"Sabre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17 and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the barons came and went, The lords of the outer guard: All night the cressets glimmered pale On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail, Mewar headstall and Marwar mail, That clinked in the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... their head, and with shouts and yells they hewed and hacked at the invisible foe. An old woman was observed to be specially active in the defence of her house, slashing the air right and left with a long sabre. In a violent thunderstorm, the peals sounding very near, the Kayans of Borneo have been seen to draw their swords threateningly half out of their scabbards, as if to frighten away the demons of the storm. In Australia the huge columns of red ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... adhered to their native costume, he wore a gorgeous semi-military uniform, that had specially been built—so Bob Roberts termed it—for him in England. It was one mass of rich embroidery, crossed by a jewelled belt, bearing a sabre set with precious stones, and upon his head he wore a little Astrakhan fur kepi, surmounted by an egret's plume, like a feathery ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... his exploits, with their outlines looming large through a mythical mistiness, still float in our atmosphere. There is at least one legend relating how a soldier out in the East cut off a mad elephant's head at a stroke of his sabre, with the hero of which Denis O'Meara could probably be identified. Altogether he was so exceptionally brilliant a figure both in himself and in his fortunes, that the interest which he excited had no element of envy in it, as ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... teacup, or as united and broad as the breast of Hercules. It may be as flaky as a wafer, as powdery as a field puff-ball; it may be knotted like a ship's hawser, or kneaded like hammered iron, or knit like a Damascus sabre, or fused like a glass bottle, or crystallised like a hoar-frost, or veined like a forest leaf: look at it, and don't try to remember how anybody told you ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... velocity. The sound is emitted only during this rapid descent. No one was able to explain the cause until M. Meves observed that on each side of the tail the outer feathers are peculiarly formed (Fig. 41), having a stiff sabre-shaped shaft with the oblique barbs of unusual length, the outer webs being strongly bound together. He found that by blowing on these feathers, or by fastening them to a long thin stick and waving ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the walls of Argos which bore the same name. Most readers will remember the case of Cambyses, who had been assured by a legion of oracles that he should die at Ecbatana. Suffering, therefore, in Syria from a scratch inflicted upon his thigh by his own sabre, whilst angrily sabring a ridiculous quadruped whom the Egyptian priests had put forward as a god, he felt quite at his ease so long as he remembered his vast distance from the mighty capital of Media, to the eastward of the Tigris. The scratch, however, inflamed, for ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... he re-entered, and continued his service. By-and-by one said to the other, "Surely this man bears great resemblance to him we inquire after." "Of a truth," answered his companion, "you say well. Let us examine if he possess a sabre-mark on his head, which he received in action." They did so, and finding a scar which indicated a similar wound, they leaped up and embraced him, and inquired ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... to pistol me. I sprang, and drew The sabre from his flank, And 'twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew, I struck, and ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... time when three o' his Majesty's officers—nane o' yer militia wi' horses that rin awa' wi' them ilka time they gang oot till exerceese, but rale sodgers wi' sabre-tashies to their heels and spurs like pitawtie dreels. Aye, sirs, but that was before I married an elder in the Kirk o' the Marrow. I wasna twenty-three when I had dune wi' the gawds an' vanities o' this ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... upon the balcony, drew a chair in the recess behind the curtain, and gazed upon the night. It was very quiet; the moon was high, the square was sleeping in a trance of checkered shadows, like a gigantic chessboard, with black foreshortened trees for pawns. The click of a cavalry sabre, the sound of a footfall on the pavement of the distant Konigsstrasse, were distinctly audible; a far-off railway whistle was startling in its abruptness. In the midst of this calm the opening of the door ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... sons; and, carrying off an immense booty, he took up the station of his father in the den of thieves, and became a hardened villain. The king was apprised of this event; and, seizing the hand of amazement with the teeth of regret, said:—"How can any person manufacture a tempered sabre from base iron; nor can a base-born man, O wiseacre, be made a gentleman by any education! Rain, in the purity of whose nature there is no anomaly, cherishes the tulip in the garden and common weed in the salt-marsh. Waste not thy labor in scattered seed upon a briny soil, for it can never ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... at; you had not the same leisure for practice as we; but now in this new accoutrement we shall have no pre-eminence at all. Each of us will wear a corslet fitted to his breast and carry a shield on his left arm of the type to which we are all accustomed, and in his right hand a sabre or a battle-axe. With these we shall smite the enemy before us, and need have no fear that we shall miss the mark. [17] How can we differ from one another with these arms? There can be no difference except in daring. And daring you may foster ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... second lady's own ground, however, and now she comes out—in a way that banishes far from our fickle minds all thoughts of the first lady and her mistaken child—with a medley of singing and dancing, a bit of breakdown, of cancan, of jig, a bit of "Le Sabre de mon Pere," and of all memorable slang songs, given with the most grotesque and clownish spirit that ever inspired a woman. Each member of the company follows in his or her pas seul, and then they all dance ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... Bears.—The bears of North America have survived thirty thousand years after the lions and the sabre-toothed tigers of La Brea perished utterly and disappeared. But there were bears also in those days, as the asphalt pits reveal. Now, why did not all the bears of North America share the fate of the lions and the tigers? ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Those were his last words. As he spoke, a band of Irish horsemen rushed upon him and encircled him for a moment. When they retired, he was on the ground. His friends raised him; but he was already a corpse. Two sabre wounds were on his head; and a bullet from a carbine was lodged in his neck. Almost at the same moment Walker, while exhorting the colonists of Ulster to play the men, was shot dead. During near half an hour the battle continued to rage along the southern ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... still I was at liberty to leave at once. I considered the matter a moment and decided to leave that day at dark. There was no moon, but it had all the indications of a bright starlight night. I had my best horse, a thoroughbred Kentuckian, fed at once. I took my sabre and revolver, with a light lunch, and at dark I quietly left camp for my ride to Knoxville. The road to Knoxville was direct and plain. Nearly half the distance it passed through woodland, with but little underbrush. I decided, as the country outside of our lines was infested with ...
— Campaign of Battery D, First Rhode Island light artillery. • Ezra Knight Parker
... exterior a heart could beat with any tenderness, never occurred to me. As I looked him over with a half-shrinking glance, I became aware of a slash indenting his pock-marked cheek that might have been made by a sabre cut—was, probably, for it takes a brave man to be a warden; a massive head set on big shoulders; a square chin, the jaw hinged like a burglar's jimmy; and two keen, ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he, as there loomed into sight a decidedly soldier-like man in a long cloak, thrown back to show the scarlet lining, and dragging a clanking sabre. ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... the better save you." He thanked her for her obliging fears, and promised to combat only to preserve his honour, and gain the opportunity to deliver her.—-It being time to retire, they quitted the Queen's apartment, and returning to their own, a slave brought up Thibault, a stately vest and sabre, adorned with precious stones, a present to him from the Sultan; he put them on, and attended that prince at dinner, who saw him with pleasure. They discoursed on the different methods of making war, and the Sultan found his new general so consummate in the art, that ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... of the sensation here they have been accustomed to. The streets are not crowded, and the few civilians passing hardly turn their heads. Mounted orderlies dash hurriedly, with hideous clatter of sabre and equipments, across the line of march, through the very regiment's ranks, answering with a disdainful oath or mocking gibe when an outraged shoulder-strap raised a remonstrating voice. At Fourteenth Street ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... and cows, sheep, goats, and horses. They were very proud of their horses, and they rode them with great courage and spirit. They always went mounted in going to war. Their arms were bows and arrows, pikes or spears, and a sort of sword or sabre, which was manufactured in some of the towns toward the west, and supplied to them in the course of trade ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... enveloped in a flannel shirt with short sleeves—a piece of the breast of which I have taken—the flesh, I may say, completely cleared from the bones, and very little hair but what must have been decomposed; what little there was, I have taken. Description of body: Skull marked with slight sabre cuts, apparently two in number—one immediately over the left eye, the other on the right temple, inclining over right ear, more deep than the left; decayed teeth existed in both sides of lower jaw and right ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... through his own as if they had been whelp's bone, and he rolled and twisted back to the plain in a dying agony. But not until another gray form had come to fill his place. Into the throat of this second Miki drove his fangs as the wolf came over the crest. It was the slashing, sabre-like stroke of the north-dog, and the throat of the wolf was torn open and the blood poured out as if emptied by the blade of a knife. Down he plunged to join the first, and in that instant the pack swept up and over Miki, and he was smothered under the mass of their bodies. Had two or three ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... thousand years, perhaps ten times twenty thousand years, to a time when Peter had chipped flint spear-heads at the mouth of some cave, and broiled marrow-bones for some "Old Man" of the borde, and seen rebellious young fellows cast out to fall prey to the sabre-tooth tiger. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... is the sabre Nobler than the humble spade? There's a dignity in labour Truer than e'er Pomp arrayed! He who seeks the mind's improvement Aids the world—in aiding mind! Every great, commanding movement Serves ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... the White-faced Decticus (D. albifrons, FAB.), the biggest sabre-bearer of the Provencal fauna. A magnificent insect is this Grasshopper, with a broad ivory face, a full, creamy-white belly and long wings flecked with brown. In July, the season for the wedding-dress, let us dissect him ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... wrinkled and feeble old men! What visions of Marengo and Austerlitz and Borodino shift still with a fiery vividness through their fading memories! Some may have left a limb on the Lybian desert; and the sabre of the Cossack may have scarred the brows of others. They witnessed the rising and setting of that great meteor, which intoxicated France with such a blaze of power and glory, and now, when the recollection of that wonderful period seems almost like a stormy dream, they are left to guard the ashes ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... us wheel. At once ensues a rout That no hussar could compass with his sabre; The man in evening dress is much too stout, He seems to draw his breath with obvious labour, Whilst I—I beg your pardon, Right about— Of course I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... aspires to the principal employments; and who is to oppose his pretensions? and he will be no less able than his betters in the art of governing, which consists only in taking money, and giving blows with the sabre." ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... that mountain-slope, a fiery horseman ride; Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the sabre at his side. His spurs are buried rowel-deep, he rides with loosened rain, There's blood upon his charger's flank and foam upon the mane. He speeds him toward the olive-grove, along that shaded hill! God shield the helpless ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... terrible wound and did excellent service in the war of 1812. In one battle he was three times wounded before he would allow his comrades to carry him below. He lived fully twenty years after the death of his beloved commander, dying at a good old age, though he was scarred with sabre cuts, wounded times innumerable by bullets, and compelled to suffer the amputation of ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... had been a prisoner of Abd-el-Kader, bearing the scar of a yataghan stroke on his neck, of one ball in his shoulder and another in his chest; and notwithstanding absinthe, duels, debts of play, and almond-eyed Jewesses, he fairly won, with the point of the bayonet and sabre, his grade of captain in the First ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... had light hair, but were very thick-set. They looked very tired, and were covered with dust and with torn clothes: but they had good horses. They wore the Prussian helmet and spike, and were well armed, with a sabre on one side and on the other a huge horse-pistol two feet long, while they carried carbines in their hands, all ready to shoot if occasion offered. But all the French soldiers had left Versailles, except a few National Guards. The inhabitants looked very sad; the women ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... me lay my friends, convulsed by the last agony. I saw nothing more. Unhurt myself, I sprang up, and, concealed by the thick smoke, fled along the side of the hedge in the direction of the river, the noise of the water for my guide. Suddenly a blow from a heavy sabre fell upon my head, and from out of the smoke emerged the form of a little Mexican lieutenant. He aimed a second blow at me, which I parried with my left arm. I had nothing to risk, but every thing to gain. It was life or death. Behind me a thousand bayonets, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of the levee en masse, and placing myself in ambush at the corner of a street, I struck with a blow of this weapon the brigadier placed at the head of the party. The wound was not dangerous; a cut of the sabre, however, was descending to punish my hardihood, when some countrymen came to my aid, and, armed with forks, overturned the five cavaliers from their saddles, and made them prisoners. I ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... had long pantaloons; some breeches, with stockings of cotton cloth; others petticoats and boots. The bowmen had long loose gowns of blue cotton, stuffed with a kind of felt or wadding, studded all over with brass knobs, and bound round the middle with a girdle, from which the sabre was appended behind, hanging with the point forwards, and on the right, not the left, side as in Europe. On the head they wore a helmet of leather, or gilt pasteboard, with flaps on each side that covered the cheeks and fell upon the shoulder. The upper part was exactly like an inverted ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... heavy moustache that drooped over his firm lips, and the sprinkling of gray about the brows, temples, and moustache was most becoming to his peculiar style. One prominent mark had he which the descriptive book of his company referred to simply as "sabre-scar on right jaw," but it deserved mention more extended, for the whitish streak ran like a groove from just below the ear-tip to the angle of the square, resolute chin. It looked as though in some desperate fray a mad sweep ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... front door was wide open, and straight through the big, wide hallway and at the entrance of the dining-room, a sword—a long cavalry sabre—hung with a jaunty gray cap on the wall. Under them stood a boy with his hands clasped behind him and his chin upraised. The lad could see the bullet-hole through the top, and he knew that on the visor was a faded stain of his father's blood. As a child, he had been ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... sought the sun the western wave: Now, my brave lads, fetch us water, after supping let us lave; O Lamprakes, O my nephew, down beside thy uncle sit— When I'm gone, wear thou my trappings, and be captain, as is fit; And do ye, my merry fellows, now my vacant sabre take, And therewith green branches cutting, straight for me a pallet make; Some one for the holy father, that I may confess me, run, And that I to him may whisper all the crimes, in life I've done; I've full thirty years as warrior, twenty ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... sword close by. The English soldiers, uncertain whose body it was, fetched a prisoner, one of Arnold's forlorn hope, who could not restrain his grief for the brave General who had been the idol of his troops. Widow Prentice, of Freemasons' Hall, also recognised Montgomery by the sabre-cut upon his cheek; and Sir Guy Carleton having no further doubt as to his identity, gave orders that the slain General should have honourable burial. Up Mountain Hill they bore him to the small house in St. Louis Street, still ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... silver plated tureen. *Two double barrelled guns, silver mounted. Two pair of pistols mounted in the same manner. A sabre with Morocco scabbard. Thirty-two yards scarlet broad cloth. Twelve ditto blue. Twelve ditto yellow. Twelve ditto light green. *Half a load of gunpowder, or two kegs ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd; Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not, Not the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... be worn at heart. Search well the measure— The word—the syllables. Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor: And yet there is in this no Gordian knot 10 Which one might not undo without a sabre, If one could merely comprehend the plot. Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing 15 Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet's, too. Its letters, although ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... rank, their king, our nation, and the idea which I wished to leave behind me in this country of the European name. The presents which were made me consisted of five horses, some bags of scent, three or four pieces of china, pieces of gilt paper, and a sabre like those used by the Bhutiyas, or people of Tibet, who are men as strong and robust as those of Bengal are feeble. Though pagans like the latter, they eat all kinds of things, and live almost like the Tartars, from whom they are descended. They have no beards, and are clothed in ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... that a few words were rapidly exchanged between them, which I did not understand, because I was too high up to be able to distinguish them (he was at an upper window of his house), and also because the band was making a noise, and at the same moment I saw that the said officer, raising his sabre, gave the young man a blow on the forehead with it, using the cutting edge, by which the latter fell down upon the step by the wall of' the Casa Marchesini, but with almost the rapidity of lightning ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... firing and whooping on all sides. At length in the high corn on one side we saw crouching savages, some with guns of every sort, some, especially the boys, with corn-stalks to represent guns. A naked chief with a long sabre, the blade painted blood color, came before them, flourishing his weapon and haranguing vehemently. In another corn-field appeared another party. The two savages already mentioned as having given the war dance ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... improvise for thee poetry and set before thee stories whereby shall thy care be solaced." Quoth he, "O Masrur, naught of this shall profit me." Hereat cried the Eunuch, "Then, O my lord, I see naught for thee save to take thy sabre and smite the neck of thy slave: haply and peradventure this may comfort thee and do away with thy disgust."[FN108] When the King Harun al-Rashid heard these words, he laughed aloud and said to him, "O Masrur, go forth to the gate where haply thou ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... wax-figures. Near the door was the manly form of the sergeant of the first company, who, while on the march, rode immediately in front of the General. We all knew him well. He was a model soldier: his dress always neat, his horse well groomed, the trappings clean, and his sabre-scabbard bright. He lay as calm and placid as if asleep; and a small blue mark between his nose and left eye told the story of his death. Opposite him was a terrible spectacle,—the bruised, mangled, and distorted shape of a bright-eyed lad belonging to the Kentucky ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... four windows and an outside door—was the old man's sanctuary, here were his precious relics, and here he offered up his devotions, half Christian, half pagan, with never-failing ardor. From the long narrow box which the fort soldiers had noticed came an old sabre, a worn and faded uniform of the French grenadiers, a little dried sprig, its two withered leaves tied in their places with thread, and a coarse woodcut of the great Napoleon; for Jacques was a soldier of the Empire. The uniform hung on the wall, carefully arranged on pegs as a man would wear ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by degrees, no longer echoed through the sleeping town. At this moment Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught her ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came from her cousin's chamber. A line of light, thin as the blade of a sabre, shone through a chink in the door and fell horizontally on the balusters of the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... with care and firmness in the saddle, while quiet words of confidence and encouragement were passed from each to his neighbor. All at once Captain May rode to the front of his troop—every rein and sabre was tightly grasped. Raising himself and pointing at the battery, he shouted, 'Men, follow!' There was now a clattering of hoofs and a rattling of sabre sheaths—the fire of the enemy's guns was partly drawn by ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... am I happy because V. and his books teach me to think? The time was, when a spirited steed, a costly sabre, a good gun, delighted me like a child. Now, that I know the superiority of mind over body, my former pride in shooting or horsemanship appears to me ridiculous—nay, even contemptible. Is it worth while to devote oneself to a trade, in which the meanest broad-shouldered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the Assembly—it saved his life. When he appeared at the door of the Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause. He seemed puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he was covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and bayonet thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not go more than half ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... mingled with many native allies, under the command of an extremely blackguard-looking savage, dressed in a long scarlet cloak made of woollen cloth. This was belted round his waist, to which was suspended a crooked Turkish sabre; he wore a large brass medal upon his breast, which somewhat resembled those ornaments that undertakers use for giving a lively appearance to coffins. This fellow was introduced to me by the Koordi as the 'king of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Spadillio first, unconquerable lord! Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board. As many more Manillio forced to yield And marched a victor from the verdant field. Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard Gained but one trump and one plebeian card. With his broad sabre next, a chief in years, The hoary Majesty of Spades appears, Puts forth one manly leg, to sight revealed, The rest, his many-coloured robe concealed. The rebel knave, who dares his prince engage, Proves the just victim of his royal rage. Even mighty Pam, that kings and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... durability and strength. The macana is about four feet long, one inch thick, and from five to six inches broad; towards the hilt end the breadth is about three inches, and it is rounded. It is so well cut and polished, that a sabre scarcely excels it in sharpness. The weapon is so heavy that it requires ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... bare, Flashed as they turned in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wondered: Plunged in the battery smoke, Right through the line they broke Cossack and Russian Reeled from the sabre stroke, Shattered and sundered; Then they rode back, but not— ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... maimed soldiers approached the secluded hamlet of De Lorme. The elder was crippled by a shot in the knee, the younger had lost an arm,—his right arm. He was pale and thin from illness, and on one cheek was a bright red seam, from a deep sabre-cut. So Jean, the handsome young ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... he declared, "like so many we have had for the last thirty years; we get them regularly every spring and summer; just bullying and sabre-rattling." People did not believe in war, no one wanted it; war had been proved to be impossible,—it was a bugbear that must be got out of the heads of free democracies ... and he enlarged on this theme. The night was calm and sweet; all around familiar ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... through the falling evening shadows, clasping her Babe, and in that most moving of all Tintoretto's creations, the "S. Mary of Egypt," the emotional mood of Nature's self is brought home to us. The trees that dominate the landscape are painted with a few "strokes like sabre cuts"; the landscape, given with apparent carelessness, yet conveying an indescribable sense of space and solemnity, unfolds itself under the dying day; and in solitary meditation, thrilling with ecstasy, sits that ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... his mouth wide, and revealed to Leothric the ranks of his sabre teeth, and his leather gums flapped upwards. But while Leothric made to smite at his head, he shot forward scorpion-wise over his head the length of his armoured tail. All this the eye perceived in the hilt of Sacnoth, who smote suddenly sideways. Not with the edge smote Sacnoth, for, had he done ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... prosperity. A few fine pictures were on the walls, an unusually well-selected library, although a small one, was in a bookcase, while upon the table lay several of the best magazines and reviews of the period. Above the mantel was suspended a cavalry sabre, its scabbard so dented as to suggest that it had seen much and severe service. Young Clancy's eyes were fixed upon it, and his revery was so deep that a book fell from his hand to the floor without his notice. His thoughts, however, were ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... from the fort to our relief, and the Mexicans scampered of, leaving eight of their comrades dead upon the field. But we did not escape unscathed, for both the pirate and the bee-hunter were mortally wounded, and I received a sabre-cut across the forehead. The old man died without speaking, as soon as we entered the fort. We bore my young friend to his bed, dressed his wounds, and I watched beside him. He lay, without complaint or manifesting pain, until about midnight, when he spoke, and I ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... over three hundred wagons, and killed a large number of animals. Colonel E. M. McCook with his cavalry division, moving rapidly from Bridgeport, overtook Wheeler on the 2d, and drove him with great loss in a sabre charge from the trains, recapturing some eight hundred mules. After this Wheeler was driven from Shelbyville on the 6th by Mitchell's cavalry, and on the 8th from Farmington by Crook, and from here he re-crossed the Tennessee with a small portion of ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... nearer to them, to see who they are. He sees them raise their guns. There is a flash, a rattle and roll. Griffin's and Rickett's men and their horses go down in an instant! They rush on with a yell. There is sharp, hot, decisive work. Close musket-shots and sabre-strokes. Men are trampled beneath ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... fallen asleep and betrayed my trust. I could have cried, but that would do little good. The door opened, and Darbishire appeared—prowling stealthily and glaring. A long glitter met my eye, and I saw that Bob had taken down an old Yeomanry sabre from the wall of the next room. He came on, and I shrank under the shadow of my arm-chair. He heaved up the sabre, and shouted, "Now, you beast, I've got you on the hop!" and hacked at the bed with wild ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... over, that week in Leghorn; it was enough to break one's heart to look at poor Lambertini; but there was no keeping one's countenance when Rivarez was in the room; it was one perpetual fire of absurdities. He had a nasty sabre-cut across the face, too; I remember sewing it up. He's an odd creature; but I believe he and his nonsense kept some of those poor ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... handle of his sabre, with a feeling that he could and would massacre all the Indians of the desert, if it were necessary to ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... upon HAMET, conjuring him not to leave her, in a tone of tenderness and distress which it is impossible to describe: he replied with a vehemence that was worthy of his passion, 'I will not leave thee,' and immediately drew his sabre. At the same moment they forced her from him; and a party having interposed to cover those that were carrying her off, HAMET lifted up his weapon to force his passage through them; but was prevented by OMAR, who, having pressed through ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... daybreak by the sound of a drum; and, on opening my eyes, was startled by lights flashing across the ceiling of the room where I slept. Shots followed; and it was evident that there was a conflict in the streets. I buckled on my sabre hastily, and, taking my pistols, went to join the staff. I found them in the balcony in front of the building, maintaining a feeble fire against the multitude. The night was dark as pitch, cold and stormy, and except for the sparkle of the muskets from below, and the blaze of the torches in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... souls writhing in torment; and really they are quite as artistic. We quarrelled fiercely over this one day, and he challenged me to a duel. I replied that I had no money to buy pistols. Neither had he, he retorted, but I could borrow a sabre. He himself had one. His father had been an officer. Whereupon the studio bawled in gleeful unison "Voici le sabre, le sabre de mon pere," and dragged us in tumult to the Cafe opposite where we swore ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... am as much opposed as you are to a stormy revolution. I left my father's house, I abandoned my patrimony to accompany our princes into exile. I have fought for them, in their holy cause I received a sabre cut on the arm, which every now and then, by a very disagreeable sensation, recalls my youthful patriotism to me. Soon, however, the idle pretensions of my comrades, the disputes of our chiefs, repressed my ardor. I left one of the cohorts in which reason ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... was varied, and balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the brandished javelin; of a weighty broadsword, and a crooked sabre; of cumbrous armor, and thin flowing robes; and of the long Tartar bow, and the arbalist or crossbow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown to the Orientals. [86] As long as the horses were fresh, and the quivers full, Soliman maintained the advantage of the day; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... had been occupied by his father before him, in which his grandfathers and great-grandfathers had lived and died. Careless of repose for his tired and aged body, he has not undressed, but motioning off his attendants with impatient gesture, ungirding his sabre, and throwing off the chain of gold to which the royal medal was attached, his head sinks weariedly and sadly upon the oaken table before him. Beyond the bedstead, a gothic archway vaults through the wall into his private chapel, the antique lamp of gold still burns ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Autrichienne, Paris, 1898) remarks very truly, "n'est pas banal." One of his historians relates that he was furnished with a sword, a lance, javelins and arrows trimmed with falcons' feathers, sometimes also with a sabre and a small axe. He was garbed in a cloak of wolf's skin, using the same skin for his cap, round which was wound a dark piece of cloth. On his saddle was a scarf of silk. The reins of his horse were gilded, and he carried ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... somethin', as don't sit well on your stummuk! Or, it may be, the klimat o' this hyar destrict. Sartin it do feel a leetle dampish, 'count o' the river fog; tho', as a general thing, the San Sabre bottom air 'counted one o' the healthiest spots in Texas. S'pose ye take a pull out o' this ole gourd o' myen. It's the best Monongaheely, an' for a seedimentary o' the narves thar ain't it's eequal to be foun' in any drug-shop. I'll bet my bottom dollar on thet. Take ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Haidee's bitter shriek, And caught her falling, and from off the wall Snatched down his sabre, in hot haste to wreak Vengeance on him who was the cause of all: Then Lambro, who till now forbore to speak, Smiled scornfully, and said, "Within my call, A thousand scimitars await the word; Put up, young man, put ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... life the little prince grew strong and manly,—could wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied to their mother's apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir to his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a negro prince, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... the soldier's daughter dear— Even like a knight of old romance, Brave Cardigan, disdaining fear, Heard but the bugle sound—advance! And paler droops the flower of France, And brighter glows proud England's rose, As charge they on with sabre-glance, And thunders thickening as they close! Oh, love the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... indulge in the same woe! O "manes of July!" (the phrase is pretty and grammatical) why did you with sharp bullets break those Louvre windows? Why did you bayonet red-coated Swiss behind that fair white facade, and, braving cannon, musket, sabre, perspective guillotine, burst yonder bronze gates, rush through that peaceful picture-gallery, and hurl royalty, loyalty, and a thousand years of Kings, head-over-heels out ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as a study, and a curtain shut off a smaller room suggestive of a bed within; while over the chimney-piece were foils opposite single-sticks; boxing-gloves hung in pairs, bruised and swollen, as if suffering from their last knocking about; a cavalry sabre and a dragoon officer's helmet were on the wall opposite the window. Books, pictures, and a statuette or two made the place attractive, and here and there were objects which told of the occupant ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... on the soldier's couch, ah! how can I rest, With this shot-shattered head, and sabre-pierced breast? Comrades, at roll-call, when I shall be sought, Say I fought till I fell, and fell where ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the only link that sensibly connected the invalid with those pleasant days, when he enjoyed life so heartily, with so many cheery comrades to keep him in countenance—when he would have laughed at the idea of any thing short of a sabre-cut, a shot-wound, or a rattling fall over an "oxer," bringing him down to that state of helpless dependence, when our conception of womankind resolves itself into the ministering angel? Harry certainly could not have told you ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... hammocks, and every door and passage way is blocked up by the crowd, who rush to their respective quarters, and about the armory, each seeking to be the first, who, fully equipped with cutlass, gun, and sabre-bayonet affixed, shall be in his place. Another instant, and all stand about their several guns in rows, awaiting orders from their officers, who sing out in clear commanding tones, as though a real fight were impending: ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... southern continent. There followed an inrush of huge, or swift, or formidable creatures which had attained their development in the fierce competition of the arctogaeal realm. Elephants, camels, horses, tapirs, swine, sabre-toothed tigers, big cats, wolves, bears, deer, crowded into South America, warring each against the other incomers and against the old long-existing forms. A riot of life followed. Not only was the ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... dread moment when the foe My life with rage insatiate seeks, In vain I strive to ward the blow, My buckler falls, my sabre breaks. ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... bold Italian stands prepared With rifle loaded, sabre bared, And to a questioning world replies, "Who touches my ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence;—much more so than Greece or Asia Minor, for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket order—and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other;—but this was pure and unmixed—solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the 'Ranz des Vaches' and other airs ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... lips. In a group some feet away stood six muscular, short-sleeved stage-hands. It was they who had flung themselves on the general at the fall of the iron curtain and prevented him dashing round to attack the stalls with his sabre. At a sign from the stage-manager they were ready to ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... was wholly contemptuous of them. The then Lieutenant Jackson rode a horse which was blind in one eye, and he maneuvered to get the bear on the horse's blind side so he could charge it. With his cavalry sabre he split the grizzly's skull down to its chin. It was the only time in history that a grizzly bear was ever killed by a man with a sword. But no grizzly nowadays would attack a man unless cornered. Even cubs with no possible ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to her lights, and spoke of the eldest as a dull, good boy: she kept him very close: she held the tightest rein over him: she had curious prejudices and bigotries. His uncle, the burly Cumberland, taking down a sabre once, and drawing it to amuse the child—the boy started back and turned pale. The prince felt a generous shock: "What must they have told him ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this under your hat, sonny, and come over as early in the morning as you can. We'll talk it over then, after I've had a chance to sleep on this." He indicated the cartridge. "Tell me, though—was one of the men a tall, lean chap with a sabre ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... by the Governor, with such troops as were in the town, and the crews of the French privateers. From the testimony of the prisoners as well as our own men, it appears that Mr Yeo was the first who entered the fort, with one blow laid the Governor dead at his feet, and broke his own sabre in two. The other officers were despatched by such officers and men of ours as were most advanced, and the narrowness of the gate would permit to push forward. The remainder instantly fled to the further end of the fort, and from the ship we could perceive many ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... grand romance. An officer attached to the 13th Cuirassiers—a regiment with not men enough left after Metz to muster a company—is picked up for dead, with one arm torn off, and a sabre-slash over his head, and brought to her ward. She nurses him back to life, inch by inch, and in six months he joins his regiment. Now please follow the plot. It is quite interesting. Is it not easy to see what will happen? Tender and beautiful, young and ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... office, and what does he do but get up from his desk solemn-like, and when the lieutenant says 'I report the arrival of Troop "C" at the post, sir,' the adjutant didn't answer a word, but reached out and got his sabre and began buckling it around him, and then he put on his cap and gloves, and says he, 'Lieutenant Dean, I'm sorry, but my instructions are to place you in close arrest, by order of Colonel Stevens.' Why, you could have knocked me down with the kick of a gopher I was so ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... travelled first-class, materially lessening his five pounds. In the carriage, which he had to himself, he sat stunned. He was rather angry than dismayed and appalled. He was like the soldier, cut down by a sabre-slash or struck by a bullet, who, for a second, stares dully at the red gash or blue hole—waiting for the blood to flow and the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... the partial concessions made to them, and the new burgesses and freedmen were exasperated by the cancelling of the Sulpician laws. The populace of the city suffered amid the general distress, and found it intolerable that the government of the sabre was no longer disposed to acquiesce in the constitutional rule of the bludgeon. The adherents, resident in the capital, of those outlawed after the Sulpician revolution— adherents who remained very numerous ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... trick, His sabre sometimes he'd employ - No bar of lead, however thick, Had terrors ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... our self-respect, and our honor. What was once whispered in the secret chamber of council is now proclaimed upon the housetops; what was once done by indirection and guile is now carried with the high hand, in the face of day, at the mouth of the cannon and by the edge of the sabre of the nation. Doctrines and designs which a few years since could find no mouthpiece out of a bar-room, or the piratical den of a filibuster, are now clothed with power by the authentic response of the bench of our highest judicatory, and obsequiously iterated from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... The latter distinguished himself greatly. He bore off his wounded captain to a safe place, and returning, took command at request of the men. At one juncture he was engaged, hand to hand, with a very formidable adversary, whose head he cut off with a single blow of his sabre.[42] ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... returned to Washington in November, and again duty called me to the White House. The war was now in progress, and every day brought stirring news from the front—the front, where the Gray opposed the Blue, where flashed the bright sabre in the sunshine, where were heard the angry notes of battle, the deep roar of cannon, and the fearful rattle of musketry; where new graves were being made every day, where brother forgot a mother's early blessing and sought the lifeblood of brother, and friend ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... hour passed on, the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke—to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" He woke—to die midst flame, and smoke, And shout and groan, and sabre-stroke, And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightning from the mountain-cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, Bozzaris cheer his band: "Strike—till the last armed foe expires; Strike—for your altars and your fires; Strike—for the green ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... valour and beauty— When, like a brave man, in fearless resistance, I have fought the good fight on the field of existence; When a home I have won in the conflict of labour, With truth for my armour and thought for my sabre, Be that home a calm home where my old age may rally, A home full of peace in this sweet pleasant valley! Sweetest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! Greenest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! May the accents of love, like the droppings ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... ears mistook the command for the battle-cry of the Turks, "Allah! Allah!" and the panic increased tenfold. "We are surrounded!" shrieked the terror-stricken Austrians, and every sabre was drawn, and every musket cocked. The struggle began; and the screams of the combatants, the groans of the wounded, the sighs of the dying filled the air, while comrade against comrade, brother against brother, stood in mortal strife and slew each ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of the Netherlands, the French opened the campaign of 1792 by an invasion of Flanders, with forces whose muster-rolls showed a numerical overwhelming superiority to the enemy, and seemed to promise a speedy conquest of that old battle-field of Europe. But the first flash of an Austrian sabre, or the first sound of Austrian gun, was enough to discomfit the French. Their first corps, four thousand strong, that advanced from Lille across the frontier, came suddenly upon a far inferior detachment of the Austrian garrison ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... proper weapon is the carbine or pistol; and in individual combats, these weapons may occasionally be very useful. But when acting as cavalry proper, in any compact formation, it must rely on the sabre. The aim with a pistol or carbine in the hands of a mounted man is so unsteady, that the fire of a line of cavalry is generally ineffective; and there are few occasions where it should be resorted to. When cavalry has learned to realize that these ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... they encountered on the whole march, coming cheerily to close quarters with them. They wore linen cuirasses reaching to the groin, and instead of the ordinary "wings" or basques, a thickly-plaited fringe of cords. They were also provided with greaves and helmets, and at the girdle a short sabre, about as long as the Laconian dagger, with which they cut the throats of those they mastered, and after severing the head from the trunk they would march along carrying it, singing and dancing, when they drew within their enemy's field of view. They carried also a spear fifteen cubits long, lanced ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... dollars Is a crash of flunkys, And yawning emblems of Persia Cheeked against oak, France and a sabre, The outcry of old beauty Whored by pimping merchants To submission before wine and chatter. Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men, Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light Into their woof, their lives; The rug of an honest bear Under the feet of a cryptic slave Who speaks always of baubles, ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... Gallery of the Louvre. Thenceforward Vernet's pictures, the first of which had sold for a few hundred francs, commanded ever higher prices. For Avignon, his ancestral home, Horace Vernet painted "Mazeppa Pursued by Wolves," a picture which was injured by a sabre stroke in the artist's studio. After his election to the Institute, Vernet changed the style of his subjects, charging staggering prices. For a ceiling fresco in the Museum of Charles X. he received 17,910 francs; for "Phillip Augustus Before Bovines," now at Versailles, ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Poul was brought to the ground by a stone hurled from a sling by a young Vauvert miller named Samuelet; Count Broglie himself was wounded by a musket-ball, and many of his dragoons lay stretched on the field. Catinat observing the fall of Poul, rushed forward, cut off his head with a sweep of his sabre, and mounting Poul's horse, almost alone chased the Royalists, now flying in all directions. Broglie did not draw breath until he had reached the secure shelter of the ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... withering look Their limbs with palsy shook; Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay; Trembled with panic fear Sabre and targe and spear, Through the proud armies of the rising day. Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand; And, if they strove to charge or stand Their efforts were as vain As his who, scared in feverish sleep By evil dreams, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... When he swung it back the muscles of his shoulder and upper arm flexed like a pugilist's! He was a fit subject for a statue at that instant. Then he flung body and weapon forward, the latter left his hand smoothly, and the sabre-sharp point sunk deep in the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... gnawing care was thus beguiled. My children clustered at my knee; Upon my braided soldier's coat My wife looked,—ah, so wearily!— It made her tender blue eyes float. And when my wheeling rowels rang, Or on the floor my sabre smote, The sound went through her like a pang. I saw this; and the days to come Forewarned me with an iron clang, That drowned the music of the drum, That made the rousing bugle faint; And yet I sternly left my home,— Haply to fall by noisome taint Of foul disease, without a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of time, seen Miss Maryon tearing her dress and binding it with Mrs. Fisher's help round the wound. They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop and guard me for one minute, while I was bound, or I should bleed to death in trying to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, with a good sabre in his hand. ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... Roman people justice, they were restrained by a better safeguard than the sabre or the bayonet; it was their own gentle courtesy, which imparted a sort of sacredness to the hereditary festival. At first sight of a spectacle so fantastic and extravagant, a cool observer might have imagined the whole ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the stubborn resistance, and aware of the danger of delay, hurled themselves upon that devoted little bond with a fury before which nothing could stand. Man after man dropped across his gun; but still Forrester shouted to his men and swung his sabre. It was no time for counting heads. He hardly knew whether, when he shouted, thirty, or twenty, or only ten shouted back. All he knew was the enemy had not got the guns yet, ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Yet even while they crouch to the tyrant's sabre, how bitterly they need release! even while they crucify their teachers and their saviours, how little they know what they do! They may forsake themselves; but ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... storm was boiling up, and where we stood in the square, below the long flight of stone steps, the high cathedral above seemed built against a cloud-wall of ebony. A long sabre of sunlight struck upon the tower and threw a ray of reflected gold on the white Virgin in her niche. Over all the town there was no other gleam of light, and so had the afternoon darkened that ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... he, with a green banner bearing a crescent, a bandage, and a sabre, are the followers of the Arabian prophet. To say there is a God, without knowing what he is; to believe the words of a man, without understanding his language; to go into the desert to pray to God, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... to be a Soldier!— A Soldier!— A Soldier!— I want to be a Soldier, with a sabre in my hand Or a little carbine rifle, or a musket on my shoulder, Or just a snare-drum, snarling in the middle of the band; I want to hear, high overhead, The Old Flag flap her wings While all the Army, following, in chorus cheers and sings; I want to hear the tramp and jar Of patriots a ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... arise and unite the island to Scotland. Only once in seven years the entrance to the cave is visible. A man discovered it on one of these occasions, and went in. He found himself in the presence of these men in armour. A sabre was half-sheathed in the earth at his feet. He tried to draw it, but every one of the sleepers lifted his head and put his hand on his sword. The intruder fled; but ere the gate of the cavern clanged behind him he heard voices calling fiercely after him: "Why ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... themselves, and clinging to the boards near them, shrieked in the agonies of despair and death, "O save us! it is not even now too late: in mercy save us!" But they appealed to wretches to whom mercy was a stranger; and, being cut away from their hold by strokes of the sabre, perished with their companions. That nothing might be wanting to these outrages against nature, they were escribed as jests, and called "Noyades, water parties," and "civic baptisms"! Carrier, a Deputy of the Convention, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... by the Nepaulese by cutting off a buffalo's head at one blow of a sabre or tulwal. The blade of this weapon is peculiar, being concave, and the extremity is far heavier than the hilt; the animal's neck is tied down to a post, so as to produce a tension on the muscles, without which the blow, however great, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... assaults on the breaches failed. On the crest of these Phillipon had erected a massive stockade, thickly bristling with sabre blades. On the upper part of the breach, planks, similarly studded, had been laid; while on either side a vast number of shells, barrels of powder, faggots soaked in oil, and other missiles and combustibles were piled, in readiness for hurling down on the assailants; while the soldiers behind ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... military career in the army of the Conde, he had received a sabre cut across his cheek, and the cicatrice imparted a strange and unpleasant expression to his face. He was not a bad-hearted man, but headstrong, violent, and tyrannical to a degree. The peasants saluted him with a mixture of respect and dread as he walked to the chapel, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... golden fruit, the foliage of which resembles a trophy of savage sabre blades! They are called pineapples, and are the pippins ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... half-sensuous, half-spiritual delights of maternity, when all at once a mighty clatter of hoofs was heard along the road, followed immediately after by loud shouts of men, the flash of red coats and the clang of sabre-sheaths on the flanks of rushing horses. What ensued was never fully known, but the young mother, with disordered dress, hair streaming behind, and babe convulsively pressed against her bosom, fled like a deer ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... three gunboats, led by the gallant Captain Decatur, was advancing, with sails and oars, to board the eastern division of the enemy, consisting of nine boats. Our boats gave the enemy showers of grape and musket balls as they advanced; they, however, soon closed, when the pistol, sabre, pike and tomahawk were made good use of by our brave tars. Captain Somers, being in a dull sailer, made the best use of his sweeps, but was not able to fetch far enough to windward to engage the same division of the enemy's boats which ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... shooting. Somehow the regiment struggled through, and up the bank on the south side. Nigh a score of lances had been left in dervish bodies, some broken, others intact. Lieutenant Wormwald made a point at a fleeing Baggara, but his sabre bent and had to be laid aside. Captain Fair's sword snapped over dervish steel, and he flung the hilt in his opponent's face. Major Finn used his revolver, missing but two out of six shots. Colonel ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... end of the grass-plot, and disappear in the orchard. Thither I followed fast to see the sport. They reached the boundary-line of the Van-Bummel estate, wheeled, and turned back on a trot. When the General espied me, he waved his sabre and shouted, "Charge!" They galloped straight at me. I had barely time to dodge behind an apple-tree, when they passed like a whirlwind over the spot I had been standing on, and covered me with dirt from the heels of their horses. I walked back to the house, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... Mantis, who harpoons her rivals and devours her lovers; but, if some weakling succumb, the survivors hardly ever fail to profit by his carcass as they would in the case of any ordinary prey. With no scarcity of provisions as an excuse, they feast upon their defunct companion. For the rest, all the sabre-bearing clan display, in varying degrees, a propensity for filling their bellies with their ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... captain, 'Lieutenant, Slaughter.' Two iron-shod boots and one gruff voice were heard by Mr. Cymon to advance, and acknowledge the honour of the introduction. The sabre of the lieutenant rattled heavily upon the floor, as he seated himself at the table. Mr. Cymon's fears ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... greatest impetuosity; and after a sharp conflict, carried the Lady Nelson, taking as prisoners seven French officers and twenty-seven men.—six or seven others having been killed or knocked overboard in the scuffle. Lieutenant Bainbridge was severely wounded in the head by the stroke of a sabre, and slightly ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... regular troops, was over two thousand strong. His discipline was very severe, yet he kept the loyal affection of his men. He had made the officers devote much of their time to training the infantry in marksmanship and the use of the bayonet and the cavalry in the use of the sabre. He impressed upon the cavalry and infantry alike that their safety lay in charging home with the utmost resolution. By steady drill he had turned his force, which was originally not of a promising character, into as fine an army, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... cases, when the girl is strong; and an accomplished dancer, she declines to be tired until she wishes to cease dancing. First one youth danced with Franconnette, then another; but she tired them all. Then came Marcel, the soldier, wearing his sabre, with a cockade in his cap—a tall and stately fellow, determined to win the reward. But he too, after much whirling and dancing, was at last tired out: he was about to fall with dizziness, and then gave in. On goes the dance; Franconnette ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... broad, sharp sabre, he threw himself into the sea, then diving like a fish under the shark, he stabbed the weapon into his body up to the hilt. Thus wounded the shark quitted his prey, and turned on the boy, who again and again attacked him with the sabre, but the struggle ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... it is,' said Giovanni Severi, resting his hands on the hilt of his sabre, as he sat looking thoughtfully from the ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... excepting for such life as there was in the deep eyes. Dark, straight, closely cut hair grew thick and smooth as a priest's skull-cap, low on the forehead and far forward at the temples. The level mouth, firmly closed, divided the lower part of the face like the scar of a straight sabre-cut. The nose was very thick between the eyes, relatively long, with unusually broad nostrils which ran upward from the point to the lean cheeks. The man wore very dark clothes of extreme simplicity, and at a time when pins and chains ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... hand, and talked of the times when they went to the wars together; and the old comrade told of this battle and of that, and how such a victory was won and such a city taken. But the soldier's ears heard no sound of battle now, and his eyes could see no flash of sabre nor smoke ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... genus Felis were in existence before the close of the Miocene, and yet earlier related forms are known. Throughout the greater part of the Tertiary the remarkable type known as sabre-toothed cats were numerous and widely spread, and in South America they even lasted so far into the Pleistocene that it is probably true that they existed side by side with man. Some of them were as large as any existing ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... the battle two men had forgotten the Aztec Eagle and the Stars and Stripes; they fought for love of a woman. Neither had had time to draw his pistol; they fought with lance and sabre, thrusting and parrying. Both were skilful swordsmen, but Altimira's horse was far superior to Russell's, and he had ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Frenchman's dark curly hair, glistening with the whitening snow that fell upon it, and on his tender skin reddening in the frosty atmosphere, on the swelling muscles of his athletic form, on a half-healed sabre wound, and on the lineaments of a face that then expressed the extremity of mental agony, fell full the wavering light of the uplifted torches. The Dutch, accustomed to every species of extra-judicial cruelty by sea and land, looked on with the most grave ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... round their arms, wrists, and legs. The women, who were young and well-looking, stared at us with eager astonishment, while the old king scowled upon us so as to freeze our blood. At last, rising from the ground, he took his sabre from the man who held it behind him, and walked up among us, who with our heads bowed, and breathless with fear, awaited our impending fate. I happened to be standing the foremost, and grasping my arm with a gripe which made my heart sink, with ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... recently shaved. His olive complexion, his black eyebrows, his hooked nose, his eyes like those of a bird of prey, his big moustaches, his chin almost divided into two parts by a mark which looked very much like a sabre-cut, would have made his face that of a brigand, had not the harshness of his features been tempered by the assumed amenity and the servile smile of a speculator who has many dealings with the public. He was dressed in very cleanly fashion in a cinnamon-coloured ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... half. Napier affirms that La Pena "looked idly on, neither sending his cavalry nor his horse artillery to the assistance of his ally;" and testifies "that no stroke in aid of the British was struck by a Spanish sabre ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... name fell icy numb Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come Naked and sabre-like against my heart. 560 I saw a fury whetting a death-dart; And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright, Fainted away in that dark lair of night. Think, my deliverer, how desolate My waking must have been! disgust, and hate, And terrors manifold divided me ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... high, and behold their nobles feasting adown the long perspective of the table. Betwixt the king and queen should sit my little Annie, the prettiest fairy of them all. Here stands a turbaned Turk, threatening us with his sabre, like an ugly heathen as he is. And next a Chinese mandarin, who nods his head at Annie and myself. Here we may review a whole army of horse and foot, in red and blue uniforms, with drums, fifes, trumpets, and all kinds of noiseless ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... become large, manly hands, his drooping scholastic back stiffens, his elbows go out, his etiolated complexion corrugates and darkens, his moustaches increase and grow and spread, and curl up horribly; a large, red scar, a sabre cut, grows lurid over one eye. He expands—all over he expands. He clears his throat startlingly, lugs at the still growing ends of his moustache, and says, with just a faint and fading doubt in his voice as to whether he can do it, ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... to prove fornication, adultery, sodomy and so forth; and they must swear that actually saw rem in re, the "Kohl-needle in the Kohl-tui," as the Arabs have it. This practically prevents conviction and the sabre cuts the Gordian knot. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... fortune who of all his brothers in arms now living is the most remarkable. You may have noticed him; a stiffly erect, distinguished-looking man, with gray hair, an imperial of the fashion of Louis Napoleon, fierce blue eyes, and across his forehead a sabre cut. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Presently one of the Arabs uttered a low exclamation. Lying by the side of his dead horse, and surrounded by the bodies of five or six French cavalry-men, lay the sheik. His white dress was dabbled with blood, one side of his face was laid open by a sabre cut, and four or five patches of blood at various points of his dress pointed to the existence of other wounds. Edgar knelt beside him and placed ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... in the extreme; its advantages are said to be, protection from the weather, and the impossibility of the rider's entanglement: but the sole has no grip whatever, and rising to give full effect to a sabre-cut would be out of the question. Besides a halter, a single rein, attached to rather a clumsy bit, is the usual trooper's equipment: to this is attached the inevitable ring-martingale, without which few Federal cavaliers, civil or military, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... time to speculate, with a load of lumber grinding into his sore shoulder, so Bruce hurried on across the slippery foot-log and up a steep pitch to see the carpenter charging through the brush brandishing a saw as if it was a sabre. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... middle a platform had been erected on which was the scaffold, with the executioner, in a black mask, standing by. At a sign from him I mounted first, and in a moment my head was rolling at his feet. With a bound my sister and Thelamis were beside me, and like lightning Thelamis seized the sabre from the headsman, and cut off the head of the prince. And before the multitude had recovered from their astonishment at these strange proceedings, our bodies were joined to our right heads, and the pastilles placed on our tongues. Then Thelamis ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... missing at the morning muster, which would shortly take place in the courtyard, Fandor-Vinson dressed quickly. He put on his sword-belt, ascertained that his servant had sufficiently polished the brass buttons on his tunic, his sabre, and other trappings. The ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre |
