I thought to hear that dull, measured thumping of a grateful tail, but it was only the Twelve Apostles getting ready to strike.

" There was a sudden thumping of hands upon the table until the glasses rattled.

And then there was silencea silence broken only by their bated breaths and the excited thumpings of their hearts.

That infernal thumping in his ears had drowned the noises from the street below.

I intended giving this to our patients should they wake and call for drink, and I was just lifting my tray to go when a loud thumping on the front door made me set it down in haste.

The owner of the house, who slept on the ground floor, equally astonished with myself at the noise, had also quitted his pillow, and, arming himself with a sword and taper, advanced, in the costumes of Iago, when he reappears upon the stage after stabbing Cassio and Rodorigo, towards the door against which the monotonous thumping still continued at regular intervals.

The cross stays flew apart like cobwebs, but the lee shrouds unfortunately held good; and scarcely was the stick overboard before there was an ominous thumping at the sides, the drum-beat of death.

I was wondering what that rhythmic thumping meant, when one of the nursing sisters came and closed the high wooden door at my back, shutting off the view of the wounded men.

D'ye hear me?" His words fell on empty air, his wife having already sped upstairs to pacify Master Smith by a rhythmical and monotonous thumping on the back.

Sometimes the hardier boys who ventured out there snake-shooting heard a slow thumping of oar-locks on the canal.

This time he was cursing one of his horses, and she could hear the stinging whish of a whip, a wicked and sinister emphasis to the beast's snorting and frenzied thumping of hoofs.

The other damages she had sustained were of less consequence; and it was as great a satisfaction as it has ever since been a source of astonishment to us to find that, after so many hours of constant and violent thumping, both the vessels were nearly as tight as they were before the gale.

The place was now a little paradise, said he; but he had scarcely finished washing and dressing when the partition behind the bed was shaken by a vigorous thumping.

Towards morning, by reason of the continual thumping, the mainmast began to work through the vessel, and to settle in the sand, so that it became necessary for us to make our way to the fore-rigging; which we did, not without danger, as one of the men was twice washed off.