Forbidden, owing to the panic thus caused, the use of this modern method, Wren betook himself to ancient times, and devised a gigantic battering ram, with a great spike at one end.
Georges had, in his conversation with him, laid great stress on the strength of the Turkish army, the excellent quality of the troops, and the enormous battering train that had been prepared.
The next morning, at daybreak, the deep boom of a gun announced to the city that the great battering cannon had begun their work.
A large male was battering frantically against the steel wires of the cage that held him captive.
Turnbull leaped back, but Evan lunged and lunged and lunged again like a devilish piston rod or battering ram.
But the other dropped at the interruption, turned upon Turnbull and began a battering bout of fisticuffs.
The time from which the battering guns had been withdrawn, until they had been again placed in battery, was assiduously employed in constructing new defences and strengthening the old ones.
There were found upon the works one hundred and nine pieces of artillery, a battering train of forty-four guns, and an armoury and arsenal filled with military stores.
Great difficulty was encountered by the engineers in their task of bringing their stores and battering trains some six or seven miles from the coast to their required position, the means of transport being poor.
The Carthaginian general had displayed a degree of energy equal to any Grecian officer throughout the war, with a command of besieging and battering machinery surpassing even the best equipped Grecian cities.
Yet notwithstanding all the pressure of numbers, ferocity, and battering machines, the resistance was still successfully maintained; so that night found Himera still a Grecian city.
He distributed his army into two parts, each provided with battering machines and movable wooden towers; and then assailed the walls on many points at once, choosing the points where they were most accessible or most dilapidated.
But after hard fighting without success for one day, he was forced to retire at nightfall; and even lost his battering train, which was burnt during the night by a sally of the besieged.
They were packed in a mass in the close and on the stair, and the foremost were solemnly battering at the night door at the top of the first flight of stairs, crying, "Fuil airson fuil!
I'll warrant there's not a wise enough (let alone a sober enough) man among all the idiots battering there who'll think of watching for your retreat.
Our own gunboats were hindered, by the same cause, from putting out and opening a flanking fire upon the battering ships.
If those battering ships couldn't withstand our fire, what chance would their men-of-war have?
Not a shot was fired before the enemy anchored, and then the whole of the batteries that commanded them opened fire, to which the battering ships and the artillery in their lines at once replied.
As the afternoon went on, confusion was apparent on board several of the battering ships and, by the evening, their fire had slackened considerably.
Of the sixbattering ships still in flames, three blew up before eleven o'clock.
As soon as it became dark, rockets were fired by several of the battering ships.
The garrison hoped that the two remaining battering ships might be saved, to be sent home as trophies of the victory but, about noon, one of them suddenly burst into flames, and presently blew up.
By ten o'clock the flames began to burst out from the admiral's battering ship and, by midnight, she was completely in flames.
The Artillery, however, refused to let their attention be diverted from the battering ships.
A battering train had been brought up, with great labour and at great expense, to Candahar, and now that it was likely to be brought into use, and so to repay the labour and the expense, Sir John Keane dropped it by the way.
The enemy had packed the pass below well-nigh full of their dead, and our battering stones had less distance to fall and so could do less execution.
They had grown callous, these townsfolk, to the battering of rams, and the flight of fire-darts, and the other emotions of a bombardment.
On the sixteenth day, after many had been slain and all the citizens were in utter exhaustion from toil and sleeplessness, they commenced the final assault with ladders and battering rams.
A foreign officer from Dantzic, by the name of Jacob, had the direction of the battering train.
On the evening of the 6th the battering rams and ladders were prepared, and it was evident that the storming of the city was soon to begin.
And meanwhile the foresaid barbarians were batteringon my doors, while over their heads choking smoke was pouring in in ever-increasing volumes.
They fought up and down the cabin, battering each other's face.
He had just been battering his pride and persistence up against men whose manner of refusal showed that they remembered what Fletcher Fogg had said regarding the prospects of successful floating of the Conomo.
But now that the Conomo had withstood the battering of a gale and bulked large on the reef, a visible pledge of value, it did seem that Captain Candage must be able to find somebody who would back them.
But in spite of the battering she had received her position had not changed.
The French made sally after sally to spike the guns which were battering down the walls.
Josephus showed wonderful craft in obtaining food for his garrison and in breaking the force of the Roman battering rams.
But no sooner had the last city wall fallen under the catapults shot from the Roman battering rams than a second wall appeared behind it, built by the foresight of John of Gischala.
When thebattering rams of Titus began attacking the outer walls in three places, John and Simon stopped their feud and banded together at last to meet the common enemy.
All thought of using it as a battering ram had left them now.
There they go at the door with the log as a battering ram!
Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work upon the city of Acre, batteringits houses and its towers, and smashing and overthrowing everything within their range.
Yet at that moment I did not know these things, and the sight made me grave, though it made me sure also that this year would find the British battering this same Chateau.
A battering ram of a wave crashed into the Holter's starboard side, and Ramsay felt a cold chill travel up and down his spine.
Usually, when Pieter wasn't using the boat, it was pulled high enough on the beach so storm-driven battering rams of waves could not touch it, and so it was now.
Meanwhile the German heavy guns were battering down the outworks of the river fortresses, and the army of the Niemen was within sixty miles of Vilna.
But Cuthbert pointed out the absolute impossibility of their carrying so strong a place by such an assault, unprovided with engines for battering down the gates.
Perhaps it tended to dissipate the molecules, held them farther apart, prevented their squeezing in together, and battering with a thousand little impacts on a point where one had hit before.
Dense masses of the invaders crowded about them, battering at them.
