"Thud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presentment of that face of which the mere clumsy copy had made him dream and desire. He had been tossed by it to a height so vertiginous as to involve a retreat from the table; but the next day he had dropped with a resounding thud at the very feet of his apparition. On the following, with an equal incoherence, a sacrifice even of his bewildered sisters, whom he left behind, he made an heroic effort to escape by flight from a fate of which he already felt the cold breath. That fate, in London, very little later, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... summoned a council of war, which overruled the plan for an immediate return to France. Presently a thud, followed by groans of mortal agony, was heard in the new commander's cabin. The door was burst open, and he was found dying from the thrust of his own sword. La Jonquiere, afterwards governor-general ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... described. There was such a raging, roaring clamor rising to the heavens in the distance, the confused uproar of other sounds was so violent, that in it she failed to distinguish the report of musketry. As she was turning the corner of a house there was a deadened thud close at her ear, succeeded by the sound of falling plaster, which brought her to a sudden halt; it was a bullet that had struck the facade. She was pale as death, and asked herself if her courage would be sufficient to carry her through to the end; and ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... all over, the heavy thud of a policeman's truncheon was heard, and a few minutes later, with Bob's help, the two men were led away to the ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... "trying times"; and one moonlight night, when the Gray Goose was sound asleep upon one leg, the Green was rudely shaken under her by the thud of a horse's feet. "Ga, ga!" said she, putting down the other ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of us spoke. The silence was broken by a thud, as if a flying squirrel had dropped from the roof to the balcony. A stick of wood fell apart in the grate, and the crow of the baby in the hooded cradle was answered by the ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... with the flashlight tested the flaccid neck by bending the head to one side and back sharply. He ended this inspection by letting the head fall back to the moist earth. It landed with a thud ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... him; he rallied, gathered himself, stumbled, and then, plunging heavily forward, crashed down upon his master, rolled completely over him, and then went sliding and pawing desperately to the edge of the rocky precipice, over which he shot, a huge, living bowlder and fell with a thud upon the jagged rocks below. For some minutes Gwynne lay where he had been hurled, stunned and senseless; then he slowly revived, found that his left arm was severely wrenched and bruised, and that the blood was streaming from a long gash in his forehead. ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... pleasant to rest awhile on the parapet in the shadow of the bushes. The low thud-thud of sculls in the rowlocks of a distant punt travels up the water. By-and-by a hare comes along, enters on the bridge, and almost reaches the gate in the middle before he spies anything suspicious. Such a spot, and, indeed, any gateway, used to be a favourite place ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... listened for a second scream. She had chosen the inside bedroom that had a window opening on the corridor. Now in the breathless silence, she heard a swift creak ending in the bang of an up-flung sash. A swish of light garments, a thud shaking the floor outside, and then bare feet flying in frantic haste past her room and ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... thousand casualties somewhere else. We knew, at that rate, it couldn't possibly last until we got to the other side, but we prayed loudly that it would. In April we heard of the gassing of the first Canadians at Ypres. Then the casualty lists from that field arrived and hit Vancouver with a thud. Instantly a change came over the city. Before that day, war had been a romance, a thing far away about which to read and over which to wave flags. It was intangible, impersonal. It was the same attitude the States ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... sounded the trampling of feet once more, and crash! the end of the log struck the door. This time the impact was so great the door could not withstand it, and down it came with a thud. At least a dozen forms could be seen through the opening, outlined against ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... still fell around us, we kept steadily on our course, while occasionally I turned an uneasy glance over my shoulder to see how far we had got from the enemy. At length scarcely a shot reached us; a gentle thud every now and then showing us that those which did so had almost lost their power. I was able now to pay more attention to my young companion. I ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... reminded myself. Followed the voice, a voice from the stable, the cracked, whining tenor of a very aged vassal of the Arrowhead, one Jimmie Time. Jimmie, I gathered, was currying a horse as he sang, for each bar of the ballad was measured by the double thud of a currycomb against the side of a stall. Whistle, guitar, and voice now attacked the thing in differing keys and at varying points. Jimmie might be said to prevail. There was a fatuous tenderness in his attack and the thudding currycomb gave it spirit. Nor did he slur any of the affecting ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... before the child, who was laughing and trying to grasp them. Then she forgot them, and dropped them in the bottom of the boat, for something had struck the keel with a thud, and the water was boiling ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... bullet strike, or seem to strike, and a few seconds later I heard something else—the noise of a heavy thud upon the ground. I looked, and there with outstretched wings lay the foul bird dead, stone dead, eight or ten paces ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... what a grip on the mainsheet is like!" I thought; and even as the hand closed there came the yell, and the thud of the earthen drum, and I was ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... German trenches. Instinctively he clapped the cover on the canteen and dived for shelter, while the great, black trench-mortar bomb came twisting and turning down through the air. It fell to ground with a dull thud, there was a second's silence, then an appalling explosion. The roof of the dug-out in which "Pongo" had found refuge sagged ominously, the supporting beam cracked, and the heavy layer of earth and bricks and branches subsided ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... and a puff of smoke leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the pavement with a revolting thud. The man's arm strikes a bystander as he darts down. The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror. The faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces. One woman ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Cicely's manner has been that of utter weariness. She has picked up the London Times and thrown it aside; taken up a copy of Punch and let it fall with a thud to the floor, looked idly at a piece of music and decided, evidently, not to sing it. Sir John runs out of technical terms ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking down an armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table. The red blooms of the columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and tossed it out of the window. With the light thud of the mass upon the ground eyes of husband ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... lights of his cabin; and the thud of oars, the voluble noises of the water, and the crackling of the cresset overhead had, too, the quality of impersonal and supernatural phenomena. His ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... his eyes the big man is swaying from side to side like a mighty tree before a tempest. Cameron and Ross both spring to him. On the hillsides men stand rigid, pale, shaking; women shriek and faint. One ghastly moment of suspense, and then a horrid sickening thud; one more agonising second of silence, and then from a score of throats rises ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... their wraps, Tam-o-Shanters, fore-and-aft caps, steamer chairs, rugs, and copies of paper-covered novels. The deck was almost deserted, yet here and there a steamer chair had already been placed, and one or two were occupied. The voyage had commenced. The engine had settled down to its regular low thud, thud; the vessel's head rose gracefully with the long swell of the ocean, and, to make everything complete, several passengers already felt that inward qualm—the accompaniment of ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... un," shouted Tom, and his brothers, stoical Dolph and Rube, danced about madly. Even with underholds, Chad, being much the shorter of the two, had no advantage that he did not need, and, with a sharp thud, the two fierce little bodies struck the road side by side, spurting up a cloud ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, and finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you kick out once or twice; your clinched hand comes down with a thud on the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... quarter mile she had to go before she came to another; but here she found things altogether different and more interesting. As she came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl, a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, just beyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead of her in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe had got caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the left fore leg. He had heard the almost soundless ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... second day of our journey the people on board celebrated a church feast, and the pilot, in his anxiety to do it well, got helplessly drunk. The result was that during that night I was thrown out of the top berth I occupied by a terrific thud. The steamer had run on the sandbank of an uninhabited island, and there she stuck fast—immovable. We were landed on the shore, and there had further time for reflection on the mutability of things. In the white sand there were distinct footprints of a large jaguar ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... over-confident Osmanlis leaping from their intrenchments to advance along the road and drive them back; now I come to the Nabi Tchai ravines, where the concealed masses of Eussian infantry suddenly sprang up and cut off their retreat; I fancy I can see- chug! wh-u-u-p! thud!-stars, and see them pretty distinctly, too, for while gazing curiously about, locating the Russian ambushment, the bicycle strikes a sand-hole, and I am favored with the worst header I have experienced for many a day. I am-or rather was, a minute ago-bowling along quite ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the floor with a thud that shook the house, and in this change of base I had the luck to come out uppermost. Then my courage rose as I found that I could hold my man. I feared a knife, but if he had one he had not drawn it, and I was able to keep his hands too busy to allow him to get possession of it now. ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... away behind them as the pace increased and they reached the edge of the oasis and emerged on to the open desert. A few minutes more and the fretting horses settled down into a steady gallop. The dense ranks of tribesmen were silent at last, and only the rythmical thud of hoofs sounded with a muffled beat against ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... scarcely regained his balance after being almost knocked over in this humiliating way, and the horrible, as it were, sodden, thud of the blow in the face had scarcely died away in the room when he seized Shatov by the shoulders with both hands, but at once, almost at the same instant, pulled both hands away and clasped them behind his back. He did not speak, but looked at Shatov, and turned as white as ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of the way!" cried he; and while we ran off and hid behind convenient trees, Tom struck a match and lighted the fuse. The dull thud of an explosion shortly followed; but on walking back to the spot we were all greatly surprised to see that the rock had remained intact—it was as solid ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... crowd started, horsemen, vehicles, and pedestrians, rolling slowly over the broad face of the moorland. The carriages rocked and pitched like boats in a seaway, as they lumbered along, fifty abreast, scrambling and lurching over everything which came in their way. Sometimes, with a snap and a thud, one axle would come to the ground, whilst a wheel reeled off amidst the tussocks of heather, and roars of delight greeted the owners as they looked ruefully at the ruin. Then as the gorse clumps grew thinner, and the sward more level, those on foot began to run, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... anger and a shrug of the shoulders he turned from her, and despatched one of his men with an order. A few moments later, with a creaking of hinges and a clanking of chains, the great bridge swung down and dropped with a thud to span the gulf. Instantly the Count spurred his horse forward, and followed by Lanciotto rode across the plank and under the archway of the entrance ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... of falling wood, or of iron chains slipping to the ground, the heavy thud of loads of vegetables discharged from the waggons, and the grating of wheels as the carts were backed against the footways, filled the yet sonorous awakening, whose near approach could be felt and heard in the throbbing gloom. Glancing ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into an orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a thud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something. Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sister was gripping my arm with both hands. A third horseman shot into view out of the woods at tight angles, to stop them, and it seemed that the three horses must crash together in a heap. With a moan the Blight buried her face on my shoulder. She shivered when the muffled thud of body against body and the splintering of wood rent the air; a chorus of shrieks arose about her, and when she lifted her frightened face Marston, the Discarded, was limp on the ground, his horse was staggering to his feet, and the Wild Dog was galloping ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... passed like hours, but at last the sun rose, evidently very much against its will. About ten o'clock next morning I faintly heard the thud of horse's hoofs approaching at a canter from the direction of the village. At first I thought nothing of it, but as these grew rapidly louder and louder, my uneasiness increased and I lay perfectly still ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... searching his thoughts there. Suddenly from somewhere in the bows a song spurted and dropped and spurted again and shot up in the stillness, slender and clear, like a rod oft white water. The Belgian boys were singing the Marseillaise. On the deck their feet beat out the thud of the march. ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... to the saddle, swept off his hat to the girl, who stood with the lantern light upon her in the doorway, smiling but flushed, and shook his bridle. Then there was a jingle that was lost in the thud of hoofs, and the men vanished into the shadowy prairie. Half an hour later the homestead was once more dark and silent; but three men sent out by Grant were riding at a reckless gallop across the great dusky levels, and breakfast was not finished when ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest, but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment! I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by these influences—first, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had a few hours ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... crackling sails gybed over with a thud, and the "Starlight" lay on the starboard tack, head down and ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... in a flash and dropped to the floor below with a thud. Then he leaped away toward the wall out of sight of Terry. Suddenly a loud, nasal voice spoke through one ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... A faint, sharp thud from behind had been followed instantly by the shattering of a ground-floor window ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... in breathless suspense. The thud of their horses' hoofs alone told me their nearness. My finger was on the trigger. I awaited the word. "Fire!" she said at last, in a calm, unflinching voice. "He ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... of thatch slid off the roof and fell into the road with a deadened thud, whilst white flakes of straw and wood-ash were flying in the wind like feathers. At the same time two of the cottages adjoining, upon which a little water had been brought to play from the rector's engine, were seen to be on fire. The attenuated spirt of water ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... A violent thud resounded against the door. Someone had placed his shoulder against it. Henrietta clung to the table to ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... there was no hesitation. Both sides knew that the deadly duel must be fought to the close, and at dawn the roll and thud of cannon began. From hill to hill gun answered gun, shells screamed and hissed, and the whole valley seemed to be encircled with flame and smoke. But the Confederates gained ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... did not know all that transpired afterward. When he achieved safe ground he fell, striking the sand with each particular part of his body. It was as if he had dropped from a roof, but the thud ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... on to the slim black leg, but the sudden movement of the train had jerked Amy off the seat. She clung for a moment to the rack, but her hand slipped, and she fell headlong on to the opposite seat, and there was a dull thud as her head crashed on to a little ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... flung himself against the farther wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a terrible thud. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... With a thud of hoofs and a rustling of parting foliage the cavalryman disappeared amid the underwood. A minute or two later a thin, dropping rattle of musketry, five hundred yards or so to the front, announced that the sharpshooters of the Fourteenth ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... "'The dull thud of the tomahawk cut short my father's dying prayer, an' his brains were spattered on the bush where I was concealed; an', a'most at the same moment, another of the band buried his knife in ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... this question when she heard the thud of a horse's hoofs upon the grass, and, looking up, saw a man riding towards her. He was leaning across his horse's head, looking down at her in the next moment—a dark figure shutting out the waving line of fir-trees and the warm light in the western sky. "What ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... just come on to relieve 4434, lived up to his duty most practically by catching the leg of the battling Jimmie, and giving it a wrestling twist which threw the tough with a thud on the ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... upstairs again," said Dick cheerfully. But he met Nell in the passage. There was the sound of a thud, a clear, low voice expostulating, and a girl's footstep on the stairs, as Nell, smoothing her hair, carried ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... hugest bolts of Messrs. KRUPP Hissed harmless through his hair; The Bosch might blow his billet up, But he would be elsewhere; And if with soul-destroying thud A monstrous Minnie hit the mud, The thing was sure to be a dud If only Jones ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... cheerful view, saying to herself that David might have needed more important papers, papers which he would not like everyone to know about, and had sent by special messenger to her to get them. Then her face would brighten and her step grow more brisk. But always would come the dull thud of possibility of something more serious. Her heart beat so fast sometimes that she was forced to lessen her speed to get her breath, for though she was going through town, and must necessarily walk somewhat soberly lest she call ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... and moneyless man, who dominated the clans of San Francisco simply by right of his manhood. He was not without a sort of eloquence of his own. He spoke right to the point, and his words fell like the thud of a shillalah; or rang like the clash of steel. He dealt with the rough elements of politics in an exciting and turbulent period of California politics, and was more of a border chief than an Ivanhoe in his modes of warfare. He reached the United ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... one end of the log, while another person delivers a succession of smart blows with a hammer or mallet upon the opposite end, when a continuance of the vibrations will indicate to an experienced ear even the degree of soundness. If only a dull thud meets the ear, the listener may be certain that ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... able to surmount so small a difficulty. So I fastened a black cockade amid the blood-red of the roses, and, rising in my stirrups, threw them firmly and gently, and saw them rise in the air, top the window-sill, and fall with a slight thud upon the floor. I did not wait for more, but turned and rode away; but it seemed to me that as I gained the shadow of the forest and looked back I saw the faint suggestion of a girlish form standing at the open window. I looked once again ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... worked upon the redoubt which had been located under counsel of Gridley, Prescott, Knowlton, and other officers, the dull thud of the pickaxe and the grating of shovels were the only sounds that disturbed the pervading silence, except as the sentries' "All's well!" from Copp's Hill and from the warships, relieved anxiety and stimulated work. Prescott and Putnam alike, and more than once, visited the beach, to be ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and seemed to stand still. Jim could not have locked more terrible if he were really a murderer. He opened his coat. Then he flung a black object upon the table and it fell with a soft, heavy, sodden thud. It was a leather belt ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... miricle," said George, bringing down a fist like a leg of mutton with a thud upon the table, "it ain't no use of your talking to me, Squire. I knaw it, I tell you I knaw it. There'll never be no other than a de la Molle up at the Castle while we're alive, no, nor while our childer is alive either. If the money's to be found, why drat it, it will be found. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... be? Then Hewet picked up a red fruit and threw it as high as he could. When it dropped, he would speak. They heard the flapping of great wings; they heard the fruit go pattering through the leaves and eventually fall with a thud. The silence ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... solemn—if a trifle uncertain—as they slowly daundered up the road between the trees. It was a still Sabbath evening, when one can hear the very whispers of the fir branches, the murmur of a burn far away—when suddenly the stillness was broken by the thud of a horse's hoofs. Beat—beat—beat—on the turf by the side of the road they came, and each man of the party cocked his ears and strained his eyes into the darkness to see who might be the horseman who profaned the Sabbath by riding in such hot haste. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... wrists and held them fast. Her frightened eyes glanced through the window. She heard a confused thud of hoofs, now and again the deep bellowing of cattle, in the distance dogs barking, drivers yelling. She could see horned heads moving up and down. The coach was now moving very slowly. It was surrounded by a drove of bullocks from the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... awoke, next morning, the engines were at work again, and their heavy thud, thud, was mingled with the swash of water, as the Bengali boys washed down decks, while a rattling of spars and creaking of cordage showed that sails were being ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... had hushed—the strident call of voices had ceased. Somewhere a woman was pounding grain in a wooden mortar—a dull monotonous "thud, thud, swish, thud" carrying on the dead air. Night-jars were circling above the trees, their plaintive call, "chy-eece, chy-e-ece!" filtering downward like the weird cry of spirits. Once the deep sonorous bugling note of a saurus, like the bass pipe of an organ, smote the stillness as the giant ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... of the willows and swung out into mid-stream. The thud of the oars and the splash could be heard on the other bank and shouts came: "Quicker! Quicker!" After another ten minutes the barge bumped heavily ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... flank on the right. And, still farther to the right, a cloud of yellowish smoke rose skyward across the yellower sunshine. Then, of a sudden, out from the heart of the wall of smoke came a muffled thud and roar, confused at first, growing strident and more detached until, sweeping from the haze of smoke, five score Boer horsemen rode in a bolt-like rush, fierce and uncheckable. Without swerving to right or left, they charged straight towards ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... buzzed like a saw—my heart made such a loud thud against my side I thought stars! she wanted "an ounce o' snuff," and that article was kept in a glass jar in plain sight on the other side of the store. There was a movement in that direction, and I recovered partially, I half resolved to rise ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... the shot hit the mark without Alec's trying for it, and a heavy thud informed the scouts that the bullet was fatal! Instantly, however, there was such a commotion in the leaves, and such a Bedlam of screeching! Finally a great flock of crows swept out of the high tree and flew away to find a less ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... even distracted attention from the Dervish army. The dome of the tomb rose tall and prominent above the mud houses of the city. A lyddite shell burst over it—a great flash, a white ball of smoke, and, after a pause, the dull thud of the distant explosion. Another followed. At the third shot, instead of the white smoke, there was a prodigious cloud of red dust, in which the whole tomb disappeared. When this cleared away we saw that, instead of being pointed, it was now flat-topped. Other shells continued to strike ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... were quicker in those days. For a minute we listened in silence, and then on the wind I heard more distinctly still the regular thud of a galloping horse. So he was coming, as I knew he would. I knew he would be ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... the song and the country become as one, I see it as music, I hear it as light; Prismatic and shimmering, trembling to tone, The land of desire, my soul's delight. And always it beats in my listening ears With the gentle thud of a horse's stride, With the swift-falling steps of many dogs, Following, following at my side. O Roads that journey to fairyland! Radiant highways whose vistas gleam, Leading me on, under crimson leaves, To the opaline gates of the Castles ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... cool night air swept up the stairs, and Georgie saw the panel of light from the open drawing-room door diminish in width, and presently the door shut with a soft thud, leaving him in the dark. At that his desperation seemed pressed and concentrated into a moment of fictitious courage, for he unerringly reasoned that they had left the drawing-room window open, and that perhaps in a few moments now they would have finished ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Oscar, as he scanned the wide river, apparently almost bare to its bed. "I suppose there is a channel, and I suppose that pilot up there in the pilot-house knows where it is, but I don't see any." Just then the water before them suddenly shoaled, there was a soft, grating sound, a thud, and the boat stopped, hard and fast aground. The "New Lucy" had joined the fleet of belated steamers on the shoals ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... thud below him as the baffled cat fell back to earth, and then Tarzan of the Apes, drawing his dinner farther up to the safety of a higher limb, looked down with grinning face into the gleaming yellow eyes of the other wild beast that glared up at him from beneath, and with taunting ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... slab and iron railing—jutted out from my window. I thought I saw a hand on the railing, another on the slab, then both together on the lower level for one instant before they disappeared. There was a dull yet springy thud on the grass below. Then no more noise but the distant thunder of the traffic, and the one that woke me, until the window ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... funeral procession stretching away over the plains—a straggling procession on foot, in dingy white dresses, carrying banners and flags and parasols. The coffin was slung on a pole between bearers, and the wailing drone of a horn, and the thud of a big drum came down the wind. Then the dust rose again, and the melancholy sight was shut out. How curious was this little pleasure spot of the Europeans, in the midst of this barbaric setting, in the heart of ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... was lifted a little off the ground by the broken boughs which took its weight, and with a single movement, so active is one in such necessities, I flung myself beneath it. As I did so, I heard the trunk of the elephant descend with a mighty thud on the back of my poor horse, and the next instant I was almost in darkness, for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there long. In ten seconds ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... long-drawn sound. A cuckoo was calling on a tree near at hand, and the evening was charged with spring scents—scents of leaf and grass, of earth and rain. Below, in an oak copse across the road, a stream rushed; and from a distance came the familiar rattle and thud of ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and fine and useless, and she felt for the high comb Prosper had put into her hair. Then she stared around the gorgeous little room, snug from the world, so secret in its winter canyon. She heard Wen Ho's incessant pattering in the kitchen, the crunch and thud of Prosper's shoveling outside. It was suddenly a horrible nightmare, or less a nightmare than a dream, pleasant in the dreaming, but hideous to an awakened mind. She was awake. Isabella's story had thrown her mind, so abruptly dislocated, back to a time before ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... throwing up white clouds, burst with terrifying detonations overhead, or actually struck the engine and the iron wreckage. Besides the three field-guns, which proved to be 15-pounders, the shell-firing Maxim continued its work, and its little shells, discharged with an ugly thud, thud, thud, exploded with startling bangs on all sides. One I remember struck the footplate of the engine scarcely a yard from my face, lit up into a bright yellow flash, and left me wondering why I was still alive. Another hit the coals in the tender, hurling a black shower into the air. A ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... is stopped by a rough thud of basses and a fierce clang of chords. In the sharp blare of brass on the ascending phrase is almost lost the original motto in lowest basses. It is now heard in gradually quickened speed, while the rising phrase runs more timidly. At last the quickened motto sinks gently ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... sickening thud seemed to drop through his mind down to the pit of his stomach as he tried to think it out. His eyes peered into the night watching every familiar landmark—there was the old pine where they always turned off to go fishing: and yes, they were turning away ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... heard the thud of hoofs and Dick Freeman dismounted in the light that streamed from the ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... floor of his tunnel, and sat still in the darkness. Once he whispered an answer into the telephone to his Corporal, and once he flicked his lamp on an instant to glance at the watch on his wrist. Then he crouched still and silent again. The thumping of his heart nearly drowned the thud of the picks, he was shivering with excitement, and his mouth grew dry and leathery. He felt a desire to smoke, and had his case out and a cigarette in his lips when it occurred to him that, when the Germans broke through, the smell of the smoke would tell them instantly that they were ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... fishermen rowed a boat quietly out to sea, the sharp creaking of the rowlocks coming lazily to our ears in the pauses of the wind. The little waves fell with a soft thud, followed by the crisp echo of the surf, feeling all round the shingly cove. The whole place, in that fresh spring day, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... said the young merchant—and turned round to pick up the bottle which stood on a table behind him. Quick as a flash Burt sprang upon him and struck him down with a life-preserver. With a gasping cry and a heavy thud Ezra fell face downwards upon the floor, the bottle still clutched in his senseless hand, and the escaping rum forming a horrible mixture with the blood which streamed from a great gash ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... summit of the column tightened; the gaping hole in the masonry below, gradually closed; the statue bent forward in the rays of the setting sun, and then suddenly describing in the air a gigantic sweep, fell among the flags with a dull, heavy thud, scattering a whirlwind of ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... then I saw her reach up high, high toward the sky and give a leap into the air. There came a crash of breaking glass, and I saw a whirl of white garments far above me that came fluttering down in a spiral motion. I rushed toward it ere it fell: there came a sickening thud on the ground beside me, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... see very far in front or behind, and was taken by surprise by the thud of a horse's feet on the beaten snow behind her. She turned, thinking it was her father, who for some reason had returned home, and, learning whither she had gone, had followed her. But it was not the prince. It was Cartoner. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... sprang back, crushing the birchbark case with its red flower into shapeless ruin. There was a muffled word, the flash of a figure, and McElroy the factor had flung himself before her. She caught the thud of a blow upon flesh and in a moment there were two men locked in deadly combat before the post gate. In less time than the telling, a circle of faces drew round, dark faces of Indians and Bois-Brules, light faces of De Courtenay's ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... the uniform reverberation proceeding from metal. We have already seen how readily the strings take up vibrations which are only pure when, as secondary vibrations, they arise by reversion from the sound-board. If vibration arises from imperfectly elastic wood, we hear a dull wooden thud; if it comes from metal, partials of the strings are re-enforced that should be left undeveloped, which give a false ring to the tone, and an after ring that blurs legato playing, and nullifies the staccato. I do not pose as the obstinate advocate of parallel stringing, although ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... A little while later there was a thud of heavy boots on the pavement, and Macklin and his sergeant came, together. The latter was about to say something but Field produced his card and ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... object, what his scheme, for the amelioration of mankind's woes? Gerald's stomach warned him that coffee and rolls were far dearer to him than the downfall of tyranny's bastions, and impatiently he began whistling. The rhythmic thud never ceased. He noticed an open door at the back of the house, and he went out, his long legs carrying him about the yard, toward the beach. The air was glorious, a soft breeze blowing landward from the ocean. He almost forgot his hunger in the face of such a spectacle. The breakers were racing ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... came the faint thud of hoofs as two riders came warily up to the water-hole. One dismounted and stooped over Winthrop. The other sat ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with blackberry bushes—and the hot August sunshine—and he and Easter's Jim gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard again the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took the cartridges from two young men—brothers from the resemblance and from the fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his head on the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They lay like children ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... A.M.—Woke up just as we arrived at Bailleul to hear most incessant cannonade going on I ever heard, even at Ypres. The sky is continually lit up with the flashes from the guns—it is a pitch-dark night—and you can hear the roar of the howitzers above the thud-thud of the others. I think we are too far N. for there to be any French 75's in it. I had to wake Sister D. to see it, as she had never seen anything like it before. We are only a few miles ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... off, for in the terrible darkness sounded a low but perfectly audible thud! thud! thud! thud!—and also the subtle noise of some rough surface rasping gently over the stone. His nerves ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... up, slow, and off the wicket on the on-side. Perhaps if it had been allowed to pitch, it might have broken in and become quite dangerous. Mike went out at it, and hit it a couple of feet from the ground. The ball dropped with a thud and a spurting of dust in the road that ran along one side ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... a handful of pebbles from the path and threw them, one by one, against the wooden shutter, the thud of the last pebble being answered by a slight noise from within the room. Presently the shutter was opened ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... Swifts fled, on the night of the flood, the walls of their house had fallen with a thud, and only the strong beams remained standing. By the time the house collapsed, the baby in its cradle had drifted many miles down the river, along the banks of which much damage had been wrought. The cradle ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... Graustark sat agape. With his concluding words, Mr. Blithers deposited his clenched fist upon the table with a heavy thud, and, as if fascinated, every eye shifted from his face to the white ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... tumbled in on the heap of sails. Hour after hour, he lay comfortably there. He could hear the straining of the masts, the creaking of the boom, and the singing of the ropes with the roaring of the wind; also the surge of the waves past the ship's sides and the thud with which every now and ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald
... Seneca Lake. The horses which had brought the little company to the edge of the water, having been tied among the trees, made a constant rustling and trampling among the fallen leaves. The sharp rustle, the thud of the hoofs upon the ground, were sounds long connected in her mind with the crisis of her doubt, which then began. The maples stood above them, tall and leafless; the waters of the lake were leaden in hue and cold. Looking southward ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... procession, rouse your horse and take the lead at a pace neither too fast nor yet too slow, but in a way to bring out the best qualities in all the animals, their spirit, fire, grace of mien and bearing ripe for action—I say, if you take the lead of them in this style, the collective thud, the general neighing and the snorting of the horses will combine to render not only you at the head, but your whole company (10) down to the last ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... safe inside the room, than Peter began hurriedly to close the shutter, when we heard the report of a gun, and a bullet with a loud thud struck it. Fortunately the wood was thick, or one of us might have been shot. Peter, quick as lightning, closed the shutter and ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... saw us slipping through and ran at us with his stick. My mother went first and escaped him. Then came my sister, then I, then my brother. My father was last of all. The man hit with his stick and it came down thud along side of me, just touching my fur. He hit again and broke the foreleg of my brother. Still we all managed to get through into the wood, except ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... gripped me so hard, that the machine, slipping from my palsied hands, fell to the ground with a crash. The next instant something—for the life of me I knew not what, its outline was so blurred and indefinite—alighted on the open space in front of me with a soft thud, and remained standing as bolt upright as a cylindrical pillar. From afar off, there then came the low rumble of wheels, which momentarily grew in intensity, until there thundered into view a waggon, weighed down beneath a monstrous stack of hay, on the top of which sat a man ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... tossed them through the door on to Eustace's bed, and went on with his unpacking. A minute later he heard a shrill cry of terror. "Oh, Lord," he heard, "it's in the glove! Quick, Saunders, quick!" Then came a smacking thud. Eustace had thrown it from him. "I've chucked it into the bathroom," he gasped, "it's hit the wall and fallen into the bath. Come now if you want to help." Saunders, with a lighted candle in his hand, looked over the edge of the bath. There it was, old and maimed, dumb and blind, with a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... the number she had backed, and she opened a small silken bag, that already bulged with her evening's gains, and added the winnings of the last coup. At the same moment, some one pressing from behind jolted her arm, and the bag fell with a little thud, its contents spilling out on the floor. Tony, engrossed in the play, failed to notice the mishap and went on staking, but the Englishman, apparently quite unconcerned as to the chances he might be missing, stooped at once and collected the bag ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... commotion beyond the thicket, one sound running off among the trees, while the other, the greater sound, first made a brittle crash, then a ponderous thud as of a large object falling among ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... go forward, too, will you?" said Steve. Neil joined Phil and for some minutes the Adventurer stole quietly along through the grey void with little sound save the slow working of the engine below deck and the lazy thud of the propeller. It was so quiet that when Perry suddenly worked the fog-horn Han almost fell over the wet rail on which he was sitting. It was Ossie who broke ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... before he was sure that the thud of Whiskey Bill's hoofs was almost at his heels. He called on the cowpony for a last spurt. The plucky little horse answered the call, gathered itself for the home stretch, for a moment held its advantage. Again Bob Hart's ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... when the sudden glare of the sun caused him to blink and then sneeze. He caught his toe on the last step, stumbled, dropped his prize, and fell forward on to the deck. The canister struck the step, jolted twice, plunged to the bottom with a smart thud— ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was nearer than either of them dreamed. At that very moment the soft thud of the closing housedoor sounded through the house. It brought her sharply to her feet, and loose from his coiling arms, with quickened breath and blanching face. A moment she hung there, tense, then sped to the door of the room, set ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... bulls. I gave him a glancing blow that skinned his head for about three inches. The next time there was a crash, a jar that shook the boat and drew a shriek of terror from the passengers, for the nigger fell with a dull thud on the deck. He lay as stiff and cold as ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... if only the room had not been so dreadfully close, and I stood while the Professor looked at the bottles and finally picked one up and put it down again in the same place. Then, as if the exertion was too much for him, he sank with a thud into the chair. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... sport as if I had been waiting, rifle in hand, for big game. Soon the intruder peeped into my berth, looked cautiously around him, and then proceeded to walk stealthily across my feet. In an instant he was shot upwards. First was heard a sharp knock on the ceiling, and then a dull "thud" on the floor. The precise extent of the injuries inflicted I never discovered, for the victim had sufficient strength and presence of mind to effect his escape; and the gentleman at the other side of the cabin, who had been roused by the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... line of snow still glimmered white and cold high up beyond the trees until the trail plunged into the blackness of the forest. Then the lights of the settlement were blotted out behind them, the hum of voices ceased, and they were alone in the primeval silence of the bush. The thud and splash of tired hoofs only served to emphasize it, the thin jingle of steel or creak of pack-rope was swallowed up and lost, for the great dim forest seemed to mock at anything man could do to disturb ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the place was ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... minute (so long did it take the stone to fall that depth) we heard a muffled, distant, crunching thud—and then immediately after, a great hissing of escaping air. The Doctor, his face tense with anxiety, sat down in the throne again still watching the blue water of the ocean with ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... close-reefed maintopsail. The storm began late in the afternoon, and by nine o'clock the wind was at its height and the sea rapidly rising. The waves pounded like Titanic sledgehammers against the vessel's quivering timbers; the gale roared a deep diapason through the cordage; and the regular thud, thud, thud of the pumps, and the long melancholy whistling of the wind through the blocks, filled our minds with dismal forebodings, and banished all ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... door was being kept open to invite the whole town. The child stood her ground on the doorstep. An instant later a hand reached out, clutched her—it seemed by the hair— and dragged her inside. Then followed a strangling sob and the thud of heavy blows— ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... frying pork over the stove of a little ranch near the Dakota line, when there was a quick thud of hoofs outside, and presently the Easterner entered with the letters and ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... Virginia sensed rather than saw clearly the perfect, beautiful creature which carried her, delighted in the swinging gallop, drew into her soul something of the serene glory of a starlit night on the desert. The soft thud of shod hoofs upon yielding soil was music to her, mingled as it came with the creak of saddle leather, the jingle of bridle and spur-chains. She wondered if there had ever been so perfect a night, if she had ever mounted so finely ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... had left me I was on the upper deck and looking out to sea. I saw all at once the wash of a torpedo, indicated by a snake-like churn of the surface of the water. It may have been about thirty feet away. And then came a thud." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a questioning note in the cry now and the heavy thud-thud of feet was slacking. The clan party had seen them, were hesitant about the wisdom of trying ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... a few paces, then Hector gave another pull. The rope gave way at once. He flattened himself against the house, and the hook fell with a dull thud a foot or ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... shoulders as though to squeeze the information he needed out of her. But he got no answer, and, in a sudden access of demoniacal rage, he swung her round and hurled her across the room with all his strength. She fell with a thud, and beyond a low moan lay quite still. Her head had struck the sharp angle of ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... the ambulance by Tom and the driver, the former following with the horses. We took the route by which the troops had marched, the din of conflict increasing with every mile, the rattle of small arms mingling with the thud of guns. After weary hours of rough road, every jolt on which threatened to destroy my remaining vitality, we approached Cold Harbor and met numbers of wounded. Among these was General Elzey, with a dreadful wound in the head and face. His aide was ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... swept down on us, and past us, and I watched the prophet. His eyes were wide, his whole face expressing anguish. "Oh God, my Father!" he whispered, and seemed to quiver with each thud of the tramping feet on the pavement. After the storm had passed, he stood motionless, the pain still in his face "It is Rome! It is Rome!" ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... door. A moment later a thud from without, and the quick footsteps crunching on the snow told him that ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... third of the distance toward the buffaloes was covered when suddenly the herd stopped short. They had heard the dull thud of the horses' hoofs, and now looked around to see what the sound meant. Then came a wild snorting and throwing of shaggy heads, and away went the herd due west and making the best speed of which their ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer |
