"Uncoiled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up into something resembling tightly twisted lamp cord; and the two Vorkuls, each helpless, fell to the mat with a crash. Fast as was Zerexi, the gladiator from the flagship, Sintris was the merest trifle faster. Like the straightening of a twisted spring of tempered steel that long body uncoiled as they struck the floor, and up under those shielding wings—an infinitesimal fraction of a second slow in interposing—that lithe tail sped. Two lightning loops flashed around the neck of the visitor and tightened inexorably. Desperately the victim fought to break that terrible ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... carried up on two light spreaders, hanging down from a network that went over the balloon bag. From the aerials depended the wires that were attached to the receiving and sending apparatus. These wires were on a reel, and would he uncoiled as the balloon arose. The earth-end would be attached to the telephone receivers and to the apparatus, consisting of a spark-gap wheel and other instruments designed to send into space the electrical impulses ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... the casement—Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without. The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or three ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the spirit coming, and assumed the appearance of a stump. The snake coming up wrapped itself around the trunk and squeezed it with all its strength, so that Manabozho was on the point of crying out when the snake uncoiled itself. The relief was, however, only for a moment. Again the snake wound itself around him and gave him this time even a more severe hug than before. Manabozho restrained himself and did not suffer a cry to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... their rifles to the saddles in front of them, to hold them safe and yet have them where they could be quickly seized in case of sudden need and to give them free use of both of their hands in throwing their ropes and in managing their horses; and now, as they advanced toward the bear, they uncoiled their reatas and began slowly swinging the loops around their heads in readiness for the throw, while every faculty of their minds quickened and every muscle of their young bodies tightened in expectation of the coming battle that might mean death to one or ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... ready to answer. I jest spoke of this because there's a little favor I want to ask you. Here's this poor old Matey of mine"—Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm, velvety, golden ball on the sofa. The First Mate uncoiled himself like a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow, stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again. "HE'll miss me when I start on the V'yage. I can't bear ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... one lay not fifty yards away—any more than you could see the other, and plainly attired, bad dreams—so long as it did not move. Its length was not apparent, because it was coiled up; but it would have uncoiled out into something most alarming if stretched, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... The artist uncoiled her legs, stuck the pen in her hair, set the ink-bottle down on the floor, sighed, and, lifting the drawing-board, held it at arm's length, studying her ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... normal course. At the second trial a huge eel-like monster appeared, which entered by one of the windows, crawled about among the furniture of the banqueting hall, and finally coiled itself round the body of the Countess. Still she showed no fear, and at a nod from the Earl the animal uncoiled itself and disappeared. In the third test an intimate friend of the Countess, long since dead, entered the room, and passing slowly by her went out at the other end. She showed not the slightest sign of fear, and the Earl felt satisfied that he could ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... very simple expedient to obviate this difficulty. He uncoiled a cord of the thickness of a finger, and four hundred feet long; first he dropped half of it down, then he passed it round a lava block that projected conveniently, and threw the other half down the chimney. Each of us could then descend by holding ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... from the wall pegs. Like all things made of the marvelous substance used by Those Others for any article which might be exposed to the elements, it seemed as perfect as on the day it had first been hung there, though that date might be a hundred or more Astran years earlier. The merman uncoiled a length of thin, flexible piping which joined a two-foot canister with a flat piece ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... the old-fashioned balloon used to drift before a breeze. Teuta, who had naturally very fine sight, seemed to see even better than I did, for as we drew nearer to the Tower, and its round, open top began to articulate itself, she commenced to prepare for her part of the task. She it was who uncoiled the long drag-rope ready for her lowering. We were proceeding so gently that she as well as I had hopes that I might be able to actually balance the machine on the top of the curving wall—a thing manifestly impossible on a straight surface, though ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... hand and gripped the snake just behind the head, while with my right I drew my sheath knife across the reptile's throat, pretty nearly severing the head from the body at one stroke. Instantly it became a case of 'stand clear!' The snake uncoiled itself from about Dirk's body, and proceeded to fling itself about on the ground with such terrific violence that the air round about us was presently full of bits of grass, broken twigs, and flying ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... to Mustard's side and uncoiled his rope. She stood on the porch, watching him as he proceeded to the corral, caught the pony, and flung a bridle on it. Then he led the animal to the porch and cinched the saddle carefully. Throwing the reins over the pommel of the saddle, he stood ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... adder, trailing its length all up the fretted window, stared with its dusky and malignant eyes full in my face, and pranked out its forked tongue dyed in the blackest poison. Oh, madam! how I screamed—and I know the creature was bent on my destruction, for, when I jumped down, it uncoiled, and fell upon the earth, coming towards me as I retreated, when Crisp (only think, my lady, of the wisdom of that poor dog!)—little Crisp seized it, somewhere by the neck, and in a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... led to a post just outside our barrack. One of the soldiers stood on either side of the prisoner ready to run him through should he make an attempt to escape or to resist. The other two guards, discarding their rifles, uncoiled a length of rope which they ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... out a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head an absent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself and fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce covetousness, but one couldn't be envious of Egeria. She charmed one by ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... able assistance of Baldwin and Maxwell and Ram-stam, he drew out, uncoiled, rubbed, examined inch by inch, and re-coiled the life-line and the air-tube; unscrewed the various pieces—glasses, nuts, and valves—of the helmet, carefully examined them, oiled them, and re-fastened them, much to the interest and curiosity of "the natives." The ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... big end of the cone. It was a simple device but it did the work. The shaft of the fusee was attached to the large wheel that moved the gears, and the other end of the cord was fastened to the mainspring barrel. Therefore as the mainspring slowly turned the barrel, it gradually uncoiled the cord from the fusee, making it turn and as soon as it turned, the wheels had to turn too, and the watch began to go. Since from the very start the cord unwound from the small end of the cone where the leverage was least, and as the force of the mainspring decreased it, the leverage of the cord ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... stateroom, and managed with the rusty scissors to cut it down to half its size. Into this I packed ten tins of beans, and made them snug by whipping around the bag one end of a longish line—which served when coiled as a handle for it; and, being uncoiled, enabled me to haul it up a ship's side after me, or to let it down ahead of me, or to sway it across an open space between two vessels, and so go at my climbing and jumping with both hands free. As for the compass, my back was the only place for it ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier |
