The upper end, reaching much farther into the air, underwent convulsive writhings and contortions as an intermittent breeze came over the sheltering treetops and buffeted it in puffs.

I did not need to consult the sympathetic paper, for the agonized writhings of the poor animals spoke plainly enough to the naked eye.

It was admitted by witnesses competent to form an opinion that Westley's contorted face, his troubled breathing, his manner of stepping back, and the curious writhing of his stout arms, all encouraged a supposition that he might be contemplating immediate violence upon the person of Potts.

I have seen them so piled up that the under ones were nearly smothered to death; and the writhing contortions of the long bare necks, as the fierce brutes battled with talons and claws, were like the twisting of monster snakes, or the furious writhing of gorgons and furies over some fated victim.

But, far away upon the road, forgotten, and out of mind,with futile writhing and grimaces, the Haunting Shadow of the Might Have Been jibbered in the shadows.

"But mark, that green pavilion; girt around By Persian nobles, speaks the Chief renowned; Fierce on the standard, worked with curious art, A hideous dragon writhing seems to start; Throned in his tent the warrior's form is seen, Towering above the assembled host between! A generous horse before him snorts and neighs, The trembling earth the echoing sound conveys.

On looking in he perceived a young female tied up to a beam by her wrists, entirely naked, and in the act of involuntary writhing and swinging; while the author of her torture was standing below her with a lighted torch in his hand, which he applied to all the parts of her body as it approached him.

She found, after sundry writhings, the right way, and drifted off to sleep long before she expected to.

There was tremendous writhing and struggling on the part of the jararaca; and then, leaning over the knot into which the two serpents were twisted, I saw that the mussurama had seized the jararaca by the lower jaw, putting its own head completely into the wide-gaping mouth of the poisonous snake.

The terrific fables of Marlowe and of Goethe, in their respective versions of the legend of Faustus, had disclosed the utmost writhings which remorse in the fiercest of its torments can express; but what are those Laocoon agonies to the sublime serenity of Manfred.

he replied, smiling with thin lips which in all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "but the sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe and the future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark.