You would almost think a
great gun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that that was the smoke from the touch-hole.
Moby Dick LXVIII CXXXIV
It will all be as it was when I first spoke to thee under Zam-Zammah the
great gun -'
Kim
Some miles from the fort we met a man, who told us that a
great gun had been fired, which is a signal that Indians are near.
The Voyage of the Beagle
Above our heads the explosive booming gusts of wind passed continuously, justifying the sailor's saying "It blows
great guns." And just from that need of human companionship, being very close to the man, I said, or rather shouted:
Mirror of the Sea
Then I heard quite distinctly a booming ex- actly like the sound of
great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and after a long interval six again.
War Of The Worlds
Who should know so well as I that it is but a handloom compared to the
great guns that reverberate through the age to come?
Margaret Ogilvy
"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; "was that
great guns, Joe?"
Great Expectations
All these hardened and impenitent man-killers, to whom death in its awfulest forms is a fact familiar to their every-day observation; who sleep on hills trembling with the thunder of
great guns, dine in the midst of streaming missiles, and play at cards among the dead faces of their dearest friends, - all are watching with suspended breath and beating hearts the outcome of an act involving the life of one man.
A Son of the Gods
Great guns, bombs, and mines must have leveled every building that man had raised, and then nature, unhindered, had covered the ghastly evidence of human depravity with her beauteous mantle of verdure.
The Lost Continent
On gala days the town fires its
great guns, which echo like popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial music occasionally penetrate thus far.
Walden & on the Duty of Civil Disobedience
"Why,
great guns," I said, "don't I want to find the castle?
Connecticut Yankee
The admired piratical ship had blown up, in the midst of a vast fleet of ships of all rates, and boats of all sizes; and on the deep was nothing but ruin; nothing but burning hulls, bursting magazines,
great guns self-exploded tearing friends and neighbours to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy spars and going down every minute, spent swimmers floating dead, and sharks.
Little Dorrit
I had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew
great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or anything approaching to it.
David Copperfield
These galleries are like spacious railway tunnels, and at short intervals in them
great guns frown out upon sea and town through portholes five or six hundred feet above the ocean.
The Innocents Abroad
I suppose that by comparison with the
great guns of modern naval vessels of the outer world it was a pitifully small and inadequate thing; but here in Pellucidar, where it was the first of its kind, it was about as awe-inspiring as anything you might imagine.
Pellucidar