"Pitchy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for thee Sorrow had never been,—All-noxious thing, Of vilest nature! Other sorts of evils Are kindly circumscribed, and have their bounds. The fierce volcano, from his burning entrails That belches molten stone and globes of fire, Involved in pitchy clouds of smoke and stench, Mars the adjacent fields for some leagues round, And there it stops. The big-swoln inundation, 610 Of mischief more diffusive, raving loud, Buries whole tracts of country, threatening more; But that too has its shore it cannot pass. More ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... anything further, Field slipped out by the way he had come. Once in the road, he glanced back at the house, but the whole place seemed to be in pitchy darkness. There was nothing for it now but to make his way to the nearest police station, and get all the assistance possible. There was no trouble at the station across the Common, the mere mention of Field's name being sufficient. A few minutes later ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... feet, and, groping his way in the intense darkness, made for the verandah. Here he paused for a moment, glancing upward to the sky, which he found to be obscured by a dense canopy of heavy black cloud, portending rain, which sufficiently accounted for the pitchy darkness. His eyes at length becoming accustomed to the obscurity, he looked round for the guard; and he eventually discovered the various members faithfully occupying their posts, but, one and all, squatted upon the ground evidently fast asleep. He stalked out ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... appall me by its dense gloom. All at once, while gazing at a frightful creation of my distempered mind, I seemed struck with sudden blindness. I knew a candle was burning in the room but I could not see it, all was so pitchy dark. I lost the sense of feeling, too, for I endeavored to grasp my arm in one hand, but consciousness was gone. I put my hand to my side, my head, but felt nothing, and still I knew my limbs and frame ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... Sol's judgment became apparent at once. The shriek of the wind rose to a scream and then a roar. The night became pitchy dark. They could see nothing around them but a narrow circle of muddy waters heaving violently. Under the far horizon in the south and west, low, sullen thunder began to mutter. Suddenly the sky parted before a tremendous flash of lightning that blazed for a moment across the heavens and then ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... human countenance, by reason of its clouding up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunderbolts, it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered, as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon Mr. Tiffany Carrack,—"'He ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... In the pitchy darkness, the messenger encounters him, and running full tilt against him, knocks the bunch of keys into the mud. Whilst search is made for them with three lanterns, some sailors break open the doors, and the engine is run out with a ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that his pursuers, if there were any upon his track, could have travelled in the night, for it had been pitchy black; and, as he now had a good start of them, he thought he might go so far that they would give up the search. Then he hoped to be able to keep himself alive until he was reasonably sure that the Revenge had hoisted ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the utmost consternation fell upon the company. A great clap of thunder shook the rocks, a pitchy darkness covered the scene, and a fierce wind swept the hill. Then, looking upward, the miners saw the whole company—the dying man with them—disappearing northward in a dense black cloud, the two blazing eyes of the demon who had led them to the Carn being ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... the poor negroes crowded terrified out of their houses into the streets, fancying the end of the world was come. But a learned man who was there, finding that, though the sun was risen, it was still pitchy dark, opened his window, and found that it was stuck fast by something on the ledge outside, and, when he thrust it open, found the ledge covered deep in soft red dust; and he instantly said, like a wise man as he ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... through a cavern. They turned their backs to the squall; the skipper, it seems, got an oar over the stern to keep the boat before it, and for two or three minutes the end of the world had come through a deluge in a pitchy blackness. The sea hissed "like twenty thousand kettles." That's his simile, not mine. I fancy there was not much wind after the first gust; and he himself had admitted at the inquiry that the sea never got up that ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... wanted. There was a broad skylight of dark green glass propped up a foot or more above the level of the rest of the flat roof. Beside it Terry dropped upon his knees and pushed his head under the glass. All below was pitchy-black, but he distinctly caught the odor of Durham ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Amoritish camp the cloud Bursts in its fury! on the race abhorred The parting heavens, as from a pitchy shroud. Their desolating hail-storm's wrath out-poured, More vengeful in its ire than Israel's sword! Thus was deliverance unto Gibeon shown; And by the fearful battle of the Lord, The army of the Amorites o'erthrown, And the almighty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... in thy Sphere, May'st follow still thy Calling there. To thee the Bull will lend his hide, By Phoebus newly tann'd and dry'd. For thee they Argo's Hulk will tax, And scrape her pitchy Sides for Wax. Then Ariadne kindly lends Her braided Hair to make thee Ends. The Point of Sagittarius' Dart Turns to an awl, by heav'nly Art; And Vulcan, wheedled by his Wife, Will forge for thee a Paring-Knife. For want of Room, by Virgo's Side, She'll strain a Point, and sit astride***, To take ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... own wild way. The profound impression created by such a scene as this, to my thinking, lies chiefly in the striking contrast we have here before us—a vast eddy of snow-white foam, the very personification of impetuous movement, also of lightness, sparkling whiteness, with a background of pitchy black rock, still, immoveable, changeless, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... I cast my looks? to heaven? Black pitchy clouds from thence rain down revenge. The earth shall I behold, stain'd with the gore Of his heart-blood, that died most innocent? Which way soe'er I turn mine eyes, methinks His butcher'd corpse ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... the basket-women left Number Nine gallery and went further up Number Sixteen. At one turn of the road they could see the pitchy black water lapping on the coal. It had touched the roof of a gallery that they knew well—a gallery where they used to smoke their huqas and manage their flirtations. Seeing this, they called aloud ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... nakedness, they guarded it still. In the bright days and the dark, they stood at their posts unmoved. In the black night-watches as by day—toward morning, as at evening—they stood, clutching the musket, peering out into the pitchy darkness; or lay, dozing around the grim cannon, in the embrasures. Hunger, and cold, and wounds, and the whispering voice of Despair, had no effect on them. The mortal tedium left them patient. When you saw the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... night down to within a hundred feet of the sea-level. We made a grand fire, and after an early breakfast pushed merrily on all day along beautiful forested shores embroidered with autumn-colored bushes. I noticed some pitchy trees that had been deeply hacked for kindling-wood and torches, precious conveniences to belated voyagers on stormy nights. Before sundown we camped in a beautiful nook of Deer Bay, shut in from every wind by ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... four, five or six old males will pipe up and begin to howl in unison. The great volume of uncanny sound thus produced goes rolling through the still forest, far and wide; and to the white explorer who lies in his grass hammock in pitchy darkness, fighting off the mosquitoes and loneliness, and wondering from whence tomorrow's meals will come, the moral effect ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Could win the battle, on the hostile ranks Dread panic fell; prone as in death they lay Where else upright they should withstand the foe; Nor more availed their valour, and in vain The cloud of weapons flew, with none to slay. Then blazing torches rolling pitchy flame Are hurled, and shaken nod the lofty towers And threaten ruin, and the bastions groan Struck by the frequent engine, and the troops Of Magnus by triumphant eagles led Stride o'er the rampart, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... crest was black with shovelers, and up and down in lurid light climbed the scraper-teams; climbed and dumped, and dropped over the bank to climb again, like figures in a stage procession. There was a bedlam roar and crackle of pitchy fires, rattle of harness, clank of scraper-pans, shouts of men to the cattle, oaths and words of command; and this would go forward unceasingly till the banks held water. And what was the ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... gaze into that light above; and the silence is more impressive than all words. Instead of pagan attempts at a likeness of God, we have next painted, with equal descriptive accuracy, poetic force, and theological truth, the pitchy blackness which hides Him. In the gloom of its depths He makes His "secret place" His "tent." It is "darkness of waters," that is, darkness from which streams out the thunder-rain; it is "thick clouds of the skies;" or perhaps the expression should be rendered, "heavy masses of clouds." ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... his lantern, and, in his eagerness to save it, he let go the cask, which suddenly stove in, the spirits communicated with the flame, and the whole place was instantly in a blaze. Hopes of subduing the fire at first were strong, but soon heavy volumes of smoke and a pitchy smell told that ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. The ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance into a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... of iron, the brush of stiff hair. In bottles, this wine costs twenty-four sous, the bottle, &c. included. It is potable the April after it is made, is best that year, and after ten years begins to have a pitchy taste, resembling it to Malaga. It is not permitted to ferment more than half a day, because it would not be so liquorish. The best color, and its natural one, is the amber. By force of whipping, it is made white, but loses flavor. There are but two or three ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... cure the itchy pitchy, Palsy, and the gout; Pains within or pains without; A broken leg or a broken arm, Or a broken limb of any sort. I ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... of pitchy blackness, then an opening would give us a glimpse of the stars. The track was found and pursued for a long distance, and then my uncle called a halt, and we listened for some minutes for tokens of pursuit, but all was now still save the nocturnal cries of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... him of the man-o'-war's men, and every now and then, as the party continued its way along what proved to be a carefully constructed tunnel, he stopped short and whispered to Murray to shade the light while he hurried on into the pitchy darkness. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... go up the hill and scare ourselves, As reckless as the best of them to-night, By setting fire to all the brush we piled With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow. Oh, let's not wait for rain to make it safe. The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough Down dark converging paths between the pines. Let's not care what we do with it to-night. Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile The way we piled it. And let's be the talk ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... to the explorers of the vigorous north. They always travelled by land and not by that sea which was life to the Viking folk. To the Arabs the encircling ocean was a very "Sea of Darkness"; indeed, the unknown ocean beyond China was called the "Sea of Pitchy Darkness." Their creed taught that the ocean was boundless, so that ships dared not venture out of sight of land, for there was no inhabited country beyond, and mariners would assuredly be lost in mists ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... choose our pioneer. In view of the ambiguity in which we lay as to the length of the rope and the height of the precipice—and that this gentleman was to climb down from fifty to seventy fathoms on a pitchy night, on a rope entirely free, and with not so much as an infant child to steady it at the bottom, a little backwardness was perhaps excusable. But it was, in our case, more than a little. The truth is, we were all womanish fellows about a height; and I ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to left, a fire of pine roots was crackling. The room was filled with their pitchy, wholesome perfume, with the dancing light of their blaze and with the warmth made ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... not see her in that pitchy blackness, except when the lightning flashes came. Then she was like a ghostly wraith, with drenched clothes clinging to her until she seemed scarcely dressed, her wet hair streaming and her wide, ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... feel quite cheerful. But as night drew on our spirits sank again, for with the daylight all evidence of our security vanished away. We could no longer see the firm rock on which we lay, while we were stunned with the violence of the tempest that raged around us. The night grew pitchy dark as it advanced, so that we could not see our hands when we held them up before our eyes, and were obliged to feel each other occasionally to make sure that we were safe, for the storm at last became so terrible that it was difficult to make ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... no signs of moderating, and that night, as Salve Kristiansen and another were taking their turn at the wheel, there gleamed suddenly out of the pitchy darkness to leeward of the fore-rigging the white crest of a tremendous eddy wave, which a moment after came crashing down upon the deck, carrying clean away the round-house, binnacle, and long-boat, damaging the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... lowest depth, and then cast its waters across the dykes, deep into the forts, and far over the land. The earth shook as with the throb of a volcano. A wild glare lighted up the scene for one moment, and was then succeeded by pitchy darkness. Houses were toppled down miles away, and not a living thing, even in remote places, could keep its feet. The air was filled with a rain of plough-shares, grave-stones, and marble balls, intermixed with the heads, limbs, and bodies, of what had been human ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pitchy darkness of the cave enough to show the high ledges that ran still further back ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... a bad conscience. On the shelf over the stove there stood a miserable little lamp whose light fell on two sheriff's officers and a lawyer's clerk, with stern countenances, leaning against the wall. The windows were hung with rags, the alcoves were pitchy dark, a mute silence ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... had been kept mostly in reserve during the conflicts of the past few days. Thus reenforced, this intrepid leader marched directly toward the Monterey Pass, arriving at the foot of this rocky defile in the mountains in the midst of pitchy darkness. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... could build a really satisfactory fire, one that would endure the rain, she must cut fuel from some of the logs Ben had hewn down and dragged to the cave. She lighted a short piece of pitchy wood, intending to locate the heavy camp axe. Then, putting on her heavy coat—the same garment of lustrous fur which Ben had sent her back for the day of her abduction—she ventured ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... Storm's impending rage, When to the Clouds the Waves ambitious rise, 10 And seem with Heaven a doubtful war to wage, Whilst total darkness overspreads the skies; Save when the lightnings darting wingd Fate Quick bursting from the pitchy clouds between In forkd Terror, and destructive state[2:2] 15 Shall shew with double ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fear. Padraig advanced into the open space before the cellar, and bowed to Prince John and the Preceptor. Then from a niche within the door of the chamber he lifted a large crucible, and a siffle of indrawn breath was heard in the crowd as he carried it toward the fire. Gathering pitchy twigs and chaff from a heap of fuel he packed them deftly into the open top, and set the jar on the brazier, returning then ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... copper candlestick which she had left there, a candlestick with a tall, slender stem, and snuffers, pin, and extinguisher hanging about it on chains. She lighted it at the silver lamp. The light grew stronger; and as they went on, now illumined by it, and again enveloped in pitchy shadow, they suggested a picture by ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... I can tell you. The moon shone cold and white over that dead, dry country. Hot whiffs rose from the baked stones and hillsides. Shadows lay under the stones like animals crouching. When we came to the edge of a silvery hill we dropped off into pitchy blackness. There we stumbled over boulders for a minute or so, and began to climb the steep shale on the other side. This was fearful work. The top seemed always miles away. By morning we didn't seem to have made much of anywhere. The same old hollow-looking mountains with the sharp ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... my head and hands against jagged stones and sharp corners, clutching at last something in my fingers and dragging it up with all my might. I spoke, I cried aloud, but there was no answer. I was alone in the pitchy darkness with my burden, and the house was five hundred yards away. Struggling still, I felt the ground beneath my feet, I saw a ray of moonlight- -the grotto widened, and the deep water became a broad and shallow brook as I stumbled over the stones and at last laid Margaret's body ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... The rain had already extinguished the candle. I heard an oath from Belville, a laugh from Raffles, and for a second that was all. Raffles was coming to me, and the other could not even see to fire; that was all I knew in the pitchy interval of invisible rain before the next crash and the ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... instinct or whatever it is to the pine tree too, she works so methodically for the preservation of her species. A year ago last spring the mother pine put forth the beginnings of those pine cones that now dangle brown and pitchy, or drop to the ground, useless except as kindlings for my campfire. Then they were wee golden-green buds of pistillate flowers, set high on the uppermost branch tips that the pollen from the tree's own staminate blooms might miss them in its flight down the wind and ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... course by instinct, for I could see no welcoming beacon on the shore. To our satisfaction the wind did not increase, though the canoe tumbled about a good deal, and not for a moment were we able to cease baling. The blacks paddled on bravely through the pitchy darkness. Suddenly a flash of lightning burst from the clouds, followed by a tremendous roar of thunder. I could see the flame dancing along over the water, mercifully avoiding our canoe, leaving all in darkness beyond. The blacks for a moment ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... (having first with her art made the night itself more dark, and involved her head in a pitchy cloud), to explore the field, and examine one by one the bodies of the unburied dead. As she approached, the wolves fled before her, and the birds of prey, unwillingly sheathing their talons, abandoned their repast, while the Thessalian witch, searching into the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... quaver of earnestness in it that needed no daylight to enforce. The pitchy night made a bobbing blur of him as he rode his quick-stepping little horse at ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... By three by four, by four by five, Come ye now dead that were alive, Come now I bid ye From grave-clods rid ye, Come! From South and North, I bid ye forth, From East, from West, At my behest— Come! Come great, come small, Come one, come all, Heed ye my call, List to my call, I say, From pitchy gloom Of mouldered tomb Here find ye room For sport and holiday. Come grisly ghosts and goblins pale, Come spirits black and grey, Ye shrouded spectres—Hail, O Hail! Ho! 'tis your holiday. Come wriggling snakes From thorny brakes, Hail! Come grimly things ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... were too well accustomed to the habits of hunters to act rashly. Any sudden movement among them might frighten the game; and if it bounded off into the forest, or even turned its head, it could no longer be seen in the pitchy darkness that surrounded them. The shining eyes were all of it that were visible; and if the creature had but chosen to shut its eyes it might have stood there till the morning light, without the least chance of being ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... on their watch by night The mariners first saw the distant flames Of AEtna, and its red portentous glare Streaking the midnight waste! 'Tis not thy lamp, Astarte, hung in the dun vault of night, To guide the wanderers of the main! Aghast 210 They eye the fiery cope, and wait the dawn. Huge pitchy clouds upshoot, and bursting fires Flash through the horrid volume as it mounts; Voices are heard, and thunders muttering deep. Haste, snatch the oars, fly o'er the glimmering surge— Fly far—already louder thunders roll, And more terrific flames arise! Oh, spare, Dread ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... pitchy blasts from hell up-born Stop the outgoings of the morn, And Nature play her fiery games In this forced ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... blow, but shot wide of the mark, bringing down the innocent and unoffending victims, who strewed the floor like swaths behind the mower. Whenever a lucky individual could disentangle himself from his comrades, he darted through the door, and in spite of the storm and pitchy darkness without, thought himself too happy in escaping with a few holes in his skin. Yet he of the horns and tail, by some chance or another, always passed unhurt; a hideous laugh accompanying the adroit contrivances by which he ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... night she awoke in the pitchy darkness to hear the wind blow and the rain roar. The dawn broke cold and gray, and the storm gradually diminished. Allie lay alone for hours, beginning to suffer by reason of her bonds and cramped limbs. The longer she was left alone ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... racking headache in pitchy darkness; and with the twilight of returning consciousness there grew in him an awful fear that he had been coffined and buried alive. For he lay at full length in a bed which yet was unlike any bed of his acquaintance, being ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... then," whispered Hal. "You might keep just a little behind me. I think I can find the mouth of the gully, even in this pitchy blackness. If you see me drop to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... hands out through the opening, directing them with his voice, reaching into the pitchy darkness until her hands found his, and then he brought her up to him and ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a thick darkness was gathering; a pitchy blackness out of which a blood—red aerial river rolled and shot its tides through the arteries of the night. It came nigher. It was dense with living creatures, larvae, horrible shapes with waving tendrils, white withered ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... a bit of a philosophical turn, and I daresay I spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something all ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... last so he could see her again. Nominally to remit his master's sins, though actually (as he thought) to pay for his own, the Abbot Milo bore him company, if company you can call it which left the good man, in pitchy dark, some hundred yards behind. The way, which was long, led over Saint Andrew's Plain, the bleakest stretch of the Norman march; the pace, being Richard's, was furious, a pounding gallop; the prize, Richard's again, showed fitfully and afar, a twinkling point of light. Count Richard ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... Pater Caelestis, surrounded with his angels; on the second appeared the holy saints and glorified men; and the last and lowest were occupied by mere men who had not passed through this life to the regions of eternity. On one side of this lowest platform was the resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from whence issued appearance of fire and flames; and when it was necessary the audience were treated with hideous yellings and noises, as imitations of the howlings and cries of the wretched souls tormented ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... in a vale there lies a cave forlorn, Which Phoebus never enters eve or morn, The misty clouds inhale the pitchy ground, And twilight lingers all the vale around. No watchful cocks Aurora's beams invite; No dogs nor geese, the guardians of the night: No flocks nor herds disturb the silent plains; Within the sacred walls mute quiet reigns, And murmuring Lethe soothing sleep invites; ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... circles, and the moon is full: Imps with long tongues are licking at my brow, And snakes with eyes of flame crawl up my breast; Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns, And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands; Great trunks have some, and some are hung with beads. Here serpents dash their stings into my face, All tipped with fire; and there a wild bird drives His red-hot talons in my burning scalp. Here bees and beetles ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... truly labour To recompence your loue: Doubt not but heauen Hath brought me vp to be your daughters dower, As it hath fated her to be my motiue And helper to a husband. But O strange men, That can such sweet vse make of what they hate, When sawcie trusting of the cosin'd thoughts Defiles the pitchy night, so lust doth play With what it loathes, for that which is away, But more of this heereafter: you Diana, Vnder my poore instructions yet must suffer ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... which held the servants and the kitchens. The stucco with which the house had been originally covered had blackened under the influence of time, weather, and the smoke from the Tressady coalpits. Altogether, what with its pitchy colour, its mean windows, its factory-like plainness and height, Ferth Place had no doubt a cheerless and repellent air, which was increased by its immediate surroundings. For it stood on the very summit of a high hill, whereon the trees were few and windbeaten; while ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness was pitchy." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "sneakers" he had placed beside his bed. He let himself out into the corral, being careful to keep close to the wall of the house until he reached the high board fence. Here, too, he had to feel his way because of the pitchy blackness of the night; and if the rattling wind prevented him from hearing any footsteps that might be behind him, it also covered the slight sound of his own progress down the fence to the shed. But he did not think he would be seen or followed, for he had been careful to ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... their camp was pitched and kettles hung. Their fires lighted up the mossy trunks and overhanging branches of the giant hemlock and the towering pine, throwing their summits into a deeper gloom, and building up a wall of pitchy darkness which enclosed the camp on ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... as we got out of the sweet-scented air, we came into another that smelt of asphaltus, pitch, and sulphur burning together, with a most intolerable stench, as of burned carcases: the whole element above us was dark and dismal, distilling a kind of pitchy dew upon our heads; we heard the sound of stripes, and the yellings of men ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... the spruces, and rain commenced to drive in gusts. By the time it was dark not an Indian showed himself. They were housed from the storm. Lights twinkled in the teepees and the big log cabins of the trading company. Jones scouted round till pitchy black night, when a freezing, pouring blast sent him back to the protection of the tarpaulin. When he got there he found that Rea had taken it down and awaited him. "Off!" said the free-trader; and with no more noise than a drifting feather ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... put into cells, where girls ought never to be put," wrote their father. He "sallied forth alone, in quest of sensation," and got it in the muttering of thunder, and the flashing of lightning over the "pitchy darkness of the seven mountains." And he and the fiercely howling winds from the trees had a chase through the gloomy cloisters, whence he saw, in the vast, cavern-like kitchen, the honest islanders eating with relish his ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... stretched up before her into pitchy darkness. She held her breath; tried to listen. Still no sound but one in her ears—the thump-thump of her own overstrained heart. She closed the door as softly as she could, and mounted the ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... less cloudy than if ash-baked, yet mottled. Turf and dung, although easily managed, did not thoroughly harden the pottery, but burned it very evenly; dead wood or spunk-cakes baked as evenly as any of the materials thus far mentioned, and more thoroughly than the others. Resinous or pitchy woods, while they produced a much higher degree of heat, could be used only when color was unimportant, as they still are used to some extent in the firing of black-ware or cooking pots. The latter, while still hot from a preliminary burning, ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... broadside-on to us and thus keep the other craft hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel. The inference was obvious: the hidden craft was a pirate which had somehow managed to sneak up alongside and surprise her in the pitchy darkness of the early hours of the morning—Henderson had actually caught a glimpse of the very act of capture—and now she was being plundered by the audacious scoundrels under ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... is full of quiet charm. There is wonderful sweetness and solace in these undulating hill-sides, clothed with brightest green, their little tossing rivers and sunny glades all framed by solemn hills—I should rather say mountains—pitchy black with the solemn pine. You may search far and wide for a picture so engaging as Grardmer when the sun shines, its gold-green slopes sprinkled with white chlets, its red-roofed village clustered about a rustic church tower, and at its feet the loveliest little lake in the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... bungalow. The cry of the forest prowler is repeated, nearer than before to my quarters, and presently something hops up on the foot of the charpoy on which my recumbent form is stretched; and still continues the pattering of feet on the floor. It is pitchy dark within the bungalow, and, uncertain of the nature of my strange visitant, I kick and "qu-e-e-k" at him and scare him off; but, evidently terrorized by the appearance of the panther, the next minute he again ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of the next wave as it came bursting in, splashing them from head to foot where they sat, was a wonderful quickener to their movements, and away they scrambled through the pitchy blackness, clinging like limpets to the rough side of the cavern as they felt their feet slide upon the treacherous rocks, and thought of the unseen ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing his eyes about, the gas in the boxes shuddering out of sight, and the wind-instruments bugling the most horrible wails, the boldest spectator must have felt frightened. But hark! what is that silver shimmer of the fiddles? ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the canon like a blast furnace. Driven back by the intense heat, the men retreated across the break and clung to their line. Already their lungs were sore from inhaling smoke and their throats were inflamed. A pine, its pitchy trunk ablaze, crashed down across the fire-trail and caught in the fork of a tree beyond. Instantly the foliage leaped ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... with the daylight all evidence of our security vanished away. We could no longer see the firm rock on which we lay, while we were stunned with the violence of the tempest that raged around us. The night grew pitchy dark, as it advanced, so that we could not see our hands when we held them up before our eyes, and were obliged to feel each other occasionally to make sure that we were safe, for the storm at last became so terrible that it was difficult to make our voices audible. A slight variation ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... be seen spinning in immense rolling masses, the outer parts of which were turned by the sunshine to a dingy brown color, while the main stem of the column, rising directly from the great crater, was of pitchy blackness. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... pistol, Julie, and let us go." The night was pitchy dark, although the fog had rolled away; for the moon had not yet risen, and no light came from the few feeble stars that were out. Over swamp and tangle, across bare marsh, and through dense wood they went, lightly as a pair of fawns, till the warm, ruddy glare ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... There is something weird and preternatural about the aspect of this place; its soil betrays signs that in the former ages (from which even tradition is fast fading away) some volcano here exhausted its fires. The stratum of the earth is black and pitchy, and the springs beneath it are of a dark and graveolent water. Here the stream of the Brohlbach falls into the Rhine, and in a valley rich with oak and pine, and full of caverns, which are not without their traditionary inmates, stands the castle of Schweppenbourg, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "bilian" logs, to which the natives were now fastening their long rattan ladders before descending them to collect the nests. We crept along the logs and listened to the everlasting twittering far below; but, although we could see nothing but pitchy darkness, the thought of what was below made me soon crawl back with a very shaky ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... seen that before the light went. Now, in the pitchy darkness of the drenching rain, as he crouched at the foot of the wall he could hear the hoarse murmur of many voices behind it, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... which he had appeared warned the fugitives that the town, desolate as it was, was still under guard, and they redoubled their precautions. However dangerous it might be, they must go on. The moon would rise before long, and they must make the most of the pitchy ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... of the freshet, which must have ended the lives of the hapless party almost on the instant. The bravest swimmer would be absolutely helpless in the grasp of such a terrific current, and in a night of pitchy darkness would be unable to make the first intelligent ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... seemed at first to be pitchy black, but gradually the secretary perceived a faint reddish glow against the farther end, and thought he saw figures moving silently to ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it dashed: that cry had been of death—that silence had been of eternity! The ashes—the pitchy stream—sprinkled the altars, covered the pavement, and half concealed the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... not at all feeble or despairing, but they were unmistakably anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging into the pitchy darkness of the plantation he pulled a stake from the hedge, to use in case of need. When he got among the trees he shouted—'What's ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... impending storm. Twilight was darkening around him when, urged on by a mistaken sense of duty, the intrepid young man descended into the boat, and not half an hour afterwards the storm came on with terrific violence, and the pitchy darkness had entirely frustrated every effort of the crew of the Stranger to trace the boat. Morning dawned, and brought with it some faint confirmation of the fate which all had dreaded. Some spars on which the name of the Gem was impressed, and which ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... leave, she had been seen from the threshold by Mr. Sturgiss and by Laetitia's Harry. It was pitchy dark, emerging from the brightness of the interior, and he had stepped with her to conduct her to the gate. "It was an extraordinary coincidence, meeting ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... words and party names are caught up in the continuous strife, and find their way into family life; the one no longer understands the motives of the other; we stand railing at each other in the pitchy darkness; no distinction is made between sincere conviction and restless love of change. All strive blindly together, whilst society becomes interwoven with a tissue of hostility, mistrust, falsehood, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... into a downpour and darkness came, but no Richards, and at length I became alarmed for his safety. I pushed back the tent flaps and peered out into the pitchy darkness and pouring rain. ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... spades and shovels from the wagons, and began to throw up an earthwork, toiling in the almost pitchy darkness. They reinforced it with the bodies of the slain oxen, and, while they toiled, they saw the fires where the Mexican officers rested, sure that their prey could not break from the trap. The Texans worked on. At midnight they were still working, and when they rested a while ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... surface he estimated, his hands encountered an opening in the wall. He felt about, learned it Was unscreened, and boldly entered. Almost before he was in, he found he could come up; but he came up slowly, breaking surface in pitchy blackness and feeling about ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... at Belle Plain, past a break in the wall of the forest where the pale light of stars showed Betty the corn-field she and Hannibal had but lately crossed, and then on into pitchy darkness again. She clung to the desperate hope that they might meet some one on the road, when she could cry out and give the alarm. She held herself in readiness for this, but there was only the steady pounding of the big bays as Jim with voice and whip urged ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... deepermost cells, fashioned out of the solid rock and stretching along a corridor that was almost as dark as the cells themselves. Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting the tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in damp and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only by the fact that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them before the overworked executioner found time to rack their ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... About half-past seven the pitchy obscurity round us turned a ghastly grey, and we knew that the sun had risen. This unnatural and threatening daylight, in which we could see one another's wild eyes and drawn faces, was only an added tax on our endurance. The horizon seemed to have come on all sides within arm's length of the ship. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... westward upon the boat, which was only kept afloat by constant bailing. About dawn the sea had become so dangerous, and the wind had so increased in violence, that an attempt was made to put out a sea-anchor. Whilst this was being done a heavy sea struck the boat and capsized her. The night was pitchy dark, and when the Swede—who was a good swimmer—came to the surface he could neither see nor hear any of the others, though he shouted loudly. But at the same moment, as his foot touched the line to which the sea anchor was bent, he heard the ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... is produced naphtha, an article of a pitchy and glutinous character, resembling bitumen: on which if ever so small a bird perches, it finds its flight impeded and speedily dies. It is a species of liquid, and when once it has taken fire, human ingenuity can find ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... which I could not well understand. Once I caught the name of Charles Le Sorcier, and again I fancied that the words "years" and "curse" issued from the twisted mouth. Still I was at a loss to gather the purport of his disconnected speech. At my evident ignorance of his meaning, the pitchy eyes once more flashed malevolently at me, until, helpless as I saw my opponent to be, I trembled ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... be dying, and gathered in the room were many sympathizing friends and neighbors. Without, 'twas pitchy dark. The rain fell in torrents and the wind, which had increased in violence since the setting of the sun, howled mournfully about the windows, as if waiting to bear the soul company in its upward flight. Many times had Walter attempted to speak. At last ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... city. The appearance of one of these towering river transports as she comes sailing down the turbid stream of the great Father of Waters, laden to the water's edge with brown bales of cotton, and emitting from her lofty, red crowned smoke-stacks dense clouds of pitchy black smoke, is most wonderful. Unlike ocean-steamers, the river-steamer carries her load upon her deck. Built to penetrate far towards the head-waters of rivers and bayous that in summer become mere shallow ditches, these steamers have ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that hissed at us like an army of serpents. I remember wondering in a half delirium whether parts of Dante's hell could be worse. With the instinctive cry to heaven for help, of human-kind world over, I looked above; but there was only a great pitchy dome with glowing clouds rolling and heaving and tossing and blackening the firmament. Then I knew we must choose one of three things, a long detour round the fire-wave, one dash through the flames—or death. I shouted to the men to save themselves; but Burnt Earth and Ringing Thunder had already ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... and I cowered down again as in upon me rushed the shadows, burying me in a pitchy gloom so that my fears racked me anew, until I bethought me this sudden darkness could be no more than a cloud veiling the moon, and I waited, though very impatiently, for her ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... pitchy brown, beneath it is yellowish and hairy; the margin of the thorax is yellowish, its disk has many short rust-coloured hairs, the elytra have 9 longitudinal impressed lines, the spaces between transversely striolated ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... had begun to fall slightly as we walked out the railroad, on our route, and soon it increased to torrents. The night was pitchy dark, and we stumbled along, falling into gutters here, and nearly sticking in the mud there, until midnight, when we resolved to seek ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... among themselves in their accounts of these apparitions; but that may have arisen from the uncertain situations in which they saw her. Sometimes it was by the flashes of the thunder-storm lighting up a pitchy night, and giving glimpses of her careering across Tappan Zee or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. At one moment she would appear close upon them, as if likely to run them down, and would throw them into great ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to see whether anything was ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... was that of his own body where he had laid her cold hands and breast to take what heat there was in him, and the breath was of his own lungs, putting life into hers through their two mouths....She opened her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come out of was bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two bodies and the small mast of their craft. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... tooken all han's over, cep'n us ole folks an' chillen, ter he'p work an' watch de yether side. 'Bout midnight, whiles we was all sleepin', come a roa'in' soun', an' fus' thing we knowed, all in de pitchy darkness, we was floatin' away—nobody cep'n des you an' me an' yo' mammy in de cabin—floatin' an' bumpin' an' rockin,' an' all de time dark as pitch. So we kep' on—one minute stiddy, nex' minute cher-plunk ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... shutters. Hardly had I risen, when I saw approaching, from the S.W. apparently, a solid range of immense brown mountains, high in air. So rapid was the passage of this extraordinary phenomenon, that in a few minutes we were in actual pitchy darkness. At first there was no wind, and the peculiar calm gave an oppressive character to the event. We were in "a darkness that might be felt." Suddenly the wind arrived, but not with the violence that ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... and warmth, unaffected by the cloud; and the light will yet strike, the light of His love will yet pierce through, with its merciful shafts bringing healing in their beams, and dispersing all the pitchy darkness of man's transgression. And as the mists gather themselves up and roll away, dissipated by the heat of that sun in the upper sky, and reveal the fair earth below—so the love of Christ shines in, molting the mist and dissipating the fog, thinning it ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... early and the moon did not rise till late; but, as soon as the orb of day had disappeared below water, the horizon all round became nearly as black as ink, without any after-glow, as had invariably been noticed at previous sunsets. The whole sky was dark and pitchy like; only a few stars showing themselves momentarily for a while high up towards the zenith, although they were soon hidden by the mantle of sombre cloud that ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... out again on the dark road, the column wound on through the hot, midnight wood. More hoof-beats—another party of cavalry to be let by! They passed the infantry in the darkness, pushing the broken line into the ditch and scrub. In the pitchy blackness an impatient command lost at this juncture its temper. The men swore, an officer called out to the horsemen a savage "Halt!" The party pressed on. The officer furious, caught a bridle rein. "Halt, damn you! Stop them, men! Now you cavalry ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... stooped down and clasped each other's wrists criss-cross, the way you do to make a human chair, and got Greg on to it, with the arm that wasn't hurt around my neck. The darkness was perfectly pitchy, and we had to feel for every step to be sure that it was a solid place and not the slippery edge that went straight down into the sea. Greg cried a little and said, "Please—stop." I could feel his ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... took yet another form, and one that increased the sublimity of the scene, by adding a slight feeling of uneasiness to the admiration with which we had contemplated it so far. A cloud of pitchy darkness rose in the south, and crossed the plain, shedding deepest night in its track, and shooting its fires downward on the earth as it came onwards. It passed right over our heads, enveloping us for the while (like some mighty archer, with quiver full of arrows) in a shower of flaming ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... than he expected. The vague, black shadow of a lightless house loomed up before them. In a twinkling he was hustled across the road and into a door. Then down a flight of stairs, through pitchy darkness, guided by two of the men, a whispered word of advice now and then from the Yankee saving him from perilous stumbles. He was jerked up sharply with a command to stand still. A light flashed suddenly in his ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... about my hands and arms. My feet were already bound so fast that the slightest movement of them was an agony. Dumb, blind, bound, what could I do but lie where I was? The work was done swiftly, in the pitchy dark, and in silence so profound that I could hear Virginia's even breathing, separated as she was from me by the length of a long floor. There was but one effort I could make with my tied ankles, and that was to raise both legs together ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... dazzling headlights moved in the pitchy blackness, the wheels grated but held their own. The car came to the side door, and the little mattress came out, and the muffled shape that was Mary got in beside it. Then there was buttoning of storm curtains by willing hands, and many a whispered good wish to Rachael as she slipped ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... and pitchy dark. Only by the help of the lightning I had stumbled and plunged home to bed, when at about eleven a perfect storm of rifle-fire suddenly swept along the ridges at our end of the town. Rushing out I saw the edges of the hills twinkle with lines of flashes right away to Gun Hill and ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... his surmises. The pitchy darkness of a winter night would scarcely have sufficed to hide the movements attendant on the sudden arrival of a large body of men in the English camp, had not the hoarse artillery of the wind, moaning, sweeping, and then rushing ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... a sensation unparalleled of its kind. Men read with horror the stories of the mines, of children employed underground for twelve or fourteen hours a day, crouching in low passages, monotonously opening and shutting the trap-doors as the trollies passed to and fro. Alone each child sat in pitchy darkness, unable to stir for more than a few paces, unable to sleep for fear of punishment with the strap in case of neglect, and often surrounded with vermin. Women were employed crawling on hands and knees along these passages, stripped to the waist, stooping under the low roofs, and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... the Rhine in safety. Here, however, the Archduke Charles was ready to meet them with a force equal, or, perhaps, superior to their own. Moreau was compelled to fight two battles, in both of which he was defeated; and nothing but a violent storm saved the wreck of his army. This, and the pitchy darkness of the night, prevented the Austrian cavalry from acting, and enabled him to get his broken columns on the safe side of the Rhine. The archduke Charles had therefore ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Friesland, Holstein, Denmark and Pomerania, a so-called mud-peat (Schlammtorf, also Baggertorf and Streichtorf,) is "fished up" from the bottoms of ponds, as a black mud or paste, which, on drying, becomes hard and dense like the pitchy-peat. ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... flamed, thundered, roared in the cavern, bringing down enormous fragments from the vaults. The cavern was lighted for an instant by this discharge, and then immediately returned to pitchy darkness rendered thicker by the smoke. To this succeeded a profound silence, broken only by the steps of the third ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... safer resting-place for the night than the headquarters of some desperate smuggler, for such I conjectured that this lonely dwelling must be. The scud, however, had covered the moon once more, and the darkness was so pitchy black that I felt that I might reconnoitre a little more closely without fear of discovery. Walking on tiptoe I approached the little window and ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... traveled all the rest of the day and all night. It rained most of the time. After sunset the ague came on again, which in my wet state was very trying. I hardly know how to keep my life in me. About that time there was a village at hand, but Hassan had no mercy. The night was pitchy dark, so that I could not see the road under my horse's feet. However, God being mercifully pleased to alleviate my bodily suffering, I went on contentedly to the munzil (stopping-place). After sleeping three or four hours Hassan hurried me away, and ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea |
