"Tensely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... captor waited tensely. From time to time the latter glanced at his watch. "Better hope that call does the trick, Swift," he muttered. "It's the only hope you ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... me in the wilds, your highness," he said tensely; "I am trusting you now." Before she could reply the officer in charge of the Ganlook gates appeared at the coach window. There were lights on all sides. Her heart sank like lead. It would be a miracle if she passed the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... six minutes before he moved again from that attitude of clenched hands and tensely strung muscles into which his sudden ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... of the arms, chest, and back. They practice leaping, running, and lifting weights. Some standing at their full height, brace up the muscles of the shoulder and upper arm, and then leaping up, allow themselves to fall to earth on the tensely strung muscles of the shoulder. This severe exercise gets the muscles into perfect form, and few, very few indeed of our untrained youths, could cope in a dead lock, or fierce struggle, with a good village Hindoo or Mussulman in active training, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... a sound from the street level. Calendar held up a hand of warning. "Here they come! Steady!" he said tensely. Kirkwood, listening intently, interpreted the noise as a clash ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... from loss of blood, lay watching the wolf as it crouched tensely. Again the great gray shadow lunged and a bright streak sprung up on the dog's side. "Gee Gosh!" whined Sundown; "he can't stand much more of that!" Undoubtedly Chance knew it, for he straight-way gathered himself and leaped in, diving low for the wolf's fore leg. As the wolf turned his shoulder, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... sense of non-comprehension, joy leapt to his own, transforming the white, unhappy gravity of his face to swift, questioning eagerness; while at the same time he breathed tensely, "Ethel!... you!" ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... There was another rustle in the bushes. "Halt!" came the second warning. Luckily the man was an old soldier, whose nerves were well seasoned. There would be only one more warning; the bullet would come then. Tensely the sentry listened. In the jungle one does not wait long out of curiosity. Just as he was about to utter his ultimatum and emphasize it with lead, a slender form tottered through the bushes ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... heard strange sounds all around him, in the room itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the wall against which his ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... was interrupted, and slowly and deliberately came an "I, I, B." Alex leaped in his chair, and again strained forward tensely. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... my knowledge of him to come down from his idealistic dreaming. He cared for Trenchard like a child, but never obtrusively. Trenchard seemed to appreciate it, but there was something about him that I did not like. His nerves were tensely strained, he did his work with his eyes fixed upon some impossible distance, he often did not hear us when ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... now. There seemed to be a bowling party going on upstairs. We could also hear plainly the rattle of dishes and a lively interchange of informalities from the kitchen end of the establishment. We lay awake tensely. Shortly after one o'clock these particular sounds died away, but there was a steady tramp of feet over our heads until three. About this hour, also, the bridge party broke up and the ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... walk up and down his narrow prison in the effort to keep warm. He had just turned to retrace his steps, on one such occasion, when his ears caught the soft pat-pat of a footfall on the ground above. He instantly became motionless and tensely alert, wondering which of his enemies was so stealthily ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... Peg, breathlessly. She rushed at once to her point. "I went home this morning. I saw my stepfather and Ben Travers. You don't know him, but he works at Heeler's." She stopped, breathless. "Is there any trouble round there?" she asked tensely. ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... the street door, hung there tensely for a moment to make sure they were not observed by any chance passer-by, then stepped out on the sidewalk. Gypsy Nan ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... the table tensely, and he says: "Dear friends of mine, I've let you dip your fingers in my purse; I've crammed you at my table, and I've drowned you in my wine, And I've little left to give you but—my curse. I've failed ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... Tensely she watched, in a suspense that racked her whole body. Guy reached the bend first. There was room for only one upon that narrow ledge. He went round the curve with the confidence of one who fully expected a clear path ahead. And then—on the very edge of the precipice—he caught ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... forward. There was no break in it now, but one could see a kind of uneasy ripple, almost as though it held its mob breath tensely and waited to see ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... big hands went up to his face suddenly, and the strong fingers clasped tensely above his forehead. Between his wrists one could see that his mouth was set in a hard line. "Dead!" he said. "And ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Charlie, tensely, "that you whites with your Constitution and your Declaration of Independence are a lot ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... some or all of the cargo is taken out and portaged to the next 'steady' in the river. Rapids are so common in some journeys that canoemen think less of them than foxhunters think of five-barred gates. In most cases a mistake means death; so every nerve and muscle is kept tensely ready the whole run through. The current should be 'humoured'; for it does a surprising amount of the work itself. If rightly headed with the main throw of it the canoe will {36} naturally tend to seek the ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... "But," Jim observed, tensely, "Pedro is not only Leddy's bitter partisan and ready to do his bidding, Pedro's a bit loco, besides—the kind that hesitates at nothing when he gets a grudge. You've got ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Miles, who had sat with her hands tightly locked and her great haggard dark eyes roving tensely from one to another—"you and I were partners, weren't we?... Of course! Remember you were dummy and I played the hand? You went out to telephone, didn't you?... That's right! I remember clearly now! Flora said she had to telephone the house to ask how her ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... The minds were so tensely absorbed in this scheme that nobody heard Boule de Suif coming in. But the Count whispered a gentle: "Hush!" which caused all eyes to look up. There she stood. There was a sudden silence and a certain embarrassment ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... seemed hypnotically drawn to the table pointed out, but he kept them tensely riveted on his ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... short, jabbing, stiff left forearm which perplexed the heavier man. She saw the latter set himself to swing, and take it in the face, and go off balance. And set and take it again. And she didn't cry out any more. She leaned forward, so tensely set herself in every muscle that she found she was tired ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... (he throws himself on the ground before the dais and whispers low and tensely to ISEULT). "For they who drink thereof Together, so shall love with every sense Alive, yet senseless—with their every thought, Yet thoughtless, too, in life, in death, for aye— Yet he, who having known the wond'rous bliss Of that intoxicating cup of love. Spits out the draught disloyally, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... knew he was crying because he could taste the tears, and he knew he was going to die because there wasn't anything else that could happen, and he knew suddenly that he was mortally afraid. He could not lay rigidly, tensely—there were no muscles to tighten. But the tension had to go somewhere. He felt a numbness creeping up the back of his neck, felt his eyes bulging as if they would burst, heard a roaring in his ears. He opened ...
— A Choice of Miracles • James A. Cox
... our freedom, we have strengthened our independence. We have been, and propose to be, more and more American. We believe that we can best serve our own country and most successfully discharge our obligations to humanity by continuing to be openly and candidly, in tensely and scrupulously, American. If we have any heritage, it has been that. If we have any destiny, we have found it ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... summit," she called. "They are waiting already for us. And see!" she exclaimed tensely, as he struggled after her. "It is going ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... hastily erected, and still more hastily designed, building in a dirty, paper-littered back street of London, and a number of shabbily dressed men coming and going in this with projectile swiftness. Within this factory companies of printers, tensely active with nimble fingers—they were always speeding up the printers—ply their typesetting machines, and cast and arrange masses of metal in a sort of kitchen inferno, above which, in a beehive of little, brightly lit rooms, disheveled men sit and scribble. There is a throbbing ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... held high his bluish shaven chin. There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one side and looked as though she had done someone ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "Look," said Tom tensely, "Jeff Marshall will be getting out of the brig when we do. He'll be working with Professor Sykes, along with us. Why can't we build one on ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... I were unduly alarming myself, yet, I confess, strung up tensely in anticipation that this was some device of the phantom ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... practiced hand made clean straight cuts in the trunk, now on this side, now on that. His task was not an easy one, but he finished it with wonderful expedition. After the chopping was finished, the tree stood firm a moment; then, as the tensely strained fibres began a weird moaning, he sprang aside, and stood waiting. In the distance he saw two men hewing a log. The axe-man sent them a shout and threw up his ...
— A Michigan Man - 1891 • Elia W. Peattie
... imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries towards Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight. Survivors there were none. One may picture the orderly expectation, the officers alert and watchful, the gunners ready, the ammunition piled to hand, the limber gunners with their horses and ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... off his buffalo coat and was bending over a baby exhaustedly fighting for breath that whistled shrilly through a closing throat. The mother, scarcely more than a girl, held her in tensely extended arms. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... His tone was tensely low and the noise of the tumbling water shielded his voice from eavesdroppers on the dam. "I stood back there in the fog and I heard what was said about an injunction. It's bad business, running against the courts, men. That injunction hangs over the crew of Echford Flagg. I am not ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... gasped tensely. But she had spoken late. That cold blood which had kept me in a tremor and a wonderment, awaiting his pistol muzzle, exploded into a seethe of heat almost blinding me. I forgot instructions, I disregarded every movement preliminary to the onset, I remembered only ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... armchair by the hearth, and Mariana drew her little rocker to the other corner. She seated herself in it, her hands rather tensely folded, and ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... and tensely excited as her sharp eyes could see. They rested probingly a second on him, then on the paper. Her lips tightened while her eyes darkened. She ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... came up in a burst of speed, and Shann waited tensely for some countermove from the scout. Those small speedy Terran ships were prudently provided with weapons triply deadly in proportion to their size. He was sure that the Terran ship could hold its own against the Throg, even eliminate the enemy. But there was no fire from the slanting pencil of ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... a little and looked down at her, and thus some minutes slipped away, the man as tensely still as the awe-stricken world without, the ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... congealed, To air and water changed, and, in my anguish, Through lips and eyes came gushing from my breast. . . . . . . Confusion and dismay, together mingled, Forced such a feeble "Yes!" out of my mouth, To understand it one had need of sight. Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 't is discharged, Too tensely drawn the bow-string and the bow, And with less force the arrow hits the mark; So I gave way beneath this heavy burden, Gushing forth into bitter tears and sighs, And the voice, fainting, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... ringer to see that Gadbeau came into the church. He took his place among the men, and then Ruth dropped quietly into a pew near the door. When the people rose to sing the Tantum Ergo, she saw Gadbeau slip unnoticed out of the church. She waited tensely until the singing was finished, then she almost ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... his heart, stifling its beat—then the blood came bursting to his forehead. He could not see into the room, but that silence was eloquent. It seemed as though he could picture the two men—Lannigan leaning suddenly forward—Lannigan and Whitey Mack staring tensely into each ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... gathered that the Master was furiously angry and that the Mistress was correspondingly unhappy. Also, that the lanky and red-bearded visitor was directly responsible for their stress of feeling. He had been eyeing alternately the Master and Wefers; tensely awaiting some overt act or some word of permission which should warrant him in launching himself ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... words be tending? She was awed, frightened—yet warmed by a surge of pride. She thought of her father....If he could see and know! If knowledge could only pass to him that his daughter had been thought worthy by such a man to play her part for the Cause!...She waited tensely, hand ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... outside the door, listening tensely. He could hear nothing. He went in, and for an instant experienced that ecstatic thrill which only comes to elderly gentlemen of solitary habit who in a house full of their juniors find themselves alone at last. Then a voice spoke, ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... runner in some great race, who had fallen at the last lap, and, waiting to recover himself before making the final dash toward the tape, watched anxiously lest his next rival should round the bend, and surprise him before he was up on his feet again, he could not have been more tensely excited. His breath came in gasps and spasms; his body jerked and trembled even while he sat. He began to do things, and did not finish them. He opened his mouth to speak, and was silent. He half rose to his feet, and fell back again. He turned his head to ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Maril found herself listening tensely for something else. One of the four bound blueskins snored, and stirred, and slept again. Murgatroyd gazed about unhappily, and swung down to the control room floor, and then paused for lack of any place to go or anything to do. He sat down and began half-heartedly ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... sickening fate of industrial legislation in certain other states when tried before judges whose social vision is fifty years behind the times, the winners of this new bill began to wait tensely enough for its testing. So far, however, the Women's Nine-Hour law has not been contested. It has also been exceptionally well enforced, considering that there are only four factory inspectors for ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... gave me judgment as to the distance they would travel. If I yielded too much of this, they might attain the sloop before I could sound an alarm; while if I moved too quickly the noise would bring them back to the rescue. The moments were agony, as I bent tensely forward, poised for a leap. God! ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... away. The lightning spattered the sky as a thrown egg spatters a barn-door, but the light was pale blue, not yellow; and, looking through my split bamboo blinds, I could see the great dog standing, not sleeping, in the verandah, the hackles alift on her back and her feet anchored as tensely as the drawn wire-rope of a suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that some one wanted me very urgently. He, whoever he was, was trying to call me by name, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... locker and secured to the equipment. As the Planeteers worked, the ship's spinning slowed and stopped. They were in no-weight. Rip grabbed for a hand cord that hung from the wall and hauled himself out into the engine control room. The deputy commander was at his post, waiting tensely for orders. Rip thrust against a bulkhead with one foot and floated to his side. "I need two landing boats, sir," he requested. "One stays ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... hands were tensely clasped; the strong alert features relaxed into contemplation, and my eyes lifted from the face of the aged saint to the wall beside her bed where hung a motto, 'Prayer brings victory.' It was easy to realize how Kate Lee had gathered ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... threatened this. As Mr. Arneel talked he never raised his eyes from the desk where he was sitting. He merely drummed solemnly on the surface with his fingers. The others contemplated him a little tensely, catching quite clearly the drift ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... because we're going to do our share in the biggest thing that ever happened to this world," said Betty tensely. "We're glad because we've got the greatest country in the world, and are going to do our best to keep it the greatest country in the world. We're glad, most of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... instant and she had paused outside a closed door and stood listening tensely. There were no noises inside, no voices, nor the stir of any person moving about. Betty put her hand on the knob ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... know how you love me," she went on tensely, "but if you don't love me rather madly, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... strange to Pope's experience, for her tears appeared, grew, and spilled themselves slowly down her cheeks, and she made no attempt to hide them. The sight depressed him dreadfully, for at heart he was intensely sentimental. "I didn't know what it means to be notorious," she stated, tensely. "I didn't know what I was doing when I agreed to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... girl was very quiet, in a stupor of fatigue and fear. Shalah was a graven image, and I was too tensely strung to have any of the itches and fervours which used to vex me in hunting the deer when stillness was needful. Through the fretted greenery, I saw the dim shadows of men passing swiftly. The thought of the horse worried me. If the confounded beast ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... here," said Astro tensely. "That's a tyranno, but he's down on all fours now, looking for that monkey! Keep together and make as little noise as you can. No talking. Keep your blasters and emergency lights ready. If he discovers ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... examining counsel asked me with a diabolical suddenness if I could tell the Court the whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a crucial one; something told me that the answer was St. Petersburg or Baker Street. I hesitated, looked helplessly round at the sea of tensely expectant faces, pulled myself together, and chose Baker Street. And then I knew that everything was lost. The prosecution had no difficulty in demonstrating that an individual, even moderately versed in the affairs of the ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... The problem engaged me tensely till my ticket was collected at Vauxhall. Just there the solution came. I would be a Bohemian, but a misogynist. People would say, "Dear old Jimmy Cloyster. How he hates women!" It would add to my character a pleasant touch of dignity and reserve which would rather ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... closed his eyes. "I've worked on this thing for years," he said tensely. "It was ... it means something to me. I invented it. I perfected it." His voice began to quaver just a little. "But if it's going to do ... to do all that—" He paused and took a deep breath. "All right. ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... they were not that," she breathed tensely, and her fingers clung more fiercely to his arm. "They were ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... awaited the return of the messenger. The moment was tensely electric when at last we heard the clatter of his boots on the stairway. Breathless, he entered and stood before us, his coolness for once destroyed under the strain of his adventure. Solon helped him to a chair ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... with in joints; less frequently there are fibrinous bodies of the melon-seed type, sometimes moulded into circular discs like wafers. The presence of irregular thickenings of the wall, or of loose bodies, may be recognised on palpation, especially in superficial bursae, if the sac is not tensely filled with fluid. The thickening of the wall may take place in a uniform and concentric fashion, resulting in the formation of a fibrous tumour—the solid bursal tumour—a small cavity remaining in the centre which serves to distinguish it from ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... men broke through the tensely eager throng. In their hands they bore each a golden jar, curiously shaped and chiseled, and bearing a whimsical ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Sissy rebelled. Then she looked at the passionate little figure sitting tensely upright, at the white fever-circle about the dry lips, at the short hair and the unnaturally bright, angry eyes. She went back to the piano, sat down, and with her foot on the soft pedal, that Aunt Anne might not hear, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... noose was round the horse's neck, and in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. The prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble and stagger,—blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a thousand battle-trumpets,—at any rate, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... said, and fell abruptly silent and so tensely still that she thought even his heart must have been arrested ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Jessie. "Lucy, will you please say that all over again and say it slowly," she begged leaning forward tensely. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... one of the larger salons, but the crowd circulated in a slow solid undulation through every room. Gheta and Anna Mantegazza had sought the familiar comfortable corner of an entresol, and were seated. Lavinia was standing tensely, with a laboring breast, when Bembo suddenly appeared with the man whom he had ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... icy rage that awes with its intensity; the deliberate bringing to the verge of deadly action the nerves and muscles that yearn for violent expression—and then holding them there, straining tensely, awaiting further provocation. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Tom crouched tensely. Should Ross see him, Tom would have to make an attempt to knock him out and get the ray gun ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... hold my love in my arms and dry away her tears. 'Why could you have not have spared the child that knowledge? Oh, Jeanette!' I cried, and flung myself against the door; then, turning, met my father's sneering look with one of bitter defiance. 'I will see Jeanette first,' I said, tensely. 'And then, my father, we will have a short reckoning,' and going out, I slammed the door upon his sneering face and flung myself down the stairs ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... women triumph. They sit down below in the theatre, their perfectly dressed hair gleaming, their backs very straight, their heads carried tensely. They are not very noticeable. They seem held in reserve. They are just as tense and stiff as the men are slack and abandoned. Some strange will holds the women taut. They seem like weapons, dangerous. There is nothing charming nor winning about them; at the best a full, prolific maternity, at ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... smoking on a tiresome journey. From Washington and governmental affairs, it veered to the West and dry farming, thence to the cattle business; to anecdotes, and finally to ghost stories. And then, with a sudden interest, Houston forgot his own problems to listen attentively, tensely, almost fearfully. A man whom he never before had seen, and whom he probably never would see again, was talking,—about something which might be as remote to Houston as the poles. Yet it held him, it fascinated, ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... not so easily deceived. He stood a moment with his stubby little body tensely poised, then plunged afresh with feverish eagerness ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... tensely. "For you know, old fellow, it can't come true. Why, we haven't even a residence anywhere, from which a Congressman could appoint one ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... mother I ever had," she said tensely. "I have given you all I would have given my mother, had she lived—my love, my trust. And now, when I need you most, you fail me. I tell you, John Bailey is a good man, an honest man. If you say he ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... done your country no harm—nor you. Listen, Marishka," he pleaded tensely. "Look at me. I love you, dear, with all my heart and soul, I love you. You cannot forget what happened to us yesterday. I ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... Tensely he waited. Unconsciously the hand of the Angel clasped his. He scarcely knew it was there. Suddenly Little Chicken sprang straight in the air and landed with a thud. The Angel started slightly, but Freckles was immovable. Then, as if in approval ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... impossibility, and already thoughts of future proceedings begin to flit vaguely through his mind. They are too distant to be dwelt upon now. For this night he has enough to occupy heart and brain—keeping both on the rack and stretch, so tensely as to render prolonged sleep impossible. Only for a few seconds at a time does he know the sweet unconsciousness of slumber; then, suddenly starting awake, to be again the prey of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Then she stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the waggon for ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... the deep woods that shows the power of love at work among its primitive dwellers. It is a tensely moving study of the human heart and its aspirations that unfolds itself through thrilling situations ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dead—not merely a lifeless shadow put there by the art of a camera. She was alive! That was his first thought—his first impression. It was as if he had come upon her suddenly, and by his presence had startled her—had made her face him squarely, tensely, a little frightened, and yet defiant, and ready for flight. In that first moment he would not have disbelieved his eyes if she had moved, if she had drawn away from him and disappeared out of the picture with the swiftness of a bird. For he—some ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... CAN!" Indeed, we know you can! 'Tis lithe in every limb, To your blood 'tis a busy fan, How can the flame burn dim? It tensely draws your sturdy nerves,— No bow's without a string, And when nor bow nor bow-string swerves, An arrow's on ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... Above earth's small ambitions and desires! Art! art! the very word my soul inspires! From foolish memories it sets me free. Not what has been, but that which is to be Absorbs me now. Adieu to vain regret! The bow is tensely drawn—the target set. [A knock at ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... table, and leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down at the fire. She watched him tensely. At length, "Oh Jacynth," he groaned, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... said rather tensely, "Mother, do you expect Jacqueline and me to spend the rest of our ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... returning sea rushed up, he was around the sharp corner and clawing upward hand and foot to escape being caught. Billy was now left alone. He could not even see Hall, much less be further advised by him, and so tensely did Saxon watch, that the pain in her finger-tips, crushed to the rock by which she held, warned her to relax. Billy waited his chance, twice made tentative preparations to leap and sank back, then leaped across and down to ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko. She had flashed me a look, just one. What horrible mischance to have brought ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... I was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projector obviously was not yet ready. But when it was connected, I must be near it, to persuade its duty-man to fire it on Miko. With this done we would have more time to plan our other tasks. I did not think Potan would be ready for his attack before another ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... mon ami!" he said, tensely. "I understand so perfectly that, were you dying, and were this request your last, I would refuse it! I hope I ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... he said, tensely. "We can't make the first down, the way Ballard is fighting, unless we take desperate odds. Now, Hicks, it's up to you. On you depend old ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... lay with Thompson. Would he elect to fight? Racey could almost see the thoughts at conflict behind Thompson's frontal bone. Mr. Saltoun, hoping against hope, sat tensely silent. Racey's eyes held ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Nansal grew to a disc, and then it was swiftly leaping toward them, welling up to meet them, expanding its bulk with awesome speed. Torlos watched it tensely. ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... an aide came toward her, spruce and alert, holding a paper in his hand. She rose at his approach, leaning on the back of her chair, her body bent forward tensely. He spoke to her in a low voice, consulting the slip of paper in his hand. All at once she straightened herself, and a burning expression came into her face. One hand went to her heart, exactly as though a bullet had pierced her breast. Then she gave a sharp cry, and hurling her pocketbook ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... she tried to utter them, yet they would be said. She longed to hide her burning face in some cool shelter and get away from this terrible talk, but she could only sit rigidly quiet, her fingers fastened tensely in the coarse grass ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... Larry stood aside and tensely watched this meeting between father and daughter. Joe bowed slightly, and with a dignified grace that overalls and over fifteen years of prison could not take from one who during his early and middle manhood had been known as the perfection of the finished gentleman. His gray eyes warmed ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... hands to her face suddenly, and, sinking back into the depths of the big cushioned chair on the edge of which she had been tensely poised during most of the conversation, ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... of the purest blood, was, as she put it, "rather strapped," and wore her shapely garments longer than even Patricia did. Her soul was in the matter, as anyone could see by the way in which she looked at each article, murmuring tensely through her aristocratic teeth, "It's a stair. ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... does the true cloud; for all of its mistiness of outline there was an impression of solidity about its deeper shadows, something that the wind could not lift nor the light pierce. A mystery, and the boy devoured it with his eyes, his head bent forward and his shoulders held tensely. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... help with the fish, for 'tis a poor harbour there, an' we was in haste t' get out. The folk was loafin' about the deck, fore an' aft, waitin' turns t' weigh fish or be served in the cabin. An' does you know what happened?" Docks asked, tensely. "Can't you see how 'twas? Believe me, sir, 'twas a cold, wet day, a bitter day; an' 'tis no wonder that one o' they folk went below t' warm hisself at the forecastle stove—went below, where poor Tommy Mib was lyin' sick. Skipper, sir," said Docks, with wide eyes, leaning over ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... in the room. He had dozed in a chair. Some strange sound, or had he imagined it? He sat up tensely and listened. It was her breathing, a harsh and laboured sound. He stepped quickly to the bed and looked and then ran into the passage ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... oppressed by the loneliness, the silence about her, Eve drew back obediently. The sense of mystery conveyed by the closed door weighed upon her. Her susceptibilities were tensely alert as she watched Loder search for his key and insert it in the lock. With mingled dread and curiosity she saw the door yield, and gape open like a black gash in the dingy wall; and with a sudden sense ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... was hotly contested. Her face ablaze with interest, Keineth held her little body tensely poised on one toe, ready for instant action. The faces of the crowd around her blurred into nothing—there seemed only left in her small world those two ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving his arm leftward and indicating a circle of ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... itself upon them all then. Women began to shriek and men to pray, but, strange to say, the man whose life was at stake lay silent, with ashen lips, about which the muscles were tensely drawn. ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... seconds he was standing right over the cat. He could see the animal's claws tensely clinging to the rope strands that held the banner. Now ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... tree with a certain air of expectancy. She seemed to be waiting for something or some one. Willie Jones's head popped over the back fence and Willie Jones himself, a tin pail in one hand, dropped into the Blair yard and made for the cherry tree. But Margery still gazed earnestly, tensely, into nothing. Willie Jones, evidently, was not the object ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore |
