"Breakneck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away abruptly; plunged into the first avenue he came to, lost his way twice and finally reached the courtyard, and thence escaped at breakneck speed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... comfortingly, "I'll admit that the sight of Sandy's calves is enough to make anybody weep, but he'll fatten up next summer—here's Mother!"—and he ran up the lane at a breakneck pace. ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... ingenious scheme of bolting, with that eccentricity of device which seems to characterise overfed carriage-horses. In an instant they were off, and it was clear there would be no stopping them—from a trot to a break, from a canter to a gallop, from a gallop to a tearing, breakneck, leave-your-bones-behind-you race, all in a moment, down to ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... on a street corner in Richmond, Va., one day, were suddenly aroused by a runaway team that came dashing toward them at breakneck speed. The driver, scared nearly to death, had abandoned his reins, and was awkwardly climbing out of the wagon at the rear end. One of the old negroes said: "Brer' Johnson, sure as you born man, de runaway horse am powerful gran' and a monstrous fine sight to see." Johnson shook his head doubtfully, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... on arrival, Mistress of Rhymes and Travelling Laureate to the party—an office, however honourable, that is no sinecure since it obliges me to write rhymed eulogies or diatribes on Dolgelly, Tan-y-Bulch, Gyn-y-Coed, Llanrychwyn, and other Welsh hamlets whose names offer breakneck fences to ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... shale went flying from the horse's hoofs as the sheriff tore down the trail toward Melissy. He cut off at an angle and dashed through cactus and over rain-washed gullies at breakneck speed, pounding up the stiff slope to the summit. He dragged his pony to a halt, and leaped off at ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... big strides now, and it was not long before, looking a good deal more amiable, he declared himself ready, and was in fact so ready that he raced with his brother down to the cliff— rather a breakneck proceeding, considering the steepness of the way; but they got down to the harbour in safety, and to Dick's delight he found that the lugger was not yet in, the progress by means of her sweeps having been very slow, and now for the first ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... walked for hours at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... clutched her head in both hands, and ran at breakneck pace towards the open country, to her father. I followed her. Every one stared ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... run, his bare feet unconsciously seeking the smooth driveway of the home-piece, and following it at breakneck speed till it ended in the road below the mesa. There the rougher going hindered him somewhat, but not greatly, and he kept to the highway till it reached a river and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... stationed in each principal town, chiefly as an escort to the governor of the province, their duties are performed by Chapars, an irregular force, equally dashing horsemen, and trained in like manner from early youth in those singular exercises and breakneck evolutions for which the Cossacks of the Caucasus have become so famous. Setting their horses at full gallop, they will stand on the saddle and fire all around at an imaginary enemy; or throw the body completely over to the right, with the left heel resting on their steed's ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... reached Dantzig that Napoleon was no longer with the army—that he had made over the parody of command of the phantom army to Murat, King of Naples—that he had passed like an evil spirit unknown through Poland, Prussia, Germany, travelling twelve hundred miles night and day at breakneck speed, alone, racing to ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... o' goin' in for any things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... ft.) associated with Joseph Rodman Drake's fanciful poem, The Culprit Fay. Two M. farther we leave the Highlands through the "Golden Gate," where Storm King Mt. rises to a height of 1,340 ft. on the west side of the Hudson, and Breakneck Mt. to a height of 1,365 ft. on the other. Near Storm King a tunnel of the great new Catskill aqueduct, carrying water to N.Y.C., passes under the Hudson at a depth of 1,100 ft.—a depth made necessary to reach solid ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... giant in his virtues and his vices and his frame—but exaggerated with such tact and ability that even the impossible hugeness charms and fascinates. The feats of the hero in the dance and carpeted salon, on his mighty hunter leading the breakneck chase, carry us away with all the heat and ardor of sympathy; nor do we stumble in our companionable excitement over any unwelcome snag of commonplace thought or vulgar daring. Constance Brandon, as we have above intimated, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... memory of a horse, Dollie recognized the track as a scene of bygone triumphs, and made straight for it. No rider urged her on as of old, no rivals were by her side; but Dollie of her own accord started around that course at a breakneck speed with a little girl ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... different type. This is what the modern illustration can do when the ripeness of the modern sense is brought to it and the wood-cutter plays with difficulties as the brilliant Americans do to-day, following his original at a breakneck pace. An illusion is produced which, in its very completeness, makes one cast an uneasy eye over the dwindling fields that are still left to conquer. Such art as Alfred Parsons'—such an accomplished translation of local aspects, translated ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... in bewilderment. In and out of this confusion the cowboys rode, following the animals selected for separation, forcing them out with devious turnings and twistings, and then running them madly in a series of breakneck crescent dashes over flats and hummocks, through dust and brush, until they had joined the smaller herd of choice animals which were to remain on the ranch. It was swift, sweaty, exhausting work, the kind these Mexicans loved, for ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... to stop him, but he was up outside behind somewhere, and I couldn't get at him. He didn't hear me call, nor see me flap my parasol in front, and there we were, quite helpless, rattling away, and whirling around corners at a breakneck pace. At last, in my despair, I saw a little door in the roof, and on poking it open, a red eye appeared, and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and Deck. Then, of a sudden, he drew his horse around and spoke to the animal. The intelligent equine understood, and with one marvellous leap, cleared the edge of the rocks and stood on the flat surface above. Without a halt, Captain Vallingham urged him forward, and away he went at a breakneck speed ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... of the yellow walls and buildings of the Holy City, and the sight then was not impressive, as we had expected. Then at the station, amid the noisy cries of many Arab drivers, we obtained seats in carriages, and were driven at breakneck speed over a good road down into the valley of Hinnom and up a long hill ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... could not reach the Rue Barbette too rapidly. He bundled a subordinate into a fiacre, and the three were driven off at breakneck speed. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... upon Fleet Market, and traversing it, turned up a narrow street to the bottom of a long, steep flight of stone steps called Breakneck Stairs. These led to Green Arbor Court, and down them Goldsmith many a time risked his neck. When we entered the Court, I could not but smile to think in what out of the way corners Genius produces her bantlings. The Court I found to be a small ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... rills; Versailles is a very sea of men. But above all, from the Church of St. Louis to the Church of Notre-Dame: one vast suspended-billow of Life,—with spray scattered even to the chimney-pots! For on chimney-tops too, as over the roofs, and up thitherwards on every lamp-iron, sign-post, breakneck coign of vantage, sits patriotic Courage; and every window bursts with patriotic Beauty: for the Deputies are gathering at St. Louis Church; to march in procession to Notre-Dame, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... evident that the bear couldn't go on much longer at this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... thing could not have happened save by the dishonesty and cynical disbelief of some priest, and indeed probably of more than one. And, upon the whole, it struck me as a second curious indication of the somewhat breakneck speed with which the threads of history are spinning themselves in these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... whirling through space, James Robinson turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last and most ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his three charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of cynicism, the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in the night wood and dream of ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... spirit in the ethereal feasts of poets. He was king of the ring, and facile princeps in the Greek chorus. He could "talk horse" with any jockey in the land; yet who like him could utter tender poetry and deep philosophy? He had no rival in following the hounds, or scouring the country in breakneck races; and none so careered over every field of learning. He angled in brooks and books, and landed many a stout prize. He would pick up here and there a "fly in amber," and add it to his stores. He was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... he spoke, of sundry breakneck gallops and mahlstrom waltzes danced in gardens and saloons, the very existence whereof was ignored by or unknown to respectability; and then thought, "If I were safely planted on the other side of the world with her for my wife, it would ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the enemy was doing, when we suddenly came across nine English spies, who fled as soon as they saw us. We galloped after them, trying to cut them off from the main body, which was at a little distance away from us, and would no doubt have overtaken them, but, riding at a breakneck speed over a mountain ridge, we found ourselves suddenly confronted with a strong English mounted corps, apparently engaged in drilling. We were only 500 paces away from them, and we jumped off our horses, and opened fire. But there were only a dozen ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... searched all over, first behind the curtains, then between the pedestals of the bureau, but Stingaree was nowhere in the room, and the bedroom door was still locked. It was a second look behind the curtains that revealed an open window and the scratch of a boot upon the white enamel. It was no breakneck drop ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... he would go before coming down again; but, for a wonder, they saw nothing, except a cloud of dust mixed with tan-bark, and when that had cleared away they discovered the black mare and her rider, apparently on the best of terms, dashing up the track at a breakneck pace. ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... humour. He had voluntarily assumed the whole charge of our drivers during the day, had distinguished himself by most unwearied efforts in raising fallen horses, getting them over breakneck places, and cheering up the disconsolate Kamchadals, and he now wrung the water out of his shirt, and squeezed his wet hair absent-mindedly into a kettle of soup, with a countenance of such beaming ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... no mischievous intent in Aaron's mind. He conducted Anna and Blanka to the verge of the gorge that separates the so-called Hidas Peak of the Szekler Stone from the Louis Peak. This ravine is a deep cutting, down which a steep, breakneck path leads directly to Toroczko, but is very seldom used. On the farther side of the gorge may be seen a cave in the rocks, popularly known as Csegez Cave. A rude stone rampart guards its mouth, and, as only a very narrow path along the ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... of the appearance of peril by the darkness; but the danger never occurred to Ram, who had been up these cliff-paths too often for his pleasure to heed the breakneck nature of the rough sheep-track up and up the face of the cliff, leading to where it became a steep slope, which ran in and on some four hundred feet, forming one of the highest points in ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... nothing to his sister, but again urged the marquis to mount his horse. And the marquis, who was in a sad tumult of triumph and of woe, leaped up, and they rode out, and, turning their faces towards the forest, set spurs to their horses, and vanished at breakneck speed into the glades. And no sooner were they gone than the troopers of the king's guard clattered at a canter up to the end of the bridge, where the Princess Osra stood. But when their captain saw the princess, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... larger scale many of the qualities that we may note in the American novelist Cooper, whose best stories are tales of adventure in the forest or on the sea. Like him, Scott shows lack of care in the construction of sentences. Few of the most cultured people of to-day could, however, write at Scott's breakneck speed and make as few slips. Scott has far more ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... through the night at a breakneck pace which they never slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound, where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost barred ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... whose jacket and cap the glitter of a little gold lace and his snow-white trousers proclaimed him to be that hero in embryo, a midshipman. Having looked about him for a few seconds, he began to descend the cliff at so seemingly breakneck a speed, that several of the ladies shrieked out to him to take care, and Mary Rymer turned somewhat pale and stood looking anxiously as the young sailor dropped from one point of rock to another, or slid down a steep incline, or swung himself by the branches of shrubs or tufts of ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... surefootedness of its owner is an assumption only—a piece of faith or impudence which fulfils itself. If some other animal were to induce the chamois to believe that it should at the least have feet with suckers to them, like a fly, before venturing in such breakneck places, or if by any means it could get to know how bad a foot it really has, there would soon be no more chamois. The chamois continues to exist through its absolute refusal to hear reason upon the matter. But the whole question ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... angrily whenever he thought of the indignity of that blow, while Margaret leaned over and tried to explain and beg pardon for her offense. The second fence was crossed with a clean-cut leap, and only once in the next field did the horse stumble, but quickly recovered and went on at the same breakneck gait. The next fence, gallantly vaulted over, brought them to the side road, half a mile up which stood the doctor's house. Margaret saw the futility of attempting a reconciliation until the goal was won. There, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... I saw what at first sight (the day being on the wane and the wood gloomy) I took to be three men amusing themselves with a little cudgel-play. But a second glance showed me that something much more like murder than cudgel-play was going on; and shortening my Irish blackthorn, I rushed at breakneck ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... best of our repast, and after an hour's rest we made another start. We left the river now, and seemed to climb a breakneck hill for interminable hours. The region was barren and absolutely waterless, while the heat was tremendous. I only remember one view during that broiling ride. We had reached a great altitude, and were crossing a narrow ridge. On one side was the Moraca, and ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... London and York would carry passengers the distance of one hundred and eighty-eight miles in the astonishingly short space of four days. This coach, of course, traveled by relays, and at what was then considered breakneck speed. Over this same highway it would now be an easy feat for a powerful car to cover the distance in three or four hours. The great North Road was originally constructed by the Romans to maintain the quickest ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... was so much more graceful and athletic than the other women that she soon outstripped them. She skated almost entirely with Stefan, only once with Gunther, who, since his strange look in the sleigh, a little troubled her. On that one occasion he tore round the clear ice at breakneck speed, halting her dramatically, by sheer weight, a few inches from the bank, where ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... reached him and, mounting his horse, he dashed straight across country for the scene of action. He was then, however, fully twenty miles from the field and there seemed but little chance of his reaching it any time to be of any service. Nevertheless, he spurred forward at a breakneck pace and his splendid horse, responding gamely, fairly flew over the ground, racing along mile after mile at killing speed in a lather of foam and sweat, until the battle field was reached just as the Union troops came reeling back, panic-stricken, under cover of a thin line of troops ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... This church was subsequently burned to the ground, and its very site was not certainly known until recent times. In the year 1867 some workmen were employed in laying water-pipes beneath the flight of stairs called "Breakneck Steps," leading from Mountain Hill to Little Champlain street. Under a grating at the foot of the steps they discovered the vaults of the old Recollet church, with the remains of the Father of New France enclosed. Independently of his energy, perseverance, ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... occupation or leaped from their beds to run to the engine-house. Thence the hand-engines were dragged through the streets at a terrific rate of speed by hundreds of yelling men at the end of the ropes. The first engine at a fire obtained the place of honor; therefore every alarm was the signal for a breakneck race. Arrived at the scene of fire, the water-box of one engine was connected by hose with the reservoir of the next, and so water was relayed from engine to engine until it was thrown on the flames. The motive power of the pump was supplied by the crew of each engine. The men on either side ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... mistake the Inverness came surging back, the captain taking refuge in the Gaelic to express his dismay. They were just in time, for there he was tearing down the street in his buggy, Miss Annabel Armstrong and Mrs. Captain Willoughby squeezed in beside him and the horse going at such a breakneck pace that the dust and stones flew up on every side and there was danger that they would drive right into the lake. They stopped just on the brink. Lawyer Ed leaped out, flung the lines to a lounger on the dock bidding him ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the crowd at a breakneck speed, Dan Baxter in their midst. But at the first opportunity the bully turned to the southward and he disappeared when a ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... of them, streaming south at breakneck speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down the street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men in overalls drawn up, ready, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Turning his eyes in the direction of the sound, which ascended with startling distinctness through the night air, he presently saw a gleam shoot above the hill; and now the great touring-car came on at breakneck pace, searching the dusty highway a hundred yards in advance with ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... remains, and is so tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I think of going out some night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of petticoat trousers, and running an empty tub, as a kind of archaeological pursuit. Let nobody with corns come to Pavilionstone, for there are breakneck flights of ragged steps, connecting the principal streets by back-ways, which will cripple that visitor in half an hour. These are the ways by which, when I run that tub, I shall escape. I shall make a Thermopylae of the corner of one of them, defend it with my ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... happy life; and all threw themselves into it so heartily, that it was impossible to help getting great good from it, for these summer weeks, if well spent, work miracles in tired bodies and souls. Frank took a fancy to the bicycle boy, and, being able to hire one of the breakneck articles, soon learned to ride it; and the two might be seen wildly working their long legs on certain smooth stretches of road, or getting up their muscle rowing about the bay till they were almost as brown and nautical in appearance ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... face, breathless with passion, the stillness . . . little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I listened to her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and enjoyed the novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave a scream, and ran into the house at breakneck speed. ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that fearful descent, at once the despair and delight of engineers. The mountain fell away rapidly as the long, clumsy train raced down its flank at a breakneck pace. Pobloff shivered and clutched the arms of his seat. He saw nothing but deep blue sky and the tall top of an occasional tree. The racket was terrific, the heat depressing. She sat in her corner, apparently sleeping, while the giant smiled, always smiled, never removing his ugly ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... letters in my pocket were not readable. Later on, when clothes were scarce and pockets past mending, I often made the unpleasant discovery that caused the fool, on his journey from the land of Kokanje, to cry to the King: 'We have ridden at such a breakneck pace, see, everything has slipped through this little hole!' Now I am obliged to write down my adventures without any notes, so dates, numbers, and names of places will occasionally be missing. It stands to reason that I—being an exile in a strange country, in the fort of ... in ..., ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... with keen eyes for the trees and branches ahead. I drew up my knees and bent my body, and dodged and went down flat over the pommel like a wild-riding Indian. Target kept that straining run for a longer distance than I could judge. With the same breakneck speed he thundered on over logs and little washes, through the thick, bordering bushes, and around the sudden turns. His foam moistened my face and flecked my sleeves. The wind came stinging into my face, the heavy roar followed at my back ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I knew that Jonathan was not far off. Looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at breakneck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and after looking intently till ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... little huddle of huts had nothing to do but to sit in their doorways and suspect. Whatever came their way from the sea for many months had brought them disaster and long since they had learned to defend themselves. So now, when a party riding at breakneck speed, bearing with them an old man on whom the inertia of death was plain, came across the frontiers of their little town, they met them with the convenient stones of their rocky streets, with their savage, stark-ribbed dogs, with offal from kitchen heap and donkey ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... could see the windows of the House, and, since he was sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again. Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... and just as the Indians were near enough to fill the back of the coach with arrows, Billy made his team jump ahead once more, and at breakneck speed they rushed down the steep road, the vehicle swaying wildly, and the passengers within not knowing whether they would be dashed to pieces, or scalped by the Indians, or which death would be the most to ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... stables, nothing was safe. The Germans had their bacon stolen from the larder; the gospodarz Marcinezak, who returned rather tipsy from absolution, was attacked by men with blackened faces and thrown out of his cart, with which the robbers drove off at breakneck speed. Even the poor tailor Niedoperz, when crossing a wood, was relieved of the three roubles he had earned ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... my self-possession. I had been there perhaps an hour and had begun to write an account of my morning's adventure when I heard a wild voice pealing down the road and the stumbling clatter of a horse's hoofs at a dangerous, breakneck speed, and the horseman passed and in his passage, swift as it was, we recognised each other. I knew the man quite well; he was an English doctor, and I felt as keen a pang of pity as I have ever experienced in my life as I recognised ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... were loosed, an' she sat back white as he; an' down over the hill they swung at a breakneck gallop, ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from me this illuminated missal of memories, and were I to be banished to-morrow, I should have Spain to keep in my heart, I said, as we rushed down the steep, winding way that serpentined along the southern slope of the Guadarrama. A breakneck road it was, but nobly engineered, twisting back upon itself in many coils, letting us fly with the speed of a bird to lower levels; and it seemed that scarcely had we sunk over the brink of the mountain than we were ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... got into the privacy of the fo'c'sle neither spoke. She was breathless, partly with indignation, partly with indefinable fear and partly with the breakneck speed at which he had rushed her along the deck. He sat down on the anchor; she stood before him, her back to the rail, which she gripped with her hands. Her first impulse was to shake him thoroughly. But she resisted it ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... others, which he had written in a more sentimental vein, had appeared unduly presumptuous. He finally sealed it and gave it to Pete, with terrific threats of personal violence in case of anything preventing its prompt delivery. While Pete was galloping off to Lexington at breakneck speed, the Colonel was wondering what ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... closely. He had another purpose in making his breakneck ride. He didn't have a dollar in the Patapsco, and he knew the colonel had not; he, like himself, was too shrewd a man to be bitten twice by the same dog; but he had a large interest in Harry and would leave no stone unturned to ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... that were fast wheeling me over the dangerous trail and possibly into a camp of hostile Indians. I gave no thought to danger for I was too busy keeping the fiery little beasts to the trail. They were going at breakneck speed with no sign of tiring, so I let them go enjoying the sport even more than they. My hat went flying with the wind, I looked back, but could not see the ranch. How far I had left it behind, or what distance I had covered, ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... acquired a keener sense of proportion since the days when I had first climbed the breakneck ladder of Slater's Mews, and I now realised that the great mass of toiling humanity ignored our existence, and that the slow, patient work of the ages was hardly likely to be helped or hindered by our efforts. I did not depreciate the value ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... foot of the breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... hillock behind, with its graven head-mark, had borne to her heart a new fear that perhaps her mother, too, would soon sleep upon the hillside. She put the thought of her father away, and centered her efforts on reaching the station and the doctor. As she galloped at breakneck speed, the damp wind swept her face, cutting it sharply, and whipped out her horse's mane and tail till they fluttered on a level ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... was from the seventeen-year-old son of John Baker. He was on the road on horseback and noticed the water coming out of a cavity about five feet in diameter, and not waiting to see any more he put spurs to his horse and dashed for the town at breakneck speed. Some of the people of this place saw him coming at great speed, waving his hat, and knowing something was wrong at once gave the alarm, and grabbing their children started for the high parts. When he arrived almost at Railroad street, his own home, the water was already in the roadway, and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... and boisterously talking among themselves. Just as they reached the house a horseman came clattering down the road and all paused involuntarily to mark the new arrival. The rider was a handsome, slim young fellow, dressed as were the other cowboys present, and he came on at a breakneck speed that seemed only warranted by an errand of life ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... because I was anxious to hear what he had done at Scotland Yard. However, he did not come, so I wired him to the latter place, left a short note for him also at the hotel, to be kept till called for, and started off in a cab (when I dared delay no longer) at breakneck pace for ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... along at a breakneck pace to make up for lost time. How good it was to sniff the fresh air, and to be free, and then to think of that hour put into solid work over the book-list! Why, he glowed all over with delight at the ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... not wait for explanations. He sent for his horse and mounted and rode across the intervening space at a breakneck gallop that he could barely stop in time to save himself from knocking the colonel over. A second later he was in ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Artless went at breakneck speed that day, shied at the most unexpected moments, bolted right round, and stopped short occasionally; but Beth sat tight mechanically, following her own fancies. Captain Caldwell was going to inspect one of the outlying ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... seed de Ku Klux a comin', us would take an' run breakneck speed to de nearest wood. Dar we would stay till dey wuz plum out o' sight and you could not even hear de horses feet. Dem days wuz worse'n de war. Yes Lawd, dey wuz worse'n any war I is ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... breakneck riding, and they got a cart and some bedding and carried Ben to Anderson's, which was handiest, if not nearest, and there was more wild and ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... him alive," came the hesitating reply; and away went the calvary men at a breakneck ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... brush and over the rocks with reckless speed. With a low exclamation of wondering admiration, the man climbed hastily to a higher point, and from there watched until horse and rider, taking a steeper declivity without checking their breakneck course, dropped from sight in a cloud of dust. The faint sound of the sliding rocks and gravel dislodged by the flying feet died away; the cloud of dust dissolved in the thin air. The stranger looked away into the blue distance in another vain attempt to ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... for him at the Hotel Regina Margherita. There were no flowers, no books. Maurice tingled—his whole body tingled for a moment—and he felt like a man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for which he had trampled down ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who was pursuing the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase towards the north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence of more than common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme was in no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own cab shouting, "Stop thief!" until crowds ran along beside his cab, and policemen began to stop and ask questions. All this had its influence upon the President's cabman, who began to look dubious, and to slow ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... Creole friend from Louisiana, he slipped down to Bennie Haven's on a frolic—taking French leave, of course. The alarm was given of the approach of an instructor, and the two culprits bolted for the barracks at breakneck speed through pitch darkness. Scrambling madly through the woods, there was a sudden cry, a crash and silence. He had fallen sixty feet over a precipice to the banks of the Hudson. Young Laserre crawled carefully to the edge of the ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... received several severe wounds on my hands and feet, and frequently fell down on the ground, when I trusted for support to the treacherous stem of a banana, which would break beneath my grasp. It was really a breakneck sort of excursion, which is very rarely made even by the officers, and certainly ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Humboldt, and thought I might as well touch him up a little at the same time and make him ridiculous, and thus combine pleasure with business. So I told, in patient, belief-compelling detail, all about the finding of a petrified-man at Gravelly Ford (exactly a hundred and twenty miles, over a breakneck mountain trail from where —— lived); how all the savants of the immediate neighborhood had been to examine it (it was notorious that there was not a living creature within fifty miles of there, except a few starving Indians; some crippled grasshoppers, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ease his hand upon the reins. Instantly the horses sprang into a gallop. So intent was he that for the moment the change passed unnoticed. He seemed only to have eyes and thought for that distant hill-top. Then of a sudden he realized the dangerous breakneck speed, and turned his attention upon ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... "Hurry!" And she spurred off at breakneck speed in pursuit, myself following, both of us now forgetting poesy, and quite become creatures of ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... were swarming out of the cabin to taste the clean air and limber their cramped muscles. The ship still wallowed as she ran before the wind and it was breakneck work to clamber about. From the topsail yards fluttered mere ribbons of canvas where the reefed sails had bellied. Ned Rackham shouted for the watch to lay aloft and cut the remnants clear and bend new cloths to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... be left alone all day, and you spend a fortune in driving backward and forward in those horrid breakneck cabs? My darling, I should die there—die of fright, I know I should. Did you not say yourself that the road was not as yet lighted, and that the place swarmed with public-houses and dreadful tipsy Irish bricklayers? Would you ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened. By the autumn they were across the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the picture of the yawning precipice toward which the frantic rider was hurrying at breakneck speed. He raised his revolver and fired into the air. The signal was instantly acted on, for in another moment a lathering, heaving pony dashed up to them, and the rider leaped ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... grey dawn came, spreading to a bright autumn morning. The roads outside were dry and dusty. I meant, in a few hours, to make a breakneck dash out of Dresden, and to hide somewhere in the country. To attempt to escape by rail would be folly. But if either man was on the watch and invited himself to go for a ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... Hanson arrived, with a waggonful of our effects and two of his wife's relatives to lend him a hand. The elder showed surprising strength. He would pick up a huge packing-case, full of books of all things, swing it on his shoulder, and away up the two crazy ladders and the breakneck spout of rolling mineral, familiarly termed a path, that led from the cart-track to our house. Even for a man unburthened, the ascent was toilsome and precarious; but Irvine sealed it with a light foot, carrying box after box, ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fast that at first we did not know what had passed us till the dogs came tumbling after at breakneck speed. They were such old hands at the game that they gave their quarry a bad time of it for awhile, turning and doubling on his tracks till we were almost as excited and bewildered as the poor coon. Little Mary Ware just stood and wrung her hands, and once when the dogs were almost on ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the Tyri Fjord. There is no attempt here, nor indeed upon the most of the Norwegian roads we travelled, to mitigate, by well-arranged curves, the steepness of the hills. Straight down you go, no matter of how breakneck a character the declivity may be. There are no drags to the carrioles and country carts, and were not the native horses the toughest and surest-footed little animals in the world, this sort of travel would ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... floated off! She came off on the high tide!" cried Pierce; and instantly there was a stampede from the hillside towards the beach. Pell-mell the mutineers tumbled down over bush and brier at a breakneck speed to reach the boat that tossed idly on ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... another. Before long not a cab anywhere waited at its stand. Every one held an officer or two, if only an un-uniformed bank-officer or captain of police, and rattled up or down this street and that, taking corners at breakneck risks. That later the drays began to move was not so noticeable, for a dray was but a dray and they went off empty except for their drivers and sometimes a soldier with a musket and did not return. Moreover, as they went there began to be seen from ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... thousands of feet above the level of the sea. Then on again, swinging away at a rapid pace down into a mighty valley; rattling through galleries cut in the solid rock; then out again into the grateful sunlight; taking the sharp curves of the road at the same breakneck speed; with always below them—and so far below them that it was silent—a rushing river sweeping down between fair pastures and dots of villages. As the evening fell, this clatter of hoofs and wheels came to a sudden end; for they were entering the town of Chiavenna, and there ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... questions he ran across the road and began to walk at breakneck speed down the hill. He hardly knew where he was walking. Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind. He strode down the hill amid the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... he failed to understand his companion's excitement. After all they were merely bent upon "roping" a stray horse. The girl galloped on at breakneck speed; the heavy black ringlets of hair were swept like an outspread fan from under the broad brim of her Stetson hat, her buckskin bodice ballooning in the wind as rider and horse charged along, utterly indifferent to the nature of the country they were traveling—indifferent ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... really know what it was that he was so furious to force from her. In every way that he could think of in his anger, he tried to make her say a thing she did not really know. She held out and never answered anything he asked her, for Melanctha had a breakneck courage and she just then ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... many other wealthy exiles, amongst whom I chiefly remember a cavalry captain of the name of Bansemer, a man of unlimited kindness, but of a rather frivolous nature; he possessed a marvellous team of four horses which he drove at such breakneck speed as to cause great annoyance to the people of Leipzig. Another man of importance with whom I remember dining was General Bem, whose artillery had made such a ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... without a moment's notice, she had been literally showered with hankies by the little First-Formers. However, Sally May was discovered on her feet about to make a speech. Sally May, usually so glib of tongue, moistened her lips several times, and then, holding out the bouquet, she delivered at breakneck speed the little speech which she had ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... I, "it refreshes me. Do you remember when you and I used to run hand in hand from the top to the bottom of Breakneck Hill? Oh, Philip, I do wish we could never quarrel any more! I think we might keep ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... give no thanks. I found my girl descending on the road Of breakneck coquetry, and barred her way. Either she leaps the bar, or she must back. That means she marries you, or says ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of our departure from home. Northerly wind; still drifting south. Observations to-day gave 81 deg. 41' 7'' north latitude, so we are not going at a breakneck speed. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... of the field the scene had been arranged. It represented a hill road, over which the dispatch bearer must ride at breakneck speed. For picturesque purposes Hal wore a surgeon's field case, hanging over one shoulder by a strap. In actual war time his real dispatches would have been hidden somewhere in his clothing, his shoes, or what-not ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... what the English have done," said Clara, pointing down the sheer rock. "It will be a long time before you and I go down Breakneck Stairs again to see the pretty images in the church of Our ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... alertness and his lightning-like decisions marked him apart from every other commander. His career in the Tennessee campaign was meteoric. Of his score and more of great conflicts, the most picturesque was his wonderful battle at Cedar Creek, to fight which he rode at breakneck speed "from Winchester twenty miles away" through the dust and debris of a broken army to the extreme front, rallying the scattered regiments and turning a defeat into a crushing victory, which recovered all that had been lost, taking 25 cannon and 1,200 prisoners, and driving ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... among the fishermen was tremendous. As fast as we hooked a net the two ends of it, buoy and boat, came together as they dragged out astern; and so many buoys and boats, coming together at such breakneck speed, kept the fishermen on the jump to avoid smashing into one another. Also, they shouted at us like mad to heave to into the wind, for they took it as some drunken prank on the part of scow-sailors, little dreaming that ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... plunge at breakneck speed down the stretch, circle at the forest edge, and come tearing back. Silvermane was pulling the roan faster than he had ever gone in his life, but the dark Indian kept his graceful seat. The speed slackened on the second turn, and decreased as, mile after mile, the imperturbable ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... touched turf, with one look back at him, she was off. Had she all the time meant to give him this breakneck chase—or had the loveliness of that Autumn day gone to her head—blue sky and coppery flames of bracken in the sun, and the beech leaves and the oak leaves; pure Highland colouring come ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... our descent. Such recklessness made me uneasy, when suddenly twelve horsemen rode headlong at us, and sought to stop the postilions. My six horses were new ones and very fresh; they galloped along at breakneck speed. Our pursuers fired at the coachman, but missed him, and the report of a pistol terrified the horses yet further. They redoubled their speed. We gave ourselves up for lost, as an accident of some sort seemed bound to ensue, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Two burghers—bread spies as we call them—had gone ahead to buy some bread at a farm where a party of the enemy was stationed. Not aware of that, they rode up to the house, with the result that one got captured, while the other returned under a hail of bullets at a breakneck pace to relate the fate of his comrade. De Wet immediately sent in a note asking the enemy to surrender, since they numbered only about twenty. They answered shortly: 'We won't.' They were then charged, and up went the white flag without ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... surrounded by the insurgents at Theriso, having lost our road in the dark, and most of the party taken prisoners. I and my veteran cavass, Hadji Houssein, broke through with a guest,—Colonel Borthwick, an English officer in the Turkish service,—escaping down a breakneck hillside in the dark to save him and his two orderlies from capture by the insurgents, a trifling thing for us who were known as the friends of the Cretans, but a serious matter possibly for Turkish ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Graves; all Christendom couldn't keep me in Dexter after four o'clock this afternoon. Good-by." And Crosby climbed into the hansom and was driven away at breakneck speed ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... Peter at a steady pace, never varying his gait. But, on either side of him groups of his followers urged their horses forward at breakneck speed. Three or four would send home the spurs and rush up the river bottom after Andrew. If he did not hurry on they opened fire with their rifles from a short distance and sent a hail of random bullets, but Andrew knew that a random bullet carries just as much force ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... his horse on the muzzle with his whip, and galloped off at a breakneck pace. Tihon Ivanitch bowed to me twice, once for himself and once for his companion, and again set off at a ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... above them that the atmosphere was damp and the long strip of sky was like a pale-blue banner. The trail was well worn, and there was nothing to impede their progress. The mustangs responded to the lifted bridle and ran at breakneck speed. They emerged at the end of half an hour. It was an abrupt sally, and the great level plain before them seemed ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... a breakneck pace, the driver whipping up his horse, lashing it in a way that horrified Chester. The light little carriage rocked from side ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... fly and feed now in pairs; the rookery is alive with them. To the steeple the jackdaws have returned and fly round and round; now one holds his wings rigid and slides down at an angle of sixty degrees at a breakneck pace, as if about to dash himself in fragments on ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... course, he had never had an experience like this before; but somehow he seemed to understand that the first, indeed, only thing to be done, was to get the woman and child in the sleigh some way or other, and then make for home at breakneck speed. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... all through Canada from Montreal to the West," said Roselle, continuing upon the breakneck course she seemed to have chosen in ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... quirt fell with a swish on the flank of the girl's pony. He did not wait for a second hint, but started down the steep slope "on the jump." Before Ashton realized what was happening, his own horse was following at the same breakneck pace. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... until a quarter to eleven. But all this aside, as I understand it, you are asserting that, having given you all this trouble to-day, and knowing that you were after me, I deliberately hopped into a cab fifteen minutes ago, came up Fifth Avenue at such breakneck speed that this officer thought it was a runaway, and finally jumped out and ran up-stairs here to fire a revolver three times, for no purpose whatsoever beyond bringing you ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... stars, and through the sleeping streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste. He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon discovered the force of his governing touch,—the resolve of his urging speed. He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi's hurried description of the route ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and descried, galloping at the top of his speed, Black Bounce, and on his back was Phil Wentworth. Behind him at breakneck pace came six of the shearers—tall, brawny men, the very sight of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, but with two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, the wet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down the weed-covered slopes in a very breakneck fashion. I rather felt for the bladderheads who refuse to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... may, such dramatic and literary tendencies have produced their effect, and the popular impression of the doctor is that of a man who spends his time between rushing at breakneck speed to save the lives of those who suddenly find themselves in articulo mortis and will perish unless he gets there within fifteen minutes, and dancing attendance upon a swarm of old hypochondriacs, neurotics, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... sight was running, and at remarkable speed too; but whether or not it was the apparition of the boat that had startled them I could not tell, for about half of them seemed to be hastening at breakneck speed toward a part of the beach about half a mile ahead, where a group of some forty or fifty blacks had already gathered, close to the water's edge, and seemed to be engaged, in feverish haste, in collecting stones, or lumps of coral. Other groups, which I believed ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... clean jump. 'Now, that is what I call damn good sleight of hand, Brigalow!' he cried; and, producing a short, heavy green-hide whip from his shirt, he lashed the horse mercilessly, and went riding at a breakneck pace down the gully, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... burst into sight, galloping down the steep trail at breakneck speed, flinging down a small avalanche of shale with them. One of them caught sight of the girl, drew up so short that his horse slid to its haunches, and leaped from the saddle in a cloud ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... scrawny, speedy little beast, called Le Coq Noir, the champion trotter of the region. "He, Coq!" shouted the driver, flourishing his whip, at the top of the first long hill; and they started off at a breakneck pace. They passed through the village of Sacre Coeur a mile and a half ahead of the other wagon. But on the first steep cote beyond the village, the inevitable happened. The buckboard went slithering down the ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... Ormiston had been leading his own horse by the bridle, and as Sir Norman silently complied with this suggestion, in five minutes more they were in their saddles, and galloping at breakneck speed toward the city. To tell the truth, one was not more inclined for silence than the other, and the profoundest and thoughtfulest silence was maintained till they reached it. One was thinking of Leoline, the other of La Masque, and both were badly in love, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... received the fee for her services without acknowledgment, and saw us depart on our breakneck expedition with an indifference equalled only by the nonchalance with which she had admitted us on our arrival. The moment our backs were turned, she resumed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... rocky crest above, she heard excited cries. Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of the pine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face looking over the edge ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... screaming, to the nearest field hospital. The journey was made in double-quick time, over rough Belgian roads. To save his life, he must reach the hospital without delay, and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed, it did not matter. That was understood. He was a deserter, and discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job, his life must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well enough to be stood up against a wall and shot. ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... before she began to realize that the horse was no longer going at quite such a breakneck speed, or else she was growing accustomed to the motion and getting her breath, she could not quite be sure which. But little by little she perceived that the mad flying had settled into a long lope. ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... evidently valued little the life of their children. As I was sitting on the doorstep waiting for my dinner to be cooked, down came, galloping at a breakneck speed and riding bareback, a little child of eight, carrying slung under his arm a smaller child of one, the latter squealing terribly. They both landed safely at the door. Then there appeared one of the picturesque carts drawn by twelve oxen, anxiously awaited ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... boy, and, without waiting to know that I had heard him, he dashed off at breakneck speed, further into the bowels of the temple. As fast as he went, however, I was still beside him, urging ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... down to the township. It is scarcely needful to say that Dandy Jack considers it incumbent on him to make his entrance into Helensville with as much flourish and eclat as possible. Accordingly, we proceed along the downhill track at breakneck speed, and come clattering and shouting into the village, amid much bustle and excitement. We are finally halted in an open space before the hotel, which is evidently intended to represent a village ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... along at breakneck speed. When he was some twenty paces off, Jim swung round, levelled his rifle ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... had gone a dozen yards there was a loud b-a-ah! from overhead, and the goat came bounding down from rock to rock in the most breakneck fashion; but it ended by leaping into their track, and ran up and butted its ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... out to the latter in a voice of thunder to rally and return to the fight, and in a minute or two they were all climbing the hill again, going from tree to tree, and shooting at the soldiers on the summit. Campbell's horse, exhausted by the breakneck galloping hither and thither over the slope, gave out; he then led the men on foot, his voice hoarse with shouting, his face blackened with powder; for he was always in the front of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift in the clouds? But as she reared ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... critic, diplomatist, speaker, and writer on political subjects. We feel that he sometimes narrowly escaped being a genius, and that he might have crossed the boundary line into genius-land, if he had confined his attention to one department of literature and had been willing to write at less breakneck speed, taking time and thought to prune, revise, and suppress more of his productions. Not a few, however, think that Lowell, in spite of his defects, has left the impress of genius on some of his work. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... he hurried away to Williamsburg, and travelled at such a breakneck speed that Bishop was more puzzled than ever over the conduct of his master. He had sacrificed his well-earned reputation for promptitude on the day before, and now he seemed to be no longer merciful to his beast; quite enough to perplex the servant beyond measure. However, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... view of life, until only fools or knaves can hold to their opinions. We take a sight at a condition in life, and say we have studied it; our most elaborate view is no more than an impression. If we had breathing space, we should take the occasion to modify and adjust; but at this breakneck hurry, we are no sooner boys than we are adult, no sooner in love than married or jilted, no sooner one age than we begin to be another, and no sooner in the fulness of our manhood than we begin to decline towards the grave. It is in vain to seek for ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson |
