Then, with an awful suddenness, their cry became the cry of death, for out from the bushes belched a yellow
line of fire as the rifles of Trent and his men rang out their welcome.
A little farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing, and a
line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late field of hay.
Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the
line of fire with my teeth; and I've done it, too; at least I've dragged HIM out of the battle when he was wounded.
Looking back presently, I could see, through the crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved
line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill.
He and D'Arnot stepped back a few paces to be out of the
line of fire as the men paced slowly apart.
It came toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea through which it passed, with a long
line of fire that extended far off into the distance.
At long intervals a flash of lightning clove it with a quivering
line of fire that revealed a heaving world of water where was nothing before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver, and lit up the faces of the men with a ghastly luster!
It was exactly opposite the door--it was straight in the
line of fire! Sir Joseph' s life (as Turlington had deliberately calculated) was actually in greater danger than Launce's life.
But right across the southern horizon was one long vivid scarlet streak, waxing and waning in vivid pulses of life, leaping suddenly to a crimson zenith and then dying down to a glowing
line of fire.
"What links?" I asked carelessly, while twins in a perambulator got out of our
line of fire.
He looked happily at the
line of fires, with people grouped about them, and the colour of the flames against the night; at the end of the meadow was a line of great elms, and above the starry sky.
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, In the
Line of Fire: A Study of Selected Felonious Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers (Washington, DC, 1997), 35-37.
