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For this moment at least he was tasting immortality and it was good. High above him in the air there moved a speck, growing larger with every moment, but he did not see it or hear the faint staccato sounds which proclaimed its identity.
"We are to go by companies, a week at a time. 'C' will go first." "C" indeed! Who are "C," to ? "A Company's leave our leave will begin on the twenty-eighth of December, and extend to the third of January." The staccato words sink slowly in, and then thoughts come tumbling. "Free free on New Year's Day! Almichty! Free to gang hame! Free tae " Then comes an icy chill upon our hearts.
Kennedy and Nayland Smith were stealthily retracing their steps, the former keeping the light directed upon the hideous insect, which now began running about with that horrible, febrile activity characteristic of the species. Suddenly came a sharp, staccato report.... Sir Lionel had scored a hit with his Browning pistol. In waves of sound, the report went booming along the passage.
"No machine guns yet," he said for the second time, showing the apprehension that was in his mind. I, too, had been listening for the staccato of the machine gun, which is the most penetrating, mechanical and wicked, to my mind, of all the instruments of the terrible battle orchestra, as sinister as the clicking of a switch which you know will derail a passenger train.
Five minutes ticked away on Bloeckman's travelling clock; silence lay all about the room, over the unfamiliar, impersonal furniture and the half-oppressive ceiling that melted imperceptibly into invisible walls on both sides. Then there was suddenly a rattling flutter at the window, staccato and loud upon the hushed, pent air. With a leap Anthony was out of the bed and standing tense beside it.
"If you people want your 'coon," he was remarking in a staccato and exasperated voice, "you'd better come and lend a hand. I can't manage him alone! The blame thing has bitten me in three places already.
That laugh of his was eminently characteristic of the man. There was nothing smothered or furtive about it; there was not even the vestige of a chuckle in it. Its deep "Ah! hah! hah!" came with a staccato, quacking sound from somewhere low down in the chest, and set his huge shoulders moving in unison with its peals.
They had been traveling more than two hours when he gave voice to a sudden command that stopped the pack, and at a second command a staccato of shrill Eskimo accompanied by the lash of his whip the panting wolves sank upon their bellies in the snow. Philip jumped from the sledge, and Bram went immediately to the gun. He did not touch it, but dropped on his knees and examined it closely.
It opens with an overly reminiscent waltz-tune, and ends conventionally, but it contains a movement in negro-tone that gives it importance. In this the strings are abetted by a tambourine, a triangle, and a gong. It is in march-time, and, after a staccato prelude, begins with a catchy air taken by the second violins, while the firsts, divided, fill up the chords.
Amongst these could be distinguished the harmonious notes of some not altogether unknown to them, the trill of the lark on high, the whistle of the blackbird in the hidden covert, the "pretty Dick" of the thrush, and the "chink, chink!" of the robin and coo of the dove, mingled with the sweet but subdued song of the yellow-hammer and sharp staccato accompaniment of the untiring chaffinch; while, all the time, a colony of asthmatic old rooks in the taller trees of the park cawed their part in the concert in a deep bass key at regular intervals, "Caw, caw, caw!"
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