spear's-throw

Updated: May 20, 2025

But I can't say so much for him in the case of the Indians, who can move so noiselessly that even a vicuna would not hear them until they were within a spear's-throw." "The spear is their weapon then, Dias?" "Some tribes carry bows and arrows, others only spears, and sometimes they poison the points of both these weapons." "That is unpleasant. Are there remedies for the poisons?"

G. A. (George Alfred) Henty - The Treasure of the Incas

A spear's-throw back they had stopped, growling and whining, and swaying their mountainous forms from side to side in angry irresolution. "They fear the bright, dancing things," said Grôm to himself; and added, with a throb of exultation, "which I do not fear."

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts - In the Morning of Time

Seven were killed before they could fly to the hills, and one was captured alive, a slender, beautiful girl of ten years, whom they tied hands and feet and threw into the canoe with the slain ones. Back they came from their triumph, and landed on the shore here, within spear's-throw from the paepae of Broken Plate.

Frederick O'Brien - White Shadows in the South Seas