United States or Svalbard and Jan Mayen ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Clankings, tappings, hissings, coughings, clatterings, stridulation of a wireless spark, drone of dynamos, shrewdish scolding of Diesel motors developing two thousand horsepower, individual efforts of some two thousand valves, combined or, declined to combine in a cacophony like nothing under the sun but the chant of a submersible under way on the surface.
Joe panted, "Plug the hole from the inside. Sit on it if you have to!" and slammed the door shut. They waited. Sanford's voice came in the ear-phones. It was higher in pitch than it had been. "You fools!" he raged. "It's useless! It's stupid to do useless things! It's stupid to do anything at all " There were sudden scuffling clankings. Joe swung about. The Chief and Sanford were struggling.
The Platform, in fact, became the center of a swarm, a cluster, a cloud of infinitesimal objects which would always accompany it and always be in motion with regard to it. Together, they should make up a screen no proximity fuse bomb could pierce without exploding. Joe heard clankings, transmitted to his body through his feet. "What's that?" he demanded sharply. "It sounds like the airlock!"
That purpose, providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the clankings of their chain that were to come, and to shelter herself with the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection, and their adaptation to each other.
All around were tall engine-houses, out of which came all sorts of curious, dreadful sounds, groans, and hissings, and whistlings, and clankings of iron; while high up in the air, stretching out from them, were huge beams like the arms of great giants working up and down in all sorts of ways; some pumping water out of the mines from the underground streams which run into them, others lifting the baskets of coal out of the shafts, or bringing up or lowering down the miners and other men engaged in the works.
At length, just after two bells had struck and how dreadfully clamourous the strokes sounded in that heavy, stagnant air the helmsman reported that the ship was no longer under command; and presently she swung broadside-on to the swell, rolling heavily, with loud splashing and gurgling sounds in the scuppers, with a swirling and washing of water under the counter, frequent vicious kicks of the now useless rudder, accompanied by violent clankings of the wheel chains, loud creakings and groanings of the timbers, heavy flappings and rustlings of the invisible canvas aloft, with fierce jerks of the chain sheets, and, in short, a full chorus of those multitudinous sounds that emanate from a rolling ship in a stark calm.
And then the girl heard yet louder tramps and clankings, and she beheld rising from where the others had risen a whole column of cavalry in marching order. At a distance behind these came a cloud of dust enveloping more and more troops, their arms and accoutrements reflecting the sun through the haze in faint flashes, stars, and streaks of light.
No sooner had he repeated the words, meanwhile concentrating with all the force of his newly trained will upon the single idea of seeing and hearing what was happening on the unknown, yet quite knowable planet no sooner had his head sunk on his chest than he became aware of a strange sound. On all sides unseen apparatus gave forth a medley of subdued jars and clankings.
There is a thick dust of sounds in the air, a rumble of shafting, sudden thuddings, clankings, and M. Citroen has to raise his voice. He points out where he has made little changes in procedures, cut out some wasteful movement.... He has an idea and makes a note in the ever-ready notebook. There is a beauty about all these women, there is extraordinary grace in their finely adjusted movements.
"But we'll show you some more of this to-morrow Q.M.," said George. They bought drinks all round, and paid their various bills, and departed again feverishly to the Lost Dog whence rose smoke and clankings. And next day, sure enough, they left their work just long enough to exhibit another respectable little clean-up of fifty dollars or so.
Word Of The Day