"Melee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... everywhere shown themselves superior with the bayonet and at close infighting, even as the Germans had displayed an incredible courage in advance under gunfire, and rightly held their heavy artillery to be the finest in the world, in the melee around the colors of the Magdeburg Regiment, there was nothing to choose for either side. The lieutenant color bearer was killed, in the midst of a ring of dead, and not until almost the whole regiment had been killed under the impact of far superior numbers, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Calcutta, why it was nothing to this! What a scramble there must have been for that solitary window and a mouthful of fresh air! Lions, tigers, jackals, hyaenas, boa-constrictors, kangaroos, eagles, owls, bees, wasps, bluebottles, with Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives, all in one fierce melee. But the contention for the precious vital air must, however violent, have soon subsided: fifteen minutes would have settled them all. Yet curiously enough the choking animals-suffered no appreciable injury; by some occult means they ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... hole's good enough for his face! You villians, you thieves, you robbers! (General melee. Lorarii weaken.) ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... made no sign that he had heard. Hopkins shrugged a shoulder and chewed at his cigar, to which his teeth had clung grimly throughout the melee. ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... grass that grew there. That handful of grass became a terrible bolt of iron endued with the energy of the thunderbolt. With it Krishna slew all those that came before him. Then the Andhakas and the Bhojas, the Saineyas and the Vrishnis, urged by Time, struck one another in that fearful melee. Indeed, O king, whoever amongst them took up in wrath a few blades of the Eraka grass, these, in his hands, became soon converted into a thunderbolt, O puissant one. Every blade of grass there was seen to be converted into a terrible iron bolt. All this, know, O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... some loss of temper; and our china-closet was altogether too small for the officials who had to wash the china there, and they were constantly at odds with my mother for her firmness in resisting their tendency to carry our china and silver to the general melee of the kitchen sink. Moreover, our dining-room not having been constructed with an eye to modern expansions of the female toilet, it happened that, if our table was to be enlarged for guests, there arose serious questions of the waiter's ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, and each trying to flank the rear of the other, will eventually circle around a common center; and if the effort to improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will narrow until the battle becomes a melee. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... which was hewing its way through a mass of Dutch. He called on them to halt and reform, and their officers supposing him to be one of their generals who had arrived from headquarters, set to work to extricate their men from the melee. The Prince passed with the utmost coolness through their line as if to see what was doing in front, while Claverhouse and Collier followed him as if they were attached. As soon as he had got to the open space in front, for what remained of the Dutch were in rapid retreat, and were scattering in ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... sallied out and mingled in the confused mass of the enemy, doing tremendous execution with their axes and knives. Hitherto the king had kept his reserve in hand; but now that the English archers were defeated and their horsemen in inextricable confusion, he moved his division down and joined in the melee, his men shouting ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... "We saw the awful melee, the struggle to the death with that song above all the shouting and the shrieks... You who imagine you know La Marseillaise because you have heard it played at prize distributions must acknowledge your error. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... boasts itself as Chateau-Ausone, one of the two best of the St Emilion clarets.' Here he tends his roses and sends his boy round to the neighbours to bid them to luncheon, while he interviews the cook. Six, including the host, is the right number—if more it is not a meal but a melee. Then there are all his relatives to be commemorated in verse, his grandfather and his grandmother and his sisters and his cousins and his aunts ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... team, in the meantime, was doing what Packard later described as "a vaudeville turn of its own." The near wheeler was bucking as though there were no other horse within a hundred miles; the off wheeler had broken his single-tree and was facing the coach, delivering kicks at the melee behind him with whole-hearted abandon and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... of the knights detached himself from the melee and rode to her side with some word of command, at the same time grasping roughly at her bridle rein. The girl raised her riding whip and struck repeatedly but futilely against the iron headgear ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... later, when Quarrier had emerged brilliantly from the melee, she looked up again, triumphantly, supposing Siward was lingering somewhere waiting to join her. And she was just a trifle surprised and disappointed to find him nowhere in sight. She had wished him to observe the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... and rear, while it soon became evident that the aim of the assailants was to reach the queen's chariot, doubtless in the hope of being able to secure possession of it and drive it off through the melee. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... be there; for quite fifty of the tethered steeds had broken loose in the excitement, and were rushing here and there and fighting in a most alarming way. I have always had a dread of horse-fights, and this was not a single fight; it was a melee, fresh horses every minute breaking loose to join it. Right in my way two angry stallions rose up, boxing one another like the lion and the unicorn, and a little boy of ten or thereabouts ran in between and, jumping, caught ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Sixteenth, and even from the Front one glorious year, was at once Foxy's disgust and terror. As a little boy, he could not for the life of him avoid turning his back to wait shuddering, with humping shoulders, for the enemy's charge, and in anything like a melee, he could not help jumping into the air at every ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... the suffocating melee would result in the death or permanent injury to some of us, I was at last dragged by a policeman to the edge of the crowd. Although I offered not the slightest resistance, I was crushed continuously in ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... taking the shield and the lance, which was heavy, stiff, and decorated, and about his waist he girt a sharp, bright, and flashing sword. Then he followed his brother and lord into the fight. The latter demeaned himself bravely in the melee for some time, breaking, splitting, and crushing shields, helmets and hauberks. No wood or steel protected the man whom he struck; he either wounded him or knocked him lifeless from the horse. Unassisted, he did so well that he discomfited all whom he met, while his companions did ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... moment as it seemed, the prince and his comrade found themselves in a fierce melee, in which for a while they could scarce move hand or foot, jammed in by the press of men and steeds, but surrounded by friends and comrades, who were eagerly pressing forward toward the foe. Cries and shouts rent the air, mingled ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... heard De Croix swearing in French beside me, and glanced around through the mad turmoil to see him cutting and hacking with broken blade, pushing into the midst of the melee as if he had real joy in the encounter. While I thus had him in view, a knife whistled through the air, there was a quick dazzle in the sunlight, and he reeled backward off his horse and disappeared ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... shot, with blood spilled and bone splintered, with pain and tremendous horror and invading nausea, with delirium, with resurgence of the brute, with jungle triumph, Berserker rage and battle ecstasy came the shock—then, in a moment, the melee. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... speaker, whose voice had a strong Gascon accent, and saw a young man from twenty to twenty-five, resting his hand on the crupper of the horse of the first speaker. His head was bare; he had probably lost his hat in the melee. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... the more formidable as an opponent because he could be angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... attack. This attacking column might have been called a forlorn hope, so few men had she with her. The little party were repulsed, and at one moment her squire, d'Aulon, saw that his brave mistress was fighting alone, surrounded by the English. At great peril she was rescued from the melee. Asked how she could hope to succeed in taking the place with hardly any support, she answered, while she raised her helmet, 'There are fifty thousand of my host around me,' alluding to the vision of angels that in moments of extreme ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... coat, flung it aside, and crammed myself into a loose, one-piece costume of Orcon which I tore off a corpse. Then I fought while my three companions repeated the operation. We succeeded in confusing the mob to such an extent that we were able to work our way through the fringes of the melee and move clear across the first ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... see the man," and hurling his javelin, struck him straight upon the breast, with such force that the cuirass was pierced and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The king fell from his horse; but at the same moment Cyrus received a wound beneath the eye from the javelin of a Persian, and in the melee which followed he was slain with eight of his followers. The Six Hundred could lend no effectual aid, because they had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... was burst open, the room was filled with their foes—uplifted weapons, deadly blows, cries, curses in English and French—in short, such a melee ensued that it passes all our power to describe it. The fire was kicked over the place—blood hissed as it ran over the floor and met the hot embers—the torches were speedily extinguished or converted into weapons—men rolled over and over in deadly strife, seeking ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... a melee of horses, on the turn, as the leader swung into the stretch. It was the same red bay, but now the boy on the black horse moved his hands forward a little and his mount came easily to the leader's side. There was a short struggle ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... engagement, struggle, encounter, fray, affray, melee, scrimmage (Colloq.); pugnacity, belligerence. Associated words: militant, combative, combativeness, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... altercation between two students, who were making themselves unpleasant, and the proprietor of the place. The next night the students returned in force and demanded free drinks, and, upon their being refused, precipitated a general melee in which clubs were used and even knives were drawn. In the end, the unfortunate owners were chased to the outskirts of town by the ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... and with tubes for projecting Greek fire to create smoke and set their opponent on fire. The main tactics of the time, however, consisted in grappling with the enemy and transforming the combat into a hand-to-hand melee. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... melee was at its thickest, and all hope was at an end, Malcolm, who had been fighting desperately with his half pike, found himself for a moment in a doorway. He turned the handle, and it opened at once. The house, like all the others, was full of Imperialists, who had thrown themselves into ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... confidence in themselves from being habitually outdone by stronger brothers and sisters, or in slow minds which seem "stupid" to others and to themselves, or in natures too sensitive to risk themselves in the melee. To these, one who brings the gift of encouragement comes as a deliverer and often changes the course of their life, leading them to believe in themselves and their own good endowments, making them ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... themselves on one side—the defenders of the Orsini on the other—and the few who agreed with the smith that both factions were equally odious, and the people was the sole legitimate cry in a popular commotion, would have withdrawn themselves from the approaching melee, if the smith himself, who was looked upon by them as an authority of great influence, had not—whether from resentment at the haughty bearing of the young Colonna, or from that appetite of contest not uncommon in men of a bulk and force which ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... came a yell—the rebel yell—and a horse leaped forward. Other horses leaped too, everybody yelled in answer, and the cavalcade swept forward. There was a massing of horses, the white girth flashing in the midst of the melee, a great crash and much turning, twisting, and sawing of bits, and then all dashed the other way, the white girth in the lead, and the boy's lips fell apart in wonder. A black thoroughbred was making a wide sweep, an iron-gray was cutting in behind, and all ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... river bed. Like specks on the laboring tide was the white of bandages. An ambulance trying to cut out to one side was overturned. The frantic chauffeur and hospital-corps orderly were working to extricate the wounded from their painful position. A gun was overturned against the ambulance. A melee of horses and men was forming at the foot of the garden gate in front of the narrowing bounds of the road into the town, as a stream banks up before a jam of driftwood. The struggle for right of way became increasingly wild; the dam of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... the car, was to cut a tire. By getting his opponent into a stooping position; over the damaged wheel, it would be easier to overcome him. But a hasty search revealed that he had lost his knife in the melee. And second thought gave him a better plan. After all, to get the letter was not everything. To know its destination would be important. He had no time to think further. The messenger was coming down the steps, not stealthily, but clattering, with the ring of ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... men who had gone for Andrew were much too infirm to get close to "The Falcon." For with the daylight her work had begun, and she was surrounded on all sides by a melee of fishing-boats. Some were discharging their boxes of fish; others were struggling to get some point of vantage; others again fighting to escape the uproar. The air was filled with the roar of the waves and with the voices of men, blending in shouts, orders, expostulations, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... graceful assent, while a sharp-looking old dowager at the side of the table called out, "a rubber of four on, my Lord;" and now began an explanation from the whole party at once. Nicholas saw this was his time, and thought that in the melee, his hint might reach his mistress unobserved by the remainder of the company. He accordingly protruded his head into the room, and placing his finger upon the side of his nose, and shutting one eye knowingly, with ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... Davis, the blacksmith, wielding a heavy sledge hammer, did valiant service, clearing a space around him with little difficulty. Joe Wegg, Arthur Weldon, Cox the detective, Lon Taft, Nick Thome and even little Skim Clark were all in the melee, fighting desperately for time to enable Thursday Smith to work his press, using whatever cudgels they had been able to pick up to keep the assailants from the pole. Slowly, however, they were forced back by superior numbers until finally one of the mill hands clambered ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... are Carl Heft, surely! Good lad, I did not see you in the melee, but I have no doubt you acquitted yourself well. I also am going to the front trench, to our company's sector. We ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... was passing through the narrow way left by the crowd. His foot struck one of the loaded burros in the eye. The animal staggered over against the wall of men, trampling on somebody's feet. Somebody yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping on somebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. More of the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. His pony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. Then ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... cordiale with Britain was sundered in a minute. The melee grew into a fierce battle, and only the increasing distance of the vessel from shore stopped the firing, the last shots ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to my argumentative German acquaintance of Bentheim and Aix. During the melee of changing cars I was, however, separated from him, and became engaged in conversation (spoken in English) with a Dutch chocolate merchant. The argument must have been interesting, for I did not at first notice a ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... thirty of his men succeeded in reaching land in canoes, seized the fort without any difficulty, and although his followers were so few managed to disperse a body of the enemy who were approaching, with the English governor at their head, to recover it. In the melee the governor was one of the first to be killed—stabbed, say the Spaniards, by the Irishman, who took active part in the expedition and fought by the side of Rui Fernandez. Meanwhile some of the inhabitants, ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... but forced him off to six or eight times that distance from his enemies. Luckily for him, all of the Indians had dropped their rifles in the pursuit, or this retreat might not have been effected with impunity; though no one had noted the canoe in the first confusion of the melee. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... a sift of snow that had been heaping up a lonely little drift on the bare floor. The widow covered the boys tenderly and took their treasures off the bed, all save the little wooden monkey, which, as if frightened by the melee, had hidden far under the clothes. She went below stairs to the fire, which every cold day was well fed until after midnight, and began to enjoy the sight of her own gifts. They were a haunch of venison, a sack of flour, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... was chewing Bill's paw with the gusto of a gourmet. An Irish terrier, with no personal bias towards either side, was dancing round and attacking each in turn as he came uppermost. And two poodles leaped madly in and out of the melee, barking encouragement. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... overturned—the tressels were thrown upon their backs—the tub of punch into the fire-place—and the ladies into hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Jugs, pitchers, and carboys mingled promiscuously in the melee, and wicker flagons encountered desperately with bottles of junk. The man with the horrors was drowned upon the spot-the little stiff gentleman floated off in his coffin—and the victorious Legs, seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out with her into the street, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Hougoumont—the appearance of Buelow on the heights of Saint Lambert—the charge of the Inniskillings and the Scots Greys—the death of valiant Ponsonby. We see Marshal Ney Prince of Moskowa—the bravest soldier in France—we see him everywhere where the melee is thickest, everywhere where danger is most nigh. His magnificent uniform torn to shreds, his gold lace tarnished, his hair and whiskers singed, his face blackened by powder, indomitable, unconquered, superb, we hear him cry: "Where are ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... dirty work," Billy muttered over and over; and, though he saw much that occurred, assisted by the friendly Irishman he was coolly and safely working Saxon back out of the melee. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... refused to accede to these terms; and while the interpreter was addressing some, the rest tried to push forward. Some of the militia opposed them by holding their muskets in a horizontal position, on which one of the mutineers fired, and the militia returned the fire. A melee commenced, in which fourteen mutineers were killed and wounded. The fire of the Africans produced little effect: they soon took to flight amid the woods which flanked the road. Twenty-eight of them were taken, amongst whom was the ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... 'three sheets in the wind,' and making for trouble. Vootgert, the Belgian, was the first to fall foul of the Mate, and that sorely-tried Officer could hardly be blamed for using all four limbs on the offending 'squarehead.' Seeing their shipmate thus handled, the watch would have raised a general melee, but the boarding-house 'crimps,' having no liking for police interference, succeeded in calming the valiant ones by further draughts of their fiery panacea. To us boys (who had heard great tales of revolvers and other weapons ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... flashed into a flame, and he leaped up with doubled fists and made for the offender, who coolly awaited him. A warning cry from George recalled his brother to his senses, and, instead of attacking his assailant, he laughingly plunged into the melee, which went on ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... wild and exciting rush before we got through; and I have but little recollection of what took place beyond the fact that I struck out right and left in melee after melee, wherein blows were aimed at us with the butts and barrels of rifles, and shots fired at close quarters, but in almost every case I believe without effect. Then the call rang out, "Halt!" and, with our enemies at a distance, we formed up again, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... to the assistance of the four companions, while the other ran toward the hotel of M. de Treville, crying, "To the rescue, Musketeers! To the rescue!" As usual, this hotel was full of soldiers of this company, who hastened to the succor of their comrades. The MELEE became general, but strength was on the side of the Musketeers. The cardinal's Guards and M. de la Tremouille's people retreated into the hotel, the doors of which they closed just in time to prevent their enemies from entering with them. As to ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... through a throng of men, women, and children, all as excited as herself. It was a scene of wild confusion, women shrieking and wringing their hands and fainting, and men fighting and trampling down everything in their way. In the midst of the melee Marija recollected that she did not have her bankbook, and could not get her money anyway, so she fought her way out and started on a run for home. This was fortunate for her, for a few minutes later the police ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... decreed, it would be his death. His respect for his fellows was measured by their power of withstanding him, and the man he had the greatest affection for, perhaps, was a soldier, now incapacitated, who had once in a melee succeeded in knocking him from his saddle. At the same time he believed in his own astuteness, not without some reason be it said, and in the back of his mind there was always a certain admiration for the man who could get the better ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... at once ordered his division into two detachments, and giving one to Bourbon the bastard, to make head against the Stradiotes, he hurried with the second to the rescue of the van, flinging himself into the very midst of the melee, striking out like a king, and doing as steady work as the lowest in rank of his captains. Aided by the reinforcement, the rearguard made a good stand, though the enemy were five against one, and the combat in this part continued to rage with ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Singleton rode alone with all the others pursuing him wildly; no wonder Bessie felt enthralled by the novelty of the sight. She uttered a little scream once when the horses and riders all crushed together in a sort of confused melee. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... through any game of battle or tourney such as the King loved to organize when he had his knights round him. It was often that the esquires as well as the knights competed in these contests of skill and strength, or followed their masters into some great melee, and it was a point of honour with the latter that their followers should be well and suitably equipped ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... even turned on the whites, who rushed so recklessly among them; so that for a minute a fierce hand-to-hand fight raged on the narrow strand, and even among the crowded canoes in the water. In the confusion of this melee Christie became separated from his men, and ere he realized the full peril of his position received several knife wounds in quick succession. Staggering under these, he fell, was instantly dragged into a ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... With this melee raging in his skull, Cam dodged back to Everett. He found that worthy sliding liquidly from the booth, his side-pocket familiar now half-emerged and regarding his ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... some took one side, some another. The issue may be well foreseen. Swords were drawn. I had left mine in the ante room; Zicci offered me his own,—I seized it eagerly. There might be some six or eight persons engaged in a strange and confused kind of melee, but the Prince and myself only sought each other. The noise around us, the confusion of the guests, the cries of the musicians, the clash of our own swords, only served to stimulate our unhappy fury. We feared to be interrupted by the attendants ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was checked, that the spot where lay the Confederate general would mark the highest point attained by the crimson wave of Southern valor, for Union troops were concentrating in overwhelming numbers. The wound in my hand had broken out afresh. I hastened to get back out of the melee, the crush, and the 'sing' of bullets, and soon reached my old post of observation, exhausted and panting. The correspondents were still there, and one of them patted me on the shoulder in a way meant to be encouraging, and offered to put ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... Professor Trask, Dr. Murchison, Wong, Indian Jim, and, finally, each of the other's tenderest folly—till a living caricature too true or too cutting precipitated an appeal to arms, and the Lighthouse, which was always in the way, was tipped over in the melee, and had to be thrown out of the window, there to burn itself ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... she did not move. Then a new cry of warning broke upon our ears. Turning, I saw a dozen black pirates dashing toward us from the melee. We had been discovered. With shrieks of rage the demons sprang for us. With frenzied insistence I continued to press the little button which should have sent us racing out into space, but still the vessel refused to budge. Then it came ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... screams of stricken men and horses as they were dragged down by the blood-mad cats. The leaping carnivora and the plunging horses, prevented any concerted action by the Abyssinians—it was every man for himself—and in the melee, the defenseless woman was either forgotten or ignored by her black captors. A score of times was her life menaced by charging lions, by plunging horses, or by the wildly fired bullets of the frightened ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Sand, stones, anchors, and other obstructions were heaped upon the track. The remaining four companies therefore left the cars and started to march. They soon met the mob, flying a secession flag. A melee ensued. The troops moved double-quick toward the Washington depot, surrounded by a seething mass of infuriated secessionists filling the air with their brick-bats and stones, while bullets whizzed ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... whole scope of the natural laws, that the individual, as far as the present sphere of being is concerned, is to the Author of Nature a consideration of inferior moment. Everywhere we see the arrangements for the species perfect; the individual is left, as it were, to take his chance amidst the melee of the various laws affecting him. If he be found inferiorly endowed, or ill befalls him, there was at least no partiality against him. The system has the fairness of a lottery, in which every one has the like chance of ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... hundred and twelve cartridges with which they had started the fight, there remained sixty-eight. That meant they had expended thirty-nine in the last charge alone. As near as they could make out, they had accounted for eight of the enemy, four in the melee just finished. Besides, there were a number of ponies down. At first glance this might seem like poor shooting. It was not. A rapidly moving figure is a difficult rifle-mark with the best of conditions. In this case the conditions would have rendered an Easterner incapable of hitting ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... goin'?" the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic howl. And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass could plainly be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd damn their souls!" There was a melee of screeches, in which the men were ordered to do conflicting and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... copse, and after an hour's hard chase was finally cornered in the courtyard of some farm buildings of the Hameau d'Orillets. A troop of cows was entering the courtyard at the same moment, and a most confused melee ensued. The Inspector of Forests saved the situation and the cows of the farmer, and the stag fell to the carabine of Prince de la Moskowa, with the young Prince Murat on his pony in ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... skirmish if he had been at home in England. For many good reasons,—including dust and smoke, and that what attention he dared distract from his commanding officer was pretty well absorbed by keeping his hard-mouthed troop-horse in hand, under pain of execration by his neighbors in the melee. By and by, when the newspapers came out, if he could get a look at one before it was thumbed to bits, he would learn that the enemy had appeared from ambush in overwhelming numbers, and that orders had been given to fall back, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... furnishes a considerable output of very small diamonds, which are found in dry sand far from any present rivers. These diamonds cut to splendid white melee and the output is large enough to make some difference in the relative price of small stones as compared to large ones. The South West African field seldom yields a stone that will afford a finished ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... into the ring. They sweep across the arena and over the showman's barriers. Miguel gets a frightful trampling. Who cares for gates or doors? They tear the beasts' houses bar from bar, and, laying hold of the gaunt buffalo, drag him forth by feet, ears, and tail; and in the midst of the melee, still head and shoulders above all, wilder, with the cup of the wicked, than any beast, is the man of God ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Fair; and declared that the 'Dear Duck' letter, and various other matters, must be explained, and urged somebody to speak; and then, when Campbell does speak with all the energy of a real gentleman, a general outcry and an indiscriminate melee ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... we should have lost our big Standard-Bearer that day, if our bigger Dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the melee when he was wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death by our own horse, if the Dwarf had not promptly rescued him and haled him to the rear and safety. He recovered, and was himself again after two or three hours; and then he was happy and proud, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that battery of Homoly Hill; and, hanging upon that, all manner of redoubts and batteries to the rightward and rearward:—but how it was done no pen can describe, nor any intellect in clear sequence understand. An enormous MELEE there: new Prussian battalions charging, and ever new, irrepressible by case-shot, as they successively get up; Marshal Browne too sending for new battalions at double-quick from his left, disputing stiffly every inch of his ground. Till at length ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... men, the city is gained; but I can go no further for I am dying." He was losing so much blood that he felt he must either die without confession, or else permit two of his archers to carry him out of the melee and do their best to staunch ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... done, is the boredom. To get killed our wounded may be unpleasant, but it is at any rate interesting; the real tragedy is in the desolated fields, the desolated houses, the desolated hours and days, the bored and desolated minds that hang behind the melee and just outside the melee. The peculiar beastliness of the German crime is the way the German war cant and its consequences have seized upon and paralysed the mental movement of Western Europe. Before 1914 war was theoretically ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... horses to the wounded and sick. All endeavored to avoid the contagion of the pest-ridden sick. To them Roland gave his horse from preference. Three fell dead from the saddle; he mounted his horse after them, and reached Cairo safe and sound. At Aboukir he flung himself into the melee, reached the Pasha by forcing his way through the guard of blacks who surrounded him; seized him by the beard and received the fire of his two pistols. One burned the wadding only, the other ball passed under his arm, killing a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... is in vain that they gorge with blood and wine their deceived soldiers; the moment is approaching when these men will no longer consent to march against the city which is fighting for them. Already, yesterday, the melee of a battle could be distinguished from the fort of Vanves; the line had come to blows with the gendarmes of Valentin and Charette's Zouaves. Courage, Parisians! A few more days and you will have triumphed ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... robber knights were certain that these were but timid men. So out came their swords as they rode at the two. But they found them ready and watchful. And though the odds were two to one, it was not hard matter to hold the robbers off until Sir Launcelot came charging into the melee. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... this fashion that America was divided between the powers of Europe and the aborigines were dispossessed of their country. The barbaric rule of might from which the paleface had fled hither for refuge caught up with him again, and in the melee the hospitable native suffered ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... and tactics of society are infinitely more numerous and infinitely finer than those of strategy. Woe betide the rash knight who dashes into the thick of the polished melee without some slight experience of his barb and his lance! Let him look to his arms! He will do well not to appear before his helm be plumed with some reputation, however slight. He may be very rich, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Somehow in the melee the old man had again got hold of a revolver, and just as Fleck seized him he fired again. The bullet, aimed at Fleck, left him unharmed, but found a mark in Thomas Dean, who with a little gurgling cry, fell forward at Jane's ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... upward from the melee. Above him towered the gigantic bulk of the pachyderm, the little eyes flashing with the reflected light of the fires—wicked, frightful, terrifying. The warrior screamed, and as he screamed, the sinuous trunk encircled him, lifted ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Odysseus-Fritz, Achilles-Franz and Patroclus-Paul, and as no policeman was near, they would have mastered the three peaceable, well-bred boys, but at that moment Pixy, who had been watching the game, sprang in the midst of the melee, grasped the sleeve of one of the boys, snarling savagely, as if he were a terribly dangerous dog, indeed. The frightened boy tore himself loose with such force that he fell to the ground and Pixy, as though scorning to attack a fallen enemy, grasped the seat of the pants of ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... bashfully groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the melee McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose above ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... defeated at the start in this melee of conversation. Maurice also kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile under his golden moustache, and an attack of coughing soon disabled Gustave. Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn by turn, their volleys, the lawyer and the actor continued their ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... upon the condition of the fishing-boats added materially to the cost of the victory. Four of the craft had been jammed in the melee and were leaking badly. How they ever made port at all was a thing she could not understand. Three of the other vessels had sustained bent shafts and broken propeller blades. All the fleet were more or less battle-scarred but their defects ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... its intent is honest, and its editors independent of influence from any self-interested source, the literary tournament of criticism becomes either a parade of the virtues with banners for the favorites, or a melee where rivals seek revenge. Venal criticism is the drug and dishonest criticism the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... old mill had been surrounded and the chief of police had entered the building, followed by several other men of the party. The counterfeiters were taken by surprise, but they did not give up at once. Some began to fight, and in the melee two were seriously wounded. Then all but three surrendered, these three doing what they could to get out by a back way. One of the three was ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... apparent fact after the disengaging from the general embrace, when all had subsided into different seats, and Aunt Jane, who had appeared from somewhere in her little round sealskin hat, had begun to pour out the tea. The first sentence that emerged from the melee of greetings and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stead. Before a rifle or a revolver could be brought to bear on the huge form, Alexis had come to such close quarters with his foes as to prevent the use of firearms. The German leader did draw his revolver, but the melee was so fierce and men were tangled up so that he was unable to fire for fear of hitting one ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... only the shortest moment of time is available for consideration, and then this rapid consideration and decision have to be given under the most unfavourable external conditions, at the fullest speed of one's horse, or in the maddening confusion of the melee. Further, in most, cases it will be quite impossible for the Leader of a Cavalry 'Mass' to take in with accuracy the strength and dispositions of the enemy. The more extended radius of action of modern firearms and the greater ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... walls sundering them. The spectacle, in the "old" bathroom, when a convoy of walking cases has arrived, is one which should appeal to a painter. Clouds of steam fill the air, and through the fog you perceive a fine melee of figures, some half dressed, some statuesquely nude, towelling themselves or preparing to wash, or shaving at bits of mirror propped on the window-sills. Pink bodies wallow voluptuously in the deep porcelain-ware ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... crash of steel upon steel, the hideous melee, where friend and foe seemed blent in one dense struggling mass; the cries which pain sometimes extorted from the bravest; the shouts of the excited combatants, until ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... main dependence of infantry. In a melee, the infantryman with his bayonet has at least an even chance with the cavalryman, but the main dependence of infantry is rifle fire. Any formation is suitable that permits the free use of the necessary ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... broke forth into cheers, and Job's eyes, usually so blue, flashed fire. He sprang from Bess' back, and, in an instant, had struck the bully a blow that sent him reeling back into the arms of Yankee Sam. A moment, and a general melee seemed imminent, when Dan Dean stepped up and called a halt. He was the smoothest, most affable, meanest fellow in town, nephew by marriage to the lord of Pine Tree Mountain, and, as he had always boasted, the lord that was ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... victorious campaign in broad daylight. Huxley's pessimistic saying that typhoid was like a fight in the dark between the disease and the patient, and the doctor like a man with a club striking into the melee, sometimes hitting the disease and sometimes the patient, is no longer true ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... came, and then there was a hubbub and a clatter, and poor Miss Lowder's head was overlooked in the melee; for these were all the rooms the house afforded for the entertainment of wayfarers, and as there were nine ladies in our party, it is not difficult to imagine the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... relation to Genoese politics, Gianettino pulls a string and has a sanction for the wholesale murder of his countrymen. Fiesco pulls another string and gets men and galleys ad libitum. We do not see an intelligible clash of great political ideas, but a wild melee, in the outcome of which we have no reason to be particularly interested. It is all as little tragic as a back-country vendetta, or a factional fight in the halls ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... smugglers, when they mounted the poop of the Coquette; and the steeled staff on which the lantern was perched, had been struck into a horse-bucket by the standard-bearer of the moment, ere he entered the melee of the combat. During the conflagration, this object had more than once met the eye of Ludlow; and now it appeared floating quietly by him, in a manner almost to shake even his contempt for the ordinary superstitions ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... suddenly amongst tribes who have been encamped near one another on amicable terms, and between whom some cause of difference has arisen, probably in relation to their females, or some recent death, which it is imagined the sorcerers have been instrumental in producing. In the former case a kind of melee sometimes takes place at night, when fire-brands are thrown about, spears launched, and bwirris [Note 62 at end of para.] bran-dished in indescribable confusion. In the latter case the affray usually occurs immediately after the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the life of a fellow—creature was at stake. So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of the fence, with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Spaniard following with a large brown wax candle, that burned like a torch; and looking down on the melee below, there Sneezer lay with the throat of the leopard in his jaws, evidently much exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel shake now and then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the brute with his bare hands. As for ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... king, "mordieu! am I not the first gentleman in my kingdom? Were they not great battles that I fought in my youth? Forward, then, gentlemen, and I will take the lead; it is my custom in the melee." ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... weapon swung like the club of Hercules. His bowmen and blowgun men, at last out of missiles, came charging in with bare hands or weapons seized from fallen warriors. Maneuvering had ended. Henceforth the fight was a grappling melee. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... then another of the enemy was passed, team-mates formed hasty interference for the runner and, suddenly, to the consternation of the Brimfield stand, the quarter, with the ball snuggled in the crook of his left elbow, was out of the melee, with a clear field before him and two Benton players guarding his rear. Crewe made a desperate effort to get him near the thirty-yard line, but the interference was too much for him, and after that, although Brimfield trailed ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Disregarding the melee behind me, I leaped through the wreckage with the other raiders. The steel door barred all further progress with its cold blue impassibility. How were we to surmount this last ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... utterly unused to the ways of the sea, the next half-hour was a bewildering melee of hurrying, sweating toil, with low-spoken orders and half-caught oaths and the glimmer of a dying fire over all the scene. He was rowed to the sloop with the first boatload and there Job Howland set him to ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... detective service to know of it and to take what steps they could to insure his safety. I am told that what actually happened was that on one occasion his Royal Highness went to the aid of the police, hard pressed by a gang of rioters; and he was injured in the general melee. It all took place in a moment and of course no one had any idea that he would involve himself in it. When he was picked up by the detectives he gave a certain address." Here the Comptroller assumed an air of the utmost discretion. "To that address he was taken; and there ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... enemies, and began to rake the road with rifle fire; then, in obedience to the commands of their half-clad colonel, they charged. A moment and they were fighting hand to hand with their returning comrades. Spaniard clashed with Spaniard, and somewhere in the melee the six marauders battled for ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... whole Syracusan fleet closed in upon them on all sides, and forced them back Then the battle became general, and soon the two fleets were scattered over the whole surface of the bay in little groups, and each group engaged in a wild and furious melee. There was no attempt to manoeuvre, but ship encountered ship; as accident brought them together, and advanced to the attack, under a shower of javelins and arrows. Then followed the dull crash of collision, and the fierce rush of the fighting-men, as they endeavoured to board. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... were all engaged in the fiercest melee which imagination can well paint, fighting as furiously as men of the same blood only seem to fight when once the claims of kindred are cast aside. Swords ascended and descended with deadly violence; horses raised themselves up on their hind legs, and, catching the deadly ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... chaotic melee in which these titans were engaged had emerged one group more powerful than the rest and more respectable, whose leader was the Personality to whom I have before referred. He and his group had managed to gain control of certain conservative fortresses ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... evil design, Mal-fortune, ill-luck, mishap, Marches, borders, Mass-penny, offering at mass for the dead, Matche old, machicolated, with holes for defence, Maugre, sb., despite, Measle, disease, Medled, mingled, Medley, melee, general encounter, Meiny, retinue, Mickle, much, Minever, ermine, Mischieved, hurt, Mischievous, painful, Miscorr fort, discomfort, Miscreature, unbeliever, Missay, revile,; missaid, Mo, more, More and less, rich and poor, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... oak, the "Chene de Mi-Voie," on a lande or large plain, half way from each town. The battle began with great fury, at first to the disadvantage of the Bretons, when Bembro' was killed, which threw dismay among the English; but a German, who succeeded in the command, rallied their courage, and the melee became thicker than ever. Beaumanoir was wounded, and his loss of blood and his long fast produced a burning thirst, and he asked for water. "Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir, ta soif se passera," was the reply of Geoffroy du Bois; and Beaumanoir, forgetting ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... stillness returned, save for the little voices of the night—the owl's recitative, the capriccio of the crickets, the concerto of the frogs in the grass. The piccaninnies and the dawdlers from the quarters had been dismissed to their confines, and the melee of the day was reduced to an orderly and intelligent silence. The six coloured waiters, in their white jackets, paced, cat-footed, about the table, pretending to arrange where all was beyond betterment. Absalom, in black and ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the eye with his elbow. It was an awful blow. I shouldn't wonder but that I went blind. Never again will I take part in anything as tough as this. I know I'll be laid up for a week," and with this gloomy thought he limped off, for he had been rather roughly handled in the melee. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... midst of the melee a carriage came along the roadway. It contained Mrs. Bangs and the ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... in good weather with his faithful dogs alone, and came into the camp of the Crees armed with only a revolver. If he had gone with ten men, there would have been an instant melee, in which he would have lost his life. This is what the chief had expected, had prepared for; but Jim was more formidable alone, with power far behind him which could come with force and destroy the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... barrel into Thompson's mouth in turn, and fired twice, completing the work Simms had begun. The giant Coy hurled his bulk into the struggling mass now crowded into the corner of the room, and some say he held Ben Thompson's arms, though in the melee it was hard to tell what happened. He called out to Simms, "Don't mind me," meaning that Simms should keep on firing. "Kill the —— of ——!" he cried. Coy no doubt was a factor in saving Simms' life, ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... life and I want free air, And I sigh for the canter after the cattle, The crack of whips like shots in battle, The melee of ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... picture presented itself to Nancy's mind of the men of the world engaged in one grand melee of brawling; struggling, belaying one another with their bare fists, drawing ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... an airdrop onto the citadel roof and fight our way down with needlers and blasters, and I'm not willing to do that as long as there's any other way," Verkan Vall said. "We'd lose men, even with needlers against bows, and there's a chance that some of our equipment might be lost in the melee and fall into outtime hands. You say this sacrifice ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper |
