalwart warriors, of maidens, and of babes, as they rose and fell upon the heaving waves. Eight days ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... deserted me. My first sensation was that of passive subjugation; but soon I was aware of a strange intoxicating effect from the odour of the lamp, round which there now played a dazzling vapour. The room swam before me. Like a man oppressed by a nightmare, I tried to move, to cry out, feeling that to do so would suffice to burst the thrall that ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track 280 Was ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... few lines—interrupting the perusal with exclamations of grief and amazement. He did not require to finish the letter, to convince himself of the black treachery of M. de Blessac. He staggered; for a moment his senses seemed to abandon him. The horrible discovery made him giddy, and his head swam on his first look down into that abyss of infamy. The loathsome letter dropped from his trembling hands. But soon indignation, rage, and scorn succeeded this moment of despair, and rushing, pale and terrible, upon M. de Blessac: ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... all haste to leave their loathsome kennel, but I had not proceeded far before I observed, to my astonishment, another prison full of women, still more abominable; some had become frogs; some, dragons; some, serpents, and there they swam about, hissing and foaming, and butting one another, in a foetid, stagnant pool that was much larger than Bala Lake. "Pray, what can these be?" asked I. "There are here," said he, "four chief classes of women, not to mention their minions—Firstly: Panders, who maintained harlots to sell ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... look in his face changed, the eyes swam as they had done a minute before at the sight of the girl in the room behind. Whatever his trouble was, that face had obscured it in a flash, and the pools of feeling far down in the depths of a lonely nature had been stirred. Recognition, memory, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to the generous exertions of an Indian, who, returning to his canoe, the unlucky cause of her misfortune, was attracted by her perilous situation. He swam to her rescue with a dexterity acquired by long and constant practice, and reaching her at a moment when death seemed inevitable, succeeded in bearing her safely to the shore. With scarcely a moment's respite, he returned to the assistance of De Valette, who was completely subdued by his efforts, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... the coast, tacking close to shore, slowly swam a little sloop, white-winged like some snowy sea fowl. Its course lay within twenty points of the wind's eye; so it veered in and out again in long, slow strokes like the movements of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... powdered alkali, their heads bowed under the glaring ball of the sun. All day the circling rim of sky line had weaved up and down, undulating in the uncertainty of the mirage, the sage had blotted into indistinct seas that swam before their strained vision. When the river cleft showed in black tracings across the distance, they stiffened and took heart, coolness and water were ahead. It was all they had hope or desire for just then. At the edge of the clay bluff, they dipped and poured ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... my mouth and nose, something with an ethereal smell. Staring eyes swam about me from behind their white masks. I struggled instinctively, but in vain—I was held securely. Infinitesimal points of light began to wave back and forth on a pitch-black background; a great hollow buzzing echoed in my head. My head seemed suddenly to have become ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... grave, and this had happened twenty or thirty years ago. Paul Sweedlepipe, the meek, was so perfectly confounded by his precocious self-possession, and his patronizing manner, as well as by his boots, cockade, and livery, that a mist swam before his eyes, and he saw—not the Bailey of acknowledged juvenility from Todgers's Commercial Boarding House, who had made his acquaintance within a twelvemonth, by purchasing, at sundry times, small birds at twopence each—but a highly-condensed ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... The monstrous beasts looked exactly as if they were preserved in sugar-candy." Or that other, even more striking, of a great troop of wild Yaks, caught in the upper waters of the Kin-sha Kiang, as they swam, in the moment of congelation, and thus preserved throughout the winter, gigantic ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... now, but my head swam a while ago at a deuced rate. I was drunk, as usual, last night, and could do nothing, not even put a tumbler to my mouth, until I took a stiff glass of brandy and water, and that has set me up again. When shall I write to young Topertoe, the ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Novoselo, an advance guard crossed in barges before the bridge had been thrown across. Immediately a heavy fire began from the enemy, hidden in the opposite forest. Many of the Serbians threw themselves into the river, and either swam or waded the rest ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... for a long time their chances for life seemed small indeed. Ninety of the horses were lost, some having been thrown overboard ten miles from the land. Others were left tied in their stalls, to perish when the ship went to pieces in the breakers. Those that were thrown overboard near the beach swam ashore through breakers in which no boat nor man could live, and, finding the waste and wreckage from the cargo of the "Grape-shot," lived for days on the hay and oats, soaked with sea-water ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that the walls opened and widened. I saw that I was within a great palace, whose walls were hung in tapestries, and whose doors were of golden panelings, and whose windows were of curious crystals, and whose furnishings were rich and wonderful, and around whose stately limits swam wide gardens of strange flowers, full of deep perfumes. I heard soft voices of birds and the music also of gentle human voices singing, and tenderly played instruments of silken and silvern strings. ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... out-shore, towards the dangerous rush; the cold cramped his muscles and cut his breath, but he was already below the spot he had left, and there was no time to lose. The white streak that marked the skip seemed to forge up-stream to meet him, and he swam savagely until he was in the broken water and something struck his foot. Then he arched his back and dived, groping with his hands. He grasped the slippery side of the skip and felt the shackle loop. With some trouble he got the rope through, and then tried to put his feet on the bottom. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... rugged slope covered with scattered lava-blocks to the sandy nook where now stands the hamlet of the "Ciene-quilla," clouds had again lifted over Hashyuko, and on the slope of the high Sierra the bluish cloudlet swam clear and distinct. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Spaniards, seeing persons of that quality in those seas, crossed and blessed himself. But, to be short, we stowed them under hatches, all save one Spaniard, who suddenly and desperately leapt overboard into the sea, and swam ashore to the town of Santiago, to give them warning of ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty
... other by the deep waters of the Darro. The two factions possessed themselves respectively of these opposite quarters. Abdallah was not ashamed to strengthen himself by the aid of Christian mercenaries; and a dreadful conflict was carried on for fifty days and nights, within the city, which swam with the blood that should have been shed only in its ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... rapidly, and they were caught in it. When they got in the middle of the stream the shack began to fill with water. Huey grabbed Ida Mary and got her on one horse while he mounted the other, and the horses swam to land. ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... gander. I will give only one other case; Mr. Hewitt states that a wild duck, reared in captivity, "after breeding a couple of seasons with her own mallard, at once shook him off on my placing a male Pintail on the water. It was evidently a case of love at first sight, for she swam about the new-comer caressingly, though he appeared evidently alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From that hour she forgot her old partner. Winter passed by, and the next spring the pintail seemed to have become a convert to her blandishments, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... consciousness, but she never knew by what lightning stroke she was set free. She was too dazed, too blinded, by her horror to realise. But suddenly the cruel grip that had her helpless was gone. A vague confusion swam before her eyes. Her knees doubled under her. She sank down in a ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... sugar in plenty for two ordinary men; but these two were little else than children. They early discovered the virtues of hot water judiciously saturated with sugar, and they prodigally swam their flapjacks and soaked their crusts ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... towards the wreck. It was this pause that caused the alarm of those on shore. When Bax felt himself dragged violently back to the land, he at once divined the cause, and, knowing that there was no other resource, he seized the clasp-knife, and cut the rope. A few minutes later he swam under the lee of the wreck, and, catching hold of the rigging of the foremast, which had gone by the board when the ship struck, he clambered up the side and soon stood on ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... that though we could not see him at such times, he saw us, and from the cover of the briers and huckleberry bushes in the fringe of the woods was watching the canoe with wary eye. For as soon as we were fairly off he came trotting down the beach, plunged into the surf, and swam after us, knowing well that we would cease rowing and take him in. When the contrary little vagabond came alongside, he was lifted by the neck, held at arm's length a moment to drip, and dropped aboard. We tried to cure him of this trick by compelling him to swim a long way, ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... ado. Jarrow now yelled to the rowers to keep backing, and when Peth roared at him to "shut his head," the captain, taking advantage of the confusion, stood up and leaped into the water and began swimming to the schooner quite as fast as Doc swam away from it. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... duck-fists you've got!" he cried, risking the throw. "I once knew a man whose fingers and toes too were tied together that way! He swam like ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... their feet and wings were so frozen to the rock that when they moved they left the skin of their feet, the quills of their wings, and the feathers of their breasts clinging there. When the ice melted, and they swam out into the sea, their bodies smarted with pain until the ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Monkhouse along with us. Tupia spoke to them in his own Language, and it was an agreeable surprize to us to find that they perfectly understood him. After some little conversation had passed one of them swam over to us, and after him 20 or 30 more; these last brought their Arms, which the first man did not. We made them every one presents, but this did not satisfy them; they wanted everything we had about us, particularly our Arms, and made several attempts to ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... extensive vally a few miles before it discharges itself into the river. while wateing for the canoes to arrive I killed an otter which sunk to the bottom on being shot, a circumstance unusual with that anamal. the water was about 8 feet deep yet so clear that I could see it at the bottom; I swam in and obtained it by diving. I halted the party here for dinner; the canoes had taken different channels through these islands and it was sometime before they all came up. I placed my thermometer in a good shade as was my custom about ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... was making for the inner harbour in a strong half-flood tideway, the night very dark, blowing and raining hard, and going about five and a half knots. Lieutenant (now Captain) J. de Hoghton, 10th Foot, jumped overboard, swam to Dorling, and supported him in the water for about a quarter of an hour in the tideway, between narrow high pilework, without crossbeams or side chains to lay hold of, and the head of the pilework 12ft. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... It flowed in the very direction in which he was going, and he waded down stream for forty or fifty yards. Then he went over his head. The creek had suddenly deepened, but he came up promptly and swam easily with the current. ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sight, soon after we started in the morning; did not seem to be, but 2 or 3 ms. distant. Saw several antelope but could not get a shot at them it being so level, There is no wood here, except what is procured from the island, the river was not fordable at this time, but some swam accross on horseback & procured some; but with much difficulty and danger, the current being very swift, & the bottom quicksand; we contented ourselves with a few willow bushes; there were some buffalo chips, but we had not as yet got in the way of ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears, "be firm—be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which will speak to me every hour of you. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... too big now to be laughed away, Susan!" He came and knelt beside her chair and put his arm about her, his face so close that Susan could lay an arresting hand upon his shoulder. Her heart beat madly, her senses swam. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... to do in all temperate latitudes. It descended, yes, but it moved along the horizon as it sank. Instead of a direct and forthright dip downward, the sun seemed to progress along the horizon, dipping more deeply as it swam. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... trees. Around the garden were high walls, vine-hung, with the surrounding buildings of the villa for a broken background. An untamed profusion of green life rioted here; pale flowers of night, whose fragrance hung heavy on the air, swam in a sea-green dusk; ivy clung and clambered along the crannies of gray walls; roses sprawled in a red torrent of perfume over the yellowing images of old gods and heroes. In one corner a placid lake gazed still-eyed at the sky, with white swans floating on its mirrored black and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... about anchoring and sending in a boat to bring off a pilot, but presently they picked up a line of poles sticking up above the water like a ruined fence, and these seemed to comfort the captain. Bits of trees swam alongside; a flight of small birds, with flashes of green and red in their plumage, swung about them; the water, as they went, changed color. Little by little the hills lifted from the level of the water and took on color ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... that underworld where only half-blind, ugly, and treacherous creatures live. The mermaids disported themselves quite unconscious of the imp's presence, till he laughed aloud, and then, startled, they swam in haste and affright to the rock where the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... effect of steady and regular causes; though they come not within the reach of our knowledge. Thus, That fire warmed a man, made lead fluid, and changed the colour or consistency in wood or charcoal; that iron sunk in water, and swam in quicksilver: these and the like propositions about particular facts, being agreeable to our constant experience, as often as we have to do with these matters; and being generally spoke of (when ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... his secret. For an instant the golden valley swam before his eyes, and the walls waved, and all about him whirled with ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... reading it with calm assurance of heart and brain. Deeper down the fever raged, but so separately that I might have had two individualities. Enchanted as I was by the rich and complex concourse of melodies which ascended from the piano and swam about our heads, this fluctuating tempest of sound was after all only a background for the emotions to which it gave birth in me. Naturally they were the emotions of love—the sense of the splendour of love, the headlong passion of love, the transcendent carelessness of love, the finality of love. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... subjects, who, not being able to gain upon him, either by their reasons, or their desires, had seized upon his person, and shut him up in one of the strongest citadels of the kingdom. He escaped out of his prison, swam a river, and having found eight foists, or half galleys, belonging to Goa, which were purposely sent to favour his passage, he had the good fortune to arrive safely at the town. The bishop and the viceroy conducted ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... the river one night, saw what the enemy was doing, and returned unobserved. A few nights afterwards two officers swam out to sea across the river mouth and crept up the right bank of the stream within the enemy's lines to ascertain the locality of the ford and its exact width and depth. They also learnt that there were no obstacles placed across the ford, which was three feet deep in normal times ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... plunged over a fall, and every canoe was capsized. Six of the men found themselves swimming in a large rock-bound basin, while the angry flood thundered thirty feet over the ledges just beyond them. The men swam ashore, ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... the ship I watch'd their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coil'd and swam; and every track Was a flash of ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... was, not far from fairyland, a beautiful lake, the waters of which were so clear that as they sparkled in the sunlight they glistened and gleamed like silver: and so it was called the Silver Lake. Beautiful white swans sailed majestically on its surface, and thousands of gold fishes swam in ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... herself coming down the ridge at Shade's side; descending into the shadow, stepping closer to the droning mills; while above her the Palace of Pleasure swam in its golden glory, and these who were privileged to do so went out and in and laughed and were happy. Were such heights as that what this woman meant? Johnnie had let it typify to her the heights to which she intended to climb. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... great waste of money, as it is mostly squandered by the old reprobate. His collection of birds and beasts is a wonderful one, for he pays any price for animals; last month he paid $12,500 for two grand tigers, but they escaped a few days afterward and swam across ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... shouted: "What, you shrimp, you want our fish, do you?" and seizing a good-sized silver fish lying on the deck, she boxed the astonished warrior's ears right and left till he fell over backwards into the water and swam quickly back to the destroyer, snorting like a seal, amidst the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... asteroid belt swam above him. Hundreds of small planetoids and various-sized pieces of space junk drifted in the cold vacuum of space overhead. Roger looked around. The asteroid he was on was so small and the horizon such a short distance away that the base of Miles' giant black ship was half-covered by the curvature ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... and for a moment all things swam together before him and he felt dizzy and a little sick, and so weak he staggered and nearly fell, but recovered ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... writer, this nonsense he wrote; The fighter (an editor) fote; The swimmer, he swam; The skimmer, he skam; And the biter was ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... pour over me and bury me beneath them. I was very faint, and sick, and giddy. The ground felt as if it were about to sink under me. My eyelids closed languidly when I did not keep them open by an effort; and my head ached, and my brain swam ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... and waded and splashed and finally swam, in the bathing hole down at the creek, under Marian's or Alice's supervision, till Katie and Gertie were ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... wrong. I saw no man-of-war. We captured the launch. By this time she is well out to sea. Unfortunately, Marcel was killed, and Domingo badly wounded. There was no one to come for you, so I jumped overboard and swam ashore. I had to fight my way here, and it will soon be known that there are some of us left on the island. I thought that perhaps I might take you back to the Grand-pere cavern. These people may give us food. I have some few sovereigns ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Les Tourelles; for La Hire had crossed the repaired bridge with a gallant band of soldiers, and our men, hearing the shouts of their comrades, and the cries of the trapped English, flung themselves into boats, or swam over, sword in mouth, anything to get to the scene of the fray; whilst others set to work with planks, and whatever they could lay hands upon, to mend the broken drawbridge that they might swarm across into Les Tourelles and join in the final act ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that I swam never in Solon's ken as a rival for her smiles. His own triumph was too easy, too widely heralded. In the second week of her coming, was there not a rhyme shouted on the playground, full in ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... and slept. At 6.0 they were wakened by the firing of a gun close by, and realized that they were in front of the German position. German cavalry patrolled the road in front of them, and they were under heavy shell-fire from the British. They swam the Aisne, dried their clothes in a house by the canal, and then walked to the British guns, which were still in action. They were given food by the Third Cavalry Brigade, and were taken back on a supply ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Thracians, and the steeds shall be my care. He ceased; then blue-eyed Pallas with fresh force Invigor'd Diomede. From side to side He slew; dread groans arose of dying men Hewn with the sword, and the earth swam with blood. 575 As if he find a flock unguarded, sheep Or goats, the lion rushes on his prey, With such unsparing force Tydides smote The men of Thrace, till he had slaughter'd twelve; And whom Tydides with his falchion struck 580 Laertes' son dragg'd by his feet abroad, Forecasting that the steeds ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... beach party; She greeted her friends with a welcome most hearty. They laughed and they joked and they swam in the sea, And the party was gay, ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... of "All right, Aunt Alice, I'll get him!" and then swam for dear life. This was literally true, for she was determined to save the dear life of little Gilbert if ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... something of importance was going on in the duck-pond, but there was nothing going on. All the ducks that were resting tranquilly on the water, or were standing in it on their heads—for that they were able to do—swam suddenly to the shore: you could see in the wet ground the traces of their feet, and hear their quacking far and near. The water, which but just now was smooth and bright as a mirror, was quite put into ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... plainly the overwhelming strain her counterfeit of friendliness put upon her. He dared not prolong it. Even as he looked at her, her lips quivered and her eyes swam. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... one of the bars, he swung himself out, slid down the rope quietly and noiselessly, and entered the water, which was so cold that it almost took his breath away. He swam a stroke or two along the wall, and waited until joined by both his comrades. Their casemate being the end one, they had but some ten or twelve yards to swim to the angle of ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... exactly the weather most favourable to hunters. Hardly had the moollahs of the town proclaimed the hour of prayer, when the Colonel, attended by several of his officers, the Beks of the city, and Ammalat, rode, or rather swam, through the mud, leaving the town in the direction of the north, through the principal gate Keerkhlar Kapi, which is covered with iron plates. The road leading to Tarki is rude in appearance, bordered for a few paces to the right and left with beds of madder—beyond ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... market little paper flowers which opened on touching water. As it was the custom also to use finger-bowls at the end of dinner, the new discovery was found of excellent service. In these sheltered lakes the little coloured flowers swam and slid; surmounted smooth slippery waves, and sometimes foundered and lay like pebbles on the glass floor. Their fortunes were watched by eyes intent and lovely. It is surely a great discovery that leads to the union of hearts ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... exhausted with his struggle in the icy waves; his outer garments were frozen. I soon procured blankets from my bed, removed the wet clothes, and wrapped him up. Lauzon, true to our expectations of what he would do when the test came, swam out and rescued the Defiance before she was carried over the next rapid. He was inexperienced at the oars and had less than two hours practice after he had joined us. It was a tense moment when he started across, above the rapid. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... outlying tract of the many-roomed house, which in more than one quarter stretched away into mystery; but the piazza, to which she had access, was unbroken, and whenever she strayed from her own territory she swam afresh into ours. I definitely remember that, having heard and perhaps read of dowagers, who, as I was aware, had scarce been provided for in our social scheme, I said to myself at first sight of our emphatic neighbour, a person clearly used to exceptional deference, "This must be a perfect ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... committees—omitted when invitations for teas were being issued—cold-shouldered out of the Y.A.K. Society, which met monthly for purposes of mutual improvement—of being blackballed, perhaps, when she would become a Maccabee! She repressed a shudder; her work swam before her downcast eyes and she drew up the darn on the stocking she was repairing until it looked like a wen. The ordeal was worse than she had ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... had given them instructions how to balance themselves so as to keep upright, and also how to paddle with both hands and feet: so that, after a good deal of plashing and spluttering, and laughing and shouting, all three arrived safely on the opposite bank. Of course, Fritz swam over without a raft. ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... stopped short, some few remaining as guards about the sacred square, but most of the throng forthwith rushing down a steep, narrow ravine, canopied with foliage, to the river, into which they plunged; and the stream was black on every side with their heads as they swam about, playing all sorts of antics; the younger ones diving to fetch up pieces of silver money which the visitors flung into the water, to put their dexterity ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this critical juncture, the brave Horatius Cocles, with one on either hand, kept the enemy at bay while willing arms swung the axes against the supports of the structure, and when it was just ready to fall uttered a prayer to Father Tiber, plunged into the muddy torrent, fully armed as he was, and swam to the opposite shore amid the plaudits of the rejoicing people, as related in the ballad of Lord Macaulay. Then it was, too, that the people determined to erect a bridge which could be more readily ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... from Bologna and Fruili, Francesco once more presented himself before his native town, with a banner bearing the arms of the House of Carrara. He called upon the Milanese governor to surrender, and was received with derision; but he swam the Brenta by night, crept into the town, and was welcomed with joy by the citizens, who rose suddenly and successfully against the Milanese, and proclaimed Francesco Novello sovereign lord of Padua on Sept. 8th, 1390. He ruled till 1405, when ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... horse took the flood, William quietly slid off the saddle into the water, and keeping a hold of one of the stirrups, easily swam by his side. The noble animal, in a case like this, required no guiding hand to direct him; his instinct told him, his master's object was to reach the other bank; and he, therefore, swam direct for the point ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... to make again for the window; but it was as though her limbs had turned to water; there was no strength in her; and the blackness swam visibly before her eyes, radiating away in whirling, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... cried, and dashing Through the waters, strongly swam: Meanwhile, Cullen Bryant, watching, Breathed a prayer and ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... at night-fall—a favorite spot being where the railroad bridge now ends. It was a good distance across to the island where, in the book, Tom Sawyer musters his pirate band, and where later Huck found Nigger Jim, but quite often in the evening they swam across to it, and when they had frolicked for an hour or more on the sandbar at the head of the island, they would swim back in the dusk, breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or dread. They could swim all day, those little ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... heard nothing! Well—so be it. But the lights! The lights did go! We did not see them. They were not there. If they had been, I would have swam back—I would have gone back and shouted alongside—I would have begged them to take me on board. . . . I would have had my chance. . . . You doubt me? . . . How do you know how I felt? . . . What right have you to doubt? . . . I very nearly ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... black tale. As he read, Marco felt as if he could scarcely bear it. It was as if Samavia swam in blood, and as if the other countries must stand aghast before such ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... objectionable pompadour. So far as the eye could reach there was not a man in sight, not so much as a whiff of tobacco smoke in the air! As the round black figure waddled across the lawn, Madame rose in gracious welcome, while Elma—Elma's heart began to beat with sickening rapidity, a mist swam before her eyes, and a lump swelled in her throat. She could not speak; her cheeks turned first red, and then white. She shook her head in response to her mother's greeting, and gasped ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... slowly into the water. The current carried them rapidly along. Side by side, with slow, careful strokes, they swam, keeping close to shore. The river was shallow—hardly over their heads. The water was cold ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... the pinnace was headed round, and moving through the water in the direction of the swimmer; who, on his side, swam toward them, though evidently with feeble stroke. There seemed not much doubt of their being able to pick him up. The only danger thought of by any of them was the zygaena; but they hoped the shark might be still occupied with its late prey, ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Billie's senses swam. This clearing, as has been said, was only a few yards away from the tops of the bushes on the roof. Moreover, all this vegetation, instead of growing at right angles from the surface in the usual way, was all lying flat against the soil, and all pointing in one direction—back, the ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... movement at sunrise on December 29th. They arrived near the Ouithlacoochee on the 30th, and threw up breastworks around their encampment. On arriving at the river next morning it was found too deep to be forded. No Indians being in sight, one of the men swam the river and brought over a canoe. As only seven men could be taken over at a time, the work of crossing the troops was slow and tedious. General Clinch and Colonels Samuel Parkhill and Read crossed over, and, in conjunction with General Call, ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... with only an idle curiosity the one hundred and forty-three mediocre prizes on the list, he returned to the perusal. Suddenly the print swam before his eyes, and the great esplanade seemed to rise. Number 77,707 had won the fourth prize of one hundred thousand francs; number 200,013, a ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... as two or three of the strange creatures, as though impelled by curiosity, swam lazily out towards the canoe. "Give way, Walt," he cried, "paddle as fast as ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... were completed—a light one for infantry early in the morning, and late in the afternoon another considered strong enough for artillery and wagons. At one o'clock Oudinot's foot-soldiers began to cross, and a body of cavalry successfully swam their horses over the stream, which owing to the freshet was now in places five feet deep instead of three and a half as when the ford was first discovered; a few hours later artillery followed, and the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... They swam about among the pieces of ice for a while, but it was so cold that they soon came up on the bank into the sun again and wiggled their tails to shake out the water. Then they all sat down in the sun ...
— The Dutch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... a dozen stupid cattle. These efforts were attended with very indifferent success. A deep barranca extends to the Mescala, the largest river in Southern Mexico, across which we passed on a raft of gourds, propelled by two naked Indians, who swam across, each holding in his right hand a corner of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... All things swam out into the glow. The great suspended stud; the background of shelves and boxes; the scissors-like overalls against the wall; a clothes-line of children's factory-made print frocks; a center-bin of women's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... strolling players. The mischievous little boy of the bow had compelled even gods and heroes to submit to all sorts of odd tests and means. Jupiter himself took the form of a bull to carry off Europa, and swam across the sea with her upon his back to the island of Crete. Hercules, dressed as a woman, sat spinning meekly at Omphale's feet. Even Aristotle went upon all fours that his mistress might ride on his back. What wonder then that our youthful baron thought that nothing could be too ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... sipped it. Then he rose and began to buzz around little Luke's head. Without thinking, the little boy put his hand to his lips and his mouth was filled with a strange, sweet taste. At the same time a mist rose before his eyes, a strange feeling ran through his body, and his head swam. ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... and how much the anchor weighed, and all that sort of blarney which she thought ship-shape and suited to a poor sailor-man's understanding. I told her a story of a shark that swallowed a missionary and his hymn-book, and always swam round our ship at service times afterwards—and that kept her thinking a bit. As for little Dolly Venn, he couldn't keep his eyes off Miss Ruth—and I didn't wonder, for mine went that way pretty often. Aye, she had changed, too, in those twelve months that had passed ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... of the tides about the reeds; and sometimes awaking very early he had heard the strange cry of a bird as it rose from its nest among the reeds, and had looked out and had seen the valley whiten to the dawn, and the winding river whiten as it swam down to the sea. The memory of all this had faded and become shadowy as he grew older and the chains of common life were riveted firmly about his soul; all the atmosphere by which he was surrounded was well-nigh fatal to such thoughts, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... rose to the surface after his plunge, he looked around, and at some distance beheld a dark spot. He swam toward it and seized the woman's arm. She was just sinking. And now this man was so overwhelmed with emotion, that the blood rushed to his brain and his limbs were almost paralyzed. Fortunately the shore was not far away, but the ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... summer grain Were sown on every battle-plain; Blood of our bravest and our best, The red, red wine of life was pressed, And lost like summer rain. In dust and smoke of carnage whirled, Before those dying eyes still swam Those coming years so grand and calm, The golden Autumns of ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well as of those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but conclude they were all lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... but he took his harp, and smote the strings, and a sad, wild music filled the room. And he sang of the gods and the dwarf-folk, and of the deeds that had been in the time long past and gone. And a strange mist swam before Siegfried's eyes; and so bewitching were the strains that fell upon his ears, and filled his soul, that he forgot about his errand, and his master Mimer, and his father Siegmund, and his lowland home, and thought only of the heart-gladdening ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... constitute the layer, to mud. Furthermore, we note that the shaly layer is not only lacking in lime, but commonly contains no trace of animals such as might have dwelt on the bottom. The fossils it bears are usually of species which swam in the overlying water and came to the bottom after death. Following up through the layer of shale, we note that the ordinary bottom life gradually reappears, and shortly becomes so plentiful that the deposit resumes the character which it had before the interruption ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... in all sorts of awkward bends and curves; and this Mr Inglis told them was a curious worm that lay with one end—the tail—firmly anchored to a stone, while with the head it seized the first thing that touched it as it swam by. Then would begin a struggle, the trapped one darting off, and dragging to get away; while the worm, tough, thin, and pliant as a fishing-line, let it play about till tired out, when the thin, black-looking monster would quietly swallow his prey, boa-constrictor fashion, ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... its head was partly out of water (Fig. 12). The animal could either steady itself or crawl around by means of the paddlelike limbs, but these probably could not be used in effective locomotion on land. Like the Ichthyostegids, it probably swam by means of a ...
— A New Order of Fishlike Amphibia From the Pennsylvanian of Kansas • Theodore H. Eaton
... Ant,' they call me down at—" "The Bank," he was on the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in his recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away. The unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the present touch of a mighty arm thrown out. "I'm honest," he cried. "I always have been honest. I'm known to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... examined. It was much better. When the doctor walked along the side of the pond, the fish followed him. When the doctor returned from his walk, he found his patient watching for him. The pike then swam backward and forward while the doctor remained there. The fish had lost one eye in consequence of the wound from the hook, and, when his blind side was towards the doctor, was always very restless. The poor fellow seemed ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... wreaked upon any reputed witch. In many parts of England she was tried by a kind of Lynch law, in a very summary manner. Her hands and feet being bound together, she was thrown into deep water; if she sank, and was drowned, she was declared innocent; if she swam, it was a proof of guilt, and a little form of law condemned her to the stake or halter. In Scotland, they were treated with greater barbarity; they were awfully tortured—thumb-screws, the boots to crush their knees, pricking them with needles or awls night and day, to prevent a moment's rest, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... gathered hastily round and took her crew on board, and then dashed at the junks, which were but a hundred yards distant. The valour of the Chinese evaporated as they saw the boats approaching, and scores of them leapt overboard and swam for shore. ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... on his back, stretching out his little arms for help. In another instant Rochford got up, and holding the child's face well out of the water, was evidently trying to dispel his fears; then looking round, he saw the grating, towards which he at once swam, and placed the child upon it. All this time the ship was, of course, running away from the spot, and gradually he and his little charge became less and less distinct. I saw, however, that he was holding on to the grating, which, I was thankful to see, perfectly supported ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... examination saw that it was in Netta's handwriting. It was with a trembling hand and foreboding heart that she took it up and broke the seal After she had done this, she was some time before she could summon courage to open it. When she did so, her brain swam as she read the following words, written ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... she looked calmly, confidently, and with conscious enjoyment for a husband. She flirted a little, and danced and swam and drove and played golf and tennis a great deal, but she never lost sight for an instant of the serious business of life. Money she must have—it was almost as essential to her as air—and money she could ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... was a fair shot, and I knew I could draw him,—but I forbore, and contented myself with watching his motions. I might have lain there ten minutes, perhaps, when this leader, or judge in the beaver Israel, as he soon showed himself to be, quietly slid out into the water, swam into a central part of the pond, and, after swimming twice or three times round in a small circle, lifted his tail on high, and slowly and deliberately gave three of those same old loud and startling raps ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... as they saw that the chiefs were the first to set the example of intrepidity. They braved enough dangers to make the strongest brain reel. The current forced their horses to swim diagonally across, which doubled the length of the passage; and as they swam, blocks of ice struck against their flanks ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... The white bull swam very fast and was soon far away in the wide blue sea, with only his snowy head and tail showing above the water. Poor Europa was holding on with one hand to the ivory horn and stretching the other back towards ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... you did. Didn't papa tell all about the heroic sailor who swam ashore with you? how he was frantic about you, having been swept away by a wave from you? and how he fainted away with joy when you were brought to him? How can you suppose I would forget that? And then how papa tried to find the noble sailor to ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Ned swam the pony alongside of them, pulling hard on the reins to slow the animal down without exerting pressure ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... and, where we made our crossing, the water being deep and cold, with a swift current. There was a good ferry boat, on which, after nearly a day's waiting, we ferried over our pack animals at one dollar per head; the balance of the stock we swam across. A short way on we had to ford a fork of the same river, and were then in an extremely mountainous country, up one side and down the other, until we reached ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... of a tragedy that cannot die haunts the terraces and fountains like a bloodstain that will not wash out; in the Saxon Garden at Warsaw there broods the memory of long-dead things, coeval with the stately trees that shade its walks, and with the carp that swim to-day in its ponds as they doubtless swam there when "Lieber Augustin" was a living person and not as yet an immortal couplet. And St. James's Park, with its lawns and walks and waterfowl, harbours still its associations with a bygone order of men and women, whose happiness ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... am I thus frigid and feeble, when I so lately fought and marched, and defied alike fatigue and wounds? But I felt in this chamber of death an inconceivable exhaustion, which had never approached me in the havoc of the field. My feet refused to move, my lips to breathe; all objects swam round, and sick to death and fainting, I thrust out my hand to save me from falling, and thus gave the last triumph to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... miss that meetin', Mar, not for all the nuts on Iceland's greasy mountains, the Psalmist made the song about. I sees it all like in a wision." His eyes closed, and his hands and feet swam vaguely. "Me and Monkey o' the one side, and the Three J's o' tother, pitchin' the tale a treat at tops of our voices." He opened his eyes slowly, ogled Ma, tapped her knee, winked, and ended confidentially: "One thing, old dear. I'll lay they'll ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... un-ta-pe ktay do! (Laugh-maker, we are almost dead with laughing!)" Upon this the little creature swam back ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... allow of this mode of procedure, boats were requisitioned from the neighbourhood, on which men and chariots were embarked, while the horses, attended by grooms, or attached by their bridles to the flotilla, swam across the river.* If the troops had to pass through a mountainous district intersected by ravines and covered by forests, and thus impracticable on ordinary occasions for a large body of men, the advance-guard were employed in cutting a passage through ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his companions did not hesitate. They dashed along the causeway, again swam the canal, and made their way through the crowd until they reached the rear guard. Morning was breaking now, and it showed the lake covered with canoes filled with warriors. Along the whole length of the causeway a desperate fight ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... India Isabel and her husband settled down at Trieste, and pursued for the most part a quiet literary life. It was summer, and they swam a good deal by way of recreation, and went frequently to Opcina. They started a habit of not dining at home, and of asking their intimates to meet them at one cafe or another, where they would sup in the open air, and drink the ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... some streams we were transferred bodily to a large raft-like ferry boat, and so taken across. At others the passengers and luggage only were put into the boat, the lumbering coach with its leathern springs left behind, whilst the horses swam in our wake across the wide and rushing river, to be re-harnessed to another coach on the opposite shore. The Rakaia, Ashburton, and Rangitata had been crossed in this way, and we had reached the Otaio, a smaller river, when we found a new mode of transport awaiting us. A ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... missing arm it is doubtful if we should have recognized him, for he seemed demented. We rode opposite and hailed, when he skulked back into his refuge; but we were satisfied that it was Wilson. The other searchers were signaled to, and finding an entrance into the river, we swam it and rode up to the cave. A shout of welcome greeted us, and the next instant Wilson staggered out of the cavern, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... this town there was not a house in the place that had a lavatory with hot and cold water attachments. Those who bathed, swam in the creek in the Summer or used the family wash tub in the kitchen in Winter. My good old partner, Ali Baba, has always prided himself on his personal cleanliness He is arrayed in rags, but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... stream. Herds of horses and cattle and flocks of sheep and goats, intermingled with wild herds of deer and antelope, browsed on the meadows and slopes above the river where they stood. Wild ducks and geese and swan swam in the river, and grouse and wild turkeys and quail and plover roamed the forests and uplands. There was no promiscuous killing of wild animals allowed among the Tewana; they were shared in common like the domesticated animals. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... brave arching bowers or starred bushes and hedgerows so closely that the green briers were hardly visible. Beds of the large blue water forget-me-not floated beside the banks, and above them creamy meadow-sweet lifted its tall plumes among the reeds and grasses. Small water-rats swam busily from bank to bank or played on the roots of the willows, and bright wings of birds and insects fluttered and skimmed over ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods |
